Why Are We (Still) Using UC?

Good question, and I think I've got a pretty good answer.

This is the focus of my latest Rethinking Communications column on TMCnet. It's actually a continuation of other recent posts asking "why?" about other tools we use for work, and my intent is to pose some questions to reconsider their true value.

I hope you give it a read - and perhaps my earlier columns too - and would love to hear your thoughts on whether UC is still worth using - or not. There's usually a short registration process on their site to access the article - let me know if any difficulty and happy to get it to you another way.

My VoIP Group Interview - Spotlight on the LatAm Market

Sometimes content gets generated in a few seconds, and other times much longer. This falls into the latter category, as do most things that are published and go through editorial review. I actually have another example of this set to run next week, and I'll update that in due course.

For now, the story is my interview with Alfredo Bellagamba, CEO of Brazil-based VoIP Group. I didn't know this company until I met with Alfredo for an interview during the recent ITExpo event in Ft. Lauderdale. They have a good story to tell, and it's a great example of what goes on in the VoIP space outside of North America. LatAm is a major market in its own right, and VoIP Group seems to be in the middle of most everything going on there.

My interview was published this week on TMCnet as a featured article, and I hope you give it a read.

Why Are We Still Using Desk Phones?

This is one of my favorite questions, and depending on your needs - and perhaps age - the answers will be very different. Neither is right/wrong - it's just that the realities of how we communicate have been constantly changing ever since VoIP came along. Those changes continue to come, and the idea that desk phones will disappear isn't so radical any more.

While that logic might lead to an inevitable conclusion, we're not there yet - far from it. The desk phone business is very much alive and well, and my latest Rethinking Communications column for TMCnet explores why that's the case and what you should consider in terms of what's really best for your employees. That should be a strong enough hook to get you over to their site, where my article is now running in the March 2016 digital edition of Internet Telephony Magazine.

How NOT to Make UC Strategic - My Current Column

Rethinking Communications is the monthly column I write for TMC's Internet Telephony Magazine, and in the current issue I look at things businesses do that goes against the grain for making Unified Communications a strategic investment. You really do need the right mindset, and if you're still thinking in legacy terms, you'll have a much harder time getting full value from UC.

Here's the link to the article, and it's the follow up to last month's column, where I wrote about how you do make UC strategic. I hope you read them both, and if you can share, that would be great too. If you're having any difficulty accessing these posts, drop me a line and I'll help you out.

Two Things to Know About Hosted UC

That's the theme of my current Rethinking Communications column for TMCnet's Internet Telephony Magazine. Every month I examine different themes in terms of communications technologies that business decision-makers might need to rethink. There's still a lot of legacy technology out there - much of which is working very well - and with that comes varying degrees of legacy thinking about the value of these technologies.

Hosted UC is one such topic, and that's the focus of my column running in the current issue. There's a lot to like about the cloud, but before jumping in - or up - a few realities need to be considered, and my post addresses two of them. I hope you give it a read, and if you care to comment and/or share, that would be great.

Slack May be the Uber of the UC Space

I sure think so, and that's the focus of my current Rethinking Communications column with TMCnet. These columns usually run in their long-running flagship publication, Internet Telephony. These days, a magzine title like that seems dated, but that's another conversation. The pub continues to pull strong readership, both in print and online. The digital edition is posted now, and you can read my latest column here.

Speaking of TMCnet, their next ITExpo is in late January - perfect time of year for Fort Lauderdale. I'll be there, moderating some sessions as usual. Planning will be underway soon, and I'll provide updates here.

Rethinking Collaboration - My Latest Column

There's a lot to think about with collaboration - as with UC, it can be an overused and amorphous term, so I'm giving it a closer look. My current Rethinking Communications column for Internet Telephony Magazine explores that, and will continue with Part 2 in next month's edition.

Part 1 is running now online, and I hope it gets you thinking more critically about what to expect with collaboration, as well from the vendors selling it.

Personal Video and UC - "What are You Afraid Of?", Part 2

That's the name of my latest article running now in TMC's Internet Telephony Magazine. My Rethinking Communications column has been featured there for some time, and this writeup builds on Part 1, which ran last month.

We all know about room-based video and immersive telepresence, but personal video opens up new possibilities, both for one-to-one communication, but also the broader spectrum of UC.

The angle I'm exploring in Part 2 is bit more future-forward, as the focus is on the recent acquisition of Viber by Japan-based Rakuten. In the shadow of WhatsApp/Facebook, these types of deals send signals for how the communications market is shifting. Personal video is a distinct opportunity in its own right, but things get even more interesting when texting/messaging is part of the package, suggesting yet another move away from telephony and voice-based communication.

Nobody has quite figured this out yet, but when big companies get involved in acquisitions like this, the UC community needs to pay attention. Disruption seems to invariably come from outside the circle of usual suspects, and my view is that the Viber deal will filter up - or down - to the UC ecosystem sooner than later.

I'll leave it at that, and now it's time to steer you to the article. Also - to do this right, make sure you read Part 1 first if you haven't done so already. Then let me know what you think - deal?

ITExpo Session #3 - Big Data and the Customer Experience

Whether you believe Big Data will be a Big Nothing or a Big Deal, you'll want to join us as we talk about what this means for the "customer experience". I'm not sure which of these is the bigger buzzword right now, but the question of the day is "what's the connection?" I don't think anyone quite has the answer yet, but that's where the conversation is headed next Thursday at 12:30pm.

TMCnet's ITExpo East, 2014 edition is less than a week away, and if the cold weather has finally gotten to you, it's not too late to make plans for Miami Beach.

Once you're there, I hope you make time for our session, and joining me will be Brian Sadowski from Apriva, and Brian Spraetz from Interactive Intelligence. We're working on adding another speaker, and will pass that on once in place. For more details on the panel, scroll down the Program tab on the show site - we're part of the Customer Interaction track.

ITExpo Session #2 - Transitioning Your Enterprise to UC

As we go from freezing to deep freeze here in Toronto, Miami Beach is looking better by the minute, and it's not too late for you to join us at next week's ITExpo!

If you've been following my posts, you'll know I'll be busy there wearing a few different hats. This post is about the second session I'm moderating, and it should be a must-see for anyone thinking about deploying UC. I write about this topic constantly, and have a pretty good sense of the challenges, so I'll be keen to hear what other have to say.

Joining me will be Dean Manzoori from Masergy, Frederic Dickey from Sangoma, and Khris Kendrick from CounterPath. The 45 minute panel format means the time will fly by, and we'll have no problem sharing real world examples of what works, what doesn't work, and best practices to make your path easier.

Our panel is at 1:30 on Wednesday, and it's part of the Enterprise Solutions Track. For more details, scroll down the Program tab on the show site, and if there's anything in particular you want us to to talk about, drop me a line.

ITExpo Session - Next Generation Contact Centers

This is the next update in a series of posts I'm running about what I'll be up to at next week's ITExpo in Miami Beach. My prior post covered what I'll be doing with the Government of Ontario and their economic trade mission showcasing some leading tech startups.

Now I'll focus on the sessions I'm moderating. My first panel is on Wednesday, from 9:00 - 9:45 am. The title is pretty self-explanatory: "From Call to Contact: Next Generation Customer Service Centers", and it's part of the Customer Interaction Track.

Joining me will be Max Ball from 8x8, and Rick McFarland from Voice4Net. We expect to add another speaker soon, and I'll pass that update along. This is a big topic, so we won't have time to fully re-invent the contact center, but I'm sure you'll come away with a few new ideas about what you could be doing.

For more detail, just go to the Program tab on the show's site, and scroll down to our time.

Also, an FYI, I'll be participating in Editor's Day on Tuesday, so if you're planning to be at the show, I won't be hard to find. If you can't attend, the next best thing is to follow TMC's show blog, as well as their tweets - @TMCnet and @ITEXPO - and even mine - @arnoldjon.

Amazon Mayday and Your Contact Center

Amazon Mayday created a lot of buzz recently, and along with many others, I wrote extensively about it. Just because things have died down doesn't mean it's gone away. I think it's fair to say that contact center decision-makers are still assessing what it means to them, so this article should still be timely.

As you may know, I write a monthly column - Rethinking Communications -  for TMCnet, and the posts usually run in their flagship pub, Internet Telephony Magazine. Given the subject matter, this month's writeup is running instead in Customer Magazine. Unlike the near-instant world of online portals, the logistics around print-based publishing mean long lead times. This post was written a while back, and is just hitting the market now.

I think Amazon's Mayday button can impact the contact center on many levels, and if you can get past the novelty of a 15 second response time, and focus on what's really important for customers, the rest really shouldn't be that hard to do.

That's my teaser, and for the rest of the story, here's the link. I hope you find a few new ideas in my article,  and as always, comments and suggestions for new themes are welcome.

Our Next Contact Center Webinar - the Holy Grail for Increasing Personalization and Engagement

If you follow me, you'll know I've been writing a lot lately about Amazon's Mayday button, and that has been a springboard for thinking about how to elevate you contact center to connect better with customers.

Last month, I spoke on a webinar about Mayday, and the turnout was tremendous. That particular event was sponsored by software giant SAP, and hosted by our good friends at TMCnet. Well, we're reprising that combination again with another webinar on January 21, at 2pm ET.

Clearly, there's an appetite to learn more about what all this means and what contact centers should be doing, and that's what we'll be talking about. The title tells the story pretty well - Search for the Holy Grail - Increasing Customer Engagement with Personalization in your Contact Center.

Joining me will be colleague Neal Shact, CEO of CommuniTech Services, and the discussion will be ably moderated by Rich Tehrani, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of TMCnet.This should be another strong event, and we hope you can join us. I'll be socializing the webinar off and on, and if you're ready to register now, here's the landing page.

The Upside of Personalization for UC

Regular followers will know that I write a monthly column for TMC's Internet Telephony Magazine; it's called Rethinking Communications, and you can probably guess the types of things I focus on there.

Last month, I wrote about the downside of personalization in terms of being a hinderance to the adoption of Unified Communications. There's a lot of psychology at play here (my undergrad major is speaking now!), and I don't think businesses give this much thought in terms of what UC has to do to make an emotional connection among end users. Without that, adoption simply doesn't happen.

Well, now let's look on the bright side and the good things that personalization brings. It's all a matter of how you spin ideas, and in this month's column, I explore the upside. If you believe that giving people what they want matters, then by understanding what it is they actually want, your odds of success with UC are a lot higher.

If you're wondering what that might look like, please head over to the digital edition of the latest Internet Telephony Magazine, and give my post a read. Comments, as always, are welcome.

The Downside of Personalization

Communications technology is becoming increasingly powerful, and alongside with this comes a new dynamic in the balance of power between IT and end users. I've written often about this, and in many ways the latter seems to have the upper hand. BYOD is one manifestation of this, but another is the growing availability of productivity applications that can be accessed beyond the LAN and outside of a UC platform.

This is not what IT had in mind with UC, and in that regard the ability for end users to personalize their communciations experience cuts both ways. That's what I have explored in my current column in IT Telephony magazine. I'm particularly focused on how personalization can run counter to the spirit of collaboration, which really is at the heart of UC. This may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the power of personalization, but I think it speaks to how many people relate to technology, especially Millennials.

My latest Rethinking Communications column is running now in the digital edition of IT Telephony, and you can read it here. Agree or not? Let me know!

ITExpo 2013, Las Vegas - Day 1

Yesterday was Day 1 of this year's ITExpo West, being held for the first time in Las Vegas. Much bigger here in many ways than Austin was last year. Too early to tell how this location plays out, but there are definitely lots of people here. Just sharing a few high level thoughts from what I saw yesterday.

Things kicked off with a roundtable panel on tech trends, with voices from TMC, analysts and consultants. There were a lot of good ideas and food for thought, and the hour flew by fast. Topics covered included M2M, white spaces, WebRTC and the need for IPV6. Bigger picture, a key theme was the idea that our personal identities have value - as we better understand that, the relationship between buyers and sellers will change, and this has implications for everyone in the room - both as consumers and as businesses trying to make money in telecom.

Moving on, I moderated a well-attended session on how technology can be used in the contact center to improve the customer experience. Lots to talk about there, and it's clear that things like social media, mobility and multichannel communication are presenting big challenges for contact centers. It's also worth noting that almost everyone in the room was a first-time ITExpo attendee. This happened as well in the panel I ran this morning on hosted PBX. I'm sure the Las Vegas location has something to do with that, and maybe TMC is tapping into a new audience - time will tell.

Otherwise, yesterday was full with briefings and from there, everyone went to StartupCamp8. Over the past few ITExpos, this has been the most engaging session, helped in large part by the open bar, but also the content. The format is well honed now, and 4 startups gave their pitches, followed by some feedback from the judges. After that, the audience voted on winner, which turned out to be a local startup, Alice Receptionist. None of these really stood out for me, but I have a more detailed post coming about these startups - it will run on the UCStrategies portal, hopefully before the week is out.

Preceding the pitches, we heard a good keynote from Jeff Bonforte of Yahoo!. Aside from telling us how they missed out on acquiring Twitter for pocket change in its early days, Jeff covered 12 elements that characterize innovative organizations. Overall, this sounds like a good recipe for success, and clearly most businesses simply aren't wired this way. Aside from things you'd expect to hear, I enjoyed his take on the need to fail before you can succeed. For companies that can learn from this, the main idea is that the more you fail, the more likely you'll find something that actually sticks. It seems countertintuitive, but when you compare the culture of startups against enterprises, it's not hard to see why this is standard procedure for the former type of business.

I'll get another post out by end of the week, and I'm sure the buzz will be great when the show floor opens later this afternoon.

Rich Tehrani kicking off the show

 Technology trends roundtable

 View of the strip from the 62nd floor during the reception following StartupCamp8

ITExpo Preview - Session #3 - VaaS

Last but not least, my third session at the upcoming ITExpo is titled: "VaaS - Leveling the Playing Field for SMBs". Add one more acronym to your alphabet soup canon in this space - now we're talking about video as a service. With cloud, you just know that sooner or later, everything will get their "aaS" moniker, just like finally getting added to the Apps store up in that same cloud.

Well, if any application can truly benefit from the cloud it's video. This is the most expensive of all communications modes to provide with a premise-based solution, and now that the technology is "good enough" for just about any endpoint, the market is finally here. This certainly isn't what Cisco had in mind with telepresence, which is such a great experience, but really just for the Fortune 1000 set. Cloud-based services are nowhere as good, but my favorite tag line of "good enough" definitely applies here, and that's one of the themes we'll be exploring on the panel.

Our session is Thursday, August 29 at 1pm, and is part of the the Cloud4SMB Expo, which runs under the ITExpo tent. I know it's one of the last sessions of the conference, but if you're not dashing off to catch a red-eye back East, this should be a fun session.

Joining me will be Vishal Brown - Yorktel, Mark Cray - AGT, and Steve Vobbe - Glowpoint. Full details are here, and hope you can join us.

Am on vacation next week, and blogging gets a break too, so I won't likely post again til just before the Expo. As a reminder, I'm also moderating panels on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I posted about them here and here. See you in Las Vegas!

ITExpo Preview - Session #2

Continuing from yesterday's post, this is a series of shout-outs for the sessions I'm moderating at ITExpo West, coming real soon. This is TMC's flagship event, and is being held in Las Vegas from August 26-29.

So, on Day 2 - Wednesday - I'll be hosting my second panel, titled "10 Ways Hosted PBX Will Benefit Your Business". Gee, I wonder what that one will be about? Whether you call it hosted or cloud or managed, the trend to go off-prem is really strong, especially in the SMB space.

Joining me for this one will be Aaron Charlesworth - Vocalocity, Tim Healy - Telepacific Communications, Steve Lingo - XO Communications, and Bill Miller - Freedom Voice. That's a pretty solid lineup, and if you don't come away learning something new here, then maybe you should moderate this topic next time around.

We're running at 10am, on Wednesday, August 28, and the session is part of the Cloud4SMB Expo, one of the many sub-events running alongside the ITExpo. For more detail, just scroll down this page to our date/time, and I hope you can join us.

ITExpo Preview - Session #1

TMC's ITExpo is now just 12 days away, and there are lots of loose ends to manage as usual. I'm moderating three sessions, and am doing separate posts for each. They're all different, and I hope to see you at some or all of 'em.

As you probably know by now, this year's West event is in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay. It's a pretty hot time of year to be in the desert, but that's the story. This is actually TMC's 3rd locale for the West ITExpo in 4 years, so we're all looking forward to seeing how they've changed things up. Los Angeles was their base for several years, but they pulled roots and had the last two Expos in Austin. I loved it there, but it's not really a Western spot and I guess it just didn't pull right, so off to Mandalay Bay we go.

I'll be there the full time, and my first session is Tuesday, August 27 at 10am. This will be a topic I really enjoy researching, and it's going to be fun. It's called "Solving the Customer Experience Equation", and we'll be exploring the relationship between communications technology and contact center agents, and how best to marry those for providing great service.

Joining me will be Steve Brubaker from InfoCision Management Corporation, Steve Chirokas - VoltDelta, John Cray - Zeacom, and Ann Sung Ruckstuhl - LiveOps. With four speakers, the time will fly, but you'll definitely hear some pretty sharp perspectives.

If you want get regular updates on the show, follow my twitter feed, and along with TMC's - @arnoldjon and @ITExpo.

ITExpo - 24 Days and Counting....

I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be in late August just before Labor Day than... Las Vegas. Yeah, it's a dry heat and everything is air conditioned anyway, but summer is short around here and if I have to travel now I'd rather be going to a cottage (that's happening the week before) or a beach (ditto).

With that said, it's ITExpo time, and this only happens twice a year, so that's where I'm going to be. As you likely know, TMC continues to expand/enhance/improve this show, and you have to admit, having Steve Wozniak speak is a pretty cool draw.

This is just a quick shout-out, and I'll be posting more extensively starting next week about the conference. I'll be moderating some sessions, so stay tuned for details, and if you're not following the TMC tweets - or mine - just add these handles for up to the minute updates - @ITExpo @TMCnet @arnoldjon