Just had a communication through from BT re planning for the Olympics. This year the good citizens of the United Kingdom are divided into two camps – those that are looking forward to the Olympics, think it is a great thing and are really excited, and those who think it is a huge waste of money that would be better spent on hospitals and schools and have been whinging about it ever since it was announced.

I am excited. What’s more I have tickets for me and the kids to see the kayaking slalom finals aaaand we have some great friends in Windsor who have kindly agreed to put up the whole noisy lot of us (and before anyone chips in we aren’t kipping at Windsor castle – they already had too many people staying). That for those of you who know the Davies’ (6 of us) is a big ask.

I’ve already posted about the expected growth in traffic on ISP networks during the Olympics. Interesting research just in is a look at the lessons learnt from the Vancouver Olympics.

One in four organisations suffered broadband network capacity issues with employees and/or customer demand. One in five businesses increased their broadband network capacity ahead of the games. With hindsight, a third of companies said that they would have increased capacity.  Broadband capacity issues were particularly an issue for Media and Leisure companies (57%), Retail (33%) and Financial Services (29%).

23% of organisations surveyed increased their call centre capacity ahead of Games time, while 42% experienced a higher than normal level of call centre volumes during Games time. 21% increased their technology security and resilience ahead of the Games.

42% of businesses took no steps to prevent employee absenteeism during the Games (chained them to their desks presumably). 28% of businesses experienced higher levels of staff absenteeism than normal. With hindsight, 30% would have increased flexible working facilities for their staff.

In my mind this all points at increasing your broadband connection speed where possible and coming up with a homeworking plan for your people. You might also want to put some TVs in the office so that all your staff aren’t watching the same event over your internet connection – because you almost certainly will not have enough bandwidth. Whether you can increase the number of people working in your call centre in time is another issue that only you can cope with.

Alternatively why not take two weeks off and enjoy the once in a lifetime experience. That’s all…