Next Stop - San Jose and Zoomtopia

My analyst travel-palooza continues, with my fourth trip to the Bay area of California in less than a month. Never crossed the country this many times in so short a period as now, but that’s how the fall travel season is rolling in 2022 for analyst events.

Next stop is Zoomtopia, and it’s my first in-person Zoom event since the pandemic started. That would have been October 2019 - I wasn’t there for the whole thing, but it was memorable - especially the music. This time around, though, I’ll catch it all. Follow me here or on social for updates - @arnoldjon for Twitter, and on LinkedIn.

New Strategic Insights Report - with Upstream Works

Upstream Works is an innovative Canadian contact center vendor, and I’ve been doing various things with them for a few years now. One of these includes writing Strategic Insight reports - not quite as long as a white paper, but substantive enough to require registration for downloading.

My most recent Strategic Insight report for them has been published now, titled The AI Opportunity: Enhance the Agent and Customer Experience with AI Application Integrations. If that’s top of mind for you, and would like to read about it, here’s the link.

SCTC Annual Conference, Dallas - Quick Take and Pix

This is stop two of three during my current travel run, and it sure has been good. I’ve been involved with SCTC for a few years now - Society of Communications Technology Consultants - and even though I’m an analyst, there’s a lot in this community that’s good for my business.

Their annual conference is mostly for members, so it’s not really a public event, but the challenges facing consultants aren’t all that different from mine as an independent analyst. The trends that I follow in my research, are the same ones they’re living with as they try to get their clients to adopt new technologies. Lots of good learning here, and the caliber of speakers and panels sessions has been very high, as always. If you’re an independent consultant working with communications technology, this is a community you should be part of - and if you want to learn more, just drop me a line.

That’s the story from the conference here in Dallas, and I’ll leave you with a few photos.

Below - SCTC President, Denise Munro, and our Bitrix guru, Bobra Bush. Later, my lock note talk.

Definitely the most impactful session - 911 guru/advocate Mark Fletcher brought Hank Hunt to speak and share his story for how Kari’s Law came into being. Mark is the driver who made this happen, and Kari’s Law is named after one of Hank’s daughters, who would still be alive today if 911 service worked the way it’s supposed to. Photo on right - at the White House in 2018, when Kari’s Law was signed into law.

Best for last? Maybe. I’m part of the SIPtones (mainly for keyboards), and we got to play on Monday night. Fun, yeah - wish we could do this at every conference, but we’re not quite ready for that. Pictured on right - it was a two-band bill, where local band Southern Flight opened, then joined us at the end for a lively jam. Photo credits - on left, Cyndi Crews, and on right, Donna Leaden - thanks!

If you don’t know us, the SIPtones are led by Rick Hathaway on sax, Steve Leaden on drums and Chuck Vondra on guitar. We were also lucky to have Rebecca Cihak - long-time musical comrade of Chuck’s - be our vocalist, and we hope can do this again soon. Also, missing in action was Joe Rubio, our regular bassist, who wasn’t able to make it this time. In due time, I’ll have more pictures and video to share, and otherwise, I keep an archive of photos and video clips from earlier shows on my website - here and here.

UC Expo London - Quick Pix and Video Clip

Last week sure was a whirlwind, starting with the NICE Analyst Summit in Marrakesh (blog to come, but I shared different sets of photos on LinkedIn and Facebook), then a quick exit to London for UC Expo.

I may not get a blog post out about the Expo, but I was interviewed twice, including a video segment on the floor with EM360, which is included at the bottom of this post. Otherwise, here are some quick pix, both of the show and a few while about in London, albeit very briefly.

Below - show floor entrance and some of the activity, including a drone zone to test your skills.

With Chris Bain of Avaya, SCTC colleague Dave Mailer, and the Ask the Analyst panel session (photo credit - Anna Plavinskaja - thanks!).

Quintessential London, right? Phone booth, Sherlock Holmes, the Tube and the Thames!

More of the same - cable cars, the O2, London Eye, Big Ben, and the Docklands by the ExCeL Centre

Last, but not least, I was interviewed by Matt Harris from EM360 about the event, so here’s the four minute takeaway….

UC Expo London - Second Panel Session

Finally getting a chance to post about the second session I’m on at UC Expo this week. I’ll be in London over the next two days, and this session runs at 12:05pm on Thursday.

Titled “From Beach to Boardroom”, we’ll be exploring what it means to have a flexible work model, and what it takes to make this viable. I’m the moderator, and joining me will be Magnus Falk from Zoom, and Isaac Durno from Oxford City Council. Full details here, and hope you can join us!

CCTC Event in Toronto - Some Photos

Before the moment passes entirely - this is my first chance to share some photos here from last week’s CCTC networking event in Toronto. Canadian telecom and tech consultants rarely have events where all can gather, so this was a welcome development, led by long-time consultant Cheryl Helm.

We had a decent turnout, including a handful who participated virtually. Probably most importantly, the content was top-notch, from beginning to end. The networking was good too, but I think everyone went home feeling a bit smarter about that state of things with communications technology.

Oh, and I’d be remiss in saying to all my Canadian colleagues - happy Thanksgiving!

Below - Cheryl Helm leading things off, and Scott Murphy and the interoperability panel.

Below - the Foxhole - Roberta and Steve running their command center to keep everything moving. My locknote talk - if you’re attending the SCTC conference later this month in Dallas, my locknote there will be based on this, so not to worry if you didn’t catch it here.

Next Guest Post for NICE - A Bigger CX Vision for a Digital-First World

Busy week - I’ve been doing a lot of writing recently, and much of it is coming to market around now. Here’s the next one - another guest post for the NICE blog. The company is doing good things with CXi and their new branding, but the bigger message is how providing customer service now goes beyond the contact center. Lots more to explore here, so watch for more from me with NICE, as well as other places.

Vonage AI Studio - Have They Cracked the Code with AI?

That’s the title of my latest article, running now on No Jitter. This builds off of last week’s announcement of AI Studio from Vonage, and I think they’ve got the right approach here for connecting the dots among AI, CPaaS and CCaaS.

You need all of these things to do CX right, and this move shows that you don’t have to have an army of developers to leverage CPaaS to make CX better. This is tricky territory to navigate, as well as come up with the right messging, and I hope you find my take a good read.

NICE Things Come in Small Packages - Analyst Summit Preview

Analysts get all kinds of swag - much of it is the same, and some is better than others. Here’s one, though, that I won’t be getting traders of. We graciously accept all of this at face value, but it’s always great to see creativity and fun, and NICE really stands out for me in that department.

October is going to be a full month of travel, so there’s a lot to prepare for. One of these stops will be for NICE’s 2022 Analyst Summit, held in Marrakesh, Morocco of all places. This is one of those times where we get spoiled a bit, but in return, they’ll have our full attention while we’re there.

Most travel can become a grind going to familiar cities and airports, but this one falls more in the adventure category, at least for me. So, to help build that anticipation of going to an exotic locale, I got a small package at the post the other day.

Can’t say I already have a magic lamp, but yup, I’ve got one now. More aptly, it should be called Barak’s lamp, after NICE’s CEO, Barak Eilam. I know he’s in there - I can hear him “wishing” me a good trip to Morocco, but I don’t have the secret password yet to release the genie. If that magically happens and my three wishes are granted, I might update you - or not. :-)

New Guest Post for NICE - Their New Branding and CXi Vision

Got another guest post to share - this one is with NICE, where I’ve written about how their new “make experiences flow” branding reflects the thinking behind their CXi approach to today’s contact center challenges. It’s a two-part series on their blog site, and you can read the first one here now; and I’ll post again when the second writeup runs.

Contact Center Pipeline - New Article: Closing the Customer Service Gap

Two new things to share as we slide into what’s going to be a very busy Fall.

First, I have a new article out, running in the September issue of Contact Center Pipeline magazine.. You can read it here, and after that, feel free to peruse the rest of the issue.

Related to that, I’ll be an occasional contributor to Contact Center Pipeline, so expect to see more articles from me, and possibly other forms of involvement.

My Latest Guest Post - Value of Continuous Testing for UCaaS

Got another guest post writeup to share. This one is running on tekVizion’s blog site, and examines the value of continuous testing for UCaaS. Managing all these applications is harder to do than appears, especially since many of them are real-time.

IT cannot possibly keep up with all the updates and performance testing, and when things don’t go to plan, the user experience suffers, and that can really impact UCaaS adoption. The post is running now, and I hope you give it a read. No doubt, tekVizion would love to hear from you as well - they’ve been doing this for a very long time.

Is Hybrid Work Working? Depends Who You Talk To - My Latest Article

I’ve been away a few days, but things I was working on earlier are getting posted now in bits and pieces.

This time around, it’s a two-for-one, where Informa has run my latest article in two of their publications. If you don’t know, I’m a long-time BC Expert and contributor for BC Strategies, and wearing that hat, I’m part of a rotating group that produces regular content for eWeekly, and those articles are published on No Jitter.

For my latest eWeekly article, the focus was on hybrid work, a trend that goes well beyond collaboration technologies. While my analysis profiles well for the No Jitter audience, it’s even more at home for their sister publication, WorkSpace Connect. As such, the editorial team decided to run it in both publications, initially here on WorkSpace Connect, and now today on No Jitter.

The article is exactly the same on both sites, so I’ll leave it to you to pick a link should you want to read it - and I hope you do. There’s more to come on this topic, and my regular followers will know it was the focus of my latest Watch This Space podcast. Final comment - the image below is properly credited on both sites where my article is running.

New Guest Post for NICE - Call Deflection and Agent Experience

My latest guest post for NICE has now been published, and it’s running here on their blog page. The focus is on call deflection, and how it’s more than just service automation. There are richer benefits to be had, not just for making customer experience better, but agent experience as well. Hope you find it a good read, and more posts will be coming soon.

Next Webinar - with Servion and Cisco; Driving Digital Transformation in the Contact Center

This is the first in a series of webinars I’m doing with Servion, with this one featuring Cisco, highlighting Webex Contact Center. I’ll be talking about trends driving the need for digital CX, and the audience is largely invite-only. However, I’m able to get the word out to my followers, and details to register are here.

The webinar is running Thursday, August 11, but the cutoff to register is Aug. 3. Since this isn’t a totally open event, Servion will review registrations as they come, and then determine who is a good fit beyond the participants they are bringing themselves.

AI and the Contact Center - My Q&A with CEO of Upstream Works

Personal events have put work on the back burner the past couple of weeks, but am slowly getting back to things. I’ve had a few new things in the works that I’ll start sharing over the next few days, with the first one being an exec Q&A I recently did with Rob McDougall, CEO of Upstream Works.

I’ve been doing work with them for a few years now, and Rob was certainly early with AI. A lot of that is finding its way into Upstream’s offerings now, but more importantly, Rob has a pretty good perspective on how contact center leaders need to be thinking about AI. We’re certainly of like mind about these things, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.

June Writing Roundup

Not a ton of writing for June, and that’s just how it goes sometimes. So, if you have the time, you can read ‘em all! More to come for July - there always is.

It’s truth time! Legacy technology and processes impact employee retention, NICE blog, June 29

How do you evaluate UC applications for frontline workers?, TechTarget, June 23

3 use cases highlight AI and speech recognition evolution, TechTarget, June 16

3 Building Blocks for a Greater Customer Experience, No Jitter, June 7

New Guest Blog Post for NICE - Impact of Legacy Tech on Agent Retention

Some things happen quickly, and others take more time. The latter applies for some work I’ve been doing with NICE recently. I’ve been writing a number of guest posts for their blog, and the first one was published yesterday, titled “It’s truth time! Legacy technology and processes impact employee retention”.

Other posts will run there in due course, and if you give this a read, it would be great to get your feedback. Depending when you check this out, my byline isn’t quite right, but the fix is coming soon.

Future of Work Expo - Quick Take and Photos

Am back now from last week’s Future of Work Expo in Fort Lauderdale, and from all accounts, it was our best one to date. I’ve been conference Chair for four years running, and we’ve got a really good mix now of familiar companies and ones you don’t know, and I think that reflects how broad the FOW moniker has become.

The first two days focused on workplace FOW themes, where we talked as much about HR, soft skills and culture as we did about how technology can support the hybrid work model. AI was a constant theme, and it’s clear that people have mixed feelings about it. For the third day, our focus shifted to the contact center, where we looked at how AI can be used to both improve CX, along with making the agent experience better, especially for those working from home.

We also had a FOW pavilion on the show floor, and on Thursday morning, many of our sponsors did live demos, which is a great way to see first-hand what’s coming to help make hybrid work viable. The speaker roster was solid, and all our sessions could easily have gone a lot longer, with plenty of audience engagement. I don’t have the luxury of time now to write a lengthy recap here, but I’ll have something coming soon. Until then, I did talk about the event highlights on my Watch This Space podcast, and the July episode comes out next Tuesday, so watch for that, or come back here on my site to give it a listen.

A quick shout-out to all the folks at TMC - thanks for having me back, and to their team for all the prep to make this event happen. Thanks also to colleagues Phil Edholm and Tom Brannen for helping out as moderators for some of the sessions. Extra kudos to Phil, who did a wrapup talk with me for the closing session.

Not only was it a nice way to end the conference, but Phil has told us he’s retiring after our event, so this ended up being his swan song as an event speaker. I felt lucky to share the floor with him for that, and his great insights will definitely be missed. You’ve had a great run, Phil, and you’ve enriched our understanding of this space. Am sure I won’t be the only analyst to offer thanks for all that you’ve done for such a long time - wow. With that, I’ll leave you with some photos below, and if you follow me on social, I posted during the event, so some of these will look familiar.

Below: Rethinking the Organization session, with Intermedia, Poly, Seekr, Coworks and Eleviant (photo: Tom Brannen); Barbara Steel from EY with highlights from their latest workplace study; and our panel on using AI to improve CX - with Avaya, Genesys, SharpenCX and IntelePeer

Below: Keith Sonderling, Commissioner, US Equal Opportunity Employment Commission; David Jodoin from Nynja (photo - Glenn Goldberg); FOW Expo program schedule

Below: Tom Brannen’s cybersecurity session with Journey ID and Connx; Phil Edholm’s frontline workers session with Twilio, Intermedia, United Office and Eleviant; Tom and I with Phil

3 Building Blocks for Greater CX - My Latest on No Jitter

For my latest No Jitter writeup, I shared some takeaways from the recent NICE Interactions event, especially the main messaging from CEO Barak Eilam’s keynote. The creativity around his talk warrants a post of its own, but for now I’m just focusing on his vision for how contact centers need to evolve. It’s running now on No Jitter - hope you like it!