Category: Skinny Jump

Hey, I’m new to Jump – Introducing the 6 Jump Essentials

Every few days we get a call from someone who works for one of our Jump Partners with the comment “Hey, I’m new to Jump, can you help me?”

Our response of course is “YES!”

With a partner network of 278 Jump partner organisations, it is pretty inevitable that people came and go or change their roles. So I asked our team – what are the 6 essentials that someone new to Jump needs to know and hey-presto, with a little bit of Kini magic, out pops a new poster.

We actually tried this out on a someone who was new to Jump and within the hour she had signed up to my blog! Of course I was most impressed.

The challenge we know for partners is how do you find this when you need it? My immediate response is to laminate it and stick it to the staff noticeboard, but maybe that doesn’t work for you.

If you do have an empty spot somewhere near where your Jump team gathers, you can download a copy from the ‘Skinny Jump Support Documents’ section of the Jump Partner Resources page on the Stepping UP website.

Send us a photo of your ‘6 Jump Essentials’ poster on display and you are in the draw. The draw for what you might ask. Well the new world of Lububu dolls suggests you don’t get to ask – it’s all about the surprise of blind boxes.

A reminder about Jump waiting lists (and the price of fish)

I had a call today from a couple of Jump partners asking about our Waiting List process and how this “affects the price of fish”. Well to be fair, they didn’t actually use this expression, but I think what they wanted to understand was why do Jump waiting lists matter. If you want to know more about the origins of ‘the price of fish’, ask ChatGPT.

First of all where do you find your Jump waiting lists? I know some partners like to keep these in their top drawer, and this might be helpful as a local reminder, but the down side is that we (DIAA) have no access to your top drawer and therefore your waiting list has no impact on modem deliveries.

So scroll down your GSheet to the blue line. Waiters should be added below the blue line, as in the example below:

And how does affect the price of fish, I hear you ask. Well, we count the number of dates below the blue line in column E and take this into account when placing new orders. We aim to supply you with enough modems to cover your waitlist as well as enough for the next 4 weeks, based on the number issued over the last weeks.

If customers hang around on your waitlist for too long (over 3 months), we assume this is because they no longer want Jump, and as such they should be removed for the waitlist, or if you do want to keep a record of their interest, the application date must be moved from Column E (we suggest you put this in Comments – column H – along with any other relevant notes). Some partners like to keep the customer’s contact details here as well and you are welcome to do this – please use columns I to N.

Do I include customers who don’t currently have Jump coverage on my waitlist? Another good question. You are welcome to do this, but you must not include any date in column E (use column H), as dates here do affect the price of fish, or in our case, the delivery of modems. If we ever find dates in column E with a note in column H, saying this customer does not have coverage, we transfer the date out of column E.

We do encourage partners to actively manage their own waiting lists in their Partner GSheets, but if when processing the Jump Profile Forms we discover a modem has been issued to a customer who is on the waiting list we will delete them from the waiting list.

Now Here’s a How-de-do!

Just imagine, you are sitting in your cosy office on a cold Matariki weekend holiday, packaging modems for all those lonely souls without a Jump internet connection and you are confronted with this:

Two Broadband stickers on a Jump modem!! What a dilemma! What a How-de-do! (If this is a new term for you, let me politely suggest it is time to brush up on Ko-Ko’s dilemma in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado.

Now some of you might be familiar with Kahoot- the best place to go to get answers. What to do? Choose from the options below:

  1. Stop issuing modems immediately;
  2. Decide that this is a faulty modem and race to complete a Modem Returns Form;
  3. Call the Skinny Care Team for help;
  4. Remove both labels so that your customer doesn’t get confused;
  5. Of if all else fails, have a hissy fit.

OR maybe you might stop and think about this for just a minute. Maybe one of the broadband labels is correct and the other one has inadvertently attached itself. But here’s the next ‘How-de-do’. Which is the right one?

Aha! let me take a look to see if the Broadband number is on the SIM card. Carefully remove the SIM card and inspect (only suitable for those with excellent eye sight). No BB number, but there is another number, not one that we normally use – the SIM ID number. Can we get a match with the bar coded number on the BB sticker. Bingo!

Oops, another modem with two stickers (and not immediately visible as in my photo above – they have been attached on opposite sides of the modem). Bit of a pain having to remove the SIM card every time. Take another look at the photo and it is clear the two stickers are different sizes. If you have been particularly observant in recent months you will have noticed that the BB stickers are now smaller than they used to be.

And another Aha! moment. Consider that we have been using refurbished modems for the last six months and just maybe some of the CEVA team are having a bad day and forgot to remove the old sticker.

Here comes modem number 3 and yes, Bingo again, the SIM card matches the number on the smaller BB sticker. So now I am up to the fifth modem with two stickers and without even checking, I am simply removing the larger sticker and because I have trouble throwing things away, they are lining up neatly on the side of my monitor (just in case I have got this horribly wrong).

And if you are fed up with broadband numbers, have a sing along with Ko-Ko, Yum-Yum and Nanki-Poo. The Mikado was first performed at the Savoy Theatre in London on 14 March 1885, and who hasn’t been part of a school performance!

KO-KO:
Here’s a how-de-do!
If I marry you,
When your time has come to perish,
Then the maiden whom you cherish
Must be slaughtered too!
Here’s a how-de-do!

YUM-YUM:
Here’s a pretty mess!
In a month, or less,
I must die without a wedding!
Let the bitter tears I’m shedding
Witness my distress;
Here’s a pretty mess!

NANKI-POO:
Here’s a state of things
To her life she clings!
Matrimonial devotion
Doesn’t seem to suit her notion —
Burial it brings!
Here’s a state of things!

ENSEMBLE (together):
With a passion that’s intense
I worship and adore,
But the laws of common sense
We oughtn’t to ignore.
If what he says is true,
’Tis death to marry you!
Here’s a pretty state of things!
Here’s a pretty how-de-do!

ChatGPT’s response to my ‘cunning plan’

A Cunning Plan (Jump Modem Edition)

“Wait, my lord, do not despair,
For I have a cunning plan to share!”
So whispered Baldrick, full of pride,
With hope that fortune’s on our side.

The modems stalled, the shelves ran bare,
Partners waiting everywhere.
But last week marked a turning tide,
As 396 were set to glide.

No longer thirty in one big stack —
Just twelve or six in every pack.
High-turnover partners get smaller loads,
But restocked faster down the road.

The goal? To spread supply more wide,
To every partner far and wide.
No more giant boxy heaps,
No modem droughts, no stockpile weeps.

Let’s hope this plan will smoothly run,
Unlike Baldrick’s — which came undone.
But if it flops, as Baldrick’s tend,
I know you’ll tell me in the end!

“Wait my lord, do not despair. For I have a cunning plan.”

Fans of Blackadder will be all too familiar with this phrase that frequently popped out of the mouth of Baldrick. Most of Baldrick’s “cunning plans” ended up in disaster, but I am hoping for better things with my latest cunning plan to get Jump modems flowing again.

Last week was a milestone (I hope) in freeing-up the Jump modem supply chain. Orders were placed on CEVA for 396 modems and 204 of these had been shipped by Friday. But while these volumes still fall well short of our targets, we are trying a new approach (“cunning plan”) to keep more partners supplied.

29 partners have either already received a shipment from last week’s batch or will do early next week. This contrasts with an average of only 9 partners receiving shipments each week for the rest of May.

So what is our cunning new plan? Put simply, this involves limiting individual partner shipment quantities to no more than 12 (previously 30). So all last week’s shipments were for 6 or 12 modems, 6 for partners with low turnover and 12 for those with high turnover.

At month end (yesterday), partners were holding 1613 modems in stock; a few are well stocked having recently received a new supply of 30, while over 200 partners have 2 or fewer modems. So the new ‘cunning’ plan is to get modems flowing to more partners.

Those with very high turnovers will not miss out; it just means supplies will arrive more frequently in smaller quantities. Some partners might even think this is a better idea, avoiding the need to find storage space when five boxes of modems arrive at the same time!

So let’s hope this ‘cunning plan’ does not end up like Baldrick’s ones. If it does, I have no fear that you will let me know!

Jump Profile Form Updates

Some partners have asked for clarification about why the Jump Profile form is now asking for contact details of the person completing the Profile Form. This was implemented a few weeks ago because of recurring errors by people completing the form; we want to identify these people so that we can contact them and offer further support.

But some partners questioned the need for this, especially as a copy of the form was automatically being emailed to the customer. So this caused us to re-think why customers needed an email copy.

The form was created many years ago on the assumption that customers would be filling this in themselves, with guidance from a partner as part of the modem setup process. But after consulting with some partners it is clear that this is not the way things are happening; most partners have their own staff completing this form. So if we take this as the ‘norm’, we can make some changes.

As of this morning, we have stopped emailing a copy of the form to the customer.

This was originally intended for customers to check that the information they had provided was correct and on a few occasions, customers did do this. But this is very rare and there doesn’t appear to be any other benefit in sharing the form with them. So we have stopped sending a copy to the customer. You will notice that you no longer need to enter the email address of the customer at the start of the form; this was the entry that triggered the auto-send. We still need their email, but this now comes later in the form along with other contact details.

We have noted the concern of some partners about including staff details in the Profile Form. By not sharing these with customers, we hope this addresses the main concern. We are happy for staff to just use their first name (we understand with most library partners, staff display their first name on a name badge) and a generic email if they prefer.

The Profile Form is confidential to the DIAA Jump team. This is not shared with the Skinny Care Team nor with partners; we use this to update individual partner GSheets, so that we can track modem issues and arrange a resupply of modems when required. Most of the data collected, especially around demographics and target user groups is aggregated and used for high level programme reporting.

Jump Address Checker update

We have arrived at the start of a new month and it’s just as well everyone is taking a long King’s Birthday holiday break as the Jump Address Checker is still down. I know the Skinny team is trying to fix this, so hang in there.

Just one update for my earlier message about using the Skinny address checker. You can continue to use this but beware of the ‘fibre trap’ and the plan availability. Skinny offers both wireless and fibre solutions, so when you use this checker, it reports on the availability of plans for all services potentially available at this address (including fibre). So make sure you are checking the wireless options and scroll down to check that the plan is available.

Note in the example below from the Skinny Address Checker that:

(1) a Wireless Connection is available; and

(2) the wireless plan is available “CHOOSE THIS PLAN”. If it says “NOT AVAILABLE” as for the $55 plan, then this means there is no capacity at this address and you can not proceed with a Jump connection.

Hopefully, by the time you back from your King’s Birthday holiday, this will be old news and the Jump checker will be back in operation.

Skinny Jump address checker offline today

Vanessa Tedesco from the Fingertip Library in Christchurch alerted me at 8.46am this morning that the Jump address checker was not working. Since then, I have received numerous alerts from other partners.

Usually with issues like this, the software team at Spark is onto it like a shot, and before I can get around to a blog post, the problem has been sorted. But here we are over 8 hours later and when I checked a few minutes ago, the address checker was still not working.

I have been advising everyone who contacted me to use the Skinny Wireless Broadband address checker as a backup.

Skinny Jump uses the same wireless network as Skinny Wireless Broadband customers, so this should be pretty reliable.

I’ll provide an update when Skinny advises me that the Jump address checker has been fixed.