Newsletter Time Again - May Issue - Podcast Too

Subscribers got the May edition of JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review around this time yesterday, and with that comes the latest Season 4 episode of our Watch This Space podcast.

There are several ways to access and/or subscribe to our podcast, but the newsletter is primarily available via subscription, which is free. Links to that can be found on my website, and to make it easy, here you go.

Whether you subscribe or not, I hope you give our latest podcast a listen. As the title below suggests, we took on a big topic, which of course can’t be covered in one episode. We picked out some core themes, which Chris Fine and I will explore further during our upcoming PulveREDU course on May 13, and you can register for that here. Hope you’ll join us!

CCaaS - Rethinking Your CX Strategy - My Latest on No Jitter

If you’re a fan of Buffalo Springfield, you’ll like my latest article on No Jitter.

If you want know why and how the contact center space has become so messy - but really interesting - you’ll like it even better. There are many flavors of CCaaS now, and new visions are emerging for what constitutes “customer service”, and what CX really means.

That’s my pitch, and to read the article, here’s the link. I hope you like it, and as always, comments and sharing are welcome.

Cloud Conventions 2021 - May 12-14 - Next Speaking Spot for Me

I really enjoyed being involved with last year’s inaugural Cloud Conventions, especially with Carolyn Bradfield. We’re back at it for the 2021 edition, which runs virtually from May 12-14. This is a channel-centric event, with a wide range of topics to help end customers migrate to the cloud.

I’ll be presenting again, providing the analyst perspective about how cloud is shaping the future of work, especially as we come out of the pandemic. If you’re attending, I’ll be speaking live as part of the Digital Transformation track at 10:30 ET on May 12. Then at 11:30, I’ll be joined by Mike Cromwell for an informal Meet The Experts scrum.

Details about my topic are here, along with all the other sessions - just scroll through a bit, and you’ll find me. If you haven’t made plans to attend, here’s where to register.

Also, any day now, I’ll be posting a short video chat I did with Carolyn about the event and the themes I plan to talk about - stay tuned.

Back to School - Our First PulveREDU Course: The New Voice

Jeff Pulver is a long-time visionary, entrepreneur and community-builder in the communications technology space; especially around VoIP, which he had a direct hand in establishing as the successor to TDM. He keeps moving with the times, and PulveREDU is his latest venture. In short, he’s developed an accessible, affordable platform for learning and knowledge-sharing - think along the lines of The Learning Annex, but online.

PulveREDU’s model is to offer one-hour courses/programs, led by established experts, and at a $20 price point, it’s an affordable way to get up to speed on a topic and engage directly with the educators. This isn’t about earning credits or completing a curriculum, but it provides richer learning than just consuming content from the Web. Plus it’s live and interactive, so there’s lots of room for dialog.

The programming calendar is a work in progress, as this is still pretty new, but as the track record builds, enrollment for courses will grow, as will the roster of educators. That’s the leadup, and here’s the pitch.

Our inaugural PulveREDU course is coming soon - it runs live, on Thursday, May 13 from 11:30-12:30pm, EST. I’ll be co-presenting the course with long-time colleague and Watch This Space podcast partner, Chris Fine. Our topic is close to home for us, titled: The New Voice - Exploring New Worlds Beyond the Phone Call, and registration details are here. We really hope you’ll join us, and if you think others will be interested as well, please pass this along.

Roundup of Recent Industry Events - Our Latest BCStrategies Podcast

We may not be travelling these days, but there are plenty of virtual events, along with news of note in the collaboration space. That’s the focus of our latest podcast at BCStrategies, so it makes for a good roundup of current events.

Led by Blair Pleasant, we weighed in on recent events, namely Fuze, Cisco, Avaya and Genesys, along with thoughts on the Zoom/RingCentral spat, and Dialpad’s big partnership with T-Mobile.

Never a dull moment, and we hope you check out our podcast. As always, sharing and comments are welcome.

My Next Webinar with Lumen - Security Considerations for UCaaS

Got another webinar coming up, this one sponsored by Lumen Technologies, and hosted by Spiceworks Ziff Davis. I’ll be presenting on UCaaS trends and drivers, along with reviewing the associated security risks. After that, I’ll be joined by two speakers from Lumen for a more in-depth discussion about security. Details are here if you’d like to join us - next Wednesday, Apri 14 at noon ET.

Newsletter Time Again - April Issue - Podcast Too

The April edition of JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review went out yesterday, along with our latest Watch This Space podcast. I always shoot for first week of the month for these launches, so if you ever wanted to know about what I’m up to, this is the best time to find out. The thumb below will give you a sense for what our latest podcast is about, and I hope you give it a listen.

If you want to become a regular, you can subscribe here for the newsletter - just takes a moment - it’s email-based, so it comes to you directly.

The podcast can be picked up across most of the major platforms - iTunes, Amazon Music/Audible, Google Podcasts, Stitcher - and others are coming soon. You can also track our recent episodes here, which is my dedicated website for the podcast.

New Onalytica Report - Who’s Who in Telecoms?

Onalytica is a UK-based firm that produces influencer lists, and this is their latest edition in our space. This is fairly new territory for me, and as they explain, their lists are based on a “4Rs” methodology - Reach, Resonance, Relevance and Reference.

I’m happy to say that they included me in the cohort of UC “influencers” - page 14 - along with other colleagues you’ll likely be familiar with. Beyond that, there are other categories segmenting the telecoms space - I know, that word seems a bit quaint these days - so this is a great resource for tapping people in the know. Now that you know about it - and it’s free, BTW - you can download a copy here, and if I can ever be of service at some point, now you’ll definitely know how to find me.

March Writing Roundup

I’m continuing to stay busy, with March being one of my strongest months ever for new business. That aside, I managed to get some writing done, and here are the highlights.

What are the Challenges of Using Multiple Team Collaboration Apps?, TechTarget, March 31

Hybrid Work - It’s Complicated, No Jitter, March 30

High Availability Direct Routing for Teams, BCStrategies, March 16

4 Ways AI in UC Boosts Collaboration, TechTarget, March 11

Microsoft Ignite - Their Vision for a Post-PC World and Teams Updates, BCStrategies, March 5

Hybrid Work - It's Complicated - My Latest on No Jitter

I’ve been quiet lately - didn’t realize just for how long until now - but busy as can be with new projects.

Hybrid work has become the trend du jour, and there’s lots to explore, for sure. My last two No Jitter posts looked at flip sides of hybrid work - work from home and return to office - and balancing the two isn’t easy. Well, in fact, it’s complicated, and that’s what my latest No Jitter post is about.

I’ve got some interesting data sets from two new studies to share, and it’s nice have that kind of validation for things I’ve been seening in my own work. So, to get my take and see some telling numbers, I hope you give my article a read - it was posted earlier today on No Jitter.

Impressions from Microsoft Ignite - Our BCStrategies Podcast

Been pretty busy lately with BCStrategies, where I’ve been a BC Expert for a long time. This is my third post this week regarding new content that I’ve been part of there, and if you haven’t visited the site lately, there’s lots of great content to explore.

This time around, it’s our latest podcast, where Kevin Kieller led a discussion to take in our thoughts about the recent Microsoft Ignite event. If you attended or read about it, you’ll know that Mesh was the big story, and in my mind this is a strong signal from Microsoft that the post-PC world is coming, and they’re going to be setting the pace.

Aside from contributing to the conversation here, I wrote up my own review with photos about Microsoft Ignite in an earlier BCStrategies post, and you can read that here. First, though, you should check out our podcast - here’s the link - and if you want to weigh in with your own takeaways, we’d love to hear from you.

High Availability Direct Routing for Teams - BCStrategies Post

This is my latest guest post, running now on BCStrategies. Direct routing for Microsoft Teams has been a hot topic lately, and I’ve had a few opportunities to research and write about it. This one was sponsored by AudioCodes, and if you read it, you’ll see that the focus is primarily on the challenge of providing high availability telephony with Teams. When hosting in the cloud, this is harder to do than it looks, and if you’re wondering about how to address this, you may find this post a good read - here’s the link.

What Was Supposed to be Here by Now? Our Latest BCStrategies Podcast

Interesting topic for interesting times. Led by Joseph Williams, our team of BC Experts weighed in on technologies and changes we thought would have happened by now in the collaboration space. Pretty wide range of perspectives, and several that I think you’ll find surprising.

So, like the guy in the Farmers Insurance ad says, “we’ve seen a few things” - that’s us at BCStrategies, folks. Our group has seen lots of tech waves come and go, so we’ve got perspectives that Millennials will have to wait their turn for. That time will come, but instead of waiting 25 years, why not just listen to us talk about a few things for about 30 minutes?Bump, bu-bump bump bump!

My Microsoft Ignite Takeaways on BCStrategies - Their Vision for a Post-PC World

I managed to take in some sessions during last week’s Microsoft Ignite, including the main event - their annnouncement about Mesh, a mixed reality platform that brings the physical and virtual worlds together in ways that most of us have never seen or imagined before. Gamers may rule in this world, but yes, there will be applications in the collaboration space, and Teams is part of the story.

Longer-term, this could well be Microsoft’s big play for a post-PC world, so it’s a good strategy to establish themselves before that time comes. Lots to discuss, and I’m just scatching the surface in this post I put together last week for BCStrategies. It’s running now on their portal, and if you give it a read, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

My Next Webinar with Huawei - 5G for Enterprise Digital Transformation

It’s a busy month for webinars, and here’s the next one - Wednesday, March 10 at 2pm ET.

Am back for another webinar hosted by Huawei, and it’s about the promise of 5G for carriers to help enterprises with digital transformation. This is a pretty broad topic, and I’ll be joined by two other panelists - Will Townsend of Moor Insights and Strategy, and Tony Rutkowski of Netmagic Associates - along with Sean Kinney of RCR Wireless News as moderator.

Should be interesting, and I hope you can join us - details are here to register.

Newsletter Time Again - March Issue - Podcast Too

2021 continues to be busy, and my monthly newsletter is the best way to keep tabs on what I’m up to, writing about and speaking about. The March edition of JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review went out yesterday, and our latest Watch This Space podcast episode went live as well.

Subscribers would know all that by now, and otherwise, if you want to be in that group, it’s easy. For the newsletter, you can sign up here on my website, and you can get the podcast in two different ways. First, to hear the latest episode or earlier ones, just go to the Podcast section of my site, where you can also view transcripts created by Otter.ai. There’s also a standalone website for the podcast where you can listen to the most recent episodes via an embedded player, so there’s nothing the download.

The second way is to subscribe to Watch This Space, much like you can do as per above for my newsletter. At present, the podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher. Other platforms are coming soon, so stay tuned.

February Writing Roundup

How do you like that? As busy as I’ve been, I only had one writeup posted publicly last month. Don’t think that’s ever happened before, so this will be a really quick roundup. My March newsletter goes out this week, and if you’re a subscriber, you’ll see that I was quite busy last month on other fronts, namely video and podcasts. Writing is ceratinly core to what I do, but it’s really just one channel for sharing my work.

The Hybrid Workplace: New Opportunities for Collaboration, Part 2, No Jitter, Feb. 23

My Next Webinar with RingCentral - Video Killed the Telephone Call. Or Did It?

Busy month, and am doing another webinar with RingCentral - more specifically, their UK operations. Back in December, I did a webinar with them in the US on the topic of migrating premises-based telephony to the cloud. A lot of businesses are still in that situation, and not sure why or how they should make this change. That webinar was well-received enough to warrant doing an updated version focused on the UK market.

The webinar will be on Thursday, March 18 - right after St. Patrick’s Day - good plan, at 2pm GMT, which is 9am for me. Here’s the registration page if you’d like to join us, and if so, I’ll see you then.

The Hybrid Workplace - New Opportunities for Collaboration: My Latest on No Jitter

This is Part 2 in my look at how businesses need to be thinking about the emerging hybrid workplace model as we all cope with the pandemic. My prior post examined issues around return to office, and they’re quite different from those needed to support work from home.

Workers are stuck in the middle here, and employers need to find a healthy balance between both settings. Lots to consider, and Part 2 is running now on No Jitter. If you like my post and missed Part 1, you can read that here. As always, sharing and comments are welcome.

UC Today Video Panel - CPaaS Vendors and Tech to Watch in 2021

Well, this was fun. I was recently on a video panel with two colleagues - Blair Pleasant and Raul Castanon - hosted by Rob Scott of UK-based UC Today. The CPaaS space is obtuse and not well-understood, but it sure is booming. Doesn’t help to be led my companies with funny-sounding names that give no clues about what business they’re in - Twilio, Plivo, Sinch, etc.

We’ve seen this movie before, and if you haven’t checked lately, the share prices for the public players are on fire, and the rest of the world is just catching up. Don’t let the names fool you - these are smart companies doing cool things, and they’re just getting started.

Cue the walk-on music for analysts, whose stock-in-trade is digesting all this and explaining it to various audiences in various ways. I’ve been in that camp for a while now, and things like CPaaS keep our tribe pretty busy. We did our best here for our CPaaS moment, and kudos to Rob Scott for putting this toegether. It’s been making the rounds on social, and if you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the link. I hope you enjoy it, and if you have more pressing questions vital to your company’s success, I’m not hard to find.