Are you a dumb pipe?

Have you read any articles, or heard a conference speaker admonish #network #operators to avoid being dumb pipes?

This is a pretty common warning. But give a thought about what a dumb pipe actually is.

Here are some characteristics of a dumb pipe, and the related Telecoms qualities.

📲Delivers its content from point A to point B. Service Quality
📲Content delivered is the same as the content provided. Robustness
📲Delivery happens quickly. Low latency
📲Delivery occurs every time without intervention. Reliability

Clearly, not everything about a dumb pipe is bad.

Often these same articles or speakers will advocate offering higher value-adding services. “Moving up the value chain” or similar.

But any value-added will be on top of an existing dumb pipe.

The dumb pipe has to come first.

Keep that in mind when you’re warned to avoid Dumb Pipe Syndrome™

Comment with any experience you’ve had being called a Dumb Pipe.

👉 #TelecomTribe: Follow me on LinkedIn, Russell Lundberg, for more updates, insights, tips, tricks, and tactics to love a career in Telecoms.

Was the Project Manager you hired successful?

If you’ve been the de facto Project Manager (PM), and then hired a new PM, it’s you who must change to enable the new PM.

The reason is human nature. Your team already has the habit of discussing the project with you. They give you status; deliver updates; discuss interesting aspects.

That’s their habit. It’s yours, too. They won’t change if you don’t.

Assuming part of the PM’s role was to offload you, what did you do to follow through?

âś…Did you introduce the new PM?
âś…Did you renounce all your previous PM duties?
âś…Did you tell people to work with the new PM and ignore you?
❌Here’s the hard one: when someone tried to give you project info, did you stop them and tell them to talk to the PM?

That’s where many projects fail. The PM is often blamed. But it’s the PM’s manager who failed. It’s your fault.

Hiring the PM is easy. The really hard part is to fight your own urge to know. You must stop people discussing the project with you. Redirect them to the PM.

You must do this to give the PM any chance of succeeding.
If they won’t talk to the PM, he’s finished!

You must change your behavior for others to change theirs.

So, how successful was the Project Manager you hired?

👉 #TelecomTribe: Follow me on LinkedIn, Russell Lundberg, for more updates, insights, tips, tricks, and tactics to love a career in Telecoms.

The Riches are in the Niches

Picking the exact area where you have something to offer is incredibly important.

Defining your niche is an exercise everyone should do.

The more precisely you can define your niche, the greater your opportunity to add value and to succeed.

Don’t worry that you might eliminate opportunities by defining your niche too specifically. Having a well-defined niche allows you to focus your efforts.

And you’ll be doing a favor to the people outside your niche who aren’t interested in your appeals.

Have you defined your niche? Tell me in the comments what it is.

👉 #TelecomTribe: Follow me on LinkedIn, Russell Lundberg, for more updates, insights, tips, tricks, and tactics to love a career in Telecoms.

What is Dashboard Automation?

In this video, I’ll show you exactly how it works and how it’ll save you oodles of time.

I’ve written many articles to help Telecom Pros speed up how quickly their Dashboards can be updated.

But I don’t want you to focus only on the time you’ll save. Instead, consider the insights you’ll have when your mind is no longer numbed by the many tiny details to be certain everything is updated.

Imagine how your influence will grow when you are the one with the bestest, most up-to-date, most decision-ready data.

Picture yourself in your next annual review with your boss. When you have a long track record of having the most insightful analysis.

Yeah. Focus on that.

👉 #TelecomTribe: Follow me on LinkedIn, Russell Lundberg, for more updates, insights, tips, tricks, and tactics to love a career in Telecoms.

How do you handle Invitations to Connect?

When you are committed to using LinkedIn to build your career, you need to connect strategically.

When someone invites me to connect, I follow a pretty standard routine.

First, I view their profile. If they are not in the Telecoms industry, I’ll probably ignore their invitation straight away.

Second, if they are in Telecoms, I see how many connections they have. I get many invitations from people with single-digit or low double-digit connections.

I view these suspiciously because it just seems unlikely that someone with so little LinkedIn activity would ever find me.

Often the profile reveals inconsistencies which support this unlikelihood. I ignore these invitations.

Lastly, if their profile otherwise matches my objectives, I accept.

What’s your template for reviewing connection requests?

I’ve written a book to help Telecom Pros have a better LinkedIn Profile. It’s called Create An Awesome LinkedIn Profile.

download a free chapter.

👉 #TelecomTribe: Follow me on LinkedIn, Russell Lundberg, for more updates, insights, tips, tricks, and tactics to love a career in Telecoms.

Do you ever want an easy win?

Some of the things #TelecomPros like us do is hard. Like learning 5G, NFV, MIMO, MEC.

But not this. So take it easy.

You LinkedIn feed is mostly comprised of the articles, updates, and shares from your LinkedIn connections.

That means you have control over what appears in your feed. If your feed is not adding value for you, the thing to do is curate.

Warning, some people reject the idea of screening content from their feed. If that troubles you, read no further.

But if you are committed to using LinkedIn to advance your career, and you don’t mind silencing folks who pollute your feed with things which disinterest you, shut them down.

You’ll still remain connections. But their content will no longer appear in your feed.

The quality of your feed should improve immediately.

I’ve written a book to help Telecom Pros have a better LinkedIn Profile. It’s called Create An Awesome LinkedIn Profile.

Click to download a free chapter.

👉 #TelecomTribe: Follow me on LinkedIn, Russell Lundberg, for more updates, insights, tips, tricks, and tactics to love a career in Telecoms.

What does it take to recommit?

With January already gone I reviewed my progress towards my goals.

I chose a hiking trail in the beautiful Hawaiian Islands to clear my head and consider.

Although my results are mixed, anytime is a good time to refocus and recommit to achieving the important goals.

Making resolutions and goals are important for Telecom Pros to continually improve and achieve directed progress.

How are you doing on the resolutions you made for 2019?

Don’t be afraid to stop and refocus. Give yourself time and space to stay on your plan.

No one else will achieve your goals for you. It’s completely up to you.

How do you sharpen a saw?

Stephen Covey said that learning was like sharpening a saw.

How do Telecom Pros learn new technologies? Yesterday I said LinkedIn Groups. https://lnkd.in/fR9qiyP

To learn and to build your reputation, try this checklist:

  1. Apply to join Groups which share your interests. The group should be active and closely aligned with your interests.
  2. Allocate time each day to engage. Consistency is important to establish yourself.
  3. Scan for updates. If the group does not generate at least one new update daily, consider adding more groups.
  4. Start slow, to get to know the Group’s rules and etiquette.
  5. “LIKE” updates, answer questions, ask one, or tell your own experience.
  6. Tag the person. This puts your comment in the feed of their connections.
  7. Always be courteous and respectful. Nobody likes a jerk or bully or wise-guy.
  8. Share the articles you’ve read. Always add your own insights or questions.
  9. After you’ve exchanged comments with someone, consider inviting them to connect.

Practice this approach daily and your skills, your reputation, and your network will all grow.

How do you sharpen your saw?

👉 #TelecomTribe: Follow me on LinkedIn, Russell Lundberg, for more updates insights, tips, tricks, and tactics to love a career in Telecoms.

Can you build your career with Groups?

Yesterday I wrote about growing the number of people who view your profile.

This is about how you use LinkedIn every day because having a great profile is useless if no one sees it.

So you need to develop good LinkedIn usage habits. There are so many ways to do this.

LinkedIn Groups are one great way for Telecom Pros to do this.

Using Groups helps in many ways:

âś…Gain exposure in key technical areas.
âś…improve your knowledge by reading shares and comments of others.
âś…Build your own reputation by commenting
âś…Establish your credibility by writing your own articles
âś…Grow your personal network

Becoming a consistent contributor to the right groups allows all this to happen with your target audience.

The way to start is first, join Groups in your interest.

Then, begin reading, liking, commenting, and sharing.

Lastly, connect with or follow other consistent Group contributors.

What Groups will you join?

👉 I’d love to read your comments. Please share with your colleagues.

I’ve written a book to help Telecom Pros have a better LinkedIn Profile. It’s called Create An Awesome LinkedIn Profile.

Click to download a free chapter of my book.

👉Follow me on LinkedIn, Russell Lundberg, for more updates, insights, tips, tricks, and tactics to love a career in Telecoms.

I’ve written an article about LinkedIn Groups.

Do you drive traffic to your landing page?

Last week I posted several updates to help you upgrade your LinkedIn profile.

If you took action, visitors to your profile understand you much better and your passion to help.

Your profile is your landing page.

What should you do with it? Drive traffic to it. Get as many people as possible to view your profile. How?

Create content.

Creating content gets people to ask “who is the writer?” They’ll view your profile to find out.

Many ways to create content:
âś…Like updates and articles in your Feed
âś…Comment on those
âś…Share on LinkedIn articles you read on other platforms
âś…Ask question in comments
âś…Comment, ask, and answer questions in LinkedIn Groups
âś…Write your own articles on LinkedIn
âś…Write articles on other platforms and share them on LinkedIn

Having a great profile is important. But your awesome profile counts for nothing if no one sees it.

It’s up to you to get people to view your profile.

You could wait until you need a job, then send a bunch of job applications. But there’s an old saying:

dig the well before the drought sets in.

Don’t wait until you need a job to “dig your well”.

👉Follow me on LinkedIn, Russell Lundberg, for more updates, insights, tips, tricks, and tactics to love a career in Telecoms.

Take action.

I’ve written a book to help Telecom Pros have a better LinkedIn Profile. It’s called Create An Awesome LinkedIn Profile.

Click to download a free chapter of my book.