It’s that time of the year again. Everybody is trying to finish the projects started along the year or at least bring them close to the end. Meetings, forecasting, budgeting, strategy revision and of course planing. Some people want to try new things, to get new ideas that will eventually improve their business revenue. Others simply want to cut costs and improve efficiency inside their companies.

So this is the time of the year when sales people meet a lot of newbies to their market segment. I’m not an exception, of course, as Unified Communications have become very hot in 2010 and a must-have for 2011. Everybody wants it, but not all understand it. So it is our job to provide guidance and proven examples to make them grasp all the advantages brought by UC from both business and technical perspectives.

From simple definitions of what Unified Communications stands for, to infrastructure design and licensing, and up to business models to offer to end-customers, every aspect is explained and commented in meetings, conferences or pilot projects.

And sometimes this can get very funny :). A couple of days ago someone asked me how an IVR can make his non-IT related business more efficient. After a short conference call with technical questions and implementation scenarios, I started to design a simple IVR… an IVR for grandma. It can be quite useful in many occasions:

Hello, this is grandma’s robot. Your call is very important for me, but unfortunately I’m not available to take it. If you are one of my kids, PRESS 1, 2, 3 based on the birth order.

If you want to take me to a good concert, out to dinner or to a short vacation…START TALKING NOW! 😀

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXa9tXcMhXQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

I hope no grandma in this world needs such an IVR. 🙂 Happy holidays!