Cranberries, Ahead of the Day
After a quiet weekend of with little cooking last week, this one was cooking at a torrid pace. Friday, we enjoyed London broil marinated with olive oil and garlic. Saturday was the day of the smoker. I cured and lightly smoked three salmon filets, 21 pounds of bacon, two turkeys, one chicken, one whole ham, cheese, sausages and one whole salmon. I was tired by the time dinner rolled around and copped out by fixing BLTs using the just-smoked bacon. They were very good. It is amazingly simple to make house cured salmon. I like it better than gravlox and it is quicker to make. Cured salmon can be made in eight to 10 hours, whereas gravlox takes several days. We ate the cured salmon (not smoked) with scrambled eggs Saturday morning. Sunday began with bagels and the smoked salmon for breakfast. It was very interesting to compare the flavor of the two types of salmon. We enjoyed both. For dinner, we had oven-roasted cherry tomatoes, meatballs and pasta. It was very good. However, this is the week of Thanksgiving and I decided to share my Brandied Cranberries recipe. With four ingredients and two steps it is very easy to make. Additionally, it can be made ahead leaving the oven available for other food items. I love this dish and hope you will try it. Brandied Cranberries is the recipe of the week. Enjoy!
Is CDW Ahead of the Game?
Last week our marketing and sales teams were discussing the best way to introduce Unified Communications to the mainstream business person in America. Just as when asked by a lay person, what is Broadvoxs business? One should not answer an Internet Telephony Service Provider. Instead, I suggest stating that Broadvox is a phone company, an Internet phone company. Is it a complete description? No, but for the lay person it established an understanding.
Unified Communications needs to be summed up in a simple phrase or value proposition as well. Yesterday as I was watching the NFL (specifically Dallas versus Washington), a CDW advertisement touted their expertise in Unified Communications. I immediately hit stop, rewind and listened to the statement a second time. Indeed, UC may be going mainstream. However, I wondered how many small business owners knew what the phrase meant. The ad did not provide an overview of UC or describe its key value propositions and therefore didnt add to anyones general knowledge of UC. But the ad did subtly increase an awareness of the phrase Unified Communications.” Thats important because Unified Communications as a search phrase is so rare it is too low to generate a Google trend graph. Even Net neutrality” is searched enough to generate a trend graph.
As a purveyor of UC solutions, I support an increase in awareness and visibility. Go CDW. Yet, I remain deep in thought as I try to find a simple way to describe UC and its benefits. When thats done, businesses will proactively search for the right solution.
Please have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Ill be with you again next Monday.
David Byrd is vice president of marketing and sales for
Broadvox,
and is responsible for marketing and channel sales programs to SMBs, enterprises and carriers as well as defining the product offering. Prior to joining Broadvox, David was the vice president of Channels and Alliances for Eftia and Telcordia. As director of eBusiness Development with i2 Technologies, he developed major partnerships with many of the leaders in Internet eCommerce and supply chain management. As CEO of Planet Hollywood Online he was a pioneer in using early Internet technologies to build a branded entertainment and eCommerce website company partnered with Planet Hollywood. Having over 20 years of telecom sales and marketing experience, he has held executive positions with Hewlett-Packard, Sprint and Ericsson.
