Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

Stephen sent me a link to this presentation by Geoffrey Moore at the “Business of Software” conference in 2009.   Thanks for that!

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We were going to attend this conference in 2009, but it clashed with the commencement of our Autopsy 2 process, and as such we had to give it a miss. Geoffrey Moore is a well-known author that I was particularly looking forward to hearing present, and I am happy that this teaser was made available online. Perhaps the 2010 conference (October 4th, 5th and 6th in Boston)?!

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I posted on the main page that we will make the electricity market understandable, across many different locations around the world.

Here are some further details about what we will be like in reaching that “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” (BHAG).

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I posted, early in January, about where our bus is headed (you might refer to this as our Vision).  I have progressively refined this, since then, to improve the clarity of this core message.

For those who are interested, I have also started posting more details about some aspects of this Vision – as falling under any of these core headings.  Posts that have preceded this one are:
1)  I posted about my vision for growing clients (and revenues) 20x.

A key prerequisite for this to happen is that our team of employees also grows (in numbers – but more importantly in competency).

Based on the experience we have gained in the past 10 years, we think that our growth in client numbers can be achieved with an increase in staff numbers of only about 3-4x our current levels.

In “Good to Great”, Jim Collins calls this “getting the right people on the bus” … and then “into the right seats”.

We have some work to do in the next couple of years in this respect, as follows:

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I posted, early in January, about where our bus is headed (you might refer to this as our Vision).  I have progressively refined this, since then, to improve the clarity of this core message.

For those who are interested, I have also started posting more details about some aspects of this Vision – as falling under any of these core headings.  This post provides more details under the first heading.

As part of the navel-gazing we have been doing recently (to coincide with our 10th birthday, which is rapidly approaching) we have been contemplating this question.  For us, there are plenty of opportunities (some mutually exclusive – at least for a company our size).

Being New Year’s Day, I thought it would be of interest to you to post a few comments about where our bus is headed into the future. Call this our very own New Year’s resolution.

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It is a loaded term – it means different things to different people (here’s the Wikipedia reference, for instance).

To me, it seems that there are two competing “innovation camps” which I sum up as follows: read more »

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Here’s an interesting video (runs for an hour) promoting a new book “Glimmer:  How Design Can Transform Your Life, and Maybe Even the World” by Warren Berger (and Bruce Mau).

Seems like an interesting book, so have thrown it in our shopping cart, and will review it sometime in 2010.

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Perhaps more through good luck then good management, in our early days we put together the NEM-Watch product, which tends to be a product that “sells itself” – by generating a form of buzz.

Note that when I speak of buzz here, I do it within the framework of the industry in which we operate, which tends to have a staid image, as I discussed here.   Certainly our successes are not going to make it to the “Top Viral 100” list, if there is such a beast.

As a company with a small team of staff and a large number of clients, and aspirations to grow our number of clients further over the next few years, I have a keen interest in understanding how we can use principles of buzz to assist us in building up the profile of all of our products.

1)  Binary Review

Hence I found this book and excellent read.

The Book	What we thought
“The Anatomy of Buzz” by Emmanuel Rosen	Thought-provoking

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This e-book was referenced as a teaser for the “Business of Software 2009” conference.

We had been thinking about attending this year, enroute to Toronto (to pay our clients there an overdue visit).  However, we did not go in the end (still not sufficient capability for delivery – one of the triggers of us starting Autopsy 2).

Hopefully next year!

1)  Binary Review

The Book	What we thought
“Don’t just roll the dice” by Neil Davidson	Wish I had been able to read this 10 years ago, when starting down this path…

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For those who have been regular readers of the blog, you will realise, by now, that I am a keen advocate of life-long-learning, and improvement (both for individuals within our company, and for the company as a whole).

Given we are fast approaching our 10th birthday, and that we have disappointed ourselves in terms of a number of key initiatives, it has been timely to spend some focused time on introspection.

1)  What was Autopsy 1?

Back on Tuesday 28th July 2009 we held Autopsy 1, which was a one-day planning session in our offices in Milton.

During the day we dissected the company (as best we were able in the single day) and drew out of this a number of changes that were required.

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