May Writing Roundup

Was a fairly quiet May on the writing  front, but plenty busy otherwise. The ongoing work I've been doing with Upstream Works is now finding its way here and on their website, and things have been active on the conference front, both for attending last month and prepping for what's coming in June.

In terms of visibility, I also did a webinar and a Google Hangout in May, and highlights from the latter will be available soon. Also, I continue to fine-tune my website, and last month's newsletter - you can subscribe here - marked my first podcast for what will be a regular feature going forward.

Managing CX from the Inside-Out, No Jitter, May 23

How Ambient Interfaces will Replace Phone Systems, Toolbox.com, May 14

How will speech technologies intergrate with UC apps?, TechTarget, May 14

My May Newsletter is Out, Including a New Podcast - Subscribe Here, my blog, May 10

How Telephony Evolution is Impacting the Contact Center, Toolbox.com, May 8

Preview for New Series - AI, Chatbots and New Value in Contact Centers, my blog, May 3

Next Stop - Los Angeles and Ribbon Communications

Got industry events happening during the next two weeks, so it's travel time again. On Sunday, I'm flying to LA for Perspectives18, the annual confernce for Ribbon Communications. I've been to a few of these, but this marks the first Perspectives event under the Ribbon name, since the merger between Genband and Sonus happened shortly after last year's event.

I've always struggled a bit with the rationale for this pairing, and hearing more about how it's working out will be a primary focus for next week. Also, the messaging last year was heavy on Kandy, their CPaaS platform, and am keen to hear the progress report nearly a year later.

More details are here in the Event Calendar section of my website, and to follow the updates, my twitter handle is @arnoldjon, and for Ribbon's feed, it's #RBBNP18.

June 5 - our next SCTC regional event - Toronto

Just doing another shout-out for next week's one-day event just outside Toronto. It's being shared by two SCTC chapters - Canada and Mid-West US. This won't mean much to non-members, but if you're from the communications consulting community and want to learn more about what the SCTC can offer to strengthen your practice, this is a great way to do it.

Being an analyst, this isn't particularly relevant, but I'm one of a handful of SCTC members from the analyst community, and the only one in Canada. For the past couple of years, I've been actively involved with the programming for our Canadian event, and have also been a keynoter. So, I can vouch first-hand to say that we have a really strong event lined up for next week, and it will be time well spent.

That said, this is one of three events I could be attending next week, but I can only do one, and unfortunately, it won't be SCTC. Sorry to be missing it, but I've been helping make it happen, and one way is to talk it up here. So, if you're interested, or still mulling it over, all the details are here, and if you end up going, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Managing CX from the Inside-Out - my Latest on No Jitter

I draw writing inspiration from many sources - industry events, news items, personal interviews and research studies. Regarding the last item, publicly-available studies cross my path on occasion, and if there's interesting data, I like to add my own take.

Sometimes I do this because the findings simply need more attention, but other times I see things in the data that haven't been picked up on in the sponsor's writeup. In part this is due to my unconventional background, but I also come by it honestly, since I've been a market research practitioner for 30+ years. I don't see much of that expertise in this space, so I'm happy to add to the learning that can come from new research.

That's the preface for my latest No Jitter writeup, and it's drawn from a new study done by Genesys that was shared at a high level during their recent CX18 conference. I've focused on some specific findings that support what I call the "inside-out" approach to CX, and why most enterprises aren't getting it right. My analysis has been posted now to the No Jitter site, and if you give it a read, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

My Next Webinar - Collaboration Vendor Landscape Update

Lately, it seems like like each month brings a major change of some sort among the collaboration vendors - and things get even more intense as the overlap with contact centers gets larger. Cisco just bought Accompany, Mitel just went private, Plantronics just acquired Polycom - just to name a few.

Aside from the dizzying pace of acquistions, large players who either weren't in this space until now, or are themselves new companies, are creating all sorts of disruption that cannot be ignored.

That's the milieu I'm going to address in my next Ziff Davis webinar on May 24, and if you'd like to check it out, all the details are here on the registration page. Hope you can join me then.

My May Newsletter is Out, Including a New Podcast - Subscribe Here

I'm going to do a standard shout-out here each time my newsletter is published. You need to subscribe to get it, and all you need to do is provide your email address. Not all of you follow my blog, or understand the range of services I provide, and the newsletter addresses both by providing updates on my practice, broad insights about the collaboration space, and current examples of what I'm doing with my clients.

My newsletter is very much a work in progress, and this month marks the inclusion of a podcast as a regular feature. For this segment, I'm in conversation with colleague Chris Fine, talking about the MoNage conference we spoke at last month, and how technology is reshaping the way we work.

The content in my newsletter is exclusive for subscribers, so if any or all of this is of interest, you need to subscribe. Signup forms  can easily be found on my website - including this standalone page - and hopefully that will be your next stop. I should add that many of you follow me via RSS, but we'll both be better served by subscribing as well, and if you do, thanks!

5 Signs it's Time to Change Your Phone System - My Latest Webinar

Most webinars I do are recorded live, so it's important to know the date if you want to participate. This time around, I was involved doing an on-demand webinar, and like the podcasts I do with BCStrategies, there's no live audience. We record the session as if it was live, and make it available on demand soon after.

For the above-titled webinar, I was the featured presenter, and following my talk, I was joined by Randy Carter from Genesys for an interactive dialog about the topic. The webinar was hosted by Toolbox.com, and the registration page has now been posted to their site. To learn more about the topic and access the webinar, here's the link.

If you're interested in understanding how the role of voice is changing in the contact center, I think you'll find this worthwhile, as there's much more to consider than the state of your phone system. As always, your comments are welcome, and if there's another topic you'd like to see us tackle, I'd love to hear from you.

April Writing Roundup

Pretty light month on the public writing front, but I was busy with a couple of conferences, a webinar and a lot of post-conference follow up for new business. So, just a handful of links to share, and maybe this means you'll review more of them.

1 Week, 6 Cities, 2 Conferences and 7 Takeaways, April 30, BCStrategies

Should You Buy Contact Center Services in a UC Bundle?, April 24, TechTarget

Is the Contact Center Going the Way of the PBX?, April 10, No Jitter

4 IT Success Strategies for Collaboration, April 9, Toolbox.com

Preview for New Series - AI, Chatbots and New Value in Contact Centers

I’ve recently been working with Upstream Works, an up and coming company helping contact centers leverage digital technology and migrate to omnichannel. There is no straight path to follow, and to better help contact centers find their way, I’ve prepared a series of Strategic Insights that can be downloaded from their website.

I'll be writing preview posts here on my blog as each Insight is published, and this post serves to support the first one. You can also find this post here on the Upstream Works blog, and from there, you can access the full Insight. With that said, here's my preview post...

Today, most contact centers face a technology gap between customers and agents, and as long as agents remain constrained by legacy tools, productivity will invariably suffer. Chatbots represent one of the best ways to quickly close the gap, but before doing so, contact center decision-makers need to get up to speed on two things:

Artificial Intelligence – The Basics

First, they need to understand the basics of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Aside from the rapid pace of innovation, AI is complex and not native to the contact center. Ultimately, the goal should be to improve the customer experience, but AI won’t deliver unless your decisions are well-informed.

Using AI to Improve Agent Productivity

Secondly, the use cases need to be thought through in terms of how chatbots can improve agent productivity. There’s a temptation to view AI as a way to automate customer service simply for operational efficiency and cost savings, but there’s much more to consider.

There is no straight path to follow, and to better help contact centers find their way, I’ve prepared a series of Strategic Insights that can be downloaded from Upstream Works.

This series is focused on the rapidly evolving field of Artificial Intelligence, and the various ways it can be deployed in the contact center. Chatbots are the most tangible application of AI, but it’s not easy to get past the hype to determine the best use cases. To do that, decision-makers need to take a holistic view across the entire customer care value chain, not just because there are many touchpoints along the way, but also because they are interconnected. Based on my ongoing research, this can be distilled to three focus areas – contact center agents, end customers and overall business performance.

Each of these will be addressed in separate Strategic Insights, and collectively, this series will provide that holistic view. The first Strategic Insight focuses on contact center agents, and how AI in general – and AI-driven chatbots in particular – can help improve agent productivity.

There’s an almost universal interest right now in AI and chatbots for customer service, and expectations are getting higher every day. While these technologies are far from perfect, they are certainly mature enough to be deployed, even if just for basic applications. Some decision-makers will hold off and learn from the mistakes of others, but it’s equally true that the sooner you start on the AI learning curve, the lower the risk as things improve – and there should be no doubt about that.

If the time is now to start your journey with AI and chatbots, I think you’ll find this series timely.

Empowering Frontline Agents for a More Personalized CX

My first Strategic Insight in this series examines two basic use cases that are built around improving CX. The first use case is about directly supporting agents to engage more effectively with customers, and the second one pertains to improving self-service capabilities so agents can focus on higher-value interactions.

The first Strategic Insight has now been published, and you can download it here. The next two in the series will follow over the next few months. I hope you find them of value, and your comments are welcome any time.

1 Week, 6 Cities, 2 Conferences and 7 Takeaways

That's the title of my latest writeup for BCStrategies. 

If you follow me, you'll know that I'm a BC Expert, and contribute a monthly analysis on the portal, and get on my share of podcasts. This time around, I've summarized my thoughts for two recent events - MoNage and Cisco's Customer Care Analyst Day.

It was a hectic week, but very worthwhile, and I hope you find my reflections of value. The writeup has been posted now to the portal, and as always, sharing and feedback are welcome.

Next Stop - Nashville and Genesys CX18

Haven't blogged in a while, mainly due to being so busy. Last week was MoNage and Cisco's customer care event, and this week has been month-end writing, getting plans in place for next week's Genesys event, and practicing music for the SIPtones gig we have next Wednesday night during CX18. Also been very active developing new projects based on inquiries from recent industry events, so things are never dull here.

Just doing a quick shout-out now about next week's event, and I'll be there from Tuesday through Thursday. Details about the event and our SIPtones gig can be found in the Event Calendar section of my website. While there, I'll be tweeting as time allows - @arnoldjon - and you can follow the event feed at #CX18.

Next Speaking Spot - MoNage - Emerging Communications and the Digital Workplace

Regular blog followers and/or subscribers to my newsletter will know that I've been speaking at and supporting Jeff Pulver's MoNage conference from the beginning. My history with Jeff goes back much further, and with MoNage still fairly new, it's small - but highly focused and definitely gaining momentum.

Feel free to search my blog about my earlier talks at MoNage, but it's time to talk up the Spring 2018 event. Details can be found in the Event Calendar section of my website - quickly, it's being held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, and our talk will be at 10:30 next Wednesday. I'll be co-presenting on this topic with my long-time partner, Chris Fine.

If you're still considering attending, please contact me for a discount offer on the registration fee. Otherwise, you can review the program agenda here, and if you're joining us, I'd love to connect - I sure won't be hard to find, esp if using the social handles - @arnoldjon, @MoNageConf, #Monage 

Shout-Out for my April Newsletter - Subscribe Here

My newsletter - Communications and Collaboration Review - is starting to become a thing now, and the April edition has just been sent to subscribers. To get it, you need to sign up, so with every new edition, I need to support it with a blog post so people will know it's out there. So, as I did for last month's newsletter, here's the story...

Visitors to my website will know that I produce a newsletter, available on a sign-up basis. I'm not asking much - just your interest to learn more about what I do, and your email address - and over time, am hoping that will drive more engagement with some of you.

Many followers sign up for alerts for my new blog posts via RSS, but I don't know who you are. If that's all you want, great, but to get my newsletter, you need to sign up. For now, the newsletter provides exclusive content, and aside from amplifying my recent thought leadership and industry activities, I'll increasingly be creating original content, along with citings from my 10+ year archive of blogs posts and photos.

That's my soft pitch to encourage you to sign up, and if you do that soon, I'll make sure you get the April edition. Sign-up forms can be found here, or on any page of my website. Otherwise, I encourage your feedback and ideas for future topics.

Also, for the right circumstances, I'm happy to consider forms of sponsorship and possibly guest posts. My newsletter is really your newsletter, so all input is welcome - thanks.

March Writing Roundup

March was light on the writing front, but I kept busy otherwise, doing a webinar, a couple of podcasts, attending/speaking at Enterprise Connect, and being a source for several stories that ran in the media, especially around Enterprise Connect.

Looking ahead, I'm also in prep mode for a speaking spot at the upcoming MoNage conference, and soon after that, I'll be playing music again with the SIPtones at the Genesys conference in Nashville. Updates coming on those soon.

On the writing front, below is a summary of what kept me busy last month. Aside from this, I also produce a newsletter for my subscribers. It's still quite new and is taking shape one month at a time, and the April edition should be out in the next few days. If you'd like to get that, please sign up here, and I'll make sure to get you on the subscriber list right away.

Media Citings Summary Following Enterprise Connect, my blog, March 27

Enterprise Connect 2018 - First Impressions, Literally, BCStrategies, March 19

What Does Messaging Have That Voice Doesn't?, Toolbox.com, March 15

Why the "New Voice" is Happening Now, Toolbox.com, March 12

Talking Speech Tech for the Enterprise - podcast, No Jitter On Air, March 8 (scroll down the list - registration required, but I can help with that)

3 Things IT Needs to Understand About the Digital Workplace, Toolbox.com, March 7

Enterprise Connect - BCStrategies Podcast Review

Many of us with BCStrategies both attended and presented at Enterprise Connect earlier this month, so there was a lot of collective insights in our circle. The best way to bottle that is with a podcast, and after recording it a few days ago, it's now been posted to our portal.

Here's the link, and I think you'll find this a very good way to tap into the essence of what came out from the conference. For more, there are several posts on our portal related to Enterprise Connect, along with various posts from us on No Jitter.

Media Citings Summary Following Enterprise Connect

One of the benefits of being at major industry events is the media presence, and analysts are often cited as sources in their coverage. Like all analysts, I have my hot streaks, and I've been on a good run following Enterprise Connect. Since then, I've been cited as a source in the following writeups, as well as a full length guest post that was written earlier. More is coming, and to follow my media citings, please viist the In the News tab for my website.

IBM's New Watson Assistant Targets Business with "White Label" Service, Computerworld, March 26

Rethinking Customer Support with Office 365 and TouchPoint Agent, guest post for SMBnation.com, March 21

The Evolution of the Digital Workspace, CDW.com, March 21

AI and Speech Advances Bring Virtual Assistants to Work, Computerworld, March 20

Ready for Artificial Intelligence in Speech Recognition?, Tech Target, March 14

Enterprise Connect 2018 - My First Impressions, Literally

That's the title of my current writeup for BCStrategies. Last week was a non-stop run of sessions, networking and walking the show floor at Enterprise Connect. Very worthwhile, as I got to speak, get to know companies a whole lot better, and take the overall pulse of the collaboration market.

It was my first time there, so these literally were my first impressions, and would welcome your thoughts on my thoughts. While you're on our site, you'll find other writeups about the conference, and tomorrow we'll be doing a podcast to talk about it collectively.

The New Voice - My Next Webinar

Time's short for this one, but am doing another webinar with Ziff Davis. It's next Tuesday, March 20 at 2pm ET. Just finishing up my presentation now, and as the title implies, it's about the "New Voice", a broad trend that is being driven by the cloud, and emerging AI capabilities. There's a lot to talk about - no pun intended - and if you follow my work, you'll have a good idea of what to expect. I hope you can join me, and all the details to register are here.

Quick Shout-Out for my March Newsletter

Visitors to my website will know that I produce a newsletter, available on a sign-up basis. I'm not asking much - just your interest to learn more about what I do, and your email address - and over time, am hoping that will drive more engagement with some of you.

Many followers sign up for alerts for my new blog posts via RSS, but I don't know who you are. If that's all you want, great, but to get my newsletter, you need to sign up. For now, the newsletter provides exclusive content, and aside from amplifying my recent thought leadership and industry activities, I'll increasingly be creating original content, along with citings from my 10+ year archive of blogs posts and photos.

That's my soft pitch to encourage you to sign up, and if you do that soon, I'll make sure you get the March edition. Sign-up forms can be found on any page of my website. Otherwise, I encourage your feedback and ideas for future topics. Also, for the right circumstances, I'm happy to consider forms of sponsorship and possibly guest posts. My newsletter is really your newsletter, so all input is welcome - thanks.

Enterprise Connect Preview #2 - New Podcast: Interviewed by No Jitter

I can't tie up loose ends fast enough ahead of next week's Enterprise Connect in Orlando. Got back-to-back podcasts to share here that will help set the stage. Yesterday, I posted about our BCStrategies podcast, where we each did a brief preview of our talks and what to expect at the conference.

Today, I'll get more specific, with another podcast - this time, about my speech tutorial, which starts right at the beginning - 8am Monday. The interview was conducted by No Jitter's Beth Schultz, and we touched on the key themes I'll be addressing, along with why speech tech is getting really interesting now in the enterprise.

The podcast was just posted, and is titled "Talking Speech Tech for the Enterprise", and can be accessed here, on No Jitter's site, under the Podcasts tab. Small hurdle, though - you need to be registered with UBM to get it there. Just takes a moment to sign up, and then you're in. The benefit is you can then peruse all the other podcasts, and there's lots to choose from.

While you're on the No Jitter site, feel free to review this article I recently wrote about my session, and if you're planning to attend, here are the details.

Finally, if you just have to hear the No Jitter podcast NOW, and can't be bothered to register, here's a direct link. I also shared that link earlier on both twitter and Linkedin - and on that note, to follow the conference on social, the hash is #EC18, and I'm @arnoldjon.