JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - December Edition 2022

Season 5 of Watch This Space wraps up with an episode titled “Zoom + Tesla, Twilio and Digital Execution, Mavenir and Industry 4.0, and Our 2022 Takeaways”. I attended three more industry conferences during November, and along with Chris, we explored the future of work implications – and there were many. Being the December episode, we closed things out with our 2022 takeaways, and will resume next month with our 2023 outlook. 

• As we head into Season 6, thought I’d mention that the November episode had the most downloads to date for WTS, and the past few months have been trending upward nicely. We’re hoping that’s a sign that we’re finally finding our audience – or maybe it’s the other way around.

• For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.  

• NEW: podcast updates on my website – we’ve added two new features to encourage listener engagement, as well as making earlier episodes easier to find:

  • We now have a comments box, where listeners can give us feedback or to suggest new topics for future episodes – just scroll down here a bit, and let us know what you think – we’d love to hear from you!

  • Podcast archive is now taking shape, and the same will be coming soon for the newsletter – using that same scroll down link from above - following the comments - you can access thumbs and links for all the 2022 episodes – Season 5

  • Scroll past that, you’ll a see click box to access 2021 episodes, Season 4 – the links are there now, and thumbs coming soon – and following that, we’ll be adding earlier seasons

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms – namely iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

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 the previous month, including my industry event calendar, other forms of original content, and my social media stats on LinkedIn and Twitter. More detail for most of these activities can be found on my blog.

• Industry events – following an epic month of travel to conferences, I had a more manageable three to attend during November:

  • Twilio SIGNAL, Nov. 1, San Francisco 

  • Zoomtopia, Nov. 8-9, San Francisco – blog post/photos here

  • Mavenir Analyst Summit, Nov. 15-17, Dallas – blog post/photos here

• New Advisory Board role – for UCX USA, produced by UK-based Clarion Events – I’m one of many advisors for this newly-created event that launches next September in Austin, TX – stay tuned

• White paper – AI for the Contact Center – It’s so much More than Chatbots, for NICE

• Insight report - The AI Opportunity: Enhance the Agent and Customer Experience with AI Application Integrations, for Upstream Works

• Podcasts – two last month:

  • with Mark Sher from Intermedia, talking about cloud migration, hosted by EM360

  • guest on NICE’s CX Pulse podcast, talking about the digital agent experience

• 2023 predictions – updates coming when each of these runs:

  • Video segment done with a panel for Today Digital – focus on UCaaS 

  • Short writeup about contact center predictions for Contact Center Pipeline

• Writing roundup – three public postings last month – you can read them here

• Media citings – just one for November - here

• Social media highlights - since these stats change every day, the metrics are just a basic snapshot, but they provide a good sense of JAA’s reach beyond my blog and newsletter. For my business, I use Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for November:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 51,833 views from 32 posts – down a bit from October, but it’s the eighth strong month in a row – all with 23,000+ views 

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 7,491 views, and overall, 7 posts had 1,000+ views, and 16 posts had 700+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 10,700 impressions – double from October, 1,057 profile visits, 139 mentions – also double from October, 42 tweets, but also 28 fewer followers 

  • My “top tweet” was about my webinar with Five9, with 2,363 impressions, and 8 tweets had 300+ impressions

• SIPtones highlights – if you don’t know, we’re a music band of consultants, and we perform when we can at industry events. You can check out video clips and photos on the My Music tab, and new clips are coming from our still-fresh gig the 2022 SCTC conference, and eventually something from our 2021 San Diego gig. Until those come, here’s a photo from our SCTC gig in Dallas (thanks to Cyndi Crews):

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for December

• At the moment, there is just one travel event during December:

  • Internet 2.0 Conference, December 19-21, Las Vegas – this is a new event for me, and I’ll be moderating a panel on the Metaverse on Day 3 – details coming soon

• Five9 CX Canada Summit – Dec. 1, Toronto – virtual presentation on CCaaS and cloud migration for the Canadian market 

• In terms of active client and industry work, here are some highlights for what’s coming:

  • Three white papers - one going now, and two done that should launch soon

  • Continued guest posts and podcasts coming for different vendors in the CCaaS space

  • Guest post coming for a vendor in the testing space

  • Ongoing research for a series of articles coming for a VoIP services start-up

  • UPDATE on Future of Work Expo, Feb.14-17, 2023 – agenda published now – am full-on in speaker recruitment mode now – contact me if you think there’s a session here you/your company should be on 

  • Enterprise Connect, March 2023 – update for my annual talk on the state of enterprise speech tech – we’re expanding this to a panel, and once speakers have been added, I’ll share that on my blog

  • New judging role – for a major industry event – details coming soon

Hey Did You Know....

…. as an analyst, I get to see a lot of CEOs up close (not many women CEOs I’m afraid), and it’s always great to get the updates from the top. Some are better speakers than others, and they all have their own style. Last month, I got to see three in action – Eric Yuan from Zoom, Jeff Lawson from Twilio and Pardeep Kohli from Mavenir (all photos mine). Very different types of leaders, but they’re all effective, and I learn different things from each one.

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - November Edition 2022

Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “October Events Roundup – Surveillance, Audio Watermarking, Intelligent Customer Service, Private 5G and Another SIPtones Gig”. Industry conferences were in full swing last month, and the topics in this title provide a sense of what Chris and I talked about. October travel took me to three continents, so our perspectives are broad, and we don’t think you’ll mind this being a longer-than-usual episode. 

• For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.  

• NEW: podcast updates on my website – we’ve added two new features to encourage listener engagement, as well as making earlier episodes easier to find:

  • We now have a comments box, where listeners can give us feedback or to suggest new topics for future episodes – just scroll down here a bit, and let us know what you think – we’d love to hear from you!

  • Podcast archive is now taking shape, and the same will be coming soon for the newsletter – using that same scroll down link from above - following the comments - you can access thumbs and links for all the 2022 episodes – Season 5

  • Scroll past that, you’ll a see click box to access 2021 episodes, Season 4 – the links are there now, and thumbs coming soon – and following that, we’ll be adding earlier seasons.

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

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 the previous month, including my industry event calendar, other forms of original content, and my social media stats on LinkedIn and Twitter. More detail for most of these activities can be found on my blog.

• Industry events – maybe my busiest month ever – I attended all six below in person, declined an invite to another in-person event, and simply ran out of time to track another one that ran virtually:

  • Canadian Technology and Communications Consultants Networking Forum, Toronto, Oct. 6 – I gave the lock note presentation

  • NICE Analyst Summit, Marrakesh, Morocco, Oct. 10-11

  • UC Expo 2022, London, Oct. 12-12 – I spoke on two sessions

  • Cisco WebexOne Analyst Summit, San Jose, Oct. 20-21

  • SCTC 2022 Conference, Dallas, Oct. 24-26 – did the lock note, and our SIPtones gig

  • RingCentral Analyst Summit, Napa, Oct. 27-28

• Video segments – got three to share, including one that I forgot to post from last month:

  • From September - I was the interview subject for the debut episode of UC Today Big News

  • During UC Expo in London, EM360 interviewed me for commentary on the show

  • Also with EM360, I was recently designated “Expert” as part of their updated portal, and to support that, we recorded a short Meet the Analyst segment

• Writing roundup – just one public posting; one of my regular contributions for TechTarget

• Media citings – there were five for October, and you can see them here

• Social media highlights - since these stats change every day, the metrics are just a basic snapshot, but they provide a good sense of JAA’s reach beyond my blog and newsletter. For my business, I use Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for October:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 63,571 views from 342 posts – seventh strong month in a row – all with 23,000+ views – the second-highest tally since I started tracking this in 2020, and by far, the largest so far for 2022

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 11,741 views, and overall, 6 posts had 2,000+ views, and 16 posts had 1,000+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 5,420 impressions, 1,464 profile visits, 56 mentions, 26 tweets, and 9 fewer followers – numbers are mixed from prior month, but impressions were up quite a bit

  • My “top tweet” was about Cisco’s Analyst Open House event, with 663 impressions

  • Am wondering with Musk taking over now, will this be peak Twitter, and be all downhill from here?

• SIPtones highlights – if you don’t know, we’re a music band of consultants, and we perform when we can at industry events. You can check out video clips and photos on the My Musictab, and new clips are coming from our still-fresh gig the 2022 SCTC conference, and eventually something from our 2021 San Diego gig. 

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for November

• At the moment, there are three in-person events on tap for November:

  • Twilio SIGNAL, Nov. 1, San Francisco 

  • Zoomtopia, Nov. 8-9, San Francisco

  • Mavenir Analyst Summit, Nov. 15-17, Dallas

• In terms of active client work, here are some highlights for what’s coming:

  • Two white paper projects - one going now, and one that’s done and should launch this month (and a follow-on podcast coming)

  • December webinar in the works now for a leading CCaaS vendor

  • Doing another EM360 podcast, where I’ll be interviewing a leading cloud communications provider

  • Continued guest posts coming for different vendors in the CCaaS space

  • Research underway for a series of articles coming for a VoIP services start-up

  • Programming mostly in place now for the Future of Work Expo 2023 

Hey Did You Know....

…. My October travels took me to three continents, four countries and six cities. Not nearly enough sight-seeing, but got my usual share of photos, many of which are on my blog and LinkedIn, and some others on my Facebook page. Got two sets here that I though summed up October pretty well.

First – a tale of two cities 

Hotel room views; the lushness of Marrakesh, then the cramped quarters from my London hotel, where the shower literally steamed up the whole room. Where would you rather be?

Second – group shots are a thing now

Well, it takes three instances to call it a trend, and this is my version of trendspotting. This almost never happens at events, but all of a sudden it’s a thing, and there were three of them from last month’s travels. First, from the Cisco WebexOne analyst event, and last, a similar effort from the RingCentral Analyst Summit. Takes a lot of work to get everyone in, so kudos to the photographers. 

Finally, in the middle, at the SCTC event in Dallas, a group shot after our SIPtones gig. Joining us were members from the opening band, Southern Flight, who jammed with us to close out the show – the fun side of life on the road, huh? And, in case you’re wondering, I am the only person in all three of these group shots. Call me Forrest Gump, call me Zelig, but last month I definitely got around!

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - October Edition 2022

Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Quiet Firing, Return to Office, and Digital HQ from Salesforce”. The hybrid work pendulum continues swinging back and forth, and following our discussion of quiet quitting last month, we look at the flip side this episode with quiet firing. We also examine new drivers for evolving workspace design, and what we think Salesforce is on to with their bold launch of Digital HQ.

• For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.  

• NEW: podcast updates on my website – we’ve added two new features to encourage listener engagement, as well as making earlier episodes easier to find:

  • We now have a comments box, where listeners can give us feedback or to suggest new topics for future episodes – just scroll down here a bit, and let us know what you think – we’d love to hear from you!

  • Podcast archive is now taking shape, and the same will be coming soon for the newsletter – using that same scroll down link from above - following the comments - you can access thumbs and links for all the 2022 episodes – Season 5

  • Scroll past that, you’ll a see click box to access 2021 episodes, Season 4 – the links are there now, and thumbs coming soon – and following that, we’ll be adding earlier seasons

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms – namely iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

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

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 the previous month, including my industry event calendar, other forms of original content, and my social media stats on LinkedIn and Twitter. More detail for most of these activities can be found on my blog.

• Industry events – none for September, but will be plenty busy throughout October

• Guest blog posts – three ran last month:

  • Contact Center Pipeline – my first guest post with them, and more to come

  • NICE, two posts on their blog, Sept. 7 and 21

• Writing roundup – here’s the digest, and my top choice would be: “Vonage AI Studio – Have They Cracked the Code with AI?”, running on No Jitter 

• Media citings – there were 2 for September, and you can see them here

• Judging – I completed the judging process for Talkdesk’s 2022 Innovator Awards – details coming when the winners are announced

• Social media highlights - since these stats change every day, the metrics are just a basic snapshot, but they provide a good sense of JAA’s reach beyond my blog and newsletter. For my business, I use Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for September:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 29,371 views from 22 posts – seventh strong month in a row – all with 23,000+ views

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 3,375 views, and overall, 6 posts had 1,000+ views, and 12 posts had 700+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 3,648 impressions, 3,077 profile visits, 88 mentions, 29 tweets, and 7 new followers – numbers are mixed from prior month, but profile visits were way up

  • My “top tweet” was about Vonage’s AI Studio launch, with 422 impressions

SIPtones highlights – if you don’t know, we’re a music band of consultants, and we perform when we can at industry events. You can check out video clips and photos on the My Music tab, and new clips are coming from our latest gig in November at the 2021 SCTC conference. We’ll be performing at the 2022 conference this month, and hope to get some clips from that on my site later in the year.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for October

• October starts the busy season for industry events, and here’s what’s on tap:

  • Canadian Technology and Communications Consultants Networking Forum, Toronto, Oct. 6 – am giving the locknote

  • NICE Analyst Summit, Marrakesh, Morocco (really!), Oct. 10-11

  • Google Next (virtual), Oct. 11-13

  • UC Expo 2022, London, Oct. 12-12 – speaking on two sessions

  • Cisco WebexOne Analyst Summit, San Jose, Oct. 20-21

  •  SCTC 2022 Conference, Dallas, Oct. 24-26 – doing the locknote, and SIPtones gig!

  • RingCentral Analyst Summit, Napa, Oct. 27-28

• Guest article coming in Channel Futures about the cybersecurity opportunity

• In terms of active client work, here are some highlights for what’s coming:

  • Two white paper projects - one about to start up, and one that should launch in October

  • Continued guest posts coming for different vendors in the CCaaS space

  • Strategic advisory role for a VoIP services start-up

  • Early planning underway for both Future of Work Expo 2023 (programming) and Enterprise Connect 2023 (speaking)

Hey Did You Know....

… In a few days, I’ll be “riding on the Marrakesh Express, they’re taking me to Marrakesh”.

Yup, kind of. I’ll be on a plane, not a train, but still, I’m going to Marrakesh, courtesy of NICE, one of the leading vendors in the contact center space. That’s a first for me.

If you’re of a certain age, you’ll know that lyric above, and now you can’t get that CSN classic out of your head. It’s ok - neither can I - so just give in to your impulses, and click the link to play the song, and sing along…

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - September Edition 2022

Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Crashing Tech Stocks and Quiet Quitting – Is There a Connection?”.  Quiet quitting has become the nom du jour in hybrid work circles, and aside from examining the implications, Chris and I explored if there might be a connection to what’s behind the drastic falloff in tech stocks - especially those in the collaboration space. Hybrid work continues to face headwinds, and we also discussed how this is as much an HR problem as it is a tech problem.

• For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.  

• NEW: podcast updates on my website – we’ve added two new features to encourage listener engagement, as well as making earlier episodes easier to find:

  • We now have a comments box, where listeners can give us feedback or to suggest new topics for future episodes – just scroll down here a bit, and let us know what you think – we’d love to hear from you!

  • Podcast archive is now taking shape, and the same will be coming soon for the newsletter – using that same scroll down link from above - following the comments - you can access thumbs and links for all the 2022 episodes – Season 5

  • Scroll past that, you’ll a see click box to access 2021 episodes, Season 4 – the links are there now, and thumbs coming soon – and following that, we’ll be adding earlier seasons

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms – namely iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

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 the previous month, including my industry event calendar, other forms of original content, and my social media stats on LinkedIn and Twitter. More detail for most of these activities can be found on my blog.

• Industry events – only one, which I elected to track virtually:

  • Zoom Perspectives 2022, Aug. 23-25

• Webinar - with Servion and Cisco, about helping contact centers with digital CX, Aug. 11

• Podcast – in conversation with Patrick Sullivan, co-CEO/Founder of 2600Hz, hosted by EM360, and posted Aug. 23 

• Guest blog posts – two ran during August:

  •  tekVizion – wearing my BCStrategies hat - posted Aug. 31 on their blog

  • NICE, posted Aug. 2 on their blog – and more posts coming soon

• Writing roundup – here’s the digest, and my top choice would be: “Is Hybrid Work Working? It Depends Who You Talk To”, running both on Workspace Connect and No Jitter 

• Media citings – there were 3 for August, and you can see them here

• Social media highlights - since these stats change every day, the metrics are just a basic snapshot, but they provide a good sense of JAA’s reach beyond my blog and newsletter. For my business, I use Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for August:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 39,812 views from only 15 posts – sixth strong month in a row – by far, the best month this year; and second-best view tally since I starting tracking in 2020

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 12,702 views, and overall, 8 posts had 1,000+ views, and 13 of 15 total posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 8,260 impressions, 1,884 profile visits, 62 mentions, 27 tweets, and 9 new followers – numbers are up a bit compared to July

  • My “top tweet” was about Alan Masarek becoming Avaya’s new CEO, with 1,135 impressions - and overall, 7 tweets had 500+ impressions

• SIPtones highlights – if you don’t know, we’re a music band of consultants, and we perform when we can at industry events. You can check out video clips and photos on the My Music tab, and new clips are coming next month from our latest gig in November at the 2021 SCTC conference. We’ll be performing at the 2022 conference this October, so it will be time to start practising soon!

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for September

• As with August, a very light event calendar with just one on tap - I’ll be tracking NEC’s Visionary Week 2022, but only for sessions related my coverage

• A quiet September is really just the calm before the storm – starting October 6, I’ll be on the road to 7 different events before the month is out, plus one that’s virtual - and November isn’t looking much different, yeow – details coming in upcoming newsletters, and of course my blog

• Two new contributor roles to showcase my thought leadership with leading publishers – watch my blog in early September for details:

  • Contact Center Pipeline

  • UK-based Enterprise Management 360

• In terms of active client work, it’s largely a continuation from August, but other things are very much in the works:

  • Speech tech opportunity assessment for a major vertical market segment

  • Two new white paper projects - one about to start up, and one already in progress

  • Continued guest posts coming for different vendors in the CCaaS space

  • Strategic advisory role for a VoIP services start-up

  • Early planning underway for both Future of Work Expo 2023 (programming) and Enterprise Connect 2023 (speaking)

  • Mapping out keynote topics for two SCTC-related events coming in October

Hey Did You Know....

… speaking of calm before the storm for fall travel to industry events, here’s the calm. Taken while driving up to Haliburton for a rustic getaway last month. Yup, that’s calm, but already it’s starting to feel like it’s in the rear-view mirror…

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - August Edition 2022

Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “EY Work Reimagined Study – Getting Employees and Employers on the Same Page”.  Our last podcast focused on highlights from Future of Work Expo, which included a keynote about this new study from Ernst & Young. The findings reveal some worrisome disconnects between employees and employers, which we explore in this episode, along with what enterprises should be doing to strike a tenable balance to support the hybrid work model.  

• For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.  

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms – namely iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

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

• 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 the previous month, including my other forms of original content, and my social media stats. More detail for most of these will be on my blog.

  Highlights were thin for July, due in part to industry events largely being on hiatus. Also, for the better part of three weeks last month, I was away on a family visit, followed by my first bout of Covid, which has now pretty much run its course.

• UC Awards 2022 – I was a judge again this year, and the winners were announced July 28 

• Writing roundup – here’s the digest, and my top choice would be: “In Conversation with Rob McDougall on AI and Setting Expectations in the Contact Center” 

• New contributor – am being added to the roster for Contact Center Pipeline, and my first article is done now, and will run in September

• Media citings – there were 3 for July, and you can see them here

• 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 Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for July:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 23,799 views and only 15 posts – fifth strong month in a row

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 3,865 views, and overall, 5 posts had 1,000+ views, and 12 of 15 total posts had 600+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 7,180 impressions, 1,141 profile visits, 39 mentions, 16 tweets, and 14 new followers – second straight month of mixed bag metrics compared to the prior month – but impressions were up from June

  • My “top tweet” was a RT about being included in tweet from a leading influencer, with 1,604 impressions, and overall, 3 tweets had 1,000+ impressions

• SIPtones highlights – if you don’t know, we’re a band of consultants, and we perform when we can at industry events. You can check out video clips and photos on the My Music tab, and new clips are coming next month from our latest gig in November at the 2021 SCTC conference. We’ll be performing at the 2022 conference this October, so it will be time to start practising soon!

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for August

• Only one industry event on tap for August, but others could come along at any time:

  • Zoom Perspectives 2022, Aug. 23-25 (attending virtually)

• Webinar with Servion and Cisco is now set for August 11 – details on my blog

• Client work has eased up with summer, but several new things are in the works that will play out soon – some high-level examples:

  • Speech tech opportunity assessment for a major vertical market segment

  • Recording a podcast interview with a UCaaS vendor for an EU tech publisher

  • Two new white paper projects about to start up

  • Writing a guest blog post for a UCStrategies client that will run on their site

  • Continued guest posts coming for different vendors in the CCaaS space

  • Strategic advisory role for a VoIP services start-up

  • Several engagements in early discussions with both existing and prospective clients that should bear fruit for the fall

Hey Did You Know....

…Covid sucks, but it seems now that more people in my circles have had it than those who have not. A lot of cases seem to be connected to travel, mine included. Of the seven people from our family trip last month, five tested positive during the trip, but we’re all negative now – yay! 

While the symptoms were mild, it has definitely slowed me down the past few weeks. I’ll finally be getting back to the gym, and my energy is returning now, just in time for what’s shaping up to be a really busy fall. Sometimes, a picture is worth 1,000 words – or smiles. Oh, happy day!

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - July Edition 2022

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

Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Future of Work Expo Review – Making Hybrid Work Work”. Having just returned from this event, Jon recaps the key themes, and co-host Chris Fine adds his perspective as to why hybrid work is harder to do than it looks. Having served as Chair for four years now, Jon explains why this year’s Future of Work Expo was the best to date, and provides a strong foundation for the 2023 edition, coming in February.

• For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.  

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms – namely iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

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

• 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 the previous month, including my other forms of original content, and my social media stats. More detail for most of these will be on my blog.

• Conference roundup – three events for June, with FOW Expo being the big one:

  • Genesys Xperience, June 8-9

  • Cisco Live, June 13-14

  • Future of Work Expo, Ft. Lauderdale, June 21-23

• Future of Work Expo – aside from being the subject of our July podcast, I shared my thoughts and some photos on this post from my blog

• UC Awards 2022 – I’m a judge again this year, and the judging process is complete now – I evaluated entries from 46 companies across 3 categories; finalists will be announced July 8, and the winners will be announced July 28 

• NICE blog – I’ve been writing guest posts for their blog for a few months now, and the posts are finally being published, with the first one out now – you can read it here, and I’ll provide updates when subsequent posts run 

• Writing roundup – here’s the digest, and if you just read one, this would be my choice: “3 Building Blocks for a Better Customer Experience”, on No Jitter

• 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 Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for June:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 26,087 views and 22 posts – fourth strong month in a row

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 2,687 views, and overall, 7 posts had 1,000+ views, and 12 posts had 400+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 5,654 impressions, 2,520 profile visits, 40 mentions, 18 tweets, and 18 new followers – mixed bag compared to May – impressions down, but profile visits way up

  • My “top tweet” was about the UC Awards, with 509 impressions, and overall, 3 tweets had 400+ impressions

• Updates were recently added about my musical interests, with both new video clips and photos, including our latest gig in November at the SCTC conference. For those who don’t know about my fun side – we all need that! - you can find this on the My Music tab.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for July

• No scheduled events for July, but that could change in a hurry

• June webinar with Servion has now been pushed out to August – details coming soon

• Judging for the CX Innovator Awards, hosted by Talkdesk – has now been pushed out to early Fall

• Client work has eased up with summer, but several new things are in the works that will play out soon – a few high-level examples:

  • Early planning for Future of Work Expo 2023

  • Early planning for my involvement in Enterprise Connect 2023

  • Speech tech opportunity assessment for a major vertical market segment

  • Renewing a contributor arrangement with a leading EU tech publisher

  • Mapping out both speaking roles and our next SIPtones gig for the SCTC annual conference this October in Dallas

  • Mapping out speaking roles for upcoming industry events, both in the US and EU

Hey Did You Know....

Everyone knows this cliché, but in today’s always-on, hyperconnected world, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s happening around us. However, if you pick your spots, uttering plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose can land really well, especially with a Gallic shrug for dramatic flair.

I didn’t have anything in mind for this section of the newsletter for July, and sometimes I go retro and share old posts from my blog archive – which goes back to 2005. Ten years seemed like a good wayback spot, so I came across this blog post of mine from July 4, 2012.

Titled “Up for air”, I was recounting how busy I was at the time, juggling client work and travel to various industry events. As I try to be chill over the Canada Day/July 4th holiday weekend, I have mixed feelings when thinking that if I wrote a post right now about what’s happening with me, it would pretty much be exactly the same message. Plus ça change, indeed.

While I’m grateful to have a steady mix of ongoing client work and new clients, the ongoing state of busy-ness can be a bit of a trap. Thankfully, I have plenty of healthy diversions to balance things out, but seeing this 2012 post provides good cause to look at the bigger picture. The technology sure has changed a lot since then, and there will always be a need for analysts to do what we do – at least until the bots take over. Happy Canada Day, and Happy 4th!

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - June Edition 2022

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

• Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “The Metaverse, Innovation and Invention – Thinking Bigger About Future of Work”. What started as an exploration of the continued challenges faced by businesses to get workers back to the office, veered into the unchartered waters of the metaverse. Jon shared some future of work perspectives from his recent metaverse experience during the NICE Interactions event, and how workers can manage this along with physical workplace experiences. The led to our takeaways about how business leaders need to think beyond innovation, and to also look for inventions from technology players for shaping the future of work.

• For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.  

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms – namely iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

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 the previous month, including my other forms of original content, and my social media stats. More detail for most of these will be on my blog.

• Conference roundup – four events for May, with one being in-person:

  • Poly analyst event, May 3, New York (takeaways and photos here)

  • Zendesk Relate, May 9

  • KAZOOcon 2022, May 24

  • NICE Interactions, May 24-25

• Webinars – presented on two, with different vendors:

  • With Five9, May 26

  • With LumenVox, May 25

• Video presentation – I spoke virtually about trends driving cloud adoption during KAZOOcon, May 24

• Video interviews – was a guest on three segments:

  • ZKast – Takeaways from Poly and Cisco events, in conversation with Zeus Kerravala, May 11

  • First Contact, hosted by NobelBiz - talking about future of work for contact centers, May 17

  • SCTC Fireside Chat – talking about the state of speech tech, May 18

• Podcast – latest BCStrategies episode, focused on the rationale for UCaaS and CCaaS being together – or not, May 17 

• Writing roundup – just one public article, on No Jitter – it’s a long one, but a good one, especially if you follow healthcare - How AI is Impacting Communication, Collaboration and Workflows in the Healthcare Market

• 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 Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for May:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 27,321 views and 36 posts – third strong month in a row

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 2,254 views, and overall, 8 posts had 800+ views, and 16 posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 8,943 impressions, 1,777 profile visits, 54 mentions, 31 tweets, and 28 new followers – down from April – not really sure why!

  • My “top tweet” was about Five9 Day, with 1,180 impressions, and overall, 3 tweets had 400+ impressions

• Updates were recently added about my musical interests, with both new video clips and photos, including our latest gig in November at the SCTC conference. For those who don’t know about my fun side – we all need that! - you can find this on the My Music tab.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for June

• Just two events for June, including the one I’m Chair of, and I’ll be in-person for that one:

  • Genesys Xperience, June 8-9

  • Future of Work Expo, Ft. Lauderdale, June 21-23

• Speaking of June events, my speaker recruitment efforts continue for Future of Work Expo, and here’s the agenda page – please get in touch to learn more, either for speaking or sponsoring/exhibiting

• Webinar coming on June 9 with Servion about enabling digital CX

• Am returning as a judge for two industry awards programs:

  • UC Awards 2022, hosted by UC Today

  • CX Innovator Awards, hosted by Talkdesk

• Guest contributor – was recently invited to be on the writing roster for Contact Center Pipeline, and my first post will run in the July edition

• Guest post coming on Light Reading about innovation in today’s global, digital economy

• New writeups are coming in June for both TechTarget and No Jitter

• In terms of current client work, here’s what I can share:

  • Started a series of thought leadership pieces for a leading contact center vendor, and they’ll soon be posted on their blog – stay tuned

  • Continued blog posts ghost-written for a contact center vendor

Hey Did You Know....

… the metaverse is kinda happening now. Is there a hotter buzzword these days? It’s very much part of my coverage, and has become part of my future of work narrative. We touched on it during this month’s podcast, and last month, NICE made this a big focus of their Interactions event – virtual – which drew some 20,000 attendees. 

Only a small number – including analysts – were able to access the “Niceverse”, a totally virtual way to experience the Interactions event – using an Oculus Quest 2 headset. I’ve seen this before, where the entire environment – including avatars – is virtual, Second Life-style, but where you could also watch the video sessions of the speakers in real time. So, that’s really a mixed reality thing, and it was pretty cool. 

Lots more to talk about, but you get the idea - maybe. To help with that, here are a couple of screenshots below. Pleased to meet you – this is my avatar, jona7 - I may not have legs, but I haven’t had this much hair since I don’t know when!

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - May Edition 2022

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

• Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Channel Partners Expo – Money Talks, Muddling Through Hybrid Work, and HP Acquires Poly”. With in-person conferences back in full swing now, Jon and Chris had some follow-on takes on Enterprise Connect, along with perspectives from the Channel Partners Expo that Jon recently attended. One main theme is the growing role Big Tech is playing in shaping workplace collaboration experiences to support hybrid work, and another is the role private equity seems poised to play now in consolidating the channel space. Just for good measure, we added our thoughts on HP’s acquisition of Poly. 

• For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.  

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms – namely iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

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

• 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 the previous month, including my other forms of original content, and my social media stats. More detail for most of these will be on my blog.

• Conference roundup – just three events for April:

  • Google Data Cloud Analyst Roundtable, April 5

  • Channel Partners Conference, April 11-13, Las Vegas – moderated two sessions

  • Spring VON3 2022, April 25-27 – was on three sessions

• Writing roundup – a digest of public writing is summarized here, and my top pick would be my review of the Channel Partners Expo on No Jitter – “Be Careful What You Wish For”

• Webinar with Huawei, hosted by Light Reading

• Video interview on ZKast – Enterprise Connect highlights, in conversation with Zeus Kerravala

• Podcast – BCStrategies did two segments, also about Enterprise Connect, and I was part of the second one

• Guest article – was asked to contribute an article for the Collaboration Market Guide, as part of a series of market guides just published by UC Today – need to download here

• Media citings – tally was six mentions in the media for April

• 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 Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for April:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 25,364 views and 30 posts – second strong month in a row

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,882 views, and overall, 4 posts had 1,000+ views, and 17 posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 14,200 impressions, 3,040 profile visits, 74 mentions, 34 tweets, and 32 new followers – stats are up nicely from March, especially profile visits and new followers

  • My “top tweet” was about the VON3 event, with 899 impressions, and overall, 5 tweets had 500+ impressions

• Updates were recently added about my musical interests, with both new video clips and photos, including our latest gig in November at the SCTC conference. For those who don’t know about my fun side – we all need that! - you can find this on the My Music tab.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for May

• Got four analyst events on the calendar at the moment, with only one being in-person:

  • Poly analyst event, May 3, New York

  • Zendesk Relate, May 9

  • KAZOOcon 2022, May 24

  • NICE Interactions, May 24-25

• Speaking of upcoming events, my speaker recruitment efforts continue for Future of Work Expo, running June 21-23 - I’m returning as Chair, and here’s the agenda page – please get in touch to learn more, either for speaking or sponsoring/exhibiting

• On the public writing front, I have a guest post coming in early May on No Jitter about AI opportunities in the healthcare sector

• In terms of current client work, here’s what I can share:

  • Two webinars coming in May, one with LumenVox, and one with Five9

  • Started a series of thought leadership pieces for a leading contact center vendor, and they’ll soon be posted on their blog – stay tuned

  • Continued blog posts ghost-written for a contact center vendor

Hey Did You Know....

… the good roll with media coverage that I was on in March continued last month, including spots at the Channel Partners event, and one from Enterprise Connect that only ran more recently. 

 Channel Partners on JSA TV (Left) Enterprise Connect with Genesys, Tech Talks in 20 (Right)

Was also busy speaking on a few fronts. Below, 1:1 with Huawei USA’s Andy Purdy, and one of the VON3 sessions I was on.

JAA's Communications and Collaboration Review - April Edition 2022

• Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “Enterprise Connect Recap: The Return to In-Person Industry Events!”.  The title says it all, and with Spring and baseball around the corner, the timing was great for Enterprise Connect 2022. This is the most important event in the communications technology space, and we haven’t gathered since March 2019, so it was enough just to be there. The vibe was good, and I covered the highlights here with Chris. I hope you give it a listen, and there was plenty more to share about the event, which you can check out later in this issue, as well as here on my blog.

• For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.  

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms – namely iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

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

• 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 the previous month, including my other forms of original content, and my social media stats. More detail for most of these will be on my blog.

• Conference roundup – there were four events for me, with three being virtual, and EC 2022 being fully in-person (sidebar – some EC sessions were also offered for virtual attendees, including my session)

  • Mitel NEXT, March 9

  • 8x8 Industry Analyst Event, March 16-17

  • Enterprise Connect 2022, March 21-24, Orlando, FL

  • TeleSign Analyst Day, March 31

• Writing roundup – back to a more normal level of public writing, summarized here – if you just read one, it’s gotta be my book review for Empathy in Action– start here, and I’d love to hear you feedback 

• Media citings – with several events on my calendar, media activity was up, with 9 citings

• 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 Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for March:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 27,110 views and 27 posts – one of my highest tallies to date

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 5,229 views, and overall, 6 posts had 1,000+ views, and 14 posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 12,200 impressions, 1,723 profile visits, 42 mentions, 32 tweets, and 18 new followers – stats are up nicely from February, largely due to event activity, especially Enterprise Connect

  • My “top tweet” was about Mitel’s analyst event, with 1,209 impressions, and overall, 13 tweets had 300+ impressions

• Updates were recently added about my musical interests, with both new video clips and photos, including our latest gig in November at the SCTC conference. For those who don’t know about my fun side – we all need that! - you can find this on the My Music tab.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for April

• With Enterprise Connect being the litmus test for in-person events, I’ve got another one coming this month, along with two other virtual events:

  • Google Data Cloud Analyst Roundtable, April 5

  • Channel Partners Conference, April 11-13, Las Vegas – moderating two sessions

  • Spring VON3 2022, April 26 (details TBD, including a speaking spot)

• For Channel Partners, I’ll be moderating two UCaaS-themed sessions, and they should be a lot of fun – details coming very soon on my blog and elsewhere – until then, here’s a preview for one of my sessions, and maybe I’ll see you there!

• Speaking of upcoming events, my speaker recruitment efforts continue for Future of Work Expo, running June 21-23 - I’m returning as Chair, and here’s the agenda page – please get in touch to learn more, either for speaking or sponsoring/exhibiting

• Toward the end of March, I recorded two segments about Enterprise Connect that will run in early April:

  • BCStrategies podcast

  • ZKast video interview with colleague Zeus Kerravala

• In terms of current client work, here’s what I can share:

  • New white paper and e-book for Cisco about Webex Go – the e-book was just published – access it here – and details about the white paper will come soon

  • Another white paper is about to be published – details coming next month, as well as on my blog – this one was done for a leading cloud provider about CPaaS   

  • Started a series of thought leadership pieces for a leading contact center vendor, and they’ll soon be posted on their blog – stay tuned

  • Continued blog posts ghost-written for a contact center vendor

  • Am developing 10 new project and advisory opportunities – I’m not kidding - following meetings during Enterprise Connect, so I can say first-hand that in-person events are a great way to build new business

Hey Did You Know....

… that being in-person at Enterprise Connect is good for more than getting new clients – it also creates more opportunities to share insights via media coverage. I had plenty of that at the show – summarized below, plus others coming over the next week or so.

Enterprise Connect TV - interviewed by Terry Sweeney, Monday, March 21 – view here – starts at the 4-hour, 3-minute mark

UC Today – interviewed by David Dungay, Wednesday, March 23 – view here

No Jitter – review article of my enterprise speech tech talk, by Dana Casielles, March 31

JAA's Communications and Collaboration Review - March Edition 2022

• Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “The Technology of Trust – Digital Identity, Communications and the Future of Work”. Jon and Chris examine the relationship between personal identity and communications in today’s digital world, which lacks the security safeguards natively built into analog technologies. We discuss the challenges to keep technology innovation such as Web3 moving forward where trust is compromised, even for everyday communications. New narratives will be needed, and the concepts of synthetic media and media provenance were introduced as examples of what this new landscape will look like.

• For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.  

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms – namely iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

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

• 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 the previous month, including my other forms of original content, and my social media stats. More detail for most of these will be on my blog.

• Conference roundup – absolutely nothing for me in February - and I’m not complaining – starting this month, I have a mix of in-person and virtual events on the calendar through June, and am looking forward to getting back to live events – finally!

• Webinar – with Vonage, Feb. 10 – Decode the CPaaS Opportunity – accompanying white paper coming soon

• New kudo – this is my fifth industry accolade so far in 2022, coming from Channel Futures, where I was named a top 50 “channel influencer”     

• Writing roundup – just one public post with a byline this month, on TechTarget – Reassess Enterprise UCaaS Deployments in a Hybrid Workplace 

• Media citings – was quiet, with just 1 citing

• 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 Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for February:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 11,333 views and 17 posts – very similar to January

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,483 views and overall, 8 posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 6,172 impressions, 1,306 profile visits, 25 mentions, 14 tweets, and 21 new followers – stats are way down from January, largely due to having no events to tweet about, but that will change in March for sure

  • My “top tweet” was about 8x8’s earnings results, with 830 impressions, and overall, 4 tweets had 300+ impressions

• Updates were recently added about my musical interests, with both new video clips and photos, including our latest gig in November at the SCTC conference. For those who don’t know about my fun side – we all need that! - you can find this on the My Music tab.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for March

• In terms of this month’s event activity, the biggest industry event in our space is finally back in-person – Enterprise Connect, where I’ll be speaking – along with two virtual vendor events for analysts:

  • Mitel NEXT, March 9

  • 8x8 Industry Analyst Event, March 16-17

  • Enterprise Connect 2022, March 21-24, Orlando, FL

• Speaking of upcoming events, my speaker recruitment efforts continue for Future of Work Expo, running June 21-23 - I’m returning as Chair, and here’s the agenda page – please get in touch to learn more, either for speaking or sponsoring/exhibiting

• Speaking of speaking at events, I’ll be giving my 5th state of the market update for AI and speech tech in the enterprise at Enterprise Connect – am speaking at 8am on Monday, March 21 – details are here, and you can save $400 on registration using promo code Arnold22

• In terms of current client work, here’s what I can share:

  • New white paper and e-book for a Tier 1 collaboration vendor – both should publish this month

  • Starting a series of thought leadership pieces for a leading contact center vendor

  • Continued blog posts ghost-written for a contact center vendor

  • Book review to be published in early March for a new book co-written by the CEO for a Tier 1 vendor

  • Signed off a 2022 agreement for series of thought leadership initiatives with a Tier 1 global tech vendor

Hey Did You Know....

… that robots can strut, preen and dance just like the Rolling Stones?

They sure can, thanks to the super-cool work Boston Dynamics is doing with AI and other technologies. But the bigger question is… can they sing like the Rolling Stones? This may seem like an odd question, but it’s what I do, and I’ll have more to say about it during my Enterprise Connect talk. So, if you’re still on the fence about coming to the event in Orlando later this month, this just might start you up.

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - February Edition 2022

• Season 5 of Watch This Space continues with an episode titled “VON3 – Finding Intersections with Communications, Web3, NFTs and Future of Work”. There’s a lot to unpack in that title, and that’s what we did, not just as attendees of Jeff Pulver’s VON3, but as speakers as well. Communications is an elastic concept, and VON3 explored emerging possibilities that go beyond the world of telephony and collaboration that we know so well.

• For those of you who don’t subscribe to our podcast directly from a commercial platform, you can access it any time here on my website, or on the Watch This Space website.  

• If you don’t know where to subscribe to Watch This Space, it’s posted now on many of the leading platforms – namely iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Stitcher.

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

• 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 the previous month, including my other forms of original content, and my social media stats. More detail for most of these will be on my blog.

• Conference roundup – there were four virtual conferences, two of which I spoke at – UC Summit and VON3:

  • Zoom Work Transformation Summit - Jan. 19

  • Wildix UCC Summit – Jan. 24

  • UC Summit 2022 – Jan. 24-27

  • VON3 - Jan. 24-26

• Podcast – our latest BCStrategies podcast was our annual outlook for the year ahead, “2022 Predictions” 

• Guest posts – I had two last month:

  • The New Age of Voice: a Few Minutes with Analyst Jon Arnold; posted on the ISI website

  • Getting Beyond Voice: Selling More and Making More with Cloud Services; guest post for Channel Futures, where I’m now listed as a contributor

• Writing roundup – summary of my public writing is here – my top choice would be the Channel Futures article

• Media citings – was quiet, with just 1 citing

• 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 Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for January:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 12,976 views and 16 posts – much lower than December, but that month was an historic anomaly

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,196 views and overall, 6 posts had 500+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 11,900 impressions, 2,155 profile visits, 98 mentions, 28 tweets, and 39 new followers – while my output level was similar to December, input levels were much higher, likely due to all the kudos during January, which exposed me to a wider audience

  • My “top tweet” was about the VON3 event with 1,403 impressions, and overall, 6 tweets had 500+ impressions

• Updates were recently added about my musical interests, with both new video clips and photos, including our latest gig in November at the SCTC conference. For those who don’t know about my fun side – we all need that! - you can find this on the My Music tab.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for February

• In terms of this month’s event activity, believe it or not, there is nothing on the calendar at the moment – am glad Future of Work Expo was moved to June, but come March, Enterprise Connect will be the main event – hopefully in-person

• Speaking of Future of Work Expo, my speaker recruitment efforts continue - I’m returning as Chair, and here’s the agenda page – originally scheduled to run this month, it was wisely pushed out to June hoping that Covid eases up by then - please get in touch to learn more, either for speaking or sponsoring/exhibiting

• In terms of current client work, here’s what I can share:

  • Webinar on February 10 with Vonage, which is in support of a white paper that will be published any time now

  • Completing a new white paper and e-book for a Tier 1 collaboration vendor

  • Starting a series of thought leadership pieces for a leading contact center vendor

  • Continued blog posts ghost-written for a contact center vendor

  • Book review to be published any time now for a new book co-written by the CEO for a Tier 1 vendor

Hey Did You Know....Part 1

…… that being an “influencer” is a thing now. Sure is, and it’s not just for TikTokkers. Being a “thought leader” is usually the main badge of honor for analysts, but if you live and die by social media, you need metrics. The new currency is shares, likes, followers, etc., and while my numbers are pretty modest, it’s enough to gain some industry recognition – woo hoo! 

The new year is young, and already I’ve had 4 influencer kudos, and a 5th is coming, but I can’t talk about it yet. As the thumbs below show, these new badges of honor reflect the variety of work that I do – future of work, hybrid work, UCaaS and CCaaS. Check through my blog posts about these to get the reports and full lists of influencers. Hey - and if you share, don’t forget to tag me! Twitter is @arnoldjon, and LinkedIn is @J Arnold & Associates.  Wouldn’t hurt to throw in an emoji – just for fun.  😊

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - January Edition 2022

• Season 5 of Watch This Space kicks off 2022 with an episode titled “Technology Innovation: From Telecom to Space Exploration to the Metaverse”. With Omicron extending the pandemic, Chris Fine and I explore the longer-term implications of hybrid work, including how virtual experiences are becoming normalized, and how the metaverse isn’t that far-fetched now. With virtual modes becoming the new reality, we bring our analog lens to look at where technology innovation is going, especially for developing new models that are not bracketed by space and 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 new Watch This Space website. 

• As time allows, I have a long list of podcast platforms to add Watch This Space to, so please bear with me. It’s only on a couple right now, but the list will soon grow, and they’ll be listed on the website for reference.

• If you don’t yet know, this new WTS website will host our episodes for 2022 and beyond. The site is formatted specifically for podcasts, including an embedded player so you can listen directly from the site – check it out here: www.watchthisspace.tech. Our earlier podcasts can be accessed here on my JAA website. 

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

• 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 the previous month, including my other forms of original content, and my social media stats.

• Industry conference roundup – just two events, including one where I was a presenter:

  • December 8 – Five 9 Canada CX Summit – virtual and a presenter

  • December 12-14 – Avaya Engage, Orlando, FL – in-person

• Project work - key highlights for last month, and links to some of these can be found in my December blog posts:

  • As noted earlier, I gave a presentation during the Five9s Canada CX Summit

  • Was on two BCStrategies podcasts – Industry News and Merger Trends, and 2021 Year in Review

  • Huawei produces a video series about global technology trends – Decoded – and I appeared as a guest speaker

  • I was a panelist on a video debate event sponsored by Huawei 

  • Two more posts published without byline for a contact center vendor on their blog

  • Completed a due diligence project on the CPaaS space for an investment banker 

  • Ramped up planning and speaker recruitment activity for Future of Work Expo, running Feb. 8-10 – if interested, please get in touch!

• December writing spotlight – here’s my pick, running on No Jitter: We Need UCaaS More Than Ever for Hybrid Work - Here’s Why

• Here’s my Writing Roundup post for December – it’s a monthly digest of my thought leadership across various channels, including Tech Target, No Jitter and BC Strategies 

• Media citings – I had 4 citations for December

• 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 Twitter and LinkedIn, and here are some approximate tallies for December:

  • For LinkedIn – I had 22,241 views and 26 posts – lower than November, but largely due to one post last month with an exceptional number of views

  • My top LinkedIn post registered 2,247 views and overall, 9 posts had 700+ views

  • For Twitter – there were 16,900 impressions, 1,456 profile visits, 66 mentions, 36 tweets and 10 new followers – impressions were way down from November, but other metrics were way up – go figure!

  • My “top tweet” was during Avaya ENGAGE, with 2,508 impressions, and overall, 5 tweets had 1,000+ impressions, and 10 had 600+

• SIPtones update – we had our first gig in ages back in November during the SCTC conference, and video highlights will be added to my website soon. If you don’t know about my musical side, you can check out both video clips and photos here on the My Music tab, including some new ones from our SCTC gig.

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for January

• Got two virtual events on tap so far for January, but that can change in a hurry:

  • January 24 - Wildix Virtual UC&C Summit 2021 

  • January 25-26, VON3 – presenting as well

• Other activities to watch for during January:

• Webinar about the CPaaS value proposition for a leading vendor, based on a white paper I produced for them, which will be published very soon

• Book review for a book co-written by the CEO of a leading contact center vendor

• New white paper – and e-book – about mobile collaboration for a leading UCaaS vendor

• Guest article for a leading channel publication about the value of offering CCaaS and UCaaS together for end customers

• New series of guest blog posts for a contact center vendor

• Beginning an ongoing program of thought leadership pieces for a leading contact center vendor

• Two – possibly three – new strategic advisory engagements to help clients with go-to-market and thought leadership positioning 

Hey Did You Know....Part 1

As I said one year ago right here in this section of the newsletter, “we can’t move on from 2020 fast enough” – not much has changed going into 2022, and if you managed to stay healthy, kudos to you! All good here, and 2021 was just as strong for my business as 2020. I’m grateful for the steady work, and 2022 is already looking to be even better. 

Being an analyst, I think in terms of numbers, and I’m sure many of you do as well. So, it’s time to present my annual by-the-numbers snapshot of what kept me busy during 2021. Numbers aside, this should give you a better idea of what an analyst does, and the various forms that “thought leadership” takes.

Social Media Footprint – 2021 By the Numbers

Thought Leadership and Business Activity – 2021 By the Numbers

• 10 new clients (not including new work from existing clients)

• 45 conferences/industry events – virtual (mostly all) or live

• 8 of these events I was either moderating or speaking

• 4 events serving as a judge

• 56 published articles/guest posts

• 92 posts on my JAA blog

• 36 podcasts (including Watch This Space for this newsletter)

• 7 webinars/video segments

• 2 white papers

• 3 live Twitter chats or LinkedIn events

• 12 editions of this newsletter

• 23 JAA citings in the media

• 4 new industry accolades

• 1 SIPtones gig

Hey Did You Know....Part 2

… I’ve updated my logo! My practice started in 2005, and this is the first time I’ve done a logo refresh. So much has changed since then, and I’ve been meaning to update my logo to better reflect where my expertise is resonating today in the market. 

Wearing my marketing hat, you gotta mix it up every now and then, and that’s the same reason why I just updated my newsletter logo. Both my newsletter – JAA’s Communications and Collaboration Review – and my podcast – Watch This Space – stand on their own, so having distinct logos for each helps establish their brand identities. Apart from this, my analyst practice is really the over-arching brand, as this is where my client engagement happens.

So, if you’re still with me, here’s my brand-new logo. Consider this a soft launch, and in the coming weeks, it will replace current iterations of my JAA logo. I hope you like it, and would love any and all feedback. That’s my kickoff for 2022 – what’s yours?