An introduction to Jason

Hello,

My name is Jason Black and I live and work in Vancouver, BC Canada. While I was going to high school in the 80's I started my adventure's with technology by working part time at a computer manufacturer. I started in the assembly area connecting all the computer components together and mounting them in the chasis. After some time there I progressed to a better position and was responsible for actually assembling the computers motherboard (the brains of the computer)...this task involved burning ROM's with software code...placing chips...and completing burn-in testing. I thought it was great as we were located in an industrial area close to False Creek and I was able to go biking along the waterfront during breaks. There was also a recording studio across the street and I remember lot's a big names dropping by (ACDC...Van Halen etc.).

Anyways...back to my story...After many years building and troubleshooting computer hardware I progressed to building computer networks and providing software troubleshooting. Token Ring...ATM...even a serial based network (name escapes me now)...I had worked with them all.

While doing my computer thing I was also paying attention to my older brothers career...he had started working with PBX's and this piqued my interest. I knew that these PBX's were very similiar to computers and that they could be networked...but back in the early 90's it was still in it's very early days. So I started to take some Telecommunication's courses and was hopeful to find a job working with these new (to me) systems.

After many cold calls to local telcom companies I got a job with a Canadian company called TTS Meridian Systems...who at the time was owned by Nortel Networks. My first position was as a field technician and I had a territory stretching from False Creek all the way to the southern edge of Richmond.

After several years TTS was eventually sold to a large American company called Williams Communications....after a couple of years the Americans seperated the Canadian division renaming it to Wiltel....and the American piece (renamed as Nextira) eventually went to Blackbox.

Around this time management had noticed that I was consistently taking the most difficult trouble tickets and had never called in for any tech support...I was fixing everything on my own. I remember one time I had called in for some support...and the tech support person at the time had said something along the lines of "oh man this is gonna be a hard one isn't it". When there was an opportunity...management created a new tech support position and offered me the position...I jumped at the opportunity. This gave me the chance to start working with all the new and exciting systems coming to the market.

I was able to accomplish many firsts...things such as creating VPIM voicemail networks back in the Meridian Mail days using a product called Meridian Mail NetGateway. I installed the very first VoIP trunking with Nortel's ITG version 1...which had some real issues with it's limited echo cancellation and I worked with Nortel engineers/programmers from Galway to tweak the echo cancellation code in the ITG software. Callpilot soon came to market and I configured many systems with VPIM/Enterprise networking, Desktop Messaging and Faxing capabities...Speech Rec soon came out but never took hold as it's accuracy seemed to be around 60%. Mid to Late 90's I was sent to Toronto for a month to learn a new Call Center system called Symposium. I was soon designing and installing large call centers...scripting and design jobs soon followed for large companies (Banks, Insurance, Government, Fast Food/Pizza companies, Airlines etc). A few years later I was sent on IVR training and was given the opportunity to design/install several large systems for customers such as a large Provincial Insurance Co where we setup a telephone claims system similiar to todays telephone banking but for your insurance claims...and another one for a Canada wide Long Distance co which allowed customers to manage their LD accounts. Nortel's ITG Trunkside was finally getting some traction and Nortel soon offered their ITG Lineside and VoIP telephones got their start. I was doing QoS design and troubleshooting call quality issues...very cool stuff at the time.

My next big break came when Cisco jumped into the voice business and were offering their Cisco AVVID pbx/VoIP solution. A large bank and credit union wanted this Cisco solution...and I was chosen out of all employee's across Canada to be sent on an agressive Cisco training regimen. Starting with CCNA...QoS...CVOICE...CIPT...UNITY...Microsoft Exchange...MCSE...etc. So much stuff to learn but I was loving it!!!

I designed and configured one of the biggest and most complex Cisco AVVID Call Manager systems at the time...spanning several dozen sites with integration to several Nortel PBX's...toll bypass (before it was a built-in feature)...Fax over IP...Unity Voicemail etc. The solution was impressive enough to get the attention of Cisco management who then did a 5 page story/case study in their PACKET Magazine.

After a decade in Tier 3 Voice Technical Support I didn't feel challenged anymore and wanted something new to focus my energy on. It was perfect timing as a Director approached me one day and offered me a senior position in the engineering department. The position would allow me to own the solution from early pre sales meetings with customers....whiteboarding ideas and being creative with the technology...right through to the implementation. After consulting with the customer on business drivers I am the person who defines the solution both from a hardware/software oersoective and a feature/functionality perspective. Its been a couple of years and I am loving it. My current focus is on large customers who have complex networks and advanced features deployed. I am also the UC prime for Nortel (Avaya blue) customers who are looking at Microsoft OCS/LYNC and Exchange 2007/2010 UM. Its an exciting time as many of my customers are just starting to look at Avaya product offerings such as Session manager, ACE and Aura integration.