If you take a hard look at your company’s internal communication, can you honestly say that it removes friction from your daily operations?

How effectively does your team collaborate? How difficult is it to share information in order to reach a decision? If your business is like most operations, 

The benefits of effective business communication can’t be overstated, particularly in boosting productivity and employee engagement. A comprehensive report by AON Hewitt found a direct correlation between communication and engagement, which in turn directly impacts financial outcomes....

How scared of your email inbox are you? Do you wake at night and worry that emails have been left unread, unactioned, and lonely? I have worked in senior roles within large corporations for a number of years and the one thing everyone complains about, no matter where they work, is the volume of...

Millennials represent the largest generation in US history, outnumbering even the prolific and very vocal boomers. Because of their sheer size and influence, their preferences and tendencies amount to a sea change in the way business is done, both on a consumer level, because this generation is...

Will technology make IT’s role obsolete? It sounds ironic, but the trajectory seems undeniable. First a technology is introduced, then dedicated specialists have to manage it until the technology becomes simple enough for everyone to use. It’s happened over and over with things like...

When you install any new technology, you are going to encounter roadblocks. There are a number of reasons people resist change, and without the support of senior management and the willingness of the employees to adapt to a new system, you will be fighting an uphill battle. Here are seven basic...

Do you ever feel like you’re lost in a communication desert? You have all the tools you could possibly need to communicate with anyone, anywhere; and yet you still can’t seem to get your point across. Your message is driven hither and thither by powerful winds, like the sands of the time, and...

Agility is something all businesses strive to master. An agile strategy means you are able to adapt to changing market conditions in order to stay ahead of the competition. Agile practices are becoming more common across all aspects of business. Agile project management, for example,...

By 2020, fully half of the workforce will be millennials; yet a Gallup poll recently found that 60% of all millennials are open to new job opportunities. Dovetailing neatly with that statistic, 55% of millennial workers are not engaged in their jobs, while 16% are actively disengaged, meaning...

As an IT manager, your objective is to manage your entire IT budget, including telecommunications, against what’s best for the organization. If you are considering updating the telephone system, you should take into account multiple factors before moving ahead.

“Free” doesn’t have quite the same ring that it used to, pre-internet era. BFB (Before Facebook) it was honestly possible to revel delightedly in the notion of a wonderful free software that would organize your contacts, sort your messages, iron your underwear and keep an eye on the kids while...

The millennial generation is probably the most scrutinized, analyzed, and commented about generation on earth. Communications about millennials could fill libraries. This fact itself has certainly impacted their collective psyche in ways yet untold. Stories about their supposed narcissism seem...

April 28 is National Superhero Day, the day when we celebrate the iconic characters who are such a fixture in our collective imagination. Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman; and also Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and Daredevil. Where did these heroes get their powers, and why do we admire them so much?

Software continues to eat the world, including telecom. Telecommunications company Avaya filed for bankruptcy this January, shaking the sector. Though the legacy giant will hopefully emerge stronger, the trouble underscores the difficulty facing companies as they move out of hardware and into...

Business communication evolved out of the classic office setting, which was designed around the executive suite. Whether the top brass inhabited the penthouse or the corner suite, the administrative apparatus was built around this core office.

Employees reported to their bosses in a very literal...

Have you ever gotten off the phone with an employee or customer after resolving an ongoing problem, and wondered why it took you so long to pick up the phone?  Voice-to-voice communication is effective and powerful. But if talking on the phone is simple, choosing a business phone system isn’t so...

Great leaders are great communicators, and, although they may have very distinct styles and methods, they share some common traits. It’s a mistake, though, to think that these traits are just natural gifts. Great leaders work continuously to improve their communication skills, and they develop...

People are turning employee phones into a smart business phone system in 3 minutes or less. 

We’re pretty excited about the next big thing over here at Spoke. Check out this short video and get a glimpse of the shift that’s taking place.  We’re changing how business thinks about phones.

Is your business ready to communicate the way customers and employees want you to? Tools used in business and communication are more disparate than ever.  In addition to the old-fashioned telephone, businesses utilize email, text, chat, intranets, conference call services, and more. People are...

When you are running a small business, there are so many administrative details that you have to deal with—office space, equipment, payroll, even cleaning services—and the last thing you want to think about is your office telephone system. However, your business phone system is probably one of...

Virtualization is the technology buzzword for the decade. Computer systems are applying virtualization to separate hardware from software, which makes it easier to connect to cloud and remote computing resources. There are a number of advantages to virtualization, but the big one is...

Every business needs a telephone service, and thanks to advances in internet and mobile technology, there are more telecommunications options than ever before. Choosing the right telephone service for your business is simply a matter of balancing your business needs against available telephone...

When it comes down to it, despite seemingly daily advances in communication technology, the telephone is still the primary means of conducting meaningful business. It’s fast, efficient, and cost-effective. It’s also more personal and allows you to forge a closer bond with the party on the other...

Businesses are always looking for tools for effective business communication. There's nothing more frustrating than missing an important call or not having the information you need when you need it. In today's fast times, if you're not ahead of the game, you're behind. That's why many companies...

More small businesses are migrating to cloud computing services, including for their telephone services. Hosted PBX and hosted VoIP systems seem attractive, because they are inexpensive to set up, scalable, and inexpensive to operate compared to on-premises PBX (private branch exchange) systems....

How old is your business phone system? You probably don’t have a rotary phone on your desk, but you might have that old push-button phone that hasn’t been upgraded for ages. You figure it still gives you a dial tone, so why upgrade?

Collaboration is a critical key to productivity. However, trying to get your employees to work as a team can, at times, be extremely challenging—especially if you are supporting remote workers.

There was a time when setting up a phone system was seemingly simple; you would just call the phone company and it would take care of it (for the most part). Those days are long gone. Today businesses have any number of options when it comes to setting up a phone system—they can use PBX, a...

Happy customers require care and support. Once you sell a product or service to a customer, you want to make sure that customer is satisfied and he or she can reach you to resolve any problems. Unfortunately, too many companies are migrating customer relations to spotty VoIP phone systems,...

The way we work has changed, especially for small business and startups. To attract the best talent and accommodate younger employees who want more freedom from the eight-to-five workday, companies are allowing more employees to work remotely or are even hiring remote workers in other regions.

Are you old enough to remember when the telephone was your lifeline to friends and family? Can you recall the generation before the Web, when teens would spend hours on the phone?

Effective business communication is central to the success of any business. However, office telecommunications devices are not often the first category that comes to mind when one considers the central drivers of product innovation.

Digital communication is both a blessing and a curse, especially for business. While the Internet has made the world smaller and made it easier to access data and exchange information and ideas, it also has given rise to an email-driven business climate.

The company phone system is a focal point for business operations. Even with the advent of email and text communication, most real business is still conducted by telephone, and it’s vital that you keep your telephone system up to date to stay competitive.

Every small business owner needs to maximize employee productivity, and every manager has a different approach to motivating his or her team. Some are authoritarians, others are coaches, some encourage group participation, and others micromanage. Research shows that some strategies are more...

Email has been the de facto communication tool for businesses for well over a decade. It is used so frequently that the average employee receives between 90 and 121 email messages every day. After all, email makes it easy to save a record of a conversation, allows people to share files, and...

In today’s highly interconnected business world, effective communication skills are nothing short of essential for your team members. Effective communication facilitates collaborative efforts and helps set the tone for your company culture.

Cloud computing is a well-established concept for business. Rather than building your own IT infrastructure, you rent computing power and applications hosted by a service provider on the Internet. For business, this is a great concept because it minimizes the need for investment in additional...

When calculating office operating costs, the office phone system has to be part of the equation, but how much do you need to allocate for telephone system maintenance? Even if you have a small office, you will need to be prepared to replace faulty handsets, repair broken wiring, rewire systems...

Technology has always been an enabler for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Advances such as the personal computer, mobile card readers, and e-commerce have created new possibilities for business. However, in many ways, the business phone system is still a remnant from the past.

Effective communication is a key component of any size business—or any relationship for that matter. The day runs more smoothly and less time is wasted trying to track someone down when coworkers and customers can easily communicate with the right people in your company.

When is the last time that you answered a call that wasn't a telemarketer?

Whatever happened to the company phone system? There was a time when the telephone was the primary tool for conducting business. You would use the phone on your desk to call customers and suppliers and to confer with colleagues to gather necessary information quickly and efficiently. In the past...

There was a time when selecting a telephone system for your business was easy. Private branch exchange (PBX) was the common telephone standard for business for years, offering reliable phone service for internal and external calls.

As computer networks became faster, however, 

Is "Affordability" is the new White-Knight for Telecom subscriber growth?

What do you do when everyone has a phone, when voice is free, and when data is getting cheaper by the day?  When you spend billions on infrastructure only to have WhatsApp, Skype and others simply steal your subscribers with a cheap OTT app?

Desktop phones are on the way out – unless they’re not - or are they?

A great article by CBInsights, (who by the way consistently produce great content and infographics), on the way Telecom operators are starting to think about investing in ideas and technology as they see their traditional business lines get eroded by simpler and frankly better communication...