Newsletter - August 2020

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

• With each passing month during this pandemic, we learn a little more about remote working, both pro and con. Businesses and workers alike are developing new ways of operating, and communications technology is proving to be a powerful enabler for keeping things going. That’s the backdrop for our August podcast, as Chris and I further explore how the ease of use of today’s technology is making work from home possible – for better and for worse. This episode is titled “How Communications Technology Drives Employee Engagement”, and I’d love to hear your thoughts after giving it a listen.

• Our podcast continues evolving, and we’re still working out some kinks on the recording side of things. The audio quality is still an improvement from what we’ve been doing, but it can – and will – be better, hopefully in time for the September issue.

• As usual, JAA subscribers get to hear our takeaways - right now - in this newsletter. Otherwise, I’ll be posting the podcast publicly on my website in a couple of weeks, so non-subscribers will have to wait a bit.

• If you haven’t checked out our earlier podcasts, just go to the podcast archive on my website. The archive shows both the 2020 podcasts, and a separate archive for previous podcasts.

• Current podcasts also feature AI-driven transcripts that complement the audio replay link. This feature comes courtesy of Otter.ai, and I hope you like it. Otter.ai transcribes in real time, and I should also note that this transcription feature only comes with the newsletter. The publicly-shared posts of our podcasts are audio-only, and for some, that will be enough. But really, wouldn’t you rather be a subscriber?

What’s Up? Part 2 – More Highlights and Insights from June

• Conference roundup – last month’s trend of participating in virtual events continued in June, and others are coming onstream for July and beyond. It’s very possible that live events will be off the table entirely for 2020, and most of what I’m hearing is about looking ahead to 2021. Here are the virtual events I took part in during June.

  • Cisco Live

  • SCTC Canadian Regional Event – speaker

  • Jeff Pulver’s #140Conf event – speaker                  

• Otherwise, here are the working highlights for June, and links to some of these can be found in my June blog posts:

  • New Insight Report – for Digitcom:

    • Enabling Businesses to Extend Communications Beyond Legacy Telephony – first in a three-part series (download required)

  • Webinar – SD WAN Opportunity for CSPs – sponsored by Oracle

  • Completed projects – to be published in July:

    • IoT eBook for Enghouse

    • Case study for Zoom

    • Insight Report #2 for Digitcom

    • Insight Report for a UCaaS provider

    • Insight Report for a UCaaS provisioning vendor

  • Completed work, other:

    • Judging for UC Awards 2020 – evaluated 35 entries

    • Presentation for Enterprise Connect Virtual – taking place August 3

• June writing spotlight – top pick would be my latest No Jitter post – Who Wants to Return to the Office?

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

• Here are the social media highlights for last month. 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 shared 29 posts, which registered 21,245 views, and those numbers were very similar to May. My top LinkedIn post registered 2,118 views; 7 posts had 1,000+ views, and 20 posts had 500+ views.

  • For Twitter - there were 24,800 impressions, 136 profile visits, 34 mentions, and 25 tweets.

  • My “top tweet” was as a shout-out for the #140Conf event I was speaking at - it had 1,624 impressions. Overall, 7 tweets had 1,000+ impressions.

• I recently added a new tab on my website – My Music. This showcases my fun side, mainly from playing keyboards and guitar with the SIPtones. The stars finally lined up for a long-awaited update here, and a few new photos have been added, along with 10 new video clips from our recent Chicago gig, and a few others from our 2018 gig in Annapolis. Enjoy!

What's Coming? JAA Outlook for August

• So far, I’ll be participating in just two virtual events this month, and you’ll have to check my blog and social feeds for further details:

  • August 3-6 – Enterprise Connect Virtual

  • August 31-September 1 – Adtran 

• I’ll be part of a live, virtual roundtable hosted by Talkdesk, talking about how contact centers in health care and life sciences are adapting in Covid times to manage remote agents and to re-frame the patient/customer experience – August 20, details coming

• This is generally a slow time of year for new work, but there’s lots brewing in the pipeline for early fall, and same for virtual events, where I have four lined up at present for September

• Since travel is still off the table, I’m looking forward to using the relative calm of August to make several much-needed updates to my website, including some re-branding, so watch for that very soon

• As I have long-been mentioning, this quiet time will also be used to enhance our Watch This Space podcast, with a target of September for getting it fully launched and distributed across al the major commercial platforms – never dull around here.

Hey Did You Know?

…that there’s more to “doing a podcast” than speaking into your PC and pressing record? 

Like anything else, there are tools of the trade, and am learning as I go. Chris Fine, my podcast colleague, is way more schooled on the finer points of audio recording than I’ll ever be, and am thankful for all the work does on the back end for editing, and taking out the little things casual listeners would never notice.

My long-awaited plan to take Watch This Space to the next level is coming along, and the incremental improvements are starting to show. Our production process is still evolving, but on the front end, I’ve got my tools of the trade in place. Any basic research on producing a podcast will talk about needing to have these pieces, and for now, this is what I’m going with. 

Pictured here is my Blue Yeti USB microphone, and Poly Voyager 8200 UC over-ear headphones. That’s the hardware setup, connecting to my ThinkPad notebook, and everything else is software. Would love to trade notes with any other podcasters out there – happy to share tips any time!