David Byrd : Raven Call
David Byrd
David Byrd is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer for Raven Guru Marketing. Previously, he was the CMO and EVP of Sales for CloudRoute. Prior to CloudRoute, He was CMO at ANPI, CMO & EVP of Sales at Broadvox, VP of channels and Alliances for Telcordia and Director of eBusiness development with i2 Technologies.He has also held executive positions with Planet Hollywood Online, Hewlett-Packard, Tandem Computers, Sprint and Ericsson.
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October 2011

You are browsing the archive for October 2011.

USF Reform Takes a Big Step Forward

October 28, 2011

Yesterday the FCC vote unanimously to approve its proposal to reform the Universal Service Fund (USF). While not making the national news this is a big deal. The proposal changes the way we will fund broadband expansion into rural or underserved areas, addresses the issues of traffic pumping, arbitrage and carrier disputes. The proposal includes the creation of a new fund, the Connect America Fund, that will be have an annual budget capped at $4.5 billion to support “wired” broadband expansion.

The Perfect Choice

October 26, 2011

In reading the announcement of Virginia Rometty’s selection as CEO of IBM effective January 1, I was a little annoyed by the persistent mentioning of her sex. Yes, it is true that she will be in a minority among Fortune 500 CEOs (I believe the current number of women leading Fortune 500 CEOs is 17). If we need to count based upon race, gender or ethnicity then perhaps I should mention that only 11 backs have ever been named CEO of a Fortune 500 company, with only one being a woman or what I use to call the perfect choice, hiring a female of color (You get to check more diversity boxes that way). Finally, is it really necessary to remind us that HP just hired a female CEO as well (Meg Whitman)?

Standards are In

October 24, 2011

I admit a blog about original food recipes is less interesting when one is on vacation. While I enjoyed making pokē salads each day, I don’t think eight different pokē recipes using seasoned raw ahi tuna, salmon, beef and cooked shrimp would have been enjoyed by you guys. And while lunch was always pokē, dinner was at a restaurant ranging from Ruth’s Chris to a local Irish pub. No, it wasn’t until Sunday when we arrived home that I could truly cook again.

Accelerating Video Adoption

October 21, 2011

Many years have passed with analysts and proponents of video conferencing and calling claiming the moment is now. Certainly, as prognosticators they have not been very good. Neither travel cost reduction nor have pronouncements of improved collaboration set the market off. However, during CTIA, a new consortium was launched with the intent of accelerating the adoption rate of video conferencing and calling.

Poke Me but is that a Book

October 17, 2011

I am on vacation this week and for that reason the blog is a little late today. Cooking is a little difficult from a hotel room but if you have this for while you know I am going to make some interesting things. My wife and I have two styles of vacations, one where we are true tourists and the other where we exercise and relax. This is the latter.

Got a Beef with That?!

October 10, 2011

Friday I enjoyed my favorite pizza for dinner. It had been so long since I order it the owner of the business asked me if everything was okay. It was, of course, but with travel and other activities, I just hadn’t thought of having pizza. Anyway, Saturday was also a special treat.

October 7, 2011

Good Mourning in America

Yesterday, when asked if my blog was going to be about Steve Jobs, I said “No”. Not because of any negative thoughts but I did not see how I could add to the accolades or remembrances written by so many. However, I decided to consider what we could learn from his life.

No Surprises Here

October 5, 2011

Although, I did not expect to speak during COMPTEL, it proved to be an interesting discussion regarding how current telecom trends are impacting merger and acquisition activity. Clearly, M&A activity in telecom cannot be boiled down to a single issue or technology but it is interesting to see the amount of new money poised to support the purchases. While I support Broadvox’s efforts with marketing information or opinions on targeted companies, I am not a part of the financial discussions. So learning that equity firms and investment banks were actively pursuing efforts to fund M&A activity was interesting.

Smoked

October 3, 2011

Friday and Saturday were a bust for cooking. Since we are having some painting done the fumes in the house were too much and we went out to eat both days. However, after sleeping with the windows open and the fans going all night Sunday was a good day for cooking. I began with an omelette stuffed with sweet and spicy shrimp.
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