Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

The Big Themes:

• Advice for early talent: Pat says that high schoolers and their parents should at least consider options other than college, like trade schools and apprenticeships. He recommends reading "The Millionaire Next Door" to get inspired.
• Advice for college graduates: First, differentiate yourself during the interview process by doing research. Second, once you're hired, find "your assets" within the company, because you can't just assume you'll have advocates.
• Advice for people taking job interviews: Don't be afraid to ask tough questions about a company's financial status and solvency, given the economic climate we're in today. This is one step in making sure you end up at the right place.

The Big Quote: "A lot of early talent is making a huge mistake in their career by actually moving from one job to another from one company to another after 12 months, because the next company offers them something worth more money. My advice is, don't. That's a mistake."

Want additional insights to help you win the war for talent? Connect with Pat on LinkedIn.

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The Big Themes:

• An issue of legacy: Related to the concept of "legacy" tech companies, huge companies are often held back by what Christian calls "the mindset legacy," that narrowly defines what the business does and how it does it, with no room for evolution.
• The importance of culture: Christian says that a company's culture can't just be part of its overall strategy, an intellectual and emotionally agile culture needs to be the core strategy itself.
• Walking the walk when it comes to people: The only thing worse than working at a company that doesn't want to invest in people is working at one that doesn't want to invest, but claims publicly that people are its most important asset.

The Big Quote: "You're never ever, ever going to build a high-performance team by having anything other than a radical candor and an ability to understand and accept criticisms, especially when they're well deserved."

Want more leadership inspiration from Christian?
Connect with him on LinkedIn.

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The Big Themes:

• Data modernization: Wayne says that a "modern data strategy" completely changes a company's ability to compete, by helping C-suite executives make better decisions and avoid very expensive mistakes.
• Wayne's 5 rules of data modernization: Collect more data and do it earlier, clean and validate the data, store it securely but accessibly, make it widely available, and provide employees with powerful analytics capabilities.
• Oracle CloudWorld 2022: Wayne observes that of the 1,200 sessions at Oracle's big global conference last week, the biggest topic was not databases, but cloud infrastructure, illustrating how Oracle has dramatically evolved its positioning to keep up with customers.

The Big Quote: "[Data modernization] is not about how you buy it and who you buy it from and how you glue it together. This is a business imperative. And it's cultural, besides technological."

Want more of the CIO and CTO perspective?

Connect with Wayne on LinkedIn or through his Analyst page.

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The Big Themes:

• The Task Force Tribute journey: In September, the group arrived in Washington, D.C., having traveled 8,500 miles in 23 days, with dozens of stops to connect with veterans and family members, including many Gold Star families.
• TFT is collecting stories for a virtual memorial: Next up for the group is to help create an unprecedented, high-tech virtual memorial composed of the hundreds of stories shared by military members and their families. To contribute a story, please visit the TFT website.
• The impact of sharing stories: Christian says that a common thread emerged in many of his conversations during the journey, which is the deep need among these service members and their families to talk about their experiences and their loved ones.
• Addressing mental health challenges as a community: The VA and other government agencies are not doing enough to support the mental health needs of members of the military, and Christian says that there's a great need for everyone around servicemen and women to step up themselves to help.

The Big Quotes:

• "This model that we're in in our country, where our media, you know, 'you have to enrage to engage,' right? And it's driven by business models. It's driven by self interest. But that doesn't mean that it's driven by reality. And, folks, it's incumbent upon all of us to not get lazy and be cynical because cynicism is lazy. If you think something isn't right, productively, proactively, and constructively try and fix it."
• "If you do know a military member, actually, please don't thank them for their service—actually say, 'hey, you know, if you ever ever need someone to talk to, you can talk to me. And if you think I don't understand, you're probably right. But I'm willing to try. I'm willing to try.' And that, folks, could save a life. And it could save a life of an American that really risked their all for us."
   

More about Task Force Tribute:
Learn the backstory, make a donation, and get involved via their website. You can also get to know the non-profit group behind TFT, Project RELO.

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The Big Themes:

• Employee experience and Skills Academies: The concept of employee experience has been buzzy for many years, but the focus is shifting from perks to career advancement, reskilling, and equitable pay.
• Tech as an enabler for change, not a leader of change: Transforming businesses, business models, and employee experiences should be driven by process and change management, with tech playing a supporting role.
• Big fish want to swim in small HR ponds: Leading HR vendors like Oracle, Workday, and SAP are starting to evolve their offerings to appeal to mid-market customers, in addition to their traditional huge enterprise clients.

The Big Quote: "Customers were giving a lot of grace to vendors for getting through, making do, being really creative, helping them out of really challenging situations... That was 2021. The year of grace is over."
 

Connect with Bonnie on LinkedIn or send a message via her Acceleration Economy Analyst page.

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The Big Themes:

• The need for speed: scaling a business is more difficult than ever, because the rapid pace of change across industries requires leaders to make big decisions more quickly than ever before—and still get the decisions right.
• The primacy of customers: Tony channels Walter White of Breaking Bad, and says that today, customers are "the ones who knock," meaning they're dictating the terms of deals and services to vendors, not the other way around.
• The upside of friction: Generally, friction is seen as an impediment to scale, but Tony says that some forms of friction are good, in that they remind leaders to take a breath, look around, and be sure things are working well.

The Big Quote: "In a funny way, it's such an obvious observation of 'oh, okay, the customer is in control.' ... It is truly profound, Bob, and I think if I was to point to one thing that can help in the scale on the seller side for technology companies—if I can point to one thing that could hold some of those companies back—it's a lack of understanding of that profound shift."

Looking for more insights to transform your business? Connect with Tony on LinkedIn or through his AE Analyst page.

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The Big Themes:

• Balancing partnerships and full-service: Mike says that Oracle is thrilled to work with partners to fill "last-mile solutions" and regulatory-specific needs, but also that Oracle is looking to fill vertical edge cases with its own solutions.
• HCM in healthcare shows Oracle's differentiation: The gig economy is impacting hospitals and other care settings, so Oracle is stepping up with a suite of tools including HCM and more to help business leaders in a holistic way.
• The cloud shifts conversations to velocity over function: Thanks to the cloud, Oracle can help customers stay on the bleeding edge of technology through regular releases and updates, delivering greater speed to customers' businesses.

The Big Quote: "The ability to speak in the language of the business—because you're delivering the technology that our customers are using to engage with their customers—is a core differentiator."

Interested in Oracle CloudWorld 2022?
Get an Oracle TV pass for live coverage, or register to join in person.
 

This episode is sponsored by Oracle.

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The Big Themes:

• Customer demand for multi-cloud: Oracle has been focused recently on partnerships with Microsoft and Amazon that allow mutual customers to pick and choose the cloud services they get from each vendor, and Jae says that big-name brands are very hot on this idea.
• Cloud @ Customer offers even more flexibility: For customers in highly regulated industries or that prefer more control and security, Oracle's Cloud @ Customer offering provides all the benefits of a fully managed cloud region in an on-premise environment.
• What customers can expect at CloudWorld: Jae says that if customers can come to the event with a clear understanding of their business goals and desired outcomes, they'll find a plethora of information about how Oracle's cloud solutions can help achieve them.

The Big Quote: "These are more multi-cloud-type solutions that are making it simpler and advantageous for our customers to use. We have a lot of customers who are excited about it—AT&T, Marriott, and Veritas to name a few—who have really voiced their interest and excitement about what this can do for them... getting that flexibility and optionality so they can get the best cost, best performance for their cloud business."

Want to learn more about Oracle CloudWorld 2022?
Explore content, speakers, and registration options.

This episode is sponsored by Oracle.

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The Big Themes:

• Tech's "cancel first" policy: From Amazon to Twitter and beyond, tech platforms seem to be far too quick to remove accounts, content, and products without asking any questions about the rule that's allegedly been broken.
• Brands are abandoning customer service: Trying to reach a human to discuss a customer question is nearly impossible these days. Christopher points to Southwest as a remarkable exception to this rule, and encourages companies to get humans involved again.
• The limitations of AI- and ML-driven regulation: Bots don't get sarcasm yet, and users across many platforms are dealing with account suspensions for posts that do not actually break any rules.

The Big Quote: "We have asked these major platforms for their free speech policy... They send a link, you read the link. And here's what you discover when you read the link: the word free, the word speech, or the two together don't appear in the document."

Want more from Christopher Lochhead and Category Pirates?
Explore his podcasts, blog, and books, including the new "Snow Leopard."

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The Big Themes:

• The "fourth phase" of Match Group's business: Following the launch of Match.com in the 90's and the breakaway of Tinder in the 2010's, a new phase is coming that's heavily focused on video, AI, augmented reality, language translation, and more.
• Eliminating manual work and "cycles of death": Trey shares some of the struggles his team had before installing Workday Financials, and the impact that those challenges had on employee morale.
• Helping the accounting teams demonstrate value: Generally, accounting is a cost center, but Trey says that the implementation of game-changing software like Workday is an important way to highlight his department's value to the larger business.

The Big Quote: "We believe that adding technology and adding the right people can provide that value, so [employees] get to spend more time with their families. So we've more or less revolutionized where we were, to provide that better value."

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This episode is brought to you by Workday.

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