2020 Hindsight

by Dave Michels

As the year comes to a close, it’s time to reflect on just how crappy 2020 was. Actually, all things considered, it was actually a very positive year. .Enterprise communications and collaboration became the most urgent matter to companies around the planet, and these new attitudes are going to make 2021 fantastic.

Here’s what’s on the reflection menu:

Zeus and I did two 2020 look-back videos on our Real-Time, Recorded channel.

We did the Five 2020 Turkeys of Enterprise Comms:

We also posted the Five Themes of Enterprise Comms in 2020: 

Zeus and I are doing near weekly short videos with our takes on recent enterprise comms news. The videos above are reflective on the year, but check out the Real-Time Recorded channel for coverage on current news. Though some people call YouTube channels/content “podcasts,” I don’t. For that, Evan and I publish TalkingHeadz — a semi-monthly interview podcast with various industry movers and shakers. In 2020, we published 27 episodes.

On NoJitter, I posted what I consider to be the most important mergers and acquisitions in enterprise comms this year.

I am currently working up my December Insider Report – and it’s a long one.

In January I will be presenting some forward looking thoughts to the SCTC in a Fireside Chat. I will soon publish My 2020 Annual Report. You can see see prior Annual Reports here, such as My 2019.

My feelings are more optimistic about the industry than you might guess. 2020 was a harsh year in general, but overall positive for enterprise comms. We saw everything important accelerate including adoption of cloud-delivered services, distributed work, and online meetings. We saw some major shifts in the vendor landscape. The changes we saw in 2020 will have long term effects – far longer than the pandemic.