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.

I was visiting my Alma Mater this past summer and dropped in on my old business professor who, surprisingly, was still at the University.  He seemed old then, but now that my perspective has changed, he’s not so ancient anymore.  We traded niceties for a short time but soon agreed that we’d continue reminiscing while playing a quick nine holes at the local golf course.  It’s a neat little goat track with tiny greens, a meandering creek, and a local pro that is convinced the 70’s dress codes are still in full swing.  (hey, nice white penny loafers!)

Before we headed out, he took a minute to quickly call his assistant to let her know his plans.  While waiting in a comfy little antique leather chair in his tastefully cluttered office, I let my eyes wander to the paper stacks on his weathered oak desk.  By accident (wink wink), I let my curiosity out of the bag and began examining the top pages of the numerous stacks of papers before me.  Because my mind and memory is razor sharp (don’t let my wife read this), I immediately noticed a familiar test paper from when I was in his class in the early 80’s.  I spun it around so I could casually peruse it, and noticed that these questions all seemed to be surprisingly familiar.  I was shocked that he was using the same test after 25 years!  (it’s been 25 years????  50 is the new 30…right?)

A couple minutes later, he hung up the phone and asked if I was ready to go chase the little white ball. I quickly held up the test paper and queried, “25 years later and you’re not delivering a test with new questions?  Times have changed!  The complexity of owning and operating a successful business has drastically morphed.  How can you effectively educate today’s business mind with yesterday’s test questions”?  He paused, tilted his head back, glanced smoothly across the paper in my hand through his coke bottle trifocals, smirked with a heavy puff exhale from his nose, tilted his head back down and stared at me over his glasses and under a bushy grey unibrow (all the while turning back the clock to 1980ish on me), and said in his most demeaning mannerism…”yes, the questions are the same…BUT, Mr. Karlson, all the answers have changed.”  Gulp!  Humble Pie.  (tasted a little like burnt ego)  Good news was I suddenly felt 22 again!  (and for that, I never noticed it when he used the size 13 “foot wedge” on the fifth hole)

He’s absolutely right.  And fittingly, the more I think about it, this lesson resounds in a host of topics today.  Not just business, but also in our personal lives.  How we raise our children, how we communicate with our friends and family, and how we strategize the growth of our companies.  (Case in point…here I sit writing a “blog”, where just a few short years ago, I would have thought a “blog” was something gooey that was either stuck to the bottom of my shoe or stuck in the bathroom drain pipe).

It also occurred to me that our company, Freewire Broadband, is experiencing such rapid growth because of this topic.  It appears that turning to the Telco for more internet speed, increased bandwidth, and better personalized service is now yesteryear’s old answer for today’s business consumer.