This was one of the largest scale disasters, and yet there was less confusion about who was not accounted for than other events due to better communications. Planned for or not, it was also the most impressive display of technology transformation in action. We are talking about Voice and Network transformation, not how real estate was frighteningly transformed in a flash.  Let’s see how these two factors come into play during natural disasters.

Finding a voice in the distance

The very first thing that happens in an emergency is the need to contact those who are important to you. This includes friends, family, neighbors, and your employer.  Luckily, in most cases, homes have multiple services and communication is not a problem. If the power goes out, most plain old telephone service lines still provide a dial tone so that you can make the calls you need to. Or you have a wireless device. If the wireless network is busy, you can text, which uses a different part of the network.

Checking on the safety of staff

What if you are an employer with many employees? One thing many companies do – including my employer – is to have a simple polling mobile application and hotline activated so that they can easily and automatically track the safety of their personnel.

Rerouting calls for business continuity

Even in times of trouble and upheaval, business has to go on.  How does that happen when your employees can’t make it into the office?  You re-route calls.  Callers dial the same numbers as always and the calls are routed to another office that isn’t affected. This can be done with a single phone call, on the Internet, or in some cases automatically if the connections at your selected office are compromised.

Enabling remote access to keep work flowing

How do you get back employees back to work? First they must be able to access your company applications remotely in the event of a disaster.  Employees may scatter, whether moving to higher ground in the event of a hurricane or retreating to their home to avoid a pandemic.  When disaster strikes, a plan to provide remote access to critical applications is paramount to staying productive.  Access to everyday applications like email, or more critical applications like payroll systems, banking, or customer service portals are essential.  In addition, users will be remotely accessing corporate data from a variety of mobile devices such as laptops, smartphones and tablets, which introduces another layer of complexity and concern. The ability to manage mobile devices and provide corporate policies is key in times of unexpected disruption.

Resources you can use to update your disaster recovery plan

All companies should review and update their disaster recovery plans every year. Perhaps, it is time to take a look at some disaster recovery resource and do some planning for yourself, your company and your future as well. Communications continues to improve but disasters continue to strike as well.

AT&T Disaster recovery resources:

Video: Prepare for the Unexpected:  AT&T Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Data Protection Information

Cloud Storage

Security Consulting

Where to donate for Hurricane Sandy:

The Red Cross is there for all kinds of disasters and has helped in previous hurricanes.

ASPCA is focused on the pets and animals displaced during the storm.

Do you have other disaster recovery links or tips to share with colleagues so they can prepare their businesses? In the meantime, stay safe everyone!

This blog was Co-written with Dennis Oniki

If you are like me, the answer to both questions is most likely yes.  As soon as I hear about what NOT to do, all I can think about is doing it. Yes, I am still a wild, eight-year-old child trapped in the body of a grown adult, but I know I am not alone in that.

Meeting Etiquette Meets Telepresence

Telepresence is a technology and culture. The etiquette that applies is a bit different than a standard meeting. There are codes of conduct in addition to the not cussing, paying attention, being polite, and other standard communication guidelines.   And while some say etiquette is common sense, it is a good idea to review the basics from time to time, especially before a stressful meeting. For a more humorous reminder of these etiquette points for yourself and others, check this video out:

Preparation: Environment Matters

In establishing proper etiquette, the environment you are using for your telepresence meeting needs special attention. It starts with the room. You should consider your conference room’s aesthetics before you worry about crossing your legs at the ankle and saying please and thank you. You need to take care of the environment that you will be in for the duration of the meeting. Here are a few tips to make your room as outstanding as you are:

1.  Close the door to the meeting room.

This is that common sense thing, I know. You can picture running into a meeting and jumping right into business, only to find that your dog is barking or children are giggling in the hallway. Give some pre-thought to your environment, and keep the door closed. Closing the door helps keep noise and distractions to a minimum.  It also helps you focus better on what is in front of you.

 2. Make sure the lights are on.

Should you somehow forget to turn on the lights that are specifically calibrated to make you look your best on a telepresence call, you could look like you found a black hole. Don’t frighten your attendees by appearing in the dark.  Properly done telepresence rooms are designed to give a seamless appearance that everyone is in the same room. If your lighting is different or absent, it breaks that continuity.

3. Make sure your Telepresence Room is clean.

As you already know, a telepresence meeting is a very powerful medium.  Attendees can tell many things about you from your surroundings. They can see your fraternity tie tack, notice that you didn’t finish your Ho-Hos, tell what kind of phone you have, and get a glimpse of anything you set on the table.  Don’t eat in the room during the telepresence meeting. Also, put your phone on stun. It’s just a law of nature that your phone will buzz or ring at the exact nanosecond you don’t want it to. Better to just put it on silent for the meeting.

4. Keep the microphones clear.

I once got so busy taking notes and moving stacks of reports around the table that I completely covered up the mic. The other participants heard a lovely static, thought I was on mute, or wondered if I had taken up ventriloquism.  Seriously, I saw people in my meeting talking about me like I wasn’t there. It took me a beat to figure out that the poor mic was so covered it couldn’t capture my voice. Don’t make that mistake.

Think about this: If you are on a conference call and hear a dog barking in the background or a child making demands, it puts a not-so-professional picture in your mind doesn’t it? So what happens if you can SEE the room on the other end?  That’s even more of a reason to attend to the details of the environment to make the meeting flow smoothly.

Have you used a telepresence room lately? How did you prepare the environment? Any tips you can share with others?

Don’t believe me? I can prove it.

Have you ever watched a movie or TV show where one of the characters started crying and it made you tear up? You don’t know that person, they are an actor on a screen that you will never meet but the experience is strong. Just by seeing their eyes get cloudy, you connect and feel empathy and it makes you cry too. (Or think about sports for you big strong silent types.)

Why bring that up? Do I want you to have a telepresence meeting and make everyone cry? No, of course not! I just wanted to illustrate that video is indeed a very powerful medium of which you should take full advantage.

What about the classic Robert De Niro film Taxi Driver? Imagine how the iconic line “Are you talking to me?” would come off in email.  It would be hard to interpret without the right inflection.

“ARE you talking to me?”

Or

“Are you TALKING to me?”

Or

“Are you talking TO me?”

Each has a very different connotation and it is up to the reader to guess what it means. You have to see De Niro talking to himself in the mirror to get the right delivery…

“Are YOU talking to ME?!”

That is what telepresence does. Rather than guessing what someone means, you can get the right inflection because it is a live delivery.

How many times have you finally met someone after talking to them on the phone and were surprised that they didn’t look or act at all the way you expected.

Telepresence is that personal and effective tool that can help build relationships or at least let you know what the person you have been talking to for 2 years looks like.

What would De Niro do?  Surprisingly, he was unavailable to answer that – but my guess is, because he is a method actor and live interaction is extremely important to him, he would first prefer a live meeting and secondly a telepresence meeting whenever possible.  And email? “Fugget-about-it.”

Why does telepresence really matter when other means of communication are effective? Why should you use your Telepresence room for everyone and not just your big clients?

Because effective communication matters.

More than anything else you do, the way you communicate sets up your future success.

Have a departmental meeting with EVERYONE you interact with at least every quarter each year through telepresence. It can go a long way.

We should be using our telepresence rooms much more often for internal and external calls. If meeting my peers goes a long way to building a successful and productive relationship, then it would also apply to my customers, my suppliers, my vendors, retailers and anyone else in my ecosystem.

Besides, the rooms are already there. Take advantage of them and yes, I AM talking to YOU.

So what about you?  How have you used telepresence to connect with others?  What have you been able to do with telepresence that you couldn’t do with regular email or a phone call?  We look forward to your comments.

Really.

Why does it freak me out? Because unlike a regular video or voice-only conference call, people can see what I look like, what my hair is doing that day, if I am fidgeting or making faces. It makes me aware of how terrible my habits have become since we have become more and more remote and have become dependent on email, voicemail and texts more and more often. While those are effective ways to convey information, they aren’t as personal.

I have come to find out that Telepresence is not a video conference. My bad habits of being distracted by whatever bright shiny objects were in the room went unhindered with regular videoconferencing. The pictures were dark, the screen kept freezing, and voices were jumpy or scratchy and usually had a delay. I could have been doing jumping jacks during those meetings and no one would notice.  A very recent article in CNN says that FaceTime and Skype are not replacements for actual face time because other studies have found that people tend to multitask while on video calls. No wonder.

That isn’t Telepresence.

Telepresence actually brings a live interactive experience to everyone participating.You can see every eye-roll, hair-flip, twitch, smile and every other nuance of an in-person meeting. You actually feel like you are there.

When you are talking to someone face to face, you wouldn’t check the news on your Smartphone or at least if you are over 17 years old, you shouldn’t.

About those bad habits I have acquired of multi-tasking while on a conference call. I admit it! I have been doing it so long it is like a sickness, I call it Bright Shiny Object Disorder since anything new can pull my focus even when I am in a meeting.  However, a telepresence call puts you face to face which, at least temporarily, cures my multitasking sickness. If you cannot fidget you are more apt to absorb more of the information being shared in the meeting.  In fact, there is a lot of data these days about how multi-tasking is not that effective anyway.

Bottom line: If you are interacting with someone like me, a Telepresence call is a great way to get them to sit still, pay attention and retain more of what is said.

And if you are someone like me – Here are 6 tips for a successful Telepresence call.

1. Avoid wearing loud, crazy patterns and neon bright colors in your clothes; they can translate as busy or “Hot” to the other viewers. Instead, stick with a solid color. A medium blue works best.
2. Pay attention. A Telepresence call is just like a regular meeting (remember those?). If you are playing with your phone, looking out the window, having side conversations, it will be picked up, just the way it would if everyone was in a room with you.
3. If you are not presenting, sit still and be quiet. The telepresence camera knows to move to the person/room that is active.
4. If you MUST fidget, quietly tap your foot. That doesn’t show up on camera.
5. SMILE! Just like in person, a friendly smile goes a very long way.
6. Have fun. Just like an in-person meeting, this is a great opportunity to get to know everyone and foster the bonds that can carry your personal and business relationships to the next level. Be yourself, just not the fidgety, multi-tasking version of yourself.

As for the hair… Hats? Wigs? I don’t know. If you have any good ideas, I am open to them.

So, what do you think?  How do you handle telepresence conferences?  How will video change the way business is conducted?  We look forward to your comments on this important topic.

As the Magic Eight Ball might say…

It’s Cloudy.

Well OK, Cloud.

Cloud means that the computer and communication software and hardware that we use every day is moving to the network. This means that your business will spend less time working on wiring your phone/computer room to the latest boxes.  It also means  that you will spend less for software and your computer itself won’t need the 2,000 Gbps of expensive memory since everything will be stored in the network — The Cloud.  And that also means that you will be able to access it from virtually anywhere.

How it works

Enterprise is already using The Cloud even though it wasn’t always called that. It used to be Network-based. Network-based firewalls or network- based routers etc. Then it moved to Cloud Computing, Cloud Storage and now Cloud Everything.  Personal clouds, Contact Centers and Video Conferencing (and the game changer) Collaboration to name a few things.  In simple terms, take the services that you are used to caring for with an IT staff and move it and the management to an off-site location where it is cared for by design 24×7.

It gets even simpler. Think of all that you can grab off the internet right now and then think how much easier it would be if your whole life and business worked that way. That is what The Cloud is with a big difference being that while you are using an IP network, your data has several layers of encryption so that it is very available and very private at the same time.

Cloud Computing is changing the world as we know it. It is changing the way computing is done and the way business is conducted.

Whether you are storing your personal hard drive on a cloud or your entire data center, it works basically the same. You need access and you need a device that can read that data.  It could be a computer, IP phones with DSL, VPN, SIP trunking depending on the application and the amount of data you want to move.

Contact Centers are the most complex applications I can think of. They use, voice, data and instant web chat. This is in addition to multiple subject matter experts that may be in diverse locations on top of moving responsibilities from one center to another.  It also depends on the time of day so that whoever calls in speaks to someone who is fresh and alert.

Traditional contact centers are comprised of the agents (the folks on the other end of the line), the contact center managers who manage call flow and center operations including the IT staff to keep everything up and running. The contact center would have equipment to handle a myriad of call features from hold music to automatic transfer, call trees, etc. Sometimes it is a new box to be plugged into the old box because the feature that is being added is so new.  Then there is the access line or trunks. Several PRIs will need to be separated into 24 channels and then connected to the boxes. Those phone rooms are huge and confusing to say the least.

Moving this to the cloud means that a lot of, if not  all. of that equipment can go away.  Those trunks can be traded in for SIP trunks that are IP based, which are easier to manage. They are not just 24 channel trunks.  They use big bandwidth that can be split up any way you like.  Because you are using packet, you can send all of your traffic over the same connection — voice, data and video.

So you potentially save money on the access lines.  Then by eliminating the equipment, your IT managers can do something they have wanted to do for years -work on maximizing the contact center rather than just keeping it up. This helps save money too since with a contact center, every second counts.  Finally, the poor, overworked contact center manager, who has to measure every call and assign a value to it, can pull reports from the web in real-time or make changes to how the contact center works virtually real time. This saves extra steps, time and money.

I started with the most complex because it makes sense in a cloud environment. What about everything else?

I believe that in the not very distant future, we will see a convergence of our personal and work applications on a single device that will allow us to do practically anything from practically anywhere. Why not? If you are pulling down everything you need as you need it, you wouldn’t need your device to do as much.  This means that your device is less expensive and you aren’t restricted to a location, computer or other parameters that we are working with today.

How about your personal life? You probably already store pictures on line… That is Cloud storage. You may back up your hard drive on line.  Again, this is  Cloud storage.

Once you lay the foundation for a Cloud-based environment, it is simple to add more features and functions such as IP Toll Free.  This is toll free service but on the same platform, giving you even more features and stability built in or reporting and monitoring tools.

So you might be able to see how The Cloud is going to benefit you either personally or within your network in some capacity if you aren’t already using it.

The future IS cloudy but in a good way.

In what unique ways is Cloud Computing changing what you do?  How are you using Cloud Computing to save money, be more productive and/or get work done?  We look forward to your comments.

Someone usually says that in response to hearing about the latest and greatest new invention that has come along. Doesn’t matter what it is.

I understand that sentiment but I don’t agree. For instance: If my mortgage payment were at a 9% interest rate and I’m still paying that rate in today’s market, it’s broke.  It is just wrong to pay more than you need to.

The same can be said for your voice and data services. You shouldn’t have to change your entire infrastructure every time something new comes along. Admittedly, you would be doing nothing but making changes. Our industry is moving pretty fast these days.

But, you do need to stay on top of it. Here are six smaller changes you can make to avoid a full blown overhaul and save money at the same time.

1. Do inventory every year. It’s tedious and it’s a pain but it will shock you how many unused circuits you will find that mysteriously get installed from a special project or program that was then abandoned. Why pay for something you aren’t even using? Try scheduling a regular time each year — usually when you have a slower time, maybe during the Winter Holidays — and do this review.
2. Review your disaster recovery plan every year and if you don’t have one, get one. Better safe than sorry. If you are on an IP based network, you may already have routing capabilities that will take care of it for you. Potentially saving you money as well.  This might be done during that annual inventory (above).
3. Consolidate – Networks are more and more IP- based. What that means to you is once you are IP- based; you can get more out of your existing services and make changes much faster.  If you have TDM based trunks, really look into moving to SIP trunks. You will need fewer trunks to accomplish the same thing and have the foundation for the next big thing. Or if you have diverse locations, there are several ways to connect them onto a unified, easier to manage platform to give everyone a better network at a potentially better cost.
4. Combine Voice and Data – This is a big one.  Voice and Data used to be completely separate networks but by moving to an IP base, you can run both on the same connections which also means fewer lines are needed. You can decide for yourself what type of connection works best for you. There are several to choose from.
5. Take advantage of pricing, bundles, billing or anything else that can lower your bill. I see programs every once in a while that combine services and connections at reduced pricing. Don’t dismiss them as a fire sale. Those packages are put together based on the fact that those services are often used together.  Get what you can up front for the lowest pricing.
6. Sign the longer term contract.  OK, don’t shoot me for saying this. Here’s why.  The longer the contract, the lower the pricing. I know… This is opposite of what I just said because you are now committed to something for 5 years. Here’s the thing you may not know… Many contracts have a technology clause. If in 3 years, you want to upgrade to the next, NEXT good thing, you won’t get penalized for it. Ask about it and then sign away and enjoy the pricing.

We are all hearing the same buzz words everywhere, IP (Internet Protocol), SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), Cloud, Ethernet, VPLS (Virtual Private LAN Service), SaaS (Software as a Service) etc. There is a shift happening right now that is being driven by two things. The consumer (A.K.A. You.) and technology  itself. By monitoring these developments and making smaller changes incrementally, you can avoid having to do a large overhaul of your network all at once. You may find that you don’t need to make any changes right now but you will have all the information you need for yourself when you are ready.

If you are spending money for something that is only just working and not improving how you do business—in my book, it’s broke. If you are spending money for something you aren’t using or spending more money than you need to… Broke. It’s tough enough in this environment right now, consumers are demanding more and more and you have fewer resources. Don’t let the “If it ain’t broke” break you.

For Further Study:

1. This is a handy reference plan for disaster recovery from Michigan State University
2. Benefits of combining voice and data

Her current role is in Marketing Communications as an Adoption Advocate. She helps users adopt collaboration technologies like AT&T Telepresence Solution ^® and Healthcare Community Online.  She is loves helping customers get the most out of their service while showing them how to become more efficient and cost effective at the same time.

Sybil is particularly excited about the power of mobile devices today and is looking forward to seeing how everything will become integrated in the not too distant future.   She never leaves home without her iPhone which has about 20GB of music on it and her Kindle which allows her to read 2 or 3 books at any given time.

Sybil Fitzpatrick has a diverse background that allows her to not only handle technology writing, but keeps it fun!