Mitel Analyst and Consultant Summit - Quick Post and Pix

Just back from Mitel’s event in Plano, Texas, and it was time well spent. Event was short, but all the sessions were good, and their team was accessible and keen for our feedback. I’ll have more to say in a post coming a in a few days, and until then, here are some photos.

Below, CEO Rich McBee, CMO Wes Durow, and Katie Kregel’s panel session, Making the Right Cloud Choice.

Some slideware from the session: contact center portfolio summary, CloudLink overview, UCaaS competitive landscape (as defined by Mitel), enterprise architecture framework and key partners

This first photo is a bit cropped, but yeah, now THAT’s a power bar - more proof that everything IS bigger in Texas. Our big social outing, courtesy of Mitel’s box - off to the ballpark to see the Rangers, and - of course - my Red Sox. I came prepared, yup.

Next Stop - Plano, TX and Mitel

I’ve had a good run of staying close to home, but starting Monday, travel season kicks in for me. The road begins with Mitel’s Analyst and Consultant Summit in Plano, Texas. Definitely looking forward to that, and as luck would have it, they’re taking us to the ball game on Tuesday night, and yes, the Rangers are playing my Red Sox. I will be appropriately attired, so planning for baseball will loom large in my packing plans.

Unless plans change - and they always do - starting with Mitel, I will have travel in my schedule for every week through til December 1, with only two weeks in that stretch that I’ll be home. Good thing I just bought a new roller bag. Awayyyyyy we go…..

EX + CX: My Latest Podcast and Article with RingCentral

Thought leadership comes in many forms, and while I do a LOT of writing for my clients, I also do my share of podcasting. This won’t be news to my blog followers, so if you’re a more recent arrival, these are some of the ways I help vendors and cloud providers drive adoption of their technologies with end customers.

My latest update comes via the work I’ve been doing with RingCentral, where I’ve been a guest blogger off and on for some time. There are two new thought leadership offerings to share; namely an article of mine, and a podcast with me in conversation with RingCentral’s Robert Murphy and his Connection podcast series.

These pieces build on recent research done about the combined value of EX and CX - employee experience and customer experience. Each is important on its own, but they complement each other, which leads to greater agility, better productivity and happier customers.

The companion piece is our podcast, which covers this ground, but quite a bit more thanks to Robert Murphy’s thoughtful narrative. If the EX + CX equation piques your interest, I think you’ll find both of interest, and the starting point is here for the article. From there, you won’t have to look far for the podcast, but if you want to start with that, here’s the link.

Newsletter Time Again - September Issue

Just thought I’d share this before the week is out. The current edition of my newsletter - JAA’s Communications and Collaboraiton Review - went out to subscribers yesterday. If you’ve had a chance to check it out yet, I’d love to hear your thoughts, and for everyone else, subscribing is real easy - just go here.

Aside from the regular content recapping highlights from my research and industry activities, is our monthly podcast - Watch This Space. I do these in conversation with long-term colleague, Chris Fine, and this time around, our focus was on robocalling, which has been in the news lately on several fronts. The core issue is what I view as “restoring trust in telephony”, and it has major implications in our space, especially around customer care.

If that piques your interest to listen to our podcast right now, then the sooner you subscribe, the sooner you can do that. Otherwise, I’ll be postiing it publicly in a couple of weeks, where you can find it along with our earlier podcasts in the Podcast Archive on my website.

Also, if you’re new to our podcasts, I’ve recently added real-time transcription (shout-out to Otter.ai), where you have the option to read along if not convenient to listen. What’s really cool here is that by clicking on the transcript page, the words are highlighted in blue, so you can follow along in real time, word-by-word, both reading and listening.

The transcription isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good, and I love doing this to showcase how good AI speech-to-text is getting. I don’t mind you seeing the typos - warts and all - since there will always to be tricky words and phrases that AI doesn’t quite catch - but once corrected, the learning gets hard-wired, and those errors don’t come back again.

Finally - I know, I know - we’ll soon be publishing our podcasts on public platforms like iTunes - it’s very much on the to-do list!

New Podcast Series with NewVoiceMedia and Vonage for Cloud Contact Center

Cloud is the dominant trend these days in the contact center, so there’s a lot to talk about. As a regular contributor to UK-based Enterprise Management 360, I get involved in various projects, including podcasts. My latest was a 3-part podcast series, where I was in conversation with Vonage CMO Rishi Dave about various trends driving cloud-based contact center, as well as how IT needs to be thinking about embracing all that comes with that.

Our discussion was mainly through the lens of NewVoiceMedia, which forms the basis of Vonage’s contact center offering, but also the broader value proposition that comes from integrating this with the other two big cloud pillars, UCaaS and CPaaS.

Am catching up from being away last week, and all three episodes can be accessed from EM 360’s website now. Here’s the link to Episode 1, and you can follow the links from there for Episodes 2 and 3. We cover a lot of ground, but I think you’ll find it informative. As always, comments and sharing are welcome.

August Writing Roundup

Aside from attending two industry events in August, it’s summer, and I was on vacation and largely offline for the last week of the month. This made for lighter-than-normal output on the writing front, but there was still a fair bit of activity, especially with some things that were in the works earlier, and found their way to being published in August.

State of the Smart Speaker Market, Part 1, Toolbox.com, Aug. 21

4 UC Benefits that Improve Productivity, Tech Target, Aug. 20

What SMBs Really Want with Collaboration, Toolbox.com, Aug. 20

Owning Customer Engagement, the Twilio Way, No Jitter, Aug. 19

3 Trends in Mobile Collaboration, Toolbox.com, Aug. 16

Adtran Connect - Quick Take and Photos, my blog, Aug. 14

How UC Technology Works and Why You Need it, Tech Target, Aug. 12

My Q&A with Mavenir - Wireless Challenges for Security and Fraud, EM360, Aug. 9

Twilio SIGNAL - My 2 Main Takeaways on No Jitter

I attended my second Twilio SIGNAL event earlier this month in San Francisco, and as good at my first one was, this was even better. Bigger too, but also full of many updates that shows how far and wide their capabilities keep evolving.

For the collaboration space, I focused on two in particular, and they are addressed in my latest No Jitter post, which is running now. The conference also had lots of strong visual elements, and if you didn’t see my earlier post here with some photos, here’s the link. As always, comments and sharing are welcome.

Adtran Connect - Quick Take and Photos

Another week, another industry event. This time it’s for Adtran Connect, a company I have some good history with. Not my core focus, but enough pieces that touch on things I follow, so it’s definitely time well-spent. I’ll have more to say soon, and for now, here’s my usual quick-take post with photos before I move on to the next thing.

Day 1 keynotes from Curtis Knittle of CableLabs, and Matthew Hare of UK-based Zzoomm. Adtran’s Gary Bolton keeping things moving along.

Fireside chat just with analysts and press with CEO/Chairman Tom Stanton. Here’s an updated photo that I’ve posted in recent years - their wall of patents - pretty impressive. After the sessions, you do what one does in Alabama - blues and bbq. My kinda town.

Day 2 keynote - my highlight - Dr. Deborah Barnhart of the US Space and Rocket Center. What a great time to be in Huntsville, on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, and of course how the space program came to Huntsville. She told the story well, and had some pretty strong messages about how space exploration can help us save the planet - more on that later.

Next Stop - Huntsville, AL and Adtran

Got home from Twilio’s event late Thursday, and didn’t even bother to unpack. Barely home two days, and back out again, this time to Huntsville, AL and Adtran’s Connect event. Haven’t been to an Adtran event for a few years, and am glad to be back in the loop with them. Basic details are here on my Event Calendar page, but I’ll have more to share here and on social media over the next few days.

My Q&A with Mavenir - Wireless Challenges for Security and Fraud

I contribute occasionally to UK-based Enterprise Management 360, and am on their roster of analysts. My latest piece was a Q&A I did with Mavenir, with a focus on security and fraud for wireless operators. This is problematic on many fronts, and having seen them talk about this at their recent analyst event, it turns out Mavenir is quite strong in this area.

To address these challenges, my interview was done with two experts at Mavenir - Marie Casey and Ilia Abramov - and it’s running now on EM360’s site. If the topic is of interest, I think you’ll find this a good read, and if you like it, by all means share it with others.

Twilio SIGNAL 2019 - Quick Take and Pix

Last year was my first SIGNAL event, and impressive as it was, this year’s was bigger and better. Twilio is on a roll for sure (transparency alert - I’m a happy shareholder - but that doesn’t color my take here), and being on home soil, this was a loud and proud gathering in San Francisco. It’s an understatement to say that things are just different here - for better or worse - and if you were going to build a successful business at scale from the bottom-up for today’s digital economy, it would look a lot like Twilio.

As I often do when these events wrap up and I’m about to fly home, I just have time now for some photo highlights while everything is still fresh. There’s lots more to talk about, and over the next few days, I’ll have a more reflective set of takeaways, so check back here soon.

If you believe bigger is better, this was the place to be. The event planning team clearly had a mandate to spend and make sure you couldn’t miss SIGNAL. But in this case, I think Twilio lived up to the buzz.

The seating area for analysts was off to the left, so not great for getting photos during the keynotes. Above, CEO Jeff Lawson bringing vision, energy and passion. This sure sounds like a guy you’d want to work for, esp if you get behind their mantra of “we can’t wait to see you build”. Jessica Popp updating us on Flex, and Christine Roberts talking about Verified by Twilio. I’ll have more to say on both of these soon.

“Papa Vic” - Jeff really nailed the importance of personal relationships talking about his grandfather, and connecting that to Twilio’s vision to create the same at scale with their technology. Erin Reilly, as she did last year, showcased Twilio’s commitment to social good, with great examples of how they bring communications to vulnerable people and make a big difference in their lives. Boost - Jeff giving yet another example of pervasive messaging has become, and clearly, Twilio is on to something here. Final picture - a really good panel session on email - and the risks around spoofing, spam, etc. The acquisition of SendGrid for email was very strategic, and it’s an important part of Twilio’s story.

Sensoneo demo - yet another layer to Twilio - IoT. This was a smart city application, mapping out all the waste bins across San Francisco, and thanks to sensors placed inside all the lids, the sanitation department gets a birds-eye view of which bins are full and need pickup. This helps optimize their routes, and they’ve 30% cost savings as a result - that’s a great use case. Later, a session on blocking robocalls - Twilio has a fix for that now. Then some fun onstage with rapper Macklemore, the performer for the big party last night. The hash #freemacklemore” quickly became a thing, but I think we’ve moved on now. Last shot - yes, it’s what you think. The party was held in a parking garage, retrofitted to an event space. Seemed strange at first, but very cool, and very Twilio. Can’t wait to see what they build for the next SIGNAL!

Newsletter Time - August Issue Published Now

It’s that time again, and there was a lot going on in July. If you follow me, you’ll know I was busy recently at Voice Summit 2019, and if you liked that, you’ll want to subscribe ASAP, as our featured podcast is a recap of the event. That content is exclusive for subscribers for the next couple of weeks, so subscribe here if you want it now, along with all the updates I have to share for July - and ther'e’s a lot. Otherwise, check the podcast archive on my website later to access it there.

Next Stop - San Francisco and Twilio

About to head to the airport for San Fran and Twilio’s SIGNAL event. This will be my second time going, and this time around, I know more what to expect. Of all the events I attend in my ongoing travels, this one is the most developer-centric, and it’s a different crowd - or maybe I’m just getting older. :-)

Anyhow, there will be lots to catch up on, and am looking forward to getting updates on Flex, their contact center offering, especially for how AI is fitting into all this. I’ll be tweeting and blogging as time allows, and you can follow me @arnoldjon, and the event directly using the #SIGNALconf hash.

July Writing Roundup

I only had to travel to one event in July, but otherwise, I’ve never had a busier month fulfilling client work. Some of that will show up here in my July writing digest, and otherwise, you’ll have check my blog posts or get my newsletter - and I hope you do both!

Brave New World - Voice Summit 2019, July 29, BCStrategies

What’s Your Sense of Urgency for Cloud-Based Collaboration?, July 23, Toolbox.com

How Can IT Approach a Cloud-Based UC Migration?, July 23, Tech Target

Why Executive Engagement Matters for Collaboration, July 22, Toolbox.com

Jon Arnold - Voice and AI in the Enterprise, July 19, Voice Summit Blog

Standalone vs. Integrated Collaboration: 3 Factors, July 18, Tech Target

June Redux - Perspectives from 4 Events, July 9, No Jitter

Why Email Holds Back Collaboration, Part 1, July 8, Toolbox.com

Brave New World - My Voice Summit 2019 Thoughts on BCStrategies

Had a lot of takeaways from last week’s Voice Summit 2019 in Newark, and here’s my latest. While the event was mostly consumer-focused, there were some enterprise-based sessions - including mine - and there certainly was food for thought both around collaboration and contact center.

I wrote this post wearing my BC Expert hat for BCStrategies, and it’s running now on the portal. For more on this event, you’ll want to check out my photo review here, and if you subscribe to my newsletter, the upcoming August issue includes a hot-off-the-press podcast with my colleague, Chris Fine, who was there with me. I’ve got more posts coming, so stay tuned.

VOICE Summit 19 - Quick Pix

I attended the middle two days of this event in Newark, and there was plenty to see. Plenty new, plenty interesting, and plenty to talk about. Definitely an adjacency in this emerging ecosystem to collaboration - you wouldn’t normally associate these two worlds at face value - and that’s why I was there, to help bring the enterprise perspective.

Before the week is out, I only have time to share some photos, but more is coming. I’ll have a post next week for BCStrategies, and today I’m recording a podcast about it for my August newsletter. I’ve got some other posts in mind as well, so stay tuned.

I can’t validate their claim to be the “world’s largest voice event”, but it gets your attention. Pete Erickson welcoming the audience, and it was pretty big. They said 5,000 would be there, but I think it was more like 2-3k. So, Pete runs Modev (mobile developers), and that’s the organization behind the event. Last photo - the Amazon Alexa “quiet space”. The phone booth has always been a great concept, so here’s what it looks like in the digital age.

Adam Cheyer, VP R&D at Samsung - he’s one of the creators of Siri, and he’s in a great spot to make Samsung a major player in this space - just you watch. Next photo - one of an endless number of breakouts - this is Interactions - talking about using bots and conversational AI to make CX better - familiar to me, but I think very new to this crowd. Next, a slide from Voices.com - more on this later, but very interesting use case for hiring voice actors to tell your branding story. Last in this panel - one of my favorite moments - an ASL interpreter helping deaf attendees follow the sessions - loved seeing that.

Pindrop CEO Vijay B (very long last name!) talking about authentication challenges with AI-driven voice. Example here showing how Barack Obama evolved while in office - not just his looks, but also his voice - this was my favorite talk of the summit. Next photo - Tom Webster sharing highlights from the Smart Audio Report and how consumers are using digital assistants in the home. I’ll be writing about this study soon. Finally, some live jazz on tap during the Day 1 reception - this trio could really swing - loved it.

Wednesday night was the Voice Summit Awards, for which I was a judge. Pete Erickson hosting the awards event - was very fun. Highlight for me was meeting Thomas Chappell - wearing tie - he’s a deaf developer with Prudential Financial in Newark, who received an award, and addressed the audience the next day. Both in photo are deaf developers, and they were all smiles when we found out that they went to the same school as my deaf brother, NTID in Rochester. Cool! Finally, a pleasant surprise - Newark has a terrific LRT that runs through their subway tunnels. When built in the 1930s, these stations had beautiful tile work, and here's a great example from the Broad St. station.

Next Stop - Newark and VOICE 2019 - and My Preview Q&A

If you follow me, you’ll know by now that I’ll be at VOICE 2019 this week, and I’ll be flying to Newark shortly. This will be my first time both to Newark as a visitor and to this event, and it should be a great week. Details on what I’ll be up to are in my recent blog posts, and here in my Event Calendar.

As a preview, the folks at VOICE 2019 just did a Q&A with me, and that’s running now on their event blog page. I’ll make it easy for you - if interested, just click here, and you’ll be all set. If you’re attending and want to meet up, I won’t be hard to find.

VOICE Summit 19 - My Session - Voice and AI in the Enterprise

If you’re attending Voice Summit 19 next week in Newark, it’s time for a shout-out for my executive panel session. We’re on at 3pm on the Tuesday - July 23 - and we’ll be talking about a topic that’s central to my ongoing research - the impact of AI on voice in the enterprise. I’ve been calling this the “New Voice” for a while now, and if time allows, we’ll talk about what’s happening both in the workplace and the contact center.

Joining me will be Collin Davis of AWS, Yingbo Zhou of Salesforce, and Jason Ouimette of Noble Systems. Details about our session are here, and I sure hope you’ll join us. There are 17 tracks running, so attendees will need to plan carefully - it could get hectic!

To further keep on top of things, my twitter handle is @arnoldjon, and for a preview of the session, here’s a video interview I did with Pete Erickson, the force behind this event. Also, tomorrow, look for a Q&A interview from me here on the VOICE Summit blog page.

Finally if you haven’t registered yet, you can save 15% using this link and my promo code, JA309.

New Podcast with 8x8 - How Collaboration is Transforming Business

I just finished doing another podcast recording with UK-based EM360, this time with Mayur Pitamber of 8x8.

We covered a wide range of topics around how collaboration technologies are transforming business, both in the office and the contact center. A central theme is engagement, and what cloud-based offerings bring to make it better than what businesses are experiencing now. Here’s the link to our podcast, and would love to hear your thoughts.

Newsletter Time - July Issue

Subscribers have their newsletters by now, and for everyone else, even if just a bit curious about my work, you can sign up here, and get the July issue via email in no time.

The content is not published elsewhere, and subscribers get first access to our podcast. The latest topic is a recap of two conferences from June - Realcomm from Chris, and 2600Hz from me.

Otherwise, if you don’t know, there’s an archive of previous podcasts here on my website. Later this month, I’ll add the current podcast there, but if just have to hear it now, you’d better subscribe.