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Coexist

April 12, 2006

To all my religious (and other) friends I would like to wish you a happy religious week. In order to not play favorites here I would like to send a religious greeting to all of my friends and will use alphabetical order to ensure no one religion takes precedence.

Atheist/Agnostic

To my atheist/agnostic friends (lets face it there are only agnostics – really no atheists) happy week. I hope your days are enjoyable and you and your families are healthy and happy.

Christianity

To my Christian friends – Happy Good Friday and Happy Easter. Have a great weekend and enjoy!

Islam

coexistTo my Muslim friends – Happy Mohammed’s birthday – which was this week on Monday. Hopefully you are all having a great year.

Judaism

To my Jewish friends, have a Happy Passover and enjoy your matzo this week.

To all other religions of the world – I love you too and have a great week and healthy and happy year.

Recently I saw a shirt in a store in Ft. Lauderdale, FL just after the Internet Telephony conference that said Coexist on it but it integrated the symbols from the three religions above. It is worth looking at this site to learn more.

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Cacti

April 12, 2006
When IP based call centers first came of age there was a challenge presented in how to record VoIP calls and further, where to record them. I met a number of call center companies at TMC’s VoIP Developer show who were there to solve this precise problem. There are now a number of companies targeting this situation. Once company that has made this once prickly situation easier to deal with is Cacti.

The company’s Converge VoIP platform supports SIP and H.323 as well as many of the current compression standards. There is integrated e-learning and web enhanced replay. In addition the company provides concise reporting features and other bells and whistles. You may want to investigate Cacti’s products in your IP-based call center.

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Search Engine Research

April 12, 2006
Wow! Is this a powerful survey. iProspect says that if your search results are not on the first three pages of reach engine results you pretty much need to give it up. Why? Because 90% of searchers don’t look beyond page 3 for results.

Other interesting data from this survey: 62 percent of people click on results on the first page returned.

Oh but wait, there is more: Over one-third (36 percent) of surfers today indicate they believe that the companies whose Web sites are returned at the top of the search results are the leaders in their field!

I cannot overemphasize this point. If you are able to get search engines to rank you up at the top of their results, more than one-third of the searching population will assume you are a leader in your field. Imagine this for a moment. You can be a start up or a company that just knows how to get a high ranking and voila, you are now a leader in your space.

With research like this emerging it becomes more and more important to improve your organic search results.

Incidentally, TMC has recently launched a program to help companies increase their search engine rank. It is a relatively new and we have basically succumbed to all the people who have asked us over the past few years to help them. We are focusing on technology companies for now so if you are interested in learning more, feel free to drop me a line and please put SEO in the subject.

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Inter-Tel Power Struggle

April 12, 2006
There is a power struggle at Inter-Tel. I find this surprising as from where I stand the company is running better than ever. I haven’t been digging into the financials mind you but they are rolling out new products that are doing well and are doing a great PR job.

Still, it is possible that Inter-Tel will go private as a result of this struggle. It is also possible that it will be acquired. In my opinion going private will be good for the company as it will allow Inter-Tel the flexibility to focus on long-term growth and not short-term earnings. In addition the Sarbanes Oxley tax is quite a burden on companies and anything that can reduce a company’s distraction-level is likely good for their customers and the bottom line.

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Audrey Audix

April 12, 2006
Lorraine Nelson may be the most famous person you've never heard of. I suppose famous may not be the right word as she is not really well known -- her voice is. Loraine has the distinction of being the voice of Audix the voicemail on Avaya PBX systems and her voice is in over 100 million mailboxes including systems such as Intuity and Definity!

She tells me that the first voicemail systems on the market had a Texas accent and then a faster voice was used. Lorraine says the fast voice seemed to upset men who felt like they were being talked down to.

So Lorraine came up with a nice voice that is about as charming as charming gets. Incidentally the voice used is not really Loraine's real voice so if you think you are going to overhear her in the mall and recognize who she is, you aren't. The charming voice is Lorraine just being charming when she turns on the charm and says "invalid entry" on the phone it is truly something pleasant to hear.

Lorraine is often referred to as Audrey Audix and is available to record greetings for your corporate IVR/voicemail system. She says she used to get referral business from Avaya but moved out of the country for some time and when she got back to the states she lost touch with her contacts at Avaya. She is rumored to be deceased but she is very much alive and welcomes being contacted by the good people at Avaya and others who are looking for that Audrey Audix personal touch.

Audrey went to live in the Caribbean for three years and has returned to Connecticut to. Being that TMC is also based in Connecticut -- I imagine Audrey Audix is a big fan of cold weather and snow – just like the TMC team.

In speaking with the voice of voicemail by phone Lorraine explained that she really focused her delivery on narrowcasting or speaking directly to you. She says this differs from radio where the voice is more like yelling.

When Lorraine first got started recording she says there were no human factors people involved. She received a script and did her best to make the voice as pleasant as possible. She wants you all to know that there really is a person behind all those greetings -- someone trying to be nice. She never wants you to think she was rude.

So the question you must all be wondering about is what does Lorraine feel when she calls a voicemail system and hears her own voice? Honestly she says it feels a bit weird. While it may be weird for her, it would be weirder for all of us if her voice wasn’t in all those voicemail boxes and I for one appreciate knowing there is someone trying to be pleasant on the other end of all those calls.

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Blog as Memory

April 12, 2006
Written on my way to CTIA last week

I am on my flight out to Las Vegas and something kind of funny keeps happening to me. I keep getting confused about my flight. It started at the gate where I passed by it because I saw a banner that said US Air. I of course am flying America West. I asked a friendly gate agent where America West ticketing is located and she pointed me back to the area with the US Air banner.

So I got my ticket and didn’t think much of it.

Later I boarded the flight and before takeoff a video was shown mentioning US Air throughout. Weird I thought. Perhaps I am on the wrong flight I wondered. I looked at the empty seat next to me (the only empty seat on the flight -- thanks America West) and it had the America West logo.

OK so I guessed I was in the right spot after all.

Again, weird. Perhaps they were sharing the airplane I surmised.

I just took a break to stretch my legs and opened up my Verizon XV6700 and saw a comment on my blog that was e-mailed. I get an e-mail every time there is a new blog comment. The comment was about It a frequent flyer class action suit.

I scrolled to the top of the message to see which blog entry was being responded to and it was titled US Air and America West merge. Too funny I thought. I forgot this merger ever even happened. If the web is the consciousness and history of humanity then the blog is the same for the individual.

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