Heading To Customer Contact Week Las Vegas 2026
I'm excited to share that I'll be attending Customer Contact Week (CCW) in Las Vegas from June 22-25, 2026.
For those of us who have spent our careers in Customer Experience, Contact Centers, Learning & Development, Workforce Management, Operations, Quality, Technology, and BPO leadership, CCW remains one of the most valuable events in the industry.
This year's event brings together leaders focused on AI, automation, digital transformation, customer experience innovation, workforce engagement, operational excellence, and the future of customer care. It is one of the few conferences where executives, practitioners, technology providers, and operations leaders are all having the same conversations in the same place.
One of the moments I'm most looking forward to is reconnecting with Natalie Beckerman, EVP & Chief Business Officer at iQor and a member of the CCW Advisory Board. Natalie has been an incredible friend and mentor who helped shape my career and offered support during one of the most challenging health setbacks of my life.
I'm especially excited to hear Natalie speak about her upcoming book, When Did You Stop Caring?, where she challenges leaders to think differently about empathy, accountability, culture, and the human side of customer care.
Pre-order your copy here:
https://a.co/d/0dHRj6KZ
If you're in the customer contact industry and have never attended CCW, I encourage you to consider making the investment regardless of your role.
Why?
✅ Learn what is actually working in AI and automation
✅ Network with leaders facing the same challenges you are
✅ Discover emerging technology before it becomes mainstream
✅ Gain practical ideas you can implement immediately
✅ Build relationships that often become career-changing opportunities
I've attended enough conferences throughout my career to know that sometimes the best idea, partnership, mentor, or future opportunity comes from a conversation in a hallway rather than a presentation on a stage.
If you'll be attending CCW Las Vegas, let me know. I'd love to connect.
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I Asked A Silly Question. I Won A Silly Prize.
In my previous post, I questioned the transparency of a Nextdoor survey and joked:
"Has nobody at Nextdoor watched John King on CNN election night?"
After thinking about it, that was a silly question.
The answer is obviously no.
If anyone from the top down — including CEO Nirav Tolia — spent much time watching John King drill into data, methodology, assumptions, and details behind the numbers, perhaps we'd see more transparency in areas like moderation, appeals, and internally published survey results.
Then I started thinking about other groundbreaking studies Nextdoor could publish without providing full methodology:
🏆 The Lawn Blade Encroachment Survey
How many inches onto a neighbor's property can grass grow before it becomes an international incident?
📦 The Missing Amazon Package Emotional Impact Index
After receiving a delivery notification, how long should a neighbor wait before accusing porch pirates, nearby residents, and organized crime?
🍂 The Neighborhood Leaf Migration & Border Security Report
Who owns leaf cleanup responsibilities after leaves illegally cross property lines?
🚲 The Emergency E-Bike Teen Threat Assessment
Which represents the greater threat to civilization: teenagers riding e-bikes or teenagers staying indoors staring at screens?
🐕 The Official Barkonomics Report
At what decibel level and dog count do connected neighbors formally declare war on one another?
Maybe the results would be fascinating.
Just don't ask for the sample size, methodology, demographics, margin of error, weighting, response rates, or full questionnaire.
Those details might get lost somewhere
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Waiting for the Call
Three days a week, dialysis keeps me going. It also serves as a constant reminder that I'm waiting for something bigger.
This week, a fellow patient received a kidney transplant after about two years on the waiting list. Hearing that news gives hope to the rest of us still waiting for our turn.
I'm now keeping an overnight backpack ready so that when the call finally comes, I can grab it and head to the hospital.
Watch the full vlog:
https://www.nielflamm.com/videos/esrd
When Data Is Shared, Methodology Matters
Nextdoor recently published a research article titled:
"What Neighbors Want in 2026: Resolutions, Spending Shifts, and Community Connection"
Sources include internal Nextdoor surveys, but the public materials don't appear to disclose key research details such as:
• Sample size
• Margin of error
• Response rate
• Sampling methodology
• Demographic composition
• Weighting methodology
• Exact survey questions
• Full survey results
• Independent review or validation
As someone who has spent years working with assessments, reporting, training metrics, and stakeholder analytics, one of the first questions I ask is:
"How was the data collected?"
Has no one at Nextdoor watched John King work the CNN Big Board on election night?
He doesn't simply point at a state and declare a result. He drills down into counties, demographics, turnout, voting history, margins, and methodology. The audience gets to see how the conclusion was reached.
That's what builds credibility.
Without methodology, we're left with conclusions but limited ability to evaluate the quality of the research behind them.
I'm not suggesting the findings are inaccurate.
Transparency builds trust.
If the research is strong, why not publish the complete methodology, survey instrument, respondent demographics, and supporting data? Doing so would allow advertisers, investors, journalists, researchers, and users to assess the findings and understand the limitations independently.
Data is most valuable when others can examine how the conclusions were reached.
What level of transparency should companies provide when citing internal survey research in public-facing reports?
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AI, Nextdoor, and Transparency
Since transparency is something I frequently ask for from others, it's only fair that I offer the same.
Yes, I use AI to create many of my posts on Nextdoor and #NiravTolia.
What I don't do is type:
"Hey AI, write something bad about Nextdoor."
What I do is provide my own thoughts, opinions, observations, questions, and experiences, then ask AI to help organize them into something more readable.
Think of it more like:
"Here are my thoughts about Nextdoor. Help me write this clearly."
After that, I use additional tools to review grammar, structure, and context.
I also use AI-generated illustrations and cartoons. That's not because I'm hiding anything—it's because my artistic abilities peak somewhere around stick figures. If you've ever seen me try to draw, you'd immediately understand why AI became involved.
For me, AI is about productivity and efficiency. I can spend hours staring at a keyboard, trying to perfect the wording, or I can use modern tools to communicate ideas more effectively while still ensuring the underlying thoughts are my own.
The opinions are mine.
The questions are mine.
The experiences are mine.
The tools help me present them.
I wanted to put that out there and dispel any assumptions about how my content gets created.
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