New Year, New Beginnings

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~T.S. Eliot

This New Year’s Eve post truly signifies a new beginning…a changing of the guard if you will.  As you may, or may not know, we have been acquired by Bright House Networks, and the acquisition is effective as of January 1st.

As we look back, we are proud of the hard work and dedication by Telovites, past and present, that opened the door for new beginnings.  We are grateful that almost all of us are walking through that door together.  Looking forward, we are excited for this new opportunity.    Bright House shares our commitment to customers, our commitment to providing the best in customer care, and our commitment to innovation.   Combining our cloud-based unified communications with Bright House’s fiber network and broader portfolio of managed services means that we will be able to provide our clients with the most advanced business communication capabilities in the nation.  For that, we are humbled.

As for now, this little blog is going off-line.  It may just be temporary through the transition, it may come back as something a little different, or it may not come back at all.  We want to thank you for reading and sharing our passion for technology and telecommunications.  We hope that you enjoyed our posts and maybe learned something new.

From our family to yours, we wish you peace and prosperity in 2013.
Photo by David Lee Thompson

Happy Holidays from our Family to Yours

It is with a heavy heart when we think of the families in Newtown, CT.  We hope their spirits are lifted every time they hear of a random act of kindness being performed in honor of their loved ones.  26 people we have never met have instilled in us a renewed sense of what this season is truly about.  What a gift they have given us.  It is an honor to spread a little kindness in return.

If you are looking for some ideas of random acts of kindness – the Today show put together a list of ideas.  Sometimes though, the most powerful act of kindness doesn’t even cost a penny – it can be a smile and a kind word to someone who feeling down, it can be shoveling out your neighbor’s driveway, or it can be inviting someone without family to your holiday dinner.

“To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

We wish you love and happiness this holiday season, and a new year filled with peace and prosperity.

ROI on Hosted Voice vs. Premise Based PBX

In a recent meeting, we were discussing the current state of the economy, the time value of money, our services, and the return on investment (ROI) between Hosted Voice and Premise Based PBX (click here for a brief description of both).

Our Sr. VP of Sales, Sean Burke offered us the following insights:

Let’s say the charges for our service is $3,000/month.  You may look at that and do the following calculation to determine the ROI on our solution:  $3,000 x 36 = $108,000.

That is merely tells you how much you are going to spend on our service over the next 3 years, but speaks nothing of your ROI.

The best way to determine the value of your investment is by looking at your investment taking the time value of money into consideration.  Let’s look at this from a strict money comparison (which does not include the value of added features, innovation, support, etc.):

Here are 2 examples:

1. CONSERVATIVE – If your company received a small business loan today from the  Small Business Administration Loan (these are actually pretty hard to get too given the economy)- the rates range from NY Prime (3.25%) + 2.25% = 5.5% to NY Prime (3.25%) + 6.5% = 9.75%.  So let’s use 7% to show a middle ground calculation.  A $3,000 monthly payment over 3 years with a 7% rate is VALUED in today’s money at = $97,159 for a difference of about $10,000 (from what was calculated above based on total $’s spent). But even this calculation is extremely conservative and here is why…7% interest is a very conservative estimate of the value of a growing companies future value.
2. A FAST GROWING COMPANY (REAL EXAMPLE) – The average growth rate of the Inc 500 companies is 46%.  If you use this number the value of $3,000 paid monthly over 3 years is = $58,057 for a difference of about $50,000. From a business perspective/cash flow perspective – leaders of high growth companies should understand that deferring your payments to monthly amounts so that you can free those dollars to invest in your high growth entity is ALWAYS a smart decision.  Think of it this way…the company is growing by 46%.  Which means each dollar you invest in growing your business is worth $1.46 in one year; in two years it is worth $2.13, in year 3 it is worth $3.11 – so there is a much larger value to them in investing their money INTO growing their business vs. buying PBX’s.

If you are interested in learning more, please contact us – we’d love to discuss this with you.

Also, for a calculator you can use to determine the time value of your money – click here.

Long Battery Life? See ya LaTEr

If you have made the switch to an LTE device, the first thing you probably noticed is the speed:  videos don’t pause every two seconds, sites load faster, apps download faster.  Then, you probably noticed was something else moving dramatically faster….
When I first picked up my iPhone 5, I was impressed with its speed, then a little shocked at how fast it drained my battery.  Depending on what I was using it for, I would get a low battery warning after just a few hours.  You could almost see the percentage of battery power ticking away.  It made me wonder why.  So I did a little research and here’s what I found out:

• MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) Technology – MIMO technology uses multiple antennas – at the transmitting and receiving end.  This increases speed by spreading the existing transmission power over multiple antennas creating an array gain that allows more data to flow through at a time.  This occurs by taking advantage of multipath.  Information reaches the receiving antenna multiples times, from different angles and different times.  How does this drain the battery?  An antenna requires a power amplifier in order to send and receive information – by doubling the number of antennas in an LTE device – the drain on the battery doubles as well.

• Years of practice – 3G phones use either GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) Technology or CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) Technology.  Both of these mobile service technologies have been optimized over the past 20 years to be energy efficient.
• Towers– LTE towers are fewer and farther between.  Your mobile device needs to boost its transmission power in order to connect with the LTE network.  The distance between the towers also mean that are gaps in coverage, so your phone is switching between LTE, 4G and even 3G.  Every time your mobile device needs make a scan to connect with a network, or boost its transmission power to connect to a tower –  your battery takes a hit.
• LTE devices are co-dependent – Currently, most LTE devices cannot handle data and voice simultaneously.  Your device may be using LTE for data, but will switch back to CDMA in order to make calls and texts.  Again, to keep up with all that switching around, your battery has to work overtime.

No doubt, future generations of LTE will address the issue of excessive battery drain.  For now though, make sure you keep a charger handy.

Thanks to Kevin Fitchard at GigaOm for the great info!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Your Inbox

We’ve all experienced that heart-in-your-throat moment:  “Wait.  Did I hit Reply or Reply to All?

You cautiously check your sent messages.  You want to look, you are afraid to look… you have to look.

Or even worse.

You don’t realize your mistake until the responses start pouring in.

You may remember the student from NYU that meant to forward an email from the bursar’s office to his mother, but instead hit ‘reply to all.’  An event that became known as Reply-Allpocalyse.  This one was tame, the students joined in and had a good time with it; the only victim was NYU’s email server.

Then there was this poor guy.  His boss sent out a company wide email giving directives on a new project.  He meant to forward the email to a coworker in which he added honest assessments of their colleagues, and how valuable they would be on the project – but he hit ‘reply all’.  Everyone in the company received the email, including the colleagues he was speaking about.

We recently had an email mix-up at work.  While it was no ‘Reply-Allpocalyse,’ we all got a chuckle about it.  The main characters are Chris (a Telovite), Maja (who wasn’t supposed to get the email) and Christian (who was).  Here’s the story:

We had a couple of busy weeks recently, between Thanksgiving Holiday call traffic, vacation time and illnesses. This lead to a very hectic communications exchange and at some point some wires got crossed. Chris went to his inbox to respond to a recent email from Christian.  Instead of opening Christian’s email, he inadvertently opened an email from Maja.  He began to address Christian’s issue.

At the last second Chris realized he was supposed to send the information to Christian and his name was not in the To or CC field. He quickly added Christian’s name without any thought to Maja’s email address being in the To field.

The email was sent – and here’s what happened:

Maja:  I am curious, why did you CC Christian?

Chris:  I’m sorry, Maja. Please ignore my previous email. That one was not intended for you and was on a completely separate subject for another client.

Christian:  Just an FYI, you sent this to another client as yours as well. Not sure if this was meant for her, for me, or both.

Chris:  Thank you, Christian. I was working Maja’s issue around the same time and started back up with the wrong draft. I’ve emailed her an apology. Thanks for catching my mistake.

Christian:  It’s ok, I actually know her from a past job so if anything that was a fortuitous mistake as we are now catching up.

And Maja also wrote me back:

Maja:  I only ask because I worked with Christian 12 years ago and last week I wanted to look him up on LinkedIn. When I saw his name, I thought to myself, I wonder if this is the same Christian? And then I got below email……life is crazy sometimes.

Christian included this in one of his replies:

From Christian to Maja:  Not sure why Chris sent this to both of us, but your name rang a bell and after a quick look-up I realized I did in fact know you. Way back around 2000, I was consulting at Student Resources I think it was called, and we worked together for about a year. I want to say Diana was our coordinator.

Anyway, glad to see your doing well. I enjoyed our time there together, not so much the work but the conversations. I still go to all the good Croatian bakeries you told me about. And in fact I have been to Croatia several times since then, along with Slovenia, Montenegro and Serbia.

They continued an email exchange, catching up as old friends.

Maja is right – life is crazy sometimes.  It’s the unexpected moments, like reconnecting with an old friends, that make it so sweet.

Survey Says: Work from Home for the Win!

Wrike, a social project management platform provider, conducted an on-line survey; the respondents represented organizations of all sizes.  The goal was to gather information about the respondent’s current and expected future work practices and the role virtual collaboration plays in the work habits of remote teams.

There is no disputing the mobility of today’s workforce.  Helping business maintain the highest level of productivity while working remotely is a big part of what we do; it’s very prevalent in our day-to-day business lives.  What about your industry?

What are your work habits?  Do you work from home?  If not, do you wish you could – and what would you be willing to trade for that flexibility?

A special thanks to Mashable for putting together the infographic.

Our Favorite Google Apps Add-ons for Your Business

We are getting back to our review of our favorite Google Apps add-ons.  Last week, we were a little distracted, by the role big data and data mining played the election.  A couple posts back we discussed our favorite add-ons for Google Mail – this week our focus is on the business apps found in Google Marketplace.

YouCanBook.Me

This app is great for anyone that sets up regularly scheduled appointments, such as accountants, hair stylists, professors or therapists.  It provides you with a dedicated web page that allows your clients, students or colleagues to book appointments directly to your google calendar.  They will be able to view which time slots are available and with a click of the mouse and a few short questions later – their appointment is booked.  The event will appear in your calendar and you will also receive an email alert.

You control the aspects of your bookings:  the start/end of your workday and the appointment length.  You will be given the option of adding a logo to the top of your schedule as well as instructions.  YouCanBook.me can also be embedded in your blog or on your website.

Click here to learn more about YouCanBook.me

RapidTASK

RapidTASK is a powerful tool that makes it easy to collaborate with, and delegates tasks to, your employees and your peers.

Features include the ability to:

• create unlimited to-do lists for yourself;
• share lists to let anyone collaborate on a project;
• delegate tasks to anyone’s email address;
• track progress with email alerts; and,
• sync with Google Calendar, Contacts, and Documents.

Click here to learn more about RapidTASK.

TripIt

Have you ever returned from a business trip only to discover that you and a colleague, that works out of a satellite office, were just in the same city, at the same time?  With TripIt groups, your business will allow your employees to see where and when their coworkers are traveling.  It makes it easy to coordinate travel plans, schedule meetings and events, and share rides to and from the airport.

It allows users to collaborate on shared itineraries.  It is also integrated with LinkedIn and Facebook so you can see how your travel plans overlap with the folks in your social networks.

Click here to learn more about TripIt.

What Google Apps add-ons do you think benefit your business the most?  Please share!

To explore all that Google Marketplace has to offer, click here.

Big Data, the Election and Your Business

We talk a lot about the importance of discovering the truth within your business communications.  You may remember this blog post, where we compared data mining to the movie the Matrix.  That the usage of data mining was comparable to swallowing the red pill offered by Morpheous; being fully informed as to what is really going on in your business.

Big Data and Data mining are not new to political elections, but this was the first time it played a pivotal role on the national stage, thanks to Nate Silver.  His statistical analysis and predictions of the presidential election were completely contrary to the pundits’ predictions.  They mocked him, they discredited him, they rolled their eyes at him.  It was fascinating watching that evening unfold.  The pundits sat there dumbfounded, as state after state was called, and they realized; he was right.

It was like watching a changing of the guard.  Political pundits prophesizing based on gut feelings and experience to the unbiased analysis of data.

You could almost hear taps being played.

We love big data.  Data Mining and Analysis is a big part of what we do.  The day after the election, we couldn’t wait to hear how this was going to play out, to read what was being said.  CNET, in this article, declared the two biggest winners of the night, Nate Silver and Big Data.  The pundits were among the biggest losers.

Wired Magazine gave us the best headline of all:

Wrath of the Math:  Obama wins Nerdiest Election Ever.

How did Obama squeak out a win, when most experts were certain it couldn’t be done?

With Data Mining and Analysis.

Data Mining and Analysis drove the results in this campaign.  Jascha Franklin-Hodge of BlueStateDigital, stated that data mining allows “campaigns to be more effective in their messaging. More effective in finding the right people to engage in the right ways, at the right time of day, through the right platforms, to give people experiences that are more tailored to them, and more compelling for them.”

Doesn’t that sound like the kind of results you want in your business?

Click here to learn more, or contact us.  We’d love to hear from you.

These are a few of our favorite (google mail add-on) things!

When it comes to selecting an email provider – your choices are nearly endless.  With one quick Google search, I was directed to this article which highlights the Top 18 Free Email Services.  That’s just the best of the free services – that doesn’t even include the email provided by your employer or by your Internet Service Provider.  In many ways, they are all very similar…they provide you with more than enough storage, with decent spam filters, and with mobile access in addition to desktop access, just to name a few.  So how do you differentiate between them; and furthermore, how do you choose?  For us, it’s all about the add-ons and one provider stands out among the rest:

Google Mail.

So what are add-ons anyway?  Add-ons are small pieces of software that add features and/or functionality to your basic email account.  Your email provider wants you to be happy.  Instead of overwhelming you with features you don’t need and will never use – add-ons allow you to customize your email for the ultimate user experience.  Here are a few of our favorite add-ons offered by Google:

AwayFind:

Are you productive when you are waiting for an important email?

If you are like me, you try to be, but you are easily distracted.  You start working on something else, but every time you hear your phone chime with an email alert, you have to check it.  Yes, that is a surefire way to ensure to won’t miss that email.  It also ensures that you will spend a good part of your day dealing with emails that were not urgent.  Did you know it takes 4 minutes to get back on track after an email interruption?

With AwayFind, you can quit obsessing about your email.  With just 1-click set-up in your google mail, you will be notified via voice message, text message, or through an iPhone or Android app alert when your predefined parameters are met.

Boomerang:

Boomerang allows you to schedule messages in Gmail to send at a later time, to remind yourself to follow up on an important message, and to keep track of who responds.

1. Send Later – The ‘send later’ button allows you send an email at a later date/time.  It provides you a choice of common send times or you can select the specific date and time.
2. Boomerang Reminders – The ‘Boomerang’ button archives a message and returns it to the top of your inbox on a specified date or after a certain amount of time.  It provides you the email and reminds you to respond when the time is appropriate.
3. Response Tracking – This feature places a sent message at the top of your inbox, if you haven’t received a response within a time frame you specify.

Google Labs

Here is how you can access Google Labs:

1. Click on the Gear Symbol on the upper right hand side of your gmail.
2. Hit Settings
3. There will be blue tabs across the top of your screen – click on Labs
4. When you find a lab you like, click enable.

Bear in mind, these are experimental new features in Gmail.  Some things are here today, gone tomorrow.  Some things become permanent features.  We hope the following stick around because we find them really helpful:

CALENDAR GADGET

This lab provides a list of, and details about, your upcoming events and activities found on your Google calendar.  It is displayed to the left of your Gmail window.

INSERTING IMAGES

This lab allows you to insert message into the body of your email.  You can either upload and insert a file off of your computer or by URL.

PREVIEW PANE

When you highlight an email in your inbox, you will be able to read this email in a preview box located on the right of your inbox, instead of having to double-click and open each individual email.  It allows you to tackle your inbox much faster. UNDO SEND

This feature adds about a 5-second delay between when you click ‘send’ and when Google actually delivers the email.  This is really helpful for those moments when you fire off a quick response, hit send and then think better of it.  If it takes you longer than five seconds to realize you went overboard….you’re out of luck.

Stayed tuned – next week we are going to highlight our favorite Google Add-ons for businesses!

StartUp Camp – Austin

We got out of the office a bit last week to attend the IT Expo in Austin, TX.  One of my favorite things about the IT Expo is StartUp Camp.  StartUp camp selects 4 early-stage companies to pitch their innovations to judges and an audience filled with industry leaders, media and investors.

It is often said that the journey of an entrepreneur can be lonely.

That may be true at times.

But that moment, when someone realizes that your dream fulfills their needs…

The following companies were the finalists at the Austin session of StartUp Camp.  Show them a little love and check them out:

VSnap – Have you ever sent an email to a prospect and when you received their response you realized “Wow.  I was completely misunderstood”?  You struggle to regain ground, but you feel the sale slipping away.  VSnap helps you avoid miscommunications by allowing you to send a short video message in which you can clearly capture your tone, emotion, enthusiasm and authenticity.  You can send VSnaps to individual email addresses, email groups or through your twitter feed.

Click here to see an example of a video message sent using VSnap.

For more on VSnap – click here

Phonism – As VoIP admins, the founders of Phonism wished there was a better way to provision and manage IP phones.  They decided to take matters into their own hands and created a carrier grade Phone Management System that took the complexity out of provisioning.  In addition to handling all your provisioning tasks with ease, they also give users the ability to customize their desk phones with backgrounds, ringtones, contacts and more.

Click here to learn more about Phonism.

RingDNA – RingDNA is a voice communications company that wants to help your organization improve its sales, marketing and support performance.  It allows you to use your iPad as a call center integrated with CRM, call-tracking and marketing analytics.  It delivers real-time data, social media streams and behavior marketing insights when you need it most – while you are speaking with a potential customer trying to close the deal.

Click here to learn more about RingDNA.

Zello – works on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows devices to turn your phone into a Walkie Talkie.  It is a social radio, much like voice twitter.  It can be used to participate or listen in on public conversations, or stay connected with a group of friends.  Businesses use Zello to replace 2-way radio or push-to-talk.  You can also create a Zello “room” for your company’s customers to visit whenever they have questions.

For more on Zello – click here