If anyone knows me, they know that I’m a big NBA fan and, growing up in SE Idaho, have always followed Utah Basketball.  The Utah Stars in the late 60’s and early 70’s when the ABA was around, and then the Jazz when Larry Miller brought them to Utah from New Orleans.  Today was a sad day for those of us that follow the Jazz as Jerry Sloan unexpectedly resigned.  Truly an end of an era!

Never really being much of a statistician and running myself goopy with mind numbing numbers, I have; nonetheless, always admired Jerry.  In fact, recently I filled out a questionnaire for the Portland Business Journal in which one of the questions was “who would be someone you’d like to meet?”.  My answer was, of course, Jerry Sloan.  His accomplishments were many and those that compile and crunch numbers for nominations to the NBA Hall of Fame could go on and on and get all gooey about why he meant so much to the NBA and the Utah Jazz.  Never a doubt about the records, but for this guy there is more to Jerry that inspired me that goes well beyond the numbers.

Jerry Sloan never really made a big deal of any type of recognition, and questioned why he was getting notoriety when he would say…”I’m just the coach, the players are the stars….not me”.    He was respected by his owner, god rest Larry Miller’s soul, and I remember Larry telling the press in a post game conference after a horrific loss….”I’ll fire 15 players before I ever fire my 1 coach”.  In the press conference where he announced his retirement, a member of the press asked if he regretted never winning a championship.  His answer was vintage jerry Sloan…he said “no…those players left it all on the court so I have no regrets”.

It would be safe to say that I’ve always tried to put a little bit of Jerry Sloan’s teachings and ethics into some of my work.  Even having never met him (I would probably be so nervous I wouldn’t be able to speak anyway), his demeanor and comments tell me that what matters most every day is Effort and Purpose.  Come to work, put in the effort, have purpose in all I do, and leave it all at the office.  Sounds like an excellent recipe for a “no regrets” kind of life.  I can only hope to instill a piece of this in the people around me while living Jerry’s example.

Doesn’t anyone use the term Disaster Recovery anymore?  Apparently, the term has morphed over years.  Disaster Recovery, as I remember, was exponentially popular in the late 90’s, spurred by the fear of the Y2K bug.  Since then, I’ve heard various different terms that, under the covers, really mean the same thing. ie….

Business Continuity

Network Resilience

Business Process Contingency Plan

Business Continuance

Business Recovery Objectives

Recovery Objective Planning

Continuity Management

Contingency Planning

(Now I’m confused…Can’t we just call a Potato a Spud?)

So..where and why all these different ways to say “Back up Plan”?

Is it possible that salesmen, reeking with commission breath, are constantly coining alternate terms to appear smarter than their competitor?  Is it collegiate posturing?  Is it corporate bantering?  Is it all meant to create confusion?  Do we need to get them all at the table to then hash out, in bloody detail, the tiny differences?  Or can we simply accept that if and when something goes wrong, and we have a Disaster Recovery Plan…“we’re ready”?

One of the guys on our team stopped in my office and said, “I had a marketing vision last night”.  (Long story short)..It was a mental image of a mouse sky diver.  The mouse pulled his main chute and it didn’t open.  The mouse was horrified!  He quickly pulled his back-up cord and the back-up chute puffed open and the mouse safely floated down.  The back-up chute had the Freewire Broadband name on it!  “What I don’t completely understand” he said,”if the internet is truly mission critical to most businesses…why is it that most companies we talk don’t to have a backup circuit or alternate path to the internet?”  I replied….great idea…but would would we call it?

A definition of “Value” is as an amount expressed in money or another medium that is thought to be a “fair exchange” for something.

The piece of this definition that rings loudest is “fair exchange”.

Is it a fair exchange, in the service industry, to not be cognizant of the value of each other’s time?  Even if there is a small difference in price, isn’t “time” the trump card?  Don’t we measure efficiency, productivity, reliability, speed, versatility, ease of use, and service by the pending expenditure of valuable time?

At what point do recipients of the service draw the line between a “fair exchange” and a “waste of valuable time”?

In telecom, we write SLA’s (service level agreements) that hold us accountable to our customers’ “time” during the term of the contract.  And this is the norm for the industry for services delivered under contract.  Outside of contract or “off contract” it is often defined as “best effort”, and is not bound to a SLA.  This is usually discussed in the fine print right below the bolded price your eyes are directed to.  However, if the SLA is equal or relatively close between competitive service providers, then how is the “value” of “time” measured?

Is it safe to say…..

In the heat of the moment, when the service is failing, or interrupted, or not meeting the SLA, when the boss is breathing down your neck, when stress is at its peak, when your connection to the outside world is compromised and money is being lost, when suddenly “time” is everything…..then….

Isn’t how soon you speak to a live person at your service provider with the answers to your questions a measurable “value” of “time”?  Why isn’t that in the SLA?

Isn’t it safe to assume then, that we as service providers rarely do anything extraordinary to win customers, rather it is our competitors that do something wrong to lose them?

We believe….

What we do that is extraordinary is ultimately measured by how we retain satisfied customers.  And yes….Freewire Broadband is 24/7/365 live human interaction.

Fortunately, as our small company has grown over the past several years, we have been, as of late, busy with the activities of exploring acquisitions of some of our smaller competitors.

It has become increasingly interesting to see how spread out and across the board some of these firms are when it comes to their revenue statements.  As if they are simply interested in chasing whatever dollars they can.  Study American business history and you will learn this a double-edged sword.  On one side, they are grabbing quick revenue opportunities, but on the other, they are spreading their support resources entirely too thin.  The pitfalls are a lack of consumer confidence and constant struggles in maintaining a cohesive support structure. Anyone that has ever called the phone company during an outage would agree.

Wouldn’t these businesses rather be a master of one trade than a jack of all trades and a master of none?

With that thought in mind, we look at our commerce industry as a whole, and take note of some examples of highly successful business models that are masters of their trade. Jiffy Lube does lubes.  The Mac store sells Macs.  Napa Auto Parts sells auto parts. Les Schwab is known for tires. I don’t ever roll into a Mr. Brake and wonder if they know how to put new pads on my brakes. I find it silly to think that anyone on the Geek Squad wouldn’t know how to work on a computer, and I’m confident that the guy at Les Schwab knows how to fix a flat. Yes, Wal-Mart has it all (dang near), but I’m not expecting to roll into a Wal-Mart and find a guy that can steer me to the right water heater or advise me on my healthcare.

If businesses were as sensitive to this as we are for our personal lives, then why would they ever turn to the phone company for all their telecom needs?

Freewire is built on this one simple concept.  To be exceedingly good at fixed wireless.  We excel at using our  fixed wireless network (yes we own our entire network) to deliver Internet and private connectivity for business class customers.  Top to bottom, from sales to support, every member of our team is exceedingly good at this 1 thing.  Freewire Broadband is fixed wireless for business done right.

Certainly any firm we acquire will be rapidly converted to this concept.

Have you been faced with the challenge of trying to increase the speed and capacity of your network while trying to control its cost? New Seasons Market was also faced with this challenge.  Their solution was turning to Freewire Broadband to increase their network’s bandwidth while decreasing their IT budget.  New Seasons thoughts on the Freewire experience: “We have worked with few other providers that demonstrate the integrity, expertise, value, flexibility, responsiveness and customer service that Freewire provides.”

Clickto read the full New Season’s Markets story.

Recently, the core team at Freewire Broadband was able to sit and chat (for the 4th time) at one of the roundtable meetings of the OICA – Oregon Independent Colleges Association.  OICA is a highly diverse and tightly knit group that combines the strength of the group to better serve their citizens.  This group we met with was comprised of the CIO and IT Managers for their respective colleges.  A real down and dirty, hold no punches, get to the point, leave the fuzzy stuff behind, if you’re hiding something we will find it, type of group.  My favorite!

Where the topic of the conversation was ours to set, we left the agenda open to discuss “wireless” in general.  One observation that I brought back with me from that meeting was the noticeable improvement in their overall knowledge of “wireless”, and the increase in demands for greater bandwidth campus wide.

Comparing the topics of conversation and the diversity of questions from 4 years ago was nearly night and day.  Where we were talking about the possibilities of wireless then, we were discussing usages and managing their wireless network traffic today.  Where we were discussing the comparison of Freewire to their current T1 provider then, we were discussing adding 100Mb and Gigabit wireless Point to Point connections today.  Where we were scratching the surface of wireless as a viable technology then, we were digging into the details of wireless performance and what new technologies are around the corner today.

As I listen to our sales staff speaking to customers and prospective customers on the phone, the same lesson rings true.  Largely our market is no longer wondering if wireless, but how wireless.