What’s Up? Part 1 - Our Latest Watch This Space Podcast

Starting out a new year and a new decade, it’s only fitting that our latest podcast focuses on what’s ahead for 2020. Building on our previous podcast – 2019 look-back – Chris and I continued exploring the impact of disruptive and transformative technologies in the workplace, especially around cloud and AI. Let’s just say the enterprise space has a lot to learn from how these technologies are playing out in our personal lives.

As usual, JAA subscribers get to hear our takeaways - right now, in this newsletter. Otherwise, I’ll be posting it publicly on my website in a couple of weeks.
If you haven’t checked our earlier podcasts, you can do that from the podcast archive on my website. This archive will keep updating as the latest podcast is added, so now from one place, you can access all the most recent podcasts.
Recent podcasts have also featured AI-driven transcripts that complement the audio replay link. This feature comes courtesy of Otter.ai, and I hope you like it. As you’ll see, it transcribes in real time, so you can follow along reading while listening to our dialog. I should also note that this transcription feature only comes with the newsletter, so if you like it, this is a key benefit for being a subscriber. The publicly-shared versions of our podcasts are audio-only, and for some, that will be enough; but hey, you’re missing all the other good things here in the newsletter!

**Latest Watch this Space Podcast, January 2020**

What’s Ahead for 2020 - AI and CX

What’s Up? Part 2 – More Highlights and Insights from December

Conference roundup – nada, zero, nothing. I always start this section off with conferences, since they’re high profile and am usually going somewhere, but not in December. That’s pretty unusual, and I suppose newsworthy itself, but definitely not a sign of taking it easy. As you’ll see in the next section, there are plenty of 2020 conferences lined up through June, and more are coming.

Holiday season aside, December was very productive in terms of lining up new projects that are already underway, along with firming up plans for several upcoming conferences.
I also undertook some new initiatives that will raise my profile and broaden my reach to keep the biz dev pipeline strong. More about that soon.
Work-wise, my output was light last month, but that’s to be expected for the holiday season, with most new work being deferred to January:
- I presented one webinar, with CoreDial, about cloud-based contact center offerings – reference details can be found in my Blog Archive from December
- Wrote an insight paper for a UC vendor, another insight paper for a cybersecurity vendor, and two blog posts for a contact center vendor – all of which run without my byline – yes, ghostwriting is one of the services I offer
- Was part of a 2019-in-review podcast with BCStrategies for the collaboration space, and that will run first week of January. The companion 2020-look-ahead podcast has been recorded as well, and that will follow soon after.
Spotlight for December writing – my pick would be this post on BCStrategies: “SCTC Conference Review - Opportunity for the Taking”
Here’s my Writing Roundup post for December – it’s a monthly digest of my thought leadership across various channels, including Toolbox.com, Tech Target, No Jitter and BC Strategies.
There were two media citings for December
Here are the social media highlights for last month. Since these stats change every day, the metrics are just a basic snapshot, but they provide a good sense of reach beyond my blog and newsletter. For my business, I use Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for December:
- For LinkedIn – I shared 25 posts, and overall, they registered 16,531 views. That’s well below recent months, and is due both to the Xmas season, and my not attending any events last month. My top LinkedIn post registered 1,094 views, and 4 posts had 1,000+ views.
- For Twitter - there were 21,300 impressions, and as with LinkedIn, the drop-off from November is to be expected. Also had 116 profile visits, 18 mentions, 15 tweets, and just 1 new follower.
- My “top tweet” was a shout-out for my CoreDial webinar - it had 1,524 impressions
If you haven’t seen it, there’s a new tab on my website – My Music. This has been in the works for a while, and showcases my fun side, mainly from playing keyboards and guitar with the SIPtones. I’ve posted a few video clips and photos from recent performances – and I have others if you want to see more. Our most recent show was in Chicago in November, and I’ll be adding a few of those clips to this section shortly.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for January

2020 is already busy for conferences, and there are some additions below from last month. As always, details for each event will be on my blog, along with the Event Calendar listing on my website.
- Project Voice – and another SIPtones gig, January 14-17, Chattanooga, TN
- Avaya Engage, February 3-4, Phoenix, AZ
- Cisco Collaboration/Contact Center Summit – February 5-6, San Jose, CA
- ITExpo/Future of Work, February 11-14, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
- Channel Partners 2020, March 9-12, Las Vegas, NV
- Enterprise Connect, March 30-April 2, Orlando, FL
- Avaya Influencers Analyst Event, mid-April, location TBD
- Talkdesk Opentalk 2020– April 22-23, San Francisco, CA
- Metaswitch Forum, May 11, Las Vegas, NV
- UCExpo, May 12-14, London, UK
- Twilio SIGNAL, May 20-21, San Francisco, CA
- 8x8 Analyst Event, May 26-28, location TBD
For some of the new events above, details are still in the works, so updates are coming
The ITExpo/Future of Work event is a new addition, and as with last year, I’ll be chairing Future of Work, and will share an updated agenda soon
For one upcoming conference - Enterprise Connect - I should mention that being a speaker, I can offer a $400 discount on your registration – details here
During January, I’ll also be involved in a virtual event – UC Summit – details to follow
I continue to have a steady and varied mix of projects in the works, including two white papers, case studies, guest blog posts, insight briefs, executive Q&As, qualitative research about UCaaS offerings, and a survey-based research project with channels about cloud communications
Aside from active client work, I have pending projects related to branding, raising mindshare, and positioning a company for acquisition.

Hey Did You Know?

I don’t expect anybody to follow everything I do (but really, why not?), so to provide a sense of my overall scope of work, the following is a quick snapshot of 2019’s output. Most of this is accessible via my website, although I need to do a better job keeping some of the published content current. That’s a 2020 resolution, for sure!

JAA’s 2019: By the Numbers

6 new clients (not including new work from existing clients)
22 conferences/industry events
10 events either moderating or speaking
102 published articles/guest posts/video segments
117 blog posts
26 podcasts (including Watch This Space for this newsletter)
6 webinars
2 white papers
12 editions of this newsletter
Hundreds of posts on social media – LinkedIn and Twitter
31 JAA citings in the media
2 new industry accolades
2 SIPtones gigs

That’s All for Now

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Not sure about your strategic priorities for 2020? Need to enhance your lead-generation with independent thought leadership? Thinking about having a speaker for your next customer event? These are a few examples of what I do, and your inquiries are welcome any time.