JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review - December Edition

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We mixed things up for the December episode, with our first-ever book review. A novelette, actually, from the sci-fi genre, that we found to be very timely. Written by Jack Williamson in 1947, With Folded Hands is a prescient story about a world that’s looking very familiar, and with Humanoids running everything, the parallels to the trend du jour – Agentic AI – are pretty striking. We discussed what it all means, and after you listen to us, we hope you’ll give it a read. In response to the conformity that comes with this brave new world, we raised the question about where is the next Bob Dylan to push back on all this? Following that, we reviewed our recent industry events – CREtech, ISC East, and the Talkdesk Analyst Summit. Being the last episode for 2024, we closed out with some big picture takeaways from this year, along with some things we’re expecting for 2025.

On the potential impact of Agentic AI and future of work:

“As these autonomous applications come in, they’ll be doing more and more of our everyday tasks at work – meeting summaries, writing emails, planning meetings. Basically, your personal bot is doing all these things – just like With Folded Hands, there’s nothing left for us to do. This is a big existential future of work issue – we’re going down that path, and it takes us right back to the story, where that’s exactly what happened.”

  • NEW FOR WATCH THIS SPACE – a new look and feel coming for January – a refresh has been in the works for a while – I think you’ll like it, and will help kick off Season 8!

  • NEWISH FOR WATCH THIS SPACE – we’ve added two new channels for broader distribution:

    • For EM360, a dedicated website has been created, and hosts the 10 most recent episode. You can read more about this, along with all the related links in this blog post of mine.

    • For TMC and Future of Work Expo, TMC is now a media sponsor for the podcast. This does not impact our content or topics in any way, but since the podcast is about the future of work, we’ll talk more about the sponsorship in the context of my Future of Work Expo. There’s a natural tie-in here, as the podcast is another way to support the Expo. In return, the podcast is now in regular banner rotation on three of their sites: TMCnet, our Future of Work Expo website, and their Future of Work Newssite. If you visit any of these sites on a regular basis, sooner or later, you will see banners for Watch This Space podcast, where all those clicks link directly to our WTS website.

  • AND… we’ve added an additional mail-out for newsletter subscribers, specifically about the podcast. In case you don’t check it out now, it will provide more detail about the episode to encourage you to give it a listen then. Watch for that in about a week’s time!

  • For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform – you can access it any time here on the Watch This Space website. Otherwise, the easiest platforms and sources to find WTS are Apple Podcasts, Google Chrome/Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Overcast, iTunes, Spotify and Amazon Music. Believe it or not, we’re also getting found on LinkedIn, Safari, and Alexa-enabled devices. For a more extensive replay archive, you can access all our podcasts here on my JAA website. 


What’s Up? Part 2 – JAA Highlights from November

While the Watch This Space podcast is the main form of original content for this newsletter, Part 2 here is a digest of JAA activities from last month, including my other forms of original content, along with my social media stats. Detail and links for most of these activities can be found on my blog, or posted on my website.

  • Industry events – 1 for November:

    • Talkdesk 2024 Analyst Event, Charleston, SC, Nov. 18-20

  • Video segments – recorded and published:  

  • Video segments – recorded, but not yet published:

    • 2025 UC Predictions, UC Today

    • Hot Take on 2025 AI Investment Trends, RingCentral

  • Market research report – just published, in partnership with Aizan – US Consumers’ Attitudes Towards Contact Center Queues – Nov. 21

  • Awards judging – am back for the Paris-based 2024 Epica Awards – judging has completed, and short list has been announced – details here

  • Writing roundup for November – digest here on my blog

  • Media citings – just one last month 

  • Social media highlights - since these stats change every day, they are just a basic snapshot, but they provide a good sense of reach beyond my blog and newsletter. For my business, I use LinkedIn – I’ve stopped using Twitter/X for some time – so, here are my approximate tallies for LinkedIn during November:

    • I had 25,571 views and 23 posts – a tad higher than October

    • My top LinkedIn post registered 7,373 views

    • Overall, 5 posts had 1,000+ views, and 10 had 500+ views


What's Coming? JAA Outlook for December

  • No industry events for December – but plenty lining up for early 2025

  • Active work to keep watch for:

    • Webinar with NICE – Can Customer Journeys be Automated with AI? – Dec. 12, register here

    • New podcast recorded December 2 with a FinOps vendor in partnership with EM360

    • Completed two writeups for Contact Center Pipeline – both will run in the January issue

    • Article highlighting my new market study for Aizan about the on-hold experience

    • Just finished another white paper for a leading CCaaS vendor about how AI can be used to elevate CX – should be published during December

    • For my Future of Work Expo event – running next Feb. 11-13 - here’s the latest e-blast outlining what’s on for the events, the press release announcing the agenda, and Call for Speakers for anyone interested in being on a panel or to propose a new topic

    • Continued guest posts coming – some with my byline and some without – will post about these as they are published – those with my byline will be shared as they are published

    • New projects are in play with several vendors, both current and new clients


Hey, Did You Know?

… I do more writing than speaking, but that got flipped last month. As per above, I had six video segments that ran during November, and here’s a peek from being on both sides of the mike – hope you check out the links as well.