Confident Communication

This blog post was written in collaboration with Poly.

There are many takeaways from this horrific pandemic we all, unfortunately, know as COVID-19. One that affects the telecommunication industry is how communication technology has finally been recognized as an equalizing force that enables a more inclusive workplace. 

David Danto, Director of UC Strategy and Research at Poly, recently interviewed Gary LasSasso from Amicus Therapeutics. Amicus is a biotech firm that searches for potential treatments for rare and devastating diseases. They had always advocated for and implemented an inclusive workforce, so when the world shifted to remote work, Gary believed it was a great equalizer. Suddenly all employees were connecting and collaborating as equals! Any geographical or physical barriers of employment they encountered before simply disappeared! 

Anthony DeVergillo, manager of Amicus’ Internal Communications, has worked from home for the past four years. Anthony has a rare neuromuscular disorder called Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. The condition weakens his muscles to the point that he requires a wheelchair and non-invasive ventilation to assist his breathing.

Now that the rest of Amicus’ employees were working remotely, they all collaborated the same. Anthony was no longer the outlier of remote workers. However, there was one issue that Anthony said raised his anxieties. He was always self-conscious about the noises his ventilator made during calls.

The ventilator is loud, produces a high-pitched squeal, and makes a significant noise every time Anthony takes a breath.  Of course, none of his colleagues minded the noise while seeking out his thoughtful perspective and vast expertise with brand architecture, but he knew that people would – at least subconsciously – find it distracting at best.

If only there were something Anthony could do about the noise…🤷‍♂️

POLY’S ENGINEERING TEAM STEPPED-IN TO HELP

The Poly team designed NoiseBlockAI with more mundane distractions in mind, like a vacuum cleaner, rustling bag of food, etc. It was believable that without any tweaking, the robust algorithm could detect that Anthony’s ventilator noise was not speech.  

It was an experiment worth trying! The Poly team shipped one of their new Poly Studio P15 personal collaboration bars to Anthony as a demo. The results were remarkable. Nearly all the extraneous sound that had been passing through his old setup was blocked by the microphone array and processor built-in the unit! Want to see a demonstration? Check out our “Working Remote Simplified” webinar. 

Helping Anthony feel more confident communicating and get his ideas across without distraction is one of Poly’s proudest moments. The engineers at Poly are constantly striving to pioneer industry innovations that will help make collaboration and communication more natural and more accessible for everyone to use. Not only with their NoiseBlockAI, but with their cameras that automatically track and adjust with TV-director-skill to person movements. 

SOUNDS SIMILAR

Our team enjoyed hearing this story because we also believe in producing solutions that help make collaboration and communication more accessible! We recently added a new communication module to our desktop and mobile unified communication applications, gloCOM and gloCOM GO, known as SMS! 

The new SMS feature will immensely enhance the total unified communications package we offer our partners. The existing chat functionality that UCaaS offers is not a competitor to SMS. Both communication options complement each other and simply provide more opportunities to the user. Learn more about the advantages of having SMS enabled on your UC applications here. 

We are thrilled that SMS is now available to use and does not restrict a limit of one text sent out at a time. If you are looking to upgrade your unified communications application to something more flexible, contact our sales team.

This blog post was written in collaboration with Poly.

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