Conversationware

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.

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.

I’ve been having fun.

I got the idea of a diagram from David Armano - his blogging story is here, worth a quick read. He always seems to have a diagram or two to communicate his ideas and I’ve been impressed. I thought I’d have a go at that…only I can’t draw very well.

So, the mindmap below was created at http://bubbl.us - a free hosted service for mindmaps. A very simple to use and quite exquisite user interface. It took only a few minutes to work out how to use.

I love mindmap interfaces anyway, being the most gratifying way to communicate difficult concepts visually without any visual design talent (believe me).

The MOST special part of this map though is that it is ‘embedded’ on the page. It is read only, but, you can click, drag and zoom in and out on the page. Give it a go…I’ve been messing with it all evening.

No matter that I haven’t finished the map, I can update the web application, and it will update on the page, and anywhere else I’ve shared it, with no further effort.

One snag, the solution is being re-written right now, and we’ll have to wait for the problem free embedding version for you Firefox viewers. I’ve added the diagram (exported naturally) below for a full view.

If you can’t see it properly, click this image

The next step is for me to see what it looks like in a Reader.

The idea behind this mindmap is to group technologies together to see what patterns emerge and to remind how things might fit together.

Companies are going to find it harder than ever to prioritise where they spend their communications budget.

Unified Messaging groups together message types now merging into one client (although not a single application). Unified Communications are merging into another - if that’s your definition too - it’s not everyone’s.

The more established technologies have more facets, it seems to indicate there’s more to come from the asynchronous and newer techs. I also think that asynchronous technologies will merge into a single interface….stands to reason.

I suppose in the end, you have to decide what you want to communicate, who to, and how. This diagram merely shows the how.

I know I have to add micro-blogging, but feel free to chip in, or let me know where I’ve got it wrong.

This linked article at eweek about Microsoft UC wasn’t astounding in any way apart from the claim that

“In fact, Microsoft has replaced its old voice mail system with Exchange Server 2007 unified messaging, a move that is saving the company $5 million a year through lowered hardware and maintenance costs, he said.”

Bill Gates talking, apparently.

I understand that Microsoft doesn’t have to pay 29% for it’s own software renewal scheme, and therefore probably isn’t inidicative of the available savings for everyone else, but even so. $5 million saving in costs. For voicemail.

A few questions spring to mind

How many people does Microsoft have? 

Are there any employees left in America for any other companies?

Did the diamond embedded voicemail company ever need to sell any other systems?

With that account lost, does the salesman now have to come back out of retirement, and can he show his face after that last lease agreement?

And, do journalists ever ask for details to back up major sponsor’s claims, and is it necessary?

Surely the news should be that people are using Unified Communications at all.

However, Wainhouse Research release a survey around Rich Media Metrics (2007) for:

• Both large and small companies
• Companies using any element of UC, (so anything from IM to Phones then)

I sat for quite a while trying to understand something, anything, about the value of this report (without buying it). And then it struck - a marketing exercise, although I’m still a bit confused about who it could be for.

There are a great many things around this survey to poke fun at, or generally make cheap points about, but here is my attempt…

There were 160 companies in the survey. From a pool of 160 of anything, could there be meaningful global extrapolation I wonder?

I also liked this quote particularly, “One surprising statistic is the huge mindshare Microsoft has generated over all other unified communications solutions.”

I’m not sure it’s that surprising.

If you were going to buy something, might you consider buying from a company that you’d bought from before?…… I wonder how many of these customers had bought from Microsoft in the past.

If you thought you might use Unified Communications, you might consider your phone people, and your email people. So, lets be conservative and say that Microsoft had supplied email to 50% of the companies, it follows that perhaps 50% might be considering looking at Microsoft for UC. 

Which is exactly the number looking at OCS 2007 in the survey. The bleeding obvious, QED.

Prospects may probably also be considering one of the other 12 PBX suppliers they may have bought from, which is also what the survey seems to show.

And another thing, both large and small companies are included - now there’s a hole to drive your truck through. If you excluded small companies, how would the figures look, probably very Notes heavy?

I also wonder how many of the 160 companies asked could define Unified Communications?

You’ll need to pay $2.5K to find out if that’s in the survey. That’s just enough to get me to France for the next couple of weeks for that desperately needed holiday. Although it probably won’t be enough to cover the wine bill.

The business case for Unified Communications usually centres around individual productivity and time savings. But generally ROI for UC is thought to be quite hard.

Yet, there is definitely a wider case to be made.

Yes, we can save individuals time, but that rarely impresses the people with the cheque books. Although, if those wallets are fat enough and the industry competitive enough, then small advantages count towards communications companies getting orders.

An important string to the ROI bow has been ‘on premise’ conferencing.

Companies are increasingly spending substantial amounts on conferencing, and even more when there is a web element involved. Outsourced Audio conferencing is an easy target for a new GUI driven system.

But, in terms of ROI, there’s more to Web conferencing equipment than meets the eye.

Because of the pressured nature of Webinars to customers, plus peaky traffic often meaning a big system for sporadic requirements, and not forgetting costs of critical support and failover, it can make this a tough pitch at premises level.

For large organisations, one of the best returns for Unified Communications is the promise of reduction in premises overhead.

Technology makes it possible. For as the PC (Laptop) swallows yet another device, the phone, the desktop footprint of an employee is shrinking, and becoming ever more portable.

I know its obvious, but 25 years ago, if you wanted to work at home, you might have needed

• Typewriter
• Copier
• Fax machine
• Mobile Phone (measuring about a foot square)
• Your own franking machine
• Calculator (measuring about a foot square)

More than that, your telephone extension was practically nailed to your desk, and you couldn’t transfer calls out of the building. Your terminal definitely not!

Being able to plug in anywhere, in or out of the building, and maintaining consistent high rates of productivity is enabling shared work spaces and driving down property costs, for both growing organisations, and yes, even the old school.

One public sector organisation (a UK council) recently stated their decision to reduce their property portfolio by 30%, would comfortably provide the means to pay for all the new technology to make anywhere working a dramatic possibility. A UK Council leading the charge towards communications technology is news indeed. But, this is by no means isolated.

Even small companies are enabled by UC, probably most very small service companies (2-5) could now work without any premises at all.

Unified Communications is just one element, alongside broadband and networking, but it is an important one.

This isn’t new, but Presence and Conferencing become more useful when people are not in the same room.

This time next year Rodney……..(for Only Fools and Horses fans)

This linked article from Red Herring shows Jajah has linked up with eHarmony dating site - I wonder who made the first move?

Whoever, it’s a great idea, and the service will presumably hide your number from people you’re not sure you want to know! I picked this snippet up from Alec of Iotum who also looks to treat voice only as a component part of a wider application.

The article, and Jajah’s website shows their burgeoning integrations list, and I feel this will be absolutely key to winning mindshare in the voice application market…even the hosted one.

In fact, voice right now is very reminiscent of the early fax market.

The market in the early 90’s seemed to be dominated by Unix based proprietary systems - check out this quote from Network Computing in the 90’s

Fax servers today are more or less tied to the software delivered with them, at least on the server side. Some fax servers support the Communications Applications Specification (CAS) and can therefore work with a desktop application that supports CAS. So to an extent, you can plug in the desktop client of choice, but you may end up losing some of the unique abilities of the server (such as sharing common phone books or accounting).

(more…)

First, frame the problem.

Whatever your definition of Unified Communications, (this link is my own ‘What is unified Communications’ approach), there is an inescapable conclusion that in order to make software based communications work good, you have to find, and then telephone enable (all) your contacts.

Only one problem, and that is, the possible inbound and outbound contact details you might need are literally all over the shop.

• Customer Relationship Management systems
• Accounts software
• Outlook or Notes personal address book
• Global address book
• Your mobile phone
• Paperwork
• Web
• A colleagues’ version of the above

Of course, these contacts increase exponentially with the number of social software platforms that you’re using such as linkedin and facebook.

(more…)

Are you at your desk, are you on the phone…these are the two key ingredients to make your Real Time Unified Communications cake rise.

Presence, I think they call it, and, exposing (all of) the PBX telephone handset status to software is what’s needed.

Did anyone say Busy Lamp Field?

However, whether you can have cost effective UC might come down to whether you run a Call Centre.

I’ll explain (more…)

I have often teased telephony types and asked them ‘what’s the point of VOIP, or IP Telephony systems? Well, I found a plausible answer.

My semi serious point was originally because companies spend money on infrastructure and skills to change to IPT, and to me, it wasn’t immediately evident what the benefits are, and, well frankly, how do you measure ROI?

Well, I found a reasonable answer regarding old telephone system replacement which I thought I’d share. Bear with me….what I’m getting at here, is that completely open Third Party CTI interfaces cost different amounts on different switches, and it is extremely important for Unified Communications (Unified Messaging is fine either way)

If you buy the wrong telephony platform, you may not not realise that the CTI interface costs a fortune (£40K), and that no clever developers are likely going to bother trying to sell to customers with that overhead (when they can sell to customers who don’t have those costs instead)

NB: FOR THOSE THINKING SIP - ITS NOT A THIRD PARTY CTI, SO YOU’RE NOT COVERED

The wrong switch then, will likely restrict you to telephone system manufacturer’s software, or possibly their selected partners’, which often won’t integrate to the things you want it to. 

Worse, when you try and justify UC in particular, the ROI is still in early stages, and adding a wodge of cash to the bill just ain’t going to help you deploy very useful tools for your information workers.

As I understand it, IPT companies Mitel and Cisco are delivering the the right subset of CTI connectivity out of the box. UC developers and customers are not far behind. My Mitel partner friends knew that I wasn’t anti, and now I proved it