Cloud Communications Alliance Event - Quick Take and Pix

This is week 2 of my travel run that will have me going to at least one event somewhere each week pretty much til mid-November. Busy is good, but much tougher to get the work done - that’s just how it goes as an indie analyst.

Was in New York the past two days, attending the Cloud Communications Alliance Financial Summit. Being a half-day event, it was more of an update than a summit, but top-caliber attendees nonetheless. Was very happy to be there, and in the end, I wound up being on the closing panel session with just analysts, led by Clark Peterson. Needless to say, with 5 of us, we easily went over time, but nobody seemed to mind.

There were two other panel sessions focused on the financial side of the cloud business, and it was good to hear what they’re talking about, especially for companies looking for exits. With the shift from growth to profitability, valuations are down, so the space is less lucrative now, and the players have to work harder to create sustainable businesses. There was a lot of talk about how to compete with - or align with - Teams, along with the dominance of other majors like Cisco and Zoom.

Most of the focus was on UCaaS - understandable - and less so on CCaaS, CPaaS and AI - but if a longer program, no doubt we’d hear more about these as well. Bigger picture - it was noted that 50% of the market is still legacy-based, so lots of upside ahead - fair - but UCaaS space is so crowded, and it’s getting harder to compete against the majors, esp if only selling UC and/or telephony.

Overall, I think CCA can play a central role in helping cloud providers navigate all this, particularly under the broader tent of cloud services. UCaaS is too saturated now, and providers need a wider portfolio to compete longer-term. Lots of important themes here, and it’s all central to what I do, so this was a good spot for me to be in. I’ll leave you with some photos for a sense of the vibe there, and thanks again to Joe Manion and Clark Peterson for inviting me!

Clark Peterson with opening remarks; one of the finance panels; closing panel with the analysts.

Joe Manion kicking things off; familiar faces - Jeff Pulver with Ari Rabban, and me!

Event was held at the Yale Club - very Ivy League, but worked quite well. Reception the night before at City Winery inside Grand Central Terminal. Band was great - acoustics, not so much, but very good setting for being social and networking.

UC Expo, London - Another Panel Session

Next week, it’s UC Expo at the ExCeL London. I recently posted about a session I’m moderating, and here’s another one I’ll be on. This is the ask-the-analyst panel, on Thursday at 2:10 pm, where I’ll be joined by colleagues Dave Michels, Oru Mohiuddin and Prachi Nema, and moderated by Gill Rowbotham. Should be fun, and hope you can make it!

I’ll be on two other sessions, including an invite-only roundtable, so I won’t be hard to find - maybe I’ll see you there. Details are here about the event, the agenda and registration.

Next Stop - NYC and Cloud Communications Alliance

Am on the move over the next several weeks - enroute now to NYC for short trip, attending the Cloud Communications Alliance Financial Summit. It’s just a half-day, but a solid agenda, and looking forward to attending. I’ve known CCA for many years, but this is my first time going to an event with them, where I know I’ll be seeing many familiar faces - looking forward to it!

New Video with Evolve IP - The Role of Independent Analysts

Well, this was fun. Zak Anderson from Evolve IP sought me out recently, and we recorded a lengthy video interview about a variety of topics and trends. This is part of their Channel Champions video podcast series, and our chat was Episode 17. The main focus was about the role that independent analysts play, especially in helping channel partners better educate their customers about new technologies.

Zak and his team have done a great job to make our discussion more consumable by breaking it up into shorter segments, and you check all that out here on their website. To help get you there, here’s a short teaser clip. Have a look, and I hope you check out the rest!

Next Event - UC Expo UK, London

Am returning to UC Expo - pretty much same place and time as last year - October 4-5. Best I can tell, it’s the top event in the UC space in the EU, and they sure draw a big crowd.

Aside from attending, I’ll moderating two panels, along with being on the ask-the-analyst session during Day 2. Banner below showcases one of the sessions I’m moderating, and I’ll add the other one when it’s ready. If you haven’t registered, here’s the link, and maybe I’ll see you there!

CCTC Event in Toronto - Quick Post and Pix

Haven’t been able to post til now, and wanted to share a bit from last Thursday’s CCTC networking event here in Toronto. Telecom events are very rare in Canada, and given the community involved, it was great to attend and support this one. In case you’re wondering, CCTC is the Canadian Communications and Technology Consultants group, and colleague Cheryl Helm is the driving force. Happy to tell you more!

We had a solid turnout, and the content was consistently good all day long. I’m not going to recap the sessions here, but the feedback I’ve seen has been overwhelmingly positive - both the experience and the education from the sessions was worthwhile.

Kudos to Cheryl and the organizing team for putting this together, and the event bodes well for doing it again next year. Will leave you with a few photos that tell the story pretty well - all are mine, except the photo of me - thanks Nancy Gates.

Below - Cheryl Helm kicking things off - and yes, red was the color theme. Photo of the attendees, showing a pretty full room.

Scott Murphy leading the vendor panel on the future of comms tech - with Genesys, Mitel, Twilio, RingCentral and Avaya. Next - Roberta Fox on the state of 911 - nobody does it better. Roberta is retiring now, so this was her final conference session, and we gave her a nice sendoff - definitely the emotional highlight of the event.

As always, Martha Buyer giving us a rich legal perspective on AI, especially ethics - lots to think about. Next was David Dame - very inspiring locknote talk about his work at Microsoft, and his broader perspective on how input from those with disabilities can drive innovation, both in general, and for making technology more accessible. Finally, I was both a presenter and a moderator during the event.

New Guest Article - Climbing Over CCaaS Obstacles

My writing comes in fits and starts, and am on another run here. I’m a regular contributor to Contact Center Pipeline, and my latest writeup is running now in the September issue, which is just out now. CCaaS is a bottomless pit to be writing about, and the space sure keeps me busy. Here’s the link to my article, and as always, comments are welcome, as is sharing!

How AI is Transforming Voice Comms - My Latest for Aizan

I’ve been writing a series of guest posts for Aizan, and this time, the focus is on the impact of AI on voice communications, which of course is substantial. ChatGPT is just one flavor of this, and my post outlines key use cases and applications for both workplace and the contact center. I hope you give it a read, and while you’re there, you might want to check out their Voice Marketplace.

August Writing Roundup

Did more video and speaking than writing in August, so this is a short digest. Just two public writeups to share, so hopefully you can read ‘em both if you haven’t already!

MWC Shanghai - Three Key Perspectives, RCR Wireless, Aug. 1

North Carolina Electric Cooperatives Conference - Quick Take and Pix, my blog, Aug. 15

Next Webinar - Where to Invest for Long-Term Contact Center Success

Quiet month before summer ends, but September will be busy, and even more so for October. Got a new webinar here to pass along - I’ll be speaking with RingCentral, and it’s hosted by ICMI, so I’ll be in good company.

There’s so much to talk about in the contact center space, and I hope you’ll join us for our take. The webinar is on Sept. 27 at 2pm ET, and here’s the registration page.

Next Speaking Slot - Digital Transformation, CX and AI

I can talk a long time about this mix of themes, but for this session, we only have 45 minutes, and there will be three of us. No matter - am happy to be there - and worth noting this will be a new event for me.

The event is called Digital CxO Summit - it’s a one-day virtual event on Wednesday, September 13, at 1pm EST. I’m new to this group - Techstrong - and they have several other events that may fall into my orbit later this year.

Let’s see how this one goes first, and if you want to attend, registration details are on their site. For more detail about the panel session, here’s the Agenda link, and if you scroll down to 1pm, you’ll see it there.

Latest Podcast - AI and the Contact Center, with Cresta

I recent engaged with Cresta for a two-part podcast series, talking with their executives about the growing role of AI in the contact center, its business value to them as a vendor, and how it helps improve customer service.

The latest episode was just published by EM360 - the host of this series - where I was in conversation with Cresta’s co-founder and CTO, Tim Shi. Here’s the link, and I hope you give it a listen - and if you like it, you’ll probably want to check out the first episode, which I did with their CMO, Scott Kolman.

North Carolina Electric Cooperatives Conference - Quick Take and Pix

NCEC - that’s the acronym of the day, and it’s for the North Carolina Electric Cooperatives. That’s a mouthful, but they speak my language, and represent 26 co-ops across the state - basically the customer base that Duke Energy doesn’t serve directly.

You may not know that I have a long history in the smart grid space, including my own Smart Grid Summit event some years back, and a good run being quite involved with Zpryme’s Energy Thought Summit - which is still going strong in Austin. With a bit of searching on my blog, you’ll see all kinds of posts and videos about that, but for this post, I’m just talking about where I was last week.

That would be Myrtle Beach - first time there for me - where I was invited to speak at NCEC’s 2023 Technology Conference and Expo. Turns out this was their largest attendance to date, and as a speaker, it’s always great to have a full house. I did presentations for two sessions, and the rooms were full each time - with lots of audience engagement. That checks a lot of boxes for me.

I’ll just share some high-level takeaways here - mainly because it was a closed event - no media, and I was the only analyst there. I could go on at great length about the parallels between telecom and energy providers, and while both are utilities by nature, they’re at different stages of adopting all the new technologies that are in my orbit. Energy providers have lagged here, and what happened with telcos is happening here now.

This event was a great way to learn about the current state of energy, along with what’s on tap technology-wise. There is definitely a lot of new tech being adopted here, mostly for operations, and AI is very much in the mix. The exhibit hall had plenty of that on display, including vendors who would be familiar in the comms world, such as Fortinet, Cradlepoint, Cisco, Carousel, Calix and SAS.

Cybersecurity is a big deal here, as utilities are very attractive targets, both for network-based and physical plant attacks. Pretty scary stuff, actually, and comms technology has a big role to play in protecting all this.

AI is starting to carry the day here, and the use cases for smart grid are similar - and complementary - to what’s needed in adjacent spaces like smart home, smart factory, smart cities, smart vehicles. All things considered, this is actually a great time for energy providers to leverage these technologies to re-think the whole value chain. These co-ops definitely see the opportunity, and just need some support to help catch up and make a similar transition to what telcos have gone through.

In case you’re wondering - as I now put on my contact center/CX hat - yes, customer service is a big pain point here, just as it is in other sectors that have lagged with cloud and AI adoption. I see this being a huge part of the value chain that needs innovation, not just because the bar for CSAT is low, but also because supply-demand dynamics have changed so much. Energy customers - both residential and commercial - do have some choice now in providers, and with the rise of renewables, they can actually be both buyers and sellers of energy. Lots of opportunity here to uplevel the customer experience.

I got to play a small part in raising their knowledge base via my two sessions talking about AI. The content is for attendees only, so all I can say is that there’s a strong appetite for this, and my role was to provide an industry-based perspective on the trends and use cases. One session was focused on Generative AI, and I made it interactive, using an ask-me-anything format. I had three of these platforms running, and we input various questions and requests, both from me and the audience to see what responses would come back. It was a fun way to experience Generative AI first-hand, and if you want to do this with me at your next event, drop me a line!

That’s my quick take, and will close by sharing a few photos - mostly mine - from the event.

Below - Don Bowman from Wake Electric kicking things off. What you don’t know is that he’s the bandleader for their community, and his group played to close out the event - very much like the SIPtones, yeah. Didn’t work out for me to be part of their gig, but maybe next year. Next - full room for my presentation about the impact of AI on future of work and opportunities for utilities. Photo credit for me speaking - Katie Hochstedt from NCEC.

Exhibitors from the show floor - NCEC, Fortinet and Cradlepoint.

Some of the event sponsors, then a colorful shot from a fiber exhibitor. Last photo - sure looks like a switchboard - it’s a training tool used for linemen. If you’re of a certain age, you’re probably smiling, thinking hey, this is just like the Operation game we used to play as kids. Correct! I was not alone in thinking that, and it probably says a lot for the age demographic of this industry.

Writing Roundup for July

Writing output was on the light side in July, but it’s just one of multiple channels I use for thought leadership, and I was busy on all these fronts last month. Hope you enjoy these writeups, and definitely more to come for August.

3 Considerations to Choose the Right Communication Channel, TechTarget, July 26

MWC Shanghai - Quick Take and Photos, my blog, July 13

Avaya ENGAGE - Takeaways for Act III, BCStrategies, June 30 (not posted til July 5)

New Guest Post - Part 2 About Teams and Telephony

Got another guest post to share - this is Part 2 for a short series I’m doing with TeamMate. The article is running now on their blog page, where you can also find Part 1. I hope you find the posts helpful.

MWC Shanghai - Quick Take and Photos

Had my first trip to Asia recently, and I was part of a media delegation from the West to attend MWC Shanghai (and pretty sure I was the only attendee from Canada or the US). The delegation was sponsored by Huawei, so we also had some tours of their various campuses, all of which was very impressive.

Time was limited at the conference itself, and the stars have finally lined up to share a quick take here. MWC ran during late June, but with limited access to Internet platforms - not to mention the 12 hour time difference - I didn’t do any real-time posting while there. I have a few articles in the works about my trip - and tons more pictures - but for now, I’m going to share some of my photos and high-level takeaways.

I don’t think a lot of Westerners were at MWC Shanghai, as many of the sessions were in Chinese, but audio translating devices were available to follow along in English. Couldn’t get the full gist of what was being said, but the overall themes were clear. 5G is definitely happening, and looks to be at a much faster pace in Asia.

Many of the talks were about industrial and IoT applications, and the benefits are easy to see. From what I can tell, though, these innovations are happening mainly in Asia - and a bit in the Middle East. As such, I took this a preview of things to come in the West, so there’s a lot to pay attention to here.

Was great to see so many use-case driven examples - mining, exploration, energy, manufacturing, agriculture, logistics to name a few - these vendors and carriers are not just throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. Much of what I saw was B2B, but there were a few B2C citings, so the 5G story here isn’t really about getting consumers to post more videos on social media.

I’ll explore some of those use cases in upcoming posts, and for now, will leave you with some photos for a flavor of being there. Disclaimer - speaker attributions may not be 100% accurate. Wasn’t easy to track all the details while there, and corrections are welcome.

Below - weather was very hot and humid, so much more comfortable once inside. Not quite the crowds for a Beatles concert, but it kinda looked that way with the early morning rush to get in. Third photo - one of many reminders why it’s different in China. Checkpoints everywhere - this one segregates attendees from mainland China and everywhere else.

Everyone and everything is on mobile here, but had limited access to my go-to apps/platforms. Eventually, I got on WeChat - it’s great - but not til after MWC. All those folks with sign cards - I guess they’re guides to get people around - 5 exhibit halls, so it’s a lot of ground to cover. Last shot - the palace guards keeping watch over the food - soooo cute!

From the show floor - pavilions for Huawei and China Unicom. Middle - one of many demos from Huawei - Naked 3D. Very cool - one of the few consumer-type offerings there - the baseball seems to be jumping off the screen, coming right at you - 3D effect without the glasses - really need to see it.

Many recurring themes across the talks I saw, but reinforces how far along these companies and carriers are with 5G. Sabrina Meng from Huawei, Xu Ziyang from ZTE, Jemin Chung from KT.

Dingjin Liu from SINOPEC (great review of using 5G for exploration), Henry Ge from GTVerse (using 5G to bridge the worlds of gaming, live sports and AR/VR - very cool), Chaobin Yang from Huawei.

My Next Webinar with NICE - Using AI to Drive CX

Am back for another NICE Talks webinar, next Thursday, July 20 at 11am ET.

As with last time, I’m paired with Lauren Maschio, and we’ll be drawing from a recent white paper I wrote for them around the role AI is playing now to drive customer experience, aka CX. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and hope you can join us - register here!

Microsoft Teams and Phone System - Know the Difference - New Guest Post

I’ve started doing some guest blogs for TeamMate, a company that helps integrate telephony with Teams. My first post ran last week, and am just getting a chance to do a shout-out about it now.

This is actually a two-part series, and the second one will run in a few days. There’s a bigger picture to consider with Teams and telephony, and I hope you give my writeup a read.

Telecom Reseller Podcast - My Enreach White Paper on Mobile UCaaS

Still catching up from being offline last week, and here’s another ICYMI shout-out.

I recently did a white paper for Enreach about the growing role of mobility for collaboration, and soon after its release, Doug Green interviewed me about it for his widely-followed Telecom Reseller podcast. We get along quite well, and if this topic is of interest, I think you’ll enjoy our conversation. I sure did!

Avaya ENGAGE - Act III - My Takeaways on BCStrategies

This isn’t really an ICYMI post, and if you’re still wondering about what Avaya’s prospects look like, I think you’ll find my analysis a good read.

I was offline all last week, and actually wrote this right after Avaya’s ENGAGE event in Orlando, so it was done before most of the subsequent writeups came out. For reasons unbeknownst to me, BCStrategies couldn’t get my writeup published until last Friday - right before the holiday weekend, when everyone is heading to the beach or a bbq. Doh! That’s how it goes sometimes, so this is very likely the first you’re hearing about it.

There are many good stories to be told about what I’m calling Act III for Avaya, and my writeup on BCStrategies is just one of them. This week, my July Watch This Space podcast comes out, and there will lots more there about Avaya, so keep an eye out for that as well.