Product Specialist Teaching and Grooming-101

May 23, 2008 by Garrett Smith

I remember when I used to teach Social Studies, specifically while I was student teaching, a student would come up to me and ask me a question to which I had no idea what the answer was. If this happened in front of the whole class, this could be a source of embarrassment. If it was in front of the class and the principal (who dropped by to observe you) heard you fumbling for the answer…LOOK OUT!

Now, that being said, management of the classroom involves several tricks. Ask any teacher and they’ll tell you that you have to know your content, but also have excellent “stage presence”. Stay on your toes and be prepared for anything.

When a student came up to me and politely asked, “Mr. L, how did the Versailles Treaty affect Germany after WWI?” I paused for about two seconds and just fired out….

“I don’t know Jaime, you tell me…”

Another great moment is “Mr. L, how did American Patriots use the writings of Voltaire and Locke to influence the growing tide of anti-British sentiments and thoughts of independence?” My reply was not by the writing of treatises, colonial legislatures and town hall meetings; my answer was to the class as a whole…

“Who knows the answer to Tabitha’s question?”

What happened here? Well, students will surprise you with how much they do know, and Jamie answered the question himself. Another student answered Tabitha’s question and essentially taught the lesson for me.

“Well, that is pretty lackadaisical on your behalf, Laurenzi! What kind of teacher are you anyway?”

My purpose for bringing this anecdote to life is simply to ask if you as a principal and stakeholder at your company are satisfied with the results of on-going training you expect your employees to implement and execute for the betterment of the company. Does the thought of listening to me lecture you on something I know a lot about horrify you? It horrifies me to stand up there for 45 minutes talking until I’m blue in the face, too.

Have you ever seen this?

Learning pyramid

That’s right. Studies show that the retention of new material increases beyond the archaic lecture. Here at IPCS and VoIP Supply, associates are encouraged and rewarded for “presenting a lesson” to their peers. Teaching others.

This does not guarantee that the learner will retain what the associate taught. But it will bear another fruit. By having an associate assume the role of instructor, you will now have a master of a certain subject at your disposal. This associate will now become the go-to, de facto, uber-source of information, data and resources on a given subject.

For those of you categorized as a VAR in our economy, why not challenge your associates to read-up on PBXs, switches, routers, IP cameras or WI-FI and have them demonstrate skills and subject mastery by having them instruct their peers? I think you may be surprised by the results and the acquisition of a product specialist.

For more on the effects of the learning pyramid at any level of instruction, click here:

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2008/03/descending-learning-pyramid.html

If you have any questions on lesson planning, “tricks of the educator,” or want to talk about the direction of corporate instruction at your company and what has been successful and what has not, please write me a e-mail at [email protected].

IPCS Word of the Day: F

by Garrett Smith

F = In optics, the f-number (sometimes called focal ratio, f-ratio, or relative aperture) of an optical system expresses the diameter of the entrance pupil in terms of the effective focal length of the lens; in simpler terms, the f-number is the focal length divided by the aperture diameter. It is a dimensionless number that is a quantitative measure of lens speed, an important concept in photography. Depth of field increases with f-number, as illustrated in the photos below:

f-stop

Voice Calling and Social Dynamics

by Garrett Smith

An Andy Abramson post pointed me to a piece done by Jeff Belk. The overall premise of the piece was that voice carriers (cell, landline) need to stop focusing on marketing “cheap minutes” that are difficult to use or “expensive minutes” that are easy to use and unlimited SMS plans and shift their focus to making voice calls easier for users, so that calling can once again reclaim the spot of preferred method of communication.

I agree with his positioning and the advice he gives to carriers, however I think that the carriers are fighting an uphill battle here.

When I was going to college to be teacher, we learned a lot about social development of students and the effects of social conditioning. I am not going to bore you with the scientific details, but essentially much of who we are, how we act and what we become is because of “nurture” or the effects of social conditioning. We learn from and take queues from our peers and those that surround use.

(more…)

Join VoIP Supply’s Social Media Revolution

by Garrett Smith

Yes! You can find us on Facebook and Twitter!

We recognize that social media has a huge impact on how we communicate with our customers and those curious about the VoIP industry. We feel that we can facilitate better connections by not just having a website and traditional news sources, but that we can take a proactive approach to reaching out to the community. Our pages will be great for education and directly connecting with the voip world.

See you there!

VoIP Market’s Identity Crisis

May 22, 2008 by Garrett Smith

Up or Down? What’s it going to be?

VoIP market growing in cable sector, yet shows downturn in first quarter subscription lines

Being in VoIP marketing, I read a LOT about the VoIP industry during the day. One of the things that confuses me is how more households can be utilizing VoIP lines (particularly through cable providers), yet the market seems to claim that VoIP subscriber line orders are shrinking.

I, for one, am confused. How can an industry growing in homes and businesses across the country be shrinking? Seems kind of contradictory to me.

First, the bad news.

JR over at iLocus wrote a post on May 20, saying that the VoIP subscriber lines market shrank 19 percent in the first quarter. The post stated:

“In 1Q08, vendors shipped a total of about 7.9 million VoIP Subscriber Feature Server licenses for deployment in service provider networks generating $144 million in revenue. The number of lines is down by 19% Q-o-Q. The 3Q07 and 4Q07 quarters however were unusually high growth quarters for VoIP Subscriber Feature Servers.”

Meanwhile, on a day prior, May 19, Om Malik at GigaOm produced a post on VoIP booming in the U.S. thanks to cable service providers like Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Cablevision and Charter.

“Despite all the troubles with VoIP service providers such as SunRocket and Vonage, VoIP as a technology seems to be doing quite well in the U.S., according to data from Telegeography. As of the end of March, there were 16.3 million consumer VoIP lines, or about 13.8 percent of U.S. households, and 27 percent of households with broadband lines installed.”

Most of the new customers are coming from RBOC’s (At&T, Verizon and Qwest), with that industry losing 17.3 million residential telephone lines, and VoIP service providers gaining 14.4 million new customers. According to Om’s post, nearly 80 percent have come from cable companies.

So where does this leave the reader or manager inquiring about the industry? From the way I comprehend it, people are using their current broadband lines to incorporate VoIP, rather than having to buy new lines. Considering that half of American homes have broadband Internet, new lines are not necessary.

But the good news is that people are jumping onto VoIP, and will have a need for more VoIP systems and services. The telecom that could is growing in a big way.

Buying an IP Camera-The Final Step

by Garrett Smith

You’re ready to buy! So what happens now? So many factors could influence a buying decision of this caliber since the choices for products are endless. It’s almost like choosing one of three doors and hoping for the best, which would be fine if you were Indiana Jones. My goal is to have you walking away from this four-part series with the confidence to buy the right product at just the right price point.

Step one: let’s structure your price point to meet your needs. If you’re going to make an investment in outdoor surveillance YOU WILL pay more. Let’s face it, materials and accessories are one surefire way to bulk up your order total. With an approximately 25 percent price difference, a several thousand dollar outdoor setup can be substantially more than your indoor-based IP solution. We’re not talking about Bazooka Joe bubble gum here, IP surveillance is a big ticket investment.

With that out the way let’s structure an indoor surveillance solution and you can figure accordingly for the outdoor upgrade. To get started we’re going to line up three choices with similar functions across the board and rank them by monetary value:

Under $100 – Panasonic BL-C1A Home IP Network Camera 10X Zoom

Weighing in at just under $100, this Panasonic delivers the most basic yet reliable setup. It’s ideal for any home office or small storefront.

Under $300 -Q-See QSIPBL2 Ball IP Network Camera

Another ideal desktop or shelf top solution, this Q-see delivers a little more bang for the buck and includes a built-in web server. You can now access your view from any computer around.

Under $500 – TRENDnet TV-IP400W – Wireless Advanced Pan & Tilt Internet Camera Server

The heavyweight of affordable technology, this TRENDnet is ideal for shelf and small area space. It has wireless access and a built in server, so you can send images via Wi-Fi to your server or access the camera itself from any desktop you sit at.

IPCS Word(s) of the Day: DVR

by Garrett Smith

DVR = Digital Video Recorder. Fundamentally not much different than the TiVo box sitting on top of your television, but it records video streams from analog security cameras as opposed to your favorite television shows.

DVR

DECT vs. Wi-Fi Death Match…Who Will Be Victorious?

by Garrett Smith

Today I am talking about DECT and Wi-Fi Technologies, and who I think will win out in the end in an endless battle for supremacy. This idea came about after reading a VoIP-News.com article (SNOM Brings m3 DECT Phone to U.S.). The article shows that DECT is a technology that has worked well in the European market, and that it is just now starting to hit the U.S.

DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) uses base stations and SIP (Session Initiated Protocol) to connect to your VoIP PBX. Think of it this way; your cordless phone at home has a similar base station to charge and receive signals to talk to your old analog phone lines. The technology works pretty much the same way, but instead of an analog signal it’s using digital to talk to a VoIP phone system. Pretty easy to understand that way. Now, expand on that thought and think about multiple phones on one base station. That is what this technology is giving the digital world.

Then there is Wi-Fi. Good ol’ Wi-Fi. What isn’t there to love about wireless signals that can be used to talk to computers, phones, and other goodies? With Wireless VoIP technology you have an access point, or a “Hot Spot” (like Starbucks) and access to the World Wide Web. That too is pretty easy to understand.

Now that you have a very basic understanding of the concepts that run both DECT and Wi-Fi you should also understand the cons of such technology.

DECT runs on 1880 MHz-1900 MHz to where as Wi-Fi runs on 2.4 GHz. What does that mean you ask? Well because DECT runs on a different frequency than traditional Wi-Fi, you will get no interference on your cell phone, computer or anything else that needs the Wi-Fi frequency for broadcasting. Also, if you have too many applications on a Wi-Fi network you may start to see a decline in QoS (Quality of Service) on some or all of the products on your Wi-Fi network. (WINNER = DECT)

And there is also battery life to consider. DECT, because of its lower frequency and better batteries has an amazing life. To where as Wi-Fi Phones do not. For example, Spectralink Kirk DECT phones have a 20-hour talk time and a 200-hour standby time. That’s right; there is no typo in what I just wrote. Or you can go with Wi-Fi and have (if you’re lucky) a three-hour talk time and a 50-hour standby time. And that is with the Linksys WIP 330 to which is one of the better phones on the market. (WINNER = DECT)

To wrap this up we need to look at access points and the base stations. These are the backbone of any network, and these are how the units get the information needed to communicate to an IP PBX. Wi-Fi has an easy to set up wireless access point, such as the Linksys Wireless routers. They are cheap, and very easy to setup. Then there is the base station for the DECT phones. Not as easy to setup, but still pretty simple; I would estimate about double the amount of time taken with Wi-Fi access point will be taken on the base station, and also they are not as cheap.

A typical Wi-Fi station setup will cost $69.95 to $165 for a Linksys Wireless router and another $210 for the WIP 330 unit, Total being in the range of $270 to $350.

For a Polycom DECT, setup will cost $344.99 for the Base station (Called Server 500) then another $414.99 for the KIRK 5020 Phone.

Snom has a bundle package available called M3 for $244.99 that comes with one phone and the base station. This can hold up to eight phones on the same base station.

So, if price is your biggest concern then I would call Wi-Fi the winner, if it’s not, and you want a nice system that is reliable, and doesn’t interfere with your current wireless network, then I would say DECT wins. (WINNER= DRAW).

Spitting is a Dirty Habit

May 21, 2008 by Garrett Smith

Spit = Spam over Internet protocol.

Who knew?

I’ve heard everything from Spam to Phishing to Vishing to Chicken Scratch. Next up in the hacker field could be VoIP technology, or so Mr. William Jackson says from Government Computer News.

I recently came across this article from a Twitter follower; “Careful with that call: It’s only a matter of time until IP telephony is hit by spam and malware.” It was an interesting look at the possible vulnerabilities in VoIP technology, but also an excellent look at the cautionary steps already in place to protect VoIP users from spam, spit and other annoyances.

VoIPshield Systems, founded in 2005, works on researching these technicalities and developing patches and solutions before they reach the marketplace. IBM Internet Security Systems (IBM ISS) also does similar work, and doesn’t want to alarm the public, but like with any invention or business model, they just want to be prepared for the ‘what if.’

No method of technology or telecoms is perfect, whether it be PSTN, mobile, VoIP, the iPod, HDTV, hybrid cars, etc. Technology continues to grow and change and improve over the years. Look at how many years the automobile has been around. Frankly, there are still MANY ways to improve there. Only in the past five years or so has the general public grown to accept broadband Internet into their homes. And how many people complain that the iPhone is just too slow for Internet browsing? Sure enough, a new model will be coming out in the next year.

It’s nice to know that the big guys are looking out for VoIP users and not accepting the status quo of the technology. It displays not a fear for the potential problem, but a concern for the customer, and an investment in their future.

Are you worried about spit? What will this do for the telecom industry? Think about it. Spam in your email isn’t that scary. You just have to hit the delete button.

Job Coaching from Tim Berners-Lee

by Garrett Smith

GigaOm mentions an upcoming interactive “round table” discussion being hosted by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on June 11th called Tetherless World Research Constellation. The panel is comprised of academic and industry luminaries.

The cool part….rather than sit at your computer and listen to these MENSA members wax philosophical about the world wide web, you can register as a remote attendee, and submit a question of your choosing. User submitted questions then go through a peer voting process, and the top questions will be fielded by the panel. This has probably been done before, but I thought it was cool and worth mentioning.

One of the esteemed panelists is Tim Berners-Lee, whom you probably have heard of if you don’t live in a bomb shelter. Tim is credited as the inventor of the world wide web (Not George Bush, nor Al Gore)….which is pretty hard to trump. Talk about a feather in your cap. In this web-centric world of ours where everyone has instant access to pretty much everything, I imagine Tim can pretty much write his own ticket….I’d love to be a fly on the wall at an interview where Mr. Berners-Lee is applying for a job.

Product Specialist Teaching and Grooming-101

IPCS Word of the Day: F

Voice Calling and Social Dynamics

Join VoIP Supply’s Social Media Revolution

VoIP Market’s Identity Crisis

VoIP market growing in cable sector, yet shows downturn in first quarter subscription lines

Buying an IP Camera-The Final Step

IPCS Word(s) of the Day: DVR

DECT vs. Wi-Fi Death Match…Who Will Be Victorious?

Spitting is a Dirty Habit

Spit = Spam over Internet protocol.

Job Coaching from Tim Berners-Lee

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