My buddy emailed me this morning about the "State of the UC Industry 2015: Experts Weigh In" piece. He asked why it was just about Cisco, Unify, ININ and Microsoft. It is interesting how no analyst report is all inclusive. I know there are 2000+ service providers, but it is the same 25 in every report. BORING!

This report looks like it was done during Enterprise Connect (or whatever they call that show today) in Orlando where , surprise, the biggest sponsors were Cisco Spark and Unify!!!

It isn't really a fair view of the market. It's kind of slanted by the big dollars spent by companies that have more dollars than innovation; more dollars than execution; more PR than customer stories. Yet these companies will sell a lot of product and professional services due to that PR push. That despite the fact that there are so many other providers that can do a much better job on delivering a solution.

If you check the headlines, you would think there are only a couple of dozen companies in the UC space - RC, 8x8, VZ, MS, blah, blah. Yet there are hundreds that offer UCaaS.

If you want to get better press as a UC provider, court an analyst or two. Invite them to your user's conference or to dinner at a show. It isn't about power pointing them to death or stuffing pdf's down their inbox. It is about building a relationship and telling a story.

Oh, and don't make the intro email a press release. Don't add attachments - in today's hackable world I don't open any attachments. Tell a short story.

I get a bunch of emails from pr people. The meals are filled with marketing-ese and I have no idea what the company does. They aren't in stealth mode, but their message is. I don't have time to follow up or try to decipher it either. The truth about marketing whether by email, blog post, phone call or website: you have less than 8 seconds to grab my attention!!