I’m not sure where I learned that phrase.  It was either from my long stint in telecom at Level 3, which makes no sense whatsoever, or from my days in consulting at Bain. In either case, the point of the saying is that if you are trying to get your customers to try something, you had better be using it yourself so that you know exactly what the customer is experiencing.

This applies both directly and indirectly to Envysion and we try to be diligent about it, and we are definitely making strides at doing it more pervasively throughout our business. Let me share some examples with you. In a direct sense, we use our own video service to monitor our building and even some of our employees houses (the outsides of course). The service came in quite handy in the first week in our new building a year ago when a workaholic young woman in marketing was alone in the office late at night. She heard someone rattling the doors and saw from across the cubes a scruffy guy with a backpack “lurking” outside the building. She was naturally afraid to go out to her car so she called our CTO (who lives close to the office) to ask for some assistance. Before he started to come over, Rob got onto our service, looked at video of the doors from a few minutes ago and quickly identified the scruffy villain as none other than our scruffy developer Joey who had forgotten his badge and didn’t know anyone was in the office. This is an obvious one, of course we’re going to use our own video service. Note: I could have used the infamous cone stomping/parking space confrontation example where our neighbors used our own video service to highlight some of our, um, questionable negotiating tactics but I have found making fun of my bosses in public is frowned upon.

An indirect but more recent example of us eating our own dog food is our use of other software as a service businesses for our own purposes. The primary example is our use of Salesforce.com, which is perhaps the best known of all software as a service applications. We use salesforce extensively for our CRM and sales processes.

Why is it important to use other SaaS applications internally that have nothing to do with our service? It helps us experience the SaaS model and apply our learnings to how we operate our service. For example, one of my pet peeves with Salesforce is that I can’t just add a user (when I hire a new salesperson) by clicking a button. Their whole model is software and self service based , but I can’t click a box and sign up for a new user license?  Instead I have to email my account exec, have him send me a pdf of a contract, print it, sign it, scan it and email it back to him, then he adds a license and then I can add a user. This is particularly irritating when I have forgotten to do this ahead of time and a new salesperson shows up for day 1 training and I can’t get them on Salesforce right away until I go through that process. Salesforce isn’t stupid, they probably realize the pain this creates, but they are focused on getting that ink signature on a contract so they make their customers suffer a bit for it. With our service, we think how this will apply to customers that want to add another camera (which has a license implication) to their service. Do they need to call us first and ask us to add another camera license so they can see their new camera or do they plug in their new camera and that automatically triggers an increase in their licenses? There are pros/cons to each approach, but we are better prepared to think the issue through b/c we’ve gone through the same thing from a user’s perspective with our own SaaS tools.

Okay, the only thing worse than a string post is the promise of a string post the next day and then not following up on it for a week.  Guilty.  Actually there a lot of things worse than either of these things, but my apologies anyway.

I posted at some point last week about the pricing decisions we are making around the centralized video storage capability.  In that post I posed the question as to how much storage we should include with our base service, assuming that providing some amount of storage is good so that people could try the service and providing unlimited storage is bad bc that is only good for the few customers that would take advantage of the business model and suddenly archive 10 years worth of video “for free”.

After debating this internally for a little while, we came to the conclusion we were thinking about it wrong.  We had been trying to figure out the minimum amount of storage we could provide so that customers could try that aspect of our service (just enough) but we could still charge a lot of customers that would exceed this threshold.  We concluded this was a shortsighted approach – if we provide 500Mb or 500Gb of central storage with the base service, it doesn’t really matter that much from a cost standpoint - storage is cheap (and saavy customers know this).  What does matter is figuring out how customers are going to use the service and how to make it more valuable for them.  To do that you we need to give customers enough central storage to enable them to utilize it in creative ways that help improve their business.  If we give them too little we’ll constrain their ability to use it and fewer new applications and use cases will likely be created.  If we give them a decent amount of storage (more than enough) and let them play, they’ll figure out ways to use it to create value.  If we pay attention we can learn from this and enhance our service to accomodate their new needs.  At that point they should be willing to pay us more if our enhancements drive real value for them.  They should definitely be willing to pay more than they’d pay for simply another 100Gb of storage.

Net of all of this is we are going to be generous with initial storage to let customers experiment and won’t have a pricing model that is directly tied to the amount of storage you get on the network.  We are after all selling a service, not a hard-drive.

There are a lot of contexts in which you could ask that question.  In our case, we have recently been asking ourselves this question in the context of video storage.  Unlike traditional DVR solutions, there are two types of video storage in our MVaaS architecture – storage on the customer site on the recorder, and centralized storage in the network (actually in a data center attached to the network if you want to pick nits)

The question we are asking ourselves is not how much video is enough to save on the customers premise.  The customer premise question is too straight-forward.  If a customer wants more storage, you put in a bigger hard drive, you give them more storage.  It isn’t challenging technically, it is pretty transparent economically, and it isn’t particularly complicated to think through.  The question we are asking is how much video storage is enough in the network.

This is a bit more complicated thing to think about.  The issue is this – with our MVaaS solution we can enable users to store video off of the recorder at their remote location and into a secure data center.  Users can do this manually by finding video that is interesting and then saving it into the network (so it persists, they can tag/annotate it, share it with others, etc)  They will also be able to do this programmatically (we are about a month away from this) by setting up business rules that will cause video to be pulled off of the recorders and into the network based on specific transactions (like a void transaction on the POS) or events (like the back door opening after hours)  Early customer feedback on this capability has been positive.  The question is how much centralized storage should we include with our service.

Start with the assumption that we are going to provide some amount of storage greater than zero as part of our base packages.  Philosophy here is simply that we want users to try the capability, use it, get hooked and then want more of it – at which point we can charge those users that really use the service while still letting everyone get a taste of the capability.  Add the other assumption that giving away unlimited storage as part of the base package is not a good idea – having a fixed zero price point coupled with an unbounded potential cost structure doesn’t seem too smart and the baking in an average price based on the expected average usage of storage will likely make the base service too expensive for those that don’t use the central storage.

So I’ve narrowed it down then, we are going to include some amount of central storage with our service that is greater than zero but less than infinity.  Isn’t that helpful?

I’m going to violate my self-imposed ban on string-posts and give some more insight tomorrow.  I spent last weekend and the first couple days this week on a vacation with my family (at Legoland among other places) and am still trying to catch up and ditch the nausea I picked up from the Age 5 appropriate Bionacle Blaster ride!  I can definitively say that once is enough when it comes to that ride.

I recently had the opportunity to tap our service using a Mac laptop and I’m happy to say, it worked very well. The application necessary to support access from the Mac OS is called Parallels. Once installed with Windows XP and IE, it’s a simple as an extra double-click from the desktop.

While over 90% of the business community is still using Windows, I’m pleased that the growing number of users running Mac can enjoy our remote enterprise management system.

Back when I was a consultant – feels like a hundred years ago now – there was a movement towards what Jack Stark called Open Book Management. This was popularized in a book of the same name by John Case back in the mid 90′s. Below is a picture from today’s all-hands meeting in which our CEO Matt Steinfort is demonstrating our weekly version of open book management. The purpose of this weekly all-hands meeting is to keep everyone informed about the goings on at Envysion. Specifically we all learn where the company is at from a sales funnel, installation, development and operations perspective.

Matt Steinfort addresses Envysion

I think this type of exchange is critical in any company but especially a start-up. I admit to a bit of bias here since I do daily scrums with my development group but I can tell you from much past experience that frequent, open and consistent messaging to employees goes a long way towards building a cohesive organization. Additionally, when everyone has all the information it’s much more likely that they’ll make the right decision.

You can’t see it in this picture but there’s a video camera on the table there by Matt. We use it along with a conference bridge to make remote folks feel like they are in the room with us as well. In this way we’re eating our own dog food so to speak.

I’m curious to know if there are other opinions about open book or the use of MVaaS for meetings like this.

As our discussion continued, my friend let me know about another employee who was terminated for behavior that would never have happened had he been on site. He informed me that he and his wife just found out they’re having a boy. With his wife 5 1/2 months pregnant, he’s trying to spend a bit more time at home. The ease of access, ease of use and bandwidth friendly aspect of Managed Video allows him to view all locations at the same time without worry of bogging down the network.

While cooking dinner at home and casually watching two of his three locations, he noticed the cashier missing, leaving the entire storefront unattended. He placed a call to the store and instead of the cashier answering, a cook did. As it turns out, the cashier was taking a mid-evening nap in the back out of camera view. The cashier was terminated the very next day.

Managed Video allowed the owner to easily perform multiple, unannounced store visits to quickly access the health of his operations. As it turned out, a house cleaning was in order and expectations were reset with the existing crew at all locations. Many employees expressed their gratitude but at the same time confessed they didn’t want to risk “getting someone in trouble” by bringing these issues to the attention of management.

Staffing will always be a challenge at this level. Owners can’t be everywhere at once but they can gain visibility into nearly every aspect of their operations with a properly executed Managed Video strategy.

I sat across the table from my friend as he stated “I had to let go of three people this past month based on what I’m seeing with your video. It’s heartbreaking to see what goes on on despite the generosity and training I put towards my staff”. He used the video to watch employee behavior quickly deteriorate within minutes of stepping foot out the door.

In this specific case, he quickly logged on and pulled up multiple-site views of live video from his single managed login. On a single screen, he was able to watch an employee from location1 leave and show up 10 minutes later at the back door of location 2. Following a quick exchange, the employee was back at location 1, all the while on the clock. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

Through subsequent reviews, the same employee mysteriously disappeared for twenty minutes following the departure of the owner. This time, the owner stayed on-site and witnessed the employee leave, use a narcotic and then re-enter the building. Upon confrontation, it was confessed where it came from (see “exchange” above). Tough to refute the video.

Most disturbing was the fact that this was not a line cook or delivery driver but the shift manager responsible for employee safety and overall customer experience.  Both employees were immediately terminated. Isolated incident in the retail/restaurant industry? Unlikely.

Some owners choose to turn a blind-eye to this activity. Others want to weed out the problems, reduce their liability and create a safe environment for employees and customers. If you’re in the latter camp, Managed Video allows for viewing of live and recorded video across multiple sites from a single interface – on demand.

That’s two of the three. My next post will focus on the other example of how this owner used managed video to clean house.

I recently had lunch with a multi-unit operator. While he’s no stranger to the restaurant business, he is fairly new to multi-unit ownership and confessed it’s much more stressful than he imagined. I asked him what specifically, wondering if it was increased food costs or perhaps a downturn in sales. He stated it was labor - not necessarily the cost of labor but the quality of labor.

I asked if it helps to use the managed video application to understand the trouble spots and share best practices. His response was immediate and it carried well through our entire meal. I wasn’t shocked by anything he told me but the subject matter is certainly that which no restaurant owner likes to talk about. In a follow up post, I’ll dive into the details behind the sleepless nights and how managed video is a weapon against labor apathy and liability.

Image via Wikipedia

If you sample lists of numbers from many real-life sources of data, what is the probability that the leading non-zero digit from any of the numbers is 1?

Logic would suggest that the answer to be 1 divided by 9, or 11.1%.  But it’s not.

Rather it is an astonishing 30.1%!

This doesn’t sound right, but it is.  Based on the work of mathematicians, most notably Dr. Frank Benford, it has been proven that the distributions for many sets of numbers are not uniform.  In fact, this theorem is so prevalent that it is the basis for many fraud detection programs, including some used by taxing authorities coast to coast.

If you are now expecting the mathematical proof, I’m sorry to disappoint.  I’m not smart enough to try to explain this further.  Just ponder this.  There are teams of PhD’s at the ready to tackle fraud issues by applying complex mathematical formulae and supercomputers.  Alternatively, we could install a smartly devised MVaaS solution to add 18% to our profits.  Now that’s a proof that we all can understand.

In my last post I highlighted how quickly a business can benefit from viewing video.   I gave a couple real life examples of how some of our customers have been able to obtain insights almost instantaneously by having the right people view video at the right time.

If you are new to the video space, this may seem like a pretty impressive capability.  However, if you have even a little bit of experience with traditional video surveillance solutions (and because you are reading this blog I’m guessing you do) you are likely saying, “yeah sure I get the point, but this is a blog about MVaaS and even the most limited DVR with remote access can give you that same benefit – does MVaaS do anything differently to enable this?”

I’ll use the same two examples to make my argument that yes, MVaaS does enable a higher level of value than a traditional DVR solution in even this basic capability.

Let’s start with the first example.  In that example, the CEO looked briefly at video of a specific site and pointed out a violation of their standard store layout.  Had that CEO looked at that same video from any system, whether it was an old traditional DVR or an IP camera that was streaming directly to his browser, he would have gotten that same insight.  In this regard, an MVaaS solution is no different.  What IS different with an MVaaS based solution is the likelihood that that same CEO will look at video from additional sites in the future.   MVaaS solutions eliminate the complexity and manual activity surrounding the set up of users and access.  When we showed the CEO one of his sites, all we did was log in as the CEO (who had been set up to have access to all sites in the company’s domain) and he immediately had access to all of his locations, without having to add individual sites, without having to know a single recorders’ username or password or IP address.  If the company was expanding and adding sites, no one had to do anything – as soon as the new site came up and the CEO logged in again – he would see the new site.  With many traditional DVR solutions, a user gets access to a new site by adding that site to the software that they have downloaded onto their computer and configuring the username, password and sometimes IP address of the new location.  It is highly unlikely in that scenario that a CEO will have access to all of their locations at any given time unless someone is hijacking his laptop every time they build a new location and every time the company needs to change the log in information for an existing site.  By simplifying the adminstration of access rights and eliminating any manual configuration required, MVaaS ensures that the right people (in this case the CEO) have access to all of the right locations when they want it.

In the second example, I discussed having shown two LP professionals a video clip of the cash handling in one of their locations.  Again – this is not rocket science, had the same LP professionals seen the same video from a traditional DVR, they certainly would have made note of the same issue.  What I didn’t talk about was where we were when I showed them the video and what we did with the video to ensure that they could save it and share it with their operations group.  We happened to be at NFSSC (a major loss prevention conference) in Dallas and I was showing them the video on a computer that was part of our trade show booth in the middle of the hotel conference center.  Before you get all riled up, yes I understand that many DVRs can be accessed via the web from pretty much anywhere and that this is not unique to MVaaS.  The differentiation I am speaking about came after we saw the video.  We had logged in as one of the LP folks and were looking at one of her sites.  We found the incident and then wanted to save the clip so that she could review it with management the next day when she returned from the show.  She didn’t want to leave the clip on the recorder at the store location and the file would have been to big for me to download to the trade show PC (I didn’t have a thumb drive and their email server wouldn’t let a file that big through)   So instead, we saved the video clip into the network (into her secure MyClips library) with a description and some comments so that she could access it when she returned and share it via a link with others that she wanted to see it.  The file upload happens in the background, so she logged out and left before it was even finished.  MVaaS, as opposed to most traditional DVRs, not only enables users to access their video from anywhere, but also enables them to share video by saving it off of the recorder into a secure and private library of clips that the user can share and distribute as they see fit.