Sign up with GoogleLoneGunman
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- Sep 23, 2003
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Hello.
I felt like leaving for a while, and taking a fair amount of my words with me, so I did.
No temper tantrum, no paying off by Sentech, no desire to disrupt the forum, and no fear whatsoever of lawyers - just a quiet form of wiping away months of a slowly constructed 'digital mandala'. And the months of writing (mostly angry stuff) had pretty much created a strange kind of online mandala of weird proportions.
Let's sidetrack for a second and give you a crash course in Tibetan art
And yes, this is one of those overly-long elegant posts, as someone weirdly referred to it, as if 'elegant' is a negative.
Duh.
<b>
*Twin Peaks music starts up softly*</b>
<i>A mandala, is not that old guy who gets trotted out for sporting and business events, it is - and let me quote - 'Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning "circle".
Mandalas are symbols of the Universe and its energy. Tibetan monks create these archetypal templates to remind us of the cycle of life and death. A Mandala has many layers of meaning, such as cosmic diagrams and support for meditation.
In ancient times in Tibet, sand ground from brightly colored stone was often used for making the Mandalas.
The construction of a (sand) mandala is done as a meditation or prayer for healing. The artist works the sand while meditating, creating the work from the center to the outside.
When complete, the mandala painting is usually 'deconstructed'; swept into a container and released into a body of water, honoring and symbolizing the impermanence of conditions, beliefs and of life itself."
In other words, big beautiful interesting things get made, painstakingly, and put together (using sand usually), and then
when complete, are casually swept up and tossed aside. </i>
There, you learned something.
And as the FIRST commercial MyWireless customer, who'd gone from raving at others on forum about it, to bringing up the rear in the growing anger at Sentech, I'd created an interesting mandala online.
Did it reflect who I am? Perhaps. I'm merciless with fools and compulsively honest, but it seemed clear that others with little understanding of the psychopathology of corporations, their strategy and their tactics, had begun taking over and effectively 'dumbing down' and blunting the focus against the common problem - namely Sentech.
And my own long tirades weren't helping.
If anything, they tended to make the naive and unschooled-in-strategic-social-activism, seem like the 'sensible ones'.
When they are clearly not.
This was a no-win situation for me. I expressed my anger on forum, and thus make the folks walking into Sentech's trap seem even more 'sensible', by comparison.
So I felt the need for a combo angry-digital-mandala-deconstruct and symbolic washing away of the crud that had built up over time, from me, on forum.
No damage was meant to the forum, but I see my editing did 'bump' some posts back to the front, which I'm sorry about, it wasn't my intention to cause any chaos. I would have also removed the threads that I started, and replaced the titles with '*' as well, but that would have rendered a lot of useful threads nonsensical, and it WOULD have been damaging to the forum.
I don't want to say to the so-called CUG that 'I told you so' - but for the purposes of helping you understand your mistake, and avoid continuing to do it.. <u>'I told you so'</u>.
It gives me no satisfaction.
I'd rather have a decent service than any ego-boost from being proved right.
Not only has Sentech played you CUG folks like fools, they've fed you half-truths, (supposedly of value to YOU), to make you keep to yourselves off the forum (thus splitting the previous unity) They've also made you look pretty stupid in the newspaper, at least to those who know the reality of the Sentech 'service'.
Many of you CUG folk are amazingly technically skilled, and why Sentech didnt/doesnt use your skills, is beyond me - but when it comes to Propaganda, Tactics, and varying degrees of corporate activism, you're amateurs. I mean that in a nice way - as in 'filled with passion and a willingness to try'. That's great.
Sentech however, are a corporation, interested only in 'the bottom line'. Profit. Nothing else.
That newspaper article which effectively gave them a seal of approval on your (our) behalf - just helped them increase their profit. They dont care and never did care about your or my or our feelings, desires, hopes or needs. Just Profit.
Until you and the other users realise this about Sentech, they will continue to do whatever it takes, to co-opt, divide and simply exploit your goodwill and amateur zeal, to their own ends. Profit.
They've managed to embaress the CUG, and the Forum - and make the individuals who met them, joke uneasily about the free stuff they got, and let slip little bits and pieces of the supposedly 'secret' information from the meeting, on forum - then react like stuck-up children when the rightful demands for EVERY LITTLE BIT OF INFORMATION began coming from other forumites.
I've made no secret of the fact that Sentech have allowed me to test drive a 256 account, while they struggle to find out the apparent cause of the slow speeds (yeah yeah we all know its probably insifficient b/w and crap software) - so what's the big secret about what the indivdual CUG users were offered, to try and cut them from the rest of the forum?
It was bizarre seeing the CUG group behaving just as stupidly as Sentech, going from a proud and stern attitude of 'we're activists speaking on behalf of others on forum!' - to a secretive bunch of people who'd clearly changed their minds about what they 'felt' they could tell the forum. The instant Sentech made them do that, Sentech succeeded in turning the campaign against them - into just another marketing opportunity - like all those bimbo housewives on TV waving boxes of washing powder. 'Co-opted' is the correct lefty term to describe what has happened to the CUG.
It doesnt matter what the deals offered to the CUG were or are, what matters is the massive dishonesty displayed by the CUG who were supposed to be representing the Forum (or at least those on it with MyWireless)
And even if you say you werent representing anyone - you all behaved AS IF you were.
At least until after the meeting. When it suddenly seemed like 'a much better idea' to keep quiet.
Now you have egg on your faces. Even those of you who will protest to the end that you don't. You do.
You collectively are responsible for giving Sentech the easy opportunity to defuse whatever growing public pressure had been created up until now, and allowed yourselves to be co-opted and used.
1. Sentech havent stopped laughing at you folks, since the meeting.
2. As long as you have what you think are 'secrets' - and are secretly discussing them elsewhere and keeping them from all Sentech customers on this board to see, you are playing into Sentech's hands completely.
(There is nothing that Sentech can say or offer me, or anyone else, that justifies me or others, from not talking about it.)
You are truly naive and stupid, if you think that ANYTHING that Sentech is saying to you, or did say to you, can be best served by removing it and your discussion of it, from the public view.
This is PRECISELY the tactic that Sentech intended.
Even if one or another 'earnest' and 'sincere-sounding' Sentech employee asked you 'man to man' - or using some other dumb premise, to keep the contents of the meeting private - the instant you did, you confirmed to Sentech that you are amateurs and could be walked all over.
(You CUG group don't play chess, do you? If you do - I'll be able to beat you very fast - given that you do not think your moves out before taking them, or considering the MEANING of moves you might take, as to whether its to your opponent's advantage)
Meeting with Sentech, did nothing for you, or the rest of the forumites. It COULDN'T do anything. Ever.
I mean what were you guys expecting? The Sentech management team to go 'gosh! You're right, let's flick a switch and make it all better for you!'
You CUG guys were managed and played.
Look at what the meeting has ALREADY done for Sentech:
1. It divided forumites
2. It removed the most vocal of MyAdsl users from the forum.
3. It created distrust amongst the MyAdsl users.
4. It made Rodent and MyAdsl appear in a newspaper article, apparently saying how wonderful Sentech is now, and suggesting that all problems are fixed.
And tell me, CUG group - what have YOU folks managed to get since the meeting? Practically. What do you have in your hands?
Unease. Suspicion. Caution..
Funny how you lot pretty much became, in reality, what you were previously complaining about Sentech for being, hm?
You lost the battle, but the war still continues.
Put your ego's aside for a moment. Yes this perhaps stings, and yes you're welcome to attack, flame and rip my argument to shreds - but - take a moment and consider the reality of what I'm suggesting. You non-chess players thought you were doing the right thing - but the facts of what happened AFTER the meeting, speak for themselves.
Sentech only continues its 'win' - if you guys remain secretive, and believing whatever it was that was promised to you at the meeting. The longer the so-called CUG hides elsewhere, regardless of how 'secret' or 'useful' they might think the information being traded is - the more firmly Sentech's 'win' becomes entrenched.
Its fine ultimately, if you folks want to stay secretive about the meeting, but what it means then, is that you ultimately become irrelevent and sidelined in the fight against Sentech.
As it has the appearance that almost all of you are in it purely for your own personal self-interest. Nothing wrong with that, but - and this is important: Sentech targetted and focused on you folks specifically because you seemed to represent a larger group of customers. Yes sure there's the simplistic thing of 'remove the vocal ones and the others will fall in line' - which may have been part of Sentechs thinking - but while the CUG since the meeting has sat in private and talked and communicated little or nothing of substance with the Forum, what it means in reality, is that Sentech have effectively made you folks scoop yourselves up, and deposit yourselves off to one side.
And what this means in reality, is that suddenly there's no campaign against Sentech visible anywhere.
You're now sidelined.. and unless you realise this, disregard whatever rubbish was told to you 'in confidence' at the meeting, and behave exactly as you did before the meeting, with the same honesty (and anger) - you not only have failed as social/consumer activists, you've failed to even represent your OWN interests in any effective or meaningful way..
And it'll be up to the next wave of outraged customers who'll take your place, as time goes by -
It's gratifying to see the next wave of potential activists already appearing on Forum, even in the short period of time since the 'Concerned User Group' AKA 'Closed User Group' got out-played and outwitted.
- And hopefully, if they are chess-players, they wont fall into the same traps that you guys did.
Put your ego's and humiliation on hold for a moment, and contemplate the situation as it is now.
Then get angry. Not with me. Not with the other forumites who quite rightfully are demanding a full and honest account of what happened - and who just get more and more repulsed at every post by assorted individuals spinning what is, in effect a 'party line'.
Get angry at Sentech.
Sentech currently are winning, and because of the actions of the CUG, there are new potential customers who will sign up and be defrauded by Sentech as we currently are - because they read the newspaper article and believed it.
Some social responsibility is required by the CUG, to tread carefully and not be so naive in their dealings with Sentech.
Sentech will lie, will promise anything, will swear oaths on stacks of Bibles to your face, whatever it is they think you will believe.
Once you have grasped one of the basic fact of consumer activism, namely that companies do NOT care and have no interest in your welfare, except as cash-cows for profit - then you can begin to approach the problem of this company and its criminal activity, in a way which doesn't let them paint bulls eyes on your backs, while appearing to be interested in what you have to say.
I'm reasonably sure that any high management personnel at that meeting, knew already that a press release was going to be leaked - and it was just all about waiting to get a suitable soundbite to make sure that MyAdsl could be reported as being 'real pleased with Sentech'.
So don't get angry at me, or others. Get angry and even at Sentech.
They want 'secrets', then 'be public'. They want 'quiet' - then 'be loud'. They want to offer the past CUG favours, let CUG accept them, and tell everyone about the favours, and enjoy them, and CONTINUE the pressure.
I was (according to MyWireless themselves) the first customer they had. Peter Rademeyer himself dropped off the modem, and I was on this forum that evening, doing traceroutes and pings for people..
I'm going to try and do the same with iBurst
But in the meantime, big respek to rpm for having created this online forum - and to the new up and coming 'concerned user groups' that are beginning to form, don't be seduced or allow yourselves to be co-opted into any of Sentech's strategies.
Rather, manipulate them into being co-opted into YOURS.
Sentech supposedly 'being forced' into listening to your demands and problems, is no gain whatsoever. It's actually an illusion. They completely understand the situation they have put customers in. All it does is allow for Users to vent their anger, 'explain' to Sentech what they're doing wrong (as if Sentech doesn't already know) and makes the user-group feel somehow 'special' and 'important'. Meantime, Sentech ahead of the meetings, are laughing and joking about the way they'll appear concerned and attentive and interested in what the users might say.
An overt example of this strategy was the meeting with Marcel Raath, where he had the nerve to 'express surprise that Sentech was actually an ISP'. You have to be pretty naive to even accept that Raath would try and float this idea at a complainant.
It indicates how stupid, Sentech think their opposition is.
Thus far, they've been proved right.
Take a step back and realize that Sentech know exactly what they're doing, at least in the upper management circles, and are relying on the lower rungs of the corporation (help desk etc) to create a smokescreen through which customers are forced to work.
You need to change your perception of the paradigm in which Sentech is operating. They want profit. That's all.
Anything which interferes with the smooth increase in profit, is percieved of by Sentech as 'damage' - therefore they'll adopt whatever strategies are necessary to delay the decrease in profit. It costs nothing extra to have made a vast profit thus far, from employing outsourced help desk monkeys to delay and recieve customer anger. When potential damage to profits reached the point of needing to be adressed, they took steps to divert, threaten, bribe, and ultimately co-opt and embarress both individuals, and the alleged activist user-group that had formed.
The instant Rodent caved at a R120 'lawyers letter' and handed over the sites he'd registered, Sentech knew they were dealing with an amateur, (at least in terms of corporate activism) and they gave little or no credence to anything thereafter. For a brief moment there was the potential of severe damage to Sentech, but that edge was lost - and although Sentech paid lipservice to the idea that Rodent's subsequent actions were worrying to them, the truth is, they weren't.
The game was lost at the handing over of sites, and it served Sentech's interests to let the accuser and others believe that his subsequent actions were of equal importance.
They wont address the core issues, because it is not profitable for them to do so. Its that simple. Currently there appears to be a little extra speed, but it won't last - because the cost of supplying it will reduce the previous months profits for Sentech. (When they purchased less bandwidth but still received the same payments from users.)
Public actions, and negative public actions - are 'damage' to Sentech's profits. Begin to 'damage' their profits, and they will go through a standard cycle of reaction, depending on the severity of the potential damage. Legal threats, public sneering at the problem in the media, attempts to 'make friends' with the individuals, provide them with supposed 'inner sanctum secrets or information' to cut the individual from the other complainants, bribery - in other words. They'll even - if the damage needs to be further reduced, take a minor cut in profits, and supply slightly more of the service they
consciously are not supplying, in order to push their advantage. For instance at present, they've utterly discredited and humiliated the so-called CUG, so its not surprising that there's a follow-up action of an increase in speeds now - because its the correct thing for Sentech to do, to demoralize and disperse its opponents even further.
Sentech is not an incompetent and badly run organization. How do I know? Well, you're paying them each month, regardless of what they're doing, aren't you?
They're making a profit - therefore they are a very well run organization, that is clearly SUCCEEDING in doing what a corporation is SUPPOSED to do. Make a profit.
Yes there are what appear to be morons throughout the lower parts of the pyramid that is Sentech, but to assume that therefore 'Sentech are morons who don't know what they're doing' - is to fall into a very clever trap they are perpetuating.
This structural approach is not something everyone who works at Sentech is neccessarily privy to, or aware of - so there's no vast conspiracy at all. But the upper management is quite aware of the only thing that is important to a corporation. PROFIT.
Everything else that anyone at Sentech says, is smoke and mirrors. Illusion. You cash cows keep paying each month - some of you even paying twice - then who cares about how many times you phone the help desk. You're paying. They're making profit.
It doesn't matter how interested, concerned or friendly any Sentech management people appear to be. They are simply small cogs in a larger psychopathic machine known as a 'corporation' who's only concern is that you keep paying money.
To personalize or anthropomorphize what Sentech 'seems' to be, because of who you speak to, is to fail to get the big simple capitalist picture of a machine to make money, which we are all feeding each month.
To approach any dealings with this Machine, using retarded, immature and frankly juvenile idea's of 'Gee, if I can only persuade this or that person into seeing how terrible the service is, then maybe they'll fix things' - is to guarantee your failure. Sentech have been succeeding in making money, precisely because this above idea is at the heart of every approach that people on this forum have been using.
Meeting with Sentech? Why? They know the problem. They have the money and expertise. What on earth could they - given the above structural approach - have to 'gain' from meeting with a user group? What they had to 'gain' from meeting the so-called CUG, was to do exactly what they did do.
They discredited it, exploited it in the media, and let the individuals own ego's implode the unity that was threatening the Machine. And they did it all without any of the CUG even being able to see what was done to them, and what was going to be done.
Good game Sentech.
Now its up to the next wave of activists to begin pressure, and to NOT interact with Sentech, and play completely into their hands.
So write the letters to newspapers. Call talk radio stations. Spraypaint SENTECH SUCKS on walls. Make leaflets and leave them
around in public places. If you work in a company, express your feelings about your Sentech service - make a factsheet and leave copies where ever you go. Write or call journalists and nag them to do an article on the plight of Sentech customers. Pester the ASA. Lay charges of fraud. Contact the public protector..
Come up with your own way to tangibly increase the 'damage' to Sentech's profits (which includes anything which affects their adspend budget's projected impact)
The beauty about accurately seeing and understanding your opponent, at least in this case, is that Sun Tzu's rules don't apply - it doesn't matter if Sentech knows most of what we're doing to them - because they can't react in any meaningful way to a widespread, public dissemination of honest facts about their service - except by increasing their adverts (which then cuts into their profits) Here and there they might try the legal blustering approach - but again - they DARE NOT end up in a court case. Financially, they can easily afford it - but it then destroys their public relations (and thus profits) completely.
So activists can operate firmly and openly at Sentech, and Sentech can read just about every little thing we plot and plan - but they cannot reduce the 'damage' that any eruption of multiple widespread campaigns will cause. Let them read everything. Let them hear about every pamphlet or leaflet drop that gets done at computer stores and hypermarkets.
'Secrecy' is a weapon that Sentech hopes we'll use - because it divides us from ourselves. This Forum never managed to prod Sentech into taking the time to discredit the CUG, by users acting in secret. It was done openly.
Now a number of the most vocal/activist/potentially damaging users have egg on their faces, and have been made to believe that 'secrecy' will somehow help in the fight against Sentech. And Sentech is winning, day after day as the forum starts realizing that the CUG was emasculated and outwitted - and a new group of activist users begins to form naturally, as they see that in reality, the CUG is currently utterly useless to them.
The new 'CUG' (when it forms) shouldn't make the same mistake in underestimating Sentech, or in failing to accurately 'see' what Sentech's strategy is, and thus, be better equipped at adopting intelligent tactics to 'damage' Sentech's profits sufficiently into providing the service we're paying for.
All power and much respek to the new folks on forum, who are in the process of becoming aware of the Profit Machine that is Sentech. Don't let the tired old fogeys on forum talk you out of doing stuff. And you don't need anyones 'approval'. Just go do what you think you'd like to do. And try not to get caught. Either by Sentech's 'gosh you're my new friend and I sympathize with you' approach - or by forumites who want you to disappear with them into secret user groups..
Action - preferably solo action that's totally unpredictable, is always good.
And action which hasn't been checked with half of the forum, is even better.
Feel free to flame or whatever, but for heavens sake, wake up and get a little more aware of the complexity of activism, and strategy - as well as losing any fear of what you think is 'authority'.
And don't confuse 'me' (the messenger) with 'the message'.
Flame me if you need to, be rude or attack away - I don't mind, I have a thick skin - but if the points I'm making are valid and/or ring true to you, ADOPT THEM. ACCEPT THEM. and USE THEM.
Remember: "War is the last resort for the unimaginative"
The Revolution Continues...
I felt like leaving for a while, and taking a fair amount of my words with me, so I did.
No temper tantrum, no paying off by Sentech, no desire to disrupt the forum, and no fear whatsoever of lawyers - just a quiet form of wiping away months of a slowly constructed 'digital mandala'. And the months of writing (mostly angry stuff) had pretty much created a strange kind of online mandala of weird proportions.
Let's sidetrack for a second and give you a crash course in Tibetan art
And yes, this is one of those overly-long elegant posts, as someone weirdly referred to it, as if 'elegant' is a negative.
Duh.
<b>
*Twin Peaks music starts up softly*</b>
<i>A mandala, is not that old guy who gets trotted out for sporting and business events, it is - and let me quote - 'Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning "circle".
Mandalas are symbols of the Universe and its energy. Tibetan monks create these archetypal templates to remind us of the cycle of life and death. A Mandala has many layers of meaning, such as cosmic diagrams and support for meditation.
In ancient times in Tibet, sand ground from brightly colored stone was often used for making the Mandalas.
The construction of a (sand) mandala is done as a meditation or prayer for healing. The artist works the sand while meditating, creating the work from the center to the outside.
When complete, the mandala painting is usually 'deconstructed'; swept into a container and released into a body of water, honoring and symbolizing the impermanence of conditions, beliefs and of life itself."
In other words, big beautiful interesting things get made, painstakingly, and put together (using sand usually), and then
when complete, are casually swept up and tossed aside. </i>
There, you learned something.
And as the FIRST commercial MyWireless customer, who'd gone from raving at others on forum about it, to bringing up the rear in the growing anger at Sentech, I'd created an interesting mandala online.
Did it reflect who I am? Perhaps. I'm merciless with fools and compulsively honest, but it seemed clear that others with little understanding of the psychopathology of corporations, their strategy and their tactics, had begun taking over and effectively 'dumbing down' and blunting the focus against the common problem - namely Sentech.
And my own long tirades weren't helping.
If anything, they tended to make the naive and unschooled-in-strategic-social-activism, seem like the 'sensible ones'.
When they are clearly not.
This was a no-win situation for me. I expressed my anger on forum, and thus make the folks walking into Sentech's trap seem even more 'sensible', by comparison.
So I felt the need for a combo angry-digital-mandala-deconstruct and symbolic washing away of the crud that had built up over time, from me, on forum.
No damage was meant to the forum, but I see my editing did 'bump' some posts back to the front, which I'm sorry about, it wasn't my intention to cause any chaos. I would have also removed the threads that I started, and replaced the titles with '*' as well, but that would have rendered a lot of useful threads nonsensical, and it WOULD have been damaging to the forum.
I don't want to say to the so-called CUG that 'I told you so' - but for the purposes of helping you understand your mistake, and avoid continuing to do it.. <u>'I told you so'</u>.
It gives me no satisfaction.
I'd rather have a decent service than any ego-boost from being proved right.
Not only has Sentech played you CUG folks like fools, they've fed you half-truths, (supposedly of value to YOU), to make you keep to yourselves off the forum (thus splitting the previous unity) They've also made you look pretty stupid in the newspaper, at least to those who know the reality of the Sentech 'service'.
Many of you CUG folk are amazingly technically skilled, and why Sentech didnt/doesnt use your skills, is beyond me - but when it comes to Propaganda, Tactics, and varying degrees of corporate activism, you're amateurs. I mean that in a nice way - as in 'filled with passion and a willingness to try'. That's great.
Sentech however, are a corporation, interested only in 'the bottom line'. Profit. Nothing else.
That newspaper article which effectively gave them a seal of approval on your (our) behalf - just helped them increase their profit. They dont care and never did care about your or my or our feelings, desires, hopes or needs. Just Profit.
Until you and the other users realise this about Sentech, they will continue to do whatever it takes, to co-opt, divide and simply exploit your goodwill and amateur zeal, to their own ends. Profit.
They've managed to embaress the CUG, and the Forum - and make the individuals who met them, joke uneasily about the free stuff they got, and let slip little bits and pieces of the supposedly 'secret' information from the meeting, on forum - then react like stuck-up children when the rightful demands for EVERY LITTLE BIT OF INFORMATION began coming from other forumites.
I've made no secret of the fact that Sentech have allowed me to test drive a 256 account, while they struggle to find out the apparent cause of the slow speeds (yeah yeah we all know its probably insifficient b/w and crap software) - so what's the big secret about what the indivdual CUG users were offered, to try and cut them from the rest of the forum?
It was bizarre seeing the CUG group behaving just as stupidly as Sentech, going from a proud and stern attitude of 'we're activists speaking on behalf of others on forum!' - to a secretive bunch of people who'd clearly changed their minds about what they 'felt' they could tell the forum. The instant Sentech made them do that, Sentech succeeded in turning the campaign against them - into just another marketing opportunity - like all those bimbo housewives on TV waving boxes of washing powder. 'Co-opted' is the correct lefty term to describe what has happened to the CUG.
It doesnt matter what the deals offered to the CUG were or are, what matters is the massive dishonesty displayed by the CUG who were supposed to be representing the Forum (or at least those on it with MyWireless)
And even if you say you werent representing anyone - you all behaved AS IF you were.
At least until after the meeting. When it suddenly seemed like 'a much better idea' to keep quiet.
Now you have egg on your faces. Even those of you who will protest to the end that you don't. You do.
You collectively are responsible for giving Sentech the easy opportunity to defuse whatever growing public pressure had been created up until now, and allowed yourselves to be co-opted and used.
1. Sentech havent stopped laughing at you folks, since the meeting.
2. As long as you have what you think are 'secrets' - and are secretly discussing them elsewhere and keeping them from all Sentech customers on this board to see, you are playing into Sentech's hands completely.
(There is nothing that Sentech can say or offer me, or anyone else, that justifies me or others, from not talking about it.)
You are truly naive and stupid, if you think that ANYTHING that Sentech is saying to you, or did say to you, can be best served by removing it and your discussion of it, from the public view.
This is PRECISELY the tactic that Sentech intended.
Even if one or another 'earnest' and 'sincere-sounding' Sentech employee asked you 'man to man' - or using some other dumb premise, to keep the contents of the meeting private - the instant you did, you confirmed to Sentech that you are amateurs and could be walked all over.
(You CUG group don't play chess, do you? If you do - I'll be able to beat you very fast - given that you do not think your moves out before taking them, or considering the MEANING of moves you might take, as to whether its to your opponent's advantage)
Meeting with Sentech, did nothing for you, or the rest of the forumites. It COULDN'T do anything. Ever.
I mean what were you guys expecting? The Sentech management team to go 'gosh! You're right, let's flick a switch and make it all better for you!'
You CUG guys were managed and played.
Look at what the meeting has ALREADY done for Sentech:
1. It divided forumites
2. It removed the most vocal of MyAdsl users from the forum.
3. It created distrust amongst the MyAdsl users.
4. It made Rodent and MyAdsl appear in a newspaper article, apparently saying how wonderful Sentech is now, and suggesting that all problems are fixed.
And tell me, CUG group - what have YOU folks managed to get since the meeting? Practically. What do you have in your hands?
Unease. Suspicion. Caution..
Funny how you lot pretty much became, in reality, what you were previously complaining about Sentech for being, hm?
You lost the battle, but the war still continues.
Put your ego's aside for a moment. Yes this perhaps stings, and yes you're welcome to attack, flame and rip my argument to shreds - but - take a moment and consider the reality of what I'm suggesting. You non-chess players thought you were doing the right thing - but the facts of what happened AFTER the meeting, speak for themselves.
Sentech only continues its 'win' - if you guys remain secretive, and believing whatever it was that was promised to you at the meeting. The longer the so-called CUG hides elsewhere, regardless of how 'secret' or 'useful' they might think the information being traded is - the more firmly Sentech's 'win' becomes entrenched.
Its fine ultimately, if you folks want to stay secretive about the meeting, but what it means then, is that you ultimately become irrelevent and sidelined in the fight against Sentech.
As it has the appearance that almost all of you are in it purely for your own personal self-interest. Nothing wrong with that, but - and this is important: Sentech targetted and focused on you folks specifically because you seemed to represent a larger group of customers. Yes sure there's the simplistic thing of 'remove the vocal ones and the others will fall in line' - which may have been part of Sentechs thinking - but while the CUG since the meeting has sat in private and talked and communicated little or nothing of substance with the Forum, what it means in reality, is that Sentech have effectively made you folks scoop yourselves up, and deposit yourselves off to one side.
And what this means in reality, is that suddenly there's no campaign against Sentech visible anywhere.
You're now sidelined.. and unless you realise this, disregard whatever rubbish was told to you 'in confidence' at the meeting, and behave exactly as you did before the meeting, with the same honesty (and anger) - you not only have failed as social/consumer activists, you've failed to even represent your OWN interests in any effective or meaningful way..
And it'll be up to the next wave of outraged customers who'll take your place, as time goes by -
It's gratifying to see the next wave of potential activists already appearing on Forum, even in the short period of time since the 'Concerned User Group' AKA 'Closed User Group' got out-played and outwitted.
- And hopefully, if they are chess-players, they wont fall into the same traps that you guys did.
Put your ego's and humiliation on hold for a moment, and contemplate the situation as it is now.
Then get angry. Not with me. Not with the other forumites who quite rightfully are demanding a full and honest account of what happened - and who just get more and more repulsed at every post by assorted individuals spinning what is, in effect a 'party line'.
Get angry at Sentech.
Sentech currently are winning, and because of the actions of the CUG, there are new potential customers who will sign up and be defrauded by Sentech as we currently are - because they read the newspaper article and believed it.
Some social responsibility is required by the CUG, to tread carefully and not be so naive in their dealings with Sentech.
Sentech will lie, will promise anything, will swear oaths on stacks of Bibles to your face, whatever it is they think you will believe.
Once you have grasped one of the basic fact of consumer activism, namely that companies do NOT care and have no interest in your welfare, except as cash-cows for profit - then you can begin to approach the problem of this company and its criminal activity, in a way which doesn't let them paint bulls eyes on your backs, while appearing to be interested in what you have to say.
I'm reasonably sure that any high management personnel at that meeting, knew already that a press release was going to be leaked - and it was just all about waiting to get a suitable soundbite to make sure that MyAdsl could be reported as being 'real pleased with Sentech'.
So don't get angry at me, or others. Get angry and even at Sentech.
They want 'secrets', then 'be public'. They want 'quiet' - then 'be loud'. They want to offer the past CUG favours, let CUG accept them, and tell everyone about the favours, and enjoy them, and CONTINUE the pressure.
I was (according to MyWireless themselves) the first customer they had. Peter Rademeyer himself dropped off the modem, and I was on this forum that evening, doing traceroutes and pings for people..
I'm going to try and do the same with iBurst
But in the meantime, big respek to rpm for having created this online forum - and to the new up and coming 'concerned user groups' that are beginning to form, don't be seduced or allow yourselves to be co-opted into any of Sentech's strategies.
Rather, manipulate them into being co-opted into YOURS.
Sentech supposedly 'being forced' into listening to your demands and problems, is no gain whatsoever. It's actually an illusion. They completely understand the situation they have put customers in. All it does is allow for Users to vent their anger, 'explain' to Sentech what they're doing wrong (as if Sentech doesn't already know) and makes the user-group feel somehow 'special' and 'important'. Meantime, Sentech ahead of the meetings, are laughing and joking about the way they'll appear concerned and attentive and interested in what the users might say.
An overt example of this strategy was the meeting with Marcel Raath, where he had the nerve to 'express surprise that Sentech was actually an ISP'. You have to be pretty naive to even accept that Raath would try and float this idea at a complainant.
It indicates how stupid, Sentech think their opposition is.
Thus far, they've been proved right.
Take a step back and realize that Sentech know exactly what they're doing, at least in the upper management circles, and are relying on the lower rungs of the corporation (help desk etc) to create a smokescreen through which customers are forced to work.
You need to change your perception of the paradigm in which Sentech is operating. They want profit. That's all.
Anything which interferes with the smooth increase in profit, is percieved of by Sentech as 'damage' - therefore they'll adopt whatever strategies are necessary to delay the decrease in profit. It costs nothing extra to have made a vast profit thus far, from employing outsourced help desk monkeys to delay and recieve customer anger. When potential damage to profits reached the point of needing to be adressed, they took steps to divert, threaten, bribe, and ultimately co-opt and embarress both individuals, and the alleged activist user-group that had formed.
The instant Rodent caved at a R120 'lawyers letter' and handed over the sites he'd registered, Sentech knew they were dealing with an amateur, (at least in terms of corporate activism) and they gave little or no credence to anything thereafter. For a brief moment there was the potential of severe damage to Sentech, but that edge was lost - and although Sentech paid lipservice to the idea that Rodent's subsequent actions were worrying to them, the truth is, they weren't.
The game was lost at the handing over of sites, and it served Sentech's interests to let the accuser and others believe that his subsequent actions were of equal importance.
They wont address the core issues, because it is not profitable for them to do so. Its that simple. Currently there appears to be a little extra speed, but it won't last - because the cost of supplying it will reduce the previous months profits for Sentech. (When they purchased less bandwidth but still received the same payments from users.)
Public actions, and negative public actions - are 'damage' to Sentech's profits. Begin to 'damage' their profits, and they will go through a standard cycle of reaction, depending on the severity of the potential damage. Legal threats, public sneering at the problem in the media, attempts to 'make friends' with the individuals, provide them with supposed 'inner sanctum secrets or information' to cut the individual from the other complainants, bribery - in other words. They'll even - if the damage needs to be further reduced, take a minor cut in profits, and supply slightly more of the service they
consciously are not supplying, in order to push their advantage. For instance at present, they've utterly discredited and humiliated the so-called CUG, so its not surprising that there's a follow-up action of an increase in speeds now - because its the correct thing for Sentech to do, to demoralize and disperse its opponents even further.
Sentech is not an incompetent and badly run organization. How do I know? Well, you're paying them each month, regardless of what they're doing, aren't you?
They're making a profit - therefore they are a very well run organization, that is clearly SUCCEEDING in doing what a corporation is SUPPOSED to do. Make a profit.
Yes there are what appear to be morons throughout the lower parts of the pyramid that is Sentech, but to assume that therefore 'Sentech are morons who don't know what they're doing' - is to fall into a very clever trap they are perpetuating.
This structural approach is not something everyone who works at Sentech is neccessarily privy to, or aware of - so there's no vast conspiracy at all. But the upper management is quite aware of the only thing that is important to a corporation. PROFIT.
Everything else that anyone at Sentech says, is smoke and mirrors. Illusion. You cash cows keep paying each month - some of you even paying twice - then who cares about how many times you phone the help desk. You're paying. They're making profit.
It doesn't matter how interested, concerned or friendly any Sentech management people appear to be. They are simply small cogs in a larger psychopathic machine known as a 'corporation' who's only concern is that you keep paying money.
To personalize or anthropomorphize what Sentech 'seems' to be, because of who you speak to, is to fail to get the big simple capitalist picture of a machine to make money, which we are all feeding each month.
To approach any dealings with this Machine, using retarded, immature and frankly juvenile idea's of 'Gee, if I can only persuade this or that person into seeing how terrible the service is, then maybe they'll fix things' - is to guarantee your failure. Sentech have been succeeding in making money, precisely because this above idea is at the heart of every approach that people on this forum have been using.
Meeting with Sentech? Why? They know the problem. They have the money and expertise. What on earth could they - given the above structural approach - have to 'gain' from meeting with a user group? What they had to 'gain' from meeting the so-called CUG, was to do exactly what they did do.
They discredited it, exploited it in the media, and let the individuals own ego's implode the unity that was threatening the Machine. And they did it all without any of the CUG even being able to see what was done to them, and what was going to be done.
Good game Sentech.
Now its up to the next wave of activists to begin pressure, and to NOT interact with Sentech, and play completely into their hands.
So write the letters to newspapers. Call talk radio stations. Spraypaint SENTECH SUCKS on walls. Make leaflets and leave them
around in public places. If you work in a company, express your feelings about your Sentech service - make a factsheet and leave copies where ever you go. Write or call journalists and nag them to do an article on the plight of Sentech customers. Pester the ASA. Lay charges of fraud. Contact the public protector..
Come up with your own way to tangibly increase the 'damage' to Sentech's profits (which includes anything which affects their adspend budget's projected impact)
The beauty about accurately seeing and understanding your opponent, at least in this case, is that Sun Tzu's rules don't apply - it doesn't matter if Sentech knows most of what we're doing to them - because they can't react in any meaningful way to a widespread, public dissemination of honest facts about their service - except by increasing their adverts (which then cuts into their profits) Here and there they might try the legal blustering approach - but again - they DARE NOT end up in a court case. Financially, they can easily afford it - but it then destroys their public relations (and thus profits) completely.
So activists can operate firmly and openly at Sentech, and Sentech can read just about every little thing we plot and plan - but they cannot reduce the 'damage' that any eruption of multiple widespread campaigns will cause. Let them read everything. Let them hear about every pamphlet or leaflet drop that gets done at computer stores and hypermarkets.
'Secrecy' is a weapon that Sentech hopes we'll use - because it divides us from ourselves. This Forum never managed to prod Sentech into taking the time to discredit the CUG, by users acting in secret. It was done openly.
Now a number of the most vocal/activist/potentially damaging users have egg on their faces, and have been made to believe that 'secrecy' will somehow help in the fight against Sentech. And Sentech is winning, day after day as the forum starts realizing that the CUG was emasculated and outwitted - and a new group of activist users begins to form naturally, as they see that in reality, the CUG is currently utterly useless to them.
The new 'CUG' (when it forms) shouldn't make the same mistake in underestimating Sentech, or in failing to accurately 'see' what Sentech's strategy is, and thus, be better equipped at adopting intelligent tactics to 'damage' Sentech's profits sufficiently into providing the service we're paying for.
All power and much respek to the new folks on forum, who are in the process of becoming aware of the Profit Machine that is Sentech. Don't let the tired old fogeys on forum talk you out of doing stuff. And you don't need anyones 'approval'. Just go do what you think you'd like to do. And try not to get caught. Either by Sentech's 'gosh you're my new friend and I sympathize with you' approach - or by forumites who want you to disappear with them into secret user groups..
Action - preferably solo action that's totally unpredictable, is always good.
And action which hasn't been checked with half of the forum, is even better.
Feel free to flame or whatever, but for heavens sake, wake up and get a little more aware of the complexity of activism, and strategy - as well as losing any fear of what you think is 'authority'.
And don't confuse 'me' (the messenger) with 'the message'.
Flame me if you need to, be rude or attack away - I don't mind, I have a thick skin - but if the points I'm making are valid and/or ring true to you, ADOPT THEM. ACCEPT THEM. and USE THEM.
Remember: "War is the last resort for the unimaginative"
The Revolution Continues...
