The future is not real time, it’s written down
September 25, 2008
This blog site was a way for me to research, discover, record and share my findings on what was a very new subject, way back when. Unified Communications.
But what I discovered earlier this year was:
- There is no real business case for real time Unified Communications, even the best of it, - although there certainly is for Communication Enabled Business Processes.
- The (blog) medium turned out more interesting than the message.
Of course, I wasn’t to understand this until recently, but I had started off in the wrong direction.
The problem with real time communication, is that time is getting more scarce. Tools that promote more and easier ‘real time’ communication have this innate problem that more often than not, the call is not as productive as what you can achieve by writing stuff down instead. Interruption is not scalable.
I should have realised the lessons of the printing press much earlier.
The ability to research, (re - search), discover, record and share - is vastly better when things are ‘written down’ (even video has tags and descriptions these days).Non real time is just fantastically efficient. A one to many technology.
I didn’t waste the effort, as website blogging and software based communications has opened up a hugely rewarding and productive environment for me, my friends and colleagues. I’ll still be writing here about these things, but it will be focussed on the web.
Comms Technology Success Story
July 10, 2008
Communications Enabled Business Processes seems one of the more colourful areas in comms technology innovation right now.
Whilst many companies are fiddling with instant messaging and phones to ‘improve’ internal productivity for their users (is there a problem to be solved here? - seems a bit grey to me), there are others concentrating on real business benefits, and getting their rewards.
Congratulations Voicesage, it re-invigorates to see real, measurable changes taking place.
The drive to increase competitive advantage through real cost reduction whilst improving customer service is always going a better sell to management than ‘productivity’ tools. (UC)
I believe strongly in productivity tools, but Senior Management will always tend to think that employees will then hurry up, only to then wait for something else - and there aren’t ready figures to support the productivity investment.
Contrast this with measurable reductions in cost, and measurable improvements in cashflow, and better customer service (immeasurable benefit), and you can see what’s happening.
I suppose that’s the fourth time I’ve said measurable, so I may be overstating the point.
Of course, this has a lot in common with “interactive voice response, or IVR” of the 90’s. However, IVR always had a large risk element that any bespoke project can carry with it, which prevented many medium sized companies from following through.
Customers often weren’t confident enough in what they thought they might want from IVR. Those that were over-confident enough to go for it, tended to spend the next 12 months arguing that their suppliers hadn’t read their minds sufficiently well.
With Voicesage hosted system, this risk is reduced drastically, and trials, demo’s and ongoing ‘pay as you use’ are the way past these objections.
The second improvement over IVR (and now CEBP I suppose), is that Voicesage describe their technology in ways their customers understand.
automated interactive voice messages to customers
Unlimited email storage
July 4, 2008
Talk about email storage to IT managers and they tend to start going this funny colour. Users can’t seem to manage their Inbox apparently, although not the exact words they use.
This has come up time and again, where, on behalf of the user experience, it is up to me to persuade I.T that voice messages have to reside in the email store.
During the conversation you can see this assume huge proportions in the minds eye, and I always show my own mailbox to calm them down……a bit.
So its an area of interest.
I just saw that in my personal email, on Google, that I’ve used 93MB of 6 Gig. In a year and a half.
So I check my Exchange work mailbox, I now have ALL historical emails saved locally - although I’m good at deleting very large emails first - I have 2.5 Gig, in 3 years. Including unified messaging.
By my calculations then Google are effectively giving me unlimited storage. They seem to put it up every month, I could easily have 7 years of email before deleting anything at all. Which is surely what most people would ever need. Or am I behind the multimedia times.
You gotta love that.
Recalling emails doesn’t work
February 25, 2008
It’s Funny when you see someone try to recall an email.
Of course, the recall function serves only to highlight the original email to be read more closely, just to see where the rickett has been dropped, and how loud the clang was.
Another example of a terrible email mistake here at email tide
There are three Matt Lambert’s in the UK around the technology field, one at Microsoft and one at a telecoms company. So, I do get voicemails from people I’ve never heard of every now and again….although nothing interesting. But the more people you are ‘acquainted’ with, the less well you might know them, and this is going to happen more often.
In the comments in the linked article, there is a Thunderbird plugin that is designed with the ‘are you sure you want to send this’ button built in. Not bad, but possibly subject to the similar address blindness after a while.
What this highlights (again) is the fact that Email is a fairly blunt tool with which to be handling sensitive documents.
Surely there must be some enterprise 2.0 software that could handle a central repository, and sharing mechanism for messages, without overloading the user with yet more passwords. It makes you wonder if any other legal companies have gone with Google Docs for this?
Is Sharepoint the right vehicle - I’ve heard varying reports. I’ve got another Avanquest training session on this next week, perhaps it will sink in this time.
Talking of Passwords, methinks it is worth another look at OpenID again.
Ericsson MD110 PBX business sold to Aastra
February 21, 2008
Perhaps this is old news already
A sale has been on the cards since they went completely indirect and the manufacture was outsourced (if memory serves).
I remember when the big UK PBX’s in the old days consisted of
- Siemens ISDX
- Mitel SX2000
- Nortel Meridian Option 11
- Alcatel 4400
- Lucent Definity
- Ericsson MD110
A bit crowded when certain other companies joined the fray I suppose.
Obviously there are no announcements from Aastra about futures yet, as this won’t be concluded until April 2008.
The MD110 had a superb installed base in the UK. Back in the day they had a very innovative and reliable distributed solution. It was kind of the Ford Granada of the comms world.
I’m sure this won’t happen soon, and I feel a bit like an ambulance chaser - but if MD110 customers were to consider change, they should keep hold of their Unified Messaging Onebox system, as it is an AVST CallXpress system in disguise - and that fits onto any IPT PBX. (drop me a note).
I’m telling myself that it’s just being helpful really
Stuff and nonsense in Unified Communications
February 19, 2008
There’s far too much of it about and I’ve just read some more here. Sorry Art, I have to call it like I see it
The clue is in the first paragraph, where it says;
“What was most interesting about this piece was that it quoted several different definitions of UC promoted by leading industry technology developers and analysts”
We can’t let people off with describing the technology just how they would like to see it at some far off distant point can we? Those leading developers and the pet analysts, with their own interests at heart, are currently spinning off each other into a dustcloud that nobody can see into.
I really don’t have a problem with people who disagree about a definition -if they would only come up with a definition that people can understand. Yes it can be complex, which is why a clear explanation is required….apply more rigor. If people can’t understand what you’re saying, stop talking.
Personally, I don’t think the following should be mixed up.
- Unified Messaging
- Real Time Communications (The real Unified Communications can stand up)
- Fixed Mobile Convergence
- Communications enabled business processes.
That’s because Unified Communications is about the person, the user - people communicate, companies don’t.
So, what exactly is being unified for the user? - Answer: GUI client software.
The whole point is that instead of installing ten types of client software and teaching the user to work each one, for the telephone, instant messaging, conferencing, video conferencing, web conferencing, for example - a user just has one interface and a single address book for the lot. Multimodal. By combining client software, we make it easier for the user to use - and therefore to understand.
You wouldn’t/couldn’t have a single interface for messaging and real time communications because they would have different buttons. I also can’t see people using GUI software on a mobile device, pie in the sky…but perhaps that’s just personal opinion.
UC will generate sales - but only when they show it fully working to the end users.
/end rant.
If anyone else wants to agree or disagree, feel free to join in.
t.38 fax is only just getting going
February 18, 2008
I was amused at Tom Keating’s headline t.38 fax dead? but it turned out to be one of those reverse, attention grabbing lines. 
Bloggers eh?
t.38 or traditional fax are neither dead, nor losing revenue as far as I can see, and I thought I would echo the amount of interest seen in the field. Fax over IP seminar’s, real or virtual are stacked out.
There’s are simple reasons for this
- Fax doesn’t work very well over a VOIP network, kind of important!
- When moving to a VOIP system, analogue extensions just seem so ancient
- The real benefit of a centralised fax server is that it’s easier to failover
- Small pockets of fax machines, at remote offices for example, are more cost effectively replaced through a centralised server (mimicking the voip system benefits)
A few things may interest people here
Few VOIP systems support t.38 natively yet. For example Cisco does, Avaya does, but Mitel doesn’t until later in the year. It’s likely you will need new kit or software when support does arrive.
The important thing about t.38 support is that it’s the VOIP gateway that is actually terminating the fax, and then passing it on to the centralised IP fax server. (there are other ways if necessary)
There are also some wrinkles to iron out. For example some MGCP encrypted VOIP systems can’t transport t.38 as yet.
So, to sum up, Fax Over IP, or t.38 is a coming technology, not a fading one. And given the Return on Investment and ‘green’ qualities that electronic fax can lend to a VOIP project, I can’t see it going anywhere but up the agenda.
Gmail for business - Google Apps mini review
February 10, 2008
When I looked for free web based email, I knew Gmail was going to be the best option.
With huge amounts of storage, accessible from my various PC’s, Spam filters and desktop notifications (so I don’t have to check for new mail, which is the most important), plus Gtalk Instant Messaging on the same login - so it proved.
Thus, when I wanted to have separate ‘blog’ email, I took a look at Google Apps (it’s free, so why not).
Google Apps is Gmail, but with your own domain - (e.g. mail is sent to name@company.com) but with all the above benefits, and more. Being free, I think it’s great value, and even at the premier edition at $50 per user per year - compared to the cost of running premises based equivalents is a no brainer.
Setting it up does mean you need your own domain, and access to the control panel to follow google’s instructions in moving the Email MX records…..it’s easier than it sounds though, and knowing someone who can help is useful.
On first impressions, it was good. But last year…..
I had the problem of trying to access two separate Gmail accounts from the same machine - it turned out to be very unwieldy flicking from account to account and notifications weren’t as timely if I wasn’t logged in.
It’s amazing how the little things prevent you from using and being completely happy with software.
Recently however, Google Apps and Gmail have both moved to supporting IMAP, and my problems have been solved. It’s brilliant!
One of the most useful additional applications is Docs - great for sharing information between boundaries….accessible from anywhere. I haven’t worked out my three different calendars yet, but there are apparently synching apps available.
I’m now using Thunderbird to receive and send mail from multiple gmail accounts (as well as a separate email account for work!). I can still be logged in to my primary gmail account (personal) for most of the day.
With all the above facilities, Google Apps is aimed at companies - but I always wondered whether companies would get over the trust issue. That is, trusting Google to look after their email.
I figured for my own part that if Google let any information go, their share price would slide, and therefore they had more to lose than I did.
Email server, Software, support, Spam software, archiving, the list of savings just goes on.
If you don’t need to support a LAN to run documents and email (with failover support), this tends to help free up both funds and the staff from looking after it, not to mention users who can literally work anywhere with mobile broadband.
It has to be worth most small companies time in having a look at this, and if Legal companies are happy to trust their customer’s information, then that shouldn’t stop anyone.
We need to talk about Presence
February 6, 2008
Something is wrong with Presence.
I harp on about this technology, and I keep looking around to see whether I can be proved wrong.
So, I was grateful to Mike Gotta (again) for pointing to this audio interview (48MB, 50 Min) with one of the founding fathers of Presence, Peter St-Andre with Lee Dryburgh, who happens to be organising a Unified Communications event in the spring, Ecomm2008
I do like being proved wrong, although friends and family may disagree, but my problem with Presence is still that it doesn’t seem scalable beyond immediate and close relationships.
Although very entertaining, and well worth the (your) time, I’m not sure the interview answered all my questions.
Ok, here’s the beef.
The more people I know, the more likely I am to be interrupted at someone elses convenience.
On the basis that I don’t want to micro-manage my availability between constantly changing relationships with all the people I know, I just can’t make it work.
I initially equated Presence with ‘Busy Lamp Field’.
This was a quaint term used to describe the lights on a key telephone system handset, that lit when someone lifted their phone handset. As an early key system evangelist I thought this ‘Presence’ was going to be great.
Of course, the supposition turned out to be wrong. Despite people desperately wanting it to work (including me). Busy Lamp Fields are possibly why ‘phone’ people are very keen on this tech, but BLF and IM are not the same!
Whilst a ‘lit lamp’ told someone I was on the phone, and helped them know ‘not to try calling me’ (note, try) - when the lamp wasn’t lit, it DID NOT mean I was definitely at my desk and available to talk.
Whereas, the blinking IM message says that until you reply, you’re being ignorant. The refusal to communicate is in broad daylight.
Thus, there is an emotional blackmail being set, and to my mind that is exactly why people don’t buy into it.
It almost pains me to say it, but telephone presence is more useful to the recipient than desk based presence, in that there is no obligation to interact.
Another problem exists and it is this.
As a real time communication, there are also less facilities than asynchronous communication. This question of synchronous vs asynchronous came up in the podcast also, but indirectly.
So, the time to compose a considered and consultative response just isn’t there in real time conversation.
You can’t forward an IM for consideration by someone to contribute (with any certainty someone is going to be there right now!)
And, unlike other web based communication, the conversation isn’t discoverable (indexed) and won’t contribute to the knowledge base of the rest of the community.
I find it interesting that the chap who first got me thinking on the Presence subject, Alec Saunders, has his company, Iotum, pioneering another communications medium - the multiparty conference call.
Interesting because the conference call, whosoever has one, is booked in advance, and has a subject. It is a viable alternative to Presence . The permission factor is key for me. I’m not yet sure whether this has a significance on Alec’s thoughts on his New Presence…dot dot dot.
So, let’s have an invite…and acceptance….to talk about a subject….at a particular time, or joint circumstance.
If we have agreed to talk on a subject, and we’ve both concurrently indicated we’re in free mode, THEN let the availability be shown. It’s better than trying to reclassify everyone I know.
In my view, Presence missed a step, the equivalent of the ringing phone invitation.
Give Voicemail the respect it deserves
January 29, 2008
Sometimes, leaving a voicemail is more useful than speaking to someone in real time.
Of course it’s not black and white, it depends on the conversation.
But, to illustrate the point, haven’t you ever got someone on the phone, asked a question and then waited while you hear them um and ah, or scrabble about for some piece of paper.
How often does the person give up and say - “I’ll have to call you back”?
We’re taught very early on about the power of preparation. So, when you make a call, plan for the person not being there. And, if you are in the habit of leaving ‘good’ messages, quite often you’ll get more done than if you actually do get hold of someone.
Voicemail is panned because of the people leaving useless messages. It gets a raw deal.
Leaving a well structured voicemail outlining your objectives and timelines can be a boon to your own productivity rather than a halted progress.
Whats more, if the person needs help with the task you’ve just set, they can ask for help with those objectives by forwarding the message in YOUR words (and emotions), rather than their interpretation.
So, when someone leaves a message saying “Matt, call me back”, it’s very tempting not to.