A Very Long Day…

Tuesday started with us going back out to the stadium first thing in the morning. The intention was to do a bit more Sportskeep training with them, and also for them to get the mobile phones out to the stadium as early as possible so I could configure them. That was the intention…

The guys hadn’t done much practice since the training Brett did yesterday. At about 11.00 I spoke to the guys at the office and the phones were apparently on their way to the office, at which point they would come to the stadium (45 minutes away). We were doubtful they would arrive before we would have to leave. After a game of mini golf, we had had enough. Brett did a final walkthrough and answered a couple of questions, and then we left.

We got back to the hotel just before 2.00. The guys were already there waiting for us, to take us out to “the 3rd largest data centre in the world”. This was the meeting that had gotten arranged for us on Monday. There were 2 guys and a driver that took us out to the place. It was over an hour to get there. What we didn’t know is that we were just going to a construction site! It was nowhere near complete! They walked us through where the suites were going to be, so we had an idea of the size, but didn’t get to see anything set up. We were taken to a board room where we had a meeting with the President of Marketing, and 4 other people. It was a complete wank – we don’t know what the guys at XLR8 had been telling them, but it became more and more obvious that they had no idea about the business, and that this meeting was just wasting everybody’s time. I got the vibe from one guy that he also saw that, but the others didn’t and kept talking crap for a while. Eventually we left… pity – I really wanted to see inside a data centre (which was the only reason I accepted to go).

Back at the hotel, Brett and I had a couple of drinks and something to eat – we didn’t know when we’d next be eating. We then went up to Andrew’s room to have a shower before leaving. The hotel car took us to the airport at about 6.30 pm. It was a good drive – the driver was a lot more sedate than our other drivers, and we got to see quite a bit along the way.

After a bit of shopping, we checked in – it wasn’t too difficult. We then sat down and had a few drinks and debriefed the trip. Eventually it was boarding time (11:00pm ish). I slept for a little bit on the flight to Singapore, and watched a movie. We arrived at Singapore 6.00am (local time), and had a 1 hour stop over. We walked around the airport, which was so nice and quiet after the mad lifestyle in India. Finally we boarded and did the flight back to Sydney.

I watched a couple of movies on that flight, and slept for a bit. We had a couple of meals which helped pass the time. Finally we landed in Sydney at about 4.00 pm (local time). We got our bags and went through immigration, and then had to transfer to the domestic terminal. After a bit of dinner and a couple of drinks at the airport, it was finally time for me to board my Rex flight to Ballina, and Brett’s flight to Melbourne wasn’t far behind.

I landed at Ballina right on time – 8.30pm. Rese was there to pick me up from the airport, and we went back to my place where I could share my adventures with her (as well as some duty free alcohol!). We then went back to their place – I figured I may as well go with her now to pick up the bike as I’d need it again. Sparky had gone to bed but came out to be socialable and we had another couple of drinks there. I eventually rode home and went to bed. This was now 22 hours after we left the hotel in India, so it had been a very long days travel! Back at home I fell asleep pretty much straight away.

This morning we went in to the ExPat offices to meet with their team. It became very apparent that they have no idea about running a stadium, or what happens at their stadium. They were talking about integrating Sportskeep to their CRM, and all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas that are way beyond the scope of the product (or anything you would ever need if you were using it as designed).

They asked me if I had considered local web hosting. Next thing I know they’ve teed up a meeting for me with a Data Centre – it’s supposed to be the 3rd largest in the world when its finished. I thought it might be a fun opportunity so I agreed to go along. We scheduled that for tomorrow.

They also decided they wanted the remotes now. This makes things difficult – as we leave Tuesday night, they don’t have long to arrange them. They were given the opportunity to take these in the initial proposal, but the refused. Obviously they figured they’d be able to save some money doing things this way. I told them they would have to get one for me to test with before we could do anything, which they agreed to do.

We went out to the stadium and tidied things up. Finally the phone arrived at 6.30, and with some playing around I was able to configure it and get it going. I told them to arrange to get more out to the stadium by tomorrow morning, and I’d get them going.

Back at the hotel, we ate at the restaurant again. A couple of drinks, and then we called it a night.

These Indian’s are very frustrating.

Never Again…

How many times have I said that? Well, I wasn’t *too* bad this morning, but certainly shouldn’t have had those last couple of drinks! Luckily it was a late start today – in fact I missed out on breakfast as I didn’t get down there until 11.00!

We had to go out to the stadium later in the afternoon so Brett could do some Sportskeep training with the manager. They just didn’t get it. They couldn’t understand the concept of running a competition rather than a small tournament or court hire (which Sportskeep doesn’t do very well). So it was very frustrating for Brett. But he made it through, and I pottered around the stadium doing odds and ends.

Shambu took us to a restaurant in the city, where we had a few beers and an amazing meal for < A$90. It was so cheap! The drinks alone would have cost more than that in Singapore! After dinner we walked up and down the street for 10 minutes while waiting for Shambu to pick us up. Once back at the hotel, I went straight to bed - I was pretty tired and drained from the last few days and needed a quiet one. Brett and Andrew had a beer in the bar but I was strong... :)

Usual start to the day – breakfast, and shit-scary drive to the stadium. We had a chat to the guys to see what they thought of things the previous night. More good feedback (as always).

I don’t know what we actually did for the day – but we were busy for it all. I made some minor updates to pretty much everything – Datascore, Sportskeep, Web Uploader… and put the new version of Datascore on their machines.

They had a cricket competition that was supposed to start at 1.30. I think it actually started about 3.00, so Brett and I went up with the umpires to help them use the scoreboards. They picked it up quickly. The hardest part was getting the staff to hand out the printouts at the end of the game. I gave the printouts to people and told them to give them to the team, but they refused because they didn’t know what to do, whether they should get them, etc… it was unbelievable!

We eventually got back to the hotel and ate in the restaurant instead of the bar. We went through a bottle of Red, several bourbons, and a Long Island Iced Tea, followed by another couple of drinks in the room. Eventually I went to sleep.

After breakfast, our driver for our stay in Bangalore (Shambu) picked us up, and we went out to the stadium to see what we were in for. This drive was even worse than the one last night, because there was more traffic around! How we made it through the whole trip (spoiler alert) without touching another car / bike / tuktuk, I’ll never know!

After meeting the guys at the stadium, I got to work, and by the end of the afternoon I had Datascore running on all 5 courts, and the Dashboard operational. Because they had some Indoor Soccer on that night, we gave them a remote and let them use that. The umpires thought this was fantastic, so we had made the bang we always do!

Eventually we went back to the hotel, and had some dinner and drinks in the bar. Despite asking for something with no nuts, either there were some in mine, or dirty plates / knife / whatever used, because I could feel it going pear-shaped. Eventually we called it a night (Brett and I knocking off another couple of drinks in our room while I got some more work done).

How do I describe this?

Thursday started with a pretty lazy start to the day. Brett had a meeting to go to, that I couldn’t give any contribution to, so I slept in while he got up early.

Breakfast was in the room – some jam and toast, with a juice on the side. After a bit, Brett called on his way back from the meeting, and we had a chat about the day. Lunch was a meeting with the Global Sports guys. It was a fantastic meal at a Hong Kong restaurant, starting with Peking Duck, and it just kept getting better from there. The guys were completely sold on the concepts we were selling. It is not possible to compare a social lunch with any sales meeting I have been to with any previous employers. The biggest difference was the presentation – Brett told them what worked. It wasn’t trying to buy them, but rather telling them that this is the way we do things. As they knew his stadium was successful, they could see the how the differences apply. Having been dragged to sales meetings with KESEM / CAE, where the aim was to sell a product / staff time, compared with this informal lunch where they knew they wanted Datascore, and Brett’s knowledge, and the casual lunch just confirmed this, I realised the value of having the “expertise” in a “closing deal”, rather than having people representing the business and making false promises. S&M people may find and close deals, but when it all happens, it’s the people in the field that make it happen, and if people at that level are involved, then the customer has a much higher degree of confidence in the product being sold. I always knew this, and now I’ve seen it. Big business will never pay for it, but it’s the model I will always use, and customers will always appreciate it.

Brett and I went for a drink and planned our next couple of months in the afternoon. I’m not going to document it here, but it’s going to be a pretty busy time! We caught a taxi to the airport, checked in with Andrew, and flew to Bangalore.

Bangalore Airport…what a buzz! Our only problem at immigration was that they didn’t like the signs we were bringing in. Luckily that was the “Decoy”, which kept them away from the laptops / iPad’s / phones in our bags, as that would have cost us a fortune. It was pretty obvious it was just them picking up some cash – the fact that a) where the “duty” was paid, they didn’t have a POS machine, b) they didn’t give change, and c) it was just recorded on an old fashioned ledger. But Brett paid it, and we were through.

The hotel had sent 2 cars to pick us up (part of the package). The driving was possibly worse than in Vietnam! Lines were only guides, and it wasn’t uncommon to see the driver straddling the line rather than picking a lane – and it didn’t matter if there were any cars around or not! So it was a pretty “interesting” drive. Once at the hotel we checked in, and managed to get a quick drink in before the bar closed (and then we had a couple of Beers in our room).