Richard Giles

The other day the the SMH published a story about the Government covering up information about their plans to censor the Internet in Australia: Filtering out the fury: how government tried to gag web censor critics.

That news certainly got a bunch of people talking. Over the weekend discussions started on the Port80 forums, AWIA’s committee mail list, and the Silicon Beach Google Group.

Not surprising really, because anyone involved in technology realises that it is a ridiculous way to protect our children.

So AWIA is really serious about the issue, and I spent a few hours on Sunday night doing some research. AWIA plans on releasing a press release soon that outlines our stance, and also getting more active in campaigning against it.

Why bother, you say? Well, here are the main points I drew up in conclusion to my research.

1. It IS important to protect our youth. But NOT with a filter.

The Government themselves said, “Labor considers that, just as we teach Australian children about the risks of drink driving, we must also teach them how to be responsible cyber-citizens and about the importance of cyber-safety.”

That made me think of this example to explain filtering.

Filtering the Internet is like having a breath testing unit (that isn’t completely accurate) on everyone’s street, and everyone has to be tested before they can drive up their own driveway.

That would stop drink driving to some degree, but it would get false readings, slow everyone down, infringe our rights, and cost a lot of money and time.

2. It will filter innocent content, so EVERYONE won’t be able to reach some innocent material.

Think of this scenario if you have a web site. What happens if your web site gets filtered, even for a day or so, because the filter technology accidently added you to the black list. That is definitely possible with the current technology. For a business that can mean loss of business.

When the Government themselves did tests in June this year, their tests showed that on average 4% of innocuous sites were blocked. I think that’s a pretty significant number.

3. Filtering WILL slow the Internet down for EVERYONE.

Again, back to the Government’s tests. Which I should point out were not done in a real world environment, and could result in much worse performance because of the scale that will be required by ISPs.

On average, the filters slowed the bandwidth of the test network down by 42%.

4. It infringes EVERYONES freedom of speech.

The way the Government intends to filter the Internet is with two steps. The first is intended to protect children, and filter content the Government thinks they shouldn’t see. The second is on content it thinks should be banned.

Anyone of age can opt-out of the first step. Nobody can opt-out of the second.

That’s right, the Government is going to decide what we can and can’t see on the Internet, and their will be nothing you can do about it.

Lets ignore the fact that both steps should be opt-in, something you can request, rather than something that is thrust upon you. However, the Government isn’t going to even allow that.

5. It will cost EVERYONE more.

To start with the cost of implementing the technology by ISPs will be huge. It will cost them in infrastructure, as well as man power. Those costs will be handed down to customers.

Now think of the impact on you and your company if the Internet was 40% slower. What if you didn’t get some information because it was filtered incorrectly.

It’s already cost tax payers money, because I’m guessing the testing the Government did in June wasn’t free. It’s a $44.2 million policy. Money I can think of dozens of ways of putting to better use.

Overall the idea is ridiculous. It has so many flaws, and will have a significant impact on Australians, in so many negative ways, that any reasonable person will agree that it’s the wrong thing to do.

So stay tuned, because AWIA will soon have an action plan. But in the mean time, make as much noise as you can about it. Let everyone know about the negative effects.

I listened to Cameron Reilly‘s paid Telstra gig yesterday (love your introduction-voice mate ), in which he interviewed Mike Hickinbotham, Telstra’s Senior Corporate Relations Advisor.

People that have heard me speak recently know of my distaste for Telstra. I believe that the company is holding Australia back. More on that one day.

Cam does a good job of asking a few hard questions, and cleverly leaves a few things for us to read between the lines. In particular they chatted about Telstra’s “blogging” on nowwearetalking.

Mike is one of the (few) bloggers on nowwearetalking. In his “The scrum” weblog, he recently asked Is nowwearetalking hitting the mark?

I think nowweraretalking is a great case study on how a corporation should not start blogging. It does a poor job, and here are my thoughts.

Firstly, lets look back at how nowwearetalking was launched. I think the press release for nowwearetalking speaks volumes about the company, and the intent of the “blog.” It’s focus is on Government regulation, not the customer.

“In addition to the hundreds of millions that regulation costs Telstra, its customers and shareholders, the cost of regulatory compliance alone is around $10 million every year – enough to upgrade more than 155 rural exchanges for broadband,” Mr Burgess said.

The press release doesn’t focus on why the blog is about engaging conversations, it’s aim was to have the Australian public help Telstra fight Government regulation. Almost 50% of the press release talks solely about how bad Government regulation is for Telstra: of a word count of 441, 214 words are about regulation, and not the weblog.

Hickinbotham confirms that intent on the podcast. Essentially it was launched so customers and shareholders could help it fight Government regulation.

That’s not a great first step in engaging conversations with your customers.

Secondly, according to Hickinbotham, any Telstra employee can get a blog on nowwearetalking if they ask. He clarifies this in a followup to his question about nowwearetalking, nowwearetalking and always looking to improve.

Upon conducting the following podcast with Cameron Reilly (www.telstraenterprise.com), I learned employees interested in blogging start by posting content in the opinions section. If they demonstrate an ongoing interest in blogging, they’ll be given their own blog.

The only other stipulation is the proposed blog doesn’t duplicate a topic covered by one of our 15 bloggers.

What an arcane process! That might explain why there are only 15 blogs on the site.

When Sun Microsystems launched their employee weblog site, they opened it to every employee, and allowed them to discuss anything. It was an automatic process, you simply needed to create your own blog account, and you could go public. No screening required. It had thousand of employees blogging within three years.

The website (lets call it that, it makes more sense than blog doesn’t it) was launched in December 2005. That’s three years ago. Three years and 15 blogs. That’s not a great result from a company point of view. I think it speaks volumes about the Telstra’s corporate culture.

Thridly, it would also seem that Telstra doesn’t have an employee blogging policy. I’m not 100 percent certain on that, it would just seem to be the case given Hickinbotham’s statement on his most recent blog post, “We are currently producing employee blogging guidelines for the same reasons indicated by Cameron.”

However, how is anyone at Telstra ever going to know what they can and can not do with respect to blogs, if the company does not have a blogging policy. It’s rule number one for corporate blogs. And they’re currently producing one, three years after the site launched.

I also found this advertisement on the Telstra site for nowwearetalking. Anyone gets to have a say about the “company.” What about what is affecting me. What about what is affecting Australia. Speaks volumes doesn’t. Telstra is narcissistic.

So, here are a few tips on launching a corporate weblog:

• Start with the customer and conversations in mind (not stamping out Government regulation).
• Allow any employee to blog, about anything they want (don’t setup a process that makes it hard for them to start).
• Have a corporate blog policy (without one, an employee won’t feel an openness to blogging).

However, the single biggest barrier to corporate blogging is corporate culture. If you’ve got an aggressive, insular, opaque culture, then you’re going to struggle to engage in meaningful conversations with your customers.

It’s a big job to change the culture. However, if that’s the case then your company has bigger issues than starting a blog. A corporate culture that isn’t ready for blogging, and isn’t open to transparent conversations with people, is in danger of losing the hearts and minds of it’s biggest stakeholders: customers.

Ooops. Look at that. Tesltra’s already lost the hearts and minds of its customers.

So, to respond to Hickinbotham’s request, “to share your honest opinion of nowwearetalking.com.au.” I’d have to say, Telstra has to change it’s corporate culture before it’ll stand a change with a blog.

Oh, and one last thing. Allow me indulge for a moment.

In the above mentioned press release, Mr Phil Burgess, the then Group Managing Director, Public Policy & Communications, had this to say.

“But there is plenty of regulation that applies only to Telstra, which means that we are subsidizing overseas based competitors.

“That gives those foreign competitors a leg-up against Telstra, and our shareholders and customers foot the bill,” Mr Burgess said.

Here is why there are regulations that applies only to Telstra. Because in any other environment it would be classed as a monopoly.

When Telstra was privatised, it was given the publicly paid for infrastructure. The copper wire and exchanges that services every home. No one else was given that infrastructure, and it would cost billions to duplicate.

Telstra now uses that monopolistic-advantage to crush competitors. It gets away with it, because it was effectively given to them by the Government and its citizens. Now, to protect the nation, we need to ensure we keep Telstra honest, by extra Government regulation.

Now Burgess has left, I can’t say it to him, but I’ll say it to Telstra in general. Stop your sniffling, and get on with the job. You got a bargain, and it would be nice if you used that advantage to look after Australia, or even your customers, not just your CEO and shareholders.

End of rant .

Recently, in the Silicon Beach Google Group, someone asked “Now I’ve launched…I’m scratching my head wondering how to attract customers.”

One thing I’ve been saying for some time now, is that many web start-ups need to adopt traditional business practices. What’s interesting is that many don’t, probably for two reasons: they’re predominantly engineers who love coding, and the web community loves to snub it’s nose at “traditional business.”

Fortunately a large part of my background includes marketing and sales, so I live and breathe this stuff.

What’s interesting is that they were inspired to start their web application after watching David Heinemeier Hansson at Startup School 08. It’s a great presentation, but it lacks so many fundamental business practices it’s dangerous.

David Heinemeier Hansson,
originally uploaded by mathoov.

Now I’m certain if I sat down with David, he’d agree that the presentation didn’t contain all of the details that he knows. It was essentially a presentation to inspire web start-ups to make money. And that is a great thing. So many don’t even consider Price a factor, and if his presentation inspires people to think of at least that step then it’s a good thing.

He also had some other great points about starting a web company, like not panicking about releasing to market quickly, running the company as a side-business initially, and solving simple problems.

However, he over simplifies the problem of launching a business (even though he does reiterate that it all takes hard work), when he says it’s simple: Have a great application. Have a price. People pay.

In marketing there are several more considerations than just Price. In fact it’s so engrained in marketing they are known as the Four Ps:

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion

In the same Google Group thread Geoff McQueen points to a great podcast/lecture by Steve Blank: Retooling Early Stage Development.

In the presentation Blank suggests that over 90% of start-ups fail because they didn’t find a market and customers. He then outlines a model, he calls Customer Development, that any start-up can adopt to launch a product. Its whole focus is on the customer.

Wow, funny how that sounds exactly like the sole focus of marketing.

Interestingly enough, “marketing” is considered a dirty word by a lot of engineers/developers .

It really comes back to the age old questions of “What customer need does the product meet?” Or, “What pain am I solving for the customer?” Which are both really good simple questions you ask yourself in the sales process.

They’re also product related, but they flow down to price, place and promotion. So if the pain you’re alleviating is big enough, the price can be more significant. Place, or distribution will depend on who the customer is, and the product. And then throw in promotion, which in itself is insanely complex.

So this is an ongoing process, that takes time to get right.

My point being, the presentation by Hansson is a good one, but the process of launching a start-up is far from simple. You can’t just create a product, slap a price on, and wait for the customers to roll in.

Saying that, if you’re considering starting a company, jump in. As Hansson suggests, run it on the side, learn as you go, launch early, try new things, and research like buggery. It is incredibly rewarding. Just keep in mind, it’s not simple or easy.

I’d love to elaborate on the marketing process some more. But it really warrants blog posts spanning several weeks. But if people have some specific questions, feel free to ask in the comments or email me, and I’ll provide my answer.