Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / 🎙️ Reality Bytes: XLA 2.0 – The New Frontier of Experience-Led IT (w/ Maurice van den Driessche)

Transcript

🎙️ Reality Bytes: XLA 2.0 – The New Frontier of Experience-Led IT (w/ Maurice van den Driessche) · 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.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: You know what it is, change Makers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: It's the Deck Show, show within a show within a show.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: And no, I'll never get bored as saying that. And
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: you know, I was asked recently if well, if we're
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: ever going to run out on on these reality by
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: special episodes of fascinating Next thinkers to have wonderful conversations with.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: And I told them, I said, We're never going to
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: run out a special guest of this show because Next
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Thing is just it's just that kind of an organization.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: And to va and let me welcome a very special
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: next thinker.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Know him. It's almost six years now. It's Morris.
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: Hey, Daim Morris or good Tom, Good to meet you again.
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: Good to meet you. You've known each other six years, Morris.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: I have quite quite a phrase.
• 0:53
  Speaker 5: But it's a long time in Next Thing life, right, it.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Is a long time and Next Thing life from running
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: in fairly parallel tracks, you know, occasionally crossing over more
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: spell For people who don't know you listening in quick introduction,
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: please tell us a bit about it.
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, what is a solution consultant?
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: Next Thing based out of the Netherlands, supporting the Beneluxardic
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: region every now in the UK as well. Like you
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: said in September seven years with Next Thing.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: Oh wow, so you just just just before me, and
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: what was your what was your background before you came
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: to Nexticon?
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: Before Next Thing?
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: I was a service management, asset management, and governance process specialists,
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: somewhategi as well, but mainly processes.
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: For many years. That's why I'm so great.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: And you know what about what?
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: What? What brought you?
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Shall we say closer to the to the deck space specifically?
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: What would you say the main ports of call on
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: that journey.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: Well, the main saying I joined Next Thing actually was
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: that I love all these processes for service management and
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: governance and what have you. But the biggest downside in
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: those processes was the data supporting the processes, and the
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: data typically was incorrect, unreliable or just not there, and
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: especially in it service management and the price service management.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: That thought, okay, so Next Thing actually can help with
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: their DEX solution to have those processes to start makes
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: sense as well. And all of a sudden incident management
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: and change and specifically it would cause analysis slash problem
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: management start to become a process you can actually execute
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: upon in a right way because you know what you're
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: talking about.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: And all the time that we've worked together, I've always
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: thought of you as something of an authority on the XLA,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: specifically MARS.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Is that reasonable for me to do so?
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: And if so, where does the affinity of specific fascination
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: with x as.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: A kind of body of knowledge come from GFA an authority? Well,
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: that's a big statement. I'm a big advocate that for sure.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: So my first training for excelations in two like five
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: years ago, twenty twenty one or something twenty twenty, just
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: before COVID hit in twenty twenty. And the reason I
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: like it is because I have an IT background. I
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: used to work for ED as a service provider and
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: we always thought whatever we decide as it is the
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: best for the customer, and typically it is not. I
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: did a lot of service management implementations, worked on one
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: for two and a half years. It went live and
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: nobody was happy because we did not listen to the
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: needs of the end user with regards to a process
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: or the needs from their point of view. It was
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: all IT driven and I'm very service focused, So I
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: like to know what drives DNA or what drives you
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: on more ell out, what do.
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: You need from me? What do you need from us?
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: Because if I don't know it, I like to well
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: improve my knowledge on that level and share that. You
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: share it with me so I can adopt my services.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: I used to do a training on business and IT
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: alignment as well, and I think that's the old terminology
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: for excel AT. It's been out there for so long,
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: but now finally with excel A, there's a mean to
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: actually put this into practice, and that's why I think,
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: I yeah, I've embraced it so much.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: We had a we had a fascinating episode recently, Tim
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: and I talking to Alan Nuance from the xl A
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Institute as a president is right, and I know you
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: listen to that virus and we thought that we've got
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: we've got a few of the reality most of the
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Reality by its team here today. We've got Sean Orion
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: and Diner with us, and I know we all wanted
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: to just take this opportunity to pick your brains on
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: xcela's got a little bit deeper, and I know everyone's
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: got a few questions for you and we're going to begin,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: I think with Dina if she is there, Yes.
• 5:08
  Speaker 6: Yes, You've had a lot of frontline experience with customers
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: and interactions. How would you characterize the real world state
• 5:17
  Speaker 6: of Xla's in twenty twenty.
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: Five now booming? It's all over the place.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: It typically stiff stuff like this starts in the Netherlands
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: and the UK. It was actually invented by a Dutch
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: guy in twenty two thousand and seven already, and typically
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: like the ITYL movement we had years ago, I see
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: x l A as the ITEL movement as well, but
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: faster everybody talks about it. We need it, and I
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: think it's got to boost off the corona because we
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: have no.
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: Clue what we talk about.
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: People are basically disconnected from IT services that they're local
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: support desk or the people they can walk over to
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: or li. You have an issue and there you go
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: to Oreana and to ask her how do you do
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: you have the same issue or how do you fix this?
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: That's all not there anymore. So we need to know
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: what's what's on your mind? What what what are you
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: suffering from? We just need to know and with x LA,
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: that's that's the big thing, right, and we don't like
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: people leaving our organizations.
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: We want to keep them within the organization.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: Therefore, you need to know what drives them to stick
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: with the organization they work for.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: Hence excellent.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: True.
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: True.
• 6:34
  Speaker 6: I think post COVID now we have more urgency or
• 6:37
  Speaker 6: a sense of urgency to look at the actual experience
• 6:40
  Speaker 6: of our people, right rather than just what it thought
• 6:45
  Speaker 6: of things.
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: So exactly.
• 6:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, totally agree with you. So our organizations truly
• 6:50
  Speaker 6: making decisions now based on XLA insights or there is
• 6:54
  Speaker 6: still this gap between the measurement and taking action, like
• 6:58
  Speaker 6: you mentioned earlier on ITEL, It's been there for years
• 7:01
  Speaker 6: and years, but it has been operationalized only more or
• 7:05
  Speaker 6: less in the recent years.
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: Yes and no.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: So there are organizations that are starting to embrace EXCELAY
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: at this point and they are pretty much in their
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: first phase. Therefore, it's the measurement at this point, what
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: do we have out there? What do we know from
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: a technology point of view, but also what do we
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: have from a sentiment point of view? And that's why
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: next thing is so critical in the whole ACCELA. We
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: deliver three two out of three key point measure points
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: in an excel a sentiment data and operational data coming
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: from service. Now technical data also coming.
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: From next thing.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: So we see customers that are mature already in Excelay.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: They take decisions based upon the input that they have.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: They have the sentiment data, they have the tech data,
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: and they can combine the two easily and then say, oh, okay,
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: we actually made a wrong decision here because we thought
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: as it to do ABC. Apparently the end users want THEES.
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: So looking at the data from a sentiment point of view,
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: from their feedback, plus the technology data and maybe even
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: the operational data, the KPIs they have every right to
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: say we want the EES and you are rightly so
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: asking for d we as it made a mistake, so
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: you can easily we'll change a project and hopefully early
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: in the start of a project. And that's why you
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: see the embracing and not just it. I think that's
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: the key point as well. It's not just it anymore,
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: it's outside of it, and that gives the real power.
• 8:47
  Speaker 6: Totally agree and adding more service owners within the business
• 8:51
  Speaker 6: I think empowers any business towards their dex journey.
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: So the key thing in there is that the my
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: set of those service owners need to be correct. So
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: they need to have this goal, this ambition to actually
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: go this route, but they also need to have the
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: time available to spend on this. If not, it is
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: don't to fail. Right, It's not about the XLA anymore.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: It's about the experience management office where they actually take
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: all that data into account, consume the data, and take
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: decisions from that data. But if you cannot do that,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: then the XLA on its own makes there's no point
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: totally agree.
• 9:34
  Speaker 7: And this leads me to the last question I have,
• 9:36
  Speaker 7: which is is the XLA just the new SLA and
• 9:40
  Speaker 7: how much risk is there in simply just rebranding the
• 9:43
  Speaker 7: old KPIs in a shinier, fancier name.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: Well, then I think you just said it's it's about
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: KPIs only and ASLA, so we do have prospects, customers, MSPs,
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: so service providers. Actually, Oh, if we just re name
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: the SLA to an XLAY, we can answer the RFB
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: where the customer wants us to execute on xcelas No,
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: a KPI is only one of the three pillars of
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: an XCELA, So yes it supports an XCELA, and yes
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: we do need the KPI's capacity, performance availability. Absolutely, but
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: they are all about output and we want to know
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: about outcome, and the outputs are a subset of the
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: outcome the ambition that you have with an XCELA, So
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: it's part of an XCELA, it not XLAY does not
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: replace an isla baris.
• 10:39
  Speaker 8: While we're talking about these metrics and really making sure
• 10:42
  Speaker 8: people are defining them correctly, one of the things we've
• 10:44
  Speaker 8: talked about a lot on this podcast is that it
• 10:47
  Speaker 8: can be really challenging to make sure you are not
• 10:50
  Speaker 8: just measuring things but also actually delivering meaningful chape. So
• 10:54
  Speaker 8: I know if you can talk a little bit about
• 10:57
  Speaker 8: how do you think organizations can strike the balance between
• 11:00
  Speaker 8: measuring an experience and making sure that ensures the delivery
• 11:05
  Speaker 8: of meaningful change.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: So that's the I think we touched based on a
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: little bit already with the XIMO. I think the measurement
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: is the easy part, but we have next thing. We
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: measure the technical data, it's just there. The data is there, simple,
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: we measure sentiments or we can ask the end users
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: for their feedback.
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: It's just there.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: But then I think some of our customers told that
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: experience you asked we delivers and when you, as an
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: end user you give feedback, you need to be ready
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: as an IT organization or any organization. That's part of
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: the XOLA definition that you can actually deal with the
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: feedback based upon other data that you have available within
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: your EXOL a definition within your EXIMO. So listening and
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: the measurements coming out of it, that's the easy part. Right,
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: we have all this, but now how do we as
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: an EXIMO take that into a changing environment? And that's
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: XCELA is also everything about adoption. You need business change.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Look at the world we even now these days, right,
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: we're all a bit nervous with what's going on with
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: with Pakistan, India, the US, Ukraine, Russia. It's all over
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: the place, and you see organizations change the way they work.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: For instance, we have organizations in anyway they say, oh
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: cloud first. But what's happening now as a government agency,
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: for instance, it's on prem first again, which means if
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: your EXLA was based on a cloud application that you
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: offer to the end user and they expect something from it,
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: you need to change that all of a sudden, almost overnight,
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: every now and then to say okay, normal cloud applications
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: only on prem locations, fed clients, nothing more in the
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: public cloud only private cloud. That could also be a decision.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: But still you need to adopt so those measure points
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: that you have and we're still using a cloud solution
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: for instance, that that's what you can see in the
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: measurement and then take corrective action immediately and then you
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: don't care about the sentiment anymore. Right then you just
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: do it because it's part of the critical business that
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: you are in.
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: It needs to be in the private area.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: So yeah, measuring is easy, but doing with those measuring
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: data points is the most challenging part. You need to
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: act upon it. And we do see organizations that execute
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: on exolas.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: They do execute on those changes migration.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: Project, for instance, we have a customer going from SAP
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: to version three to version four, calling from year out
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: to service now. Oh okay, technically it can easily be done, right,
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: we have those measure points, but how do how does
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: stumb feel using service now now? Or how does Sean
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: feel going away from YEA into service now or version
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: four of SAP. Maybe technically it's okay, but typically those
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: big change projects is all about sentiment and you need
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: to understand the sentiment we can roll it out with
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: the next Thing, right, we are changing applications every now
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: and then because we make different decisions than just it.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: We listen to our Next Thing employees. But I like
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: to test it first with Tom's department, and before I
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: roll it out, understand the sentiment along that amongst that change,
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: maybe even communicating a different way to the rest of
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: Next Thing before rolling it out to the bigger community.
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: And that's how you colstly measure and change.
• 14:40
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm so glad that you mentioned having a plan
• 14:43
  Speaker 8: to take action when collecting feedback. I now that's one
• 14:46
  Speaker 8: of my favorite soapboxes. It's something that I included in
• 14:48
  Speaker 8: all of the trainings that I do. I think it's
• 14:50
  Speaker 8: so so important for organizations to have that in mind
• 14:55
  Speaker 8: when they are measuring things. You know, like what is
• 14:57
  Speaker 8: the strategy that going to take if you get different
• 15:01
  Speaker 8: types of feedback? I'm so glad.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: So something else, very Victory loves preparation, right, so the
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: plan you need to have.
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: A plan simple.
• 15:14
  Speaker 8: So something else I'm curious to hear your perspective on,
• 15:17
  Speaker 8: especially given your sort of breadth and length of experience,
• 15:20
  Speaker 8: is how do you think XLAS need to evolve to
• 15:23
  Speaker 8: better serve all the different types of work experiences that
• 15:27
  Speaker 8: are out there now right, hybrid workers, frontline staff, non
• 15:29
  Speaker 8: desk roles, all of these are relevant in twenty twenty five.
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: I don't think they need to involve as such.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: It's more the learning process from the departments that are
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: responsible for whatever the XLA is in twenty twenty five.
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: It's for the hybrid working, for instance, you'd have some
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: kind of environment, but it's not just it anymore. I
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: think that's the main thing that needs to evolve, and
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: you need to start defining xcelays with regards to non
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: it as well, because I know internally next thing, right,
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: we have this survey constantly.
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: Do you advise people to work for next thing? Yes
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: or no?
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: Would you give your manager an eight or a nine,
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: whatever kind of information? They're all nice indicators, but it's
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: only that's the total. It's the total puzzle of do
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: I like to work for next thing?
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: Yes or no? Maybe there are twenty.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: Attributes for any organization to say I want to work
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: for next thing because great people, great product, nice manager,
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: go to team, nice digital workplace, that kind of stuff.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: But if you take out a few out of the equation,
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: out of those twenty you are unhappy and that will
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: have an impact. So you need to make sure that
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: in all those areas you need to make people happy
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: today with the excels that we are currently implementing in
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: most organizations, some are already a bit furthered onboarding, for instance,
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: is a key one. Touch bases on a lot of
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: items within well that create your happiness to work for
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: an organization.
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: And that's the critical thing. I think.
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: Step away from it because it only did well only
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: with every respect for it delivers only a piece of
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: the puzzle. Value wise, how can other stuff also contribute
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: to the value of an organization?
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: Because if I'm happy, I will become loyal.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: Right, if I'm I'm a happy next thingker, I am
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: a happy next thingker, I will be your loyal next thinker.
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: You can have headhunters all over the place, but if
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: you're happy, you know, listen to those really and if
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: you're loyal and happy, you become proud. And that's something
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: I will show to my customers. They will see I
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: am proud of next Thing. So I will live up
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: to the brand promise Pedro he made up something twenty
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: one years ago, Right, it's still a very very hot topic.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: We are number one, we are leading. I'm only be
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: part of the journey. So this is my message to
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: my customers and that leaves off to the brand promise.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: The brand next thing gets more value, shareholders happy and
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: we're all happy. And that's I think the total Accelate
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: Pictures should be in the end, not just it, but
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: make it bigger. And that's a challenge that you have,
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: and that's the journey you should embark on, starting at
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty five. But because it will go fast, if
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: you don't go there, you will lose people. You will
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: lose employees because they will find something they are unhappy
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: about and leave.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, maybe I will add it.
• 18:44
  Speaker 8: Is a good answer, I guess. I'm just curious to
• 18:46
  Speaker 8: build off of that. Are there any other places besides
• 18:50
  Speaker 8: maybe connecting to areas outside of it, that accelas are
• 18:53
  Speaker 8: still falling short or it could be improved.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: I don't think eclates themselves falls sh or improved. Of course,
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: there's always improvement in the way you ask questions. It's
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: very much culture driven, so that that's an improvement of
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: course you can have. Because well I'm Dutch and also
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: very direct So one on one is three in directness,
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: which may not every now and then work. If I
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: do the survey that I design for Dutch audience and
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: then related to UK audience or Swiss audience.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: Right, they're like, world, this is pretty in my face
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: this questionnaire. So there's the adoption. It's more the XMO
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: that that is the critical part. Like I think I
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: said it earlier, you need to have the mindset find
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: you start with XLAS, and then you need the ability
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: to execute upon it with an XMO. If you don't
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: have the right people, if you don't spend enough time,
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: it's not going to happen.
• 19:48
  Speaker 9: Cool, thank you here, maries, just two quick questions to
• 19:51
  Speaker 9: sort of wrap up here. So I'm curious also, like
• 19:54
  Speaker 9: what role do you see AI playing in the future
• 19:56
  Speaker 9: of XLAS And just like beyond the usual I guess
• 20:00
  Speaker 9: dashboard upgrades, does it have any other value?
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: Yes, I think in the future for sure, if AI
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: becomes emotionally intelligent. Right, our AI engine already has the
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: capability to get sentiment from the three form text from
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: the surveys that we do, so the AI engine can
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: actually detect Okay, so the choice of words or the
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: way they combine words or we can sense somehow sentiment.
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: We did a test with a few customers already and
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: they could relate to it. But it was correct in
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: a way seventy percent. Maybe the nicest thing was actually
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: it started also to look for correlation, so that AI
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: told the customer with their input, well, we think that
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: and that is related. And the customers reacted like, we
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: don't think so, well, let us look into this. And
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: they looked into it and they said, ooh, AI is
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: actually right in this case. Right, there was hard connections.
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: There was no sentiment connections. But you were talking about word.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: We see CPU blah blah blah whatever technical conclusions. There's
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: context in there that the people did not see. That's
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: why I will give you benefit. Because there's a lot
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: of data to consume and imagine an excelate that is
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: not just about it, but also other data sources. It
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: becomes almost impossible as a human to derive a conclusion
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: from it. So there it will definitely play a role.
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: But we also noticed in the testing that the AI engine,
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: and in that case it was chet deep GPT that said,
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: oh and yeah, I've categorized a few of those sentiment
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: figures under a certain category, and that was totally incorrect,
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: right because there was no emotional intelligence behind it, which
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: was just well, the zero and the ones this is
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: a new category are therefore classified under that category. Incorrect.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: So at the moment emotionally no context awaren it's within
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: the free formed text, yes, if it's just the teggy
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: stuff right. The wording was for the real sentiment. We
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: need this emotional AI. It is out there already, very expensive,
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: probably because it needs to learn a lot still, but yeah,
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: within five years, I don't think we can even live
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: without it anymore.
• 22:35
  Speaker 9: Very cool and really interesting with that test. That sounds
• 22:37
  Speaker 9: like a therapist of a sort, you know, kind of
• 22:39
  Speaker 9: connecting on pieces that you didn't know that were right
• 22:41
  Speaker 9: in front of you exactly.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: So for this last one you might have touched upon
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: it already.
• 22:45
  Speaker 9: But like if you could invent a brand new XLA
• 22:48
  Speaker 9: that no one's tracking yet, what would it be and why?
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: I think the one I just described. You know, Richardson,
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: I love the virgin brand because I think specifically because
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: he was always fighting against the well the vested authorities
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: like Brittish Airways for instance. Right, Brittish Airways said no
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: union jack on our airplanes. And the first thing that
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: virgin dead Regie Bredging, okay, put a union jack on
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: our airplanes.
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: So he was always this free fighter.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: I want to be new, I want to be well,
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: the company people want to work for, and that stuff.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: So he said, if you take care of your employees,
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: they will take care of your business.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: It is as simple as dead.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: And I think what I just described is the it's
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: the happy employee. It's the loyal, the proud employee living
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: up to the customer, your organization brand, the brand awareness,
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: the brand experience, therefore making the shareholders happy.
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: I think if you can come to an x LAY
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: on that level, acting on those twenty I think I
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: said twenty measure points not just it t but also
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: all the other stuff that makes you happy to work
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: for the organization work for in our case Next Thing,
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: of course, and get those insights for HR from marketing,
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: for the facility people, for all the.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: People involved, to make our journey within Next Thing the
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: best journey there is, right, because we feel taken care of.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: If you can define an x l A or a
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: combination of xcelas dealt by such an x MO, call
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: it the happy employee XMO whatever you want to call it,
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: that will that would be my dream x l.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: A talking to dream xcla is Murris.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: I gotta ask, right if I'm doing, if I I
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: want to, I want to Morris XLA of next thing?
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: What do you What do you love most about working here?
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Because I get a sense of a lot of passionate
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: enthusiasm coming off you for the company.
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: I want to if you have to be a finger
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: on it, what would it be?
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: Well, I pro like I love the product and how
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: it fits within the whole infrastructure, the whole world of
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: processes that set that set up. But also it's a
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: company that allows the free thinking. Like Richie Arenson, if
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: you have a great idea, just shout it out. They
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: will challenge you, they will be critical. Fine, it makes
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: you think about the stuff. But still it's never to
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: put you down. It's always to lift you up and
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: give you the opportunity to grow.
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: And that's what I think I love the most, and
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: the passion we all have.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Actually I love that and.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: I think I used to ask that question all the time.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: With the end of these episodes, it always always the people,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: the people, and it's not that that some trivial people
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: are great, but it was a little repetitive, but I
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: was Yeah, I think you thinker on some other wonderful
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: aspects of being a Next thinker. And you might not
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: consider yourself an authority on the xil A, but we
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: certainly do, Maris, and I think I'll listen this certainly
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: well after this conversation. Thanks for adding the extra layer
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: of insight. Refer listeners again to that Alan Nance conversation
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: as well. If they wanted a complimentary brother episode, as
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: it were, do check that one out.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: We'll have the link in the show notes. Just remains
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: for us to say, Morris.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us on reality Bites
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: for the first time, my friend.
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: And thank you for having me. It was a great opportunity, wonderful.
• 26:27
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• 26:29
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• 26:32
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• 26:37
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• 26:38
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• 26:41
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to learn more about how Next Thing
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: can help you improve your digital employee experience, head over
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: to Nextthink dot com. Thank you so much for listening
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: until next time.