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The U.S. is ditching copper landlines in favor of IP telephony (about time!), but the FCC is requiring providers to notify customers of such plans three months in advance, as well as supply backup power sources needed in case of an outage. IP telephony has major advantages over legacy phone networks, some of which we will outline in this article.
The regulatory body issued its announcement yesterday, addressing service providers with the following claims:
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Evolution is synonymous with progress, and for good reason too. In order to push your species forward, you have to be at least as good as your ancestors. Fail to adapt to changing times and you will perish. Many living things have opted for collaboration to ensure their survival. From ants to apes to us humans, leveraging brains and muscle in groups yields great results.
Of the illustrious minds of the 1800s, none saw this more clearly than Charles Robert Darwin, the greatest contributor to the theory of evolution.
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Cementing the belief that communication is vital in building and retaining a team, a study conducted by human resources firm SHRM reveals that employees rate their relationship with their immediate supervisor among the top five job satisfaction contributors.
Specifically, 54% of employees in the survey indicated that a good relationship with their team manager or supervisor was “very important” to their job satisfaction. Middle-management cited this aspect more vocally than the executive ranks (probably because the C-suite doesn’t get bossed around as much).
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Who says Unified Communications is slow to take off? In an analysis of the North American hosted IP telephony and UC&C services market, Frost & Sullivan reports that 2014 saw 8 million installed users, with a projection of 41.9 million users installed by 2021. That number will be mostly small and medium businesses (SMBs). Next in line will be large, distributed organizations looking to streamline their communications infrastructure and IT operations, while managing a remote workforce.
As it transitions from the early-adopter to mass-adoption stage, the North American hosted Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) services market is seeing growth rates accelerating. This is mainly due to an increase in customer awareness of cloud communications benefits. Providers are now compelled to differentiate their products through innovative features as scrutiny of service quality and reliability has increased. Vendors’ focus is gradually switching to refining their UC offerings, after successfully convincing SMBs to adopt the technology.
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We love it when communication flows. Everything we do at 4PSA revolves around communication and collaboration, so we believe strongly in the power of using these as tools for building teams and businesses. But sometimes, shutting up can help too.
According to a study published in the Journal Of Social & Personal Relationships, blocking communications with negative people can increase your productivity and even boost your IQ. It’s the kind of research that seems to reach an obvious conclusion, but most of us are oblivious to these teachings our entire lives.
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For the past few months we’ve been populating our blog index with Quote of the Day entries featuring clever maxims from clever chaps and gals from all epochs and meridians. Deep, insightful, motivational, inspirational, sad, happy quotes. But never one that’s just plain funny.
Today’s quip is from The Salmon of Doubt, a posthumous collection of published and unpublished material by English writer by Douglas Adams.
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Let’s face it. We’ve all turned into a population of zombies thanks to our pesky smartphones. Whether it’s texting, tweeting, scrolling through Facebook or playing Candy Crush Saga, we somehow always find ourselves fiddling with our handheld devices on the go. That’s why they’re portable, right? Not quite.
New research suggests that smartphones – along with their versatile functions – are changing the way we walk on the street. It’s not invisible to the naked eye, granted. But apparently we do it so often that it’s beginning to change how we behave. So Bath University (UK) A&M University (TX, USA) went and conducted a joint study to take a closer look at the implications of texting and walking.
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Unified Communications & Collaboration (UC&C) as a technology has unquestionable perks for productivity. In some cases, a good UC&C implementation leads to new revenue streams, a goal that sits high on every CEO’s agenda, yet many are reluctant to take the plunge. The reason itself is surprising.
Business leaders are regarded as anything but fearsome, but when it comes to investing in new technologies, many executives start to get cold feet. In a whitepaper titled Build a Better Business Case for UC, research firm Forrester offers a list of fears reported by the C-suite at 133 enterprises across the US and Europe regarding implementing UC services. Here it is below (complete with our own observations):
A little while ago, our intern Vladut was telling you in a blogpost about his first week at 4PSA. His article became so popular that we decided to share more of how our interns feel about working and learning at 4PSA. Today, we start a new series about their experiences where you’ll get to take a peek at what 4PSA Cool Summer Internship is all about.
David, one of our Apps Core interns, has a couple of things to say about his first task at 4PSA.
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Character is important when you’re looking to build a team. Good training is simply not enough to propel a company forward. You need passion and determination to excel in a competitive marketplace.
When you do find highly motivated people, your next job is to retain them. Their satisfaction has to be personal, not just aligned with the company’s goals. It may sound like common sense when you read about it, but in reality it’s not easy to attain. Youth Leadership Coach Israelmore Ayivor makes it his duty to remind aspiring leaders that teamwork rests on the shoulders of each individual.