Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Reality Bytes #26: Unmasking ‘Fake DEX’

Transcript

Reality Bytes #26: Unmasking ‘Fake DEX’ · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

0:01
Welcome it changemakers to the Deck Show with Tim Flower and Tom McGraw. Let's
0:07
get into it. HELLI, everybody, welcome back to what is becoming one
0:11
of the absolute highlight of my months. It's the Deck Show Reality by its
0:16
Panel episode. And I'm particularly excited about this episode because I think Tim and
0:23
I and we've stumbled into a bit of a Deck Show series over the last
0:27
few weeks. I would say the series constitutes a consideration of the past,
0:33
present and future of the space that the Deck Show is entirely about, which
0:37
is, of course digital employee experience. We've already recorded and released as part
0:43
of this impromptu series an episode with Josh Salton. He's definitely one of the
0:49
most exciting younger voices in Deck journalism and analysis. If you haven't heard the
0:54
episode, check it out. It came out last week. We've also recorded
0:58
an episode with Extinct founder and CEO Pedro Bados and chief strategy and marketing officer
1:06
you've seen Zaid. We haven't released that episode yet, it should be out
1:10
in a week's time, but in both of these episodes, we we Tim
1:15
and I basically examined with our guests the invention of the technology and terminology around
1:19
decks, the milestones of it inside and outside of Next Think, and we
1:26
thought, look, what better way to round off a discussion than putting it
1:29
putting the major themes and questions to our esteemed reality bites panelists. So let's
1:34
let's let's welcome them. We've got Sean with us today. How are you
1:38
doing, Sean? Not bad? Tim? Thanks for having me on.
1:42
Not Bad Tom, that's your name. Thank you. It's not that hard
1:45
old chap, you know, there's only sounds similar video. Thank you,
1:49
joanything. It good to have you. And we're welcoming Dina back to his
1:53
show, first time in a little while. Great to have you as Eva,
1:56
Dina. Thank you, always happy to be here. And we've also
2:00
got Megan. How's it going, Megan? Hi? Tom, it's going
2:06
okay, good stuff. And of course we've got Tim in the house.
2:08
How's it going, Tim? Have you been enjoying our series so far?
2:12
Tim? Do you think we've had some salient insights from our various guests.
2:15
Yeah? These are nice to be able to participate in because it brings me
2:21
back to my technology roots, not just the journey we took, but you
2:27
know, conversation to help people other people. There's more and more people doing
2:30
research on this, and it's fun to be able to contribute to help them
2:35
along. Absolutely. And then Tim and I were talking before the show and
2:38
we thought a really good way of kind of honing in on the present state
2:43
of Decks might be taking the angle of something that has come up in talking
2:47
to Josh and talking to Pedro and you've seen which is this whole idea of
2:51
a fake decks or is it's sometimes called experience washing? In other words,
2:57
is the sort of next Think industry terminology and practice becomes more ubiquitous. We're
3:02
seeing a lot of people jump on the bandwagon, as it were, adopting
3:07
the language without necessarily adopting the ethos of the space Next Think. Let's be
3:13
honest invented. So so let's start with your reflections here, Tim. We've
3:17
heard from a few people already these weeks, of course, Um, but
3:23
what is I mean? You bring a unique perspective, right because you went
3:25
from you always describe your encounter with des for the first time back at the
3:31
Hartford as like turning the lights on. It was a before and after momentum.
3:37
So, first of all, what would be your your, your own
3:39
personal positive definition of what DEX is. I think it's evolved as as technology
3:50
has evolved, and as as technicians and technologists try to figure out what they
3:58
need to solve for their employers. But just look at the three letters of
4:02
the acronym. It's the employee experience as they interface with their digital workplace and
4:10
the biggest, the biggest element that we were looking for. And I know
4:15
that it's why I came here because I'm confident that every other enterprise is looking
4:19
to solve the same thing. Is to get out of the dark and stop
4:24
depending on employees to report their problems. So you know, our program,
4:30
our project was project Edison. We're turning the lights on. We're not in
4:32
the dark anymore. I think it's tough to put a very specific definition on
4:38
it. When I was out at Gartner a couple of weeks in San Diego,
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there was a vendor hall full of people who were all doing some flavor
4:45
of employee experience. Right. It can be the employee portal and bringing more
4:49
data to them, our where we work with and the analysts that we work
4:55
with. It's specific to solving to providing a smooth with working digital experience for
5:01
employees without incumbrance from it problems so they can get their job done. Um.
5:08
You know, you can expand it from there and put in your own
5:11
requirements from a technology, but ultimately a well running DEX program should be removing
5:17
technology hurdles from employees and improving their their day to day I mean, well,
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let's get into a little bit of what decks isn't then and start with
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you on that, sure, and first of all, and then come back
5:31
to you in a moment him So sure, I mean you, obviously the
5:33
editor of the DEX Hub. Where do you feel the kind of key ambiguities
5:39
are technically around what DEX isn't isn't And do you have any like specific questions
5:45
you could put to the technical people in the conversation here today. Sure,
5:49
I do think one aspect I would hone in on is that what isn't DEX
5:56
is usually and this is a lot of technologies that are market now people that
6:00
rely in sort of data dumps or log files like offline data stuff that is
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quite old. I think whenever you encounter a vendor whose technology is pretty much
6:11
based on something like that, you should run away. There's a lot of
6:15
aspects to pulling in real time data. How real is it? But as
6:18
near real as possible would be my definition, or at least one of them
6:23
from what it's like a true deck solution. So that's one thing that I
6:28
would point to. I mean, I guess I reference that if you're in
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one of those discussions. I know Tim has that experience being in those kind
6:35
of high level discussions when you're trying to purchase something from a vendor. What
6:41
other alarm bells would kind of ring for the folks on this call so that
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you would run away, I would. I'll expand a little bit on it,
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because real time is critically important. We were one of, if not
6:57
the first ones to be able to truly say within ten seconds, you've got
7:00
data that's actionable. And I think, as I saw out in Gartner,
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the definition of real time has also morphed over time. A vendor can say,
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well we collect it in real time as well. Okay, well you're
7:13
collecting it in real time on the device, but your administrative console doesn't have
7:16
the data for thirty minutes or whatever the time the delay is to get that
7:21
data up and actionable. So having your administrators and your alerting system and your
7:29
actioning system. Knowing about the problems centrally versus on the device is critical.
7:35
The second piece that I would add to it is that that data needs to
7:40
be correlated in time with everything else that you're collecting on that device and all
7:45
the other devices in the enterprise. If you don't have data that's actionable in
7:48
real time in your grasp and that's correlated with everything else that's happening in the
7:55
environment, it makes cause and effect troubleshooting and scope determineation nearly impossible. You
8:01
can't do a good A happened then therefore be happened if you're not correlated with
8:07
everything that's happening and you don't know what you know about it in time.
8:11
Another question for you, Tim before we pass a bat on to Diner,
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I think cast your mind back to when when you were at the Hartford and
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imagine imagine you're at the Hartford now and you didn't know what DEX was.
8:28
But unlike then, there's a degree of hype around it. You are hearing
8:33
about the technology. You've heard the term, even if you haven't experienced it
8:37
directly. Where do you see the potential for confusion or the ability to kind
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of not grasp what it is being talked about in the industry as it's spoken
8:48
about and circulated today. So there's a lot of places now to do research
8:54
on a defined term like decks. You can go out and google it and
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it will come back and give you all kinds of not only analysts feedback and
9:03
documentation and assessments, but also a whole host of vendors that you can start
9:09
to look at. So the ability to research and evaluate and put together criteria
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as much better than it was when we were doing it early on, although
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our ability being a two hundred year old company, we had every tool under
9:22
the sun, so we already were able to identify the gaps and things we
9:26
weren't able to do. But what concerns me now about all of that information
9:33
that's out there is, and I'm seeing this trend from some other vendors is
9:37
inserting some false terminology, the concept of creating a category. In this case,
9:48
it's trying to put in some fear manufactured fear around our combined technologies in
9:58
this space. And what I've seen is they label it as employee productivity surveillance
10:07
technology, and if you google decks you get a ton back. If you
10:11
google EPST, you get all kinds of things that have nothing to do with
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what they're trying to pitch. Electronic Problem Solving Treatment, Electronic Performance Support Tool,
10:20
European Pilot Selection and Training EPST as a category is manufactured as The only
10:28
I can imagine is to either create some click traffic or to insert some manufactured
10:35
fear into a buying cycle to try and shift the tide. But that's what
10:39
concerns me is you know you work with trusted sources of content of analysis.
10:46
Absolutely, Next Think has an opinion and a technology here that we feel beats
10:50
everybody else. But do your research from reputable places and don't just go down
10:54
a rabbit hole amazing DNA question you about data. I always assume that one
11:03
of the sort of misapprehensions people could have about decks is that it's just another
11:09
richest source of an already very very very rich stew of data. The IT
11:16
teams are already being bombarded with, and I could imagine that being something of
11:20
a deterrent almost potentially, how should we differentiate between DECK technology such as next
11:30
thins and just for the mere passive production of data in general? So I'll
11:37
start off with knowledgeous power, right, So we do have a lot a
11:43
lot of information, a lot of bits and pieces of data being gathered,
11:48
hard metrics being its sentiment, and I'll shine on on something that Tim mentioned
11:54
a bit earlier. Having all of that into one place, so we can
11:58
actually find the correlation between what the hard metrics and again what Chan a bit
12:03
mentioned earlier, as real as possible, in real time as possible, you're
12:07
able to have a picture that would take you in into the details. You
12:11
don't need to go back and get the logs of yesterday or remote end to
12:16
the device, ask the user or disrupt them. You can do all of
12:18
that in the background and then maybe release a campaign. Get also the sentiment.
12:24
Comparing the hard metric to the sentiment gives you a full picture of what
12:28
the current status is of the endpoint and move you a bit with including alerting,
12:33
including taking actions on the endpoint, etc. You're minimizing the disruption to
12:41
the user, you're increasing the productivity actually by facts and figures, and you're
12:46
able to multiply or redeploy the solution that you're having across the organization. In
12:52
the same time. Getting all of that information corrected and reflected back into a
12:56
dashboard or any data export that you have would give you a real, visible,
13:05
not false indicator of how the employee experience is at your organization. And
13:09
this is the strength of Next Thing. So coming from the customer background six
13:13
years ago when I was doing that myself on Next Thing, and even again
13:18
even six years ago, it was super advanced. Now we are much much
13:22
more advanced. You have more capability, you have more data, you have
13:26
more knowledge, quicker correlations, and you're able to see and correlate everything that
13:31
you have in place, not just the hard metrics, but also the sentiment,
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and you're able to take reliable actions that would take place in the environment
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and actually correct what you've been struggling with or looking into and running around firefighting.
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So you're able to more to move much much more from a reactive to
13:50
approach to a proactive approach, to a preemptive approach to a more strategic and
13:54
steady approach over time. So it's a journey you need to keep on going
13:58
at it bit by bit, and like Tim mentioned, it's not going to
14:03
be the false example of a watermelon looking all green from the outside, but
14:07
when you dig in it starts to be read. It needs to be bits
14:11
and pieces, facts and figures, and then you address the issues one by
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one so you can build maturity and then you can improve completely the employee experience.
14:20
At the end of the day, Fantastics is a completely holistic picture effectively.
14:26
Megan obviously currently kind of talking to and working with a lot of real
14:33
world Deck users. In terms of excellent customers, Dana just mentioned sentiment.
14:39
I'd assume and having spoken to a lot of customers myself, that sentiment is
14:45
something that they perceive the ability to can the sentiment, to collect it,
14:50
collate it. Added to that overall pictures as a kind of a crucial before
14:56
and after detail for their use of technology. That's something you find And how
15:01
significant do you think that aspect remains a for your overall picture. That's a
15:07
good question, Tom. I think from speaking to customers recently that sentiment remains
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and the ability to gather sentiments to have that touchpoint non intrusive with their employees
15:22
is huge for US teams and for people managing the digital workplace because it's one
15:26
thing for the metrics to say to you, like, yeah, everything's running
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okay, is what Tim and Sean have said already, like devices are running
15:33
okay, things are looking good. But what if you reach out to the
15:39
employees and they say, actually, you know, I've been having this or
15:41
that problem or that application you took away from me I actually was using.
15:46
So I think on that hand, it remains crucial to managing digital play experience.
15:50
But I think there's another element there of being able to share information about
15:54
digital employe experience, which is also kind of a key component. So it's
15:58
not only just understanding how emloyees feel about the changes that you're making or about
16:02
the processes you're putting in place, but also being able to share information with
16:06
them really quickly and easily in a way so that they understand the changes that
16:08
you're making and so that employees kind of, you know, they get a
16:12
clearer picture of why certain things are happening. I think that's another part that
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the customers that I've spoken to feel really strongly about as an important element of
16:21
their DEX projects. And when you talk to customers, Megan, do you
16:25
find do you encounter much in the way of surprise once they've kind of installed
16:30
in a deploying of the technology themselves, Like how struck devy seemed by the
16:37
difference it makes to their day to day jobs. I think that's probably one
16:41
of the core things we hear. Right, It's similar to what Tim was
16:44
saying about turning the lights on. Like we've had a customers say, oh
16:48
my god, we can't unsee what we've just seen. Like being able to
16:52
get that kind of end to end visibility into everything and to be able to
16:56
set a benchmarks to really understand where you are for you being it in project.
17:00
It's one thing to say, yeah, we want to turn the lights
17:03
on, but turn the lights onto. What what is it that you're not
17:06
seeing? Whatever project it is that you're going into. I think that's the
17:10
first thing that really shocks and I think delights but also can kind of be
17:15
intimidating to customers, which is why you know, it's important to have that
17:18
tool, that that deck's approach that can not only show you all this data
17:22
that you're missing, but also provide insights and guidance on where to go next
17:26
with it. So it's not just saying here you go, here's all this
17:29
new data, here's all this visibility. But to Dina's point, here is
17:33
how to look at it. Here's how you can slice and dice it.
17:34
Here's what you can do next. Yeah, absolutely so open. Actually another
17:41
question for you, Vandina with regard to the decks tipping point. Do you
17:48
think we've seen it? And if we have, I would presume that you'd
17:52
think that that moment where it became quote unquote mainstream, where it really became
17:59
If not, you equitous, a much more established practice has already come,
18:06
presumably through COVID and everything that that the deck was able to facilitate for remote
18:11
working companies, etc. Or do you think that's something that's a way off,
18:15
still in the future. So it came to be more strong, like
18:22
you mentioned during COVID and post COVID, because before that, lots of people
18:26
were very laid back and we're okay with the fact that, yeah, if
18:30
something goes off, I'm going to go to my server check if everything is
18:33
read the greener or amber right. But now they're starting to see, Okay,
18:37
I cannot see my users. They are far away, and I don't
18:41
support ten offices. I'm supporting ten thousand offices, ten thousand employees in their
18:45
homes or wherever they are working remotely. So that's one of the other aspects
18:51
where it's now more important that they look into. Okay, let's see how
18:56
their experience is wherever they are. Let's see how we can improve it.
19:00
How can we correlate all of this and seriously fix the problem at the end
19:04
user from the end user perspective, taking into consideration the end users sentiment,
19:08
like Megan was just mentioning, and it became a lot more popular, a
19:14
lot more established. Is this it? No, it's not. It is
19:18
still we still have a lot to cover, we still have a lot of
19:21
maturity to build on top of. But we are getting more attention now,
19:25
we are getting more solid conversations around value. We're getting more conversations about fixing
19:30
really the problem, not just having some workarounds or quick fixes just to make
19:36
the user okay and happy for now, and then we see what we're going
19:38
to do about the next problem when it pops up. So the mindset is
19:41
changing. I see the shift. The perspective is getting a lot a lot
19:45
better. And we still have a lot with the customers and everybody trying to
19:51
grow into the digital employee experience world to becoming bit by bit, but we're
19:56
only starting to get better. So absolutely what was a vibe at the Gartner
20:02
even you're at last week, you know, does it does that correlate with
20:04
what Dina was describing or is there a sense of as a little bit more
20:10
kind of momentum in the space at present. It definitely sensed the momentum.
20:17
It used to be that we would go to conferences like this and you know,
20:22
even before DEX was a defined category and people were still trying to feel
20:26
their way around and figure out, you know, what kind of tech they
20:30
were looking for. The Gartner conference a couple of weeks ago it was it
20:36
was labeled as a Digital Workplace summit, but DEX was everywhere and again in
20:42
a couple of different variations and definitions. But the vendor hall was essentially completely
20:48
focused on the experience of employees in people asking really great questions, looking for
20:52
specific not only specific capabilities from products, but specific outcomes. One of the
21:00
outcomes that I thought I'd expand on a little bit is, at to Megan's
21:03
point, what are you looking for? You know, you're turning the lights
21:06
on? But why? One of the things that we defined as our why
21:11
was to answer them I don't know what, I don't know kind of question.
21:15
I know we're in the dark. I know there's a table in the
21:18
middle of the room because I just fell over it. I know there's a
21:21
table with a lamp on it because I just pushed the lamp onto the ground.
21:23
But there are other things here that I don't know about. And turning
21:26
the lights on was really enlightening, no pun intended, because we've found so
21:32
many things that we didn't know about. And I think that's where a lot
21:33
of enterprises are right now, is they've they're tired of living with that I
21:37
don't know what I don't know and getting surprised by it that that employee experience
21:41
is finally the tech and the process to help solve that problem. That's well
21:48
put Sean before we sign out. Me, I'm always conscious as a dex
21:53
hib editivity, you might have remain remaining questions so the other panelists you might
21:59
win a voice. Is there? You got me feel left up? Not
22:02
really, but I think Tim cleared up a big question mark I had previously
22:06
when I was searching for European pilot screening training. Now I know that acronym
22:11
does not fit in well and to run away it is not the same thing
22:15
as dex care for what the lexicon and people terminology lesson learned. Well,
22:22
thank goodness that we were able to quit this one. I'm gentlemen, well,
22:25
thank you everybody out. It was a great discussion and a great installment
22:29
in the series. As I mentioned at the top of the conversation, do
22:33
check out the episode that Tim and I recorded with Josh Salton, came out
22:37
last week, a week ago to day, and hopefully a week ago a
22:41
week in a week's time you will hear a very special episode with Pedro and
22:48
you've seen just remains for me to thank everybody becoming on the show as ever,
22:53
was great to talk to you all. To make sure that you never
22:59
miss an EPISO, subscribe to the show an Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your
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23:18
Thank you so much for listening. Until next time,