>>It's clear by now that NSI has built a better mouse trap, <<
Mike,
Last night, I spent some time reading many of the old posts on this thread. Once again, what struck me was that what NSI is doing is basically changing the paradigm for data collection. This is a tremendous leap forward!
With the last two infrastructure announcements (licensing of Oribital's technology to identify subject experts, and Piviotal's Customer Relationship Management technology), NSI has built a solid offering for prospective clients.
I will say that lately I have become fixated on wanting to hear them announce their revenue contracts. I have not been a pleasant person to be around lately as I began to pace and work myself into a lather waiting for the news!
That was until I re-read the past posts on this thread, and remembered the role I played in my past career. After doing this, I literally slapped myself upside the head and said out loud "What the heck are you doing! You are not giving these folks at NSI the same time line you demanded when you were responsible for rolling out new applications."
Let me explain . . .
I was responsible for leading a team of operations people who determined what new applications were required to carry out our business efficiently.
We would meet with the IT group and lay out our specifications to them.
They would go away and build the product - occasionally checking back to make sure that they were on the right track.
When they were ready, they would hand their work over to us so that we could check to make sure that obvious bugs were not embedded in their code, or that we had not forgotten to include all of the business rules that were to guide the coding.
After it passed our HO based test (usually 3-4 days), we would send it out to one test site in the field. This test would generally take another 3 to 7 days. We wanted to ensure that the application could stand up and perform in the field.
After it worked in that facility, we would send it out to 3 more sites. These were sites that were chosen based upon their size and the volume of work they processed.
If that test went well, then the last stage was to roll it out to a small install group of 10 or less sites. Now we and our help desk staff watched very closely for any signs of trouble. If I was satisfied after that pilot testing gauntlet showed that the application was clean and worked well, then I would approve its roll out to all of the other facilities (approx. 175 in all).
I instituted these steps because the past roll outs of new applications and systems had a high failure rate. They were crashing and burning in the field, and the business was suffering because of it. This acceptance test process cleaned up the failure rate tremendously.
Now if I were one of NSI's customers, I would be demanding that before I sign any contract with them, I would want to ensure that the system worked properly. Well when I was responsible for managing my former employer's roll outs of new applications, it generally took a good three weeks before I gave it a green light.
So, basically I have to say that last night I remembered the strict acceptance process that I installed for new applications. Why I gave myself a wake up call was that I realized that what I was demanding from NSI - to release news of new revenue deals - was something that if I was one of their customers, I would not agree to accept it until I put it through my own tests.
I think that any revenue announcements in the next two weeks would be the exception. My time line brings us into the first week or two of October for when the dam should start to break.
In the meantime, I plan to sit tight and let NSI do what they need to do to prove that they have the goods that will change everyone's perception on how fast, accurately, and inexpensively data can be collected for clients.
I remain a . . .
Crazy Canuk |
