I’m not going to post a ridiculous meme, here, but I’d love you to give me a couple of minutes to read something which really struck a chord with me.
This week I’m working with a top brand in our industry (Contact Centres) to help them with their move to the Cloud and engage in some game-changing technology. Bored yet? I hope not, because this is not some tedious lecture about revolutionary new technology. Instead I want to talk about how our personal lives have changed for the better over the years…and we probably don’t think about it
Love music and films?
I do. I’m a movie-buff and love musicals….so I have owned vinyl, cassettes, videos, CD’s, DVD’s and even dabbled with Blue-ray. The I-pods then arrived and we cut back on the hardware. But really it was all about the songs and dancing….I just had different bits of plastic to play them on. Now we stream on Disney Plus in an instant, and dance/sing along to Spotify…no hardware required other than your phone.
Love talking to people?
My friends will not be shocked when I admit I love a “gab”. When I started at with the Royal Corp of Signals 30 years ago (I know, It can’t be true) we had a switchboard, pins and plugs “Who can I connect you with, please?” Then there was the phone with the long cord that meant I could go into the next room to avoid my parent’s ears. Then heaven…a cordless phone…..then, oh my….a mobile phone the size of a brick….and on and on…to IM’s and DM’s that don’t even need a voice, but can be done in an instant to a group of 6 people and answered in a split second.(Imagine phoning 6 of your pals at the same time!!) Can you even imagine video calls or “facetime” in the 80s?
Love to eat?
Well you’ll be even more surprised to hear I am a foodie. I loved the local fast food places in East Kilbride where I grew up. Get a lift, get to the cashline for some money…stand in queue…go home and reheat….Always time well spent. Now, with 5 clicks of a secure app you’ll get a delivery without leaving your couch.
What’s your point, Debbie?
Ok, thanks for indulging me in a journey of food, chat and music, but the point I’m trying to make is that this journey, as nostalgic as we are for the past, shows that we can do so much more now, using so much less space, needing so much less time and wasting so little of our natural resources……all with the same outcome. Eat, chat and be entertained.
The business bit
This picture I’ve painted has a purpose. Our lives have changed for the better, but sometimes in the work-place we don’t move in the same direction. I’m passionate about saving resources and making life safer and more convenient, but most of our (Contact Centre) industry still run their operations off servers on their premises.
It’s like running a hairdryer for 24 hours. Machinery, electricity and often, inefficiency, instead of moving to the safer, more efficient and cheaper cloud-based solution. Why? You can stream a film in seconds without having the hardware of a Disc and DVD player, which you need to find, load up and store. Why would you hold your business back in the same way?
How it started. How it’s going
Thanks for reading this story. I want it to make sense to everyone who reads it. But I really hope it rings a bell with someone in your organisation, or even yourself, if you think that you can do better for your business and the environment.
I am a product ambassador for AWS (Amazon Web Services) and their product Amazon Connect. A global leading name and incredibly cost-effective contact centre in the Cloud. If you want to know more, phone me….even if it’s sitting on your landing with the long chord stretched so no-one can hear you.
