Paul Wallbank | Paul Wallbank - Communications Professional

Big, hairy broadband goals

This column first appeared in SmartCompany. Since writing it, I’ve also done an ABC spot on the National Broadband rollout.

The more I research and reflect on the proposal, the more I’m convinced this plan is a winner – assuming it goes ahead.

I’m also more convinced than ever that Telstra is the big winner from the proposal as it relieves them of the Universal Service Obiligation and means they can avoid the massive costs of maintaining and upgrading the copper network. Not to mention the likelihood that the government will end up leasing space on Telstra’s existing fibre network.

Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” coined the phrase BHAG, or Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Few goals are bigger or more audacious than spending $43 billion to run fibre to every house, office, school, farm and factory in Australia.

My first reaction to the national broadband plan was disappointment – on Twitter I commented “there goes the Rudd Government’s final strand of tech credibility.”

Having had time to think about the plan, it’s clear I was wrong. The announcement is a huge change in policy and it will have immense ramifications on how we do business.

Fibre-to-the-premises completes the gaps in our communications systems. When the rollout is complete, we can rely on our internet links and assume our customers and employees have the same dependable connections.

For regional enterprises this is great news, as it will bring the world to the door to some of Australia’s best industries and businesses. It levels the playing field between big and small businesses, regardless of their location.

For Telstra, the result is mixed. While it means more competition in regional areas, it also means it can save billions on upgrading the aging copper network. The criticism of the rollout’s cost ignores the massive replacement cost already required to replace the old phone lines.

While perhaps not good news for management, the proposed break up of Telstra is good for shareholders. Sensis and BigPond, for example, would be worth far more when not shackled to a company fixated on maximising revenue from a ramshackle copper network.

Another great change is in Canberra’s communications policy. Australia has suffered from communications and media being tied together, with the interests of well connected commercial groups being more important than good planning.

The Keating government’s disastrous cable TV rollout was an attempt to provide modern infrastructure while appeasing the dominant media tycoons who saw technology as a threat to their empires.

As a result we got a mess and the cable TV networks, which could have provided this infrastructure 15 years ago became a political and financial quagmire, which delivered little of what was promised.

We shouldn’t understate the social benefits of the plan either. As the recession bites, the need for skilled and unskilled labour to build the rollout will assist in keeping unemployment down.

It’s certainly billions of dollars better spent than propping up shopping centre developers, banks or the manufacturers of cars that no-one wants.

The biggest change though is ideology. Until now, it’s been difficult to imagine a government proposing a massive infrastructure project without the ticket clippers of the merchant banks and other cronies skimming a fat share.

In every respect, this is the best communications plan and one of the most visionary ideas we’ve seen out of Canberra in generations. While it’s going to cost, history will show it’s money well spent.

Whether the broadband rollout becomes reality or not, fast, reliable communications are already a business necessity and will become even more so.

Think about what fast broadband means for your business and plan how you can take advantage of it. Those who don’t grasp the opportunities are going to be left behind.

So have a think about it. You might come up with some BHAGs of your own.

Big hairy audacious goals

While reading the details of the Federal Government’s broadband plan I was reminded of Jim Collins’ BHAGs, or Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

The Federal government’s plan is a BHAG and the beauty of this particular one is that it will spawn many other BHAGs.

Has your business got a big hairy audacious goal? If so, what are you going to do about achieving it?

Lipstick myths

Is the lipstick theory of recession spending really true?

Is the lipstick theory really true? I’ve been hearing a lot about it lately and I’m not so sure.

The “lipstick theory” is people will spend money on small, modest priced luxuries in a downturn to make up for not being able to afford big luxuries.

It’s been used to justify everything from increased fast food sales to Belgain chocolates to expensive beer to, well, lipstick.

I recently heard it used by a software developer as the rationale for investing in a software as a service product.

But is it true?

The Economist isn’t so sure and shows there’s little correlation between past recessions and lipstick sales.

My suspicion is if it was true in the twenties and thirties, it was more because better manufacturing and distribution techniques meant a better, cheaper product could get to the market.

Even if the lipstick theory is true, it’s dangerous to assume your product is the same.

For a start, some lipsticks will do better than others, partly because of marketing and partly because their price points are smarter.

Should your “lipstick” product be successful, it might not make much money for you anyway. In the last recession we saw McDonalds and other fast food chains introduce $1 and $2 meals, we’re seeing a similar trend at the moment with sub $500 computers.

These “recesssion busters” may keep your market share up, but they aren’t going to be particularly profitable. Indeed, for the computer manufacturers, the sub $500 laptops may well be cannibalising what’s left of their profitable product lines.

The reality is a lot of the products that are claiming the “lipstick theory” will save them are really doomed. The vast majority of shops selling expensive chocolate, lingerie, beer and other pricey but non essential products are simply marking time until the effects of the popped bubble reach them.

It’s best to base your business plans on sound evidence rather than blind hope in an idea that may or may not be true and may or may not apply to your products.

Dangerous Game

Associated Press have warned they will start taking action against news aggregrators like Google. Rupert Murdoch made similar noises last week.

As Fred Wilson has pointed out, the problem for AP and News is the web is now the newstand and taking publications off the shelves is not good business sense.

We see that with the Australian Financial Review. Its position as an Australian journal of record has been diminished by Fairfax’s incompetent obsession with protecting content.

As result, other channels such as The Australian, Business Spectator and blogs have stepped into the vaccuum and eroded the AFR’s online authority.

Following the RIAA path and suing Google, the Huffington Post and any blog that dares link to their sites will backfire on the news industry just as it did on the record industry.

In many ways newspapers are even more vulnerable as journalists employed by organisations like News and AP are quick to rip stories off from blogs, web forums or MySpace and Facebook pages with little regard for permission or attribution.

I suspect it’s one legal quagmire Associated Press or Rupert Murdoch might rue becoming bogged down in at the very time their business models are challenged by both economic and technological change.

Focused growth

I woke to a BBC program discussing economic growth and if the growth rates we’ve seen in the last 50 years are sustainable.

The real question is what sort of growth.

Much of that growth, particularly in the last fifteen or so years, has been a debt fueled binge on household goods and speculative assets.

Perhaps what we’re returning to is sustainable growth, where the economic engine is provided by things like improved health care, business productivity and real innovation.

Do we really need three thousand mile Caesar salads, three cars and a DVD in each bedroom to be the drivers of our economy?

The end of world! (or is it?)

Time Magazine looks at the end of the era of excess and asks “is it good for America”

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1887728-1,00.html

One of the telling quotes in the article is the line “This is the end of the world as we’ve known it. But it isn’t the end of the world.”

Indeed it is; the era of cheap credit is over. The way we do business, the way we run our private lives and the how we finance that way of life is going to change.

That doesn’t mean the world is ending and the sky is falling, but it does mean its time for fresh ideas.

Hat tip to Fred Wilson for the article

Don’t keep your customers waiting

Keeping your customers waiting for you to do your job is bad business. With mobile communications there’s no reason for not keeping your customers in the loop.

They say it never rains, but it pours – and it never comes down heavier then when your clothes dryer breaks down.
Ours broke down during a recent wet spell and a frantic call to the whitegoods repair centre resulted in an appointment time “between seven am and midday”.

Having run a service business for over a decade, I know scheduling field technicians is a challenge. No matter how good your telephone staff are, it’s impossible to estimate how long a tech is actually going to be on site.<

Most big companies overcome this with “appointment windows” where they give you a rough time frame of when to expect the service person to show up. You’re expected to hang around and wait for them to arrive.

Should slight inconveniences happen such as work, dropping kids off at school or even just not hearing the doorbell ring then tough luck, the tech drives off to the next job.

The bigger the company is, the worse this gets, there are legions of Pay TV and cable Internet customers who’ve wasted days waiting for technicians not to show up while post and courier contractors are possibly the worst for skipping past deliveries that have a hint of difficulty.

So I resigned myself to a morning of pottering around the house and the possibility of an irritated call at ten minutes past twelve to find out where the mechanic is.

As it turned out, I was the first call for the day. A polite, friendly and efficient service man arrived at the doorstep at exactly 7am. We now have a dryer working perfectly in time for a fortnight of sunny weather.

The mechanic was an excellent advertisement for the company and that’s why we use them.

But those well trained, courteous staff are let down by the company’s communications. A simple text or phone message could have kept me, head office and the field agent working together. Everyone would have been happier, the system more efficient and the business more profitable.

In this age of mobile communications there’s no real reason for the “service window” at all. It’s simply a symptom of businesses not prepared to use their tools to do a better job.

The business who are prepared to use these tools are the ones who will survive and prosper after this downturn passes. While the ones who expect their customers to sacrifice a day so they can show up at their convenience are as doomed as hairy mammoths once were.

There was anther pleasant surprise as the serviceman left a voucher for $100 off a new machine. Given dryers and washing machines are classic “deferrable purchases” as we discussed in an earlier column, this is a great way of getting customers to buy.

So it seems the marketing department is on the ball. Perhaps there is an argument for marketing people to run service teams.

The power of “thank you”

Thank You

These are two of the most powerful words in the English language.

A simple “thank you” or “thanks” can go a long way.

If someone’s done something good for you, take a minute to say thanks. They’ll appreciate it.

Death of Powerpoint

I’m currently at the National Speakers Association of Australia‘s annual conference and one thing that’s struck me is the almost total absence of Powerpoint.

With the exception of Glenn Capelli‘s wonderful presentation that bought together teaching, his childhood, presentation techniques, his grandmother, mentor and the Sputnick satellite there wasn’t one Powerpoint.

Glenn’s powerpoint certainly wasn’t the heading, bullet point, bullet point, bullet point, corporate logo, next slide presentation we’ve become tired and jaded with.

Are we seeing the end of bullet point driven presentations?

Motivation

I was listening to a speaker yesterday describing the difference between public sector and private employees.

An interesting point was that the motivations are different; public sector staff are more motivated by a work/life balance while private sector workers are more motivated by money.

This started me thinking about recent blogs I’ve read by Valerie Khoo and Seth Godin regarding the motivation of Wall Street bankers and entreprenuers.

The question of money motivating people is vexed and I suspect overstated. As Seth says in his column, once you’ve an income over a million or so dollars money really isn’t that important; it’s all about status.

A point made by yesterday’s speaker was when he managed scientists he found most researches care about about peer approval. Money matters far less to them than appearing at conferences, presenting papers and being recognised for their hard work and discoveries.

In a strange way, that’s the real explanation for the financial industry’s massive salaries and bonus. The dollar amount is simply a yardstick to measure one’s status. The bigger the yacht, house and birthday party you can afford, the more recognition you have among your peers.

Which brings me to entreprenuers. Unlike Valerie, I don’t think business builders are interested soley in amassing banker like piles of cash. The cash is nice, but they are more interested in doing great things with their businesses or invention.

Cash is a useful measure and it’s nice to have some spare, but that’s as far as it goes. Far more important for most people is the recognition of their peers, security of their families and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Why small business will be the winner from this recession

An interesting post by Peter Bregman on the Harvard Business Review;

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/bregman/2009/03/why-small-companies-will-win-i.html

While I agree with the sentiment and Peter’s conclusion, I think there’s a more compelling, fundamental reason why small to medium businesses will be stronger when the world economy recovers.

Responsibility.

The notable thing about the current collapse is the total absense of repsonsibility from those who created the problems. From the overpaid villains of AIG through to the politicians and regulators who, at best, stood on the sidelines and allowed the excesses to happen.

The main cause of this is because managers have become isolated from the consequences. They take their pay packet, and their fat bonuses, home regardless of the shareholder wealth they destroy.

With small to medium business the owners and managers have to deliver the service they are paid to do. Otherwise the business goes quickly broke along with the proprietors.

Big business grew big because they had the technology to do so. They only big because they had the market and political power to protect their position.

Technology levelled the playing field between small business long ago, the current market turmoil and the political changes that will follow will strip most of big businesses’ advantages.

Which will leave the well motivated, well managed and responsible companies to succeed.

Only a few of these will be big businesses.

Stallers, deniers and enablers

Seth Godin has a look at the three types of people you meet in business-to-business sales.

I think he’s wrong.

These three types are everywhere. Whether you are a consumer or a business, whether you’re dealing with sales, support, billing, enquiries or any other businesses function.

The stallers will do their best to get rid of you, the deniers will say “no” and the enablers will do everything to help you.

For a successful small business you need to be known as an enabler and hiring enablers has to be your priority. Once you’ve done that you have an advantage over most of your competition and almost every big business.