In an earlier blog, I mentioned that I would attend the NYC #140Conf this week. I went to the conference on Tuesday and Wednesday and met many great people. Here is a quick recap of highlights.
1) I met Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver) . I mentioned in the earlier blog that Jeff was a cofounder of Vonage and is known for the "Pulver Order," the first FCC ruling regarding IP Communications. From Jeff's talks and introductions, and from my experience, it's easy to see Jeff is genuinely interested in technology, social media, sharing knowledge, and charity.
2) Tal Givoly (@givoly) gave an interesting talk, Twitter vs. Telecom: Friend or Foe. Tal has over 20 years of experience in the telecom industry and is now a Chief Scientist of Amdocs, Inc. During his talk, he discussed the challenges that service providers face with social media platforms. Tal gave some advice that I will surely keep in mind, and some of which I'm happy to say we're already doing! His advice includes:
You can watch the full video at the bottom of this post.
3) I learned of many charitable and educational ways innovative thinkers are using Twitter. For example, Alon Nir (@thekotel) is printing prayers people tweet to @thekotel and putting them in the Western Wall. Placing prayers in the Western Wall is an old Jewish tradition, but Tal encourages Tweeters to use @thekotel as a non-denominational service. Newscaster Ann Curry (@anncurry) once used tweets to help Doctors Without Borders land a plane during a disaster (true story). Ann continues to listen on Twitter for opportunities to use her celeb influence in positive ways. In addition, Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann) and Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal) advocate Twitter for professional growth and educating and engaging students. They point out that social platforms are becoming integral tools in the professional world - so students should learn these tools for good use as they do other tools.
4) Jeff hosted a panel with Avaya on The Future of Communications: A Look at the Evolution of Presence, Directory, ans the Effects on the Communications Industry. Jeff pointed out how social platforms are growing, a mainstream form of communication, and are becoming smarter and smarter about their users. (For example, Facebook knows your likes/dislikes. And, FourSquare knows where you are.) Yet, communication service providers don't know this information. I like where Jeff is going with this...
There were many other interesting talks and people to meet. I met bloggers, radio show hosts, website founders, fashion reporters, and more. After the #140Conf, when I got back to the office, more social times came my way.
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures wrote a blog about OnSIP yesterday that's become a great community for VoIP discussion. It is intriguing how blogs have become a community in and of themselves. I'm grateful for the coverage and chance to talk about IP phones, HD Voice, remote extension dialing, cost savings, the OnSIP Admin portal, VoIP reliability, etc. As Ken Berger of East Agile stated in the comments, "Fones are finally fun."