Video Conferencing Moves Out With UC

Copyright © 2012 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

April 28, 2012

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View/ UC Strategies Expert

Meetings and real-time conferencing have always been very demanding because it requires all participants to be available at the same time and/or the same place. Starting back in the old days of face-to-face meetings in the same room to exploiting voice and video conferencing for distributed participants, there is still a need to synchronize access to information and personal availability to join a live conference.

The primary benefit of conferencing is that it allows the participants to question and discuss issues with others in real-time, thus shortening the time to get issues understood and resolved. In effect, conferencing is the “heart of collaboration,” even though asynchronous forms of communication are also very important ways to collaborate and exchange information. “Unified communications” (UC) has been evolving to allow end users to selectively use any form of contact with others in order to collaborate easily and cost efficiently.

While voice conferencing has always dominated the real-time conferencing world, video conferencing technology has improved sufficiently to enable it to be a new UC-enabled option for organizations to exploit instead of face-to-face meetings that require expensive travel for remotely located participants. Not only has video conferencing become practical for traditional room-based groups, but has now also moved into the domain of individual end-user participation from their desktops or from their personalized, mobile tablets and smartphones. In effect, video conferencing has joined voice conferencing, or, like “unified messaging,” I would describe as “unified conferencing.” 

 “Different Strokes For Different Folks!”

The basic value of UC integrations is that it can flexibly accommodate individual end user needs for multi-modal communication applications on a device-independent basis. UC flexibility provided limited benefits to users at the desktop, where a PC and telephone were separately accessible, but the dynamic demands of mobile environments made such flexibility more critical. Now, with the rapid adoption by consumers of multi-modal smartphones and tablets, the vision of UC enabled business processes can be realized. When end users have to communicate in real-time, whether person-to-person or in groups, they have easier and dynamic access to their choices of interaction and participation.

Such flexibility is of particular value when conferencing requirements are “ad hoc” and time sensitive. The faster and easier for individual end users to participate in any real-time discussion, the greater the operational benefits to business process performance. As I pointed out recently, conferencing modalities no longer have to be confined to separate desktop silos for all participants, but can now be exploited selectively by individual users as their roles require.  

Adding Video Conferencing to the Business Collaboration Menu

Although video has become well accepted for both information and personal communications through You Tube and other web-based applications, a recent survey shows a number of challenges still facing business user adoption of video conferencing. Inasmuch as voice conferencing is well accepted, easily managed, and cost effective, it already provides basic real-time conferencing capabilities for participants.

Aside from implementation complexities, higher costs, and questionable benefits of video conferencing, the biggest resistance from end users is the lack of a real need for it in doing their jobs. Voice conferencing has been readily available for both desktop and mobile users, and has apparently been adequate for most real-time conferencing needs. While video conferencing was limited to room-based set-ups, it did not provide the convenience that voice conferencing allowed. Although desktop video conferencing was an improvement, it did not allow maximum participation from mobile users. With Mobile UC–enabled video conferencing, it is now time to exploit video in a variety of ways, including ad hoc conferencing.

Like everything else, new business communications have to satisfy individual end user needs and their job roles. In many cases, the end users are in an audience watching a speaker presentation; in other cases, the end user may be being interviewed while others watch. For group interactions, participating in a real-time videoconference should be a matter of choice to be “on camera” or not, depending on the individual end user’s role.

With such UC-enabled flexibility, it will become easier to maximize the real-time involvement all key personnel, especially when they are mobile and outside of the organization (e.g., business partners, customers, consultants).  This, in turn, will speed up any business process that requires group discussion and interactions.      

 

 This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network

 

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AT&T Pushing Mobile Users To Their Public, Unified Messaging “Cloud”

 

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View/ UC Strategies Expert 

 Business organizations and their technology providers are figuring out how best to migrate mobility and UC-enabled, cloud-based capabilities into legacy telephony and email environments. Meanwhile, service provider AT&T is now offering cloud-based, multi-modal unified text and voice messaging services to mobile consumers. This is being done through communication application developers, who can use AT&T's Encore platform, to exploit the ATT cloud for faster access to integrated communications. This service move will add new impetus for organizations to provide similar capabilities for device-independent messaging capabilities, as well as reinforce new BYOD policies to accommodate “dual persona” mobile clients.

AT&T Messages, a free mobile app for Android smartphones and tablets, is an initial example that centralizes all subscriber person-to-person text and voice messages in AT&T’s “cloud,” allowing easier message management and “threading” across a variety of endpoint devices, including phones, tablets, and desktop PCs. Voice messages can be transcribed into text for either voice or text retrieval, and all messages can be responded to immediately in text or using new “voice texts.” “Voice texts” let the user record a voice message, which is then transcribed for delivery as a text message.

New message notifications are also provided across different endpoint devices, so that recipients are immediately aware of such messages, regardless of the device they happen to be using. However, AT&T has indicated that end users are currently limited to a maximum of 500 contacts in their address books, which is expected to be remedied in the near future.

While AT&T’s Messages can be used by subscribers for both business and personal contacts, the service is tied to the subscriber’s mobile device identity. That is, all messages sent through Messages will show that mobile device address. That won’t work for those business users who typically want their “office” contact used for responses to their mobile messages, e.g., doctors who don’t want to give out their mobile numbers (“Extension to Cellular”). However, the simple solution of “dual persona” mobile clients will enable Messages to be covered by the personal persona, while the business persona can provide other alternative rules.

Although AT&T’s Messages includes text, voice, pictures, and video messages, they did not (yet) mention social networking messages. Inasmuch as a recent international survey showed that 49% of consumer smartphone users use them on a daily basis for social networking, “social business” will come into play for business users. The bottom line for all mobile smartphone and tablet end users is that the “cloud” will facilitate UC-enabled flexibility for all forms of asynchronous messaging, as well as escalation to real-time contacts including IM, “click-to-call,” voice/video conferencing, and social networking.

Telephony and messaging integrators can learn more about UC-enabled mobile business by joining unified communications industry leaders at UC Summit 2012, the only channel and consultant-focused event for the Unified Communications and Collaboration industry. 

Business Collaboration Really Means UC Enablement

Copyright © 2012 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

April 20, 2012

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View/ UC Strategies Expert

Even though the term “collaboration” describes how people work together to solve business issues, the bottom line is that “collaboration” needs all forms of communication and information exchange between people. For that reason, the flexibility of “unified communications” (UC) is an implied capability for person-to-person business contacts. Business collaboration, through UC enablement, can now be done more easily and quickly from anywhere and any time that doesn’t require sitting in the same room together or using identical communication endpoint devices. However, such collaborative activity will still be dependent on every individual end user’s involvement and choice of communication interaction.

“Collaboration” means working together and communicating with others, but such communications are not always in real time, e.g., face-to face meetings, conferencing, and chat. Asynchronous messaging is increasingly becoming more practical for quickly exchanging information and views, without necessarily having a real-time interaction. Whenever a discussion in real-time is required, voice and/or video conferencing can now be quickly initiated or scheduled, depending on the availability of the participants. This is where UC enabled applications allows dynamic shifting between modalities of communications to satisfy the collaborative needs of the active participants.

 “Collaboration,” like the traditional face-to-face meeting, doesn’t start automatically; someone has to do something to get the interactions with other people going. That “something” is a communication action, like a message or a phone call to the people who are to “collaborate.” In addition to being a simple notification, information pertinent to the discussion may need to be referenced to provide the context for review and discussion. So, people who “collaborate” will be using a variety of ways to communicate and exchange information in real time or asynchronously, and that’s where the flexibility of UC enablement comes into play.       

Do People Who Collaborate Need Identical Devices?

Clearly, business communications are not confined to people within a single organization, but will involve people outside an organization as well. In addition, with the rapid increase in mobile communications and BYOD policies, individual end users will be collaborating (communicating) under different circumstances and with different endpoint devices. Some will be sitting in front of desktops (PCs, laptops, tablets), while others may be involved while using mobile smartphones.

 For messaging exchanges, mobile end users will have few problems in communicating when on the go. If the required information exchange involves a lot of data or video, a larger screen from a tablet may be better than a smartphone. However, when a real time conference is required, mobile participants can handle a voice conference easily, but not a videoconference well. So, the recent advent of UC enabled video conferencing will provide the flexibility for individual end users to choose various flavors of video and voice participation that fit their needs and preferences.

The Implementation Bottom Line for IT management, Solution Integrators, and Channels

Individual end users will not be thinking along the lines of “collaboration,” but rather about how they want to access and interact with people and automated (self-service) business applications. This will be particularly important as end users all become more mobile and dependent upon smartphone and tablet devices for everything they do with others. That is the level that UC enablement provides for the flexibility of end user choice to fit their personal needs and preferences.

Obviously, providing end users with such communication flexibility will allow them to more easily and efficiently collaborate with others. So, for business management, collaboration benefits will be foremost, but for individual end users, personalized UC benefits will be most visible and realistically exploited.

The bottom line for implementation of UC enabled applications is for IT management, with the support of VARs and Channels, to integrate them for private or public cloud-based use in order to support both desktop and mobile device usage. This is how “collaboration” technologies will actually get done in the new world of UC enablement.

Learn more by joining unified communications industry leaders at UC Summit 2012, the only channel and consultant-focused event for the Unified Communications and Collaboration industry.

For more insights on UC-enabled Collaboration go to CIO Collaboration Network

   

 

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Avoiding "Angry" Business Messaging In A UC World

Copyright (C) Unified-View, All Rights Reserved.

March 31,2012

By Art Rosenberg

It is not just nice to communicate with people in any business activity, but it is even more important to communicate effectively and avoid damaging relationships because of careless communications. I was intrigued by a recent announcement of a book by Dona Young, a teacher and writing coach, entitled “Angry E-Mail; How To Put A Lid On It” because it was focused on business communications. I offered to review it because I wanted to see how the recommendations fit into a UC enabled environment.

Young’s practical approach to business email begins with making sure to immediately detail the purpose of the message at the start. Recipients of business email don’t have time for socializing small talk. After composing the message, Young recommends spending a few minutes editing it, to make the purpose very clear to the recipient(s) at a glance. Then cut out all the unnecessary information because “We’re living in a world that’s moving at warp speed. One of the things that irritates people is getting an email and then having to work really hard to figure out how to respond.”

Young’s book focuses heavily on message content, tone, and style that will not offend the recipient and will elicit a positive response. However she does stress the importance of “micromessages,” i.e., things that are unsaid in the message and any excessive delays in the response. All of these factors can impact the business relationship between the sender and the recipient of the message.

Although the book covers best practices for using email to communicate person-to-person, there is no mention of other forms of messaging technologies, including business social networking, or automated CEBP contacts. However, it does suggest that a phone call for a voice conversation may be more appropriate than an email message when delivering sensitive information. The role of email in a unified communications enabled environment is something that was not addressed, e.g., “click-to-call/chat” in response to an email message. In fact, Young recommends delaying sending an email response in order to insure that the response is well thought out.

So, perhaps Dona Young’s next book should be “Angry Unified Communications!”

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/2012/03/27/2132693/rex-huppke-first-rule-of-work.html#storylink=cpy

UC Enabled Apps Need "TCU"

Copyright © 2012 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

March 26, 2012

Will Cloud Services and Analytics Shift UC “TCO” To “TCU” and “TCS?”

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View/ UC Strategies Expert

Voice and video communications are joining automated business applications in becoming software rather than hardware dependent. This will facilitate the interoperability and integration of these two groups of computer applications, particularly in a virtual, “cloud” based network environment that will support both desktop and mobile apps.

The transition to hosted services and BYOD mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) will shift the emphasis of technology implementation planning factors from TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), most applicable to acquisition and maintenance of premise-based hardware and software applications, to hosted and managed application service offerings.

While ROI (Return On Investment) is still an overall practical measure of benefits from any technology investment cost, those costs really should be correlated with different types of benefits that have have to expensed. Going to separate levels of benefits and related costs will make it easier to determine how applications can be used most cost effectively and how usage needs should be supported cost efficiently.

New analytics are becoming key tools for tracking application activity that will enable better understanding about who uses what applications, when, and with what results. Analytics can also provide immediate feedback on how well the application is designed from a user interface perspective, as well as indications of workforce performance in using applications by internal staff for their different job responsibilities (“roles”). While the contact center is an ideal target for analytics, it can be applied to everyone in an informational workforce environment.

Total Cost of Usage (TCU)

Probably the most logical metric that should be applied to any application or combination of applications is what I would call “Total Cost of Usage.” The amount of actual usage for any communication of business application is a measure of value for a particular application. Usage analytics will also provide feedback about who (type of user) may be getting the most value from that application; that information provides further insight into the value that application generates for a particular business process.

Putting those factors together will be particularly useful as online, self-service applications become more mobile and highly focused on particular information needs of individual end users. The number of such “public” applications is already humungous, but they are just starting to make their way into enterprise controlled “app stores.” This is where TCU will become important as such “mobile apps” will require constant updating to meet enterprise BYOD needs, as well as operational business demands.

Another perspective on application TCU will be its UC enablement in terms of immediate access to live assistance, e.g., “click-to-call/chat.” This factor will be a major source of additive labor costs, as well as a measure of end user satisfaction (internal staff, external customers). Mobile apps will become a major activity gateway to the UC Contact Center of the future, as increased access to information will precede the need to access assistance. So, the cost of application usage should include costs of optional related assistance.

Total Cost of Application and User Support

Although there may appear to be overlap with the above described usage costs, I am suggesting that support costs here will fall into the more traditional roles of IT for application software maintenance, associated hardware and infrastructure maintenance, new integrations, end user training, and “Help Desk” functions. Again, by applying analytics to application support activities, the value of individual application usage can be matched to support costs.

With the advent of managed, hosted cloud-based services, applications will be increasingly provided to end users through a variety of endpoint devices, many of which will be covered by mobile BYOD policies as far as costs and support are concerned. Further, hosted business services will be provided selectively on a subscription basis, which will facilitate usage management at the application level. However, the value and effectiveness of application use will still have to be carefully evaluated individually by business management.

The new world of UC enabled applications is going to be very flexible, but complex, and will require organizational management especially at the CIO level, to change their perspectives on planning, implementing, and evaluating the use the new technologies.

This post sponsored by the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya

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All Applications Can be "UC Enabled!"

Copyright (C) Unified-View, All Rights Reserved.
March 18, 2012

UC Is Not An Application!
By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View

Everywhere you read, you see the label "Unified Communications" (UC) associated with person-to-person telephony, all forms of text messaging, and lately, video conferencing. UC itself is not a product or a service. It is an interoperable capability for improving the efficiency and flexibility of making contact and communicating with people by integrating the various communication and business process "applications" that people use. It doesn't matter what endpoint device is used, desktop, portable laptops, tablets, or smartphones, the applications that can enable people to flexibly communicate in their modality of choice, will be part of "UC."

I see a simple solution to that source of confusion. Rather than use "UC" as a vague noun, we will be better off using it as a standard adjective, i.e., "UC-enabled," for any communication application that is used for person-to-person contacts, as well as any automated business process application that initiates contacts with a human recipient. It is analogous to the term "open" used for standardized software, that can inter-operate/integrate with other system elements.

Different communication products and services can now be described as being 'UC-enabled" to show that they inter-operate with other communication applications at the user's choice of interface (voice, screen). Alternatively, I have simply put the "Unified" label into the name of the basic service or product, e.g., the "UC Contact Center," and "Unified Conferencing." By doing so, I differentiate it from legacy telephony call centers and indicate that different forms of contact and different user interfaces can be accommodated for different groups of end users and business applications.

Telephony, messaging (email, voice mail), chat, automated business applications, conferencing, social networking, can all be labeled as "UC-enabled" when they can seamlessly inter-operate from any user endpoint device in any modality. So, for example, email will be UC-enabled if it can be delivered by text-to-speech, voicemail retrieved as email, and all messaging applications (including IM chat) if they can be escalated to a real-time voice or video connection. Even that old buzzword, "Collaboration" can better be described as "UC-enabled" when it can contextually exploit various forms of communication within the context of the information being shared, not the other way around.

So, let's all start using "UC" as an adjective/modifier rather than as a vague noun for a communication product or service. This should not conflict with the basic business objective for being UC-enabled, i.e., "Communications integrated to optimize business processes." However, each specific communications application will have to be identified and authenticated as being "UC-enabled," and the different user interface options for each business application as well.

Avaya and RADVISION UC Enable Video Conferencing

Copyright © 2012 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

March 15, 2012

UC Enabled Video Conferencing Won't Require “Two-to-Tango”

By Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View/ UC Strategies Expert

The big news today was Avaya’s public announcement that it acquired RADVISION, Ltd., a leading provider of video conferencing and telepresence technologies over IP and wireless networks. While we have also seen video conferencing as a growing form of business communication, it has been always viewed as an expensive technology silo. By UC enabling video conferencing, it can now become a more flexible option for individual end users.

Avaya’s announcement today highlighted such UC flexibility in the form of “mixed-mode” conferencing, where individual participants have a choice of dynamic options including:

· “On camera” connection (conversational voice and video)

· Video viewing and voice connection

· Voice-only connection

· Sidebar communications (text messaging)

Such flexibility will be particularly useful for individual mobile users with smartphones and tablets, who may have to participate in a restricted mode because of their environment. This also means that people who want to communicate don’t all have to have identical endpoint devices or communicate in identical modalities.

According to Avaya’s announcement, “RADVISION's SCOPIA Video product line and expertise integrated with the open architecture of Avaya Aura® will bridge existing H.323 communications networks and SIP-based environments, delivering scalability and a user experience designed to be intuitive and easy to operate.”

In addition to supporting mobile devices for UC enabled conferencing, Avaya indicated that the technology was “cloud” ready, i.e., that the technology can be available as a service without investment in premise-based equipment. This combination, coupled with standards-based applications, open infrastructure and endpoints for ad-hoc and scheduled videoconferencing with room-based systems, desktop, and mobile consumer devices, will facilitate the establishment of practical organizational BYOD policy for mobile employees.

During today’s announcement call, I questioned Avaya about the target markets for their UC enabled video conferencing, and these were high on their list:

· Health care and medical devices

· Education markets for distance learning

· Contact center applications

· Financial services

· SMB ad hoc video conferencing

The multimodal, UC battle is on and Avaya is stepping up to the plate.

UC Summit For UC Channels and Consultants

Reseller channels can learn more about where multimodal business communications are going within the expanded context of UC by joining unified communications industry leaders at UC Summit 2012, the only channel and consultant-focused event for the Unified Communications industry.

This unique, invitation-only UC Summit in May, hosted by UC Strategies, is the place for experienced communication technology channels to get objective, expert advice on new business opportunities. This includes learning where UC-enabled applications are going, what leading vendors and service providers are offering in the way of software applications and tools, and opportunities for partnering with other, complementary specialist channels to satisfy the complex UC needs of a user organization.

Invitations are limited, so apply now to qualify for acceptance.