How "Skype Me" is becoming "Lync Me"!

I do my fair share of international travel and am reminded, from time to time, that there are still countries where it costs an arm and both legs to make a long distance telephone call. In fact, it dawned on me the other day that I have enough grey in my hair to recall when making a long distance call in the good old US of A was quite expensive. My, how times have changed with the deregulation of telecom.

One of the most popular services evolving as a result of inexpensive computers and more widely available internet is Skype. Worldwide there are over 170 million users (2011). The reason is pretty simple, Skype provides the ability to communicate anywhere there was internet for free (to another Skype user) or for nearly free to a non Skype user/device.

So what does that have to do with your local charter school? You may be surprised!

Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011 and while I don’t pretend to understand their strategic reasons in doing so, I do understand the Skype like solution they now offer as a core component of Office 365 for Education. It is called Lync 2010, soon to be Lync 2013, and is very cool!

The power of Lync is not the ability to use it as a phone system, although it is equal to or better than Skype in this regard. The real power of Lync is the clever array of additional communication capabilities it provides. And whether you are across campus, across town, or on the other side of the world, you will come to find these features indispensable.

There are four core features in Lync 2010. However, before you can fully appreciate these features, you must understand how “presence” dramatically enhances these features. Presence is the simple but powerful color coding next to your name (and photo if you desire) that designates your availability to engage in communication and guides your associates to the most appropriate form of communicating with you.

Think of presence as a virtual “Do Not Disturb” sign posted on your office door. One that changes to “Available” automatically, to “Away” if your keyboard is idle for predetermined amount of time, and it reads your Outlook Calendar, automatically setting your presence based upon meetings listed there.

We communicate in fundamentally different ways when we understand the availability of our intended audience. Presence in Lync will help your associates communicate with you more effectively.

Now let’s look at the four core features of Lync, one by one, to evaluate the potential to improve your communication capability. The features are:

1. Instant Messaging
2. Resource Sharing
3. Video Conferencing
4. Telephony

Instant Messaging

 

At first glance, Lync 2010 looks like another desktop application resembling Yahoo, MSN, or Gmail text messaging systems. Whoopee…

 

Not so fast…

 

Lync has way more capabilities just in the instant messaging department. First of all it has presence indicators that include more than a mere “online” or “offline”. Presence indications include, Available, Busy, Do Not Disturb, Be Right Back, Off Work, and Appear Away, all in context of “where I am today” displayed in your associates Lync window.

 

Instant messaging on your desktop is an indispensable tool for the classroom, especially when most schools declare classrooms as cell phone free zones, to avoid constant interruption. But by using Lync your staff can abide by the rules and IM their associates, family, and friends – all from their desktop.

 

Other Instant Messaging features include message transcripts for archiving, automatic message forwarding to email, and non-delivery notification. You can also record any Lync session for review later.

 

The new version of Lync 2013, will be integrated with all of the major social media platforms (if enabled) and in doing so can serve as the collection point for all of those important conversations.

 

Try doing all of that with Google or Yahoo messaging! 

 

Resource Sharing

 

Lync allows you to share resources with members of your team one at a time or many at a time. By resources, I mean documents, programs, or your entire desktop view. This provides a very useful teaching and collaboration platform.

 

Assume for a moment that you have a document on your desktop that you wish to show a team member. With link, you can send a document directly to anothers desktop, share a view of the document by extending your view to another, or you can share your entire desktop with another user or group of users. And you can give control of the remote user to manipulate that document, such as editing it, notating it, or working collectively on it.

 

The possibilities are endless and can extend outside of the school to students or parents as well. Indeed, the free Live@EDU services for students, is now powered by Office 365 for Education.

 

Video Conferencing

 

This feature blows my mind and if it was the sole capability of Lync 2010, it would be worth it. Oh, I keep forgetting it is free!

 

Full on video conferencing systems can be very expensive. But with a $20.00 web camera and a set of speakers, you can turn an ordinary PC into a video conferencing platform. And it requires no advance setup, notification, or subscription. Just click on a user from your list, and then click the video button and the rest is taken care of by Lync.

 

Those of you who spent $20,000 on HD video systems, don’t worry. Lync is engineered with most of the popular high definition video systems in mind, and for good reason. For professional quality video presentation, a $20.00 webcam simply won’t cut it, but Lync is very versatile and capable of handling that high definition system as well as simple webcam sessions. And the new version of Lync 2013 adds new features to video conferencing to accommodate the best possible video signal on each device.

 

On either end of the spectrum and all point in between, Lync is an excellent platform for video conferencing. Video conferencing brings a whole new level to interactions with team members and is an essential part of content delivery for the classroom.

 

Telephony

 

Although Lync can be configured as the complete public phone system for your school, that requires an on premise server and significant configuration. For schools with existing phone systems this may not be practical, but for new schools it can be a very good choice.

 

However, in a default installation, Lync is a VoIP (Voice Over Internet Phone) system that connects all of your team members (both in and out of the physical building). Call quality is very good (used Skype lately?) and again, it requires no advance setup or configuration, it works right out of the box.

The clever thing about telephony in Lync is that you don’t need to know a users phone number.

 

Simply use the search box to locate team members and click on the telephone icon. Lync rings your team member and notifies them of an inbound call. And feel free to add others to the call, it costs the same! (still free)

 

Summary

 

Lync, a component of Office 365 for Education, is a messaging and resource sharing system. It provides a connection between you and your team members allowing you to communicate real time, share documents, presentations, or complete desktops. It delivers video to your desktop either from a meeting or as a video call. It can make and receive telephone calls right to your device. And it is available on all endpoints with a browser or as an app for iOS and Android.

 

“Lync Me” certainly makes more sense in the school than “Skype Me”, give it some serious consideration.

Just the FAX, please...and keep it green!

The widespread adoption of the fax machine in the 1980’s revolutionized communication of images. By using a relatively inexpensive facsimile machine one could transmit document based images over a basic telephone line.

Fax machines have since become common in organizations worldwide and provide a significant role in office communication.  However, according to GreenFax (www.greenfax.com), government research has shown that fax machines consume 200 billion pages of paper each year in the United States alone. If just five percent of this were done paperless, it could save up to 1 million trees a year.

So, how can you Fax more responsibly? It’s actually quite easy…

Think about using email instead of physically mailing a letter. In a similar manner, paperless faxing  (also termed Internet faxing or electronic faxing) has many advantages and features that a normal fax machine does not have, with only a few challenges that are easy to overcome.

The fundamental principle with paperless faxing is simply to keep the document in a digital format to the extent possible, only printing it when necessary. This might be easier than you imagine. Let’s break it down into two broad categories – inbound fax and outbound fax.

Inbound Fax:

Documents being sent to you are already in an electronic format, usually in a file format called .tif or .tiff (tagged image file format).  You know the process well. A sender places the document on a fax machine (scanner) and it is converted into an image file and transmitted electronically over a telephone line; and your fax machine interprets the electronic file and reconstitutes it into a printed image.

What if we just delivered that electronic image into your email inbox instead? Then you could read the fax and act upon in before printing it. Better yet, you could send it to the person in your organization that specifically needed the information – and keep a copy if you like.
 
Outbound Fax:

Many documents you fax outbound originate as digital images or files. They often consist of letters, memo’s, drawings, etc. which you are manipulating in one way or another on a computer device. Why then would you take the time to print the document on paper only to turn around and convert it back into an electronic image for transmission? This is a waste of both time and precious resources!

A simpler approach might be to just send the document directly from your workstation in one of the following ways:

• Attach the document to an email message and fax it to an electronic fax service
• Upload the document to a web based electronic fax service
• Print the document to a virtual fax printer setup on your computer
• Select send Internet Fax from within your Microsoft Word or Excel program

We know there are times when an electronic transmission of a fax will not do. Required signatures, notes on originals, and expediency are all valid reasons to not use electronic means of faxing. But like so many good ideas, just knowing the options and making a choice is a place to start.

If you would like to explore how your school can do more than pay lip service to the “Green” movement, and actually save some trees. Contact us for a demonstration on how you can begin using a paperless fax system in your organization. It costs about the same as a ream of paper per month, so it is pretty much a free solution!

For an interesting history about the development of the fax machine, go here: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/fax.htm

It’s time to upgrade your phone system, start saving money, and get better service.

Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is no longer an emerging technology with the promise of providing better features at lower costs, someday. It is a stable and widely accepted industry with significant hardware, software, and technical service adaptation. And it is much, much, less expensive that Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). In addition to lower phone bills, you will also enjoy a smorgasbord of features previously found only with very expensive phone systems.

And cost savings on your monthly phone bills are just the beginning. You can also enjoy an efficient virtual receptionist that provides better call routing and more relevant information based upon whether your school is open or closed. You can take a handset home and appear to be in the office, you can answer and make phone calls from an (internet enabled) airplane at 35,000 ft while traveling to a conference or meeting. And your phone messages and faxes can be delivered to your email inbox and be reviewed on any mobile device. And this is just a very partial list of features. Every possible feature, including call forwarding, conference calling, extension transfer, music on hold, intercom, voice mail, etc. are standard features of currently available VOIP systems.

There are two general types of VOIP systems – on premise and hosted. Simply stated the difference is a function of where your call controller hardware is located. With an on-premise system this hardware is located within your building much like a traditional phone system, with a hosted VOIP system all of your call center hardware is located in a datacenter not in your building. Most of the advantages discussed in this article relate to a hosted VOIP system.

Hosted VOIP requires only two things to operate – a handset on your desk (or software on your computer) and an internet connection. Prices start about $25.00/mo per line and the service is managed completely on line. If you are doing new construction, VOIP significantly reduces both the cost and complexity of installing a new phone system. A VOIP handset can be plugged directly into a network cable, so rather than pulling both phone and network lines, all you need are network lines. And with a hosted VOIP system, rather than having a proprietary and expensive call controller mounted in your server room, you can now outsource that function to a provider that maintains all of the hardware you need, for a low flat monthly rate.

There are several scenarios where a hosted VOIP system is particularly beneficial. If you are leasing space in a building while facilities are under construction it is a tremendous idea. If you are expanding to a new building, it is also very practical. And if your staff routinely has remote work assignments or a use a satellite campus, a hosted VOIP system will greatly simplify your phone configuration.

The reason a Hosted VOIP solution is so flexible is because there are no physical space limitations to the system. You can literally install your office phone any place in the world that has a reliable internet connection. I recently relocated to temporary office for a few months. And my only action to transfer phone service was to unplug my handset, transport it to the new location, and then plug it back into the internet. At power-up, the phone was routed onto the internet and into my VOIP server and within minutes, my office phone system was relocated.

If you are managing e-Rate reimbursement properly, a hosted VOIP system is particularly beneficial, because the monthly service fees are always reimbursable as a priority one expense, regardless of your discount rate. The only priority two expenses are handsets, which can be reimbursed two of each five years, conditioned upon your discount rate.

Take a closer look at the cost of your telecommunication service and features, then compare available VOIP services. You will be surprised at potential money savings and service improvements available. Just think, you could have enjoyed time at home with the family this holiday while appearing to be in the office!