VoIPWatch

What The Corona Virus Means To Business Today

The Corona virus is not being contained, and each day we read of another event being shut down or companies pulling out--with SONY and Facebook being the most recent to cancel their participation in the Game Developers Conference.

Make no mistake, these are not easy decisions as sales, marketing and promotion all surround conferences, but it's the sales meetings and media launches that are hit the hardest. Hundreds of meetings with prospects. Thousands of man hours of training independent developers. Dozens of briefings with reporters, all that set the tone for what's coming next are sideswiped and pole-axed when a company pulls out of a conference, or like with Mobile World Congress, the event is cancelled. Travel plans go up in smoke and hotel rooms that are not-cancelable are written off as a loss.  But let's first credit the companies who are pulling out, but putting their people before profit.

So, how will all the work and plans get delivered, now that the companies who are skipping the GDC tell their story? How will all the companies and people who had meetings set for Mobile World Congress do their jobs, make their quotas and hit their numbers? Those have to be the questions on everyone's minds.

Here are some suggestions/prognostications about what will fill the gaps:

For starters Video Conferencing is going to become front and center as the mode of communication. Companies are already adding accounts with ZOOM, and the stock price is benefitting. Traveling to see customers would be an expected effort, but with the Corona Virus spreading, many will opt for the video route vs. the airborne ones.

Media Relations will kick up and pick up. There will be more effort placed on mini-media conferences done virtually. Tools like WebinarJam and GoToWebinar, like Zoom, will pick up the slack of in person meetings with many media folks at one time and the virtual media conference will take form. The media will begin to be besieged event more with news releases, requests for briefings, more video being sent their way. Given other events are also scheduled, and how the media has to cover those as well, and if they are not cancelled, getting coverage will be tougher.

Greater use of Slack and Microsoft Teams outside of the organization. Shared Slack channels and the same with Teams will begin to become more used, as the need to collaborate without being in the same place rises due to the concerns about travel and the reduction in companies attending trade shows and conferences. 

More shipping. Expect to see greater use of FedEx and UPS by more companies as items that previously would have been shown in person, need to be seen and held. 

Greater Social Media Efforts-with the pressures and constraints of media space, time and location, greater emphasis will be put on using social media to engage more. We'll begin to see new engagement models, greater use of OPT-IN marketing and the need for more permissions from the sales side. On the buyers side, more use of ways to stay anonymous will arise. Unlike being at a trade show, where your badge tells all, the use of online search and information gathering allows for many more ways to be less known to marketers. This will only lead to more social media, an expansion of cross-marketing, and more.

More "Own Conferences" To Come--Once the Corona Virus is deemed under control, a cure found or outbreaks subside, many companies will turn to organizing their own conferences and customer gatherings. These events will be held in executive briefing centers, in large hotels with conference and meeting space and resorts. Once this happens expect hotel rates to rise and airfare availabilities to major business markets in the USA and around the world to rise.

These are all likely scenarios, and probably what's being discussed inside many companies right now. Plans have to be made, and work must go on. Technology is going to help in many ways, but it's still all about people who need to make things happen.

 

Three Reasons Why IT Expo Was Great For Me

I've been a regular attendee at IT Expo since the late 1990's and other than a flight issue one year that kept me from making my way east, I've been attending the telecom industry gathering each winter. This year's event, held in Fort Lauderdale, was one of the best ever, and felt a lot like the old days of VON. Here's my three reasons why IT Expo was so great:

1. More people I know were there-Having been a regular at telecom shows I've gotten to know a lot of people over the years. This year at IT Expo I had a hard time walking the halls without being stopped by someone who I personally know, who has been or is a client or a member of the media/analyst world.  
2. Better content-the panels I moderated and sat on, as well as tuned into all were a step up from prior years. Less message point speaking and more issues and answers. Erik Linask did a stellar job at recruiting the right speakers and came up with some killer topics.
3. The exhibition floor. While it was jammed, the space and aisles were wide enough that you can walk without feeling cramped but the traffic was strong enough that in many cases the booths were always busy, and the crowds were lining up.

These three factors made this year's IT Expo great for me. Here's to next year's and a return to Miami Beach.

IT Expo-The Modern Day VON Blur

It's been a long time since Jeff Pulver's VON Conference series ended. Back in the day there were at least two if not three or four or five VON's a year. Competitor, TMCNet's IT Expo ran two events as well and literally the conference circuit for VoIP and related industries felt like an every other month activity. There were others that were put on but as publications died off so too did the events. What was great though back then was you got to see your friends more often, as well as you clients.  What was bad was between the event expense, the travel and the time away from the office is work was the conferences.

With the sad demise of VON, smartly, IT Expo went to a once a year format, holding its annual gathering in February in Fort Lauderdale. For me that means hours of meetings representing agency clients and companies I serve as the CMO for, moderating and speaking on panels or doing media interviews.  To say conferences are nothing but a party, would be a real understatement.

Lots of prep goes into all facets of the event. For SkySwitch, where I've been CMO since last June, it means booth design, messaging, working with the team on booth scheduling, SWAG, working on the news announcemets and logistics. All work that started months ago. Thankfully I have a great team to work withm from founder Eric Hernaez on down, and our efforts at IT Expo will show the benefits of the prep.

For others like Fonative, who I've been advising and counseling, and now act as their virtual CMO also, it means news announcement planning, panel and media relations prep, as well as meeting participation along with founder and CEO Steve Smith. For myself, it's all about preparing for multiple media and analyst interviews, panel prep for the three that I'm moderating and one that has me on the panel speaking too.  It also means scheduling meetings both onsite and off, as well as all the travel logistics needed to get to and from those meetings and the event.

Given how big IT Expo will be this year the return of the Blur is upon us....see you in Fort Lauderdale.

The Why Behind Comcast's BlueFace Acquisition

A few weeks ago I was attending the PTC Conference in Honolulu for a client. The event came right on the heels of the news that Comcast had purchased the Irish softswitch company Blueface. Maybe it was the timing, and how busy things were being 5 hours off of east coast time, but I sort of chalked the purchase up to the obvious reasons to me in conversations at PTC about the buy.

However, in thinking back to most of the news coverage of it, so much was focused on what Comcast said in their statements that the "obvious" wasn't said.

1. Good bye to Broadsoft-With Blueface Comcast can stop paying licensing fees down the road. They also get a team that's 100 percent dedicated to them. Why should Comcast be paying the Cisco/Broadsoft tax when they can buy a more modern competitor, put the workforce in Ireland-a haven for Intellectual Property, and make more money. 
2. It's about Mobile-Comcast's mobile team will be able to fully integrate with their business and consumer phone services as well as next generation communications features. Right now Xfinity Mobile is known as a "light" MVNO meaning all the do is market and bill, and then rely on Verizon's Broadsoft switch for the rest. With the Blueface acquisition, and team, they can now use the power of an all IP switch to fully integrate and deliver new services that work across the entire "mobile broadband," "content," "phone" and "messaging" spectrum.
3. Long term bad news for Momentum and Alianza -The two supply telephony services to the many smaller cable companies across the USA. Momentum is on Broadsoft while Alianza has their own platform I'm told. Watch as Comcast outsources their Blueface platform to Cox, Charter/Spectrum and other cable companies taking away the business from Alianza and Momentum (or buys one of them). They can do this and bundle telephony plus content deals from all they own from NBC/Universal and also offer their cable company brothers the ability to integrate ad sales, offers, content, sports programming and more to both the big screen and mobile devices.  This puts the Blueface switch right in the middle of all of it.

At the end of the day this is a really smart move by the Philadelphia based cable co, and it shows that Comcast is far smarter strategically than AT&T. The purchase also demonstrates that Comcast wants to be technology independent, while being all standards based. It also shows that they have a clear vision, and clearly a better roadmap.

Lastly, unlike Verizon or AT&T, they understand how communications, advertising, sports and entertainment are going to be delivered. All that makes the Blueface acquisition one more rung of that ladder they are building that keeps more of the money in their pockets.