Nov 16
Welcome to the Penland Corner Consultants technology blog. In this blog we hope to shed some light on the rapidly changing communications technologies that our clients face.
This blog is for you, our clients. If there is a topic you would like us to discuss please let us know.
May 14
I recently responded to a post on a LinkedIn group I follow – Unified Communications Online. The question asked in the group seemed simple, “what’s up with video?” After thinking about it for a bit it seems a much more complex issue. Video is certainly become more prevalent, but it’s not the telepresence type of video that has been hyped for the last several years. Nor will it be the video telephony with the blocky desktop video phones that has been talked about for decades.
Fun Fact: Video Telephony was depicted in the movies as early as 1927 in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
It will be more ad hoc video communications from enabled devices like smartphones, tablets and laptops. Decent video cameras are popping up in more and more devices and video capability is part of most unified communications clients today. Because of that there is much more opportunity to be part of a video call than there used to be. You don’t have to schedule the special telepresence room and get IT to set up a call. You can set it up yourself from your office on your laptop. That said, how much it gets used depends on user experience. A video call from your laptop is not the same as one from specially designed room. It usually involves poor overhead lighting that puts much of the caller’s face in shadow and low camera angles from the looking down at the laptop on the desk.
Video calling will become common but it won’t be the studio level experience that many of the early proponents of video systems envisioned. It will be the low quality, amateurish experience of do-it-yourself video. As users become more accepting of that video use will grow.
May 04
We are always on the lookout for ways technology can help our clients, especially our small business clients. There are a couple of technology trends that we have been watching that are coming together in ways that can bring great benefit to our clients. One trend is the incredible growth in mobile data networks (think 4G and LTE) and mobile computing devices, a.k.a. smartphones and tablets. The other trend has been happening behind the scenes in the carrier networks. It is the move from traditional TDM voice to voice over IP (VoIP.)
Why should our clients care and how can these trends help them? The processing power in mobile devices has surpassed that found in desktop PCs from just a few years ago. There are also literally millions of apps that can increase their productivity. Take an interior designer for example. She can go to a client’s office with only her iPad. There she can browse through online décor catalogs together with the client and pick out furnishings. She can take a picture of something the client wants to match and using a free app like ColorSnap from Sherwin-Williams she can perfectly match a paint color. Using email and shared calendaring tools she can schedule her work crews. She can place online orders for the furnishings and create and email client invoices all from her tablet. Additionally, if she uses a VoIP-based telephone service from her carrier, she can install a voice app on her tablet that duplicates her office phone with all of its features and never miss a call.
The incredible advances in mobile technologies have all but eliminated the need for a small business like the designer in the illustration above from being tied to a desk. Everything from the office phone to the ordering of material and scheduling of labor can be done from almost anywhere on a mobile device.
Apr 28
Not too long ago I read a blog post written by someone at one of the companies I work with. In the post the author, Sara, ponders the future of email in, as she puts it, a social media crazed society. She make a good point. Many people today, especially younger people, communicate in the short bursts that are IM, SMS, Twitter, and the ubiquitous Facebook post. (No, I am not being ageist, it is just that younger people have grown up with this technology so it has become second nature to them.) She even uses the European IT company Atos to illustrate her point.
While I believe Email is indeed the bane of a productive workday it isn’t going away. Email was once a simple method of non-real time communications. Unfortunately, it has become both an annoyance and an addiction. According to estimates by the Radicati Group there were 294 billion emails sent per day in 2010 with 262 billion being spam. Where Sara and I are in complete agreement is that these new forms of communications are becoming increasingly relevant. Additionally, the proliferation of video capable devices and services like Apple’s Facetime and Google+ Hangouts make the dream of person-to-person video communications a reality. Couple these technologies with the proliferation of smart mobile devices and we are witnessing a new era of communications.
The end of email? No. But, these are definitely interesting times for personal communications.
If you are/were a reader of this blog you have probably noticed we haven’t posted in a while. Well, the truth is that we have been so involved in the projects that we have been working on that time got away from us – a lot of time. Things have settled down now and we can focus on other things, like this blog. We will continue to post information and insights about technology and business that we hope are useful to our clients.
Jul 31
As I have said before, one of the great things about my job is that I get to see and use some really cool technology in the projects I work on. I recently saw one that is worth mentioning. This particular technology is a flexible LED panel from a company called NanoLumens. NanoLumens is a startup out of the Atlanta area.
We have all seen LED panels before in sports arenas and entertainment venues — the Las Vegas strip is essentially one big LED panel. What makes this panel unique is that it is built on a thin, flexible substrate. This means it is extremely light weight and flexible. Unlike normal LED panels which are rigid and must be mounted on a flat surface, the NanoLumens panel can be mounted on a curved surface. You can use it to wrap a column or mount it on the contour of a curving stairway. This flexibility along with its light weight (a 108 inch panel weighs only 70lbs.) makes it ideal for portable or temporary uses.
This is just one of the many technology innovations that are beginning to appear. Stay tuned for more.
Jun 26
One of the things we try to do at PCC is keep up with the latest developments in technology that can benefit our clients. I was recently doing some research for a client in the entertainment industry and came across something really cool. It is called Light Touch™by a company called Light Blue Optics. It is a small interactive projector that can turn any flat surface into a touch screen. Think iPad on your tabletop. I have come up with some really cool applications for my entertainment industry client. This is why I love being a technology consultant.
Jun 25
One of the great things about my job is that I get to be involved with some really innovative business ideas and projects. I am currently woking for a client that is putting together a state of the art entertainment complex in the heart of the DFW metroplex. When I say entertainment complex don’t think of Six Flags think Las Vegas strip hotel without the gambling. This place will have world class restaurants and bars, a multi-use theater, and outdoor stages. Take my word for it — it will be very cool!
Where do I come in? I get to design or help design all of the “technology” for the project. Everything from voice/data to entertainment video will be incorporated into a highly integrated network. Sometimes I really love my job.
Feb 01
We at Penland Corner Consultants have been always amused at the trendiness related to the concept of “going green”. Clearly the popularity of this term and the subsequent push to get everyone on this page has gained momentum beyond the few original tree huggers in their sandal shoes; professing doom and gloom if we do not go green. Given the traction of this, it seems this term, as we see it, has become a mantra used rather loosely to address a variety of agendas in the business world hidden under the umbrella that the business is making our world a better place. Now anyone will attempt to attach a green tag on their product or service to associate with this popular trend, even if there is an obvious tie or not. Marketing 101: brand as you see necessary to increase the bottom line and pay little attention to little else.
I am not advocating that going green is not good for the environment. I am just amused at the notion of so many jumping on the band wagon to promote products when the company really does nothing adhere to green initiatives in any other way than their green branding is meant to build sales. Jump on the political correctness train, what it can hurt if it increases your customer base.
Well, we do believe in green initiatives. You can certainly reference our landing page (www.penlandcorner.com) to see our strong statements on practicing green initiatives. Given the above, some explanation is in order. You see, we do believe we should concentrate on making the world a better place for generations following us. We do believe in clean air, modest consumption, and recycling. But at the end of the day, we believe that going green means reducing costs. Its that simple. Our clients engage us for a variety of reasons, and green initiatives are included. What this ends up resulting in is that the green initiatives means designing IT centers and telecommunication strategies to significantly use less energy; optimize solutions so less maintenance and resources need to be applied. If you wish to categorize this as green under the political correct definitions, fine. But we categorize this as pure cost savings that can be applied straight to the bottom line or to facilitate growth and subsequently more jobs for our economy.
Call it “green”, OK. We call it great business sense, and that’s why we at PCC practice green consulting. It is good for our clients bottom line in cost savings and for the environment.
Dec 03
We have received inquiries from our clients regarding Web 2.0 technologies. I would like to address some of these technologies and their potential impact on our client’s business here.
Web 2.0, as defined by Wikipedia, is
Web 2.0 is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web.
It is most closely associated with social networks Facebook and twitter, blogs, and web-based applications. At the same time mobile devices and networks have made tremendous gains in data handling capacity, sophistication, and speed. It is a nexus of high speed mobile networks and social networking, location based services (LBS), where I want to focus for this article.
While location based services such as fleet tracking have been around for a while they have historically been too expensive for most businesses to use. Enter social networking. Location based social networking applications like Loopt and Google’s Latitude may be instrumental in bringing LBS to a broader range of businesses. Both of these web applications use the GPS chip in today’s cell phones along with mobile data connections to provide detailed geographic information about the cell phone user. Ostensibly they are friend finder services. You want to know where your friends are? Just pull up the application on your phone and it will show you their location on a map. The applications also let you text message these friends. Like all Web 2.0 applications they are open and collaborative. They let the users decide how to use them.
It is the openness and low (in some cases, free) cost of these applications that can make them useful to our clients. For example, suppose you run a business that has people in the field. It could be vending machine restocking or copier repair. In all likelihood you field folks have cell phones. You could uses these LBS applications to dispatch or keep track of your field people. If one of your technicians need a part for a broken copier he could pull up Loopt, see what other technician is close, and call or message her to see if she has one on the truck. That is much better than running back to the shop for a replacement. Your technician wastes less time and you customer is up and running faster – everybody is happier.
This is just one example of how Web 2.0 can solve business problems. Let us help you explore other ways new technologies can benefit your business.
Nov 17
Given the ongoing state of the economy it is not surprising that we have received a number of inquiries from our clients on how to save money on their communications expenditures. While there are a number of ways we can help our clients, the one we recommend as a starting place surprises many — the bill audit.
For those who are unfamiliar with this service, a bill audit is fairly straightforward. The audit is a comparison of the service provider invoices received by the client against the service providers internal records. If errors are found we work with the service provider to correct the error going forward and request refunds on past over-billings.
While this may seem straightforward in theory it is extremely complicated in practice. The service provider’s customer records are written in an arcane codes called USOC codes. The reasoning behind the USOC is best left to another time. Suffice it to say that everything in the network has a USOC code. The combination of elements into features and features into saleable products that appear on an invoice is what make it complicated.
There are a couple of reasons why we recommend the audit as a starting place in a cost savings program.
We recommend that all of our clients get a telecom audit to establish a baseline and anytime major changes are made to their service. It is the best way to stay on top of communications costs.
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