P ... P ... P ... Pick up a Pirate
Intro
Paraphrasing a great advert of the 1970's, it's time to P ... P ... P ... Pick up a Pirate (P... P... P... Pick up a Penguin), well not literally. However the Pirates of the ‘golden age’ have something to teach us, even 350+ years later.
Now when anyone says pirate I must admit the imagery in my mind flashes to the likes of a cartoon Captain Hook, Captain Black Beard or One-Eyed Willy, you might think of Captain Jack, Pop-up Pirate or another seafarer inspired by the great novel Treasure Island.
However whilst the Pirates weren't the first to do any of what I'm about to describe below, they brought together several threads at once to create something new and after reading Be More Pirate I'm starting to see the appeal and how many movements since have followed similar lines (either directly or indirectly).
Ultimately unhappy with the status-quo and fed-up with being treated the way they were, the Pirates set out to create a fairer, safer and as a result more productive environment.
What Did They Do?
They fought for the rights of everyone, so that each member of their crew benefited equally, from equal pay to equal rights and with the exception of a battle or a conflict (what we now call force majeure in modern corporate tones), where the Captain or the Quartermaster took charge, everyone in the crew had a vote on how the ship was run.
To do this they formed at the edges of society, out cast by the ruling elite and villainised to try and stop others joining them.
“When market conditions don’t provide options that meet the needs of the people, pirates appear at the edges to explore alternatives and force the main stream to adopt their ideas”
Be More Pirate: Or How to Take On the World and Win by Sam Conniff Allende
To gain traction they employed some simple, however key tactics:
Rebels with a Cause Or How to Draw Strength by Standing Up to the Status Quo
Rewrite Your Rules Or How to Bend, Break and Ultimately Rewrite the Rules
Reorganise Yourself Or How to Collaborate to Achieve Scale Rather Than Growth
Redistribute Power Or How to Fight for Fairness and Make Enemies of Exploitation
How Does This Map to UK AltNets?
The UK AltNets have become a safe harbor (much like Republic of Pirates on the Caribbean Island of Nassau in the 1710's) for those looking to perturb the status quo. However, I'm not saying we must all suddenly don eye patches, start speaking with a pirate ‘accent’ and start causing mayhem. What I am saying is that the UK AltNet’s ‘jolly roger’ was hoisted for sometime now (>10yrs), and the world has been taking notice, and so with that momentum we need to understand the principals of being a pirate as to best exploit the situation.
For the telecoms sector specifically the ‘AltNet movement’ has gained traction because a small percentage of the community had become disenfranchised with the way large operators were dominating their sub-market or geographical region. And the only way to make change is from the outside/ fringes/ edge back towards the centre.
Now in building these AltNet's they have some rather hard commercial problems to solve:
how to reduce the cost-to-serve so that they stay within AltNet’s funding bracket.
how to convert RFS/ premises passed into live services (Intacts)
how do you keep the operators (NetCo/ Wholesaler/ NHO) customers/ end-subscribers (Operators/ ISPCos/ Real ISP) them sticky.
Fundamentally the high level answers to those two problems are:
Autonomic networking.
Creating a platform/ market-place to allow the AltNet's commercial network(s) to form.
either for NetCo/ Wholesaler/ NHO’s to ‘horse trade’ connectivity in any given ‘not-spot’ for the customers/ end-subscribers that their Operators/ ISPCos/ Real ISP’s are trying to serve.
to allow Operators/ ISPCos/ Real ISP’s to shop for the ‘best’ deal from any NetCo/ Wholesaler/ NHO serving their customers/ end-subscribers.
“To attract the hard-side, you need to solve a hard problem. Design a product that is sufficiently compelling to the key subset of your network”
The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects by Andrew Chen
Now there's two approaches to this:
Come for the tool, stay for the network.
Come for the network, stay for the tool.
Come for the tool, stay for the network
This is focused around Element Management Systems (EMS) and Network Management Systems (NMS) and is aimed at NetCo's who already have a ‘market place’, even if it is broken or hard to use/ on-board new ISPCo’s.
For these NetCo’s their biggest problem (pain point) is managing their current network estate, and any future acquisitions which brings new vendors into their ecosystems.
So a vendor neutral approach is the only way to tackle this at scale. OpenConfig has gone a long way to help solving this kind of problem, however the vendors in that ecosystem are usually shipping routing and switching hardware, which is fine for Access/ Leaf/ PE-nodes or Aggregation/ Spine/ P-Nodes or Core/ Super-Spine’s.
However, in an AltNet network, there’s far more Optical Line Termination (OLT) Passive Optical Network (PON) equipment, and there’s limited OpenConfig support from vendors creating that equipment.
Come for the network, stay for the tool
NetCo's who already have ‘sufficient’ tooling to provision their current services1, building the platform/ market-place ‘network’ is their problem (pain point), and having an flourishing ‘network’ of ISPCos transacting on their physical network it changes their value in the investment community, as well as speeds up any acquisitions and mergers (see Jack Welch's 90 day limit for integration of teams in a take-over or merger).
The same can be said of a vertically integrated operators wanting separate into NetCo and ISPCo(s). As by platform/ market-place, it allows the newly separated entities to continue to transact.
“ … a critical mass onto the market place”
The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects by Andrew Chen
Rebels with a Cause Or How to Draw Strength by Standing Up to the Status Quo
First it challenges the vendors monopoly on how to manage, orchestrate and ultimately run a network and moves to put the power/ control back towards the NetCo by opening the freedom to chose who to source their hardware from.
Secondly it empowers NetCos by using data driven models to stop working hard, and start working smart (if you pardon the cliche). And this drives things like lowering cost-to-serve by reducing overheads and shortening mean time to innocence (MTTI)/ mean time to resolution (MTTR) … etc., reducing/ removing truck rolls … etc.
“Give me freedom or give me the rope. For I shall not take the shackles that subjugate the poor to uphold the rich”
John Goldenwolf
Rewrite Your Rules Or How to Bend, Break and Ultimately Rewrite the Rules
The commercial rules of telecoms have been pretty static for a long time, if there's a problem or a requirement, then a vendor will find a solution which benefits the vendor the most whilst keeping the NetCo(s) just sticky enough that they can't use another vendor.
Whilst this has been waning in recent years, and with NetCos demanding standards based solutions, rather than complete vendor proprietary lock ins.
The commercial arm of vendors have sought to influence these standards to protect their investments and minimise their costs to develop to a new standard2.
Fortunately the likes of EANTC’s multi-vendor test reports go a long way toward bridging any gaps created by vendor commercial priorities.
Longterm this approach can be ‘bent’ in the operators favour by looking to create, adapt and evolve for the great good of the subscriber, whilst keeping in mind the cost-to-serve for the NetCo. After all, we're all a subscriber of some service and the costs bore by the NetCo and indirectly passed to us via the ISPCo.
The way to do this, is to break the traditional model and move it to a truly data driven/ data centric outcomes. Several entities in the market will claim this, however they're still working within the traditions of an outdated telco model.
And the pivot point of that break comes when said data is unleashed for all decisions within the policy and intent/ data engines, and it is uses to ‘enrich’ and empower the models, systems and policies, used and set the NetCo.
Social media realised this quite sometime ago, that data is ‘king’/ ‘queen’/ ‘$insert deity of choice$’, and within social media it is unfortunately used for commercial gain. However if that data centric approach is used for the greater good, in order to better the customer/end-user experience, then we can all finally benefit.
“The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules, but by people following the rules”
Banksy
Reorganise Yourself Or How to Collaborate to Achieve Scale Rather Than Growth
In the current corporate world, it's hard not to form into hierarchies and work top down, rather than feed bottom up. The business pressures to deliver case these hierarchies to form, and external commercial pressures from their customers drive them to keep within the status quo and limit development and innovation.
Organising work based on the requirements of the project or task, rather than working in silos and the project being passed from team to team like a hot potato; could be a resolution to removing lag in projects (hand-over and documentation problems), conflict between ‘teams’ and distributing knowledge and improving skills across the company.
“If it’s the hundred-year-old institution that shows no sign of moving, remember what happens to dinosaurs.”
Be More Pirate: Or How to Take On the World and Win by Sam Conniff Allende
Redistribute Power Or How to Fight for Fairness and Make Enemies of Exploitation
I realise I'm preaching to the converted when I say, “big business stifles information and causes a power vacuum for those at the top to benefit” and one of their ‘reasons’ for this (there's several more, however setting aside corruption and evil for a moment) is Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Old business theory summaries to the basics of ‘give someone a job and they will be thankful for it’, then ‘give them safety and they’ll stay', finally ‘give them a carrot to progress and they’ll be happy'.
Personally, I don't believe that theory ever held true, and if it did, it was predicated around a labour-intensive market, not a knowledge worker one.
“In light of this, I’ve given Maslow’s model an OS update to bring it into the twenty-first century. There are two essential upgrades. First off I’ve included WiFi and battery life at the base of the pyramid along with food, shelter and warmth, because, like, durr. Second, I’ve tipped the top of the triangle – the bit when we have our ‘Aha’ moment and realize there’s more to life than accumulating stuff – inwards and downwards. It is my profound observation and belief that for a new generation, self-actualization actually begins at the beginning.”
Be More Pirate: Or How to Take On the World and Win by Sam Conniff Allende
My personal mantra on this is best summarised by ‘People → Business → Finance’.
These three imperatives are linked. Excellence on the first imperative—the development and fulfillment of employees—leads to excellence on the second—loyal customers buying your company’s products and services again and again. This then leads to excellence on the third imperative, which is making money. The causal link goes like this:
People → Business → Finance
This makes profit an outcome of the first two imperatives. Jean-Marie said there is no real trade-off between these imperatives; the best companies achieve excellence on all three simultaneously. Yet imperative and outcome, he went on, should not be confused with purpose. The company’s purpose, he said, is the development and fulfillment of its people, and the attention given to the people around them.
The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism by Hubert Joly
How Can I Influence This?
Whilst this isn't a battle cry to shake everything up all at once, and there is some truth in the ‘if it ain't broke …’ cliche, however that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. Therefore, it's time to use tooling in new and usual ways, create tooling and frameworks as needed (especially where there isn't any) and say no to doing something because ‘that the way its always been done’.
Remember that you are empowered to ask questions, push boundaries, learn something new and influence the outcome. And if you're not getting the support to do this, then please try and work with your management and/ or raise this to a senior member of staff3.
As you'll see in my final thoughts below, for me, if I'm personally not helping the company to empower itself, then I'm not doing well at being useful.
“They created customisable levers within the app, giving city teams tools and controls to manage their own markets. City could create new vehicle classes with the app so that ideas like Uber Moto, Uber Helicopter and Uber Pitch for startups to pitch investors could be launched”
The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects by Andrew Chen
Final Thoughts
As you may a noticed, I'm rather passionate about Telecoms and improving the ecosystem in which I've operated my professional life. How ‘Be More Pirate’ resonated with me was to create my personal manifesto.
Manifesto
‘Be Useful’, even if that means excuse myself from meetings where I'm not contributing anything of value and/or learning.
‘Empower’ everyone to move the business forward, and make sure I am not a SPOF.
‘Be Kind’ by try and see things from other perspectives.
Recommended Reading/Book(s)
Be More Pirate: Or How to Take On the World and Win by Sam Conniff Allende
The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects by Andrew Chen
The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism by Hubert Joly
even if it is limited and still needs some ‘flintstoning’ to make it work
I will add a personal note having seen it first hand, that within vendors there are some engineers doing their work for the greater good. And I can tell you, that within their organisations they are seen as the pirates, they've just managed to be there long enough to make them selfs indispensable to the point that their business would struggle without them, and so the individual(s) have found themselves in an position to attempt to make change.
More on how to ask questions, be a contrarian, and leading up and down the chain of command in another post.