Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Reality Bytes #42: Career special! From IT Ops to Software w/ Sergio Mylius

Transcript

Reality Bytes #42: Career special! From IT Ops to Software w/ Sergio Mylius · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:01
  Welcome it, Change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim Flower and Tom McGrath.
• 0:07
  Let's get into it. Hello, Change Makers. You know what it
• 0:10
  is, it's the show. We're in a show. We're in a show,
• 0:13
  the Deck Show, show within a show within a show, I should
• 0:16
  say, which is those special episodes of Reality Bites where we get to speak
• 0:21
  to fascinating fellow Next Thinkers. And I often get asked, actually by our
• 0:26
  colleagues, how does how do we choose who to invite on the show?
• 0:30
  And the truth is we all we all know colleagues at Next Think we find
• 0:34
  fascinating, we enjoy talking to and all different people on the panel and in
• 0:39
  the reality by his team, and why did team make their suggestions? And
• 0:42
  it's their suggestions, I should say, And we were always meeting people who
• 0:47
  are who are who are very passionate about what they do and very interesting to
• 0:51
  talk to. And our guest today is certainly no exception at all. He's
• 0:56
  Sergio Miilius. He's a solution consultant and we have absolutely fantastic discussion last week
• 1:03
  about the show and it's great to welcome him to Reality Bites. How are
• 1:06
  you doing today, Sagio? I'm doing wonderful. Thank you for having me.
• 1:10
  Pretty excited to have a chat with everybody, and a big fan of
• 1:15
  the show myself. So it's an honor to be here Today's honored to have
• 1:19
  you. And Tim actually isn't here today. He's on his travels. He's
• 1:23
  in Europe presently and working with customers and such like. I believe, so
• 1:27
  so apologies that, but you're actually your friends and colleagues with Tim, right
• 1:32
  you go back a little bit? Yeah, so exactly so, Tim.
• 1:36
  I met Tim when I was a customer of Next Think actually, and when
• 1:42
  we we were doing our you know, you know, sales engagement and understanding
• 1:47
  more about the product. And Tim came on site on my previous job and
• 1:52
  talk about his story as a former customer joining Next Think and that was a
• 1:57
  little bit of a spark there and then we became we keep talking. We
• 2:01
  kept talking for a long time after that until I joined Next Thing actually,
• 2:06
  and as I say, it's a solution consultant here, but give us a
• 2:09
  more specific sense of what your remit is now, So so'm I actually work
• 2:15
  with our US partners here in Next Think, So I support our channels in
• 2:20
  tech alliances here in the US, So I, you know, I help
• 2:23
  our partners understand the product enablement and you know, build offers around next Think
• 2:30
  when they when they're selling you know, managed services for example, or they're
• 2:35
  seving professional services and consulting services. So I'm the tech lead that that interacts
• 2:40
  with those partners here in the US. Got it. Got it very cool?
• 2:45
  And you just mentioned when you first met Tim when you were a customer,
• 2:50
  and was that was that actually around your initial encounter with Next Think or
• 2:54
  was there an earlier engagement? I mean, when did you first learn here
• 2:59
  about the company? It was when I was a customer, actually, you
• 3:04
  know I first learned about next Think. It was interesting because you know I
• 3:08
  used to work for a large you know, global bank, and you know
• 3:12
  in large organizations you have that that that role of you know, a corporate
• 3:15
  I t like people from the corporations from headquarters and and we got a message
• 3:22
  from them, Hey, we just have this great tool you see, troubleshooting
• 3:27
  tool, cool quotes and then you guys should look at it. And and
• 3:32
  that's when everything started. You know, we engage next THINGK and the sales
• 3:36
  team and did a POV very successful and uh that's kind of how I learned
• 3:43
  about Next Think, and I start to actually like the solution and the impact
• 3:47
  of the solution so very cool. And if you do listen often to this
• 3:53
  show, Sergio, you'll already know that when we do these special episodes of
• 3:57
  reality by ites, I often forget you mentioned that it is not just me
• 4:00
  on the panel today asking you questions. We had joined also by Ariana and
• 4:03
  Sean specifically, and I hand the mic over to Sean, now, who
• 4:09
  has the next questions for you? Hey, Serviio, how are you doing?
• 4:14
  I'm well, Sean. I was curious so before actually you joined next
• 4:18
  thing you're talking, you worked in the corporate banking sector and you had introduced
• 4:24
  from colleagues about the tool. Do you remember exactly like kind of the proof
• 4:29
  of value that you witnessed, or how was the tool impacting your team and
• 4:34
  the company those first few months or years. I know it's those way back
• 4:38
  in the past, but if you maybe tell us about anything that happened during
• 4:43
  that time, it was quite interesting because you know, again as anyone that
• 4:46
  worked in it for many years, as I did, you know you you
• 4:48
  kind of especially you know with the career where I went from data centers infrastructure
• 4:55
  Collaboration Tools EU see service delivery and observability. I got a chance to see,
• 5:00
  you know, kind of a very large realm within the IT infrastructure.
• 5:03
  So when next thing came about, we weren't facing the normal things that large
• 5:09
  corporations face. You know, we have issues with our patching. We had
• 5:13
  bad reputation from a support coming from our executives. Right. Uh. You
• 5:16
  know, there was a lot of finger pointing going on in the organization,
• 5:20
  and especially working in the bank was really challenging because had these long times to
• 5:27
  dispatch people to the branches. They were spread all over the you know,
• 5:30
  northeast of the United States, so when something happened, we have to send
• 5:34
  things people out there. So so so then when I got to when we
• 5:41
  got to do the POV, you got to understand. So we kind of
• 5:44
  look into three things, right, you know, what are the proctice things
• 5:46
  we can do, what's the real time visibility right turned on the lights can
• 5:51
  as as we like to say. And then on the bank side, it's
• 5:55
  forensics, right we used to we call forensics, like how can we help
• 5:59
  our security foster compliance? You know, that was really had to do with
• 6:01
  the patching. So we kind of you know, the solution consultant at the
• 6:04
  time and the salesperson at the time help us kind of honed in those main
• 6:09
  areas and start to see the benefits and the value and right within the POV
• 6:14
  we were able to do some amazing things, uh, you know, unlock
• 6:17
  value and it was pretty it were pretty out you know. Other it was
• 6:20
  linkedy just from a from a from a bureaucracy point of view, but it
• 6:25
  was very easy to convince our our leadership the value of the of next thing
• 6:30
  overall, so it became it got upgraded. Also, like my quote,
• 6:33
  my my air quotes at UC troubleshooting was just kind of how it was introduced
• 6:39
  right with you know, eventually we see the breath uh in the depth of
• 6:45
  the of the solution, and we're pretty pretty pleased to kind of move forward
• 6:48
  with it. Very cool now, I know, like one thing is liking
• 6:54
  a tool or a vendor, another thing is wanting to go join ranks with
• 6:59
  that vendor. And that's a big jump for something like I have my favorite
• 7:01
  technology tools. I don't know if I would go work with them, but
• 7:04
  something happened there with you and in the vendor. Next think at the time,
• 7:10
  and now you're employer. Uh. I guess I'm curious to know,
• 7:13
  like who or what influenced you to make the switch. I know you mentioned
• 7:16
  uh being introduced to Tim very early on. Was it was it just you
• 7:20
  know, Tim's charming, good looks and personality. Was it the tool?
• 7:25
  What happened there? So? I think I think Tim Tim, Tim has
• 7:29
  you know, almost amazing way to articulate value, intercalation, you know,
• 7:33
  the changing factor of next thing. But actually my story starts way before even
• 7:39
  I was in I was even an air of next thing, right, So,
• 7:42
  and I had two pivotal moments for me. Is I had a cool
• 7:46
  colleague on a former job that he came up with this quote. I don't
• 7:49
  I don't even know if it's his quote, but it's quote that he said
• 7:51
  all the time, and kind of stuck with me is everyone deserves a great
• 7:56
  computer, right. And when I heard that, it's like, okay,
• 7:59
  this is right, right, everyone deserves a great computer. That was kind
• 8:01
  of number one. And that's stuck in my head. And I continued through
• 8:05
  my work and kind of went back and and and stay there. And then
• 8:11
  when I was doing actually a leadership program in Harvard we had we had an
• 8:16
  exercise to go about understanding what's your purpose? Right? What is your personal
• 8:20
  purpose? Right? And after doing a lot of thinking, you know,
• 8:24
  I came up with, well, my purpose actually helped people drive through technology.
• 8:28
  Right, so everyone deserves if you a great computer, I want to
• 8:31
  help people drive to technology, right, And how can I? So I
• 8:35
  have this question for many years? How could I execute on this? Right?
• 8:39
  How what what kind of company, what kind of job? What can
• 8:41
  I do to actually execute on these different things? Right? So when I
• 8:46
  got when I got involved with next thing through tim and through through sales,
• 8:50
  you knows, as a normal like, let's look at the new software that
• 8:54
  can help us solve problems, right, I really started to understand the outcomes,
• 8:58
  right, And and then I could and then I started to see that
• 9:01
  those outcomes that I could, I could see the benefits I see myself plus
• 9:07
  all my experience and all my skills. That's the way I could cause a
• 9:11
  bigger impact. That's the way I could actually deliver on my purpose. Right.
• 9:15
  So so that was really what was That was kind of a moment.
• 9:18
  So when I realized that that then is and then I joke, I joke
• 9:22
  with I start bugging Tim I start, you know, bugging Jeff and and
• 9:26
  nick words which were the a's and the season at the time, to to
• 9:31
  to learn more about next thing, about the culture, culture about the purpose
• 9:35
  you know, you know the light people at work. Right, that's aligned
• 9:37
  to what I was just said. So those things all kind of came together
• 9:41
  and I realized that would be a great fit, right And and obviously I'm
• 9:46
  very glad that my manager today and all the hiring team that I went to
• 9:48
  the process, they thought that was going to be a good fit too.
• 9:52
  So now three years, almost three years later, here I am and can't
• 9:56
  can't be happier and totally aligned to that, to those two things that were
• 10:01
  really important to me as a person in in in you know, to fulfill
• 10:07
  the goals that I have in my career. So excellent. And I know,
• 10:11
  having spoken with you before in the past, uh, you didn't mention
• 10:16
  once one thing that really stuck out to me. I think you said once
• 10:18
  that you feel like you kind of have a superpower now working with next think
• 10:22
  that gives you a little bit of an advantage, especially interfacing with customers and
• 10:28
  such. Could you maybe expand on that for other folks? Out there.
• 10:33
  It professionals or even in different industries that are sort of searching and trying to
• 10:37
  identify what their superpower is. Yeah, and I call it superpower because I
• 10:45
  think when we interact with other people, right, and our role of you
• 10:48
  know, making everyone understand and understand the value of next inc Is really you
• 10:54
  know, we need to build trust. Right. So when we're talking about
• 10:58
  the outcomes of next Ink, the impact, I can since I was a
• 11:01
  customer and I come with that background of implementing so many different things in my
• 11:07
  career, you know, interact with so many different teams within a very large
• 11:11
  organization and then understanding the fit of a solution like next thing, You know,
• 11:18
  I can first I can talk about my my own experience, my testimonials,
• 11:22
  the metrics that I improve, the interactions I had with upper management when
• 11:26
  I was selling inside the product or demonstrating the value, right, So I
• 11:33
  can those true life stories and most importantly the outcomes, right and also the
• 11:39
  catches. What are challenges that you're going to face when you're trying to to
• 11:43
  to sell this internally? Right, It's not just you know, quote unquote
• 11:46
  another salesperson talking is someone that actually been through been through it, lived it
• 11:52
  and really solved different problems. Right. And and I think the second the
• 11:58
  secondary part of it is it's not just my own experience, but also,
• 12:01
  as I mentioned a little earlier, is how do we bring every people within
• 12:07
  it together and understand the value of a solution like this, Like, well,
• 12:11
  how can we make sure that other organizations, other parts of the organization,
• 12:16
  they don't think that this is an EOC troubleshooting tool. It has a
• 12:22
  little bit of everything, right, So the network guys love it. They
• 12:24
  frastructure people love it, the application people of it, and that's just love
• 12:28
  it because oh it's a cool piece. Attack is because they are tangible outcomes
• 12:31
  and pay tangible benefits for them as well. So and have been be able
• 12:37
  to talk that with confidence, with trust, and with with all the background
• 12:39
  that I that I actually implemented. That is my superpower. And I can
• 12:43
  see in the body language of people that interact with in in how and how
• 12:48
  people react to these comments that they truly believe and they truly trust my opinion
• 12:56
  and my position. So that's what I call it my superpower. And that
• 13:00
  you have that superpower, and I am curious about how you think. In
• 13:07
  addition, to some of those advantages that you're bringing to next thing with your
• 13:13
  experience. What more generally do you think I t professionals who are transitioning to
• 13:18
  a software vendor bring to the table that gives them an advantage. Because we've
• 13:24
  we've talked a little bit now about you know, all the ways you benefit
• 13:28
  and you and I have talked before because I find your insights are really unique
• 13:33
  and help give us a great perspective. So I'm interested for other people who
• 13:37
  might be looking to make that transition, what strengths should they lean on.
• 13:41
  Yeah, so I think that's a great question. I think the real life
• 13:45
  experience and I think I like to say the scars from the field, right,
• 13:50
  So you know it's I think when when we when we when you are
• 13:54
  in the IT operation side of the world, you know, it's you know,
• 13:58
  late night, a lot of a lot of a lot of you know,
• 14:01
  hard work, and there's a lot there's a lot of challenges, a
• 14:05
  lot of issues, right, And people usually don't think that that's something that
• 14:09
  you can carry on, right because you know, I just did this,
• 14:11
  I solved the problem. Great. But but these are these are the type
• 14:15
  of insights, and these are the type of understand These are the topics of
• 14:20
  uh, what's the word the type of baggage that people don't realize the value
• 14:28
  until you use it again, right, and and and one super important element
• 14:33
  and I see this over and over again as I'm talking to partners and I'm
• 14:37
  talking to customers, is it's really you know, see where the glue is
• 14:46
  needed, right for for the math to make the pieces to work best.
• 14:50
  So when when you when you have a baggage of you know, I T
• 14:54
  operations and you and you're have the in trash with all these different areas,
• 14:58
  and and when I look at next thing as a glue in many ways to
• 15:05
  make the end user compute team have a better conversation with the network team,
• 15:09
  have a better conversation with the monitoring team, have a better conversation about UC
• 15:13
  team. Because at the end of the day, right, you know,
• 15:16
  going back to you know, everyone deserves a great computer. The computer that
• 15:20
  you have in front of you right now is what is what you interact with
• 15:22
  your organization right If you're not having good experience, can be so many different
• 15:28
  things. But the ability for us to go and put ourselves in the seat
• 15:33
  of a user of an employee right and and be able to tell other teams
• 15:39
  you know, you know what what could be the challenge and what could be
• 15:43
  the issue, what could be what's actually happening giving that visibility turning the lights
• 15:48
  on right? Uh in understanding when engaging right? So I think from a
• 15:54
  from from from your question, Oreana is really understanding the connection point right,
• 16:00
  And if you haven't been and lived there, it's going to be hard to
• 16:03
  understand when is the right time to talk to the metric people. What's the
• 16:07
  what matters for the application folks? What are the important things that the monitoring
• 16:12
  team want to have on the screen to be able to have a into end
• 16:18
  visibility into the organization. So that's that's the key element of coming from the
• 16:23
  IT corporate world into you know, into our our world where we need to
• 16:30
  explain and advocate and evangelize the value of next thing to organizations that haven't been
• 16:37
  able to see that yet. I agree those insights are so valuable and like
• 16:44
  you said, you don't really know until you've lived it. So I guess
• 16:51
  I'm something I'd really like to follow up onto. Is you mentioned that sort
• 16:55
  of how impactful that quote is? You keep coming back to it, and
• 16:59
  I'd really love to hear little bit more actually about it. Sounds like you
• 17:03
  you found sort of a very clear mission statement. I wonder if you can
• 17:07
  talk a little bit about how you think I T professionals can benefit from having
• 17:11
  that sort of clarity of purpose that you seem to have or how to find
• 17:15
  it. So I think the very first thing I would say is that you
• 17:18
  know you look inside, right, So like finding a purpose is is something
• 17:23
  that I was very skeptical about, you know when I first heard about it.
• 17:26
  You know, like think about too much, you know, think about
• 17:30
  that as too much of you know, you know, soft and not really
• 17:34
  especially you know, we're coming, you know. I T people usually you
• 17:38
  know, engineering focus and not not super you know, not not super focus
• 17:45
  on that side. But but the true of the true was really that that
• 17:48
  is really where you you take the time to to look inside, think about
• 17:56
  what matters to you, what impact you want to cause. And I want
• 17:59
  I would reckon amend a book that was very changing, life changing for me.
• 18:03
  It's called it's called Discover Your True North by Bill George. So that's
• 18:07
  one recommendation if anyone wants to go through that to that exercise of understanding and
• 18:11
  finding a purpose. That's amazing book uh to read. And and then once
• 18:17
  you find that, you know, you really start looking at what organizations or
• 18:22
  what what type of activities that will allow you to take that journey. You
• 18:26
  know, maybe maybe not. Maybe it's not going to be a job,
• 18:30
  right, No, I got a job in the company that I love.
• 18:33
  But it can be doing your own thing, you know, opening your own
• 18:37
  company and taking the risks right, try fail, try again, file again,
• 18:41
  and find it again. You know, for me, it was two
• 18:44
  and a half years until the time I made that realization, until I joined
• 18:48
  next thing. So it's not something that's going to happen overnight. But I
• 18:52
  think having that clarity, taking the time to look inside, understand where you
• 18:57
  want to go, understand your purpose right, and it may you know,
• 19:03
  and be intention about it, right. It's that's kind of the main thing,
• 19:07
  like don't don't don't let anyone you know, make decisions about your career
• 19:11
  for you. You need to be on the driver's seat for that. And
• 19:15
  once you have a purpose, once you have a goal, it's so much
• 19:17
  easier to go after and define a plan to actually execute on that. That's
• 19:23
  so great and you're really speaking my language with the book recommendation. Do you
• 19:27
  have any other sort of final advice that you'd like to give to somebody specifically
• 19:32
  making a career change between corporate to software or vice versa. Again, don't
• 19:41
  don't be afraid to try and fail, right, So, I think that's
• 19:45
  one one main main advice I would say, Right, so, you know,
• 19:49
  we're not going to always get it right the first time. You may
• 19:53
  you may or may not get you know, a good a good uh,
• 19:59
  you know, hiring experience or interviewing experience. You know, these are these
• 20:03
  are things that are not necessarily always great. But try fail, try it
• 20:11
  out and improve, right, So I think every attempt is an opportunity to
• 20:14
  learn as and grow and you and do better. So I think that's that's
• 20:19
  one way to really explore and get it right. So absolutely, And I
• 20:26
  think that's so relevant to so many people right now. Thank you. Those
• 20:30
  are I think actually a lot of really really good insights for people. So
• 20:33
  who knows if that will inspire people who are either excited to join next thing
• 20:38
  or maybe strike out into the industry. Yeah, quite so, Ariana.
• 20:48
  And I was just I was just thinking that, you know, we often
• 20:52
  ask people so as yeah, at the end of the end of these shows,
• 20:56
  what their favorite thing about being the Next Thinker is. And I think
• 20:57
  I may have articulated my favorite thing about being a Next Thinker, which is
• 21:02
  the amount of interesting and passionate people you get to talk to on a regular
• 21:06
  basis working here. This is certainly no exception, sir. It's been lovely
• 21:08
  to have you on. But that last question still remains, ser Joe,
• 21:12
  what is your favorite thing about being a Next Thinker? Now? So,
• 21:17
  I think I think you know, and as as someone that working large global
• 21:22
  organizations for many years, is really the very strong culture that we have,
• 21:29
  uh, and the willness to help from everyone. So even if I'm calling
• 21:33
  from deep in India, I'm calling uh, you know, Nathan in the
• 21:37
  UK, or I'm calling you know, uh, let me find another name
• 21:42
  here, I'm trying to be Sean in in Spain. Let's let's say Sean.
• 21:48
  You know, there hasn't been in three years a single time that no
• 21:52
  one will be you know, responded, willing to help and getting and getting
• 21:57
  engaged with that. And obviously, you know, I think that that tells
• 22:00
  a lot about the company, tells a lot about the culture, and not
• 22:04
  just the culture, but how we actually maintain that right in how we interact
• 22:08
  each other. So that's one thing that like the most. And you know,
• 22:12
  and you can edit that out or not, but you know, we
• 22:15
  have this unwritten rule that we don't hire assholes. So that's another thing that
• 22:19
  you can. I can, I can, I can. I can tell
• 22:22
  you every day. I haven't come across anyone like that in the whole three
• 22:26
  years that I've been here. But that's one of the one of the great
• 22:30
  things about the company as well. How did I make it for the interv
• 22:33
  process? As you're well, I had no idea about this rule. I'm
• 22:37
  gonna have to apply it. And I like that you've you've given translocationally that's
• 22:44
  right listeners might not be a way but sure and is our American in Spain,
• 22:48
  but maybe more imbattant of a day? Great? Now, now my
• 22:52
  life is at risk. Thanks, Yeah, I have I did, well,
• 22:59
  Yeah, so I did. I did say that was this Sean right?
• 23:02
  I was just I could have just been giving names randomly of we're all
• 23:07
  like you also added that to Sean. Not just my fault over here,
• 23:11
  it's actually say on So it's Okay, it's all right. You've covered it
• 23:17
  up masterfully. But as we were on, it says some really inspiring stuff.
• 23:22
  They're absolute pleasure to talk to you. Thank you Sojo so much for
• 23:25
  joining us. Hope to have you on again sometime anytime. Thank you very
• 23:29
  much for having me. I had a great time talking to you guys,
• 23:33
  and uh, you know, looking forward to our next episode's coming out as
• 23:36
  well. To make sure that you never miss an episode, subscribe to the
• 23:40
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• 23:48
  Just tap the number of stars you think the podcast deserves. If you'd
• 23:52
  like to learn more about how Next Thing can help me improve your digital employee
• 23:56
  experience, head over to next think dot com. Thank you so much for
• 23:59
  listen. Listening until next time,