On Rad's Radar? - organizations Archives

9 Years Ago

2013-06-05T14:27:01Z

In May of 2004, Seth Godin asked a question:

Five years from now... Assume that: Hard drive space is free. Wifi like connections are everywhere. Connections speeds are 10 to 100 times faster. Everyone has a digital camera. Everyone carries a device that is sort of like a laptop, but cheap and tiny.

He got that right. All that did come true. Not many people did anything with that though. Facebook, Salesforce, Amazon, Apple and Google. Not too many others.

Certainly not Kodak or IBM or Xerox or Yahoo. It was the unknowns, the underdogs.

One reason is that in an established business, turning the ship is too hard. Momentum and fear keep that ship on course. Even if they put on the brakes, inertia would propel them forward for miles. Maybe right past the turn.

Seth Godin continued that post:

"The number of new products introduced every day is five times greater than now. Wal-Mart's sales are three times as big. Any manufactured product that's more than five years old in design sells at commodity pricing. The retirement age will be five years higher than it is now. Your current profession will either be gone or totally different. What then?

We are in commodity times in the IT/telecom sphere.

There is so much noise from the launch of "new" services and apps plus all the BS in the "news" that attention is nearly impossible to get.

Marketing has changed. The Internet has altered or killed a number of industries.

It's all about mobile now. How can we get space on that mobile device and screen? What a dumb way to look at things. When every thing has changed, why are we still thinking the same way? Why when everything has been turned upside down do we still do things the same way?

It's like we have learned anything new since 2004.

BTW, today was Seth Godin's 5000 blog post. That is a huge accomplishment. Congrats!

SIDEBAR

Interesting business facts from @mitchjoel -

Level3 Channel Chief Steps Down

2013-05-29T01:05:49Z

A memo went out to channel partners this evening from Karl Strohmeyer, GVP, NA Enterprise Sales at Level(3) that Mike Jerich was leaving L3.

"Partners:

It is with mixed feelings that I announce Mike Jerich is leaving Level 3 to pursue an outside opportunity. I say "mixed" as he has shown great leadership integrating and building the program to what it has become today; however, he has an opportunity to further expand his career. I appreciate the strong commitment and expertise he has delivered and wish him all the best in his new chapter.

Effective immediately, Garrett Gee will be interim Indirect Channel lead responsible for all aspects of the Indirect Channel until a new channel head is named. We are dedicated to bringing in the right caliber of talent to lead the Partner Program and plan to do so thoughtfully.

The Indirect Channel team will continue to strive towards providing a superior service and support experience. Level 3 will further invest in the channel and we are committed to improving the quality of service and experience."

More and more channel moves. Is it because sales are getting harder to come by or because internal organizations are so siloed and messed up that it is too frustrating to work within these orgs?

No word on where Jerich is going but good luck to him.

10 Lessons from Volleyball, Part 2

2013-05-23T15:46:23Z

Part 1 of the 10 Business Lessons from Volleyball can be found here.

In volleyball, the only play you control yourself is the serve. See that post here. Best female server in the world now is Logan Tom. The key is practice and visualization. What you see in your mind's eye and what you tell yourself affect the outcome. Thinking Don't Miss, Don't Miss - is no way to serve an ace. See the play. Talk Positive to yourself. Think about what you want to happen. Then Breathe and Execute.

The volleyball can travel at 60 mph. That doesn't leave you long for reaction time. You need to focus on each contact of the ball. Can you watch the ball right into your hands? Karch, Logan, Misty are studies in concentration and focus. Focus. Lots of noise and distractions. Concentrate.

Penelope Trunk used to play pro beach volleyball. She writes about her lack of focus in high stress situations here.

After the serve, it is all scrambling around. The best laid plans and all that. Most of my clients spend their day putting out fires. Just reacting. You work on the urgent, instead of the important. It comes down to your goal - how bad do you want it? Sometimes you have to scramble to find the time to work on the important.

In sports they always talk about heart. Why not in business? You must have desire to run a business. It is no easy task to build a business. You have to want it in a big way. Without desire, each obstacle will seem like a dead end. Heart means you Never Give Up!

Blocking is my favorite play. There is nothing better than taking someone's best hit and sending it right back at them. I'm sure there is a lesson there - or some psychological malady - but I will leave it to you to figure it out. I would not have gotten better at blocking without coaching, I can tell you that. Yes even I can take constructive criticism once in a while.

Because there are only 2 of you covering 900 square feet, Communications is integral. Short, simple, clear, concise communications, like a tweet or a text. If only more people could communicate that way, especially managers, life would be great for the employees. You have to find a way be clear in messages because text and email are one dimensional platforms.

Being able to share your vision for the company or the new product launch requires clear communication - both internally and externally. In a telecom world in turmoil as we shift from network to cloud/apps/services, communication will be the factor that determines success over failure.

Everyone wants to be the hitter - the one who spikes the ball and makes ESPN. That one play takes timing, practice, focus, and much more for the play to go well. It's like sales in a way. You only get ink on the contract when it all comes together. When you have worked on your pitch, discovery, sales process, objections, proposal, listening, timing, and more. Spiking is as thrilling as getting ink (and happens about as often ;)

The one thing a hitter needs to remember is to keep the ball in front of them. It's the best way to make good contact with the ball. Keep it in front of you. It also allows you to take a peak at the defense to see where to hit. If you keep the ball in front of you, you can find the seam and make blockers look silly. Finding the seam in a block is a lot like finding your niche in the marketplace. You can't hit or be every where, but that one opening will allow you to score.

In beach volleyball, there are only 2 players. This partnership is crucial for success. It's like finding a co-founder for your business Sometimes it isn't even about friendship, but who can you work with, who complements your skills to provide you with success. In the pros, partners switch often as they seek that elusive perfect partner who will complement them and has the right chemistry to produce wins.

Yet when you find that partner, the sky's the limit. If you are on the same page with the same goal, have a proper contract, a clear understanding of roles, a willingness to work hard, to give it your all - your focus, effort, energy, and commitment, you are on your way to success.

The big lesson you learn playing volleyball is defeat. You can't win them all. And you can't blame your teammates. You know if you played well, if you served the ball in each time, if you made mistakes. Own up, learn from it, and put your flop down to play again.

"Train Hard. Play Fearlessly" sounds like pop culture right? But actually that is putting it as simply as possible. I played 4s Sunday. It was playing for fun, but I still gave every play 100% effort. I like to compete. I like to win. I like to play well even in defeat.

The one thing about this sport is that I love it. I love watching it and playing it, even through many injuries. Life is short. Do what you love.

Remember that Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Do You Need a Coach?

2013-05-20T20:31:24Z

"Everyone needs a coach!" That is how Bill Gates starts his TED Talk. We talk about gamification. What we really need to do is treat business like sports. Hey, the NFL is seeing record revenues, which means they must be doing something right.

The best athletes have a team for success - coaches, trainers, mentors, nutritionists, business managers, etc. What do we offer the best developers or engineers or even salespeople?

One other thing sports does is understand a talent pipeline. The NFL didn't get religion on concussions because a few retirees committed suicide. It got religion on concussions because mothers were preventing their sons from playing Pop Warner, which is the farm league for football. When that farm dries up, no new players for the NFL. They had to take drastic action.

That isn't the lesson though. The lesson is that if you want top talent, businesses need to get involved in education, which is the farm for talent.

What happened to Junior Achievement? It was a big deal when I was in high school.

Instead of Internships, how about Apprenticeship (as Cory Foy explains at IGNITE Tampa)?

How about scholarships and summer programs?

How about getting involved with home schooling programs?

The thing about apprenticeship, internship, JA and other such programs is that it is about coaching talent or mentoring talent. People need coaches. (Bill Gates says that especially teachers need coaches.)

Either act like a coach to get your talent or be prepared to run your business without much talent/

10 Lessons from Volleyball

2013-05-20T20:31:02Z

I've played volleyball for over 25 years. I have traveled around the US to watch the pros live - both indoor and outdoor. I have even gotten to train with a couple of the greats (like Misty May and Karch Kiraly). There are at least 10 lessons I have learned in volleyball that work in business.

The first lesson is to understand Team Work. Volleyball teams range from 2 to 6 players. The team has to work as a unit in order to win. Everyone has to know what their position and role is. Some players have to cross-train for other positions, like setting. How often to we even talk about a department or a company as a team?

Every team has a coach. The best CEO's have coaches. It is important to have a coach, mastermind group or mentor in order to steer your success.

TopGrading is a hiring process to recruit and on-board "A" Players. This is a way to build a world class or best of breed team. Ask any pro team if talent isn't important to winning. Learn to pick top talent. (Topgrading is just one method for that.)

Here is the thing about top players: "A" players make everyone better. When Karch Kiraly was on the US Indoor Volleyball Olympic team, no matter which practice squad he was on, they would win. Your best employees should make the organization better. Think about the best sales person or developer: How do they prepare for their day, their meetings, their projects? PREPARATION. No winging it. They plan and prepare to win. The "A" players are an example of preparation and attitude that others can follow.

The best players work on their skills. They practice. (Others see them practice, too.) In sales, if you increase your prospecting or your closing, you sell more. In programming, do you do Pairing or some other activity that will allow you to sharpen your skills? You don't get paid for your time in most cases; you get paid for your value - your value to the organization. Work on yourself, so you won't get picked last.

Karch has a rule: It's called "Better the Ball". No matter what, with every contact of the ball in the play, leave the ball in a better position for your partner to make a play. Every contact, better the ball. Such simple advice. How does that apply to business? Stephen Covey said to leave this place better than you found it. Same thing. Better the Ball - don't bitch, complain, moan, blame.

This is the first 5 lessons from the ten. More tomorrow.

Finding Fault is Not a Job

2013-04-04T13:02:05Z

Every send an email out and the only replies are typos and grammar corrections?

Every go to a meeting to have other departments complain loudly about your department's performance?

Finding fault is not a job.

It creates a toxic environment. In today's business environment, the most creative company wins. Toxic is not an ingredient for creative.

Congress currently has this problem -- and so too do some state governments. We have become a country of critics. Some of you are laughing because you think I am a pessimist or a cynic, but the difference I think is that while I find fault, I usually (not every time, but most of the time) also offer solutions.

Mark Sanborn was the keynote last night. He said that a Cynic is an Idealist that doesn't want to be disappointed.

He was an excellent speaker dropping nuggets with humor. Couple of points that he made:

Don't spend all of your energy on the knuckleheads. The stars and future stars need recognition too. Businesses often starve opportunity and feed problems. Stop that!

Everyone makes a difference.

Re-invent yourself everyday.

Seth Godin's blog yesterday was "A field guide to the Meeting Troll" - oh, boy, did he hit it on the head.

Complexities of Change

2013-03-07T18:27:49Z

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Think about how many departments an order has to touch:

From the customer to the agent to the Channel Manager to the Ordering desk to Provisioning to Engineering to Deployment to the install tech to the router config to the LNP and 911.

In many companies - even small ones of 90 employees - these departments are silos. Each silo has a manager, a budget they are fighting over, talent that they are developing, performance metrics, etc.

Working together is required but the biases, personalities, conflicts actually get in the way. Every day.

It is why change is so hard. (Very few people have the responsibility of more than one department, so to effect change it has to happen higher up the ladder - away from where they can actually see the cogs working.)

Even with a culture of winning or wanting the best, there will be hurdles to prevent some changes from happening.

The complexities of a telecom company are amazing even in a flat, small one.

Remember that people are resistant to change from the get-go. Many people are buried in their jobs and roles, just trying to get stuff done and get through the day.

Prioritization of urgent versus important is one way to handle this. Gamification is going mainstream, where everything is gamified to modify behavior.

With all the noise - email, texts, meetings, IM, phone calls, etc. - how do you make change happen across departments? Is it similar to how you market to the channel?

A Spotlight on Women in the Channel

2013-01-28T15:53:06Z

Nancy Ridge is the VP of Telecom Brokers, a master agency in California. She joins me on this podcast to discuss Women in the Channel, a grass-roots organization that she co-founded to promote women in telecom.

We have already seen a couple of women get promoted this year to top positions at master agencies - Carol Beering at Intelisys and Lauren Shapiro to President of PlanetOne.

Hope you enjoy the 17 minutes with Nancy.

The Changing VAR World

2012-10-16T01:44:04Z

Opening evening at UBM's BoB Conference was a panel discussion about the change in the VAR and MSP community. This is a collection of tweets about the panel discussion #bob12.

Social Media (SM) , mobility, are cloud - threats to some, opportunities to some - both to many.

"Behave like a three-year old: fall down, learn something, try again."

How do you scale marketing and lower customer acquisition costs in cloud?

The Channel is hiring sales <-- luv to know where they are finding them.

Amazon has $1bill cloud biz and not even 5 people on the street.

Amazon, folks, offers just 2 services in self-serve fashion.

RainKing, Salesforce, radian6 (social media), data mining to understand clients better.

Vendors need scale, but the channel needs customer intimacy (and the channel needs to build its own brand).

Manufacturers do not like the channel. Channel Partners are not enamored with the the manufacturers either.

Biggest Issue: Mainly vendors don't understand what the channel does. Manufacturers/vendors do not like that channel partners are not exclusive and offer choice to the marketplace. [Telecom vendors are the same way!]

@UBMChannel: Number 1 trouble w/ vendors: they don't understand solution provider business and value. "We are not just vehicles to end customers" #BoB12

@UBMChannel: Marketing has changed as businesses do. Moving from finding customers to how do customers find you? #BoB12

Overall, even as the marketplace is changing, manufacturers are slow to change. Vendors still want the channel to just get them customers, push their products and get out of the way. The Channel now wants to build a brand, retain customers, increase wallet share, and sell managed services (some of which will be their own). Unfortunately, there isn't a huge ROI on that strategy for vendors. In Telecom as well.

A final point by the panel revolved around Gartner pushing the Cloud Services Broker model on VAR's. The panel thought that was a ridiculously low margin business - basically, transactional. It is likely going to become what the VAD (value added distributors like Ingram and Tech Data) will become in some sense.

Here's the flipside to that. Right now VAR's have accounts with both Ingram and Tech Data (and likely at least one other distributor like SYNNEX, D&H, CDW, Insight). When looking for hardware, VAR checks to see who has it in stock, at which distribution center, and for how much. When things switch to cloud services, it is unlikely that VAR's will have accounts at all 3 because they are not going to manage SAAS accounts across multiple vendors like they do now. It will be about going with 1 or 2 plus having their own.

The panel noted that we are in the midst of a change in the VAR business to a completely new organization - structure, personnel, skills, compensation, financing, marketing, sales and metrics will all be different when it is all done.

Sales is changing. Not only what is sold, but to who - IT is not the only buyer in an Enterprise any more. IT doesn't own the desktop anymore due to consumerization of IT. CMO and CFO buy differently from CIO. Can IT sales people sell to buyers other than IT?

Plus sales isn't about low hanging fruit anymore. It's about harvesting the whole tree. Acquiring customers is getting harder and more expensive. Retaining customers will be huge. Acquiring customers is different now. CLIENTS FIND YOU NOW, via blogs, social media, SEO, PPC. Are you involved in that???

The three panelists are making money now on Help Desk, End user Compute Space (which can include VDI) and in Global Managed Services (including help desk).

Size Matters

2012-09-25T04:20:27Z

Paetec and USLEC combined in 2007 for 45,000 medium-sized and large business customers.

Cbeyond has 60k now.

8x8 has 30k now.

That means that you shouldn't be hoping to scale to millions. (And "make it up in volume" as they say!) Start with just 1000 satisfied customers, then 2000. It is all about finding the first 1000 people who will find value in purchasing the services you offer from you at a profitable rate.

The Definition of Insanity

2012-09-17T14:00:35Z

You might not want to hear about my airport observations but you get one more nonetheless.

Why was there heightened security at Tampa Airport? There were K9 patrols and TSA swabbed my hands for analysis. Yet the TSA personnel again outnumbered the passengers! Could that be cause and effect? Could the fact that the flight experience at every level - security theater, fees, lines, x-rays, tiny seats, and inconvenience after inconvenience* - have left the airlines in financial trouble? To many, it seems like the airlines have an unsustainable business model. Would you agree?

Airlines are a lot like telecom companies in so many ways. Both charge extra fees for everything, lots of taxes, poor customer care, me-too product set, no differentiation, and commoditization. Both are riddled with union and pension responsibilities that they want to end or wipe away.

Both only work on cost cutting, which only goes so far. The 737 I flew on yesterday was falling apart - literally! Pieces of the overhead cargo bins were falling off. If the inside is poorly maintained - what about the outside and the engine? If airlines keep losing money, is safety and maintenance the first to get cut? I wonder if Virasb Vahidi understands that the brand is hurt by dilapidated planes?

All these companies work on is cost cutting. How about raising organic revenue? Is it really THAT hard?

Why don't airlines let frequent fliers trade miles for gift certificates good towards drinks, baggage fees and seat upgrades? Is just because the extra fees are the only real revenue?

In my experience, there are very few loyal fliers but Delta seems to have most of them. One reason is that Delta goes most places. Apparently, AA and US Airways are merging to complete the map of routes. Shouldn't they work on loyalty? Build that tribe?

One thing that gets me is the delay in boarding and exiting the aircraft due to carry-on luggage. Why do they charge for baggage check? Is it to cover the union labor for baggage? Wouldn't it be better to board faster and exit quicker for plane turn around and on-time stats?

The airlines like telecom are in need of some serious retooling. It might be time to bring in outsiders to run these companies like GM did recently and IBM did years ago. Since there really aren't any C- level execs with big wins in either industry, it might be time to look outside the industry. The same thinking that got you here (in this mess) and all that.

I noticed recently that there are a bunch of management shake-ups but when the new guy gets the job, he brings "his people" with him. How is that helpful? He is surrounded by loyal people that owe him for their job. Has this "team" hit a home run before? Unlikely. So we just keep shifting the personnel from company to company expecting different results. That's the definition of insanity.

In the case of the airlines, bankruptcy is part of the culture - and so are bailouts. This is not an industry that has shaken up the business plan no matter how many times it has spun into a hole. Insane.

*Does anyone actually get a sense of security from the boondoggle of $3B that is TSA? Personally, I don't feel safer, just annoyed that my liberties are being stolen inch by inch.

The Sales SWAT Team

2012-07-03T11:21:17Z

Zayo Group announced the formation of a dedicated team focused on Small Cell and Fiber to the Tower (FTT) initiative (in this press release). That's a good idea. In fact, when RAD-INFO INC is consulting on mergers between TDM companies and cloud companies, this is one approach that we have used.

There are different types of salespeople. Whale Hunters, farmers, transactional, good ones, bad ones, mediocre ones. Some companies grade the sales people as A, B, C. Taking a small group of A players to create a Sales SWAT team to take a product to market is a good idea. B and C teams can refer business to the "Closers" in the SWAT team. The compensation plan will have to be adjusted accordingly to provide for this type of sales structure.

Why a SWAT team? Let's look at the FTT market. The tower companies are merging together. SBA just dropped $1.45 billion to grab 3252 towers from TowerCo. SBA's revenue from 15,000 towers comes from mainly 3 companies: Sprint at 27%, while T-Mobile and VZW make up about 30-35% of the revenue. There are not a lot of cellcos in the US.

AT&T, VZW, Sprint, T-Mobile, Clearwire, Cricket/Leap, US Cellular, C Spire (formerly Cellular South), MetroPCS and nTelos make up the majority of the revenue. A bunch of rural cellcos make up the minority. That's why a SWAT team is a good idea. You know who the players are. You know that the sales interval is nearing its end. By that, I mean, that being the second fiber provider to a tower is way less profitable - and as contracts expire, it becomes a bidding war, which is even less profitable. So you want to be the first and hopefully sole fiber provider to a tower. The window is closing on this opportunity as cable companies, ILEC's, and regional fiber companies are all chasing this business. A SWAT team allows you to put the best people on it, give them a goal, a focus, and let them get to it.

Selling this focused to a small pool of prospects is more like selling for Boeing or Honeywell or a defense contractor. Boeing has a limited number of customers - airlines and friendly air forces. Boeing only has a few chances every 4 or 5 years to sell its planes. The Boeing's sales team spends a lot of time doing research on a prospect and even more preparing the sales presentation. READ: PREPARATION! What does a Police SWAT team do? Practice, Prepare, and Practice.

What does a typical telecom salesperson do? Run around chasing low hanging fruit. No practice. No prep. I see it time and again. On a tele-seminar last week, a sales guy was looking for a silver bullet. Is there a new way to prospect? Not really. Sure you can use LinkedIn to search for prospects, it is an easy way to kill an hour or so per day. However, the sales guy isn't doing research now, so would he want to do it in LinkedIn? Not likely.

I think more companies will establish Sales SWAT teams, especially for specialized services or product launches to get traction in the marketplace.

When I look at the Channel, I see carriers trying to find that perfect partner. Without knowing the skill set (like CCIE, MCA or CCISP) or specialty of a telecom agency, how would the carrier being able to help them specialize or provide them the service offerings (and accompanying marketing assistance) that would make for a successful partnership? For example, as a telecom agent, I mainly sell to service providers and mainly sell Internet bandwidth and transport. No matter how many times I tell that to carriers, they still try to get me to sell whatever the organization is pushing that quarter. What a waste of time.

Want a Channel SWAT Team? Look at the Agency's client base, history of sales, examine what offerings can be added to get stickier to that base, and make it about the Agency and its customers, not the carrier comp plan or what the C-Suite promised Wall Street.

When Cbeyond decided to go all-in on Cloud, it took a while to realize that they had to change more than the brochure. They had to change the sales force and th executive team. Cloud is not TDM. Cloud is not an Integrated Access Solution. If you want change - like to stop being a T1 slinger - you need to change culture, personnel, compensation plans, and your way of thinking. The whole company can't change overnight, but changes can be made incrementally with something like a Sales SWAT Team.

Social Media Channel Integration

2012-02-07T22:38:51Z

An ITEXPO panel on Wed. discussed social media integration in the contact center. Sanjay Popli of LiveOps, Manuel Ramirez of Avaya, and Alex Quilici of YouMail spent 45 minutes talking about social media and call centers.

There are five steps a company needs to take to implement social media strategy in a contact center.

Monitor social channels
Decide on Relevance
Assign employees to tasks
Establish Policies
Design procedure for interacting with the rest of the Org

The contact center could be monitoring for leads, complaints or opportunities on social media platforms. These platforms can include twitter, Facebook, Google+, Yahoo groups, forums, LinkedIn or any of the other thousands of online communities and networks that exist.

It is a way for call center to move from a cost center to a revenue center. Not just by following up on sales leads, but by preserving the brand and reputation of the company.

One item that all panelists agreed upon was that the time for response from a company has shrunk from a day to an hour. It's about speed now.

Another reminder from the panel is that conversations about your service and brand ARE indeeed taking place online (like on DSLReports and GetSatisfaction.com). Ignore it at your own peril.

Monitoring or Listening also includes finding out where your customers are hanging out online. Go where they are.

A final note was that previously most online commenters were anonymous. Today, about 70% are very traceable. That means you can identify them and interact with them. There are many books written about creating raving fans out of disgruntled customers. It is possible online as well.

The Future of Media

2011-09-30T15:29:16Z

The buzz is that email is dead. Oh, voice is dying also. And if you believe all the hype, sell your airline stocks since video conferencing and tele-presence will replace travel.

"A company's corporate website is the top source of new sales leads--second only to personal connections and referrals, and more than seven times more effective than social media, according to a 2011 Demandbase National Marketing and Sales Study released today by marketing technology company Demandbase and online business network Focus, according to an article in the Tech Journal South. Yet the buzz says it's all social media.

Voice isn't dead either. If it was the contact center space would be folding up tents. Granted robo-calling is annoying, but it still won't end any time soon. (It just may get more challenging to reach humans instead of voicemail.)

Email is still my number one communication platform. Project management, clients, prospecting and more all happen via email. Notifications end up in email. When companies talk about unified messaging, it's about one inbox - the email tray.

Everyone has their preferred method of communicating: email, voice, text, chat, FB, twitter, and more. It is getting more baffling for people to keep track of conversation threads as they bounce from one medium to another - text to email to FB. But it all comes back to email - maybe mainly due to the inbox and inbox organization that we are used to. Texts, chats, notifications and more can all come back to an email inbox to be stored, organized and searched. That's why email will be around a while longer. Longer than you think anyway.

The future of media will be fractious at best.

Want an interesting look at new media?

How does the Verizon Strike Affect Agents

2011-08-08T21:56:53Z

From notices from both Netwolves and Microcorp about the Verizon workers strike.

Effective yesterday, two unions - the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers - representing 45,000 workers at Verizon announced an immediate strike. The strike involves Verizon field technicians and call center employees from Massachusetts to Virginia/DC. This strike will cause delays in both Installations and Repair in the Northeast.

This will also affect Install and Repair for CLEC's operating in this region on all copper (UNE) related services

There will be immediate impact to your business and customers. Please notify ALL customers that have pending installs in the areas where Verizon is the local LEC that they will most likely experience some delays.

Verizon has advised that Repair orientated tasks will be covered by non-union management. In Tampa, employees were shipped to the Northeast to work the vacated union jobs -- but the workers are frightened and are not especially trained (just a few days last week) in these jobs.

Provisioning of new orders will be delayed until an agreement is reached. And Provisioning escalations will NOT be accepted at this time, unless the order is for Public Safety, Medical, E911 or Out of Service situations.

States impacted by the strike are: Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Maryland, Massachusetts, NJ, NY, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and West Virginia.

UPDATE: Verizon strike update: how it is affecting DID porting: http://icont.ac/9JEC from VoIP Innovations. TWT told me that FOC dates are now 12/30/2011!!