Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Prevention > Cure: The Happiness Factor in IT Health (w/ EDGE Solutions)

Transcript

Prevention > Cure: The Happiness Factor in IT Health (w/ EDGE Solutions) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome it, change Makers to the deck show with Tim
0:05
Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGraw.
0:07
Speaker 2: Let's get into it.
0:09
Speaker 3: Hello, change makers, listen. I was just chatting to Tim
0:14
Speaker 3: Flower here about regular listeners may have heard me mention
0:19
Speaker 3: that Tim takes an annual mega motorcycle drive of North America. Tim,
0:25
Speaker 3: how would you go and give us break it down
0:27
Speaker 3: for us?
0:27
Speaker 2: Where do you go? Exactly? Yeah.
0:29
Speaker 4: So in two thousand and nine it was a bucket
0:30
Speaker 4: list trip to get out to South Dakota from the
0:34
Speaker 4: East coast, so back and forth across the country. It
0:37
Speaker 4: ends up being about over two weeks, about five thousand miles,
0:40
Speaker 4: and it's been every year since, so fifteen. I skipped
0:43
Speaker 4: a couple of COVID years, but it's been fifteen years
0:45
Speaker 4: back and forth. A great group of guys we ride
0:48
Speaker 4: with when we get out there, and it's always a blast.
0:51
Speaker 3: It sounds I completely love your idea of it above.
0:53
Speaker 3: In fact, I've never driven a motorbike, but you were
0:56
Speaker 3: just telling me, Tim that you made a really cool
1:00
Speaker 3: distinction between driving a car and being on a bike.
1:03
Speaker 3: To tell the this.
1:05
Speaker 4: It started with you saying how exhausted you were after
1:07
Speaker 4: driving nine hours up to whales and it's different on
1:11
Speaker 4: a motorcycle. Yeah, you're you're tired at the end of
1:13
Speaker 4: the day. But the difference is someone it's not an
1:15
Speaker 4: original line somebody. I heard this from somebody, But the
1:18
Speaker 4: difference between doing it in a car and a motorcycle
1:20
Speaker 4: is in a car, you're sitting in a seat looking
1:23
Speaker 4: through a screen, and it's like watching a movie. When
1:25
Speaker 4: you're on a motorcycle, it's you're in the movie. The
1:28
Speaker 4: smell changes every ten seconds, the temperature changes every ten seconds,
1:33
Speaker 4: the road changes, and you've got to react to it.
1:35
Speaker 4: And the drivers some good, some idiots. The scenery changes
1:39
Speaker 4: all the time and you're part of it. So yeah,
1:41
Speaker 4: being in the movie all day is a lot different
1:44
Speaker 4: than just sitting there watching a movie. Okay, can you
1:46
Speaker 4: imagine watching a movie for nine hours?
1:48
Speaker 2: Nice on it?
1:50
Speaker 3: Well, the example would be on a plane, right like that.
1:53
Speaker 2: That's the ultimate passivity.
1:55
Speaker 3: You know, you're just sat there for nine hours. You
1:58
Speaker 3: know more Sometimes and what do you do? You watch
2:02
Speaker 3: free movies and it drives you slightly insane, but there's
2:04
Speaker 3: not you know, it's there's a relationship.
2:07
Speaker 4: You're trapped in that tube.
2:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally totally got to welcome our guests Sean Thomas,
2:13
Speaker 3: welcome and Sean, you got to help me. I need
2:15
Speaker 3: an analogy. I was Tim was saying all this cool stuff.
2:17
Speaker 3: I was like, is there something I can Is there
2:19
Speaker 3: a way I can tie this to decks?
2:21
Speaker 4: It's a different experience. It's an individual experience, right, we
2:25
Speaker 4: can tie it to experience in it.
2:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you don't have decks. It's passive. You're on
2:31
Speaker 3: the plane. And if you have decks, you're on the motorbike.
2:35
Speaker 2: What do you think show? What do you think? Well? Yeah, no,
2:37
Speaker 2: And I think also it was interesting when you did
2:39
Speaker 2: talk about the smells and all of that. That's one
2:41
Speaker 2: of the things you realize. I mean, I do a
2:44
Speaker 2: lot of biking and you just are walking. You just
2:46
Speaker 2: kind of you're more involved in it. You do smell
2:50
Speaker 2: those things and kind of brings you back to when
2:52
Speaker 2: you're I guess younger and weren't in a car all
2:54
Speaker 2: the time. You saw those things and smell them. So yeah,
2:57
Speaker 2: I get that. With the whole overall experience.
3:00
Speaker 4: We were riding through. I'll give you a quick story.
3:02
Speaker 4: We were riding through. It was either Iowa or Nebraska.
3:04
Speaker 4: It was my first year on the trip and we're
3:07
Speaker 4: riding through. We stopped for gas and I turned to
3:09
Speaker 4: my buddy Steve, because Steve, I smell pancakes. Is the
3:11
Speaker 4: weirdest smell out in the middle of nowhere. We're in
3:14
Speaker 4: cornfields and cattle country, and why do I smell pancakes?
3:18
Speaker 4: And he looks over at the sila, so tim AT's
3:20
Speaker 4: corn syrup they're making over there. It was just the
3:23
Speaker 4: smell of the corn, and the corn syrup smelled just
3:26
Speaker 4: like pancakes. But it's that kind of thing you don't
3:28
Speaker 4: really get when you're in the car.
3:30
Speaker 3: Beautiful, and I can think of some way showing to
3:33
Speaker 3: tie this into your introduction and welcome you to the show,
3:36
Speaker 3: because one of villas stood at me when I was
3:38
Speaker 3: when I researching today's show. It's just really inspired by
3:44
Speaker 3: by the signature and you in your email, which is
3:48
Speaker 3: a beautiful, a beautiful kind of motto or sentiment, which
3:52
Speaker 3: is success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is
3:55
Speaker 3: the key to success. And it's something we'll touch upon
3:57
Speaker 3: it a bit. That seems to sort of pervade a
4:00
Speaker 3: lot of you thinking and work about decks, right, but
4:03
Speaker 3: you currently with Edge Solutions and consulting managing director of
4:08
Speaker 3: EU E M Business. I mean, maybe tell us a
4:11
Speaker 3: bit about EDGE and yourself to begin with Sure.
4:14
Speaker 2: Sure, So you know, first off, thanks for having me
4:17
Speaker 2: on the podcast. And you know, I love what you
4:18
Speaker 2: guys do with this and you're just very happy to
4:21
Speaker 2: be here. So Edge this is a consulting you know.
4:25
Speaker 2: EDGE for sure. We're a value added reseller, women owned business.
4:28
Speaker 2: We've been in business for a little over twenty five
4:31
Speaker 2: years now. And you know it may sound you know,
4:36
Speaker 2: sales e or trite, but we really do focus we
4:38
Speaker 2: say value out of reseller. We really do focus on
4:41
Speaker 2: the v part of that, you know, and that's bringing
4:44
Speaker 2: value for both our customers and our vendors. And I
4:48
Speaker 2: think we can do this because our philosophy as a
4:50
Speaker 2: company is to really closely partner with best of breed
4:54
Speaker 2: vendors with a key market space and then really and
4:57
Speaker 2: we build an expertise and process around solutions. You know,
5:01
Speaker 2: we we live and die with a vendor and their solution.
5:04
Speaker 2: A customer wants a different product, we don't. We don't
5:07
Speaker 2: have a portfolio products that we go to that's in
5:10
Speaker 2: that same space. You know, We've we've had customers, we've
5:12
Speaker 2: lost opportunities where customers have liked us but want us
5:16
Speaker 2: to bring them a different product, maybe a competing product.
5:21
Speaker 2: So although we may lose this, it builds a strong
5:24
Speaker 2: vendor partnership, greatly strengthens our relationship with the vendor and
5:29
Speaker 2: and in reality allows us to helps us get better
5:32
Speaker 2: pricing and perks for from the vendor for our customers.
5:35
Speaker 2: So I think it brings value on both sides. And
5:39
Speaker 2: you know our business model we're not. We're not a
5:42
Speaker 2: C d W or an s h I where we
5:44
Speaker 2: can be experts on everything. We can't and we also
5:48
Speaker 2: can't cultivate this loyalty that we we help helps our customers.
5:55
Speaker 2: So our overall business at EDGE. You know some of
5:59
Speaker 2: our key pillars we have mainframe managed services, so we've
6:04
Speaker 2: we've built a team of top mainframe engineers where IBM
6:08
Speaker 2: will often outsource to our team. We've built a practice
6:12
Speaker 2: around the inventors of the converged Infrastructure solution U Tannics,
6:16
Speaker 2: so we were partnering with them even before people knew
6:19
Speaker 2: what converged infrastructure was. And then about eight years ago
6:24
Speaker 2: we formed our partnership and built a practice around the
6:27
Speaker 2: number one DEX vendor in the market Next Think. You know,
6:31
Speaker 2: Next Think has the perfect product and it's the perfect
6:34
Speaker 2: market space for our business because it's it's not a
6:37
Speaker 2: transactional engagement like maybe a storage array where you sell
6:41
Speaker 2: and move on. You know, it requires this close partnership
6:44
Speaker 2: with our customers to help them, you know, get the
6:46
Speaker 2: value of the products. But that really fits our model.
6:48
Speaker 2: And you know, edge is sometimes referred to as you know,
6:52
Speaker 2: a batigue far. I don't know if I'm a fan
6:56
Speaker 2: of that term because it almost sounds like we kind
6:58
Speaker 2: of were the small little company that thinkers with these
7:00
Speaker 2: I T solutions that but we really are a powerhouse
7:03
Speaker 2: and have an high impact team for the solutions we
7:06
Speaker 2: do offer. We have proven framework, we deliver results with it,
7:10
Speaker 2: whether it's made frame or converge infrastructure or in the
7:14
Speaker 2: desk space.
7:16
Speaker 3: That's all great stuff shown many things. And how about
7:18
Speaker 3: that that that that notion that success, I repeat, is
7:22
Speaker 3: not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success,
7:25
Speaker 3: which which I thought of because of you know, Tim's
7:27
Speaker 3: passion for biking and your passion for biking and real
7:31
Speaker 3: world pursuits and hobbies and enthusiasms. But I do feel
7:36
Speaker 3: like it says something about you as an individual professional.
7:40
Speaker 3: Do you feel that it's reflective of you, of your
7:43
Speaker 3: approach to two decks you and and how does your
7:46
Speaker 3: life philosophy guide your work and your leadership.
7:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I guess, you know, maybe it's
7:52
Speaker 2: a cop out. So if I'm not successful, I can say, well,
7:54
Speaker 2: at least time I'm happy. But you know, and it's
7:57
Speaker 2: it's you know, it doesn't mean I would I have son,
8:00
Speaker 2: I would message to him that, you know, stay in
8:02
Speaker 2: the basement and play video games, you know, all day
8:04
Speaker 2: long as long as you're happy. You know, That's not
8:07
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. But you know, I my background was
8:10
Speaker 2: product marketing. I don't think I'm naturally a sales person,
8:17
Speaker 2: And in fact, I think when I first got into sales,
8:19
Speaker 2: people probably were questioning that for me because by the
8:22
Speaker 2: nature I'm not I'm more quiet and introvert. But I
8:26
Speaker 2: do remember, you know, early when I was in my
8:28
Speaker 2: sales career, you know, maybe maybe I just lost a deal,
8:33
Speaker 2: but kind of thinking, you know, do I need to
8:34
Speaker 2: put on an act that was typically common for a
8:38
Speaker 2: successful sales person, And you know, whether I could do
8:40
Speaker 2: this was very questionable, But you know, would that make
8:45
Speaker 2: me more successful at sales and would be happy doing this,
8:48
Speaker 2: and I I just decided it was probably more out
8:51
Speaker 2: of inability or laziness to be who I was, you know,
8:54
Speaker 2: work with the customers that resonated better with me. You know,
8:57
Speaker 2: maybe I could have sold more if I was more
9:00
Speaker 2: of a salesperson, but just customers that fit with my personality.
9:06
Speaker 2: I still don't think I'm a good salesforce. I think
9:08
Speaker 2: I'm more of a I'm a good account manager, and
9:11
Speaker 2: that means, you know, supporting the needs of my customers.
9:14
Speaker 2: And I you know, I think the shows you know,
9:16
Speaker 2: we're customers I've had for twenty plus years and and
9:20
Speaker 2: the ones that I'm happy to work with. So I
9:22
Speaker 2: think that's what success is for me.
9:28
Speaker 4: And I think that for me, Shawn, that notion of
9:33
Speaker 4: happiness converting to success resonates a lot. You know, some
9:36
Speaker 4: of my early success at Nextic was because I was
9:40
Speaker 4: just happy to be here, happy to be at a
9:42
Speaker 4: small but really growing company ten years ago, and I
9:47
Speaker 4: made a similar transition from enterprise it into sales and
9:51
Speaker 4: marketing role, but it was it was more about being
9:54
Speaker 4: successful in telling stories, and the happiness behind those stories
10:00
Speaker 4: comes through so I think it's all that happiness connected
10:03
Speaker 4: to success. I think makes a ton of sense. The
10:06
Speaker 4: other thing that you and I have talked a lot
10:08
Speaker 4: about and that you highlight frequently is the connection between
10:14
Speaker 4: personal health and IT health. We've socialized it a lot,
10:18
Speaker 4: especially in the context of proactive IT. Happy and healthy
10:21
Speaker 4: people are more productive and less of a cost burden
10:25
Speaker 4: on the healthcare system and likewise for enterprise it t
10:28
Speaker 4: but unpack your thinking, they are a little bit more
10:31
Speaker 4: for us sure.
10:34
Speaker 2: So you know, of course, as I get later in
10:36
Speaker 2: my life and my career, I'm always attracted to reading
10:39
Speaker 2: these the articles on such things as you know, how
10:42
Speaker 2: much money do I need to retire?
10:44
Speaker 4: You know what?
10:45
Speaker 2: When should I apply for Social Security? These kind of questions,
10:48
Speaker 2: and often it comes down to health insurance. And you know,
10:52
Speaker 2: I've I've read multiple times and it's nothing I came
10:55
Speaker 2: up with. But healthy as well from your thinking about
10:58
Speaker 2: you as you get older and and trying to be healthy,
11:01
Speaker 2: and we've you know, you bike, I bike. All these
11:06
Speaker 2: things that we do that keep us healthy. And you
11:10
Speaker 2: know it's pretty simple statement. If you keep yourself healthy
11:13
Speaker 2: and stay on top of it, you know, you can
11:16
Speaker 2: save yourself a lot of money and medical expenses. You know,
11:19
Speaker 2: of course we're not going to eliminate getting sick, but
11:22
Speaker 2: there are things you can do to reduce these ailments.
11:25
Speaker 2: Find them sooner. They can save you, you know, thousands
11:27
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars in medical bills and prescription drugs. So
11:32
Speaker 2: you know, I I do my walking or running and
11:37
Speaker 2: I track these with Strava, and I'm always kind of
11:41
Speaker 2: looking at that. And one of the stats I saw
11:44
Speaker 2: was that from the American Heart Association that said that
11:47
Speaker 2: you know, individuals engage in this regular physical activities and
11:51
Speaker 2: tract their health. You know, they save on average about
11:53
Speaker 2: twenty five hundred dollars in healthcare costs. So you know,
11:58
Speaker 2: not only saving money, but you're feeling better. So you know,
12:02
Speaker 2: all this about health. This isn't a this is an
12:04
Speaker 2: immense fitness podcast, but when you start looking at it
12:07
Speaker 2: in regards to two decks, you know, I was, I
12:11
Speaker 2: was on one of my morning walks and I started
12:13
Speaker 2: to think about the parallels with dex Management using next
12:17
Speaker 2: Think and how companies are looking to use all this
12:20
Speaker 2: visibility and metrics to help them be preventative and proactive
12:24
Speaker 2: and supporting their company's health. And you know, of course,
12:27
Speaker 2: as i'm I think of decks and next thing while
12:29
Speaker 2: I'm exercising too. But you know, as we're getting sick,
12:32
Speaker 2: you're not going to eliminate all the issues in your environment.
12:36
Speaker 2: You know, you can reduce to IT issues and resolve
12:38
Speaker 2: them before they become very expensive. And you know this
12:43
Speaker 2: proactiveness and preventative. But in the next thing, platform gives
12:47
Speaker 2: gives companies the metrics to see these issues and address
12:51
Speaker 2: them beforehand before they're become major issues. So you know,
12:55
Speaker 2: carring forward the same logic, better it health translates into
12:59
Speaker 2: more or wealth for companies. And another stat I saw
13:03
Speaker 2: where Forrester was saying, I think it was, you know,
13:09
Speaker 2: companies are investing in these tools are getting an ROI
13:13
Speaker 2: of about two hundred percent over three years and a
13:15
Speaker 2: payback period of less than that. So it really does
13:19
Speaker 2: bring value. And you know, we're willing to invest in
13:22
Speaker 2: gym memberships and with our own personal money health tracking
13:26
Speaker 2: device because we know the cost outweigh the benefits all right, sorry,
13:33
Speaker 2: the benefits outweigh the cost. So you know, for far
13:35
Speaker 2: less amount per employee per year, these you know, companies
13:42
Speaker 2: that invest in a dex platform which can diagnose and
13:46
Speaker 2: automatically resolve in many of these IT issues, you know,
13:49
Speaker 2: which lead to increased productivity, reduce support costs, lower employee turnover.
13:54
Speaker 2: It will pays for itself, so IT health does translate
13:59
Speaker 2: all so into company wealth.
14:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's actually an experience I had early on in
14:07
Speaker 4: my career here at Next Think. And I've told the
14:10
Speaker 4: story many times, probably get told to hear on the
14:11
Speaker 4: podcast too. But is it a healthcare facility with our
14:16
Speaker 4: sales reps early in the sales cycle? And I had
14:18
Speaker 4: a senior IT leader and a senior finance leader in
14:21
Speaker 4: the room, and I just started making that parallel to
14:26
Speaker 4: the finance of healthcare. Happy healthy people, they see their doctor,
14:30
Speaker 4: they have an apple a day, they exercise, they eat right,
14:34
Speaker 4: they stay out of the hospital, they're not as sick
14:36
Speaker 4: as often, and they're less of not only are they
14:39
Speaker 4: more productive themselves, but the society is more productive as
14:44
Speaker 4: a whole, and they're all less of a burden on
14:46
Speaker 4: the healthcare system. And the same thing goes in it.
14:50
Speaker 4: And we had a really great conversation about those parallels
14:53
Speaker 4: with those two leaders in the room, and I think
14:54
Speaker 4: it was really enlightening, not just for me as part
14:57
Speaker 4: of that conversation, but for them as well, and it
15:01
Speaker 4: really leads that kind of storytelling I think leads to success.
15:07
Speaker 4: I'll talk a little bit about proactive It. As many
15:11
Speaker 4: folks know, I was a customer before coming the next
15:14
Speaker 4: thing we implemented proactive it. It was over ten years
15:17
Speaker 4: ago now, and it was through a proactive services team.
15:20
Speaker 4: We were very deliberate about it. It was specific to
15:23
Speaker 4: a role, specific for them. They weren't pulled away on
15:27
Speaker 4: other things. But even just five years ago, proactive it
15:31
Speaker 4: still felt aspirational for many or a niche idea. But
15:37
Speaker 4: today it's everywhere. What do you think was the what's
15:40
Speaker 4: the reason for seeing that shift now and why it's
15:43
Speaker 4: accelerated so dramatically.
15:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's so true. I mean in our early
15:49
Speaker 2: discussions with customers, you know, it's changed a lot in
15:53
Speaker 2: the last three to five years. Where you know, initially,
15:56
Speaker 2: you know, three to five more than three or five
15:59
Speaker 2: five years ago, we were spending a lot of our
16:01
Speaker 2: conversations explaining what DEX was and the value of decks. Now,
16:06
Speaker 2: you know, most people pretty much know what DEX is,
16:10
Speaker 2: or at least the ones that we're talking with, and
16:12
Speaker 2: so we spend much time less time educating them and
16:16
Speaker 2: just talking about the value. And I don't know, I
16:18
Speaker 2: think that maybe a combination of things it's driving it
16:21
Speaker 2: from being this niche solution to more mainstream. And you know,
16:27
Speaker 2: I think initially, you know, long gone are the days
16:30
Speaker 2: of it just providing you know, this Ethernet port and
16:33
Speaker 2: an office, employees connecting the desktop PC, whether it's our
16:38
Speaker 2: client server. You know, today you've got employees connecting VPNs,
16:42
Speaker 2: Wi Fi devices running different all these different security agents,
16:46
Speaker 2: SaaS applications, video conferencing, and you know, connecting from anywhere,
16:52
Speaker 2: remotely anywhere. And employees also expecting no matter what, that
16:57
Speaker 2: they have to have that same kind of connection if
17:00
Speaker 2: they're sitting in the office next to the data center
17:03
Speaker 2: to carry out their jobs. So and you know, these
17:05
Speaker 2: technologies they didn't just appear in the last three or
17:08
Speaker 2: five years. But I guess maybe it's a cumulative effect
17:12
Speaker 2: that have led to this, you know, much more complex it.
17:18
Speaker 2: So you know that they're all there, all these tools
17:22
Speaker 2: that they're currently out there to look at the network,
17:25
Speaker 2: to look at the application. They're really they have been there,
17:29
Speaker 2: but they're looking at it in isolation, not holistically or
17:35
Speaker 2: mapping it all together. You know, just because an app
17:38
Speaker 2: monitoring tool says that, you know, the application working fine,
17:41
Speaker 2: doesn't translate into that employee being able to use it,
17:45
Speaker 2: you know, maybe their Wi Fi connections bad or whatever.
17:48
Speaker 2: So I think companies are really realizing this isolation view
17:54
Speaker 2: is not strong enough to do what they need to do. So,
17:57
Speaker 2: you know, they realized they didn't have this comprehends view.
18:03
Speaker 2: And at the same time that this is going I
18:04
Speaker 2: think you know, the analysts were also seeing it, which
18:07
Speaker 2: really has helped move us a law you got Forrester
18:10
Speaker 2: and Gartner just in the last three to four years
18:13
Speaker 2: have both come out with multiple reports, you know, magic
18:16
Speaker 2: quadrants defining the market leaders in the space, which of
18:20
Speaker 2: course next think has been defined on every one of
18:22
Speaker 2: these as the top solution. So these I think these
18:26
Speaker 2: analyst reports also help legitimize the space and make it
18:30
Speaker 2: become more mainstream of the last few years. And I
18:33
Speaker 2: think also that they're talking about, you know, really to
18:36
Speaker 2: get a competitive edge that they're you know, the companies
18:41
Speaker 2: are looking more at decks. So I don't know, I
18:43
Speaker 2: think it's a combination of the complexity, people realizing they
18:47
Speaker 2: need that overall view, and the analysts also legitimizing it.
18:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you guys are doing a really good job
18:56
Speaker 4: in that it's still a bit of an evangelism piece
19:01
Speaker 4: of work, although it is always good to hear. We're
19:05
Speaker 4: hearing it more and more that it's less so that
19:07
Speaker 4: now as it is talking about value and operationalizing and
19:12
Speaker 4: all the kind of the nitty gritty stuff. But even
19:15
Speaker 4: with all that momentum and the analysts support, there's still
19:19
Speaker 4: barriers to making a change. Change is difficult, especially when
19:22
Speaker 4: you've been doing something the same way for thirty years.
19:25
Speaker 4: So what's your view in terms of the biggest barriers
19:29
Speaker 4: that get in the way of achieving the aspiration?
19:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess maybe two things come to my first.
19:40
Speaker 2: Because tax is still new technology. There is not a
19:43
Speaker 2: lot of industry knowledge out there where you compared to
19:46
Speaker 2: other solutions, whether it's servers and stores, security, backup. So
19:51
Speaker 2: these have been out there. While there's a lot of
19:53
Speaker 2: people in the market space that can help, some companies
19:58
Speaker 2: aren't exactly sure how to go about implementing and using
20:01
Speaker 2: a powerful solution like next think you know, and of
20:05
Speaker 2: course with very little effort, you know, you can plug
20:07
Speaker 2: in next think and get visibility and start getting some
20:10
Speaker 2: basic value out of it, but maybe not what the
20:13
Speaker 2: company is looking for or all that they're looking for.
20:16
Speaker 2: So to really capitalize on this, companies really need to
20:20
Speaker 2: invest in the people in the process first. I don't
20:24
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's anything, you know, great bit
20:28
Speaker 2: of advice, but I think it's it's key that they
20:30
Speaker 2: just have to invest in the people in the process
20:33
Speaker 2: for a strong deck strategy. And unfortunately, sometimes dex is
20:36
Speaker 2: an afterthought for the it person. That's even you know,
20:40
Speaker 2: the one person that is looking at decks in the
20:43
Speaker 2: company and maybe it's their second or third job instead
20:46
Speaker 2: of their primary job. I have used this analogy before.
20:51
Speaker 2: It's maybe it's a little too simplistic, but I sometimes
20:55
Speaker 2: think of Microsoft people, customers ask me, so how many
20:58
Speaker 2: people that you on this? Well, if you really want
21:01
Speaker 2: to get value it, that will translate by how many
21:05
Speaker 2: how much effort you put into it. And I think
21:07
Speaker 2: of you know, Microsoft Excel. You know most of us
21:12
Speaker 2: can use it. You use it for creating lists, use
21:15
Speaker 2: it for some basic adding and subtracting a spreadsheets, but
21:19
Speaker 2: we know the program is so much more powerful. It
21:22
Speaker 2: could be so much more value with you know, with
21:24
Speaker 2: formulas and visual basic and it really depends on how
21:27
Speaker 2: much effort a person invests in using the application or
21:31
Speaker 2: getting you know, real strong value. You've probably you know,
21:34
Speaker 2: seen these people that you have this real multiple tabs,
21:38
Speaker 2: it's real complex, and they plug in one number and
21:41
Speaker 2: automatically updates everything because they've they've kind of put in
21:45
Speaker 2: the work up front. You know, maybe it took some
21:48
Speaker 2: time up front, but the value is quickly seen and
21:52
Speaker 2: it's also recurring once they put that work in. So
21:55
Speaker 2: if companies can take the time up front with next
21:57
Speaker 2: think the value is large and recurring. I think the
22:03
Speaker 2: second barrier is really the speed to get things done
22:07
Speaker 2: with decks is you know, our networks are our solution
22:10
Speaker 2: engineers at Edge are constantly telling me that when I
22:13
Speaker 2: talked to them about putting in a use case, you know,
22:16
Speaker 2: we can build and implement this really quickly and get
22:19
Speaker 2: it all done, but inevitably the rollout of it with
22:23
Speaker 2: the customers delay to some kind of company approval process.
22:28
Speaker 2: And I'm not suggesting that you remove these safeguards, but
22:31
Speaker 2: by adopting and developing processes around decks, it can really
22:37
Speaker 2: speed up this time to value so I think those
22:39
Speaker 2: are kind of at least the two things I can
22:42
Speaker 2: come up off hand as affecting the quickly coming to
22:47
Speaker 2: see value.
22:49
Speaker 4: It's actually a good segue because we've spent quite a
22:52
Speaker 4: bit of time recently developing this operating model called dexops.
22:58
Speaker 4: I'm still looking for the ways to potentially take this
23:03
Speaker 4: to the next level in terms of maybe even an
23:05
Speaker 4: ITIL type of framework, but it addresses these operational questions
23:12
Speaker 4: the people process, technology value communication. But when we look
23:17
Speaker 4: specifically sewn at the technology piece, what should leaders be
23:22
Speaker 4: thinking about when it comes to technology selection. You as
23:26
Speaker 4: a vendor have obviously done your own selection process and
23:29
Speaker 4: who you want to affiliate yourself with, But what is
23:33
Speaker 4: that for a customer or a prospective customer looking to
23:37
Speaker 4: get into decks? Is it all about features and functions
23:41
Speaker 4: that give you the right outcomes? Or conversely, do those
23:44
Speaker 4: features and functions not matter because it's a bigger picture.
23:47
Speaker 4: What are your thoughts, just kind of high level about
23:50
Speaker 4: technology selection?
23:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think you've mentioned you know, I think
23:56
Speaker 2: you realize that, of course, I'm biased towards the Next
23:59
Speaker 2: Thing platform, and you know, I think Next Thing is
24:03
Speaker 2: one of the very few companies that design their solution
24:07
Speaker 2: from day one to be a DEXs management tool. It's
24:10
Speaker 2: not like next thing. Build A had a network monitoring
24:14
Speaker 2: tool or an application monitoring tool, and before you know,
24:17
Speaker 2: DEX was mainstream, and then once that became more popular,
24:21
Speaker 2: they just added a few functionalities and marketing words to
24:25
Speaker 2: jump into the space. Their product was always defined as
24:28
Speaker 2: a deck solution and looking at from the end user's
24:33
Speaker 2: point of view. So the foundation everything it does is
24:38
Speaker 2: looking at it from the employees side, whether it's you know,
24:41
Speaker 2: getting the the metrics of their capability to use the
24:47
Speaker 2: IT service provider, whether it's getting their feedback, whether it's
24:50
Speaker 2: automating things prevented. It's all looking at it from the
24:54
Speaker 2: employee's point of view, which is I think, you know,
24:58
Speaker 2: very important to to the desk stop side. And I think,
25:04
Speaker 2: you know, on the tech technology that's I think that's
25:08
Speaker 2: kind of my thought on that. If you're you know,
25:12
Speaker 2: if you're also looking at how to do the processes
25:16
Speaker 2: or the team around it. You know, as far as
25:20
Speaker 2: personnel for desktop, I don't I know there was any
25:23
Speaker 2: fast hard rules. I you know, if I were starting
25:26
Speaker 2: my DEX team or drafting my fantasy dex team. I
25:30
Speaker 2: think my first pick would really be somebody that's well
25:33
Speaker 2: routed and a strong I generalist from end to end,
25:37
Speaker 2: you know, infrastructure. I think that's kind of what I would, uh,
25:40
Speaker 2: I would pick and it you know, it doesn't mean
25:42
Speaker 2: I don't think a network or an applications to me
25:45
Speaker 2: would would not be good as well. But I think
25:49
Speaker 2: it has to have that somebody that understands that end
25:52
Speaker 2: to end point of view that to really, you know,
25:57
Speaker 2: help kind of get this implement and understands all the
26:02
Speaker 2: different pieces involved.
26:05
Speaker 3: So lastly, Sean, obviously proactive it plays a big part
26:10
Speaker 3: in the aspiration of everything we're talking about. But what
26:14
Speaker 3: about the next stage. You know, some people are going
26:16
Speaker 3: to get preventative. It interested in hearing what this looks
26:21
Speaker 3: like to you what the what the evolution of proactive
26:24
Speaker 3: it looks like in the next couple of years, and
26:27
Speaker 3: the role AI plays in that development.
26:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I can't count, you know how many
26:37
Speaker 2: times you know, I've had a new next Thing customers
26:40
Speaker 2: say something like, you know, we love how next Thing
26:42
Speaker 2: provides us, you know, all this user data and how
26:45
Speaker 2: it shows us you know, alerts and issues and that's great,
26:49
Speaker 2: But you know, how can I use next Thing to
26:51
Speaker 2: tell us exactly why we have these issues and and
26:56
Speaker 2: tell us exactly what we need to do to fix it.
26:58
Speaker 2: And in our answer in the past has always been
27:01
Speaker 2: Next Thing still requires some IT skills with some you know,
27:05
Speaker 2: deductive reasoning to take you know, take this next Thing
27:08
Speaker 2: data and be proactive and and even preventative and dressing
27:12
Speaker 2: these issues. But you know, if you've been following the
27:16
Speaker 2: space and next Think, our responses have been involving on this.
27:22
Speaker 2: As the next Thing product has evolved and as it
27:25
Speaker 2: adds more AI capabilities into it, we've started to be
27:30
Speaker 2: able to answer this with a little bit I think
27:32
Speaker 2: maybe more customer friendly. You know, first you got you know,
27:36
Speaker 2: experienced central dashboard. It shows you know what items are
27:43
Speaker 2: affecting the DEX score negatively now and provides guidance on
27:46
Speaker 2: how to address that, which is what our customers are
27:49
Speaker 2: looking for to be more proactive and preventative. You know,
27:54
Speaker 2: next Think assists Model, which is the l M tool
27:58
Speaker 2: built right into the Next Thing toy. Now you can
28:01
Speaker 2: have it just type in natural language using specific questions
28:05
Speaker 2: again to be guided on where to go. And you know,
28:09
Speaker 2: we're always talking with the Next Thing product managers and
28:12
Speaker 2: following to see what's next, And it does seem like
28:15
Speaker 2: there's a lot more powerful new AA capabilities that are
28:19
Speaker 2: going to be rolled out in the next month six months,
28:21
Speaker 2: and I think more of this is pushing towards helping
28:28
Speaker 2: provide end users not just with the data, but what
28:31
Speaker 2: to do with that data, and helping them be more
28:35
Speaker 2: proactive and preventative with the powerful next thing data. So, yeah,
28:41
Speaker 2: that's the stuff that we're looking and it's pretty excited
28:43
Speaker 2: about seeing that and showing that to our customers.
28:47
Speaker 3: That's awesome, Sean, and I've always been funded personally of
28:50
Speaker 3: that analogy between proactive approach to health or prevention, you know,
28:55
Speaker 3: as being better than the cure, and the proactive approach
28:58
Speaker 3: to the digital workplace. Really enjoyed your unpacking that thoroughly
29:02
Speaker 3: and properly. If anybody wants to reach out to you.
29:06
Speaker 2: To EDGE, where should they go? Yeah, they can go
29:11
Speaker 2: to our EDGE website, Edge Solutionsconsulting dot com. Yeah, that's
29:20
Speaker 2: I guess, so it's a good place to start.
29:23
Speaker 3: Yes, sorry links in the show notes, my friend, So
29:27
Speaker 3: thank you so much for Conan. I did hear this
29:29
Speaker 3: was your This was your podcast debut, so I think
29:32
Speaker 3: you did extremely well. And Joe, thanks for making us
29:36
Speaker 3: your your your first show.
29:38
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Appreciate the time.
29:40
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29:58
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Speaker 1: to Nextthink dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
30:04
Speaker 1: Until next time, m HM.