The dangerous track of US political campaigns

As a first time witness and voter in a US political race, I can not keep quiet about my worries on how these are being held, and the threat it posts to maybe the most solid democracy in the world.

According to the blog US News Data Mine the majority of the states decreased of VEP (Voter Eligible Population) decreased  almost 5 percentage points (from 41% to 36%) compared  to the mid term elections of 2010, a measurement that is done between midterm elections to be able to  compare pears-to-pears.

And it is not about money resources promoting the campaign. In the state of Florida, a record setting number is expected one all the fillings are accounted for.

I guess my major concern is how this budget was spent, and what is the impact on the incentive that the campaign created, specially on those under thirty years, to use their time to study, choose, and vote for any of the candidates.

When I sat down on the TV at night, I was amazed how negative the campaign was between the two major parties, blaming or accusing the other party on how bad, corrupt, liars, cheaters, and so on negative qualifications. This was the worst ever campaign I have seen in my life, and I thought I was coming from (Venezuela) a very unstable/uncertain democracy. 

I really felt that there was no reason to vote for any of the candidates, as I never heard about the plans, proposals, projects, they were considering in their agenda if they won.

It is dangerous to play with a democracy like this, as I have lived a nightmare in the country I was born, with a very populistic regime which took the opportunity to fill a gap of bad political management; if in the US there is someone who can really engage with the majority of the people (the ones that did not vote (100%-36%=64%), we could have a very different scenario in the supposedly supposedly best democracy in the world. 

If the traditional political parties and their campaigns in the US do not see this as a potential issue, they better watch out: IT HAS HAPPENED!

Am I this good looking?

I love networking, meeting people, and just be around where there are things happening. As a long time sales person, it is always much more fun to meet personally than calling or emailing your business partners. Nothing better than face-2-face for business, but this is not always possible as we all know.

Then great ideas like LinkedIn show up: a place to meet people of similar interest, without even ever heard about them, but have things in common: similar industries or interests, situation, affiliation, etc. But there is a problem: it is far too easy to request for a connection, so some people start clicking the button "Connect", without at least an introduction of themselves and why would you like to connect, if the case is that in reality you never met before.

You can always ignore the invitation, but on the other hand if you ignore it, this could be a missed opportunity for both to do something together. I keep getting invitations (I am sure it is not because of my good looks), as I am sure most of you, without a simple explanation other than the usual: "I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.". If there is something interesting other than just adding a number to your personal statistic, please say why!.

Here are some tips taken from LinkedIn about asking for a connection:

1. You want to sell me something?: Please tell me right upfront. I will decide if I am interested or not. If I am, great, we hit it together and an opportunity grabbed!
2. You want to meet someone that I know? Use the "get introduce by" functionality, with a simple message like: Oscar, I’ saw that you worked here and there, and I would like to contact this person that you know because I am looking for a job and I know they are looking....
3. You are interested to know more about the industries or companies that I worked for, or maybe just my experience. You can always say it in you invitation, and I will gladly (as many of you readers) support and help. This is what the networking is about: helping each other, but at least give us the chance to know a bit more before moving forward.

By following these simple steps, most of the connections will be more meaningful, and many some of the ignored ones, could actually become true, if a little introduction about why you want to connect, is placed on your invitation.

Customer Intimacy. Who really cares???!!

When working in Sales or Business development, one listens all the time about the importance of knowing everything about your client. But does it really matter? Have you lost a business that you thought you had because of your great product/service???

In a world that changes constantly and extremely rapid, you need to understand exactly what keeps your customer awake at night, as most likely, it will not be what you think it is, if you don't know your customer well. This is exactly as in your personal life, with your life partner, or any other relative. If you fail to know what is really happening with them, most likely you will be, step by step, increasing the emotional distance that keeps you together.

So knowing your customer intimately is really about reaching out more than just trying to push a new product or service because it fits its operation. It is far more.

How should you take the extra step for that necessary involvement in your customers' business, so they embrace you as a strategic partner? Here are some steps (there are more tough):

1. Know by heart your customer's mission. It is not for fun that companies spend so much time building the Mission statement: what do they want to achieve and how. If you ignore this basic concept, most likely you will be lost. Do your homework by reading and living it to give you confidence when engaging into customer interactions.
2. Understand its competitive environment, and how can you help them succeed to achieve its Mission. Again, just by pushing your things, won't take you there. You really need to make sense when presenting you solution, so your customer will UNDERSTAND the benefit of having it, and HOW it will be beneficial. Nobody really cares about your product, but its benefits.
3. In large corporations, you MUST know who is who. Frequently, when trying to sell your product/service, that you will jump into the formal Decision Maker. Yes, I understand the importance on meeting your quota this month, and trying to shortcut time. But keep an eye: there might be someone in the organization that can be your best ally, and that can bring your solution to the decision maker, smoothly, if he is the right Influencer. On the plus side, you will have more time to spend with the Influencer, as typically will have fewer obstacles to reach vs. the Decision Maker.
4. Keep up to your promises. No matter what, your ambition is not just to win a business, but also to be there, first hand, when your customer needs you again. This is the way to gain space, reduce Customer Acquisition and Costs to make business, and finally, repeat it. This can only happen if you can live up to your deliverables. If you fail to do so, make sure you have a back-up plan, because most likely, it will cost your customer relation, and worse, maybe no more business. Customer expectations and your promised deliverables must be in sync. Otherwise, if you are below its expected outcome, you will have an unhappy customer. Previously decide in agreement with your customer key performance indicators, as objectively as possible, to avoid misunderstandings.

Following these steps, most likely, will put your company at the desired relationship level to be called, instead of "supplier", a true "Business Partner".

Socio-economic benefits with more communications?

Many things have been written about the correlation existing between telecommunication industry and GDP of the country. Although this has been proven in various countries, my concern is more about what these services have achieved, in fact, to all society levels, specially when it comes to basic needs such as health and education.

Why I say this? Well, after more than 20 years of mobile services in Latin America, we can only see very few experimental/pilot success stories, and not a widespread implementation of the potential benefits in education and health efficiencies, that can be provided by the use of wireless technologies.

mHealth

Among the different countries, as expected, Mexico and Brazil are the ones who have been more active on the initiative, and the majority of the rest of the countries have at the most one implementation of mHealth, and surely, for PR purposes, to market "Social Responsibility" initiatives, and not for the actual benefits of the population. You can confirm this at the Connected Living tracker document produced by GSMA. Only a total of 95 implementations.

MLearning & mEducation:

The situation is even worse, according to the same source: only 40 deployments in South America. The potential of using mobile services to improve the quality of education has been neglected by a number of reasons, from technological (lack of connectivity, safety of carrying high tech-high cost products at dangerous locations, etc.) are hinderers of execution.

The bottom line:

But let's face it! There is a more important reason behind the ack of widespread of the potential use of wireless technologies to elevate the quality of living of its citizens. The point is really, is this something that will allow me as a government to look successful on my most important tasks? Or is it better for us, as Government, to continue "investing" in more populist measures that can "actually" give us more chance to be re-elected. Definitely no. The visibility for using these high tech solutions only impact a few number of the population, and they seldom understand what is happening to make the mHealth or mEducation service, better and more efficient. Also it is more visible with Brick and Mortar solutions, with spaces that people can touch and see. 

What to do? 

The South American governments need to get their act together, and start taking serioulsy for ways to improve the quality of service they are suppose to deliver. I would like to see the governments more worried on how to take advantage of the wireless services provided by the different operators to be more efficient, and stop worrying so much about the "level of signals", or bit-error-rate, or time it takes "to get a call answered by customer service". Don't get me wrong, these are also important, but there are more important thing that need to fixed, and are of the highest priorities, because these are basic human needs, and part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Why does my wireless service provider suck?

When you are working in the telecom industry, there is always a discussion around which are the key points for an operator to gain or maintain its competitiveness. The answer typically depends, as expected, on the department where the discussion is taken, or alternatively, is in the area where the operator places its competitive focus: branding, promotions for a replacement/new phone, prices, network coverage or speed of its data transfer.

In fact, everyone has part of the correct answer, but one aspect is that your customer becomes loyal to your company, and another just to bring him/her and let them leave just after a few months experiencing the operators' service, with all the involved acquisition acquisition costs involved.

Surveys from Ericsson Consumer Lab on Customer Satisfaction indicate that Network Performance is the number one factor when it comes to customer's opinion about the given operator, which should translate into the importance on providing, from the network perspective, what the subscriber demand.

Network performance and quality issues have many angles to consider, and now the ladder are more evident with the increase penetration of smart phones, but one of the key aspects is network investment, to keep up with innovations, but also fine tuning and maintenance. Also, and extremely important, is spectrum availability, which sadly is an asset that frequently is scarce due to slowness or lack of interest of country policies.

In the Latam region, telecom regulators have been lagging behind (in average the region has allocated less than 30% of recommended available spectrum for 4G services) on providing sufficient spectrum to allow for more capacity and speed, which are enablers for new services. At the same time, regulators must take this insight seriously, but not only to allow the existing subscriber base to access new services, but also to allow those still not connected to be able to become part of the digital era.

Moreover, from the economic perspective, it has been proven many times the positive impact that telecom investment have on the economy.

Having said this, and based on a paper published by GSMA Latin America (Mobile Economy Latin America 2013), among other many important actions, in Latin America there is an urgent need to address at least the following topics:

1. Clear and consistent approach to license renewals of existing operations
2. New spectrum. Cooperative policy making between mobile industry and governments regarding how and why new spectrum shall be allocated for wireless providers. Should the spectrum be actioned or given at no cost under certain conditions to be met by operators (rural coverage, social wireless broadband lines for m-education, m-health, m-government...?
3. Establish transparent conditions in the country to enable for more investments in any given country, whereas this investment be in spectrum, and network infrastructure. This should cover licensing longevity and renewal.

If these conditions are met, we will see a dramatic improvement to enable new wireless services, improved quality and positive socio-economic impact in the region. Government, regulators and mobile industry need to work side-to-side the points above, in order to create the climate for more investments. Otherwise, even if new spectrum is released, investments will be timid, without the drive required to put Latin America at the required level to maintain its competitiveness in a world that is becoming more and more global.