JAA's Communications and Collaboration Review - April Edition 2022

• Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Enterprise Connect Recap: The Return to In-Person Industry Events!”.  The title says it all, and with Spring and baseball around the corner, the timing was great for Enterprise Connect 2022. This is the most important event in the communications technology space, and we haven’t gathered since March 2019, so it was enough just to be there. The vibe was good, and I covered the highlights here with Chris. I hope you give it a listen, and there was plenty more to share about the event, which you can check out later in this issue, as well as here on my blog.

• 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 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, and my social media stats. More detail for most of these will be on my blog.

• Conference roundup – there were four events for me, with three being virtual, and EC 2022 being fully in-person (sidebar – some EC sessions were also offered for virtual attendees, including my session)

  • Mitel NEXT, March 9

  • 8x8 Industry Analyst Event, March 16-17

  • Enterprise Connect 2022, March 21-24, Orlando, FL

  • TeleSign Analyst Day, March 31

• Writing roundup – back to a more normal level of public writing, summarized here – if you just read one, it’s gotta be my book review for Empathy in Action– start here, and I’d love to hear you feedback 

• Media citings – with several events on my calendar, media activity was up, with 9 citings

• 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 27,110 views and 27 posts – one of my highest tallies to date

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 5,229 views, and overall, 6 posts had 1,000+ views, and 14 posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 12,200 impressions, 1,723 profile visits, 42 mentions, 32 tweets, and 18 new followers – stats are up nicely from February, largely due to event activity, especially Enterprise Connect

  • My “top tweet” was about Mitel’s analyst event, with 1,209 impressions, and overall, 13 tweets had 300+ impressions

• Updates were recently added about my musical interests, with both new video clips and photos, including our latest gig in November at the SCTC conference. For those who don’t know about my fun side – we all need that! - you can find this on the My Music tab.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for April

• With Enterprise Connect being the litmus test for in-person events, I’ve got another one coming this month, along with two other virtual events:

  • Google Data Cloud Analyst Roundtable, April 5

  • Channel Partners Conference, April 11-13, Las Vegas – moderating two sessions

  • Spring VON3 2022, April 26 (details TBD, including a speaking spot)

• For Channel Partners, I’ll be moderating two UCaaS-themed sessions, and they should be a lot of fun – details coming very soon on my blog and elsewhere – until then, here’s a preview for one of my sessions, and maybe I’ll see you there!

• Speaking of upcoming events, my speaker recruitment efforts continue for Future of Work Expo, running June 21-23 - I’m returning as Chair, and here’s the agenda page – please get in touch to learn more, either for speaking or sponsoring/exhibiting

• Toward the end of March, I recorded two segments about Enterprise Connect that will run in early April:

  • BCStrategies podcast

  • ZKast video interview with colleague Zeus Kerravala

• In terms of current client work, here’s what I can share:

  • New white paper and e-book for Cisco about Webex Go – the e-book was just published – access it here – and details about the white paper will come soon

  • Another white paper is about to be published – details coming next month, as well as on my blog – this one was done for a leading cloud provider about CPaaS   

  • Started a series of thought leadership pieces for a leading contact center vendor, and they’ll soon be posted on their blog – stay tuned

  • Continued blog posts ghost-written for a contact center vendor

  • Am developing 10 new project and advisory opportunities – I’m not kidding - following meetings during Enterprise Connect, so I can say first-hand that in-person events are a great way to build new business

Hey Did You Know....

… that being in-person at Enterprise Connect is good for more than getting new clients – it also creates more opportunities to share insights via media coverage. I had plenty of that at the show – summarized below, plus others coming over the next week or so.

Enterprise Connect TV - interviewed by Terry Sweeney, Monday, March 21 – view here – starts at the 4-hour, 3-minute mark

UC Today – interviewed by David Dungay, Wednesday, March 23 – view here

No Jitter – review article of my enterprise speech tech talk, by Dana Casielles, March 31

JAA's Communications and Collaboration Review - March Edition 2022

• Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “The Technology of Trust – Digital Identity, Communications and the Future of Work”. Jon and Chris examine the relationship between personal identity and communications in today’s digital world, which lacks the security safeguards natively built into analog technologies. We discuss the challenges to keep technology innovation such as Web3 moving forward where trust is compromised, even for everyday communications. New narratives will be needed, and the concepts of synthetic media and media provenance were introduced as examples of what this new landscape will look like.

• 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 February

• 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.

• Conference roundup – absolutely nothing for me in February - and I’m not complaining – starting this month, I have a mix of in-person and virtual events on the calendar through June, and am looking forward to getting back to live events – finally!

• Webinar – with Vonage, Feb. 10 – Decode the CPaaS Opportunity – accompanying white paper coming soon

• New kudo – this is my fifth industry accolade so far in 2022, coming from Channel Futures, where I was named a top 50 “channel influencer”     

• Writing roundup – just one public post with a byline this month, on TechTarget – Reassess Enterprise UCaaS Deployments in a Hybrid Workplace 

• Media citings – was quiet, with just 1 citing

• 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 February:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 11,333 views and 17 posts – very similar to January

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,483 views and overall, 8 posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 6,172 impressions, 1,306 profile visits, 25 mentions, 14 tweets, and 21 new followers – stats are way down from January, largely due to having no events to tweet about, but that will change in March for sure

  • My “top tweet” was about 8x8’s earnings results, with 830 impressions, and overall, 4 tweets had 300+ impressions

• Updates were recently added about my musical interests, with both new video clips and photos, including our latest gig in November at the SCTC conference. For those who don’t know about my fun side – we all need that! - you can find this on the My Music tab.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for March

• In terms of this month’s event activity, the biggest industry event in our space is finally back in-person – Enterprise Connect, where I’ll be speaking – along with two virtual vendor events for analysts:

  • Mitel NEXT, March 9

  • 8x8 Industry Analyst Event, March 16-17

  • Enterprise Connect 2022, March 21-24, Orlando, FL

• Speaking of upcoming events, my speaker recruitment efforts continue for Future of Work Expo, running June 21-23 - I’m returning as Chair, and here’s the agenda page – please get in touch to learn more, either for speaking or sponsoring/exhibiting

• Speaking of speaking at events, I’ll be giving my 5th state of the market update for AI and speech tech in the enterprise at Enterprise Connect – am speaking at 8am on Monday, March 21 – details are here, and you can save $400 on registration using promo code Arnold22

• In terms of current client work, here’s what I can share:

  • New white paper and e-book for a Tier 1 collaboration vendor – both should publish this month

  • Starting a series of thought leadership pieces for a leading contact center vendor

  • Continued blog posts ghost-written for a contact center vendor

  • Book review to be published in early March for a new book co-written by the CEO for a Tier 1 vendor

  • Signed off a 2022 agreement for series of thought leadership initiatives with a Tier 1 global tech vendor

Hey Did You Know....

… that robots can strut, preen and dance just like the Rolling Stones?

They sure can, thanks to the super-cool work Boston Dynamics is doing with AI and other technologies. But the bigger question is… can they sing like the Rolling Stones? This may seem like an odd question, but it’s what I do, and I’ll have more to say about it during my Enterprise Connect talk. So, if you’re still on the fence about coming to the event in Orlando later this month, this just might start you up.

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - February Edition 2022

• Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “VON3 – Finding Intersections with Communications, Web3, NFTs and Future of Work”. There’s a lot to unpack in that title, and that’s what we did, not just as attendees of Jeff Pulver’s VON3, but as speakers as well. Communications is an elastic concept, and VON3 explored emerging possibilities that go beyond the world of telephony and collaboration that we know so well.

• 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 January

• 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.

• Conference roundup – there were four virtual conferences, two of which I spoke at – UC Summit and VON3:

  • Zoom Work Transformation Summit - Jan. 19

  • Wildix UCC Summit – Jan. 24

  • UC Summit 2022 – Jan. 24-27

  • VON3 - Jan. 24-26

• Podcast – our latest BCStrategies podcast was our annual outlook for the year ahead, “2022 Predictions” 

• Guest posts – I had two last month:

  • The New Age of Voice: a Few Minutes with Analyst Jon Arnold; posted on the ISI website

  • Getting Beyond Voice: Selling More and Making More with Cloud Services; guest post for Channel Futures, where I’m now listed as a contributor

• Writing roundup – summary of my public writing is here – my top choice would be the Channel Futures article

• Media citings – was quiet, with just 1 citing

• 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 January:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 12,976 views and 16 posts – much lower than December, but that month was an historic anomaly

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,196 views and overall, 6 posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 11,900 impressions, 2,155 profile visits, 98 mentions, 28 tweets, and 39 new followers – while my output level was similar to December, input levels were much higher, likely due to all the kudos during January, which exposed me to a wider audience

  • My “top tweet” was about the VON3 event with 1,403 impressions, and overall, 6 tweets had 500+ impressions

• Updates were recently added about my musical interests, with both new video clips and photos, including our latest gig in November at the SCTC conference. For those who don’t know about my fun side – we all need that! - you can find this on the My Music tab.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for February

• In terms of this month’s event activity, believe it or not, there is nothing on the calendar at the moment – am glad Future of Work Expo was moved to June, but come March, Enterprise Connect will be the main event – hopefully in-person

• Speaking of Future of Work Expo, my speaker recruitment efforts continue - I’m returning as Chair, and here’s the agenda page – originally scheduled to run this month, it was wisely pushed out to June hoping that Covid eases up by then - please get in touch to learn more, either for speaking or sponsoring/exhibiting

• In terms of current client work, here’s what I can share:

  • Webinar on February 10 with Vonage, which is in support of a white paper that will be published any time now

  • Completing a new white paper and e-book for a Tier 1 collaboration vendor

  • Starting a series of thought leadership pieces for a leading contact center vendor

  • Continued blog posts ghost-written for a contact center vendor

  • Book review to be published any time now for a new book co-written by the CEO for a Tier 1 vendor

Hey Did You Know....Part 1

…… that being an “influencer” is a thing now. Sure is, and it’s not just for TikTokkers. Being a “thought leader” is usually the main badge of honor for analysts, but if you live and die by social media, you need metrics. The new currency is shares, likes, followers, etc., and while my numbers are pretty modest, it’s enough to gain some industry recognition – woo hoo! 

The new year is young, and already I’ve had 4 influencer kudos, and a 5th is coming, but I can’t talk about it yet. As the thumbs below show, these new badges of honor reflect the variety of work that I do – future of work, hybrid work, UCaaS and CCaaS. Check through my blog posts about these to get the reports and full lists of influencers. Hey - and if you share, don’t forget to tag me! Twitter is @arnoldjon, and LinkedIn is @J Arnold & Associates.  Wouldn’t hurt to throw in an emoji – just for fun.  😊

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - January Edition 2022

• Season 5 of Watch This Space kicks off 2022 with an episode titled “Technology Innovation: From Telecom to Space Exploration to the Metaverse”. With Omicron extending the pandemic, Chris Fine and I explore the longer-term implications of hybrid work, including how virtual experiences are becoming normalized, and how the metaverse isn’t that far-fetched now. With virtual modes becoming the new reality, we bring our analog lens to look at where technology innovation is going, especially for developing new models that are not bracketed by space and time.

• 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. 

• As time allows, I have a long list of podcast platforms to add Watch This Space to, so please bear with me. It’s only on a couple right now, but the list will soon grow, and they’ll be listed on the website for reference.

• If you don’t yet know, this new WTS website will host our episodes for 2022 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 can be accessed here on my JAA website. 

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

• 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.

• Industry conference roundup – just two events, including one where I was a presenter:

  • December 8 – Five 9 Canada CX Summit – virtual and a presenter

  • December 12-14 – Avaya Engage, Orlando, FL – in-person

• Project work - key highlights for last month, and links to some of these can be found in my December blog posts:

  • As noted earlier, I gave a presentation during the Five9s Canada CX Summit

  • Was on two BCStrategies podcasts – Industry News and Merger Trends, and 2021 Year in Review

  • Huawei produces a video series about global technology trends – Decoded – and I appeared as a guest speaker

  • I was a panelist on a video debate event sponsored by Huawei 

  • Two more posts published without byline for a contact center vendor on their blog

  • Completed a due diligence project on the CPaaS space for an investment banker 

  • Ramped up planning and speaker recruitment activity for Future of Work Expo, running Feb. 8-10 – if interested, please get in touch!

• December writing spotlight – here’s my pick, running on No Jitter: We Need UCaaS More Than Ever for Hybrid Work - Here’s Why

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

• Media citings – I had 4 citations for December

• 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 December:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 22,241 views and 26 posts – lower than November, but largely due to one post last month with an exceptional number of views

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 2,247 views and overall, 9 posts had 700+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 16,900 impressions, 1,456 profile visits, 66 mentions, 36 tweets and 10 new followers – impressions were way down from November, but other metrics were way up – go figure!

  • My “top tweet” was during Avaya ENGAGE, with 2,508 impressions, and overall, 5 tweets had 1,000+ impressions, and 10 had 600+

• SIPtones update – we had our first gig in ages back in November during the SCTC conference, and video highlights will be added to my website soon. If you don’t know about my musical side, you can check out both video clips and photos here on the My Music tab, including some new ones from our SCTC gig.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for January

• Got two virtual events on tap so far for January, but that can change in a hurry:

  • January 24 - Wildix Virtual UC&C Summit 2021 

  • January 25-26, VON3 – presenting as well

• Other activities to watch for during January:

• Webinar about the CPaaS value proposition for a leading vendor, based on a white paper I produced for them, which will be published very soon

• Book review for a book co-written by the CEO of a leading contact center vendor

• New white paper – and e-book – about mobile collaboration for a leading UCaaS vendor

• Guest article for a leading channel publication about the value of offering CCaaS and UCaaS together for end customers

• New series of guest blog posts for a contact center vendor

• Beginning an ongoing program of thought leadership pieces for a leading contact center vendor

• Two – possibly three – new strategic advisory engagements to help clients with go-to-market and thought leadership positioning 

Hey Did You Know....Part 1

As I said one year ago right here in this section of the newsletter, “we can’t move on from 2020 fast enough” – not much has changed going into 2022, and if you managed to stay healthy, kudos to you! All good here, and 2021 was just as strong for my business as 2020. I’m grateful for the steady work, and 2022 is already looking to be even better. 

Being an analyst, I think in terms of numbers, and I’m sure many of you do as well. So, it’s time to present my annual by-the-numbers snapshot of what kept me busy during 2021. Numbers aside, this should give you a better idea of what an analyst does, and the various forms that “thought leadership” takes.

Social Media Footprint – 2021 By the Numbers

Thought Leadership and Business Activity – 2021 By the Numbers

• 10 new clients (not including new work from existing clients)

• 45 conferences/industry events – virtual (mostly all) or live

• 8 of these events I was either moderating or speaking

• 4 events serving as a judge

• 56 published articles/guest posts

• 92 posts on my JAA blog

• 36 podcasts (including Watch This Space for this newsletter)

• 7 webinars/video segments

• 2 white papers

• 3 live Twitter chats or LinkedIn events

• 12 editions of this newsletter

• 23 JAA citings in the media

• 4 new industry accolades

• 1 SIPtones gig

Hey Did You Know....Part 2

… I’ve updated my logo! My practice started in 2005, and this is the first time I’ve done a logo refresh. So much has changed since then, and I’ve been meaning to update my logo to better reflect where my expertise is resonating today in the market. 

Wearing my marketing hat, you gotta mix it up every now and then, and that’s the same reason why I just updated my newsletter logo. Both my newsletter – JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review – and my podcast – Watch This Space – stand on their own, so having distinct logos for each helps establish their brand identities. Apart from this, my analyst practice is really the over-arching brand, as this is where my client engagement happens.

So, if you’re still with me, here’s my brand-new logo. Consider this a soft launch, and in the coming weeks, it will replace current iterations of my JAA logo. I hope you like it, and would love any and all feedback. That’s my kickoff for 2022 – what’s yours?

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - December Edition 2021

• Season 4 of Watch This Space closed out with an episode titled “2021 in Review – Hybrid Work Realities and Consolidation Trends 2021" did not lack for interesting developments as we all struggle to make sense during these challenging times. Chris and I summed things up by focusing on two broad trends that we feel will set the stage for 2022. One would be the emerging hybrid work environment, both in terms of technology innovation and balancing the needs of workers and employers. Second would be industry consolidation, which saw both large and small deals, largely driven by the need to acquire AI pieces. As AI’s star ascends, we consider the impact on who will be driving the buying decisions, and what’s driving their thinking.

• Flipping the switch from summer to fall seems much easier than coaxing workers to shift. Chris and I examine the role collaboration technology plays in all this, along with what else is needed to keep workers happy and in the fold.

• 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. 

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms. More are in the works, and I’ll soon be adding links to all of these on the WTS website. Currently, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

• The Watch This Space 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. 

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

• 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.

• Conference roundup – there were three virtual conferences, and my first in-person event since the pandemic – finally!

  • SCTC Annual Conference - Nov. 1-4 – in person

  • Mavenir 2021 Analyst Day – Nov. 9

  • Genesys 2021 Analyst and Influencer Summit – Nov. 9-10

  • Slack Frontiers 2021 - Nov. 16-17

• Speaking opp – I provided another lock note talk to close out the SCTC conference

• SIPtones gig – always fun, and we got to play at SCTC – video clips coming soon, yeah

• Podcast – I was a guest on the Channel Futures podcast, Coffee with Craig and James, talking about Copper Sunset and implications for decommissioning the PSTN. 

• Guest posts – in addition to this month being my regular turn to write for No Jitter wearing my BCStrategies hat, I had two guest articles run; one about the benefits of deploying UCaaS and CCaaS together, and one about NAOV – New Age of Voice – links to both are in my Writing Roundup post, as well as on my blog

• Spotlight on voice-enabling UCaaS – in addition to these No Jitter posts, I did a spotlight post on my blog, taking the form of a Q&A interview with Dawn-Marie Elder, COO of SIPPIO

• Writing roundup – summary of my public writing is here – much busier this month, and if I had to pick one, it would be this writeup on No Jitter: Start Saying Goodbye to the Contact Center

• Media citings – was a busy month, with 7 citings

• 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 November:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 33,078 views and 26 posts – by far, the most views I’ve ever tallied, mainly due to the traffic for one of my posts from the Genesys event, featuring CEO Tony Bates

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 13,891 views and overall, 11 posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 11,500 impressions, 1,590 profile visits, 52 mentions, 32 tweets, and 15 new followers

  • My “top tweet” was about the Genesys Summit event, with 1,789 impressions, and overall, 4 tweets had 500+ impressions

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for December

• As the year comes to a close, event activity takes a breather – thankfully - I only have one on the calendar, and it’s in-person:

  • Avaya Engage, Orlando, FL, Dec. 12-15

• Speaker recruitment continues for the Future of Work Expo coming this February - I’m returning as Chair, and here’s the Agenda page - please get in touch to learn more, either for speaking or sponsoring/exhibiting

• On the branding front, I’ve been working on new logos to better reflect my business focus for 2022 – one for my company JAA, and one for this newsletter – coming soon!

• In terms of December client work, here are the highlights for active projects:

  • Another live Twitter event with Huawei, Dec. 6

  • Speaking gig for a leading contact center vendor, for their virtual Canadian event, Dec 8

  • Two year-in-review writeups; one for a contact center vendor, and one for a leading publisher

  • Guest post to run on the company blog site for a leading cloud comms vendor

  • Starting a new white paper for a Tier 1 collaboration vendor

  • Starting a series of thought leadership pieces for a leading contact center vendor

  • Due diligence on the CPaaS space for an investment banker

Hey Did You Know....

…it takes a lot of planning to manage all these virtual events. As with last month, here are some of my screenshots and photos from the various events I was tracking or attending.

Slack Frontiers and Mavenir Analyst Day

Genesys event – CEO Tony Bates, and John Hernandez, Todd Famous, Amy Roberge Coleman

SCTC conference – my lock note and SIPtones gig (thanks Fran Blackburn!)

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - November Edition 2021

Season 4 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Copper Sunset – Why We’ll Be Losing More Than a Network”.  This topic was spurred by recent news regarding British Telecom’s plans to decommission their copper telephony network, and is in line with similar plans in the US. While we take the universal access long-provided by the PSTN for granted, broadband access today is far from universal, which helps create the digital divide, where economic success largely depends on this access. We explore the implications of this, and how we’ll be losing more than a network when those copper telephony systems are taken out of service.

• Flipping the switch from summer to fall seems much easier than coaxing workers to shift from home to office, and we explore what’s behind the current trend known as The Great Resignation. There are good reasons why many workers aren’t just not coming back to the office, but leaving their jobs altogether. Chris and I examine the role collaboration technology plays in all this, along with what else is needed to keep workers happy and in the fold.

• 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. 

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms. More are in the works, and I’ll soon be adding links to all of these on the WTS website. Currently, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

• The Watch This Space 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. 

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

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.

• Virtual conference roundup – the fall virtual conference pace continued last month:

  • NICE/inContact Analyst Summit, Oct. 6-7

  • RingCentral 2021 Analyst Summit, Oct. 11-12

  • UC Expo virtual, Oct. 13-14

  • BT Annual Global Analyst Event, Oct. 13-14

  • Google Cloud, Oct. 12-14

  • Twilio Analyst and Influencer Summit, Oct. 18-19

  • Cisco Webex One, Oct. 26-27

  • Fuze productfest, Oct. 27 – despite being on my calendar, I wasn’t able to track the sessions due to a subsequent travel situation that came up on short notice

• Podcast – our latest BCStrategies podcast was a review of the Enterprise Connect event

• Webinar – I did another SCTC Fireside Chat, this time about the “magic” behind the Gartner Magic Quadrant

• Video #1 – I did a Twitter Live broadcast in New York City, in conversation with Andy Purdy, CSO of Huawei USA – details on my blog, including a link to watch on demand

• Video #2 – for the UC Expo in the UK, I was interviewed via video, providing my insights about a session moderated by colleague Zeus Kerravala – I didn’t blog about it, but you can watch the full session moderated by Zeus, along with my interview, which starts at the 39:20 mark – here’s the link

• White paper – I wrote a white paper for Cisco about how customer experience is evolving – while it was published in April 2021, it hasn’t been publicly shared until recently – during last month’s Webex One event, the white paper was included in their Resources offerings, and here’s the link to access the white paper

• Perspectives on customer experience - in support of last month’s CX Day event, Genesys compiled perspectives from various analysts, including myself, on the importance of CX and why it needs to be a priority for contact center leaders – see my Oct. 5 blog post for more detail, including a link to our perspectives

• Writing roundup – summary of public writing is here, with only one this month - my latest for No Jitter: “Return to Office Challenges: What Workers Want”

• Media citings – had two of these 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 October:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 21,568 views and 38 posts – tallies are up quite a bit from September

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,357 views and overall, 11 posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 17,800 impressions, 2,271 profile visits, 31 mentions, 53 tweets, and 11 new followers – trends are up somewhat from September

  • My “top tweet” was about Twilio’s CEO Jeff Lawson during a session with analysts, with 796 impressions, and 9 tweets had 500+ impressions

• 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 November

• As with October, I have a full slate of events to track – several of these have in-person options, but I’ll be doing them all virtually:

  • SCTC Annual Conference, Nov. 1-4 – in person!

  • Mavenir – Nov. 9

  • Genesys – Nov. 9-10

  • Slack Frontiers, Nov. 16-17

• During the SCTC conference, I’ll be doing the lock note talk on Thursday, and as part of the SIPtones, we’re performing Tuesday night

• For the Future of Work Expo coming this February, I’m returning as Chair, and there’s lots in play for lining up speakers for the program – here’s the Agenda page - please get in touch to learn more, either for speaking or sponsoring

• In terms of client work, here are the highlights for active projects:

  • For a leading cloud provider, I’ve written two pieces – one will run on a major publisher’s site, and one will run on their blog site

  • My 6-part blog series for a contact center vendor concludes this month 

  • Completed a white paper about CPaaS – publishing soon, along with a companion webinar

  • New engagements that should be ready to start in November will be a mix of work, including a consulting role for marketing strategy, another one that is analyst-based, a new podcast for the channel community, a white paper for a cloud provider, and a series of short and mid-length writeups for a contact center vendor.

Hey Did You Know....

…it takes a lot of planning to manage all these virtual events. As with last month, here are some of my screenshots from the various events I was tracking.

NICE CEO Barak Eilam, RingCentral executive roundtable

British Telecom CEO Bas Burger, Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson

Google and Google Cloud CEOs Sundar Pichai and Thomas Kurian, Cisco EVP/GM Security and Collaboration, Jeetu Patel

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - October Edition 2021

• Season 4 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Can Collaboration Technology Save The Great Resignation?”.  Flipping the switch from summer to fall seems much easier than coaxing workers to shift from home to office, and we explore what’s behind the current trend known as The Great Resignation. There are good reasons why many workers aren’t just not coming back to the office, but leaving their jobs altogether. Chris and I examine the role collaboration technology plays in all this, along with what else is needed to keep workers happy and in the fold.

• 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. 

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms. More are in the works, and I’ll soon be adding links to all of these on the WTS website. Currently, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

• The Watch This Space 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.  

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 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.

• Virtual conference roundup – no shortage of events last month, but with so much overlap, I couldn’t fully track them:

  • Big 5G Event, Aug. 31-Sept. 2

  • Five9 CX Summit, Sept. 1-2

  • Zoomtopia, Sept. 13-14

  • NEC Visionary Week 2021, Sept. 16-17

  • Salesforce Dreamforce, Sept. 21-23

  • Nokia Algorithm World, Sept. 21

  • Enterprise Connect, Sept. 27-29

• Conference presentation – this was my fourth year at Enterprise Connect presenting on the state of speech tech and AI in the enterprise – for those who registered, a replay is available for the next three months – otherwise, for now here’s a review and slide show of my talk in Channel Futures 

• Podcast – our latest BCStrategies podcast was a review of the Zoomtopia event

• Video – I did a short promo clip on BCStrategies for my Enterprise Connect talk

• Writing roundup – nothing posted publicly – see my blog post for the story there

• Media citings – had two of these 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 15,354 views and 24 posts – tallies are up a bit from August

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,024 views and overall, 9 posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 15,600 impressions, 2,315 profile visits, 37 mentions, 32 tweets, and 32 new followers – trends are up quite a bit from August

  • My “top tweet” was about Slack during the Dreamforce event, with 1,815 impressions, and 6 tweets had 500+ impressions

• 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

• As with September, I have a full slate of events to track – several of these have in-person options, but I’ll be doing them all virtually:

  • NICE/inContact Analyst Summit, Oct. 6-7

  • RingCentral 2021 Analyst Summit, Oct. 11-12

  • UX Expo virtual, Oct. 13-14

  • BT Annual Global Analyst Event, Oct. 13-14

  • Google Cloud, Oct. 12-14

  • Twilio Analyst and Influencer Summit, Oct. 18-19

  • Cisco Webex One, Oct. 26-27

  • Fuze productfest, Oct. 27 

• In terms of client work, here are the highlights for active projects:

  • My 6-part blog series for a contact center vendor continues 

  • Completed a white paper about CPaaS – publishing soon, along with a companion webinar

  • Wrote a blog commentary for a leading contact center vendor that is part of a broader post that will run on CX Day on Oct. 5

  • Wrote an article about the value of voice for a cloud vendor for publishing this month, and that will be followed by a guest blog post

  • New engagements are being developed now with four different vendors – two are existing clients and two are new

Hey Did You Know....

…it takes a lot of planning to manage all these virtual events. Here are some of my screen shots to give you a flavor of what I was tracking last month – Enterprise Connect, Big 5G Event, Zoomtopia, Salesforce Dreamforce, Five9 CX Summit, Nokia Algorithm World.

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - September Edition 2021

• Season 4 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “How to Make Virtual Work Work and Where Emerging Technologies Can Help”. Labor Day is a good time to think about the longer-term implications of virtual work, and we explore how this checks many boxes for workers, but less so for management. We also discuss how the world of consulting represents a good model for making this work, along with where emerging technologies can serve a higher purpose to build culture.

• 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.

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms. More are in the works, and I’ll soon be adding links to all of these on the WTS website. Currently, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

• The Watch This Space 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.

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

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.

• Virtual conference roundup – none, but a whole lot coming next month

• LinkedIn Live event – this was a first timer for me, but I hosted a livestream event on my LinkedIn feed, in conversation with the CSO of Huawei USA about cybersecurity, data privacy and open source – details to watch the replay are later in this newsletter

• New kudo – was named a Top 50 Contact Center Twitter Account to Follow by the folks at Playvox

• Podcast – in conversation with Ireland-based Arkphire about supporting home-based workers, hosted by EM360

• August writing – had a mix of long and short pieces, but my pick would be this: “Spotlight on Global Supply Chain Management – Lessons Learned from the Semiconductor Chip Shortage”, posted on my blog, August 5

• Writing roundup – here’s my August summary

• Media citings – had two of these during August

• 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 August:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 11,968 views and 20 posts – tallies are similar to July, but with more posts

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,142 views and overall, 7 posts had 600+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 14,900 impressions, 1,512 profile visits, 26 mentions, 12 tweets, and 2 new followers – a bit lighter than July

  • My “top tweet” was about my LinkedIn Live event, with 1,572 impressions

• 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 September

• August was quiet on the event front – I’m not complaining – but the Fall is busy right out of the gate, with several virtual events that I’ll be tracking:

  • Big 5G Event, Aug. 31-Sept. 2

  • Five9 CX Summit, Sept. 1-2

  • Zoomtopia, Sept. 13-14

  • NEC Visionary Week 2021, Sept. 16-17

  • Salesforce Dreamforce, Sept. 21-23

  • Nokia Algorithm World, Sept. 21

  • Enterprise Connect, Sept. 27-29 - will be speaking – at the moment, the event will be hybrid, but I will only be virtual – details below

• At Enterprise Connect, I’ll be giving my fourth update on the state of AI and speech technology in the enterprise. I had every intention of presenting in-person, but given the current state of things – especially in Florida – I’ll only be doing this virtually. My talk will be Tuesday, September 28 at 2pm ET – here’s a preview article of my update on No Jitter, along with details to register. I hope you can join me!

• Also, for Enterprise Connect, if you haven’t registered to attend in-person yet, you can save $400 by using this link!

• In terms of client work, here are the highlights for active projects:

  • New 6-part blog series for a contact center vendor

  • Planning a webinar and a series of articles for a new contact center client

  • Guest blog posts for 2 different vendors to support upcoming campaigns

  • 3 pending projects that should all get underway in September

Hey Did You Know....

… we sure live in a multi-media world, and I had a nice mix of that last month. Aside from the usual output of writing, podcasts and webinars, I was in three different things last month that are out of the norm for me.
First, a well-known vendor in the communications space is making a documentary, and I’m one of the people serving as an interview subject. My segment was filmed on location here in Toronto, and the finished product is set to come out later next month. I don’t know yet if I can share the film publicly, but will provide some sort of update for sure. If you’ve never been on a set, here’s a glimpse of what it looks like.

Next one - on Aug. 18, I hosted my first LinkedIn Live event, in conversation with Andy Purdy, CSO for Huawei USA – screen shot below. Details are here, and to watch the replay, sign into LinkedIn and then use this link.

Finally, this was from Avaya, where they asked me to comment about them winning a recent UC Award, where I served as a judge. Instead of including it in a press release, they created this short animation on Twitter. Kinda different, but it gets your attention!

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - August Edition 2021

Season 4 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Zoom/Five9 Deal and Back to the Office – Really?”. Our timing was good to talk about perhaps the biggest tech deal this year in our space, the acquisition of Five9 by Zoom. Many implications to consider, especially for the remaining pure play contact center vendors, with more moves no doubt to come. With summer beckoning and pandemic fears easing, we also explored how crowds are back now for many sporting events, live music, etc., but return to office – not so much.

• 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.

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms. More are in the works, and I’ll soon be adding links to all of these on the WTS website. Currently, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

• The Watch This Space 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.

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.

• Virtual conference roundup – only one - Twilio analyst update, July 15

• Webinars:

  • Managing hybrid work for Ingram Micro Canada, July 6

  • Strategies for contact centers to adopt digital channels for NovelVox, July 22

• Podcast - Zoom’s acquisition of Five9, BCStrategies, July 28

• Podcast recording – security issues for hybrid working, EM360 – will run early August

• Industry Event - UC Awards 2021, live broadcast announcing the winners, for which I served as a judge, July 29

• July writing – pretty light output, but my pick would be: “Genesys Xperience – My Perspectives on DX and CX”, on BCStrategies, June 30 (technically June, but was fresh for all of July)

• Writing roundup – here’s my July summary

• Media citings – just one for July

• 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 June:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 13,314 views and 13 posts – tallies are down about half from June levels – due to being offline much of last month

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,446 views and overall, 4 posts had 800+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 15,400 impressions, 2,304 profile visits, 54 mentions, 16 tweets, and 4 new followers – about half less for impressions and mentions, but the other metrics were about the same from June levels

  • My “top tweet” was about the UC Awards event, with 3,578 impressions

• 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 August

• Event-wise August is quiet – as expected – but the Fall is already quite crowded – again, as expected – with a mix of in-person and virtual events

• In terms of client work, here are the highlights for active projects:

  • Working on a new white paper about the value of UCaaS and CCaaS together

  • Last of my 6-part blog series for a contact center vendor runs this month

  • Publishing an article on the semiconductor space and global supply chain issues

  • Publishing an article on how channel partners can build a cloud-based voice practice

  • Conducting a livestream fireside chat on LinkedIn with the CSO of a major OEM

  • Planning a webinar and a series of articles for a new contact center client

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - July Edition 2021

• Season 4 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Who’s The Boss? New Priorities for the Post-Pandemic Workplace”. As the end appears in sight for the pandemic, Chris and I explored the emerging dynamics between employers and employees. Both have been reconsidering their priorities, and while today’s technologies make collaboration easier than ever, there’s a lot more to consider than just the work itself. We review how the concept of work has become more fluid, and the importance of flexibility for business leaders to navigate this new environment.

• 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. 

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms. More are in the works, and I’ll soon be adding links to all of these on the WTS website. Currently, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

• The Watch This Space 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.

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

• 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.

• Virtual conference roundup – had four virtual events, with a lot of overlapping dates, but managed to track them all:

  • Talkdesk Opentalk 2021, June 15-16

  • Fuze Analyst and Influence event, June 15

  • Genesys Xperience, June 23-24

  • Future of Work, June 23-25

• Video segment on my analyst work – was interviewed by Joe Fields of Onalytica, as a follow on to their recent Who’s Who? reports on Telephony and Unified Communication that I was cited in both – details here, and  you can watch the interview down below

• New white paper for Cisco – not publicly shared yet, but details coming soon

• June writing – pretty light output, but if you want a top pick, try this: “Genesys Xperience – My Perspectives on CX and DX”, on BCStrategies  

• Writing roundup – here’s my summary for June

• Judging – completed my judging work for these two events:

  • Talkdesk – CX Innovators Awards – winners were announced during Opentalk

  • UC Today – UC Awards 2021 – winners to be announced July 29

• Media citings – just one for June

• 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 June:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 23,591 views and 24 posts – a tad higher than last month, and the highest level so far in 2021 for views

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 2,348 views and overall, 5 posts had 800+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 31,800 impressions, 2,028 profile visits, 54 mentions, 31 tweets, and 5 new followers – impressions are down from May, but all else is up

  • My “top tweet” was about one of my sessions during the Future of Work event, with 5,114 impressions, and overall, 8 tweets had 1,000+ impressions

• 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 July

• Given all the recent virtual events, July is surprisingly quiet, with none scheduled so far – on the other hand, it’s summer, and come Labor Day, travel to live events will finally resume, and I’ve got many already lined up right through early November

• In terms of client work, here are the highlights for active projects:

  • July 6 webinar for Ingram Micro Canada on hybrid work

  • July 22 webinar on the value of digital channels for NovelVox

  • Working on a new white paper about the value of UCaaS and CCaaS together

  • My 6-part blog series for a contact center vendor wraps up this month

  • Researching/writing an article on the semiconductor space

  • Planning a webinar and a series of articles for a new contact center client

Hey Did You Know?

…every now and then, I get to be the interviewee instead of the interview. Here’s the Onalytica segment from last month, where I was in interviewed by Joe Fields about my analyst work. Click on the image below for full interview. 

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - June Edition 2021

• Season 4 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Should Network Providers be in the Content Business?”. The jumping off point for this big topic was the recent news about AT&T spinning out Time Warner into a separate entity, and from there, it’s not hard to understand why Amazon just acquired MGM. There are parallels to last month’s podcast about the history of telecom, and it’s another example of how IP – Internet Protocol - has disrupted industries evolving from analog to digital technologies.

• 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. 

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms. More are in the works, and I’ll soon be adding links to all of these on the WTS website. Currently, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

• The Watch This Space 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.

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

• 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.

• Virtual conference roundup – sure was a busy month, but to be fair, with so many closely-packed events, my participation was not as full as I would have liked:

  • Five9 Influencer Analyst Summit, May 3-5

  • Five9 Influencer Summit, May 7

  • Cloud Conventions, May 12-14

  • 8x8 Industry Analyst Summit, May 18

  • Zendesk Analyst Summit, May 19-20

  • Zoom Perspectives 2021, May 19-20

  • UCX: Now, May 19-20

  • NICE/inContact Interactions, May 25-26

• Webinars – I presented on one last month, and the link can be found in my blog posts:

  • TelcoBridges – CCaaS adoption trends, May 25

• May writing – if you only read one writeup of mine from last month, this would be it: “CCaaS: Rethinking Your CX and Customer Service Strategy”, on No Jitter  

• Writing roundup – not a lot to report for May, but here’s the digest

• Speaking – I had three different roles last month – as educator, presenter and panelist, and details can be found in my blog posts:   

  • PulveREDU – along with Chris Fine, we presented our first course on Jeff Pulver’s new virtual learning platform – topic was the history of telecom and lessons learned for innovators, but you had to be there to experience it!

  • Cloud Conventions – I gave an update on last year’s talk about the cloud opportunity for channel partners – followed by a live audience Q&A with Mike Cromwell

  • UCX: Now event – was a panelist on how enterprises need to manage all the new data being generated in the digital workplace

• Judging – on May 18, I returned to be a judge on Oracle Startup Idol, EMEA edition

• Industry kudo – following up March’s inclusion in “Who’s Who in Telecoms?” from Onalytica, they added me to their latest report, “Who’s Who in Unified Communications?”

• Add-on kudo – in addition to being cited in these reports, Joe Fields of Onalytica profiled me in this Q&A interview – and a more conversational video interview is coming next

• Media citings – just one for May

• 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 May:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 23,333 views and 38 posts – much higher than last month, and the highest level so far in 2021.

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 2,314 views and overall, 6 posts had 1,000+ views.

  • For Twitter – there were 45,200 impressions, 1,620 profile visits, 62 mentions, 46 tweets, and 1 new follower – for the most part, double the April metrics

  • My “top tweet” was about Bryan Martin speaking at 8x8’s analyst event, with 4,588 impressions. Overall, 10 tweets had 1,000+ impressions.

• 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 June

• As of this time, I’ll be tracking these virtual events during June:

  • Talkdesk Opentalk 2021, June 15-16

  • Fuze Analyst and Influence event, June 15

  • Genesys Xperience, June 23-24

  • Future of Work – at ITExpo – June 23-25 – returning as event Chair, but remotely – still looking for speakers, so let me know!

• Speaking of judging industry events, I’ve been invited to return for two other events coming up soon:

  • Talkdesk – CX Innovators Awards - June

  • UC Today – UC Awards 2021 - July

• In terms of client work, here are the highlights for active projects:

  • White paper launch for a major contact center vendor

  • Working on a new white paper about the value of UCaaS and CCaaS together

  • July webinar for how channels can help customers adapt to hybrid work

  • July webinar on the value of digital channels for contact centers

  • My 6-part blog series for a contact center vendor continues

  • Researching/writing an article on the semiconductor space

  • Researching/writing an article for an SBC vendor

Hey Did You Know?

…that I look pretty good in a cape – who knew?

Yup, it’s the BobbleJon – from the swag-savvy folks at Five9. They sent a bunch of fun things as part of their two analyst events last month, but this one is the keeper! They went all-in on the Star Wars “fourth be with you” theme for May, and yes, the light saber does give me magic powers.

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - May Edition 2021

• Season 4 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Lessons Learned from the History of Telephony”. Telephony has a long and rich history, and provides the template for the rise and fall of all forms of technology innovation that have followed. Lots to explore, and this podcast serves as a preview for our first PulveREDU online course on May 13 – more details later in this newsletter.

• 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. 

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms. More are in the works, and I’ll soon be adding links to all of these on the WTS website. Currently, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

• The Watch This Space 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. 

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

• 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.

• Virtual conference roundup – only two events tracked last month:

  • April 8 – Huawei Virtual Analyst Event

  • April 12-14 – Huawei Global Analyst Summit

• Podcasts – aside from this month’s Watch This Space episode, I was part of one BCStrategies podcast in April – see my blog posts for the link:

  • April 14 – Roundup of Recent Industry Events

• Webinars – I had one last month, and the link can be found in my blog posts:

  • April 14 – webinar presentation with Lumen

• April writing – for the first time in recent memory, there were no public forms of writing – I was plenty busy with project work, but nothing on the writing front – May will be different!

• Speaking – I did a short speaking spot on the business value of social media during the April 28 Fireside Chat with SCTC – it’s a 3-part series, and I’ll be doing another spot the week following

• Media citings – had one of these for April

• 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 April:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 14,704 views and 18 posts – very similar to last month.

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 3,419 views and overall, 6 posts had 800+ views.

  • For Twitter – there were 20,000 impressions, 850 profile visits, 45 mentions, 21 tweets, and 5 new followers – lighter activity from March, mainly due to having no industry events last month.

  • My “top tweet” was a shout-out for our upcoming PulveREDU course, with 11,837 impressions (thanks Jeff Pulver!). Overall, 6 tweets had 500+ impressions.

• 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 May

• Got a very busy month ahead - so far, I’ll be tracking eight virtual events during May:

  • Five9 Influencer Analyst Summit, May 3-5

  • Five9 Influencer Summit, May 7

  • Cloud Conventions, May 12-14

  • 8x8 Industry Analyst Summit, May 18

  • Zendesk Analyst Summit, May 19-20

  • Zoom Perspectives 2021, May 19-20

  • UCX: Now, May 19-20

  • Nice Interactions, May 25-26

• For two of the above, I have speaking roles, along with two others:

  • Cloud Conventions – doing a presentation on May 12

  • UCX: Now – speaking on a panel session, May 19

  • PulveREDU - Chris Fine and I are offering a one-hour education session on the changing role of voice for Jeff Pulver’s new online learning platform, May 13

  • Oracle Startup Idol 4 – am back again as a judge (not speaking), May 18

• Speaking of judging industry events, I’ve been invited to return for two other events coming up soon:

  • Talkdesk – CX Innovators Awards - June

  • UC Today – UC Awards 2021 - July

• In terms of client work, am researching/writing two new white papers, doing a go-to-market strategy project with a contact center vendor, starting a 6-part blog series for a vendor, a research article for another vendor, and as Chair for the Future of Work event in June, I’m working on recruiting speakers for our sessions – let me know if interested!

Hey Did You Know?

This is where I add something a bit different, noteworthy or fun that doesn’t fit anywhere else in the newsletter. The stars just didn’t line up this month, so I’ve got nuthin’ – but it was my birthday, so as publisher, I’m entitled, right? Doesn’t happen often, but will have something here next time.

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - April Edition 2021

• Season 4 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Microsoft 2021 Work Trend Index Report – Hybrid Work: It’s Complicated”. This brand-new report had some timely data and implications around a hot trend these days – hybrid work. There’s a growing consensus this will be the way forward as we come out of the pandemic, but it brings challenges that are distinct from work from home, as well as working in the office. We’ve got it covered, and for more, you can read my latest No Jitter article, featured later in this issue.

• 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. 

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms. More are in the works, and I’ll soon be adding links to all of these on the WTS website. Currently, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

• The Watch This Space 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..

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What’s Up? Part 2 – More Highlights and Insights 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, and my social media stats.

  • Virtual conference roundup – I tracked four events last month:

    • March 2-4 – Microsoft Ignite

    • March 4 – Vonage Analyst Day

    • March 16 – Fuze Analyst Update

    • March 30-31 – Cisco Live 

  • Podcasts – aside from this month’s Watch This Space episode, I was part of two BCStrategies podcasts in March – see my blog posts for links:

    • March 9 – What Was Supposed to be Here by Now

    • March 18 - Impressions from Microsoft Ignite

  • Webinars – I had three last month, and links can be found in my blog posts:

    • March 4 – webinar presentation with Mitel

    • March 10 – webinar presentation with Huawei

    • March 18 – webinar presentation with RingCentral

  • March writing spotlight – my latest BCStrategies post: Microsoft Ignite: Their Vision for a Post-PC World and Teams Highlights – if you don’t know what mixed reality is and how the physical and virtual worlds are starting to blur, this is a good read – and here are a few of my visuals to pique your curiosity:

Here’s my Writing Roundup post for March – it’s a monthly digest of my thought leadership across various channels, including TechTarget, No Jitter and BCStrategies 

• Media citings – had two of these for March

• Other March notables – see Hey, Did You Know? below for details:

  • Named a UC influencer in Onalytica’s Who’s Who in Telecoms?

  • Named to the UCX Advisory Council

  • Returning again as a judge for Oracle’s Startup Idol 4 in May

  • Returning as Chair of the Future of Work event during ITExpo in June

• 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 14,623 views and 22 posts – about the same as last month.

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,217 views and overall, 9 posts had 800+ views.

  • For Twitter – there were 18,200 impressions, 1,101 profile visits, 66 mentions, 33 tweets, and 16 new followers – all these stats were up from February.

  • My “top tweet” was for my No Jitter post about hybrid work, with 1,543 impressions. Overall, 12 tweets had 500+ impressions.

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 April

• Just finished a very strong quarter, with plenty to keep me busy this month and beyond:

  • Strangely, no virtual events for April – so far

  • Webinar – presenting on UCaaS, sponsored by Lumen, April date TBD

  • Working on two new white papers, will be starting a go-to-market strategy project with a contact center vendor, and other new opportunities are in play 

  • PulverREDU – Chris Fine and I are offering a one-hour education session on the changing role of voice for Jeff Pulver’s new online learning platform - coming in May

Hey Did You Know?

March sure was a busy month, and aside from my writing, speaking and client work, there were several other good things happening, and thought it best to summarize them here:

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - March Edition 2021

• Season 4 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “The New Voice – Exploring New Worlds Beyond Telephony”. The “New Voice” is my moniker for the new forms I see voice taking in my research, and it’s got nothing to do with telephony. Aside from being a fascinating topic, the podcast explains how this will be the focus of a new course we’ll be offering on PulveREDU, Jeff Pulver’s latest venture, built around targeted, immersive learning. Details soon!   

• 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. 

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms. More are in the works, and I’ll soon be adding links to all of these on the WTS website. Currently, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

• The Watch This Space 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.

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

• 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.

• Virtual conference roundup – had three one-day events last month – all very different, but all very interesting:

  • February 4 – Alcatel Lucent Enterprise Connex21 Analyst Conference

  • February 17 – Learning with Google – G Suite for Education

  • February 24 – Voicebot.ai Live 

• Project work - key highlights for last month, and links to some of these can be found in my February blog posts:

  • Wrote a guest article about telephony in Teams that will run this month on BCStrategies

  • Prepared a webinar presentation coming this month with Mitel

• Podcasts and video – here as well, links can be found in my February blog posts:

  • A Conversation About Conversational AI, BCStrategies podcast

  • CPaaS Vendors and Tech to Watch. UC Today video panel

  • Unleash the Potential – I was a guest on Rob Barlow’s video interview series

• February writing spotlight – my latest No Jitter post: The Hybrid Workplace – New Opportunities for Collaboration, Part 2 

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

• Media citings – none for February

• 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 February:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 13,252 views and 22 posts – down a bit from last month.

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,419 views and overall, 7 posts had 700+ views.

  • For Twitter – there were 16,900 impressions, 878 profile visits, 39 mentions, and 25 tweets – stats were generally up a bit from January.

  • My “top tweet” was for news about Poly’s Studio P series, with 4,138 impressions. Overall, 6 tweets had 500+ impressions – as with January, a pretty light month.

• 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 March

• Got five virtual events on tap so far for March:

  • March 2-4 – Microsoft Ignite

  • March 4 – Vonage Analyst Day

  • March 9-10 – Enterprise Connect Virtual 

  • March 16 – Fuze, Analyst Update

  • March 30-31 – Cisco Live

• Other activities to watch for during March:

• March 4 – webinar presentation with Mitel

• March 10 – webinar presentation with Huawei

• March 18 – webinar presentation with RingCentral

Hey Did You Know?

…that it’s been a year – one whole year – since I had travel of any kind, business or personal. 

Seems like a lifetime ago, and over that time, I would have likely travelled to 20+ industry events. Here we are in 2021, and while I miss the travel, my business has never been better. Virtual events are the norm now, but nothing beats being with your colleagues in person, and we sure hope we can get back to that soon. 

Until then, here’s a quick flashback to early March, 2020, and this was that last time I’ve travelled anywhere since. I was conducting focus groups for a client in Tampa Bay, Florida, and let’s just say we got them done in a nick of time – a week later, and we couldn’t have done this. 

This was early days of the pandemic, and in the photo below, you can see the hand sanitizer and wipes on the table. Good measures, but that was about it. There wasn’t any social distancing, masks, restrictions on sizes of gatherings, or lockdowns of any kind. 

Seems unthinkable now, but thankfully, I’m healthy, and the client was happy with the work. And since, then, Tampa has become Titletown in the sports world. Being a Boston guy, I didn’t see that coming, wow!

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - February Edition 2021

• Season 4 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Making Work from Home Work – Are We Putting Too Much Trust in Big Tech?”, and is exactly what the title suggests. In the wake of conspiracy theories poisoning our democracy, along with unchecked market power from Big Tech, there’s a lot to be concerned about, not just for a free society, but a safe and productive workforce. Too much ground to cover in one podcast, but I hope this episode is thought-provoking, and there’s more to come.

• 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. 

• As time allows, I have a long list of podcast platforms to add Watch This Space to, so please bear with me. It’s only on a couple right now, but the list will soon grow, and they’ll be listed on the website for reference.

• If you don’t yet know, this new 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.  

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

• 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.

• Virtual conference roundup – only two events for January, and that was a welcome let-up from the past few months, which were impossibly busy:

  • January 18 – Wildix 2021 UCC Summit

  • January 28 – Uniphore Conversational Automation 2021

• Project work - key highlights for last month, and links to some of these can be found in my January blog posts:

  • Returned to serve as a judge for Oracle Startup Idol 3

  • Guest blog post for NextPlane on unified presence

  • Guest post for SIPPIO on voice-enabling Microsoft Teams

  • Insight report for Upstream Works, Part 3 – Embracing Contact Center AI in 2021

• Podcasts – participated in 3 of them with BCStrategies:

  • Best practices for video meetings

  • 2021 predictions for the collaboration space

  • 2020 year in review

• January writing spotlight – my latest No Jitter post: The Hybrid Workplace – New Opportunities for Collaboration, Part 1 

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

• Media citings – on the light side, with just one citation

• Newsletter updates – during January there were two notable additions, long overdue – with more coming next month:

  • Thought Leadership section – Authored Articles – totally updated with current examples

  • Newsletter Archive – finally added this to the website with all the 2020 editions, and 2019 is coming next – now you can review earlier newsletters you might have missed or deleted, plus this adds a new layer of content that’s searchable

• 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 January:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 16,558 views and 28 posts – lower traffic compared to December, which is in line with there being fewer industry events last month.

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,164 views and overall, 7 posts had 800+ views.

  • For Twitter – there were 15,500 impressions, 789 profile visits, 55 mentions, and 25 tweets – impressions and number of tweets were down from December, but profile visits and mentions were up.

  • My “top tweet” was for our BCStrategies podcast on video meetings, with 3,685 impressions. Overall, 7 tweets had 500+ impressions – pretty light month.

• 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 February

• Just two virtual events on tap so far for February, but that can change in a hurry:

  • February 4 – Alcatel Lucent Enterprise Connex21 Analyst Conference 

  • February 16-17 - UCX Tech Predictions Mini Summit

• Other activities to watch for during February:

  • Speaking on a panel session about the state of CPaaS for UC Today

  • Guest post for a leading session border controller vendor

  • Preparing for two March webinars – one about cloud contact center, and one about migrating from legacy telephony to the cloud

  • New series of guest blog posts for a contact center vendor

• This update is shorter than normal, but during the first month of 2021, I was very active developing my project pipeline, both with current and prospective clients – stay tuned

Hey Did You Know?

…. that the future sure looks a lot like the past. Here’s a good example – a flashback blog post of mine from December 2009, with a look-ahead to the next decade – the 2010’s. Time sure flies, huh?

For years I’ve been saying that the distinctions between telcos, cabelcos, ISPs, etc. will eventually go away, and a new order will emerge. Nobody knows yet if the new order looks like Google or a super communications entity built from the best pieces of telcos like AT&T (News - Alert). However, I’m pretty sure the answer will become clear over the course of the coming decade, and my gut says that how privacy is handled will have a lot to do with it.

Well, those distinctions for classes of service providers have largely gone away, but at that time, I don’t think anyone foresaw how Amazon could become a player in our space, or how the rise of streaming services like Netflix would almost single-handedly destroy the cable business. Who knew? I guess that’s what keeps this space so interesting.

Also, our concerns a decade ago about privacy were – and remain – valid, but this was way before AI matured and became a driving force in the world of communications. Not to mention how big tech then has become Big Tech today, and the struggle to preserve personal privacy now sure feels like a losing battle. 

Sidebar - if that’s on your mind, we explore things further on this month’s podcast, so you might want to give that a listen. With that flashback to 2009 noted, it’s time to fast-forward to 2021, and focus on what’s coming in the current decade. If I’m still in the game in 2029, I’ll certainly do this look-back again, but until then, I’ll just stay in the moment, and chronicle things one month at a time.

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - January Edition 2021

• Season 4 of Watch This Space kicks off with an episode titled “Thinking About Bigger Use Cases for AI”, and builds on a talk I recently saw from Dr. Michio Kaku about how AI can be used to help defeat COVID-19. There is nothing bigger or more pressing for the world to solve right now, and this is the moment AI is really built for. If that doesn’t catch your interest, I don’t know what will, so it’s on you if you don’t give our this-is-how-we-save-the-world podcast a listen. 

• 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. 

• As time allows, I have a long list of podcast platforms to add Watch This Space to, so please bear with me. It’s only on a couple right now, but the list will soon grow, and they’ll be listed on the website for reference.

• If you don’t yet know, this new 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.  

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

• 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.

• Virtual conference roundup – another busy month of events to track, but the content was rich, and a great way to round out 2020:

  • December 1 - RingCentral Analyst Day

  • December 1-4 – NEC Visionary Week 2020

  • December 2 – Pexip Analyst Day

  • December 2-3 – Genesys Analyst and Influencer Day

  • December 8-9 – Cisco WebexOne

  • December 8-9 – Google Public Sector Summit

  • December 14-18 (and beyond) - Amazon re:Invent

• Project work - key highlights for last month, and links to some of these can be found in my December blog posts:

  • Presented on 2 more Fireside Chats for SCTC – variations on the topic of AI and why it’s a great opportunity for consultants – Parts 4 and 5, December 2 and 9

  • Completed a series of 3 Insight Reports for a leading Canadian contact center vendor - the first two have been published, with the third coming in January

  • Presented on a RingCentral webinar about the benefits of cloud telephony

  • Featured in a video segment for EM360 – Top 5 Collaboration Trends for 2021

  • Published a lengthy Q&A with Steve Johnson of Ingate Systems about the state of the session border controller market on BCStrategies

• December writing spotlight – got two top picks for this month: What Contact Centers Can Learn from the Tampa Bay Rays in Customer Magazine, and A Better Way to Do AI: Focus on the Big Problems for No Jitter 

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

• Media citings – on the light side, with just one citation

• 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 December:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 22,115 views and 43 posts – compared to November, total views were down about 9%, but I had more posts

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,077 views and overall, 8 posts had 700+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 52,400 impressions, 683 profile visits, 44 mentions, 45 tweets and 1 new follower – impressions were up 26% from November, and profile visits spiked, with over twice as many as November

  • My “top tweet” was during RingCentral Analyst Day, with 9,624 impressions – likely an all-time high. Overall, 5 tweets had 2,000+ impressions, and 14 had 800+.

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 January

• Just one virtual event on tap so far for January, but that can change in a hurry:

  • January 18 - Wildix Virtual UC&C Summit 2021 

• Other activities to watch for during January:

  • Guest blog post for a new client about how enterprises can truly unify their fragmented approach to collaboration

  • Market sizing project for a vendor in the collaboration space

  • Preparing a presentation for a February webinar for a leading UCaaS player

  • New series of guest blog posts for a contact center vendor

  • Guest post for a session border controller vendor

  • Returning as a judge for the next round of Oracle Startup Idol

Hey Did You Know?

We can’t move on from 2020 fast enough, but it turned out to be my busiest year ever. Am grateful for the steady workload and clutch of new clients, and it sure looks like more of the same for 2021. 

I wouldn’t expect any of my subscribers to be up on the full range my activities, so here’s one way to do that – my 2020 by the numbers. Most of these are updates from last year, but given how busy things have been, I’ve added some new metrics, including my social media tallies.

Social Media – 2020 by the Numbers

Thought Leadership and Business Activity – 2020 by the Numbers

•   7 new clients (not including new work from existing clients)

•   40 conferences/industry events 

•   10 of these events I was either moderating or speaking

•   5 events serving as a judge

•   66 published articles/guest posts/video segments

•  124 blog posts

•   24 podcasts (including Watch This Space for this newsletter)

•  14 webinars

•   3 white papers

•   2 Twitter chats

•   12 editions of this newsletter 

•   31 JAA citings in the media

•   2 new industry accolades    

•   2 SIPtones gigs

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - December Edition 2020

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• This month’s episode is titled “How Did We Really Do in 2020?”, and being a bit of a year-in- review, we ran a bit longer than usual. A year like no other would be an understatement, and we hope you find our take interesting, and maybe even refreshing. 

• If you 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. 

• As time allows, I have a long list of podcast platforms to add Watch This Space to, so please bear with me. It’s only on a couple right now, but the list will soon grow, and they’ll be listed on the website for reference.

• If you don’t yet know, this new 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. 

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

• 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.

• Virtual conference roundup – only 4 events to track last month, but as always, a pretty interesting mix of topics and technologies:

  • November 3 - Cisco Canada’s Partner Summit

  • November 11-13 - Financial Times Live: Global Boardroom Virtual Event

  • November 17-18 – Mavenir Analyst Event

  • November 17-18 – Cisco Connect

• Project work highlights - links to some of these can be found in my November blog posts:

  • Presented on 3 Fireside Chats for SCTC – variations on the topic of AI and why it’s a great opportunity for consultants – November, 4, 11 and 18

  • Completed a series of 3 Insight Reports for a leading Canadian contact center vendor - the first has been published, with the next two coming in December

  • My latest white paper was launched – done for Mitel, Customer Experience Challenges in Pandemic Times

  • Participated in a Twitter chat, sponsored by Mitel, focusing on findings covered in the above white paper

  • Presented on a webinar sponsored by Lifesize about the value of video for contact centers

  • Recorded a video segment for UK-based EM360 about 5 collaboration trends for 2021 – watch for that soon

• November writing spotlight – top pick would be my latest for No Jitter: A Change is Gonna Come: Reflections on Slack, Twilio, Zoom 

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

• Another host for Watch This Space – speaking of BCStrategies – where I’m a regular contributor – you can now access my podcast there as well

• Media citings – 4 mentions in the media for November

• 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 October:

  • For LinkedIn – in November, I had 24,558 views, with 30 posts 

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 2,189 views – a shout-out for a Twitter chat I did with Mitel 

  • Overall, 9 posts had 1,000+ views, and 20 posts had 500+ views.

  • For Twitter - there were 41,500 impressions, 174 profile visits, 74 mentions, 48 tweets and 11 new followers 

  • My “top tweet” was a shout-out for the first Fireside Chat in a series on AI that I was speaking at with SCTC - it had 7,513 impressions. Overall, 7 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 November

• So far, the month starts busy, with six virtual events in the first two weeks – but not likely any others coming as we head in holiday season:

  • December 1 - RingCentral Analyst Day

  • December 1-4 – NEC Visionary Week

  • December 2 – Pexip Analyst Day

  • December 2-3 – Genesys 2020 Virtual Analyst Event

  • December 8-9 – Cisco WebexOne

  • December 8-9 – Google Cloud Public Sector Summit

• Otherwise, three live events for clients are on the calendar so far - check my blog and social feeds for details:

  • December 2 and 9 – two more SCTC Fireside Chats on AI

  • December 8 – webinar presentation for RingCentral on the business case for cloud telephony 

• Other activities to watch for during December:

• Follow-on article for a leading contact center magazine about themes explored in last month’s webinar with Eventus

• A Q&A interview I did with the CEO of a leading SBC vendor, to be published on BCStrategies

• Two new projects about to start with new clients, and follow-on work from recent projects is looking promising

Hey Did You Know?

…if you stick around long enough, you get to live through history, and then there are more interesting dots to connect in life.

Who Shot JFK? Obama wins. Obama smiles. How can these dots possibly be connected?

Read on, and you’ll find out – and I think you’ll be glad you did.

Every so often I include a flashback in this section for an old blog post or photo that seems apropos for the newsletter. November was a good month for me business-wise, but it was also election time, and if you’re even mildly interested in American politics, I think you’ll enjoy this blog post of mine – a photo essay, really - from November 2008.

I happened to be in Dallas then for an industry event, and while I wasn’t terribly interested in politics, that’s when Barack Obama made history. The day after the election I had free time, and Texas being Texas, people weren’t exactly out in the streets celebrating Obama’s election win. So, there’s was no victory parade that drew me out, and in fact, the downtown streets were pretty, pretty quiet.

However – and this is how moments of serendipity get started – being a Massachusetts-born Democrat, I was determined to make a pilgrimage to Dealey Plaza. As anyone who lived through Camelot would do, that would kinda be your first instinct being in Dallas with some free time.

Somehow, along my route there, I knew I was getting close when coming across the JFK Memorial, so that became the first stop in what would become the photo essay I’m sharing with you here. Tucked under my arm was USA Today from the hotel, and naturally, the cover proclaimed Obama’s election win. 

Hopefully this photo below will lead you to my post about my Dealey Plaza experience, with images and perspectives about JFK’s assassination many of you will have never seen. This photo was the best I could do at the time, but it’s pretty close to what I would call a perfect moment. 

I thought the juxtaposition of that historic headline at the foot of the JFK Memorial was a once in a lifetime, right place right time moment to connect the legacies of arguably the two most historic election wins in American history. If I make this trip a day sooner or a day later, the moment doesn’t – and cannot – happen. Pretty powerful moment in my mind, and the photo doesn’t do it justice, but if you were there, you’d have felt that way too.

If you care to continue, I invite you to check out my photo essay, posted November 10, 2008, titled “My Dealey Plaza Experience: Who Shot JFK? Ask Ron”. 

With a not-so-subtle hat tip to the iconic soap opera Dallas in that title, this visit turned into something I never expected, but I’ll never forget it. If you’re never been to Dealey Plaza, I hope you go some time. It’s just incredible how almost nothing has changed there since that fateful day in 1963 – frozen in time, literally. It’s one thing to read about it, but nothing beats being there and being able to wander freely to take it all in. Bonus reading – at the end of my post is a pretty engaging thread of comments from folks who read my post when it came out.

Finally, if you want to connect those dots I was referring to, after my photo essay, please read my No Jitter post cited earlier, A Change Is Gonna Come. Kudos to anyone who goes the distance with me here, and I would love to hear your thoughts as we come through yet another historic election.

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - November Edition 2020

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• This month’s episode is titled “Why Zoom is Much More than Video, Plus Keith Jarrett and Yes, Alicia Keys”, and just like last month, we covered a lot of ground. There’s just SO much innovation happening with cloud, AI, and collaboration technologies, and October was an exceptionally busy month for industry events. 

• Takeaways from these October events could fill several podcast episodes, and while we tried to talk about highlights from three majors from last month – Zoom, Slack and Twilio – the Zoomtopia event commanded most of our time. Like Pacman, Zoom seems to be gobbling up everything video these days, so it’s not surprising, and while all the attention on them was warranted, these other companies are doing equally innovative things.

• Wearing our music-is-our-passion hats, we added a new twist to the podcast with an impromptu segment that’s all about music, and only a tiny bit about tech. Just because. As per our tagline, we’re two analog guys searching for the soul of tech in a digital world, and music has a lot to do with it. Expect more of the same next month, although we could just as well veer into cinema, literature, sports, pop culture, cooking, or whatever else seems in the moment. Gotta keep it fresh!

• If you 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. 

• As time allows, I have a long list of podcast platforms to add Watch This Space to, so please bear with me. It’s only on a couple right now, but the list will soon grow, and they’ll be listed on the website for reference.

• If you don’t yet know, this new 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. 

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

• 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.

• Virtual conference roundup – as with September, last month was hectic – nine virtual events – that’s a record for me:

  • 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 26-28 – OpenText World 2020

  • October 28-29 – Cisco Global Partner Summit - Media and Analyst Event

  • October 28 – Fuze Productfest 

• Otherwise, here are the working highlights for last month, and links to some of these can be found in my October blog posts:

  • Presented on a webinar with Eventus about Big Data and the contact center, hosted by TMC

  • Guest post published on UC Today about direct routing from Sippio and AudioCodes for Microsoft Teams

  • First guest post for Smarsh about challenges posed by new forms of voice embedded in collaboration applications for the Finserv sector

• October writing spotlight – top pick would be my latest for BC Strategies: The Hybrid Workplace – Dual Set of Challenges for Driving Collaboration

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

• Media citings – on the light side, with just two citings

• 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 October:

  • For LinkedIn – in September, I had 43,115 views - highest tally to date, and October blasted past that with a new high for me – 55,002 views, a 28% jump from the month prior.

  • During October, I shared 70 posts on LinkedIn – another high – up 49% from September, which had been my previous high for posts.

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 4,196 views – another high - followed by one at 3,056 views. Overall, 5 posts had 2,000+ views, and 14 posts had 1,000+ views.

  • For Twitter - there were 56,900 impressions, 266 profile visits, 65 mentions, 70 tweets and 4 fewer followers – other than losing a few followers, the metrics are notably up from September or trending slightly higher

  • My “top tweet” was during Twilio SIGNAL, with CEO Jeff Lawson doing a live interview with Barack Obama - it had 3,366 impressions. Overall, 13 tweets had 1,000+ impressions, and 31 had 500+.

• 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 November

• Unlike October, only one virtual event so far for this month – but others could very well come up: 

  • November 3 - Cisco Canada’s Partner Summit

• Otherwise, two live events for clients are on the calendar - check my blog and social feeds for details:

  • November 12 – Contact center webinar with Lifesize, hosted by Channel Partners

  • November 12 – Twitter chat event with Mitel, about CX challenges with COVID-19 – in support of an upcoming white paper of mine

• 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 – these are live events, and you can register for them here on the SCTC site

  • November 4 – The AI Opportunity – New Value and New Horizons for Consultants

  • November 11 – AI in the Contact Center

  • November 18 – AI and Next Level Applications

• Other activities to watch for during November:

  • A 3-part insight series on contact center themes going into 2021 – at least 2 of these will run this month

  • Follow-on article for a leading contact center magazine about themes explored in last month’s webinar with Eventus

  • Preview for a December webinar I’m doing with a leading UCaaS provider about migrating SMBs to cloud communications

  • White paper about migrating enterprises to the cloud for a leading UC vendor, adapted for a leading service provider

  • A Q&A interview I did with the CEO of a leading SBC vendor, publisher TBD

Hey Did You Know?

… virtual events can be fun and cool? 

That was the theme last month, where I shared my screenshots here of notable speakers and performers from the various virtual events I attended. Big names like Barack Obama and Trevor Noah are hard to beat, but there were lots of A-listers to go around during last month’s busy schedule of virtual events. Again, all screenshots are mine. Pretty nice mix here, and I didn’t have to leave home to see any of them!

Thought leaders you should follow – and if you don’t, am happy to tell you why:

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - October Edition 2020

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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.

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - September Edition 2020

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What’s Up? Part 1- Our Latest Podcast and Big Changes to Watch This Space

• Changes to our podcast have been taking shape over the past few months, and the biggest one is making it available on commercial platforms like iTunes. This takes Watch This Space beyond our local footprint, and not only will this expand our known audience, but also reach new audiences. This means we’ll be new voices for a lot of listeners, including those outside our technology community, so we’re excited to make our world more accessible and relevant to a broader listenership. 

• This month’s episode is titled “Why Collaboration is the Right Technology for COVID Times”, and aside from talking about these changes to WTS, we took a step-back look at how essential today’s collaboration technologies have been for enabling a sustainable shift to work from home. The last few months have been a boon to most of the vendors in this space, and we talked about just how well these companies are faring, and where we should expect to see innovation coming from going into Q4. Newsletter subscribers can directly access it any time here on the brand new WTS website.

Latest Watch this Space Podcast & Transcript, September 2020

Why Collaboration is the Right Technology for Covid Times

Being new, 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.

• If you’re a regular consumer of podcasts, you’re more likely to access WTS from your favorite feed, and you’ll soon be able to subscribe to WTS on iTunes, Google, Spotify, Stitcher and Amazon TuneIn as well as Amazon Music/Audible – all these feeds should be up and running in the next week or so. Once those feeds are live, I’ll make the links easy to find on my websites and via social media, so it should be really easy to get WTS on your podcast playlist.

• Other feeds will be added over time, and aside from these popular podcast channels, you can also access all our episodes here on my JAA website. 

• With Watch This Space now shifting to a proper podcast platform, it will become public when the newsletter is published – at least for now. As such, my newsletter subscribers will no longer have exclusive access to the podcast for two weeks, and I realize losing that perk may cost me some subscribers. Hopefully not, but as things evolve, sometimes you have to give up things to get other things that I believe will be better overall.

• Another important change – at least for the time being – is stepping back from the Otter.ai transcription feature. There’s no place for that on a podcasting platform, but I think it’s a really cool feature, and am optimistic we’ll be able to keep it going somehow. 

• For now, the priority is getting WTS launched across the major podcast platforms to build up our following, and soon after to determine if WTS can sustain itself independent of this newsletter as its own brand.

• Finally, if you haven’t checked out our earlier podcasts, just go to the podcast archive on my JAA website. The archive shows both the 2020 podcasts, as well as a separate archive for previous podcasts, namely Seasons 1 and 2.

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

• Virtual conference roundup – last month, I was involved with just one virtual event, but two times:

  • August 3-6 – Enterprise Connect Virtual – gave a presentation

  • August 19 – my presentation was chosen as one of the top five from the event, and was invited back to give an encore presentation, including live Q&A

• Otherwise, here are the working highlights for last month, and links to some of these can be found in my August blog posts:

  • Panelist on a session hosted by Talkdesk during Customer Contact Week about the impact of Covid on the patient experience in the healthcare sector

  • Unified Comms Influencers – was a guest on Dominic Kent’s podcast

  • Completed work, which should publish in September (some were expected to publish in August, but that’s how it goes sometimes):

    • Insight Report – for a cloud service provider

    • Insight Report – for a Canadian cloud provider

    • Case study for a leading video services provider about how their platform was used to host a virtual conference for channel partners

    • White Paper – adapted version of an existing white paper for a service provider to help migrate enterprise clients to the cloud

    • Final revisions to an IoT e-Book

• New kudo – Top 10 CX Contact Center Influencers, as compiled by Shelf.io – thanks!

• August writing spotlight – top pick would be my latest No Jitter post – CX’s Real Driver in 2020? Changing Consumer Habits Due to COVID-19

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

• Media citings – nice bump here from recent months, with six citings

• 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 August:

  • For LinkedIn – I shared 27 posts, which registered 25,697 views – that’s the highest number of views since February. My top LinkedIn post registered 4,570 views – that’s the highest tally since I began tracking this data in November 2019. Overall, 6 posts had 1,000+ views, and 14 posts had 700+ views.

  • For Twitter - there were 29,000 impressions, 143 profile visits, 48 mentions, 32 tweets and 22 new followers– on the whole, an upward trend from July.

  • My “top tweet” was as a shout-out for an article on No Jitter about my talk at Enterprise Connect - it had 3,457 impressions. Overall, 6 tweets had 1,000+ impressions, and 19 had 500+.

• Client work aside – and in addition to new developments with my podcast - August was also busy with website updates, adding current work samples and new client logos – and more updates are coming. Am also working on a logo refresh, and that should be ready by next month. 

• 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 September

• So far, I’ll be participating as best I can in six 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:

  • September 1-2 – ADTRAN Connect

  • September 15 – Five9 CX Summit

  • September 15-16 – NICE/inContact Interactions

  • September 29-October 1 – UC Expo – will be moderating a session

  • September 30-October 1 – Twilio SIGNAL

  • September 30-October 1 – British Telecom Global Analyst Event 

• Got four webinars in the works, all scheduled for the end of September/first week October – check my blog and social feeds for details/dates:

  • September 30 - IoT for social good, hosted by Huawei

  • October 1 - CPaaS opportunity with IntelePeer, hosted by Informa 

  • New CX challenges with COVID-19 with Mitel, hosted by TMC

  • At least one more webinar coming around that time – details to be announced

• During August, five new projects landed, four of which are with new clients – and six others are looking very promising, so it’s already going to be a busy fall!

Hey Did You Know?

… that the Watch This Space podcast has its own logo? 

My podcast listeners may recognize the logo below, which was recently developed to establish WTS as its own entity. I’m exploring how WTS will fare in the broader world of public podcasting, so I need to brand it separately from the work done under my J Arnold & Associates indie analyst moniker. That brand is going through its own modest update, and as noted above, watch for a new JAA logo soon.