The Digital Edge

I recently watched a TED Talk by Marc Kushner on how technology and social media have connected the general public to architects and how it has enabled a closed feedback loop for their business. Marc highlights a pendulum that swings between innovation and symbolism that has been accelerated to a blur through technology. so much so that buildings are becoming an icon before they are even complete and firms have a chance to understand the impact of their design on a community faster than ever before. He postulates that as a result of this acceleration "now we can make nearly instantaneous emotionally charged symbols out of something that is brand new." Engagement with the community enables faster and better decision making.

It doesn't matter how we build, it matters what we build. -Marc Kushner

Throughout the presentation I couldn't help but drawing parallels to what is happening with technology in architecture today as every new building should be built with engagement in mind and continue this trend of closing the feedback loop. Merging traditional forms of engagement such as wireless infrastructure and digital signage with Internet of Things (IOT) and Operational Technologies (OT) and merging the data with the enterprise data warehouse and CRM information is the start of the process, however there is much more to be done. Making the technology relatively invisible, yet present and natural is critical to successful outcomes. When we blend engagement and interactions in with the background through preference driven lighting, signage dynamically presented in your native language, and personalized human interactions such as being greeted by name or recollection of and being handed a glass of of your favorite wine, this is when we move the needle substantially for our customers. Technical architects should strive to create visceral experiences for the users that indelibly write memories for the users of these spaces.

It is critical that these conversations are happening early in the process and that desired outcomes are clearly in focus. Creating a space that conveys the organizational message and meets goals, yet allows users to consume technology on their terms is not an easy task and does require substantial planning, intelligent product selection, commitment to integration, and creative vision. At EVOTEK we are doing this daily for our customers as a trusted advisor, system integrator, and technical architect. Reach out to learn more about our Digital Experience vision.

Special thanks to Marc Kushner for his TED Talk and to Dave Allard for making me aware of this presentation.

Engaging customers via their mobile devices is an exciting proposition for many organizations; however, it has to be done with care. These solutions often carry a significant cost and depend on a Return on Investment (ROI) model to make sense. Achieving this ROI requires walking a fine line between meaningful engagement and being a nuisance. Here are five best practices to help you do that.

5 ways to ensure your mobile strategy works 1. Think big picture The goal is to create a user experience that provides vast amounts of data to the organization while delivering value to the customer. Accomplishing that means the experience needs to be immersive and omni-channel (e.g., SMS, email, app-based, digital signage, direct mail, etc.). Too many organizations jump straight to the mobile application without realizing adoption of mobile applications is low and retention of those mobile apps is even lower. A holistic approach that embraces the web (traditional and mobile), mobile apps, digital and physical signage, and some of the emerging areas such as augmented reality (AR) and context-aware chatbots will be far more successful. Analytics and business intelligence tools must be included because understanding the success of these messages and their impact on the bottom line is a necessity, as engagement attempts that are ill-received may create a negative effect on the business. 2. Establish a baseline Before rolling out any new engagement solution or even a single targeted campaign, it is important to understand the baseline. What is normal for a specific time of day, day of week, demographic, location, etc. If there are areas in which these baselines are unknown, the success of an engagement will also likely be unknown. The length of time to determine a credible baseline depends on business and vertical; however, a month of data will provide statistically valuable data for many organizations. 3. Consider your social credibility Each engagement or touchpoint with the user must be carefully weighed prior to being implemented, as the organization is spending “social credibility" with the customer in issuing these engagements. Determining that a message is hitting the right person at the right time and place is paramount to success. While the organization may want to drive a specific behavior, it must be done in such a way that it is graciously accepted by the recipient. For less important messages, consider other channels for delivery—email, direct mail and digital signage integrations are options that are less invasive than a targeted push message. 4. Leverage employee engagement Business should ensure the human component isn’t lost in this digital marketing frenzy. Consider a scenario in which an employee could be notified when a user has spent more than five minutes in front of a specific retail display or there has been a high density of users in line for a drink at a sports game or concert venue. Rather than trying to ping users to have them go find another bar, consider triggers that have an employee come over with a mobile payment system and perform line-breaking transactions. This human component may still be considered a “digital engagement," but it won’t feel like it to the consumer. 5. Keep it fresh Digital engagements should always be timely and relevant. Organizations can’t afford to be lazy about managing these platforms because pushing irrelevant messages will drive away customers, cause them to remove their mobile apps, and even consider competitors. Campaigns should also create a sense of urgency—create a fear of missing out or at least ensure customers understand this immediate deal is good for only the first 100 redemptions. Gamification is one way to keep things interesting for consumers, and it can drive additional spend as it may promise “bonus" rewards for the additional engagement. The solutions should be simple enough that they can be managed by marketing teams and not IT. Originally posted here with Network World. Republished with permission as originating author. Also available on my LinkedIn page.

Heading into Aruba Atmosphere this year I was most excited to see Aruba’s new Niara solution in action and learn more about this product as it solves a very real need in every network. Inherently any network policy grants some sort of access to the network and users are free to work within the confines of that policy. Even using 802.1X-based authentication and dynamically provisioned VLANs, access roles, downloadable ACLs, etc. isn’t necessarily enough. Niara solves for these issues in an appealing way and lessens the workloads for SecOps teams.

Aruba Clarity allows the access points to associate to another access point and run synthetic tests from the “client AP" to the Clarity server, effectively building a baseline and providing tremendous visibility especially for remote sites. Clarity Live tracks DHCP and DNS requests and responses in real-time to profile the typical health of the network. Clarity Synthetic allows for RF performance testing, iPerf, web page loads to a URL (Salesforce, etc.) Upcoming features that were hinted at but not confirmed include scheduling and wired line monitoring and testing.

The WLAN Pros Conference is truly a unique experience that I look forward to all year long. Throughout the year we are inundated with vendor marketing material and embroiled in competition. WLPC is a few days where we can come together as individuals, educate each other, build the community and challenge each other to be better at our craft. This year’s conference will be in sunny Phoenix, AZ. Read more about it here. If you’ve never been before and you have an interest in Wi-Fi I urge you to make plans to attend. It is a great opportunity to network and learn from others in the field.

This environment provides a great opportunity to get up and speak about something you are passionate about. The mix of longer presentations and ten talks allow for a lot of variety and depth of topics. This year I’ve selected a topic on Healthcare wireless as my main presentation topic and then will use a Ten Talk slot to provide a sneak peak into my Bluetooth World presentation that I will be giving in March at Levi’s Stadium.

In case you missed it, Aruba Networks, an HP Enterprise Company announced the availability of their new Aruba Sensor product this week. This was spoken about at Atmosphere back in March, but then had seemingly disappeared. This new sensor enables Aruba Network's Meridian cloud analytics and wayfinding solution and best in class beacon management capabilities to be used on any wireless network. These sensors have a Low-Energy Bluetooth (BLE) radio to act as a beacon and manage other beacons in within a 25 meter radius and a wireless radio to provide network connectivity. Power is delivered through either AC power or USB and both power options offer security locks to ensure the safety of the Sensor. Making the same solution available for any wireless network is a huge deal as it allows for standardization of an engagement solution. ClearPass, Meridian and the Aruba Sensor/Beacon offer tremendous capabilities for any organization's network. Kudos to the team for embracing the market as a whole!

One Company's Journey Out of Darkness, Part V: Seeing the Light Also on Thwack!

Throughout this series I've been advocating the formation of a tools team, whether it is a formalized group of people or just another hat that some of the IT team wears. This team's task is to maximize the impact of the tools that they've chosen to invest in. In order to maximize this impact, understanding who is using each tool is a critical component of success. One of the most expensive tools that organizations invest in is their main network monitoring system. This expense may be in the CapEx spent obtaining the tool or the sweat equity put in by someone building out an open source offering, but either way these dashboards require significant effort to put in place and demand effective use by the IT organization. Most of IT can benefit from these tools in one way or another, so having Role Based Access Controls to these platforms is important so that this access may be granted in a secure way. Screens should be highly visible so that everyone in the office can see them.

NPM aspects of a network management tool should be accessible by most if not all teams, although some may never opt to actually use it. Outside of the typical network team, the server team should be aware of typical throughput, interface utilization, error rates, etc. such that the team can be proactive in remediation of issues. Examples where this has come in useful include troubleshooting backup related WAN congestion issues and usage spikes around anti-virus updates in a large network. In both of these cases, the server team was able to provide some insights into configuration of the applications and options to help remedy the issue in unison with the network management team. Specific roles benefiting from this access include: Server Admins, Security Admins, WAN Admin, Desktop Support

One of the newer additions to NMS systems over the years has been DPI and its use in shedding some light on the QoE for end users. Visibility into application response time can benefit the server team and help them be proactive in managing compute loads or improving on capacity. Traps based on QoE variances can help teams responsible for specific servers or applications provide better service to business units. Specific roles benefiting from this access include: Server Admins, Security Admins, Desktop or Mobile Support

Wireless has outpaced the wired access layer as the primary means of network connectivity. Multiple teams benefit from monitoring the air space ranging from security to help desk and mobile support teams. In organizations supporting large guest networks - health care, universities, hotels, etc. the performance of your wireless network is critical to the public perception of brand. Wireless networks monitoring now even appeals to customer service or marketing teams. This addition to non-IT teams can improve overall communications and satisfaction with the solutions. For teams with wireless voice handsets, telecom will benefit from access to wireless monitoring. In health care, there is a trend to develop a mobile team as these devices are critical to the quality of care. These mobile teams should be considered advanced users of wireless monitoring.

IPAM is an amazing tool in organizations that have grown organically over the years. Using my customer as a reference, they had numerous /16 networks in use around the world, however many of these were disjointed. This disjointed IP addressing strategy leads to challenge from an IP planning standpoint, especially for any new office, subnet, DMZ, etc. I'd advocate read only access for help desk and mobile support teams and expanded access for server and network teams. Awareness of an IPAM solution can reduce outages due to human error and provides a great visual reference as to the state of organization (or lack there of) when it comes to a company's addressing scheme.

I personally do not advocate an environment that promotes read-only access for anyone interested in these tools as the information held within these tools should be secure as they would provide the seeds for a well planned attack if so desired. Each individual given access to these tools should be made aware that they are a job aide and carry a burden of responsibility. Also, I've worked with some organizations looking for very complex RBAC for their management teams, unless you have an extremely good reason, I'd shy away from this as well as the added complexity generally offers very little.

Image from Meridian Mobile App Platform Datasheet

Campaigns are the traditional push messaging of the beaconing world and allow for interaction with end users. Campaigns can be configured to run once, on a set schedule, or for a particular zone. Again Aruba does a brilliant job in making this easy to implement and understand. These push messages can make your visitors aware of a guest network, offer incentives, make them aware of current promotions, etc.

Thursday October 1st marks day two of Wireless Field Day. Follow us live at http://techfieldday.com/event/wfd8/ and if you want to join in on the conversation, reach out to me or any of the other delegates as we can ask questions on your behalf. Follow us on twitter at #WFD8. I will be blogging about the event throughout the next two days, so stay tuned for additional information. Video recordings will be made available shortly after Wireless Field Day comes to a conclusion.

Today marks the beginning of Wireless Field Day 8! Follow us live at http://techfieldday.com/event/wfd8/ and if you want to join in on the conversation, reach out to me or any of the other delegates as we can ask questions on your behalf. Follow us on twitter at #WFD8. I will be blogging about the event throughout the next two days, so stay tuned for additional information. Video recordings will be made available shortly after Wireless Field Day comes to a conclusion.

Ruckus Wireless is a pioneer in the wireless infrastructure market, enabling carriers and enterprises to stay ahead of the exploding demand for high-bandwidth applications and services. The Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi technology redefines what’s possible in wireless network performance with flexibility, reliability, and affordability.

Learn more at http://www.ruckuswireless.com.