An open SIP policy is a good thing. But a program for interoperability is even better. It’s easy to say that customers are welcome to use any SIP compliant device that they so choose. But how do you know that this actually works, and works well?More
Today it's rare that any company works projects totally internally. It's also rare that you are only communicating/collaborating for "work" from 9 to 5 and for personal otherwise. Our professional and personal lives have blurred. Unified Communication and Collaboration "tools" need to effectively bridge multiple enterprises together, as well as allow personal/professional connections outside your enterprise to be effective and useful. "Free" social networking services can have a role in the enterprise and in bridging multi-company and appropriate personal/professional communications. Presence and Messaging If project collaborators are in multiple companies there should be one or more mutually accessible forms of...More
Apple recently announced it's long rumored iPad tablet device. With all the buzz the announcement is creating, it reminded me of another modern communications issue I have; too many devices! The explosion in device technologies and types is a major part of the communication revolution and the challenges it presents to us. The communication revolution is driven by new communication modes being adopted today; social networks, texting, IM, video, blogs, RSS feeds and more. It's also driven by the emerging new devices and technologies, especially smart phones, and the ever advancing capabilities they are giving us. We have smart phones,...More
This post is part 2 of a series of posts on the Communication Revolution and Deep Impact it has on us. Part 1 of the series discussed how the Communication Revolution has brought on information overload and communication management issues. This post focuses on the impact that new technology and communication modes have had on our social communication behavior and preferences. Ultimately the series will end with recommendations and examples of what Unified Communication solutions can do to help us better cope with the less positive side effects of this revolution. The Communication Revolution has given us mobile phones, social...More
With the Communication Revolution going on today many of us suffer information overload or management issues from time to time. Information overload and/or inefficient management of communication carries a cost. This post is part 1 of a series described here. If you haven't read that it may help to go do so to set the stage and context for the follow-on posts. This series of posts is regarding the communication revolution and where new Unified Communication solutions that are needed as a result. What is information overload? This link gives good background on the problem. Using myself as an example,...More
The danger, I guess, of thinking about how useful a social network can be to leverage is that we can lose sight of the simple, easy ways to communicate that don't require that social network at all.More
A fundamental change is underway in how real-time communications occur. The advent of the Telecommunications Session is a revolutionary concept that promises to change the basic nature of electronic communications. The power of the session is just becoming apparent and it has the potential to be one of those seminal changes that causes a ripple effect across business and life.More
I attended the 140 Characters, Exploring The State of Now conference in LA last week. It was a "non-techie" type of conference and for that reason alone it was a very different experience, yet very relevant to Avaya and the Future of Communications. You may ask, why would someone from Avaya R&D attend a conference like this? Two reasons; my interest in social media as a new and highly popular mode of communication, and my passion for integrating social media with Avaya business communications systems that are in use in businesses today. I was invited to be a member of...More
With just a few days to go before VoiceCon kicks off in San Francisco, I'm wrapping up my plans to to spend time with a few more DevConnect partners during the show. More
Every carpenter or seamstress knows the adage "Measure twice, cut once." And if you've been involved in a converged network migrations, you probably have your own variation of this, covering your need to measure and assess your data network infrastructure and voice usage before you implement and migrate your voice traffic to IP. But with today's UC and cloud-based applications, you really need to continually measure and assess.More
Do conference calls end up being less productive, simply because you are spending more time trying to understand who is saying what rather than what they are saying? If so, perhaps it's time to do a little remodeling of your communications architecture and consider futureproofing with high-definition voice. After all, you wouldn't really want your next TV to simply be a black-and-white model, even if you mostly watch old I Love Lucy reruns, now do you? More
Firey laptop batteries, defective chips, tainted foods, toothpaste that stains teeth – these are just some real examples of issues that struck companies recently that might have been headed off at the pass by Social Media.More
In elementary school, we're taught lots of valuable lessons, often compressed into sound bites like "Where there's smoke, there's fire." While it may not always be true, the statement is meant to serve as a warning--if you don't take action in certain situations or under certain conditions, inevitable results will follow. More
Having spent enough time sitting in west coast hotel rooms while participating on early morning east-coast conference calls, I've learned a few things. First, never assume that there is a desk (or desk chair). Second, never assume that the power outlet is located anywhere near the desk. And lastly, never assume that the hotel phone is a speaker phone. So now I bring my own. More
How many times have you been on an important conference call that is suddenly disrupted by a syrupy rendition of Stairway to Heaven or some other Music on Hold concoction of interminable distraction? There’s a FAC for that.More
Over the last week or so, I've been the recipient (or perhaps the source, depending upon where you sit in my social network graph) of a number of discussions centered around "fun". Fun, as in linking an Avaya IP Office system to a coffee machine.More
One of the many things that have changed in the last decade is the practice of aggregating large numbers of workers into a single physical location. The truth is that today, given the availability communications and Web 2.0 technologies, disaggregating workers can result in significant benefits to organizations. Accompanying increased business resilience are demonstrable economic, business and social benefits. More
The core design goal for all of Avaya's Unified and Enterprise Communications products has always been to make sure our solutions enable and improve the real-time communications tasks that allow businesses to deliver revenue from a growing base of customers. Over the past decade we have delivered many UC solutions that our customers have adopted and used to enhance their enterprise communications productivity. More
Right now, millions of people are updating their social media network status or creating a YouTube video or posting to their blog. The topic? Customer-service experiences – some good, some not. Are they talking about your company? If they are, you definitely want to join that conversation.More
I typically join 2 - 5 conference calls per day. Most are completely within my firm. Many are across firms and development partners worldwide. The overall meeting experience is typically frustrating, especially in the start-up. I just went through one this morning which triggered this blog though it's been on my mind for a while. Deployment of and enhancements to Unified Communications and Collaboration applications can help meeting start-up and efficiency. Running effective meetings is a broader subject that I'm not targeting here.More
Almost any conversation about Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) – telephony’s next-generation protocol – quickly turns to the topic of interoperability, and then usually takes a nosedive into technical issues. And why not? Technical issues can become game-changers when we explore emerging, transformative and potentially disruptive technologies. More
By now you’ve heard that there’s a lot of money to be saved and efficiencies to be gained through Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based communications. In fact, you might already be mulling a SIP implementation at your company. If that’s the case, then you’ve probably run up against that pesky detail preventing you from taking the plunge: the business case. No need for angst. The beauty of SIP is that it can be deployed at one contact center, where its impact can be measured and justified, thus paving the way for incremental implementations across the enterprise. But let’s not get ahead...More
The choices for real-time communication on the internet have grown and changed dramatically in just the past 5 years.
We can choose between the traditional phone call, video calls, instant message, email, text message, social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, Skype calls, and more.More
With the world’s acceptance of IP Telephony as the ‘done thing’ when it comes to enterprise voice, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype and dismiss non-IP based communications as being old-hat. Hey, who I am to argue? The case for convergence of voice, data, and video is as solid as it was over ten years ago – when simple toll bypass led the ROI. In fact, it’s even more so when one considers that ‘free calls over the data network’ doesn’t even get a mention anymore – these days it’s all about Unified Communications, Multimedia Presence, and hooking up my iPhone as my device.More
Why don’t we see more headlines about the deficiencies of the 9-1-1 system? My short answer is that the people who work in public safety are true heroes. On a day-to-day basis, we only occasionally hear about the successes of the thousands of people who do extraordinary things on our behalf. That doesn’t mean that we should not give them the tools that will help them to become super heroes.More
Is your organization biologically resilient? I don’t mean “do you have white cell antibodies roaming your hallways trapping and expelling invaders” - as cool as that might be to watch. More, what I mean is: does your organization have the capacity to withstand major disruptive events in the way that a biological organism might respond to some type of environmental challenge?More
What if you lost your ability to see or hear? In today's information age, how would you earn a living? Provide for your loved ones? Maintain a reasonable quality of life? Hope to someday retire in comfort?More
Revolutionary changes are on the horizon as the Next Generation of 9-1-1 takes shape. Session based telecommunications present exciting possibilities for the transformation of the delivery of public safety services. Join the conversation about some of the possibilities for the 9-1-1 system in North America as the concept of the Telecommunications Session proliferates. More
In our recent conversation I wrote that the 9-1-1 system in North America is threatened. During several real-time conversations I have been asked why I used the word “threatened.” They said, “Okay, if we agree with you that the hard-wired premise at the foundation of the 9-1-1 system is a cause for concern, how does that constitute a threat? After all, on a day-to-day basis, doesn’t the system work?” In this post I answer those questions.More
In North America, the ability to dial the three digit code 9-1-1 and immediately contact local public safety officials, including police, fire and emergency medical personnel, is something we often take for granted. The 9-1-1 system is called by many "our first line of defense" against both manmade and natural disasters, yet today that system is threatened by a number of issues that undermine the ability of public safety officials to maintain the critical communications that connect people in trouble to the resources that can help.More
The last few months have seen the introduction of new phone banking services in the UK. By downloading the necessary software to your mobile phone you can access your bank account on the move, check your balance, access a mini statement or make transfers between accounts.More
If you have never seen this web page http://twitter.zappos.com/ - you should! With legions of Twitter-ers on staff - 432 to be exact - Zappos make customer service look: easy, decentralized, and inexpensive. But that begs the question - what impact will Twitter have on today’s customer contact centers?More
It's a very exciting day for me here at Avaya. We just launched a new product that is a true leap frog from where most enterprises are today and will make it easier for enterprises to integrate social technologies like Facebook into their overall communications and contact centers while saving them real dollars in the near term.
More
It’s official. Presence is “cool.”
You know this because kids use it all the time to chat with their friends and you hear the techies at the office go on endlessly about it.
You also know it’s cool because your parents think it’s all really very nice but aren’t especially sure what they’d do with it. So it must be cool.
Unlike consumers, where being “cool” is often king, companies will only adopt new technology when it is able to demonstrate real tangible business value. So, for them, it has to be “useful” too.
More
