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

Our September episode began by talking about the best things that came from the summer. In terms of technology, the highlight was how good streaming has become, and how great a showcase the Paris Olympics were for this. From there, Jon talked about the recent NCEC Technology Conference for rural utilities in North Carolina, where he returned as a speaker. He reviewed the challenges and opportunities they face for adopting AI, along with highlights from his session on the use of conversational AI in the contact center.

NEW FOR WATCH THIS SPACE – starting last month, we’ve now 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 August

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 – NCEC Technologies Conference, Wilmington, NC, Aug. 13-15

Video segment – recorded and published:
- Big UC News – industry roundup, including Microsoft Teams Premium, Avaya’s new CEO and the CrowdStrike outage
Webinars
- NICE - in support of my new white paper for them, Aug. 8
- VentureBeat – video segment on impact of AI on enterprises, in conversation with Gary Sorrentino from Zoom, moderated by VentureBeat’s Thom Langford, Aug. 19
Awards Judging – returning for the 2024 Talkdesk CX Innovators Awards
Writing roundup for August – summary of posts is here on my blog

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 August:
- I had 13,088 views and 25 posts – almost identical to July’s numbers
- My top LinkedIn post registered 2,093 views
- Overall, 5 posts had 700+ views

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for September

After a travel-light summer, I have two conferences for September:
- Sprinklr, Source24, NYC, Sept. 9-11
- Verint Engage24, Orlando, FL, Sept. 23-25
Active work to keep watch for:
- 3 podcast interviews coming in September: with EM360, Nutun, and Glenn Goldberg’s Parallel Universe (all were supposed to run in August)
- For my Future of Work Expo event – running next Feb. 11-13 - here’s the 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
- New projects are in play with several vendors, both current and new clients

Hey, Did You Know?
…this what no travel for industry events looks like – at least in August. Our summers are short, and it won’t be long til travel resumes again, so am taking in the moment. Hope you did the same during your off-the-clock time this summer!