David J. Danto
Principal
Consultant, Collaboration/ AV / Multimedia / Video / UC
Dimension Data
Director of
Emerging Technology
Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance
eMail:
David.Danto@DimensionData.com 
Follow Video &
Technology Industry News: @NJDavidD
(Read David’s Bio) (See
David’s CV) (Read David’s Other Blogs & Articles)
Tomorrow Is Today
(with apologies to Tomorrow is Yesterday)
This coming September I will be
celebrating my thirty-sixth year working in media technology industries. For nearly all of that time I have been reading
about and chatting with others about the amazing future technology will bring
us. Those conversations would often
delve into the world of science fiction – things like how cool having a Star
Trek Communicator or Tricorder would be; how amazing space travel would be; how
holograms and transporters would change the way we work. As is often the case with future visions, one
rarely stops to realize when we’ve passed landmarks because our imaginations
always tend to point us further into the future. Lately however, it has been difficult for me
to not recognize just how far we’ve
come along. Maybe that’s because of how
long I’ve been involved in the industry, or maybe it’s because I see how
different my sons’ lives are from mine at their age – but whatever the reason,
the “ah-ha moments” have been frequent lately.
Here are just a few of them.
Forget BYOD, there’s no need to bring
anything anywhere
– For the last few years enterprise IT managers have been struggling to deal
with employees bringing their personal devices into the office and expecting
them to work. Consumerization is in
full force, with people expecting their office environments to function just
fine with their smartphones and other devices.
Well, forget all that – some information workers have begun to stop
bringing anything to the office – including themselves - and just stay at home
or work from wherever they are. We
are at the first point in human history when our homes are better equipped,
better connected and more functional than most office environments. This may be because offices have compliance
and security regulations that are perceived to be overly restrictive, or
because enterprises just haven’t found a way to continually modernize as
quickly as individuals. But whatever
the reason, it is a stunning realization to stop and think about. For anything that an employee wants to do
that is not supported or permitted by his or her organization there are a half
dozen solutions just an app-store and/or a click away. In reality, it’s entirely likely that
old-school, siloed enterprise environments will just
never catch-up again. People can connect
just about any device they have to just about any service they can think of
from just about anywhere they happen to be.
How can any organization’s IT department still operating out of
divisional silos possibly catch-up to that standard? The only way organizations will be able to
keep pace will be to embrace new concepts and consumption models and to let
actual user’s needs dictate priorities.
Forget Videoconference Rooms, every
room is a videoconference room - I was recently working with a team
designing a new, multi-floor office space.
They planned to put an IP telephone and a “starfish” speakerphone in
every conference room, but only install videoconferencing in one room per
floor. I asked the client’s team why
that was the plan. Their first answer
was because it was the architect’s recommendation. My response was that we should explore the
actual thinking behind the plan – why just phones in the rooms and not
videoconferencing. Naturally the reasons
they came up with were the cost and complexity of video. Continuing to peel the onion I explained that
typical enterprise grade IP phones and speakerphones would cost this firm about
$1K US per room to purchase. An LCD
flat-
panel display with an entry level
videoconferencing system (from a number of manufacturers) would cost them about
$2K US. Considering that they were
already planning to install a flat panel in every room anyway, and that they
could also use the video system to make their audio conference calls, the idea
of cost being a barrier was debunked. I
went on to show how the next reason – complexity – was also a now dead
stereotype. I pulled out my iPhone and
showed the team the new Cisco
Proximity app. All anyone has to do
is take out their smartphone and start the app.
It pairs with the closest video system automatically and lets anyone
dial a call from their address book. (As
I mentioned in my January
Top 10 Disruptors newsletter expect to see more firms deploying interface
solutions very similar to this.) The
idea that videoconferencing has to be difficult is also no longer true. Ultimately, the team realized that there
really weren’t reasons not to equip every room.
The architect didn’t like that very much, but regrettably any
professional trade that wants to keep designing and/or selling yesterday’s
solutions because that’s all they know will be left behind. The client, however, was ecstatic. They left the meeting knowing that they had
planned a facility that they could take into the future, not one that was
locked into the past.
Forget Rooms, effective collaboration
takes place from anywhere – Remember that Star Trek Communicator and Tricorder I
mentioned above, and how they were used by the Enterprise crew to communicate
and collaborate? Well 
not everyone has realized it, but those tools are here now. They may not look like what we saw on TV, but
if you examine it based on function, we’ve already achieved everything we saw. The Tricorder scanned all of the things
around it, providing information on its surroundings. We have that today in our smartphones. They connect to public sensor networks to show
us such things as approaching
storms, and private sensors to show us things like our blood
pressure. Oh yeah, and they’re also
phones and videoconference units too. As
for the Star Trek Com badge, it allowed people to communicate with colleagues
using voice commands and at the same time tracked where the wearer was
located. We have that today in advanced
headsets (like the Plantronics
Voyager Legend.) These units can
respond to voice commands and speak to us to tell us who is trying to contact
us. It knows if we’re wearing it or if
we’re not and it knows how close or far away we are from our desks or
terminals. The next generation of this device also
knows what you’re looking at, if you’ve fallen-down, if you’re nodding yes or
no and a whole bunch of other amazing things.
Equipped with these two tools (and a decent wireless connection) I can
collaborate with colleagues from anywhere I happen to be as effectively as I
could have from any videoconference room of the 1990s. Sometimes I may need a bigger screen (tablet,
wall-mounted display) and sometimes I may need a better camera (to see more
people) but those really just become accessory issues. Sure, I’d rather have the call from my home
office desk or one of the video equipped rooms I mentioned above, but when I
can’t be at either place I can still communicate and collaborate
effectively. The most important point
though is that this communication can take place regardless of the brand or type of
endpoint the party I’m calling is using. When an organization plans and installs an
appropriate communications ecosystem, everything just works with everything
else – straight out of science fiction into reality.
Is any or
all of this news to you? If so I suggest
that you’re not working with the right ICT (Information
and Communications Technology) partner.
Organizations have to stop looking for “vendors” or “VARs” to “buy”
communications technology from.
Effective unified communications is not something you can buy – it’s an
outcome that happens when detailed planning takes place. This planning has to include end-user input
and an adoption plan from day one. That
effort leads to correct decisions about things like infrastructure, endpoints,
services and consumption models - each customized to meet the specific and
unique needs of an organization. When
approached correctly (and with the right partners) the world of simple,
affordable, any-to-any communication and collaboration just works.
The science
fiction of simple communication that Star Trek showed us is here today. If you’re not experiencing it within your
organization send me an email and I’ll help show you how you can.
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This
article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own,
personal opinions. David has over three decades of experience providing problem
solving leadership and innovation in media and unified communications
technologies for various firms in the corporate, broadcasting and academic
worlds including AT&T, Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan Stanley, NYU, Lehman
Brothers and JP Morgan Chase. He now works with Dimension Data as their Principal
Consultant for the collaboration, multimedia, video and AV disciplines. He is
also the IMCCA’s Director of
Emerging Technology. David can be reached at David.Danto@Dimensiondata.com
or DDanto@imcca.org and his full bio and
other blogs and articles can be seen at Danto.info. Please reach-out to David if you would like to
discuss how he can help your organization solve problems or develop a
future-proof collaboration strategy.
All image and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.