Speech is the most popular interface known to man. Long before the written word, man has used talk to influence and alter the world around him. Young children rapidly learn it, entertainers do it to amuse, diplomats prefer it to war. People talk to other people, to animals, to plants, to themselves and to God. The main reason humans invented written symbols and language is to have permanent records. Fragments of ancient texts that have survived to the present day state laws and business accounts as often as not. Like the QWERTY keyboard, sometimes objects can become so familiar that we forget they were originally designed to work around technical and physical limitations. If we could talk to machines, then we would. In fact, we often do talk to machines – we just do not expect them to respond. Even the most forward-thinking can forget this; Steve Jobs announced that “voice is the killer app” before showing off his new phone with a touchscreen. He was half-right. Voice is the killer app, but not just because people want to talk to each other. Phones are designed to be talked through. It would be just as natural to design phones to be talked to.

Speech interfaces are not new. Back in 2000, UK cellco Orange acquired the Wildfire Communications, and its voice recognition service, for US$142m. That deal was small compared to Nortel’s purchase of Periphonics for US$436m the previous year. But in 2005, Orange terminated their Wildfire personal assistant service due to declining numbers of users. As a consequence, Orange had to manage the uproar from a legion of visually impaired users who relied on Wildfire to make their calls. Wildfire would have been more popular, and would still exist today, if it had worked well for the general public. Talking is great because it is a fast and effective form of communication. You would not email the fire station if your house was burning down. But talking is frustrating and time-consuming if the person you talk to has difficulty understanding what is being said. The same is true of voice recognition software. Misunderstanding only a few percent of the words said may seem like a reasonable level of performance, unless you are the person not being understood. When Orange pulled the plug on Wildfire, they had to meet their obligations to disabled users by voice recognition software on the handsets themselves. This has one obvious advantage; the quality of the line is not a factor in whether the speaker is understood. The drawback of voice recognition software on the handset is that handsets lack the processing power to match the sophistication of software run on dedicated servers. So an approach based on thin clients, where a universal voice recognition service is accessed over a network, continues to be the most popular way to deliver this functionality. It is especially popular when provided as a common front end to a service like booking tickets or directory enquiries. In the US, the 1-800-FREE411 and 1-800-GOOG411 directory services are a good example of the latter. The reason for that, though, has more to do with eliminating the cost of paying call centre staff to answer calls than it has to do with providing an enhanced service to customers.

The breakthrough for speech recognition is perhaps just around the corner. Necessity is the mother of invention. Handset manufacturers have been riding the crest of a wave over the last few years, always able to come up with new additions to their devices in order to generate replacement sales. One of the interesting things about the iPhone, though, is that it shows the limit of the new ideas. Better screens, in-built cameras, music, touchscreens… but what comes next? Speech-driven interfaces are an obvious next step. The poor history of Apple’s own speech recognition software shows that the technical challenge is enormous, but they have reason to keep on investing in research, and not just because of the social obligations to provide communications to the disabled. If they do not, they will open up an opportunity for the networks to provide a valuable feature to their customers. Why store phone numbers on your device, if you could just call your network and then tell them, through a spoken command, to put you through to the person you name? Names pose an enormous challenge because, unlike commands, cultural and language differences cause many more variations in pronunciation. But after video, speech is the last great frontier for mobile communications. Whoever can get first-mover advantage in providing an effective voice interface to the most universal of demands – making calls, programming home devices like PVRs, and internet search – will reap the rewards.

Posted by Eric on November 27, 2007 09:32 PM | Permalink

Arun Sarin announced today that Vodafone will never lock a handset again... okay, I made that up. But Vodafone is playing a dangerous game at the moment, which may lead to unpredictable and undesirable consequences for Vodafone and others. Vodafone Germany is using the law to mess with rivals T-Mobile and prevent them from selling iPhones locked exclusively to their network. The laws on locking handsets vary from country to country. In some, it is common practice. In others, there are legal obstacles. Using German law and precedent may dent T-Mobile's immediate attempts to steal Vodafone's customers with the seemingly irresistible iPhone, but at what ultimate cost?

Pandora's box held "burdensome toil and sickness that brings death to men". The contents were scattered, spreading a myriad of pains. Vodafone Germany may benefit if iPhones are unlocked, but adopting the moral high ground in one country only begs the question of whether they want to adopt the same policy everywhere. For a start, the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding, has demonstrated she is a forceful politician with a strong populist streak. She may well be able to turn legal spats in Germany and France into a Pan-European consumer right that no handsets are sold locked, and that contracts do not tie-in customers for excessive periods or with significant penalties for early termination. There have also been moves to introduce a cellphone "bill of rights" in the USA. However, it is Europe usually takes the lead in opening up telecoms markets and protecting consumer interests. The rest of the world may not follow immediately, but it often does follow. Number portability is a good example. Indian GSM customers are set to benefit from the similar portability to that enjoyed in Europe for several years, but this has also opened up debate about unlocking of handsets. If the world does follow a European trend away from unlocking, Vodafone may regret losing the option to lock customers to their network. As Vodafone has greater influence over the handset manufacturers than its rivals, by virtue of its size and global reach, that means they are giving up a bigger advantage than most.

Perhaps I am wrong to suggest that Vodafone is thinking just in the short term. They may also be thinking in the long term too. Locking handsets may be an advantage, but not if somebody comes along with a very very desirable handset. A handset manufacturer could start using their market dominance to call the shots with operators desperate to appease them. Does that remind you of anyone? Which brings us nicely back to Apple and the iPhone. Previously I blogged that Apple may well use the iPhone and the iTunes portal as a springboard to become a virtual service provider. This would cement the power of Apple's brand, with control over the relationship with their customers, and leaving most customers blissfully unaware of who runs the network they are using. Turning networks into a brandless commodity would further undermine their power to earn margins, and hand it over to the companies like Apple that do have brand recognition. But if there is no handset locking anywhere, then there would be little reason to buy an iPhone on the Apple Virtual Network, as opposed to any other. So legally challenging handset locking may help liberate markets just at the right time to undermine the attempts of manufacturers to enter them. We shall have to see who suffers most if Pandora's box - or handset - is unlocked.

Posted by Eric on November 25, 2007 09:50 PM | Permalink

Regrettably, I do not understand the Spanish language. But I have some good friends who do. The TMF has kindly translated my English article on Assuring Wholesale Services in Latin America into Spanish: Asegurando precios al por mayor e ingresos en América Latina. The title certainly sounds better in Spanish. The article I wrote was pretty good (in my own humble opinion) but maybe they managed to improve the rest of it too ;)

Posted by Eric on November 22, 2007 09:08 PM | Permalink

Will the world eventually turn on the new age internet user-generated social networking giants that have proven to be minnows when it comes to making money? I hope so. You know the companies I mean. They all exhibit the following characteristics.

• Their names are all created by welding two or more very common words together. This means they can trademark their name and people will find it easy to remember the URL.
• Lots of people visit their websites when they have nothing better to do. That means they are most popular with young affluent people who are a bit lonely.
• One aspect of the business model is to be an empty vessel, filled up by other people's content. This works because people who create content - both good and bad - just want an opportunity to reach as big an audience as possible. Some of the content donators want to make money. Some want to be famous. Others have nothing better to do.
• Another aspect of the business model is that the people who created the site intend to make a lot of money by selling it.
• The final aspect of the business model is that lots of money can be made by exploiting all those young affluent lonely people that hit the site on a regular basis. The only problem with the final aspect of the business model is that nobody has worked out how to actually do that part yet.

My bet is that the only people who can expect to make money from the user-generated internet craze are the people who create the websites and then sell out when the market high. The market will not always be high, of course. At some point expect a few thousand Harvard drop-outs to run back home to their rich parents crying like babies because their internet start-ups went bust and never found a buyer.

Is sentiment already turning on the Weld-Words of the Web? Recent changes to Facebook designed to increase revenues were largely derided by both public and press, with the sole exclusion of a strange quarter of the business press that seems to think its job is to uncritically hype any business model that gets hyped plenty already. Now YouTube is getting strong criticism. Take a look at this article in the Financial Times. Here is an excerpt:

“The lack of monetisation on YouTube today is astounding,” said Dennis Miller of venture capital firm Spark Capital.

There is only one thing wrong with Mr. Miller's comment. He should have said "The lack of monetisation on YouTube today is utterly predictable. Let us quickly go over the business model again. Content people give away for free? Check. Lots of hits from people that are just killing time for free? Check. Obvious ways to make money? erm, no, not really. Because if people have to pay for something that is essentially being given away for free, or have to suffer being directed towards making lots of payments (i.e. advertising) to get to it, then what will they do? They will stop hitting the site completely, or go to another which is free and has less intrusive advertising. The upside of WeldWordWeb companies - that they can quickly build interest at minimal financial outlay - is also their downside. Twenty-something millionaires are created by markets that lack barriers to entry. The absence of barriers to entry means anybody can set up a rival website and fragment the market. The interest of thousands of people can be switched off - or switched to an alternate site - as easily as it is switched on. Content is not a source of competitive differentiation. Because content is gifted for free, it can be just as easily gifted to rival sites too. So the only advantage of the sites with first-mover advantage is that, well, they moved first. They are hoping that users will form and keep the habit of using their site, quite like the way Google won the battle of the internet search engines. But habit is not a very strong bond between website and reader. It will not carry the extra load of taking much money from readers. The bond between website and reader is about as strong as the bond used to join two words together.

Posted by Eric on November 19, 2007 03:18 PM | Permalink

According to my web stats, the popularity of this blog keeps growing - hoorah! But a funny thing is starting to happen. People keep talking to me about it. You know, old fashioned talk, sometimes over the phone, sometimes in person. It seems some people prefer old-fashioned talk to fancy new ways of communicating. How strange that a blog would provoke conversation. Even more strangely, it seems people talk about my blog without reading it. So I get people asking me things like "I hear you wrote something outrageous about [insert name of business here], what was it? Erm, well, if I wanted to stand on a soapbox and rant I would spend my Sundays down Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. I do not. That is why I write the blog instead. And if people do not want to read it, well, they are in the majority, but it is pretty irritating to have someone call you because somebody else said I had written something that might be a bit - how shall I say it? - uncompromising. So, to clarify things, here are a few principles I abide by and encourage you all to share:

• I write what I think. If it means I make less money or upset some people, so be it.
• If you do not like what I think and find it upsetting, feel free to stop reading, refuse to do business with me, ignore me at parties and so on.
• I never publish information I receive privately or in confidence, so all I ever blog about is what is already in the public domain and my opinions.
• I do not pick on anybody in particular. Everybody is fair game. Complaining about rough treatment is pointless because nobody gets treated better than anyone else.
• I cannot abide hypocrites. A good example would be people who moan an awful lot about how much I moan. I try to be fair to everyone but if anyone is going to get a rough ride, it will be hypocrites.
• What I write is published in public for everyone to see. If you want to know what I wrote, read it. If you want to know why I wrote it, read it. It is all very self-explanatory. There is no need for further explanation. So there is no point calling me and asking what I wrote and why I wrote it.

Now, you may have noticed that the title of this piece was "do not read on..." But you did! So you have been warned at least twice now. Most of the time I get grumpy and blog about revenue assurance and vendors and consultants and telcos in general and other stuff because they/it/we are rubbish. (I did warn you.) When I am not grumpy about things being rubbish, I get grumpy because I hear people talking about how great everything is supposed to be. Well, not everything is great. I feel pretty entitled to try to balance things by pointing that out. So this is not a "feel good" blog. But it makes me feel good to do it. It may make you feel a bit better when you read it. I suggest you come back for more if you feel the same way as I do. Otherwise, my advice is... well I think you probably get the idea by now ;)

Posted by Eric on November 18, 2007 02:28 PM | Permalink

There was a time before revenue assurance. I had almost forgotten what life was like back then. Until I stumbled across this Filipino's blog. I do not comprehend the parts written in Tagalog, but I vaguely remember having the same sensation of a calm before a storm...

Posted by Eric on November 15, 2007 10:18 AM | Permalink

Imagine the year 2029. The four most powerful people in the world sit down to settle their differences over a cup of tea. They are:

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, richest man on the planet, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2021 and 2024, father of the US President;

Hu Wenwei, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party;

Walt Disney 2.0, a clone of Walt Disney who recently staged a hostile takeover of the Walt Disney Company with help from KKR; and

Bono, a tired boring old rock star who refuses to shut up and die, former UN Secretary General and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2014.

[The four men sit in deep red leather armchairs around a marble coffee table. They are on the 45th floor, penthouse suite of Zuckerberg Towers, on the National Mall, Washington DC. There are splendid views of the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial to either side.]

Hu (gently placing his tea cup down): Mr. Zuckerberg, I would like to discuss this matter of the threatened pre-emptive nuclear strike unless China UniNetTeleMobileCom increases its spend on Facebook advertising.

Zuckerberg: Well?

Hu: Well, we think asking China UniNetTeleMobileCom to spend four trillion dollars a year on advertising is a bit high. The company only made three dollars and fourteen cents from revenue share with Facebook last year.

Zuckerberg: (throws tea cup at Hu's head, narrowly missing) Give me the money, BITCH! That money is mine!

Disney: Calm down, Zuckerberg. Wenwei has a point. Your company may have a market valuation equal to 80% of the GDP of the whole planet, but what does it actually do?

Zuckerberg: Disney, you are a spineless liberal pinko bitch, just like Disney 1.0. How dare you ask a question like that. Disney would be nothing without Facebook. Without Facebook nobody would have heard of your animated classics like Dumbo and the one with the dwarf and the seven Cinderellas. NOBODY!!!

Disney: I think you are exaggerating a little. So you know everything there is to know about everybody on the planet. Who doesn't? I do. Wenwei does. Bono does. My hairdresser does. Even Microsoft does, despite their problems with managing data. Everybody knows everything there is to know about everybody else now.

Bono: (thick Irish accent) I remember a time when a humble old Oirish rock star, Nobel laureate and peace campaigner like myself could enjoy a little privacy. But not any more. Now everyone knows what pants you put on in the morning thanks to Facebook PantsNotification^TM. And it might have helped if somebody had listened to those people who warned about inadequate data security. But did ya?

Zuckerberg: Shut up, bitch. You are just jealous 'cos I have more Facebook friends than you do. You might have done better if you did not have such a stupid name.

Bono: You have more Facebook friends then there are people in the world. That means nothing. All Walter and I are trying to say is that you do nuttin' to help humble entertainers like us to reach out to a new audience.

Zuckerberg: F@*K YOU! I dare you to take off those sunglasses and look me in the eye when you say that. Everybody on Facebook is now automatically pre-selected to receive only genuine tailored advertising recommendations from their real friends using a complicated algorithm that is a total secret.

Disney: Horsesh*t. Everybody gets the same three advertising recommendations every day. Sprite, Fox, and some obscure consulting firm called ZiT that wrote a book called "The Handbook On How To Become A Famous Expert By Writing Handbooks." Your friend-to-friend recommendations are not tailored at all. No more tailored then any other crude promotional mechanism. They all get co-opted by one or other cynical business opportunist. All Bono and I are saying is, why don't you make the system fairer? By guaranteeing Bono and Disney products get the top recommendations, oh, say, half of the time?

Zuckerberg: That would be unethical, bitch. You do not pay as well as Sprite, and ZiT promised to make me Chair of their Special Interests Group if I endorsed them. I owe it to my shareholders to ensure that Facebook users only get genuine recommendations from their good friends who pay the most to advertise.

Hu: I have never heard such hypocrisy. Mr. Bono, you sing rubbish songs and wear sunglasses. Mr. Disney, you make rubbish movies about singing lions. And Mr. Zuckerberg, you advertise rubbish songs and rubbish movies and rubbish fizzy sugar water on your rubbish network where now everybody is friends with everybody else so what does it matter who thinks what? In my glorious country, we still make real things. Like cars and children's toys and lead paint and sugar fizzy water and fashionable sunglasses and Mr. Bono's pants. Real things. Yet the people who make real things, the people who work in the fields, the people who drive our buses and dig our coal and run our civilian nuclear power stations and dig our uranium and build our glorious flood barriers and plant the trees for our carbon neutral offsetting, these people become poorer and poorer. Why don't you just give away your worthless entertainment for free? Then you might bring some joy into the poor worker's heart.

Disney: We did give it away for free. It was the only way to counter Chinese piracy.

Bono: Comrades, comrades, let's stop bickering. We did not become the four most powerful people in the world by bickering and ruthlessly exploiting each other. We did it through hard work and ruthlessly exploiting everyone else. How about this for a new deal. Zuckerberg creates a few trillion new phoney "friends" on Facebook, and adds them all to some of my favorite groups like "Bono should be made a saint" and "Chinese Communist Party for Nobel Peace Prize in 2030" and maybe even one called "Peter Gabriel ain't so bad, give him another award too." Then they can all recommend stuff that helps to liberate and inspire people, like Toy Story 2 and the next U2 tour, which will be called "U Tour-ific" and will be sponsored by U-Tube (geddit?). We then stream the films and the live concerts into millions of homes of poor workers via the network of China NetUniTeleMobileSatCom so long as they pay a tiny subscription of half their disposable income. Every time somebody watches one of our shows, all their Facebook friends will have their tv shows interrupted to say they should be watching our tv shows instead. Then we split the money between us. What d'ya say guys, do we have a deal?

Hu: Deal.

Disney: Deal.

Zuckerberg: Deal... so long as we split the revenues fair. I take 75%, bitch.

=========

Yup, I think you can guess I am not a Facebook fan. I mean, how much advertising spend can there be in the world that Facebook is supposedly worth US$15 billion? How much can one friend whore and pimp products to another friend that it becomes worth the amounts being paid? And why would advertisers believe that more and more advertising will be more and more effective, instead of just making customers more and more cynical? But I answered my own question. They believe it because it pays them to believe it. If you want to be very rich very quickly, create the next Facebook. Do not waste your time trying to find a cure for cancer or designing a better pair of shoes. All these crazy valuations, based on crazy expectations of being able to exploit millions of people, smell of pyramid schemes and market bubbles. People believe the hype because they want to believe the hype. If Zuckerberg said that Facebook was overvalued, he would lose a lot of money overnight. So instead he, like so many others, goes along with the irrational belief that new gimmicks for selling products can be worth more than the products being sold. People do not want to buy something just because their "friends" bought it, despite Facebook's latest attempt to turn the hype into revenues. How exciting is a world where everybody is the same? Hopefully, it will not work. You will never be able to tell if recommendations are genuine or somehow paid for. There used to be a children's TV show in the UK called "Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead?". So, inspired by their noble and contrarian example, I have just set up a new Facebook group called "Why Don't You Just Logout Facebook & Go & Do Something Less Boring Instead?" (Because Facebook is rubbish I had to shave a few characters here and there to get a title that fits).

Because Facebook is rubbish, if anyone posts a discussion topic to the new "Why Don't You" group, I will not be notified and hence will need to check it regularly. Which will be particularly annoying as it means I will end up spending more time on Facebook. Except I will soon get bored of that and will just stop checking it completely. Which I guess is the very point I am making ;)

Posted by Eric on November 10, 2007 10:51 AM | Permalink

I have blogged previously about how some revenue assurance people may not know what the word "revenue" means. Recent events suggest that some do not know what the word "assurance" means either. According to my thesaurus, the word "assurance" is associated with the following:

belief, credence, conviction, confidence, reliance, trust, promise, commitment, word of honor, vow, profession, pledge, security, covenant, bond.

Think about that whilst you read this genuine email thread. Names have been blanked out to protect both the innocent and guilty.

From: XYZ@XYZ [mailto:XYZ@XYZ]

Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 3:10 PM

To: ABC ABC

Subject: XX Training Event - XXXXX Scholarship

Dear ABC,

Because of your invaluable efforts and contributions to the XXXXX, XXXXX would like to offer you a free pass to attend the Revenue Assurance Training event in XX in XX.

This 8-day training opportunity is a value of US$ X,XXX , but is completely free for you. (Transportation, hotel, meals, etc is your responsibility.)

....

We hope you will be able to accept this great offer and we look forward to meeting you in person in XX.

With Best Regards

XYZ
--------------------------------------
From: ABC ABC
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2007 4:30 AM
To: xxxxxxxxxx@subexazure.com; xxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com; xxxxxxxx@xaltedinc.com; xxxxxxxx@wedoconsulting.com
Subject: FW: XX Training Event - XXXXX Scholarship

Please I require sponsorship (Transportation, hotel, meals, etc) to enable me participate in this programme. Can your company offer me help?

Best Regards

ABC
-------------------------------------------
From: ABC ABC [mailto:ABC@ABC]
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2007 10:12 AM
To: xxxxxx@wedoconsulting.com; xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx; xxxxxx@xaltedinc.com; xxxxxxx@cvidya.com; xxxxxxx; xxxxxx@connectivasystems.com; xxxxxxxx
Cc: xxxxxxxx@subexazure.com

Subject: FW: XX Training Event - XXXXX Scholarship

Dear All,

Please be informed that XXXXX is providing me with Hotel Accommodation without meals. What are left are Air and Internal transportation and meals.

Can your company give me support?

Regards

ABC
---------------------------------------------
From: XYZ@XYZ [mailto:XYZ@XYZ]
Sent: 05 November 2007 08:12 PM
To: xxxxx@connectivasystems.com; xxxxxx@wedoconsulting.com; xxxxxxx@hotmail.com; xxxxxx@xaltedinc.com; xxxxxx@cvidya.com; xxxxxx@connectivasystems.com; xxxxxxx@subexazure.com; xxxxxx@wedoconsulting.com
Cc: xxxxxx@xxxxxxx
Subject: XXXXX

Respected colleagues in the Revenue Assurance Community;

It has come to our attention that you were solicited for support for a XXXXX activity (see emails below).

Please be advised that this solicitation was unauthorized and inappropriate.

We apologize for this inconvenience and we hope to be working with you in the future.

XYZ

We might as well be honest that this kind of thing goes on all the time. More than one revenue assurance professional has had a free holiday courtesy of a friendly vendor. It can be hard to tell the difference between someone who gets flown around the world because they like a product and someone who likes a product because they get flown around the world. But it is not hard to tell what is going on here. ABC is a telco employee trying to solicit benefits from vendors. Clearly ABC does not care which vendor - so long as the expense account is large and loose. People like ABC do not deserve to be called professionals. The behavior of people like ABC undermines the reputations of all the honest, trustworthy revenue assurance professionals in the world. It can be hard for vendors to speak out against people like ABC; they live in a competitive world. But somebody needs to speak out against it. The telco that employs ABC should dismiss him. Professionals should refuse to work with him. There is only way to raise the standard for the revenue assurance profession: by expelling anyone who falls below that standard.

The mistake of ABC was to be so brazen in seeking kick-backs from vendors. Now many people will know ABC to be a disreputable person. The only remaining question is how colleagues and peers value their own reputations. Integrity and trust are the hallmarks of a professional. Reputations are built through actions and choices, not through empty words. The choice confronting all revenue assurance professionals is clear: shun this kind of behavior, or be tainted by it. Now is a time to decide.

Posted by Eric on November 7, 2007 02:50 PM | Permalink

It is a pretty standard idea in accounting that businesses should keep records of all their sales. That way, if somebody complains that they were invoiced for something they did not want, did not order, or did not receive, the records should clarify who is right and who is wrong. One of the eccentricities of telcos is that they are sometimes very poor at keeping such records. The upshot is that more than one customer has used this to exploit telcos who cannot justify their invoices, and more than one business has used this to try to mis-sell services to customers. When regulators get involved, they tend to worry more about mis-selling than the dishonesty of a small proportion of customers. For this reason, efficient and comprehensive record keeping is vital for telcos. It enables them to substantiate their invoices, rigorously chase payment, and not be distracted by false accusations of mis-selling or over-billing. At the same time, it helps them with having good relations with regulators. The easier it is for a regulator to check that invoices are supported by genuine records of sales, the less likely they will be to press the telco to appease complaining customers. This has been demonstrated once again in India, where the regulator, TRAI, has demanded that Idea Cellular refunds charges to customers. Idea was unable to show any records that the customers had consented to purchase the services, leaving TRAI with little option but to direct Idea to refund any charges that were disputed by customers. As the news spreads, Idea is likely to find itself dealing with an increasing number of complainants demanding their money back. They will have no option but to concede the complaint, even if the complaint is bogus and the customer is taking advantage of the TRAI ruling. That is the risk telcos take whenever they keep inadequate records.

Posted by Eric on November 3, 2007 12:12 PM | Permalink

Over the last two weeks I have been talking with a very charming lady responsible for pulling together the agenda of one of the biggest conferences dedicated to revenue assurance. To protect her, I will not tell her name or who she works for. During our conversations she admitted something that few people wish to admit, especially people who make money from arranging conferences. There are not many interesting new presentations or topics. As each year goes by, revenue assurance becomes more and more moribund in discussing the same old topics. And even the ingenious strategems used to make the same dull old sales pitches seem new and fresh are starting to get a familiar feel. Given that the world of revenue assurance is populated by young-ish people with some awareness of technology and often some awareness of the current hip trends on the internet, it is not surprising that one of the most common tactics to revive old presentations is the mash-up. You take one old presentation topic (say, Business Intelligence for revenue assurance) and mash it up with another (say, next generation services). Voila! New presentation! But not really :( Mostly the new presentation is just the same as the old presentations, but with half of one and half of the other. You may be thinking I am a cynical bugger and that people really are trying to say something new. I do not disagree on either score, but trying to say something new is not the same as saying something new. Is it really that likely that every RA manager in every telco who wants to talk at a conference really does have something new and different to share with an audience? Conferences still sell well, and revenue assurance still sells well as a reason to drag people to conferences. That means the demand for speakers with a telco job title that attracts paying pundits is greater than the supply of interesting new things to say. Take a look below at the topics that will be presented in the revenue assurance stream at TeleManagement World in Dallas next week. How many mash-ups can you spot? How many are just the same old topics that need to be mashed-up? And how many mash-ups can you make by merging bits of one title with another? I have managed a dozen so far. For example, "New Messaging Services in a Converging World". The person who comes up with the most mash-ups from the titles below wins a year's free subscription to my blog ;)

• Enhancing Revenue Assurance through a Centralized Approach to Managing Usage Errors
• New Messaging Services to Enhance Customer Value Today
• The Secrets of Maximizing Revenue in a Converging World
• Revenue Assurance for Next-Generation Services and Emerging Revenue Streams
• Managing Revenue Assurance more Effectively through Business Intelligence
• Delivering Complex Prepaid-Postpaid Billing Convergence to Create Customer Value

Posted by Eric on November 2, 2007 11:16 AM | Permalink