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

Last month, I introduced the new changes to our podcast, and so far, we’re pleased with the results. Lots more coming, especially for getting Watch This Space on the major commercial platforms. The process is taking longer than expected, but by the next newsletter, most should be in place, and I’ll provide a listing here of all the platforms you can subscribe from.
This month’s episode is titled “How Virtual is Becoming the New Reality”, and we covered a lot of ground. First, we provided an update on the latest changes to WTS, and then got into a discussion about the challenges and opportunities facing service providers for making broadband more accessible. 5G is part of that story, but in the current moment, it’s mainly driven by back to school, and all the ripple effects around that as summer ends and colder weather looms. From there, we talked about the role technology is playing to make virtual experiences good enough now as to effectively become the norm. This speaks to broader trends about how all facets of society are adapting to the pandemic, and we touched on some examples, including pro sports, live music and Hollywood. Interesting times for sure. Newsletter subscribers can directly access it any time here on the new Watch This Space website.

**Latest Watch this Space Podcast & Transcript, October 2020**

How Virtual is Becoming the New Reality During Pandemic Times

If you don’t yet know, the WTS website will host our episodes for 2020 and beyond. The site is formatted specifically for podcasts, including an embedded player so you can listen directly from the site – check it out here: www.watchthisspace.tech. Our earlier podcasts – Seasons 1 and 2 – can be accessed here on my JAA website.

For some time, we’ve also been featuring a transcription of each episode, courtesy of Otter.ai. During this transition to a dedicated platform for WTS, current episodes don’t yet have the transcription, but we’re working on a fix, that will be ready very soon.

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

While Watch This Space is the main form of original content for the newsletter, Part 2 is a different form of original content; namely a digest of my activities from the previous month.
Virtual conference roundup – while August was light on this front, last month I had my hands plenty full:
- September 1-2 – ADTRAN Connect
- September 14 – Ribbon 5G event
- September 16 – Five9 CX Summit
- September 15-16 – NICE/inContact Interactions
- September 22-24 - Big5G Event, Light Reading
- September 29-October 1 – UC Expo – spoke on two sessions
- September 30-October 1 – Twilio SIGNAL
- September 30-October 1 – British Telecom Global Analyst Event
Otherwise, here are the working highlights for last month, and links to some of these can be found in my September blog posts:
- Presented on a webinar with IntelePeer about CPaaS
- Presented on a webinar with Huawei about IoT
- Spoke on the latest BCStrategies podcast on employee engagement during Covid
New kudo #1 – Top 100 Unified Comms Influencers for 2020, compiled by Mio Dispatch (I’m #28!)
New kudo #2 – Top 5 ETS Moments, wearing my Smart Grid hat, one of the sessions I ran during Zpryme’s 2016 Energy Thought Summit was rated their #4 all-time moment. This was fun, and you can watch and read about it here.
August writing spotlight – top pick would be my latest No Jitter post – Keeping up With the Times – and the Tech: Same as it Ever Was. Here’s the article, and to set the stage, you really should watch this classic video of Once in a Lifetime from 1980 - really – then it will all start making sense, if you know what I mean.

Here’s my Writing Roundup post for September – it’s a monthly digest of my thought leadership across various channels, including Tech Target, No Jitter and BC Strategies

Media citings – similar to August, with five citings this time
Social media highlights - 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 September:
- For LinkedIn – I shared 47 posts, which registered 43,115 views – that’s up 68% from August, and is the highest number of views since I started tracking this in April 2019. My top LinkedIn post registered 2,570 views – closely-followed by one at 2,499. Overall, 18 posts had 1,000+ views, and 26 posts had 700+ views.
- For Twitter - there were 56,500 impressions, 189 profile visits, 62 mentions, 57 tweets and 9 new followers – other than new followers, the metrics are way up from August, including a 95% increase in impressions. I’m keeping busy!
- My “top tweet” was as a shout-out for a video interview I conducted with Praful Shah of RingCentral for the UC Expo virtual event - it had 9,779 impressions. Am pretty sure that’s the highest count for any tweet since I started tracking this data. Overall, 13 tweets had 1,000+ impressions, and 20 had 600+.
Updates were recently added about my musical interests, with both new video clips and photos. You can find all this on the My Music tab, and I continue to mention this here in case new subscribers don’t know about my fun side.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for October

So far, I’ll be participating as best I can in seven virtual events this month, and you’ll have to check my blog and social feeds for further details – and other events could very well come up during the month:
- October 7-9 – Slack Frontiers
- October 14-15 – Zoomtopia
- October 14-15 – SCTC Annual Conference
- October 15 – Huawei Global Innovation Summit
- October 26-27 – Mitel Analyst Event
- October 26-28 – Calix ConneXions
- October 28-29 – Cisco Media and Analyst Event
Got two webinars in the works, check my blog and social feeds for details/dates:
- October 20 – Contact center reporting with Eventus, hosted by TMC
- New CX challenges with COVID-19 with Mitel, date TBD
- October 21 - same topic, with Mitel, but a Twitter chat event
Wearing my SCTC hat, I’m going to be a featured presenter over a 3-part series on AI, which is part of our very popular weekly Fireside Chats - with at least one of these slated for October – details coming

Hey Did You Know?

… virtual events can be fun and cool?

Even virtual events can bring some star power, and while these would have been WAY more fun in-person, they were all still great to experience on the small screen. Seeing keynotes and performances from big names is a great perk for our circle of analysts as we travel from event to event, and here’s a taste of that from my September events.

The faces should be familiar, but just in case; from Twilio SIGNAL, interviews with Barack Obama and Trevor Noah. Then, from NICE/inContact’s event, interviews with Martha Stewart and Matthew McConaughey. From the same event, live performances from Alanis Morissette and Bryan Adams. Even though all of these were virtual, they came off really well, especially the music segments – and we talked about that during the current podcast, fyi.