Episodes
![HPE Discover and NICE Interactions - Reflections on Latest Industry Events](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Wednesday Jul 03, 2024
HPE Discover and NICE Interactions - Reflections on Latest Industry Events
Wednesday Jul 03, 2024
Wednesday Jul 03, 2024
Both of us attended major industry events during June, with Chris at HPE Discover, and myself at NICE Interactions – both in Las Vegas, as it turns out. HPE and NICE are different companies in different spaces, but both were showcasing how they’re pushing the envelope with AI.
Given our focus on future of work and digital transformation, Chris noted the impact of AI-driven network technologies on smart buildings and how that can support return to office. With NICE, I reviewed how their vision for AI is taking us to a world where live and virtual agents will work symbiotically, much like the Digital Centaur that may some day come to transform the workplace.
Aside from our take on these events, we took some side roads to expound on Vegas’s unique vibe, and how HPE’s acquisition of Juniper is another example of Big Tech getting bigger.
![The AI Revolution - Are We at the Beginning or the End? Reflections on Analyst Events from Zoom and Verint](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Tuesday Jun 04, 2024
Tuesday Jun 04, 2024
With AI moving so quickly - yet without much ROI to speak of – it’s fair to ask if we’re at the beginning or the end with this revolution. For this episode, Jon shared insights from recent events with Zoom and Verint – two companies going all-in with AI.
Both are aiming high, solving problems that only AI can handle, and we explore the bigger picture as to whether they will succeed. While they seem to be on the right track, there may be limits to how much automation workers and customers really want, making this another Watch This Space topic. Find out for yourself by checking out our June podcast.
![The Future is Digital - Exploring Innovation for Workplace Security and Visual Collaboration](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Wednesday May 01, 2024
Wednesday May 01, 2024
For this episode, we explored what technology innovation looks like both in physical and virtual spaces. Just back from the ISC West event, Chris shared how technology is now being applied in the physical security space, and how commercial property managers are thinking about smart buildings. Following that, we reviewed a recent demo I had with Welo, illustrating use cases for virtual workspaces and new forms of visual collaboration. To better envision this, please see the visual in the Hey, Did You Know? section below. Welo isn’t the only player in this space, but this is a good starting point to re-think workspaces as the physical and virtual worlds further overlap.
![Takeaways from Enterprise Connect, and How Did We Get Here with AI from the Days of PBX and Legacy Telephony?](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Tuesday Apr 02, 2024
Tuesday Apr 02, 2024
Having returned from Enterprise Connect the night before, the time was right to talk about takeaways from the 2024 edition, of which there were many. Before talking about how AI has now become the main focus of the event, we felt compelled to put things in perspective first. This conference used to be solely about PBXs – hardware-based telephony – and we reviewed how the communications technology space has been radically transformed in very little time by AI. Digital natives may not find this perspective relevant, but trust us, it is, and we’ll leave it for you to decide after giving our latest episode a listen.
![Takeaways From the Future of Work Expo, and Where's the Fit for AI, Apple and the Metaverse?](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
For this episode, Chris and Jon reflect on key highlights from the recent Future of Work Expo, where Jon serves as event Chair, and Chris was both a speaker and a moderator. The event provided much food for thought, with insights from an eclectic mix of speakers from both mainstream and lesser-known companies. The overarching theme for this episode, however, was AI, and we explore why it’s become so pervasive, and why it’s on par with the Internet as being the most transformative technologies of the digital age. We further explore AI’s impact on FOW, along with the fit we see for big consumer players like Meta and Apple.
![What Constitutes Work in a Digital World, and Future of Work Expo Preview](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
What Constitutes Work in a Digital World, and Future of Work Expo Preview
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
We continue with Season 7 for Watch This Space, where the focus is my upcoming Future of Work Expo in Ft. Lauderdale. Our sessions will cover a lot of timely topics that should be familiar to our regular listeners - but some new ones too - including privacy, identity, immersive tech, large language models, endpoint usage, evolving role of IT, collaboration trends, agent experience, organizational structures, and workspaces for FOW. To set the stage for all this, we took a broader view for FOW through our analog lens, raising fundamental concerns about the very nature of work as our world becomes more digital and more virtual, and as we work increasingly in isolation from each other.
![2024 Outlook - How IT Leaders Need to Think About Deploying AI - an Analog Perspective](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Thursday Jan 04, 2024
Thursday Jan 04, 2024
This episode marks the start of Season 7 for Watch This Space, and as always, is our look-ahead into the coming year. With AI becoming ever-more pervasive, Chris and I focused on how IT and business leaders need to be thinking for 2024. Never before has a technology emerged so quickly with such far-reaching implications, and we examined not just the undeniable benefits of AI, but also what will be required from IT to effectively deploy it, along with maintaining trust with employees. With our deep roots in the analog world, the perspectives we offer may be unfamiliar for digital natives, but perhaps exactly what they need to hear.
![Musings on Big Tech, Looming AI Backlash, and Takeaways From Verint’s Analyst Event](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
Our discussion for this episode centered on Big Tech, triggered by the recent rollercoaster with OpenAI. Aside from exploring concerns and implications about Big Tech’s market power, we parsed out the different frames of reference between analog and digital generations about using AI, along with why we should expect some backlash in 2024. Wrapping up, Jon shared his thoughts on Verint’s analyst event, which will close out his travels for 2023.
![State of Play with Hybrid Work, and Jon’s World Tour Revue - London, Peru, Dubai and the US](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
Before getting to Jon’s travelogue of industry events, we reviewed how businesses are still facing challenges getting hybrid work right, and what vendors are doing to make the in-office experience more compelling, especially for meeting spaces. We noted how this theme will be further explored at Jon’s Future of Work Expo in February, where many of the leading vendors will be speaking. From there, Jon recounted highlights from his extensive October travels – UC Expo in London, NICE in Peru, Avaya in Dubai, Cisco WebexOne in Anaheim, and SCTC in Raleigh - including a SIPtones gig. Finally, we did a brief mention of Jeff Pulver’s VON Evolution event in NYC, where both of us were speaking, and we did a special edition WTS segment specific for the event.
![New York City Events Roundup - Cloud Communications Alliance, CREtech and WorkTech23](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
During September, Chris and I both attended industry events in New York City, and we had lots to talk about. First up was the Cloud Communications Alliance Financial Summit, which I attended for the first time and spoke on the analyst panel session. We discussed how the current state of things – crowded and very competitive – is impacting valuations and growth opportunities. Bottom line – cloud providers need to expand beyond UCaaS into CCaaS and CPaaS, and be ready for what’s coming with AI. Chris recapped two events – CREtech and WORKTECH23, reviewing how today’s office spaces are adapting to bring workers back to the office. This is a key element for anybody’s future of work plans, and Chris also shared first-hand takeaways from tours to Cisco, Google and WestCap’s state-of-the-art facilities. Buckle-up, as we covered a lot of ground on this episode!
![Is It Still Customer Service if They Don’t Want You?](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Tuesday Sep 05, 2023
Is It Still Customer Service if They Don’t Want You?
Tuesday Sep 05, 2023
Tuesday Sep 05, 2023
The same technologies that contact centers have now embraced to better understand the customer journey can also be used to determine which customers are the most valuable, as well as those they’d rather do without. Ineptitude isn’t the only reason customers are driven away by bad service, and we explore how bad service can also be by design. Jon and Chris raise some darker realities of how customer service is evolving, and how transformative technologies like AI can be a double-edged sword, depending on how well business priorities are aligned with trying to be customer-centric.
![East Meets West - Takeaways From Mobile World Congress Shanghai and the Bleeding Edge of 5G](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Tuesday Aug 08, 2023
Tuesday Aug 08, 2023
We usually cover multiple topics on Watch This Space, but my recent trip to China was so fascinating – and touched on so many tangents – that we didn’t talk about anything else. The main topic was my experience at the Mobile World Congress event in Shanghai, with some sidebars to my broader impressions of going to China for the first time. Technology-wise, 5G is the big story here, and not many Westerners have seen what I got see, so if you want to know what’s coming in the wireless world, this is the episode for you.
![Act III for Avaya - Why We Think They May Succeed, and Is It Too Late to Push Back on Big Tech?](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Thursday Jul 06, 2023
Thursday Jul 06, 2023
While we intended to discuss a few current topics, our current episode ended up being mostly about June’s Avaya ENGAGE event. Given how interesting Avaya’s situation has become – what I now call Act III – our discussion also reflected on the broader state of technology, and how the pervasiveness of Big Tech should be of concern to all of us. Whether you want to see Avaya succeed or fail, I think you’ll find our take of interest, especially if you’re in the former camp.
![How Five9 is Using AI to Re-Think Customer Service, Generational Changes for Automation, and Robotics of the Mind](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Tuesday Jun 06, 2023
Tuesday Jun 06, 2023
Our May episode started with my takeaways from Five9’s analyst event in Porto, Portugal, with a parallel discussion about how they’re using AI to transform customer service, along with how broader generational changes are increasingly AI and tech-centric. Our analog lens pre-dates these changes, and we explored how digital transformation is taking automation to new levels. We don’t know where it’s heading, but there’s a big difference between automating tasks and processes, and automating thought and emotion. The singularity could be closer than Kurzweil predicted – 2045 – and we left off with the robotics of the mind for our listeners to ponder.
![Conference Roundup and AI Anxiety - Extreme Networks, Fenway Park Experience and VON Evolution](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/8648758/watch-this-space-logo_300x300.png)
Tuesday May 02, 2023
Tuesday May 02, 2023
Our May episode took us to Boston and New York, where Jon recounted takeaways from Extreme Networks’ analyst event, and Chris did the same for Jeff Pulver’s VON reboot. Framing those highlights was a broader discussion about where AI is taking us, and what the new generation of tech entrepreneurs is bringing to a space where events like VON played a formative role. Jon also provided a reality check about how tech is driving today’s fan experience, and it has very little to do with watching the ballgame.