British Telecom (BT) is the oldest telco in the world. I’ve been eager to feature the company on my podcast, and I got my wish when I ran into BT Chief Architect, Neil McRae, at TelecomTV’s DSP Leaders World Forum in England. We sat down to talk about BT’s cloud transformation and vision for 2030. Listen now to hear our conversation about:
- Which workloads the company is moving [6:15];
- Its strategy for working with hyperscalers [7:36]; and
- How it’s preparing its workforce for cloud transformation [11:59].
Anyone who knows Neil knows that he’s a pinball fanatic, so we started our conversation talking about his passion and the pinball tournaments he holds to raise funds for the National Autistic Society [01:46]. Check out related links in the resources section below.
THIS WEEK’S GUEST
Neil McRae
Neil McRae is always looking for ways to drive radical thinking. He is recognized for building the best networks all over the world, has significant experience in submarine, fixed, wireless, broadcast, satellite, cloud, systems & applications, and platform technology, enabling our world to connect, educate, entertain, and transact. He believes in creating an environment for technologists to perform at their best.
Listen to our conversation by clicking play above or subscribe through your favorite podcast feed.
- Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”
- Listen on your favorite podcast platform – see the links above under the audio player.
- You can find the transcript for this episode here.
Links and Resources
- Here’s a video clip from my conversation with Neil:
- Check out BT’s announcements about what it’s doing with clouds:
- BT signs five-year agreement with AWS as preferred cloud provider for internal applications to accelerate its digital transformation
- BT selects Google Cloud as strategic partner for group-wide data and AI transformation
- BT and Ericsson sign multi-million-pound partnership to provide commercial 5G networks
- Read Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell’s 2011 book about high achievers and what makes them different
- Listen to Telco in 20 episode 7 to hear leadership guru Jim Abolt talk about the keys to workforce transformation
- Check out Neil’s YouTube channel for all the pinball-related videos you’ve dreamed of
- I accidentally got the high score on Neil’s favorite game, Godzilla—and it was my first time playing! HA!
- Did you know that at one point pinball was almost made illegal? Yeah, people thought it was a game of chance, not a game of skill. Just like moving to the public cloud, it’s going to take SKILLZ to get those workloads across the line. Read about How One Perfect Shot Saved Pinball From Being Illegal, and check out this fun picture from that day in 1976 – Roger Sharpe playing pinball to save the game. (Neil actually knows him!)
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The Telco in 20 podcast won a 2022 Gold Hermes Award and was recognized on Forrester’s 2021 list of the Top 100 Channel Podcasts and Feedspot’s Top 10 Telecom Podcasts list. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a short review? It takes you seconds to do in your app and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. And I love reading your feedback and reviews!
Podcast Credits
- Executive Producer and Host: Danielle Royston, TelcoDR
- Senior Producer: Lindsay Grubb, TillCo Media
- Editor/Producer: Alisa Jenkins Wilson, Springboard Marketing
- Audio Editing: Andrew Condell
- Music: Dyami Wilson
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