VOIP….meh….

I really do not why I don’t care much for Voice Over IP. It’s certainly technical. Heck man, if you’re stuck on QoS, go ask a voice geek. Resellers are begging for more voice engineers, so it’s a great career path. You can really do some very cool things with it that your end users just will love you for. Heck, if there’s a more visible direct impact to a business other than voice, I’d like to know what it is.

But still; when funding comes thru for a voice show I’m always thinking…”meh”… Which is funny because without a doubt our best and most award winning shows have been on voice! You’d think I’d love it right? Hey ya what? when was younger growing up in the hills of Tennessee (hereby referred to as God’s One True Love from henceforth) my first experience with hacking was on our telephone system with rapid hook switch tapping to become a tandem or punching thru busy signals was a real hoot. Of course the Capt’n introduced us to blue boxing and a splendid time was guaranteed for all…

Next week is a TechWiseTV taping week for us. Right now, this show has two things going against it; first off, it’s a voice show and second (and most important) it’s also an upgrade show. Yep folks, that’s right a push to get you to upgrade your CUCM.

Now look, we all have bills to pay so there always some level of butt kissing and boot licking that has to go on any show. Video is expensive. For me, I never ever ever promote ANYTHING on TechWiseTV that I would not be happy to stand by or even support in the future. I’m grateful TechWiseTV can do that. We turn down shows because we just do not believe it’s the best for the network.  Like my Grandmother taught me all those years ago…”If ya ain’t got nuthin’ nice to say, then shut the friggen crap up goober…” Ah she was quite the wordsmith for sure.

I don’t know about y’all, but I am not a big upgrade person at all. Upgrading sucks worst then a going camping with your mother in law on Indy 500 race weekend and forgetting the beer. From and engineering view point; why fix something that isn’t broke? Upgrading means my hardware is going to be slower (if it’s compatible), my licensing is going to be really messed up, tech support is going to be worthless, major downtime, oh yeah…and this is voice? Namely Cisco voice, wholly friggen shnikasourus rex man! You need a PhD in  CUCM licensing to figure that one out, plus my dial plan, migrating my DB…and you know what…that camping trip is looking better all the time now….

Robb and I designed this show to have the voice team prove us that we need to upgrade. To be honest, they better bring their “A” game. ‘Cause I ain’t buying it yet. TechWiseTV is unscripted and we do not see the content that our guests bring on the show beforehand. We like to keep it real and spontaneous. We just ask that slides have minimal words, no marketing or vision statement crap, any quote from any analysis puts you in Aldrich Ames status and removed from the set and have the slides in 16×9 format.

I’m bringing all of these doubts onto the set on Tuesday morning to see if they can address them. It’s still early, so if there is something you want to make sure we cover, toss in your comments before 16Jul13 and we’ll cover ‘um…then tune it see…upgrade or not?? In the meantime, anyone got a tent I can borrow?

Jimmy Ray Purser

Trivia File Transfer Protocol

A pound of feathers weighs more than a pound of gold. This is because feathers are measured in avoirdupois weight which is 16 ounces per pound and gold is weighed in troy weight which is 12 ounces per pound.