We're working on an interesting project for a medium sized cable company. They currently have a Nortel CS1000 located at their corporate office and we are tasked with implementing a SIP based IVR solution from Holly Connects for them.

A few years back I was giving a presentation focusing on the standards that are driving next "generation" technologies in the Call Center.  The CIO at this particular customer said, "You know what I like so much about standards?  There's so many to choose from!"  At the time I didn't have a good response or glib comeback, but it got me to thinking about standards as just enablers that (hopefully) make solutions easier... that standards don't solve problems, solutions do.

Well, it was an interesting day yesterday. Lots to do and little time to get it all done. When the day starts at 6 AM and ends with a final conference call at 11:30 PM it turns into a pretty long day.

As happens in any company you cannot have a group of people without anyone having troubles on a personal level. We have that going on right now. Two of our members have had personal issues. One has problems with an ill family member, and that is carrying into an extra time burden on them to support their loved ones. Another has lost a loved one and is helping his family deal with that loss.

Another long and busy week is almost over, and on Friday afternoons I usually take a moment to reflect on what I've seen from our customers and our team.  You have to share a whole lot of information to make customers happy-sometimes it feels like too much.  But I understand that some customers prefer to hear about every nut and bolt while others just want to hear when something gets done.

Well I thought I had had every kind of call from a customer. Today proved me wrong again. I had a call this afternoon from one of our large customers and he expressed that we were doing a great job for him, but he saw the same people's names coming up on projects so often that he was worried that we would burn out our people.  He did not want that to happen on his account.

How do we make ends meet?  Everyone is asking that question these days whether it be on a personal level or a business level.  We have less money, fewer people, and fewer resources in general-and there is no magic wand that will solve all the problems many of us face.

As a toast to PSS's brand new website which we hope will both convey our messaging better and provide a platform for continued communication with our customers - long-term and potential, I thought this an opportunity to extend my reach outward as well.

This morning it came to me that I have been in the computer business for 38 years, and while the technology changes rapidly the thing that makes it work either for you or against you is the people involved.  I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly in solutions presented to a customer,  and I've seen a customer take a good design and turn it to the dark side.