Project Voice - My Next Conference (and SIPtones Gig)

This is a new event for me, and aside from taking in sessions and networking, I’ll be wearing two hats. First, I’ll be moderating a panel of consultants on Wednesday at 11:05 - Conversational AI and the Enterprise.

Later that night, the consultants and I will revert to black attire, and do our thing as the SIPtones. How fun is that? Details are here on the event website, and updates will be coming, including a podcast.

Also, to save 20% on your registration, use my personal code - JONARNOLD - here’s the Eventbrite portal to get registered.

IT - Managing Choice, Change and Career - My Latest on No Jitter

As a regular contributor to No Jitter, I get to write about a broad range of topics, and this time around, I wanted to zero-in on some specific themes that came out of the recent SCTC conference in Chicago. Details about all of this are in my latest post, where I try to put myself in the shoes of IT to better understand how they view the challenges posed by changing technology.

It’s definitely not easy, but rather than focusing on the technology, my step-back perspective is about how technology is impacting other challenges that IT needs to manage. There’s lots to explore here, and I’ve tried to keep the scope manageable for a single post. My post is running now on No Jitter, and as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, and sharing is definitely welcome.

Newsletter Time - December Issue Now Published

If you’re a subscriber, you already know that, and for everyone else, this is a simple prompt. If you want to more closely follow what I’m seeing, talking about and writing about in the communications technology space, then you’ll find my monthly newsletter of interest. It’s called JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review, it’s free, and you can subscribe here in no time.

The leading feature in my newsletter is our podcast, called Watch This Space, and below is a call-out for the current topic. Subscribers get exclusive access to the podcast for a couple of weeks, so if ya gotta have it now, ya gotta sign up. Otherwise, after that period passes, it will be added to the Podcast Archive on my website, where all our previous podcasts are publicly available. On that front, btw, one of my early 2020 priorities is getting our podcasts on the major podcasting platforms - stay tuned.

SCTC 2019 Conference Review - Opportunity for the Taking

Consultants play a key role in helping IT and business decision-makers get the right mix of communications technologies, and the job isn’t getting any easier. Being an analyst, I’m a bit of an outlier as an SCTC member, but find this community complementary to my work. Their annual conference provides a great window on the state of things for consultants, and while telephony is on the decline, there’s plenty of opportunity for those who want to embrace newer technologies.

Taking the glass half-full view, I provided my analyst perspective on the conference, and it’s running now on the BCStrategies portal. I’m a BC Expert with this group, which has a nice mix of analysts and consultants, and I think our readers will find my takeaways of interest. As always, your thoughts and sharing are welcome.

My Next Webinar - Seizing the CCaaS Opportunity, with CoreDial

It’s been a busy time for webinars, and I’ve got a new one coming - Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 2pm ET.

This is another event hosted by Channel Partners Online, with CoreDial being the sponsor. I’ve worked with CoreDial in the past, and hope you’ll join us as we talk about making the case for CCaaS, particularly for MSPs, who are becoming a growing force in cloud communications, especially among SMBs. Details are here, including the registration form.

November Writing Roundup

November was busy on many fronts, and one fallout was an unusually light month for writing. Here are the highlights, and you’ll be able to see more if you’re a subscriber to my newsletter - the December issue will be sent out next day or so.

How UCaaS Brings Value for both IT and End Users, Nov. 19, Toolbox. com

3 Paths to Success with Cloud Communications, Nov. 12, No Jitter

3 Ways UCaaS is an Opportunity for your Business, Nov. 4, Toolbox.com

My Next Webinar - CCaaS Channel Opportunity for SMBs, with CoreDial

I’ve been doing a fair number of webinars lately, and the next one is on the hot topic of CCaaS - contact center as a service.. This time around, the sponsor is CoreDial, and it’s being hosted by Channel Partners Online.

Aside from providing my own perspectives, I’ll be reviewing highlights from some recent research by CoreDial about how channel players are approaching the contact center market with SMB customers. Lots to talk about, and I hope you can join us on Wednesday, December 11 at 2pm ET. More details are here, along with the registration form.

New JAA Podcast - Convergence of Technology and Real Estate

Subscribers to my newsletter had access to my latest webinar when it went out earlier in the month. That’s a key benefit of being a subscriber, but after a couple of weeks, I share the podcast with a broader audience, and if you’ve checked any of them out, I hope you find them of interest.

Our podcast series is called Watch This Space, and I do them in tandem with long-time colleague Chris Fine. For this edition, we continued exploring the digital workplace theme, this time based on two recent events Chris had attended in this space. One of the interesting ideas we covered was experiential technology, and to find out more, you’ll have to give it a listen.

You can access this in the Current Podcasts archive section of my website, and if you like what we’re doing, you might want to consider signing up for the newsletter.

New BCStrategies Podcast - Ribbon's Research on UC Buying Behaviors

I’m a market researcher by trade, and always being able to review new research about collaboration and the broader view of how new communications technology gets adopted in the workplace. Ribbon has been pretty curious too, and they recently conducted an extensive study on a global basis about buying behaviors around UC and collaboration technologies.

There’s lots to digest, and to help do that, their SVP of Channel Marketing, John Macario, shared the top-level findings with the BCStrategies team. To make things interesting, we had an interactive format, where BC Experts could pose questions to John to delve a bit deeper into the findings. This made for a long session, which we recorded for a podcast, but if this is your cup of tea, you’ll want to take it all in. The podcast runs about an hour - just sayin’ - and it’s been posted now on our portal for listening. I hope you check it out, and as always, sharing and comments are welcome.

Next Stop - Chicago and SCTC (and SIPtones!)

I’m off early Sunday to Chicago for the annual SCTC conference. It’s the only travel event for me this month, and if I play my cards right, I won’t be on the road for an event again until mid-January. 2020 is already busy on that front, as I have at least one event on the books every month through June. That’s plenty of future for me, as I’m not big on planning my life that far out, let alone what I’m doing tomorrow.

Coming back to the present, I’ll be attending SCTC through Thursday, and as I did last year, am giving the lock-note talk to close things out. I’m also part of the SIPtones band, and we’ll be doing our thing on Wednesday night - can’t wait. As always, details about events I’m attending are in the Events Calendar section of my website, so check out the links there for more detail and video clips of our previous shows.

3 Trips to San Francisco - 3 Cloud Visions: My Latest on No Jitter

New word for the day - Throctober. October was a hectic month for analysts, and my travels included three trips from Toronto to San Francisco, with event stops for RingCentral, Talkdesk and Vonage. That’s a lot of travel for me, but the learning was worth it, and I’ve summarized that into this review post.

I’m a regular contributor to No Jitter, and for this post, I’ve distilled the takeaways into a single big idea for each company - Be Digital, Be Smart and Be Bold. To pique your interest, think about which company you’d pair each of these up with, and then see how that aligns with my thinking after reading the post.

There’s certainly more to say about each of these events, so watch for that in future posts and podcasts. For now, though, here’s the link for the post, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Enterprise Connect 2020 - Will Be Speaking Again on Speech and AI

It’s never too early to start talking up Enterprise Connect 2020, and while March seems far off, lots of planning is happening now. I’m happy to be returning for the third time in a speaking role, and will continue my focus on enterprise applications of speech driven by AI technologies.

Always lots to talk about, and my session is titled Speech Technologies - Innovations and Use Cases. As with last year, my talk will kick off the Practical AI track, bright and early at 8 am, Monday, March 30. Details are here, and if you’re super-organized, there’s a My Schedule link to add this to your planning calendar.

And…. the early bird gets the discount, so if you use this link, you can take advantage of early pricing, and save $400 of the advance rates. What’s not to like?

In due course, there will be plenty of updates coming about my talk, and if you follow my blog, you’ll stay in the loop.

Newsletter Time - November Issue

The November issue of JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review went out yesterday to subscribers. I’m in my second year with the newsletter, and it continues to evolve.

If you don’t know, the main feature is our podcast, Watch This Space, which I do with long-time colleague Chris Fine. The podcast is exclusive to subscribers for a couple of weeks, after which it gets posted to the podcast archive on my website, and is then for all to access.

This time around, Chris and I talk about takeaways from two recent conferences he attended, with the broad focus being the convergence of technology with real estate. The digital workplace/future of work has been a regular theme with our podcasts, and we also touched on the role experiential technology is playing in shaping this new environment.

If you want to check out our podcast now - thumbnail below - you just need to sign up here as a subscriber, and you’ll get this and future editions in your email inbox around this time every month.

My Next Webinar - with Nextiva - Selling On-Prem SMBs to Cloud

This is the second webinar on my November calendar at the moment, and this one is in partnership with Channel Partners, sponsored by Nextiva. I’ve followed Nextiva for a few years, and they’re one of the leading cloud providers, especially in the SMB space. They know what it takes to support SMBs, and for this webinar, I’ll provide an industry perspective on both the challenges and opportunities for channels to move their customers to the cloud.

The webinar is two weeks out - Tuesday, November 19 at 2:30 ET - and all the details for registration are here. I hope you can join us!

October Writing Roundup

Despite all the travel and new client work, I managed to get my share of writing done during October, and here are the highlights.

While I have you, my November newsletter will be going out this week, and if you’re a subscriber, you’ll see some references there to my October writing highlights.

Vonage Analyst Event - Quick Take and Pix, my blog, Oct. 31

Why Collaboration Value Should be Based on Outcomes, Not Technology, Toolbox.com, Oct. 29

Is the Balance of Power Shifting from UCaaS to CCaaS?, BCStrategies, Oct. 28

Lessons for Success from Cloud Communications Providers, my blog, Oct. 28

Success with Collaboration Means Being Where the Work Gets Done, Toolbox.com, Oct. 24

What are the benefits of UC in a cloud-based office suite?, TechTarget, Oct. 22

One Day, Two Events - Talkdesk and Zoom, my blog, Oct. 17

Unified communications for business goes beyond telephony, TechTarget, Oct. 14

RingCentral Analyst Day - Quick Take and Photos, my blog, Oct. 4

The State of SMB Telephony, Part 2, Toolbox.com, Oct. 1

My Latest EM 360 Podcast with Speechmatics - Cloud and the New Voice

The folks at Enterprise Management 360 have been keeping me busy lately, leading a variety of podcasts with sponsors. This time around, I was paired with UK-based Speechmatics, and VP of Products, Ian Firth. We covered a mix of topics related to voice, and how it’s evolved in the digital age, leading up to today’s cloud-based and AI-driven applications, which I’ve dubbed as the New Voice.

The company has a strong speech-to-text offering, and we talked about how applications like this and other variants of speech recognition are providing new forms of business value, both in the enterprise and in the contact center. I don’t get to the UK much, so our paths hadn’t crossed - until this week at the Vonage analyst event, where they were exhibiting as a partner. Small world.

You can check out the podcast here, which has just been posted to the EM360 site. As always, feedback and sharing are welcome.

My Next Webinar - with PGi - UCaaS and SMB Customer Service

It’s been quite a month for travel to industry events, but the work must also get done. This includes client work, and I have two webinars coming in November. This post is for a webinar I’m doing with PGi, and it’s hosted by TechTalk Summits. The full title is Why UCaaS is Essential for Solving SMB Customer Service Issues, and after my presentation, I’ll be joined by Joel Kappes, PGi’s VP of Global Implementation Services.

Details are here, including a link to the registration page, and I hope you can join us. The date is Wednesday, November 20 at 1pm ET.

Vonage Analyst Event - Quick Take and Pix

Another week, another trip to San Francisco, and another conference. This was my third trip to SF this month, and am glad to be staying put for a couple of weeks now. The trip was definitely worthwhile, and as good as last year’s Vonage analyst event was, this one was even better. As has been my pattern lately, I’m just going to post some photos now, and will follow up soon with a post or two with my takeaways.

In short, this company has a clear vision, a strong leadership team, and seem to be executing very well, especially in terms of weaving their three main platforms - UCaaS, CCaaS and CPaaS - into a unified portfolio. The market seems to be buying it, and with an updated logo and branding, they look poised to survive and thrive in a crowded market.

CEO Alan Masarek welcoming the analysts, the new logo, Alan bidding adieu to the orange branding they had been using for so long, one of the “markitecture” slides reflecting their updated vision.

Very engaging panel session with channel partners, dramatic setting for showcasing the new logo and exhibitors for the Campus event, CMO Rishi Dave, and more of the Campus space.

On the fun side, during the analyst dinner, they had a very good artist on hand - Jeremy Sutton - who indulged me while working up this really cool digital “painting” of our gathering. I got to add some brush strokes, so to speak, and if you look closely, you can see me in the picture. Renoir would be pleased. Keeping with the French high culture theme, after dinner, a tasting of cognac and armagnac - liked ‘em both. Next day, Ken Jennings was one of the featured speakers at their Campus developer event. Great to see him there, and of course, that was topped off by a Jeopardy game where attendees could go up against him. Damn, he’s good, but he got stumped from time time - what a good sport!

Why Freemium Works - Our Latest Podcast

My newsletter subscribers get access to our podcasts right away, and then I post them publicly a few weeks later. If you’re not familiar with this, our podcast series is called Watch This Space, and I do these in tandem with long-time colleague Chris Fine.

For the latest one, we built off some highlights from Mary Meeker’s latest Internet Trends report to talk about the success of freemium models in the collaboration space. This can be a risky strategy, but it seems to be working for companies like Zoom and Slack. Lots to explore, and to check it out, just follow the link here to the Current Podcasts section of my website.

If you like this podcast, you might want to subscribe to my monthly newsletter, JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review, where you’ll get all the podcasts as they are published, rather than waiting a few weeks out.

Is the Balance of Power Shifting from UCaaS to CCaas?

That’s title of my latest post with BCStrategies, where I’ve long been a BC Expert. Lots to discuss, and I hope you like it. It’s running now of the portal, and just sharing it here in case you haven’t seen it yet.