It's not just for Voice anymore.

#2- Business texting and voice transcription form the next wave of business communication.

The next wave of must-have business communication is upon us. Business texting will be a rude awakening for amateurs who are drunk with the allure of the self-service web and arms-length commerce, especially those who have dumped their phone numbers in favor of tweets.

For those of us who understand that direct, human interaction will always be essential to sales and customer service, text and transcription is just the next evolution of commerce.

Good luck texting or even getting anyone on the phone at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC.com), for instance! They’ve got thousands of employees, yet some web-centric amateur deactivated their main phone number and, no doubt, dismissed their reception staff. Sure, there will be good and bad incoming calls, and now text, but the retail equivalent is the difference between a clerk greeting you with "Can I help" versus "Here, fill out this (contact) form and wait. If you're important enough to bother with, some unknown person will call you." No one will accuse CSC of "enlightened" self-interest." This is just amateur thinking.

While texting has become a mainstay in our personal lives, it's rapidly migrating into stores, restaurants, salons, and all manner of businesses around the globe. The phrase "call or text" will soon be ubiquitous. Even promoters, who don't typically need or use the power of human interaction, will be adding a business text channel to their customer outreach— and that requires a hybrid number.

In the meantime, voicemail has been given a significant upgrade. The new standard is auto-transcription, voice messages that are automatically transcribed for you. With that, you can instantly gleam the details— read voice messages like your read text messaging— and often respond, without listening to them one by one. Modern voice messaging, in effect, has become as efficient as text, email and chat. Check out the voicemail screen on any updated iPhone to see this in action.

Still, written communication alone will never convey emotion like the tonality of voice. There are times when you'll want to express yourself with a call, to form strong bonds between you and your buyer. By either means, voice or text, you've secured the ultimate direct, unfiltered connection to your prospect, customer, or clients; their phone number. Try calling an email or Twitter address!

The future of business communication is to leverage the warmth of human interaction with insight and efficiency of AI (artificial intelligence), not the replacement of humans as amateurs imagine— and Computer Sciences Corporation implemented! Sales are never won by expertise alone, but by the expression of expertise and warmth, thinking and feeling, to form connections and establish trust. Humanity has found solace in company of pets, but only a psycho would actually seek and enjoy the company of an unfeeling robot, no matter how clever its dialog. 

Siri today, and lovable movie robots (C-3PO, R2D2 and others), display warmth because there are people behind the dialog, not because of some advanced AI. The great promise of AI is not in replacing, but in empowering human interaction.

Why does this matter? If you’ve been dreaming about a 4 hour workweek, driven by arms-length commerce, read the book. The only reason this worked is because the author, Tim Ferriss, empowered real people to solve problems, not robots.

You and your people are going to remain in the loop. In fact, this understanding is becoming a competitive advantage. Only amateurs believe in magic robots.

#3- Why you'll need hybrid 833 numbers to ride this wave of innovation and how to never get "spammed out" again.