What has been your business/work highlight of 2024 so far?

Working with Brent Kelly to research and deliver our UCaaS LLM conference session that looked at Zoom AI Companion, Webex AI Assistant, Microsoft Copilot for M365, and Google Gemini. The process was detailed, technical, and the results were valuable and well received. Working with Brent for several months to produce our session, and subsequent articles, was a very enjoyable and productive collaboration.

Who is your business hero and why?

I greatly admire how both Bill Gates and Satya Nadella have taken their keen business acumen and applied the same critical thinking, processes, and measurement to focusing on making the world a better place. Gates in a fullt-time role through his foundation, Nadella, arguably still very involved in growing the financial success of Microsoft but also doing this with a focus on accessibility, diversity, and trust. To be clear, like all of us, neither Gates or Nadella are without flaws; however, more than most they have leveraged technology primarily for good.

What’s the biggest business mistake you’ve made and what did you learn from it?

I started in the technology space writing video video games for the VIC-20 and Commodore 64. I then migrated to creating custom business applications. Along the way I tried my hand at creating several products. When I failed, it was because I became enamoured with my own ideas and did not line up an initial customer (or customers) to validate that I was solving a real problem, that someone would be willing to pay to address.

I don’t code in my job these days, but ensuring and validating that shiny new technology solutions, detailed analysis work, articles, or webinars have a clearly defined audience that perceives real measurable value in your offering is an important lesson I learned. I often ask myself three questions: “who will this serve?”, “what value will this deliver?”, “how will the value be measured/proven?”.

What’s the most inspirational book you’ve ever read and why?

I found Yuval Noah Harari’s three-book series: Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century thought provoking and useful in assessing current and future trends. Harari, a renowned historian, uses history to illuminate human tendencies, systems, and beliefs related to justice, peace, and the probable future. Harari views history as a vital tool for understanding our world, our society, and ourselves. It is not so much that we repeat history; but rather, that history can educate and inform us as we predict potential future paths. I find his writings very insightful as we look towards the future applications and adoption of technology.

What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role in 2024?

1) Helping organizations decode and separate identical sounding marketing messages from many vendors so that they can successfuly deploy communications and collaboration technology; i.e. blocking out the “noise”.

2 Helping vendors understand the value of differentiating their product messaging so that they can increase awareness, demand, and ultimately sales in an increasingly crowded and competitive market; i.e. cutting through the “noise”.

What technology will have the greatest impact on your business this year and why?

With no doubt, artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) will be a primary focus and topic in 2024. AI and GenAI will likely be over-hyped, and will shift focus from other important topics. AI and GenAI will likely cause public relations issues and project failures. AI and GenAI will help some organisations deliver real, measurable, sustainable competitive advantage.

From the perspective of our business, we will be looking for the best ways to educate and help companies successfully plan for and implement AI and GenAI where it makes sense, while also continuing to provide strategy and implementation services related to Microsoft Teams (and Teams Phone).