Home - for now, and that's a good thing

Being home sure has its virtues, and that's where I'm going to be over the next while. I'm not a heavy traveller, but over the past month, my travels by plane or car have taken me to or through the most number of states I've ever been to.

During that time, the Red Sox tore out the hearts of the Nation again, and it was strange not needing to keep checking on baseball scores at this time of the year. I'm over it - the purge is underway, but it's time to move on and focus on defending the Stanley Cup, and seeing if the Patriots can get back to the Super Bowl.

Starting with last month's IT Expo in Austin, I've been to Texas, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, California and ending last Thursday, Nevada. Am definitely feeling like a displaced person, but the pace will slow down over the next few weeks. It's quiet today, and I'm looking forward to getting back to a more normal rhythm.

Without any baseball to obsess over, that should leave lots of time for more blogging - at least until new projects come along - and it looks like that just happened this morning. That's probably the best part about being home - getting new business and starting on with new clients. Back to work...

Metaswitch Forum - Wrapup and Takeaways

Just some closing thoughts about this year's Metaswitch Forum. Since my last post, we've seen a few more executive keynotes, heard from a customer, attended some breakout sessions, and saw a fantastic headliner keynote from Richard Noble of the Bloodhound Project (more on that in a moment).

If you've been following the Twitter feed (#mforum11), then very little of this will be news, and even if it is, I'm just going to pass on a few things here.


Metaswitch is a very customer-focused company. I thought they did a great job positioning their technology in terms of what matters for carriers and their customers. Thrutu is a good example of this, and their demo showed how the applications that run on this enrich phone calls in powerful ways. While the demo was about a mundane consumer/social experience (two people trying to find each other in real time to meet up for a coffee), it wouldn't take much to show Thrutu adding similar value for an SMB scenario (maybe at the next Forum?). The demo had lots of LBS and GPS horsepower, and in my mind, if it can do this much to make trivial problems easy to solve, imagine what it could do if real business was on the line! Regardless, this is just one way Metaswitch demonstrated how their technology translates into everyday needs. Carriers need to see this for two reasons; first to understand how it works on their network, and second, how it's going to be of value to their customers.

Metaswitch really understands the landscape. Martin Taylor has now taken on the CTO role, and he did a great job explaining the broader context of how OTT - over the top - technologies are disrupting everything - the carrier space, the vendor space, and end user expectations. During the Forum, we got a good sense of the opportunities Metaswitch sees in all this, but at the same time, only the smartest companies will survive. I've always admired the intelligence that comes from their whole management team, and Martin nicely outlined both the threats that come with OTT, as well as where/how the telcos still have leverage to defend their markets. I'll have more to say about that in future posts here and elsewhere.

The customer is always right. Yesterday we heard from Windstream, and it was a great example of what customers see in Metaswitch, and why they stick with them. They're a pretty big customer, and I think it was important to show smaller customers that Metaswitch scales so well, and can handle their future needs. More importantly, their SVP of Network Services - Bill Bellando - provided a holistic picture. He emphasized the underlying architecture as a key strength, which plays well for all the engineers in the room. Just as much, though, he talked about the quality of people at Metaswitch at all levels - management, support and operations.

There's more to driving fast than speed. The best is saved for last for a good reason. At face value, Richard Noble provided enough shock and awe video of supersonic cars - rockets on wheels, really - to satisfy any hardcore F1 or NASCAR fan. Engineers love to solve problems and get excited about testing the limits of performance, and what could be cooler than finding a way for man to drive at 1,000 MPH? Not only break the sound barrier, but outrace a fighter jet - you just have to see the video to believe it (that's why I added the Bloodhound link earlier).

So, what does any of this have to do with telecom, VoIP, UC, mobility, SBCs, etc.? Well, in the immortal words of Steve Gleave at last year's Forum when he talked about the goodie we all got - the USB-enabled pet rock - it does "nothing... absolutely nothing". Hell, why can't that be enough, right? Can't we just enjoy the simple things in life any more? Well, simple is the last word that comes to mind in Richard Noble's world. His talk worked on a few levels, and he had some encouraging messages about how technology can help us learn better, faster and smarter.

However, for the Metaswitch audience, the big takeaway for me was having faith in the human spirit and letting our intellectual curiousity takes us to places we never thought possible. He did a great job showing how the bar for speed racing has been raised many times over the years, and I especially loved hearing the nationalistic jibes to see who could be the fastest - the French, the Brits, the Scots, etc. In my mind, the pursuit of driving 1,000 MPH has everything to do with Metaswitch's raison d'etre, and I think the audience made that connection as well. Just like Richard Noble, Metaswitch likes to solve complex problems and challenge everyday thinking, and when they succeed, so do their customers. Even Ricky Bobby would understand that - there really is more to life to driving fast. Can't wait to see how they top this next year!

That's all for now - back to work. Will just leave you with one photo - it was from the SMB business case session that I moderated on Wednesday. As you can see, it was a full room, and all the other sessions I popped into were full as well. When the sessions are a better draw than the casinos, then you know Metaswitch's customers really wanted to be there. What more can you ask, right?

Metaswitch Forum - do you Believe in Magic?

Great song, huh? John Sebastian at his best - bet you can't get it out of your head now. That's the idea. Now, close your eyes, hum along and then say, "damn, I wish I was at Metaswitch in Vegas this week".

Well, if you can't be here, then keep reading my posts, and pick up the Twitter feed (#mforum11) - it's been pretty active. I just wanted to share some thoughts from Day 1. This is my fifth Metaswitch Forum, and it keeps getting bigger and better every year. Attendance is close to 1,000, and it's a great testament to their loyal customer base. They really have a great balance between sharing their roadmap and providing quality content with Vegas-style showmanship. The production quality and visuals are first rate, and a special kudo goes out to uber-host Steve Gleave. I think he's got another career waiting in this town - the man knows how to work a room!

Actually, Steve set the table by talking about the 7 M's, which define their vision for this market. In short, they are: Moments, Multimedia, Mobility, Management of sessions, Migration, Mosaic and Metaswitch.

Each of these are laden with meaning, but I'll leave that to your imagination. I couldn't make a living if I spelled it all out for you here, but suffice to say, I like where they're going, and think they are very much in synch with what the market needs. With a bit of effort, mind you, you'll get another layer of understanding by sifting through the tweets.

Otherwise, Day 1 had a good mix of public and NDA discussions, and it all reinforces my sense that they know what they're doing. The business continues to perform well, they keep adding customers, and they are proactively fine tuning their value proposition to reflect what's happening today. As smart as they are, even they concede it's a very daunting task, and frankly nobody has got all this figured out - well, maybe Apple or Google on a good day.

Regardless, among the telecom vendors, Metaswitch is as well positioned as anybody, and being private, they have more freedom to innovate without the time-sensitive pressures of meeting quarterly targets. Their market won't keep growing at current levels - even they know that - but as long as they keep innovating and responding to today's disruptive technologies, they'll hold their own just fine.

I could go on a lot about the details and memorable observations, but will save that for another post - pretty busy here now. In short, when you hear about the future they're envisioning, you really wonder if it's all magic, esp being here in Las Vegas. Well, to an outsider, it may look like magic, but when you see the quality of people and thinking that Metaswitch has, it looks pretty real to me.

Just a few photos to share here. Unfortunately, the analysts and media had special seating out in the bleachers during the morning sessions, so the best photo opps were off the video screen instead of stage - it's a big room!

Steve Gleave - funny, clever, but delivering a strong vision about the Power of M




Execs Kevin DeNuccio and Graeme MacArthur - very different styles, but more strong messaging about their growth story and roadmap





The chocolate lover in me couldn't resist making this connection - coincidence? I think not....

And now for something completely different - Modern Tailor - my review

This post is out of the ordinary for me, but there are some explanatory threads here – just bear with me. Regular readers will notice a banner ad that recently started running on my blog; it’s for Modern Tailor, and I wrote about the whole back story around this in this post.

I’ve now gone through two cycles of ordering shirts from Modern Tailor, and am sharing my thoughts on the experience so far in this review. Briefly, Modern Tailor is an online men’s clothing merchant, and typifies the trend towards Internet shopping and doing away with the hassles of going out to a store. Everything in life has its tradeoffs, and shopping is no exception. It’s not hard to think of things that take the fun out of shopping in person – traffic, parking, crowds, crappy service, poor selection, messy stores, rude shoppers, etc.

So, before getting to Modern Tailor, I’m building a case for online shopping – of any kind. I’m not a big shopper, but if there’s a way to avoid those hassles, you’ll get my attention. To be fair, there are things about going out to shop that I enjoy, and sometimes the overall experience trumps the shortcoming, especially if you get what you wanted – and even better if you get some unexpected surprises along the way like a sale or purchases of things you didn’t plan on.

Interestingly, those unexpected surprises are just as likely to turn up online these days, and the better online shopping sites get at replicating the in-person experience, the more successful they will be. Every bricks-and-mortar business has its KSFs – key success factors – and you don’t have to look much further than book or music retailers to see what happens when online alternatives improve on those KSFs.

One could argue those are easy businesses to take online, and clothing is just too personal to work this way. There’s a lot of truth to that, but this hasn’t stopped virtually every major apparel player from going down this road – either directly with their own websites, or through retail distributors like department stores. So, if you think that buying men’s shirts online is a bad idea, keep on reading.

The two strikes that come up right away are getting a good fit and how the material looks and feels. Personalization is one of the Internet’s virtues, and Modern Tailor addresses these issues pretty well. Let’s start with the first strike – getting a good fit. When ordering shirts, their website has a well defined and easy to follow process. Once you’ve selected the shirt type and style (more on that later), you have two options for sizing. The easy route is to just go with standard sizes – just as you would in a store with whatever is in stock. This is a good option if your build is pretty normal, or if you’re not too fussy about fit.

However, Modern Tailor is a tailor, right? Nobody shops at a tailor for off-the-shelf clothes. This brings us to the second ordering option, where you are prompted to provide exact measurements for all the elements that go into crafting a shirt. It’s a bit of work, but you only have to do it once. The menus clearly lay out each step, with instructions about to take all the measurements yourself – arm, neck, sleeve, torso, etc. Once all the measurements are entered into your profile, you’ve now created a blueprint for future purchases. This brings me back to personalization – thanks to the Internet, you can now get shirts that fit more precisely than anything you’ll get walking into a store – unless of course, it’s a tailor.

However, Modern Tailor is much less expensive than your neighborhood tailor shop – these shirts run about $60 – many are less - which is about what you’d pay in a store, but here you’re getting a custom fit. The only risk is that if you provide inaccurate measurements, the shirt won’t fit so well. So, I guess if you don’t trust yourself here, either go to your local tailor and pay a lot more, or settle for an off-the-shelf fit.

If you’ve ever had made-to-measure clothing, this is a no brainer. There’s nothing like having clothes that fit 100% right, and based on the two shirts so far, Modern Tailor delivers on that brand promise. My shirts fit great, and unless my body changes materially, I can keep ordering shirts with confidence, knowing they’ll fit right every time.

This brings me to the second issue – look and feel. One of the best parts of shopping in person is seeing a shirt that you just know right away you like – and want to have. Then you pick it up to feel the fabric and look it over more closely. You can’t touch the fabric on Modern Tailor, but you can do just about everything else. When you select a shirt on their site, they provide multiple views of the garment, including close-ups to highlight the pattern and detailing, such as the collar or the cuffs. For my liking, they provide enough views to get a pretty good idea of what you’re going to get.

Once you select the shirt style, then the fun begins – and this is where the personalization really comes into play. There is a seemingly endless series of options to customize every facet of the shirt – collar type, cuff type, color of buttons, breast pocket type, inset stitching, monogram – just to name a few. Most options are standard – no cost – while a few are a la carte. There’s absolutely no excuse to get a run-of-the-mill shirt here. If you want your shirts to have personality, you can’t do better than this, and there no way you’ll get this shopping retail.

So, aside from not being able to touch the fabric, there’s not much missing here. Perhaps the biggest plus is the selection, which I haven’t mentioned yet. There are literally thousands of shirt styles and patterns to choose from, so this takes the personalization theme of the Web to a level that no store – or tailor – can possibly match. Of course, the onus falls on you to scan through them all, but if you’re looking for something different – business-style or sporty – get a coffee, sit down and go to town.

Once you get by these issues and buy into the premise of online shopping, there’s one psychological issue left to address. Buying in person has one advantage you just can’t beat – the best part of shopping is taking the purchase home and getting to use it right away. We rarely buy things and put them away for six months – the fun comes from enjoying them right away.

With online shopping, you have to live with the anticipation of waiting for the product to arrive. With Modern Tailor, you just know it’s a global operation, and the garment is made overseas somewhere. These days almost everything in stores is made overseas, so why should this be any different? As such, you would naturally have some anxiety about how long it will take not just to have your shirt made, but to receive it.

Both are very real concerns, and for both my shirts, Modern Tailor was great – not only was the overall process fast, but they managed it very well. Once my order was confirmed online, they provided regular email updates as to when the shirt was made, when it was shipped and when I would receive it. All told, I had my shirts in hand within 10 days of placing my orders. When you consider that the tailoring is done in Hong Kong, and I live in Toronto, this was a pretty impressive turnaround.

As for the shirts themselves, I’m really enjoying them. The fit – as mentioned earlier – is great, and the quality of workmanship is very good, especially for the price point. When ordering online, I knew the shirts were 100% cotton, and my only suggestion is that the shirts have a label confirming this – along with washing/care instructions. This is standard practice, and I’m not sure why they don’t do that.

Otherwise, I would recommend Modern Tailor to anyone who likes shirts and wants to stand out from the crowd. I should add this is just the beginning – there are plenty of online sites that only offer shirts, but Modern Tailor has it all. Their selection of ties is excellent, and of course, they can make you a suit. So, I look at shirts as the first stage, and if they provide great fit and quality there, that’s a big step towards earning my business for a suit – and I won’t have to fly to Hong Kong to boot! So, can they take your order?

Next Stop - Las Vegas and Metaswitch

Been a busy road month, and up next is my third week of travel during the past four weeks. Enough!

On Monday, I'm flying out to Las Vegas for the 2011 edition of the Metaswitch Forum. I've been out to several of these, and they always do a great job. It doesn't hurt to have a large, happy customer base and great financial performance, not to mention continuously evolving technology. If you follow them, you'll know they launched an SBC a few weeks back - Perimeta - and next week I'll get a detailed update on their 2012 roadmap.

Aside from attending, I'll be moderating one of the panels, which focuses on the SMB market opportunity for IP communications. Joining me will be Metaswitch's Chris Carabello, and 2 customers - Ray Napoletano from Saddleback and Ernie Hoffmann from Optimum Lightpath.

Our session runs on Wednesday at 10:50, Track 4, and you can read the full details here. Hope you can join us!

Oh - for the tweeters out there, you can follow the forum buzz using their hashtag: #mforum11, and if you want to follow me, my handle is arnoldjon.

Social Media and Contact Centers - Getting Your Brand Back

This is a topic I've been keen to explore for a while, and the time has come. I've been writing an ongoing series about the impact of social media in the contact center space on the Exony site, and my latest focus is on steps companies can take to get control of their brand back.

Social media sure cuts both ways, and it's a mistake to think that once people - customers, ex-customers, prospects, competitors, grumpy people, yahoos, etc. - start using the tools to say whatever they want, that you hand over your brand to them. That's marketing suicide, and in my current post, I address the issues and explore some ways companies can use the same tools to offset all of this out-of-control activity. Everyone has an opinion on the Web - don't get me started on that one - but that doesn't make everyone right - and companies have a voice too.

Enough - you get the idea, and if this topic is keeping you up at night, please give my post a read, and hopefully you'll sleep better. Better yet, give me a call and I'll try to help you save the day for your company!

TMC ITExpo - UC Takeaways - There's Work to be Done

Am on a family visit this week, and Internet access has been hard to come by. I've got this one window this morning, so I wanted to get a quick post out now.

Last week, I had a few posts and photos about TMC's ITExpo in Austin. It was plenty hot there, and it's more of the same here in South Florida. Those posts provided my general take on the Expo, but I've since put my thoughts together on the UC implications, which I think are pretty important.

That post is running now on the UCStrategies portal, where a few of us took in the show last week. If you're wondering about whether the cloud is going to rain on UC or accelerate its adoption, please give my post a read, and then immerse yourself in what my UCStrategies colleagues are saying too.

ITExpo, Austin - Loose Ends

Am back now from the ITExpo, and it's much cooler here in Toronto!

Yesterday was pretty full for me, as I moderated two contact center panels and walked the floor for the afternoon. Our panels went very well, and if you were looking to hear from some leading companies in that space, we delivered. I just find it interesting how the cloud and UC are now part of the contact center conversation, and that brings a new circle of vendors who you might not normally think about here. Add mobility to that, and I think about Nuance - they did some nice demos show how speech recognition brings new life to voice in providing customer service.

Otherwise, I'll say it again - the show floor was big - about 250 exhibitors, with quite a few new ones. Lots of cloud here, and it will be interesting to see how many return for the next Expo in Miami. Based on what I'm hearing, it sounds pretty promising, so if these exhibitors stick with the program, ITExpo will move up a notch or two in scale, and maybe that will bring in some of the Tier 1 comms players like Cisco, MSFT and IBM. Sure hope so!

Overall, I'd say Austin was a success, and when I polled my panels, it seems like most people agree. Hats off to the TMC team for putting together a great show, and I'm sure we'll see more of the same in February.

Just wanted to leave you with one photo, taken during the Startup Bootcamp at the end of the day on Wednesday. The star attraction was Bob Metcalfe - inventor of Ethernet, 3Com founder, etc. - and he was a real treat to see. Very old school - no slides, just note cards - and he shared a lot of wisdom about what makes for a successful startup. Definitely a highlight for me - and everyone else, I'd say.

ITExpo, So Far So Good

Well, it looks like TMC bet right with Austin. So far, the ITExpo has been great. I was busy on Monday for Editor's Day, and had a bunch of briefings yesterday. The keynotes were strong, as were the sessions I had a chance to check out. It's hard to gauge how big the crowds are, but there's lots of energy here, and everyone I talk to really likes the change in venue.

Most impressive for me has been the size of the show floor, which opened up last night. Much bigger than expected, and I heard that from a lot of people - very nice to see. Also, there were lots of new exhibitors, so new blood is welcome. Cloud is the trend du jour, and that's what stands out the most for me. That's driving a lot of new exhibitors, so it's taking some getting used to seeing this ecosystem here, but the time is right. Nothing wrong with that.

Back to the Expo now - I'll have more updates later. Until then, here are some photos...


Rich Tehrani kicking off the Expo


Mike Tribolet talking about Magicjack and how disruptive the VoIP space has become


Thomas Howe leading a panel during the CloudComm Summit


My UC Unleashed session from this morning, with Bill Bumbernick from Alteva speaking here. We had a full room, so kudos to everyone who came out for a 9am session!


I'm liking the Expo so far, but for me, this is the best reason to be in Austin...

Last call - tomorrow's webinar on remote working

Just a quick note about tomorrow's Focus.com webinar about getting more productivity from remote workers. I'll be presenting along with Polycom - my perspective will be about the trends and drivers around remote working, and they'll focus more on video-based applications as an enabler. It's not too late to register, and the details are here. Hope you can join us!

ITExpo Session - the Multichannel Contact Center Experience

This is the third in my series of posts in advance of next week's TMC ITExpo in Austin, Texas. If you've been to the show website, or follow the various email blasts, tweets, etc., you'll know there's a lot going on as always. The keynote lineup is solid, and based on the breadth of the program and strong roster of sponsors, I'd say the move to Austin is going to work out just fine.

My third panel next week is about the multichannel experience, and how this is impacting contact centers. We all use the tools - chat, text, social media, mobile, etc. - and expectations are rising from customers in terms of how they want to interact with agents. I've been writing about this pretty regularly on the Exony website, but let's stick to the topic!

Joining me will be fellow Torontonian Shai Berger from Fonolo, Kimberly Drobny of Fonality, and Christy Murfitt from Nuance. All of these speakers are living the multichannel experience, and if you're wondering why voice is no longer the only way customers engage with agents, you'll want to be with us.

Our session is on Thursday at 11am - we're on the Call Center Track - and you can read the full details here.

ITExpo Preview - What’s Really Driving the Hosted Customer Care Trend?

Just keeping the momentum going here for next week's ITExpo in Austin. I'm moderating three panels, and yesterday I posted about the first one. Today's post is about my second session.

As the title of this post says, we'll be talking about trends in the hosted customer care space. Regular readers of my blog will know that the contact center has been a recent focus here, especially where it intersects with Unified Communications. Just as hosted UC solutions are sprouting up everywhere, the same thing is happening in the contact center world.

To explain why, I'll be joined by Dena Skrbina of Nuance, James Dunn of TelStar Hosted Services, and Dave Van Everen of Five9.

We'll be starting bright and early at 9am on Thursday - we're part of the Call Center Track - and you can read the full session abstract here.

ITExpo Preview - Unified Communications Unleashed

TMC's ITExpo is just around the corner, and I'll be doing a series of shout-outs the next few days to let you know about my panels.

The first session I'm moderating is "Unified Communications Unleashed", and as the title implies, we'll be exploring how UC helps both companies and employeess get productive and stay productive. It's a pretty core driver for the UC value proposition, so your time will be well spent here.

Joining me will be Wes Durow from Fonality, Bill Bumbernick from Alteva (recently acquired by Warwick Valley Telecom - we could do a panel just around that!), Michael Marchioni of ICON Voice Networks, and Angie Reed from Digium.

That mix sure covers a lot of ground, so it should be a fun session. Join us if you can - we're on first thing Wednesday at 9am as part of the SMB track.

I'll be arriving on Monday, and prior to this session, I won't be hard to find in either of these two places:

- TMC Editor's Day on Monday - I'll be with their editorial team doing scheduled briefings and interviews

- Avaya's Technology On Tap reception on Monday night. If you haven't registered to attend, here's the link

While I have you, I want to be sure you're up on all the other co-located events running alongside ITExpo. Lots of great content happening there, and I want to especially draw attention to the programs being run by my good friends at both Crossfire Media - Carl Ford and Scott Kargman, and Principals Larry Lisser and Thomas Howe of Embrase (and by extension, Dave Michels from Pin Drop Soup).

Crossfire has a few events running, but the main one is their 4GWE Conference, and for Embrase, it's the Cloud Communications Expo. If these topics fall into your sphere, you won't want to miss them, and if I play my cards right, you just might see me up there during the Cloud Expo at some point.

Getting More From Remote Workers - Focus Webinar with Polycom

Just getting the word out about my next webinar with Focus.com. I'll be presenting along with Polycom on the topic of remote workers. This is a big trend that I write about from time to time, and it's worthwhile for employers so long as remote workers have the right tools to be productive. There are many ways to do this - and we'll be examining that during the webinar, and of course, Polycom will have their spin on things as well.

The webinar takes place Wednesday, September 14 at 1pm EST, and I hope you'll join us. All the registration details and the full webinar abstract are here on the Focus.com website.

Gartner's UC Magic Quadrant Review

This was the topic of our latest UCStrategies podcast. Gartner's Magic Quadrant always gets a lot of attention, and there was lots to talk about here. Each of us in the UCStrategies group has a distinct perspective, and I had a few takeaways, namely:

1. How well Cisco fared considering how voice/telecom-centric their quadrant analysis is, along with the fact that Cisco is so strong in other areas that touch on UC

2. How well Microsoft is faring with Lync considering their lack of voice pedigree. I also noted it was nice to see the report acknowledge the Skype acquisition, which I think is a huge wildcard in this space.

3. Nice to see Mitel get recognition among the second tier vendors; they were the only vendor to fall into the "Visionaries" quadrant - this being a nod to their focus (more like betting the farm) on virtualization.

Lots of good insight all around, and if you want some lively debate about the state of UC, you should enjoy this. The podcast was just posted today on the UCStrategies website - here you go!

Would you buy a shirt from this man? Remember Woody Allen's "Sleeper"?

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll notice something different today. The bots and automated search algorithms that only scour keywords but don't actually read anything won't notice, but if you have two eyes and a brain, you will.

I've been blogging since 2005, and I love to write. Those who know me will know that my blog has never been a commercial venture, and I have this old school Church/State thing about keeping my content/thought leadership separate from the pressures of making a living. For that reason, I've always maintained a separate website for J Arnold & Associates, and that's where you go to learn about my practice and areas of expertise. As I always tell people, my blog is where I do my telling, and the website is where I do my selling. Fair? I think so.

So, what's new today? OMG, there's a banner ad at the top of the landing page! What's that about, and why there an ad here for a... tailor - huh?

Ok, so let me explain. I've never done this before, but am happily giving it a try. Here's the story. I get a lot of inquiries and offers from outside tech/telecom - some of it is way off base, some want to tap into my traffic and some really like my writing.

Generally, I only write about tech/telecom here, but will occasionally write about the Red Sox, Americana, music, film and culture - and I could easily create standalone blogs and write endlessly about any of them. Any sponsors out there?

A few weeks back, I was contacted by Modern Tailor, and as you can guess by now, they do everything on the Web - a very modern take on tailoring. I'm old school enough that I still like suits and dressing well, although that seems so out of place in telecom. I don't shop online much, but I'm interested in their products, so we're doing a small contra deal.

It's not that big of a stretch, really. My readers are consumers too, and the males buy shirts and suits from time to time. If the ad catches your eye, hopefully you'll click through to their site, and you might even give them some business. In return, I get to try some of their handiwork, and if all goes well, we'll keep it going.

As Harvey Fierstien used to say, "is that so wrong?" Well? I don't think I'm compromising my analyst integrity, and I happen to love nice shirts. No money is changing hands, and we're both trying something new. I'm dipping my toe into the Wild West world of Internet commerce...

So, now for the really big question - would you buy a shirt from this man? I've never understood why people would buy personal attire like clothes and shoes online, unless they knew the fit was good. I've come across a few online tailors like Modern Tailor (mostly for shirts, mind you), so they must be doing something right.

I don't know about you, but the first thing that popped into my head was the scene from Woody Allen's futuristic Sleeper, where he gets fitted for a suit by a robot tailor. If you haven't seen it (or it's been forever since you have), take 90 seconds now and check out the clip.

Nu, so you vant a suit? Plain or fancy? This scene says it all, but I'll close here by telling you my first experience with Modern Tailor was exactly the opposite. They have a great process, a virtually unlimited pallet of options, and the fit was great. If you trust me for my telecom writing, I hope that transfers to Modern Tailor! It works, and I'll be back for more.

That's my story, and if you're still with me, I'll be writing a more detailed review shortly about the process and results so far with Modern Tailor. It works for me, and if you have your doubts, you'll want to read my review.

Social Media and Contact Centers - a New Way of Listening

Although you can't tell from their website, the Exony folks have been keeping me busy lately, and the fruits of that will start coming next month. Hey, that's a day away, isn't it? I seem to have missed summer - time sure zooms, and before you know it, I'll be in Austin at TMC's ITExpo. More on that next week, and if you're going, please come to my sessions!

So, I've been doing a fair bit of ongoing research about the impact of social media on the contact center, and my latest set of insights was posted today. This is the third instalment in a series I've been writing from my research, and one more piece is in the works now.

My focus here is how social media requires contact centers to listen in new ways, both literally and between the lines. Aside from being new, social media has many nuances, and it's not enough to just take every tweet or IM at face value. This type of content may often be sparse and brief, but much like body language, it's often laden with unspoken meaning - and that's what makes it social.

Enough preamble - it's time to go straight to the article on Exony's website. Give it a read, close your eyes, reflect, and share your thoughts! And then, like a good social media acolyte, re-tweet this to 10,000 of your closest friends.

The Future of the PSTN

How's that for a big topic? I think about it a lot, but its demise looks increasingly inevitable, especially the way the FCC is talking these days. Much like the railroads, when the system becomes too expensive to operate, the operators start making noise and giving reasons why it needs to be scaled back or done away with altogether.

I can see this unfolding at some point, but am also of an old school mindset that says the PSTN still has value - it just needs to be reinvented. Back in the 50's, when the U.S. Interstate highway system was built, it provided a huge boost for the auto industry, and train service has been on the decline ever since. In essence, the highway was simply a better way for people to travel, and the same argument can be made for why landlines are rapidly giving way to VoIP and mobility.

However - the trains run just fine, thank you, and in some markets have regained their appeal - especially where the highways have become way overcrowded and add a lot of stress to the daily commute. Of course, providing WiFi sure helps, and for a lot of people, the train is a far more productive form of commuting. I'd like to think the telcos might come up with similar brainwaves at some point, as the PSTN still has virtues - security, hello - that VoIP or mobility simply can't match.

Enough said. I could go on quite a bit here, but it's time to transition this to the podcast. I've missed several of the recent UCStrategies podcasts, but things finally worked out for this week. So, if you want hear how our group is weighing in on this topic, you can give it listen now. What do you think?

Oh Blogger, Where Art Thou?

Just popping in to say I'm still here! This may be the longest stayaway since I started blogging back in 2005, but I'll get back to posting this week. Been away on vacation, and that 100% means no blogging. More importantly, I've been busy on projects, and have just completed a pair of white papers for a vendor most of you will know that should launch any time now. I'm also in the final review phase for another white paper with a major IP comms provider that all of you know and use. Finally, I'm in writing mode now for yet another paper in the video space that will be out in early September.

Aside from that, my regular writing continues on both the Exony and ADTRAN portals, and one of those is about to ramp up later this month. I also have a number of proposals pending for new projects, so the pipeline is looking pretty good going into the Fall. Speaking of that, TMC's ITExpo is now just a few weeks away, and I'll be busy there, moderating three panels.

We may be in the home stretch of summer, but the work goes on. Last week was a good recharge, and I'll be back to blogging and tweeting soon enough.

ITExpo, Austin - 39 Days and Counting...

I don't usually talk up my next conferences this soon, but things are ramping up now for my participation in the next ITExpo. Regular followers will be familiar with my long history with TMC, and this expo should be pretty cool.

The West edition of their show has been in LA the past few years, but 2011 marks a shift from there to Austin, Texas. It's always great to be part of a change, and as a bonus, I've never been to Austin. That in itself is reason to be jazzed, since Austin is one of the top spots anywhere for two of my big passions - live music and food. More specifically, ribs, BBQ and the blues. Yahoo!

Back to work now. The ITExpo is a short 39 days away, and if you haven't made plans yet, you should check out the conference agenda here. I'll be talking more about the program and speaker highlights in upcoming posts. As usual, I'll be busy moderating - am running three sessions - two on contact centers and one on UC:

- Wed. at 9am: UC Unleashed

- Thurs. at 9am: Hosted Customer Care Trends/Drivers

- Thurs. at 11am: Harnessing Multichannel Customer Service Tools

Along the way, TMC will be doing various things to build momentum for the Expo, and I'll be participating during their Editor Day on Monday. I was also just interviewed by TMC for my thoughts around key trends in UC, and the article was posted earlier today. You can read it here, and if you come see me at the Expo, you'll get a more complete picture of what I'm seeing - not just from me, but my session speakers as well. After that, if you're into the blues, let's go on the town.