In yesterday's VoiceCon webinar with Hardy Myers of AVST and Blair Pleasant of COMMfusion, the focus was on implementation of Unified Messaging as a way to gain some quick productivity benefits. UM isn't the same thing as UC (Unified Communications), but I came away from the webinar thinking it's not a bad first step, at least on the communications-integration side.
In yesterday's VoiceCon webinar with Hardy Myers of AVST and Blair Pleasant of COMMfusion, the focus was on implementation of Unified Messaging as a way to gain some quick productivity benefits. UM isn't the same thing as UC (Unified Communications), but I came away from the webinar thinking it's not a bad first step, at least on the communications-integration side.The ultimate goal is to weave communications capabilities tightly into all of your business processes, and so the integration of your various communications channels, without the business apps, is seen as an intermediate step at best. But Blair and Hardy made a case that you can achieve a good bit of this initial step just by deploying UM.
A UM system that can do find me/follow me can get you a lot of the functionality of the full-blown UC client attached to a presence-based server. It can make sure that wherever you are, you are notified immediately of all messages that come to you in all media. It lacks the presence element that is intended to smooth out the process and help the person contacting you as they try to reach you the best way. But still, it's a significant step in the direction of the more seamless communications that full UC promises.
During Q&A, we had a provocative question from an audience member, who wrote in:
When presenting this option [UM] along with an new PBX platform to a group of new employees (young), they all said, why not take that money and just get everyone Blackberries so there is only one device for everything. All of them said they use their desk phone less and less. I had to step back and regroup because I'm not sure how to respond to that train of thought. Whenever we try to bring Productivity benefits forward, they all say, well, I can already do that on my Blackberry.
I'm sure this questioner's experience is a common one, and I don't know how you tell people not to work the way they want to work, and the way it's most natural for them to work. That seems like a recipe for failure. And many workers are using their desk phones less and less.
But I think that one reason why phones and voice mail are used less is because they're so silo-ed right now. When you call somebody's voice mail, you really are leaving a message in a particular box for them to collect later, rather than sending a message to the person him- or herself. If you felt like your voice message would receive more prompt attention and be delivered to the user, instead of being "picked up" by him or her, it might cause you to use this medium more. It might.
Incidentally, in that webinar, we also focused on unified messaging and spent some time talking about the role that UM can play in dealing with retention/compliance issues, whether from legislation like HIPAA or recent changes in rules on discovery in court cases.
As an aside, this Microsoft-focused blogger has dug out some detail for Exchange UM users relevant to compliance if you use Microsoft for your UM.
