Convergence Corner - ITEXPO Archives

Innovation on Display: ITEXPO Austin

2012-10-12T15:44:13Z

Having just wrapped up another successful ITEXPO in Austin (in 20-degree cooler weather than last year), I have the pleasure of again reflecting upon the many exciting happenings from the week. Where to start?

How about the keynotes, which, as heard though the grapevine on many occasions, were an impressive, yet cohesive collection of industry thought leaders, each considering how customer expectations and customer experience are shaping the market. Sonus CEO Ray Dolan, Siemens Enterprise CMO Chris Hummel, and ShoreTel CEO Peter Blackmore were even more closely aligned in their conviction that these factors have driven Unified Communications to an inflection point, where UC is no longer a nice-to-have addition to your business communications capabilities, but a must-have in an age of accelerating communications.

(Rich Tehrani introduces the opening keynotes)

One of the most exciting new elements was the M2M Evolution Battle of the Platforms, which featured demos from a number of innovative vendors looking to capitalize on the automation movement. The overall winner was Digi International, which has embedded its software with most of the sensor processor companies. “All of the platforms are indicative of the way the M2M industry is growing and matching to specific ,” explained Crossfire Media’s Carl Ford. “Many of the winners referenced partnerships with other companies, and what everyone had in common was a commitment to supporting their customers’ needs.” (I should point out a great article by Tony Rizzo, who spoke with ThingWorx, one of the companies that has partnered with Digi: You Aren't a Real M2M PLayer if You Don't Know ThingWorx.

Speaking of winners, one of my favorite activities during ITEXPO is the collaboration among TMC’s editorial team around Best of Show candidates. As always, the competition is strong, with vendor after vendor making a strong case for its products. This year in Austin was no different, with the focus (see my comments on the keynotes above) being an enhanced and more efficient customer experience. I’m pleased to recognize out latest group of ITEXPO Best of Show winners, and look forward to yet another evening of exciting debate with our team in Miami (www.itexpo.com).

Best Enterprise Solution: ShoreTel's 13 Unified Communications and Sonus' Harmony Session Manager
Best Service Provider Solution: Commetrex Corporation's Smart FoIP and UNSi's Same IP Failover (SIF)
Best SMB Solution: AVer Information's HVC310 Video Conferencing and Fonality's Web Client
Best Cloud Solution: DoubleHorn Communications' Integrated Applications and Processes Platform (iAPP) and Nuvio's NuvioIQ
Best Mobile/Wireless Solution: Bottom Line Solutions' Mobility Marketplace and Matrix ComSec's SETU VGFX
Best Contact Center Solution: HoldFree Networks' Q-Free
Best Development Tool: Evangelyze Communications' SmartSuite UC Application Platform and Inventive Labs' Voice Elements Platform
Most Innovative Solution: Conexiant's MultiAlert E911 and Vitelity's MyScribbit
Best On-site Launch: AudioCodes' 420HD IP Phone for Microsoft Lync and Entreda's Unify

Each of these companies deserves credit for bringing a new level of product innovation and expertise to market, but, I want to focus for a moment on one winner, in particular, which I believe is on to something big.

We’ve all seen the success of online shopping – nearly every research firm has offered predictions as to how rapidly the e-commerce market will grow in the next three or four years. Emarketer, for instance, says that, by 2015, 90 percent of consumers will be doing some portion of their shopping online. Already today, two of my five neighbors do their grocery shopping online. The drivers, of course, are that online shopping is faster, easier, more efficient, provides access to more products, allows for easier price and product comparisons (including between different retailers), and can often more cost effective.

So why shouldn’t IT departments have an easy online shopping experience for their corporate technology needs?

DoubleHorn Communications believes they should, which is what it is looking to bring to the market with its iAPP cloud services marketplace, which currently boasts Rackspace, Amazon Web Services, and Acme Packet, among others. The idea is that businesses should have easy access to communications services, allowing them to quickly adapt to changing needs, without having to go through lengthy acquisition processes. The idea, according to CEO Tab Schadt, is to ensure businesses have access to the best solutions with proven interoperability – he says a key requirement of inclusion will be proven interop with other vendors.

By the end of the year, Shadt says he expects v2 to be released, which will include a Service Sherpa that uses a set of sophisticated algorithms to determine what products or components businesses will need based on the criteria they enter.

The idea that business communications can be purchased and provisioned as easily as you can buy a new iPad has the potential to disrupt the sales models for many communications vendors, especially once the services element is added to the equation.

I look forward to seeing many more great new products and soltuions in Miami, January 29-February 1, 2013.

Why Your Business Must Form a Social Media Strategy Today

2011-06-28T02:15:20Z

There has been an unworldly volume of social media related content filling the pages of media sites of late – and you’ve certainly read a fair amount within the pages of Customer Interaction Solutions as well over the past 18 months. Many arguments have been made for why social media should be part of customer service organizations, and how, particularly on the inbound side. But, one of the reasons social media can be such a tremendous asset is its nature as a two-way medium, allowing businesses to follow a basic principle of marketing: In order to succeed, your brand must be where your customers are because that’s where the power lies.

Where are your customers? In two places whose parallel growth is no coincidence – mobile devices and social media.

A very recent show of power by social media comes from the Great White North, where rabid hickey fans anxiously – and in futility – anticipated a Stanley Cup title from the Vancouver Canucks. When the team was bested in seven games by the Boston Bruins, riots broke out across the city, creating significant damage and a mess to clean up.

When a new day dawned, a Facebook event calling for citizen action in helping the cleanup effort reportedly netted more than 11,000 followers, with more than 1,000 rallying to erase much of the evidence of the previous evening’s unfortunate devastation. The event organizer posted: ““Once the embarrassing rioting has ended in Vancouver, let’s all show the world what Vancouver is really about by helping rebuild and clean up so it is better than it was before.”

And throughout the day, many of them posted updates and posts via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites:

“Papa Glenn on way with garb bags and big van for garbage Let's clean up our beautiful city.”

“Just saw a 4-yr-old boy with a cast on one arm helping to clean. Now that’s what Vancouver is all about.”

“Getting word that everywhere is pretty close to clean. Let’s not leave anything. Let’s be able to eat food off the streets tonight!”

That the city was able to be cleaned so quickly is a testament to the pride and determination of the people of Vancouver. That the event was able to be coordinated to such scale within hours is a testament to the power of social media, which is why businesses can ill afford to ignore it.

Now, take that power and combine it with mobile advertising, which is steadily increasing and predicted to eclipse $26 billion by 2016 – equivalent to total online ad spend today – according to ABI Research. Among the most obvious channels for delivering mobile ads – and one that is already being leveraged by many smart businesses – is social media. Whether via Twitter or Facebook, customers are already receiving ads and offers directly, often directly to the mobile devices they use to access social media sites. Furthermore, in addition to direct access to customers by way of Likes, Friends, and Followers, there is the added benefit of pass-through advertising, when customers post those same ads and offers to their Facebook pages or retweet them. Suddenly, you, too, can have access to 11,000 or more potential customers within a very short period of time.

Social media has become an almost unstoppable presence for a number of reasons – the same reason businesses must give it an ear – and a mouth. It’s a binding phenomenon, often brining users with like interests together, ignorant of geography and technology. People engage in social media (just look at the numbers). It crosses the social barriers traditional advertising have often struggled to overcome, relying on interpersonal relationships to create links. It’s simple, quick, and cost-effective. It’s measurable – with the right technology businesses can easily determine the effectiveness of their social media efforts.

To learn from the experts in the field of social media and to find out how your business can leverage this vast resource in both inbound and outbound capacities, join us for three days of Social Media and Contact Center sessions at ITEXPO West in Austin, Texas, September 13-15, 2011. Our panelists, including representatives from Avaya, Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, Mzinga, Nuance, SugarCRM, and many others will discuss not only the strategies your business can implement for generating interest via social media, but also the technologies available to enable your customer service organization to react quickly to social media-based feedback and create customers for life. For more, visit www.itexpo.com.

Tweeting Isn't Just for Birds

2011-05-25T03:49:21Z

One hundred and forty characters. One tweet. Such a small space, yet one that has become powerful beyond its size. What can you accomplish in just a few words?

Just got a new Verizon iPhone – the monthly plan is a ripoff. It should be illegal. (83 characters)

Called Cablevision about a bad STB – they had a tech out in 3 hours. Awesome service! (85 characters)

Twins had their first baseball game. Caught their first ABs on my BlackBerry. Terrible video quality. Should have gotten the Evo. (129 characters)

Dinner at SUSHISAMBA Miami Beach. Best meal I’ve had in a long time. El Topo roll is amazing! Can’t wait to go to the one in Vegas! (131 characters)

Whether positive or negative, one tweet can say a lot about customers’ experiences with products and services. Social media has transformed how we interact with our friends and families – as well as our colleagues in many cases. For the hundreds of millions of social media users, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social tools are a way of life, largely because they are able to easily communicate their thoughts to large groups of friends and followers in seconds, from wherever they are, thanks to the availability and ease of use of these services on mobile devices.

Most users don’t necessarily see their social media activities as a feedback mechanism for businesses – they are merely looking to share their experiences with their contacts. But, because of the inherent pack mentality that pervades human decision making, social media has the potential to be the most significant tool for influencing behavior we have experienced.

As such, every business must develop a social media strategy for discovering customer sentiment as it is spread through cyberspace – and for reacting, when appropriate, to develop appropriate action plans and leverage experiences to provide better overall service, especially where they see trends building.

The great thing about social media is it’s a two-way channel. When a business recognizes negative sentiment, it can engage customers directly to begin a resolution process. Likewise, when customers exhibit satisfaction, their experiences can be leveraged to determine more specifically what created their heightened level of satisfaction to deliver that same experience to others.

TMC’s Brendan Read recently interviewed Vinay Iyer, vice president, CRM Marketing at SAP, who noted that, “140 characters are not always enough to resolve a problem. The response – using the customers’ preferred channel – is only the first step towards the resolution of the problem. The solution might be achieved through various conversations with the customers, via phone, chat and appointments.”

Verizon could quickly contact its customer to ask if she would like to speak to an agent to see if there is a more cost effective plan that would accommodate her needs.

Cablevision could ask for more detail on the service call to help determine which of its crews might be used as training examples.

Sprint could respond to its subscriber with an offer to upgrade to a new device. Likewise, RIM might be able to suggest alternative BlackBerry devices that are more suitable for the user’s needs (before it loses more of its market share to Apple and Android).

SUSHISAMBA could offer a coupon to help ensure its Miami guest actually does visit its Las Vegas location. It can also use similar comments to determine which menu items to keep and which to replace.

The key, regardless of the nature of the business, is to develop social CRM strategies that include monitoring, analysis, and customer engagement – and the technology to implement those strategies and integrate them into their traditional CRM systems and activities.

There are many factors that play into how businesses should introduce social media into their environments, including an understanding of customer behavior, knowing what tools are available for monitoring and analysis, integration into existing workflows, and best practices for building communities of customers and social media marketing.

All of these will be key topics of discussion at ITEXPO West in Austin, Texas, September 13-15, when the thought leaders in social media and social CRM convene to help business leaders understand the social media phenomenon and how they can put the consumer trend of providing instant feedback to work for their businesses.

Find more information at www.itexpo.com, and make your plans now to turn your customers’ insatiable thirst for sharing experiences into a revenue generating opportunity.

Need an Education in Video? Business Video Expo West 2011 is Your Experience

2011-05-04T01:15:29Z

Got video?

If not, you’re rapidly falling into the minority, at least in terms of businesses with successful Web presences. Consider the last Web site you visited that did not incorporate video into its daily content in some fashion?

It wasn’t the New York Times.

It wasn’t CNN.

It wasn’t ESPN.

And it certainly wasn’t TMCnet.

The fact is that nearly every successful business has already begun incorporating video into its online presence.

Why? It’s simple – today’s audience is a multimedia generation. If you don’t believe it, consider this statistic from YouTube’s website: More video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than the three major US networks created in 60 years.

Whether in a fixed or mobile environment, today’s user understands the value of video as a communications medium, and has expressed a desire to consume video, which means businesses must offer that opportunity.

ITEXPO participants have quickly learned the benefits of supplementing their more traditional communications mechanisms with video – the TMC team came back from ITEXPO East in Miami with nearly 300 video segments, including footage of conference sessions, TMC Newsroom interviews, and conversations with exhibitors, speakers, and attendees. Expect more of the same from the new home of ITEXPO West, Austin, Texas, this September.

In addition to video coverage of ITEXPO, TMC and Interactive Media Strategies have just announced the program for the second Business Video Expo, which will be collocated with ITEXPO West, September 13-15, 2011.

The conference program will focus on offering a one-stop experience for business leaders to convene and learn about and share their own experiences on video use in a business environment.

From video marketing strategies and content creation and distribution to live video communications the future of business video in a mobile environment, Business Video Expo will provide detailed examples of how today’s leading organizations are leveraging the latest video technologies in their corporate environments.

“Video is playing a central role in the next generation of business communications,” said Steve Vonder Haar, research director of Interactive Media Strategies. “We look for the Business Video Expo to be a single place where executives can come to learn how and why they should be integrating video technology into their day-to-day business activities.”

Steve Vonder Haar, research director, Interactive Media Strategies, speaks with Accordent CEO Mike Newman from Business Video Expo East 2011 in Miami.

Don’t miss this opportunity to join the foremost thought leaders of the business video industry in a first-class setting at the Austin Convention Center, to bring your business to the head of its class. Join us in Austin for

Interactive Intelligence's Enterprise Cloud Comms Panel at ITEXPO

2011-02-01T23:20:00Z

I’m here at ITEXPO East 2011, at one of the many successful pre-conference events, this one at the Gansevoort Hotel in Miami Beach, where Rich Tehrani has just kicked off the panel discussion on the impact and the value of Cloud Communications on the enterprise market. His panelists include David Yedwab, Gary Kim, Jon Arnold, Mark Ricca, and Alan Percy.

Rich began by asking if there is a difference between Centrex and Cloud – the responses were entertaining and enlightening.

David Yedwab responded with a resounding, “no.”

Jon Arnold suggested the emergence of the cloud allows almost anyone to be in the cloud business, and there is nothing keeping a company like WalMart from becoming the largest phone company in the world if it wanted to.

Check out the clip of Alan Percy’s response:

This event is only the start of the conversation around Cloud Communications. Interactive Intelligence is also a platinum sponsor of the Cloud Communications Summit, Thursday and Friday at ITEXPO. Interactive will kick off that event along with Thomas Howe, collectively presenting a theory & practice session on the cloud model.

Broadvox and Ingate: SIP is Here to Stay

2011-02-01T20:17:04Z

We’re in the opening hours of ITEXPO, with several pre-conference events already underway, including a special service provider edition of Ingate’s SIP Trunking-UC Summit.

Chad Krantz was just at the podium, addressing nearly three dozen attendees looking to understand the benefits of SIP Trunking in the enterprise from the service provider perspective. The end game, of course is revenue, but, as Krantz noted, “SIP is a true revolution within the industry and has so many advantages over traditional VoIP – it is here to stay.”

Among the benefits of SIP trunking in the enterprise: Remote survivability, scalability, cloud based, hard and soft cost savings, simple upgrades.

But, a few of the obstacles that must be overcome by service providers include: High capex, complex deployment, and user training.

To find out more, including how to overcome these obstacles, and also how to effectively deploy SIP Trunks, visit Broadvox (booth 606) on the ITEXPO show floor this week, and stop by Ingate’s SIP Trunk-Unified Communications Summit, going on all week at the Miami Beach Convention Center.