Innovations Demonstrated at TSW
Breakout sessions began bright and early this morning, following a great breakfast in the Technology Services Expo. Presenters discussed everything from cloud computing to the best practices in support to the role of education services in closing the consumption gap. Attendees also had one last chance to explore the solutions and services offerings in the Expo.
In this morning’s keynote, J.B. Wood and Geoffrey Moore, author and managing director of TCG Advisors, had the audience enthralled and—at laughing—with discussions on how to see more eye to eye with your CFO. “Getting to ‘Yes’ – Restoring the Concept of Investment in Services” shared methods for building an internal business case where margin dollars can be retained and reinvested back into the services business to fund innovation initiatives. We all have some business and productivity challenges. But technology is one of the few levers we have left to play. Moore and Wood discussed where the profitable growth is going to come from tomorrow.
Geoffrey Moore Discusses How to Restore the Concept of Investing in Services
Service Revolutions Vision Awards
With a famous Beatles song…something about “a revolution”?…playing in the background, attendees filed into the Mission City Ballroom to see what this “Service Revolutions” thing is that TSIA has been talking about. They came, they saw, and they were wowed. It was an atmosphere not unlike American IdolTM meets DEMOTM. J.B. Wood was entertaining as always as he hosted the event, with TSIA vice president of technology research John Ragsdale, author and TCG Advisors’ managing director Geoffrey Moore, and director of IBM University Programs James C. Spohrer serving as panelists and offering their feedback on the demonstrations.
Nine presenters took the stage for six minutes each, discussing their latest technological innovations that were truly something to see. Akamai, eXaudios, InfoLink, Jeeva Portals, Kopin Technologies, Natron Baxter Applied Gaming, salesforce.com, ServiceMax, and Xerox all put on outstanding demonstrations of some really innovative and cool technologies, with the audience rating them live on a “cool scale” of 1-5.
Service Revolutions Contestant Reminds the Audience of What Number to Vote For
Service Revolutions Contestant Demonstrates Cool "Hands-Free" Technology
And the Winner Is…
After the demonstrations, the audience moved next door for the TSIA Awards Luncheon to learn who the winners were. In the Commercial category, Kopin Technologies won for its mobile computing system that provides a familiar PC experience and a “Hands-Free” operation. In the Services Practitioner category, Xerox won for its Maintenance Assistant at the Device UI technology, an exciting development in Xerox service delivery that enables immediate “at the device” support for customers who want a real-time solution to a product performance issue or the answer to a how-to question. And in the Start-Up category, eXaudios won for its next-generation innovative technology that decodes the human voice into emotions. Benefits to the contact center include reduction of customer churn and call length and increased customer satisfaction, agent efficiency, and revenue. Very cool. So cool, in fact, that it won a prize of $10,000!
eXaudios Wins $10,000 Prize for Its Innovative Technology That Decodes the Human Voice into Emotions
The feedback from the audience was phenomenal, and we’re proud and excited to have brought Service Revolutions to TSW this year.
Also honored at the awards luncheon were Recognized Innovator Award winners: Lithium for Innovation in Knowledge Management, nGenera CIM for Innovation in Value-Added Service, and InQuira for Innovation in Emerging Channels. The Recognized Innovator Awards are the only independently judged awards program that recognizes innovation in technology services products and service offerings documented with customer case studies of measurable business value and results. The Recognized Innovators in each category were selected by a panel of judges, including industry experts and TSIA members.
Extreme Networks was named winner of the Certified Support Staff Excellence Center Award in recognition of meeting two major criteria:
- 90% of the company’s front-line support staff has successfully completed the CSP-I course of instruction and certification.
- 90% of its supervisory staff has successfully completed the CSP-I and CSP-S courses of instruction and certifications.
Also honored were the winners of its annual STAR Awards for Best Practices, which recognize technology companies who display exceptional leadership, innovation, and commitment in developing and implementing best practices:
- Best Customer Commitment – Avaya
- Best Embedded Product Support – Symantec
- Best Emerging Company Support – Riverbed Technology
- Best Knowledge Management Practices – Avaya
- Best Online Community – Hewlett-Packard
- Best Online Support – Cisco Systems
- Best Practices in Value-Added Support, Enterprise – CA
- Best Practices in Value-Added Support, SMB – Cobalt
- Best Service Delivery Optimization, Enterprise – Avaya
- Best Service Delivery Optimization, SMB – Riverbed Technology
- Best Support Staff Practices – EMC
- Best Use of Metrics and Business Intelligence – EMC
Winners at Technology Services World
Technology Services' Finest Honored at TSW 2010
TSIA Honors the Industry's Best at TSW 2010
Service Revolutions and the Awards Luncheon were outstanding endings to an outstanding event. We’d like to thank all who supported and participated in Silicon Valley this year. Next up…Las Vegas in October!
