Your Next Telecom System

As 2018 begins, many companies are starting to look at technology upgrades for the coming year. One area that has become much more complex and challenging for CEO’s, CFO’s, CIO’s, and IT managers is voice communications. No longer defined and relegated to a phone system, or PBX, voice is leading the way in integrating collaborative technology.

In order for you to make an informed, intelligent decision about which of the competing technology platforms, transport choices, features, functions and payment options are right for your business, it is very important to understand the benefits and limitations of each choice.

Background
Let’s start with VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). In a nutshell; your voice (which is analog) is converted to digital (think of listening to music on a CD instead of an LP record) and is layered in with other data applications on your network. It is the underlying technology of most of today’s voice platforms.

VoIP telephone systems are popular options and they can offer substantial advantages. But buying a VoIP system can be challenging because of the various combinations of technology and providers can be mind-boggling. The graphic below identifies some major features along with pros/cons of cloud-based, on-premise and hybrid solutions.

Communications Systems Choices

 

A Critical Business Decision
In the end, whether a business chooses a Cloud, On-Premise, or Hybrid solution, the new telecom system can have a profound effect on business processes and ultimately profitability.  Selection and implementation is critical. Change is both a risk and an opportunity. An effective implementation can improve everything from customer experience to overall profitability. How a business functions and how it wants to function is as much a determinant on the selection of a new  business communications system as the price or the choice of technology.

These are not easy decisions nor are they simple. If your company is not prepared with educated staff, you can define the scope of work to outsource this to a Communications Technology Consultant. Just make sure he/she is independent, experienced and aligned with your company’s objectives.

For more details, download your complimentary Abilita research report “YOUR NEXT TELECOM SYSTEM – A Primer on Cloud, On-Premise and Hybrid Systems”

Educating yourself on the benefits and potential challenges that come with using cloud, on-premise or hybrid phone systems can help you make a good decision to ensure your business needs are met and you get the greatest value for your investment. This special report explains why you need to upgrade, key considerations for each option and a review of this important business decision.

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The Lion Tamer Who Survived

Over a century ago, a lion tamer named Clyde Beatty learned a lesson that is so important that it impacts nearly every area of your life today. What was that lesson? Keep reading to find out what a lion tamer can teach you about how to focus, concentrate better, and live a healthier life.

The Lion Tamer Who Survived

Clyde Beatty was born in Bainbridge, Ohio in 1903. When he was a teenager, he left home to join the circus and landed a job as a cage cleaner. In the years that followed, Beatty quickly progressed from a lowly cage boy to a popular entertainer.

Beatty’s act included a segment where he brought lions, tigers, cougars, and hyenas into the circus ring all at once and tamed the entire group.

But here’s the most impressive feat of all…

In an era when the majority of lion tamers died in the ring, Beatty lived into his 60s. How did he manage to survive? Thanks to a simple idea. Clyde Beatty was one of the first lion tamers to bring a chair into the circus ring.

The Whip and The Chair

The classic image of a lion tamer is one of the entertainer holding a whip and a chair. The whip gets all of the attention, but it’s mostly for show. In reality, it’s the chair that does the important work.

When a lion tamer holds a chair in front of the lion’s face, the lion tries to focus on all four legs of the chair at the same time. With its focus divided, the lion becomes confused and is unsure about what to do next. When faced with so many options, the lion chooses to freeze and wait instead of attacking the man holding the chair.

Avoid the Fate of the Lion

How often do you find yourself in the same position as the lion? How often do you have something you want to achieve (i.e. lose weight, gain muscle, start a business, travel more) … only to end up confused by all of the options in front of you and never make progress?

This is especially true in health, fitness, and medicine, where every person and company seems to believe it is their duty to make things more complex. Every workout routine you find is the best one. Every diet expert says their plan is the optimal one.

The end result is that we feel like we can’t focus or that we’re focused on the wrong things, and so we take less action, make less progress, and stay the same when we could be improving.

Here is how to Focus and Concentrate Better

Anytime you find the world waving a chair in your face, remember this: all you need to do is commit to one thing.  In the beginning, you don’t even have to succeed. You just need to get started. Starting before you feel ready is one of the habits of successful people.

Most of the time, the ability to get started and commit to a task is the only thing you need to do to focus better. Most people don’t have trouble with focusing. They have trouble with deciding.

Have you ever had a task that you absolutely had to get done? What happened? You got it done. Maybe you procrastinated, but once you committed to doing it, you got it finished.

In other words: making progress in your health, your work, and your life isn’t about learning how to focus and concentrate better, it’s about learning how to choose and commit to a specific task.

You have the ability to focus, you just need to choose what to direct it towards instead of acting like the lion and dividing your attention among the four legs of the chair.

We all have the ability to focus and concentrate, but only if we decide what is important to us and what we want to commit to accomplishing. The only wrong choice is no choice.

Stop Gazing at the Chair

Life isn’t a dress rehearsal. Whether you know it or not, you’re already in the ring. We all are. Most of the time, we sit quietly, gazing at the chair in front of us, silently debating about which leg is the most important.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

If you have somewhere you want to go, something you want to accomplish, someone you want to become… then make a decision. If you’re clear about where you want to go, the rest of the world will either help you get there or get out of the way. Both of those are useful.

You don’t have to do it all at once, but there is something that you need to do now. Something that’s calling you, something that’s important to you, something that you’re destined to do. I don’t know what it is, but you do. Swipe the chair out of the way and choose it.


This article was originally published on JamesClear.com. James Clear writes at JamesClear.com, where he shares science‐based ideas for living a better life and building habits that stick. To get strategies for boosting your mental and physical performance by 10x, join his free newsletter.

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Abilita Consultants Giving Back

Taki Remtulla Volunteers at Eye Camp in Tanzania

Taki Remtulla, Abilita Chief Technology Officer, spends time each year volunteering at a Cataract Surgery camp in Kabaha, a small city located in eastern Tanzania.

Patients report to the Hospital for the unique opportunity of having free treatment for their eyes. Many come with a perception that their eyes will be removed!! Treatments include cataract surgeries to 1 or both eyes, or other ocular pathologies that require medications or corrective glasses.

 

  

Treatment also includes post-op evaluation and follow-up care including free eye drops, sunglasses, protective eye shields and pain medication. In many cases, there is great excitement among the patients as they restore their eyesight allowing them to change their life from dependency to independence.

Thank you to Taki for his humanitarian efforts in helping those in need.

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25th Anniversary of the Text Message

It’s been 25 years since the world’s first-ever text message was sent, an innovation that has shaped modern communication.  The first text message was sent in December 1992 by British engineer Neil Papworth to an executive at Vodafone. It was sent as the company celebrated its Christmas party and read “Merry Christmas”.

That first SMS (it stands for short message service) wasn’t even sent on a mobile phone. Handsets could only receive messages, not send them, so Mr. Papworth typed out the message on a computer.

It took nearly a year to develop the technology for phones to also send text messages, but took several more years for texting to catch on. It was in 1993 that Nokia introduced the SMS feature on its handsets, with a 160-character limit. In 1999, the text messages could be exchanged over different telecom networks, and the first emojis were created in Japan.

Papworth says about the SMS, “In 1992, I had no idea just how popular texting would become, and that this would give rise to emojis and messaging apps used by millions.” SMS can be considered the first step towards the modern smartphone.

Senior Consultant Wim Cassard (Baltimore, MD) gave us his comments on using this technology before mass adaptation:

While working for Bell Atlantic Mobile (later Verizon) in 1994, Wim Cassard and his colleagues were provided with Motorola 550 “flip phones”…state of the art at the time.

Wim noted “As we were located in the mid-Atlantic area, and so close to DC, our office often was awarded new products or technologies to try”. “One day some office personnel and we sales types were all trying a new technology…Send a TEXT message! We stood next to each other and typed HI (4×2, 4×1) soon a very analog looking HI showed up on our phone’s screen.”

“Others tried more complex notes like HI KAREN.  I remember thinking…wow, kind of neat, but kind of clumsy…why would anyone want to do this on a regular basis? I’d rather push ONE BUTTON (speed dial back then) and TALK to my contact.”

Pretty amazing to think we’ve gone from
This:  to THIS: 

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The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated in Life and Business

​It was 1955 and Disneyland had just opened in Anaheim, California when a ten-year-old boy walked in and asked for a job. Labor laws were loose back then and the boy managed to land a position selling guidebooks to visitors for $0.50 a piece.

Within a year, he had transitioned to Disney’s magic shop where he learned tricks from the older employees. He experimented with jokes and tried out simple magic routines on the visitors. Soon, he discovered that what he loved was not performing magic, but performing in general. The young boy set his sights on becoming a comedian.

Once he entered high school, he started performing in small clubs around Los Angeles. The crowds were small and his act was short. He was rarely on stage for more than five minutes. In one case, he literally delivered his standup routine to an empty club.

It wasn’t glamorous work, but there was no doubt he was getting better. His first magic routines would only last one or two minutes. By high school his material had expanded to include a five minute skit and then a ten minute show. At the age of 19, he was performing weekly at clubs for twenty minutes at a time. Of course, he had to read three poems during the act just to make the routine long enough, but still. He was improving.

He spent another decade experimenting, adjusting, and practicing his act. He took a job as a television writer and, gradually, he was able to land his own appearances on television shows. By the mid-1970s, he had worked his way into being a regular guest on The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live.

After nearly 15 years of work, he broke through to wild success. He toured 60 cities in 63 days. Then 72 cities in 80 days. Then 85 cities in 90 days. 18,695 people attended one show in Ohio. 45,000 tickets were sold for his 3-day show in New York. He catapulted to the top of his genre and became one of the most important comedians of his time.

His name was Steve Martin.

Comedy is not for the faint of heart. It is hard to imagine a situation that would strike fear into the hearts of more people than failing to get a single laugh on stage. And yet, Steve Martin worked at it for 18 years. In his words, “10 years spent learning, 4 years spent refining, and 4 years spent in wild success.” His story offers a fascinating perspective on motivation, perseverance, and consistency.

Why do we stay motivated to reach some goals, but not others? Why do we say we want something, but give up on it after a few days? What is the difference between the areas where we naturally stay motivated and those where we give up?

Scientists have been studying motivation for decades. While there is still much to learn, one of the most consistent findings is that perhaps the best way to stay motivated is to work on tasks of “just manageable difficulty.”

The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.

Martin’s comedy career was a perfect example of what The Goldilocks Rule looks like in the real world. Wanting to improve your life is easy. Sticking with it is a different story. If you want to stay motivated for good, then start with a challenge that is just manageable, measure your progress, and repeat the process.

Your Abilita consultant, with many years of experience in the industry, has that same motivation and dedication. This helps to ensure they get things right and provides you with the confidence you are looking for when hiring a consultant.

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Lessons from Catastrophic Events

Key Planning Guidelines for Disaster
Recovery and Business Continuity

Disaster recovery should be a critical component for any business that relies on technology. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma highlight an important lesson for businesses. On a more local level, cable cuts and other outages cause disruptions to data and/or voice services. It doesn’t take a natural disaster to create havoc. And today, it’s not a matter of if it happens…it’s when it happens. What would the impact be to your business if you lost voice or data communications?

A data and voice continuity plan is like insurance. You need to ask yourself what is the cost in lost business and productivity in the event of a failure in voice or data communications for an hour, 4 hours or even 4 days.

For many major service providers, the mean time to repair a lost connection is four hours. But as evidenced by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, outages can be significantly longer.

Businesses need to assess the potential costs of any disruption, and how redundant coverage and alternate routes can lessen the consequence cost of lost business.

You can’t predict the effects of a disaster, but you can plan for one. A carefully considered business continuity plan will help make coping with a disaster less impactful, and enable you to minimize disruption to the business and your customers.

For more details, read our full report titled “Lessons From Catastrophic Events

An independent communications technology consultant can help you create a disaster recovery plan that meets your critical business needs. This will help to minimize the impact of service disruptions so you can get back up and running as quickly as possible after a disaster. As we have learned, and some the hard way, it’s better to be safe than sorry!

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Learn Things Faster with the Feynman Technique

The Feynman Technique, developed by Nobel-prize winning physicist Richard Feynman, helps you understand, recall and explain anything using concise thoughts and simple language.

You can use this model to quickly learn new concepts, shore up knowledge gaps, recall ideas you don’t want to forget, or grapple with complex subject matter. To adopt the Feynman Technique, follow these 4 steps:

1) Identify the Topic 

Pick something you want to understand and start studying it. Write down everything you know about the topic. Add to that page every time you learn something new.

2) Teach it to a Child

This forces you to make it really simple. When you write out an idea from start to finish in simple language that a child can understand, you force yourself to understand the concept at a deeper level and simplify relationships and connections between ideas.

3) Identify Your Knowledge Gaps

If you cannot find the words to describe your concept in layman terms, revisit problem areas until you can explain the topic fully. Go back to the source material and re-learn it until you can explain it in basic terms. Highlighting knowledge gaps will help you when you collect and organize your notes into a cohesive story (which is the next step.)

4) Simplify and use Analogies

Organize your notes into a simple story that flows. Use analogies and simple sentences to strengthen your understanding. Practice reading your story out loud. Pretend to tell the story to a classroom of students. Get to the hypothesis in as few words as possible. Avoid clunky, verbose language.

For a brief video outlining the Feynman Technique, click here. These concepts can be used anywhere and anytime. Learning is not only about remembering something difficult, but it is about making things easier. By forcing yourself to make something easier, you will remember it better!

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Software Defined Networks (SDN’s)

We at Abilita know that many of you are still struggling with various options related to the “Cloud”. This includes cloud providers, cloud apps, security, back-up and content ownership to name a few.

IT, Managed Services, Hosted, Carrier Provided Services and Telecommunications seem to evolve almost daily. And don’t forget 5G which has the potential to be a real game changer on many levels. Next up is another technology advancement called Software Defined Wide Area Network or SD-WAN.

As older networks strain to keep up with bandwidth demand, Enterprises are turning to SD-WAN as the preferred choice. Overall SD-WAN is one of the better technologies that has come along. There is little to no downside, but as we learned with “Cloud” not all terminology is used and means the same thing to everyone. Selecting the optimal SD-WAN solution for your enterprise is not easy.
It is more and more difficult to ensure that you have chosen and implemented the right technology, that it has been implemented correctly, and that you have all the necessary tools and training to manage it.

Abilita can help! If you are ready to explore if SD-WAN can benefit your business, remember that Abilita Consultants are vendor neutral and do not sell or represent any manufacturer or service provider. We work strictly for you and will help you find the best combination of product, price and service.

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How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the “2-Minute Rule”

Most of the tasks that you procrastinate on aren’t actually difficult to do — you have the talent and skills to accomplish them — you just avoid starting them for one reason or another. The 2–Minute Rule overcomes procrastination and laziness by making it so easy to start taking action that you can’t say no.

There are two parts to the 2–Minute Rule…
• Part 1 — If it takes less than two minutes, then do it now.
Part I comes from David Allen’s bestselling book, Getting Things Done. It’s surprising how many things we put off that we could get done in two minutes or less. For example, washing your dishes immediately after your meal, tossing the laundry in the washing machine, taking out the garbage, cleaning up clutter, sending that email, and so on. If a task takes less than two minutes to complete, then follow the rule and do it right now.

• Part 2 — When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.
Can all of your goals be accomplished in less than two minutes? Obviously not. But, every goal can be started in 2 minutes or less. And that’s the purpose behind this little rule.

The most important part of any new habit is getting started — not just the first time, but each time. It’s not about performance, it’s about consistently taking action. The 2–Minute Rule isn’t about the results you achieve, but rather about the process of actually doing the work. I can’t guarantee whether or not the 2–Minute Rule will work for you. But, I can guarantee that it will never work if you never try it. Anyone can spare the next 120 seconds. Use this time to get one thing done. Go.

This article was originally published on JamesClear.com. James Clear writes at JamesClear.com, where he shares science-based ideas for living a better life and building habits that stick. To get strategies for boosting your mental and physical performance by 10x, join his free newsletter.

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Case Study: Residential Real Estate Company

Abilita can help you navigate the complexities of your telecommunications services. Independent and objective, we represent you.  Read below for a sample case study that led to significant cost reductions and more efficient processes.

Case Study: Residential Real Estate Company 

Abilita consultants reviewed a Real Estate Company’s twelve corporate locations. The review included elements of people, process and technology: phone systems and services, wide area network, hardware and application software, answering service and reception desk, security and disaster recovery.

As a result of the review, a redesign of the Company’s technology infrastructure was proposed, accepted by and project managed by Abilita. The communications redesign included:

  • Streamlined processes for answering service, reception and appointment desk
  • Security and Virus protection across the network
  • Outsourced IT maintenance for onsite issues for all branches
  • Disaster Recovery solutions
  • Hoteling for real estate agents
  • Remote and Call Center users can seamlessly be an extension off the phone VoIP system

Whether it’s reducing costs, resolving billing errors, or taking away your telecom headaches, contact your Abilita consultant to find out how we can help!

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