VoiceCon WrapUp
Posted on November 17th, 2009 by Kenneth Murrell | No Comments » |
New directions and new ideas at VoiceCon last week in San Francisco at the Moscone Convention Center. The Yankee Group estimated there were about 3,000 people who attended the premier communications event, about the same as 2008, a good turnout given the cloud of trepidation hanging over the industry about the economy and corporate investment in technology.
New directions for business communications revolved around the integration of social media into the corporate world. The potential impact and dangers of meshing interactive sites into the mainstream marketing, operations and administration were hot topics at VoiceCon. One interesting idea was bringing Twitter into the enterprise as a true working communications tool rather than a novelty marketing application, a starting point for many companies. IT teams are faced with a daunting challenge in meeting expectations and assumptions of an increasingly social media savvy workforce with the security, management and support requirements of the corporation. This will be a fascinating, rapidly-changing dynamic to follow between end-users and tech staff.
New ideas for Unified Communications focused more than ever around solving business processes and operational issues through applications available under the UC umbrella. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, it’s our responsibility as trusted advisors to our clients to expand conversations outside IT to every key area of the business so we can understand the potential impact of UC and ensure we’re designing and deploying the right solution with a return on investment that makes good business sense.
Expanding UC to mobile communications was another key point for customers. We’ve spoken for years about building demand for seamless communications from anywhere from any device and it’s now a pre-requisite for businesses with mobile phones appearing to be the consensus pick for the primary end-user device in the years ahead. The key for us is proving the value of that flexibility and mobility – how does that make our clients money? Save money? Make their employees more productive? What is the value of reaching the right person the first time at any time? Another challenge will be supporting clients in the design, deployment and management of a challenging technology environment.
By the time we hit VoiceCon 2010 in Orlando next March, we should see tremendous inroads of social media into the corporate infrastructure with some deeper ground rules and guidance on best practices for integration and support as well as further announcements from vendors on mobility enhancements for collaboration and presence.
Posted in Unified Communications |
Tags: Tags: social media, UC, VoiceCon
