Beat Rush Hour with Unified Communications

March 28th, 2013 | Posted by Glenn Rudh in Unified Communications - (0 Comments)

I attended a recent community meeting to hear about a proposed 600-home development to be built on what is now one large open space parcel. One of the concerns raised was the fact the developer had only one entrance to the proposed neighborhood, which would connect to a two-lane road. With a normal ratio of homes to cars, that translates to a lot of cars trying to squeeze into a small space during rush hour.

The meeting quickly devolved into a gripe session about the overall state of traffic in the area. My neighborhood has three separate entrances, and it seems the most difficult part of any commute is to get out onto the main thoroughfare at 8:00 a.m. on a weekday morning. Not to mention at the end of the two-lane road, the City is planning to install a roundabout to alter a dangerous intersection. I suggested that training ought to be provided for roundabouts, since I have yet to see anyone use them as anything other than a four-way stop. Polite Southerners mixing with more aggressive drivers from other regions (you know who you are) is an interesting combination.

I am fortunate that I am able to work from my home office when I am not travelling or meeting with customers. By using the calculator found on the Georgia Clean Air Campaign’s website, a daily commute of 20 miles (which is far below the average daily commute of most Atlantans), would cost me approximately $2,500 annually as opposed to working from home; calculated by gas usage, gas price, wear and tear, repairs, etc. Even being able to telecommute just one day per week would provide a savings of over $500 annually, based on the same averages.

Unified Communications solutions, with or without video conferencing capabilities, have become commonplace, and allow employees to collaborate with a co-worker at a moment’s notice. Despite recent news headlines suggesting otherwise, you can be seen and heard working remotely. Why not take full advantage of those capabilities from your home office? You might also be far more productive without having to sit in all that traffic.

You probably already have a high-speed Internet connection at home so your kids can play interactive games and download movies, so why not use that for business purposes? If more people took advantage of working from home even once per week, chances are traffic in your neighborhood would look a lot better, and we might need to build fewer roundabouts.

 

Highlights From Enterprise Connect 2013

March 26th, 2013 | Posted by Adam Kaiser in Industry News | Unified Communications | Video Conferencing - (0 Comments)

Enterprise Connect 2013 has come to a close and what an event it was. This was IVCi’s first year attending and exhibiting at the show and it was a fantastic experience that provided many opportunities for us to connect with our current customers as well as future prospects. In addition, the opportunity to see the latest technology and offerings from our partners was great. The event was jam-packed with great sessions, keynotes, exhibitors, attendees and more. Here is an overview of some of the key takeaways and messages from the event.

WebRTC
WebRTC (as previously covered here on Collaboration Insight) is a new browser based protocol that allows for real-time voice and video communication to occur right inside a web browser. WebRTC has gotten to be so big; the conference dedicated an entire track to the topic and every session was full. The reality of WebRTC is that not all browsers currently support it (only Google Chrome and the developer builds of Firefox) but the potential for it is endless.

At the end of the day, WebRTC will enable any browser to be a video client or endpoint on a communications network. In Cisco’s keynote, the example of a shopper on a website was used. They were looking for accessories and information on a his store  purchases. They simply clicked a link and a video session was initiated with an expert back in a video call center. No wait to download a client and no security issues with the install; it simply happened in the browser. When the standard is ratified and included in all browsers, the potential will be limitless! Cisco demoed a Jabber client built entirely in the browser, contact center agents could access their voice services right within the browser and more. It has to the potential to breakdown interoperability issues and extend enterprise collaboration to an organization’s customers.

Unified Communications
Frost and Sullivan presented a session at the conference in which they defined unified communications as “an integrated set of voice, data and video communications applications, all of which leverage PC- and telephony-based presence information.” UC was in full force at the conference with all major players showing their latest innovations. Both Cisco and Microsoft came with their entire vision. Microsoft presented their total solution from mobile devices (Android, iOS, Windows Phone) to tablets (Surface, iPad) to desktops and even room systems. The solution was elegant and worked as advertised. Microsoft has been pitching this vision for a while and it was great to see it fully realized. At the same time, Cisco showcased their Jabber solution which offers interoperability across all platforms and seamlessly integrates voice, video, data sharing, and more.

The key takeaway about UC is that the technology is very real and organizations are definitely implementing or looking to implement it in their current short term roadmap. Voice, video, and everything in between have converged!

The Cloud and Mobility
There was not a session that didn’t include a discussion around how cloud delivery and mobile devices would influence employees and technology. Even sitting in the sessions themselves one could see dozens of attendees taking notes on their iPads, checking email, and ultimately staying connected. The discussion of cloud, however, must be secondary. The user of the technology, how it can impact user productivity must be first. How it is delivered (on-premise, cloud, etc) is a decision that comes after.

Business Case
Perhaps the most exciting trend seen at Enterprise Connect was a focus on making the business case for the technology being presented. Certainly there was a large amount of discussion around the technology itself, the features, etc. But in many of the sessions, the business case for collaboration technology was continually presented. Some of the key messaging was around how these technologies can help move a business forward and help fulfill strategic goals. Additionally, simply deploying technology does not equal success. Organizations must see widespread adoption and employee satisfaction to really judge if the technology implementation was a success.

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We’re Going to Enterprise Connect. Are You?

February 13th, 2013 | Posted by Lisa Avvocato in IVCi | Unified Communications | Video Conferencing - (0 Comments)

See the future of enterprise communications, listen to thought leaders and comprehensive analysis, attend in-depth technical sessions, and of course stop by Booth #330 to visit IVCi!

Enterprise Connect (formerly VoiceCon) is the premiere event and exhibition for all things enterprise communications and collaboration. Sessions cover areas from Unified Communications to Video Conferencing to Social Media.

Some of the sessions we are most excited about are Building a UC & Collaboration Roadmap, Building a UC Business Case and Emerging Video Technologies. Click here to view the entire conference schedule as there are a lot of great sessions.

In other exciting news, we just found out the UC Room was selected as a finalist for the Best of Enterprise Connect! The Judging Committee reviewed over 40 entries and selected six finalists based on products with the most significant technical impact, helping to revolutionize the enterprise communications industry.

The winner is going to be announced during the Keynote speech on Wednesday, March 20 at the Gaylord Palms Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

We would obviously love to see you there so we’re passing along a special offer!

Save 40% off the on-site price for the Entire Event and Tue-Thu Conference Packages or register for a Free Expo Pass with Priority Code EIIVCI.

*Photo courtesy of Enterprise Connect 2012

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Top 10 Blog Posts of 2012

December 27th, 2012 | Posted by Lisa Avvocato in Collaboration | Unified Communications | Video Conferencing - (0 Comments)

As another year comes to an end it’s time to reflect on the previous year and create new goals for the coming year. Video conferencing has become ever present, cloud services are continuing to grow and collaboration technology is becoming even cooler.  Here is a look at some of the top blog posts from 2012. We hope you enjoyed reading them as much as we enjoyed writing them!

Have a wonderful and safe New Year and we’ll see you in 2013!

Top Blog Posts of 2012:

IT Conundrum: Do It Yourself or Embrace the Cloud?
The prevalence of cloud services has sparked a debate among IT professionals about whether to handle all IT components in-house or to outsource components to cloud service providers.

Video Conferencing Adoption – The Time Has Come!
An integrated approach to video conferencing adoption must be implemented because the impact of new technology reaches beyond the equipment and affects the people and the process within an organization.

The Exponential Power of Video Conferencing
Understanding the Collaboration Curve, and how casual interactions among colleagues and business partners spark creativity, can help organizations drive innovation within their organization.

Video Conferencing and Fighting for Freedom
A patriotic (and personal) look at how communication has changed and video conferencing has helped military members stationed overseas stay in touch with friends and family.

Stop Being Such a Video-phobe!
Getting over the hurdle of being afraid or making excuses not to be on video can be challenging; but in the end the advantages of using it far outweigh any negative feelings you may have.

Using Collaboration to Increase Customer Lifetime Value
The more companies converse with customers and the stronger the relationship is; the more apt customers are to provide honest feedback which can help drive innovation.

Telemedicine Reimbursement – The Time is Now!
Health care organizations throughout the world continue to implement telemedicine; however a major challenge has been the lack of parity from insurance organizations.

The Promise of Unified Communications and the Cloud
A look at some of the roadblocks that prevent true ubiquity of UC solutions throughout enterprise organizations and how cloud service can help overcome some of these challenges.

The New Science of Building Great Teams
An interesting take on building effective teams and achieving a high level of cohesion among team members. How we communicate is actually more important than what we communication.

The Essential Role of Human Resources
HR departments can utilize video conferencing solutions in a variety of different ways to increase communication and expedite many of the functions within the department.

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Cloud Services Aid Business Continuity

November 12th, 2012 | Posted by Lisa Avvocato in Cloud Services | Unified Communications - (0 Comments)

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, now dubbed Superstorm Sandy, many organizations are taking a second look at their business continuity plan. This storm knocked out power to over 90% of Long Island and all of lower Manhattan leaving many businesses vulnerable. New York is a major hub, as well as a headquarters for many corporations so losing power for an extended period of time can have drastic effects throughout an entire corporation.

For example, if an organization’s video conferencing and unified communications infrastructure was hosted at a site with zero power, the entire organization would have been unable to use the tools. In New York, contingency plans failed as backup generators were destroyed due to unprecedented flooding; plus a gas shortage left many without the fuel necessary to run their generators.

The results can be damaging for any organization. While customers in the surrounding area will be more than sympathetic, customers located thousands of miles away may not be as understanding. Why should a natural disaster in New York affect customer service in California or Tokyo? Therefore, it extremely important to have multiple layers of redundancy built in to an organization’s platform.

With our headquarters on Long Island, IVCi faced several challenges from flooding and impassable roads to neighborhood destruction and more downed power lines than one should ever see. However, multiple contingency plans prevented our Managed Video Experience (MVE) customers from missing a single meeting. Temporary operations centers were set up and customers were able to communicate with our MVE team via public IM or an alternate telephone number until power was restored to our headquarters location.

Cloud services provide an additional layer of security as infrastructure is typically hosted in multiple state-of-the-art data centers in multiple locations. If one data center goes down, there are still several others to handle the load of video meetings. IVCi hosts the infrastructure for MVE across the country and the world. Data centers are designed to withstand storms and power outages like those presented with Sandy. As a result of this, IVCi was able to immediately move into redundancy mode and continue to serve our customers.

Additionally, the MVE team proactively reached out to sites that were located in the North East and offered free use of our Mobility Experience which allowed individuals affected by a loss of power to connect to a video conference via their smartphone or tablet. As a result, every single meeting scheduled since Sandy terrorized our town continued as originally planned.

If your organization was in the path of Sandy, did your video conferencing go down? Were you able to continue business operations despite the storm? Bottom line, IVCi’s MVE provides a consistent, uninterrupted experience. Video conferencing has become a mission critical application within organizations and cloud services can ensure continuity no matter what the circumstances may be.

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