Skip Chilcott – Former Global Head of Marketing

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Skip Chilcott – Former Global Head of Marketing

As global head of product marketing, Skip Chilcott led worldwide product marketing at IR. He is a 20-plus year veteran of the communications and collaboration industry, dating to the early 1990s with his time at Placeware Web Conferencing. Before joining IR, Skip spent 12 years at Microsoft, involved early on in real-time collaboration, unified communications, and cloud productivity products and services.

Overcoming the Growing Pains of Video Conferencing

Video conferencing adoption continues to grow in the workplace year on year. Yet the user experience might not always be as easy as picking up a phone and dialing a number or clicking a link in a calendar invite.  

Communications Blog

Reducing Risk in your Unified Comms Environment

There are no technologies in use that don't come with a certain level of risk. Unified communications are no different. On the contrary, one could argue unified comms technology is riskier than most because it's so crucial to everyday business activity. If you can't communicate – how can your business operate?

Communications Blog

Enhancing your UC performance with Microsoft Teams monitoring

Early this fall Microsoft announced that 125,000 organizations in 181 markets use Microsoft Teams, its group-chat tool that competes against Slack. That's up from 30,000 organizations in 145 markets at the beginning of this year.

Communications Blog

Have you got the Cloud Unified Communications Transition Right?

Cloud Unified Communications presents an enormous opportunity for organizations and enterprises. According to IDG, 90% of CIO's have UC-related investments planned in the next year. ZK Research concluded that 83% of companies intend to adopt a hybrid cloud model for UC because it gives customers the best of both worlds and provides greater flexibility in deployment models. Unfortunately, the deployment of unified communications can present some...

Communications Blog

Is the Contact Center being Transformed by AI?

Contact center agents in 2017 must communicate with customers not only on the phone but via social media, instant messaging, video conferencing and web chat. How can humans do it all? Increasingly, they can't.

Communications Blog

UC Systems Interoperability: Embracing the Multi-vendor

Most organizations today are not on a single, unified communications platform. They're on disparate platforms from any number of UC vendors - Cisco, Avaya, Genesys, Microsoft, and others.

Communications Blog

How to Completely Ruin your UC Cloud Migration

With the launch of our UC Cloud Migration Checklist identifying the best practice steps to follow to have a successful UC move to the cloud we looked at the biggest pitfalls companies fall into that can ruin an otherwise smooth transition.   Click here to download our UC cloud migration checklist.   

Communications Blog

CeBIT 2017 - Improving User Experience in Communication Channels

CeBIT 2017, one of the largest technology events in the world took place last week in Hanover with thousands of visitors over the course of the week.  

Communications Blog

Planning Your Transition to Cloud Unified Communications

In today's working world, enterprises are realizing the myriad benefits of cloud based unified communications (UC). The business transformation made possible by migrating to a fully-featured cloud solutions provider can help businesses connect their employees and customers, control operating costs, drive productivity and streamline business processes.

Communications Blog

The Testing Maturity Model

Unified communications systems are sophisticated, with complexity that can vary depending on the organization and industry. These systems also change on a regular basis with upgrades, improvements, changes to network infrastructure, applications, and more. So how do you know when changes affect the overall experience for users and customers? Are you testing the system regularly? On an hourly, daily, weekly basis? Even though you may be testing...

Communications Blog

Why Planning is Critical for Unified Communications Success

In this post to the UC Podcast, Skip Chilcott discusses the importance of the planning phase in Unified Communications projects. Like any good building, if the foundations aren't solid, then things are likely to fall over. However, in many cases, organizations are rushed to implement projects and the lack of up-front planning can come back to bite down the track.

Communications Blog

Skype Operations Framework, Part II - Network Readiness

If you haven't already, be sure to read Part I of this blog post, where I talked about the different types of customers who might want to implement a Skype for Business communications service and how the Skype Operations Framework helps provide useful guidance. Here in Part II, let's dive into the importance of assessing your network's readiness to make the switch.

Communications Blog

Prognosis UC Assessor is here

I am spending this week with the IR team at Microsoft Ignite, the biggest Microsoft show on the planet. Today IR was pleased to announce Prognosis UC Assessor is the first Microsoft certified solution for Skype for Business Online Network Assessment in the Skype for Business IT Pro Tools partner program. 

Communications Blog

Skype Operations Framework, Part I

The Skype Operations Framework was launched at the recent Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, and the momentum has really started now training has begun. We've had extensive documentation providing guidance for complete on-premises systems for quite some time now. Once you start to think about how you can combine on-premises with the cloud, though, the situation begins to change somewhat.

Communications Blog

Planning is Everything when it comes to Unified Communications

Planning is probably the single most important aspect of a unified communications or contact center deployment. Whether converting from a legacy system, upgrading a solution, or adding functionality, your organization must pay careful attention to what should be done to ensure a successful outcome.

Communications Blog

Is your network ready for Skype for Business? (And how to find out)

In my last blog post, I wrote about the importance of a network pre-assessment to ensure success for UC deployments. Well, exciting news to just come out of Microsoft's WPC, where IR was announced as one of the IT Pro Tool partners to support Skype for Business Online Network Readiness in the new Microsoft Skype Operations Framework (SOF).

Communications Blog

IR Live - Microsoft WPC

Skip Chilcott live from Microsoft WPC in Toronto where IR has just been named as Skype Operations Framework Network Readiness and Assessment Partner

Communications Blog

Enterprise Connect 2016 Wrap [podcast]

Enterprise Connect 2016 took place end of March in Orlando. IR was there in the thick of the action for what proved to be an excellent event. In this podcast, Skip Chilcott - Head of Product Marketing - shares his thoughts on the highlights from the floor, what was hot and what to keep an eye out for. Enjoy.

Communications Blog

Enterprise Connect 2016 - Journey to the Cloud [vlog]

Enterprise Connect - Journey to the Cloud

Communications Blog

Cloud Comms Question No Longer 'If' But 'How'

As enterprises turn to the cloud, they must address issues around ROI, management, and deployment model.

Communications Blog

Why testing is critical for UC and Contact Center Success

Testing your organizations unified communications and contact center eco-systems is critical to delivering end-user and customer experience. In this latest podcast, Skip Chilcott - Global Head of Product Marketing - discusses why testing before issues occur can save a lot of time, money and reputations.

Communications Blog

Why a network pre-assessment is critical for UC

In a recent podcast I discussed the importance of running regular tests to ensure unified communications eco-systems are performing as intended. This is just as important prior to any deployment, as it is to ongoing health.

Communications Blog