Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Reality Bytes #56: Mission Critical: How DEX Enhances Federal Government IT

Transcript

Reality Bytes #56: Mission Critical: How DEX Enhances Federal Government IT · 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. Let's get into it.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Hello, change Makers. Oh, it feels like an age.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: It feels like an age since we all came together
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: on Reality Bites. But it is for those who know
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: the show within a show within a show where the
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Reality Bites team gets to interview a fascinating next thinker
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: And have we got a fascinating next thinker for you today.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: We'll get to him momentarily, but just to say that
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: you may have noticed we had.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: A week off. We had a week off. We had
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: two weeks off.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: In fact over the last month, and that's because of
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: course we were out in Boston. We were out in
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: London helping with Experience, helping run Experience and in various
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: ways across the team, and also recording bumper episodes at
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: both experience events. By the time you hear this, they'll
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: both be available not only on the usual feed, but
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: on the YouTube on the next Bink YouTube channel as well,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: so you can it's an audio visual and audio video
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: presentation this time around.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: But we are, on the.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: One hand, or a little tired and very very i think,
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: very happy with how the experience events went both in
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: in Boston and in London and the other really excited
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: to get back on the horse and get back to
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: usual scheduling, usual programming. So with that, let's welcome Next
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Thing Senior channel director Chris Sibold to the show. Hi Chris,
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: welcome the first time reality Bites. So it's great to
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: have you on.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Hey, Tom, thank you for having me. Really appreciate it, That.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Is no problem. Tell tell the listeners first of all, Chris,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: a little bit about what you do and next Thing,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: and I guess what brought you to the role in.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Terms of your previous career experience. Sure, so, actually just
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: you mentioned I was a channel director and I have
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: been for the last three and a half years, but
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: actually I've moved into an interesting role here as of
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: January as the senior director of Public Sector and so
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: that's actually a little bit of a different role than
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: what I had for the last several years. Got it?
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Well, can I just say, Chris, I know this is
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: exactly as listeners will soon know what we're here to discuss.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: So that makes perfect sense. But you got to update
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: your teams. You got to update your team's job description,
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: your title. I got it. Fresh run teams just double
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: check in. So I knew you specialized or were a
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: specialist in the public sector, as we'll be discussing today,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: but I didn't realize you that you twitched your title,
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: to be honest, So.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: That was free years. What about prior to that, Yeah,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: so prior to that. So the last several years I've
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: been part of Next six Channels and Alliance's team helping
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: drive basically the development of our resell and our local
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: managed service provider partners here in North America. But the
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: whole time that I've been doing that kind of some
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: of my background really is in public sector and it's
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: something I'm very passionate about, which is kind of what
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: led me to make the switch in January this year,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: is it. So now in my current role, I really
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: focus in on all things go to market related to
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: the public sector. And for for those who don't hear
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: the acronyms and the description public sector from our perspective,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: is both the US kind of federal level government, the
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: national level government, as well as the state and local
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: level governments as well. So kind of really two big
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: it markets that all follow under that umbrella of public sector.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: But I've been again helping work with all of our
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: cross functional teams from engineering, sales, marketing, everything in our
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: efforts to really enter and help to support these customers
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: and their really important work in that market segment.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Fantastic, and we'll get to it more detail. I know
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: we've got we've got Oriana showing and tim of us
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: today by the way, who will have questions for you
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: in this area? But what was how did you build
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: that expertise in this kind of as I understand, very
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: very complex domain.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of a twofold what is that Prior
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: to my technology career here, I actually was an Air
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Force officer for the first six years of my professional life,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: so two thousand and one to two thousand and seven,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I was an Air Force Logistics officer, serving globally all
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: around the world. So that actually kind of let me
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: see firsthand some of the challenges because I know you
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: guys have talked to a lot of commercial customers and
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: there is a lot of challenge in the world that
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: digital employee experience helped solve. I believe it's a particular
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: type of challenge that you see in in the government space.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: So everybody, for example, has a hey, what's your application
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: kind of problem, like when you realize DEX could solve
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: something for you. Mine was a unique one is that
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I'll give you a quick example is that I actually
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: ran an air real port, so kind of think of
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: like a UPS hub for the military out in the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Middle East during my tenure, and one of the big
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: applications we had that was mission critical was basically the
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: system that allowed us to share between stations what was
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: the load plan, what was the schedule? Basically what was
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: coming in on the next airplane and when was it
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: coming in. Because of some of the network configuration the
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: way things are set up, that application didn't work, and
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: the IT team that was supporting us regionally didn't even
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: know it didn't work, and we didn't have an easy
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: way to explain to them why it didn't work. So
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: our solution, instead of basically pulling up this complex application
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: that would tell you everything about what was on the airplane,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: we just had to step outside and look up in
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the air and see if hey did the schedule, Like
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: I got an email that said that this airplane should
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: be landing shortly. Let's go look outside and see if
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: we can find it.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: That sounds like you know, an important thing to know.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: I'm workings of the Air Force, but that sounds significant,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: and I think in fact Orehanna has you have a
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: question Oreon is sort of about that whole dynamic more broadly, right, Yeah.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: That's a pretty amazing story, though, I mean, it sounds
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: like using a weather rock to tell what the weather is.
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: So something that I was curious about is the differences
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: that you've seen with this very broad experience between it
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: more generally and the private sector at large, both with
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: the challenges that they have that you are talking about,
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: but also how they perceive des What is the status
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: of decks in the private sector versus the public sector.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: That's a really good question. It's an interesting one. I
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: would say this is that in the public sector. So
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: I feel like, you know, from from all my peers
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: and just seeing what's going on in the market, that
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: the private sector has really come to realize the value
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: of digital employee experience and decks and what it can
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: do for them. And despite kind of the name where
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: it's a you know, it's about employee experience, I believe
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: that many organizations they are starting to realize it's not
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: just a nice to have, it's actually its mission critical
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: and it's going to be fundamentally kind of changed the
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: way that they do it operations. In the public sector,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: there are many opportunities to solve these problem because one
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: kind of unique facet of public sector that's different than
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: private is that there's a lot of technical debt and
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of legacy technology. And that's for a
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: couple of good reasons. One is the way that the
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: government acquires and budgets for technology. There are acquisition rules
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: that are there for very important reasons. But kind of
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: a follow on effect of that is that it makes
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: it challenging to be able to buy and procure technology
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: and keep pace with the change that's going on in
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: the technology world. And because of that, again, a lot
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: of legacy technology that they can't shut down. They have
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: to operate, you know, the Department of Transportation has to run.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: They can't just shut down because they're doing a cloud
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: modernization for example. And so because of that, I think
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: that public sector is just now starting to realize what
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of the private sector has is that hey,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: despite the name, this is not a nice to have
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: that it honestly dex is probably more important for the
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: it operations team in public sector than it might be
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: for the end user, and there's tremendous opportunity to enhance
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: the end user experience, but it could it really is
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: more fundamental and transformational for how the IT operations team
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: does their job and supports the agencies.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: That makes a lot of sense. I'm curious, do you
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: see anything, anyone or anything in particular that's driving those changes.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: So what I've seen is that it's really the visibility,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: the data, the information that they could have. So if
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I could, and I would do a terrible job of this,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: but if I renamed DEX or Digital Employee Experience, I
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: would call it it. Visibility is that you look at
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: these IT organizations and really the ones that start to
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: see this and just have the visibility the insight to
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: what's driving the root cause, what's driving the challenge because
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: right now, the way that IT organizations operate in public sector,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of silos, even more than in private sector.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Some of that is because of the way they procure it.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: There might be multiple service providers servicing a particular customer,
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: and so that typical process of hey, let's diagnose the
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: root cause, let's share data, you know is it the network?
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Is that the end is it the endpoint? Is it
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: an application that becomes even more political, if you will,
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: because you're working with multiple service providers. So if you
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: can imagine that, hey, I've got this visibility, I've got
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: this data. I mean it's quantifiable, it's incontrovertible, and I
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: can share it and gain consensus to really drive the
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: change management process versus pointing a lot of fingers, because
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: without that data, I think it's particularly challenging for ITU
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: organizations to be able to kind of solidify around what
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: a change need to happen in an end user computing
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: estate because they are so complex and there's so many
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: different players and silos involved.
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: Right, that makes sense, Sean. Did you also have a
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: question related to that?
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: I did, Thank you, Hi, Chris. I wanted to know,
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: I guess related to DEX and the public sector, what
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: are some misconceptions that you've heard and what would you
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: say to any listeners who might think DEX is just
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: a luxury for employees.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: So I think it goes back to that fact that hey,
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: this is not just really about the end user experience.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: It's really about the IT team and their ability to
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: become proactive. There's a really interesting story that happened the
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: news several years ago. There was an Air Force civilian
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: employee back in about twenty twenty, twenty twenty one who
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: became so frustrated and I think Tim has heard this
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: one before, but became so frustrated with his ability to
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: just fire up his laptop and do his job. He
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: was actually in an AI think tank for the Air Force.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: It's a really important job, you know, a very knowledgeable worker,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: and he just got frustrated because it would take him
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: forty five minutes to boodh his machine, it would take
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: him another thirty minutes to open up Microsoft Outlook. He'd
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: try to open up a PDF so he could sign
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: it and it would crash or it'd take fifteen twenty minutes.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: And he got to the point that he actually, in
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: this this never happens in organizations like the military, is
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: so frustrated that he actually turned to Twitter and now
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: x and actually put out a rant and basically it
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: was called hashtag fix our computers. And he basically told
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: the government, he said, look, you know you want us
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: to basically prepare for the next big challenge, the next
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: big threat that we need to prepare for we want
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: to do our jobs. Were invested like no other workforce
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: in the world. But before you buy another billion dollar
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: piece of hardware or spend tens of million dollars on
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: some new initiative, just make my computer work, get it
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: to work, get it to turn on. Let me get
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: access to the applications that I need to be able
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: to do my job. And that was kind of such
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: an earth shattering thing in the public sector, and I
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: believe in the military that somebody would kind of publicly
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: air the dirty laundry there. But to their you know,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: to their effort, basically the DoD and the Air Force
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: at the at the CIO level, they acknowledged it. They said, yes,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: we understand. We've got a challenge here. We've got to
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: figure out a better way to do business, a better
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: way to support the end user, because it can't just
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: all be about security. We've got to balance that security
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: with the end user productivity. Because you know, if I
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: secure the laptop to the point that it's a brick,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: it's really pointless because you can't do your job, you
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: can't carr out your mission.
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: That's great, and I'm curious, almost kind of doing the
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: inverse of that. So we know, like all the frustrations
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: that particular user had, but like, what would the impact be,
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: say of a strong decks on the public sector productivity?
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: Is there any way you could articulate that for us?
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, So I think it goes back to the fact
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: that you look at at state level government, at federal
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: level government, there is a desire and I think this
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: was really accelerated by the pandemic as that there's a
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: desire to provide digital experience in digital services to citizens.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: So the digital channel was one in my opinion that
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: was kind of maybe neglected prior to the pandemic because
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: government could always fall back to the in person channel.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Is that I need to provide this capability to you.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: You need to be able, as an example, to show
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: up and get your driver's license or renew your driver's license.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Maybe and all right, well, you know, if I can't
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: figure out how to provide a decent digital online experience
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: to make that renewal happen, I can always just say,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: you know what, Chris, show up in our office. It
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: might be a little bit of a pain for you,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: but show up and renew your license. There that's really
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: not a option now because number one, there's a preference
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: for that digital capability, and the pandemic kind of highlighted
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: that is that governments really across the board are now
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: saying we need to provide this capability, we need to
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: provide a digital channel for these things, and they need
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: to be the equivalent or if not better than that
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: in person experience. It can't be kind of a hodgepodge,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: if you will. And so that's really a big game
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: changer is that now they have to focus in on that.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: And really an underlying aspect of that is I think
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: we're all aware is the employee experience is that, hey,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: if I've got this great online platform for the citizen
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: to engage to do these things, but I can't log in,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: I can't get access to it, I have challenges getting
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: the data I need to serve that person's request, you know,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: it really doesn't solve the problem all the way. So
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: dex is really it's kind of a secret if you will,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: to helping serve the citizens. Is that. I think more
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: agencies are starting to see the connection there that it's
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: an underlying pillar, it's an enabler. But I think that
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: that's something that's just now starting to be to really
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: be seen publicly.
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: That's great, thanks Chris. And then final question for me.
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, I'm sure we can imagine some of these,
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: but I'm curious from your point of view, like what
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: unique challenges do you think DECK faces within a highly
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: regulated public sector environment.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: That's a really interesting one. So you know, in these
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: highly regulated parts of the government, these are organizations and
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: areas where you know, these networks may not even be
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: connected to the Internet, you know, so there's no access
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: to the Internet, that they're completely segregated, there's very little
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: visibility and in fact, just being able to get to
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: the network and get approval to deploy technology onto that
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: network is a challenge in and of itself. So one
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: of the things to be honest is, just as a
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: dex provider like next Think, is being able to comply
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: with all the certifications of the secure A requirements that
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: are must have just to be able to deploy your
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: technology out there to help do the job. That provides
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of overhead that that actually is, you know,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: it really taxes somebody's engineering organization. You've got to be
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: of a particular size and level maturity just to be
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: able to support these multiple certifications. It's not just one,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: there's several of them that really kind of combined together.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: So there's that piece is just the overhead of servicing
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: a customer like that, because they really make you do
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: particular things and support your technology in one way, but
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: the other one again, it's just that lack of direct
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: access to it and the fact that I think culturally,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: these these networks and I'm thinking of, you know again,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: the ones that are offline, that there's no even direct
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: access to the Internet. They're just used to kind of
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: a poor experience and it kind of it is what
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: it is. But I go back to my example of
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: being able to look up in the sky, you know,
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: and see if you get the application working, is that
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: there is a better way to do it, And I
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: think it's kind of the other piece there is just
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: helping people understand that, hey, we can help solve problems
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: even in environments like this, and that fundamentally kind of
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: the technical challenges are not necessarily different really, it's just
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: the cultural piece, I think is probably the thing that's
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: most different from the private sector.
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: So Chris, I'm the last at bat. We can explore
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: a few things that we chatted about. I wish we
• 17:20
  Speaker 6: had more time to explore some of them, but I'm
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: going to disclose the day that we're recording this, so
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: let me say Happy Veterans Day and thank you.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: For your service. Thank you appreciate it. You bet. So.
• 17:34
  Speaker 6: We've talked a lot when I have a chance to
• 17:36
  Speaker 6: run into you at different events and conferences, and we've
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: talked a lot about opportunities to help people serving in
• 17:42
  Speaker 6: the public sector. The team's explored a little bit of
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: it with you already. But what are some of the
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: challenges that these employees have that DECKX can help with.
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: I love Oriana's analogy of the weather. Rock Is it raining?
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: I don't know, Is the rock wet?
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 17:56
  Speaker 6: Is the plane here?
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know?
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: Go look is it on the ground? What other How
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: does that actually impact those employees and how does DECKS
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: help make it better?
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I see a couple kind of fundamental areas that
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: DECKS could help public sector and employees in the public sector.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Number one, as I mentioned, there is a lot of
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: legacy technology, and I think the majority of the IT spend.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: You look at kind of all the analyst reports and
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: what's going on in the market, at both the federal
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: and the state level. A majority of the IT spend
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: and focus is going into digital transformation initiatives, So you know,
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: government is working on improving that technology, providing more capabilities,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: but it's the managing is I think, as everybody knows,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of digital transformation initiatives fail because they're not
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: widely adopted, or something happens in the process of that
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: adoption that keeps it from kind of achieving what the
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: potential is of that new technology. So helping manage those
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: and a good example that just comes to mind, there
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: is a mandate across the US federal government to implement
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: zero trust networking. So this is a re architecture of
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: the way that all of their networks are are are
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: designed and architected. And again, on the face of it, sure,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: all right, we've got to comply with security. That just
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: causes so many different fundamental challenges and potential for issues
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: with the employee experience, Which leads me to the other
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: point is that kind of right now within government IT
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: you're seeing, like more so than I think other industries,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: you're seeing a lot of those IT employees are really
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: aging out and retiring, and there is a big shift
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: to the next generation of government. It employees, and they
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: have an expectation just like everybody else. You know that
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: you know, in your personal life, I wanted to just work, well,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: you know, I can open Gmail and there's no problem
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: with that. Why can't my government application that I need
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: access to? Why can't it just work like that? So
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: employee retention and hiring is really one of the other
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: big ones that it helps, which goes back to know,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: we're investing in digital transformation to make the experience better,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: to bring on more capabilities, but we need to kind
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: of finish the drill and make sure that it actually
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: does what we say it will do for the employee
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: and for the citizen. And then the last one is
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: that we talk about one of the big challenges is
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: just the way that the government, again for good reasons,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: the way that they budget on an annual basis, and
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: then that flows down to a lot of the acquisition
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: and procurement rules and again a lot of good reasons
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: why it's done that way. But imagine if I had
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: much more insight into the underlying challenges that hey, I
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: know as a made up example that all of my
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: endpoints are really the main cause are the main thing
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: that is driving down the employee productivity and employee experience
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: in my agency, Well, now it's a no brainer to
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: go ahead and budget for a hardware refresh. Conversely, if
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: I discover that it's actually something different, I might not
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: make that guess and say, oh, you know, you told
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: me to hashtag fix my computers. And my best guess
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: is that it really it's the age of the hardware.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Well maybe not so. The third piece I think is
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: just providing the data, the actionable data that decision makers
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: can use to go and request budget because it takes time,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: it is a process. But providing that information and being
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: able to do their job more easily I think would
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: be a big challenge that decks can help address. In
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: public sector.
• 21:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, I make the case all the time
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: that everything it touches breaks. You might not break everybody,
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: but you're going to break a certain percentage of the population.
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: And it's why in the private sector, it's why it
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: moves so slowly to avoid breakage, tone to identify it early,
• 21:41
  Speaker 6: and they move very slowly. I can't imagine that on
• 21:45
  Speaker 6: the public sector side. That we know government moves slowly already, right,
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: and it. Transformation in government has got to be a
• 21:53
  Speaker 6: huge part of it. Lots to talk about. There lots
• 21:56
  Speaker 6: of different pieces and parts to that puzzle. As it
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: leaders in the public sector are prioritizing things. How do
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: you how do you break it all down? What do
• 22:06
  Speaker 6: they need to keep in mind when they're looking at
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: a dex program. What are they prioritizing. Is it better
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: service to the public, is it use cases? Is it
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: you talked about retention and recruitment. Where does ROI come
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: into play? Are they looking to save money? What's the
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: top priority and how do they how do they kind
• 22:24
  Speaker 6: of put them in order?
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: So a lot of them kind of if you look
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: at the maturity of the market from a DEXK perspective,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: it is early on, so a lot of it is
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: prioritized around kind of tactical use cases. Is how do
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: we go from reactive purely reactive to more of a
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: reactive plus you know, where I have much more insight
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: to more quickly diagnose and then fix issues at scale.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: So a lot of focuses around that. But I would
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: argue is that as a decision maker, sure you know
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: that's table stakes to be able to help from a
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: dex platform perspective. But once you get that, because you're
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: going to quickly get there and make that improvement, it's
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: more long term, how can I become more strategic with
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: this platform? So, like we discussed, is how can I
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: really understand trends and be able to translate that into
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: my budgeting priorities, other strategic priorities for my agency and
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: the mission that we support. So I would say it's
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: really kind of that long term value, not just the
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: initial use case, but it's the other ones that follow
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: on that are more proactive and then ultimately preventative and
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: then the environment.
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so I know we've only got a minute or
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: two left. As you look at and as you talk
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: with your contacts in the public sector, what do you
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: think is missing as the development of decks continues to mature,
• 23:42
  Speaker 6: What might there be in terms of a use case
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: or capability it's missing that could bring even bigger impact
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: to that sector.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, So this is an interesting one is that just
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: like everywhere else, there's a lot of hype around AI
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: and generative AI, and especially in the public sector, it's
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: a lot of hype that there's a lot of potential
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: for AI to do good and to help again help
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: drive the experience with citizens. I would argue that something
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: that might be overlooked in that general hype and just
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: noise about generative I in general, is that what is
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: the kind of dex tuned version of AI and how
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: can I really help apply that to the experience of employees?
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Is that I think it might be overlooked that just
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: general genitor of AI. Sure there's a lot of value there,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: but you might need a specialist something you know, in
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: solving these problems that not only has that AI capability
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: but also the information and the insight the automations to
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: solve the problems. Is that's what's good of diagnosing that
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: if I can't really fix it and drive that change
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: across the organization. So I think that's something that might
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: be overlooked is just what version of AI and kind
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: of is really needed to drive that enhance employee experience?
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Great great stuff, Thanks, yeah, fantastic, And I know we've
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: only got just a minute or two less, so I
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: just want to I want to make a point before
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: we thank you, Chris saying for people who are interested
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: in hearing more about this discussion around sort of decks
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: in the public sector. Please do listen to a show
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Tim and I recorded with New Access I think a
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: year or so ago now j Dexifying the US government
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: is what we call The episode is a great conversation.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: We will include links in the show notes as ever,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: and Chris, we would love to see you as well
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: feature on the Decks Hub. I think some of these
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: insights are worth unpacking a little more fully in black
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: and white, so hopefully, hopefully we can make that happen,
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: and I'll be sure to add the links in the
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: show notes to that article if and when it's published.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Also just remains to say thanks so much for coming
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: to the show, Chris. Really really significant topic, really interesting examples,
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: and indeed, as Tim said, happy Veterans Day and thank
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: you for your service even over here in the UK.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Now, thank you very much. I appreciate the chance to
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: be here. And I couldn't think of a better thing
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: to do on Veterans Day than to talk about how
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: we're going to improve employee experience in government like this,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: so that a really great opportunity, and thank you so much,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: very good point. Thank you so much, Chas.
• 26:12
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