Contact Center Trends - Interview with Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine

Got another TMC-related post here, this time wearing a different hat. They've been publishing Customer Interaction Solutions magazine for 30 years now - that's a pretty good run! To support that, Executive Editor Paula Bernier has been doing a series of interviews across the industry about what various people are seeing in this space. Sounds like a good idea, and I was happy to hear from her to be part of this.

We recently did our Q&A, and covered a lot of ground, including offshoring, the role of IP communications, the cloud, and even digital signage (as an emerging mode for interacting with customers). The interview was just posted yesterday, and you can read it here.

"What is the Role of IT Now?" My Latest TMC Column

You may be aware that I recently started contributing again to TMCnet. I've done so in a few guises, with this iteration being my monthly column called Rethinking Communications. My column runs in both the print and digital editions of their flagship publication, Internet Telephony magazine, so there's a lot of reach here.

For some reason, my column didn't run in the June issue, but it's running in the current issue, and the digital edition just hit my email inbox this morning. Being summer, this is a double issue covering July and August, so  it will be out there for a while. The print edition has been out for a bit already, so whether you get this in the mail or prefer to read online, I welcome you to read my article, which is on page 11.

My focus this time around is the changing role of IT, something I'm seeing a lot across my work and research. I can only touch on a few things in the article and I'm sure many of you are seeing similar trends. It's a big topic, and I'll certainly be revisiting it here and elsewhere soon. Until then, you can download the July/August digital edition here, and I'm sure you'll make Rich Tehrani and his always-on editorial staff happy if you continue reading after my article through the rest of the issue. I've been through it myself, and there's lots of great content, including pieces from Skype's Jonathan Rosenberg about video, snom's Mike Storella about hosted Lync, and a nice profile about Andy Voss and Sansay covering the broader SBC space.

ChannelBuzz.ca Podcast - Mitel BPC Takeaways

Am slowly getting back to blogging - been focused on new business and getting projects off the ground. For those of you following the Canadian telecom/IT space, ChannelBuzz.ca should definitely be on your radar. It's a great resource run by veteran journalist/blogger Rob Dutt, and he covers a lot of ground, both with his posts and podcasts.

He invited me to do a segment shortly after Mitel's Business Partner Conference, which I attended a couple of weeks ago in San Diego. In light of RIM's latest challenges, Mitel looms pretty large now on the Canadian landscape as possibly our strongest tech company, so it was timely to have a chat. I've already written about the event on my blog, but the podcast format has more runway to explore ideas in conversation as opposed to composed prose.

I realize this is a bit after the fact, but the posting has just come my way now, so if you still want to get a first-hand account of this year's Mitel BPC, you can tune in here. Rob does long podcasts - over an hour - and I'm one of a few guests on the program, so there's lots more to explore here. Our segment is towards the end, so to listen in, scroll ahead to the 55 minute mark, and you'll find us there.

Up for air

Been about 2 weeks since my last post - decided to take a break from blogging and catch up on a million little things that have been building up the past few months. Being an indie isn't easy, and after having my busiest and best month in May, things eased up in June. Two trips, though, kept me on the road, but since then it's been a more manageable pace. I'm not one for sharing my personal life online, but the upside of being an indie is getting all this catching up done once all the deliverables have been fulfilled.

Blogging doesn't pay the bills, though, so I've been in active business development mode lately, and now things are getting busy again. No business travel on my calendar probably til October, and that's fine by me. Looks like I'll have a full plate with new projects/clients through the fall, and that helps provide fodder for blogging and tweeting.

That's it - just popping up to say I haven't gone away. When my blog goes quiet, it's usually for a good reason! Go figure, I pick July 4 to start posting again, and maybe 5 people will see this today. That's ok - I know my market and I'll be back with new posts soon enough. Until then, Happy 4th and a belated Happy Canada Day!

Oh, and if you think Canadians don't have fun with their holidays, check out this ode to Canada, hoser-style. This is the most fun you can have with empty beer cans, eh!

Mitel Business Partner Conference - Highlights

This year's Mitel Business Partner Conference is a bit on the short side for the invited analysts, as Wednesday is the only full day here, and we leave today around noon. So far, it's been very good, with a strong turnout on all fronts - about 1,500 partners and customers, and about 60 exhibitors. The morning was a series of executive updates for all attendees, and the afternoon had special sessions for analysts, including a customer panel and personal executive interviews.

Overall, lots of positive messages, and it's clear that Mitel is on the right track. There was some timely news as well, but the general sessions were not analyst-friendly - no Internet access or power bars - and I wasn't able to tweet then. Too bad, but I'll share my takeaways here.

CEO Rich McBee set the tone with a clear, realistic vision of where Mitel fits in the comms market. He established that a strong foundation is in place on all fronts - the products, the people, the culture and the channels. They know they'll never be as big as Cisco or Avaya, but that's not their target. They're happy to be #3, and more important, they want to be the best. Good plan. He surrounded that with lots of examples, and the main thing is that they're paying down debt ahead of schedule, the financials are strong and they're growing in all the right places. There's money in the bank, and he says Mitel will be ready for whatever changes/consolidation comes next. I don't see the need to follow ShoreTel's steps to acquire a hosted provider - they have plenty of virtualization capability via VMware - so it's not clear if that means Mitel will be a buyer at some point, or will just react to what others do. After all, they've pretty much digested the InterTel acquisition, and am sure they're happy with what they have now.

Two other notables from Rich's remarks. He touched on the fact that the market still doesn't really know all that Mitel has to offer. If the customer wants hosted, they can do that via virtualization, and of course they can do premise-based all day long. After hearing him talk about things they want to do to strengthen Mitel's mindshare, a lot of these messages sounded spot on to what ShoreTel was saying at their last industry event. These two companies really are in a dogfight for the #3 spot, and each will take any angle they can to get a leg up. I've noted in the past that Mitel has bet pretty heavily on virtualization, and it sounds like that's starting to pay off nicely now. Each company is chasing a similar type of customer with similar channel partners, so at minimum, Mitel has to be telling a story that's just as good as ShoreTel to keep the partners onside. I'd say it is, and technically, it sounds like they're a bit stronger, especially after talking to various partners who sell both.

The second notable comment speaks to the culture Rich is trying to build. He stated that for the first time, all Mitel employees will be in on profit sharing. Well, that's one way to gain an edge on ShoreTel, given that they're not making money these days. Regardless, it's a great way for Mitel to build loyalty and motivate all employees to go the extra mile to make the company strong. That's a big change considering how poorly their IPO came off, when many doubted whether InterTel was a good move.

CFO Steve Spooner gave more detail on their financial performance, and it's a good story. I thought they'd be a billion dollar company by now, but $670 million is just fine, especially when gross margins are at 50%, and they've paid down $100 million of debt in the past 3 years. The other metric I liked was about how diversified their revenue base is. Mitel's top 10 customers only account for 4.7% of sales, and their top 10 partners only tally 12.8% of sales. That's a nice mix. In short, Steve made it clear that Mitel's financials are just fine, and that matters when you consider how challenged some of the other vendors are. That's a pretty important message for channels to hear, especially when weighing Mitel against other vendors they're selling.

Lots of other strong messages throughout the day, but the biggest item was from Jim Davies and the launch of their new device, the UC360 Collaboration Point. Tech companies aren't known for coming up with sexy names for their products, and this is no exception - it's pretty clunky. He did the big reveal, like on a reality TV show - see photo below - so it was new for all of us. Reminded me a bit of how Cisco unveiled the Cius, which really was the first of its kind - but also the first exit of its kind too. Video is really just making its way into Mitel's story, and with this, it becomes a central driver for UC and collaboration.

Jim did a very smooth demo showing how the device has the convenience of a touchscreen with intuitive features that allow any tech-challenged SMB end user to launch and manage a collaboration session from one device. The demo worked across all screens - PC, tablet and room-based system - so, it's ideal for ad hoc needs that anyone can run with. The list price is around $2,000, which seems high, given that Cius could not compete with the iPad's price point. Of course, it does a lot more, but we just don't know if it's solving problems that are pressing enough among SMBs to warrant the investment. Mitel is basically taking the approach they can disrupt the market with a new category device, and hats off if they're right. Apple sure had success this way, but I'm not so sure that this really is the "new way to collaborate", as Jim was telling us.

On the whole, my impression is that Mitel is in a good spot. They certainly have come a long way from their IPO, and Rich McBee seems to be the right man for the job. Got to give them credit for trying to shake things up with the new product launch, as well as continue pushing the virtualization option. They're certainly getting good validation, as they showed that virtualization deals are coming in bigger than premise-based sales. They seem to know their sweet spot - we didn't hear much talk about chasing the enterprise market, and so far, not much about social media - it's just not on the radar of their customers. There was a little talk about contact center, but they know that's not their forte. For now, there's better upside for them with virtualization, and as they grow internationally, this could really pay off since this is a global trend. As the first photo below shows, "it was a busy year", but the results seem to be there for Mitel. Let's see if they can keep it that way in the second half of 2012.

CEO Rich McBee

CFO Steve Spooner

Philip Keenan, EVP NA Theater

Steve Beamish, VP Corp Marketing/Bus. Dev., hosting a customer case study

CTO Jim Davies revealing the UC360 Collaboration Point

Jon Brinton, GM, Network Solutions

Next Stop - Mitel BPC, San Diego

One more trip in my plans for the next while, and it should be a good one. Tomorrow, I'm off to Mitel's Business Partner Conference 2012 in San Diego. Things have been a bit quiet on the Mitel front recently, but they're no stranger to innovation, and am sure we'll be hearing lots of interesting things to shake the market up. They've been on the leading edge of the virtualization curve with VMware, and I'm keen to hear where that's going now that cloud has become the "it" tech trend, and how quickly tablets have become the must-have business device.

I'll be blogging as time allows, and for more timely updates, follow the twitter feeds - mine: @arnoldjon and theirs: #mitelbpc.

UC's Role in the Contact Center - Podcast

Good topic for this week's UCStrategies podcast, especially following last week's Interactive Intelligence conference. The contact center has long lived in a parallel world with the enterprise, and it's not much of a stretch these days to see how UC is well suited to address the needs of both spaces.

That's the entry point for the themes we explored on the call , and we certainly didn't run out of ideas. I'm sure it's a topic we'll return to soon, but until then, this is a good way to get a broad reading of what UC can bring to the contact center. The session was moderated by Blair Pleasant, and you can access the podcast as well as the transcript on the portal now.

Customer Experience Management – Burger King or McDonalds?

This is my second post in the current series focusing on Customer Experience Management - CEM – for the CIO Collaboration Network. As you may know, I’m writing 3 posts for each series in this ongoing program, with 2 being posted here and 1 directly on the CIO portal. My last post examined the business value of collaboration to support CEM, and here I’m going to look at the business case for the same. The differences are subtle but important, and the business case is about the rationale for having collaborative tools – namely Unified Communications – to get the most from CEM.

So, why do enterprises need UC for CEM, and what does fast food have to do with customer service? In terms of the business case, UC is a fundamental building block for CEM, but this may not be evident yet to contact center decision makers. UC has been primarily an enterprise-focused solution, helping employees communicate more effectively within their organization. The business case there is typically tied to the phone system, especially end-of-life scenarios. This is a natural trigger event whereby IT must do something, and increasingly, UC is one of the more appealing options.

There really is no comparable trigger event or driver in the contact center for UC, and that largely explains why it hasn’t been a top priority. Instead, the impetus is coming from external forces – changing behaviors and expectations from customers. Aside from this being a new development, these changes are not well understood, impossible to control, and difficult to measure in the context of building a business case. A cardinal rule of business is that you can only improve what can be measured, so when customer satisfaction scores start to dip, IT will suddenly get religion about finding metrics to make the case for UC.

Of course they will only do this if they understand the broader strategic value of UC and the associated collaboration capabilities it brings to the contact center.  I don’t need to articulate those benefits here; the CIO Collaboration portal is very rich in such content, and I’ll leave that to you for further exploration. Building on this strategic value, the business case for UC becomes easier to define. The drivers are different here, and management is not thinking about lower telecom costs or network efficiencies. UC and the contact center is all about the customer, and as outlined in my last post, this is really about CEM.

While most of the CEM discourse is about managing the experience, you first need the tools to create that experience, and that’s where UC comes in. Conventional contact center tools provide a pretty uniform, predictable and reliable experience, but that just won’t do with today’s customers. As noted here and elsewhere on this portal, many customers want – and expect – an interactive, multichannel experience where the phone call is the starting point of the interaction, rather than the totality. A robust UC deployment will give agents the tools to roll with whatever comes their way, and when customers have a good – or great - experience with agents, you can be certain that all the metrics contact centers live and die by will trend upward. Case closed.

Have you figured out yet where burgers come into the discussion? Well, we all know Burger King’s USP – unique sales proposition – “have it your way”.  Like most businesses, burgers are pretty commoditized, and it’s hard to differentiate from the crowd. Burger King knows they’ll never be a big as McDonalds, but they deliver a better customer experience by allowing us to choose our toppings. It only takes a few seconds to hold the pickle or add extra mayo, but that makes all the difference for keeping the customer happy – and making sure they come back over and over again. Clearly, McDonalds customers value other things, but BK has been holding its own for a long time, and I’m sure their customer satisfaction metrics validate a loyal base of burger lovers.

Really, is your business any different? Burger King caters to customers who want a burger on their terms, and that’s why they don’t go to McDonalds. If your line of business is crowded with lots of similar offerings, any form of customization can be differentiator. For many companies, customer service is the best – or even only – way to do this, and if you’re in that camp, then I’m sure CEM is in your thoughts 24/7. The contact center can be a gold mine for customization, but only with the right tools, skill set and management vision. If you have the vision, then the business case for UC should be self-evident.

The choice to me is pretty simple – do you want CEM to be like Burger King or McDonalds?  Did you know there are 1,024 ways to have a Whopper? That’s a lot of choice, and wouldn’t you like your agents to have so many options? The way social media and mobility is evolving, it won’t be long until your customers think they have this many choices, and you probably don’t want to find this out after the fact. Bottom line - collaboration is a highly personal experience, and with UC, CEM can become a true business driver that goes well beyond what happens in the contact center. Remember, the customer is always right, and you don’t want to get on the wrong side of an Angry Whopper experience.

This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya

Interactive Intelligence - Takeaways from Interactions 2012

Last week's Interactions 2012 event was the biggest and best yet put on by Interactive Intelligence, and I briefly posted about it here. I often write a  more reflective recap just after the event, and this one sure gave us a lot to think about in terms of where the cloud is going, not just in the office, but in the contact center as well.

Well, I did just that for my June contribution to the UCStrategies portal. Several of us from UCS were at the event, and we did our best to keep UC in the discussion mix both on stage and in the hallways. ININ is one of the few vendors bridging the enterprise and contact center worlds with a mix of telephony, UC and CEBP applications - available either on-premise or in the cloud. That's a lot to digest, and I've taken my shot at what it all means from a UC point of view. You can read that now on the UCS portal, and while you're there, please spend some time reading what my colleagues have to say on all of these topics.

Interactions 2012, Day 1

Yesterday was the first full day of Interactions 2012 here in Indianapolis. I've been to a few of these before, and Interactive Intelligence keeps doing a great job as this event keeps getting bigger. It's now over 1,500 strong, so they've gone to a bigger venue, and there are a lot of people wandering around here with orange badges.

Anyhow, just wanted to pass on some quick thought and takeaways, along with a few photos. CMO Joe Staples set the tone early by talking about how the customer experience is this year's core theme and how it can become a "competitive weapon". That's certainly consistent with what I'm seeing these days and ININ seems to have a good handle on this. The company continues to grow on all fronts - revenues, profits, new customers, new countries, etc. They have cash in the bank and no debt, and are in great shape to make strategic acquisitions to fill out their portfolio.

I think most people would agree that the highlight so far was the keynote from Prof. Clayton Christensen, a noted Harvard professor and author, renowned for his views on disruption and innovation. In short, his view is that we buy products to do a specific job for us. For marketers to be successful, they need to focus not on the customer, but rather on ensuring their products do that job better than anyone else. Your odds of success are greater if you understand what that job is and build your product around that instead of trying to get into the heads of your customers. He used milkshakes as an example of how this works, and if you don't know how that one goes, drop me a line.

More specific to ININ, he outlined the trajectory of how markets evolve when new entrants come in at the bottom end and compete by finding ways to lower costs and drive out higher-priced rivals. We're certainly seeing that with cloud, and its potential to displace telephony altogether. He didn't explore that tangent, but was generally lukewarm about the virtues of the cloud - outsourcing - in the communications space. I think that made a few people nervous, but these comments came at the end of Q&A, and really needed more time to be parsed out for a more thoughtful conclusion.

Moving on, the rest of the day was filled with breakouts, all of which were pretty good. There's a rich agenda here, so there's something for everybody. You have to keep in mind that the program isn't built around analysts - we're just a drop in the bucket, and most of the content is geared to help partners sell ININ.

I particularly enjoyed the competitive landscape sesssions and hearing their thinking on how to position ININ against everyone else. No single vendor has all the answers for customers, and it's refreshing to hear a company be upfront about what they can and cannot do. I've commented before about the mid-West sensibilities that characterizes their culture, and I think it goes a long way in explaining their success. They won't blow you away here with flash and dazzle, but if you want to meet great people doing great things with IP technology, it doesn't get much better than this.

 Joe Staples - CMO/event MC

CEO Don Brown - now... and then

Clayton Christensen talking about innovation and disruption cycles

Lunchtime customer panel with analysts and consultants

A bit of fun after dinner - the 80's live - big hair, tight pants and all....

Customer Experience Management – the Business Value of Collaboration

It’s June already – a new month has begun, and that means it’s time for a new topic on the CIO Collaboration Network. Last month, the focus was on video and now we’re shifting to a functional area of growing importance to all businesses – the contact center. I say “all” for good reason, and Unified Communications is very much a driver here.

Prior to the advent of IP, contact centers were mostly facilities-based, centralized and costly to operate. This made them relatively easy to manage, but beyond the means of small businesses. This creates a natural paradox in the sense that smaller businesses have a harder time getting customers than large enterprises, and for them, the contact brings great value in terms of keeping those customers happy.

My readers should understand the economics of IP, and how that has opened up great opportunities for businesses of all sizes. One of the great benefits has been in the contact center, where affordable, scalable solutions are accessible to every business, even those who have no in-house infrastructure to support it. In short, there are no major barriers today to keep any business from having some semblance of a customer service operation.

Just as with UC, the call center has become a rather fluid concept, again, mainly due to the impact of IP. The call center has become the contact center to reflect that fact that agents now use more than just telephony to interact with customers. As SIP and UC have made real-time, multichannel communication more commonplace, the emphasis has shifted from agents in the contact center out to the marketplace where the impact of their actions has the most important impact.

Where a simple call to a toll-free number once constituted customer service, UC gives agents greater latitude for more engaging communication which ultimately should lead to faster, better problem solving and increased customer satisfaction. This milieu gives rise to a new area of focus – CEM – customer experience management. Instead of being evaluated on how quickly problems are resolved on the phone, agents are now gauged by how well they create and manage a customer experience.

This may seem like a tall order, but in the right hands, it can be fairly seamless and intuitive with UC. Not only can UC extend this to any agent willing and able to deliver this level of service, but for any business as well. That’s why the concept of customer experience management is exciting – it’s accessible for anyone ready to embrace the tools. UC provides the integrated environment for agents to interact – and collaborate – with customers as each situation requires. Some customers will just want one mode and others will want multiple modes. Similarly, some will be happy just dealing with one agent from start to finish, whereas others will want direct access to specialists, either brought in during the initial call, or on a subsequent call.

The scenarios here are endless, and that’s the point – as well as the business value of collaboration in the contact center. Ultimately, the value of collaboration is reflected in the results, many of which are directly measurable; transactional metrics such as AHT and FCR. There are also indirect metrics that should tick upward with effective uses of collaboration, such as customer satisfaction, repeat purchasing, referral business, etc.

Whatever the positive impact, the main idea is that collaboration adds value to the contact center by allowing agents to interact with customers on their terms. Customer expectations have come a long way from the time when all they could do was call a toll-free number, wait endlessly on hold and hope for the best. With UC, whatever works for the customer, works for the agent. Business has never been more competitive, and the timeless maxim “the customer is always right” has never been more true. By providing agents with the tools that let them respond to any situation on the fly, UC levels the playing field and meet today’s expectations, in whatever form collaboration may take. If that doesn't create value for a business, I don't know what does.

This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya

Next Stop - Indianapolis, Interactions 2012

Been traveling a lot less this year, but I have two vendor events this month. Next week, I'll be in Indianapolis for Interactions 2012, from June 4-7. This is Interactive Intelligence's annual customer/partner event, and includes a smattering of analysts and media. I've been to this a few times, and each year it gets bigger and better.

ININ continues to do well, especially with CaaS, their cloud-based contact center platform, and based on how they're engaging with analysts prior to the event, I can see they'll have some interesting story lines in store next week. So, if you follow the company, the cloud and contact centers, this should be a great event, and I'll be posting here and tweeting (@arnoldjon) as time allows.

The Demise of Cisco Cius - UCS Podcast

Another interesting and timely topic for our weekly UCStrategies podcast - the unexpected shelving of Cisco's Cius tablet. A number of us - including myself - have written about Cius on the portal, and on Tuesday, we shared our thoughts about the news.

Pretty mixed set of views, and most of us felt it was just too difficult to compete against the iPad, and the BYOD trend which shortly followed Cius has been too strong for a vendor-centric tablet like theirs survive. I still think they can salvage Cius as part of a vertical market solution, and I'm not alone on that front.

Hopefully, that makes for a good teaser, and for the full discussion, the podcast is running now on the portal.

The Future of Communications - UCS Podcast

I may be dating myself, but do you remember Alvin Toffler and Future Shock? It came out in 1970 was the first of its kind to talk about how the pace of change in today's world was disrupting our modern sense of individuality, family and society. It was right up there at the time with Kubrick's 2001 for making us think about how were evolving as a species.

Fast forward to the week before last, and Dave Michels did a great Q&A on No Jitter with futurist Thomas Frey. Dave's communications-focused questions and Thomas's thought-provoking comments prompted the UCStrategies team to weigh in on these issues on last week's podcast, hosted by Marty Parker. Very interesting stuff indeed, and we all had our own take on where Thomas's thoughts fall into the UC milieu.

I was particularly focused on how we manage all the information coming at us 24/7 and then trying to filter that into knowledge and things we can actually use. Alvin Toffler popularized the term "information overload", and if he thought it was a problem before we had PCs, mobile phones and the Internet, I'd love hear his take today. I'm of the mind that the Internet makes us stupid, but let's save that for another time. Otherwise, hop over to our portal, and give the podcast a listen, which was just posted following the long weekend layover.

Rethinking Communications - my new column for Internet Telephony Magazine

If you've followed me for a while, you'll know I've had a long history with TMC on several fronts. I've written for them wearing different hats, mainly via my Service Provider Views column, along with my ongoing thought leadership for the Smart Grid portal. I'm not writing those currently, but I also participate regularly in their long-running ITExpo conference - will you be coming to the next one in Austin, October 2-5? Finally, switching back to my smart grid hat, I also co-produced the highly successful Smart Grid Summit with TMC for two years, so I've had a stint being a hands-on show producer as well.

With that preamble out of the way, my latest partnership with TMC went live yesterday. I've started a new monthly column with them, and I'm calling it Rethinking Communications. As the title implies, I'll be writing about current trends that should give us all pause to consider what we're doing in this space. We live with disruption around us 24/7, and nobody has all the answers. I certainly don't either, but I see a lot of things, and this is my soapbox to create some fresh dialog.

The column runs in the print edition of their widely-read Internet Telephony magazine, and made its debut in the May issue. I haven't received my copy yet, but the online edition was posted yesterday. So, you don't have to be a print subscriber to read my column - you just have to wait a couple of weeks until it goes online. I'm sure TMC will be happy to get their content to you both ways, and signing up for a print sub is easy - here's the form. Otherwise, I'd love you to read my column right now, so here it is online. As you'll see, the title "Is Dial Tone Done?" is self-explanatory, and as always, your comments are welcome.

Modern Tailor - the Suit Fits - Just Like UC

Well, I'm sure only my most hard-core readers have been on the edge of their seats wondering about this.

Since the Fall, I've had a sponsorship deal going with Modern Tailor, a Web-based tailor service based in China. This may seem unusual for my blog - and it is - but I see it as a consumer-based extension of what we try to do in the world of UC - collaborate. Can't get much further away than China, and this has been a great example where geography is no longer a barrier in what has always been a highly personal, sensory-rich type of business.

If you need a refresh on the backstory or my experience with previous Modern Tailor orders, you can start here, and then follow the links embedded throughout that post.

So, just like dating a girl, you start small and work up to the good stuff. They made a couple of shirts for me and let me order a tie. The shirts required my measurements, and then I had to choose through a practically unlimited selection of fabrics/patterns/styles, along with a long list of customized features and accents. I know it's just a shirt, but doesn't this sound familiar? Y'know, a bit like personalizing your UC settings and preferences. It's the same thing in my book - that's what the Web and IP brings to just about everything we do now in terms of customization and self-provisioning.

I've already posted about how well those experiences went, and that goes a long way towards building up trust, which again, is essential for getting beyond the routine applications with UC. So, now it's time to step up to getting a suit. This is a much bigger leap of faith, and wouldn't be happening for me without that track record. The selection isn't as wide as for shirts, but the process was basically the same - with one exception.

Getting a suit to fit right is far more challenging than a shirt, so for a first-time order, there was an extra step involved. To get the best fit possible, I needed to send them a suit of mine that fits me well. I was ok with that, and they provided very clear instructions. I had to bear the cost - about $60, but keeping the big picture in mind, I know I'll be getting the suit back along with a new custom-fitted suit. There was some trepidation about ever seeing my suit again, along with getting it back in wearable condition, but I had faith, and they handled all of this just fine.

The only inconvenience really, was the time involved. I didn't ship at the cheapest rate, and certainly not the most expensive. From Toronto to Shanghai, my suit was enroute for about 5 weeks, so if you're in a hurry or can't be without that particular suit for a while, this isn't going to work. Add to that the time they need to make the new suit, then ship both back to me, and I'm out of pocket garment-wise for the better part of 8 weeks.

Fair enough, but I managed just fine wardrobe-wise, and for me the results were definitely worth it. The process I went through to select what I wanted in a suit was easy to follow, and the end product was very much as expected and as advertised. I don't wear suits every day, but I like dressing well, and there's nothing like a custom-fitted suit.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. Like a lot of things, once trust is in place and expectations are met - or exceeded - most of the friction is removed from the relationship. Presuming my body holds up ok, they only need my suit once, and then it's easy. Then, it's just a matter of selecting what I want, knowing that the fit will be fine. Their pricing is very fair, and you can easily spend a lot more off the rack without getting a great fit. Sure you'll get your suit a lot faster, but I'm in no rush. If that sounds like you, Modern Tailor should be a great choice for your next suit.

Videoconferencing webinar with Vidyo, May 23

Got a shout-out for another webinar I'm doing. It's been a busy month, and next week I'm presenting on a webinar sponsored by Vidyo, and hosted by UBM TechWeb.

The webinar is titled "Videoconferencing: Business and the Big Picture", and I'll be talking about the trend driving the demand for video as well as the business value it brings for everyone involved. It's next Wednesday - May 23 - from 2-3pm ET, and you can register any time now. Here's the landing page and registration form, so sign up, and I hope you can join us!

Cisco Plus Event, Toronto

It's very rare for me to have back-to-back local events, but that's what's happening this week. Yesterday I attended Cisco Plus Canada 2012 here in Toronto. As Canadian telecom events go, it's pretty big, and Cisco is one of the few vendors up here who could draw a crowd like this. It's an annual showcase of all things Cisco, primarily for IT buyers, and it sure looked like all-hands-on-deck for Cisco Canada - they were everywhere.

Lots of traffic and a healthy exhibitor space filled with key partners of all kinds. The big telcos were there - Bell, TELUS and Allstream - of course - along with a good mix of vendors, integrators and technology partners, such as Dimension Data, Exony, Flexity Solutions, CBCI Telecom and Esnatech. Adjacent to the show floor was an overwhelming mix of Cisco presentations, with in-depth sessions on every variation of collaboration imaginable. I sat in on several, and while the content was geared towards buyers, I found the quality high and the audiences pretty attendant.

The highlight for me was the TELUS demo bus outside. I've seen this before with both NSN and Ericsson - it's an impressive way to take your story on the road. What I liked most about the TELUS bus was the overall concept. This is really their Trojan Horse to win business from Bell on their home turf in Quebec. The bus is all done up in French and goes around Quebec to showcase all this cool technology. I think it's a great strategy, not just for getting business there, but also to evangelize collaboration. SMBs aren't generally the most tech-savvy, so instead of waiting for them to discover it, why not bring the technology to them? Good plan. Oh, and if you think this was also a clever ploy to divert attention from the event host, I'll keep them happy by noting that most of the gear on display inside the bus is Cisco (and Tandberg). Check out the photos below!

ShoreTel/Smart IP UC demo, Toronto

It's been a busy week, and am catching up on postings today. On Tuesday, I attended an event here in Toronto sponsored by Smart IP, one of Canada's leading systems integrators. They have a pretty strong focus on UC, and brought out a room full of customers and prospects to get an update from ShoreTel about their UC capabilities.

Many in attendance were telephony-only ShoreTel customers, and it was interesting to see how the value proposition is presented for them to move up to UC. ShoreTel's Dan Brown did most of the talking, and his presentation emphasized the familiar simplicity theme that runs through most of their messaging. I thought Dan did a great job breaking down the core elements of UC and reviewing the trends that are leading businesses to get beyond IP telephony. A key message was how well ShoreTel works across multiple vendors, and that resonates well with Avaya/Nortel customers who are looking for simpler, less costly options.

Dan's storyline was brought to life by a customer case study presented by Claude Vezina of BDO, a national accounting firm. Claude cited many exmaples of how "ridiculously simple" ShoreTel was to deploy, and he spoke well of the system's reliability in the 5 years they've had it, as well as the consultative nature of ShoreTel's support process. The strongest message for me from Claude was his assertion that "IP telephony is an application - accept it". I liked his tone about that, and it served as a wakeup call for customers with a telecom-centric mindset that UC is much more than VoIP.

Overall, the event was nicely done. To get people in a transformational mindset, things got started with an inspirational talk from Mike "Pinball" Clemons, a CFL/Argo legend - arguably the most famous athlete in Toronto. He's good - very good, and had the audience in the palm of his hand from the get-go. After the sessions, we enjoyed the Blue Jays/Rays game at the Rogers Center - no complaints.


Pinball Clemons getting the audience in the right frame of mind for UC - sweet!

Dan Brown talking about ShoreTel's UC capabilities

Jays/Rays game. Sorry folks, but are we in Toronto or Tampa Bay? Pretty hard to tell from the crowd, huh?

My UC Summit Takeaway - It's Only UC, But I Like It

You know how that song goes, right? Music is my passion, and it often provides an interesting frame of reference for the telecom space, and if you enjoy the way I connect these dots, then you should like my latest post on UC Strategies.

Last week, I attended the 4th UC Summit, and it was a solid event on all levels. I had a couple of posts about that during the summit - here and here, but haven't been able to reflect on the overall experience until now. In short, I see a lot of parallels between how the Rolling Stones created their own success, and the opportunity facing the channels now in the UC space. The Summit provided a lot of guidance about how they should do that, and I'm here to add some historical perspective from another field to show how it's possible to break the rules and still come out ahead.

If that piques your interest, then give my post a read - it's on the the UCStrategies portal now - and let me know if you want to get off or on my cloud.