Connecting Data and Voice

I've writte about connecting data and voice channels in customer interaction call centers a while ago. The www.boooming.com website shows an excellent example how this can be achieved: generate a session-ID in the data application (e.g. a corporate website or customer portal), and then let the customer dial a phone number that contains this session-ID - voila! The corporate ACD system can the detect the session ID, and automatically connect the phone channel and the data channel.

Sales Example: customer tries to configure a complex product (e.g. software product or a car) using the online configurator of the vendor. At some point, the customer has a question and needs support. The website displays a phone number that contains a session ID, e.g. 0800-1234-5678, where 5678 is the session ID. The ACD system routes the call to a sales agent, and the session ID is handed over to the sales agent's CRM system which automatically displays the current product configuration that has been selected by the customer.

Customer Service / Remote Support Example: customer needs help with a certain problem, visits the vendor website and requests remote support. The remote support application is launched from the website. The website also displays a phone number containing a session-ID. The customer calls this phone number. The call is routed by the ACD system to a customer service agent. The agent has a software on his system that connects the session-ID from the phone call to the session-ID of the remote support application, i.e. he automatically sees the screen desktop of the calling customer.

JPMCCC 2006 - 34:06 Minuten

St. Gallen Symposium

Some very interesting and inspiring speeches from this year's St. Gallen Symposium with the Theme "Inspiring Europe". 600 invited top leaders and 200 invited top students from all over the world gathering together for three days in May 2006, thinking about the role and future of Europe in a globalized world.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: I Have a Dream

see also: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/Ihaveadream.htm

"We concluded that all great organizations have in common a caring, serving, humanistic purpose and that their leaders not only take care of their direct followers or related contituents, but that they want to leave the world a better place. We concluded that average leaders are "numbers driven", and de facto take care only of themselves. We stated that good leaders are "vision driven" and take care not only of themselves but also others. Our most important conclusion was that great leaders are "mission driven" and not only take care of themselves and others but also want to leave this world a little better.
UBF Asia's journey to greatness

"Why communities? What life have you if you have not life together? There is not life that is not in community."
T.S.Eliot

"To realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation."

"Being successful is not about more money, it's about taking care of others and leaving the world a better place."

„Kirche ist nur dann Kirche, wenn sie für andere da ist.“
Dietrich Bonhoefer

“Ein Mensch, der nicht über die engen Grenzen seiner eigenen Existenz hinaus wächst zu den größeren Anliegen der gesamten Menschheit, hat nicht wirklich gelebt.”
Martin Luther King

Movie "Valley of the Wolves"

Saw this movie tonight. The cinema about half full with approx. 300 mostly turkish young men and quite many women.

The prime minister of the German federal state of Bavaria today demanded to ban this movie. I don't think he actually saw the movie.

Most German newspapers (e.g. www.spiegel.de) said the film is anti-american, anti-jewish, anti-christian, and is bad because it deepens the existing "culture clash" even more.

I don't agree. Well, of course the movie is one-sided. With a single exception the Americans in the movie are unscrupulous, deadheartened and bloodthirsty. They humiliate people of other countries/cultures/religion, don't care about deaths of innocent civilians, maltreat prisoners, etc. Of course most Americans are not like this, but as we know from the pictures and videos from Abu Ghureib and from several other incidents, most of these things did really happen. Why should it be not allowed to show these things in a movie?

One scene remind me strongly of holocaust movies: captives are transported on a long journey in a container on a truck. One guard says to the other: they might suffocate in the container because there is no fresh air supply. The truck stops, the (American) guard gets off the truck and fires with an automatic gun hundrets of bullet-holes into the container and creates a bloodbath among the captives. Well, if a holocaust movie shows German Nazis committing terrible things, I don't object too. Ok, I don't really know if something like this container incident did really happen in Iraq, but we know that many bad enough things did actually happen.

There are interesting scenes e.g. where a sheikh stops some fanatists from executing an american journalist and confronts them with facts why this has nothing to do with Islam, or another one where he discusses with suicide bombers why their plans are wrong.

This movie can help us understand how many turkish, arabic or muslim people feel and think. It is provocative, one-sided, and mixes historic truth with fiction in a questionable way. However isn't that a good starting point for discussing these issues? Sometimes provocation is necessary to get people start talking. First we need to learn to talk about our own feelings. Then we can talk to each other. It's not very healthy if the political correctness keeps telling us to not talk about what we really think and feel just because it could violate other peoples feelings.