Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Reality Bytes #48: Introducing Adopt: When DAP meets DEX (w/ Katharine Dahl)

Transcript

Reality Bytes #48: Introducing Adopt: When DAP meets DEX (w/ Katharine Dahl) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:01
  Welcome Item Change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim Flower and Tom McGraw.
• 0:07
  Let's get into it. Hello, everybody, welcome to a Reality Bites show.
• 0:12
  We're in a show within a show. You know what it is,
• 0:15
  it's when we get to speak too fascinating fellow next thinkers. And I have
• 0:19
  to say, we're specially excited about having this person on the show today.
• 0:25
  And I think it's part because we many of us work with her on a
• 0:29
  regular basis and enjoy working with her and have enjoyed working with her for many
• 0:33
  years now. But I think it's also in part because she kind of knocked
• 0:36
  us back a couple of times. You know, I don't wanna, don't
• 0:39
  wanna let the secret out, but Catherine Dahl, you know, maybe a
• 0:43
  bit shy to come on Reality Bites was at it. It wasn't It wasn't
• 0:46
  any other reason. You sure, Oh, it's because I actively don't like
• 0:51
  you. Tom, that's it. Oh my god, I walked into that.
• 0:54
  Well what about all the other lovely people on Marine? I was told
• 0:57
  I was just speaking with Tim. You know, we can bail out or
• 1:00
  just have it one on want if you very embarrassing guys, I've walked into
• 1:04
  this one. But what is welcome Catherine. It is always a pleasure to
• 1:07
  work with you. It's a pleasure to welcome, to welcome you to Reality
• 1:11
  Bites and the Deck Show for the first time. Thank you so much.
• 1:15
  And to answer your question truthfully, it's because I'm such a big fan of
• 1:19
  this show and I didn't want to ruin it by joining and having to listen
• 1:22
  to myself. But I'm very excited to be here and I appreciate you but
• 1:26
  both making the time. Love it. It's not just not just the two
• 1:29
  of us, Catherine, Tim and I here, but we've also got We've
• 1:32
  got Megan and Oriana who are excited to ask you some questions too, and
• 1:36
  we'll hear from them shortly. But listen. Obviously, today's a special day,
• 1:40
  Catherine. It will be releasing this in a week's time, but today
• 1:42
  is the official launch day of Adopt and I guess a good place to start
• 1:48
  is to introduce yourself to our listeners and just tell us what you have to
• 1:53
  do with this illustrious launch. Yes, absolutely so. As you mentioned,
• 1:57
  I've worked with you and the team here for a while now. I've been
• 2:01
  a next think about four years and I actually joined in September twenty twenty.
• 2:09
  And as a product marketer, whenever you're evaluating companies and your roles, you
• 2:15
  really it's your jobs easiest when you're working with the best products and somebody who
• 2:20
  had just transitioned to full remote work stuck working at home. I really saw
• 2:24
  the value in next Think and I've been excited to be on the team ever
• 2:28
  since and really work on such wonderful products that we deliver here. And the
• 2:32
  reason you invited me on today was to talk about next Think Adopt, which
• 2:37
  is our new digital adoption solution that is launching on June twenty fifth, the
• 2:43
  day of recording. So I'm a little excited, a little stressed, but
• 2:46
  excited to be here and kind of tell all your listeners about what digital adoption
• 2:51
  is and what it means for IT teams and the dex change makers. Excellent.
• 2:57
  So, Catherine, it's about time you made it on the show.
• 2:58
  I'm really glad that you're here. I love talking about our products, especially
• 3:04
  with smart, intelligent people that know what's going on. So let's start with
• 3:10
  a big question, describe the modern workplace. So I'm going to go a
• 3:17
  little more. I'll narrow it down a little bit for you. Talk about
• 3:21
  where employees, or even IT for that matter, continue to struggle even though
• 3:27
  they have a DEX platform. Talk about the issues that make this adopt announcement
• 3:31
  so important to employee's workplace. Absolutely so, as all of us know more
• 3:39
  and more every day we're using new applications. Just even recording this podcasts a
• 3:46
  new application I've never been in before. And the studies and the research really
• 3:51
  shows that the number of apps has more than doubled since twenty nineteen and increasing
• 3:59
  every day, and as a result, our worker's behavior has changed as well.
• 4:02
  So we're spending more and more time in these applications and we're toggling between
• 4:06
  them, sometimes up to as many as twelve thousand times a day based on
• 4:12
  the latest Gartner research. So before what we thought of applications and how they
• 4:16
  service the employees as a great enabler, they've more and more now become the
• 4:20
  great inhibitor. So even for customers that have a DEX platform, the IT
• 4:27
  teams are limited in what they can do to kind of support that in app
• 4:30
  experience. And that's where a solution where like nexting adopt comes in, where
• 4:33
  we can be an overlay into the application to really guide the user and kind
• 4:39
  of the most efficient and best way to use those applications. And so dex
• 4:45
  helps with managing performance and identifying usage, but it doesn't help the employee actually
• 4:54
  use the application. It could be a great performing application, but if it's
• 4:58
  clumsy, or they don't know how to use it, or they can can't
• 5:00
  navigate it, doesn't know it, the employee struggles. I think it's a
• 5:03
  great addition to our portfolio. So I think folks probably know something about me
• 5:11
  that I hate tech buzzwords. They're too easy to use. They're easy to
• 5:15
  lean on and not really know what they mean. They're easy to misuse,
• 5:19
  they morph their meaning over time. AI is a great example of that.
• 5:23
  Everyone's got a different definition of AI. But there's a buzzword or a phrase
• 5:28
  that comes up frequently when we talk about adoption of applications or digital adoption,
• 5:32
  and that's digital dexterity. What's your definition and do you think it's an empty
• 5:39
  phrase or does it really help describe what we're talking about. I'm kind of
• 5:44
  from the same camp as you, Tim. I think phrases like digital friction
• 5:47
  digital dexterity are kind of a new way of pointing to old problems where it
• 5:51
  really comes down to ease of use and the ability for employees to do their
• 5:56
  job. But I did to make sure I was, you know, informed
• 6:00
  for this podcast. I looked up a few definitions of digital dexterity and they
• 6:04
  kind of defined it as the ability or willingness of employees to adapt to existing
• 6:11
  and emerging technologies. And I was kind of surprised by these kind of takes
• 6:15
  on digital dexterity because it sounds like to me, and I don't know if
• 6:19
  you agree that it puts the responsibility on the employees, And I don't really
• 6:25
  think that's fair because if there's a clunky or hard to use application that's rolled
• 6:30
  out and I have a bad experience, is that because of the application or
• 6:33
  is that because of my willingness and ability or my lack of digital dexterity.
• 6:39
  So that's where that word. I think it puts too much onus on the
• 6:43
  employees to keep up to date with the latest trends in technology and not enough
• 6:47
  onnus on the applications or the teams supporting them to make it a good experience
• 6:51
  for the employee. Part of that is learning something new, right, Even
• 6:58
  a version change can bring in new features, new navigation, and we all
• 7:01
  know people don't like to change, including me. I'm very set in my
• 7:05
  ways, but especially with technology that they've invested so much time and effort in
• 7:12
  learning the current stuff and then throwing some of that away and having to learn
• 7:15
  something new, that change is hard. So talk a bit about the impact
• 7:20
  of that learned user behavior on future digital adoption. How does it impact yes,
• 7:29
  And this is something I've heard you speak about as well, Tim in
• 7:31
  the past about kind of the expectations that we have employees have based on our
• 7:36
  interactions in the kind of the B two C space right our home life and
• 7:40
  what we're experiencing with technology. So I think employees have a much higher expectation
• 7:46
  of what applications can do for them, and they expect their workplaces and their
• 7:50
  IT teams to deliver that to them. But I think it's certainly always a
• 7:56
  balancing act because you know, people are people and what's the expression picnic problem
• 8:03
  in share not not in computer And I know in past podcasts this team has
• 8:09
  talked about AI, chat, GBT and kind of all the transformational technology that's
• 8:13
  out there today. But I know for myself, I haven't used chat GBT
• 8:18
  in a while because I don't know my password and it just that was too
• 8:20
  much of a barrier for entry for me. So I think it's up to
• 8:24
  these organizations to understand that there's people, real humans behind the keyboard and they
• 8:33
  whether it is a new or exciting technology, there's still that same behavior and
• 8:37
  a lot of competing priorities and they just want to get their job done as
• 8:41
  fast as possible and if they have to learn a new process or a new
• 8:43
  system or a new technology, that's preventing that. So kind of understanding where
• 8:48
  the employees are coming from so you can meet them where they are. And
• 8:50
  before Megan jumps in, I'll just share you the share with you the acronym
• 8:54
  that we used to use, and it's not a fair one, but we
• 8:58
  used pebcac problem between keyboard and chair. Tim, I feel like you're highlighting
• 9:07
  though, like something I wanted to highlight. So, Hey, Catherine,
• 9:09
  so nice to finally have you on the show with us. As I'm listening
• 9:13
  to you talk, I really like how you're highlighting that you know this isn't
• 9:18
  necessarily entirely the employee's problem. Right. If employees can't use an application,
• 9:24
  maybe it's not because the problems with them. Maybe it is a problem that
• 9:30
  someone else could be responsible for fixing. And I think I think similarly.
• 9:33
  I don't know that the our approach to decks over the years has sort of
• 9:37
  required a similar kind of mindset shift. So I guess my question for you,
• 9:41
  now open the floor for you. Tell us about adopt. Why should
• 9:46
  a deck's customer be excited or at least interested in it if they are used
• 9:50
  to thinking that, you know, employees can't use an application, well that's
• 9:54
  their problem. They need to figure out how to use it. Yes,
• 9:58
  And I think I'll just say this that every DEX customer, everyone interested in
• 10:03
  decks should be very excited about digital adoption because it will just make their jobs
• 10:07
  in the end so much easier. It will reduce IT tickets, it will
• 10:13
  speed up digital transformation projects, it will improve employee productivity and efficiency. There's
• 10:18
  a lot of value of extending decks into the application. And what's so fantastic
• 10:24
  about adopt is that it is the only digital adoption solution that is backed by
• 10:30
  that DEX platform. So not only can we make employees more successful inside the
• 10:35
  app with in app guidance, one click self help pop up communications, but
• 10:39
  we can also support their end to end application experience because if they aren't going
• 10:46
  into the app at all, we can target those employees with an engagement campaign
• 10:48
  and send them to a guide to help them on board a new application.
• 10:52
  If they're having a technical issue inside the app, they might not report it,
• 10:56
  but we can see that with our application experience, monitor that issue,
• 11:01
  remediate it, and send them a one click self help fix. So no
• 11:05
  other decks provider today has the reach inside the application to deliver digital adoption,
• 11:13
  and no other digital adoption solution has that dex backing to really solve the full
• 11:18
  three sixty issues that employees face. Because an employee doesn't know when they're on
• 11:24
  the keyboard being a picnic or a penback depending on Tim's pronunciation there. They
• 11:31
  don't know if it's the application, they don't know if it's the network,
• 11:33
  they don't know if it's themselves. Frankly, so it's really exciting that we
• 11:39
  can kind of continue the reach of digital employee experience to the application since that's
• 11:45
  where our employees are today. And one note to Megan that I'll highlight is
• 11:50
  a lot of tickets that our tea teams are facing today are for applications,
• 11:56
  but they're not tied to technical issues because of the employee not really under standing
• 12:00
  their limitations or the app limitations. So we've had one customer using Adopt save
• 12:05
  two hundred thousand dollars and deflect fourteen thousand tickets just by providing in app self
• 12:11
  help within the app because they're able to provide it and surface it at that
• 12:15
  moment in time when the employees need it. Well, I mean, I'm
• 12:20
  sold. Unfortunately I'm not an IT buyer. But no, you articulate that
• 12:24
  really well. I mean, I think it's a natural sort of marriage between
• 12:28
  two capabilities, at least as you describe it. But Adopt isn't the only
• 12:33
  is IT DAP or DAP DAPT tool. It's it's not the only adapt tool
• 12:39
  in the market. Why does it matter that next Thing customers can access this
• 12:43
  kind of functionality? I think the thing if a next Thing customer is valuing
• 12:50
  or evaluating the different DAP or DAP tools depending on the pronunciation, what we
• 12:56
  would encourage them to think about is that they want to have the most seamless
• 13:03
  experience for their employees. So by having a solution like adopt that is within
• 13:09
  the next in portfolio, they have an adoption solution that will solve all the
• 13:15
  in app issues that we've discussed. The difficult EUIs the complicated processes than not
• 13:20
  being able to access training or locate self help. That is certainly covered by
• 13:26
  any digital adoption tool. But what really sets ours apart is that these employees
• 13:33
  can have that same experience across every application. So it's not limited to one
• 13:39
  application, but that overlay can provide a consistent experience across all the applications that
• 13:43
  they use in a given day and with the next think we can extend that
• 13:48
  value to ensure that they're having a better IT experience as well as being able
• 13:54
  to be better engaged. If they need to be notified about a change or
• 13:58
  an outage, we can send a desktop pop up with that. If they
• 14:01
  need to provide a survey feedback, they can do that through a desktop pop
• 14:05
  up, or if they have a one click version roll back like to mention,
• 14:09
  if we have to roll back versions or update a new version, the
• 14:11
  employee can access that. So the other depth vendors are limited to communicating within
• 14:18
  the app where we're able to communicate wherever the employee is across their experience in
• 14:22
  that day from really any screen with that combination of employee engagement pop ups and
• 14:28
  being able to understand their limitations through application monitoring and remediation on the back end
• 14:33
  as well. Hi, Kathleen, this is Ariana. I really like that
• 14:41
  you're mentioning sort of the importance of consistency because I feel like that's one of
• 14:43
  the things that we've heard over and over again from our customers is how important
• 14:48
  it is to have that sort of very clear, consistent messaging from the experiences
• 14:56
  that they get, so that you know, people know what to anticipate,
• 14:58
  they don't quick way right away, that they can engage with it, they
• 15:01
  can learn like, oh, this is going to really help me, and
• 15:05
  it's going to be that really good, reliable, consistent experience. So I
• 15:09
  just want to highlight that because it is something that I hear so often.
• 15:13
  And then the other thing that you mentioned that really stood out to me is
• 15:16
  that the employee doesn't necessarily know where the issue is, right. Is this
• 15:20
  a network issue, is it a usability issue? Is it me? Did
• 15:22
  I just not get it? And I think that's something we've also heard a
• 15:24
  lot of and just really stands out to me as this huge need that we're
• 15:30
  hearing. So to me, these are some of the things that make it
• 15:35
  very obvious that like this is such a great useful part of DEX. But
• 15:39
  I really want to hear your take on why is it becoming part of DEX.
• 15:45
  Why do you think it's important that it's becoming the dep is becoming part
• 15:48
  of DEX, And what do you think it tells us about the future of
• 15:52
  the direction that DEX is going, especially with these big changes like the huge
• 15:56
  increase in software that you mentioned earlier, Yes, or Anna, that's a
• 16:02
  great question. I think to kind of answer the first part, why is
• 16:06
  that becoming a part of DEX is like today, if it gets a ticket
• 16:11
  for an app, they don't know is it a technical issue or is it
• 16:15
  just the application itself? And this is especially true for the web applications.
• 16:21
  And only next think is able to really be able to solve that quickly because
• 16:25
  we can kind of see that end to end visibility now with our extension into
• 16:30
  the applications through digital adoption, and I think as we think about the future
• 16:36
  trends and like what's coming, the big reason that we're seeing this expansion is
• 16:41
  because of the expansion of the use of applications today, it's just the problem
• 16:49
  of not being able to see into the application, not being able to change
• 16:52
  these applications is just exponentially increasing because of the demand for more applications and the
• 17:00
  number of applications used. And then frankly, we know that consumers or employees
• 17:04
  will leave or use shadow it if they're not getting what they need, so
• 17:07
  there's certainly a lot of pressure on IT teams to keep up with these demands.
• 17:12
  So now it's about really making sure that they can scale to support these
• 17:17
  applications and deliver end to end success for the employees. And a lot of
• 17:22
  that is about understanding what the landscape is, so having that complete visibility into
• 17:29
  all the applications used across the enterprise, and then understanding the ways that you
• 17:36
  can efficiently support and scale those, whether it's through automated workflows, immedia detection
• 17:41
  and remediation, or if it's kind of understanding the employee usage through AI and
• 17:47
  insights to understand where their hangups are and being able to implement content or suggestions
• 17:52
  inside the app to enhance those Because we know today employees navigate through several applications
• 17:57
  to get the job done. Just about focusing on each application and a silo,
• 18:03
  but bringing together those teams to detect cross application business workflows and really understand
• 18:08
  the full experience for the employees and really making sure that we're covering that from
• 18:14
  web to desktop, network applications. And that's really kind of what the future
• 18:18
  is, being able to support and see every application that an employee is using
• 18:22
  and deliver a more tailored, personalized experience to drive their success. Because,
• 18:29
  for example, with targeting today, it's certainly something adopt can do. We
• 18:33
  can look at the role, the location and really tailor their experience inside the
• 18:38
  app to that. But being able to take that one step further and have
• 18:42
  many, many more targets and much more customizability to really ensure that that employee
• 18:48
  is seeing success and really having a tailored experience across their full use of applications
• 18:55
  during the day. Yeah. Absolutely, And you mentioned and AI, so
• 19:00
  I'm curious how you think the AI driven personalization for that kind of you know,
• 19:07
  getting really really custom but also other things other future trends like augmented reality
• 19:12
  for training or other types of integrations. What do you think those future trends
• 19:19
  with decks and depths will be. When I think about the future trends,
• 19:25
  I kind of think back about how even today in IT, whether we're at
• 19:30
  our experience event every year in Boston or London and we're talking with our customers,
• 19:37
  there are our IT teams today are still complaining about, you know,
• 19:41
  password reset, and that's a huge generator of IT tickets today. So I
• 19:47
  think we can certainly it's great to think about augmented reality and AI in the
• 19:52
  future, but we have to make sure that those solutions are still solving the
• 19:56
  most pressing problems that employees face, and that it's really worth the effort for
• 20:03
  these APP stakeholder and IT teams to set up and really implement. So we
• 20:07
  want to encourage everyone to be on the cutting edge, but make sure it's
• 20:11
  at the right time and at the right fit and at a scale that your
• 20:14
  team can really support and roll out appropriately, and keeping in mind that employees
• 20:19
  are still going to forget their password. It will still happen. Well,
• 20:29
  there are some great acronyms today, and I just wanted to pitch in and
• 20:30
  say, of course you say DAP, you don't have an acronym as DAP
• 20:34
  and not avail yourself of it in my opinion anyway. But it's been wonderful
• 20:41
  to hear about this, Catherine, thank you for taking time out of your
• 20:44
  busy day on launch day to talk to us about it. If people want
• 20:48
  to see a demo, find out more, etc. What would your recommended
• 20:52
  next step to be there? I would encourage everyone to visit next Think dot
• 20:57
  com and there they'll be able to visit the adopt web page see in ninety
• 21:02
  second demo, or even read our latest research about the hidden costs of poor
• 21:08
  digital employee experiences with applications. There's a lot of problems today that can be
• 21:15
  easily resolved with a digital adoption solution, and we're excited to showcase that and
• 21:21
  really help our customers find that success fantastic and we will put links to all
• 21:25
  the first resources in the show notes. We will also link to the great
• 21:29
  interviews we've previously done on the deck show I Think, Tim and myself in
• 21:32
  particular covering digital adoption and the Next Think acquisition of Applan, which has now
• 21:38
  become adopt within the next THNK platform. So please do go and check out
• 21:44
  all those things. It's a very exciting functionality, and I should also add
• 21:47
  that if you want to hear more about it, it's yet another reason to
• 21:52
  prebook your tickets to this year's Next Think experience. You can go to Boston
• 21:56
  or you can go to London. It's completely free either way, and you
• 22:00
  can find links to those websites in the show notes. Also, Catherine,
• 22:06
  we're almost out of time, so I'm gonna let you off of our traditional
• 22:08
  cringe end question and simply thank you for joining us today and telling us about
• 22:15
  this exciting launch. Best of luck with it. Oh, thank you Tom,
• 22:18
  thank you Tim, thank you Megan, thank you Oreana. It was
• 22:22
  a pleasure. I can't believe I stalled for so long. I can't wait
• 22:26
  to come back. It wasn't so lovely to have you. We really enjoyed
• 22:30
  it. To make sure that you never miss an episode, subscribe to the
• 22:36
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• 22:41
  listening on Apple Podcasts, make sure to leave a rating of the show.
• 22:44
  Just have the number of stars you think the podcast deserves. If you'd like
• 22:48
  to learn more about how Next Thing can help me improve your digital employee experience,
• 22:52
  head over to next think dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
• 22:56
  Until next time.