Staying Informed

I find it helpful to stay as up to date as possible on the various technologies and thinking methodologies regarding contact center management. Any information I get has to be carefully reviewed for relevancy to the organizations I'm working with at any given time (of course!) but there is nothing better than a good trade show to get a quick glimpse of the broad universe of alternatives in a short period of time. It's also a great way to find and meet like-minded individuals.

The 2004 Annual Call Center Exhibition in Seattle this year turned out to be just such an event and I'm glad that I went.

They thoughtfully provided networking tables as well as meeting sessions that were particularly relevant to small to medium sized contact centers (of particular interest to me since that is my primary market at the moment) and there were a number of vendors participating in the Exhibition hall who had products in display I was interested in learning more about.

The ACCE will once again be held in Seattle in September, 2005 so it's probably worth marking on your calendars now.

One of the situations I ran into more than once was that the managers working in the contact centers didn't always understand all of the technological requirements behind various solutions that were presented (or if they did, they were not sufficiently familiar with other IT initiatives to understand how some solutions might fit into overall plans), while the IT managers were not always aware of the issues faced by the contact centers that needed solutions. Just as it is a huge help to develop a relationship between departments within the work environment, it's also of great benefit to send a person from each department to a trade show such as this one.

Have you been to any events recently that you think are of particular use for staying up to date on technologies & trends and/or for networking? Sending details to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com will help keep the information flowing.

All the best minds working together will accomplish far more than any one brain on its own, no matter how great that one brain may be.