The second time I speak with Colleen Berube, CIO and SVP of Operations at Zendesk, she greets me over Zoom from her backyard in San Mateo, California. The scene looks idyllic, though the reality is that wildfires are raging all over the state, the air is tinged with smoke, and we all remain hunkered down at home as Covid wears on.

Some of us have been striving to build the perfect conferencing system since the beginning of our careers. But what exactly makes such a “perfect” system? Besides high quality media and low latency, which are the basis for any Internet communication system, there are 3 elements: End-to-end encryption is state of the art for providing best-in-class security, where no media can be decrypted on an intermediary server for mixing or other modifications.

During his lifetime, Carl Sagan was known for many things. He was an astronomer, astrophysicist, television producer, screenwriter, and celebrity-thinker who made advanced astronomy accessible to the layman and opened the window to space for millions of people around the world. For those without the time to read one of his books, we can remember him through some of the quotes he left behind. One of my favorites goes like this: “Who are we, if not measured by our impact on others?

Next week is the release of the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms (CSP). In the world of enterprise technology solutions, businesses rely on analyst reports like the Magic Quadrant to help guide their strategy. Recognition of vendors by respected analysts like Gartner are a central tool for organizations that are reviewing cornerstone technology — in this case Content Services Platforms.