The enterprise collaboration landscape is changing. Driven by the need to connect disparate workers, partners and even customers, enterprises are quickly adopting tools such as unified communications, video conferencing, workgroup collaboration services, and social computing. But absent a clear architecture and roadmap, we find that most deployments are disjointed and wind up in silos, leaving organizations unable to take advantage of seamless anytime, anywhere collaboration.

During this workshop, we’ll define the components of a UC&C architecture. We’ll identify key trends driving the need for an enterprise collaboration strategy, we’ll look at examples of how vendors and their partners are integrating their UC&C offerings, and finally we’ll share a roadmap for implementation based on numerous engagements with end user companies.

Speaker - Irwin Lazar, Analyst, Nemertes Research

Irwin Lazar is the Vice President for Communications and Collaboration Research at Nemertes Research, where he develops and manages research projects, develops cost models, conducts strategic seminars and advises clients. Mr. Lazar is responsible for benchmarking the adoption and use of emerging technologies in the enterprise in areas including VOIP, unified communications, video conferencing, social computing, collaboration and advanced network services. A Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and sought-after speaker and author, Mr. Lazar is a columnist for No Jitter and Enterprise2Blog. He is a frequent resource for the business and trade press. and is regular speaker at events such as VoiceCon, and Enterprise 2.0. Mr. Lazar serves as the conference director for FutureNet (formerly MPLScon), and is on the advisory board for the Enterprise 2.0 conference.

Why is unified communications and social software like a Reese’s peanut butter cup? They bring together two things that are great on their own and make them even better when they’re combined. Enterprises have been improving productivity and efficiency from using unified communications tools for the past few years, and more recently from enterprise-grade social software solutions developed for business collaboration. While these are both great business tools by themselves, their value dramatically increases when they’re integrated as part of Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) solutions and used to solve business problems. The lines are blurring between the social aspects and the project-centric collaboration tools. Tying in UC’s presence, IM, and click to communicate capabilities with a company’s social software community makes it easier to connect with people and share information.

The use cases for UC and social software are endless, and we’re just at the beginning of seeing the power of these tools combined. Listen to early adopters who have been at the forefront of this new phase of UCC, and hear how they’ve integrated their various tools together to create business value and enhance the bottom line.

Speaker - Blair Pleasant, President & Principal Analyst, COMMfusion LLC

As President and Principal Analyst, COMMfusion LLC and Co-Founder, UCStrategies.com, Blair provides consulting and analysis on Unified Communications and voice/data convergence markets and technologies, aimed at helping end-user and vendor clients both strategically and tactically.

Social networks like Twitter and Facebook represent an important emerging channel for enterprises to communicate with their customers, partners, and other stakeholders. And in many cases, these stakeholders will be talking about your enterprise in these forums whether you know it or not. So how does the enterprise harness the power of social networks, and also monitor them? In this session, leading experts will help you understand what tools are available for monitoring social networks and, more importantly, for bringing their input into the customer contact infrastructure you already have in place—and how you can act on what you learn through this channel. You’ll leave with specific best practices, products, and prospects for bringing the social media world into the contact center.

KEY QUESTIONS:
* Is social media-contact center integration simply a matter of monitoring Twitter and Facebook for mentions of your enterprise? How do you turn these mentions into actionable intelligence?
* Should social media be a formal channel for interacting with contact center agents, or is it simply a source of data and ad hoc information?
* What analytics capabilities exist for your enterprise to quantify and act on the information you receive through social media channels?
* Is it really a good idea to encourage customers to contact your enterprise through social media? What are the potential pitfalls?
* Are any enterprises actually doing social media-contact center integration today, or is this more of a future prospect?

Moderator - Sheila McGee-Smith, President & Principal Analyst, McGee-Smith Analytics, LLC

Sheila McGee-Smith, the founder and principal analyst at McGee-Smith Analytics, is a leading communications industry analyst and strategic consultant with a proven track record in new product development, competitive assessment, market research, and sales strategies for communications solutions and services. Her insight helps enterprises and solution providers develop strategies to meet the escalating demands of today's consumer and business customers.

Ms. McGee-Smith has more than two decades of experience in the telecommunications industry, including 12 years with The PELORUS Group,
Prior to joining The PELORUS Group, McGee-Smith held sales management, market research and product management positions at AT&T, Timeplex and Dun & Bradstreet.

She earned her bachelors degree, cum laude, from Barnard College, Columbia University, with a major in psychology, and her masters of business administration (MBA), awarded with distinction, with majors in marketing and management information systems from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Ms. McGee-Smith is a regular contributor to No Jitter and she can be followed on Twitter at mcgeesmith.

Panelist - Laura Bassett, Director of Marketing, Emerging Products and Technology, Avaya

Laura Bassett is the Director of Marketing for Avaya’s Emerging Products and Technology group. The group delivers innovative business solutions from Avaya Research Labs and Advanced Software Development. In this role Laura oversees the groups go-to-market including business planning and strategy, market awareness, marketing, and sales enablement and engagement for next generation solutions. She has established Avaya’s Market Driven Innovation Model and Early Adopter Program to support the efforts of Avaya to accelerate the commercialization of innovation. Additionally, Laura is a supporting author of Avaya’s Social Media in the Contact Center for Dummies. Laura has over 18 years experience in applications consulting, development and delivery. Prior to her current role, Laura led the Contact Center Solutions team responsible for delivering end to end customer service solutions. She has a BSBA in Computer Science and an Executive MBA from the University of Florida.