You have to differentiate yourself in the marketplace by delivering a unique product in a unique way. We’ve done this pretty well at VO2, I think. We were the first hosted VoIP provider in the market, successfully launching our product in 2004, and we built our product differently than other hosted providers. In fact, that’s still true today. We’re still the only local company with our own carrier class softswitch, the only local provider with two data centers, and the only local provider that’s a licensed by the State of Tennessee as a carrier.  And we’re still the only company that has uniquely combined the best attributes of VoIP technology with the proven attributes of proven, legacy central office services.

Frankly, we like being different.

Oh, and back to marketing….here are a couple of quotes I thought I’d share:

“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.”-Leo Burnett
“If you want to insure being dead, imitate in your life, or in your art, or in both, a style that already exists, a past style, and avoid like the plague the new, which forces you to move.” -Robert Motherwell
“Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art, and good writing can be good selling.”-Bill Bernbach

For a city to thrive, to reach its fullest potential, it needs a vibrant arts community. Think about all of the places you hear about as “great places to live.” Cities like Austin, Portland, Athens, Asheville or Boulder. They’re dynamic places, and one of the reasons they’re doing so well is community support of the arts. Fine arts, music, theatre, performance art, art education, etc.

Memphis, on the other hand, is a city at a crossroads. We have a rich cultural history, but currently face a myriad of complex issues, all of which are solvable if we work together. It will not be easy, but it is certainly achievable, particularly if we secure greater corporate support for education, arts and community development. We have to fully commit ourselves to the challenge and make our city what we want it to be.

One issue is retention of our young talent. Too often, I hear about Memphis high school graduates going away to college only to find their futures elsewhere. Too few return. This has a profound effect on our city, one that becomes increasingly accentuated and problematic over time. Why don’t they come back to Memphis? What do we have to do to retain and attract young, creative, innovative minds?

Young people want to be in dynamic, cool places that offer opportunity. Once that “vibe” is established, you’ll find that a lot of other things follow, not the least of which is community revitalization. People move back into older buildings, renovating them and bringing them back to life. Then businesses come to the neighborhood, and that means jobs and income. Consider the transformation of the South Main historic district, Cooper Young and more recently, along Broad Ave. There are plans underway to revitalize Overton Square. Crosstown can be another cultural oasis offering opportunity for a diverse set of people.

The Crosstown initiative is one of the most important things happening in Memphis. Perhaps the most important, because it’s going to provide the primary vehicle for young people in the inner-city to have access to fine arts, as well as bring all of us together in a wonderful, unique, historic place. It will be another tool that helps us retain our best minds and attract new ones from other places.

We believe its an important project that can make a huge difference in Memphis.

An elderly Georgian woman was scavenging for copper to sell as scrap when she accidentally sliced through an underground cable and cut off internet services to all of neighbouring Armenia, it emerged on Wednesday.

The woman, 75, had been digging for the metal not far from the capital Tbilisi when her spade damaged the fibre-optic cable on 28 March.

As Georgia provides 90% of Armenia’s internet, the woman’s unwitting sabotage had catastrophic consequences. Web users in the nation of 3.2 million people were left twiddling their thumbs for up to five hours as the country’s main internet providers – ArmenTel, FiberNet Communication and GNC-Alfa – were prevented from supplying their normal service. Television pictures showed reporters at a news agency in the capital Yerevan staring glumly at blank screens.

Large parts of Georgia and some areas of Azerbaijan were also affected.

“It was a 75-year-old woman who was digging for copper in the ground so that she could sell it for scrap,” said a spokesman for Georgia’s interior ministry said yesterday.

Dubbed “the spade-hacker” by local media, the woman – who has not been named – is being investigated on suspicion of damaging property. She faces up to three years in prison if charged and convicted.

A spokesman for Georgia’s interior ministry said the woman was temporarily released “on account of her old age” but could face more questioning.

The damage was detected by a system monitoring the fibre-optic link from western Europe and a security team was immediately dispatched to the spot, where the woman was arrested. The interior ministry said she had no accomplices.

The cable is owned by the Georgian railway network. It is heavily protected, but landslides or heavy rain may have exposed it to scavengers.

Pulling up unused copper cables for scrap is a common means of making money in the former Soviet Union. Some entrepreneurs have even used tractors to wrench out hundreds of metres of cable from the former nuclear testing ground at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan.

Source: Guardian UK

Memphis University School, a traditional, college-preparatory school for boys in grades seven through twelve, was founded over 100 years ago.

The core application servers at its Network Operations Center One (NOC-1) were recently upgraded to Broadsoft’s 8.0 software, and the fiber based connectivity between NOC-1 and NOC-2 will be increased by 50% on October 29th, further enabling VO2 to provide enterprise, best-of-breed services to its clients throughout the country.
Beau Peyton, VO2′s founder and President stated “It’s part of our ongoing commitment to maintain a robust, leading edge platform for our clients. Our solution eliminates the headaches and costs often associated with server maintenance. Our clients don’t have to worry about obsolescence or maintenance, because that’s in the ‘cloud’ and is therefore our responsibility.”

VO2 anticipates a major expansion of its Network Center architecture in early 2011 which will include a next generation soft switch installed in a third location outside Tennessee.