I've talked a lot about Sessions Initiation Protocol (SIP) from a technical perspective. I've written papers about the protocol and how it works. Beyond that I've written about it's becoming the de facto standard on which unified communications is built.

The other day several people noted a post by John Carrol on ZDNET that said similar things.

SIP is the future of telecommunications
The 18th Internet Telephony Conference & Expo (ITEXPO) came to Los Angeles last week, and being the opportunistic sort, I decided to get myself on the press list. That's one of the advantages of writing for ZDNet. Conference organizers will often let you attend their creation for free in hopes that you might write something about the products on display therein.

I'm not, however, one of those writers who likes to post a play-by-play of the happenings at this or that conference. I prefer to attend the entire conference, visiting all the classes and study groups which, to my mind, serve as the highlight of such things, only to figure out afterwards what new thing I have learned from the whole process.

I did note that this was the 18th ITEXPO...which means that there were companies thinking about a future where communication was entirely mediated by Internet-related protocols as far back as 1990. In 1990, the notion that a web of connections mostly linking academic institutions might serve as the foundation underpinning something as critical as voice communications must have seemed, to some, like so much technophile hyperventilation. Clearly, however, the Internet has been more than a little bit succesful. Furthermore, protocols designed to run over Internet connections seem to be reaching a tipping point with respect to their adoption by telecommunications companies. I'm not just saying that because I am still responding to the "reality distortion field" caused by the strange chemicals conference organizers insert into their continental breakfasts. Looking back, most of my career seems to have been spent working for one telecommunications company or another (though video-related work seems to have occupied most of the rest).
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Carrol revisits a points out some basic realities of unified communications networking today. VoIP is not just a popular service that happens to use SIP. SIP is a foundation. It's a bulding block upon which the real voice services networks of today are built. It's vital to maintaining our existing services.

Sure, legacy T1 circuits and time division multiplexed (TDM) telephony still exist.  They're still in use. But they are vestiges of the past. Artifacts of our past life. If we are going to compete; if we are going to thrive; if we are going to soar we must reinvent ourselves with an eye to the future.

In personal development we have epiphanies. We change direction. In some cases we reinvent ourselves. To succeed, we create an image of who we are and who we are becoming. Then, for most of us, we behave our way to success. We can succeed if we live the way we want to live. It's a conscious choice we make in our personal life.

That same approach applies to our business life. In our business life we must also have epiphanies; reshape our self view; adopt new habits and behaviors.

I've been talking a lot recently about SIP trunking. I recently wrote a three-part paper on the subject. And I'm in talks now to start a new book project that will focus on some business segments that need to do just that - focus on the future and how to succeed.

I urge you to read Carroll's piece and think quite specifically about how your company integrates SIP. Think of it as a tool - a building block. Are you building for the future by embracing change and shaping your company for the future? Or are you hanging on to the artifacts of the past, afraid to risk change?

We can't be afraid to risk new things if we're going to be successfull tomorrow. We can behave our way to success by embarcing and adopting new ways of doing business. And we can only really thrive when we let go of that past and fly into the future.