Why Are We Still Working in Offices? My Latest Article

My Rethinking Communications column for Internet Telephony Magazine has been running a few years now, and as technology keeps changing there is no end to the things that we need to rethink. 

Over the last few columns, I've been using the "Why?" theme to explore why we still use various technologies that seem out of step with today's needs. You can explore those here on my TMCnet archive page, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of them.

Continuing that theme, I'm now asking why we work in offices any more, and there are lots reasons to be thinking this way. Old habits die hard, but change happens for a reason, and when something as fundamental as the workplace comes into question, you know big things are in play. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? You can give my article a read here, and after that, I hope you'll let me know.

Our UCStrategies Podcast - Gartner's UC Magic Quadrant

That's the subject of our latest UCStrategies Industry Buzz podcast, and needless to say there were lots of perspectives from the group. If you want to know the latest state of enterprise UC, the Gartner MQ is required reading, and for the most part, there were no surprises.

Needless to say, this is really just one slice of the UC pie - it may be the biggest, but it doesn't really reflect all the disruption that keeps our community busy and gainfully employed. To me, that's where the podcast gets more interesting, and I really hope you give it a listen. It's certainly one of our most popular podcast topics, and you can access it here from the portal.

Aside from my comments on the podcast - at the 11:56 mark - much of this was amplified in my latest UCStrategies post, titled "Tomorrow's UC - Nobody's Talking About Voice", and you might enjoy that as well. And if you do, feel free to share!

My Writing Roundup - July and June - and the Bigger Picture for JAA

I've been doing a monthly digest for a while here on my blog to summarize my top posts in one place.

Most of my followers don't know that I'm published regularly on four different portals, with one of them being 12 posts each month. Additionally, I post original content here on my blog, write one-off articles that turn up in a variety of places, share my current white papers here, ghost write posts for select clients, and am cited in the media from time to time.

In short, I produce a lot of content, all of it fueled by my ongoing research and involvement in the UC&C space. These monthly digest posts are a good way to get a taste of my current thought leadership, and I hope that leads you to explore more about my practice. Almost all of the above forms of writing can be accessed here on my website, and part of the refresh I just went through was to make it easier for visitors to find everything. 

For example, if you only follow me on Ziff Davis or UCStrategies, you may think that's all I do. Spend some time here on the my site, and you'll get a fuller picture. On that note, I should add that this new site is still in beta mode, and there's LOTS more content coming soon.

Enough said, so let's get on to the roundup. This time around, I'm doing a double digest, as I didn't get a chance to do June, mainly due to the cutover from my old site to here. There's a lot to summarize over two months, so I'll just hit the high spots, and perhaps you'll explore further here on your own.

Tomorrow's UC - Nobody's Talking About Voice, UCStrategies, July 28

Should our video strategy be built by lines of business?, TechTarget, July 27

UC's Future Ain't What it Used to Be, Enterprise Management 360, July 26 (article runs on pp. 5-8; PDF version available on request)

Choosing the Right Partner for UC, Toolbox.com, July 25

The Communications Gap - it's Business and it's Personal, Vonage, my new white paper, July 25 (scroll down this page - you'll find a few references to the WP there - PDF available upon request)

Welcome to my New Site!, my blog, July 21

Three Ways IoT Impacts your Contact Center for UC, Toolbox.com, July 18

What collaboration tools are right for my organization?, TechTarget, July 14

What Connected Customers Mean for Collaboration, Toolbox.com, July 12

Reconsidering the Value of Telephony, Part 2, Toolbox.com, June 29

Assessing Deployment Options for UC, ShoreTel, new white paper, June 23 (PDF available upon request)

How Community Drives Collaboration, Toolbox.com, June 21

Is Interactive Intelligence an Exponential Organization?, UCStrategies, June 20

Five Forces Driving Collaboration, Toolbox.com, June 13

Choice - Perhaps the Best Reason why SMBs Should use Hosted VoIP, Toolbox.com, June 10

Interactions 2016 - Reimagine the Future, my blog, June 9

My New Article - Tomorrow's UC - Nobody's Talking About Voice

As a long-standing UC Expert with UCStrategies, I contribute a monthly article to help keep our overall pool of content fresh. If you follow the UC/collaboration space, and you're not a regular on our portal, I strongly urge you to spend time with us. I'm just one of many analysts and consultants working in this market, and you won't find a better one-stop-shop for what's happening and what buyers out there need to make good decisions.

Along that path, my latest analysis is about where things are going, and if you're only thinking about replacing an aging phone system, you better read this now. The content on our portal is very much on the pulse of change, and in my article I've connected the dots for three separate ideas to clarify what I think is important right now. Things change quickly in this space, and next month, it might be something else, but for today, I hope you give this a read, and would love to hear your thoughts.

New Article: UC's Future Ain't What it Used to Be

More backlog to share here from earlier this month during the cutover to my new site.

This is for an article I recently authored that is now running in the U.K.-based Enterprise Management 360 magazine. If you like Yogi Berra, I think you'll enjoy this, and is a sign of more to come that I'll be writing about in the emerging "future of work" space.

Here's the link to the promotional page for the issue - including my article - and from there, you can download the digital edition. My article runs from pages 5-8, and am happy to share the PDF version upon request.

My New White Paper for Vonage Business: The Communications Gap

This is one of several posts I need to write to clear the backlog while the cutover was happening from my old blog to this new site where the blog has now been integrated. It will take some time for my followers to find their way here, but I can also tell you that the new site is broadening my reach, so I'm also adding new followers.

Aside from working on this new site, I've been plenty busy with client work, including Vonage Business. I'm doing few things with them, with the first being a white paper to help enterprises understand the business value of UC. 

The white paper is titled: "The Communications Gap - It's Business and It's Personal", and has been featured on their website since launching a few weeks back. Response so far has been great, and you'll be hearing more about it as their go-to-market campaign unfolds.

All the details about the paper are on the Vonage Business website under the Mid-Market and Enterprise tab. Once there, scroll down a bit, and you'll see references in a few places, including a  large-sized call-out quote from me, my photo and a registration page to download the paper. Here's the link, and it won't take long to find the details. Let me know if any difficulties, and can get you a copy if the registration isn't working for you.

My Next Webinar - 5 Business Problems Addressed by UC

I do a lot of webinars, and it's time for the next one. This is another webinar with Ziff Davis, and it's coming up - next Thursday, July 28 at 2pm ET. Wanted to post about this sooner, but with the cutover to my new website/blog, I haven't been able to do that until now.

This time around, my focus will be on the business problems that UC addresses. It's easy to get caught up in the technical aspects of UC, but it's much more than a technology update. I've identified 5 business problems, and during the webinar I'll explain those further, along with what UC brings to the table as a solution. Here's the registration page, and I hope you can join us!

Welcome to my New Site!

Blogging has gone quiet for a while, not just because I was on vacation where there wasn't much broadband, but because we've been getting this new site ready for launch.

The site went live about a week ago. but the blog wasn't fully ported over until last night. I can finally blog again, and there's a big backload of posts coming.

For now, I just want to get the early word out about my new site. As you may know, until now my blog and my website were standalone entities. I'm very old school, and when I started out as an indie back in 2005, I had a strict church and state thing about keeping my objective content/analysis separate from the commercial side of my business. Being an indie analyst, I have to do both telling and selling, and felt they needed to be kept separate.

Things are different now, and being established, I can live with these under the same roof, and that's a big part of what's happening with this refresh. Apart from that, my practice has evolved since 2005, and so has my messaging, and hopefully the new site reflects that.

I hope you stick around and explore the site, and better yet, let me know what you think. There's still a lot of content coming, so I'm treating this as a soft launch. The basic content is in place, so if you're trying to figure out what I do and how I can be of service, you can do that now. I have tons of links coming that provide examples of my work, so the site will be in beta mode for a bit.

Until then, I hope you like what you see, and there's a signup form if you want to follow my blog, as well as links to my Twitter and Linkedin feeds. Stay tuned, lots more to come!