Kordia Blog

5 ways Evernote can change the way you work

Tue, 15 May 2012 21:31:00 GMT

Regan Hughes: I’ve been toying with Evernote (tagline ‘Remember Everything') for 3 years as a place to store a few notes. After reading Getting Things Done I’ve found that it’s a lot more useful than a simple note capturer – I’ve even spent hard cash upgrading from the free license to premium to enjoy the benefits of speedy searching through pictures and PDFs. Here are 5 ways it could change the way you work.

1. Take your 'to review’ pile with you anywhere. Evernote’s ability to store PDFs, Word documents and web pages means that you can keep your review pile handy so that you can make use of those gaps in the day when you’re waiting for a meeting to start or find yourself with an idle few minutes.

2. Store checklists. Checklists are one of the those simple, under-rated gems that we tend to not consider. Examples of useful checklist include: things to buy, Saturday morning chores to do, things you need to remember about a new responsibility you’ve been given at work. Check out Getting Things Done for more examples.

3. Have every useful web page you may need to refer to at your finger-tips. I know this one seems a little counter-intuitive – why not just search the web again – right? I often find I stumble on a page of interest, maybe it’s a new mobile phone plan 2degrees has, or a vendor web-site. I don’t want to have to remember where I found it, and I don’t want to have to worry about the web page moving or disappearing. The added bonus of this, is that Evernote stores the web links as well, so you can click on the saved link.

4. Store every bit of paper based reference material on a searchable database, e.g. business card, paper brochures, etc. The accuracy of the word recognition on pictures is impressive. This idea has the potential to get rid of your filing system (or give you one if you don’t have one already!) Having your reference system in your phone is pretty nice.

5. Take pictures of things and attach notes to them on your phone. Whether it’s a whiteboard snapshot or a picture of the server cabling, being able to take a photo, attach a note to it and be able to seamlessly access this from anywhere is a huge time saver. I know it’s not that hard to take a picture and then email it, but the extra faff of doing this and then storing the email or photo somewhere means it often disappears in the depths of your phone or inbox (Evernote’s depths are much more searchable!)

Getting things done – Remember the Milk

Fri, 04 May 2012 00:36:00 GMT

Regan Hughes: My last blog was about Getting Things Done (GTD), in this post, I plan to outline the core of my implementation of GTD. This central nervous system is a piece of software called Remember the Milk (RTM) – which is essentially a simple and elegant list management tool.

The purpose of this post is to tell you how I use this tool, as a relatively busy New Zealand telecommunications professional - the thing I like most about RTM is that it's easy to customise to your own needs, whether you’re managing a busy household, construction company or IT team. I'm regularly tweaking the way I use RTM, as I'm sure you would - I doubt there is a single best way for all people all the time.

I don't plan to provide an overview of Remember the Milk, or discuss its useful short cuts (there are many), or it's good features (e.g. smartlists), but if you're reading this you'll probably be able to figure them out relatively easily at www.rememberthemilk.com or this useful blog – and if you’d like to know some of my favourites, I’d be happy to share.

Progress update

Since my last post GTD has gone from strength to strength for me. The continued creativity that comes with a clear head has been terrific – I often find myself walking around with that excited feeling you have when you’re working on interesting ideas.

I also find I’m developing a ruthless efficiency to how I deal with the less important 'busy work'... which has left me more time to focus on the truly important, i.e. building relationships, continuous improvement and thinking ahead.

Useful guidelines from the book for RTM

There are a few guidelines from the GTD book that I've found useful in setting up RTM for GTD:

Keep hard edges between lists - that means no one item should appear in more than one list or 'context' (see last post for a discussion of context)
Every piece of 'work' you’re doing that has more than two tasks should be a 'project'
Don't prioritise within a context/list – priorities change all the time and it’s better to review the entire list and figure out what’s best to do based on your time, energy and priority at that moment.
If there are too many next actions in a context, split it up in a way that has hard edges, e.g. for work pc context, I split it into work PC with deadline (wkpc-dline) and those without (wkpc)
Use the calendar only for 'hard' commitments and reminders, not things you'd like to do that day but don't have to
Do anything that will take less than 2 minutes when you process it rather than putting it in RTM (I’ve had to time myself, because I’m far too optimistic on what I can achieve in 2 minutes)
Write next actions as if you’re writing a detailed procedure, e.g. ‘Google address of gift shop’ as a first step to ‘buy gift’.

RTM Web App

The RTM web app is the central nervous system of my GTD workflow. It holds lists for next actions, based on context (errand, call, agenda, anywhere, pc, work & home); projects and associated notes, someday/maybes and delegated tasks. Each of these are split between personal (ps) and work (wk).

I use tags to create lists, e.g. #na means next action, #wk means a work task and #pc means at a PC. Most tags will filter things to a specific list, although I have some that I use for adhoc queries – e.g. if something relates to a specific person (e.g. my boss, team mate or wife) I’ll tag it with their name, then if I’m meeting with them I’m able to quickly check for that tag to see if there’s anything else to talk about.

Below is a screen shot of the main RTM screen, with the ‘context’ lists highlighted in yellow. The remaining lists are used mostly during the weekly review.

Special lists

Some have recommended having a list for each project you’re working on, that would get too complex for me. One of the great things about RTM is its simplicity. I do keep some specific lists though.

Projects – A list of all projects (split between work and personal) i.e. jobs requiring more than two tasks. It’s useful for keeping your boss up to date of what you're doing and getting an overview of your current work. I tag a note to each major project to capture the outputs of David Allen’s ‘natural planning’ process (i.e. purpose, outcome and all actions).

Someday/maybe – These are things you may want to do at some later stage. It’s interesting what happens when you create this list – the things on it have a way of happening by themselves and it allows you to look out for opportunities to trigger them.

Wait – Whenever I’m waiting for a reply or output from someone I note it on the ‘wait’ list. It makes it easy to keep track of all the balls that up in the air with other people.

The iPhone app

The iPhone app is one of the best parts of RTM. The two best things about it for me is that it’s very easy to add tasks and ideas when they pop into your head, and to review contexts when you’re out and about – either meeting with someone, doing errands or killing some time while you’re waiting for your next appointment.

In a nutshell

Benefits: RTM makes GTD list management and review easy, where ever you are.

Key concepts: Keep hard edges between lists, don’t prioritise – review the entire list, keep your calendar only for hard commitments.

Useful resources: This blog provides quite a good overview of RTM and links to other useful blogs. http://corriehaffly.wordpress.com/2007/06/16/using-remember-the-milk-for-getting-things-done/

Getting Things Done – Stress free productivity for IT professionals

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:20:00 GMT

Regan Hughes: I think IT professionals share a few common traits. We usually have more things to do than we care to think about, we’re knowledge workers, and we like shortcuts and good tools. With the season of long weekends upon us, shorter weeks seem to amplify the affects of being pushed for time, with wall-to-wall meetings and little time to capture actions, let alone do them. Just before Easter I stumbled upon an idea called Getting Things Done (GTD), and read the same book by David Allen, which lead to a little revelation.

The benefits of GTD

GTD is a work management system targeted at knowledge workers with the subtitle - 'The Art of stress free productivity'. It's developed a bit of a cult following on the web since it came out 10 years ago and there are now some cool tools to help implement it. In the intro Allen talks about how knowledge work has changed the way we do things. Now our work requires thought, rather than muscle. It needs clear thinking, focus and creativity. He promises that GTD not only provides this, but creates a clear head unlike anything you've experienced before - a 'mind like water'. And all this with prioritising your tasks or having a daily to do list. It sounded all pretty good to me, so I decided to give it a try.

4 days of implementation

The book recommends setting aside 2 full days to implement the system. So I thought I'd go into the office and get it done in one and a half to leave Sunday and Monday for a well earned rest. It took me two 12 hour days plus two days working at home to fully implement it - crazy. The main reason it took so long Allen says you must capture *everything* in your head. That's everything you're currently planning to do, including work, home, things to read, people to see and stuff you may someday want to do. Allen says that the mind has a finite working memory, kind of like RAM, and typically it is full of 'open loops' - i.e. things you know you should do, but still haven't done yet. The idea is to get it all down in a system you trust (as opposed to a system that sometimes works), to free up your mind to think about more creative things. It's amazing how much is actually on your mind - around 300 'things' for me.

The 5 steps of Getting Things Done

I'll give you a high level intro, but if you want more I recommend the minezone Wiki summary (see references below), and of course the book itself. I have to say I've tried to implement decent time management for a long time, but this is the first method that has an actual system with a diagram to show you how to do it end-to-end in a complete way (google "GTD workflow map"). Implementation involves working through all your 'stuff' in 5 steps: collect, process, organise, review and do.

Collect is fairly self-explanatory - collect all your stuff, from to do lists, to crazy ideas like 'climb Mt Cook' to your 'to read' pile.

For Processing, you go through each item in your stack one at a time to decide if it is actionable. If it is, you choose to delegate, defer or do the action. You only do the task if you can do it in less than 2 minutes - and I tell you, much of my weekend was spent doing tasks I thought would take 2 minutes but took 5-15. If you can't do it in 2 minutes, you write the next action for the task on a piece of paper for later organising. This is a key step and one that is often overlooked. For instance, if you need to 'Write outage report', the first action might be 'Call Fred to find out what went wrong'. If the item isn't actionable you either file it in your general reference folder file, put a remind on it to think about later or bin it.

Organising involves adding all your items to lists, folders or the calendar. You have lists for your next actions, things your waiting on someone else for and someday items. You split your next action list up into contexts i.e. where you can do the task, e.g. at pc, on phone, at home, etc. You don't prioritise anything on the list (seems counter intuitive - right?). You have folders for project support material and also a general reference filing system - for which Allen recommends using a label maker to label all your files - seemed a little OTT to me.

The review step is split into two - your weekly review, where you sit down for 2 hours-ish to review all your lists and make sure you've captured all your new 'things' (which Allen says is fundamental to the success of the system), plus your regular review. Typically in your regular daily/hourly review, you'll just look at your calendar (which should only have hard commitments) and the next action list relative to where you are, e.g. at your pc. At this stage you prioritise intuitively by looking down your list and figuring out the best thing to do based on: 1. How much time you have available, 2. How much energy you have and 3. The priority of things.

Then you do.

I tried explaining all this to my wife, and she was skeptical to say the least. Come to think of it, so was I.

The results

So I finished implementing this system around 10pm on Easter Monday. Tuesday morning I was hoping to wake with a kind of clear headed euphoria... but it wasn't like that. I started the week feeling slightly jaded from 8 days of fairly intense working and was curious to see how my 4 day week of wall-to-wall meetings was going to go - I was hoping for no mental break-downs in front of senior management. It was a strange week, because I had this sense of jadedness, yet I had a clarity, creativity and energy that I really haven't had before. I know it sounds a bit cheesy, but there it is. I'm now in week two, having done my first weekly review. The system is holding together well, and the creativity and improved productivity is still there - and the label maker is growing on me. For busy IT professionals (or any knowledge works for that matter) who have yet to find the perfect work management system, I recommend giving GTD a try. Or maybe check back with me in a months time...

The tools

How to implement the system is a little difficult to explain briefly, so I'll give you a list of the tools and leave the detail for another post.

Remember the milk - The key to the system for me - holds all the lists for next actions, 'waiting for' and someday/maybes - all split into contexts - has an excellent iPhone app - awesome tool
Evernote - Used for checklists (one of Dave Allen's highly recommended tools) and electronic general reference
100 pack of manilla folders and a brother P90 label maker for the general reference (paper) system
* Folders for project papers, e.g. notes, plans etc
The GTD workflow diagram - invaluable to get your head around the system

Resources

Decent Wiki summary: http://www.minezone.org/wiki/MVance/GettingThingsDone
RTM: www.rememberthemilk.com
A summary of blogs for using RTM for GTD (I had a good look at some of the blogs and guides for using RTM for GTD, but found they all didn't seem to implement the method as Allen laid it out in the book - but I think it can be done.) http://corriehaffly.wordpress.com/2007/06/16/using-remember-the-milk-for-getting-things-done/
Alternatives to RTM (from what I can see RTM is pretty good): http://alternativeto.net/software/omnifocus/?platform=windows
How to use Evernote to fully implement a GTD system – this site has some whiteboard/cartoon videos - http://www.thesecretweapon.org
David Allen's site - http://www.gettingthingsdone.com/
The book itself: http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334736138&sr=8-1

In a nutshell

Benefits: Stress-free focus, clarity and creativity amidst the craziness of modern life
Key concept: Open loops clutter your mind. So collect everything, process, organise, review and do. Prioritise based on where you are, how much time and energy you have, and then (and only then) how important the task is. Ensure outcomes are clear and next actions are recorded for all projects.
Implementation: 2 days+
On-going maintenance: 2 hours per week plus regularly checking your next action lists
Tools: Remember The Milk, Evernote, label maker plus folders

QuickFlix Entering New Zealand Market

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 20:31:00 GMT

Mark Johnston: It’s Interesting that QuickFlix are about to launch in NZ.

QuickFlix is a direct copy of Netflix but has struggled in Australia. HBO have a key shareholding in QuickFlix and are also a key supplier to Sky for Sky’s SOHO channel.

I think QuickFlix will also struggle in NZ (due to Sky’s dominance) but their entry will spur Sky to enable further streaming and Video on Demand services and a larger more up to date catalogue on MySkyHDi and Igloo which will be good for NZ consumers. NZ ISPs will also benefit from the extra traffic.

My view is also that at some point it is likely NZ will follow what occurred in the UK where BskyB have been forced to provide wholesale access of their content to competitors. This is what Sussan Turner vocally lobbied for a the recent MED Future Broadband Conference. Sky NZ however are smart enough to do this on their terms prior to being forced to through regulation as occurred via Ofcom in the UK. Sky can also argue that Igloo (even if not commercially successful) is already an example of Sky NZ providing access to its content to another broadcaster.

NZ Herald: The race is on to see who can dominate the online streaming market in New Zealand, with Australian movie and television service QuickFlix planning to launch here in the near future.

Quickly trading results in Australia: here

FreeView Social TV app

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:42:00 GMT

Mark Johnston: Second screen social TV apps that automatically check you into a show and provide second screen content are a dime a dozen, and the business model is still unproven. However, Zeebox stands out from the crowd for a number of reasons:

It works with FreeView (UK)
It was co-founded by ex BBC iPlayer head honcho Anthony Rose
BskyB have taken an equity investment and are experimenting with it to extend the BskyB EPG.

Have a look for yourself, go to www.zeebox.com – the 3 minute “take the tour” clip is worth viewing.

And for a bit of background: Here’s a good talk from Anthony Rose on the market opportunity that this presents here

Zeebox overview from both founders here (and)

Paid Content commentary: here

It will be interesting to see if Apple incorporate similar functionality to this as a native feature in the iPad and iPhone operating system as part of their long rumoured upcoming TV launch.

iPadHD

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:50:00 GMT

Mark Johnston: The main feature in today’s iPad announcement is that Apple’s third-generation tablet features a so-called "retina display", boosting screen resolution to 2048 by 1536 pixels (the iPad 2 is 1024 by 768; a high definition widescreen TV has a 1920 x 1080 display, and HD movies and TV shows are formatted to that resolution). This doubling of resolution in each dimension means that existing applications will continue to work as before, although text will appear crisper. That exceeds high-definition television by some margin. The real significance is to allow 16:9 video to be displayed at native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels on the 9.7-inch 4:3 aspect ratio tablet display.

It will also allow the full frame of a 2K digital cinema image to be displayed at its native 2048x1080 pixels. True high-definition movies and television programmes will be available in the Apple iTunes store and consumers will come to expect HD as standard. The idea of watching movies and long-form video on a tablet becomes even more attractive. The BBC already find that, iPlayer gets four times as much traffic from its iPad app than from its connected TV apps — even though there are twice as many connected TV app installs. This trend could well accelerate with the iPadHD (more information here).

This may also put more pressure on broadcasters to provide consumers with more true HD content on their TVs.

The iPadHD will also be able to output full high-definition video to other displays, either through a cable or more importantly using Apple AirPlay. With the new Apple TV also in 1080p, HD content can be discovered on the iPad then shared on a larger screen for a broader audience.

NBC puts Super bowl on Web and Mobile

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:30:00 GMT

Mark Johnston: This is an interesting development. The most expensive FTA TV show in America is going to be streamed online and to mobile. The theory is that this will not cannibalise any existing advertising revenue.

More information available here.

Getting the Rugby from the stadium to the TV screen

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:28:00 GMT

Regan Hughes: In the midst of the world cup what else was there to talk about other than Rugby? Kordia had both the privilege and responsibility of carrying and transmitting most of the rugby feeds from the stadiums to our TV screens. And now that the smoke has cleared – this blog paints a high level picture of how it was all done.

These days everything is ‘IP’ (i.e. packaged up into small packets to be sent across IP networks). For many IP television applications a technology called ‘multicast’ is used, which enables a single source to be sent to multiple destinations. This is what was used for both the feeds from the stadium and also the transmission from the broadcasters to our homes (on Freeview or Sky).

You’ll be pleased to know that in most cases there wasn’t one, or two, but three methods of transporting the rugby from the ground. There’s fibre to the major stadiums, satellite and microwave radio. These feeds were constantly monitored during the games and if one was to fail, it would switch to the backup in a matter of seconds.

On these three transmissions there were two feeds sent at the same time – called the clean feed and the dirty feed. The clean feed is completely free of graphics, and was sent to the IRB so that they had an uninhabited view of game (enabled close checking of mouth guards for brand infringement), the dirty feed included the host broadcaster’s graphics. The dirty feed is sent to broadcasters who will often add their own commentary.

If you have any questions about how we carried the rugby, tweet me at www.twitter.com\reganhughes

UFB changes everything!

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:54:00 GMT

Steve Roberts: This is my last blog with Kordia. After many years with this great company, I am moving to a new organisation to tackle new challenges. What a blast it has been, and boy how broadcasting and technology have changed.

From reasonably simple State-run radio and television services in the 70s, New Zealand moved into a very unregulated market approach. Competitive radio and television took off and is now well embedded in our daily lives.

There are dozens of terrestrial and satellite channels available to our widely dispersed population plus thousands of ‘broadcasters’ on the Internet – if you have a decent broadband connection. Plus, print media companies now offer video in their online news sites.

But just when you thought things could be settling down (or perhaps recovering after the GFC), the Government's Ultra Fast Broadband investment is about to change things yet again – in a very big way!

The UFB will deliver what we are today calling ‘very high speed’ services into our homes and businesses. But what speed will we call ‘high speed’ tomorrow?

The Service Providers (the ISP’s and telecommunication operators) you currently buy your telephone and broadband services from may start by offering ‘only’ 30Mbps to 100Mbps broadband speeds on the UFB, but it is capable of Gigabit per second connectivity to and from every one of our homes and offices.

What will we be able to do with that? Every UFB commentator has a view on what that capacity could, or will, be used for. And it’s fair to say the industry cannot give many concrete answers. But, it is that future capability and promise that will eventually unleash our thinking and collective creativity.

Broadcasters – and other content creators – will definitely have a big part to play in the overall success of the UFB. We can probably be convinced to move to a UFB connection if all the broadcast and entertainment services we currently subscribe can be delivered on the UBF.

With more of us on the UFB, the probability increases significantly that Government’s education and health improvement policy objectives will be met.

The transition to high speed fibre optic connections is already changing the broadcast and media landscape in Australia. Telstra recently confirmed their intention to compete in the television space by spending over AUD$1Bn on the five year rights to the AFL, plus iiNet began offering Fetch TV services to their customers.

But as we know, not all broadband/speed is equal. Quality of service is an essential component to ensure all services meet our reliability and performance requirements.

Making clear reliable phone calls, especially to emergency service organisations, is not negotiable. It’s a must have. Some people feel similarly about their television services, and future delivery networks (the UFB) must facilitate these different quality and performance needs.

New Zealand Service Providers that best meet our overall service needs will be those that demonstrate they are flexible and quick to market with our current voice and broadband needs. Importantly, they must also show they can meet all our home entertainment and broadcast needs as well.

While we could have different voice, broadband, and television Service Providers in our homes and businesses, why would we want to make it so complicated for ourselves?

Services packages, with flexible options that allow us to tailor service mixes to meet our unique needs, are key. Service providers need to navigate their way through technical and commercial issues to reach that goal. Those that move soonest will risk more, but will also learn the lessons first and be able to offer ‘the right mix’ of services and content that we will then want to buy in the future.

UFB changes everything – and content remains king.

Converged Voice vs the Traditional Telco model

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:36:00 GMT

Murray Goodman: As I have mentioned before, Kordia is embracing the benefits of convergence with our internal WAN, voice, video and internet all provided over our commercially available OnKor platform.

I have already spoken about the benefits of this and the associated company and employee productivity gains obtained through convergence, presence and collaboration tools.

While the underlying network technology has enabled the delivery of these next generation applications, this has exposed the fact that some of the Telco architecture and commercial models have not kept pace with this change.

Traditionally, customers had a PBX at each site and were connected to the Telco network via an ISDN primary rate access at each site. This local switching architecture meant that local calls were kept local and only national calls were charged a toll rate. Seems logical right?

In the world of Microsoft Lync and Cisco Call Manager for example, the PBX is software based and could be hosted at a central location, (like all your other major applications) with the customer WAN providing calling connectivity to the branch offices.

I know some of these implementations are distributed, but I wonder how much of this is as a result of the Telco charging model rather than the optimal solution from the customer’s viewpoint?

The problem with the centralised model for your voice application is that calls within a region, other than where you PBX is hosted, are now charged at a national toll rate because you no longer have local PSTN switching at every site.

I guess there are two ways to look at this. You might be in the camp that says the current Telco model is outdated and has not kept pace with convergence or the rapid adoption of cloud based models. Or, you might say that this hosted model is demanding an unfair pricing model on the Telcos.

It’s hard to find a win-win here. On one hand, the centrally hosted model provides significant cost savings to the customer, but on the other hand this seems to come at the expectation the Telco will play ball and adjust their charging model to allow it.

The benefits of a Converged Network

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:36:00 GMT

Murray Goodman:I have been busy telling all our customers about the benefits of Kordia’s new OnKor Managed WAN service. The funny thing is I have been thinking about this the wrong way.

I had thought that it was the converged nature of our network that provided the utility to our customers. While this is true to an extent, what really provides the utility to our customers is the new applications that convergence enables.

Don’t get me wrong, you can’t have one without the other - and in today’s world of cloud computing and collaboration, the performance of the network is a key driver of application performance and critical to end user satisfaction and, therefore, how much grey hair the CIO has. But the implementation of our own corporate collaboration tools enabled by OnKor really has changed the way I work.

I now have less formal meetings which saves time and the cost of travel, looking for meeting rooms and waiting for the meeting before yours to finish. Instant access to presence information, click to dial, sharing desk tops and desk-to-desk video conferencing means the pace and quality of meetings and decision making has improved. Waiting a week before you can get everyone together for a meeting is a thing of the past.

From now on, I think I’ll be telling our customers more about the benefits our network enables for end users, as well as the peace of mind we provide our CIO’s with our state of the art network. I think that’s about selling both the sausage and the sizzle!

Mobile Broadcast Digital Television – a lost cause or real beginning?

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:54:00 GMT

Steve Roberts: Ever since digital television standards and services were developed for consumer home receivers (DTV to fixed antennas on the home), research and standards to enable digital television (DTV) services to mobile (moving) receivers has been evolving.

In New Zealand, when the first digital terrestrial television (DTT) trials were conducted by Kordia - way back in 1999 and 2000 - I witnessed the robustness of the early DVB-T standards on the Auckland Motorway.

At about 80kmph, safely strapped into our coverage vehicle, we noticed that the DVB-T receiver displayed a steady picture even as the receive antenna was ‘parked’ for travel. As a Wellingtonian struggling to get ghost free reception in Paramata, I was an instant DTV supporter.

In 2008, commercial free-to-air DTT was finally launched in New Zealand and by that time the DVB Group had released a standard that supported mobile broadcast services in the UHF broadcast TV bands called ‘DVB-H’ [“H” for handheld].

Trials, pilots and technology demonstrations were held all over the world of DVB-H systems plus many competing technologies evolved and they all vied to be ‘the standard of choice’. While the technologies clearly work, spectrum issues - such as the lack of International uniform allocations and the difficulties getting business cases agreed between broadcasters, transmission and infrastructure providers, and mobile operators - meant few commercial deployments eventuated.

One of the most ambitious deployments was undertaken by Qualcomm in the United States with their MediaFLO technology. However, in December 2010, Qualcomm announced they were suspending new sales to users, and that AT&T would purchase their 700MHz spectrum. Therefore, FLO TV would cease to operate from 27 March 2011. If a commercial service is not sustainable in the US, where might it be made to work?

While broadcasters and content aggregators were pursuing the ‘wide area UHF Broadcast’ deployment options, the GSM Association developed Integrated Mobile Broadcast (iMB) standards that were accepted as part of the Release 8 3GPP standards in 2008.

But it was only in June last year that trials were held in the UK with O2, Vodafone and Orange. iMB delivers mobile data broadcast services in the 3G TDD (Time Division Duplex) integrated with existing 3G technology and at the Base Station level.

This allows bandwidth intensive mobile data services to be offloaded from the Mobile unicast network (where the voice and data applications currently sit) and put onto the broadcast portion of the TDD spectrum. This helps address the growing mobile network capacity issues many operators are facing.

The key here is the integration of this second data channel into the handset/device such that end users don’t know how they are getting their streamed video and data services. It just works – and without congesting the voice and other data applications.

Here in New Zealand, Digital Switchover (DSO) is scheduled for completion in late 2013. At that time, the UHF broadcast band will be half what it is today and possibly limiting further DVB-H or MediaFLO opportunities for broadcast mobile services.

The released spectrum is to be allocated (by an as yet undefined auction process) to mobile users. Maybe by then there will be enough international cooperation, spectrum and device technology commonality to finally see mobile television services to mobile devices reach the market.

Keep watching this space.

Eating your own dog food… I mean Caviar

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:37:00 GMT

Murray Goodman:A long time ago, I learnt a valuable sales lesson when I was working for another network provider. I was trying to sell a customer our latest service offering when they asked if the company I worked for also used the service.

The answer was no – you guessed it, I didn’t make the sale. If your own company doesn’t use the service (but could) – why should you expect your customer to buy it?

Not only that, surely you are missing out on valuable market feedback. Internal end users don’t pull any punches when you ask them for feedback on product features or where you could do better and you don’t have to engage expensive market research to engage with them.

Now that Kordia is ‘eating its own dog food’, it has given me a unique insight - in that I am now a user of the same services we sell to our customers.

Now, when I talk about our OnKor service I’m speaking from experience. When I demo the customer portal, I login to our own Corporate Customer Portal to show them how our own service is performing. And why shouldn’t I? We’ve got nothing to hide –we are eating our own dog food… I mean Caviar!

Telco disasters and silver linings

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:47:00 GMT

Regan Hughes: The Christchurch quake has been a disaster on the scale that people outside of the city and those unaffected by the loss of life probably can't comprehend. From an outsider's point of view, there have been small signs of silver linings come out of the disaster.

For us, the quake has seen one of our primary network sites in Christchurch condemned. As I write this, it is on a countdown to demolition.

In the days following the disaster, as our engineers worked tirelessly to re-route customers away from our primary site on Gloucester Street, I was amazed at the attitude of both our customers and our competitors.

Not only did our partners (special thanks to Alcatel-Lucent) call us to offer equipment, but we also had calls from people who don't provide us services to offer their enthusiastic support (thanks particularly to Vector Comms) to get a new site setup on the ground to complement our second core site on the Port Hills (which miraculously was OK).

Working with FX Networks and Enable to maintain customer services was all about making the necessary changes quickly, with no mention of contracts or commercials.

We found out pretty early that the Gloucester Street site was in bad shape and not accessible. Then it was a race against the clock (and the back-up diesel) to get customers to the new site.

From all around country our field techs volunteered to drive customer spares and pick-up supplies for our teams and their families down there. I can't imagine what it would be like to be on the ground experiencing those aftershocks and I admire the courage of the people who put their hand up - not to mention those on the ground who continued to turn up to work.

Behind the scenes our engineers in Auckland and Wellington were working 16 hour days to arrange the logistics and organise the complex migrations involved to ensure key customers like TV3, The Radio Network and 2Degrees stayed up and running.

Two engineers - Todd Curran and Kevin Ng, in particular - bore the brunt of a lot of this work, supporting guys such as Ian Lester who was on the ground in Christchurch navigating the cordons, the aftershocks, and risking life and limb to retrieve critical spares from our damaged spares holding.

Although I can't comprehend the loss that many people are feeling, or the stress of experiencing continual after-shocks with no sleep, it's reassuring to see that when times are tough, people pull together. I hope that people in Christchurch keep pulling together and the city comes out stronger and better because of it.

Wiki vs Sharepoint for Knowledge Management

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:48:00 GMT

Regan Hughes: We've been reviewing our knowledge management strategy recently in an attempt to work smarter and more collaboratively.

After looking at common problems we face, turning them into requirements and investigating the tools we have at our disposal we've come up with two key platforms to move forward with - Microsoft SharePoint and Wikis. This is where two 'world views' form along the lines of the system we're each most familiar with.

Background

As background, we currently run two Wikis - one is has been well used by engineers for a number of years (based on Moin Moin), the other is the Microsoft version that comes with SharePoint. The latter version is not much use out-of-the-box, but we've found a promising package called SharePoint Wiki Plus, from Kwizcom that looks to turn it into something useful for an acceptable price tag.

Why even consider MS you ask? Because having our document management (SharePoint) and informal knowledge management (Wiki) on one searchable platform sounds like a knowledge management holy grail worth aiming for.

Square Pegs and Round Holes

Anyway, back to the two groups and the discussion of which knowledge should go which system. We all agree that SharePoint is better at formal document management, with version control, metadata, etc; and that Wikis are better at collecting informal, collaborative knowledge like discussions, project notes and operational info that is subject to regular change.

So that's all fine. But when it comes to implementation, either group tends to try to do everything on the system they're most familiar with. The SharePoint evangelists are creating discussion forums and operational 'quick guides', whilst the Wiki promoters are wanting to convert key Word documents into the Wiki format. Trying to fit square pegs in round holes.

The Plan

Clearly this is going to be a major issue when we roll-out our new strategy to the wider organisation. So the plan is to have our small group of experimenters try to understand enough of each system (and each other's perspectives) to find a healthy balance that draws on the strengths of the two platforms.

Time will tell whether we can implement two seamlessly complimentary knowledge management systems, or whether we will split into two segments of knowledge worlds, with a privileged few fluent in both approaches.