On Rad's Radar? - expo Archives

What Happened to Communicating?

2013-04-02T14:22:17Z

What happening to communications? It's falling apart. People just text, tweet, email -- and in have been conditioned to shorten and shorten that message (down to 140 characters) that we are getting brusque. Tone isn't reflected in texts, tweets and emails, so the person receiving your message may not be taking it the way you think. (I am guilty of this. My therapy is to project this onto this blog :)

Even MARCOM (marketing communications) has become about volume not value - just adding to the noise, which makes it even harder to get attention and get your message out. Press releases (about crap no one cares about), tweets, Facebook updates, yadda, yadda.

It has gotten to the point that speakers can't even tell a story. By the way, it isn't just me. This tweet this morning made me laugh.

It also made me remember perhaps the worst speaker I ever saw - a SVP of Small Business at really big hardware company. He showed two commercials during his talk and read his slides to us. Talk about insulting.

The fact is that Attention is expensive. The way to get it is to ask Permission. That permission comes in the form of giving you my email or phone number or buying a ticket to your event. I am trading my time, attention and sometimes dollars to listen.

In exchange, you have to give me some value. Tell me a story. Give me some insight. have a conversation.

See that is getting difficult. Look in any restaurant, people have their cellphones out - talking, texting, updating - everything but just enjoying the face-to-face interaction.

We live in an amazing time but everyone is miserable (ask Louis CK). A lot of it may be due to we talk at people not not with them.

,p>I will be keynoting at FISPA Live in New Orleans on April 30th. I intend to give value first, but if I don't, just tell me.

I will also be speaking at IGNITE Tampa # 3 on April 25. That you do not want to miss!

If you can't catch me live, join this webcast: "Selling Cloud Services An Agent Puts His Head in the Clouds" on Thursday, April 25, 2013 at 11 AM ET

The Cloud Communications Alliance in Clearwater

2013-02-05T18:02:23Z

The Cloud Communications Alliance is meeting in Clearwater, FL.

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Larry Lisser from EMBRASE presenting at the CCA meeting in Clearwater FL.

Joe Marion, President of the CCA, welcoming everyone this morning.

Social Media Blurbs from ITEXPO

2013-01-31T16:41:16Z

Startup Camp Comms is tonight. John Sculley is keynote. #asksculley is the hashtag on twitter (which is currently down!) for questions to the former CEO of Apple and Pepsi.

Tomorrow at 11 AM is my session on Social Media #itexpoqa

Gary Vanderchuck has a decent interview about social media on HuffPro.

Lastly, Seth Godin on marketing for small businesses. Make something that is easy to sell!!

Follow me on twitter at @radinfo

ITEXPO East 2013

2013-01-17T18:09:35Z

With just a couple of weeks until we hit Miami Beach for ITEXPO East 2013, here's what I will be doing there.

First off, the Editors Day is Tuesday, Jan. 29th from Noon till 8 PM. Get your appointment now!

Wed. at 11, I will be moderating the discussion about Recurring Revenue: The Secret to Success. We will be discussing best practices for delivering recurring revenue services.

I am not much on predictions but CSPs in the Next Decade will focus on what service providers will look like in 2020. (Noon on Wed.)

You don't want to miss the Friday 11 AM panel, "What Your Marketing Team Needs to Know About Social Media". If you feel like you are treading water in the social media pool, we will throw you a life preserver during this session.

The Exhibit Hall opens at 5 PM on Wed. with cocktails at 5:30!

Channel Vision Expo is on the show floor. CVX Panel: Cloud Money Makers: Real Stories of Transition and Triumph (Thursday @ 12:30) to hear from channel partners who are actually selling cloud services.

Thursday night at 5 PM Startup Camp Comms # 7 with keynote from John Sculley, the guy who fired Steve Jobs at Apple!

The Party is Thursday night at 9:30 on the beach at the Lowes.

If you are going to ITEXPO, let's meetup. Drop me a note on twitter @radinfo or through LinkedIn or leave a comment on this blog!

Networking Tips for the Next Trade Show

2013-01-16T17:24:48Z

With ITEXPO fast approaching (Jan. 28th in Miami Beach), here are some tips for a successful trade show.

Are you working a booth? If so, what's your goal? How will you attain it?

Don't talk to other booth members OR play with your gadgets. Play with the crowd, the attendees!

Have specific questions to clarify how your company can help an attendee. Try to make it something different than "What do you do, dude?"

Make a game of it. How many rejections can you get? How much swag can you get from other booths? How much swag can you trade? How many business cards can you collect? What is the best business card you see?

Booths with swag, babes and contests get more attention. If you don't have that, smiling faces work too!

Most important: Elevator Pitch! USP! Value Proposition! If you don't know yours, stay home.

What are you doing today to ensure that you have meetings in place at the show? Social media and your current network are great ways to let others know you will be there and have time to meet.

Not working a booth? That's okay. What are your goals? Rich Bader of Easystreet used to attend ISPCONs with a list of questions he wanted answers to. Where better than a show like ITEXPO to get answers to cloud, VoIP, MDM, BYOD, WebRTC and more. Get the most out of the show - don't just look for numbers, look for good connections and complimentary knowledge.

When networking remember....it's not about the food or the drinks. In fact, getting tipsy at a trade show can work against you. Eat something before you go so that you aren't focused on the food, but on the people.

It isn't about (just) YOU. How can you help others?

Conversation starters:

What did you see on the show floor that you found interesting? What did you think of Peter's sessions?

Don't forget to enter to win the free Jeep!

Are you attending ITEXPO? Let's meet up! I am moderating 3 sessions; hitting StartupCamp; at CVX; and will be in and out of the Press Room, but I would love to chat with you over coffee. Let me know.

The Spoken Word

2012-11-01T20:21:12Z

I gave it a shot at podcasting some of the news tidbits. It's 5 minutes. Let me know what you think. Thanks!

Alpheus is going from wholesale to Enterprise. They are going to put their 7 data centers to good use for Hosted VoIP and SIP trunking, managed security, storage and vCompute. Alpheus will be utilizing type II circuits from cable, twt, L3 and Masergy.

Hostway stopped by my desk at ITEXPO to talk about their Cloud white label platform. Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint, faxing, web hosting, managed hosting, PAAS, API development, database management, technology consulting, cloud migration - are all just a part of their offerings. To me that is too many things to be good at - or even clear about.

Hostway will tailor solutions for a solution provider (CLEC, VAR, whatever), including helping you decide what customers want to buy and how to market to them.

Colologix, a Canadian data center company, has expanded into Toronto and Dallas at 151 Front and the Infomart, respectively.

ITEXPO West Wrap-Up

2012-10-08T16:03:35Z

I'm home from ITEXPO West in Austin. It was another great show for me. The folks at TMC did another wonderful job putting it together.

Jaime H. juggled my press room meeting schedule on Tuesday, despite my last minute schedule changes. 8x8, Hostway, snom, Centerbeam and others were all able to sit down with me. (Sometimes that isn't always joyful for the marketing/PR folks.) I'm always happy if I can have one or 2 good conversations out of these meetings - and I did.

The sessions were mainly full. I noticed a couple of things: people were not leaving the session rooms but staying for session after session - and they were not just doing that to use a power plug. Most people were not on their devices during sessions, which is unique.

In my Cloud Services Broker Panel, I asked all the attendees why they were there. All said to Learn.

I think our industry is in a lot of turmoil caused by too much cloud hype and consolidation.

The economy, the change, the cloud, and the consolidation makes everyone stressed and fearful of losing their job, when there isn't likely another available (at least immediately).

The marketing machine has ballooned the hype on cloud to ridiculous proportions. The term doesn't mean much to anyone - customers, prospects, vendors, service providers, employees.

With access revenues flat, apps and cloud services are the only way for many service providers to gain revenue. The CLEC industry HAS to be successful in selling cloud services to survive.

Every show has a lot of cloud - so many titles, headlines, banners, etc. It is worse than VoIP was a few years ago. The noise level is deafening - and boring. The industry has to fix this fast.

Startup Camp Comms was enjoyable. Watching Tampa's own startup, Phonism, pitch was exciting. RingDNA won the popular vote though.

I have to say that the keynotes were very good. I have remarked in the past about the commercialized quality of the keynotes, but this time the keynotes were interesting, tweet-worthy, and informative. Thanks to Shortel's CEO Peter Blackmore, IBM's Mike Riegel, and Siemen's CMO Chris Hummel.

Most significant sound byte: "joy of use" is an expectation not a nice to have @hummel_chris."

It is not about the technology or the marketing buzz. It is about Outcomes and UX (user experience). Without outcomes and UX, cloud is just a clumsy way to push technology on a user. That won't last. they won't use it. Then they will stop paying for it. Then you have a lot of CAPEX tied up in dust.

IBM used a Tire Store as a case study. A tire store. You can't get any less tech than that. If a tire store worries about the UX, then shouldn't tech/telecom companies???

Personal note: I either need new shoes or more exercise because my back and feet hurt from walking around the show floor, the halls, the podium and downtown Austin. The parties were mobbed, but I was in bed before midnight most nights. (It's about Outcomes :).

We go to these conferences to learn, to mingle, to network. (That's one reason I organize a dinner at each event.) This show definitely delivers on those attributes.

What did you think?

Want to learn more? Read my tweets or search #itexpo

Leveraging Cloud Solutions in a Service Broker Model

2012-09-21T21:52:03Z

My third ITEXPO panel is on Thursday @ 3. Leveraging Cloud Solutions in a Service Broker Model. The panel consists of Adam Cole from Votela; Robert Erickson from DoubleHorn Communications; and John Frame from Sigma Systems

Cloud services and solutions play a critical role in the cloud ecosystem. What role do Cloud Services Brokers play? This session provides an overview of how innovative cloud brokerage technologies are helping streamline cloud sourcing, procurement, on-boarding, integration, aggregation, billing and use of different cloud services for cost savings, centralized management and increased control.

Retirement Planning for TDM

2012-09-13T17:03:26Z

XO rolled out in purple for the Channel Partners Expo in Orlando. The Rocks lounge at the Peabody has been rocking with the telecom folks drinking and talking and talking till the wee hours of the night - then up to do it again the next day. This show has been a long series of meetings and events mixed in with catching up with familiar faces, but then that is the trade show formula, right?

This show like so many lately has been taken over by Cloud, which is not surprising except maybe to the traditional Agent base. Personally I think that some of the CPExpo should be more along the NCTA model: fun mixed in with seminars on business planning, retirement planning and exit strategies. You may laugh, but all the headlines read that TDM is done, the traditional agent is a dinosaur, and either go cloud or go home.

One thing to remember is that while the Noise level for Cloud is huge and bordering on ridiculous, the actually ink on cloud services compared to telecom is tiny. The actual ARPU from cloud for carriers is tiny. You would think so from hearing them talk, but the numbers don't lie.

In the CCS meeting with Parallels yesterday, the SMB data that John Zanni shared with the group was impressive, but the glaring point that many gloss over: cloud is about making life for productive and efficient BUT that requires Integration and almost invisible deployment and on-boarding. Who is going to do that? Some carriers still can't deliver a T1 correctly. How will that work for cloud sales? Yikes. Maybe retirement planning is in order for more than just agents.

So You Want to Speak at ITEXPO

2012-06-21T18:49:40Z

As we get ready for the conference season again, I would like to pass on some wisdom to you from Ice T's 10 rules of public speaking : "Practice. Then, practice some more." Please, just run through what you are going to say at least once before you sit in that panel chair. For IGNITE sessions, speakers typically practice 10 times for just 5 minutes!

And keynotes: Don't kill us with your presentation.

Death by PowerPoint

But also make it interesting - not a freaking commercial! I know you want to pitch your company like the shill executive with stock options you are, but remember that it is the audience's time too.

You are representing your company on that stage. If you are unprepared, tired, bored, distracted, boring, looking at your phone instead of the audience, it leaves an impression on the audience. A Brand is the sum total of experiences with your company, employees, services, etc. It has impact.

Want 20% off your ITEXPO badge? Use the code "BLOG13"

Channel Manager Best Practices

2012-02-17T17:10:58Z

On Tuesday, March 27 at 11:30AM PT, the Technology Channel Association (TCA) will hold the first ever Channel Managers Best Practices Forum at the Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

TCA's mission is channel education. The TCA holds monthly webinars for members and has developed a Certified telecom Professional program. In Vegas, the TCA will be holding our 5th Channel Chief Summit alongside this Channel Managers forum. With this event, channel managers will have the opportunity to network and learn from their peers. Four Rock Star Channel Managers will discuss some of their best practices such as:

Balancing 80/20

Maximizing the MMR of the Agent

What is your #1 job responsibility?

How do you balance agent business interest with corporate interest?

Internal relationships

Setting Agent expectations

Lunch will be provided!*

The 4 Channel Manager Rock Stars chosen by TCA members are:

Charles Lomond of Airespring

Crystal Farley of Megapath

Sherrie Hiller at Telepacific

Chris Schubert of Telnes Broadband

Space is limited. Register today!

(*Most of the ticket cost is the lunch from Caesars.)

Enchanting Keynote at Parallels Summit 2012

2012-02-16T17:05:07Z

Guy Kawasaki was the keynote yesterday morning for the Parallels Summit 2012 in Orlando. (Vodka bar was open at 8:20 AM!)

Guy talked about the key points from his book,Enchantment .

One is You Must be Likable. Richard Branson of Virgin is likable. He has a real smile- a Duchenne smile. A Duchenne smile leads to crow's feet. One factor in being likable is to accept others, no matter the color, politics, religion, looks, tattoos, etc. Have a YES Attitude. How can you help other people?

The second point was to Achieve Trustworthiness. In sales, people have to Like you and Trust you to buy from you.

Amazon, Zappos, and Nordstrom have established Trust, because they give customers trust first (with their return policy).

Guy spoke about Bakers. Be a Baker, not an Eater. Bakers know they can always bake more. Bakers are more trustworthy than eaters.

A way to gain trust: Agree on something. Start with that.

Point 3 was Do Something DICEE - Deep Intelligent Complete Empower Elegant

Enchant people with great stuff.

What goes into the ecosystem: software, docs, support, installation, webinars, follow-up, and more for a complete and total product system. More importantly a great customer experience (UX).

LIKE, TRUST, DICEE and LAUNCH.

Launch your product by Telling a Story. Guy says, "Plant many seeds." In other words, tell lots of people, because you have no idea how it will TIP.

Enchant the Influencers. You just don't always know who they are. kawasaki suggested reading Influence by Robert Cialdini. A point in that book was to Invoke Reciprocation. "I know you would do this for me."

Guy says that SXSW was what made Twitter tip (not the A-Listers who use it today).

When telling your story, stop talking tech - calories, MB's, CPU, etc. It's not about calories, but how many miles I have to run to burn it off. It's not how many GB's, but the number of songs or customer records or whatever that it will hold.

Kawasaki gave the example of My Key by Ford, which allows parents to program the car via the key they give their teenager - how loud the stereo can go and how fast the car can go. Great story. Good UX (user experience or benefits).

Another Point: Overcome Resistance by Re-Positioning the Story or by providing Social Proof. For the iPod, social proof was the white earbuds.

Sell the Dream, not the tech. What will it do? What will it be like to own it and use it? Use the technology to Enchant the audience. Social media is a way to enchant by providing value, information, insight, assistance. Social media also means fast, flat and frequent.

3 Pillars: Trust, Quality and Likability.

In the break-out session with Guy, he was asked about the commodity business (like web hosting, since we were at Parallels show. Parallels is a control panel for web hosting companies.) "If you truly believe it is a Commodity that you sell, You Lose." If YOU don't believe that there is something Unique or Valuable about your product -- or that the client is better off with YOUR service -- get out of the game. You can't win. Bah-bye!

Two images to look at: HERE and THERE. If you need help figuring out how to market in a hyper-competitive space, call my office at (813) 963-5884.

5 Tips for Speakers

2012-02-08T22:54:00Z

I'm not the best speaker. I'm still nervous and anxious before every talk, even when moderating. But I prepare for every talk - whether I am a moderator, panelist, keynote, trainer, or co-host. Here are some things that speakers do wrong:

1. Relying on PowerPoint. When technical difficulties occur as they often do, speakers are not prepared to talk without the slides, the crutch. Be ready to talk without a microphone and without the projector.

2. Don't read me the slides! I have been reading since I was 4. I don't need you to read me the slides. I need you to tell why that slide was included in the first place.

3. Have some emotion. Tired or hungover is no way to present. Energetic or passionate is preferable, but at least speak up and into the microphone.

4. Respect the audience's time. Yes it is your time to speak - and you have something (hopefully prepared) to say - but remember that the audience likely paid money to be there. It has to be valuable; not just your talking points.

5. Tell a story or be Engaging. This speaks for itself. If everyone is heads down on their phones, take the hint. (They aren't all tweeting about how profound you are.)

Is it tweet worthy? Have you said anything worth tweeting? Not the ultimate test, but certainly some gauge of audience reaction is social media.

In the end, would you want to listen to you?

In a previous post I mention that teaching is part entertainment. That may not be what you signed up for (to be an entertainer), and I am not saying be Jack Benny, but your points will come across better if you present them well.

Social Media Channel Integration

2012-02-07T22:38:51Z

An ITEXPO panel on Wed. discussed social media integration in the contact center. Sanjay Popli of LiveOps, Manuel Ramirez of Avaya, and Alex Quilici of YouMail spent 45 minutes talking about social media and call centers.

There are five steps a company needs to take to implement social media strategy in a contact center.

Monitor social channels
Decide on Relevance
Assign employees to tasks
Establish Policies
Design procedure for interacting with the rest of the Org

The contact center could be monitoring for leads, complaints or opportunities on social media platforms. These platforms can include twitter, Facebook, Google+, Yahoo groups, forums, LinkedIn or any of the other thousands of online communities and networks that exist.

It is a way for call center to move from a cost center to a revenue center. Not just by following up on sales leads, but by preserving the brand and reputation of the company.

One item that all panelists agreed upon was that the time for response from a company has shrunk from a day to an hour. It's about speed now.

Another reminder from the panel is that conversations about your service and brand ARE indeeed taking place online (like on DSLReports and GetSatisfaction.com). Ignore it at your own peril.

Monitoring or Listening also includes finding out where your customers are hanging out online. Go where they are.

A final note was that previously most online commenters were anonymous. Today, about 70% are very traceable. That means you can identify them and interact with them. There are many books written about creating raving fans out of disgruntled customers. It is possible online as well.

Educating the Channel with Certifications

2012-02-07T22:19:20Z

One of the panels last week at ITEXPO was titled Educating the Channel with Certifications. When you consider that as a founding board member and current VP of the Technology Channel Association, education is a primary objective, this topic was relevant. The panelists were Louis Haynor, CSO at Alteva, and Jim Riley of Apptix. I didn't know that Apptix was an agent of Alteva and had been through their certification program. Surprise! (The other surprise was the video cameras that Alteva had brought in to record the panel. No, I didn't sign a release. I am waiting on royalties.)

Alteva's cert program is really a sales program that consists of product training and the Sandler method of sales. Haynor did point out that agents need to know about the product but more importantly to sell Hosted UC, you have to re-think how you sell services. The certification helps with that. It is not a one-time program; it is continuing education.

The TCA has a certification called the Certified Telecom Professional. It is a baseline education program with a 100-question exam on a two hour timer. It is a challenge, daunting enough that many telecom veterans have anxiety about not passing it.

Haynor spoke about charging - $350 - for the training because otherwise it doesn't have value. It made me think that at $199 for the CTP, it is time to raise the price.

Riley spoke about the value of the cert being that there is economic impact on the Channel, the Carrier and the Customer. While there was agreement that education is vital to cloud and managed services adoption in the marketplace, I couldn't get any concrete examples out of the panel. It's a principle we can agree upon, but apparently can't quantify.

Since on-boarding is integral to a positive customer experience, I asked if that was touched on in the cert. It isn't because Alteva has a team for that. However, properly setting customer expectations is part of the on-boarding process. Many agents and VAR's want to be the conduit to the customer and want to be the one providing the timelines to the customer to manage and coordinate the deployment and on-boarding of the workforce. It seems to me that this should be a part of the training. Haynor said that at this stage, agents are more like referral partners or lead generation. Alteva sales people will close the deal. Smoothstone and other carriers have a similar take. I would suggest that if I paid $350 for training and spent the two days taking it that at the end I should be able to prospect, complete the sale and be involved with the on-boarding.

It is transferrable knowledge though. Alteva is Broadsoft based, so with that training, agents should be able to sell any Broadsoft Hosted PBX service via the Sandler sales process.