Contents’ - TERENA · 4 Mari Prestvik UNINETT Norway 5 Maria Ristkok EENet Estonia 6 Goran Skvarc...

MINUTES /18 TF-CPR MEETING NOTES FEBRUARY 2012

TF-CPR Thursday 23 February 2012 Kastrup, Copenhagen, Denmark Author: Laura Durnford

Contents Overview................................................................................................................ 1 List of Participants ................................................................................................... 1 Agenda .................................................................................................................. 2 NORDUnet International Strategy .............................................................................. 3 NORDUnet communications & a new Danish NREN ....................................................... 5 Internet Society Marketing, Communications Overview................................................. 5 From Company Strategy to Communications ............................................................... 7 Anniversary Communications .................................................................................... 8 Social Media ......................................................................................................... 10 Building Customer Relationships .............................................................................. 12 The global crisis and effect on NRENs, communication strategies and options ................ 15 TF-CPR Compendium – work item update ................................................................. 17 PeaR Community News – work item update .............................................................. 17 Any Other Business ............................................................................................... 17

Overview This meeting was hosted by NORDUnet. Preparations began in November 2011, with the following people contributing extra planning effort to make ‘their’ sections a success: Lars Fuglevaag, Cristina Lorenzo, Roland Eugster, Gitte Kudsk.

List of Participants The meeting was well attended, with VC allowing four people to participate remotely.

PRESENT PERSON ORGANISATION COUNTRY

1 Gitte Julin Kudsk (Chair) NORDUnet / UNI.C Denmark

2 Laura Durnford (Secretary)

TERENA N/A

3 Lajos Balint NIIF-Hungarnet Hungary

4 Fi Coyle HEAnet Ireland

5 Mattis Daae UNINETT Norway

6 Elke Dierckens (via VC) Belnet Belgium

7 Tomi Dolenc ARNES Slovenia

8 Christine Dworak ACOnet Austria

9 Roland Eugster SWITCH Switzerland

10 Lars Fischer NORDUnet Denmark

11 Lars Fuglevaag UNINETT Norway

TITLE /REFERENCE TF-CPR MEETING NOTES OCTOBER 2010

MINUTES /18 October 2010

12 Natasa Lemajis (via VC) AMRES Serbia

13 Cristina Lorenzo RedIRIS Spain

14 Dana Ludviga SigmaNet Latvia

15 Birgit Juel Martinsen UNI.C Denmark

16 Paul Maurice DANTE N/A

17 Riina Salmivalli FUNET (CSC- IT Center for Science)

Finland

18 Chris Schembri Baldacchino (via VC)

IT Services, University of Malta

Malta

19 Federica Tanlongo (via VC)

GARR Italy

20 Greg Wood Internet Society USA

21 Nino Cosic CARNet Croatia

APOLOGISED

1 Virginie Blanquart Renater France

2 Gabriela Krcmarova CESNET Czech Republic

3 Damian Niemir PIONIER Poland

4 Mari Prestvik UNINETT Norway

5 Maria Ristkok EENet Estonia

6 Goran Skvarc CARNet Croatia

7 Jennie Stewart Janet UK

8 Lonneke Walk SURFnet Netherlands

Agenda The agenda pasted below differs from the one published in advance online in that the topic of NORDUnet communications was added to the 09:45 time slot on Thursday. During the meeting, the 15:45 discussion about devising a social media poster for TNC2012 rapidly led to agreement to drop that idea at this time. This slot then reverted to discussion of the TNC2012 BoF (Birds of a Feather) session before finishing the meeting slightly earlier than planned. THURSDAY 23rd 9:15 - 9:25 Welcome: Introductions and agenda Gitte Kudsk & Laura Durnford 9:25 - 9:45 NORDUnet International Strategy: Presentation - CTO Lars Fischer Presentation slides (pdf) 9:45 - 10:00 NORDUnet Communications & New Danish NREN: Presentation - Gitte Kudsk Presentation slides (pdf) 10:00 - 10:30 Internet Society Marketing, Communications Overview: Presentation - Greg Wood Presentation slides (pdf) 10:45 - 11:45 From Company Strategy to Communications: Workshop. Led by Roland Eugster 1:'How SWITCH got to its company strategy' (Roland, 1: presentation slides (pdf)), 2:'How TERENA is progressing from company strategy to communications strategy’ (Laura, 2: presentation slides (pdf)), 3:‘How SWITCH is communicating its strategy internally’ (Roland, 3:



presentation slides (pdf)) PLUS discussion. 11:45 - 12:30 Anniversary Communications: Presentations (10 mins each) - 1: Greg Wood (No Slides), 2:Federica Tanlongo (Slides to come), 3:Laura Durnford (3: presentation slides (pdf)); Discussion (15 mins) led by Gitte Kudsk. 13:30 - 15:00 Social Media 1) Good examples: Presentations (10 mins each) - i:Paul Maurice (Presentation slides (pdf)), ii:Mattis Daae (Slides to come), iii: Birgit Juel Martinsen (No slides); Plus round table – other experiences (15 min) led by Gitte Kudsk 2) Progress on the work item: presented by Laura Durnford on behalf of Domen Bozeglav (ARNES) (15 min) Presentation slides (pdf) 3) TNC BoF preparation – 40 mins discussion / workshop 15:45 - 17:00 Social Media cont’d 4) TNC poster: discussion (15 mins), Workshop, 3 groups develop subtopics (1 hour) 17.00 - 17:30 Summarise key points, Wrap up - Gitte & Laura

FRIDAY 24th 09.15 - 10.35 Building Customer Relationships: Introduction, Gitte Kudsk (5 min); presentation: Lars Fuglevaag (Presentation slides (pdf)) (15 min); Discussion (60 min – led by Lars) 10:50 - 11:50 The global crisis and effect on NRENs, communication strategies and options: Workshop - 3 groups discuss a) 'money out' (how to spend more efficiently on events) b) 'money in' (how to get more sponsorship, without giving sponsors too much agenda presence and c) 'efficient collaboration' (how to share work and costs with partners / affiliated organisations). Led by Cristina Lorenzo (RedIRIS) Presentation slides (pdf) 11:50 - 12:05 TF-CPR Compendium Work item update. Elke Dierckens Presentation slides (pdf) 12:05 - 12:15 PeaR Newsletter Work item update. Cristina Lorenzo Presentation slides (pdf) 12:15 - 12:45 Summary of points, Agenda ideas for next meetings, AOB and Wrap up - Gitte & Laura

NORDUnet International Strategy Lars Fischer (NORDUnet) Geographical location affects what NORDUnet does: e.g. Iceland & Greenland are on the border of European & American continents. 5 relatively small Nordic countries, & 3 autonomous regions, 8 time zones, 25 million people, 9 official languagues, together the world’s 7th largest economy. Tradition for collaborating. NORDUnet 25+ year history. NORDUnet serves NRENs, not users. The vision is to be the Nordic Infrastructure for R&E. Used to only provide core networking service to NRENs. Then 5-8 years ago expanded to provide now 20+ services, including file sharing, community communication, Adobe Connect, end user NOC. Communications is tightly coupled to the NRENs and NORDUnet has a ‘virtual’ comms team of NREN PRs. Ensures transparency, avoids conflicting messages, avoids duplicating work such as comms strategies at national and regional level.



E-science ecosystem is built on the bedrock of the network, which is why the Nordic

countries rely on NORDUnet to provide that. New European Spallation Source is a

materials science facility to learn about properties of material – generates petabytes

of data. It’s located in Sweden but is a European effort with data storage in

Copenhagen. The GEANT 2020 report process provoked NORDUnet to think about its

future directions. Came up with 5 key themes affecting future:

• NREN as global network service provider –(even though will be national

organisations will provide global access)

• NREN as community service provider (role in facilitating and supporting)

• NREN as e-science enabler

• As e-education enabler

• As an innovative framework provider.

For this, NORDUnet needs global partnerships & strategy:

• need to serve affinity groups, not restricted by geography – collaborations are

global and the academic community demands global services.

• Must offer full range of network services

• Must work together as a community to serve e.g. Spallation Source

• Must manage costs – budgets are not growing but user demands are

Peering is exchange of traffic with other networks free of charge – this is an

important way of reducing costs and delivering traffic. NORDUnet is unique in Europe

because it spans the Atlantic, with a N Atlantic ring. Installing additional PoPs in

N.America. As well as technical advantages this also gives opportunities to contact

NRENs e.g. Latin Americans via Miami. In NY were able to peer diectly with Japanese

network (that also has PoP there) to provide dedicated bandwidth to

radioastronomers. In past year gratis peering has grown by 20% compared with

commercial paid-for traffic, which is growing more slowly. Strong collabration with

Russians and across N. Atlantic because they’re geographically close and also

studying fields that are relevant e.g. Arctic science, climatology. Also connectivity

with various countries and projects. Need to support applications though various

projects, need to develop software & middleware in collaboration with e.g. TERENA.

Need strong partnership with GEANT & TERENA but also need own software

developers – increasingly critical – new that are hiring developers and now have

software group, as well as network engineers. This is part of strategy



NORDUnet communications & a new Danish NREN Gitte Kudsk (NORDUnet / UNI.C) 1) NORDUnet communications: uses NREN comms people, 3 from 5 countries: Tiina, Lars & Gitte. Work as virtual group, see each other 3 times per year, but this is hard. So now redefining what do and how. Decided Feb 2012 will meet every 2nd month plus at TF-CPR and GEANT PR, and at NORDUNet conference. Tasks are to promote this conference, common nordic services, actively share news via NORDUnet website, renovate website (content before design). 2) New Danish NREN: NREN is being restructured. UNI.C and Forskningsnettet no longer under same Ministry: Forskningsnettet part of Danish Technical University & UNI.C under new Ministry for Children. From 1st April plan is to combine all e-infrastructure in one centre, UNI.C still to manage NOC, supercomputer centres will be at universities. Name UNI.C will disappear. Name of new NREN TBC.

Internet Society Marketing, Communications Overview Greg Wood (Internet Society) Greg was at Internet2 for around 12 years and at 1st ever TF-PR meeting. Internet

Society has lots of overlap with our community.

Internet was not inevitable: need to maintain it to enable education and new ideas.

Google, Skype etc. flourished not because of some central design but because the

way the Internet works allowed them to pop up. “Internet is good, more Internet is

better”. It’s an ecosystem with lots of players working togther in distributed way to

make Internet work.

ISoc was founded 1992. Strives to be a trusted independent source of Internet

leadership. Internet should be for everyone. 5 billion people are not connected. In 10

years time, they will be shaping what the Internet is like 20 years from now. ISoc has

bureaus in 5 regions, plus 100 organisational members, 60,000 individual members

who may be members of a chapter – more than 90 chapters worldwide. They advance

the ISoc’s goals in their local contexts.

ISoc works at the intersection of technology, policy, growth & development. ISOC is

the home of IETF. But it also takes these technology underpinnings and tries to

inform policy makers at regional, national & international levels, and to help growth

and development in e.g. Africa: holds meetings in Africa to encourage peering and

interconnection within region to reduce cost barriers (of routing traffic from country a

to country b via Europe).



In this work there is overlap between ISoc and R&E networking community.

Business plan outline shown. Comms work stresses the impact / change they’re

making, not just the activities they do.

Comms objectives were mapped back into the organisational strategic plans in an

iterative, interactive process of development, to give additional thoughts that may

not have been thought about in the overall business plan.

Communications Purpose is to develop, plan, and execute communications strategies

and services that advance the Internet Society’s goals and priorities through:

▪ Strategic thought leadership on communications initiatives

▪ Building robust organisational communications capabilities

▪ Continuous service and support of organisational priorities with speed and

agility

▪ Assembling, mobilising, and energising resources and capabilities beyond the

team (partners, chapters, members)

▪ Demonstrating the impact of our work through results and metrics

Comms objectives for 2012 defined:

• Continue to promote ISOC as trusted Internet leader

• Foster suport of open standards and multi-stakeholder model

• Drive comms strategies & tactics for ISoc investments & programmes

• Build comms capabailities so staff, chapters and members can act as

ambassadors for ISoc purpose.

This translates into communications plan, including 2012 celebration of 20th

anniversary and overhaul of website.

Website – old one was technically driven, text heavy. 2010 started seeing how to

make a difference on comms side achieving impact. People don’t connect with

technical info, connect with images. So did lot of work on branding images etc.

Images are a constant throughout 5 language versions of website, worked it through

various materials. Also quotes from people from 1st person and story telling. Took 3

years to redesign website. Launched Dec 2011.

Initiated World IPv6 day. Comms tracked web traffic, tracked promotion of it via

social media (built anticipation of event and on the day) – also mainstream media

coverage. Achieved this via PR agency to help with outreach. Helped that Google and

Yahoo were talking a lot about it.



2012 – a challenge is trying to align messaging across all resources. Also chapters are

looking for materials / elements to use in their comms. So developing a messaging

framework model and global messaging centre with links to specific resources, so

when someone wants to know how to discuss a topic for an audience, they will have

help.

We have a lot of common causes and philosophical foundations between our

communities and also comms challenges. See R&E networking community as really

important part of internet ecosystem. Open transparent internet is important to both

communities. It was built that way because it suited us. Now need to reaffirm

connections eg with RIPE because have let commercial companies in and time is ripe

for this.

From Company Strategy to Communications 1) How SWITCH got to its company strategy: Roland Eugster (SWITCH) Why do we need a new strategy? The old one can always be improved or is completed. How can we provide most value for our community? Need barriers to limit what you do from among the requests from customers etc. not just who’s the biggest or shouts the loudest. SWITCH did process of ‘Outside-in, Inside-out’. Phase 1: 9 expert reports by external groups on how they see future of ICT at Universities. Phase 2 – community workshops on different themes. Phase 3 Foundation council advised on areas of activity. Phase 4 develop strategy Phase 5 Approval by foundation council. So involved community from start and tried to understand what they saw as trends on campuses. Vision should be ‘guiding star’ towards which you reach. Vision is ‘SWITCH is making the knowledge space accessible” (knowledge not information accessible for everyone who belongs to the SWITCH community). This is a 10-year strategy - what they want to stand for in 2020. The mission says who we are what we do and why it needs us, what we want to achieve. Mission :SWITCH ensures greater success worldwide for Swiss researchers, lecturers and students – put more emaphasis on value of network through services. Defined the market, customer segmentation. Three areas of activity: Core business, specialty business, Third party business. Important that new strategy is refelected in the structure of the organisation. 2) How TERENA is progressing from company strategy to communications strategy: Laura Durnford (TERENA Secretariat) TERENA strategy project involved consultation of staff and Executive Committee plus



a stakeholder satisfaction survey. Four strategic goals were defined in summer 2011. Comms team has been thiking about ways the comms team fits or could fit with these regarding more specific areas of work. Aim to look ahead to see where TERENA comms should be three years from now and strategy should include the ‘big steps’ to gettig there, with annual / quarterly plans including ‘small’ steps towards those bigger steps. Currently examining how current roles and skills fit the overall list of what could be done. Also need to prioritise with managers about what key areas are. Comment: It’s a pity that it seems the strategy was done separate from comms and it’s seen as how can comms fit in, not how can TERENA communicate. 3) How SWITCH is communicating its strategy internally: Roland Eugster Need to communicate strategy well or it becomes a ‘paper tiger’ Interviewd staff about how is it going for you, do you get info you need, how does it work within your team / divison, do you know what the big boss is planning etc – gave overall impression of how well info flows. Set up an internal comms plan – when strategy was in process of being developed sometimes people heard nothing abut it for a few months, but wanted a continuous approach. Organised two strategy days where all staff had to attend. Staff happy to attend because was clear that top management endorsed the plan. Staff had to e.g. design posters etc reflecting their interpretation of what the vision and mission meant to them. Today – new organisation structure up and running. New teams physically in new offices. Divisions and teams formulating their operating strategy. Now need to define key activities. Key activities for Marketing & PR are

• Develop communication concept 2012 – 2015 • Develop marketing plan 2012 – 2013 • Successfully merge one and a half teams into one • Organise anniversary event “25 years SWITCH” • Set-up new meeting for university management

Anniversary Communications 1) Greg Wood (Internet Society) Why celebrate 20 years? Probably only 200 people in world would care, 50 in board! Used this idea to shape activities, decided to use anniversary as focal point for activities. Developed logo and used it as opportunity to engage chapters, providing them elements for their websites, and their translations help reinforce our message that ISoc is a global entity. Conference in Geneva in April 2012. Starting an Internet Hall of Fame to show ISoc is a leader in this field. Launch at April event. Also creating ‘Internet Wishing Tree’ online presence where people can express their hopes and



wishes for the Internet, promoted via social media. 2) Federica Tanlongo (GARR) Federica: Decided to celebrate actual implemenation of first network, not start of project. Aimed to address network pioneers, founding members, user community, public institutions. Aimed to present GARR as a success story and propose it as a key actor in future. Event, booklet, video, conference and related materials. Key point was to combine past and future, told anecdotal history with ‘voices from the past’ pioneers who contributed to the creation of the GARR network. Connected this with voice of future pioneers e.g. young researchers. GARR is its user community. Devised focuses, key messages and supporting points. Translated it into visual identity and slogan ‘From 20 years into the future’. Produced anniversary booklet distributed at anniversay event. Also included testimonials at the event, where were ministry people, funders, pioneers. Awarded prizes for young researchers on future internet and next generation networks – prizes were sponsored by ministry. From event and materials created a video and included similar approach in annual conference and related materials. Was a challenge to do it all but good feedback, good participation and opportunity to raise GARR profile. 3) Laura Durnford (TERENA) Decided on a small celebration of 25th anniversary in 2011 with focus on the future, as the 20th anniversary had been marked in a bigger way and with focus on the past history. So created a special version of the TERENA logo and used it across all materials, and held a video contest with question about future impact of Internet on people’s lives. Publicised contest via social media & TF-CPR and accepted more than 30 entries from general public as well as community members. Contest culminated at TNC2011 where entries could also be recorded in festively decorated TERENA booth. Also had birthday cake as TNC gala dinner dessert and General Assembly members had celebratory dinner at their October meeting, with guests from EC. 4) Discussion RedIRIS created an empty timeline and asked institutions to add in their info and photos etc. HEAnet doing a low-key celebration of 15 years, with logo. Belgrade University Computer Centre is celebrating 20 this year. 1 day Conference in March will make it high-profile there, Ministry person there and will talk about role of Internet in R&E.



ARNES celebrating 20 this year. GARR’s work & messages matches the vision but ARNES’s resources are less. Not at annual conference because too soon and difficult to fit there. With success of Campus Best Practice workshop and of TERENA and others looking to the future, decided to combine in one event with focus on community and achievements within the community. Early Nov. SWITCH 25 yrs at end November. 2013 UNINETT is 20 and .no domain is older, network nearly 40.

Social Media

Good Examples 1) Paul Maurice (DANTE) Why do we do social media? To engage communitites in a way they like, get messages to them in best format. Can’t not do it as marketers. Fun – instant result and impact. Problems: insufficient time, level of interaction still quite low. Facebook relatively low. Twitter more successful. E.g. news about eduGAIN in Brazil, retweeted by Neelie Kroes EC VP. Strategy done but still needs approving. 2) Mattis Daae (UNINETT) Lars realised need effort to cultivate channels – not v successful because nothing is happening on FB, LI, and Twitter – still need to get heads around how to tell good things on social media. Why should people follow us on social media? What do we bring? The company in charge of .no domain has been successful. They have huge discussions about whether or not individuals (rather than companies) could be on that domain. When post something on webpage, share it through personal accounts to reach much wider audience than follow the company page. Working on a policy for staff to use it. Grey area between personal and professional. Most successful SM is Andreas Solberg’s Feide blog. Read by around 1000 people per day. So need to be better at picking up such stuff and re-posting it. Finding things to put on SM is the key problem. 3) Birgit Juel Martinsen (UNI.C) Administers page for a conference about IT in primary and secondary schools. Had page since 2009. When started didn’t use it much. In 2011 started again. Begin activity around seven months before. When send out invitations, about three months



before the event we increase the pace. Important not to send out too much and to do it at right time. Write articles about speakers, who’s coming etc and put out links. As gets closer, more announcements. Links to pages containing pictures that load on the FB page makes the FB page look more interesting. Birgit effectively administers it alone. Feels comfortable because she knows the people and the topics and so defines the tone of the page herself. Also administers the UNI.C communication page. Two people do this. Such a big organisation she doesn’t always know what to say – less clear how to define the tone. Don’t get much response to conference page but more as conference gets closer. More talk off-line. Until Aug 2011 had around 100 followers. Then tried a FB advert – made an ad using 2000 DKK. The ad was directed at friends of followers. Got around 250 followers total, who stayed afterwards. Don’t have much activity. 4) Discussion FB pages should be used to give something extra. ‘Personality’ needs to come through. In traditional media e.g. magazine or newspaper, the editorial tone is clear and part of the brand identity. With facebook, it is hard to represent the “normal” tone of the company. But can show that there are people behind the FB page e.g. with thumbnails and names of ‘editor of the day’. Also, maybe it’s more successful to get staff to use their personal accounts as a medium for greater spread and trust. Technical personnel could post, not necessarily only technical subjects, try to convince them to post things. Emphasise “social” media. Make a framework about what the page will link to etc. Would be handy to have tools and guidelines on how to build the page. Effects? Pictures? How many? Devoted personnel required for success. “Hot topic at the moment” gives more followers. Use FB adds, - it works! Experience from facebook/uddannelsesforum SigmaNet - Twitter more succesfull than FB. HEAnet doesn’t have a FB account, only a twitter account because their customers are against ‘meeting’ them on FB. Number of ‘likes’ is not a really good measure for success – it doesn’t necessarily mean there is real interest in the page and are following it afterwards.



Social Media work item update presented by Laura Durnford on behalf of Domen Bozeglav (ARNES) Since the September 2011 TF-CPR meeting, a wiki space was created and improved, a first draft was made of a document pulling together general information about social media usage, a subgroup met in December to give feedback on the wiki an the document, to plan the Copenhagen session, discuss TNC2012 BoF and poster ideas and discuss how to encourage people to participate in a working group. As result, document was re-begun with new approach, a survey emailed and answers collected on wiki, BoF idea was discussed with TERENA cross-task force group with positive response. 34 NRENs responded to the survey – some highlights presented. Work item leader, Domen, has created a ‘Jumpstart Pack’ – guidelines to getting started on social media in general and on particular channels in more detail. Feedback suggests the group found this a good idea. Social Media at TNC2012 Participants agreed against submitting a social media poster for TNC2012 – perhaps in 2013. Discussion about the idea of organising a BoF (Birds of a Feather) session at TNC2012 included the following points:

• An introductory presentation and agenda plan is a good idea. • A team is needed to make this introductory presentation and agenda plan (Gitte, Laura, Domen) • The focus is on exploring synergies between technical and non-technical needs for NRENs to use social media so a coordinated approach can be recommended. • Technical task forces should be surveyed in advance about their needs in order to get data for and raise awareness of the BoF. • A group is needed to prepare the survey – (Birgit and Dana volunteered) • A team is needed to chair the BoF: Laura, Gitte and Tomi. Anyone else who will attend should alert these three. • After the BoF we will have to consider how the outcome affects the work item (Domen, Tomi, Gitte, Laura)

Building Customer Relationships Lars Fuglevaag (UNINETT) Q: Challenge – what is our business, who are our customers? Target groups include stakeholders, users and customers. UNINETT did reputation survey. Asked these three groups i.e. policy makers (members of boards, councils, task forces), users (professional users i.e. ICT staff,



end users – do we have any? - Now starting to talk with them as part of eCampus project, Customers – decision-makers, decision-influencers. COMMENT: ARNES customers do not pay so need them to show that they are happy with ARNES and this affects communication. It’s easier to get a cusrotner to pay than to get a happy customer to express that to funders. Q: How do we differentiate and prioritise between customers and stakeholders? Which persons are the most important – ICT managers / managing director? How do you prioritise? COMMENT: RedIRIS – hospitals & secondary schools need different services than universities do. Has meetings with heads of institutions. UNINETT CEO also meets yearly with heads, admin managers and top managers and is invited too to their meetings. Can be a problem for them to see it as important. ICT is not top of their agenda, it should just work. Also why UNINETT has ventured into tools for education because this is closer to their customers’ core business and more likely to move ICT up their agenda. UNINETT has 40 institutions so if all top managers visit in a year it’s busy, so thinking about having account managers to handle this. Funet - universities of applied sciences are being targeted more heavily, account managers contact people personally. Funet restructured and has partnership-building group now. HEAnet only contacts ICT directors, not top managers. This is not a problem in big univerities. But have 2-tier membership based on FTEs students. Smaller institutions don’t have any students, so for them it’s more of an issue as the fee is relatively expensive and they don’t sit on board - so thinking of restructuring. UNINETT has reorganised so can be more customer friendly, so need to address these questions now. Need to try and base on facts, so want to measure now and show improvement. Reputation = do they like and trust us. Measure ‘sales’ – but problem is don’t sell much anyway as government tells us what to provide and tells universities to pay for it, so may be better to measure deployment and use of (voluntary) services. COMMENT: Forskningsnet customers pay for a package and can use services ‘for free’, so also need to measure use of services. Each year each service has to answer questions and are told what they need to measure. Have done reputation survey, with general questions. This year also want to ask about which services customers use and know. How do you find topology of delivery, our Service level, information about services, user support etc. SWITCH - has done this level of survey. Trying to measure in terms of value creation rather than sales or turnover even though all services are paid for either bundled or



separately. Defining the formula is a process. Forskningsnet – suggested around 3 years ago to do this but boss wanted to improve first then measure. UNINETT bosses have to sign off survey beforehand otherwise they don’t take results seriously if they are negative or disappointing. Tried to reach ICT directors, admin directors and people inside institutions on councils / project boards related to UNINETT. Want to use measurements to make customer relations strategy integral with business strategy. Techies don’t see the bigger picture, they have their own relationships with institution people, but need technical managers to see bigger pic. Need to find out why they’re not satisfied with a service and how to improve - so techies need to be involved in this and need to feel interested in knowing answers. So which people deal with the customers and how do we coordinate that? Does the NREN need to make specific promises about service levels and targets to offer the customers? UNINETT has none. COMMENT: SWITCH has them for every service – not for each institution. Don’t use messaging about them in comms output, but maybe should consider doing that, although techies may not like emphasis on something that may not be delivered. HEAnet - SLAs are with each institution and it covers whatever services they take. Forskningsnet - has one SLA. IT managers have become more professional, from private companies and increasingly are demanding SLAs. ARNES - recently got first SLA request – reaction was “no, we’re the best”, then, “no best effort, and our best effort is good”. Some aspects of performance were measured so this could form basis for SLA – not everything is measured. In the end it was a “best effort” SLA and “our machines are up 99%” and that was good enough. What promises to make? Need to be prepared to fulfill them – need to know customers’ expectations in order to be able to measure satisfaction. AMRES - doesn’t charge, provide for free, so customers expect little and are pleased with anything they get. In some cases customers are also competitiors, e.g. universities asking government for money to host data storage centre rather than NREN doing it. HEAnet buys e.g. data storage on behalf of all universities so have buying power with commercial companies. ACOnet - comms-PR not involved with customer relations, bosses do it. Christine only involved if there are web issues. They haven’t had strategy or measurement but now are following strategy that arts sector could be pushed, more museums getting connected. Also trying to push government sector to get more ministries etc. connected. Chief benefits ACOnet brings are in technical value so it’s the techies who can push that (cf commercial providers).



What are good aspects to measure – technical / non-tech? Better to measure continuously so same q each time and see trend over time. That’s more important than the questions themselves. What areas for measuring satisfaction? Should relate to your strategically important goals. What can be done to improve customer relations work within the NREN? COMMENT: Forskningsnet – feeling that the customers won’t want to see the NREN, will feel you’re wasting their time etc. ARNES - has been trying to establish ties with IT directors but if their managers are not interested their hands are tied, so it takes management to make an effort, but they feel they don’t have the time. UNINETT - invited ICT managers to participate in their strategy meeting and give views about how NREN should interact - they said clearly you need to come and talk with us. ACOnet - whole team meets customers at (technical) meetings and so the whole team gets to participate in ‘customer relations’. Within many organisations there are silos regarding job function and that good internal communications is a requirement. UNINETT – yes this is important. UNINETT has too many employees to all go to all events. AMRES - Helpdesk 24/7 is important for customer security and contact. UNINETT - has different helpdesks for different services, so this again makes it difficult. Action: LD to check with TF-MSP whether they have created a wiki repository to collect user surveys and customer relations strategies etc. If not, create one.

The global crisis and effect on NRENs, communication strategies and options Cristina Lorenzo (RedIRIS) In a short introduction, Cristina explained how the global economic crisis is impacting NREN budgets, which means comms-PR staff need to get creative about cutting costs without losing quality. Participants (including those on VC) brainstormed in three groups addressing:

1) ‘ Money out’: how to spend more efficiently on events a. Where possible use own rooms in-house catering b. Split bigger meetings into smaller ones so you can use own facilities c. Negotiate with vendors – opportunity for repeat business, find sponsors d. Limit production and distribution of giveaways / negotiate with supplier e. Hide costs for merchandising and catering by building it into the fee –



make it more eceonimcal to attend whole meeting. f. Rather than printing conference materials, do it online and promote it

as being green, use recycled materials 2) ‘ Money in’: how to get more sponsorship, without giving sponsors too much

agenda presence a. Sponsor could organise a dinner outside the venue and give speech,

show logo b. Put sponsor logos on screens in video c. Have a separate room in venue where enterprises can give demos,

talks 3) ‘Efficient collaboration’: how to share work and costs with partners / affiliated

organisations. a. ISOC – with chapters in various countries, centrally provide case

studies that can be adapted locally. b. IF NREN joins a project it could invite regional / campus organisations

to contribute e.g. could invite customers to provide testimonials, case studies online.

c. ACOnet annual report gives opportunity for new customers to present themselves and why joined ACOnet – raises awareness of them among others and provides content

d. Exploit lobbying power of customers. When Hungarnet was in problems called on directors to support it to funders.

e. Shared ‘buying club’ for PR services – e.g. TERENA / group of NRENs could share costs for e.g. PR agency / image library (under creative commons) / translation services that cover mutiple languages. (If TERENA translated into English then everyone can use them.)

f. Share NREN case studies / their production NB – materials are already shared via our repository: https://confluence.terena.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=6848914

g. Don’t reinvent the wheel with articles, graphics etc, use ideas from other NREN products and see what other NRENs have available.

h. Use PSP type approach for non-PSP topics. i. Collaborate with university comms people through TF or individual

NREN – ACOnet does it with webmasters, SURFnet safe Internet campaign etc.

j. Willingness to use materials such as connectivity video - contribute feedback and can use

k. Leverage the corporate partners’ comms teams & their reach



TF-CPR Compendium – work item update Elke Direckens (Belnet) Elke reviewed changes to the questionnaire and the forward planning. It was agreed to try and get the surveys filled in and the report written up earlier than suggested, with the aim of having the Compendium ready in time for TNC2012. Elke requested VIP contacts should be sent the compendium.

PeaR Community News – work item update Cristina Lorenzo (RedIRIS) Cristina reviewed statistics about the number of items published, by which organisations and how the pattern has changed over time. There have been increasing contributions by an increasing number of non-NREN and / or non-European organisations. To help grow the number of recipients on the mailing list and therefore also increase the value to posters in making the effort to publish, all contributors are asked to :

• send information about PeaR to o their own staff and colleagues o affiliated institutions o other professional contacts

Any Other Business *IPv6 launch on 6 June 2012 – are NRENs interested / is it appropriate for them to promote this? SigmaNet is interested, HEAnet will encourage clients to take part like last year. Greg emphasised it’s not just a day like last year – “folks who sign up are committed to making it the new normal”. Anyone is welcome to submit their website or network if IPv6-enabled to worldipv6launch.org - will be listed among official participants so could be opportunity for NRENs offering IPv6 to show they’re on leading edge of networking. ISoc is working on ideas for engagement opportunities with chapters and end users – willing to share. Belnet planning to do it low-key, but would be added value if NRENs put out general message together, do it internationally, or with big company, statements from NRENs, cases, testimonials, press releases etc. Actions: LD to create wiki space to share relevant materials. Elke to coordinate collection of materials and sharing of information about them.



Dates for autumn meeting – it was agreed to opt for the first week of October, to avoid a series of clashes with other events and commitments in September. Action: LD to check with PSNC if that option is ok for them as hosts. Suggested items for next meeting at TNC2012 – social media, Ipv6, tf-cpr compendium results – other suggestions welcome

Contents’ - TERENA · 4 Mari Prestvik UNINETT Norway 5 Maria Ristkok EENet Estonia 6 Goran Skvarc...

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Transcript of Contents’ - TERENA · 4 Mari Prestvik UNINETT Norway 5 Maria Ristkok EENet Estonia 6 Goran Skvarc...