Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / 🎙️ Reality Bytes 64: What’s Next for DEX? 🔮
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome it, change Makers to the deck show with Tim
- 0:05Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGraw.
- 0:07Speaker 2: Let's get into it, change Makers. We're back. It's the
- 0:10Speaker 2: whole reality by its panel. And I have to say,
- 0:14Speaker 2: you know, we are here the the US clocks have gone, Tim,
- 0:18Speaker 2: ifake gone backwards or forwards, we spring ahead. Tom, you've
- 0:22Speaker 2: you've sprung ahead. Yes, you spring ahead?
- 0:24Speaker 3: Thank you.
- 0:24Speaker 2: Yes, that's the way to remember it, of course. And
- 0:26Speaker 2: I have to admit, you know, look, don't don't take
- 0:28Speaker 2: this the wrong way, America, but I do like the
- 0:31Speaker 2: extra hour, I should say, the extra hour of being
- 0:33Speaker 2: awake before America joins the party. You know, the world
- 0:37Speaker 2: feels very quiet, and when you're suddenly four hours away
- 0:39Speaker 2: from the UK, just for a few days or weeks
- 0:42Speaker 2: or whatever it is, I feel your breathing down my neck.
- 0:45Speaker 2: You know.
- 0:46Speaker 4: I mean that. I mean that.
- 0:47Speaker 2: I mean that we've loved him. Okay, what would we
- 0:51Speaker 2: do without you all? But no, we have had We've
- 0:54Speaker 2: been having a great, a great chat about today's theme,
- 0:57Speaker 2: and that is how should I but where next? For
- 1:01Speaker 2: decks there's a lot of interest going around Next Think
- 1:05Speaker 2: and the industry in general about where this movement goes next.
- 1:10Speaker 2: We had a very interesting chat I think with Alan
- 1:12Speaker 2: touching upon some of these themes on the deck show
- 1:15Speaker 2: Proper released this week. Tim right, and you know, are
- 1:20Speaker 2: we looking at a period of consolidation where DEX holds
- 1:23Speaker 2: its ground as this kind of core investment for uc or.
- 1:27Speaker 2: Are we entering perhaps a phase of expansion where it
- 1:30Speaker 2: extends its influence into into new markets, new functions, new
- 1:34Speaker 2: partnerships inside the business, perhaps with HR, perhaps with other departments.
- 1:39Speaker 2: And I'm very glad that we're joined today not only
- 1:41Speaker 2: by Tim, but as I say, the entire teams that
- 1:43Speaker 2: we have Megan, Suan, we have Dina, and we have
- 1:47Speaker 2: Oriana with us. And the chat leading up to this
- 1:51Speaker 2: discussion and sort of started with a question of I
- 1:54Speaker 2: believe it's pronounced nomenclature of O. I often get that wrong.
- 1:58Speaker 2: And you know the idea of you know, what are
- 2:00Speaker 2: we thinking about when we look at a new functionalities
- 2:03Speaker 2: currently being kind of developed by organizations such as next
- 2:07Speaker 2: thing are we seeing are we seeing you know, a
- 2:11Speaker 2: DEX two point zero at DEX dot next. I don't
- 2:14Speaker 2: know what you might call it at this present moment
- 2:16Speaker 2: in time. And but is that just a marketing question
- 2:20Speaker 2: or or is it important in terms of indicating the
- 2:23Speaker 2: direction of travel. I still think of DEX as this
- 2:26Speaker 2: kind of inherently euc allied word tim and you know,
- 2:31Speaker 2: maybe maybe what we call it or how we frame
- 2:35Speaker 2: the next stage of the journey does matter. I don't
- 2:37Speaker 2: know what's your what's your instinct.
- 2:38Speaker 4: I think it matters because we need to demonstrate that
- 2:42Speaker 4: things are changing, that it's not just business as usual.
- 2:45Speaker 4: AI is affecting everything we do. A lot of vendors
- 2:48Speaker 4: are just tacking on dot ai under their product or
- 2:51Speaker 4: onto their banner, so we've got to find a way
- 2:52Speaker 4: to differentiate. And it is. I really do think it is.
- 2:57Speaker 4: It's bigger than just the evolution of what we do today.
- 3:00Speaker 4: DEX in itself was the revolution. I don't know that
- 3:05Speaker 4: DEX dot Next or whatever we're calling it, is another revolution,
- 3:09Speaker 4: but it really is. We talked a little bit about
- 3:11Speaker 4: this with Alan, but I really do feel that it's
- 3:14Speaker 4: a fundamental change in how we manage data and how
- 3:18Speaker 4: we turn that data into information. Our Adopt module is
- 3:22Speaker 4: the first evolution of something new in DEX, but there's
- 3:26Speaker 4: so much more coming and I really do believe that
- 3:29Speaker 4: we're going to see less and less innovation put into
- 3:31Speaker 4: modules like that, and more and more innovation put into
- 3:35Speaker 4: the data that's available for AI to go mine and
- 3:39Speaker 4: find that enlightenment if you will.
- 3:42Speaker 2: What do you think of it, Dina, I want to ask.
- 3:46Speaker 5: I think it looks like operationalization, right, So I'll take
- 3:50Speaker 5: everything that Tim highlighted and actually put all of the
- 3:53Speaker 5: cool concepts, all of the methodologies and innovation that we
- 3:58Speaker 5: have done, and really put it to work. So changing
- 4:01Speaker 5: how we are doing work and taking us through the
- 4:03Speaker 5: full transformation journey of dex how we get better at
- 4:07Speaker 5: it and really get the value out of it. So
- 4:10Speaker 5: making all of those data points, transforming them into information
- 4:16Speaker 5: where it would make more sense now to really put
- 4:19Speaker 5: things in the right direction, make them actionable, make them
- 4:22Speaker 5: measurable and quantifiable. Right. So that's the core of where
- 4:26Speaker 5: we are going, not maybe maybe not so much on
- 4:29Speaker 5: new concepts, but really putting those concepts in operation in
- 4:33Speaker 5: real life into tests.
- 4:35Speaker 4: Seoan, what are you your unique perspective on trends in
- 4:38Speaker 4: the market. Where do you see things going from a
- 4:41Speaker 4: market perspective?
- 4:43Speaker 6: Yeah, so, I certainly think for it's side of the topic,
- 4:49Speaker 6: it's changing. They have big questions that they have to
- 4:51Speaker 6: answer like and how they align their L one, L
- 4:54Speaker 6: two and L three. But also we know that they're
- 4:57Speaker 6: going to be working more and more with HR, and
- 5:00Speaker 6: that data is coming out. We have it in some
- 5:02Speaker 6: of our older reports. I personally am am curious to
- 5:07Speaker 6: see in five ten years time how that will then
- 5:09Speaker 6: trickle down to us at the laptop or the desktop
- 5:13Speaker 6: when we open it up. I'm hoping that will have
- 5:16Speaker 6: fewer choices, that'll be more of like a minimalist approach
- 5:20Speaker 6: to things, so that instead of we kind of talked
- 5:22Speaker 6: about this in another discussion a couple of weeks ago.
- 5:25Speaker 6: But we're always distracted, We're always on our phones. There's
- 5:28Speaker 6: always so much going on, and getting into that like
- 5:30Speaker 6: deep flow state is becoming more and more difficult. So
- 5:34Speaker 6: I think it and HR and some of these other
- 5:37Speaker 6: departments are going to have a role to play to
- 5:40Speaker 6: help us deal with our daily work and be more
- 5:43Speaker 6: efficient and not stressed. And you know, even with its
- 5:47Speaker 6: meaning like getting like overrides or notifications on our computer
- 5:51Speaker 6: to say, hey, you've been in this one app or
- 5:52Speaker 6: you've been on the device itself for x amount of time?
- 5:57Speaker 6: Is this really productive for you? Healthy for you? Except
- 6:00Speaker 6: so that's what I'm hoping for the long term future.
- 6:04Speaker 4: And even think about some of the AI capabilities, the
- 6:07Speaker 4: kind of let's explore the art of the possible a
- 6:10Speaker 4: little bit, right. So if you were to ask the system,
- 6:15Speaker 4: how are my employees feeling about the version upgrade from
- 6:19Speaker 4: last week? And the system can go in and say,
- 6:22Speaker 4: we don't have any data for that. Should I create
- 6:24Speaker 4: an engaged campaign and ask them? So now you've got
- 6:27Speaker 4: an ability to explore both data that does exist and
- 6:30Speaker 4: data that doesn't exist, and the automation can create the
- 6:34Speaker 4: automation and go get the missing data. So now you've
- 6:37Speaker 4: got an ability to really query the people as part
- 6:40Speaker 4: of your system to get more information. And even from
- 6:44Speaker 4: an it's perspective, should I upgrade to the next version
- 6:47Speaker 4: of PowerPoint, Well, let me go look at cloud insights
- 6:49Speaker 4: and tell you what others are experiencing. So it becomes
- 6:52Speaker 4: less of a module that we need to build and
- 6:54Speaker 4: more of just an interactive state with the enterprise. I
- 6:58Speaker 4: think the opportunities are really cool, especially when you start
- 7:01Speaker 4: getting into what you talked about Sean. In integrating your
- 7:05Speaker 4: operations with HR with the business, you get so much
- 7:09Speaker 4: more The opportunities of intelligence out there are really cool.
- 7:15Speaker 2: Do we anticipate some kind of a clash between those
- 7:19Speaker 2: two business functions HR and IT over the central question
- 7:22Speaker 2: of who owns the employee experience in the future. I'd
- 7:28Speaker 2: be quite interested. Maybe an Oreana has taken on that one.
- 7:30Speaker 7: Actually, as usual, I think my answer to everything is
- 7:38Speaker 7: it depends, right. I think it's going to vary a
- 7:40Speaker 7: lot between organizations, But I do think that the organizations
- 7:43Speaker 7: that are going to be very successful are the ones
- 7:46Speaker 7: that are successfully able to integrate that, to bring those
- 7:50Speaker 7: teams together. Right. We've talked a lot about information siloing
- 7:55Speaker 7: in the past, not recently, but I think this is
- 7:58Speaker 7: one of the places where we really see the benefit
- 8:00Speaker 7: of breaking down corporate silos and bringing together teams that
- 8:05Speaker 7: maybe haven't historically worked together, but as they modernize, they
- 8:09Speaker 7: really will have to. And I think we're seeing this
- 8:12Speaker 7: in the h OUR space especially. Is this interest in
- 8:17Speaker 7: how do we bring HR into the modern era by
- 8:20Speaker 7: really understanding that we live in a technology centric world.
- 8:24Speaker 7: How do we make that technology human? How do we
- 8:26Speaker 7: work with people who are implementing that to have this
- 8:30Speaker 7: more holistic approach and bring together these different skill sets
- 8:34Speaker 7: and also upscale workers so that they are more effectively
- 8:38Speaker 7: able to meet in the middle to do that.
- 8:40Speaker 2: Interesting and Megan obviously is somebody who talks to a
- 8:44Speaker 2: lot of our customers. Just Desorion orstus to him among
- 8:46Speaker 2: others here. But I was wondering if you have any
- 8:49Speaker 2: kind of if you're seeing the breakdown of the silos
- 8:53Speaker 2: arian evid describes or advocates for actually happening in the
- 8:57Speaker 2: present tense, and what based upon those kind of customers
- 9:00Speaker 2: or interactions and kind of you know, DEX innovator interactions
- 9:06Speaker 2: you have with innovators index suggest that that next stage
- 9:10Speaker 2: is going to look like more generally.
- 9:14Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think like one of the cool things
- 9:18Speaker 3: about DEX from you know, speaking to customers over the
- 9:22Speaker 3: last couple of years is if you want to do
- 9:25Speaker 3: it well, if you want to like to echo what
- 9:27Speaker 3: Dina is saying, if you want to try to work
- 9:29Speaker 3: towards that maturity, it sort of has to be a
- 9:32Speaker 3: collaborative project. Like one team alone can impact some elements
- 9:37Speaker 3: of a digital employee experience within an organization, but if
- 9:41Speaker 3: it just stays within that one team, there's a limit, right,
- 9:44Speaker 3: and you might just always be in that sort of
- 9:46Speaker 3: reactive or what we call reactive plus place. But if
- 9:50Speaker 3: you want to be really effective and get kind of
- 9:52Speaker 3: the most out of the strategy, you've got to learn
- 9:55Speaker 3: how to reach out to other teams in a way
- 9:58Speaker 3: that brings them on board. And we've seen that with
- 10:00Speaker 3: our customers doing that within it right, So like learning
- 10:03Speaker 3: how to talk to the security team and what data
- 10:06Speaker 3: and what insights to share to bring them on board,
- 10:08Speaker 3: the application teams, you know, whoever, the network team. Now,
- 10:12Speaker 3: I think one of the next stages is how do
- 10:14Speaker 3: you reach across departments and in the same way, how
- 10:17Speaker 3: do you learn to speak their language to bring them
- 10:20Speaker 3: on board in a way where there isn't that conflict
- 10:23Speaker 3: of like I'm in control of the digital and play spirits. No, no,
- 10:26Speaker 3: i am, But rather we are, and how can we
- 10:29Speaker 3: work together to make it better for the whole and
- 10:32Speaker 3: keep it employee centric, human centric, Because I think the
- 10:36Speaker 3: risk with all of this, you know, exciting new technologies
- 10:41Speaker 3: that we're talking about, is that dex turns into the
- 10:45Speaker 3: next sort of chatbot that the person's just sitting there
- 10:48Speaker 3: typing agent Agent, Agent Agent over and over again because
- 10:51Speaker 3: they just like, please stop making me talk to this AI.
- 10:54Speaker 3: I just have a problem I need to solve right,
- 10:56Speaker 3: So that I think is the risk. But I think
- 10:58Speaker 3: if you learn how to work collaborative, collaboratively across teams
- 11:02Speaker 3: and get that sense of like we are in this
- 11:04Speaker 3: together to make the digital workplace the best it can
- 11:07Speaker 3: possibly be for our people, then I think you'll achieve
- 11:10Speaker 3: that efficiency. You'll achieve that productivity without creating that sort
- 11:14Speaker 3: of like corporate dystopia that I think is the possible
- 11:18Speaker 3: negative outcome.
- 11:20Speaker 4: Representative representative, get me a human and Tom, I think
- 11:24Speaker 4: that I think that part, that HR part, it's H
- 11:27Speaker 4: for a reason. It's for humans, And I think it
- 11:29Speaker 4: was the Nvidio CEO we mentioned this a couple of times,
- 11:31Speaker 4: said eventually it is going to be the HR of AI.
- 11:36Speaker 4: HR can't can't represent and can't manage AI is digital employees,
- 11:41Speaker 4: not human employees. So I think Dex has an opportunity
- 11:44Speaker 4: to be that, uh that HR manager of AI. In
- 11:48Speaker 4: some respects. It's got that the teams have to come together.
- 11:51Speaker 4: They can't do it in silos.
- 11:52Speaker 2: When I hear terms like dystopia, AI human, of course,
- 11:57Speaker 2: I want to hear Dana's take, Oh, of course. And
- 12:01Speaker 2: here's the matrix correspondence.
- 12:05Speaker 5: Yes, no, but I totally agree with everybody's input because
- 12:10Speaker 5: I've seen it multiple times and even here from customers
- 12:13Speaker 5: saying okay, human, human agent, or bring me a representative.
- 12:18Speaker 5: That's not how I want to handle my situation error right,
- 12:22Speaker 5: And this is where DEX and as it evolves, putting
- 12:25Speaker 5: people at heart. It's people who are going to be
- 12:28Speaker 5: helping people throughout the technology, throughout the many Asians, the
- 12:31Speaker 5: AI agents in the background, the digital agents. But then
- 12:36Speaker 5: you'll still need that human input. And I think with
- 12:40Speaker 5: DEX taking ourselves into the full transformation of it and
- 12:44Speaker 5: how we are changing the things that we are doing
- 12:47Speaker 5: day to day, we just need to keep that central
- 12:50Speaker 5: of focus not just towards it, but towards the whole business.
- 12:54Speaker 5: It's different departments, different people working together. It is not
- 12:58Speaker 5: the only focal point of responsibility from a digital perspective anymore.
- 13:02Speaker 5: It's everybody who's holding digital device, so basically every employee.
- 13:06Speaker 5: So we just need to have this look in how
- 13:09Speaker 5: we are making sure that our day to day lives
- 13:12Speaker 5: are changing and evolving actually into a more productive one.
- 13:17Speaker 2: And Oriana, in the chat, you are discussing this idea
- 13:20Speaker 2: of transparency as kind of key to the key to
- 13:24Speaker 2: kind of understanding the potential next stage in DEX and
- 13:27Speaker 2: its relation to adoption specifically, I wonder if you could
- 13:30Speaker 2: elaborate on that a little bit.
- 13:32Speaker 7: Yeah, So one of the topics that stood out for
- 13:36Speaker 7: me that we've talked about in a few previous episodes
- 13:39Speaker 7: are one sort of the proliferation of many different technologies, right,
- 13:44Speaker 7: the sort of explosion of different types of software people
- 13:47Speaker 7: are using, and of course AI as just mentioned, and
- 13:51Speaker 7: as these become such a huge part of the employee experience,
- 13:57Speaker 7: I think really being able to see that and have
- 14:00Speaker 7: consparency around what are people even using, is it serving
- 14:04Speaker 7: them or not? And what is the impact of all
- 14:07Speaker 7: of these processes and automations is really important. So at
- 14:11Speaker 7: the beginning, Dina had mentioned, you know, operationalization, and I'm
- 14:15Speaker 7: totally on board with that, and I was kind of thinking,
- 14:17Speaker 7: what's the next step from that, Right, we build all
- 14:19Speaker 7: these processes and then we need to see the impact,
- 14:22Speaker 7: and I think really being able to track that is
- 14:24Speaker 7: going to be a huge part of the future of DES.
- 14:27Speaker 7: It's going to be okay, now that we've automated all
- 14:30Speaker 7: this stuff, now that we've built all these processes. How
- 14:33Speaker 7: do we make sure that they are actually serving our
- 14:36Speaker 7: business goals, our human goals, all of those things.
- 14:42Speaker 2: And tim When we think about this notion of where
- 14:46Speaker 2: does DEX go next, I'm kind of conscious that for
- 14:49Speaker 2: someone like yourself, you came out of the heart that
- 14:52Speaker 2: you saw how much DEX was needed in that kind
- 14:55Speaker 2: of intensive you see it orientated environment. Is there a
- 15:01Speaker 2: danger in an industry getting ahead of itself and there's
- 15:03Speaker 2: so much still that needs fixing. There are so many
- 15:06Speaker 2: lights turning on in so many workplaces still around the world.
- 15:10Speaker 2: You know, we are not yet there in that sort
- 15:12Speaker 2: of illuminated state, but you eventually experienced and enjoyed.
- 15:18Speaker 4: It's one of the I think, and I was telling
- 15:20Speaker 4: Pedro this last week, it's one of the most frustrating
- 15:22Speaker 4: parts of my job, and I think of many people
- 15:24Speaker 4: at next think is as an IT person, I know
- 15:27Speaker 4: so much value can be had from this platform. Why
- 15:31Speaker 4: is it taken so long to get everybody on board?
- 15:33Speaker 4: I mean, I've been here ten years now and there's
- 15:35Speaker 4: still work to do. So it's tough to think about
- 15:37Speaker 4: what happens next for DEX when there's still so much
- 15:41Speaker 4: opportunity for people that haven't even touched the surface with it.
- 15:44Speaker 4: So I do think, and this was a conversation with
- 15:47Speaker 4: Pedro as well, is what is our next big thing
- 15:50Speaker 4: as we start to expand our product portfolio? Right, some
- 15:53Speaker 4: vendors are looking at bringing in legacy tools and integrating
- 15:58Speaker 4: with remote control or whatever, whatever have you. What's our
- 16:01Speaker 4: next thing that's going to make sense for you? See?
- 16:04Speaker 4: And it really does come down to leveraging AI more
- 16:06Speaker 4: and more. The data is the important part, and let's
- 16:09Speaker 4: now build AI on top of it to bring even
- 16:11Speaker 4: more visibility. The thing I love about talking to people
- 16:14Speaker 4: about next think is that holy cow moment that oh
- 16:18Speaker 4: my god, what did I just see? And that has
- 16:21Speaker 4: existed in the product for twenty years. So now we're
- 16:24Speaker 4: incrementally adding to more and more holy cow moments to
- 16:27Speaker 4: bring it to light for even more and more people.
- 16:30Speaker 4: I think AI is going to be the catalyst that
- 16:32Speaker 4: really gets people into the Dex platform because it's such
- 16:36Speaker 4: an industry wide phenomenon. Right, Dex was very specific thing,
- 16:41Speaker 4: a very specific holy cow moment, and really needed people
- 16:43Speaker 4: to get on board with it. AI is pervasive in
- 16:46Speaker 4: everything now, so when you can show the enlightenment you
- 16:49Speaker 4: get with DEX with AI. I think it's that's the
- 16:53Speaker 4: catalyst get that's going to get more and more folks
- 16:55Speaker 4: on board.
- 16:58Speaker 2: And yeah, that's sort of interesting. I love that theme.
- 17:00Speaker 2: Anybody else got anything to add about this kind of
- 17:04Speaker 2: We've been thinking in the sort of full leadership wing
- 17:07Speaker 2: about what the next period of digital transformation looks like,
- 17:11Speaker 2: for instance, which we which we absolutely assume is going
- 17:14Speaker 2: to be driven by AI, and what different challenges that
- 17:19Speaker 2: will throw up for it and for the employees who
- 17:23Speaker 2: are being asked to adapt to these new transformational technologies
- 17:28Speaker 2: from it. Does anyone have any thoughts on the world
- 17:31Speaker 2: DEX can play in kind of bridging this gap or
- 17:34Speaker 2: helping us over this period of transition in the next
- 17:37Speaker 2: few years.
- 17:37Speaker 5: Processes, I think we need to be aligning more with
- 17:40Speaker 5: putting processes in place. We spend some time with the
- 17:45Speaker 5: technology and people. We need to align it more towards
- 17:48Speaker 5: the value. So going forward towards the actionable aspect, how
- 17:53Speaker 5: we can put a full journey. DEX is not just
- 17:56Speaker 5: a project that you need to do now, It's a
- 17:58Speaker 5: transformational journey. People need to be putting this into the
- 18:02Speaker 5: center of the operation and then coordinate and communicate with
- 18:06Speaker 5: all of the business stakeholders in place. This is how
- 18:10Speaker 5: we are going to be supporting our employees in this
- 18:13Speaker 5: changing AI world. Decks Next however, we want to name
- 18:16Speaker 5: it superb.
- 18:17Speaker 2: Well, if these are the topics for If these topics
- 18:20Speaker 2: interest you, you know v the impact of of AI
- 18:25Speaker 2: on decks, for future of decks, for future role of
- 18:28Speaker 2: decks in the wider business. I can assure you that
- 18:31Speaker 2: you can anticipate some great new research from Next Think.
- 18:36Speaker 2: It's very much in the pipeline and you're going to
- 18:38Speaker 2: see it covered here and on the Decks Hub. So
- 18:41Speaker 2: keep your eye peeled for all that and we will
- 18:45Speaker 2: we will see you all next week for another deck show.
- 18:48Speaker 2: Just remains for me to thank everybody, Megan, Sean, Dina,
- 18:52Speaker 2: Tim and Oriana. It's lovely to have a full house
- 18:55Speaker 2: for reality bites. And we will see you all soon.
- 19:00Speaker 1: Bye bye. To make sure that you never miss an episode,
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- 19:25Speaker 1: Until next time.