Here's a thoughtful post from Art Rosenberg on the Unified View. See my comments below.

The Voice of the Users - Should Voicemail Die or Change to Fit UC?

Art Rosenberg, The Unified-View

Michael Arrington, technology writer on the web, caught my attention by posting a blog entitled "Think Before You Voicemail." It started off by saying "Voicemail is dead. Please tell everyone so they'll stop using it." I think that the message has some merit but for whom, the callers or the call recipients?

He goes on to complain about what everyone already knows, that voice message management and retrieval has always been awkward and inefficient (compared to text messaging). His blog certainly struck a nerve with his web audience, generating over 250 comments up till now, debating whether voicemail should die or not. (Many observed the truism that personal phone calls deserve voice messages, but we are most interested in business contacts here!). The bottom line of all the comments shows that change is needed in handling messages, but it's really up to individual users to decide how they want to send or to receive any type of message.

The main cause of the voice mail problem that Arrington complains about is due to the fact that the bulk of voice messages come from failed called attempts, better known as "telephone answering" or "caller messaging," and telephone interfaces are limited to sequential voice output, coupled with cryptic touchtone codes for user controls. For the typical caller who landed in "voicemail jail," it is pretty simple to just leave a voice message like on an answering machine, but for the recipient, it is not so simple to manage voice messages compared to text messaging on a screen interface.

[Read Art's full post]

I've read a lot lately, from a number of people I know and respect, along with a number of notable people I read online, like Michael Arrington. The death of voice mail has been decried far and wide in the last couple of months. It's derided as obsolete, out of date and unusable. Which leads me to a question for the naysayers and prophets of doom - Is your head buried in the sand, or stuck somewhere else?

Just as email is continually hammered as being full of spam and a useless tool, now we see voicemail treated with the same gloomy view. And while that may well be true and almost accurate for the smallest business and the solo entrepreneur, it just doesn't hold water with the enterprise business that fuels our global economy.

In the enterprise market space, email and voice mail are the two most-used tools for getting business done. Ok, they probably sit second and third behind mind-numbing, time-wasting meetings. But the fact remains that IM, text messaging, and the cornucopia of cutting edge tools those of is in small space use simply haven't permeated most of enterprise business at the same level we who are more independent use them.

That Michael Arrington would post "Voicemail is dead. Please tell everyone so they'll stop using it." (see "Think Before You Voicemail decries an oblivious mindlessness that's another common problem in the unified communications sector. I don't believe Arrington is either mindless or oblivious, but he falls prey to the trap we who are focused too narrowly fall into so easily. We forget to recognize that in the large global economy, we independent technology leaders represent a nit in the global economy. In the broad world of business, our ego gets in the way and we forget that we deliver a service - a service to those businesses that fuel the economy and huge levels.

We are, at times too shortsighted, and far to egotistical about our own little solutions. That's a danger in our competitive market. It makes us cocky, and cockiness often precedes a downfall.