Newsletter Time Again - September Issue

Am hitting the ground running coming out of Labor Day, and thankful to be so busy with new work. My being busy includes time spent putting the current newsletter together, along with our latest Watch This Space podcast.

If this is new for you, I publish a monthly newsletter - JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - for which the podcast is the leading feature. Along with that, you can read about what I’m seeing in the market, my current activities and the types of projects I’m working on.

There are some big changes now with the podcast, and that’s another topic of focus in this issue. The changes are for the better, especially if you’re a fan of podcasts, and for more, just sign up here to subscribe.

Otherwise, for those who don’t get the newsletter, I’ll have a blog post later this week summarizing the updates to the podcast.

August Writing Roundup

When putting this monthly summary post together, I was surprised to see there were only two entries to tally for August. That’s gotta be the lightest month for me on this front, but hey, it’s August, and I did go away for a few days.

It’s not for lack of being busy, though, as I did plenty of speaking between presentations, podcasts and webinars. I’ll have a more complete accounting of my busy August in the next newsletter, which goes out this coming Tuesday. If you don’t get my newsletter, here’s the link to subscribe if interested. That aside, here’s the skinny writing digest for August.

CX’s Real Driver in 2020? Changing Customer Habits Due to COVID-19, No Jitter, Aug. 25

Speech Recognition vs. Voice Recognition - What’s the Difference?, TechTarget, Aug. 4

Digitcom Insight Paper #3 Now Posted

This is the last in a three-part series I produced for Digitcom, in partnership with France-based Centile. The series is for Canadian businesses, providing guidance on cloud migration, and how communications technology needs to be part of their thinking about digital transformation.

Part 3 has been posted now on Digitcom’s website, and here’s the link to register for downloading. Once there, accessing Parts 1 and 2 should be pretty easy, and if you like what’s there, I’d be happy to hear from you.

The Real Driver of CX in 2020? - My Latest for No Jitter

Increasingly, it seems that most problems and solutions are filtered through the lens of technology, and while that’s just the way the world is going now, this does not explain everything. AI doesn’t rule the world yet, and there’s plenty that technology cannot fix or explain.

This isn’t meant to knock technology, but it’s rarely a silver bullet, and human nature does not easily conform in the ways that makes tech so efficient. I’m not trying to be obtuse here, but in the contact center space, most of the narrative I’m hearing is technology-centric. COVID-19 has brought new stresses to contact centers, as well as to consumers, as we all learn to live in a contact-less world. It’s not fun, but that’s reality, and most companies still struggle to deliver a great CX despite having all this cool technology.

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but it seems to me that larger forces are at work, and I’m concerned that contact centers are focusing on the wrong things in the current environment. To continue this line of thought, you’ll need to read my latest No Jitter post, and it’s running now on their portal. After that, if I’ve stoked your curiosity, I’d love hear your thoughts, as would the folks at No Jitter.

New Podcast - Driving Employee Engagement with Communications Technology

Around this time each month, I publicly share our latest Watch This Space podcast, which my newsletter subscribers have exclusive access to earlier in the month.

If you follow me, you’ll know there are changes coming with the podcast, and there will be an update on that in the September issue. If you don’t know, I produce both a monthly newsletter - JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - along with my monthly WTS podcast. If that’s of interest, subscribing is real easy - here’s the link.

For August, our podcast discussion examined the relationship between the multitude of today’s communications technologies, and how their ease of use plays a central role for employee engagement, especially with work from home being so prevalent.

That’s the lead-in, and for the rest, I hope you give the podcast a listen - this link will take you to the podcast archive on my website, where you can access the August podcast as well our earlier episodes. As always, your thoughts and sharing are welcome.

Am Speaking with Talkdesk During Customer Contact Week this Thursday

I’ve been both attending and speaking at various virtual events lately, and the next one is of the latter variety.

Customer Contact Week is in full swing now, and I’m one of the featured speakers on a session hosted by Talkdesk, this Thursday at 1:30 EST. The focus is on the healthcare sector, and we’ll be talking about about re-thinking the patient experience in pandemic times. The session will be moderated by Abdul Rastagar of Talkdesk, and I’ll be joined by one of their customers, Elias Farah, CEO of MEDFAR.

Details are here, and the event hashtag is #CCWAtHome.

Enterprise Connect Redux - Am Giving My Talk Again Next Wednesday

Here’s some good news to keep the Enterprise Connect Virtual vibe going.

The Enterprise Connect team is doing a replay day next Wednesday, where the five top-rated presentations from last week’s event are getting a second go-round. While registered attendees can watch replays of all the sessions on demand any time, these replays include having the speakers on hand to do live Q&A with attendees - just like we did the first time around.

Am happy to say that my presentation on speech tech and AI in the enterprise was one of those top five, and my session runs at 4pm ET. The five presentations will run sequentially, on the hour, starting at noon, with mine closing out the day at 4.

To join me - or any of the other sessions - here’s the link to register.

Even more good news - the replays are available even if you didn’t attend last week, OR even if you haven’t even registered. There’s no cost to watch the replays, and there are links on the web page for both returning and first-time attendees. Hope to see you there!

ICYMI - My Enterprise Connect Talk on Enterprise Speech and AI - Replay Posted Now

Been a busy week with Enterprise Connect Virtual, and lots of great content to digest. My session at the end of Monday’s program we well-attended, and the Q&A was pretty active.

Lots has happened at the event since, and before too much time passes, thought I’d share the replay detail for anyone who didn’t catch my session, or wants to watch it again.

Here’s the link to watch the replay, but you need to be a registered attendee to access it, so log in to the platform first, then you’re good to go. My understanding is that the replays will be available for a year, so there’s no rush. I’m not aware of any plans to share the presentations publicly, but if that changes, I’ll provide an update.

ICYMI, part 2 - as a companion to my presentation, No Jitter’s Ryan Daily wrote up this recap of the key messages, so you might want to check that out as well.

Newsletter Time Again - August Issue

The August edition of JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review went out yesterday, and if you’ve been through it, I’d love to hear your thoughts or ideas for future content. Travelling to industry events is a big part of our currency as analysts, and with that off the table, we just have to make do with virtual events. There are plenty of those to keep me busy, along with a steady stream of thought leadership projects for clients, several of which will be in the public domain this month. Lots on the go, for sure, and if you want to keep tabs on all this, here’s where you can subscribe to my newsletter.

If you don’t know, our podcast is the main feature of my newsletter for current, original thought leadership. This month’s episode of Watch This Space focuses on the intersection of new technology and employee engagement, and in work-from-home times, this dynamic is a pretty important driver of productivity. I hope you enjoy it, and starting next month, there will be some big changes coming to the podcast - stay tuned.

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.

Enterprise Connect Virtual - 5 Speakers with SCTC

Another quick shout-out for Enterprise Connect Virtual. I posted the other day about my upcoming talk there, and now I’m providing a broader update, this time wearing my SCTC hat.

I’m one of the few analysts involved with the SCTC, and it’s been a great community for me. Analysts and consultants can be very complementary, but only if you know where to look. There’s a good story that needs to be told in a better way, and let’s just say I’m helping them do that.

Their website is going through an update, but you can check it out any time to learn more. My main message here is to say that 5 SCTC members will be speaking at Enterprise Connect Virtual, so you won’t have to look far to find us. Aside from my session, there will be talks from Melissa Swartz, Steve Leaden, Cheryl Helm, and the smartest man ever, Dave Michels. I can’t promise you a gold star if you catch all of our sessions, but I’ll be happy to give ya a virtual hug. See you there, and don’t forget to register - NOW!

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.