Welcome and Introductions

Speaker 0:02

Welcome to ACP, the Amazon Connect podcast. This is the show that focuses on Amazon Connect and related technologies. I'm your host, Tom Morgan, and I'm joined as usual by my co-host, AWS solution architect and contact center consultant, Alex Baker. We're also joined by John Ing, freelance consultant for Amazon Connect and founder of the independent user group for Amazon Connect

Tom Morgan 0:34

It's time for another ACP. I'm joined in the studio again by Alex. Alex another week, another episode, another busy couple of days. How are you?

Alex Baker 0:43

Yeah we're really getting back into the swing of doing the regular podcasts again, aren't we, which is nice. Yes, I'm good, thank you. As always, it seems we've got loads going on, loads of exciting conversations around AI agents, outbound campaigns. They're probably top of my mind at the moment, but yeah, all good, thank you.

Tom Morgan 0:59

Definitely. We're also joined today by John Ing, who's a freelance consultant for Amazon Connect and is also the founder of the independent user group for Amazon Connect. John, thanks for joining us.

John Ing 1:11

No, thank you for having me. Yeah, great to be talking to you guys again, and again, great to see you getting the podcasts up and running again. Always good to listen to with a cup of coffee. Yeah, always look forward to them.

Tom Morgan 1:21

Excellent. And the user group is just over two years old, so happy birthday for that. I can still remember the... Yeah, I still remember the first event, the UK event in 2024. I think we interviewed you briefly on episode 12 for that. It's been great to see how that's really grown and evolved over the last two years, and I'm sure it's been keeping you busy as well.

John Ing 1:42

It's blown me away, to be honest. From what I thought would be a relatively slow start build and didn't even know whether it was gonna continue to be on the first event to think here we are I think we're planning nine-- events nine and ten. Having been to Australia twice, America, and stuff like that since. It's incredible. I think it just shows you that there's real value in getting people together to talk about stuff, share, learn from each other and collaborate, which is obviously the un- the underpinning of what the user group's all about.

Alex Baker 2:13

it, isn't it? I

John Ing 2:16

That's the idea. Yes try and get people to talk to each other.

Alex Baker 2:19

It always seems whenever we've been that it seems like people are-- feel quite free to, to chat and have some really valuable conversation at those events.

John Ing 2:27

great feedback. And again, that, that's the-- that was the intent around setting the group up was, how could you get people that have got common challenges, common problems and hearing firsthand from other people that might have solved the same problem was what this was all about. And, I was getting calls from various different organizations saying,"We've got this problem. Can you give us an idea of how we might want to resolve it?" I'm thinking,"Oh I know an organization that's already done that. If I could get you two organizations to talk to each other, wouldn't that be a better idea?" And that's where the user group really came from. And it's really good that people do embrace that environment and certainly feel quite happy to share what they're doing and what they're up to. And, hopefully that'll continue.

Tom Morgan 3:09

Do you think that's been the biggest reason for its success, that kind of consumer-led agenda, if you like, where it's really been members, not sponsors that drive the topics?

John Ing 3:17

I think so. I'm always learning and trying to get... Yeah,'cause it's evolving. It's always evolving, and I think that's the important thing is that you can't just keep doing the same thing. You've got to try and evolve. But bottom line I think there's two things. One, getting people together to talk and allow them time to talk at an event. You can go to lots of sessions and things like that. You even-- you think about the summit in London a few weeks ago. We bumped into each other, managed to speak to each other for about a minute, and then, there's another 10,000, 15,000 people around, yeah? There's people there that you tried to meet but couldn't meet'cause you couldn't find them type thing. Whereas, our events are quite small and therefore you get a chance to talk to each other. I do offer on the agenda plenty of time for people to talk. And I think the independent bit is also quite a an attraction for people because it's not AWS running the event. It's basically the community that drives what the agenda's about.

Alex Baker 4:09

Think on that you've, you've-- although you say so yeah, AWS aren't running the event, you've had some great buy-in from AWS as well, though, which is good to see. So they've come along and been really interested in hearing some at times quite frank and honest feedback from their customers, and it's great to have that buy-in from them.

John Ing 4:29

Yeah, that, that had been fantastic. And yeah, hopefully, again that, that engagement is really important because, as a community we can create a larger voice. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the next couple events, one in London and one in Melbourne given what's recently been announced to get what the census on the ground is around what that really means. And I know we'll come onto that later in, in the conversation. But that's where the power of that community really comes together'cause I think it gives us a bit of a reality check of what organizations think about, what's happening or what's going on.

Regional Differences

Tom Morgan 4:59

Yeah, definitely. And as you mentioned, over the past couple of years, yeah, you really branched out into Australia and also the US. Really interested to, to get your take, probably as one of the few people that sits in those different communities now, I'd be really interested, what are the differences between the regions when it comes to those kind of Connect communities? I know the UK's got a strong financial, but is that true everywhere or is

John Ing 5:22

I... no, it is. I, I-- yeah I've really... I was expecting it to be different, but they're not. I think the difference is UK from a Connect point of view is a relatively mature market, as is Australia. Some of the very early adopters of Connect were Australia, New Zealand a number of financial organizations within that region use Connect some insurance companies and that. So it possibly might be more biased financial services, but the conversations are very similar. Again, they've all got the commonality and the common platform that they're all using, which is the Connect platform. And, anything that they're doing with that you get the same sort of challenges, same sort of questions and things like that. America is... That, that was a real steep learning curve when we looked to go out to the States. We put a finger in the air. Where do we go? It's such a huge country, and there's huge numbers of users of Connect out there. And I think that's the, the-- it's the size and scale in America that's probably the hardest thing of how you get your voice out there. How do you get people to be aware of what this group exists and stuff like that? And we're g- you know, working in background to try and grow that. And in some instances, you have to start with something. The AWS adage of, think big, start small is, that's exactly what I've been doing all along, is just trying to put a finger in the pie, as it were, and just see where it goes. And, but the, the Connect conversations are very common, very similar. The amount of, advancement and the way that the platform has evolved over time is a common conversation across all regions. Some regions get it slightly earlier than others. That, that's possibly a difference, but that, that, that's driven by A-AWS, and we understand why that might be. But, whether it's how do you use Connect? How do you build flows? Who's using Lex? Who's using Nova Sonic? Who's using outbound campaign? You know, All of that is, is very common across all, all areas, all regions. Thus far. That I might, we might find a region out there that's different, but at the moment I don't think I have. Which really helps from a group perspective because it means that I can bring some value to that conversation because I've got it from other ar-areas as well. And you can share stories from the UK or Australia with America and vice versa and that, and I think that, that helps as well.

Event Format Stories

Tom Morgan 7:30

That's interesting. I know certainly the UK and I think the Australian sort of communities tend to be quite candid in closed sessions, and I know you run certainly the UK event. I imagine all the events are along sort of Chatham House Rules where you've got that sort of level of anonymity. Is the US the same as that? Do they warm up into it like it's-

John Ing 7:48

incredible. Absolutely. Yeah we ran our first event in San Francisco, and we had to tighten the agenda because people wouldn't stop asking questions. Actually, that, from a, I guess a cultural perspective if I can call it that, is that they were even more forward in their comments and that which was brilliant.

Tom Morgan 8:06

Hmm. You need to start that conversation really, don't you? You need people to open up a little bit and it, it can sometimes feel, you get that sense sometimes where you don't want-- You get that feeling from companies they don't want to reveal necessarily the problems they're having because everything has to be perfect. But I think when you've got a room of like-minded individuals all trying to solve the same problems, it-- I think it, it helps to share among friends sometimes.

John Ing 8:30

In-indeed and there's an-anecdote, and I will mention it in, in London because I think it's a real example of why the user group and the way that we run the events is quite powerful, is that we had a guy from an insurance company sitting on one table in the morning. You'll be aware of the way that we do the, the wedding table arrangements in the morning, and then we change it in the afternoon and things like that. He was on a table in the morning. He asked a question, and nobody knew the answer to his question. He was on a different table with different people in the afternoon. He asked the same question and got an answer. And his feedback for me was, if we hadn't have done that, he would have gone home without an answer for something he was really keen to get an answer to, but he got the answer. In fact, he got more information than he was expecting. So that just the way that we run the events as well helps people get exposure and get the ability to talk to-- I try and make it so they can talk to as many different people from different organizations as I can.

Tom Morgan 9:20

Yeah.

Alex Baker 9:20

Do you feel like there's scope for further expansion in the Americas in particular?'Cause y-you said, what an enormous region and country it is. Any plans for, like Canada or Central America, Latin America?

John Ing 9:35

Yeah, Ca-Canada is Growing is interest. There, there's a few organizations in Canada that have shown interest, and I'm in conversations with them. America-- back to the America piece is that there are clusters within the United States which we've started to identify. So I'm just trying to work through how to run events in multiple different cities. From a UK point of view, people traveling across the UK to London seems to be okay'cause people do it almost as part of their jobs regularly. Traveling across the US is not something they would normally do. So you know, you've g-you've got clusters in, obviously you've got New York heavily financial services, et cetera. I've gotta say California,'cause actually they're more spread in California than I had initially learned. So that's something that we're working on, is there other areas in California that would work as well? Then you've got places in Texas and stuff like that, which was a bit of a surprise. So some clusters down there. And then you've got, I call it middle America, around Chicago area, but it's a bit broader than just Chicago, but Chicago would probably be a hub. So you know, that's something we're working on at the moment is, would that work? Do we need to tailor the event because they might be slightly smaller in number but nonetheless, you-you've still got these clusters of people that are very keen to get involved.

Funding Independence

Tom Morgan 10:53

Yeah, definitely. I was just thinking as you grow, obviously there's a challenge for you as an organizer to find partners and sponsors to help move it along and help it to grow. How do you keep that sort of editorial independence as it grows? And also not so much-- partners, but also as we're gonna talk about actually, as AWS start to get a little bit more interested maybe than they have been in the past about Connect.

John Ing 11:16

Yeah obviously I couldn't do anything without the support sponsorships I've get, and obviously Cloud Interact have been a very good supporter of the events. I am trying to work through as it's grown, and it's probably grown faster than I ever expected, Is there a different model there somewhere? So I'm working on-- I'm open to ideas, so if anybody's, y-you or anybody listening to this has got any ideas what I could do then, please let me know. Because it is about trying to build a more sustainable model. I am aware there are other user groups out, particularly in the CCAS arena and that, where they have annual subscriptions and things like that. I really don't wanna go down that road. I think that makes it harder, and it creates a friction for people to want to attend. So I need to try and keep it so that people can attend free of charge. Again, to run events costs money. And therefore just trying to work out is there a slightly different model to doing that? While keeping the core tenets of what the user group's about, about being independent people feeling comfortable in the environments that they're talking and things like that. Watch this space, I guess is what we'll see. I think as we move from 2026 into 2027, I probably need to try and solve that problem. uh, it's something I'm working on.

Alex Baker 12:30

Yeah, always thought it must be a tough balance for you to, get that the right balance of a few partners there to support the event, but not overly so they're not outnumbering the customers that are, there more for the general discussion and the learning. You don't want it to be too overtly salesy,

John Ing 12:44

yeah, and, a-and yeah, that's probably the key thing. But a-again, I do value, and one of the things which has been quite interesting, which I hadn't anticipated because I thought that, two years on going on, you'd still be doing what we're doing, is that people move jobs. They might stay in the same arena as Amazon Connect, but they might move from a, a customer of Connect to a partner of Connect or vice versa. Should you exclude them from the I don't want to, yeah,'cause they've got something to contribute. So it's about how do you balance that? Cause you want people that have got experience and knowledge and can contribute to the conversations, share and provide opportunities for people to learn from them. The fact that they might be now working for somebody different, does that change the dynamic? I'm hoping not. And therefore it's more about what that person can contribute to the conversation necessarily from where they are. Obviously the consumers of Connect are the lifeblood of what we're doing. It's what it's all about. One of the other things I'm keen, And I've-- I think you mentioned in your other po-podcast about the NLX acquisition from AWS about the skills shortage and things like that. Again, having people in a room that have got some experience and knowledge is really helpful for that broader community. So we just have to see and, I'll take feedback as it goes, but the idea being is that I try and limit the number of, let's call them sessions where people present from a company perspective. But doesn't necessarily mean you can't have people sitting in the room that have got something to contribute a more individual level.

Connect Rebrand Reaction

Tom Morgan 14:14

Yeah. Yeah, that completely makes sense and, yeah, be really interesting to see how that evolves. We couldn't have you here and not talk about the recent Connect rebranding story. I think I'd be really interested to get your sort of take on it. It caught us probably a little bit by surprise, i'm not sure we were expecting it. But Yeah, get your initial take on it, and then if you've had any feedback from members in the community on the announcement, what does that look like? Is it exciting? Is it confusing? Is it annoying?

John Ing 14:42

It's all of that, I think, Tom. Yeah I'm still trying to get my head around it. Materially, has it changed anything? I'm not so sure. However, is this something that's a bit more strategic than we currently don't understand? So one thing I'd... I think AWS, certainly based on my experience over the last eight or so years, is that they do seem to have good people that work on strategy. And we've got this ongoing conversation within the user group, which I've called, Is It Evolution or Revolution within the CCaaS market, yeah. Is another example of just another piece that's pointing to a revolution. And what do I mean by that is that I've been involved in contact centers for more years than I can care to recall but in the most case, for most majority of that time, it's been the same players just evolving their own products. And you still got the same thing today. Yeah. You've got CCaaS vendors that are now AI CCaaS vendors, yeah. They spent twenty-five, thirty years being a CCaaS vendor. They're now an AI CCaaS vendor, yeah. But I think what you're starting to see, you're starting to see different players come into the space. And I do think, and this is just my opinion, and I'm more than happy to be proved wrong and I may be well off into the sunset before it really does change, is that, the CCaaS market, as we've known for a long time, is significantly changing. And I think this might be where AWS are coming from, is because it's not A contact center anymore. It's about how people interact to get stuff done.

Tom Morgan 16:14

Yeah.

John Ing 16:16

and, I think it's more that play, and it's more a broader AWS position than just Amazon Connect. I would not be surprised, and again, I, I-- you know, I think they need to keep the Amazon Connect name because there's customers that have bought into it and have been bought into it for a number of years and, they're still working on Lex IVRs. Yeah. Many customers that might... And again, this is another thing I think AWS are do-doing, is that they're also broadening the appeal and where they might, get more market penetration, is that actually it doesn't have to be a CCAS that now buys Connect. It could be lots of different types of organizations that might want to use that technology cause it can help solve that. And I think that's possibly where some of this is coming from as well. But keeping the brand name Amazon Connect'cause it's well-recognized, it's in the Gartner Magic Quadrant and all that. So if they change the name too much, then does it mean it starts again? And therefore this is something there. But I've looked at what I've seen so far. Materially, I've not seen any major difference in Connect as a platform.

Tom Morgan 17:16

strategy,

John Ing 17:16

We're gonna have the conversations at the events and I'm, I've had a few people call me and say,"What do I make of this?" And I've shared what I've just shared with you. At the moment, I'm still trying to get my head around it. I think materially it hasn't changed anything other than potentially it's a step to where it's going next.

Tom Morgan 17:31

a good opportunity as well, though,'cause I think it shows how seriously AWS are taking this thing that we call Connect, but in their minds, like you say, might be an implementation of a bigger strategy. And it's feels like it's no longer just that CCAS team in the corner in AWS somewhere, it's part of something much bigger. Do you see the user group staying in Connect customer or kind of evolving out maybe sub-user groups? Are you, have

John Ing 18:01

question. I don't know. I... At this point in time, I-I-- My immediate think is, the customer because, we've got users on Connect that have been on Connect for a number of years, yeah. And therefore they know Amazon Connect. They're still trying to get their head around that it's now a new name, Which is not unusual, right? AWS do change the names of their services on a reasonably frequent basis so we shouldn't be surprised to some extent. But yeah, what I'm interested in is does this change how organizations can use and leverage the platform to provide that customer experience that they're that they're trying to deliver? And yeah I think looking further afield, it probably will. But yeah I'm really interested to get that, discussion going about, as it changes. It's this time last year when they introduced the AI pricing bundle, what did that really mean? And again, I think we're starting to see that actually that was part of this probably a longer-term strategy as well. It's about building

Tom Morgan 18:51

Yeah. Don't make me decide, don't make me choose which AI features I should lean into. I want them all. Yeah, like the strategy is all of them.

Alex Baker 18:58

It's quite interesting as well. We-we've, we've heard on a couple of occasions now people in A-AWS mentioning that if you wanted to, you don't need to have contact center agents. You could and maybe that sort of plays into the longer term move towards the-- it being a, an agentic AI suite of products, is that in theory you could just, you could have AI agents running your contact center for you if you wanted to.

Tom Morgan 19:23

No, not just your contact center, right? Your business. I think that's the bigger... I think that's probably the bigger AWS play when they say that. That's what they, what about those places where there isn't a customer involved, where it's internal business processes and all the rest of it?

John Ing 19:35

But I think we need to balance, There there's the typical technology hype curve going on here as well, isn't there? So much as it's exciting, it's phenomenal what's going on at this point in time. I'm just about to relaunch the website for the user group, yeah. And that website has been built by me. I'm not a developer by any stretch of the imagination, but I've been using AI to build it for me

Tom Morgan 19:56

Yep. Hmm.

John Ing 19:57

as a bit of a test case, and it's incredible what you can do. Absolutely phenomenal, So we'll see where this goes.

Agentic AI Reality Check

Tom Morgan 20:02

Yeah. Yeah. Oh that's a really good point actually,'cause a couple of years ago, that first UK event, I think agentic AI was talked about. I think, I can't remember if that was when we had a really rough demo. It wasn't even in Connect. It was like, it was either that one or the next one. It's"This is going to be the technology, and I can run it out of this, console terminal, and you have to wait a bit whilst I dance around," before I got it working. But now we're at GA, and so where do you think people out in the real world are on this sort of maturity curve?'Cause as partners, obviously, we find it really interesting. As technologists, we find it really exciting. What are people doing? Are they still experimenting with it? Are they leading? Are they recalibrating?

John Ing 20:38

I'm seeing a lot of experimentation and testing, proof of concepts that, that type of terminology is being used. Personally, I'm not aware of much in production.

Tom Morgan 20:48

Mhm.

John Ing 20:48

I think there's still the the risk that, what could this do

Tom Morgan 20:53

Mm.

John Ing 20:54

How do you observe it? How do you make sure it's doing all the right things? How do you test it? I think organizations still need to think about all of that. And, and the tools and technologies that are available to help you do that are... you're starting to see more of that because I think people are beginning to realize that's gonna be a key part in this, is how do you police the robots, as it were?

Tom Morgan 21:14

It's that confidence, isn't it? Of yeah, you're let- letting it loose with your customers. Yeah.

John Ing 21:18

Yeah, and I think that's still a conversation a lot of organizations, p-particularly in the enterprise world whereas reputations could be damaged overnight by something going wrong. Wouldn't want to be the person to do that, would you really? But, I think the pace that this technology is maturing is just incredible. Even over the last twelve months, y- it's just incredible. What looked like a bit of a... you go back to the demos that you were trying to pull together, you can now do that very simply now. How organizations adjust to that, I don't know. I think there's a lot of internal conversations that need to happen because that has organizational design implications from an organization perspective. Obviously, if you're sitting at the top of the organization, that might be positive because it might reduce your costs but it's not as simple as that, I don't think. I think yeah lots of people playing. One of the things we do at the user group we do an update to what we call the community success wall. That'll be interesting to see if we get some items on there at the next event of, where people have actually done a bit more than they were doing. So that'll be interesting to see.

Tom Morgan 22:18

definitely.

Alex Baker 22:18

I thought it was interesting around the NLX acquisition that, that part of the press r-release was at around releasing that bottleneck of engineering when implementing AI agents as well. So it'd be interesting to see if you get any feedback around that as that acquisition matures from the user group members that they are able to more quickly put AI agents into action in production.

John Ing 22:42

I I think, that's really interesting'cause I, I think there's been a common thread through all the user group conversations about... And I'm a big advocate of this. Much as I'm from a technology background and understand change management and all that sort of stuff the nearer you can get the changes made to the colleague and customer, the faster, the better, yeah. But I think some of this is driving in that direction. We did have conversations a number of events ago about how can users make some of the changes within the Connect platform. You've got the technology people going,"No, you can't do that. That's dangerous. You might break it." But you know- Businesses tend to update websites these days, yeah? Because they need to do the pace, there needs to be change at a pace. And, I think Connect has always had that in mind about making it simple to use, make it simple to deploy, and that that's part of its power. I know it's a mu-much more complex beast now than it was when it first came out but anything you can do to make it easier to deploy, easier to build, then it's more likely to get consumed. And I think that's a positive.

Tom Morgan 23:42

Yeah, definitely. I do want to talk about the the next event that you've got coming up, which is in London on the 3rd of June. So by the time you listen to this, you will still have time to register. It's free to attend. Is that correct?

John Ing 23:55

Correct. Yes. Yep.

Tom Morgan 23:56

Okay, perfect. Free to attend, but you do need to register. Tacug.org to register. If, I guess if someone's listening to this and they're on the fence about whether to come or not, what would you say to them?

John Ing 24:07

I think what have you got to lose? I think y- if you've got any questions that you want... and that goes for anybody that's using Connect or thinking about using Connect. Yeah, we've had a few people turn up that are not users of Connect that are thinking about it or just about to start a journey on Connect. And they found it extremely valuable because it's given them an opportunity to talk to a number of different people with different perspectives, different experiences, and therefore they get a much broader perspective on how that might feed and help them going forwards. I think the information that's shared is relevant and would be of interest to people in the Amazon Connect community world. You get an opportunity to network, build relationships. And one of the things that I hope for, which is definitely happening, is conversations happening outside the user group. So I do know that there are people talking to each other. I get many people come to me say,"Look we heard from so and can you put us in touch with them? We'd love to have a conversation with them," or,"We're changing what we're doing. I heard somebody talk about this at the last event. Can you put us in touch with that?" And that's consumer and consumers talking to each other. You've got partners and consumers talking to each other, but also got partners and partners talking to each other. I know in, in Australia there's a couple of partners that were working on a joint bid for a business, for an opportunity, which they wouldn't have done without the user group. So depending on where you sit you get-- I think you get fed well. yeah. Always good food, I think. Venues I think are g- are good locality, easy to get to. the challenge is that, spaces are limited. You have to register. It's not a turn up on the door type of event. And, places are filling fast. That's probably one of the biggest differences is the fact the UK is more mature than the others, then there is a quick uptake of people wanting to come and join again. We're not quite full yet. So yeah, really keen to hear from, particularly people that have not been before to bring in some different perspectives on that. That'd be really powerful.

Tom Morgan 26:00

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's a, yeah, it's a fantastic community, so do look into it if you are using Connect or even if you're considering using Connect. And yes, go to the website to register. If it is full, then keep an eye out for the next one. Yeah, just by the time this goes out, I don't... there might be space, there might not be,'cause yeah, as you say, spaces are limited, and that's, I think it has to be like that really, otherwise you've got all the logistics and challenges around rooms and spaces and all that sort of stuff that goes into running an event. But no, it's a fantastic community, so So

John Ing 26:29

thank you. And again, part of that is is you keep it relatively small so people can have a conversation. If it gets too big, then that becomes harder and harder to control and,

Tom Morgan 26:38

magic. Yeah, definitely.

John Ing 26:39

I think it's a sweet spot of numbers. We tend to get about 50 people, 55 people which is a good number to have that type of conversation.

Closing and Subscribe

Tom Morgan 26:46

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's an intimate open book conversation as well, and people can be honest with each other. Definitely. All right. We could carry on talking all day but it is time to bring this episode to an end. Thank you, Alex. Thank you, John. And thank you all for listening. Be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast player. That way you won't miss the next episode. Whilst you're there, we'd love it if you would rate and review us. If you have colleagues that you think would benefit from this content, please let them know. To find out more about how Cloud Interact can help you on your contact center journey, visit cloudinteract.io. We're wrapping this call up now, and we'll connect with you next time.