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The Mystique of Unified Communications
First, let's discuss the basic definition of unified communications (UC). It's a term (a somewhat generic one, really) commonly used to describe the convergence and integration of a variety of different types of voice and data communications methods, including unified messaging, fax, email, instant messaging (IM), voicemail, presence awareness, fixed and mobile telephony, VoIP, and conferencing. There was once a day, not along ago, in which those types of communications media were separate, unrelated, utilized disparate protocols, and all in all were used independently from one another. Let's Play a Game of Communications Ping Pong! And, let's face it, many organizations, especially small businesses, still use them as such. Want proof? Well OK, how often do this sequence of events play out on a daily, if not hourly, basis amongst your sales staff, for example? 1) Sara, a sales manager, calls Jim, a salesperson, on his cell phone from her own cell phone on the way into the office to inquire about the contract from XYZ Corporation and their contact, Bob. 2) Jim is in a meeting and cannot pick up the call, so Sara leaves a message on Jim's cell phone voicemail. 3) Jim is finished with his meeting and decides to call Sara's office phone, but she is still in her car, so he leaves a message on her office voicemail. 4) To be thorough, Jim also decides to send an email to the manager with a detailed update suggesting he spoke with Bob at XYZ Corporation and the contract is pending the CFO's authorization. 5) Sara arrives in the office and immediately decides to send an IM to Jim even before checking her own voicemail and email. But, Jim is in the restroom and does not immediately receive the IM. 6) Out of anxiety, Sara doesn't want to waste any more time and decides to call Bobdirectly. She speaks with their contact, who grows a bit dubious and annoyed, because he already explained the situation to Jim 15 minutes ago. Wow, all that just for a quick update on a contract's status?! And you managed to annoy your most prized customer in the process! This is where the true value of unified communications comes in - it solves the modern delay dilemma of "human latency." You would think it's easier than ever to get in touch in real time with anybody nowadays. And that's often true, but the flip side is with all of our various cell, office, and home phones, voicemail boxes, email accounts, Blackberries, IM applications, etc., that means we really just have that many more balls to juggle. Unified Communications is Not Just Unified Messaging Sometimes, unified communications and unified messaging are mistakenly assumed to be the same thing. In fact, unified messaging is just one part of unified communications, albeit one of the more important ones, and one of my personal favorites. It involves having your voicemail converted into an audio file (.wav, for example) and sent as an attachment to your email of choice. In fact, once I was introduced to it never again did I actually pick up the handset on my phone and manually check my voicemail (how old fashioned - way too many codes and keypresses to enter!). Instead, every time I receive a voicemail, it also arrives as an email at the top of my inbox, which is where most people spend a lot more time throughout the day anyway. My other favorite type of unified communications is what's known as "presence." An example of this is one that many people interact with daily, but may not be aware of. Know how some IM programs (Yahoo IM, for example) will show certain contacts in your list as "I'm currently away from my desk"? That happens because the IM program can sense whether that user has actually typed on their keyboard in the last, say, 5 minutes. If not, then the IM program assumes the user has walked away from the computer and, therefore, is not available to respond in real time. Lots of enterprise communications packages are offering more advanced types of presence features, and you can imagine how useful they can be - after all, if you've ever worked in a corporate office environment, how many times per day have you found yourself wondering "where in the heck is Jim?" Unified Communications Feature Sets Here's a short list of the most common features afforded by unified communications: - unified messaging = voicemail-to-email - presence = knowing if someone is in their car, at their desk, or at lunch - communications preference = does Bob currently prefer to communicate via cell, IM, email, or IP phone? - real-time collaboration = two remote workers collaborating on the same e-document in real-time - real-time conferencing = a salesperson reaches their customer on their office IP phone and both agree to seamlessly set up a video conference on the spot. Of course, many others about, and the options are almost limited to the imagination at this day and age. Thanks to top unified communications providers like Cisco and Microsoft, this type of enterprise sophistication is becoming more cost effective for small businesses to deploy.
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