Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Re: Nextel pitching to NC agencies: A REAL Call to Arms.]

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 15:29:01 -0400

-------- Original Message --------
From: Jack Daniel <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Nextel pitching to NC agencies: A REAL Call to Arms.

Rik,

Congratulations. After they sharpen their weapons on a few smaller local
agencies, your city may be next on their target list. They might want
Durham's scalp to hang besides Denver's and a few others.

There will be NO tactic that is inappropriate or irresponsible standing
in the way of them achieving control over your local managers and
administrators. Lavish entertainment, 'fact finding trips', closed door
meetings, undefined 'loans' of handsets, offers to buy your channels,
etc. may all be in the mix. 

Be prepared for every imaginable attack on your credibility if you offer
opposition or attempt to provide evidence they are >>NOT< a viable
public safety, mission critical offering. 

You will be outnumbered and facing overpowering financial and personnel
resources.
If you resist and they have no other choice, they may try to get you
fired.

Once the 'teams' get there, they will gang up against anyone who offers
opposition. You will the have defend yourself against 4 to 10 or more
highly trained specialists who network with headquarters' at least once
a day to report in and get additional resources if needed.

(Sounds a lot like implementing a battle plan to me.)

My meager advice is to preempt them as much as possible and as soon as
possible before they get imbedded. Who knows, you may already be a
listed enemy because they monitor comments made here.

You will need more than technical information.

Maybe others in the group can help you by supplying good counter
evidence if you have a specific item to overcome. 

But I may be wrong......
Jack Daniel
===============================================

[email-masked] wrote:
> 
> I now have confirmation of Nextel sending a team to two communities in
> North Carolina, in an apparent attempt to convince them they should
> use Nextel for their Public Safety communications.
> 
> I cannot stress strongly enough what a disaster I believe such a
> decision would be.
>

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 14:44:55 -0400

-------- Original Message --------
From: Jack Daniel <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re:  Nextel pitching to NC agencies: A REAL Call to Arms.

Guys,

These have all been good comments and good advice with good intentions
but it seems to me we are loosing sight of the original subject and it's
urgency.

I really don't think it was anyone's intent to minimise or over simplify
this situation to just a 'salesman walking in the door' scenario. You
don't handle a kid writing on the sidewalk with chalk the same way you
handle gangbangers 'tagging' everything in sight.

Anyone can paint a rosy picture of all the things we should do when
people act responsibly and everybody plays by the rules and we have all
the time and resources in the world to do a very tidy job. 

While we are preaching utopian ideals and feeling good about our
righteousness, REAL things are happening on the street and REAL people
are facing REAL problems we can help solve with REAL information.

More importantly REAL people may be put into harms way while we
pontificate.

The fact is Nextel is Nextel; 
The business equivalent of a great white shark, often described as the
perfect predator. This is NOT a moral judgment or emotional reaction,
just the cold hard facts of how they do business. Unlike us here, they
are fixated on one objective, profits, and that is expected and admired
in business management today.  Nextel is simply being Nextel.

99% of public agency managers, administrators and their support staff
have never encountered such a force in their work history.  They are
under informed outnumbered and easily overwhelmed by large numbers of
persons who are highly trained and experienced in achieving their
singularly focused goal. There is no benevolence in their motives, only
success at any cost. 

History shows past embodiments of this business model proved to be
self-destructive but this time there is much more than money at risk
while this cycle plays itself out; it's the safety and lives of our
first responders and indirectly the safety of every citizen.

We have not done a good job in preparing our leaders for the situation
they find themselves in today, but maybe we CAN deliver some factual
material that will assist in having a better understanding and doing a
better analysis of the proposals being presented by the cellular service
providers.

Let's see if we have enough discipline amongst us to stay focused on
those items we can deliver within a very short time span:

A root problem is non-technical people don't understand or appreciate
the differences between a consumer grade offering like Nextel and a good
(not ideal) public safety radio system.

Can we not develop some tools that explain in layman's terms why a pubic
safety system is different and what it takes to serve those differences?

For example, how about a glossary of 'buzzwords' that can be manipulated
in a sales pitch; 

Interoperability: 
The ability to communicate between different agencies and groups when
engaged in a common activity. The least desirable solution is to use
multiple radios because of the operational difficulties that arise
during an emergency.  Adding or substituting a consumer radio handset is
not an improvement over using existing multiple public safety radios.

Back-up Power for service availability in emergencies: 
This is a system of electrical power sources (batteries, stand-by
generators, etc) that maintain wireless communications in the event of a
primary power (i.e. electric utility) failure commonly used in public
safety system implementations.  It is well known that the uninterrupted 
availability of radio communications during the first 1 to 4 hours of an
emergency is crucial in saving lives and controlling the resources
needed to manage the incident.  Waiting for portable generators or
'cells on wheels' is not a viable substitute for permanent back-up power
at all radio sites. Reliance upon sparsely located back-ups at some cell
sites is not dependable as that does not resolve a loss of
communications  from the nearest site and it increases the probability
of traffic overload (call interruptions and blocking) at the surviving
sites. 

Mission-critical Versus Supplementary Use of cellular services: 
Almost every brochure developed by Nextel to promote sales to public
safety starts out by stating their offering is as a "supplemental"
service to an existing public safety radio system. That is 100% correct.
and conforms to how most knowledgeable people view the product and
service.

BUT the text following that statement details how the product is
suitable for every purpose of a primary public safety system including
"mission-critical" uses.

The prospect need to not forget the 'supplemental' qualifier to all of
the other statements made in the brochure.  "Mission critical" to the
user of a consumer handset is getting home for dinner on time.

Redundancy:
Reliance upon central controllers:
Service restoration time:
Emergency access to effect radio equipment repairs by on-scene agency
personnel:
etc. etc.

I'm sure together we can define and compare every feature or function in
a way non-technical people can understand the purpose and the
trade-offs.

We also need to provide costing outlines and details so the
administrators and purchasing people will have a better understanding of
the financial impacts of their decisions.

And although we will always have a few people that will be seduced by
the attention and gifts they may receive, we can remove some of their
"nobody on my staff told me" defense.

Not knowing is different than ignoring the material presented by your
own staff.

I think we CAN do something useful and timely IF we stay focused on the
task.

But I may be wrong……..
Jack Daniel
=======================================================

Maples, Dave wrote:
> 
> All: I really appreciated what Frank wrote below.  All I would add is
> to humbly suggest that NOW, before the salesmen from ANYWHERE walk in
> the door, that a clear assessment of REQUIREMENTS for any new system
> expenditures be drawn up.  

------ snip --------

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