JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - November Edition 2025

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What’s Up? JAA Highlights from October

Below is a digest of J Arnold & Associates activities from last month, including my other forms of original content, along with my social media stats. Details and links for most of these activities can be found on my blog, or posted on my website.

  • Industry events – two for October:

    • SCTC Annual Conference, Reno, NV, Oct. 12-14

    • NiCE 2025 Analyst Summit, Vienna, Austria, Oct. 20-23

  • Podcast/Video segments:

    • BCStrategies – Halloween special – What’s Scary in Comms Tech?, Oct. 31, on LinkedIn

    • BCStrategies – recap of NiCE’s analyst event – recorded Oct. 31, but not published yet

    • Enterprise Connect – speaker spotlight, interviewed by Erica Marois about my topic for Enterprise Connect 2026, Oct. 20

  • Awards judging – two updates to share:

    • Talkdesk CX Innovators Awards – judging has ended, and winners have now been announced – press release here

    • Epica Awards – judging for the Paris-based Epica Awards is now open, and I have started reviewing and rating the entries – creativity levels are very high with Epica, and I’ll be writing more about this soon

  • Social media highlights – since these stats change every day, they are just a basic snapshot, but they provide a good sense of my industry 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 October:

    • 27,668 total views and 36 posts

    • October was another strong month, and have tallied 20,000+ views for each of the last nine months

    • My top LinkedIn post registered 1,979 views

    • Overall, 6 posts had 1,000+ views, and 16 had 500+ views

    • New stat - my tally of followers is steadily growing – added 146 the past 28 days, and 558 the past 90 days, so roughly 5 new per day

What’s Coming? JAA Outlook for November

  • Industry events – two for November:

    • Wildix Analyst Day 2025, Venice, Italy, Nov. 4-5

    • Talkdesk Analyst Summit 2025, Savannah, GA, Nov. 18-20

  • Active work to keep watch for:

    • Market research study on AI adoption for a leading cloud provider

    • 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?

… that the life of a technology analyst is never dull. Relative to my peers, my travel schedule is pretty light, but I’ll take quality over quantity any time. I only attended two events last month, but that was plenty of learning, networking and fun for me. Just a taste here for my October, seeing Sir Terry Matthews speak at SCTC, playing with the SIPtones, and getting the Vienna experience at the NiCE analyst event (more photos from that here).

JAA’s Communications and Collaboration - October Edition 2025

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What’s Up? JAA Highlights from September

Below is a digest of J Arnold & Associates activities from last month, including my other forms of original content, along with my social media stats. Details and links for most of these activities can be found on my blog, or posted on my website.

  • Industry events – three for September:

    • Verint Engage, Orlando, Sept. 8-10

    • Zoomtopia, virtual, Sept. 17

    • Sprinklr Analyst Summit, Nashville, Sept. 28-Oct. 1

  • Podcast/Video segments – these terms seem interchangeable now – podcast and video, but it was another month with more video-based output than with writing:

    • BCStrategies – takeaways from Verint’s Engage event, Sept. 22

    • Politely Pushy Podcast – interviewed by Eric Chemi from PR agency Bospar about what tech analysts do, and how independent analysts provide value, Sept. 9

    • SCTC – interviewed by Robert Cassard about how analysts provide value to the SCTC and its members, Sept. 3

  • Podcast/Video – recorded, but not yet published:

    • BCStrategies – takeaways from Sprinklr’s CXUnifiers event

  • Writing roundup – based on how the dates fell last month, I have a few pieces ready to go or done, but only one was published during September: it’s the cover story for Contact Center Pipeline, and I was a contributor: Answering the Challenges

  • New kudo for Watch This Space (fourth one since May):

  • Awards judging – two updates to share:

    • Talkdesk CX Innovators Awards – am back as a judge for the 2025 edition – details coming soon, but am in the process now of evaluating entries – 2024 winners here

    • Epica Awards – returning here as a judge as well – Paris-based Epica Awards is outside my normal scope of analyst work, but as a creative person with marketing DNA, I love getting to evaluate international entries from the worlds of media, advertising and social change, many of which make leading-edge use of the technologies I follow every day – more to come as the judging progresses

  • Other items of note from September:

    • Enterprise Connect – for 2026, the show is doing a re-set on its programming and the topics they will be including – my submission was accepted (yes, it’s AI-related), so I will be on the program – details coming soon, including a spotlight piece about my topic

    • ICMI – not sure why it’s taken so long, but I’m finally getting involved, and will be more visible in that community going forward – stay tuned

    • Book review – long-time industry colleague Mark McIlvane recently wrote a book about what he knows best – sales management- and after giving it a read, I wrote a review, which you can find here on Amazon

  • Social media highlights – since these stats change every day, they are just a basic snapshot, but they provide a good sense of my industry 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 September:

    • 41,237 views and 33 posts – numbers are a tad higher from August

    • September was another strong month, and have tallied 20,000+ views for each of the last eight months – and three of the last four months have topped 40,000 views

    • My top LinkedIn post registered 9,047 views - this marks the fourth straight month my top post has garnered 7,500+ views

    • Overall, 8 posts had 1,000+ views, and 15 had 500+ views

    What’s Coming? JAA Outlook for October

    • Industry events –

      • SCTC Annual Conference, Reno, NV, Oct. 12-14 – updates below

      • NiCE 2025 Analyst Summit, Vienna, Austria, Oct. 20-23

    • SCTC Conference updates:

      • Analyst panel – I’ll be speaking along with colleagues Blair Pleasant, and moderator Steve Leaden – Monday at 10am – details here

      • Another SIPtones gig - if you’re coming, make sure to be there for the opening reception on Sunday night, where we’ll be playing a dinner set and a dance set - and if you don’t know about my fun side, check us out here and here

      • Continuing as an SCTC Board member – my current term is up, but as part of the AGM during the conference, I will elect to continue serving in that role

  • Webinar:

  • Active work to keep watch for:

    • White paper for a cloud platform provider – still awaiting publication

    • Market research study on AI adoption for a leading cloud provider

    • 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


  1. Hey, Did You Know?

    … change can be a good thing, and it sure keeps things interesting.
    My output last month was on the light side, but not for lack of things to do. A stubborn chest cough plus the High Holidays kept me off schedule, but with those in the rear-view mirror, a few new wrinkles are coming. I won’t say much now, but here are some changes to keep watch for as the life of an independent analyst evolves:

    • Refresh is in the works for my website

    • I will soon launch my presence on a leading publishing platform, where I plan to expand the mix of formats for creating and sharing thought leadership

    • Am still open to continuing with Watch This Space in its current format, but may also add other podcast offerings on the publishing platform – inquiries welcome

    • I’m exploring avenues to syndicate my work, not just to make it discoverable for wider audiences, but also to help protect my thought leadership and original analysis from being appropriated by AI to train LLMs

  2. And if you still don’t know what my work entails, or how I can help any vendor or service provider grow their business and brand, you really should check out the Politely Pushy podcast about me referenced earlier.

    For the times, they are a-changin’…

JAA’S Communication and Collaboration - September Edition 2025

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This is the shortest newsletter I’ve ever done, and it largely reflects the season. Our space remains as busy as ever, but by design, August was going to be a light month for me. Of course, if I was AI-first, I wouldn’t miss a beat on current developments, but for better or worse, I remain human-first, and need some time away from all this.

The good weather and scheduled vacation breaks took me offline for much of last month, which I view as the calm before the storm when many things pick up after Labor Day. As such, the updates for August are light, plus my Watch This Space podcast is still on hiatus.

Travel to industry events picks up in the Fall, and aside from new project work, I’m actively working on updates to my website, along with adding another platform for my various forms of thought leadership - and interests outside the tech space. Changes are coming, so stay tuned!
 

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

Below is a digest of JAA activities from last month, including my other forms of original content, along with my social media stats. Details and links for most of these activities can be found on my blog, or posted on my website.

  • Industry events – none for August - a rarity, but a welcome break

  • Writing roundup – just two last month - digest is here on my blog – both are still timely, and hope you read them both!

  • 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:

    • 48,906 views and 28 posts – views are down a bit from June, but almost half fewer posts; another strong month, and have tallied 20,000+ views for each of the last six months

    • My top LinkedIn post registered 7,521 views

    • Overall, 6 posts had 1,000+ views, and 10 had 500+ views


What's Coming? JAA Outlook for September

  • Industry events – three for September:

    • Verint Engage, Orlando, Sept. 8-10

    • Zoomtopia, virtual, Sept. 17

    • Sprinklr Analyst Summit, Nashville, Sept. 28-Oct. 1

  • Active work to keep watch for:

    • White paper just being completed for a cloud platform provider

    • Market research study on AI adoption for a leading cloud provider

    • 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

  • Another SIPtones gig - I’ll be attending, speaking, and performing at the annual SCTC conference, October 12-15 in Reno, NV. The SIPtones ride again, so if you’re coming, make sure to be there for the opening reception, where we’ll be playing a dinner set and a dance set - and if you don’t know about my fun side, check us out here and here.

Hey, Did You Know?

… my Watch This Space podcast may still be on hiatus, but with over 80 episodes in the archive, there’s plenty to check out. Some episodes are based on current events, but others are more evergreen, so quite a bit will still be relevant.
You can check out the full archive here on my website, as well as here on the dedicated WTS webpage. If you’re not sure what topics to choose, drop me a line, and I’ll be happy to steer you to episodes that align with your interests. I’m also open to new ideas and partnerships for WTS, so let me know if you’d like to explore that path.