OSS consultants provide you with the opportunity to bring a different set of ideas, insights and connections to your OctopOSS
“We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas.” Michael Crichton. Thought you might be interested in this video showing the provisioning a network in software using NSX from VMware. Further info on the NSX suite can be found here: The interesting part about the second link is that Cisco is the […]
“Always give more in use value than what you take in cash value.” Wallace D. Wattles. What does this mean exactly? Well, in the context of an OSS, it basically means that the CSP gets more value from their OSS than what they’ve paid a supplier / integrator for it. Given that OSS are big […]
“Sometimes, we’re so eager to have an opinion that we skip the step of working to understand.” Seth Godin. I’m currently reading “Power Listening – Mastering the Most Critical Business Skill of All” by Bernard Ferrari. In it, the author speaks of applying the Pareto Principle to listening. In other words, spending 80% of the […]
“Each year Gartner gives buzzwords a reality check by publishing its Hype Cycle report. The latest one focusing on big data shows that the industry is just reaching the peak of its hype right now, with vendors flocking to the market, customers getting anxious that they don’t yet fully understand the technology, and the expectations […]
“Ultimatums rarely work because we react to the emotion instead of responding intelligently. On the other hand, giving your partner… a choice between two outcomes is a generous act, a form of truth-telling that helps both of you.” Seth Godin. One of the many things expected of a consultant is to add new insights into […]
“Our brains, our bodies, our teams, and our organizational systems are not set up to tear things down and create things at the same time. Each requires different ways of thinking and doing that are contrary to the way work happens and how people behave within these systems.” Christine Chopyak in her book, “Picture Your […]
“You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within.” Bob Nelson. Sports present an interesting parallel to the business world due to their single-minded focus on a goal, with members of successful teams tending to share a common focus. It’s also interesting that the […]
“The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Many are wondering what the M2M acronym means for their OSS. M2M, or Machine to Machine, is sometimes touted as one possible saviour for CSPs that are losing revenues from their traditional cash cows […]
“They (customers) don’t want quarter-inch bits. They want quarter-inch holes.” Leo McGinneva. As alluded to in McGinneva’s quote above, OSS are only a means to an end. A customer doesn’t want a Performance Management tool. They want to ensure their network is performing efficiently and reliably. If a better approach comes along, there might no […]
“They say “the house always wins.” And it’s true – games always favour their maker. If you’re not playing a part in designing the game you’re playing, you’re probably being played..” Dr Jason Fox. Following a recent blog entitled Gamified Learning, a friend and colleague pointed me towards the work of Dr Jason Fox, someone […]
“Let us not bankrupt our todays by paying interest on the regrets of yesterday and by borrowing in advance the troubles of tomorrow.” Ralph W. Sockman. In yesterday’s blog, we spoke of the need to understand how money flows in a CSP and build the systems / processes to improve upon defined metrics. Today, I […]
“In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.” Harold S. Geneen. In the world of Telco, there are also two coins. One is technology and one is cash. Telco and OSS engineers often get wrapped up in the righteousness of technology. […]
“Innovation accelerates and compounds. Each point in front of you is bigger than anything that ever happened.” Marc Andreessen. Regular readers / subscribers of this blog have noticed that SDN / NFV (Software Defined Networking and Network Function Virtualisation) has been a regular topic of conversation because it has the potential to revolutionise not just […]
“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.” Lewis Carol. There is an almost you-niversal truth in business. It’s not about you. One of my young mentees was surprised during a recent discussion about a job interview he was due to have. […]
“Listening is not understanding the words of the question asked, listening is understanding why the question was asked in the first place.” Simon Sinek author of the book, “Start with Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action.” In his book, Simon Sinek presents the concept that individuals and organisations that start by asking […]
“I have never believed in the Wizard of Oz theory of consulting, that I am all-knowing and all-seeing, and that everyone around me is kind of a backbencher.” David Axelrod. Today I’ll give away my model for delivering consultancy on any OSS project, no matter what shape or size. Promise not to tell anyone else, […]
“Data – there sure is a lot of it and looking forward there is going to be increasingly more. The Ericsson Mobility Report found that mobile data traffic is expected to grow by 12 times between 2012 and 2018. That’s huge! So what makes data fresh? It’s the ability to use it in real time, […]
“The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.” Plato When do most OSS vendors/integrators deliver training to their customers? At the end of the project right? When SHOULD the OSS vendors/integrators deliver training to their customers? At the start…. and then throughout the implementation… and then after they’ve finished. Have you […]
“Companies that have “innovation processes” often stifle the creativity of their organization by making those processes too rule-driven, formal and restrictive.” Josh Linkner in his book “Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity.” As you’ll see in the side-bar, innovation is a common theme in my blog posts. There is so much innovation […]
“Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.” Winston Churchill. Dear reader, let me ask you a question…. or maybe more than one. If you engaged a consultant on a $1m assignment and they gave you a report on a single sheet of paper, would you feel aggrieved? Now what if that single sheet held a […]
