New Podcast - This Time, as a Guest on Unified Comms Influencers

It’s always easier being a guest on someone else’s podcast than hosting your own, and Dominic Kent and I both know what the latter entails. Like me, Dominic wears a few hats, and his podcast, Unified Comms Influencers is one of them.

I was his guest last week for Episode 21. He’s doing a great job tracking the UC space, and has been tapping the analyst community, including colleagues Irwin Lazar and Blair Pleasant, for recent podcasts. There’s lots of good content to explore in his archive, so I urge you to check that out.

First, of course, you should give our segment a listen, which was posted yesterday, here on his site. We talked about current trends in UC, and given my background, we got to go back to beginning, where I provided the back story around VoIP’s early days, and how we got here from there. Dominic writes up a summary as a companion piece to each podcast, so you can read more about what we talked about as a preview for our conversation. Hope you enjoy it, and don’t forget to buy Dominic a cup of coffee if you want to show your support.

July Writing Roundup

Public writing has been lighter lately, but as my newsletter readers would know, that doesn’t mean I’m not busy. Here’s my monthly digest of I was writing about in July.

Future-proof Your UC Strategy with These 3 Best Practices, TechTarget, July 31

How to Make a Business Case for Unified Communications, TechTarget, July 22

6 Unified Communications Benefits for Business Productivity, TechTarget, July 22

3 Themes Emerging in Speech Tech, No Jitter, July 21

Google, Microsoft and Slack - Which Collaboration Vision to Follow?, BCStrategies, July 20

UC Awards 20 - Winners Ceremony Broadcast Now Posted

Well, this was fun! Rob Scott and his team at UC Today did a great job putting this broadcast together, which just aired now on their website. I was one of the six judges, so I’ve been part of the process going back a few months, and now we get to enjoy the results and share the good news.

Aside from viewing the ceremony on their website, fyi, it’s also been posted to YouTube.

The awards ceremony runs 23 minutes, MC’d by Rob, where the finalists and winners are announced across 12 different categories. Plus, there are 3 “person of the year” winners, giving things a more personal feel. As judges, we get to announce the winners, and while there’s no red carpet for us to strut and preen along, we have our brief moments on camera throughout the ceremony.

So, the drama is over, and briefly, the winners are Theta Lake, EPOS, AKiXi, Talkdesk, Cisco, RingCentral, Vonage, 2600Hz, Exponential-e, and VOSS - note, there were 2 multiple winners.

For “person on the year”, kudos to Eric Yuan of Zoom, Charanya Kanaan of Talkdesk and Vlad Shmunis of RingCentral.

That should be enough of a teaser, and am sure Rob would love for you to watch the ceremony to get all the details.

Congrats to all the winners, and big thanks Rob Scott and team for putting this all together!

Digitcom Series, Pt. 2 - Key Communications Challenges Facing Canadian Businesses

Part 2 of my three-part series for Digitcom has now been posted, and you can download it here. The series has been well-received so far, and my earlier blog post has the back story and link for downloading Part 1.

Am working on Part 3 this week, and the finale piece should get posted to Digitcom’s site in early August.

The core audience for this series is Canadian mid-sized businesses, and they tend to lag the US market when it comes to adopting digital technology, namely VoIP, UC and cloud. However, the issues are the same for all businesses looking to migrate from legacy technology, so by all means, you don’t have be a Canadian business to find this series of value.

Oracle Startup Idol Event

I’ve been getting invited to judge awards and events a fair bit lately, and this one happened yesterday. The Oracle AR folks rounded up a group of analysts to judge this mini-event, where 6 startups in their partner ecosystem each gave 3 minute rapid-fire pitches for us to evaluate. The companies were all new to me, and each was very different, and that’s a great way to showcase the breadth of Oracle’s world.

As judges, we could see the presenters - hosted on Zoom - but they couldn’t see us, and we couldn’t see each other, so I really don’t who else was on my side of the virtual room. As one might expect, some pitches were really good, and some were painfully hard to watch. After the presos, we cast our votes across three categories - creativity, innovation, and overall pitch. One category ended in a tie, and in no particular order, the winners were Airfluencers (I liked them the best), Rocketmat, Complete Intelligence, and Supermoney. Congrats all, and thanks to the Oracle team for inviting me!

Preview for My Speech Tech Session at Enterprise Connect

Enterprise Connect Virtual will be here before you know it, and I’m back with the third iteration of my talk on enterprise speech technology. This space isn’t quite as happening as the contact center, but with AI driving so much innovation, I’ll be sharing use cases that are probably not yet on your radar.

My latest No Jitter article is running now, and it’s a preview for what’s coming, and hopefully that’s enough to get my session on your calendar. As with most virtual events, the sessions are free, and I’m the last speaker on Day 1 - Monday, August 3 at 4:15 ET. Hope you can join me, and there’s a link in the article to register. Heads-up - I’ve got a teaser video coming as well about the session. The show must go on!

My Latest on BCStrategies - Google, Microsoft and Slack - 3 Visions for Collaboration

It’s been a busy week, and it’s only Tuesday. Sometimes my public-facing work comes in bunches, and this is one of those times. Most of it turns up here on my blog, but for a more up-to-the-minute account, it’s best to follow my social feeds on Linked in and Twitter (@arnoldjon).

Got a new post to share here - this one running now on BCStrategies, where I’ve been a regular contributor for about 10 years. Today’s post is about an idea that’s been percolating for a while, then within a short few weeks, three leading collaboration players announced updates, as if staking out their territory and putting certain competitors on notice.

Each has a different vision, and that’s what makes this so interesting for me. Just when you thought UC was getting commodified - and it is, to some degree - one brings a messaging-centric vision, then another comes out being video-centric, and yet another is anchoring their UCaaS around email.

What’s an IT decision-maker to do?

I’d sure love to do a research project polling that community to find out, but until that happens, you’ll just have to settle for my take, and it’s here now on the BCStrategies portal. While you’re there, you should check out other posts from my colleagues, and our semi-regular podcasts. After that, I’d love to hear your thoughts, and as always, sharing is encouraged.

Our Latest Podcast - The Evolving Collaboration Landscape

Around this time each month, our latest Watch This Space podcast gets posted publicly to my website. Newsletter subscribers get access to it earlier, so if that’s not you, now you can listen to it as well.

This time around, Chris and I review how the collaboration landscape is changing, triggered in part by the recent update from Slack for Connect. The changes make Slack a more enterprise-friendly solution - with a caveat. The big “but”, of course is the absence of email, where their messaging channels are deemed sufficient for text-based communication, and in Slack’s view, a better way to get work done.

That’s a strong position to take when going up against Microsoft Teams and all the other collaboration players, and it says a lot about how this space is evolving. If that’s on your mind, then you should enjoy our podcast, which you can find here in the podcast section of my website. Once there, if you think subscribing to my newsletter - JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - is a good idea, the signup form isn’t hard to find.

UC Awards 2020 - Finalists Announced Today

If you’re following the UK-based UC Awards 2020, you’ll know today is a big day. The shortlist has been announced, with the top 3 finalists in all 12 categories being named. The winners will be announced on July 30, so that’s the next big date to watch for.

I’m one of the judges for fhis year’s UC Awards, and now we get to see the results of our efforts. More details are here, on the UC Today website, along wiith this teaser clip naming the finalists.

My Latest White Paper - RingCentral Video and Fixing the Meetings Milieu

This one has been a long time coming, but it’s finally public. As part of RingCentral’s recent launch of RingCentral Video, I was commissioned to produce white paper, mainly to explain the problem set around meetings, and the various ways video brings value to make them more effective.

My white paper was written earlier this year, and was finalized in late March, just around the official launch of RingCentral Video. I would have loved to tell my followers about it then, but it hasn’t been published until now. The good news is that RingCentral has made it a public document, just like all the other content posted to the Resources section of their website, so there’s no download or registration required.

If you’d like to read it, here’s the link to the Resources page, and just scroll down a ways, and you’ll find it, titled: Fixing the Meetings Miieu with a Video-First Digital Collaboration Experience. If for some reason, you can’t find it, drop me a line, and I can provide a copy.

Newsletter Time Again - July Issue

My latest newsletter edition - JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - went out to subscribers yesterday. For those who don’t know, it’s a monthly digest of my activities, including updates on client work, summaries of my thought leadership, and involvement with various industry events. It’s a quick read, and there will always be something new or different, and hopefully ideas you’ve never thought about before. To check it out, subscribing is super-easy, and free - just use this form, or sign up on my website.

Also, if you don’t know, I produce a monthly podcast with my long-time colleague, Chris Fine. It’s called Watch This Space, and last month marked our 25th episode - yay! We’re finally hitting our stride, and there are updates in the newsletter as to how the podcast is evolving - and improving.

Our topic this month was triggered by Slack’s recent announcement for Connect, which makes the clearest break yet for how the future of work might look without email. Lots to talk about, and subscribers get access to the podcast now. If you don’t want to subscribe, you’ll need to wait about two weeks when it will be publicly shared here on my website, where you can access all of our previous episodes.

ITSPA - Speaking on a Virtual Panel Session

I haven’t traveled since early March, but as you know, many industry events are adpating to virtual formats to keep their communities connected. If you don’t follow me, you might enjoy this roundup I wrote about five recent virtual events I was part of - and they were all different.

I’ll be speaking at a few upcoming virtual events, with the next one being next week, on Thursday, July 9. This one is being run by UK-based ITSPA - Internet Telephony Service Providers’ Association. They’re running a summer series of one-hour sessions - forums, really - so it will be short and sweet. We’ll be discussing the impact of COVID-19 on how service providers are supporting their business customers, and I’ll be joined by three other speakers. Definitely a timely topic, and you can get all the details here.

June Writing Roundup

As with last month, the writing output has been light, but other things have definitely been keeping me busy. Not much else to say, or share, but here’s the roundup.

Enabling Businesses to Extend Communications Beyond Legacy Telephony, Digitcom website (registration required), June 19

Re-evaluating Budgets to Provide UC Devices to Home Workers, TechTarget, June 18

How Can Speech Recognition Technology Support Remote Work?, TechTarget, June 11

Who Wants to Return to the Office?, No Jitter, June 9

Enterprise Connect Virtual - Am Speaking on Speech Tech

It’s time to start talking up the virtual edition of Enterprise Connect 2020. As you may know, the in-person event was set for March, just as Covid was shutting everything down. The event was hastily re-scheduled for August, but it’s still too soon to be in-person, so it’s now been re-worked as an all-digital virtual experience.

Lately, most of the virtual versions of events I’ve attended have been pretty small-scale, and this will be the first major industry event I’ll be attending in this format. It’s a big challenge, for sure, but am certain that the Informa folks will do a first-rate job.

This year, I’m doing the third iteration of my talk on AI-driven speech technology in the enterprise. My unconventional perspective on this space keeps evolving, and even if you’ve attended my past Enterprise Connect talks, I am certain you will learn something new. That’s my pitch, and it’s up to you to join my session and find out for yourself.

It’s so strange to talk about Enterprise Connect and not mention Florida, and being virtual, all you need to know is the date. The event runs from August 3-6, and my talk is on the 3rd - Monday, at 4:15pm ET. Geez, you don’t even need to know what room I’ll be in - just note the details here, and I’ll “see” you then.

Bigger picture - of course - you need to go here to register, and then map out all the events and networking over the four days. As you’ll see, being a virtual event, it’s quite affordable to attend, with both free and paid options.

Regarding my talk in particular, I’ll have more update posts coming, along some editorial support from the No Jitter folks - stay tuned.

June Podcast Now Posted - Workplace Perspectives in Pandemic Times

Got quite a few updates underway for my website, and by extension, that includes the newsletter and our monthly podcast. I’ll have more on each of these in due time, and for now, the main update is that the June podcast is now publicly available.

Newsletter subscribers get exclusive access to our Watch This Space podcasts for about two weeks, and that time is now. Our latest focus is on workspace perspectives now that we’re a few months in working from home. If that’s of interest, we hope you’ll give this episode a listen. You can access it here in the Podcasts section of my website, along with the full archive of earlier episodes.

More changes are coming to the podcast starting next month, and if you’re not subscribed to JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review newsletter, it’s this easy.

New Series on Migrating Legacy Telephony to Cloud for Digitcom

Digitcom is a leading Canadian MSP, and the company is doing some interesting things to help businesses migrate from legacy telephony to IP services like SIP trunking, cloud telephony and UC. I’ve been working with them since last year, and in partnership with France-based Centile, they just launched the first in a three-part series of thought leadership pieces I wrote for them.

The first writeup is available now, and the next one is coming very soon. This is gated content, and to access it, here’s the registration page they’ve set up. The target audience would be Canadian businesses looking to make this migration, so if that’s you, I think you’ll find these writeups time well-spent.

#140Conf Live - Future of Work Virtual Event

Not much to say, and just wanted to mark yesterday’s #140Conf Live virtual event, hosted by Jeff Pulver. Regular followers here will know about my long history with Jeff, and how his version of a virtual event is different - as is most of what Jeff does. As an analyst, conferences are a big part of my world, and as I’ve been writing recently, there’s no one way to do virtual events.

Jeff does #140Conf Live his way, and it works just fine. Each week there’s a different theme, and he lines up speakers accordingly. In the course of recent discussions, Jeff wanted to do a future of work theme, and with that being the focus of my monthly Watch This Space podcast with Chris Fine, he had us on the roster.

Chris and I sure enjoyed our talk time, as well as the other speakers - a very eclectic mix. We heard about how a dentist is using all kinds of technology to turn his office into a touchless experience for everyone, and another about using AR/VR for all kinds of things, including teaching surgery. Very cool.

All told, Jeff may be on to something here, and I think most attendees would agree. There were about 100 people with us, and the chat thread was rich. Am not sure if there’s a replay available, and if not, you’ll just have to check out upcoming events to see for yourself. This is just one of many ways Jeff stays busy building community, and to get connected, here’s the detail on next week’s event, along with how to get on his email list. Otherwise, here’s a screen shot I took during my talk with Chris.

My Next Webinar - SD WAN with Oracle, June 23

This is my next webinar with Informa, where Oracle is the sponsor, talking about the virtues of SD WAN. I’ll be moderating this session, and leading Q&A after the main presentation. Webinar is next Tuesday at 2pm EST - hope you can join us. Registration details are here.

SCTC Regional Event - the Virtues of Being Virtual

Just a quick post to mark the most recent SCTC event - last Friday, June 12. This was one of our regional events, and closer to home, it was for the Canadian consulting community, but also for the surrounding Great Lakes states. With so few events to attend in Canada, it’s a big deal for Canadian consultants, and like with everyone else, a virtual event is better than no event at all.

We had a good turnout and solid engagement from attendees. There were two main sessions, followed by a social scrum, which is a good way to conclude and catch up with people we don’t often see. The first session was on the technical side, led by Sharpen, focusing on what contact centers need today to deliver a better CX.

Following that was a roundtable session about how consultants can adapt in the current climate. I was part of that session, and aside from talking about best practices in a disrupted market, I wore my analyst hat and talked about opportunities to help businesses manage their growing remote workforce. Below is a screenshot I took during our session, and if you like what you see, you should check out the SCTC, especially if you’re a consultant.

Next Virtual Event - #140Conf Live - Speaking About Future of Work, June 17

Virtual events are filling the void for in-person conferences these days, and I’ll be speaking at another one next week. This Friday, I’ll be speaking at the SCTC’s virtual Canadian event - details here - and next Wednesday, you’ll get a live version taste of what Chris Fine and I do on our monthly podcast, Watch This Space.

This will be for another edition of Jeff Pulver’s #140ConfLive series - which I recently wrote about here - running next Wednesday, June 17, from 12-2pm EST. Jeff recently gave this event a re-boot, and it’s great to see him back doing events, and very happy to be invited as a guest to speak. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you’ll know about our podcast, and I’ll have a chance to banter with Chris about future of work themes during the event, which will be livestreamed.

It’s free to attend, and all the details are here, including registration and the full lineup of speakers. I believe Chris and I will be speaking around 12:30. If you’ve never attended #140ConfLive, it’s pretty different, and Jeff always has a great mix of speakers of topics - so come see for yourself.