As an avid reader, listener and consumer of contact center and CX industry news and insights, I have been actively trying to figure out how to provide value to the industry through multiple mediums. Since I also consume a lot of content I have built up a list of things I was willing to give my time to freely to try and help others. I have spoken at trade shows and events, done videos, written articles and been on countless webinars. Until recently I never really found the thing that got me really excited and that I felt would be of great value to the industry and could be done for an extended period of time without becoming redundant. Again, Until recently.
About 4-5 months ago I was speaking with an industry colleague and telling my origin story. I was sharing how I started as an agent, moved into leadership within centers and then I transitioned to the technology side becoming an executive in software companies that served the industry. As we were talking, I got really fired up because the conversation turned into how contact center jobs were looked down upon in North America. I was sharing my thoughts that I felt our industry never really does a great job about highlighting the opportunities to learn and create a great career. I have met so many people over the 25 plus years in the space who like me, came up from the agent or supervisor level to make a spectacular career. I was thinking someone should really bring these stories to the people and voila…Origins and Journeys was born.
I also happen to be a big fan of the All In podcast. It is a group of guys that talk about macro economic insights along with some political opinions and other subjects that come up and are important to them. I really appreciate the alternate voices of the show and the candor and discussions. I also hadn’t seen anyone do that kind of format other then them, so I knew I wanted to bring in some other people to be a part of this and bring the conversational piece I love from the All In cast to O&J.
I got lucky and found two people to get behind this message that truly believed in giving back to the industry as I did. Jason Cutter and Aarde Cosseboom were obvious choices to me and they both happen to be willing and able to bring their unique insights from their own journeys to the series. Both Jason and Aarde are experts in our industry within their fields and brought unique voices to the series that I felt would make for a great group.
Episode 2 just came out and we are really excited to be receiving such positive feedback for our mission to highlight the real opportunities for growth in our space. This episode is our first interview with an industry expert who shared their journey from agent to leader and some of the ups and downs they went through. In every episode we will also spend time discussing industry topics that we feel are timely and important, along with our guest, to add more value to each episode. In this case for Episode 2 we spent time discussing the economic impacts to software companies in our space and our opinions on the staffing challenges in North America.
In the end, I found that thing that both fired me up and also provided value to the market and I hope you take some time to check it out.
We hope that others’ stories from our industry will inspire the next generation of CX leaders. So to answer the question in the title: I felt strongly that someone needed to bring these stories to the industry, so why not us.
