Editorial Advisory Board Appointment - Business Trends Quarterly

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Business Trends Quarterly is a pretty worthwhile publication, and is a great read for content from the analyst community across a wide range of business and technology issues. I've contributed to BTQ a few times and have posted about them before.

I was recently invited to join their Editorial Advisory Board, and this has now been posted on their website. It's a nice form of recognition, and it gives me a bit of a hand in guiding their future coverage of hot topics.

Social media is one of these, and I just submitted an article about this and will be posted soon on their website. I'm told they have a big website re-do coming shortly, so they're holding off publishing the new content until it's launched. If you don't follow BTQ, I'll be sure to post about this when it's ready.


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IP Communications Insights is Launched

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Well, the day has finally come. The venture I've been working on with fellow indie consultant, Marc Robins is finally hatched. We remain indie consultants, but are pitching our tent a bit further out under the guise of IP Communications Insights. The press release hit the wires this morning, and if you haven't seen it, you can read it here.

So, after reading the press release, I'd love for you to visit our portal, IP Communications Insights, and tell us what you think. We have a newsletter that you can subscribe to, with the first issue posted on the site. We're also launching our own branded industry studies, which we think will fill a growing need for independent analysis at an affordable price point. There's quite a bit more to explore at the portal, so take your time!

And more than anything else, we're trying to give a louder voice and a home for the independent analyst perspective. Marc and I have been doing our own thing for a while now, but together, we think this idea makes sense, and we very much want our portal to be a voice for other independent analysts and thought leaders.

More to come, for sure, but I have to get on my way to eComm now, and maybe I'll see you there, and we can talk more about it.



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My Venture with Marc Robins - Launching Next Week

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For those who are close to my comings and goings, you'll know this has been a long time coming. Time sure flies when you're busy, but Marc Robins and I are finally ready to launch our venture next week.

Marc, like me, is an indie marketing consultant/analyst, and we've long felt there's a growing need for a strong independent voice in the IP communications sector. Not everyone has the means - or inclination - to work with the big name analyst firms - we all know who they are - and we're trying to provide an alternative.

Marc runs his own consultancy based in NYC, Robins Consulting Group, and I'm based in Toronto, operating under my banner of J Arnold & Associates. We will continue to keep our practices going, but are also collaborating with our new venture which pools our resources to offer a stronger set of services for clients.

Lots more to talk about, but you'll have to wait until early next week for that. We've got a press release going out, and you'll hear then more about our name, our website, the reports we're working on, and what we're all about. It's been a long time coming, but hopefully worth the wait.


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Hey, I'm #26 on the Top VoIP Bloggers List...

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VoIP-News is one of the best portals out there for tracking trends in our space. A couple of weeks back they posted their 2007 list of top 25 VoIP blogs. The usual suspects were there, and most of them noted the kudos on their blogs - why not?

As you likely know, I don't follow the news as closely as most bloggers do, and I post when I can and when it makes sense. So, true to form, I'm late to the party with this item as well, as the buzz is long passed for most 2007 lists.

However, at least I'm at the party, and wanted to share this update with you. VoIP-News updated their list the other day, and I've been added, which makes me #26 on a list of 25. Am not sure what that really means, but I'll take it, and am certainly very happy to be included in such stellar company. I guess this means I've got nowhere to go but up - if I want to crack the top 25 list, I'll need to improve/expand my coverage this year. Guess I'll put that on the to-do list....

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Technical Difficulties Resolved - Finally!

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Oh happy day!

Well, it looks like my technical difficulties are finally cleared up. I was told that my domain transfer would automatically take effect by midnight last night, if not sooner. Well, it didn't happen sooner, but as I logged on today, my inbox was much fuller than it's been in weeks, and my website is back up. Whoo hooo.

For any of you who have been through this, I'm sure you can relate! It's like having one hand tied behind your back for a couple of weeks, but not any more. Back to work...

For those of you who have not been able to reach me lately, I apologize for the inconvenience. It's especially aggravating since many emails that went into a black hole during that time did not generate any bouncebacks to the sender, so you'd have no way of knowing that your email wasn't getting to me. So, if you think I've disappeared and moved on to another life, I'm still here, and happy to hear from you.

You can see for yourself, my website and email are both working just fine now.

Coda - while my web hosting problems are solved - at least for now - I still have no idea what went wrong. I'm not going to diss the company here, but this is definitely a prime example of how NOT to serve the customer. Just a total mess from start to finish. If you're curious, we can take this offline, but I've got more important things to do now.


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Technical Difficulties - Update

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A few days back I posted that I was having major problems with my web hosting service, and that's making it hard for people to reach me.

Well, those problems are still persisting, but should be cleared up any time now. I've switched hosting providers, and am just waiting for the handover to propogate.

Remember test patterns? As a kid, I remember seeing these when TV stations went off the air, usually at midnight, or really early in the morning before programming started again. Here's a vintage one, the classic "Indian" test pattern (before my time). That's what I feel like right now with my website and email being down!


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And if this continues much longer, I'll have to resort to Civilian Defense type messages - "do not adjust your sets"....

So, if you've been trying to find my website, all you get is a blank page. And my email has been down most of the time recently, so those messages are going into a black hole.

As you can see, my blog is working fine, since it's hosted elsewhere. So, if you need to reach me now, you can...

1. drop me a line here as a comment

2. Email me at my home address

3. Call me - 416-907-8659

4. Skype me - jonarnold05

Where there's a will, there's a way....

J Arnold & Associates Teaming Up With Robins Consulting Group

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Well, as the telecom sector continues to consolidate, the ripple effect spreads further down the food chain. I've known Marc Robins for a while now, and we keep crossing paths in our work. We've been sharing ideas for some time, and have decided that two heads are better than one, and if AT&T can bulk up, so can we!

This morning, we issued a press release announcing our "strategic alliance", and we're very much of the view that together we can do a better job serving this space. I also see that Rich Tehrani has picked this up on his blog - thanks Rich. I'll be off to the ITExpo this afternoon, and look forward to talking more about the news at the show.

The full text of the news release is up on Marc's blog, and it will soon be up on my website. Unfortunately, my hosting service is having some server problems, and my website is not accessible right now. How f'*&@'ng convenient is that????????? I'll let you know when it's fixed!

So, what can you expect to see from us? Well, as the press release explains, we'll be launching a monthly electronic newsletter to provide a regular flow of insight and analysis that goes beyond what we blog or pod about. A web portal will soon follow, which we hope will become a thought leadership destination and position us as the IP Communications Go-To-Guys.

Comments and suggestions are welcome, and yes, we're open for business!


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VoIP Peering - the State of the Nation

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If you're interested in learning about the latest and greatest in the world of VoIP Peering, I'm hosting a webinar about this on Thursday. It's the first of a series of webinars I'll be hosting on a variety of IP topics.

To learn more and/or register, please visit my website, and I hope you can participate.




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Website is Launched

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FYI, my website finally went live earlier this afternoon. It's been a long time coming, and it still has some missing pieces, but I think it tells my story pretty well.

As I have explained in the "About" section of my blog, the blog is where I do my telling, and the website is where I do my selling. So, you won't see walls of Google ads on my blog - I intend to keep that commercial-free - it's just about the content.

I'm a bit old-fashioned that way, and view the website as a very different thing with a different purpose. For me, the website is all about what I do to make a living, and that's where you can learn about my services and the kinds of things I'm doing. There will be lots of links back to this blog and vice versa, though, and hopefully, between the two, I won't be hard to find.

A lot of people have given me a lot of help and advice along the way, and I thank everyone who has had a hand or contributed their thoughts. So, here we go, Day 1 of the J Arnold & Associates website.

I hope you come by to visit, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.


Just for the record, the URL is:

www.jarnoldassociates.com


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My Website - Splash Page Ready

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You need to wear many hats as an indie, no doubt. I've been trying to get my website together for some time, but we're almost there.

The splash page for the J Arnold & Associates website just went live this morning, and I expect to have the full site ready to launch later this month.

So, for any of you who have had trouble contacting me, everything you need to know is online now. Stay tuned for the real thing....

I'm 1 Year Old!

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Time sure flies, and I just realized it's March. Aside from Spring conferences getting into gear now, it dawned on me today that I've been on my own a year now. I left Frost & Sullivan at the end of February 2005, and I have to say it was the right thing for me to do. Frost continues to cover this market very well, but I have to follow my own road, and so far, so good.

Calysto is one of the leading PR firms focused on IP, and they were nice enough to mention my transition in their newsleter - Media Vibes - which is just about a year ago to the day. I can tell you these things work! I still remember how surprised I was to hear people come up to me at the beginning of Spring VON last year telling me they had heard the news - before I had a chance to tell them. They read about it in Media Vibes, where news of my move was briefly noted - here it is. Calysto got the scoop, that's for sure - nice work, Laura!

For those of you who don't know me, I'm an independent analyst/consultant focused on IP communications. You can read more about me and my practice, J Arnold & Associates in the sidebars on this blog. My website will be launched this month, and I'll post the link when it's ready - that will tell you much more about my practice.

Being an independent consultant isn't easy, and I'm thankful for all the support I've received from across the spectrum of vendors, carriers, bankers, the media, PR firms, entrepreneurs, consultants and my friends. I want to say a very special thank you to Jeff Pulver and his team at Pulvermedia and Pulver.com. Jeff's support and openness to working with me on a number of levels is a big reason why I'm here, and why I've been able to participate so broadly in the global IP community. One of Jeff's virtues is building community and giving back, and I know that I'm one of many people in this industry who has done well by being part of Jeff's world.

There are many ways to gauge success, and I'm happy to say that I've found a good niche to grow from in my first year. I've got a growing client base, a strong pipeline of new projects, and I'm developing a good network of ad hoc associates to work with me. I've maintained my industry profile as an independent, having participated in 15 conferences, been cited in the media and press releases over 100 times, become an advisor to several companies, and have posted over 200 blog entries (here's entry #1!). I'm not a volume blogger, and some people post this ofen every month, but that's not me. But I certainly hope to maintain a regimen of daily postings, and try to focus on providing original content and/or commentary. Same goes for my weekly podcasts on the Canadian IP market for the Pulvermedia Podcasting Network (that's an updated and fancy way of saying PulverRadio!).

That's all I have to say. A year sure goes by fast - I'm very excited about Year 2, and appreciate all the business and support that has brought me to this point so far.

Blog Page Improvements

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Just a quick note to say that I've been meaning to upgrade the look and feel of my blog page for the longest time. With Jeff Pulver's Pulverati just being launched, there's even more reason to get this done.

So, if you notice, I've just had RSS icons added so you can subscribe to feeds from any of the categories on my blog, or to the whole thing itself.

Coming in the next few days will finally be links to other blogs of interest, as well as....

- more background information about myself, this blog and how to reach me

- recent citings and quotes in the media

Looking a bit further ahead, my website is coming along, and I hope to have it ready by Spring VON, which will be just past my first anniversary as J Arnold & Associates.

For reference, my URL is www.jarnoldassociates.com. For now, that link just takes you here to the blog page.

New Links to Follow

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It's been a very hectic week and am behind on things I want to post. I just want to quickly share with you two new links I've made that you may find of interest.

NexTone - I've commented about them a few times, especially around their recent funding, and how they appear to be establishing a leadership position in what they call the "session management" space. They are doing a number of interesting things to play this role, most notably the establishment of a certification program - NexTone University - in IMS-compliant session management. Sounds like a smart way to spend their new money (no pun intended).

More recently, they launched their own blog this Monday. This is the first vendor blog I've seen on a home website - there may well be others, but I haven't noticed. Of course, blogs are becoming a must-have these days, and I have no doubt we'll be seeing more of this very soon. Am not 100% sure what to make of a self-published blog on the company website, but why not? It's too early too tell where this will go, but I think it's neat, and could turn out to be a useful marketing and educational tool. I'm also pleased to mention they have been nice enough to include my blog in their blog roll. I will return the favor as soon as I can add a blog roll to this blog.

Newstex This is a news aggregator service, and I'm one of many bloggers now providing content feeds for their subscribers. My blog was just recently added to their roster, and hopefully this will broaden my reach and expose my blog to new markets. Time will tell.

Speaking of the media, I had a good week in the press. I was quoted in the Wall Street Journal, IT Business, National Post, and I was interviewed for upcoming stories in Light Reading and Computer User Magazine. A bit further out, I'm hoping be part of a fairly large VoIP story running in the February issue of PC Week.

I'm on a Roll - Am on Jeff Pulver's Top Bloggers List

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Today, Jeff Pulver published his list of "Top VoIP Bloggers of 2005". I'm quite pleased to have made the list, and since my last name starts with "A" (eh), I'm up at the top, right behind Andy Abramson.

It's a great list, and I'll pass on a big thank-you to Jeff for thinking so well of me. I strongly urge you to bookmark Jeff's posting. If you follow the bloggers and pubs he's got listed there, you won't be missing too much about what's going on in the world of IP.

This is making for a good week. On Tuesday, I posted about my blog being nominated for the 2005 Canadian Blog Awards. The first round of voting has closed, and the winners will be announced tomorrow. I'm in the Business category, along with fellow IP bloggers Mark Evans, Alec Saunders and Rob Hyndman. My prediction is that Mark Evans will handily win - he's the best when it comes to getting the good stories first. I'll keep you posted.

Canadian Blog Awards - Vote for Your Faves Now

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Who ever thought there was such a thing? Well, there is, and I'm coming around to this after seeing posts from Alec Saunders and Mark Evans about it. Both have been nominated - deservedly so! - in the Business category, and you can now vote for your favorite blog across several categories in addition to Business.

Following Alec's post today about voting, I see that I too have made the grade, and am also a nominee in the Business category. I'm not in the uberblogger class, but am certainly happy to be in the mix. I should also note another nominee with strong IP content - Rob Hyndman - who has turned up on some of my postings.

Don't worry - you can vote once a day until December 11, so if you can't decide which one you like the best, you can spread the love around. However, to really be heard, Round 1 voting ends tomorrow - Wednesday - so vote now!!!

About Me

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I get comments regularly from people who can't contact me directly from my blog - it's a problem I've been meaning to address for some time. I'm working on this now, and hope to have it fixed this week. Until then, below is a brief overview of what I do and how to reach me:

My company is J Arnold & Associates. I'm an independent analyst/consultant focused on the IP communications sector, and am based in Toronto. I've been covering IP full time since 2001, initially as the VoIP Program Leader for analyst firm Frost & Sullivan. I returned to my indie consulting roots in March 2005, and provide a range of consulting, market research and writing services for clients in this space.

Just wanted to add that my blog is a Nominee in the Business category for the 2005 Canadian Blog Awards. You can review the nominees here!


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I would also like to add that Jeff Pulver has included my blog in his list of "Top VoIP Blogs of 2005". Thanks Jeff!


My website is being developed now, and will fully outline my capabilities, background and upcoming initiatives. It will also provide a listing of my recent media citings and articles. Most importantly, the website will explain how my services are being positioned for various communities within the IP market, namely vendors, service providers, VCs/investment banks and PR/marketing agencies. Look for my website in early 2006.

Until then, feel free to contact me directly:
jon@jarnoldassociates.com