Gen Y, bandwidth, and other observations from down under

November 21 2008

A year ago, part of the presentation I delivered to audiences in Australia emphasized the importance for IT to recognize that the younger generation entering the workforce would bring different requirements.  It said, specifically, a "technology savvy generation is entering the workforce".  At that time, some of the feedback I heard from attendees and partners was that this was an important and thought-provoking observation.

A year later, I couldn't have a single customer meeting in ANZ without the phrase "Gen Y" entering the discourse.  There is clear recognition throughout this region that IT must change, rapidly, to adapt to the changing requirements of their users.  Two of the key principles of the Lotus strategy map to this quite well --

  • People work in different ways
  • Participation creates value
I met with several people in the government and academic fields, and they are unwaveringly cognizant of these tenets.  I talked a lot about how we are seeing them play out at IBM and at other organizations...everything from segmenting users to provide the technology solutions and tools desired to how our IBM internal "Beehive" project rewards participation through points, merit badges, and even an occasional tangible benefit.

It feels to me like the entire region "gets it" and that this bodes well for the kinds of solutions that IBM Lotus offers.  I spent so little time talking technology details and so much time talking about capabilities, implementations, and successes.  I discovered that the technology adoption curve is accelerating...with greater than 50% of customers indicating that they are well on their way with Notes 8 rollouts.  I learned that some customers are thinking twice about following through with decisions made to try to migrate to other technologies.  And I learned about bandwidth.

My American readers will be surprised to learn that the Apple iPhone is sold by all three main wireless service providers in Australia -- Optus, Telstra, Vodafone.  Further, a huge difference from the way AT&T sells the iPhone in the US -- there is no such thing as an unlimited data plan.  Sitting in the IBM office in Wellington today, I was reminded that dreams of pervasive, fast bandwidth are a long way away, still, from significant portions of the world..  The Intercontinental Hotel there -- no slouch of an establishment -- automatically slowed my in-room Internet connection to a crawl under a "fair play" rule -- after I had only used 50 MB.

This was another incredible week in the ANZ region.  While I was running nonstop and averaged less than six hours of sleep per night, what has become an annual spot on my calendar is one of the highlights of my business year.  This trip had the added bonus of making new friends, seeing old ones, and a few nice meals.  My colleagues asked me over and over if I will return next year, and when am I bringing my family.  Both sound like great ideas (though I am not sure when we'll have the practical opportunity for the 6-year-old to be out of school/camp long enough for a trip to be worthwhile), so it is only for now that I wish the hundreds in my extended Aussie/Kiwi family a wistful g'day -- and see you again, soon.

Ed Brill Auckland International Airport Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [18]

Post a Comment

  1. 1  Michelle O’Rorke http://michelles-universe.blogspot.com | 11/21/2008 3:32:56 AM

    Next year you should try and make it here (Melbourne) at the start of November, for the Melbourne Cup - a whole city goes silly over a horse race. But it is fun.

    Not sure a lot of business gets done that week though :-)

  1. 2  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 11/21/2008 5:58:43 AM

    how our IBM internal "Beehive" project rewards participation through points, merit badges, and even an occasional tangible benefit.

    Wouldn't it be phenomenal if Beehive extended beyond the boundaries of IBM itself? As much value as IBM derives from motivating it's almost 400,000 employees through such a project, imagine if it could harness the millions of people in customers and business partners.

    Wouldn't that be incredible?

  1. 3  Rick VanGameren http://vangameren.blogspot.com | 11/21/2008 6:08:51 AM

    Somehow the last lines struck me the hardest. When I was growing up, every once in a while my dad would take me along in the truck for a day. Those were special days. And, I missed school those days.

    It could be that one of the best things for a 6 year old is to take a trip to Oz while her dad is there on business. I suppose it really depends on how much you can extend your stay so that you're a part of the family trip also.

    Have a great day!

  1. 4  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 11/21/2008 8:03:09 AM

    I agree with Nathan at least the BP community should be part of it too as in some cases we are the hands/bodies of IBM.

  1. 5  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 11/21/2008 5:03:07 PM

    @2/4 - Not sure I agree. Part of Beehive's design is to motivate and recognize contributions to IBM by IBMers. I am not sure that we need to open that up to the outside world. Further, it would put a whole different flavor on the information shared there as the "IBM Confidential" police would have to move in.

  1. 6  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 11/22/2008 5:16:10 PM

    @5 - Yeah, you're right, Ed. It's impossible that anyone outside IBM might make a contribution to IBM. And even if they did, it's not like IBM needs to recognize and motivate them.

    For that matter, why have a business partner program at all? 400,000 people working towards a common goal oughta be enough for anybody.

  1. 7  Karen Hooper  | 11/23/2008 6:32:32 AM

    @6 - Nathan, as a fellow Business Partner doesn't our recognition come from our customers and our own self-satisfaction of running our own businesses. If IBM are rewarding their staff good for them. On the side, I believe the whole Lotus community recognise the contributions that you and others make, so thanks for all you do.

  1. 8  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 11/23/2008 8:33:57 AM

    @7 - I certainly didn't intend to suggest that IBM shouldn't reward it's own staff. Far from it. I wasn't making any assertive point at all, actually. I was simply asking a question -- if the reward and recognition for IBMers via Beehive has created growth and innovation for IBM as a company, wouldn't it be even better for IBM if more growth and innovation occurred by harnessing their business partner network? And wouldn't it be better still if it could literally be anyone on the planet contributing to IBM's success -- whether as an individual or a group. At a vendor, a partner, a customer? In academia, or government, or simply open source sites?

    Does that need to take place through the exact Beehive program? Of course not.

    As far as I know, there is no model for recognition of outsider individual contribution to IBM's success by IBM -- at least for innovation. (They recognize new business contributions pretty well; though not so much on the protection of existing revenue.) The closest thing I can think of in the Lotus realm is speaker slots at Lotusphere. And while that's a nice way to acknowledge partner & customer technological contributions, I don't think it really drives anyone to create better solutions for Yellow platforms. Otherwise, the main reward for individual contributions to the platform seems to be better access to IBMers.

    I don't have any magic proposals here, either. I'm just saying that if IBM has found a way to build an social process to internally incentivize individual innovation (say that 3 times real fast...) then such a process would probably create a great deal of success outside IBM as well. And so I would encourage them to pursue such a process.

    If the perceived barrier is confidentiality, then there's a real disconnect in what I'm suggesting. There's been a lot of innovation and education coming from the Lotus community for years in the form of open source software, blog sites, forums, etc -- all with no serious confidentiality breaches. And if we look at all the success created by that community for the last 5 years, and see that it was achieved with almost no incentive by IBM -- imagine what it would be like if IBM did motivate contributors? How much more output would their be? How much more successful would the platform be if that community were intimately tied to IBMs customer support process, instead of the secret cabal that we seem to be now? What if the Yellow community, instead of being 3000-5000 people around the globe that primarily talk to each other, expanded into all 40000 Notes customers? Or into whatever further number of Lotus customers there are? Or even better, into every IBM customer in the world?

    How much value would that create for IBM's customers? It's more than I can imagine... and I can imagine quite a bit.

  1. 9  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 11/23/2008 9:06:06 AM

    Nathan, I think you're missing my point on this. I understand yours. I agree there needs to be some form of recognition and recruitment process for the extended community around Lotus. In the DB2 world, they recently implemented a "champions" program and it's something on the order of MS's MVP program. Those are all good ideas and I hope we can do something similar at Lotus.

    We also do projects like InnovationJam that are open to partners and even customers to accomplish some of what you describe (though more of what you seemed to be after in your first comments). I know that some of the bloggers in the Lotus community participated in the most recent one. The best InnovationJam input is championed to become formal projects, thus it is clear that outside voices matter.

    That != Beehive, nor do I think it should be, nor our internal blogs etc. Why are there 10,000 active blogs on the IBM intranet but fewer external bloggers? Because some people want to talk about their company's stuff without someone looking over their shoulder, even if that someone is a business partner. True on Beehive as well.

    So, point taken, there's an opportunity that isn't entirely being seized, and perhaps there are some ways it can be.

  1. 10  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 11/23/2008 9:33:07 AM

    @9 - I would be interested in hearing about specific outside contributions from InnovationJam that turned into formal projects and resulted in a direct reward/recognition for the contributor. I'm not trying to be contentious -- I honestly have no knowledge of anything that's come from that effort.

    I'm encouraged to hear that Lotus is looking at establishing something like the Champions or MVP programs. In fact, I would be eager to support and participate in such a program.

  1. 11  Colin Williams  | 11/23/2008 12:55:38 PM

    The Intercontinental Hotel is representative of the entire country is it? They must be cheap -- my home broadband is very fast and I have all the bandwidth I could legally need thank you very much.

  1. 12  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 11/23/2008 1:23:48 PM

    @11 seems like every conversation I was in, bandwidth was an issue. The IBM office's link is also pretty slow, and the customers I talked to were concerned about network traffic. I did, though, hear that some people prefer to use the internet at home because the bandwidth is better.

  1. 13  Rob  | 11/23/2008 7:45:36 PM

    @11,

    Really? With Youtube, skype, Software downloads, Linux ISO's, silly people sending me 50MB presentations through notes, Automatic patching on multiple computers, etc, etc.

    Don't forget - in my house of 4 people - we've got 7 devices all accessing that connection 2 desktops, 2 laptops, wii, xbox360, phone -- each wanting more and more bandwidth.

    Ed,

    We recently upped the bandwidth in the Melbourne Office. If I'm working really late - it's great - plenty of bandwidth... During Business Hours - my home connection is MUCH faster than sharing the office link.

    I pay $50 for 30GB/month at home.

    A large Part of the issue is this: { Link } --> Most of the Internet is stored overseas - and as you know from that 24 hour flight - that's a long way to lay a cable. (And so there aren't many cables)

    And of course - we're a country of 22 million people the size of 48 of your states (all but Alaska and Texas).. So we're okay in the city (Well - Melbourne Sydney at least) - but anywhere else has major problems...

    Basically - we have an infrastructure problem - with no easy solutions in sight.

  1. 14  Colin Williams  | 11/23/2008 8:40:49 PM

    @13; Its all relative and clearly your house hold needs are far greater than ours. With recent investment in last mile fibre in our area, I think we measure up quite well (except on price -- but don't we always moan about price?). NZ is hardly the backwater that Ed implied.

    I rarely use 50% of my allocated data cap (yes yes, there is a cap) and in terms of speed, I'm more than satisfied. But at work, things ARE a different story. Thats more to do with our own infrastructure (and price point we buy our internet at) than the ISPs/overall infrastructure fault.

  1. 15  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 11/23/2008 8:55:37 PM

    @14 Colin, don't get to fixated on my making an example out of the Intercontinental or NZ. The point I was making was more to contrast the US - where you can't buy an iPhone from AT&T *unless* you buy an unlimited data plan, and the same is true for my cable modem/DSL options. The point-of-view is different, because even with good connections, your carriers meter them in such a way that it doesn't always appear that way. I have been in some hotels where you pay less for lower bandwidth, but never been forced down because of usage.

  1. 16  Colin  | 11/23/2008 10:06:11 PM

    All good Ed :) FWIW, I think the hotel was just being greedy (or too careful with bandwidth protection). Based on my experience, I'd be extremely surprised if the way they bill/meter you, bares any reflection to how they are in turn billed by their ISP.

  1. 17  Glen http://thesalmonfarm.org | 11/24/2008 1:11:41 PM

    I am regularly reminded how many "USA (and sometimes EU) technology providers" think bandwidth is everywhere. I visit web sites that have a home page in excess of 1MB, get emails that are multiple megabytes, etc. When they create content and build applications, developers must recognize not everyone has FiOS, broadband, DSL, or even 3G throughput; latency can easily go past 5+ seconds; chatty applications die on satellite links; there are *other apps* trying to get a drink from the tiny pipe. Separate but interesting is the ramifications of bandwidth limiters, whether they be controlled by the supplier or the consumer. "Conservation should be an attribute of more than just electricity consumption". Software and application providers need to *not* be surprised by bandwidth concerns and simply consider it part of good practice and performance testing.

  1. 18  Brett H  | 11/25/2008 6:55:27 PM

    Yes, unfortunately, from direct experience and conversations with fellow Kiwi's the telco in NZ has a stranglehold on bandwidth. It's there, it's available, it's modern, but the telco's are so entrenched that they desperately hold on to their monopoly, and ability to "screw" the customer while "saying" that they are providing great service and greate deals. When in fact they charge extorsion-level prices for bandwidth use, so high in fact that even major corporate hotel chains refuse to pay it, so they don't offer the sefvice to their customers. The rest of the developed world "get's" it, yet they just don't in New Zealand... pity.