The Movie was Great; I Know Because I Didn’t See It
The Movie was Great; I Know Because I Didn’t See It by Kevin Kieller
I did not see the latest new movie but I really liked it. Let me tell you about it.
When I read a book review I assume the reviewer has read the book. When I read the review of a restaurant I assume the food critic has tried the food. While this seems reasonable, in this world of “armchair analysts” and hyper-incented sales professionals, the pressure to move fast sometimes doesn’t allow enough time to gather real-world experience.
It is fine to have an opinion; however, writers and “commenters” should “come clean” and indicate when their expressed opinion is not based on actual experience but purely on conjecture or perhaps based on regurgitating another person’s story (opinion?).
Without disclosure we, as an industry, end up creating and perpetuating “UC Urban Legends”…sure, product A and B work great together; well, according to my second cousin’s uncle’s friend, it worked great. This is reviewing the movie you never saw. But UC urban legends are even worse than that because often the person repeating the information believes it to be true! And so the story is told with conviction.
Of course, we all know vendors have a vested interest in perpetuating positive legends about their products and negative legends related to the competition. Sales forces for vendors are instilled with and educated in these legends, sometimes without being told they are myths or simply “opinions” formed by the marketing group.
This may be part of the marketing and sales process; however, the problems start as soon as a journalist (of any form) begins repeating these “stories” without realizing that they are in fact writing “advertising copy” and not “news.”
I am less concerned about articles written which attempt to promote a specific point of view or bias. At least the author realizes what she or he is doing. I am most concerned about articles that unknowingly promote a point of view because the author cites “evidence” or examples that turn out to be erroneous or unsubstantiated. In these cases, the author is perpetuating UC myths and creating more UC urban legends.
Similarly, I would suggest, systems integrators need to make sure they are providing advice based on experience or they should be clear that what they are recommending has not been tested; which happens often in the case of very new products. (Perhaps in this case they should be proposing a pilot.) Trusted advisors telling “tales” without fact-based evidence run the risk of losing their trusted status.
There are several UC myths you should be wary of believing or spreading:
1. The ROI Myth
Every vendor has a case study or a study to show their UC platform has the best ROI (return on investment) or the lowest TCO (total cost of ownership). Cloud vendors have studies showing moving UC to the cloud saves money; vendors with only on-premises solutions have studies showing the opposite and vendors supporting both models often can show a hybrid model has the lowest TCO.
The myth is not that these studies exist, they do, but rather the myth is that the results for a very specific case, with very specific assumptions, can be generalized to suggest one platform always has a better ROI or lower TCO.
To avoid being taken in by this UC myth you need to “do the math” specific to your individual situation. The ROI and TCO will depend on the size of your organization, number of locations, current infrastructure, current license status, and a host of other factors. Existing studies can give you an idea of the elements to consider including in a cost model; but, unless the study exactly matches your current state and requirements (and it won’t!), you will need to do your own homework.
2. The Integration Myth
Best of breed is not a concept that is easily applied to a UC solution. Because unified communications is about tying together elements from a user experience and administrative perspective, to support ease of use and ease of administration, trying to connect elements from multiple vendors often causes headaches and sometimes heartache. Remember a successful integration must both be made to work and then, which is much more challenging, it must continue to work even as each vendor issues patches and upgrades in an unsynchronized fashion without regard for the other.
Vendors often claim their solutions integrate well with another vendor’s offerings; however, unless you have actually tested an integrated solution with your users, the talk of “seamless integration” is mostly the stuff of legends.
Often traditional telephony vendors suggest organizations keep call control on the “proven” platform and to do this they provide client-side add-ons that integrate with other newer desktop platforms. Cisco does this with a WebEx add-on to Lync or their CuciLync add-on to Lync that delivers click-to-call. Avaya provides ACE for Lync which also “bolts on” to the Lync client but keeps call media on the Avaya platform. Both of these solutions work, however, there are few organizations that have deployed these solutions on a wide-scale basis.
While most fairytales have happy endings, you can avoid the hairy troll under the bridge by embarking on both a technical pilot and an end-user adoption pilot (with participants outside of IT) for any multi-vendor UC integrations under consideration. If both pilots succeed, you should then give careful consideration to your ongoing ability to support the integration.
3. The “No Training Required” Myth
UC technology can be exciting and powerful; however, if people don’t know how to use a tool you will not be successful and you will not improve collaboration.
No matter how easy a tool appears to be, some training will be required. An investment in training is likely to improve your return on investment and improve your end user satisfaction. One of the most common complaints from users involved with less than successful UC deployments is “we never received training.” Often the only people who suggest no training is required are the IT staff, who after using the tool for the past 6 months now indeed know how to use it.
Remember as well that the commitment to training needs to be on going. Initial training needs to be followed by periodic refresher courses and as new employees join your organization the “onboarding” process needs to acquaint them with using your UC tools.
There are many UC success stories and understanding these stories can be a great source of best practices and lessons. However, first you need to know if the story you are reading is non-fiction or a fairytale.
Oh, and by the way, I really liked the ending of that movie I didn’t see.
Heard any UC myths lately? Not sure if something you heard is fact or fiction? Let us here at UCStrategies help you try and track down the truth.