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A short note for navigating this section - scroll below for the most recent posts, and then for more, click on the Blog Archive box, where you can view all of my posts, going back to the beginning in March 2005.
Back-to-back months of hectic travel, so writing has been on the light side. Lots of new work in play, though, and over the next few days I’ll catchup on the backlog and get all of that posted. Until then, here’s a digest of my public writing from June.
Avaya ENGAGE - Takeaways for Act III, BCStrategies, June 30
SIP Trunking vs. VoIP - What’s the Difference?, TechTarget, June 15
Campaign Registry - a Higher Bar for A2P Messaging, Aizan Blog, June 9
Travel schedule has been light lately, and all of a sudden, there are three good ones all happening next week - go figure. I can only do one, and my pick is Avaya ENGAGE, so it’s back again to Orlando.
As we all know, the stakes are high for Avaya these days, and so far, they’ve done a great job righting the ship. Under Alan Masarek’s leadership, things are looking promising, so I’m quite keen to attend and see where things are going from here. With a solid balance sheet and renewed market focus, there’s a lot of opportunity to capitalize on, and over the next few days, I’ll share my thoughts on how well they’re executing.
I’ve got a new guest post to share, and it’s for Toronto-based Aizan Technologies. They’re doing some interesting things in the communications space, both for telephony and messaging, as well as for both fixed and mobile networks.
One area of interest is A2P messaging - application to person - which is a much bigger deal in the consumer world, but as the contact center space keeps morphing, A2P becomes relevant here as well.
My guest post is about some fairly new requirements for A2P campaigns that marketers and brands need to be aware of. Without higher standards and safeguards to mitigate fraud, these campaigns will become even more of a nuisance for consumers, as well as a greater risk for brands.
Given how messaging is becoming more widely-used for customer service, there’s more at stake here than just pushing out marketing pitches en masse. If this piques your interest, I hope you give my writeup a read, and to do that, here’s the link.
I’ve got another white paper update to share - this one was done for Enreach, a leading EU mobility and platform provider.
Mobility has long been a challenge in the collaboration space, but more importantly, Enreach feels what’s really needed is an integrated approach to manage all forms of enterprise communications. That’s their strong suit, and my white paper examines the trends that drive the need for this approach. Mobility is a big part of the story, but it’s not the whole story.
The white paper was published yesterday, and I hope you give it a read. Here’s the press release they issued with the backstory, along with a link to download the paper. Would love to hear your thoughts, and am sure Enreach will too!
I had a heavier-than-normal travel schedule in May, so writing was on the light side. Still managed to get a few things out, and here’s the digest.
Re-Thinking the On-Hold Experience, white paper for Aizan, May 31
3 Best Practices for a Successful UCaaS Migration, TechTarget, May 23
Are We Moving Too Fast with AI?, No Jitter, May 23
How to Manage Telecom Fraud, Contact Center Pipeline, May issue, May 4
I told you I had a lot of new content to share, and am slowly getting all of it out now.
This post is the first of a two-part podcast series with Cresta, a company that has been doing a lot in the contact center space with Generative AI. The series is being hosted by UK-based EM360, where I’m a regular contributor. For Part 2, I’ll be in conversation with their CEO, Ping Wu, and that should be out in the next couple of weeks. Until then, I hope you check out Part 1 with CMO Scott Kolman - it just went live yesterday.
We all know what being put on-hold feels like, and it’s never good. While it may be a necessary evil for customer “service”, there’s also an opportunity for contact centers and brands to use that time in a more constructive, engaging fashion. Annoying music can certainly make the experience even worse, but imagine providing content that customers would actually want to hear while on-hold.
When it comes to personalizing customer experience, this is just one more form of interaction that is fully in the control of the contact center. If you’re amenable to thinking more broadly about what on-hold can look and sound like, I think you’ll find my latest white paper of interest.
The paper was sponsored by Aizan Inc., an innovative company solving some pretty daunting problems in the communications space, especially around telephony and messaging. Usually, my white papers are gated, where registration is required, but this one is public, so it’s available for all. Here’s the link, and I’d love to hear your thoughts - as would the folks at Aizan.
I’ve had three big trips over the past three weeks, and while I have a lot of new writing and speaking to share, I’m way behind getting things posted. Am hoping to get that backlog cleared up over the next few days.
This blog post is to share my latest No Jitter article, which ran last week. I’m part of a rotating group of analysts under the BCStrategies umbrella that contribute to No Jitter, and this time around was my turn.
If you follow me, you’ll know I write a lot about AI in its various forms, and for this article, I’m drawing on some data from a new research study commissioned by RingCentral with Ipsos. While I only had access to a limited data set, there are some interesting comparisons between decision makers and non-decision makers about AI perceptions that I think need to be considered when moving down this path.
AI is getting really overheated now, and pumping the brakes a bit is not a bad idea - that’s the gist of my writeup, and I hope you give it a read.
UPDATE - since publishing this post, RingCentral has just made the broader set of findings from the Ipsos study available - here’s the link to download the report.
I’ve recently completed another guest podcast with NICE, and their ongoing CX Pulse series.
Telecom fraud has been on my radar quite a lot lately, and this episode touches on how it impacts the contact center, along with how agent training and AI can help mitigate the threats.
This is a big topic for sure, so for a one-off podcast, it’s pretty high level, but hopefully this will start some important conversations about a topic nobody really likes talking about.
CX Pulse episodes aren’t searchable on NICE’s site, but having been recently published, mine is the most recent episode as of today, so it shouldn’t be hard to find, and then just click there to listen.
Another option - Apple Podcasts is one way to subscribe to CX Pulse, and they provide dedicated URLs for each episode - here’s the link for mine. Either way, I hope you check it out, and would love to hear your thoughts.
Been off the grid for a bit, and finally back to things here. Here’s a new kudo from earlier this month from 8x8. They do a top list of influencers for various spaces each year, and in March, I was on their influencer list for CCaaS.
This time around, I’m on their UCaaS list as well, so am on a bit of a roll with them. Last year, I was also on both these lists, along with another one for CPaaS - let’s see how the rest of 2023 unfolds, and I may yet have another update on that front.
I haven’t done a “next stop” post in ages - kinda went away with the pandemic. In-person events are definitely back, and I need to get back into the habit of doing these shout-outs for upcoming events.
Next up for me will be for Five9, and this will be my first time visiting Porto, Portugal. Am sure will be a great experience, and I’ll share along the way, as well as after, of course.
Until recently, these were called “analyst events”, but as social media becomes more pervasive, and as demographics trend younger, they’re now called “analyst and influencer” events. I’d be swimming upstream trying to parse this out - maybe a topic for a future podcast - and for now, let’s just say I’m happy to be part of this group.
To stay totally connected, follow the event using the hash in the visual below, and if you want track what I’m sharing, my Twitter handle is #arnoldjon.
That’s the title of my latest article for Contact Center Pipeline, where I’m an occasional contributor. Telecom fraud takes many forms, and while we all know what those calls sound like, it’s likely far more insidious than you might think. I’ve been delving into this space recently, and my new article here is one facet of what I’m coming across.
If that’s of interest, you should check out the rest of the May 2023 issue, as cybersecurity is the editorial theme, so there’s lots of other good analysis here relating to the contact center. Here’s the link, and if you like the writeup, comments are welcome, and feel free to share. Visual below, btw, is from the article, from the folks at Contact Center Pipeline.
I’ve recently connected with John Heiberger, and one of his hats is running the CCSC - Contact Center Solutions Consortium. This community serves to share knowledge that helps contact center leaders make better buying decisions. They run regular virtual webinars, and I’m going to be the presenter for the next one, which is this week - Thursday, April 27 at 1pm ET.
Basically, I’ll be providing an overview of the state of play in this space, which we all know is being transformed in a variety of ways. The webinar is generally for members-only, but am sharing here because John will consider non-member requests on a case-by-case basis. The details are here, and maybe I’ll see you there.
Just a heads-up about a new series that I’m part of with NICE. In case you can’t get enough about Generative AI and what-it’s-all-about, they’ve put together a four-part webinar series.
The first episode is out now, and I was a guest for the second one, where I was in conversation with John Willcutts. That episode was released this week, and there are two more coming over the next few weeks.
I hope you check them all out, and to do that, you need to register here. As always, feedback and sharing welcome.
Enterprise Connect seems like a long time ago, but still plenty of buzz from what I can tell. If you follow my blog, you’ll know that I managed to post some photos just after the event, but have not had time since to write up my thoughts.
In lieu of that, I’ve been part of four different interview spots related to Enterprise Connect - one podcast and three video segments. So, if you want to hear/see my thoughts on the event, you’ve got a lot of reference points to work from here. They’re all different, and if you get through all of them, let me know, and I’ll give you a gold star shout-out! Here goes…
First - I was a guest on Doug Green’s Telecom Reseller podcast, which was recorded onsite at Enterprise Connect. Click on the visual below for the replay - and same for the next two.
Second - I was a guest on Zeus Kerravala’s ZKast video series, so this is a 1:1 segment where we discussed our takeaways from the event.
Third - the latest segment of Big UC News, where I was one of several guests sharing our thoughts with hosts David Dungay and Rob Scott.
Fourth - this is for the SCTC, where last week’s Fireside Chat was about Enterprise Connect, and I’m one of many members talking about the event. We do these chats live, and they’re all archived on the SCTC website, but you need to be a member to access them.
Am on a roll with my writing at the moment, including some guest posts that are coming to market around this time. My latest is on No Jitter, where the focus is on POTS replacement - something pretty much every business will have to deal with as Copper Sunset unfolds.
As you may know, switching over to VoIP for desktop telephony is fairly straightforward, and most businesses have done that already. Mission-critical applications, however, is another story - fire alarms, elevator phones, etc. - and this needs an entirely different solution.
The good news is that there are vendors with viable offerings, but they’re harder to come across than VoIP providers. Before getting to that, though, businesses need to understand the nature of mission-critical communications, and risks that arise, both for simply staying the course with POTS for as long as possible, or trying to cobble together a solution from parts unknown. That’s the gist of my story - I’m sticking to it, and I hope you read the rest here on No Jitter!
Another week, another event, but I’ll be home now for the rest of April. This was my first time attending an Extreme Networks event, and this was their first one just for “influencers”, which includes analysts, consultants and media. To varying degrees, each of these groups are influencers, but that topic is best left for another time.
Just have a short window at the airport now until my flight goes, so this will be quick. My first impressions were very positive, and kudos to my hosts Tom Fitzpatrick and Wes Durow for putting on a great event. We were a small group - by design - and the time was well-spent. I may not be a networking guy, but I follow it well enough to understand how it drives business value, and as digital transformation marches on, the possibilities really open up.
In due time, I plan to write a few pieces to explore that, both overall, and for specific use cases, such collaboration and hybrid work. There are strong parallels between what they’re envisioning in terms of outcomes with all this hyper-connectivity, and Future of Work, which is one of my cores areas of focus. More coming on that soon, and until then, here are a handful of my photos.
CEO Ed Meyercord talking about how the network has become strategic now - definitely - and what really turned Extreme around was shifting from being engineering-focused to being customer-focused. Good plan. Next - Amy Aylward, VP Corp. Marketing (off camera, sorry), moderating a panel with Extreme execs about how the market has changed with exponentially more data now to manage - “new ways, better outcomes”. Last - demo session on opening night.
Yes, it’s true - everything is old in Boston - well, almost. The ballpark may be well into its second century, but there’s lots of cool innovation happening here. We got a great tour of the stadium, but also a closer look at the technology Extreme provides; and to tell us about it, we had Randy George on hand, VP Tech Operations with the Red Sox. More specifically, fellow SCTC colleagues Scott Murphy and Tom Brannen pointing out one of the 800 access points Extreme has running at Fenway to provide incredibly rich data about everything going on there via our mobile devices. A bit scary, but a data geek’s playground.
Purple is the color scheme here - nice touch. Things never stand still in our world, so during the briefings yesterday, I managed to work in two video spots - both to review highlights from last week’s Enterprise Connect. First, Steve Leaden, hosting his regular live Fireside Chat - Wednesdays at noon - so being onsite, I joined him for the segment. This is for SCTC members - Extreme is one - and replays are available for members on our website. Finally - I did a segment with Zeus Kerravala for his ZKast video series, where we also talked about Enterprise Connect takeaways. Here’s Zeus setting up the camera before doing our chat. If you don’t follow Zeus, you really should, and I’ll share this once it comes out.
It’s time for my latest contribution to No Jitter - as part of the BCStrategies team - and it’s a preview for my upcoming session on enterprise speech tech at Enterprise Connect. Am looking forward to attending the 2023 edition, and this time around, I’ll be joined by speakers from LumenVox, Dialpad and Zoom.
If you don’t know, this is my fifth year speaking on this topic at the conference, and it’s become an ongoing focus in my work. I don’t know if ChatGPT is the next big thing or just a passing novelty, but am sure it will still have legs by the time we do this session on March 29, and it will be on the agenda. I hope you can join us, and my latest article, here on No Jitter, tells more of the story.
Never dull in the collaboration space, where UCaaS is really just the start for where the market is going, and where tech is evolving. I was one of several voices on the latest episode of Big UC News, where we covered these trending topics. Hope you give it a view, and look forward to being on another episode soon.
I’ve started doing some work with Ooma, a company that I have been close too since its earliest days. By earliest, I mean back when they were strictly a residential landline offering, just like Vonage. Way before cloud, way before social media, even before smartphones. That’s a long time ago, folks, but guess what? They’re still here, and have a made a nice transition to the business market, and not just SMBs.
Just did my first guest post for them, and stay tuned for more on other topics. This one is a bit tricky to find on their site, but here’s the link, and I hope you like it.
J Arnold & Associates is an Independent Technology Research and Analyst, helping businesses understand the strategic value of communications technology as they adapt to the digital transformation of work
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