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Automated Contextual Collaboration

I started writing about UC, followed by UCC, about eight years ago. Lately I’ve focused on M2M so I need to catch up before writing about Vobi and its innovative automated contextual collaboration solution. Maybe my view of contextual communications was out-of-date, so I Googled the term but didn’t learn anything new. Then I searched on the No Jitter site and found a short article and these words:

"She [Avaya's Tara Mahoney] told me one area of emphasis in Avaya's R&D and work with its partners is what she called 'contextual collaboration,' which means the ability for the network to know and act upon information about a user's communications sessions.

"In practice, what this means is that the back-end system should know who your most frequent collaborators are--who you communicate with the most, and in what modes--and through a combination of automation and user pre-configuration, ought to be able to automatically handle each communication in the most appropriate manner."

[emphasis added]

"In practice, what this means is that the back-end system should know who your most frequent collaborators are--who you communicate with the most, and in what modes--and through a combination of automation and user pre-configuration, ought to be able to automatically handle each communication in the most appropriate manner."

Fortunately that matches the baseline functionality of Vobi's offer, but you can forget "ought"; that is exactly what it does.

The Basic Proposition
The basic proposition is very simple. Most business employees communicate and collaborate on a regular annual basis with around 150 different colleagues and third parties. This figure comes from Vobi's CEO, Mark Castleman and it's derived from analyzing the traffic of PBXCentral, a provider of hosted communications services. Mark is also CEO of PBXCentral.

The first time a call is made between two parties, the Vobi system identifies the parties and launches a collaboration client and establishes a desktop or tablet sharing session as well as the relevant caller content. Content may be associated with the caller’s social profile, business relationship and/or shared files. In addition, the next time a call is made between the parties, the system rebuilds the previous session. If data files or applications were involved they will be retrieved automatically, as illustrated in Figure 1. The session will default to the last communications medium used by the second party and if a session cannot be established, then an alternative medium will be used. Preferred media and phone numbers are defined in the users’ profile.


Figure 1. The platform, which can handle multiple parties, brings the workspace to callers in real time using a call-connect-share model. The client software employs SIP and this can switch TDM or mobile calls to VoIP.

Once the content is gathered and presented to the users in a session, the solution, which is based on a peering cloud platform, allows users to interact via mainstream collaboration media: voice and video conferencing, desktop and document sharing, email, chat, blogs, etc., etc. In this short article we are focusing on enterprise users, who will profit from the speed and efficiency with which collaboration sessions are established.

However, the solution can also be employed by consumers who wish to bring order to the way they collaborate via a social media network such as Facebook. In this case, voice providers, whether mobile or fixed, that integrate Vobi's technology with their existing voice platforms can deliver intuitive, automated collaboration solutions to their subscribers. In turn, the consumer context established between the caller's desktop, tablet or set-top environment can be used to attract advertisers.

Enterprise users who want to collaborate with third parties that have not subscribed to this service can do so via Vobi's free client software. Vobi obviously hopes that once the third party recognizes the value of painless collaboration that they will move up to the enterprise solution and in turn inform their third parties. In this way a viral effect is generated.

The platform is application-agnostic, which is a nice feature since it enables integration with legacy conferencing and collaboration solutions. It overcomes incompatibilities in situations where collaboration cannot be enabled between the UCC solutions of competitive vendors, e.g., Cisco and Siemens. In addition, content can be delivered across IP, TDM and wireless networks.

The Collaboration Model
Figure 2 illustrates the automated collaboration model that aims to bring together three key components into an automated session: collaboration, activity, and call control. When a call is made, all prior content from the relevant parties is brought into an activity stream. This includes content from all the various media types that were employed: see the right-hand side of the schematic. Thus, there is a list, arranged in date order, that is a continuum of earlier conversations. For example, if the called party was using Facebook or Linkedin last time, then the relevant session will be brought onto the screen automatically. Alternatively, if the preferred way of desktop sharing was WebEx, then this medium will be employed. It’s enabled via the WebEx API. This illustrates the fact that a Vobi session can trigger other preferred services.


Figure 2. The model has three key components. Call control, activity streams, and collaboration/aggregation workspaces. When a call is made, prior content is brought into an activity stream.

In the activity stream there might be documents that have been stored in a facility such as Dropbox. Once again, the API allows this data to be accessed automatically and seamlessly by both parties and be brought into the activity stream.

Real-time call control allows calls to switch to VoIP or video. A voice call that started on mobile devices or desktop phones can be moved directly to the tablet or desktop.

Conclusions
This is an interesting solution and it appears to be unique right now. The focus is on the user and voice calls, which can be used as a trigger that ushers in content, relationships, and information. The voice user plays the pivotal role. Content comes to callers, rather than callers pursuing content.