The New Voice - Exploring New Worlds Beyond Telephony - Watch This Space Podcast, March 2021

10:38PM Feb 27, 2021

Speakers:

Jon Arnold

Chris Fine

Keywords:

jeff

chris

people

voice

event

pulver

conference

attendee

offer

jon

travel

world

podcast

community

telephony

voip

company

audience

talk

courses

Welcome to Watch Thhis Space, the podcast about future of work. Every month, we bring you insider perspectives on how digital transformation, emerging technologies and generational change are shaping the future of work. We are two analog guys finding the groove for all of this in today's digital world. I'm Jon Arnold, and these trends are my focus as an independent technology analyst in my company, J Arnold and Associates.

And I'm Chris Fine. I'm an independent consultant and advisor, focusing on topics like workplace technology, security, and IoT, my company's Integrative Technologies, LLC. Hi, Jon.

Hey, Chris. Welcome again. And we're back for another episode here of Watch This Space, good to be doing this. I know we're kind of in the dreary depths of winter now. And it's been a year roughly since I've I've been traveling anywhere. And thankfully, staying busy and all, but these podcasts are a bit of a lifeline, you know, to talk about stuff instead of talking to myself and talk, you know, just covering what's happening, right? I mean, you're staying busy too, I know. So there's always things to be talking about.

It has been pretty busy. Although I haven't been out either, for for almost a year. It'll be a year in a couple of weeks, which is kind of amazing to contemplate, right?

Well, it's yeah, it's like this has become so normalized for so long. You know, you see stuff in, pictures on, you know, anywhere on the web, on TV of, you know, fans at rock concerts and filling sporting arenas, or going out to movies. And you look at this and say, people did that. I mean, it's been so long since we've had that. You look at it. Now it looks strange, you know?

It does. I get very nostalgic, though, I'll confess.

All we can say is I can't get back to it fast enough. As much as you know, you think it's impossible to do now, but I'm pretty optimistic that we will be in a different place by later in the year. And I gotta tell you, so are the event producers. Oh, you know, I'm starting to see signs of companies, you know, producers, setting dates now firm, for fall for live conferences. So a good example is Enterprise Connect. They've announced I think, it's late September, that they're doing kind of a hybrid, it's going to be part live part online. And I guess they're hedging their bets, you know, if things are under control enough, they can do it all as a live event. But as a backup, you got to be thinking virtual, that's just the way it is, it's still very risky.

I have this feeling. And in the long run, when in person events return, that there's going to be a lot of companies already made the investment in learning how to do things remotely. And so I think there will be very few conferences that won't be offered in both ways. Because if I were a conference organizer, I'd be thinking, the incremental cost of doing that is not a lot, right, to offer a ticket to a person who can't attend in person who could still choose all the sessions in real time, or look at them later. I feel like that's gonna become the standard.

I do too. And, you know, it makes it much easier to scale your event, you know, just add another zero to how many attendees you can reach. Now, if it's 20, now, it's 200. If it's 2000, it's now it's 20,000. Not unusual for these tier one vendors to have events with, you know, 10,000 plus people tracking it. I mean, Amazon's reignite was like that, I mean, just huge numbers. And of course, global. I mean, that is kind of a cool upside to this, that you can really reach way broader geographically, just, you know, when those travel costs are gone. So it kind of changes a bit, I think, what you got to think about to make an event successful.

There's a lot of I agree with you. There's a lot of debate right now about what is coming back with business travel, of where I fall, where I come down that spectrum, I think, is actually I'm pretty optimistic. I mean, I think that it's going to be companies are going to be more cautious about just like a random trip, for something that you really could do virtually, you know, let's say in the normal course of business, but I think a lot of conference travel is going to come back because arguably, it is just more effective in some ways than a virtual event is and people like it, you know, it's a little bit of a perk of being in businesses to be able to travel to events. And the same with if you manage it, and a global team. You want to go see them, that you don't want to do everything virtually really, over the long term. And I'm not necessarily talking about a third party, let's say outsourced software development, although it's always useful to go see them to wherever they are. But if you have a corporate team that you manage, or you know, play a role in, or even if you're new, it's, it's a good investment to let you spend face time - literally not the program - but in person time with your colleagues, and your managers, and your peers. You know, and I think that's going to come back, what do you think?

Oh, totally. Yeah, I mean, culture is long term. And, you know, it's, you got to build a culture, if you're going to have an organization, you know, some businesses can operate as a collection of individuals. But you know, you can't scale that. And I just think it's just the, for all the right reasons, you know, people want to, we're social creatures, all that stuff. And I think I'm with you there, you know, when it becomes, when it can bring, lift the curtain again, you know, it'd be so much pent up demand, you know, people wondering, what's my first travel destination going to be when we can go? What's the first concert I'm gonna go to, and I'm sure with workplaces the same thing to you know, where are we going to have our company retreat? You know, because it's just, there's a real longing for that. And if we can hang on effectively till then, then, you know, I'm sure there will be a big bounce on that. So I want to kind of steer us to where we want to go today, Chris. And that's another thing about what's going to be coming back. And of course, we're talking today about voice. Right.

Right. Right. That's our topic, is something we've got upcoming, which you can start explaining. And then we've talked a lot about voice, but we're actually planning something a little more structured about it, right?

Yeah, yeah. So, the joys of being independent, as we know, we can, you know, punch the clock anytime we want. But we can also be a little more creative. So these podcasts, for example, you know, we do them the way we want to do them. And we're grateful, we're grateful for the listeners for sure. But there's other ways to share our knowledge and, you know, engage with audiences. So we are pretty interested in an initiative that a longtime colleague of ours and industry visionary Jeff Pulver, he, you know, I think he sets the bar for trying new things, and going in different directions. But we know him as the pioneer of the VON community and events that he built up in the, I guess, the late 90s, early 2000s, when voice was coming of age, and, and I'll turn it over to you in a moment, Chris, I just want to say one thing about this, but we're not going to this, isn't a big like, talk about Jeff.

But conferences in general are, as you say, Chris, really important for networking. They're great for learning. There's a social element to them, too. And of course, it's a marketplace where buyers and sellers come together. Most events do those things fairly well. But very few get past to what I think makes them sustainable. And that's building a community, of which the conference itself itself is not the be all and end all. It's just one expression of what that community is. And for all his ups and downs, that's what Jeff's strength always has been to me as a community builder. No one built an ecosystem and kept it going the way Jeff did in the VoIP space. And that's, I think, where we've gotten a lot of our grounding and voice wouldn't you say, Chris?

I agree, Jon, I agree. And also, there are some gatherings that become a community and then serve as a catalyst. And if you look at major technology, innovation, typically there is one of those somewhere, and VON was that for Voice over IP in the critical formative years. And it managed to build and define the community, while supporting the companies, many of which were really fledgling at the time that got into it, and staving off various initiatives, legal and regulatory and competitive that might have squashed it. And so for that, it deserves a lot of credit. And typically, any technology that you're most likely to use for voice today is going to have some piece derived from what that movement helped to build.

Yeah, yeah. And Jeff, you know, he, yes, he was a conference producer. First and foremost, I would say but, you know, he was also he had skin in the game. He was very invested in the industry, not just supporting startups, but being an advocate, you know, for lobbying for change getting the regulatory bodies on side I mean, he that's part of the community right? And he knew how to pull all those pieces together. But yes, that's a long time ago. And Jeff's done many other things since and I guess I want to get to the latest iteration of what he's doing. And much like, you look at voice as a way to transform the voice space he has done. He's tried doing other things as we were doing with Monage a few years ago. Right, Chris with messaging.

Yes.

And now he's launched something new and initiative called Pulver Edu, or Pulver redo, maybe you could explain that play on words for for our listeners?

Well, it's Pulver E D U, I think. So edu as you know, is the internet address suffix for educational institution. So it's a nice pun, that it's also Pulver redo sort of. But essentially, I what Jeff's aiming to do is to recreate the concept of I wouldn't say crowdsource because it's curated, but broadly sourced, very digestible, online courses. No more, not lectures, but presentations, some more interactive than others about a whole range of topics. It's kind of inspired by a company called Learning Annex, that used to be, for those of us who grew up in the eastern United States. Remember that the catalogs for the Learning Annex used to be all in every street corner, you'd see them in those machines, you could take one. And they used to offer courses on all these different eclectic topics.

And the thing that was good about it was you knew that you would have there had been some curation and filtering on the courses. So it wasn't just some random course, that got approved to cut into the catalog. And so there was if you knew, and it was very modestly priced. And if you were free for an evening, it was always good to go to one because you would almost always learn. And so Jeff's idea is to do this with an hour, or no more than an hour, including Q and A, per session, and to provide some kind of rationale or logic or curation as to which ones he offers, right?

Yeah, that is it. That is it. So again, Jeff likes to push boundaries. And it's a different model. And we're not talking about getting certifications. But we are talking about getting some kind of bite sized, deep dives into specific topics that will draw their own audiences. So it's, as you said, modestly priced. So I think these are $20, for an attendee, to take part in a session. You don't, there's no qualifications as far as I know, Chris. I think you just sign up for what you're interested in. And that's a new model. And it's also a fairly sustainable model, because there is some revenue sharing for the presenters. So there's some financial kind of benefit for those who provide programming. And then of course, being inexpensive, it's accessible programming for people. And, yeah, it's not a formal curriculum based program where you get a diploma at the end. But it's also a little more, as you say, filtered and vetted, as opposed to maybe hearing a talk at a conference where you're just a random attendee. But this service is a little bit more, you know, connected for I wouldn't want to call it information sharing, I think it's a little richer than that, wouldn't you say?

I think it's learning.

Mm hmm.

So if I were to characterize it, I think it's somewhere in between, you know, the completely informal and haphazard world of YouTube videos, which we know are highly educational, but you may have to go look it up, go do a bunch of searching and look at all a bunch of them before you find one that you can know you can trust and all that somewhere in between that and actual online education, like, you know, Udemy or Coursera. Right. It's somewhere in between here. But it's an interesting area. Because I think I personally, I think there's a market for it.

Yeah, I do. I do too. And, you know, give Jeff full credit for exploring new models. He has a very good instinct for where the technologies are kind of lining up, not just to be good technologies for businesses, but also for, you know, the social level for the consumer market here. So we're not, these courses aren't necessarily targeted just to the tech community. You don't have to be that level to take part in these. And so we are going to try one out. We are going to be, he's invited us to give a talk. And we were working that through now. And I'm hoping Chris, if things go well, we'll be able to offer this program, I guess sometime later in March. That's the way it's looking at the moment.

That's right, Jon. The plan is, you know, late March. The target, and what we should talk about the topic, right. So our topic, as we were alluding to earlier is the world of voice. And how voice is bigger than ever, that it didn't go away. Just because people don't make as many traditional types of telephone calls doesn't mean that it has not grown bigger, and all kinds of other ways. So I think we want to cover it's a bit of a survey that we can squish into an hour, but get, get the audience intrigued enough to follow up if they're interested in other resources, or potentially even sequels. But we're gonna talk about the metamorphosis and growth of the world of voice.

I can't wait. I think, we've been doing this for a long time. And of course, you can't cover it all in an hour, we could probably do 10 segments on this, and maybe that will come another time. But you know, for people who are in the tech industry, this may be second nature. But for people like you and me, Chris, who have been with this kind of revolution, which VoIP was when it started. Having been there from day one, we've lived it right. So we we know it at a level that not everybody does. So it's easy to assume this is, you know, kindergarten stuff, but for a lot of people, it's not. And so we think that, you know, we can share a lot of those insights from the perspective we have. And that can be a very worthwhile program for a lot of people. So we're happy to give it a try. Right?

Absolutely. But, you know, I think there's kind of two goals, right. One is to paint the picture. And two is to be specific enough. And so I think our objective, our audience can tell us if we achieve this or not, when it happens, is to try to be fairly instructive, right? I mean, not we sit and talk, and we share our thoughts here in the podcast, but I think we're going to try for more structure. You know, people in theory, you're paying to be part of this, we want them to come away having really learned something.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and be more than just a history lesson, right? I mean, there's plenty of milestones, since telephony came along that are important to talk about. But what we really want to bring it forward to is for all of the history and innovation, you know, and quality of life that have come with all these, you know, technologies, you know, where are we today, and, as you say, telephony is, is and has been, for a long time, just one application of voice technology. And we need it more than ever. But the exciting part, of course, is where some of the newer forms of voice are taking shape. And our listeners here would have heard us talk about some of these often on and other episodes and elsewhere. So there's a lot to explore, as you say, bigger than ever. It's certainly much more than telephony, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, what, I think we will absolutely avoid our typical tendency to get absorbed in history, because we care about history. I think, though, we will try to follow the principle that I would express as innovation is always new, but history repeats itself. And you can't, if you can't understand the future without understanding a little bit, something about where it came from. So we're gonna, I think, will give an overview a little bit quickly. But we're not going to get lost in the past. And we're not going to bind the future to the past. We want to focus on really what's new, and how prediction of voice voice's death or, you know, decline were radically premature. You know.

I'm with you on that one. So to sum it up, our working title is the new voice exploring new worlds beyond telephony. And I think we'll leave it at that as the teaser, Chris. We're hoping as we say, for sometime in March. And we will definitely provide details once this becomes firmed up and offered for registration. And we should also maybe just give a little bit of a kind of a push on to where this could go next. Jeff is not out of the conference game entirely. And he does have ideas of a updated version of the VON conference idea. And and if that comes to pass, and I think it will, then there's a good chance that we'll have it, be able to share some of this on stage at that event, as well, Chris, and I would certainly love to be part of that.

And that's right, Jon. I also think that it's going to be interesting because Jeff is always innovative in the way he presents things. And I could see the the new VON idea being incorporated with the education as well, and be more online. You know, it could be, the first one, really could be an online event.

We'll see. Yep, very possible. Okay, let's leave them hanging.

Well, you'll know soon enough, everybody. But thank you for listening as always today. And bear in mind that what we talked about today is a bit new for us. It's a bit new all round, but we'll look forward to doing it and hope it works out. And again, thanks for listening.

Okay, that brings us to the end of our time for today's episode. And we hope you enjoyed it. And we'll be back with another episode of Watch This Space next month. If you don't know, you can access all of our episodes at www watch this space dot tech, or wherever you subscribe to your podcast. And I should mention quickly that the podcast is accessible on most of the majors now, including Apple, Stitcher, iTunes, I think Google and there's a couple more, will tell you more later, but there are more coming as well. And I should also mention, if you're interested in reading transcripts of our podcast, they are accessible on my website. And with that, I'm going to say over and out and thank you all again for listening. And Chris, you can take us out from there.

Okay, Jon, thanks. Always great to talk to you. Thanks, everybody for listening. We'll be back next month with Watch This Space.