For anyone who grew up in an age when face to face conversation was the norm, this may not seem like an odd (rude) request.  A simple request that I had made of my daughter to call me every once in a while (she goes to school in Florida) turned into a challenge to stay connected with her.  What I believed important as to the way to communicate was not preferred by her.

Over the years communication has evolved from face to face, to land line and cell phones, to emails, and to text. Question is are we comfortable with that? Or, do we do it because the world expects us to do it? And in the process we do a half – hearted job of adopting new technologies and after using/abusing it for a while, we fall back to our old habits. Don’t we?

Enter the smart phone era. I-Phones, Galaxy s3 and others. We email, web search, receive texts, check in, post pictures on FB with ease. And yes, we make and receive calls. As mobile devices become more user centric and friendly, we have become slaves to devices and technology.

The future is now! Cloud Communication. SIP. 4G. UC. Service Oriented Architecture. Social Media. VoIP. IP Telephony. Video Conferencing. Real Time Web Communications. Unified Messaging. All buzz words that you have heard, that vendors and service providers are touting as being the latest and greatest that you have to have to stay connected.

Before you go out and buy the latest IP system or the newest IPhone or Galaxy 3 or send a connection request on LI, ask yourself these questions.  What device or technology makes me available and present? How can I be heard and hear as to what is going on? How can I share the most value with my clients, vendors, partners? What is important now and today? What is coming in the future that I will have to incorporate into my business eco-system? How much will I have to unlearn tomorrow that I learned today? And who will hold my hand in case I run into problems? Will it simplify my life?

Mind you the above mentioned technologies are now a necessary part(evil) of our daily lives. So if your preference now to stay connected is either email, FB, texting, pinterest, etc. or a combination of these make sure that all these work together and you don’t miss out the important messages with all the noise around you.

A few tips to keep in mind when making these decisions – don’t pay too much; adapt it to your life; make sure it establishes  presence and engagement and not just a connection.

BTW – My daughter calls occasionally now. She still texts mostly.

Anup Manchanda is a recognized expert in the areas of advanced telephony technologies including VoIP, SIP, unified communication, convergence, next-generation telephony, premise and hosted telephony solutions. For more information about Anup visit my LinkedIn profile or contact Anup at anup@xclutel.com.