I will participate to the Governmental Seminar "Digital: Invest Today For Tomorrow's Growth", to be held in Paris tomorrow Thursday the 10th of September.
I hope that live-tweeting will be allowed... and technically feasible ;-)
I will participate to the Governmental Seminar "Digital: Invest Today For Tomorrow's Growth", to be held in Paris tomorrow Thursday the 10th of September.
I hope that live-tweeting will be allowed... and technically feasible ;-)
Posted at 07:02 PM in Broadband, Current Affairs, Economy, Entrepreneurship, Events, FiberToTheHome, Investors | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Despite my decision last week, I went to the BBWF'09 yesterday. Here's why.
Posted at 07:57 PM in Fun | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Heard from a very reliable/inside source: JDSU is to lay off 1/3d of its workforce in its European headquarter, based in Eningen, Germany.
Provided that Eningen is the former home base of Wandel & Goltermann, specialized in everything Protocol Testing, one can guess the outcome: JDSU will probably close the operation within the next 12 months or so.
For an industry veteran like myself, the JDSU story is worth a book. Take the Fiber Optic Test product line, for instance - the famous OTDR: when I started my career back in 1983, we bought our OTDRs to the french company Schlumberger. In the early 90's, the business was acquired by the american T&M specialist TTC. Then, at the end of the 90's, during the Bubble, Wandel & Goltermann merged with TTC, to form Acterna. Which almost died in 2001, filling for the Chapter 11 protection. Last, JDSU bought Acterna in 2005. That is five company names for the same product line over the last twenty five years. You can consider this story either a success for the guys running this particular business, because they're still there, or either as a failure for the "company" at large because it keeps changing heads each and every five years. I choose the later option.
ps: now that JDSU is doomed and Agilent focusing on Lab & Prod Testing, who's gonna run the show on the Telecoms Field Testing arena? My take: EXFO is well structured to play this role, whilst the Japanese may come back in the game pretty soon.
Posted at 07:46 PM in JDSU, Test & Measurement | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
At the Broadband World Forum Europe, which opened its doors yesterday in Paris, a small Canadian firm is making the buzz. Genesis (what a cool name ;-) Technical Systems (slightly less appealing ;-), aka GenesisTechSys, is unveiling its Bonded DSL Rings™ (BDR) solution. A patent-pending access technology, BDR re-uses the existing copper plant to deliver up to 400Mbps of bandwidth.
As Stephen Cooke, President & CTO, describes it, BDR uses each house as an regenerator for the next connected one. So to speak, as with Skype: more users means more bandwidth available for the community.
According to Stephen, Bonded DSL Rings™ is to leave the labs early next year, for the first field trials by mid-2010. For the time being, the only data at our disposal is available on GenesisTechSys website, with the FAQs here.
BDR seems to be an interesting option for Rural Broadband: able to provide Peer-to-Peer, Open Neutral Access on existing infrastructure, for an investment way lower than Fiber - Genesis claims 1/100th the cost of fiber in rural areas, so let's be conservative and say BDR costs 1/10th of FTTH : I know lots of local authorities in France who would sign the tender right now...
Anyhow, this announcement should ring two bells in a Telecoms veteran' s mind (like me, got it ? ;-). First, BDR proves once again that Copper is not dead, although Fiber is going further each day everywhere around the Planet. Copper-based access networks are here for the next 20 years, thanks to some big surprises coming from newcomers like Genesis.
Second, speaking of newcomers : let's hope we are not witnessing a new Silk Road type of adventure. This time, there are people at the other end of the line...
Posted at 06:56 PM in Broadband, Enterprise, FiberToTheHome, Innovation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Right after the Pyretic conference in Pau, I will attend the 6th edition of the Sustainable Development Workshop "Ateliers du Développement Durable" in Bordeaux, October 20-21.
Unlike many of the seminars and conferences I've seen this year on the subject "Sustainable Development", this workshop is focusing on the Social aspects of things. In summary: how to get out of the current crisis by putting PEOPLE at the very center of the *new* Society' s model.
Quite a challenge, right ?...
Posted at 10:06 AM in Economy, Events, People, Stakeholders | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I have been invited to participate to the 2nd Dark Fibre Convention by the Broad Group in London, UK, next November.
I will run the half day pre-conference workshop on 4th November: "Dark Fibre essentials: introductory guide".
I will also contribute, either as a speaker or a panelist, to the "Trends in Dark Fibre deployment in Rural areas" session on Day One, and to the "Technical maturity status and economics of 40 and 100 Gigabit deployment" session on Day Two. Lots of things to share there...
Shall you be attending as well or in town at this period of time, feel free to drop me a tweet. I'd love to discuss with you Fiber Broadband matters ;-)
Registration for the Dark Fibre Convention here.
post-scriptum : The Broad Group is one of the few events organizers I know who's really looking after Climate changes. That makes the DF Convention even more interesting to follow.
Posted at 12:03 AM in Broadband, Dark Fibre Convention, Events, FiberOptics, FiberToTheHome | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Pyretic, the first pan-pyrenean conference on ICT, will be held in Pau, France, on the 20th of October. An event created by two professional associations on each side of the border, Pyretic has been imagined as a nice way to boost research and business cooperation between the regions of Aquitaine in France and Navarra in Spain.
I will be moderating a couple of workshops there. Shall you be in town or nearby at this time, feel free to stop by!
For more information on Pyretic 2009, go here (french and spanish only)
Posted at 08:55 PM in Events, Innovation, Pau Broadband Country, Pyretic | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thanks to buddy Alain Baritault, with whom I'm working on some exciting new ventures in the Green & ICT space(s), I'll attend the FTTH Council Europe press conference next Monday in Paris.
Hopefully the format will ease live blogging. Since I'm not sure there's free WiFi available at the CNIT Paris La Defense' conference center, better follow me on Twitter for the instant coverage.
post-scriptum: I won't attend the Broadband World Forum. Too far away of the real world: you and me !
Posted at 06:39 PM in Events, FiberToTheHome, FTTH Council | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The forthcoming Odebit 2009 tradeshow and conference, to be held Sept 22-23 in Paris, will apparently feature a so-called Fiber Camp.
It appears that I'm the one who suggested such a brainstorming workshop to the organizer, last year after the third edition of Odebit which has been quite a disaster in terms of attendance.
I even been part of the organization committee for some months, until the organizer decided to kick me out because I was suggesting her people for the conferences' cycle. Unfortunately, I haven't got the point: to speak at Odebit, you have to register as exhibitor first. A strange policy, for me who's more used to the US/UK way of building a conference' agenda...
So, this post is aimed to make it clear : I 'm not involved with this so-called Fiber Camp stuff.
Shall it be a success, fair enough: I'll be happy for the french FTTx community. Shall it be a failure, fine: it will give me a little bit more time to setup and launch the truly first european CampFiber, with fellow FTTH Evangelists Guy Jarvis and Costas Troulos.
Posted at 05:59 PM in Current Affairs, Events, FiberCamp, FiberToTheHome, Not Fun, Odebit | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
" Germany has nearly 100 percent more 'granny sex' searches over 'naked chicks.' No wonder these guys lost World War II. "
The folks at Cracked, in an hilarious yet almost accurate description of Google.
post-scriptum: Special thanks to @guykawasaki AC for the heads-up.
Posted at 10:43 PM in Fun, Google | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This morning in Aurillac, in the very hardcore of Rural France, Mr Michel Mercier, the new Minister of Rural Areas and Regional Planning, has simply made the most exciting announcement I've heard this year so far about Fiber Broadband' matters: by the end of September this year, the French Government will unveil its plan for ultra-broadband access to everyone. The plan is held by the Prime Minister, and will involved the collectivities / local authorities as well as the telecoms operators.
More in the days to come...
-------------------------
UPDATE 08/28/09 : Buddy Blogger Benoit Felten, aka "François" on the other side of the Ocean, has posted a link to the pretty interesting note published by Mr. Jean-Michel Soulier, the new head of french-canadian operators' s operator Covage.
In his note, Jean-Michel unveils the call he received from the french government for participation to the future "Ultra-Broadband To Everyone" Public consortium which will deploy FTTH in medium density areas. Pushing the idea of Open Access, Jean-Michel also discloses to us his response :
I like the first criteria: Open Access must be guaranteed. That's exactly what I tweeted (in french, sorry) when I heard the announcement by Mr. Mercier: if Telcos are to fund this initiative, how about Open Neutral Access ? That is the main number one top most critical issue on this "Ultra-Broadband To Everyone" matter: we as citizens and consumers can't afford suffering the same situation than with DSL (when you have access to it...): being tied up with a services provider.
Think out of the TriplePlay box. I don't want Orange to sell me Personal Care services, simply because they are not suited for that: to start with, they don't have the right Technical Support structure for such mission-critical services. Anyone asking Orange for an ADSL line or using their Call Center those days will agree with me: it's a pure nightmare, proving that France Telecom is not really looking after the satisfaction of its customers. Therefore, I would never ever give them the ability to deliver me services such as e-Health or Tele-surveillance: questionable reliability, hence a lack of 100% trust & confidence. This is FT-Orange, so you can imagine what's about its rivals, the SFRs and Frees: no better.
FTTH doesn't mean HD/3D-TV. It's means a dumb pipe able to carry any type of data at any rate comprised between 1bps to 1Gbps and even higher. Think Sustainable Development for one: data sent by remote/dispatched sensors, SmartGrid, renewable energies sources 's monitoring, etc. Do you think your Telco is really able to provide you with such services ?...
Posted at 11:51 AM in Broadband, FiberToTheHome, Telecoms | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Since I'm more and more involved with local projects here in France, I've decided to launch a new blog, to be french-only.
The reason is simple: I'd like to share ideas and facts with French people who don't speak nor read english at all.
Second: as the projects I'm working on are looking after french, rural, local territories, I'm not sure sharing even a small piece of information would be of interest for you my dear non-french readers.
However, I'd like to tell you that this new blog is hosted on the Posterous platform, which I'm discovering today. It's just a fantastic blogging tool: easy, simple, intuitive, yet powerful (e.g. the PicPosterous app on the iPhone).
Posted at 03:58 PM in Carpe Diem, Communications, Current Affairs, Social Networking | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This is the Apple.com' homepage as of today Monday 24th of August, 3:00PM CET. Just the confirmation of the official launch date of Apple's Mac OS X 10.6, which most of us already knew thanks to the rumor mill.
What's interesting to me is the name of the picture (which you get when you download it) : "Hero_OSX". Somebody' s going to save the Cheerleader here ?
Posted at 03:49 PM in Apple, Fun | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
After watching the Swiss comedian Ursus Wehrli deconstructing the work of some well known artists to build its own vision, you will never see the World the same way. Enjoy.
ps: if you don't understand swiss-german, here's the transcript of Wehrli's show.Posted at 02:53 PM in Change The World, Disruption, Fun, TED | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 10:39 AM in FiberToTheHome, ParadigmShift | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Over the french Culture & Medias magazine "Telerama", journalist Samuel Gontier has published last week the apparently true story of his encounter with FTTH Fiber To The Home.
This story is the exact reflect of the actual situation in the country with FTTH install :
- the contractors, coming from the Enterprise world, are not used to deal with people like you and me, read the Residential market.
- budget constraints and obsolete technics make it difficult for the technicians to overcome material issues such as fiber layout.
The article being written in french, I will do my best to translate it within the next few days. However, you can try a Google Translate from there.
I will also elaborate on my personal view on the problem, which is, IMHO, the real reason why FTTH deployments are not so important at the moment in France : lack of skilled technicians and lack of state-of-the-art organizations are slowing down the whole stuff. Among a couple of other issues of course, such as the fact that private/listed Telcos make their profits on Copper and Cellular, not on Personal Care services...
Posted at 03:13 PM in Current Affairs, Customers, Economy, Entrepreneurship, FiberOptics, FiberToTheHome, In The Air Today, Not Fun, User Experience | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The traditional Slideshare 's "World's Best Presentation Of The Year" contest has been launched.
Here's my favorite prezo so far. It's about something many whatever designers should think about: simplicity.
Posted at 11:54 AM in Design, Presentation, Raymond Loewy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 07:52 PM in Computing, Disruption, Enterprise, Entrepreneurship, Global Warning, In The Air Today, Internet, Web 2.0 thing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This post if the first of a series which is about the changes that are currently affecting the World, modifying it at an unprecedented speed yet with a mostly invisible manner.
With this series, I'll share with you some of the most stunning talks at the TED conferences.
As a starter, I'd like you to watch Clay Shirky, consultant, author of "Here Comes Everybody", and professor at the New York University, demonstrating how Facebook, Twitter and SMS help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing governmental 's censorship. Feared by most of the politicians all around the Planet, including here in the Land Of Democracy, aka France, the end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.
One out of many interesting stuff with Shirky 's speech: it has been recorded at the US State Department, Washington, DC., during the TED@State event last June. I don't know of an equivalent here in France: we're too much scarred by changes...
Allow yourself a nice coffee break to enjoy the video: it's 17' long, but it's worth the
watch.
More by Clay Shirky at TED here.
By the way: I've entitled this series "TED on the fly" because when I'm traveling by air, I'm used to load my iPhone with 15 to 20 new TED videos, which I watch during the flight. That means I've plenty to share with you ;-)
Posted at 10:06 AM in Change The World, TED | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The Pau Broadband Country Fiber-To-The-Home network is truly *the* model for Muni FTTH. Here's one example, which I like to share with people in the Governmental sphere those days, in regards of the famous Hadopi law. Just a few months after the launch of the network back in 2005, the 2.5Gbit/s high-speed links between Pau and Paris' Telehouse hubs became almost overloaded. In the upstream direction. Traffic analysis demonstrated that Gen Y fellows and geeks of all sorts were uploading gigabytes of more or less legal stuff: music, video, software, everything that makes Vuze and the likes so fun to use... With the remarkable increase of fiber subscribers since begin 2008, an upgrade of these Pau-Paris links was mandatory. 10Gbit/s is now on its way. That makes the distance between the two cities totally transparent, allowing ultra-high speed communications for businesses who run operations in Pau, Paris, and elsewhere in the World, for instance... San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. Guess what: since empty space is a scarce resource in Paris, new datacenters are popping up outside the capital city. One the very few towns out there able to host Green datacenters: Pau. Pau has all the know-how, skills and legitimacy to offer such high-tech facilities. Here's the beauty of the story: It is because of a band of young guys are playing with the law that Pau can host new businesses in a booming sector. If you are looking for a business model which works, here's one: let the Gen Y play at will.
Posted at 04:15 PM in Broadband, Current Affairs, Disruption, Economy, Entrepreneurship, FiberToTheHome, Pau Broadband Country, Telecoms | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
Only Inuits haven't heard of Cisco' s Telepresence so far. Everyone knows about Google' s PowerMeter. Everybody is watching Microsoft' s moves onto the growing Green fields.
Does anyone have a clue about Alca-Lu' s stuff there ? I mean, have you read or heard about the French-American firm efforts in the Green sector outside its own corporate PR ? I'm afraid this silence is one of the too many instances of the real situation of the former Telecoms giant: Alcatel-Lucent is dying, like Nortel. Innovate, or die. Simple.
Posted at 02:31 PM in Carpe Diem, Enterprise, Entrepreneurship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Once in a while, emotion is so highly disturbing that I do post something which is not at all related to Technology or Business or Apple or whatever makes our daily life as professionals.
Today is such a day. Waking up hearing a tribute to the King of Pop is definitely not the best way to start. Anyway, the Show Must Go On. Thanks for all the joy and happiness you gave us, Man.
Posted at 10:22 AM in People | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 11:18 AM in Change The World, Current Affairs, Disruption, Economy, Energy, Enterprise, Entrepreneurship, GreenTech, In The Air Today, Investors, People, Presentation, Puzzle | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 09:57 AM in FiberOptics, People, Puzzle, Technology, User Experience | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
According to the latest Global Bandwidth Forecast Service' report by Telegeography, Trans-Atlantic communications links are set to face a bandwidth glut within the next few years.
Says the press release: "According to new projections from TeleGeography’s Global Bandwidth Forecast Service, bandwidth requirements will grow 33 percent (CAGR) between 2008 and 2015. At this rate, trans-Atlantic capacity will be exhausted by 2014, and cables providing diversity along geographically unique routes may run out of capacity even sooner."
For Optical Communications long-timers like myself, this is no surprise. It's simply the center piece of the forthcoming overhaul of the Fiber Optics technology: Today's optical transmission systems are based on a 30+ years old technology. That's far enough, for the singlemode fiber which is used in backbones since the mid 80's is reaching its limits with the 40G and (worst) the 100G systems planned by some telcos around the planet.
Telegeography analysts state it clear: "While 2014 is 5 years off, lengthy cable financing and construction cycles mean that carriers must confront this challenge far sooner. New technologies, such as 40 Gbps transmission line rates, may allow operators to expand capacity on some existing systems, delaying the need for new cables. However, these technologies remain unproven on a commercial long-haul submarine cable, and will only postpone the inevitable day of reckoning."
As I already wrote several times here and there, my take is that a brand new fiber technology will leave the labs' s clean rooms to show up on optical systems vendors' s shelves as soon as massive deployments of FTTH Fiber-To-The-Home networks will be over. 2014-2015 seems to be the timeframe for that. (Not) surprisingly, 2014-2015 is also the time when submarine systems will have to be revamped.
For those of you who were not in the Optical Communications business in the 80's, I tell you what: submarine systems have always been the test bed for new technologies, from the SMF Singlemode Fiber itself to WDM Wavelength Division Multiplexing and Optical Amplifiers. It won't be different this time. Five years to go before the big change!
Posted at 02:10 PM in FiberOptics, In The Air Today, ParadigmShift, Technology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Every single speaker at every single conference where FTTH Fiber-To-The-Home is the core topic is talking about business model(s). Since years, they all look for *the* business model. The fact is: there is no business model at all. Surely not when you think about this question from the Telecommunications' industry perspective. Considering FTTH as any other Telecoms technology - DSL, WiMax, LTE, whatever - is a pure mistake. It should be considered as the Web 2.0: a breakthrough concept, allowing anyone to contribute to the community. Think Peer-To-Peer: I can directly provide you alone or the whole community on the network with the service you/she want, without any intermediate actor.
"FTTH = Web 2.0". Once you'll get that paradigm, you'll understand that there is no business model for FTTH at all. See Twitter.
Posted at 10:41 PM in Current Affairs, Entrepreneurship, FiberToTheHome, In The Air Today, ParadigmShift | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Pau Broadband Country FTTH by the numbers:
Which means a total investment by each and every citizen of the Pau Greater Area of 143.00 EUR over 15 years.
In other words: less than 10 euros per year over 15 years, to get the most advanced Fiber-To-The-Home network in Southern Europe (which starts south of Frankfurt ;-) and help the creation of hundreds of new jobs in new industries. Who said FTTH has to be expensive ?...
post-scriptum: The PBC Pau Broadband Country is the mother of all Muni FTTH network on the planet. Everyone interested or involved in this topic should study PBC carefully, and in depth. Learnings are just amazingly surprising. Positively surprising.
Posted at 07:34 PM in Broadband, Disruption, Economy, Entrepreneurship, FiberToTheHome, Investors, Pau Broadband Country | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I've been quite silent here over the last months, although I've been quite active on the FTTH front: training an installation & maintenance contractor, visiting key vendors, working on Muni Broadband projects, attending seminars and conferences.
Living "Fiber Broadband" since two years, especially with the lovely Pau Broadband Country, I'm now convinced of a few things. Here are my points:
Posted at 10:39 PM in Broadband, Business, Change The World, Disruption, Economy, Entrepreneurship, FiberToTheHome | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 02:25 PM in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
It's new, it's still in alpha stage, and it's made by Google. It's going to change the World. Granted *.
It's called "Wave", and you're going to surf on it a lot soon.
* Think Net Neutrality, Open Neutral Access, and Open Mind.
Posted at 10:24 PM in Change The World, Communications, Disruption, Google, People | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
An early-adopter, I'm using Feedly since Day One. I'd better say "was using", since Feedly is a Firefox-only extension: as many of us Mac users, I switched back to Safari with the 4.0 beta version of the Apple' navigator. So, bye-bye Feedly and its amazing user-experience. Welcome back, Google Reader.
Reader is powerful indeed, however it doesn't provide this special touch that makes Feedly so sexy to use all day long. It's like comparing a PC running Windows Seven with a Mac running Leopard, see what I mean ?
That's why lots of us were yelling at Edwin Khodabakchian, the smart guy behind Feedly: "Give us a Safari version, quick !". Ed listened to us. Feedly for iPhone is coming - most probably as a beta version together with the upcoming iPhone 3.0 software release. How does Edwin and his team work on this new product ? Simple: they leverage on existing tools to talk to the User.
Which tools ? Well, since Feedly is a typical Web 2.0 application, those are Web 2.0 tools. The blog obviously, Twitter, Google Docs - see the product roadmap here, just amazing - the outstanding Customer Support service GetSatisfaction, and FriendFeed, where everything is discussed.
You may want to have a look at the numerous posts and comments on FriendFeed: it's a marvelous example of the power of Web 2.0 to get and keep in touch with the end-users. Customers feedback, Power-Users suggestions, ideas sharing: everything a Product Marketing fellow dreams of is there, at your fingertips. The benefits for the company ? Countless. For instance, the speed of the development is dramatically increased, as people can instantly react to a new idea. The features set at the first release is the one people are expecting, because they've participated to the new product generation process. And, on top, the adoption rate can be quite fast, provided a) all the people who participate are de-facto beta-testers, and b) the product is theirs.
Web 2.0 hype is dead, because we already live in the Web 2.0 Age.
To contribute to Feedly For iPhone aka "Project Nitro", go here: http://friendfeed.com/feedly-iphone
Posted at 03:29 PM in Entrepreneurship, ParadigmShift, Stakeholders, User Experience | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
I recently changed my personal "business" card for a mini-card made by the folks at Moo.com. After a few weeks giving it away here and there at conferences or meetings, I can tell: it makes the difference.
People really look at it, asking me questions such as "Where is this ?", "Who made it ?", "Aren't you afraid people going to lose it?". The thing is, no matter the question, this mini-card helps engaging the conversation. It does the in-grouping per itself.
For instance, the photo is a snapshot from the landscape as one can enjoy from the Boulevard des Pyrénées in Pau; however, lots of people start by claiming "hum, looks like [this place]", the place being one they obviously went before - I've heard Tunisia, Florida, California. I then let them enumerate other possible locations, to finally tell them the answer: "it's Pau, France". Most of the guys are surprised, offering me the opportunity to explain the beauty of the Pau Broadband Country.
The lesson of this is well known on the other side of the Ocean since years, however it's quite nice to experiment it on a daily basis: to stand out of the crowd, be different.
By the way: the Moo mini-card don't fulfill Guy Kawasaki's rule: the font is a bit too small for guys like us reaching the 50-yo frontier ;-)
Just for fun: since 2003, I used three different formats and styles for my personal business cards. See the picture - the U.I. card is obsolete - I no longer have a foot in San Fran or Dubai, yet I still like its design (self-made, thanks ;-)
Posted at 03:37 PM in Business, Customers, Entrepreneurship, People, Presentation, User Experience | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 12:44 PM in Fun | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Ms. Nathalie Kosciusco-Morizet, aka NKM, has presented today a 750M€ package aimed at deploying Fiber Broadband, developing Serious Gaming, and implementing Web 2.0 Administration over the next three years.
Official announcement here (link in french).
More on this over the next few days: I have way too many things to tell and share on those matters - especially with the Pau Broadband Country - to keep it for me only ;-)
Posted at 07:59 PM in Economy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I recently stumbled upon this video of a Southwest Airline flight Attendant doing his announcements the Rap way. Simply a refreshing moment of pure groove, as only Black people know how to spread joy and happiness just singing and/or dancing - I remember a nice saleswoman at a Duty-free store at Johannesburg' airport some years ago: she was dancing on the desk.
Actually, this moment reminds the one I enjoyed myself back in May 2000 during the first European Distributors Seminar I've organized at Agilent Technologies. A 3-days intensive workshop aimed a creating a tight bond between us the ONT Optical Network Test Division and our european reps, the outcomes of the event have proved being tremendous. From pure technical insights to creative ways to support our customers, this seminar has been a true milestone in the (unfortunately short) life of the Agilent ONT Division.
The "funny" thing is that on the last day of the seminar, I have had to let the people brainstorm without me: I had to work on a tender. A very last minute call from the regional Sales manager, who was unable to write the proposal himself. Of course, as usual, this was on Friday, for a hard deadline on the Monday. You can imagine how I felt: upset because this guy didn't follow my recommendations and suggestions, all made weeks before, and depressed because we were set to lose the tender anyway then.
Knowing me as a brother do, my friend Peter Schweiger came to my room to pick me up for the coffee break. It was almost 10:30AM, and I was almost shaking, as I was nervous as never before. As I entered the meeting room, all the distributors and my Agilent colleagues welcomed me like I was a Rock star (sort of ;-) : they knew I needed warm positive thoughts to get rid of my nervousness.
That's where this rap by the South West flight attendant comes in: deeply touched by their sincerity, I decided to ask all the participants to sing a french song with me. "Melissa", by Julien Clerc. I tell you: seeing 20 people clapping their hands in rhythm, and hearing them singing "Matez ma métisse" with the english, scottish, german, spanish, italian, danish, american (and french ;-) accents was a pure moment of joyce. They made me forget this bloody tender, and they made us a true, real team.
Almost 9 years after, when I meet some of my former reps, we always remember this very moment, when we all became part of the same group.
Keep in mind, the next time you have to create a team: let's sing together.
Posted at 05:57 PM in Fun, People, Social Networking, Stakeholders | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Twitter-Master @guykawasaki has posted a link to a useful article written by Stuart Cross of BNET UK. The Top Five Innovation Killers. Worth reading, including for those of you who think you already know everything about innovation.
By a curious hazard, my dear coach Hal Stitt sent me the links to his new program, aimed at helping companies to grow during harsh times: Recession Strategies:
No Single Recession Strategy Fits Everyone
Emerging businesses have no ongoing business to protect. The winning strategy must be to quickly identify, characterize, and win new customers. Agility is vital to winning strategies in emerging business segments. The customers are also creating emerging businesses of their own.Growth businesses must protect the customers they have while they create new ones in a long term fight to gain market share. The goal must be to win a leading market share before the growth phase transitions into maturity in order to generate lots of cash to fund new emerging and growth strategies.
Mature businesses are the most directly affected by economic slowdowns. The natural tendency is to oversimplify, to cut costs and expenses across the board. That ignores the likely reality that while most of the customers in mature markets cut back on discretionary spending with vigor (e.g. cars and houses), others may be increasing their spending in more recession-proof projects of their own. Those opportunities get killed as collateral damage in a simple expense cutting strategy.
Even Established Businesses Have OptionsHouses and cars have been hit hard in the current recession, but a state-controlled liquor store here in Eugene, OR reported in early February, 2009 that their sales in 2008 were up 65% over 2007.
Ashley Heher, Associated Press, reported at about the same time; "The ever-popular Wii gaming console continues to sell out at the list price of $249 (US), Avon cosmetics just boosted prices, Nike is releasing its newest Air Jordan with an astonishing $190 price tag, and designer water can still command as much as $3.99".
All of the businesses above are established, not startup or growth businesses. If you are in an established business, the chances are good that some parts of your business are impacted like houses and cars are, other parts are more like the liquor store, and many others lie along the continuum between those extremes.
Posted at 07:26 PM in Current Affairs, Disruption, Economy, Enterprise, Entrepreneurship, Innovation | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I just came across a brand new (4 months old) website dedicated to Fiber Optics: Fiber Optic Mania. Plenty of informations for both novices and experts. A bit too much of Google AdSense stuff, but as soon as you forget those banners and ads links, the site is worth reading (note to Fiber Optic Mania' s editor: where's the "subscribe" button ?).
Welcome and good luck, Buddy !
Fiber Optic Mania is here.
Posted at 04:51 PM in FiberGeneration, FiberOptics, Social Networking, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
“Moving electrons is less environmentally damaging than moving atoms.”
Posted at 08:04 PM in GreenTech, In The Air Today, Networks | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
See the References at the end of this entry.
Posted at 03:49 PM in Pau Broadband Country | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 03:36 PM in Fun | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This is the true power of Twitter: break the frontiers and connect together people who normally couldn't be in touch. See the wowing email that I've got today :
Hi, Marc Duchesne (mduchesn).
Gov Schwarzenegger (schwarzenegger) is now following your updates on Twitter.
Check out Gov Schwarzenegger's profile here:
http://twitter.com/schwarzenegger
Best,
--
Posted at 08:09 PM in Disruption, ParadigmShift, People, Social Networking, Twitter | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Ever wondered what the heck is this "Twitter" everybody is talking about those days ?
Posted at 07:56 PM in Fun, In The Air Today, OnlineVideo, Social Networking, Twitter | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 07:38 PM in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
For those of you who seek informations and/or jobs in the Optical Communications sector, here are your new companions : FiberNews and FiberJobs, which you can follow on Twitter respectively here and here.
Of course, those are RSS feeds which I've put together thanks to Yahoo!Pipes and other cool Web 2.0 tools (BTW, have you noticed how the expression "Web 2.0" is old fashion those days ?).
FiberNews delivers news on FTTH worldwide, and FiberJobs delivers job postings related to FTTH (US only for the time being). Simple, isn't ?
Posted at 08:11 PM in Business, Communications, Current Affairs, FiberGeneration, FiberOptics, FiberToTheHome, Twitter | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Evan Carmichael of EvanCarmichael.com has recently published an impressive list of blogs to follow (Twitter, Twitter...) this year 2009. Guess what : everything Sustainability is at the top of this list.
Forget Web 2.0, WebTV, and all the geek stuff. This year, Green is the motto. Let's hope it will stay so for the hundred years to come.
To start with, you may subscribe to TreeHugger right now.
However, the key question is: when will Guy Kawasaki launch his own new venture in the Green field ? ;-)
Posted at 07:08 PM in Change The World, Entrepreneurship, People | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
In his post "The panhandler' s secret", Seth Godin tells us how he discovered the secret of a successful sale:
"When there were old-school parking meters in New York, quarters were precious.
One day, I'm walking down the street and a guy comes up to me and says, "Do you have a dollar for four quarters?" He held out his hand with four quarters in it.
Curious, I engaged with him. I took out a dollar bill and took the four quarters.
Then he turned to me and said, "can you spare a quarter?"
What a fascinating interaction.
First, he engaged me. A fair trade, one that perhaps even benefited me, not him.
Now, we have a relationship. Now, he knows I have a quarter (in my hand, even). So his next request is much more difficult to turn down. If he had just walked up to me and said, "can you spare a quarter," he would have been invisible.
Too often, we close the sale before we even open it.
Interact first, sell second."
Actually, a successful sale is a 4-step process, and only 4 steps.
I personally have applied it all along my professional life in the High Tech business-to-business without knowing I was following this very process, like Monsieur Jourdain in Moliere' s "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" was speaking prose all his life without knowing it.
Since a few years, I'm experiencing this 4-step process in the real life, I mean B2C. Helping a friend of mine, owner of a luxury menswear store, during the Winter and Summer shopping festivals here in France, I'm selling Pierre Cardin suits (and jackets, shirts, ties...) during the weekends. Ever been selling something to consumers ? During a shopping festival ? On the saturdays and sundays ? I tell you : it's tough. To me, selling a 259€ Pierre Cardin' "Travel" suit in January is way harder than selling for $ 1M of Optical Test equipments to a Telco during Downturn. Because the competition is harder (there are plenty of other stores selling suits, at lower prices) and convincing the decision maker (i.e. the wife or the mother ;-) is more difficult.
However, I achieve the quota, and even more. There's no secret here, just evidence. Here are the four steps of a successful sale :
#1 : engage. What Seth Godin calls "interact", or my dear coach Hal Stitt names "ingroup". In the case of this menswear store, it consists of... greeting the clients. Say "hello". With a big large smile.
You can't believe how this first step is important: it is the key differentiator against the competition. I tell you: so many people coming back to us saying "you are the only store where we feel welcomed"...
#2 : listen. Here, it's a two-fold step: first, observe the end-user - ooops, the guy, and his decision maker - ooops, his wife (or his girl friend, or his mother, or his... boy friend - yes, it happens sometimes ;-) Which jacket or suit they touch, how they talk to each other, etc.
Then, and only then, you can go to them and offer them your assistance: "how can help you spend less time here" was the winning formula I found this year last January. Apparently, so unusual that it's an instant ice-breaking, giving you the opportunity to start the discussion with the client : what are they looking for, which usage (for instance in the case of a suit: is it for every day, if yes which kind of job, is it for a wedding, if yes, is he the lucky guy, etc.), what budget, if any, etc.
#3 : suggest. Once the end-user has clearly expressed his requirements, you can propose him a selection of your products which might fit to his needs. Sounds familiar, right ? In the case of this store, it can be the same suit but in two different sizes, or the same style but made of different wool, etc.
Here, don't forget the back-up plan: maybe the first solution you'll propose won't fit. Then, you have to be ready to immediately suggest a second solution. In the case of a suit, it can be a different size, a different style, a different fabric.
#4 : close. The end-user is happy with your solution ? Fine. Now the tough part: make him pay. First of all, you need to get the decision maker on the same line. In the case of Menswear, surprisingly enough (at least to me when I started a few years back), it's the Woman who decides, statistically 80% of the deals. Make sure she likes her man in this beautiful 2-buttons Cardin 2008. In other words, make HER shine. Tell her husband that looking nice in that suit will make his wife look even cuter. Speak respect and honor, things that women loves to hear from a man because it so rare those days. In summary, pay attention to HER problem.
In the case of B2B, it could be that the decision maker - the CEO, the Procurement manager, the Field Op director, whoever - is facing issues with manufacturing, shipments, deliveries, data processing, whatever problem making his days a real pain. There are tons of business books and blogs out there on the subject, so this is not the purpose of this post to explain it ;-)
In summary: engage, listen, suggest, close. Efficient in both B2C and B2B. The key is: pay attention to the customer. Say "hello".
Posted at 12:00 AM in Business, Current Affairs, Enterprise, People | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I'm writing this short note from a beautiful ski resort in the French Southern Alpes. One week off, however my iPhone rings every day to bring me back to business for a (short) while.
This evening, I got a call from a training center, looking for an instructor able to teach FTTH install and fiber testing. We did not discuss my resume (although it fits 100% ;-)
but Obama's Stimulus Plan versus Sarkozy'.
We both came up to the same conclusion: the only way to create the hundreds of thousands jobs our country needs to 1) overcome the crisis and 2) get ready for the forthcoming global competition once the crisis will be over is to go (Green) Fiber Broadband full speed.
Unfortunately, it seems that our President has decided to go another way: 1,000 projects, consisting of the repair of a classified church's roof here or the construction of a roundabout there. Stuff to maintain existing jobs here and there, not to create the France of Tomorrow...
I wish I were American.
Posted at 09:32 PM in Economy | Permalink | Comments (0)
France, my home country, is in bad shape, as the rest of the World. Since beginning of this year, you may have noticed that I've started a new series of posts, titled "That's Why I'd Better Move To The US". The reason is that I love my country so much that I'm desperate seeing how bad things are here.
Of course, as hundreds of thousands of other Frenchies, I do wake up each and every morning asking myself: what can I do for my country today. J.F. Kennedy is still alive out there... However, doing something for the country is not an easy one. More than often, you hit the wall hard. In this case, my strategy is simple: RASPSA, "Reset, And Same Player Shoot Again".
French singer Michel Polnareff wrote a beautiful song back in 1977 when he was banished from residence because of some conflict with the french Tax Administration. There's no better text to tell how I feel this morning about France.
Music by Michel Polnareff, Lyrics by Jean-Loup Dabadie
Posted at 09:36 AM in Carpe Diem, Change The World, People | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Good news of the day: the folks in Louisiana have made their dream real. Read here.
Truly innovative applications still to come (as anywhere else, it seems). Or, maybe Americans think that HDTV is the Future (no pun intented).
Posted at 03:48 PM in Broadband, Change The World, Current Affairs, FiberToTheHome, Lafayette, LUS Fiber | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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