Shout-out for My October Newsletter

My newsletter is becoming a regular thing now, and the current issue has been sent now to subscribers. Of course, I’d love for all my readers to be subscribers, but that’s your call, not mine. First, you have to be following me, of course - but since the newsletter is fairly new, you need to know about that as well, and that’s why I’m writing this post.

I will have a newsletter archive coming soon, and I do plan to start posting podcasts from the newsletter here on my site a few weeks after sending out the newsletter - I’d like to keep that content exclusive to subscribers for a while first. To pique your interest, the current podcast is with colleague Chris Fine, where we discuss the findings and implications about a recent report produced by Aruba Networks on the impact of digital transformation on the workplace - very interesting stuff, for sure.

For now, though, subscribing is the only way to check out the podcast, along with all my regular updates, including highlights from our SIPtones show at the recent SCTC conference. Signing up is easy - here’s one way - or just wander around the site - you can’t miss it!

Cybercrime and Collaboration on Collision Course? My Latest on No Jitter

If you can say that title three times fast, maybe it will make more sense. Cybercrime touches just about everything these days, but it’s usually not top of the list for collaboration. It really should be, and that’s what this post is about.

At the recent SCTC conference, there was a great keynote about the state of cybercrime, and I've filtered that through the lens for collaboration. Even if that doesn’t resonate, am sure the issues on a broader, global scale will, and you can read the post here on No Jitter.

My Next Webinar - with No Jitter and Lucidchart

I’ve got a busy month on the webinar front, and here’s the next one to tell you about. This time around, I’m doing an Enterprise Connect webinar, so you’ll also hear about it through their main channel, No Jitter. I’ll be presenting on workplace trends that are making collaboration so important, and the challenges faced by IT to properly support them. One of those trends is around how workers collaborate today, and the value that visual applications can bring to make complex concepts or workflows easier to manage, especially with disparate teams.

The webinar is a little more that two weeks, out - Wednesday, October 24 - and all the details are here. I hope you can join us!

SCTC Conference - Quick Take, Pix and Video

Been all-out busy since returning from SCTC’s annual conference, and am determined to get a quick recap posted before the week is out. Aside from this post, my next No Jitter column will run early next week, and it’s about the conference keynote about cybercrime - it was very good, so watch for that.

Aside from attending, I wore a few hats, namely giving the locknote presentation, playing a gig with the SIPtones, and even playing “UC Cookoff” Jeopardy. Overall, the conference had a strong mix of content, both from member speakers and the vendors during their segments.

SCTC is a small, but very collegial group, and being the only active analyst member (and probably with the highest public profile), you may not know much about this world. Most consultants in telecom and/or the broader communications space are not members, but it seems to me they could benefit from the collective knowledge base here. That’s a topic for another day, and for now, here are some high level takeaways and pix.

• Cybercrime keynote from Lou Giannotti, IT Director, U.S. Naval Academy - really interesting perspectives, and that’s the focus of my upcoming No Jitter post.

• Cloud panel debate - healthy back and forth of the merits of both cloud and on-prem. There’s a lot of old-school expertise in SCTC, and it’s easy to forget legacy basics - but it still drives a lot of thinking in IT circles.

• Good overviews from the vendors, especially Genesys in talking about how the cloud helps enterprises prepare for the “exponential effect” of digital transformation, and Sprint for what’s coming with 5G and IoT.

• Engaging talk from consultant Dennis Goodhart on disruptive technologies. Mostly familiar for me, but not for everyone there, and more importantly, this is what their clients need know to be on the right side of technology change. That said, legacy telecom isn’t in my DNA, so the Strowger switch was new learning - gee, what a great story! Nothing has changed in terms of why people do what they do…..

• Our SIPtones gig went quite well. Too bad we only had one set, but it was fun and the dance floor was full - mission accomplished. Our time spent rehearsing the weekend before - see my “Little Pink” post for more - was definitely the right idea.

Below - welcome comments from Annapolis Mayor, Gavin Buckley, the cloud panel and “UC Cookoff” Jeopardy:

Below - another highlight - tour of the U.S. Naval Academy - tons of history, John Paul Jones crypt, inspiring architecture, and geez, I wish I could have played that organ!

Speaking of music, some of our SIPtones saga: “Little Pink” - lake house in the Adirondacks where we rehearsed, a taste of the pastoral setting, and the gig itself, held at the Naval Academy Club:

Finally, if you haven’t seen this, here’s a 10 second clip of us playing Tequila, courtesy of our guest singer, Jennifer Kang. Stay tuned - literally - more video coming. Need a band for your next event? :-)

September Writing Roundup

The busy state throughout August carried over into September, and things were productive on many fronts.

Writing took a back seat to other things - namely webinars, podcasts, speaking, conference planning and strategy work - but here are the writing highlights from last month. To get the bigger picture about the work I do with clients, you really should sign up for my newsletter.

Adopting Collaboration to the Digital Workplace, Part 2, Toolbox.com, Sept. 26

My New Infographic - 5 Things to Know About Slack, my blog, Sept. 25

Adopting Collaboration to the Digital Workplace, Toolbox.com, Sept. 18

Slack and the New Frontiers of Collaboration, BCStrategies, Sept. 14

Building a Business Case for Contact Center as a Service, 2 podcasts with Genesys, Enterprise Management 360, Sept. 11

My New Infographic - 5 Things to Know About Slack

Gotta keep trying new things, so to mix things up, here’s an infographic I put together about the Slack Frontiers conference I recently attended. I blogged about the event here, and wrote about it here, but wanted to produce something more visual. To do that, I’ve partnered with Steele Social Media, where I wrote the narrative and they turned that into an infographic. Voila.

I hope you like it, and if want you to have something similar for your business, we’d love to hear from you.

Next Stop - SCTC Conference, My Locknote, and Music from Little Pink!

If you’re a card-carrying digital immigrant, the above title should grab you right away.

First, the easy stuff. Just doing a shout-out for the SCTC’s annual conference, this year being held in Annapolis, MD. It’s a pretty small, specialized community, so it won’t be relevant for all of you, but that’s where I’ll be next week. Of course, SCTC members know all about it, but it’s also open to non-member consultants, so if that’s you, it’s not too late to make plans.

Aside from attending, I’ll be giving the locknote talk at the conference close on Thursday, so that’s very much on my to-do list for the next few days.

Then, there’s Little Pink. Sound familiar? How about Big Pink? You should know that one:

Classic album, of course, with Bob Dylan and the Band holed up in upstate New York at their Big Pink house for what would become the Basement Tapes. As you may know, I play keyboards and guitar with the SIPtones, and we’re performing at the conference party next Wednesday - at the prestigious US Naval Academy - cool, huh?

Tomorrow, I’m packing up my gear and driving to the Adirondacks, where we’re doing our version of this over the weekend as we rehearse for our gig. We won’t be recording at “Little Pink”, but that’s definitely the vibe we’ll be channeling. Let’s hope it rubs off at the show, and if you’re there, we sure hope you let us know!

Collaboration Vendors to Watch - Our BCStrategies Podcast

Been offline a few days, but now back to posting. Getting real busy again on a few fronts, and before things get too hectic, I’ve been meaning to share this podcast.

As part of BCStrategies, we record podcasts regularly, and this is a topic we’ve been meaning to do for a while. The big players by nature get most of the limelight, and this time around, we wanted to focus on lesser-known companies who are doing interesting things.

Without variety, things get dull pretty fast, and this webinar provides a good window into what companies other than Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Amazon, et al are up to. This time around, the podcast was hoted by Blair Pleasant, and for reference, the replay link here also provides a brief overview of the companies we talked about. For my segment, I touched on CoreDial, Nectar, Sangoma, and Cogito. All doing very different things, but interesting in their own ways.

Slack Frontiers 2018 - My 3 Takeaways on BCStrategies

I really wanted to get this posted before the week is out and while the conference is still fresh. My followers will know that I posted some photos and thoughts earlier about Slack’s event, but more needed to be said, and that’s what I’ve done here.

As my followers will also know, I’ve long been a BC Expert with BCStrategies, and that’s a good place to share my high level takeaways about Slack and their Frontiers 2018 event.

There’s more to come, but I hope this post gives you a good flavor for what’s coming with Slack, and how they’re pushing the frontiers of collaboration. As always, your comments are welcome, and any sharing would be greatly appreciated.

Next Webinar - Making IT Strategic as Collaboration Moves to the Cloud

I’ve been doing several webinars lately, including this one in late July for Ziff Davis. That webinar was sponsored by Jive Software (now part of Aurea) as a two-part series around the impact of digital transformation collaboration.

Next week’s webinar will be the second part of my analysis, this time focused on IT’s changing role. With so much moving to the cloud - including collaboration - this presents new challenges for IT to remain strategic, and layering digital transformation into this, there will be some re-invention needed.

That’s the gist of what’s coming, and more details are here on the registration page. If that sounds like you, then save the date - Tuesday, Sept. 18 at 2ET - and I hope you can join me then.

Slack Frontiers 2018 - Quick Take and Pix

This is just Slack's second industry event, and while they've come a long way in a little time, they're not quite a household name. That's probably a good thing, as they've been quietly and intelligently building what looks to be a great organization with the kind of vibe, culture and passion that makes for very successful companies.

Over the last two days, I've gotten to see that first hand, and it looks pretty real to me. Make no mistake - the established collaboration players are watching Slack closely, and not surprisingly, some of those people have now joined their ranks.

I was lucky enough to be one of a handful of analysts in attendance - and I don't think the media was there - so, unless you've been following my tweets, what I'm sharing here will be new for you. For now, I'll let these photos do most of the talking, as I wanted to quickly get a post up before flying home. I've got lots to say, and that will be coming in a few different forms shortly, so check back soon - and even better, you might want to sign up for my newsletter.

For now, I'm just going to leave you with a couple of comments from the sessions that reflect the big-picture takeaways.

First, from April Underwood, their Chief Product Officer: "this really is a movement". Yup - she's referring to how the workplace is changing, and there's a need for tools and solutions that align with this fundamental shift. I've been following Slack for a while, and have long felt that if UC - or something along those lines - was being invented today from scratch, it would look like Slack.

Second, a very telling quote cited by Neil Shah, their Sr. Director of Strategy and Analytics. This was from one of their customers: "People told us they would quit if we took away their Slack."  Sure sounds like "I want my MTV", huh? Maybe a tad dramatic, but have you heard anyone talk like that about Spark or Skype for Business?

People have similar attachments to their iPhones, but workplace tools? That's what I call sticky, and when you can build that kind of organic, bottom-up emotional attachment, your odds of converting free users to paid are way better - and that's the key to making Slack a true force, not just for disruption, but for innovation.

Much more to talk about, but I need to get to the airport! I hope this gives you a taste of what I saw at Frontiers 2018, and I'd love to get your comments, either here or on Slack.

Above - Places - mis en scene - an uber-industrial setting, but perfect for showing what the future holds.

Below - People and Things.

People - speakers from the various sessions, including Ed Catmull, Founder of Pixar, in conversation with Slack CEO, Stewart Butterfield.

Things - SO Cali, SO San Francisco - can't wait to come back!

My September Newsletter is Out Now

If you're a subscriber,  you'd know that by now, but for everyone else, am just letting you know about my newsletter, which provides exclusive content about what I'm up to and what I'm seeing the collaboration market. Just takes a moment to sign up, so here you go.

Of particular interest  would be my regular podcast, this time being a recap of last month's Blockchain Futurist Conference that I attended in Toronto. In time, the podcasts will be shared on my website, but if you need to check it out now, just sign up for the newsletter.

Next Stop - Slack Frontiers, San Francisco

Not wasting any time kicking off a busy fall, both on the work front and with conferences. Tomorrow, I'm flying way out west to San Francisco for Slack's Frontiers event. They've been both disruptive and innovative, and Slack has become a household name in very little time.

This will be my first time attending their industry event, as it will be for most, so there will be lots to learn and many people to meet. More details are here on my Event Calendar page, and I'll be posting updates as time allows.

Voice - New and Improved, Thanks to AI - and Future of Work Expo Shout-Out, Part 2

Well, this worked out well. I've been writing a column for TMCnet - Rethinking Communications - for a few years, but after shifting recently to a quarterly publishing cycle, there have been longer gaps for my articles.

My latest article was just published the other day, and as the title suggests - Voice - New and Improved, Thanks to AI - the topic fits quite well with the Future of Work Expo coming up next January. To connect the dots, my earlier post today talks about the conference, and after reading that, the connection with this article should be clear.

This time around, the article is running in TMCnet's publication Unifed Communications, and that seems like a good fit to me. I hope you enjoy it, and even better if it gets you closer to deciding to join us at Future of Work Expo.

Future of Work Expo - Early Shout-Out and Call for Speakers

This conference isn't for a while - end of January - but it's a good time for an early shout-out.

I've been regularly attending and moderating sessions at TMCnet's ITExpo for many years, with the next edition marking the show's 20th anniversary, so it's a big one. That's many lifetimes in Millennial years, and it may be hard for digital natives to fathom that anything in tech can last 20 years, but Rich Tehrani and company have found the formula, and they're still going strong.

As any attendee knows, the main event - ITExpo - is flanked my many sub-events and co-located events, and I'll be the go-to guy for one of them. A new event for 2019 is The New Intelligence, and it consists of three distinct tracks. One is called Future of Work, and it's focused on AI and Machine Learning, topics I've been following since early this year.

I'm writing about this now, as the Agenda and Speaker Roster were both posted just the other day. It's really just the first round, but will give you a good idea of what the event will be addressing and who'll be doing the talking. I'm the common thread, and will be moderating several sessions, and introducing speakers for the others.

As the program fills out, I'll share updates here, so stay tuned. We're also still looking to fill some speaking spots, so if these topics are in your zone, please get in touch and we'll see if there's a place for you.

More Thoughts on Blockchain and Collaboration - My No Jitter Post

As mentioned in last week's quick take blog post about the Blockchain Futurist Conference, I'd have more to say about it. Got quite a bit more to say, actually, and I channeled two particular themes into my latest No Jitter post; namely the potential tie-in between blockchain and collaboration, and how uber-host Larry King sagely brought Steve Jobs into the conversation.

Hopefully that will be enough to get you wanting more, and if so, here's the link to my post. Would love to hear your thoughts, and I'm certainly not done with this topic, so stay tuned.

Is the Gartner UC Magic Quadrant Dead? Our BCStrategies Podcast

Pretty much - but everything has it's time, right?

Nothing really surprising here, at least for us at BCStrategies, but it's easy to forget that the world doesn't move in lockstep. Technology changes faster than humans or enterprises can adapt, and there's a wide spectrum for UC and the broader collaboration umbrella. 

Conventional UC is still very much a thing, and that's the market this particular MQ report serves. For a while, it was a bellwether for the state of UC, but not so much now. If you're wondering why, then this podcast is for you. Even if you've already reached that conclusion, I think you'll enjoy our perspectives, this time moderated by Marty Parker - here's the link.

Blockchain Futurist Conference, Toronto - Pix, Thoughts and Larry King

Kinda thought that last part would get your attention. What in the world does Larry King have to do with blockchain?

No matter what your answer, it's correct. Yes, he really was there, and in a bizarre way, his voice-of-authority presence kinda provided a veneer of validation to all the goings-on. I have no doubt that's part of why he actually does represent Gear Blockchain as an Advisor; although in yet another bizarre angle to the blockchain/crypto tsunami, they share a common passion to combat climate change. I can explain later.

Lots to unpack there, and I'm saving that for a longer post, so stay tuned. In short, yesterday I attended Day 1 of of the Blockchain Futurist Conference - basic details here - partly to invest a day of my time to immerse myself in the space, but also to see where there might be applications in the communications and/or customer care spaces. Am still a bit fuzzy on the latter, but give me a day or two, and things will become clearer.

Overall, there was lots of energy in the crowd, and while the show producers fell short in many areas, they sure packed the place with big names, and the venue had the right mix of exciting new technology and a Gen Y/Z party vibe. I'm on the wrong side of the age curve for what MIllennials can relate to, but I still find it hard to take speakers seriously when dressed in sneakers, skinnny jeans, hipster beards and black t-shirts. Ya gotta get past that though, as there were some very smart people who know what's happening, and really, it's their future, and I'm just living in it.

Sure, there's lots of hype, and it's hard to say how many of these companies are going to make it, but the potential sure is fascinating - and yes, it is happening. For those of us who went through VoIP's growing pains, it's certainly 2004 redux, and the whole trajectory of this space feels eerily familiar. I'll have more to say about that in my upcoming post, so for now, I'll share a few photos. I'm not giving you much here, but your thoughts, questions or first impressions are most welcome!

Great view of our skyline from the back patio - CN Tower and all - cool, huh?

Future of Blockchain panel - including Jeff Pulver - not surprisingly, I think his comments resonated with the audience by far better than anyone else I saw speaking.

Venue sure had some interesting spaces for the speakers - not always easy to hear them, and the mikes cut out from time to time, but they made good use of the space.

Old school journalism never gets old. Larry King's opening comment - "I'm the oldest guy here in the room". Yup, but nobody  minded, and in the end, he asked THE right question that made all of this real for the audience - watch for that in my next post!

Next Up - Blockchain Futurist Conference, Toronto

Am very happy to have pretty much no business travel for the summer, but I do have a local event coming up next week. My newsletter subscribers will know that I'm exploring blockchain a bit - who isn't? - and with the Blockchain Futurist Conference here in my back yard, I'll be there. Details are here, in the Event Calendar section of my website.

Not really sure what to expect, but the lineup is solid, and am sure it will be a firehose of pitches and hype. Reminds me a lot of the early days of VoIP - same trajectory, just a different technology. Anyhow, I have no doubt I'll learn some things and meet lots of interesting people - and I'll definitely be writing about it soon after.

Speaking of conferences, things are quietly ramping up for the fall, and I've been getting things in place for a few, namely Slack, two Cisco events and SCTC. Details coming on these soon.

July Writing Roundup

Things were on the light side in July for my writing, but summer is short, and I'd say it's par for the course. As noted in my current newsletter, I've had plenty of new activity, and some of that will turn up over the next few updates. If you don't follow me that closely - or don't subscribe to my newsletter - here's a digest of my notable posts and activity from July.

Google Duplex - What Businesses Need to Know, Toolbox.com, July 27

How do you Keep your Employees from Deploying UC End-user Applications?, TechTarget, July 19

My July Newsletter is Out!, my blog, July 13

Microsoft's Meeting Room of the Future - Part 2, Toolbox.com, July 11

Contact Center 2.0 - More Than Just Going to the Cloud, No Jitter, July 10

Internet Trends 2018 - How Digital Technologies are Driving Digital Behaviors, Toolbox.com, July 5