Digital Common Sense

This is a repost of something I posted on the Realtime Unified Communications Community earler this morning.

Sheryl, my partner and fiance, called my attention to an interesting question this morning. It’s not the first time recently I’ve seen this question raised in conversationbut the question seems to take many forms. My friend Jon Arnold asked just a week ago Is VoIP Really Happening?

Here’s a snip from the Information week story that got me started on this thread.

Is Anyone Actually Implementing UC?
Posted by Eric Krapf, Jul 17, 2008 09:51 AM

A debate has been going on over at No Jitter about whether enterprises are actually adopting Unified Communications (see here, here, here, here, and here). I tend toward the skeptical end of any conversation about how widely a hot new technology is actually being adopted, but I do see a few signs that enterprises are at least paying attention and, where possible, looking for an opportunity to get their feet wet.

I was chatting with a consultant yesterday who told me that in his last three engagements, he’d put Unified Communications into the specifications as an option for the companies to include in their RFPs, and in all three cases, the companies jumped at it. The reason? Business differentiation, i.e., the hope that UC could provide a new competitive advantage. This, by the way, supports a theory that Chris Thompson of Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO) expounded to me at VoiceCon Orlando, that during difficult economic times, it’s actually easier for enterprises to make investments in “aspirational” technology than that which is “perspirational”.

To me, that says the UC message is getting through to enterprises. There’s no guarantee that every company will ultimately make the ROI, in whatever way the individual user company calculates that ROI. Maybe the bids will come back and the business case just won’t be there.

[Read the whole story here]

I’ve been following VoIP from the beginnng and unified communications since before the term came into popular use, and I feel like I have a distinctly different viewpoint.

We write and provide an eJournal series, Unified Communications
in Realtime, here at the Realtime Unified Communications Community that gets added to our Digital Library each month. It’s also distributed through other channels.

In the three-part series for next month we’ve been working on a set of brief articles about the intersection between unified communications and social media. As part of that, I tried to explain what unified communications is to set a foundation for the discussion. Here’s an excerpt from the soon-to-be-published piece -

Unified Communications - A Broad Definition
Unified communications is an interesting phrase that’s come into widespread use in the past year or two. Many companies have made efforts to brand it as their own, but it’s really a mindset tied to the journey of network convergence.

When we’re connected effectively, we’re more productive. Many working professionals are also more creative. With easy access to the tools we use to perform, our work is simpler. We’re able to focus on the work they need to do. We perform at a higher level. Just as companies focus on their core competencies, we as people perform better when we put all of our energy into our primary work objectives

One of the biggest drivers of this increased productivity in the past ten years has been what we call convergence. Convergence is another one of those vague buzzwords that means many things to many people, but there have been some clear and distinct phases

Phase 1 - Voice and Data Converge on the Wire
Convergence really took hold as a concept in the late 1990’s. IP became the most widely accepted transport technology for data traffic. Around the same time Voice over IP (VoIP) came on the scene as potentially disruptive technology for telecommunications.

Prior to this, most large companies often managed multiple networks - one for voice and another for data. In many cases, these networks were supported by different administrative and operations groups.

Integration of voice and data onto a single wired circuit infrastructure helped many companies reduce costs and improve the bottom line. The convergence of network technologies brought efficiency gains in many different business areas.

Phase 2 - IP Takes Center Stage as the Convergence Protocol
The convergence of the physical network onto a single circuit was the start of something that’s still in motion. Voice over IP (VoIP) provided yet another catalyst for change. It was ballyhooed as the end of telecommunications as we knew it and the signal that the legacy telephone companies would be out of business.

VoIP hasn’t matured in the way those wild prognostications foretold but it has become the stable foundation for telecommunications infrastructure. VoIP proved to be an enabling technology that has changed our way of thinking about voice. VoIP pointed the way to voice as simply another service of the network.

Phase 3 - Unified Communications
This convergence of voice and data networks has continued around the globe for the past several years. Today there are many networks that still haven’t fully converged. The process continues, and for many companies, the end of the road is nowhere in sight.

Convergence became the term used to describe the integration of data, voice and video onto one unified network. These network services used to all use separate networks. Today they share the resources of the corporate network and the Internet.

In the past two years, the word convergence has given way to the phrase unified communications. For most people, unified communications simply means the fully converged network, supporting data, voice and video.

That’s unified communications of today, but the journey doesn’t end there. There are mission-critical business applications that will integrate more tightly through Communications Enhanced business Processes (CEBP). These include:

• Enterprise Resource Management (ERP)
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Supply Chain Management (SCM)
• Sales Force Automation (SFA)
• Human Resource Management (HRM)

There will always be room to further integrate for efficiency. One key added area that’s seeing a lot of current improvement is integrating people with voice recognition technology. The user interface will always be a key component of how we enhance the way people use computerized resources.

In the Information Week piece, Krapf asks is anyone actually implementing UC? I’d rephrase it differently - Is there anyone who isn’t implementing UC?

Unified communications is a buzz phrase like convergence. It means different things to different people. In today’s business environment, VoIP is prevalent. Jon asked is it really happening, but I’m often hard pressed to find places where it isn’t happening.

Unified Communitations is everywhere. Think about it. Voice services, video services and voice mail have converged onto a single unified platform - an IP network and our computers or other devices. Without unified communications, you have no social media - no Facebook, no Twitter, no comprehensive integration. Without unified communications, the web as we know it is a pipe dream. It had email and static web pages.

Web 2.0, the phrase we’ve all heard a million times is unified communications. Without UC, there could have been no Web 2.0. Unified communications, like VoIP, isn’t a product you write a check for and buy. It’s not a single product you implement and move on. It’s not as complex as vendors make it sound.

Unified communications in a foundation mindset of a single, integrated platform for doing business. Simple.

Sheryl and I are in the process of augmenting our work at Stardust Global Ventures. Our GeekSpeekTV has been very popular, but with the hectic moving process we’ve had to endure lately, it’s been difficult to produce our regular shows. We’re now in the process of incorporating Stardust Radio into our portfolio.

Stardust Radio

Sheryl and Ken

Sheryl & Ken’s regular radio talk show.

We’ve been laying groundwork and perhaps this is a good question for a kickoff show as the topic of conversation. With that thought in mind, I just scheduled a one-hour call-in show on our TalkShoe program.

I’ll be extending an array of invitations to some industry watchers, people I mention here all the time. I’m sure some will join in and some won’t. But you’re invited too. Our program is intended to be a talk radio sort of show, which means you’ll be able to participate in the conversation too. And it will be recorded and made available for download later for those of you who are interested but can’t make it. We hope you’ll come join us.

Technorati Tags: unified communications, VoIP, talk radio, internet radio

Filed by Ken at 10:02 am under Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications