Interactions 2016 - Reimagine the Future

How do you reimagine the future if it hasn't happened yet?

Hmm. Sounds like an oxymoron, but if you listen closely to what's been on tap during this week's Interactions 2016, it's not. The present is changing so quickly, that whatever notions we have about the future are very likely based outmoded thinking. Some of that thinking is outmoded by generations - but it still persists - but other thinking is outmoded by only a few years. The latter is kinda scary, but just look at our kids - what's cool to them right now probably wasn't even invented six months ago.

Interactive Intelligence definitely gets this, and that's the messaging they're trying to impart to the roughly 2,000 people here in Indy. Both customers and channel partners need to reimagine the future, and ININ provided us with a pretty good glimpse about the future they want to take the contact center market into.

Hold that thought for now, as time is short with this being my getaway day. Several of us at UCStrategies were here, and we'll be doing a podcast about our takeaways next week, plus, I'll be doing my own writeup on what that future just might look like, so stick around.

Until then, here are some photos from the conference, with highlights from a few different stages, both non-musical and musical. :-)

Head of Whoopass Marketing, Dan Rood - these guys know how to have fun, and it's great to see such a youthful team at Interactive - I think that's a big part of why they're doing so well.

Keynoter Salim Ismail - way too many big ideas to absorb about the future and disruption, so run out and buy his book. Better yet, order it from Amazon and have a drone deliver it in ten minutes. Or, before long, you can just download it to a chip that ultrasound waves will gently implant into your brain. Yeah, he's that kind of guy - loved it!

I know, they just had the Indy 500 here, and this car isn't going to set any land speed records. However, it's a great example of exactly what Salim was talking about. On demand driving - another form of car rental - just like with bikes - and it's ideal for cities. You pay at the kiosk, get authenticated to drive the car - it's all charged up, this one at post 01, and you're off. Just drop it off when done at any Blue Indy spot downtown and walk away. We talk about ease of use as a driver for getting people to adopt new technology like UC - same thing here - what could be easier?

PureCloud demo time - yes, it works as advertised

If you don't believe those guys, here are real customers talking about it with Dan Rood

Mr. Interactive, CEO Don Brown - great as always

Ed Omland of Amazon Web Services - explaining why the cloud is so powerful and why their partnership with ININ is so strong - agreed.

Fun time - Canadian Music Night at Tastings wine bar - I'm on the left playing guitar. Thanks to Lynn McCready for the photo!

More fun - Open Mic at the Slippery Noodle last night. We came out in big numbers, and our steady rolling SIPTones man, Steve Leaden sat in on drums for bit - he was great. The SIPTones didn't get to play at ININ this year, but hopefully next year. If you want us back, make some noise and let 'em know. If you didn't see us play last year at Interactions, here's the highlight video of our show.

Next Stop - Indy for Interactions 2016

One more stop on the industry event circuit til the fall, pending anything new, anyways.

Am off next to Indy for the Interactions 2016 event. This is with Interactive Intelligence, and it's become a regular event for me over the past few years. I'm getting a double-shot of ININ, actually, as this week I attended their Canadian launch of PureCloud here in Toronto - thanks! - and then I'm off to Indy on Sunday.

Will blog and tweet as time allows, and you can follow the event directly with their hashtag #InteractIndy16.

The past couple of years, I've been part of the SIPTones, and we've played some great gigs at Interactions. Unfortunately, that's not in the cards for 2016, but I've still managed to get some music in for next week. The Canadian contingent is hosting a music night on Wednesday, and I'll be one of the players for a fairly informal, but fun set of songs everyone knows. This time I'll be on guitar, and maybe I'll see you there!

May Writing Roundup

Not as busy on the public writing front last month, but plenty else keeping me engaged, and that will be reflected in my next roundup post.

Why SMBs Need to be Thinking About Hosted VoIP, Toolbox. com, May 31

How UC Supports the Needs of Mobile Workers, Toolbox.com, May 24

Contact Center Agents - the Original UC Users, Toolbox.com, May 23

NEC Advantage 2016 - Quick Take, my blog, May 20

How Different Job Functions Utilize UC, Toolbox.com, May 11

Context - the Real Driver for Customer Care, Toolbox.com, May 9

Energy Thought Summit Redux - Video of my Open Mic Session, my blog, May 3

Why Are We (Still) Using UC?

Good question, and I think I've got a pretty good answer.

This is the focus of my latest Rethinking Communications column on TMCnet. It's actually a continuation of other recent posts asking "why?" about other tools we use for work, and my intent is to pose some questions to reconsider their true value.

I hope you give it a read - and perhaps my earlier columns too - and would love to hear your thoughts on whether UC is still worth using - or not. There's usually a short registration process on their site to access the article - let me know if any difficulty and happy to get it to you another way.

My Next Webinar - UC Deployment Options with ShoreTel

Happy Friday! It's a short week here in Canada, as we had Victoria Day on Monday, and now Americans are getting ready to check out for Memorial Day. Nobody feels like working right now, but gotta get some things done today.

Been a busy month both with regular writing and client work. Am finishing up a White Paper with ShoreTel that will soon come out, and we're doing an add-on webinar to amplify some of the key themes.

In short, the focus is helping businesses understand and assess the best fit for three different deployment models - cloud, onsite or hybrid. Joining me will be ShoreTel's Richard Winslow, and we're doing the webinar on Tuesday, June 14 at noon ET.

The registration page was recently posted, and it's time start getting the word out. Hope you can join us, and I'll post reminders as we get closer to the date.

NEC's Advantage 2016 Conference - UCS Podcast

There was a small contingent of analysts and consultants at last week's NEC conference, and there was enough presence from the UCStrategies group to bear collective witness, so that's what we did for our latest podcast.

Being so big and diversified, NEC brings a different twist to the UC space, and it takes some effort to get to know them. However, it's worthwhile, and if they play their cards right, they have a solid portfolio that competes well with anybody.

I was part of that contingent, and along with us, we had a few other UC Experts who weren't there weigh in with their thoughts. So, lots of perspectives, and if you're looking to get up to speed on NEC, our podcast will be 40 minutes well spent.

If you want the two minute version, along with some photos, I did a short blog post about the event, but the podcast provides a much deeper dive.

My Webinar Tomorrow - Hosted VoIP for SMBs

Just one last post about tomorrow's Ziff Davis webinar I'm doing. The topic is hosted VoIP for SMBs, and I'll be exploring the pros/con and use cases, along with how to take a strategic approach for putting telephony in the cloud.

Webinar runs from 2-3 ET tomorrow, and all the registration details are here.

NEC Advantage 2016 - Quick Take

Just have time for quick getaway post before flying home.

This was my first NEC Advantage event, and I was one of just a handful of analysts there. It's mostly for partners and consultants, and this is where a lot of the business comes from, so it was a great opportunity to learn more about how NEC goes to market in this space.

I'll have more to say on that later, along with two other themes.

1. With so many UC offerings, it's really hard to differentiate, and that matters for everyone in the food chain. NEC is not a household name in this space - at least in North America, and they're very focused on changing that. The main differentiation message for me was how they focus on the integration between IT and UC for their value proposition. Other vendors do this to varying degrees, and given how strong NEC is with network infrastructure, this pairing makes sense.

2. Their SDN story is becoming a dominant theme for going to market. It's still evolving, but the virtualization story is resonating with enterprises, and NEC is pushing to become a market leader. This also ties into their IT/UC integration focus, and not many vendors can take things to this level. Most are going to market with a standalone UC solution, but NEC is surrounding this with a deeper play that can solve a lot of problems for IT.

That's it for now, but I'll have a recap post coming soon on UCStrategies, and as I get further along with their SDN story, look for more analysis on that as well.

Until then, here are some pix from the showcase, and a couple from our SIPTones gig last night. We had a blast, and when the dancing gets going, you know it's working. More to come on that as well, and if the video turns out half decent, the highlights will turn up on YouTube. I'll keep you posted, and if you like what we do, we'd love to play again soon!

 We're not internationally known yet, but it's nice to see our name at the top of the list here at the rehearsal studio on Tuesday.

 Hope to get photos soon from the NEC photographers at the gig, but this one comes via my analyst colleague, Rob Arnold, who posted this shot on twitter last night. Thanks bro!

Hot off the press from breakfast this morning - band shot, along with our patron saint of all things fun, Larry Kollie. 

Next Stop - Jacksonville for NEC and Another SIPTones Gig!

I've been following NEC for a long time, and this will be my first time attending their annual event. The main focus will be customers and partners, but there will also be some analysts and consultants at NEC's Advantage Executive Conference.

Am looking forward to meeting more of NEC's executive team, along with roadmap updates, especially for their UC platform, Univerge Blue.

I'll also be part of the fun, doing another stint on keyboards with the SIPTones. We've been working on our songs, and as per the agenda, we're playing poolside for attendees Thursday night. Hope to see you there, ready to dance!

If you haven't seen us play, here's our most recent gig at last fall's SCTC conference in Atlanta:

CPaaS - New Acronym for UC - Our UCS Podcast

This week's podcast topic was the growing role of APIs and emergence of CPaaS as the latest acronym - that's Communications Platform as a Service.

All of us at UCStrategies try to keep up with the changing landscape, and what we've long been calling Unified Communications seems to be morphing into the equally amorphous term Business Communications. Your guess is as good as mine as to what's next, but for now, the buzz is about CPaaS, spurred by the recent news of Vonage acquiring Nexmo.

It's becoming clear now that UC providers need to have some form of messaging in their offering, and that's what we covered during our podcast. The session was moderated by Blair Pleasant, and you  can check it out here on the UCStrategies portal.

Hosted VoIP - My Next Webinar

Wanted to start off the week with another shout-out for my next webinar with Ziff Davis.

The topic is hosted VoIP for SMBs, and I'll be providing a roadmap to help decision-makers understand what's involved when you put telephony in the cloud. Too much ground to cover in one webinar, but if it's early enough still in your "buyer's journey", it should be time well-spent.

You've got time to plan, and just trying to get/keep it on your calendar for now. The webinar is on Wednesday, May 25 at 2pm ET, and from here, just hop to the registration page to sign up.

April Writing Roundup

Despite being away nine days at the end of April, I had plenty of writing going on, and below is a digest of posts you may still want to read if you didn't see them earlier. Aside from my ongoing focus on UC/collaboration, there's some smart grid content, a post about Toronto's global ranking for being future-ready, and Flashback Friday, where I re-run older posts from my blog archive - just because!

My Q&A with Esri - How GIS Delivers Value to Utilities, ETS Insights, April 26

Collaboration and Moments of Truth, Toolbox.com, April 26

How Can I Use an Online Whiteboard in my Business?, TechTarget, April 25

How Collaboration Impacts Customer Care, Toolbox.com, April 22

Flashback Friday - Cisco Telepresence Turns 5, my blog, April 22

How Disruption is Driving Change with UC, Toolbox.com, April 19

My UC Expo Article: Flexible Working - Adapting to New Challenges, my blog/UC Expo magazine, April 18

Toronto - We're Number 11!, my blog, April 15

Are Real Time Collaboration Tools Necessary for Enterprises?, TechTarget, April 14

Lowering Barriers to UC with the Cloud, UCStrategies, April 12

Connected Enterprise Report - Future Expectations for UC&C, Toolbox.com, April 11

LatAm Spotlight - VoIP Group CEO Talks Business Necessity of VoIP, TMCnet, April 5

Why Are We Still Using Email?, Internet Telephony Magazine, April 4

How UC Addresses Today's Business Challenges - Improving Productivity, Toolbox.com, April 4

More ETS Thought Leadership - GIS and Smart Grid

I blogged yesterday about a session I hosted at the Energy Thought Summit in Austin. It included a video of the full session that Zpryme has posted on YouTube, and am glad to see that my post is getting a lot of readership. So, to keep the ETS vibe going, here's more content.

As Community Advocate for the summit, another hat I've been wearing is doing a series of thought leader interviews. Many of these were posted prior to the event, and can be accessed from the News section of the ETS16 site. Other interviews were done later, so I have a series of those coming soon. One was published while I was away last week, and am sharing it here now.

This one was done with Bill Meehan of Esri, a company that has been pioneering the use of GIS since the 1970s. The applications go well beyond energy, so my UC/collaboration followers will also find this of interest. Bill explains this quite well in the interview, and you can see him in action on the above-mentioned video from my session - he gave a very colorful presentation!

So, here's the interview, and will update the blog as the remaining interviews get posted.

Energy Thought Summit Redux - Video of my Open Mic Session

Zpryme's Energy Thought Summit - ETS16 - was just over a month ago, but there's still good content being posted, and will share here for those interested in the smart grid/smart cities/smart home/smart car space. Our event was a great success and you'll be hard pressed to find richer, more diverse insights about what the future holds for the energy economy.

By now you should know this is another hat that I wear, and as Community Advocate for ETS16, I contributed in a few ways. If that's news to you, my recap post for the summit is a good starting point for my involvement there.

During the summit, I hosted the Open Mic event, where three energy thought leaders each had 10 minutes to talk about an energy challenge - with props - and persuade the audience theirs was the best. The game show format was fun, but don't let that fool you. Each had a timely and relevant message to share that causes you to re-think what energy means in 2016.

My role was to MC the session and keep things moving along to the end where the audience cast their ballots to choose a winner. Being ETS - and being in Austin - we did things a bit differently. As you'll see in the video clip, the speakers had to write the title of their talk on a chalkboard - can't get more old school than that. In keeping with the creative/artsy vibe of Austin, my new piano friend, Adam Lozoya was plucked off the busker-lined streets the night before and provided great ad lib accompaniment throughout the session. On top of that, we held the session in an improv theater space at the back of a nearby cafe.

You won't see this at other conferences, and it was a lot of fun. It's part of what makes ETS unique, and am glad to be part of it. So, explore at your leisure - the whole session is captured below - it runs about 45 minutes, and I won't give the winner away here. Hopefully, you'll watch the whole thing, and if you do, I'd love to hear who you think was the best. You up for that?

Mitel/Polycom Deal - our UCStrategies Podcast

If you're still wondering about what this deal means in the UCC space, our recent podcast on the Mitel/Polycom deal will be time well spent. As you may know, our group at UCStrategies covers the gamut among both analysts and consultants, so collectively, we've got a pretty good handle on the implications for both companies and the market in general.

I know this will be old news for some, but I've been away/offline 9 days, and didn't catch any fish. It was a great trip, though, but that's for another time.

For now, I hope you visit the UCStrategies portal, and give our podcast a listen. Comments as always, are welcome, and we'd love to hear whether you think this form of consolidation is good or bad for the market.

Otherwise, back to work, and I have a ton of postings to catch up on and share, so more to come.

Gone Fishing

This doesn't happen often, but  it's time to disappear for a while - back in a week or so!

Flashback Friday - Cisco Telepresence Turns 5 - Oct. 2011

The longer you blog, the bigger the archive, and for those only recently following me, you wouldn't know my earlier posts unless you went hunting. With time comes perspective, and I thought it would be fun to re-post some older posts, so am starting this Flashback Friday theme. Not sure if I'll do this weekly or whenever, so let's see how this one flies.

If you enjoy revisiting interesting points in time for the communications space - or are just wondering about things like "what were those VON events all about?", "what was life like before twitter?", or "I had no idea about Huntsville, AL!", I think you'll enjoy these flashbacks. Or, if there's something in particular you'd like to re-visit or discover, let me know and I'll see what I've got. Am sure many of you, like me, are students of history, and having blogged regularly since 2005, I've got a lot of posts, and have seen a lot of things happen.

So, here's my first Flashback Friday post. The UC&C market has largely moved away from telepresence, but it sure was a game-changer and Cisco bet pretty heavily on it. Not so much today, but here's my post from 2011 marking it's five year anniversary.

As an aside, the video clip at the bottom is from my YouTube channel, and is the most-viewed clip I've ever posted. I hardly post video any more, but maybe I'll start again soon. If you wander about there, you'll see lots of interviews from conferences, as well as a bunch of music clips of mine from bands playing at various conferences. I'll get around to some of those on future Flashback Friday posts.

So, here we go, and if you want to view the post directly from my blog archive, here's the link.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011

Cisco TelePresence Turns Five

I put up a short tweet about this yesterday (and if you're not following me there, well, you don't know what you're missing - sign up... @arnoldjon)- but amidst all the other things keeping me busy right now, I realized it needs more attention. Just wanted to add a few thoughts here.

So, the first question to ask now that Cisco has reached the five year milestone with telepresence is the same one I would have asked back in 2006. Aside from the fact that back then nobody really knew what to call it, I'll simply ask - is it telepresence or TelePresence? I'm still 50/50 on this one, and as a rule of thumb, when I'm talking about Cisco, it's "T", but for the category as a whole, it's "t".

Branding is just as important in tech as any other business, and if you toe the Cisco line, you will believe they invented everything around this space and by rights, then, it's TelePresence, period. Of course, they're not the only game in town, and weren't even first to market, but nobody does tech branding for business better than Cisco. The consumer market is another story, but let's not go there for now.

Whether or not Cisco is the Kleenex of telepresence - much like I used to say that Vonage was the Kleenex of VoIP - you really need to give some props here. I think they've earned it, and when John Chambers talks about making big bets and capitalizing on market transitions, I think he got it right with Telepresence. There, I said it - with a capital T.

I don't really think it matters that Cisco's lead offering is hugely expensive - they've been the frontrunners in immersive TP from Day 1, and now that Tandberg is in the fold, I think they'll stay there. It's a bit like complaining that the biggest stars in pro sports are overpaid. In absolute terms, that's absolutely true. Only whiny sportswriters care about that - it's the relative basis that really matters. So long as those athletes live up to expectations (and that's a big IF - hello John Lackey and Carl Crawford - I digress...), and big market teams like my Red Sox are willing to pay the freight, all is in balance. There are buyers and sellers at all price levels, and the market ultimately defines value. Cisco Telepresence may be out of reach for SMBs, but their book of business with the enterprise crowd is doing just fine, thank you.

That leads me to yesterday's announcement, which talks about some updates to their offering and how Cisco TelePresence can now reach a broader market. I'll save the details for another time, but the main thing is that Cisco is evolving the product as market conditions require. Again, this brings me back to why this five year milestone is worth reflecting on. We didn't have tablets or Android then, and the smartphone market was basically RIM and Nokia. You don't need me to tell you what's come along since, and that video has now become pretty mainstream for everybody.

As a result, Cisco needs to evolve its TP portfolio to cater to these new - and emerging opportunities, some of which didn't exist 2-3 years ago. Of course, Cisco would love to own every segment of the TP and collaboration market, but that's not going to happen, esp with all the free/OTT offerings out there that I've been writing about here and elsewhere recently.

Regardless, Cisco has done a lot of things right with TelePresence, and these new twists are just ensuring they'll have a place across all market tiers. More than that, Cisco wants be to remain at the innovation forefront with this technology, because if they don't, those fearsome interlopers - Apple and Google - will take their spot. I'm not saying that Cisco has all the great innovations here, but when it comes to delivering a value proposition that businesses are willing to pay for, they know what they're doing. This ground is going to be harder to defend as these other players continue to make inroads, but if anyone can to do it, it's Cisco.

Finally, for those of you sticking with me here to the end, you get a prize. If you want to step in the wayback machine to see what TP looked like at the beginning, here's a video clip I took of my first live demo at Cisco's Canadian HQ here in Toronto, back in December 2006. This clip is on my YouTube channel, which you're welcome to explore. I'm not posting video there these days - I don't know why - but wanted to share this as a sidebar to Cisco's fifth anniversary for TP. I was there at the beginning, and to show you how much interest there is out there around TP, this clip has by far received more views - over 100,000 - than anything else I've ever posted, and - as you'll see on the site, to this day, I'm STILL getting comments about that clip. How's that for the long tail of the Internet? If I could just find a way to make this pay...

My UC Expo Article: Flexible Working - Adapting to New Challenges

Among other things, I contribute occasional articles to U.K.-based Enterprise Management 360, with my latest being this one, in support of the upcoming UC Expo in London. I won't be participating at this conference, but am hoping to for their follow-on event later this year.

The cloud and future of work are big themes for the expo, and my article focuses on flexible working. If you're attending UC Expo, you'll see it in their special Preview Magazine to support/promote the event. Otherwise, you can read it here in the digital edition, starting on page 20. You can also access it from the UC Expo website - just scroll down a bit on the homepage, and you can't miss the info about how you can read it online.

Toronto - We're Number 11!

It's not every day that I get to say Toronto, Dell and Harvard in the same sentence, but we were all in the room together earlier this week, and am doing my civic duty here.

I've been developing some good relationships recently with Dell, and the stars lined up for me on Tuesday to participate in a panel as part of a Dell Canada event here in Toronto. This was a new event for me - Power To Do More - but it included a session with analysts, press, Dell Canada customers, and most notably Prof. David Ricketts from Harvard.

For background, Dell sponsored the 2015 Strategic Innovation Summit, which was convened by Harvard, with Dr. Rickerts serving as the summit's General Chair. Briefly, the summit focused on harnessing the forces of change - mostly tech-related of course - to drive the "innovation-based economy" of tomorrow.

Lots of good insights came out of this summit, and Dr. Ricketts was on hand to discuss them in a group setting. The newsworthy highlight came in the form a list of top 50 global cities that the research deemed as being most "future ready". I'm not going to break down the methodology or full listing here, but you can get all the key takeaways in the press release issued by Dell Canada in support of this event.

I find this research fascinating, and Toronto certainly comes out looking good, ranking at #11. We all love to shout "we're #1", but San Jose has a lock on that spot, and #11 is not too shabby. I'm not alone among Toronotians who can effortlessly spout all our shortcomings, but as liveable cities go, TO is pretty hard to beat.

Given that I also wear a smart grid/smart cities hat, I'd be remiss if I didn't give a hat tip as well to Austin, which came in even higher in the global rankings at #7. Having just served as the Community Advocate for last month's Energy Thought Summit in Austin, I can tell you first hand this is an up and coming city - looks like the next San Francisco to me - and they are doing some very cool and smart things, especially in the energy space. For a taste of that, here's my blog post with some highlights from ETS16, and for our broader thought leadership on energysmart cities - including mine - feel free to check out the News tab here.

Coming back to Dell/Harvard, what the research is really focused on is the extent to which leading cities have the right mix of attributes to sustain economic growth, and the authors break this down into three core dimensions - human capital, infrastructure and commerce.

There's lots more to explore here, but for now I'm just doing a shout-out to share TO's good news. As well, kudos to Dell for sponsoring this research, and as I get more involved with their IoT practice, I'll have to more to say about what cities need to do to be globally competitive, as well as how best to use technology to help make that happen.

Lowering the Barriers to UC with the Cloud - My New Post

My writing takes many forms - as it has to these days - and one of them is on a partnership basis. Regular followers will know that I'm part of UCStrategies, and contribute a monthly column - new one coming next week - along with participating in our regular podcasts.

Another is authoring thought leadership on behalf of sponsors who engage with UCStrategies to help educate the market about industry trends and new technologies. AT&T is one such sponsor, and as part of an ongoing program with them, I was tasked to write about how I see the cloud as an enabler for UC adoption. There are lots of reasons for enterprises to push back on the cloud, but plenty of others to embrace it, and that's what I focused on in this article.

AT&T may be the sponsor of this series, but the content is largely mine. The writing may have gone through many corporate review cycles, but as you'll see, it's my independent voice in the article. There's always a balance to strike with sponsors, but I think you'll agree it's pretty objective, and hopefully you'll find it helpful as you think about UC and the best way to get full value.

The post is running now on the UCStrategies portal, and if you like my writeup, look around a bit, as there are some other articles there from the AT&T series that are you'll enjoy just as well.