What’s Up? Part 1- Our Latest Watch This Space Podcast

With AI moving so quickly - yet without much ROI to speak of – it’s fair to ask if we’re at the beginning or the end with this revolution. For this episode, Jon shared insights from recent events with Zoom and Verint – two companies going all-in with AI. Both are aiming high, solving problems that only AI can handle, and we explore the bigger picture as to whether they will succeed. While they seem to be on the right track, there may be limits to how much automation workers and customers really want, making this another Watch This Space topic. Find out for yourself by checking out our June podcast.

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 new 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 May

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 – am finally able to travel again, and I attended two analyst events:
- Zoom Perspectives, May 20-21, New York City
- Verint Analyst Days, May 22-23, Dallas

Video segments – recorded and published:
- Big UC News – news roundup, including NEC, Intermedia and Microsoft Copilot – May 2
- CX Today – in conversation with Content Guru about barriers to cloud adoption – May 13
- Ecosmob – Future of VoIP, in conversation with Krunal Patel (also here on YouTube) – May 22
Video segments – recorded but not yet published:
- Big UC News – news roundup, including MSFT Teams, Zoom, RingCentral and Avaya – recorded May 30
Industry awards judging – registration for the 2024 UC Awards opened on April 29, and more recently, the roster of judges was profiled – details here
Writing roundup for May – a rare month with no public, JAA-bylined posts – largely due to being away for two weeks in Israel
Media citings – none to report for May

Social media highlights - since these stats change every day, the metrics are just a basic snapshot, but they provide a good sense of reach beyond my blog and newsletter. For my business, I use LinkedIn – fyi: have now stopped using Twitter/X – so, here are my approximate tallies for LinkedIn during May:
- I had 40,749 views and 33 posts – about 60% higher than April, largely due my return to travelling
- My top LinkedIn post registered 4,750 views
- Overall, 12 posts had 1,000+ views, and 19 had 500+

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for June

There are two industry events on the June calendar:
- Zoholics – Zoho’s customer event, June 4-5, Austin
- NICE Interactions 2024, June 10-12, Las Vegas
Active work to keep watch for:
One new white paper will be publishing soon, and another one is in the works now
Review articles for both Zoom and Verint events in May – both coming on BCStrategies
Continued guest posts coming – some with my byline and some without – will post about these as they are published
New projects are in play with several vendors, both current and new clients

Hey, Did You Know?

… not too many people are going to Israel right now, but I was there with my partner Sara for almost two weeks in May, mainly on a personal trip. Since it dominated most of my time last month, thought I’d share a few photos here. It’s a change of pace for my newsletter, but hey, there’s more to life than chatbots and video calls – and we’ll get back to that soon enough.