In conjunction with the recent Fourth of July celebration, Unified Office announced its role in delivering the communications system for the USS Constitution Museum.
The following is the text from the press release:
“We selected Unified Office because we wanted to partner with an innovative managed service provider that would support our developing business needs as we begin to realize our longer-term vision of a more immersive, multimedia-rich visitor experience,” said Jackie Hibbard, Director of Finance and Administration, USS Constitution Museum. “Unified Office stood out with an entirely unique solution from the many other vendors we considered to replace our aging communications infrastructure. They’ve also helped us refine our 5-year plan through a consultative approach to the Museum. We now enjoy the peace of mind of having a partner that is capable of continuing to adapt with us.
“USS Constitution is America’s ‘Ship of State’ and the Museum serves as its memory and educational voice. In carrying out its mission, the museum has always provided a hands-on and participatory learning experience. When USS Constitution, or ‘Old Ironsides’, goes into dry dock next year, the Museum plans to utilize technology to make the restoration accessible to visitors. The Museum is building a more robust communications infrastructure to be able to serve guests, and Unified Office plays a key role in the process.
“We are honored that Unified Office’s Total Connect Now communications platform has been chosen by the USS Constitution Museum as they begin to create a strong technology foundation that will take them well into the next decade,” said Ray Pasquale, CEO and founder of Unified Office. “The USS Constitution Museum has an ambitious multi-year plan that includes many innovative projects leveraging technology to enhance their visitors’ experience, and Unified Office is delighted to play an important role in the Museum’s ongoing mission of education and preservation of such an important part of our American heritage.”
Interesting to be sure, but as Ray and the whole team at Unified Office are friends of mine, I wanted to try to find an angle other than that offered in the press release. So I investigated the history of USS Constitution, and in doing so I discovered a great analogy to what Unified Office does.
The USS Constitution was built at time when the United States was just starting out as a country, a time when the merchant fleet was quite vulnerable to seizure. And while George Washington was the original commissioner of the ships, it was under John Adams that the ship saw action, when the United States was dangerously close to entering into a war with the French. As a frigate, the ship was designed to out-maneuver the heavily armed ships of the French and English. Its gun capacity of 50 was way beyond that of other frigates, and it boasted a hull design aimed at keeping the recoil from the guns at a minimum while keeping the ship moving adeptly.
Here is where I find the analogy with Unified Office. Ray and the team come from the rock-solid reliable network strategy, so their architecture is aimed at making the system redundant. Unlike much of the hardware-based systems that are migrating to unified communications, though, they bring the flexibility needed to outmaneuver the traditional systems and support the BYOD soft-client requirements that represent our future.