Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / ❤️ DEX SHOW LIVE IN LISBON: Official Tim Flower Goodbye + More

Transcript

❤️ DEX SHOW LIVE IN LISBON: Official Tim Flower Goodbye + More · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

0:00
Speaker 1: Please welcome to the stage one half of the Decks Show.
0:05
Speaker 1: Your host, mister Thomas McGrath.
0:11
Speaker 2: Welcome it, change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim
0:14
Speaker 2: Flower and Tom McGrath.
0:16
Speaker 1: Let's get into it.
0:20
Speaker 3: Hello everyone, thanks for having us back to SKO. It's
0:23
Speaker 3: wonderful to be here. Get your handkerchiefs at the ready, everybody.
0:27
Speaker 3: It's a very special deck Show and it's also a
0:30
Speaker 3: somewhat melancholic deck show, right, and we're going to go
0:33
Speaker 3: into why that is momentarily, but let me just take
0:35
Speaker 3: you all back to the beginning of the Deck Show, which,
0:39
Speaker 3: if you can believe, it was in December of twenty twenty,
0:42
Speaker 3: that very on Christmas y Christmas in the middle of COVID, right,
0:46
Speaker 3: that's when we launched the podcast, and it quickly became
0:50
Speaker 3: quite a big success. You know, people were quickly getting
0:53
Speaker 3: in touch. We saw the numbers going up, and since
0:55
Speaker 3: then we've done over two hundred episodes of the show.
0:59
Speaker 3: We've done Deck Show lives in different continents, we've presented skos,
1:04
Speaker 3: we've presented experiences, and the show keeps growing. So last
1:08
Speaker 3: year we had ten thousand downloads of the podcast alone
1:12
Speaker 3: on audio platforms, which was amazing. And so the reason
1:16
Speaker 3: I keep saying we is not just to allude to
1:17
Speaker 3: the team who helps produce the show, who are wonderful,
1:20
Speaker 3: but to the fact that I have a podcasting partner,
1:23
Speaker 3: a podcasting other half, who I've been side by side
1:26
Speaker 3: with now for the entire time. And I don't think
1:30
Speaker 3: I don't think we've done more than sort of five
1:32
Speaker 3: or ten episodes without one another together, right, And as
1:36
Speaker 3: you probably know, that's Tim Flower. And as you've probably heard,
1:39
Speaker 3: Tim Flower is leaving Next Think. He's staying in the
1:42
Speaker 3: deck space, but he's leaving next Think, and he's leaving
1:44
Speaker 3: the Deck show. Can I have a big sad noise
1:46
Speaker 3: from everybody, please? And I'd just like to say, working
1:51
Speaker 3: with Tim, before we welcome him, welcome him on, let's
1:54
Speaker 3: embarrass him a little bit, right, working with Tim, Other
1:58
Speaker 3: than the great professional and intelligence and commitment and expertise
2:03
Speaker 3: and deep gravelly American voice he brought to every single
2:07
Speaker 3: podcast we recorded, I really appreciate Tim's amazing calm, you know,
2:12
Speaker 3: doing something like this, for instance, I get in a
2:14
Speaker 3: big flap about it, and Tim is just super cool,
2:18
Speaker 3: always super cool. Whatever we've done. He was always unruffled
2:22
Speaker 3: and over the last few weeks as people heard Tim's news,
2:25
Speaker 3: I had loads of people reach out to me, and
2:27
Speaker 3: a lot of people would say, what are you going
2:29
Speaker 3: to do about the show? And I'd say, let the
2:31
Speaker 3: widow breathe for a minute, you know, like give me
2:34
Speaker 3: a bit of space. I'll think about it later. And
2:36
Speaker 3: other people would say, my goodness, were really going to
2:39
Speaker 3: miss him because he wasn't just a Dex show co host.
2:41
Speaker 3: He was also a Dex evangelist and he traveled the
2:45
Speaker 3: absolute world wherever he was needed. I'm sure so many
2:48
Speaker 3: people here can testify. He would come, he would present,
2:51
Speaker 3: he would host discussions, he would talk to customers, he
2:54
Speaker 3: would share his time and his expertise with unstinting professionalism.
2:58
Speaker 3: And so let's give him a huge, grateful welcome onto
3:02
Speaker 3: this stage, Tim Flower.
3:03
Speaker 4: Everybody get your handkerchief ready.
3:16
Speaker 3: I warned you.
3:16
Speaker 5: I warned you. Yeah, you already rattled me.
3:19
Speaker 3: Kelln, sit down. I'm going to interview you for once
3:21
Speaker 3: to begin with, right, which, so Tim, like some people
3:26
Speaker 3: might not know your origin story four hundred.
3:29
Speaker 5: Years, I've probably told it a hundred times.
3:32
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, four hundred and fifty years at the Hartford
3:34
Speaker 3: before you began your short stinted Next Think. So ten
3:37
Speaker 3: years ago, I'm interested walk us for it. What was
3:40
Speaker 3: Next Thing like as an organization then, particularly when we
3:43
Speaker 3: can trust it with this scale of operation today.
3:46
Speaker 5: So I start this story by saying that the reason
3:49
Speaker 5: I came to the Next Think was having been a customer.
3:51
Speaker 5: And we have lots of customers who are enthusiastic about
3:54
Speaker 5: the platform. Right, But back then, we had ten people
3:58
Speaker 5: in total in the US. Think about that in the
4:00
Speaker 5: US for the US team. Now the size of that
4:02
Speaker 5: team a couple hundred people. We had three reps across
4:05
Speaker 5: the whole country, three sees, a PS, a half of
4:10
Speaker 5: a lawyer, half of a sales ops. And the biggest
4:13
Speaker 5: struggle both in my sales cycle and as I worked
4:15
Speaker 5: with the team implementing, they were telling me that they
4:18
Speaker 5: were really struggling with articulating value. How do we talk
4:22
Speaker 5: to the C suite? What pains do you I would
4:24
Speaker 5: actually come in as a customer and present to their
4:26
Speaker 5: QBR about why I bought and what the pains were.
4:29
Speaker 5: So the goal for me to come to Next Think,
4:32
Speaker 5: and it took me about a year to convince Pagro
4:34
Speaker 5: to come over without a quota. The goal was to
4:38
Speaker 5: help them all be more successful, help my teammates be successful.
4:41
Speaker 5: And I knew that this company as a whole, about
4:43
Speaker 5: one hundred and fifty people at the time, we're also
4:46
Speaker 5: going to be hugely successful. And for me to sit
4:49
Speaker 5: here now, a couple of days before I depart and
4:51
Speaker 5: seeing what it's become and what's left or what's next
4:54
Speaker 5: in the next ten years is hugely satisfying to be
4:57
Speaker 5: a part of.
4:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, he used the phrase early on, and the putch
5:00
Speaker 3: your mission accomplished, you know, And then it's not just
5:02
Speaker 3: two hundred and ten or whatever it is, podcasts and
5:05
Speaker 3: millions of miles of the clock, right, but it's also
5:08
Speaker 3: two books, you know, The Dummies Guide to Decks published
5:12
Speaker 3: under your name, and how does it? What is your
5:15
Speaker 3: main read? Now you look at the deck space and
5:18
Speaker 3: you look at the next five years, what stands out
5:20
Speaker 3: to you about it?
5:22
Speaker 5: I think if there's almost more opportunity in this space
5:25
Speaker 5: than there was when I first had my first holy
5:27
Speaker 5: cow moment, when you look at what we're doing with AI,
5:30
Speaker 5: both figuring out how enterprises can adopt AI and now
5:33
Speaker 5: what Spark is going to do to this environment We've
5:36
Speaker 5: talked a lot about deskops, and we'll talk with Tracy
5:38
Speaker 5: a little bit about desksops too. Enterprises are still figuring
5:42
Speaker 5: out how they're going to integrate AI across their application
5:46
Speaker 5: suite and across their employees. Spark's going to change the
5:49
Speaker 5: game to manage that environment. So I can't wait to
5:53
Speaker 5: and Sam it continues his team's continue to innovate and
5:57
Speaker 5: bring new stuff. When I came over, I said, well,
5:59
Speaker 5: how much more they really be? Are we going to
6:01
Speaker 5: do software delivery? A We're going to do patch management?
6:03
Speaker 5: Are we going to do security? They didn't have to
6:05
Speaker 5: tap into any of that. Innovation after innovation after innovation,
6:09
Speaker 5: and there's disguise the limit.
6:11
Speaker 3: What would you say to a new star sharing the audience,
6:13
Speaker 3: maybe a BdL or somebody who's just joined the organization,
6:16
Speaker 3: about the opportunity and the culture that next thing can
6:19
Speaker 3: offer somebody to fulfill their professional dreams effectively.
6:24
Speaker 5: I would say, soak it all in and without question,
6:29
Speaker 5: each and every one of you is open and has
6:32
Speaker 5: the same goal that I had when I came here.
6:34
Speaker 5: Help your peers be successful. So if you're new at
6:36
Speaker 5: the company, don't be shy to go tap sorry, Pedro,
6:40
Speaker 5: Go tap Pedro on the shoulder and get a few
6:42
Speaker 5: minutes with him, or tap into some other expertise. I
6:46
Speaker 5: know that I have a little bit of an extra
6:49
Speaker 5: I won't call it privilege, but an ability. Over the
6:51
Speaker 5: years because of my role, I've talked with almost each
6:55
Speaker 5: and every one of you, So we don't all have
6:56
Speaker 5: that opportunity. And by the way, I want to thank
6:59
Speaker 5: all of you for welcoming me into your territories and
7:02
Speaker 5: your places of business and making me feel welcome and
7:05
Speaker 5: doing that. But if you're new, take advantage of as
7:08
Speaker 5: many of the professionals in the rumors you can.
7:12
Speaker 3: I think we've got to roast them a little bit, now,
7:13
Speaker 3: do we agree? Bringing Okay, so I got I got
7:18
Speaker 3: a quiz for him, multiple choice, okay, and it's called
7:22
Speaker 3: this is your next Thing, life, Tim. I've done a
7:24
Speaker 3: little digging, okay, But don't don't take this first one
7:28
Speaker 3: the wrong way. This first one's a bit in jest.
7:30
Speaker 5: But I'm doing this whether we don't let him gild you.
7:32
Speaker 3: These are all surprise questions. So which department, Tim, when
7:36
Speaker 3: they heard you were leaving Next Thing, looked to the
7:39
Speaker 3: sky and said, thank God, thank God, what time? Was
7:42
Speaker 3: it content certainly not field, certainly not commercial, no way,
7:49
Speaker 3: or was it expenses?
7:53
Speaker 5: I thought there was going to be hard questions.
7:56
Speaker 3: Well, that's just teeing us.
8:00
Speaker 5: Harms probably knows sense very well. There was a time
8:04
Speaker 5: before we had travel perk, before we were putting everything
8:06
Speaker 5: on our personal card, flights, hotels, and in the US
8:09
Speaker 5: it's not like Europe you need an airplane for everything.
8:11
Speaker 5: I had the highest expenses in the company and I
8:14
Speaker 5: didn't have many friends there.
8:16
Speaker 3: They still they didn't say, thank God, But I did
8:18
Speaker 3: email and ask email them and ask for some dirt.
8:21
Speaker 3: So so you look, as you said, one of the
8:24
Speaker 3: big travelers in Next Think history. I would say, I've
8:26
Speaker 3: been to Japan, Australia or Amsterdam. You've been all over
8:29
Speaker 3: the world. And here's another question for you in your
8:33
Speaker 3: U in the US alone, how many nights have you
8:36
Speaker 3: spent in hotels? As a Next thinker, we've got free
8:41
Speaker 3: choices one hundred and eighty You have the answer to that.
8:43
Speaker 3: I have the answer, isn't that cool?
8:44
Speaker 5: Wow?
8:45
Speaker 3: One hundred and eighty seven scary? One hundred and ninety
8:48
Speaker 3: seven or two hundred and seven?
8:50
Speaker 5: Is this yearly or across the ten. This is ten years.
8:54
Speaker 3: Across ten years in according to my data. I don't know.
8:57
Speaker 3: I mean, this wasn't infinity it so.
9:01
Speaker 5: I'll give I'll tell you I average about one hundred
9:03
Speaker 5: and twenty nights a year all told around the world.
9:07
Speaker 3: Wow.
9:08
Speaker 5: Crazy, So that's why I don't think I think it's
9:10
Speaker 5: higher than two hundred. But I'll take the whatever max
9:12
Speaker 5: number you have, probably triple it.
9:14
Speaker 3: Okay, well, well past hour, but that'll help explain to him.
9:19
Speaker 3: I feel you will CO two emissions. Who thought I
9:23
Speaker 3: could have got these? Right?
9:25
Speaker 1: An incredible one hundred and twenty five thousand, one fifty
9:29
Speaker 1: six kilograms or one hundred and fifty one hundred and
9:33
Speaker 1: twenty five tons a CO two.
9:35
Speaker 3: Round of applause? Everybody, isn't that? Isn't that phenomenal?
9:39
Speaker 5: Whatever it is, I need to talk to somebody about
9:41
Speaker 5: buying some offset credits.
9:43
Speaker 6: Maybe.
9:43
Speaker 3: Maybe question is what would next thing have to do
9:46
Speaker 3: to offset this period? And plant one hundred thousand trees,
9:52
Speaker 3: enable dark mode on four million laptops, let go between
9:56
Speaker 3: eighty two hundred remote workers or d any of your
10:00
Speaker 3: I think it's all of the above.
10:01
Speaker 5: And by the way, this is going to lead to
10:03
Speaker 5: none of you ever traveling again.
10:05
Speaker 3: Ton, you said to me, some people are not going
10:07
Speaker 3: to be happy with his questions. You realize that. Well, look,
10:11
Speaker 3: that's enough for roasting you for now, I think, but
10:14
Speaker 3: do you fancy doing one last interview? One last Tim
10:17
Speaker 3: and Tom Thomas.
10:18
Speaker 5: You need to bring Tracy up before we do that, though,
10:21
Speaker 5: I want to take the opportunity. I can't call out
10:23
Speaker 5: individual names, but I do want to just take the
10:25
Speaker 5: opportunity to thank each and every one of being it.
10:27
Speaker 5: For those of you who know Steve Martin, I'm a
10:29
Speaker 5: huge Steve Martin fan. I do want to thank each
10:31
Speaker 5: and every one of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you,
10:34
Speaker 5: thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,
10:35
Speaker 5: thank you, thank you, thank you. Thanks It's going to
10:36
Speaker 5: take a while. Thank you, thank you, thank you. No, seriously,
10:38
Speaker 5: I appreciate each and every one of you, and it's
10:40
Speaker 5: been a time in my life.
10:49
Speaker 3: There may be one last goodbye at the end here,
10:50
Speaker 3: but before we get to that, let's welcome Tracy Dan,
10:54
Speaker 3: a customer success director and our friend and repeat guest
10:57
Speaker 3: on the show. Okay Gray see welcome handshake. People know
11:07
Speaker 3: I'm a hugger on this day of all days, and
11:10
Speaker 3: old handshake.
11:11
Speaker 5: Goodbye.
11:12
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Tracy. For anybody who doesn't doesn't know you, introduce
11:16
Speaker 3: yourself and your role here for us.
11:19
Speaker 7: Yes, I have been working in technology for a very
11:23
Speaker 7: long time, in cutting edge technology and focusing mainly on
11:28
Speaker 7: digital transformation and customer experience, and I brought those skills
11:34
Speaker 7: to next Think to focus on employee experience because you
11:38
Speaker 7: all know a successful company starts with the employee one percent.
11:42
Speaker 3: And we're going to get a little bit into decksops today,
11:45
Speaker 3: which people who have already had a lot of mention
11:47
Speaker 3: of already, and I know John's going to be going
11:48
Speaker 3: into it a little bit more in his keynote tomorrow
11:51
Speaker 3: before that vote not your first SKO, but any means, Tracy,
11:55
Speaker 3: how's it going has been being for you so far?
11:57
Speaker 7: It's been brilliant, as they always are. Life fourth and
12:01
Speaker 7: I do have a joint favorite event, and that's experience
12:04
Speaker 7: and SKO. Experience for the customers and SKO for the
12:09
Speaker 7: people because I don't get to see everyone all the time,
12:11
Speaker 7: and this is the one time of the year where
12:13
Speaker 7: I'm just filled with seeing all my fabulously smart colleagues.
12:17
Speaker 3: It's a great vibe, isn't it all?
12:19
Speaker 5: Yes, always, So let's connect the dots between those customers.
12:23
Speaker 3: That's such a classic tem frames and what's happening.
12:26
Speaker 5: I love the customers that you work with, Yes, are
12:29
Speaker 5: going to be able to take advantage of all the
12:31
Speaker 5: great stuff that's coming. What do you think what have
12:33
Speaker 5: you seen today or in recent memory that you believe
12:37
Speaker 5: is going to have the biggest impact for them?
12:40
Speaker 7: Well, you mentioned it right, Spark. However, I'd like to
12:45
Speaker 7: go a little bit deeper because I am in customer
12:47
Speaker 7: success and and give that part of the intro. And
12:52
Speaker 7: the one thing that's critical is when customers understand the
12:55
Speaker 7: focus and actually what they want to get out of
12:59
Speaker 7: next think and the strategy, and when they're clear on that,
13:04
Speaker 7: they get value faster, They get results faster. Their teams
13:08
Speaker 7: know what to prioritize and they're working on the right things,
13:11
Speaker 7: and it just enables value realization through their deck strategy
13:15
Speaker 7: so much faster.
13:17
Speaker 5: And you work with customers that are at various stages,
13:21
Speaker 5: and outside of the people in this room, the four
13:24
Speaker 5: or five hundred people that are here, the folks that
13:26
Speaker 5: are listening to this episode are also in various stages.
13:30
Speaker 5: What do you believe that both of those groups most
13:34
Speaker 5: need to understand about the concept of decks beyond the technology.
13:40
Speaker 5: So let's talk about dex spops. What are the most
13:42
Speaker 5: important parts of deksops that they really should pay attention to.
13:47
Speaker 7: They need to bring their organization along the journey with them, right,
13:52
Speaker 7: And that's what desops means one hundred percent. It's a philosophy,
13:57
Speaker 7: it's a way of the company operating, and it's an
14:03
Speaker 7: experience an employee experience first mindset and that mind shift
14:08
Speaker 7: mindset shift is not easy, right, and this is what
14:13
Speaker 7: we call dexops. Over the years, since I've been here
14:17
Speaker 7: for four years now, we took our customers on the
14:20
Speaker 7: journey from to infinity and then last year we really
14:24
Speaker 7: focused on value and value realization and changing that mindset
14:28
Speaker 7: to focus on value. And through that journey, we really
14:31
Speaker 7: started to realize we needed to pool all of our
14:36
Speaker 7: expertise together into a framework to help them no matter
14:40
Speaker 7: where they were on the maturity cycle. And that framework
14:43
Speaker 7: we call Navigator, and it covers all those key areas people, process, technology,
14:48
Speaker 7: communication and value.
14:51
Speaker 5: And for those that I've been out on the road with,
14:54
Speaker 5: you've heard me for ten years preaching that and it's
14:56
Speaker 5: what I did as a customer even but to have
14:58
Speaker 5: a framework now wrapped around, to have structure and make
15:01
Speaker 5: it a repeatable process, I think has been huge. When
15:04
Speaker 5: you look at customers right now that have started that
15:08
Speaker 5: journey and are say, six months in, what kinds of
15:12
Speaker 5: things do they find on that journey that were unanticipated?
15:17
Speaker 5: Either the good stuff, the oh my god, I had
15:20
Speaker 5: no idea to be going to be able to do this,
15:22
Speaker 5: or the difficult things or the hurdles. What's that six
15:26
Speaker 5: month part of the journey look like?
15:29
Speaker 7: So during the sales cycle they learn a lot, right,
15:32
Speaker 7: our technology is broad and deep, right, and then at
15:37
Speaker 7: six months they start to understand the full scope of
15:41
Speaker 7: the possibility and the art of the possible, and sometimes
15:45
Speaker 7: you don't know what you don't know. And at that
15:47
Speaker 7: six month period it's so critical that they go and
15:51
Speaker 7: revisit their deck strategy and the expectations that they want
15:55
Speaker 7: to get out of Next Think in order to really
15:58
Speaker 7: really capitalize on their investment with Next Think.
16:03
Speaker 3: Amazing to to Morephia Tracy complete these sentences okay on
16:10
Speaker 3: the spot on the stage in twenty twenty six. The
16:14
Speaker 3: key to deck success is dex SOPs, fast, simpler.
16:21
Speaker 7: Grounded in the framework of navigator nice.
16:26
Speaker 3: How would you would you would you say the same same,
16:27
Speaker 3: would you say texops is as essential is.
16:32
Speaker 5: We've seen so many customers go technology first. I need
16:35
Speaker 5: the easy button. Just buy me a tool that's going
16:38
Speaker 5: to go solve all my problems. Before this, it was
16:41
Speaker 5: which MSP can I give my problems to? I'm tired
16:44
Speaker 5: of dealing with this, Give it to my give it
16:45
Speaker 5: to my providers. So I think operationalizing with that kind
16:50
Speaker 5: of a framework is critical for anybody's success.
16:53
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Okay, I'm going to do you question for you
16:56
Speaker 3: both again. Then that's yeah, but you first, Tracy into
17:00
Speaker 3: twenty six. The fastest way to fail at DECKS.
17:04
Speaker 7: Is focusing on use cases alone without linking it to
17:10
Speaker 7: your business strategy and outcomes.
17:12
Speaker 3: Interesting.
17:13
Speaker 5: Interesting, not communicating community. We told as a customer, we
17:20
Speaker 5: told thirty thousand people what we were doing. It's like
17:22
Speaker 5: quitting smoking. If you don't tell anybody, you're not going
17:24
Speaker 5: to do it. So communicating to everybody what your strategy is,
17:27
Speaker 5: what your plan is, and then when you are on
17:29
Speaker 5: that journey, communicate the value you're achieving. Communicate what you're doing,
17:32
Speaker 5: don't keep it hidden. I think communication is the biggest.
17:35
Speaker 3: Part Tracy before we love you and Levia, any any
17:39
Speaker 3: reminiscences about about the outgoing Tim Flower here.
17:43
Speaker 7: Well, I'm just very honored to be interviewed on your
17:47
Speaker 7: very last DEX show. So thank you very much honored,
17:51
Speaker 7: just not the.
17:52
Speaker 3: Very last Deck show. This show will go on. It'll
17:54
Speaker 3: be albeit bereft of our beloved Tim Flower. I want
17:58
Speaker 3: to there was no winning on that.
18:00
Speaker 5: I was there.
18:00
Speaker 3: I don't want to Elogia.
18:04
Speaker 5: I'm gonog go get.
18:07
Speaker 3: Your dictionaries out, Tracy Downer. Everybody right, thank you, Thanky,
18:17
Speaker 3: and and now we're going to welcome one surprise guest
18:20
Speaker 3: and put the focus, put the spotlight back on you
18:24
Speaker 3: for the last few minutes, embarrass you a little bit further,
18:27
Speaker 3: and have a proper leave taking. Please, everybody, welcome back
18:30
Speaker 3: to the stage. Pedro, Badams, come on over, m Thank you,
18:39
Speaker 3: appreciate you, Thanks so, Pedro. Tim has already alluded to
18:48
Speaker 3: that origin story ten years ago and what a different
18:51
Speaker 3: company next thing was then? Do you remember that encounter
18:55
Speaker 3: that in fact there was a there was a funny story?
18:57
Speaker 1: Was it.
18:59
Speaker 5: Out dayne Kinghorn?
19:00
Speaker 3: Had you got about that? It was the story before
19:02
Speaker 3: the story, the story before the story. God, before we.
19:06
Speaker 6: Had the three sales and the three pre sales in
19:08
Speaker 6: the US, we didn't have anyone and it was me
19:12
Speaker 6: traveling from Europe to the US and we actually I
19:16
Speaker 6: think this is back maybe twenty ten, twenty eleven. Yeah, well,
19:20
Speaker 6: actually we were very close to open the headquarters of
19:22
Speaker 6: the company in Utah. Actually eventually we decided that some
19:27
Speaker 6: people had to move to Utah and then they changed
19:29
Speaker 6: my mind and they're still there anyway. So one of
19:34
Speaker 6: the first customers that we were visiting was Harford with
19:38
Speaker 6: one of these I was actually with a consulting company
19:40
Speaker 6: that were helping us to really open the US market.
19:44
Speaker 6: And the first I think the first customer in the US. Actually,
19:47
Speaker 6: the first meeting that I had in the US was
19:49
Speaker 6: at Harfwall with Team You remember, it was two years.
19:53
Speaker 5: Before I had done business with Dwyann king Horn with
19:57
Speaker 5: another software product, so we had a relationship and he said,
20:00
Speaker 5: I want you to talk to this CEO from Switzerland.
20:03
Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, So he was very polite.
20:07
Speaker 6: He was trying to figure out what obviously was not
20:09
Speaker 6: dex was, you know, analytics, analytics and inducer monitoring technology.
20:15
Speaker 6: We didn't close the deal I think we didn't even do.
20:17
Speaker 5: A POV even get out of the lobby. We had
20:19
Speaker 5: a coffee in the.
20:20
Speaker 3: Last Oh that's right, that's right. I didn't make it
20:22
Speaker 3: out of a lobby, that's right.
20:24
Speaker 6: Yeah, that work, Yeah, yeah, And yeah that was the
20:30
Speaker 6: first time. And then we came back maybe a couple
20:32
Speaker 6: of years later, and it was a different situation and
20:35
Speaker 6: you saw they need So it took like two years
20:37
Speaker 6: of nurturing and then yeah, we closed the first deal.
20:40
Speaker 6: I think Hartford maybe became customer number four five in
20:44
Speaker 6: the US, and yeah, and the rest is history.
20:47
Speaker 5: So yeah, the way I tell it is, Pedro came
20:50
Speaker 5: in to sell this analytics thing and said, I don't
20:52
Speaker 5: know what analytics is. How am I going to use analytics?
20:54
Speaker 5: The pitch was kind of I couldn't figure out how,
20:56
Speaker 5: not only how I was going to use it, but
20:57
Speaker 5: how do I buy it? How do I pay for it?
20:59
Speaker 5: Two years later, we're in a world of hurt and
21:01
Speaker 5: a back knocking on Page's door. Do you have any
21:04
Speaker 5: of those analytics? I need any?
21:08
Speaker 3: Any reflection on team's contribution of last ten years PA drama.
21:12
Speaker 6: Generally, well, obviously, I mean so many at multiple levels.
21:17
Speaker 6: First on the personal side, I mean, amazing friend, amazing partner.
21:23
Speaker 6: I think, I think I'm not far if I say
21:27
Speaker 6: that it's probably one of the most loved persons across
21:29
Speaker 6: the company. Has helped so many people, so many teams,
21:34
Speaker 6: I mean, so many fans like amazing, We all learn
21:40
Speaker 6: so much, so many stories. At a professional level. It
21:45
Speaker 6: was huge and it's still huge. But at the beginning
21:47
Speaker 6: of next thing, at the beginning of Decks, we needed
21:51
Speaker 6: actually someone with credibility going to customers because we didn't
21:55
Speaker 6: have customers. So team really played a critical role at
21:59
Speaker 6: the very beginning to really explain from the customer perspective,
22:03
Speaker 6: you know, all the value of Decks. And then he
22:06
Speaker 6: became a dex evangelist and obviously I took it to
22:09
Speaker 6: the next level year after year. So so many stories
22:12
Speaker 6: with Gardner in every single conference as a speaker, with
22:16
Speaker 6: you know, customers in many in many different sessions. So yeah, tremendous.
22:22
Speaker 6: I think, actually, probably you don't know that, but after
22:26
Speaker 6: you kind of we kind of announced that you were
22:28
Speaker 6: living and all that, there were two or three customers
22:31
Speaker 6: that they reached out to me and they said, I
22:33
Speaker 6: want to be the next team. They have a job
22:35
Speaker 6: for the next team. So no, no, we have the
22:37
Speaker 6: best team.
22:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's that's how it to me. I'm screening,
22:44
Speaker 3: I'm screening, so yeah, that's amazing. And just a general reflection.
22:49
Speaker 3: I mean, we had that nice thing earlier where long
22:51
Speaker 3: term Next Thing because all stood up, so many people
22:53
Speaker 3: been here over five years, ten years, and what does
22:56
Speaker 3: that mean to you as a founder CEO? Is that
22:58
Speaker 3: important to you? Like to have a company where people
23:01
Speaker 3: can flourish over quite a long period of time.
23:03
Speaker 6: And I mean I think I said that maybe last
23:08
Speaker 6: year or the year before myself and the founders. We
23:13
Speaker 6: never founded the Next Thing as a transactional company for
23:16
Speaker 6: a few years, you know, selling the company and then
23:21
Speaker 6: move on to the next thing. We always wanted Next
23:24
Speaker 6: Thing as a place to learn, to grow, to conquer
23:27
Speaker 6: new new summits, to really go beyond our limits.
23:32
Speaker 2: You know.
23:34
Speaker 6: Learning together is about the journey. And obviously five ten years,
23:38
Speaker 6: twenty years, why not thirty years? As long as you know,
23:42
Speaker 6: we are enjoying the journey. We are putting innovation out there,
23:45
Speaker 6: Customers are following us. I'm actually every year I'm more
23:49
Speaker 6: and more excited, and people they ask me why.
23:52
Speaker 3: It's because I love it.
23:53
Speaker 6: I mean, that's really what I think. It's actually my
23:55
Speaker 6: purpose in life.
23:56
Speaker 3: That's nice. Yeah, man, we appreciate it. I think it
24:00
Speaker 3: is a good place to work. I feel like saying
24:02
Speaker 3: one One more funny thing about Tim, which is one
24:05
Speaker 3: thing I'll really miss, right is whenever he's in Boston
24:08
Speaker 3: and I speak to him, I say, what did you
24:10
Speaker 3: do last night? He goes, we shut Luckies? And if
24:14
Speaker 3: you know, Lucky's it's like a dive a dive bar
24:17
Speaker 3: in Boston, but doesn't close like so. I don't know
24:19
Speaker 3: how many how he shut it so many times, and
24:22
Speaker 3: it's usually like Tim and like the four youngest BDRs
24:25
Speaker 3: in the company.
24:26
Speaker 8: And everybody else gets older and has to back out.
24:30
Speaker 8: Tim's down year upon years shutting Lucky's down. And I
24:33
Speaker 8: literally reached out for comments to the manager of Luckies.
24:36
Speaker 8: You know anything you want to say. He just said
24:39
Speaker 8: thank you. Ye, he said thank you.
24:40
Speaker 3: I still got a tab there, and they go, you
24:43
Speaker 3: kept him afloat. You know my move?
24:44
Speaker 5: Now though, as I got older, it's got them all
24:46
Speaker 5: fired up to go to Luckies and then go to
24:47
Speaker 5: my hotel room.
24:48
Speaker 3: All right, Oh, I haven't heard that yet. I haven't
24:50
Speaker 3: heard that yet, But look, I think maybe we we
24:54
Speaker 3: you have something for Tim before we wishing goodbye? Right,
24:57
Speaker 3: he is a he is a ten next thing veteran
25:01
Speaker 3: taking leave, and we know what that means, don't We have.
25:04
Speaker 6: Time every we'll have a little to rise for your team.
25:08
Speaker 6: You deserve much more, but just a little thing. So
25:11
Speaker 6: obviously the ten years Rolex for you all. I want
25:14
Speaker 6: to stand up. Everybody, please stand up. Give a big, big,
25:18
Speaker 6: big applause.
25:20
Speaker 5: I appreciate you, appreciate you too.
25:25
Speaker 3: Buy congrats. No congrats, it's too much, too much.
25:32
Speaker 6: Love.
25:32
Speaker 5: There no words. I have no words. Thank you, appreciate, appreciate, appreciate.
25:47
Speaker 3: Its gonna sound really bad on the podcast. I'm sorry
25:49
Speaker 3: I was interrupted.
25:49
Speaker 5: No, I have no words. As the words try to
25:52
Speaker 5: come out, I have no words. I appreciate each and
25:54
Speaker 5: every one of you so best, the best time in
25:56
Speaker 5: my life.
25:58
Speaker 2: To make sure that you never miss an episode, subscribe
26:00
Speaker 2: to the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite
26:03
Speaker 2: podcast player, and if you're listening on Apple podcasts, make
26:07
Speaker 2: sure to leave a rating of the show. Just tap
26:09
Speaker 2: the number of stars you think the podcast deserves. If
26:12
Speaker 2: you'd like to learn more about how Next think can
26:14
Speaker 2: help me improve your digital employee experience. Head over to
26:17
Speaker 2: next think dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
26:20
Speaker 2: Until next time.