With in-person conferences back in full swing, the April episode served as a roundup of recent and upcoming events on our calendars, namely 8x8, Enterprise Connect, VON Evolution and HPE Aruba. Plenty to review and preview, but we also broadened our discussion around the current state of enterprise communications. In particular, we talked about what’s missing to make meetings feel more immersive, as well as inclusive. We even went out on a limb to talk about how collaboration vendors can borrow from the retail world to build their brands and showcase how great their experiences can be. Plenty of food for thought, and we hope you’ll check out the April 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 of our podcasts here on my JAA website.

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

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, along with my social media stats. More detail for most of these activities can be found on my blog.

Industry conferences – just two for March, but Enterprise Connect is the biggest industry event in my world, requiring a lot of preparation, and now being in the rear-view mirror, quite a bit of follow up for new business
- 8x8 Analyst Day, March 10, NYC
- Enterprise Connect, March 27-30, Orlando, FL
LinkedIn Live event – March 23 with NICE, in conversation with Elizabeth Tobey about the growing role of AI in the contact center
Webinar recording – recorded a session with NICE – part of a four-segment series that will be presented over the next few weeks
Video chats – two to share:
- Genesys – State of CX interview done during Enterprise Connect
- Big UC News segment – March 3 – Avaya Ch. 11, Zoho, and the state of Webex
Video segment – this was fun – March 9 – live recording, am interviewed by colleague Dave Michels for his video series Influence Me! – see Did You Know? section below for more detail and how to watch it
Podcasts – recorded two segments:
- Telecom Reseller News – was a guest on Doug Green’s podcast, recorded at Enterprise Connect
- New episode for NICE’s CX Pulse podcast series – coming soon!
New kudo – from 8x8 – 16 CCaaS Influencers to Follow on Twitter
Writing Roundup for March – just 2 public writeups last month, summarized 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 – no citations last month, but April will be a different story
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 March:
- For LinkedIn – I had 31,091 views and 34 posts – up somewhat from previous month, and strongest stats since November
- My top LinkedIn post registered 2,972 views and overall, 7 posts had 1,000+ views, and 14 had 800+ views
- For Twitter – there were 6,945 impressions, 685 profile visits, 78 mentions, 34 tweets and 9 new followers – down overall from previous month – no idea why
- My “top tweet” was about SCTC speakers who will be at Enterprise Connect, with 541 impressions

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for April

Only one industry event on the calendar for this month, and it’s a new one for me:

Extreme Networks, 2023 Influencer Summit, April 4-5, Boston

Active work to keep watch for:

Video interview guest on another episode of Big UC News – Enterprise Connect highlights

Webinar coming for an industry association, where I’ll be providing a CCaaS overview
Guest post is coming for a leading publication in the channel space
Guest post coming on the blog site of a leading UCaaS player
Guest post coming for a leading publication in the enterprise comms space
Executive Q&A interview coming for a leading Future of Work publication
Contact Center Pipeline – new guest article coming
Two white papers that should publish during April – one in the contact center space, and one for mobility

Hey, Did You Know?

…Dave Michels says I’m “one of the funniest people I know”, so it must be true.

We’ve both been indie analysts for a long time, and Influence Me! is one of Dave’s video interview series, and this one is on the fun side, where he interviews his guests about what makes them tick, and what’s cool to know about our lives outside of tech.

While at the 8x8 analyst event last month, we recorded this on the fly, so it’s literally Live-From-New-York, via the free WiFi at a Starbucks spot on Broadway. This segment was episode 5 in his series, and it was a lot of fun. We sure could have gone on for hours, and maybe we’ll do it again soon. So many stories, so little time; but hey, now you’ll get to know a whole lot more about me. Chances are you won’t know any of these things, and who knows where things can go from here? Hope you enjoy it, and thanks for having me as a guest, Dave! Click here to watch.