ITExpo Miami - My Contact Center Panel - "Can You Hear Me Now?"

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TMC's ITExpo East starts next Tuesday, and I'll be moderating three panels, as well as participating in Editor's Day on Tuesday. I'll do a preview post for each panel, and let's start with the first one.

 My first panel is at 9am on Wednesday, titled Contact Center Customer Experience: More than “Can You Hear Me Now?”. The basic idea is to explore how to make the experience better for customers beyond providing decent call quality. This presents some challenges to IT, since their domain is usually internal when it comes to communications. When customer satisfaction is on the line, it doesn't pay to be underwhelming, and we'll talk about approaches IT can take to get the opposite result.

 Joining me will be Rick McFarland of Voice4Net, Theresa Szczurek of Radish Systems and Steve Shalita of  Netscout Systems. We're part of the Customer Interaction Track, and you can read up on the speakers and our topics on the Program page of the show website - just scroll down to the Wednesday sessions.

Rethinking the Contact Center/2013 Greetings!

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Been a pretty spotty few weeks for blogging, but I'm not alone on that front. Am slowly getting back into work mode - one gear at a time, but should be fully engaged next week. Sure hope your 2013 is off to a good start!

I can't complain - got a full plate of writing, a couple of new consulting engagements about to start, and some speaking/moderating spots at two conferences over the next few weeks. I'm also still active in smart grid, via my association with Zpryme Research, and we just kicked off a series of forecasts that are part of a broader premium service that covers the hottest topics in this space with an ongoing series of reports.

Speaking of conferences, one of those is ITExpo, less than a month away in Miami Beach - can't wait. I'll be moderating three panels there, and you'll be hearing more about that shortly. On that note, the current iteration of my Rethinking Communications column is running in TMC's flagship Internet Telephony magazine. I missed posting this earlier - it's been out a couple of weeks now - sorry about that.

Anyhow, the article is titled Rethinking the Contact Center, a topic I've been writing about a fair bit lately. The theme should be self-evident, and I'd love for you to give it a read and let me know if you're thinking about rethinking is similar to mine - or not.

Next stops - Metaswitch and ITExpo

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I haven't travelled since June, and next week gets me back on the road a bit more than usual. Two core events for me are mashed up during the same week - the Metaswitch Forum and TMC's ITExpo. Can't be in two places at once, so I'm splitting time, going to Metaswitch Monday/Tuesday, then to ITExpo for Wednesday-Friday.

Between shows in two cities and a bunch of connecting flights, next week's travels will take me to Washington D.C., Orlando, Austin and Atlanta. Both shows will be busy events, and I've been blogging and tweeting about each for the past couple of weeks. While there, I'll continue to do so, and aside from my blog, you can following the twitter feeds from each event - #mforum12 and @ITExpo.

Aside from attending these events, I'll be on two ITExpo panels, so come see these sessions if you can:

- Wednesday at 2:30 - speaking at the SUITS sub-event - "Monetizing Licensing Rights"

- Thursday at 1:00 - moderating on the ITExpo Customer Experience track: "Multichannel Communication and the New Customer-Company Relationship"


ITExpo Session in Austin - Multichannel Communications and the Changing Customer Relationship

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Been too busy to blog lately - offsite a bit, and working on new things, including some upcoming webinars you'll be hearing about soon.

Time for a shout-out about a session I'm moderating at TMC's ITExpo 2012 West, back for a second year in Austin, Texas. Am really looking forward to it, and on Thursday, I'll be wearing my moderating hat for a panel focused on the impact of multichannel communications, and how that's impacting the relationship between businesses and their customers. I've written a fair bit about this topic elsewhere, and given my focus on Unified Communications, I see a lot of implications, especially for companies who don't understand this new environment.

Joining me will be speakers from Aspect, Zuberance, Voice4Net and Radish Systems. Based on that lineup, you should just come for the names alone - anything goes these days for what companies call themselves. Our session is part of the Customer Experience track, and we're on at 1pm. The full details are posted here on the Program Guide - just scroll down to our time slot and click on the session title.

Oh - if you haven't registered yet, there's a discount code on my blog landing page - upper right - you can't miss it. Hope to see you there!

ITExpo Shout-Out - Austin Calling

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Last I checked, the ITExpo West 2012 website says the conference starts in 24 days and 23 hours. If you have absolutely nothing to do between now and then, feel free to stare at the home page non-stop to follow the countdown, right to the last second. Uh huh...

TMC's next show is just under a month away, so it's time to start talking it up. Last year marked their first shift from LA to Austin, and I'm not alone in thinking this was a good move. If you're still planning to go, it won't take long to find the link on my blog homepage, including a 20% discount offer. Otherwise, the ITExpo website should do the job of selling you on the event, both for the content and the exhibit hall.

I'll be there Wednesday through Friday, and will update my activities as things firm up. As things stand, I'm moderating a panel on the Customer Experience track - Thursday at 1pm - and speaking on a panel on Wednesday at SUITS, one of the co-located events at the Expo.

More details to follow, and you'll be hearing/seeing/reading about/from me in a few places leading up to the conference, so stay tuned. Until then, I sure hope you're coming, and hopefully the weather won't be as hot as last year. Regardless of the heat, I'll be making my rounds to the bars to see live blues at night - joiners are welcome!

ITExpo - Day 1 - It's a Hit

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The 2012 edition of ITExpo East kicked off yesterday here in Miami. Some of us were here on Monday too, but the main program began on Tuesday. I've been pretty busy between briefings, ad hoc meetings and moderating panels, but the vibe has been consistent so far.

Across the board, I think most people will tell you the event is working really well. The hallways are full with activity, the sessions are well attended, the content is great, and the breadth of subject matter is far too great for any human to consume. This last point is to be taken in stride, as all conferences struggle with going either wide or deep. In recent years, TMC's model has been the former, and this cuts both ways. The quality of content here is quite good, but the net is cast so wide now, that for every must-see session you attend, you're going to miss maybe 3-4 others you would just as likely want to see.

Am not sure how you address that aside from sending a team to fan out and cover all the bases. Most people don't have that luxury, so you just have to pick your spots. My day was spent either in briefings or moderating, so I didn't have a chance to see any other sessions. It's too bad, since there's really strong content for me in tracks such as Cloud Communications, SIP Trunking, 4GWE, M2M - and others. Not to mention today's must-see event later on - the Sir Terry Matthews keynote followed by StartupCamp5 Comms Edition, hosted by Embrase. I'll be there!

Well, I think you get the idea. There's a lot of great content here, and that probably helps explain why attendance is so strong. Lots of people here all day long, and you could really see it when the show floor opened late in the afternoon. Not only was the traffic active, but the exhibitor hall was pretty big. Am told there are 200+ exhibitors here, and the range is pretty impressive. Having walked the floor, there's something for everyone here, with all kinds of VoIP providers, SIP trunking offerings, telecom systems, contact centers and cloud. Not that much video, social media or mobility, but a pretty rich pallette nonetheless.

I should add that my two sessions were totally full, and I heard the turnout for other sessions was strong as well. My panels has strong speakers, and I think the time was well spent for attendees. TMC is providing its own coverage of the sessions, and you can follow that on their site. Here's their coverage of our UC Business Case session.

Overall, I think TMC will be pleased with how the sessions are going, and if this continues, I'd say the odds are good that a lot of attendees will be back. That's pretty important, as turnover is a fact of life in this business. For both of my panels, I was very suprised to learn that the vast majority of the audience were first-timers. I think it's great that TMC is attracting new blood, but it also makes me wonder where all the regulars have gone. I'm sure the weak economy has taken its toll, but am not sure if some people have moved on to other events, or simply dropped out of this space completely.

Regardless, the news from Miami so far is very good, and I'm looking for more of the same on Day 2.

ITExpo - How Smartphones and Social Media are Re-shaping Call Centers

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Got one more panel to tell you about for next week's ITExpo in sunny Miami. This is the third panel I'll be moderating, and it should be a lot of fun. As consumers, most of us can vouch for less-than-perfect contact center experiences, and our expectations sure are changing with smartphones and social media. Whether you're in the contact center space or just a frustrated customer, you really should come out to our session.

Joining me will be fellow Torontonian, Shai Berger of Fonolo, along with Rick McFarland of Voice4Net and Tina Valdez from TeleTech. We'll be presenting on Wednesday at 1:30, and you can find us in Room B210. Our session is part of the CE track - Customer Engagement - and you can read all the details here. See you there!

ITExpo Miami Preview #2: Building the UC Business Case

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Show time, go time. A week from today, TMC's ITExpo in Miami gets underway with the full program. Tuesday is a pre-con day, but I'll be there as part of the team for TMC's Editors Day.

I'm moderating 3 panels, and this is a shout-out for the first one on Wednesday. As you probably know, UC keeps me pretty busy, and this panel speaks to business case issues. Sure, we'll touch on ROI vs. TCO, but there's lots more to explore, so come on out and join us. Alongside me will be fellow analyst Irwin Lazar from Nemertes, and two vendors - Nancy Maluso from Sonus Networks, and Chris Hasenauer from Allworx/Windstream.

Our session runs from 11:00-11:45 on Wednesday, and we're on the C&C track - Communications and Collaboration. You're coming, right?

ITExpo Preview - "Can UC Get Social?"

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TMC's ITExpo 2012 East is less than two weeks away, and it's time for some updates. I'm moderating three sessions and will be participating in TMC's Editors Day on Tuesday, so I won't be hard to find.

This post is shout-out for a session on the C and C track - Communications and Collaboration. As the title implies, we'll be looking at the impact of social media on UC, and what businesses need to be thinking about. I comment about this topic regularly, and am looking forward to getting the conversation going.

Joining me will be Paul McMillan from Siemens Enterprise Communications, Mark Castleman from Vobi, and Mike Ross from 4PSA. The session is Friday morning at 10am, and we'd love for you to join us. For more details on our session as well as the overall program, here's the conference overview.

TMC ITExpo - UC Takeaways - There's Work to be Done

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Am on a family visit this week, and Internet access has been hard to come by. I've got this one window this morning, so I wanted to get a quick post out now.

Last week, I had a few posts and photos about TMC's ITExpo in Austin. It was plenty hot there, and it's more of the same here in South Florida. Those posts provided my general take on the Expo, but I've since put my thoughts together on the UC implications, which I think are pretty important.

That post is running now on the UCStrategies portal, where a few of us took in the show last week. If you're wondering about whether the cloud is going to rain on UC or accelerate its adoption, please give my post a read, and then immerse yourself in what my UCStrategies colleagues are saying too.

ITExpo, Austin - Loose Ends

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Am back now from the ITExpo, and it's much cooler here in Toronto!

Yesterday was pretty full for me, as I moderated two contact center panels and walked the floor for the afternoon. Our panels went very well, and if you were looking to hear from some leading companies in that space, we delivered. I just find it interesting how the cloud and UC are now part of the contact center conversation, and that brings a new circle of vendors who you might not normally think about here. Add mobility to that, and I think about Nuance - they did some nice demos show how speech recognition brings new life to voice in providing customer service.

Otherwise, I'll say it again - the show floor was big - about 250 exhibitors, with quite a few new ones. Lots of cloud here, and it will be interesting to see how many return for the next Expo in Miami. Based on what I'm hearing, it sounds pretty promising, so if these exhibitors stick with the program, ITExpo will move up a notch or two in scale, and maybe that will bring in some of the Tier 1 comms players like Cisco, MSFT and IBM. Sure hope so!

Overall, I'd say Austin was a success, and when I polled my panels, it seems like most people agree. Hats off to the TMC team for putting together a great show, and I'm sure we'll see more of the same in February.

Just wanted to leave you with one photo, taken during the Startup Bootcamp at the end of the day on Wednesday. The star attraction was Bob Metcalfe - inventor of Ethernet, 3Com founder, etc. - and he was a real treat to see. Very old school - no slides, just note cards - and he shared a lot of wisdom about what makes for a successful startup. Definitely a highlight for me - and everyone else, I'd say.

ITExpo, So Far So Good

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Well, it looks like TMC bet right with Austin. So far, the ITExpo has been great. I was busy on Monday for Editor's Day, and had a bunch of briefings yesterday. The keynotes were strong, as were the sessions I had a chance to check out. It's hard to gauge how big the crowds are, but there's lots of energy here, and everyone I talk to really likes the change in venue.

Most impressive for me has been the size of the show floor, which opened up last night. Much bigger than expected, and I heard that from a lot of people - very nice to see. Also, there were lots of new exhibitors, so new blood is welcome. Cloud is the trend du jour, and that's what stands out the most for me. That's driving a lot of new exhibitors, so it's taking some getting used to seeing this ecosystem here, but the time is right. Nothing wrong with that.

Back to the Expo now - I'll have more updates later. Until then, here are some photos...


Rich Tehrani kicking off the Expo


Mike Tribolet talking about Magicjack and how disruptive the VoIP space has become


Thomas Howe leading a panel during the CloudComm Summit


My UC Unleashed session from this morning, with Bill Bumbernick from Alteva speaking here. We had a full room, so kudos to everyone who came out for a 9am session!


I'm liking the Expo so far, but for me, this is the best reason to be in Austin...

ITExpo Session - the Multichannel Contact Center Experience

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This is the third in my series of posts in advance of next week's TMC ITExpo in Austin, Texas. If you've been to the show website, or follow the various email blasts, tweets, etc., you'll know there's a lot going on as always. The keynote lineup is solid, and based on the breadth of the program and strong roster of sponsors, I'd say the move to Austin is going to work out just fine.

My third panel next week is about the multichannel experience, and how this is impacting contact centers. We all use the tools - chat, text, social media, mobile, etc. - and expectations are rising from customers in terms of how they want to interact with agents. I've been writing about this pretty regularly on the Exony website, but let's stick to the topic!

Joining me will be fellow Torontonian Shai Berger from Fonolo, Kimberly Drobny of Fonality, and Christy Murfitt from Nuance. All of these speakers are living the multichannel experience, and if you're wondering why voice is no longer the only way customers engage with agents, you'll want to be with us.

Our session is on Thursday at 11am - we're on the Call Center Track - and you can read the full details here.

ITExpo Preview - What’s Really Driving the Hosted Customer Care Trend?

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Just keeping the momentum going here for next week's ITExpo in Austin. I'm moderating three panels, and yesterday I posted about the first one. Today's post is about my second session.

As the title of this post says, we'll be talking about trends in the hosted customer care space. Regular readers of my blog will know that the contact center has been a recent focus here, especially where it intersects with Unified Communications. Just as hosted UC solutions are sprouting up everywhere, the same thing is happening in the contact center world.

To explain why, I'll be joined by Dena Skrbina of Nuance, James Dunn of TelStar Hosted Services, and Dave Van Everen of Five9.

We'll be starting bright and early at 9am on Thursday - we're part of the Call Center Track - and you can read the full session abstract here.

ITExpo Preview - Unified Communications Unleashed

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TMC's ITExpo is just around the corner, and I'll be doing a series of shout-outs the next few days to let you know about my panels.

The first session I'm moderating is "Unified Communications Unleashed", and as the title implies, we'll be exploring how UC helps both companies and employeess get productive and stay productive. It's a pretty core driver for the UC value proposition, so your time will be well spent here.

Joining me will be Wes Durow from Fonality, Bill Bumbernick from Alteva (recently acquired by Warwick Valley Telecom - we could do a panel just around that!), Michael Marchioni of ICON Voice Networks, and Angie Reed from Digium.

That mix sure covers a lot of ground, so it should be a fun session. Join us if you can - we're on first thing Wednesday at 9am as part of the SMB track.

I'll be arriving on Monday, and prior to this session, I won't be hard to find in either of these two places:

- TMC Editor's Day on Monday - I'll be with their editorial team doing scheduled briefings and interviews

- Avaya's Technology On Tap reception on Monday night. If you haven't registered to attend, here's the link

While I have you, I want to be sure you're up on all the other co-located events running alongside ITExpo. Lots of great content happening there, and I want to especially draw attention to the programs being run by my good friends at both Crossfire Media - Carl Ford and Scott Kargman, and Principals Larry Lisser and Thomas Howe of Embrase (and by extension, Dave Michels from Pin Drop Soup).

Crossfire has a few events running, but the main one is their 4GWE Conference, and for Embrase, it's the Cloud Communications Expo. If these topics fall into your sphere, you won't want to miss them, and if I play my cards right, you just might see me up there during the Cloud Expo at some point.

Oh Blogger, Where Art Thou?

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Just popping in to say I'm still here! This may be the longest stayaway since I started blogging back in 2005, but I'll get back to posting this week. Been away on vacation, and that 100% means no blogging. More importantly, I've been busy on projects, and have just completed a pair of white papers for a vendor most of you will know that should launch any time now. I'm also in the final review phase for another white paper with a major IP comms provider that all of you know and use. Finally, I'm in writing mode now for yet another paper in the video space that will be out in early September.

Aside from that, my regular writing continues on both the Exony and ADTRAN portals, and one of those is about to ramp up later this month. I also have a number of proposals pending for new projects, so the pipeline is looking pretty good going into the Fall. Speaking of that, TMC's ITExpo is now just a few weeks away, and I'll be busy there, moderating three panels.

We may be in the home stretch of summer, but the work goes on. Last week was a good recharge, and I'll be back to blogging and tweeting soon enough.

ITExpo, Austin - 39 Days and Counting...

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I don't usually talk up my next conferences this soon, but things are ramping up now for my participation in the next ITExpo. Regular followers will be familiar with my long history with TMC, and this expo should be pretty cool.

The West edition of their show has been in LA the past few years, but 2011 marks a shift from there to Austin, Texas. It's always great to be part of a change, and as a bonus, I've never been to Austin. That in itself is reason to be jazzed, since Austin is one of the top spots anywhere for two of my big passions - live music and food. More specifically, ribs, BBQ and the blues. Yahoo!

Back to work now. The ITExpo is a short 39 days away, and if you haven't made plans yet, you should check out the conference agenda here. I'll be talking more about the program and speaker highlights in upcoming posts. As usual, I'll be busy moderating - am running three sessions - two on contact centers and one on UC:

- Wed. at 9am: UC Unleashed

- Thurs. at 9am: Hosted Customer Care Trends/Drivers

- Thurs. at 11am: Harnessing Multichannel Customer Service Tools

Along the way, TMC will be doing various things to build momentum for the Expo, and I'll be participating during their Editor Day on Monday. I was also just interviewed by TMC for my thoughts around key trends in UC, and the article was posted earlier today. You can read it here, and if you come see me at the Expo, you'll get a more complete picture of what I'm seeing - not just from me, but my session speakers as well. After that, if you're into the blues, let's go on the town.

Smart Grid Summit - Photo Highlights

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I've been on vacation the past few days and wasn't planning to post these til tomorrow. However, there's a flight delay and with free WiFi, I've got a window here to share some photos. I'll have a recap article about the summit on the portal in the next day or so, but until then, here are a few photos...





Larry Karisny leading the opening panel on cybersecurity. Larry was a huge help, not just with his industry knowledege, but also for moderating and speaking on a few sessions.


Dr. Massoud Amin from U of Minnesota. The "father of the smart grid" did not disappoint - just wish the lighting was better for a picture!


Maureen Harris and Orjiakor Isiogu on the NARUC smart grid working group update


Joy Rychlik (also from Toronto), moderating the Green IT/Data Centers panels, along with Henry Bailey (SAP), Kyle McNamara (Verizon) and Charles O'Donnell (Liebert AC Power)


Ken Rowen's keynote about what PAETEC Energy is doing in this market


Sandra Manning, City of Tallahassee - very engaging, and great to have some local presence for the Florida market


Dr. Mo Shakouri (Alvarion) on the Rural Smart Grid Opportunity panel


SAP's Henry Bailey on the Electric Vehicle session - yes, they are very busy in this space!


Olivier Pauzet (Sierra Wireless) on the Public vs. Private Networks session, along moderator Larry Karisny, Andy Balaschak (Tropos) and Jeff Dygert (AT&T)

Next Stop - Miami and the Smart Grid Summit

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For a Northerner, it's pretty hard to beat Miami in February, and that's where I'll be the rest of this week. Seems like yesterday when we had our last Smart Grid Summit in Los Angeles. This time around, it's a much shorter time between events, and we have another strong program in place.

I've done enough talking about it on the Smart Grid Portal, so that's where you need to go to get the latest on the summit, which runs this Wednesday and Thursday.

The summit will keep me pretty busy, and aside from stealing some time to walk through the ITExpo show floor, you won't likely see me around that show, or any other of the sub-events running under TMC's big tent.

For now, there's just one exception I can tell you about, and that's on Tuesday night. Interactive Intelligence is hosting a special ITExpo event on cloud communications, and I'm one of the panelists. Should be fun, and I'm looking forward to wearing my telecom hat for a topic I really enjoy following.