One of the best methods to observe human behavior is to go to a flea market. Unless you probe, look, inspect and really get into searching all the treasures that flea markets have to offer, then you will miss opportunities. VoiceCon 2008 was no flea market but there were plenty of treasures and an ample supply of human behavior- only the best being described.
One of the best methods to observe human behavior is to go to a flea market. Unless you probe, look, inspect and really get into searching all the treasures that flea markets have to offer, then you will miss opportunities.
VoiceCon 2008 was no flea market but there were plenty of treasures and an ample supply of human behavior- only the best being described.PROGNOSIS - okay, I admit to snatching a coffee mug for my wife. Then, I thought about displaying it during the troubleshooting session. As I read through the speaker bios for the umpteenth time- and I forgot my reading glasses- I realized that Fiona Lodge is Dr. Fiona Lodge. Her title is IPT. She's funny and she readily took to my sense of humor when I stated, "telephony has taken a real turn now that we need DOCTORS to fix it." On the serious side she said something else that really got my attention and I've debated this very issue numerous times before with executives and business owners ever since I've been here at Telecomworx. Fiona said, "the carriers already take care of all this...when enterprises get into VoIP, they must assume the role of the carrier." You see, the point is this- "how much does an enterprise want to be a phone company?" Then later, as I asked my question about self-healing networks, Fiona piped up and said, "Matt, are you a Star Trek fan?" She pegged me pretty quickly. "Okay, all I really want is my communicator badge since I can't have self healing networks." I hope Fiona doesn't become a stranger to VoiceCon.
NETCORDIA - on one of Terry Slattery's slides he had a comment about purchasing IP telephones from ebay that had previously-registered static IP addresses stored in them and causing the buyer problems- very likely not knowing. Maybe it was art reflecting life because just several weeks ago, we ran into a situation where one of our customers did purchase a discontinued IP telephone model on ebay and it took longer than expected to figure out the thing wouldn't work. A static IP address was embedded in the phone and then we had to find the old, old, old documentation dating back to 1999, to figure out how to remove the prior programming settings.
University of Pennsylvania - I kept thinking about what Steve Blair said about how he and the folks formed their team and how they used to the voice folks to deliver the training. You see, you can do anything you want to do with voice, and in the end it's still a service business that does require a personal touch. I'm glad that Steve recognized and acted on his instincts because in the end, he did provide service. Voice isn't "just" an application.
