Avaya Event Explores How Millennials Will Alter the Workplace

People in the millennial generation have grown up as connected citizens of the world, and they’re going to challenge us to work in new and more collaborative ways. That was the message at the Avaya (News - Alert) Technology on Tap event Monday.
 The confab, which took place on the eve of the opening of ITEXPO in Austin, drew inspiration from a comment by Andrew McAfee (News - Alert) of MIT. He was recently quoted as saying, “Conventional thinking has always been that younger workers adapt to the tools and systems an organization already has in place. But this business model no longer applies.

The rules are being rewritten on the fly.” Chris Lynk, senior software engineer for Avaya web.alive, mentioned that, on average, by age of 21, millienials spent 10,000 hours playing video games. Avaya leverages that generation’s experience with avatars in its web.alive offering, which also uses spatial audio, to create an immersive collaboration experience. Avaya says the offering, which is available for $49 a month, is perfect for hosting meetings or leading training sessions. It also allows for file sharing, presentations, desktop sharing, co-browsing, avatar customization, web integration, self administration, and more.

The Avaya event’s keynote speaker was Stuart Beame, assistant director of revenue cycle, education and customer service at Novant Health. Beame has more than 20 years of contact center and training experience in a wide variety of activities such as launching Orbitz.com, leading the training and quality assurance programs for DirecTV (News - Alert), opening sites in India and the Philippines, and as director of training and QA for the Census 2000 project.

Beame spoke about the defining characteristics of various generations, especially millennials. Millennials, defined as people born between 1982 and 2002, are civic-minded, optimistic, long-term planners, high achievers, and used to getting a lot of positive feedback from their hovering parents, among others, said Beame. Because they are used to being connected, and have been able to interact with others around the world at all hours through multiplayer gaming, they want 24/7 access, he added.

As a result, he said, companies need to develop policies and practices that address the millennial expectations of accessibility, independence and quick response. David Huber, consulting systems engineer for Avaya Contact Center, discussed the rise of social networking, which ties in closely with the above themes. He mentioned that Avaya got about 100,000 company mentions on social network sites last year. Of that, he said, about 30,000 were useless, an industry average.
However, he said, 10 percent required some action. Noting that social networking now allows customers to make even a small complaint get a lot of attention, Huber talked about the need for companies to monitor, filter and quickly respond to social network mentions. A contact center solution that has social media integrated as one of its components is the best way to do that, he said, adding that also opens the door for businesses to use social media to build revenues and increase customer satisfaction. “Social media, it’s another channel,” he said. “It needs to be integrated into the workflow.”
By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, IP Communications Magazines 

Avaya Sponsors ITEXPO West in Austin, Kicks off Program with Pre-Event Seminar on September 12, 2011

Norwalk, CT, August 3, 2011 – TMC (News - Alert) announced that Avaya is returning to sponsor ITEXPO, September 13-15, in the Austin Convention Center. Avaya will once again kick off the program with a pre-event seminar entitled “The Millennial Generation – Are You Ready?” discussing how Generation Y will challenge and ultimately change enterprises, as both customers and employees. This event, scheduled for September 12, 2011, will take place at the Omni Hotel, and is open to ITEXPO conference attendees.


ITEXPO is the world’s largest and best-attended communications and technology trade show. ITEXPO West is currently ranked as the No. 3 fastest-growing event on Trade Show Executive Magazine’s Fastest 50 List. TMC expects to accelerate ITEXPO West’s growth by bringing the show to Austin, one of the fast-growing technology hubs in the U.S.
For the last five years, Avaya’s “Technology on Tap” pre-conference event has served as the unofficial “kick-off” for ITEXPO. This year Avaya and their featured speaker, Stuart Beame, IQPC’s (News - Alert) 2010 Contact Center Leader of the Year finalist, will share insights into the mindset and expectations of the Millennial Generation as they begin to interact with enterprises as both consumers and employees. Avaya will also provide updates on emerging collaboration technologies, such as Avaya web.alive, and how social media will influence the evolution of the contact center.
“The Millennial Generation is the first workforce and consumer segment raised in an era of instant communications, from email and IM to text messaging and even presence-enabled video communications,” explained Jon Alperin, managing director at Avaya DevConnect (News - Alert). “When you add to that familiarity with smartphones, social networking and even multiplayer gaming environments, it’s clear that this generation will be entering the workforce with a different mindset towards collaboration technology. Equally important, as they enter the workforce, they also represent an important customer demographic for many businesses. The traditional customer interaction channels used to serve target customers may be insufficient to engage with these new consumers.”
“Avaya’s technology overlaps many aspects of the ITEXPO conference, and their solutions target the full audience of resellers, enterprise customers, SMBs, and developers that walk the floor of the expo,” said Rich Tehrani (News - Alert), CEO and conference chairman for TMC. “We welcome Avaya back for a seventh year, including this fifth consecutive pre-event kickoff, and we’re looking forward to sharing Avaya’s content with the audience in Austin.”
Registration for ITEXPO and the Avaya Technology on Tap Event: The Millennial Generation – Are You Ready? are open.
Exhibit and sponsorship opportunities are available, contact TMC’s Joe Fabiano at (203-852-6800 x132) for more information. Members of the media can reserve press credentials by contacting Todd Keefe at For Immediate Release PR.