Geez, seems like I'm asking a lot of provocative questions this week - I hope that's creating some good food for thought out there. Disruption never seems to end in the comms space, and this time around, I'm looking at voice.
One of the monthly columns I write is for TMC's Internet Telephony Magazine, and this one is called Rethinking Communications. With a mandate like that, my latest column fits right in - "Is Voice Really Dead?" - and is running here as part of the magazine's digital edition.
Chances are you have a pretty good idea about that already, and whatever side of the coin you're on, I think you'll find this a good read. My commentary is based largely on takeaways from the SmartVoice track during the last ITExpo in Miami, with particular reference to what Martin Geddes had to say. He's definitely on to something with hypervoice, and I would encourage to you to explore that further.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Why Does Customer Service Suck?
Well, I'll bet that sure got your attention. It's not my headline, but if it gets you reading my article, you'll see why, and hopefully you'll learn something new.
That's the title of my current writeup for InformationWeek. If you don't know, I write a monthly colulmn for their Unified Communications portal, and it's running now. Here's the link, and if you like it, your comments are most welcome. This is a great topic, and I have a follow-on post coming about in my next IW column.
That's the title of my current writeup for InformationWeek. If you don't know, I write a monthly colulmn for their Unified Communications portal, and it's running now. Here's the link, and if you like it, your comments are most welcome. This is a great topic, and I have a follow-on post coming about in my next IW column.
Life After Nortel - my next Webinar, April 25
Seems that when I'm not writing, I'm busy at conferences - or doing webinars. If you follow me, you'll know I keep busy both in telecom and smart grid, and this time around it's the former.
My next webinar is another Ziff Davis B2B event, with the focus being on Nortel customers. I've been writing about this a fair bit lately on their Toolbox.com IT portal, and now I'm going to complement that with this upcoming webinar.
The title is self-explanatory - "Life After Nortel - Key Considerations and Options for your Telephony Roadmap", and we're doing this on April 25 at 1pm ET. If you can join us, here's the registration form, and I look forward to having you on the call!
My next webinar is another Ziff Davis B2B event, with the focus being on Nortel customers. I've been writing about this a fair bit lately on their Toolbox.com IT portal, and now I'm going to complement that with this upcoming webinar.
The title is self-explanatory - "Life After Nortel - Key Considerations and Options for your Telephony Roadmap", and we're doing this on April 25 at 1pm ET. If you can join us, here's the registration form, and I look forward to having you on the call!
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Calling all Conferencing Users - Share Your Experiences in a Survey (with prizes!)
I'm a market researcher by trade, and when LifeSize told me about this survey they're running, I figure why not help out and make more people aware of it.
Actually, I wish every company would do surveys like this (especially if they hire me to do it!), as I think end users need to be better understood. Whether doing quantitative surveys like this, or qualitative research such as focus groups, there is no substitute for learning first-hand from end users. If you're not familiar with the virtues of market research, there's a primer about the basics on my website, and I'd be happy to tell you more any time.
Enough about me. Here's the pitch, along with a link to the survey and a chance to win a $200 Amazon gift card:
Actually, I wish every company would do surveys like this (especially if they hire me to do it!), as I think end users need to be better understood. Whether doing quantitative surveys like this, or qualitative research such as focus groups, there is no substitute for learning first-hand from end users. If you're not familiar with the virtues of market research, there's a primer about the basics on my website, and I'd be happy to tell you more any time.
Enough about me. Here's the pitch, along with a link to the survey and a chance to win a $200 Amazon gift card:
5 minutes – 5 winners!
$200 Amazon Gift Card
One of the keys to a developing a great product is when a company truly understands its consumers wants and needs. LifeSize, a pioneer and world leader in high-definition video conferencing systems and software applications is doing just that.
Please take 5 minutes to tell us about your usage and experiences with audio and video conferencing solutions in the workplace and you’ll automatically be entered to win one of five $200 Amazon Gift Cards. Five winners will be randomly selected from all completed entries between received between April 7 – April 18, 2014.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Next Stop - Gravenhurst, ON - CTCA Conference
Yup, the Great White North, eh. Well, I do live in Toronto, and a 2-3 hour drive around here barely gets you out of the city. Most people have no idea how big Ontario is, but they'll find out when the world runs out of water, and the province is annexed by a superpower to harvest our lakes to survive. Sounds like this could make a good movie, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it actually happen in my lifetime.
On a more cheery note, the weather IS warming up, but my Red Sox are suddenly in last place, so things could be better. For me, Gravenhurst will make things better, and that's where I'm going this week, from Tuesday - Thursday.
I've had some near misses to participate in CTCA events, but this year, it's finally on. CTCA is the Canadian Telecom Consultants Association - our version of the STC in the U.S. Their 2014 annual conference is being held at the Taboo Resort, and it's very scenic - and expensive - up there in Muskoka country.
Am really looking forward to attending, and I'd better not be late. I've been kindly asked to give the opening keynote on Wednesday morning, and I'll be talking about five trends in the communications space we all have to pay attention to - not just consultants, but vendors, carriers and channels. Oh, and of course, businesses - if nobody's buying, we'd better find something else to do. My presentation is ready to go, but I'm not giving it away here - you'll just have to come up to Gravenhurst and get a ticket - or ask me nicely after the event.
I'm also moderating a session on the cloud later that day, so I hope you stick around for that. Joining me will be speakers from Cogeco Data Services, Interactive Intelligence and NEC.
It's not too late to drop everything you're doing this week and make your way up north - right? For locals, the Leafs should be dropping out of playoff contention by tomorrow, so it's not like you'll have any distractions. :-)
Hope to see you there, and for more detail, here's CTCA's landing page for the conference.
I'll do my best to tweet and blog - my handle ia @arnoldjon, and the event handle is @CTCA_Canada
On a more cheery note, the weather IS warming up, but my Red Sox are suddenly in last place, so things could be better. For me, Gravenhurst will make things better, and that's where I'm going this week, from Tuesday - Thursday.
I've had some near misses to participate in CTCA events, but this year, it's finally on. CTCA is the Canadian Telecom Consultants Association - our version of the STC in the U.S. Their 2014 annual conference is being held at the Taboo Resort, and it's very scenic - and expensive - up there in Muskoka country.
Am really looking forward to attending, and I'd better not be late. I've been kindly asked to give the opening keynote on Wednesday morning, and I'll be talking about five trends in the communications space we all have to pay attention to - not just consultants, but vendors, carriers and channels. Oh, and of course, businesses - if nobody's buying, we'd better find something else to do. My presentation is ready to go, but I'm not giving it away here - you'll just have to come up to Gravenhurst and get a ticket - or ask me nicely after the event.
I'm also moderating a session on the cloud later that day, so I hope you stick around for that. Joining me will be speakers from Cogeco Data Services, Interactive Intelligence and NEC.
It's not too late to drop everything you're doing this week and make your way up north - right? For locals, the Leafs should be dropping out of playoff contention by tomorrow, so it's not like you'll have any distractions. :-)
Hope to see you there, and for more detail, here's CTCA's landing page for the conference.
I'll do my best to tweet and blog - my handle ia @arnoldjon, and the event handle is @CTCA_Canada
Friday, April 4, 2014
Next Smart Grid Webinar - Managing Outages in Extreme Weather
With ETS behind us now, it's time to get back to smart grid webinars. The next Zpryme webinar is on April 17 at 1pm ET, and I'll be in my usual role as the moderator/host.
Even though winter is pretty much behind us, and baseball is back, extreme weather threats are not too far back in our rear view mirrors. Ice storms are off the table now for a while, but depending where you live, floods, hurricanes, etc. can happen any time.
That's what we'll be covering in this webinar, with a particular focus on what utilities need to do to keep the lights on under extreme conditions. Joining me will be Clinton Davis of Ventyx, and Kandace Eaves of OGE - Oklahoma Gas and Electric.
Our webinars are always well-attended, so I'm just giving you an early heads-up here about the next one, and to register, here's the web page. Weather permitting, I hope you can join us! :-)
Even though winter is pretty much behind us, and baseball is back, extreme weather threats are not too far back in our rear view mirrors. Ice storms are off the table now for a while, but depending where you live, floods, hurricanes, etc. can happen any time.
That's what we'll be covering in this webinar, with a particular focus on what utilities need to do to keep the lights on under extreme conditions. Joining me will be Clinton Davis of Ventyx, and Kandace Eaves of OGE - Oklahoma Gas and Electric.
Our webinars are always well-attended, so I'm just giving you an early heads-up here about the next one, and to register, here's the web page. Weather permitting, I hope you can join us! :-)
Thursday, April 3, 2014
State of Cloud-Based Solutions and Ecosystems - UCStrategies Podcast
Our latest UCStrategies podcast included a guest, namely Zach Hinkle. He's the Solutions Program Manager for Interactive Intelligence and their cloud-based contact center platform, CaaS. His company has long been a leader in moving communications applications to the cloud, so they were a great addition for this topic.
For a change, I served as the moderator, and led Zach through a series of topics that our usual group of UC Experts had no trouble chiming in on. We started by talking about why vendors are moving to the cloud and why their customers are now following them. Naturally, we wanted hear about Interactive's experiences, but then moved on to the broader vendor space.
Building on that, we talked about the challenges and realities, along with the importance of building up an ecosystem to support the changing needs of a multichannel contact center environment.
The podcast has been posted to the UCStrategies portal, so you can give it a listen here. We covered a lot of ground, so it's a pretty long session, and if that's asking too much, you can just read the transcript as well as fast forward to the parts you really want to hear.
For a change, I served as the moderator, and led Zach through a series of topics that our usual group of UC Experts had no trouble chiming in on. We started by talking about why vendors are moving to the cloud and why their customers are now following them. Naturally, we wanted hear about Interactive's experiences, but then moved on to the broader vendor space.
Building on that, we talked about the challenges and realities, along with the importance of building up an ecosystem to support the changing needs of a multichannel contact center environment.
The podcast has been posted to the UCStrategies portal, so you can give it a listen here. We covered a lot of ground, so it's a pretty long session, and if that's asking too much, you can just read the transcript as well as fast forward to the parts you really want to hear.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
RSS Feed
