Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “EY Work Reimagined Study – Getting Employees and Employers on the Same Page”. Our last podcast focused on highlights from Future of Work Expo, which included a keynote about this new study from Ernst & Young. The findings reveal some worrisome disconnects between employees and employers, which we explore in this episode, along with what enterprises should be doing to strike a tenable balance to support the hybrid work model.

For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.
If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms – namely iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

What’s Up? Part 2 – JAA Highlights from July

While the Watch This Space podcast is the main form of original content for this newsletter, Part 2 here is a digest of JAA activities from the previous month, including my other forms of original content, and my social media stats. More detail for most of these will be on my blog.
Highlights were thin for July, due in part to industry events largely being on hiatus. Also, for the better part of three weeks last month, I was away on a family visit, followed by my first bout of Covid, which has now pretty much run its course.
UC Awards 2022 – I was a judge again this year, and the winners were announced July 28
Writing roundup – here’s the digest, and my top choice would be: “In Conversation with Rob McDougall on AI and Setting Expectations in the Contact Center”
New contributor – am being added to the roster for Contact Center Pipeline, and my first article is done now, and will run in September
Media citings – there were 3 for July, and you can see them here
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 July:
- For LinkedIn – I had 23,799 views and only 15 posts – fifth strong month in a row
- My top LinkedIn post registered 3,865 views, and overall, 5 posts had 1,000+ views, and 12 of 15 total posts had 600+ views
- For Twitter – there were 7,180 impressions, 1,141 profile visits, 39 mentions, 16 tweets, and 14 new followers – second straight month of mixed bag metrics compared to the prior month – but impressions were up from June
- My “top tweet” was a RT about being included in tweet from a leading influencer, with 1,604 impressions, and overall, 3 tweets had 1,000+ impressions
SIPtones highlights – if you don’t know, we’re a band of consultants, and we perform when we can at industry events. You can check out video clips and photos on the My Music tab, and new clips are coming next month from our latest gig in November at the 2021 SCTC conference. We’ll be performing at the 2022 conference this October, so it will be time to start practising soon!

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for August

Only one industry event on tap for August, but others could come along at any time:
- Zoom Perspectives 2022, Aug. 23-25 (attending virtually)
Webinar with Servion and Cisco is now set for August 11 – details on my blog
Client work has eased up with summer, but several new things are in the works that will play out soon – some high-level examples:
- Speech tech opportunity assessment for a major vertical market segment
- Recording a podcast interview with a UCaaS vendor for an EU tech publisher
- Two new white paper projects about to start up
- Writing a guest blog post for a UCStrategies client that will run on their site
- Continued guest posts coming for different vendors in the CCaaS space
- Strategic advisory role for a VoIP services start-up
- Several engagements in early discussions with both existing and prospective clients that should bear fruit for the fall

Hey Did You Know....

…Covid sucks, but it seems now that more people in my circles have had it than those who have not. A lot of cases seem to be connected to travel, mine included. Of the seven people from our family trip last month, five tested positive during the trip, but we’re all negative now – yay!

While the symptoms were mild, it has definitely slowed me down the past few weeks. I’ll finally be getting back to the gym, and my energy is returning now, just in time for what’s shaping up to be a really busy fall. Sometimes, a picture is worth 1,000 words – or smiles. Oh, happy day!