Avaya Connected Blog

Agile development with Flare

2012-02-09T13:02:48Z

I learned to be a bit more Agile over this past year.

The developers of Avaya Flare® Communicator for Apple iPad* put a client on the desks of Avaya execs just a few weeks after coding began. It's not that this was an easy software project; it's just a manifestation of the Agile development process.

I grew up in the "waterfall" development world. In that approach, we'd design and detail every aspect of the product up front, and then the developers would take those designs and start building stuff. The agile model is a more adaptable approach where product content may be adjusted to meet new customer insights throughout the program.

I know, a premise of of an "Agile" development is to deliver useful software early and provide incremental capabilities every couple weeks. But I had thought that meant software would gingerly be placed in a test lab, and it would be incremented until the whole thing was ready for a user trial. I guess that's because I spent so many years living with the Waterfall approach. In that style, we wouldn't expect to put a testable product in a customer's hands until the whole thing was ready for System Test at the end. But with Agile, even the system test folks get the product early.

From the start it was freely offered internally to anyone at Avaya to try, and we also had some very very early external customer trials. Those on the trial saw frequent updates. Each one offering a few more user stories, and each one resolving a few bugs.

To me it felt overly courageous to put freshly minted pre-alpha software on an exec's desk - particularly before it was nursed into a product with the reliability of a final vision. But this project taught me that it's not scary to do that, Just the opposite. Early placement was key. Our execs care passionately about Avaya products (of course) and were far from shy (of course) in relaying their feedback early and often. Incorporating their vision and resolving their concerns was part of the success for this product.

There's a lot of debate in the industry about the effectiveness/appropriateness of a rigorous "agile" approach. In truth, this project was a hybrid - facilitating predictability through Waterfall planning yet allowing dynamic adjustment facilitated by Agile. Predictability is key for Avaya since our end results are not just about delivering software. Avaya solutions include the Services surround required for Enterprises, demanding a holistic approach synchronizing the product with the support planning.

Congrats to the team and their exec coaches for a successful launch in the iTunes appstore. Avaya Flare Communicator is the most rapidly deployed client Avaya has ever shipped.

My first exposure to the Agile process was encouraging. I guess sometimes an old Katz can learn new tricks.

*iPad is a registered trademark of Apple Inc

I Wish I Knew...

2012-02-08T22:53:57Z

Do you know everything you need to know about Home Agents? You know all the business drivers for implementing a home agent program... or do you? You know the pitfalls and how to avoid them... or, are there some problems lurking?

Knowing the facts can help you sell a home agent program - or avoid stumbles if you're already walking down that path. So, today's blog is focused on resources and learning opportunities.

First, let me point you to a couple of white papers.

My "Best Practices for Home Agents" paper helps you proactively address the many facets of a Home Agent program, and includes examples from several companies who have successfully sent agents home.

A second paper, "Go Green with Home Agents", has an environmental slant. How much benefit is your company realizing, from a carbon footprint perspective? This paper gives you a template to do the math for your implementation. Be sure to let your VP - and your company's marketing department - know what you come up with. Environmental impact is one of the factors analysts take into consideration when they evaluate companies. It's one more way you can demonstrate the value you've delivered for your company.

Now let's look at a couple of live forums. Do you ever wish you could just sit down, listen to and brainstorm with, your peers in other companies? You can do that from Feb. 21-23 in Dallas, Texas, at the 2012 Remote Agent Summit. This conference is sponsored by Customer Contact Strategies, a company founded by Michele Rowan, formerly Vice President of International Customer Care for Hilton Hotels. While at Hilton, Michele successfully launched a 1,000+ Home Agent program.

What is unique about this conference is that vendor presentations are virtually non-existent. The sessions are presented by companies who have sent agents home. You'll hear case studies from companies like American Express, The Hartford, Capital One, Hertz, and Stanford University. Breakout sessions focus on areas such as security, operations, HR, and training. And social hours on two evenings give you plenty of opportunity for networking.

Another opportunity for Home Agent training is the Avaya International User's Group, held in Boston the week of May 20th. You'll hear United Healthcare talk about their Home Agent program. We're also planning a focus group - an interactive forum for those who've already implemented Home Agents and those who are exploring the possibilities. Experts will share their experiences with the novices.

What have you found most helpful as you send agents home? Are there other training opportunities you're aware of? What tripped you up, and how did you get back on track? Let me know and I'll be happy to post your suggestions and share your comments.

Introducing a New Avaya Services blog - Royer's Services Edge: It's all about the client experience

2012-02-08T01:38:52Z

Change is a constant state for those of us in the communications industry. Technology innovations, shifting market expectations, new competitors. They're just some of the forces driving us to be more aware, adaptable and action-oriented than ever.

The criticality of staying ahead of the curve and understanding the implications of these ever changing forces can be daunting. And we know ,there's plenty to keep up with. Web-based support services are rapidly evolving and expanding. Cloud-based network diagnostics offer new opportunities to streamline issue resolution. Improving technical skills and case management are ongoing priorities.

From my viewpoint, these and other client service issues are prime topics for a services-focused blog. So let's get started!

The Avaya team of services and customer care experts will be offering some golden nuggets of insight. We'll tap into our clients' experiences. We'll always try to add a heaping spoonful of reality, and a dash of zest. After all, the aim of this blog is to help you waste less (money and time) and gain added value. Work smarter, not harder. Laugh more, stress less.

You'll see entries about innovative services tools; better processes and techniques to manage diverse technologies; how to bring new thinking and solutions to real-world communications challenges; and creative and proven communications planning strategies. Think of this as sharing best practices and crowd-sourcing around what really works.

I hope you'll join us as we explore these topics -- and then share your perspectives. Your insights, expertise and lessons from the school of hard knocks are sure to be enlightening for other services professionals.

Stay tuned for my upcoming blog that dives deeper into some of the top communication trends in 2012 and the associated services implications. And I look forward to hearing what's on your mind in the constantly changing world of service.

Avaya Solutions Calculator Adds Networking Analysis

2012-02-06T20:34:54Z

In December 2011, I wrote a post highlighting a valuable tool for Avaya stakeholders interested in various solutions, titled Check out the Avaya Product Calculator Toolkit. Today, I am pleased to revisit that tool, which has added important functionality from Avaya Networking. In this post, I want to walk through how this new functionality works as well as point users to the testing that underpins the results.

Calculator Homepage
On the homepage of the Avaya Solutions Calculator, there is a new radio button titled Networking. Interested in giving it a whirl? Just click through and selected the number of employees in your organization and select Continue.

Ethernet Comparison Savings
Now, select your existing switch vendor and model, as well as the quantity of switches currently deployed for your solution.

Results
This yields comparisons between your existing deployment and the savings potential. Outputs include yearly maintenance and energy costs, as well as TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) results. Should be straightforward enough and I highly encourage you to give it a try for your organization.

The Math behind the Calculations
Of course, a product calculator is only as good as the data that underlines its assumptions and methodology. In this case, Avaya has "engaged Miercom to evaluate the plug and play features and ease of configuration of the ERS 4548GT- PWR Edge Switch. The energy efficiency of the ERS was compared to similar switches and is discussed in this report as well." It is important to get verified, repeatable and documented analysis, and we are proud to have worked with Miercom to ensure a fair and accurate test.

Miercom testing methodology
To determine the power efficiency of the Avaya ERS 4548GT-PWR and how it compared to similar switches, the power consumed was analyzed at various load levels and with a variety of frame sizes. Testing was performed at frame sizes of 64, 512 and 1518 bytes at rates of 70% and 100% line speed.

Rolling the dice on your communications solutions

2012-02-06T20:06:41Z

People who know me, will probably tell you I have a little gambler in me. It might be from years of poker playing or enjoying a good old fashioned bet. In truth, I really enjoy craps. A casino game where, depending on your approach, there is always a way to win no matter what the result of the dice rolled. Obviously, casinos make their money on people like me that enjoy the thrill of taking home a big prize. More often or not this does not happen, because the rules of the game are structured to give the casino an advantage. That said, there is a certain probability of the outcome that is pure mathematics and statistics, and a number of gamblers hold out to win their big money by betting on a series of events - such as two "sixes" rolled twice before a seven comes up.

In a way, communication solutions are similar. There is an outcome that businesses are pursuing - for instance, the ability of their people to collaborate with each other or for customers to be able to reach them. Sometimes the stakes are high - big call volumes during the holiday sales seasons, critical communications when a natural disaster strikes or being able to reach the doctor when the body begins to fail. Every business has its own scenario where the performance of their communication solution is high stakes.

In my role, I get to talk to many customers - most of whom are very intelligent and some that possess incredible wisdom. Generally I walk away assured that the world will evolve to be a more orderly place based on widespread good judgment. However, sometimes I run into situations where I wonder if the nature of logic has changed and somehow I missed it. The issue? The stability of a solution and what drives it. As a long time software and system's architect, I know that the stability and performance of a system is a function of and mathematically linked to the stability and performance of each component that drives a communication session - in other words, its "moving parts."

In general, fewer components in a system translates to greater the stability and reliability. To mitigate critical problems stemming from a component, calls for taking a redundancy or recovery approach. This part of system engineering is difficult. The more components in a system competing with or in the path of servicing a communication session, the more difficult.

Breaking it down even further, each component has supporting components that determine the stability and performance of the component itself. For instance, a server has CPU, memory, power, and an operating system. Trouble in any of those areas by extension is potentially trouble for the system. So, a high level evaluation of a system is easy:

· Fewer components are better than more

· Components engineered with reliable sub-components with fewer failures are better than components that don't

· Systems that are end-to-end architected to mitigate potential component failures via redundancy and recovery are better than systems that do not.

These are obvious to me because I've spent an entire career learning them and living them. Yet, I'm amazed by some vendors who assert that any solution which works in the lab will work in the field and at a large scale - regardless the number of components, the nature of engineering for the components, or the nature of system operation when in distress. The nature of lab scale systems and small pilots does not lend itself to test all the variables that can cause system stress and further, does not lend itself to the exercise of system recovery or performance under stress. The odds of a serious system failure in the limited environment are small, the consequences small, the recovery cost hidden. However, when unleashed to the masses, the variables become enormous, the performance under stress chaotic -- and the consequences potentially disastrous.

I guess to some vendors, rolling the dice is simply rolling the dice. Their logic is that the odds of a bad result happening do not matter; however, the odds greatly determine how often a bad result will occur. So, I worry when some of my customers begin to orient themselves to that logic. The truth of nature, science, and mathematics is the more often we tempt the odds, the more likely we will be disappointed in the result.

Casinos will continue to make money; businesses that invest in solutions engineered to scale, redundancy, and recovery will more often prosper over businesses that do not. There is a value to a great architecture and system that simplifies and is engineered to cope with its fault points. Hopefully as a market, we are not evolving to a culture of simply lets roll the dice - even if some of us gamble a little bit by nature.

Cowboys to win the Super Bowl next year anyone?

Retail and the New Age of Customer Experience

2012-02-04T18:22:48Z

Several months ago I needed support from a retailer with a recent purchase. The retailer had a 1-800 number, but when called I was told that number was not available from my calling area. When I called the toll long distance number, after going through a cumbersome IVR covering a wealth of services the retailer knew I had no interest in, I found the right pigeon hole, and was promptly told that support for this particular product was now only available through email. I went online to get to the retailers web site, and used the retailer's form, having foughtt my way past more irrelevant advertising, to post a question. Success! I shortly received a thank you email indicating that my request had been received, and I would receive a response in 24 hours. Even greater success! I received a response in 4 hours. The response? "We are no longer accepting email requests for support; please use the 1-800 number." While this is an amusing story, it is unfortunately too common.

Retailers, seek opportunities in an increasing myriad of ways - phone, online ordering, catalog sales, retail stores, Facebook, Twitter - to engage you in their services and products, but the end result often falls short. Having been involved with a large number of retailer customer engagement initiatives, the patterns of failure have repeated themselves. The following 5 steps are crucial to getting it right:

Understand how your customer wants to be engaged. It's not enough to know what you want to sell to your customer; you have to know how they want to interact. Don't assume that one style fits all, but there will be definitely be defined groups.
View each engagement regardless of media as a mechanism to build brand and customer experience. I was recently with a major retailer who has experienced a multi-year decline in customers and revenue. They had decided to remake their brand with "an exciting new and energized view of the stores." I was asked to help them define how they should change their self-service capabilities as part of this initiative. In the early scoping of the work I asked them to tell me about the new view they had targeted. They didn't know, but they wanted the self-service advice anyway.
Recognize that you are one company. Whether a customer chooses to shop in a store, online or by phone, you are one and the same to them. Consistency of approach is essential across venue and media. All of them need a common communications architecture for managing their interaction with you. That architecture, must allow the customer to move from any area of your customer area to any other - no redialing other 1-800 numbers, no "they don't have chat in that department," no "I'm sorry, that service is now delivered through..."
Start with the notion that social media, the Internet or the call center is a cost reduction technique, and you've chosen the wrong driver for developing "new customer interface" strategy. IVRs do cut costs of delivery, as do sales portals, but both can be very magnetic means of recognizing and engaging the customer. That magnetism is quickly lost when the focus is placed solely on minimizing investment and the lowest cost option for delivering service.
Have a single area responsible for you customer engagement strategy across all media. Make this organization responsible for understanding the shifts and targets in point 1 above. And, be very clear that this is different that Marketing. This organization defines the archetypes that are used for engagement, regardless of venue.

What happens as a consequence? In an economic environment that has seen dramatic erosion in the retail space, if you walk around the shopping centers, there are a few retailers that always seem to have high traffic regardless of location. I go in these stores myself, not always to purchase, but because it's a fun place to go, as are their websites and their contact centers. A former president of Avaya once said in the midst of the telecom meltdown a decade ago "cutting costs can only get a company so far. Sustainable profitability comes from developing new solutions and superior customer engagement." Thinking about a consistent framework for social media, multimedia, and multi-venue customer engagement is an essential part of retails new age innovation. Thinking about how you engage the customer to buy your services is an essential, but all to often ignored, means to growth.

E911 - There's an App for that - MAYBE

2012-02-03T23:39:25Z

"911, this line is recorded, what is the EXACT location of your emergency"

That phrase is uttered more than 340,000 times each year by public safety call takers. It's a question that they should, and have to ask on each and every 911 call, because the mechanisms today for location reporting from the various devices that allow us to be highly nomadic are still based on the correlation of a physical address with a telephone number.

Back in 1968, that was probably acceptable logic to follow, and it has worked well in many cases over the past 40 some years. Today however the number of devices that exist is skyrocketing daily. The new devices that are coming into service are typically smart devices, and have much more information offer to public safety than a basic telephone number. The problem is, the public safety network today is just incapable of receiving anything other than audio and touch tones.

On Friday of last week there was a buzz around the 911 community about a new App available in iTunes called CrimePush that would help victims report crimes to the police with "a push of a button". Reportedly it was able to send authorities text, photos, sound and video.

But wait a minute.

How can it do this when the 911 network only supports voice and has no way of receiving those other media types built into the 911 PSAP environment?

Unfortunately, those details were omitted from the story, as they are in many cases. This is the level of hype caused by these applications in the general population, and public safety is standing there without any answer.

In the coverage from http://9-1-1.com, they noted some testing was undertaken by the St. Peter's Police Department. Spokesperson Melissa Doss stated that "when are dispatcher downloaded the App and she entered in the complaint and pressed send, it got lost in cyberspace somewhere." Doss continued that, "there is a connection missing and I want residents to know that this is not an App to use yet to report any type of crime because help will not come to you."

For the record, I'm not saying that applications like this are bad. What I'm saying is, without proper vetting of these applications by public safety, citizens will get a FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY, and could actually be putting themselves at further risk by assuming that help is opn the way when in fact it is not.

Of course CrimePush has a disclaimer stating that "the app is not fully operational" and makes a plea for users' help to make this happen. The statement also says that:

"By downloading this application, you understand and agree to these terms: the CrimePush application is NOT linked NOR connected to any police, medical, or law enforcement authority as of yet. By using this application at this time, you will not be assisted for any and all emergency reports submitted. No Police Department, medical emergency unit, or law enforcement agency will receive a distress message from this application. Should an emergency arise you should dial 911"

That's a pretty scary EULA, that I doubt many people have read.

The Next Generation 911 network, once deployed, will certainly enable additional connectivity between PSAP's and the carrier networks. But a future side benefit, once that initial connectivity is established, is the intelligent connectivity that will be available between the general public on their smart devices and public safety officials in the PSAP. Once that is a reality, applications like CrimePush can now flourish and provide their intended additional information on emergent events.

I often get asked "why we need NG 911." The answer is simple, and getting more detailed every day.

We need to connect with intelligent data from enterprise networks.
We need to connect with intelligent data from automatic crash notifications.
We need to connect with new modes of communication that enable persons with disabilities to be assisted using the same technology as the rest of us.
We need to connect with new devices that can provide all of the above that will allow public safety to do their job better.

I'm all for getting the data that we provide to public safety a little more accurate, a little more relevant, in a form consistent with the way citizens communicate today.

Will we ever get to the point where we can change "WHERE'S your emergency?" to "WHAT'S your emergency?" Unfortunately I think the answer is no.

What we CAN improve on though, is the reason WHY they ask "WHERE'S your emergency?";

And that's to confirm what they are seeing on their console is correct, and not because what they are seeing is blank.

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Thanks for stopping by and reading the Avaya CONNECTED Blog on E9-1-1, I value your opinions, so please feel free to comment below or if you prefer, you can email me privately.

Public comments, suggestions, corrections and loose change is all graciously accepted ;-)
Until next week. . . dial carefully.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter @Fletch911

Avoiding a Collaboration Ground Hog Day

2012-02-02T19:01:57Z

This morning, I didn't walk up to the tune of "I Got You Babe" on the radio. Nor am I actually reliving the same day over again (though sometimes the motions are familiar). One thing that doesn't seem to change very often is how we choose to communicate with other people - and that can make a very big difference to how we feel about the impact we have in a given day.

Inspired by Bill Murray's character in the classic comedy and the good news that a short Canadian winter was predicted today by both Wiarton Willie and Shubenacadie Sam, I've compiled a list of ways to collaborate with your peers, to help you avoid using e-mail and maybe even avoid feeling like today is just another every day.

1. Avatar-Based Collaboration

Although at first Avatar-based collaboration can feel more like a game than a productivity tool, you might surprise yourself at how effective these platforms can be. Research by MIT Sloan back in 2011 showed that Avatar-based collaboration platforms are still in their infancy, but that users who use these tools for their recreational use are able to bring the productivity gleaned from them into the business world. Project co-ordination and brainstorming topped the list of uses for these tools in a business context:

Interested in trying it out for yourself? Check out Avaya's free demo of web.alive.

2. Adobe Connect with Communication Manager integration

Conference calls are great for small to medium size groups - but what if you want to broadcast a message to a cast of thousands - including sharing videos, slides and making the whole experience accessible via the web or telephone? Utilizing Avaya meeting exchange (http://www.adobe.com/support/connect/audio_teleconferencing_adaptors.html), Adobe Connect users can integrate their call seamlessly with a conference bridge - allowing the call to be extended out to phone-only users, but also to tie the conference call users back into the adobe connect experience. This allows for wide-scale collaboration with 1,000+ people simultaneously - powerful stuff!

3. Text Messaging / BBM / iMessage

A recent survey by Pew Research revealed that 31% of adults would choose a text message vs. voice communication on their mobile phone. Why not reach out to your peers via text message their mobile phone.

For customers with IP Office 8.0 in their environment, you'll want to check out the new One-X Mobile Preferred application , which features integrated text and conferencing capability in a finely-tuned Android app.

4. Video Calls

Let's face it - audio calls are easier to make then video calls. Video calls are more transparent- you can't hide your body language, and you can't take the call in your PJs. Most of us, though, do have the capability to use video in our daily calls. For all you Avaya One-X communicator users out there, you can easily turn on video in the options menu. Ask your direct team to do the same and regular calls placed via one-x will automatically turn into a video call! Your audio will continue to be routed in whichever way you have selected - through your office phone, your computer or even your mobile phone / home phone, while the call control and video continue to be handled by your PC.

5. Run a Great Conference Call

OK - so you can't avoid using conference calls all day. With so many work teams being virtual these days, the conference call is still the most important way for most of us to communicate. That doesn't mean you can't make a conference call great though. Here is a quick overview of how to host a great conference call, courtesy of worksnug.com:

• Send a pre-call email to all participants outlining the agenda, dial in details and any material they need to read.
• Dial in on time or a few minutes early, if you are the organiser. A lot of conference calls waste the first 5 minutes with constant beeps and interruptions from latecomers.
• Think about your background noise. If you can't take the call from a quiet place, use a noise-cancelling headset for when you are speaking and put it on mute when you are not.
• The power of your voice. Stand up for important discussions, this will help to project your voice.
• Don't ever put your phone on hold. You will probably subject the rest of the call to your hold music or beeping.
• Remember to un-mute your headset when you want to talk!
• Keep to the agenda and on time as much as possible
• Participants should keep contributions as concise as possible. No one appreciates a rambling monologue!
• If you want everyone to follow the same presentation - try web conferencing for screen / presentation sharing.
• Focus on the conference call. It is easy to be distracted with emails/Facebook/online shopping, etc.
• Close the call with a clear summing up of next steps and follow up with an email with action items for participants.

Keep trying new things! The best way to get better at communicating is to leverage new tools as they come out - some may work for you, others may not. Either way, trying one of these five things will ensure you don't get stuck in a groundhog day!

View from San Francisco: 2012 State of Green Business

2012-02-02T06:44:42Z

Wanted to share my impressions from an event that I hold near and dear to my heart, the GreenBiz annual State of Green Business Forum. GreenBiz is a clear leader in the corporate sustainability media space and they put on a number of great events around the U.S. every year.

To paraphrase/borrow from what I wrote last year, which certainly remains true today,

One of the best things about living in San Francisco, beside the access to Tahoe, great culture and everything else that draws millions of visitors a year and sky high housing prices, is its role as a fulcrum for my area of business, sustainability and green. There are so many people and companies working in this space in the City and in Silicon Valley, and as an innovation nexus it is much easier to make connections across organizations and sense emerging trends in corporate sustainability.
One annual event that takes place in the area and has served as a great marker is the State of Green Business forum hosted by GreenBiz. At this event, which took place on Monday in San Francisco, GreenBiz introduces their annual report on green in the corporate sector and host a number of leaders and executives in the corporate sustainability space for interesting and far ranging sessions.

Emerging Trends
There were a couple of trends that ran throughout the various sessions I attended earlier this week.

First, the impetus to embed sustainability on the back end of products/operations.

From my perspective, this was the number one take away from the conference. It came through most clearly in the session with the CEO of EBay, John Donahoe, and the co-founders of Method, Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry. All three execs clearly articulated the view that consumers will not pay more for sustainability products. Furthermore, sustainability/greenness is expected for premium products in 2012, but it is far from the only criteria for any consumers/users. A viable go to market strategy is to deliver better products, first and foremost. A greener product is part of the criteria many users/consumers believe constitute a better product. This sentiment fits with our approach @ Avaya. We think it is imperative to design and develop products that enable our customers to meet their commitments. Two great examples are Avaya web.alive™ and Avaya Flare® Experience, both of which have the capacity to change business norms within an organization to a more efficient and greener status quo.

Secondly, it was clear that best practice in the corporate sustainability journey is to ensure employee engagement.

Now, this statement might be one of the "captain obvious" department, but that does not diminish the importance employee engagement necessarily plays in any successful sustainability program. Discussion of employee interest was well represented in the various sessions that I had the opportunity to attend yesterday, and I am having a hard time recalling a single speaker that failed to reference employees in their presentation. Many speakers discussed how soliciting and encouraging employees for innovation has been proven to drive engagement. At Avaya, we take every opportunity to leverage existing employee communications tools within our company. One dynamic I am very interested in is the degree to which external communications, such as the Connected Blog and the greenavaya twitter feed are tools utilized by my fellow Avaya colleagues. Love to hear from my Avaya colleagues about those tools and whether they are reaching this essential audience for our sustainability work.

BYOD Starts Trending on Google

2012-01-30T17:56:37Z

Every once in a while, a trend resonates closely with the needs of IT professionals - driving many discussions in the press and across the internet. One way to identify the importance of these trends is through google trends - an online tool that allows you to view the relative number of searches on a topic versus others.

Out of interest, I had a look at four ongoing topics that are pervasive to the world of business communications: Unified communications, collaboration, VOIP and Cloud applications. As expected, searches on Unified communication and VOIP have already peaked and are slowly falling off. Searches on Collaboration remain fairly consistent over time, and searches on Cloud Applications continue to grow.

Surprising, however, is the rapid rise in the number of searches for the term "bring your own device" - a search term that did not register prior to 2012, and which is currently out trending all the search terms listed above.

Why the recent and rapid increase in interest surrounding BYOD?

Quite simply, the ability to save on purchasing and managing devices, while leveraging the latest technology available.
A recent survey conducted by Vanson Bourne, found that 80% of IT managers / directors surveyed believe that BYOD will lead to significant cost savings.

In Canada, where companies have invested less in communications technology as a percentage of GDP over the past 8 years, there is an opportunity to leap-frog a generation of communications technology to increase collaboration amongst employees as well.

A plethora of online business articles over the past few weeks points to the importance of this emerging trend, from a business week checklist on BYOD preparation to the Pros and Cons of BYOD from IT World, it is clear that BYOD is increasingly on the minds of IT leaders in today's environment.

Avaya is poised to deliver real solutions for BYOD - check it out here.

Emergency Call Handling using NG911 Additional Data

2012-01-28T21:45:58Z

I was reading an interesting article over breakfast this morning that brought me back to an article that was written at the beginning of this year by Mark Gomez of the Mercury News. It seems that even the police are dealing with the issue of false alarms, not from vehicles necessarily, but from businesses. With nearly 12,000 all the alarms that occurred in 2010, 98.4% turned out to be false alarms.

With today's ever shrinking public safety budgets, and citizens demanding that police do more with less, the $662,203 that police say cost them to respond to these alarms is a huge burden to carry. Some may say that finds for repeated
false alarms should be implemented, and in fact San Jose does have a policy for that. However those fines, $466,633 worth, still even 30% deficit over the cost.

San Jose Police Chief Chris Moore wrote that "the primary purpose of police is to respond to reported crimes, preventive patrols and community policing, and the practice of responding to all audible alarms does not accomplish any of those goals." It also should be noted that Moore's department has also been hit with a 20% decrease in resources in the past two years and has been forced to scale back other operations to maintain patrol levels
.

This is an area where public safety can utilize some intelligent workflow concepts that are used in day to day enterprise contact center, that streamline the communications interaction between the caller and the call taker.

For example, San Jose reacted to the increase in audible alarms in an all or nothing manner, based on statistical data that they had.

98.4% of audible alarms are false

False alarms are audible alarms

Audible alarms do not require police response

The problem with the logic is that audible alarms, are associated with false alarms. When in fact the logic should be that 98.4% of false alarms are businesses do not manage their alarm system properly. The missing statistic is what part of all the alarm systems are represented by the businesses creating false alarms. It could be the classic case of one bad apple spoiling the entire bunch.

What needs to happen in the 911 center is a correlation of the origination point of the emergent event, with details of the event if available, and some history on previous event outcomes. Using this prioritization intelligence, we don't necessarily have to deny service to any one particular caller, or event originator, but during times of overload we can effectively manage and prioritize inbound call traffic based on additional information.

Next-generation 911 will make further use of this additional information, and in fact, there is a specific workgroup that is dealing with this very topic.

This is not new technology. This is not a new idea. This is something that's been done in the enterprise space, in some of the largest call centers in the world, for the past 10 to 15 years. It's only because we've had a 40+-year-old architecture in our nations emergency services network, and we've been handcuffed with using caller ID or ANI as our sole index to additional information, and that additional information has been limited to a Street address, that we haven't deploy these common call handling methods to public safety.

Sure, public safety is experiencing a budget crunch each and every year. But guess what? The economy is been tanking for the last 10 years, and businesses have been forced to get lean and mean. One of the primary ways that a public facing company can minimize their expense of "customer contact", is to use technology to streamline that interaction and minimize the expense of that interaction.

In order for public safety to survive, we will have to either shovel more money into the furnace, or get a more efficient furnace that burns less money. In my opinion, the latter provides a more efficient environment for public safety, more services for the public they serve, and an evolution path that brings the current emergency services network at of the dark ages.

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State of the Union: technology in focus

2012-01-25T17:01:52Z

Last night, President Obama gave his fourth State of the Union speech. This post is not about the politics of that speech, of course. Rather, I wanted to give some quick impressions I had while watching the speech as they relate to technology and the technology industry. Examples of issues that are directly touched by technology from tonight's speech include growth, job creation, intellectual property, education and innovation. Many of the challenges facing America, and the world, are being addressed/solved via technology and as a result I thought there was value in thinking about this annual marker in the American political process through the lens of technology.

First, this President, as the others that came before, touched on so many issues, too numerous to count on this blog and certainly in the dozens. Technology and collaboration interrelate to so many of these, a few I referenced above. Perhaps it is only my impression, but I found it much more common for technology and innovation to be proposed as a solution. This might be a necessary by-product of the process by which innovation occurs, and the solutions it ideally provides. It is also easier to talk about solutions via innovation, letting technology solve problems that have proved difficult to overcome. President Obama certainty employs this rhetoric, as have innumerable politicians and leaders before. Ideally, and optimistically, this language describes the better world we all hope to inhabit in the future. I know that is one of the pleasures of working here at Avaya, as I believe passionately that we are part of the solution for great, richer and more productive collaboration throughout the world.

Secondly, I was impressed with the breadth and integration of technology and communication modalities into this State the Union. It was only a few years ago that representatives took flak for tweeting during a state address. This year, there was dedicated twitter hashtags (#SOTU) and a post-speech panel of senior advisors answering questions via a tweetup, facebook and a live audience, fielding questions from throughout America and the world. One can only imagine what Ronald Reagan or FDR would have thought about these dramatic changes in communication between government and our representatives, both Republican and Democrat, much less Lincoln.

Lastly, I was taken by a reference to education centers that have used technology to streamline their operations, lowering cost to students and the public. This brief reference made me think of Avaya's web.alive, an innovative collaborative solution near and dear to my heart. For example, Web.alive is up and running at Carroll University in Wisconsin, where it is increasing the performance, agility and reach of Carroll University. Here is an excellent example of innovation and technology enhancing students' experiences, while lowering the costs and carbon footprints. A clear win-win and one that can be replicated at institutions big and small.

What did you think of the SOTU, did President Obama adequately address the role and opportunity of technology? What about Mitch Daniels' response to the State of the Union? More broadly, where do you think technology, collaboration and communication fit within the economy?

Born in Turmoil, Tested by Time, the Original Crowd-sourced Solution is Meeting Today's Challenges

2012-01-25T06:01:00Z

One could easily fall prey to cynicism as the enormous online controversy over consideration by the United States Congress of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (H.R. 3261) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) (S. 968) has reached a crescendo. Now that a tentative informal truce has settled over the debate it is time to realize that the processes that have played out in recent weeks, the novel ways that people have engaged in expressing their opinions and the ways that the Congress has reacted are reasons to celebrate. It's hard to see because we're still in the middle of the process, but the bottom line is that the sometimes ugly and often inscrutable events demonstrate that the system does work.

There is little question that the issues swirling around these proposed bills should be of concern to everyone. Measures that might be put in place that are not carefully crafted will have an impact on the ways that basic liberties are extended to today's and future generations. The proposed actions in these bills propelled serious and legitimate questions about the potential impact that those actions would have on all citizens in this digital age.

It is easy to be skeptical about how powerful interests with deep pockets, high priced lawyers and with former members of congress on their payrolls seemingly worked the system to get their intentions on the fast track.

On the other hand the democratic system, even with all its blemishes apparent, continues to serve our society. The reason that it is working is that the American system of federal government is based upon the Constitution of the United States of America. The Constitution is one of the most powerful and enduring examples of collaborative participation in the history of humankind.

The document as it was adopted in its original form was devised throughout the tumultuous years from the conclusion of the Revolutionary War until July 2, 1788, the day when the Confederation Congress learned that New Hampshire had become the ninth state through its "ratifying convention" to approve the basic Constitution. It was that day when "13 sovereign and independent states" became one nation. The Great Seal states it succinctly, E pluribus unum, Latin for "Out of many, one."

224 years after the original adoption the Constitution, which governs how the three equal branches of the US federal government interoperate, has allowed all sides to express opinions in trying to solve a uniquely modern set of problems. Opposing forces of a spectrum of widely ranging constituencies has faced off. As evidenced by the often vitriolic online spewing of some, the continuum in the discussion spans from people wholly uninformed about how congress works, to the deft silence teams of highly skilled political operatives.

Even though at times during the deliberations the populist suspicion was shouted almost deafeningly that, "The fix was in!" The reality is that the system works.

People expressed their opinions and the politicians listened. Action on these bills was postponed with promises including those of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) stating that "The Committee will continue work with copyright owners, Internet companies, financial institutions to develop proposals that combat online piracy and protect America's intellectual property. We welcome input from all organizations and individuals who have an honest difference of opinion about how best to address this widespread problem. The Committee remains committed to finding a solution to the problem of online piracy that protects American intellectual property and innovation."

You may say, "Take those promises for what they are worth," but the bottom line is that Washington listened.

There are those who immediately have said, "Yeah, but they will be back."

Yes, "they" will be back. That is one of the great fundamental aspects of the American system. As articulated in Amendment I of the Bill of Rights, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

"They" will be back and so too should be a determined opposition and a range of opinions in between. That is how we Americans solve our toughest problems.

From initiatives at the grass roots level to the highest priced lobbyists on Washington DC's K Street and the corporations who too can hire their services, every American citizen has the right to petition our government and it is the Freedom of Speech held constant across the decades that empowers the plebiscite that eventually results in answers.

"We the People" will solve the complex issues of the digital age that include the new meanings of intellectual property rights and the definitions of online piracy. We will continue a cadence toward answers that has been going on in search of consensus long before congress considered and passed The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) in the early stages of this process.

All sides should celebrate the opportunities to take part in a system that began in tumult, continues to be forged by debate and has evolved for more than two centuries. Even in the digital age when so much has changed, the Constitution and its principles continues to be a vibrant vehicle for civic collaboration.

Perhaps the most enduring strength of the US Constitution is that it is an artifact the one of the original versions of crowd sourcing. Through its initial development and adoption, to its evolution with inclusion of the first ten amendments in the Bill of Rights in 1791, through other amendments and continuous interpretation, to today's unfolding events, the US Constitution remains a living concept. The really exciting part of this story is that we today continue to participate in the ongoing evolution of the American republic. We will continue to crowd source new solutions to modern problems through processes that respect the enduring basic liberties first articulated so many years ago.

The Space Between the Notes

2012-01-24T20:45:54Z

French composer Claude Debussy is famous for his quote "Music is the space between the notes." Classical pianist Arthur Schnabel phrased it similarly "The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides!"

There are few other instances where this concept impacts our daily lives more than during the infamous conference call. From the ability to hear and identify who is speaking, to feeling out the spaces in the conversation to know when to speak, to gauging how your message is being received on the other end of the line, it can be difficult to navigate the conference call and deliver maximum collaboration using only our voice and ears.

As it turns out, musicians may have an advantage when it comes to participating in conference calls (yikes - I thought I found them challenging at times!). A recent study by the Auditory Neuroscience Library at Northwestern University gauged the ability of musicians to isolate speech in a noisy environment. Their findings show musicians have a significantly enhanced ability to discern speech in a noisy environment, can identify individual voices in a noisy environment more easily, have better auditory concentration and that these qualities were enhanced by increased musical experience.

We also need to keep in mind that theories suggest not everyone learns the same way. In 1983, Howard Gardner proposed that humans possessed 8 different intelligences - different individuals show a predetermination to learning in a particular way.

Could it be that conference calls present a challenge not only in the process of listening, but also in the process of learning? Could limiting your collaboration platform to the telephone be impacting speed at which your employees learn? Studies suggest the answer to be yes - studies from the Department of Psychology, University of Missouri show that "false written recall of critical intrusions was reliably lower following visual presentation compared with aural presentation"- Recall of information is more accurate when information is presented visually along with the audio call.

As a musician, I have to admit that I'm not completely unhappy with the traditional conference call. But I do recognize that there are better ways of addressing the collaboration gap - and allowing all users to participate to their maximum in a call. I'm particularly aware of the gap as I work to get my message across to others. As we work our way through the spectrum of tools available to close the gap, it becomes clear that we can support additional learning style with innovative technology solutions.

Moving from audio conferencing to web conferencing provides the ability to share visuals to get across information. As we move into the web.alive environment, we are able to get a sense of space - who is speaking, are they actively engaged in the conversation, see their picture and visual representation of themselves. Finally, as we get into video conferencing, we add in the ability to see and read body language - a great advantage to Naturalistic and Kinesthetic learners.

In short - the space between the notes can be applied to collaboration in a number of important ways. It can consist of analyzing pauses in conversation, the way that information is being presented, how numbers come together, where people choose the stand, how they interact and reading body language.

The availability of rich collaboration tools is a welcomed opportunity to help level the playing field for individuals who learn and work in various ways - allowing everybody to hear and respond to the space between the notes.

Server Virtualization - what, why & how

2012-01-24T20:45:24Z

So, you think you know what "virtualization" is? According to the Collins on-line dictionary, it isn't a real word. Of course not. In this business, we like to turn verbs into nouns. The Collins' definition of the verb "virtualize" is -

( tr ) to transform (something) into an artificial computer-generated

version of itself which functions as if it were real

Virtual goods, virtual services, and so on, are all part of the on-line gaming lexicon. Anything bought or sold in a "virtual" world is, as the dictionary states, is made to seem as though it is real. But it isn't. Of course not.

What does any of this have to do with data networks? In the networking world - some might argue that it isn't real either - virtualization refers to the logical partitioning of physical servers located in a data center or cloud computing center into a number of "virtual machines". This is done to permit the server's hardware to be shared by a number of applications that may require distinct and potentially different run-time systems and services.

For example, we might want to run Oracle's new Social Networking application in its own virtual environment to provide it with a predictable amount of cpu cycles, memory space, i/o bandwidth, etc to satisfy a requirement for more predictable user response times. How do we do this? Let's examine the diagram below:

The heart of server virtualization lies in the "hypervisor" (or "virtual machine manager" in non-IBM 360 lingo) which is a layer of software that directly controls the server's hardware - cpu, memory, i/o devices, control registers (below) - while supplying a software emulation of that same hardware to the operating system (above). Note the drawing calls out the physical i/o interfaces at the bottom; there is also a hardware emulation layer above (see the smaller hardware icons located in the layer above the "VMware Virtualization Layer).

We want the operating system supporting the applications to run without modification, so any hardware resources that the operating system relies upon - timers, memory, control registers, i/o devices - have to provided by way of specialized software supplied by the hypervisor vendor which emulates those hardware resources. One or more instances of potentially multiple operating systems run on top of the emulated hardware layer. The operating system supplies the run-time services for the applications (above) as if it were actually controlling the underlying hardware, as happens in the non-virtualized computing environment.

But why go to all this trouble? The motivation is really very simple - modern (Intel) processors are extremely fast, capable of executing as many as 12 instructions per clock cycle (Intel's latest effort in its Itanium processor family, code-named "Poulson"). At a clock rate of 3.3GHz, that's an execution rate of one instruction per 3.64 nsec, or 275,000,000 instructions per second. That is a lot of computing power, more than can be typically used even by scores of applications running simultaneously. Virtualization is a technology that allows us to more fully utilize the computing power available, while providing a very flexible environment for accommodating applications that may require different operating systems in which to run.

This means that we can efficiently deploy many applications within a single physical server, creating potentially several "virtual machines" which then can support several applications at once. This saves rack space, power and cooling - always at a premium in a data or cloud computing center.

More applications supporting more users in a smaller footprint - that's the "so what" of server virtualization. Today, virtualization is a requirement, not an option, in the data center and cloud computing markets - our customers expect and demand it.

Next time we will take a look at network virtualization, and examine the in's and out's of Avaya VENA - Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture - and its relationship to server virtualization.

/wms

2012-01-24T17:58:31Z

Is Wall Street Opposed to Customer Service?
As far back as the 1930's leading edge thinkers extolled the value of customer service and its ability to ensure enterprise profitability and longevity. In fact, if you define customer service as "doing the right thing for your customer" the right to be a Corporation was originally premised on an institution's obligation to serve society.

However, as the 1980's advanced, in all consumer facing businesses, customer service began to take a back seat to a financial orientation and operational effectiveness. Notoriously associated with the Gordon Gecko mantra "greed is good", corporations shrugged their original corporate responsibility to society, and instead adopted the shareholder as the only entity to which the corporation had an obligation. Near term profit was the order of the day.

It may well be that stock watchers, who advocated the purchase or sale of a corporation's stock fostered and enjoyed this transition. Removing the social moral obligation, or customer service obligation, from an enterprise's mandate removes a number of "hard to quantify" variables from the evaluation. If nothing else, revenues achieved, costs incurred and financial trends make for a more countable, though not necessarily simpler, basis for evaluating companies.

But if the value of customer service in long term profitability has been demonstrated time and again, why wouldn't Wall Street be in full chorus extolling the customer centric business model? I'd suggest that there are 3 principle reasons - time, cost and specificity.

Time? What I mean by time is that a customer's perspective of service improvement is relatively inelastic. It takes multiple repeated instances of different types of service delivery for customer's to associate them with a change in the corporation's mentality. A single improved customer experience, (or in contrast a negative experience), is not usually associated with a change in the customer's behaviour to the vendor - unless of course it is significantly astonishing. Relationships are always imbedded with cognitive inertia or goodwill. It usually takes a series of similar interaction outcomes for a customer's perception to change. As a consequence, reaping the benefits of an improved interaction experience, in terms of customer loyalty, walletshare or marketshare, may take quarters or years depending on the rate the customer interacts with the vendor and engages in purchase decisions. The Wall Street focused company is intolerant of an extended and variable timeframe. Increasingly, immediate results are expected from any investment. So, investments with longer timeframes, to no one's surprise, don't occur.

Cost? Providing good customer service implies at least some subset of the following: listening; understanding; customizing; offering; and resolving. (I'm sure this list is incomplete, but it is good enough for our purposes.) All of these represent an investment in the personnel and the services that make up customer interaction, and cost. Through the last 20 years, and in particular since 2009, we have seen corporate leadership go after any form of cost with a vengeance. And customer service has been at the center of cost containment initiatives. Customer service is more easily associated with cost than revenue so it has become an easy target and taken out of most operations.

Specificity? If I implement a new IVR application I can effectively estimate call take out and FTE reductions that will occur. The relationship is specific and definable. However, questions like which customer service improvements lead to revenue attachment and what will a new service offering do to customer churn aren't easily quantified and expressed in an equation. Most companies can't quantify the value of a customer, let alone the value of changing that customer's perception. So, in a world subordinate to the MBA, business cases for customer service improvement are quickly viewed as suspect.

In short, Customer Service improvement may be seen as Wall Street's worst nightmare: it takes time to achieve a change in behaviour; it demands an upfront and continued investment; and the contribution to financial performance, at least in the short term, is difficult to specify mathematically. In contrast, cutting customer service is highly aligned with a short term financial management point of view. I can identify customer oriented services easily - the costs; I can specify how much they cost to deliver - specificity; and I may not see the impact on customer behaviour till this quarter's challenge has past. Bulls eye, for Wall Street.

So, within this pessimistic viewpoint is there a ray of hope. First, increasingly the Machiavellian corporation is seeing that Machiavellian customer. Customers are able to change vendors with increasing ease, and will do at the drop of a hat. Personally, I don't differentiate amongst grocery stores - if they want me, they have a lot of work to do to get my repeat business - convenience is the differentiator for me today. If you don't meet my needs, I will be vocal - a GPS provider lost about 6 potential purchases based on past performance this Christmas. Bad service or food in a restaurant does mean no tip! More and more customers share the same outlook. As a consequence a wide range of businesses - airlines, car manufactures, hoteliers, fast food chains, home media/communication service providers - are stymied by customer thrashing and the customer perception that "they are no worse than anyone else."

Second, as hinted by the customer reaction above, products among a whole range of industries are becoming increasingly commoditized, and the cost advantages one might have had over the other have been pushed out of their system. Following the Core Competency Model - product superiority, cost advantage, and customer intimacy - if the first 2 aren't winnable, the corporation is left with only 1 option. In essence, everything that has occurred commercially over the last 30 years has increasingly led corporations to deliver lower than expected performance in Wall Street's eyes. If corporations want to remain in favour with Wall Street, increasingly the only avenue left is differentiated Customer Service. Even then, customers may not pay for it - don't give up on Machiavelli too quickly - but they may be more likely to channel more of their business to the provider.

Third, the differentiation that occurs as a consequence of the above 2 mechanisms is becoming very compelling. The vanguard can be seen in the success of organizations like Zappos, footwear, Apple, personal IT solutions, and Google - marketing. As the local consumer marketplace becomes available to more distant companies through the Internet, the new provider willing to provide differentiated customer service may have a significant lower cost of entry. Not surprisingly, traditional providers in sectors like utilities, home services, entertainment, and manufacturing are recognizing the threat customer service oriented providers represent.

Last, and hopefully, shareholders, customers and government may be coming increasingly intolerant of the status quo in corporate America. The title CEO lost some of its lustre last year, and the media and government backlashes internationally against the corporate nepotism that is endemic in organizations is rising. Increasingly, consumers are cynical about CRM, Customer Care Center and Built with Pride in America. Expectations for corporate leadership in managing Global Warming are increasing. Who knows, perhaps we'll see a return to a sense of social and customer responsibility in business.

So what has this got to do with Avaya, and what we sell? Avaya's solutions focus on the ability to deliver real-time communications to the enterprise. The business value of those solutions is tied to either enterprise financial productivity, (reducing the gross loaded cost per widget delivered), or by increasing the revenue associated with each widget. Increasingly, if all the above is true, Avaya's solutions will need to be integrated into a customer service strategy.

In order to do this, Avaya must be able to demonstrate:

• The solution can improve the targeted facets of customer service in a more cost effective fashion than any other option
• The solution can achieve the improvement and hence financial realization of that improvement faster than any other option,
• The relationship between the solution, the improvement in customer service and financial result is definable, measurable and verifiable.

Wall Street is not going to disappear, but increasingly Wall Street will have to start looking at Customer Service as the remaining bastion of ever increasing improvements in financial performance. To be viable to Wall Street and to help improve Customer Service, Avaya must speak to business cost advantages; faster returns; and specificity of the relationship between the solution and the financial gain.

Connect and Collaborate Anywhere...with "Flare"

2012-01-24T13:01:35Z

With today's announcement of Avaya's Flare® Communicator for Apple iPad* Tablets, Avaya continues to bring enterprise communications to your fingertips.

Here's some insight into Avaya's plans authored by the UC Clients Portfolio Lead at Avaya, Praveen Mamnani (email pmamnani@avaya.com)

===================

It's early Monday morning and you're getting ready to leave for a business trip. You grab coffee while checking the weekend's emails on your iPAD tablet. Suddenly, the "15-minute reminder" pops up to review customer escalation report...with your boss. The next 10 minutes might proceed something like this:

"Oh great,".you think. "My team lead in India didn't email the update over the weekend." You scramble to start up your laptop and get on your work VPN so you see if it came in overnight. "What a pain! I don't have the team lead's phone number in my iPhone contacts, and I don't know if he or anyone else from the India team is still online who can talk right now so I could conference in with my boss."

Of course, your laptop's VPN client is not connecting and the boss is calling now.

"Sorry, Mike," you say. "I don't have that information here. "I'll have to get back to you on that."

Sound familiar? You're not alone. Business professionals everywhere are increasingly mobile, overloaded with information and pressured with deadlines. With a global work force always on the move, the ability to reach and collaborate with your co-workers, partners or customers anytime, anywhere, has become more critical than ever before. In an effort to manage these challenges, corporations are shifting to mobile communications and adopting Unified Communication systems more rapidly than expected to try and manage the mobile/virtual workforce challenge.

According to a survey commissioned by BroadSoft, 62 percent of IT leaders are expanding their enterprise's UC capabilities, with instant messaging, web collaboration and videoconferencing identified as the top UC services IT managers are looking to support on mobile devices over the next three years. In addition, as the "consumerization" of IT accelerates, end users expect simple, intuitive, rapid and ubiquitous access to applications from their mobile devices enabling them to collaborate as if they were sitting in the office.

Avaya has been delivering enterprise mobile solutions since early 2000, first with EC500 (extension to cellular), then Avaya one-X® Mobile portfolio with clients on iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

Today, we're enabling our customers to further embrace a Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) strategy with the launch of the Avaya "Flare® Communicator for iPAD. Flare Communicator is light weight version of the full Flare® Experience delivering an intuitive, easy to use, fun interface, enabling an employee to collaborate instantly and continuously with coworkers, supervisors, customers and partners from ANYWHERE. With the Flare Communicator for IPAD, you have the flexibility to carry your business communications anywhere for faster collaboration and better business results.

So let's revisit the earlier scenario using Avaya Flare Communicator for iPAD.

You grab coffee while checking weekend's email on your iPAD. Get the meeting reminder screen pop; launch Flare and roll the contact cards with your finger and notice your team lead is online. Drag his card into the Flare spotlight and launch an IM session. Get report update. Proactively add boss to the conversation by bringing him in another spotlight. Discuss, determine course of action. End call. Finish coffee.

No more time spent searching your contacts or booting up the laptop to locate and IM or call coworkers while the clock is ticking. A swipe of the finger on the touch optimized Flare experience enables you to simply flip through your personal or business contact cards, drag-n-drop people from your global work force in the "spotlight" and make smarter decision on the spot.

Last month, during a business trip From Denver to the East coast on a flight that had Wi-Fi access, I decided to push the limits. I told the Flare development team I would be doing some special tests from my office to see if I could collaborate with a new feature called "Flare in the Air". They were puzzled. When I called into the meeting, they saw me in the spotlight but didn't realize my voice was coming from 30,000 feet over Nebraska. During the call inflight, I exchanged IMs with developers and received another call from my 5 year old son. Within seconds I escaped to another Flare spotlight and we were both happy to hear each other's voice.

Want to join me in the spotlight? Get the application from the Apple app store today. Your IT administrator needs to provision a Flare Communicator for iPad license and SIP extension on the Avaya Aura system. Try it out and contact me (email pmamnani@avaya.com) with your views and reviews about what's good, what needs improvement and what you think should be next. We'll be aggressively adding new features so your feedback and comments will be greatly appreciated.

Now when you get your Flare Communicator I recommend you use this "Flare in the Air" feature with care. You may annoy that guy next to you if he's trying to catch a nap before landing. Try not to get into any "Alec Baldwin gets kicked off the plane with iPAD" situations.

*iPAD is a is a registered trademark of Apple Inc

Classic Bad Technology Predictions

2012-01-21T22:39:22Z

For the most part I think that we can all agree that it's generally a bad idea to say something can't or won't be done. In addition to inciting the multitude of industrious thinkers that exist today to think even harder, technology is changing at such a rapid pace that almost anything is possible in the future.

I thought that I would put together a list of some common bad predictions that were made in the recent past, and maybe not so recent past, to remind everyone that anything is possible, and when it comes to anything" being something related to public safety that will save lives, there is even more "possibility". With that, I offer you Fletch's list of top 5 bad technology predictions:

5
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
(Some have estimated that there are upwards of one and 2 billion computers in the world today.)

4
"The Americans have made use of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." - Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876.
(You mean have somebody write a note, and then deliver it for them?)

3
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" - Opponents of David Sarnoff in response to his request for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
(They should have tweeted their views and opinions, or put them in a podcast, not publish them in the paper.)

2
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."
Western Union internal memo, 1876.
(No value to you, but to 6 billion other people apparently.)

1
"Unless you are under 30 years old, you will not have to be concerned about next generation 911 in your career." - Participant at the Great E911 Debate, Newport Rhode Island, 2011.
(Hey, I'm 50! And I'm worried about it now! NG911 is here today.)

As I mentioned last week, there's been far too much complexity around E 911 for the enterprise. IT administrators don't necessarily understand it, and quite often they fall back on the simple approach of "what is the law?" But don't get too wrapped up in what "the law says" in any particular state. You need to think about what level of service you need to provide to your employees under your care, using your telephone system.

Too often I see too many companies over rotating on their E 911 solution in the enterprise. They've never had anything before, they realize they got a huge problem now, and they put in an architecture that "sounds" like it's the best, or most precise. Another common mistake is to provide a required hosted E 911 solution for remote VPN users, or work-at-home employees who have an IP device, and then, without any further thought, roll out that same solution throughout the entire enterprise, not just externally where it's needed, but internally where it may not.

Understanding E 911 in the enterprise, and defining the problem and resolution, usually doesn't mean buying a particular box from 911 vendor XYZ Incorporated and plugging it in. E 911 is a process that requires potential system integration, maybe some database work, and a formalized standard operating procedure that covers moves adds and changes, new employee provisioning, and the removal of stale records as employees move on.

Just like there's no magic Accounting box that will automatically and autonomously prepare your financial statements with no input from your bookkeeper, there is no magic E 911 box that will automatically and autonomously manage your E 911 parameters in the public ALI databases, and quite frankly, the real amount of management that's required is that level may just surprise you.

I like to break E 911 in the enterprise down to three primary decision points:

Localized On-site Notification to Internal Staff
Assigned internal first responders should be aware that any E 911 call took place, and wherein the building the caller was located. This is not data that we are pushing to the PS/ALI database. It's internal information for use by our own internal employees that will assist public safety in locating the caller in need.

Support for Nomadic Behavior on my PBX, AND on my Network
Administrators, and the PBX itself, need to understand where users are, when they move, as well is when they enter or leave the environment, in the case of WLAN devices.

Support for Remote VPN Workers on my PBX, but NOT on my Network
As we flatten and consolidate the network, and allow employees to ubiquitously work from wherever they gain an Internet connection, we need to be cognizant about how we provide E 911 services using new a new native technology designed specifically for that class of user.

Unfortunately, enterprise 911 is teaming with "snake oil salesman" that drone on about cases of misfortune and million-dollar lawsuits. Sure, some of that is valid, but most of that stems from ill-fated procedures that have never been vetted or even audited for local compliance.

A new form of engagement, is the E 911 Risk Assessment Audit. It includes a site visit, discussion with your staff to determine specific requirements, as well as a review of the configuration on your PBX.

A good risk assessment audit can't be done over the phone, nor can you click a few questions on a webpage to get the magic answer. It's going to take a professional who understands E 911 compliance a face-to-face meeting to help you determine what you're going to need. And remember, if they just come in and throw dirt on the floor, they're probably going to try to sell you vacuum cleaner.

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E911 Location Granularity - What's Right?

2012-01-15T21:19:42Z

Last week I had a discussion with a longtime listener who was just about out of his wits over managing his E911 environment. It seems that with the implementation of some new call server equipment servicing four buildings with four thousand users, he realized that he was spending about seven hours a week managing the E911 location information from MAC work on IP telephone moves. If you estimate an average loaded labor rate of $75 an hour (probably a very low guess), that extra work adds up to $525 each week, or over $27,000 annually.

To make matters even worse, the facility happens to be one that is heavily guarded, and no one is permitted inside without a security escort; including emergency first responders. This brings me to the topic of this week's podcast and blog, "Emergency Response Zone Sizing".

I've often said that one of the first things that you need to look at when you're implementing an E911 remediation project is the sizing of the Emergency Response Location (ERL), which is the granularity you are providing to the PSAP. But another level of granularity that you need to consider, is the level of granularity you provide to your local internal first responders or security staff. This is where people get confused and don't realize the level of granularity can be different.

Smaller is better, right?

It's common for people to think that the more granular you can be on your E911 solution, the better it is. Although that sounds like it makes the best sense, it actually may not be the best granularity of reporting. Just like a street address of 211 Mount Airy Rd. in Basking Ridge New Jersey is far too large an area to isolate a specific caller, adding cubicle 3C239 to that address does very little for public safety responding. Internally, that cubicle number is very descriptive to security, as well as many employees within the building.

Even though I'm not a regular visitor, I know that that's the third floor, center section, and based on signage I can quickly find cubicle 239. But chances are the public safety official that is responding to an incident has never been in the building before, and 3C239 means very little to them. They don't carry cube level floor plans with them, and quite frankly, when the fire truck or ambulance pulls out of the garage, your cube number is really extraneous information. Don't get me wrong, knowing exactly where someone is in the building is valuable information, but when, and how we get it to the first responders is really what we need to be concerned about.

So let's step back a bit, and think about granularity; both internally and externally. If you've been following the E911 best practices that we normally talk about, you'll know that the NENA MLTS Model Legislation recommends that fire alarm zones are a good "starting point" when establishing ERLs for 911. We say "starting point" because every building is different, and you need to take into consideration many different things. Coupled with zone level granularity to public safety, we always recommend some mechanism for on-site notification or OSN. If you have a staffed security position within your building, providing that individual with specific information about 911 calls that occur in that building is a simple task, and one that can expedite emergency response. When someone needs help, local internal responders can provide immediate assistance while waiting for public safety to get on scene.

But what if I don't staff my facility with a centralized security desk, or I typically have people working after hours, yet I only have a receptionist in place during the day? Again, the answer to this is simple, and solved by some relatively low-cost technology. The last time I was in a large discount store, a brand-new LED 40 inch flatscreen television went for under $300.

In addition to providing high definition video connections, most TVs today have an VGA input that will accept and output from a PC. Looking at the common OSN applications that are available today, most of them provide some mechanism for displaying maps and other information on computer displays of interested parties.

In most commercial buildings it's common to have a central fire alarm panel. When a fire alarm is activated, one of the tasks of the firemen responding, is to go to that panel to identify which sensors have been activated. That provides them with the approximate position of the emergency. Similarly, if we start making E911 displays common in buildings, the exact location of the caller could be easily conveyed to public safety upon their arrival.

Let's think about that for a second. Today we get so wrapped up with knowing and tracking the exact location of an E911 caller at the time they make their 911 call. Obviously, this sounds like a great idea. But let's think about that a little bit. If I can provide information externally to public safety that gets them to the general area of where I am, while at the same time providing internal employees precise information of where I am, I reduce the complexity of maintaining an extra database in the carrier network that I have to pay for, or track updates that are not real-time. Updating internal databases, ones that the enterprise have full control of, and making that information available to internal responders, and to public safety responders in the form of a wall display dedicated for that purpose, is a much better use of financial resources, and provides a more efficient environment for the 911 caller, as well as public emergency responders.

From an enterprise perspective, E911 can now become a one-time remediation effort, effectively eliminating the ongoing maintenance at the user level. Establishing ERLs one-time within an enterprise environment, and coupling that with detailed OSN capabilities, administrators can immediately fix the 911 problem that exists in large campuses with multiple buildings, or large buildings with multiple floors.

Now don't get me wrong, providing public safety with precise information about location is always at the top of my list. But if I have to spend $80,000 or more to do that, any information can quickly become irrelevant and outdated, or I have no way of conveying it to public safety in a real-time manner at an acceptable cost, let's face it, enterprises are not going to deploy it. If they do deploy it, it may become a challenge to maintain. If it's a challenge to maintain, I can guarantee that someone paying the bills for the labor to maintain the information is going to redirect the priorities of that individual as they try to manage costs of maintenance and overhead.

I think too often we lose sight of the problem. The problem is that callers behind in MLTS PBX quite often send out only a main billing number, or the number of facility that they are not located in. If the mechanism that we defined a fix that problem is too complex, too expensive, or to inaccurate to provide first responders with the information they need, it's not going to be used, or it's not going to be used properly. Remember the old adage; Garbage In - Garbage Out.

Thinking about the problem logically, and sorting out reality and rhetoric, E911 in the enterprise can be a simple task to fix. But if you over think the problem, the solution will be to complex, and chances are you'll be doing more harm than good.

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All those not in favor of creating jobs in America, please say "Yea"

2012-01-10T06:01:01Z

Given the critically important issues facing our nation you'd think that by now politicians in Washington would get the message that we are tired of symbolic gestures that solve little and devour precious time and resources. I guess that conspicuous public protests, occupations and massive volumes of online dissidence have yet to filter through to those who we have sent to Washington that we are tired of easy answers, divisive tactics and strategies that isolate us into factions.

Hope dwindles in these early days of this election year as we see examples including the U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act bill filed by U.S. House of Representatives members Timothy Bishop (D:NY) and David McKinley (R:WV).

At first glance one can't help but agree with the sentiments expressed by supporters of the bill such as the comment "'This ... bill is exactly what we need now' to aid in the country's economic recovery, overcome deficits, and restore the American dream."

I like to wave the flag as much as any proud former Boy Scout but getting past the initial emotion I realize H.R.3596, makes little sense. The bill is proposed to act as if a modern version of the Scarlet Letter by requiring, "publicly available a list of all employers that relocate a call center overseas and to make such companies ineligible for Federal grants or guaranteed loans and to require disclosure of the physical location of business agents engaging in customer service communications."

Don't get me wrong. I am vehemently in favor of creating US jobs. What American is not in favor of keeping jobs in the United States?

The reality today, however, is that complex forces are at work in moving jobs overseas.

I don't believe that it is ever an easy decision for any American business to offshore contact center work. There are significant costs, risks and sacrifices and as my colleague Kay Phelps has pointed out in her excellent blog entry Is the Offshore Trend Ebbing? results can fall short of initial expectations.

Is it really Band-Aid treatments of the symptoms that we Americans want or do we instead want those sent to Washington who represent us to use the resources that we have made available to them to attack the real causes of job losses in this country?

What this bill doesn't ask is, "What makes an American company send jobs overseas?" I know the convenient metaphor is the big bad heartless corporation as seen through the lens of the Michael Moore camera.

I don't know about you, but I am tired of that intellectually vacant Red Herring of blaming the generic "them."

I won't put it in the same terms as Mitt Romney and hopefully you'll avoid the temptation to mock me as he was, but the fact is that corporations are made up of people. As in any human endeavor there are good and bad people. Sometimes bad actors rise into positions of control. There is no shortage of headlines of examples, but more often these are "stories to be suspicious of" as economist Tyler Cowen might warn us.

What we don't see are enough headlines depicting the true norm in corporate America. The truth according to statistics from the US Census Bureau in the United States today there are 129 thousand firms employing 100 or more workers. In total these companies employ 180 million people and pay salaries of over $8 trillion. Some evil empire? NOT.

The truth is that corporations are one of the pillars upon which the American system draws its strength. Those of you who like me who work for, draw a pension from and do business with corporations, despite our occasional disgruntlement, know this to be true.

Less easy for Washington than the symbolic gesture is to face and deal with the real problems of this country.

The hard fact is that the world is not going to become less competitive and Puritanical practices like the public pillorying of American companies, although it may make some of feel better in the instant, does little to help our long-term prospects.

Instead of easy answers we need Washington to focus on measures that will grow the competitiveness of our nation so that we may stand our own in a increasingly sophisticated world. In August NPR was right to ask, " do US workers want call center jobs?" With all due respect to the people doing this work in America today, sitting in a cubicle answering a telephone is not an example of the kinds of jobs that will insure our country a prosperous future.

Here's an idea, how about laws that help our business environment and improve it so that America becomes more attractive to increased job creation? How about laws that don't fall short of their promises and instead create an education system that prepares young Americans for the jobs of the future?

Another true fact is that for those today who need such jobs, in 2011 the US saw a surge in home shored contact center agent hires. In fact available US Census data shows that the numbers of people employed in the United States in telephone call centers and telemarketing bureaus and other contact centers has steadily increased each year.

Where were those jobs created? The answer is in states including Florida, New Mexico and Utah where the economics of home shoring make sense.

The question I ask representatives Bishop and McKinley and others in congress who offer politically convenient answers such as H.R.3596, "What's next, sanctions against other US states who are more successful in attracting jobs and creating home shoring opportunities?"