During September, Chris and I both attended industry events in New York City, and we had lots to talk about. First up was the Cloud Communications Alliance Financial Summit, which I attended for the first time and spoke on the analyst panel session. We discussed how the current state of things – crowded and very competitive – is impacting valuations and growth opportunities. Bottom line – cloud providers need to expand beyond UCaaS into CCaaS and CPaaS, and be ready for what’s coming with AI. Chris recapped two events – CREtech and WORKTECH23, reviewing how today’s office spaces are adapting to bring workers back to the office. This is a key element for anybody’s future of work plans, and Chris also shared first-hand takeaways from tours to Cisco, Google and WestCap’s state-of-the-art facilities. Buckle-up, as we covered a lot of ground in this episode!

For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform – you can access it any time here on the new Watch This Space website. Otherwise, the easiest platforms and sources to find WTS are Apple Podcasts, Google Chrome/Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Overcast, iTunes, Spotify and Amazon Music. Believe it or not, we’re also getting found on LinkedIn, Safari, and Alexa-enabled devices. For a more extensive replay archive, you can access all our podcasts here on my JAA website.

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

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 last month, including my other forms of original content, along with my social media stats. More detail and links for most of these activities can be found on my blog or posted on the website.

Industry conferences – these were listed out last month as a preview for September, and all but one came to pass. October will be just as busy, with even more travel, and details for that are in the next section. Here’s where September took me with industry events:
- Canadian Communications Technology Consultants Group (CCTC) Networking Event, Sept. 7, Toronto – I gave a keynote presentation and moderated a panel session – highlights are in a recent blog post
- Avaya Analyst Roundtable, Sept. 12, Toronto – CEO Alan Masarek had to cancel last minute and couldn’t come to town, so this is being re-scheduled virtually
- Digital CxO Summit, Sept. 13 – I spoke on a panel (virtual event)
- Huawei Connect, Sept. 20-22, Shanghai, China – blog post coming, along with a feature article in a leading tech publication
- Cloud Communications Alliance (CCA) Financial Summit 2023, Sept 26-27, NYC – I spoke on the analyst panel, and highlights are in a recent blog post

Profile Feature – USA Today – it’s not everyday I turn up in mainstream media, and maybe this will help broaden my reach:
- Distributed Workforce Is the Future of Work, and the Future Is Now, September 29
Video interview:
- The Role of Independent Analysts – I was interviewed by Zak Anderson of Evolve IP, Sept. 15 –details here, and the interview was broken up into several segments on their website
Webinar:
- Where to Invest for Long Term Contact Center Success, hosted by ICMI and sponsored by RingCentral, Sept. 27
Guest article – for Frontier Hub, publish date TBA
Ghost-writing – one article in a leading tech pub, written for a top executive with a Tier 1 cloud provider
Writing Roundup for September – details here - it’s a monthly digest of my thought leadership across various channels, including Tech Target, No Jitter, Channel Futures, Contact Center Pipeline and BC Strategies
Media citings – three citations last month
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 had 23,668 views and 28 posts – this is the 7th month from the past 8 with 20,000+ views
My top LinkedIn post registered 4,219 views
Overall, 5 posts had 1,000+ views, and 11 had 600+ views

For Twitter/X

Only 1,380 impressions – just up a tick from last month – as per last month, I think the end is near with me for this platform
My “top tweet” was for my recap post from the CCA event, with just 116 impressions - yeow

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for October

In terms of industry events, the world tour continues during October…September was busy with five events – and October is even busier:

UC Expo, London – Oct. 4-5 – will be on four different sessions, so I won’t be hard to find
NICE Analyst Summit, Machu Picchu, Peru, Oct. 10-12
GITEX GLOBAL, Dubai, UAE – Oct. 16-20
SCTC Annual Conference, Raleigh, NC – Oct. 22-24 – I’ll be doing a presentation, along with a short music set with the SIPtones!
Cisco WebexOne, Anaheim, CA – Oct. 24-25 – attending as an analyst, but also speaking on a panel session

Active work to keep watch for:

Attending and speaking at VON Evolution in NYC, Nov. 1-2 – including a special edition live recording of our Watch This Space podcast
Three case studies I have written for a vendor in the Teams ecosystem – in the process of being published now
New CX Pulse podcast with NICE – should publish this month
New guest blog post coming for a leading contact center vendor
New white paper being written now for a leading contact center vendor
Writing a guest article for a leading tech pub about my recent China trip, where our group toured a smart port facility – I also have a shorter post coming about this on my blog
Continued guest posts coming for three clients – Aizan, Upstream Works and TeamMate
Early-stage planning for my speaking role for Enterprise Connect 2024
My Future of Work Expo 2024 – next February in Ft. Lauderdale – agenda has firmed up, and news about that is coming. If interested in speaking on a panel or helping develop a topic for us to explore, please get in touch

Hey, Did You Know?

… all this travel planning takes a lot work? It just doesn’t happen on its own, and I don’t have a chatbot assistant to handle the details. Maybe soon, but not yet, so that’s all I got for this section. Next month will be a different story, and I should have some nice photos to share from my stops along the way.