The purpose of this CXTech Week 2 2020 newsletter is to highlight, with commentary, some of the news stories in CXTech this week. What is CXTech? The C stands for Connectivity, Communications, Collaboration, Conversation, Customer; X for Experience because that’s what matters; and Tech because the focus is enablers.
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Artificial Solutions and Vonage Partner to Deliver Closer Integration
It’s still early days in machine learning and communications. At TADSummit EMEA 2019 David Curran, Machine Learning Engineer at OpenJaw Technologies presented on “Designing and Deploying Chatbots.” I consider this presentation to be the best summary of the state of the art in chatbot technology available. So while we will see many tie-ups like the one between Artificial Solutions and Vonage through 2020. Following the advice in David’s presentation are the real keys to success in machine learning and communications.
What You Missed Last Month: UCaaS Predictions, Master Agent Recap, SD-WAN
While I avoid most end of year predictions because they are self-serving, or statements of the bloody obvious, or glib enough to be a horoscope. I thought this wrap-up was a nice capture of the more relevant stuff.
Nextiva Debuts ‘Easy and Quick’ Marketing Program for Partners with CoNEXtion
Nextiva provides business VoIP / communications services. Their marketing is always down to earth, using the language of the customer, like business phone service; and avoiding the positioning of, if you’re not in the cloud you’re a loser. Using FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) as a marketing tool is for losers.
Channel is an important part of Nextiva’s business, and those smaller businesses do not have time / budget to invest in a marketing group, even a dedicated marketing person can be a luxury. Nor can they get up to speed in some complex generic marketing templates. That’s why Nextiva’s quick and easy CoNEXtion provides partners with demand-generation tools and resources including:
- Lead syndication.
- Streamlined email automation and analytics.
- Professional landing page generator.
- Social content syndication.
- Partner event concierge.
- Digital and onsite events in a box.
- Do-it-yourself sales incentives and promotions.
- Nextiva Demand Days with onsite lead syndication.
- Dedicated field marketing managers.
It’s worth copying, the only improvement would be avoiding random capitalization in the name, leave random capitalization to social media when they’re indicating sarcasm. Its lead focus definitely has its channels interested. Just keep the messaging as real and customer-centric as possible. Don’t follow the herd with silly cloud-FUD.
Accenture to Acquire Symantec’s Cyber Security Services Business from Broadcom
This is tangential to CXTech, I mention to highlight a trend I’ve seen of telecom people leaving into the privacy / security business. I avoid using the silly Cyber term, it means nothing. Ryan Bolton, mentioned below, is the tip of a large trend.
People, Gossip, and Frivolous Stuff
Igor Pavlov, Fullstack Software Engineer & Rapid Prototyper, has just wrapped-up a project and is looking for new projects. He’s one of the best people we’ve had involved in TADHack over the years. I strongly recommend him.
Congratulations to Ryan Bolton who is now Managing Director at Reprivata, Data Privacy and Security. Previously he was COO at VoIP Innovations. I’ve known Ryan for over a decade, from his Voxeo days.
Congratulations to Laura Apel, who is now B2B Tech Marketing Leadership at MITTO. She was previously with TeleSign.
Congratulations to Robert Jones, who is now Vice President Business and Product Development at Rakuten Mobile, Inc.
Congratulations to Peshal Nayak who is now a Senior Research Engineer at Samsung Electronics.
Congratulations to Roshanth Gardiarachchi who is now Head of Loyalty business at Dialog Axiata. He was one of the team that made Ideamart such a success.
Matt Humphries is now Founder and Director at Camel Communications. I’ve known Matt since his time with OpenCloud nearly a decade ago.
Sjoerd “Stuart” Kegel is now Product Innovator at Collinson Group. He’s always been driving innovation since I’ve known him back in his Vodafone and TalkTalk days, so this role is perfect for him.
Diana Falcon is now Assistant To Chief Executive Officer at BMC Software. I’ve known Diana since the Pulvermedia days.
Chris Crowe is now CEO at t3 Broadband (a t3 Wireless, Inc. company), a Systems Integrator / Value Added Reseller focus on rural American broadband networks. They cover 4G LTE Mobile Cellular, Fixed Wireless Broadband, Backhaul, Wi-Fi, Fiber Transport, IP & Network Security, Tower Services, and VoIP solutions. I’ve known Chris since his account management days in Ericsson.
Martin Carrig (FCCA), is now Vice President Finance at DataStax, a distributed hybrid cloud database. I’ve known Martin since he was with WAC that was given (sorry, joined forces) with Apigee, which ended up being bought by Google shortly after its IPO. Chet Kapoor was CEO of Apigee, and is now CEO of DataStax.