Why Are We Still Talking to Customers? More From My TMC Column

This week is a rare double-shot from my Rethinking Communications column that I write monthly for TMCnet's Internet Telephony Magazine.

Earlier this week, I posted about my latest column running in the current issue, and now it's catch-up time. The title of this article continues the "WHY?" theme I've been running with, simply because one question leads to another, and before you know it, a lot of things we take for granted in the UC&C space aren't really that certain.

This post actually ran in a summer issue of Internet Telephony Magazine, but let's just say it fell through the cracks a bit with the publisher, and it's only coming to light for me now. Better late than never, and I still think you'll find it a good read. Don't be shy, I'd love to find out!

Next Up - Speaking at Metaswitch Canada Technology Day

It's been a great summer, and now a busy fall awaits. I have three consecutive events coming up where I'm speaking, starting with this one.

Next Wednesday, Sept. 14, Metaswitch is hosting another edition of their Canada Technology Day event, and I'm returning again to speak. This time around, my topic will be "Delivering Value Beyond VoIP", with perspectives on how Canadian service providers can be more successful offering IP communications to their customers.

If you're attending, I hope to see you there, and I'll be presenting at 10:15. All the details have been posted here, in the Event Calendar section of my website.

Why Aren't You Using Video? My Latest Column

My Rethinking Communications column has been running in TMC's flagship magazine, Internet Telephony, for years, and my latest is one in a series that poses the "WHY" question.

This time around, the topic is video, and the question is as valid as ever, especially since I'm asking why people are not yet using it. Both the use cases and economics keep improving, and video has a key role to play in what's often called the Nextgen Workplace. I'm focusing quite a bit now on the broader "future of work" theme, and this article is a small glimpse into how things are changing - for the better. I hope you like it, and if so, stay tuned for Part 2 in the next issue.

August Writing Roundup

Pretty light month on the writing front, but hey, it's August, and after getting through some bigger projects, I need to focus on my Fall pipeline for new business. Have also been busy on two other fronts.

First is adding the back end to my updated website/blog, so I've been compiling a lot of content that will be posted soon. Once that's done I'll have a formal launch, hopefully by mid-September.

The other front is researching and writing for upcoming conferences. For the next three events, I'm either presenting or speaking, and it was great to have time to do a lot of the prep work over August.

That said, here's what I'd like to share as writing highlights from August.

UC Implications from Dialpad's New Study about Anywhere Workers, UCStrategies, Aug. 30

How Should Mobile-First Apps fit our UC Strategy?, TechTarget, Aug. 29

How Market Disruptions Impact UC Buying Decisions, Toolbox.com, Aug. 24

Why You Should Consider Integrating Contact Center with UC, Toolbox.com, Aug. 19

The Parallel Worlds of UC and the Contact Center, Toolbox.com, Aug. 16

Why Are We Still Working in Offices?, Internet Telephony Magazine, Aug. 11

New Ways to Look at UC and the Contact Center, Toolbox.com, Aug. 9

Three Key Questions for a Successful Hybrid UC Deployment, TechTarget, Aug. 8

Three Reasons Not to Partner with a Vendor for UC, Toolbox.com, Aug. 1

Dialpad's New Study About Anywhere Workers - UC Implications

As a UC Expert with UCStrategies, I contribute a monthly writeup to help keep our content fresh. Regular followers will know that I've been part of this group for years, and our BC Summit is coming soon! Stay tuned for updates on that, along with what I'll be speaking about there.

For my current contribution, I wanted to draw attention to a recent study commissioned by Dialpad, a company that knows a few things about disruption and innovation. I like where they're going with CPaaS, and that's at the heart of what's been shaking up the UC space lately.

The research has some pretty interesting findings, and while nothing is all that surprising, when you tie them together, the broader themes validate some of the challenges UC players are struggling with. From that, I see some opportunities as well, and that's my cue to steer you now to my analysis. I hope you give it a read, and as always, comments and sharing are welcome.

UC/Collaboration Market Consolidation Review - UCStrategies Podcast

The past few weeks has seen a flurry of activity from just about every UC&C player not named Cisco or Microsoft. Some companies are outright looking to make moves, while others are showing expressions of interest, so there's a lot in play right now, and that has ripple effects across the full value chain. 

Interesting times for sure, and it's a prime opportunity for analysts and consultants to weigh in on what we think is happening and what it all means. That's what we talked about in our latest Industry Buzz podcast at UCStrategies. This time around, Dave Michels was our moderator, and he managed to get a wide range of insights voiced, including mine. The podcast has now been posted to the portal, and we'd love to get your thoughts after giving it a listen.

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!

Tower of Babel and Texting, plus a few updates

Gee, time flies when you're heads-down writing.

Just realized I haven't blogged all week, and there is stuff to talk about. My ShoreTel webinar on Tuesday was really well attended, and with UCStrategies, we did a timely podcast this week about the Microsoft/Linkedin deal - I think we'll be pondering that one for a while. Have also been finishing up two new white papers and an e-book, and just got the proofs back on an upcoming magazine feature I wrote about the future of work.

I'm also quite excited about my long-in-the-works refresh of my blog and website. I've got a great team working on this, and we're merging these sites, so finally there will be one place for all of my content, along with an updated overview of my services and how I work with clients. New projects are about to start with new clients, so it's never dull around here. Oh, on the fun front, it looks like I'll be doing another gig with the SIPTones at the annual SCTC conference this fall in Kansas City - yee haw!

So, Tower of Babel? Almost forgot. This is about our most recent UCStrategies podcast, where we focused on how various text and messaging applications are complicating the UCC landscape. This keeps folks like us gainfully employed, but it's getting even harder now for decision-makers to know where to place their bets. I think our collective thoughts on this might help, so if you missed it, here's the link.

Call-out - my UC Webinar next Tuesday with ShoreTel

Response has been strong for this, and if it hasn't crossed your path yet, I'm doing a webinar next Tuesday at noon ET. The topic is helping SMBs choose the right deployment model for UC, and it's based on a paper I recently did for ShoreTel.

If that's on your radar now, I hope you can join us - registration details are here.