Conference Is Coming
Are you coming to NAEO 2025 in Fort Meyers? Meet Patrick and Jay and check out Call Theory Billing and Call Center Village!
The 2025 Annual NAEO Conference is coming up on March 9-12th at the Luminary Hotel in Fort Meyers, Florida, USA.
Yeah, it's almost March.
Call Theory is a Platinum sponsor for the 2025 NAEO Conference!
Here's what to expect if you keep reading:
- NAEO conference sessions that look interesting to me
- Details on Call Center Village security challenge at NAEO
- Amtelco's Infinity goes End of Life (EOL) in June 2026
- A dinner invite if you're coming to conference
- Spammers are targeting sponsors (NAEO is all grown up)
NAEO Conference Sessions
This is a brief overview of sessions that stuck out to me and my reasoning for wanting to go to them.
Note: Upon further review, it seems NAEO is restricting access to sessions labeled Amtelco Sessions to only NAEO member companies and I won't be allowed to attend, despite being the actual person who implements these technologies for multiple NAEO member companies. Sorry customers.
You can view the agenda yourself here: https://www.naeo.org/page/annual-conference-agenda
Amtelco Session: Intelligent Series and Amtelco Secure Messages Authentication and High Availability Review
Sunday, March 9th 4:30pm – 5:30pm
My interest in attending this session is to find out what the current set of recommendations are for high-availability, and what options exist if you don't have their paid ServerA/ServerB HA feature.
Amtelco Session: Tips & Tricks for IS
Monday, March 10th 11:45am – 12:30pm
Any session with Jaime Guidry is worth attending. She is incredibly talented and a gifted teacher.
If you're involved with Intelligent Series scripting, you should probably go to this session.
Amtelco Session: Amtelco APIs
Monday, March 10th 11:45am - 12:30pm
There isn't a session description published at the time of writing, but I presume they'll discuss the available first-party Amtelco APIs and possibly some examples of using them.
This session interests me so I can ask questions around best practices related to hosting, securing, and using the Amtelco APIs.
For example:
- Are we still required to use ISWeb (even though we've largely moved on to miTeamWeb) in order to access the API?
- Is there any method (planned or existing) to block users from accessing the ISWeb, ISWebAPI, WebAgent, WebSupervisor, or miTeamWeb to avoid unwanted access (like service accounts)?
- What is the recommended way to setup system-level and client-level API access and permissions?
- Other than the ISWeb REST API, what other Genesis/IS APIs exist?
Sponsor Presentation: Call Theory
Monday, March 10th 3pm – 3:15pm
I'll be giving a quick overview of current Call Theory resources and then attempt to do a live demo of Call Theory Billing.
- Weekly Office Hours
- Weekly IS Script Training
- Digital Script Library
- Training Material & Resources
- Mission Control Utility Dashboard
- Call Center Village Security Challenge
- Call Theory Billing Overview & Demo
I'd love to have your support during this presentation, so please come if you're at conference!
Current Trends, Pricing Strategies, and Best Practices
Monday, March 10th 3:45pm – 4:30pm
John Ratliff will be talking about pricing - what better way to make sure I've got the latest and greatest ideas incorporated into Call Theory billing.
I view this as the unofficial 4th keynote session: Mr. Ratliff is an industry legend.
MiTeam Magic: Setting up for success
Tuesday, March 11th 10:45am – 11:30am
"This session will guide you through the essential steps for deploying MiTeam, from IS Setup to advanced configuration tailored for your operational needs."
I'm interested in learning some new perspectives on utilizing miTeamWeb.
I'm also hoping to get specific details on using the miTeamWeb widgets with custom javascript – I'd like to see what types of stuff I can embed into those widgets for my customers.
Maximizing Revenue: Best Practices in Billing and Revenue Generation
Tuesday, March 11th 11:45am - 12:30pm
"Are you looking to boost your call center's profitability? Join us for an insightful session designed for industry professionals who are eager to enhance their financial performance and operational efficiency."
Again, more information and context I can presumably apply to Call Theory billing.
I'm also interested in learning from the presenters, notably Katie Stark: she is another incredibly smart person you don't want to miss.
The Importance of Account Templates
Tuesday, March 11th 11:45am – 12:30pm
"Whether you're new to setting up accounts or someone who has been setting them up for years it's a great idea to have templates on hand to speed up the process. Join Joe Belfeuil to discuss some best practices in creating your templates."
If you aren't using templates for new accounts, you need to send someone from your company to this session. Full stop.
Amtelco Session: FDC Presents
Tuesday, March 11th 1:45pm – 2:30pm
"Come learn all about the new Innovation Machine voting process and influence the future of development at Amtelco. We’ll also share what ideas are slated for development and how you can participate in NAEO’s exclusive Top Idea voting."
If you care about the direction of Amtelco products, you should attend this session and learn how to make an impact.
- Is there any plan to include additional utility functions for JSON, UTF8, escaping, and hashing that otherwise don't exist in IS scripting?A specific example is the ability to json_encode a string or key-value-pairs, or base64_encode/base64_decode functionality
- Is Amtelco moving towards a hosted model for most things and what is the future of on-premise customers (and their technology partners) as a result?
- I would like to see Amtelco elaborate on how they plan to charge for API pricing for individual MergeComm ISWeb API account triggers for non-hosted systems.
- Are there any plans to improve Agent login access to web applications in the form of a toggle switch like how you could limit agents to a certain station type in Infinity?
Call Center Village @ NAEO
Call Theory is hosting a security challenge that focuses on a typical small-business call center and the types of digital and physical threats that you might come across.
Catering to the Amtelco ecosystem, the inaugural Call Center Village will teach you specific examples of how and where you should secure your systems - physically and digitally.
- Office door locks, safes, and petty-cash access techniques
- Electronic signal capture and replay using Flipper Zero device
- Securing Amtelco software hosting and cloud providers
- Learn what OSINT is and how it's used for offense and defense
- Common office, remote agent, and hosting pitfalls
- Encryption across different Amtelco products
- Default credentials and other vendor-specific vulnerabilities
We've got 3 distinct areas – a hosting/cloud provider, your main office, and a remote agent – each of which bring it's own set of objectives. The village will provide a community-wide challenge to unlock and individuals will earn Call Center Village medals when they solve a scenario.
There are roughly 20 medals to claim, so bring your A-game (and optionally, your laptop.)
Call Center Village is taking place in the Luminary Hotel, 4th Floor, Edison Room on Monday and Tuesday between 10am and 5pm - exclusively for NAEO conference attendees. A ticket will be available in your NAEO conference bag.
Amtelco Infinity Sunset Date
Amtelco has started sending out certified letters to customers using their Infinity platform, informing them that Infinity will be EOL effective June 2026.
This raises a few questions that I hope to get some answers to at conference, centering around how this support will wind down.
- Is June 2026 even enough time? Migrating from Infinity to IS is a large undertaking.
- Are all updates (including security updates) being stopped in June 2026?
- Will support be available in any capacity after June 2026?
- What scripting resources are available from Amtelco, vendors, and the community at large?
Presumably, anyone still using Infinity after the June 2026 sunset date will no longer be able to claim HIPAA compliance with a straight face.
For the long term health of the ecosystem, I'm glad they are doing this finally. It will let them focus engineering resources on their modern solutions; but it's probably something they should have announced when Genesis first hit the streets and given like a 5-year notice, instead of catching everyone off guard on a questionable timeline.
Dinner with Call Theory?
Interested in catching up, talking shop, or meeting new people while in Fort Meyers for conference? Join Call Theory on Monday, March 10th at 6:30pm for dinner!
Just hit reply or otherwise email me if you're interested! You don't have to be a client to enjoy a meal with us...but please give me a heads up!
NAEO Conference attracts scammers
It looks like NAEO has graduated to the big leagues and is attracting scammers! Congrats! The scam is pretty easy to recognize, but let's walk through it anyways.
Scammer offering an attendance list for NAEO 2025
When I get this email, here's what I see (and think):
- The email was sent to
support@notifi.us, an email address I migrated away from in 2020. So it's someone with outdated information. - The subject line is "Notifi" which is pretty generic. It's my registered companies name, one that I replaced with a DBA 5 years ago (i.e., Call Theory!)
- I'm unfamiliar with the sender, a Charlotte Amelia.
- I'm unfamiliar with Charlotte's email domain,
adve.live. I found a reference to the company (and it's domain) on LinkedIn, but that's certainly not a company I have an existing business relationship with. - Stupid font colors and unnecessary highlighting. Maybe it's a something they teach both scammers and salespeople because it draws your eyes to it, but you should probably get the correct info listed before you draw attention to it.
- To the previous point, they appear to believe the conference is taking place within The Silver King Ocean Brasserie, which is a restaurant inside the hotel that is part of the convention center. (Although it's effectively correct from the address perspective, because it shares it with the hotel.)
- The attendee count is creatively high, considering NAEO generally attracts <200 attendees (including vendors and Amtelco.)
- As a sponsor of the conference, I already get all the attendees in a nicely formatted spreadsheet, so the perceived value is low since mine comes from the authoritative organization.
- There is no CAN-SPAM compliance requirements included in the email, such as address or unsubscribe link.
If you got these emails, would you think they are legitimate? If so, why?