My Latest Podcast - Adopting Collaboration in the Digital Workplace

Subscribers to my newsletter have already seen and/or heard this podcast, but for just about everyone else, this will be new. I produce a monthly newsletter updating my activities and sharing industry insights, including a podcast that I produce with colleague Chris Fine. Each month we talk about a current topic, or hot trend, or a recent industry event we’ve attended.

My newsletter content is exclusive to subscribers, and am happy to say that my base is steadily growing. We put a fair bit of effort into our podcast, though, and to give that particular form of content more exposure, I’m now going to share each one here, roughly a month after appearing in the newsletter. I think that’s fair, and am happy to share our perspectives with a broader audience.

That said, the rest of my newsletter content remains exclusive, so hopefully that’s enough to keeps things interesting for subscribers. If you want to become a subscriber - there’s no cost (and why wouldn’t you?) - sign-up forms are on my website, or you can just follow this link here.

If you just want to listen to our podcast from last month’s newsletter, here’s the story. The topic was a recent study produced by Aruba Networks about the digital workplace. I wrote two posts about it here and here, and the podcast gave Chris and I more runway to take a deeper dive. We hope you like it - feel free to comment, share, or suggest future podcast topics for us to cover. Thanks!

Sidebar #1 - my November newsletter will be going out next week, and the podcast topic for that issue will be a review of last month’s Twilio conference, SIGNAL 2018. Stay tuned, subscribers!

Sidebar #2 - I’ll soon be adding a section to my website to archive our earlier podcasts, so if you like this one, there will be others you may want to check out.

Preview Q&A Interview for TMC's Future of Work Expo

It’s busy enough with 3 conferences coming this month, but this is a good time to get the word out about another one in late January. While 2019 seems far off, it really isn’t, and planning for the Future of Work Expo has been underway for a while. In fact, the program is largely in place, but as co-chair, if you strongly feel you should be speaking and/or sponsoring, please drop me a line.

To give you a better sense of what to expect there, I just completed a Q&A with TMC’s Paula Bernier, the other co-chair for FoW Expo. There’s more to come about the Expo, but hopefully her interview with me will help you decide in favor of joining us in Fort Lauderdale in the depths of winter.

October Writing Roundup

Had a very heavy month fulfilling client work, along with attending two conferences - and a long drive to Florida for a family visit. Life happens, and there wasn’t much room for writing, but here’s what I’d like to share for October for those who want to read more of my work.

Twilio SIGNAL Day 2 Thoughts and Pix - OK Go, and do you Believe in Magic?, my blog, Oct. 19

Mavenir Analyst Day - Quick Take and Pix, my blog, Oct. 19

What Potential Security Threats Could AI Introduce?, TechTarget, Oct. 17

AI in Contact Centers Offers Agents Behavioral Analytics, TechTarget, Oct. 16

Collaboration Endpoints - Understanding the Bigger Picture, Toolbox.com, Oct. 11

Cybercrime and Collaboration - On A Collision Course?, No Jitter, Oct. 9

3 Things to Remember About Amazon Mayday, Toolbox.com, Oct. 8

Look to the Laggards to Drive Collaboration Adoption, Toolbox.com, Oct. 5

My Next Webinar - Death of the PBX

October is zooming along, and this will be my third webinar for the month, so things have been pretty busy lately.

This time around, it’s another Ziff Davis/Toolbox.com webinar, with a topic that anyone in the telephony space should be interested in. For digital natives, the PBX has about as much utility as a fax machine or a home phone line, so Captain Obvious isn’t needed here. For everyone else, however, the PBX is still a mainstay, and the installed base - for better or worse - is still pretty large.

While the vendors aren’t making ‘em any more, the IP phone business is still going strong, so the “death” thing is a bit overstated. That’s the setup for my webinar, and if you want in, here’s the registration page. We’re doing this next Tuesday - Oct. 30 - at 2pm, and hope you can join us.

Twilio SIGNAL - Day 2 Thoughts and Pix - OK Go, and do you Believe in Magic?

Can’t remember the last conference that hit the ground running with intensity, passion and creativity - and stayed there end to end. That’s been the vibe here, certainly for the general sessions on both days. It was enough just to keep up taking notes and posting some pix on social, and for now, I’ll be short, just like my Day 1 post. I need to digest and recover from two weeks of steady travel, but my considered thoughts will be coming soon. Until then, some Day 2 pix.

First, there is a really strong vibe here, not just for being socially conscious, but for social justice. For left-leaning liberals, Twilio is your kind of culture - Trump not spoken here. This was best exemplified by Erin Reilly, their VP of Social Impact and GM of Twilio.org. They’re not just talking about this stuff, but they’re doing a lot about it. Check our her “I am a Voter” t-shirt (worn by other Twilio speakers, including Jeff Lawson), and her social experiment with texting to see how many in the audience agree with her - love it. They’re also using their messaging platform to help people in need, especially the disadvantaged, like those subject to racial profiling or immigrants facing deportation. Pretty strong, but inspiring stuff.

On the fun side, SIGNAL did not lack for star power and cutting edge technology. First, Tony Hawk, who sure has inspired a few generations of skateboarders. He’s a legend, but not that recognizeable, so the running joke is that people think he looks like Tony Hawk - check out this tweet that shows what he’s talking about - hah! Then we had the creators of West World, Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan - cool. Even cooler, we were treated to an amazing “performance” by OK Go. I would need a whole post to break down all the things they did, but let’s just say, as developers, they mixed technology and music in a really creative manner that involved all of us, and all of our mobile devices. Tough act to follow!

Finally, magic was a big theme at SIGNAL, beginning with a cool demo from a magician who made the mobile phones of two strangers call each other simply by touching their index fingers together. Pretty impressive way to show the power of human connection, and there was more magic to follow. Now, check this out - CEO Jeff Lawson wearing the AR/VR goggles and doing a demo with Magic Leap. In the third photo, he’s doing a virtual chat with Magic Leap’s Rony Abovitz. The two avatars are chatting and interacting in real time, while Jeff and Rony are speaking from different physical locations. Jeff says this is the first time an avatar chat has EVER been done in real time in front of an audience. Aren’t we special, and isn’t that some kind of magic?

Twilio SIGNAL - Day 1 Pix

Been a fast-paced event so far, with a firehose of updates and announcements. For now, I’ll just steer you to some press releases, but will have more to say later after the conference. Namely: Autopilot for develping bots that can be deployed across multiple platforms, Flex contact center platform going GA, and acquiring SendGrid to integrate email into their platform.

Just too much going on, so that will have to wait for a quieter time. Otherwise, here’s a flavor of what I’m seeing so far. Co-founder/CEO Jeff - great energy and a passionate vision. Same from Al Cook annoucing GA for Flex, putting the call center space on notice. And, Rahma Javed from Deliveroo - diversity definitely spoken here! More coming about all these themes, so stay tuned.

Next Stop - San Francisco for Twilio

Following my last blog post, this is “next stop” #2 for the week. I was in Dallas - still am, actually, about to board an early flight to SFO - for Mavenir’s analyst day, and now I’m heading to Twilio’s SIGNAL event in San Francisco. If the flight is on time and my Uber ride goes to plan, I should be there in time for the opening keynote at 10am.

More details are here on the Event Calendar section of my website, and I’ll be happy to be home Friday night. That’s enough excitement for me this week, but I’ll keep writing and posting about the event as time allows.

Next Stop - Dallas for Mavenir

This is “next stop” post #1 for the week. Am at the airport now, flying shortly to Dallas for Mavenir’s Analyst Day event. I’ve had this on the calendar for a while, and it’s my first time attending one of their events. Mobility comes and goes in my coverage, but this will be a good opportunity for a deep dive on the state of 5G and how carriers are embracing the cloud. Even more interesting is how they’re bringing AI to market, and leveraging the cloud for future-forward revenue streams built around RCS and messaging.

More details are here on my Events Calendar, where you’ll also see info about “next stop” #2 right after Mavenir. Watch for another post about that next day or so.

Shout-out for My October Newsletter

My newsletter is becoming a regular thing now, and the current issue has been sent now to subscribers. Of course, I’d love for all my readers to be subscribers, but that’s your call, not mine. First, you have to be following me, of course - but since the newsletter is fairly new, you need to know about that as well, and that’s why I’m writing this post.

I will have a newsletter archive coming soon, and I do plan to start posting podcasts from the newsletter here on my site a few weeks after sending out the newsletter - I’d like to keep that content exclusive to subscribers for a while first. To pique your interest, the current podcast is with colleague Chris Fine, where we discuss the findings and implications about a recent report produced by Aruba Networks on the impact of digital transformation on the workplace - very interesting stuff, for sure.

For now, though, subscribing is the only way to check out the podcast, along with all my regular updates, including highlights from our SIPtones show at the recent SCTC conference. Signing up is easy - here’s one way - or just wander around the site - you can’t miss it!

Cybercrime and Collaboration on Collision Course? My Latest on No Jitter

If you can say that title three times fast, maybe it will make more sense. Cybercrime touches just about everything these days, but it’s usually not top of the list for collaboration. It really should be, and that’s what this post is about.

At the recent SCTC conference, there was a great keynote about the state of cybercrime, and I've filtered that through the lens for collaboration. Even if that doesn’t resonate, am sure the issues on a broader, global scale will, and you can read the post here on No Jitter.

My Next Webinar - with No Jitter and Lucidchart

I’ve got a busy month on the webinar front, and here’s the next one to tell you about. This time around, I’m doing an Enterprise Connect webinar, so you’ll also hear about it through their main channel, No Jitter. I’ll be presenting on workplace trends that are making collaboration so important, and the challenges faced by IT to properly support them. One of those trends is around how workers collaborate today, and the value that visual applications can bring to make complex concepts or workflows easier to manage, especially with disparate teams.

The webinar is a little more that two weeks, out - Wednesday, October 24 - and all the details are here. I hope you can join us!

SCTC Conference - Quick Take, Pix and Video

Been all-out busy since returning from SCTC’s annual conference, and am determined to get a quick recap posted before the week is out. Aside from this post, my next No Jitter column will run early next week, and it’s about the conference keynote about cybercrime - it was very good, so watch for that.

Aside from attending, I wore a few hats, namely giving the locknote presentation, playing a gig with the SIPtones, and even playing “UC Cookoff” Jeopardy. Overall, the conference had a strong mix of content, both from member speakers and the vendors during their segments.

SCTC is a small, but very collegial group, and being the only active analyst member (and probably with the highest public profile), you may not know much about this world. Most consultants in telecom and/or the broader communications space are not members, but it seems to me they could benefit from the collective knowledge base here. That’s a topic for another day, and for now, here are some high level takeaways and pix.

• Cybercrime keynote from Lou Giannotti, IT Director, U.S. Naval Academy - really interesting perspectives, and that’s the focus of my upcoming No Jitter post.

• Cloud panel debate - healthy back and forth of the merits of both cloud and on-prem. There’s a lot of old-school expertise in SCTC, and it’s easy to forget legacy basics - but it still drives a lot of thinking in IT circles.

• Good overviews from the vendors, especially Genesys in talking about how the cloud helps enterprises prepare for the “exponential effect” of digital transformation, and Sprint for what’s coming with 5G and IoT.

• Engaging talk from consultant Dennis Goodhart on disruptive technologies. Mostly familiar for me, but not for everyone there, and more importantly, this is what their clients need know to be on the right side of technology change. That said, legacy telecom isn’t in my DNA, so the Strowger switch was new learning - gee, what a great story! Nothing has changed in terms of why people do what they do…..

• Our SIPtones gig went quite well. Too bad we only had one set, but it was fun and the dance floor was full - mission accomplished. Our time spent rehearsing the weekend before - see my “Little Pink” post for more - was definitely the right idea.

Below - welcome comments from Annapolis Mayor, Gavin Buckley, the cloud panel and “UC Cookoff” Jeopardy:

Below - another highlight - tour of the U.S. Naval Academy - tons of history, John Paul Jones crypt, inspiring architecture, and geez, I wish I could have played that organ!

Speaking of music, some of our SIPtones saga: “Little Pink” - lake house in the Adirondacks where we rehearsed, a taste of the pastoral setting, and the gig itself, held at the Naval Academy Club:

Finally, if you haven’t seen this, here’s a 10 second clip of us playing Tequila, courtesy of our guest singer, Jennifer Kang. Stay tuned - literally - more video coming. Need a band for your next event? :-)

My New Podcast with Genesys - Business Case for CCaaS

Well, this is actually two podcasts - a long one broken up into two parts. Been working on this one a while - it’s hosted by UK-based publisher EM360 - Enterprise Management 360, and sponsored by Genesys.

Joining me on the podcast was Bobbi Chester and Randy Carter of Genesys, and we covered a lot of ground around digital transformation, and why businesses need to be thinking about the cloud as a deployment model for contact center. This may be first nature for us, but legacy-based contact centers have a lot of catching up to do, and if this sounds like you, our commentary will be timely, and hopefully informative.

The discussion ran long, so EM360 wisely broke it up into two episodes, and you can give them a listen here. As always, your comments are welcome, as is any sharing.

September Writing Roundup

The busy state throughout August carried over into September, and things were productive on many fronts.

Writing took a back seat to other things - namely webinars, podcasts, speaking, conference planning and strategy work - but here are the writing highlights from last month. To get the bigger picture about the work I do with clients, you really should sign up for my newsletter.

Adopting Collaboration to the Digital Workplace, Part 2, Toolbox.com, Sept. 26

My New Infographic - 5 Things to Know About Slack, my blog, Sept. 25

Adopting Collaboration to the Digital Workplace, Toolbox.com, Sept. 18

Slack and the New Frontiers of Collaboration, BCStrategies, Sept. 14

Building a Business Case for Contact Center as a Service, 2 podcasts with Genesys, Enterprise Management 360, Sept. 11

My New Infographic - 5 Things to Know About Slack

Gotta keep trying new things, so to mix things up, here’s an infographic I put together about the Slack Frontiers conference I recently attended. I blogged about the event here, and wrote about it here, but wanted to produce something more visual. To do that, I’ve partnered with Steele Social Media, where I wrote the narrative and they turned that into an infographic. Voila.

I hope you like it, and if want you to have something similar for your business, we’d love to hear from you.

Next Stop - SCTC Conference, My Locknote, and Music from Little Pink!

If you’re a card-carrying digital immigrant, the above title should grab you right away.

First, the easy stuff. Just doing a shout-out for the SCTC’s annual conference, this year being held in Annapolis, MD. It’s a pretty small, specialized community, so it won’t be relevant for all of you, but that’s where I’ll be next week. Of course, SCTC members know all about it, but it’s also open to non-member consultants, so if that’s you, it’s not too late to make plans.

Aside from attending, I’ll be giving the locknote talk at the conference close on Thursday, so that’s very much on my to-do list for the next few days.

Then, there’s Little Pink. Sound familiar? How about Big Pink? You should know that one:

Classic album, of course, with Bob Dylan and the Band holed up in upstate New York at their Big Pink house for what would become the Basement Tapes. As you may know, I play keyboards and guitar with the SIPtones, and we’re performing at the conference party next Wednesday - at the prestigious US Naval Academy - cool, huh?

Tomorrow, I’m packing up my gear and driving to the Adirondacks, where we’re doing our version of this over the weekend as we rehearse for our gig. We won’t be recording at “Little Pink”, but that’s definitely the vibe we’ll be channeling. Let’s hope it rubs off at the show, and if you’re there, we sure hope you let us know!

Collaboration Vendors to Watch - Our BCStrategies Podcast

Been offline a few days, but now back to posting. Getting real busy again on a few fronts, and before things get too hectic, I’ve been meaning to share this podcast.

As part of BCStrategies, we record podcasts regularly, and this is a topic we’ve been meaning to do for a while. The big players by nature get most of the limelight, and this time around, we wanted to focus on lesser-known companies who are doing interesting things.

Without variety, things get dull pretty fast, and this webinar provides a good window into what companies other than Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Amazon, et al are up to. This time around, the podcast was hoted by Blair Pleasant, and for reference, the replay link here also provides a brief overview of the companies we talked about. For my segment, I touched on CoreDial, Nectar, Sangoma, and Cogito. All doing very different things, but interesting in their own ways.

Slack Frontiers 2018 - My 3 Takeaways on BCStrategies

I really wanted to get this posted before the week is out and while the conference is still fresh. My followers will know that I posted some photos and thoughts earlier about Slack’s event, but more needed to be said, and that’s what I’ve done here.

As my followers will also know, I’ve long been a BC Expert with BCStrategies, and that’s a good place to share my high level takeaways about Slack and their Frontiers 2018 event.

There’s more to come, but I hope this post gives you a good flavor for what’s coming with Slack, and how they’re pushing the frontiers of collaboration. As always, your comments are welcome, and any sharing would be greatly appreciated.

Next Webinar with Genesys - Exploring Options for Moving to the Cloud

Onwards and Cloudwards is how Genesys is framing the topic, and it should be a good one. These are heady times for the contact center, as the case for moving to the cloud seems to get stronger by the day. There’s still lots to think about, and to do this right, you need a plan. If you’re in that situation now, this is the webinar for you.

My followers will know that I’ve been doing several webinars lately, and this topic has definitely been keeping me busy. For this webinar, Genesys is the sponsor, and following my presentation, I’ll be joined by Barbara Gonzalez, their VP of Global Business Consulting.

Full details are here on the registration page, and if you’re coming, save the date - Wed, Oct.3 at 2pm ET. Genesys has been doing a great job promoting this on their channels, and I’ll be keeping that vibe going as we get closer to the date.

Next Webinar - Making IT Strategic as Collaboration Moves to the Cloud

I’ve been doing several webinars lately, including this one in late July for Ziff Davis. That webinar was sponsored by Jive Software (now part of Aurea) as a two-part series around the impact of digital transformation collaboration.

Next week’s webinar will be the second part of my analysis, this time focused on IT’s changing role. With so much moving to the cloud - including collaboration - this presents new challenges for IT to remain strategic, and layering digital transformation into this, there will be some re-invention needed.

That’s the gist of what’s coming, and more details are here on the registration page. If that sounds like you, then save the date - Tuesday, Sept. 18 at 2ET - and I hope you can join me then.