Mobile First

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Our Guest

Jason Wolf is AVP and Global Head of Experience Design, author, Apple ‘think different’ producer, worked with Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Hasso Plattner & Vishal Sikka. Practice lead at IDEO, old-School employee of Macromind (later Marcomedia) makers of director and flash technology. Authored first books on shockwave technology. Design thinking strategist and innovation change agent. Father of 3, Maker, film maker and over all artist.

Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:Anything from the creative aspects of art is what inspires Jason. He draws a lot of his inspiration from films, television, books, other authors, and websites -- anything out there from the abstract to the total tangible. He loves to consume that, makes sense out of it and use it in his everyday work to give people things that they have never seen before and make their lives more interesting.Art has always been something which has interested Jason, whether this is doodling or scribbling at 6 years old to water color paintings. He found that the reaction that he would get from others is what drives him to do this.In the 90s, he found himself in his cubicle observing how hundreds of employees were so out of touch while they are working towards one goal. He thought, if he was the owner of the company, he would ensure interaction amongst employee and with customers to drive innovation. He would create a culture where everyone is on a level playing field. This will snowball to happier employees who can laugh and joke about things which can spawn to a more comfortable, creative environment.Jason looks at a career in three phases: when you first join a company, when you are cruising along or in cruise control and when you feel like you are winding down. He shares that at one point, when he would feel that he will not be staying with the company much longer, he would become a rebel. This would either accelerate the speed of him leaving the company or people will turn around and say that it was cool and he gets promoted. His realization from this is that he should’ve expressed himself from the get go. But to those who want to do this, you need to note that this has a lot to do with the management so feel out the environment that you are in and explore their receptiveness prior. There is no company which do not want to be innovative; they just need to understand the reasoning behind the first couple of steps that you are taking. This is the key so show them.Jason shares that he embodies design thinking. You will know that you do too if you are still thinking about design even if you are no longer at work. You can walk into a restaurant and just see a Push/Pull sign but with no handle and go, ‘Who designed this?’ This is important because to help a company innovate or change is to be the change. You have to embody or imbue this energy yourself.To incorporate design thinking in your company, have different entry points to make it really easy for people in whatever level to get into this. Then run this through a lean method approach to measure learning to ensure that you meet whatever outcome you want it to have. Continue what works and get rid of those which do not. Adapt the technique of incremental fusion of design thinking as well where you would start small to get buy ins, continue building rapport, and have the fusion continue to gain momentum as it gets those successes. There are also specific items which a company should have to promote design thinking so ensure that you work in the background to provide these resources to make this successful. There is no company out there that this design thinking process can’t help innovate on. This is not just for technology or programmers only so this means that if you see problems in the world, you can fix those problems.

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Meet Our Guest:

As the VP of Innovation Labs, Linda Tong is focused on building out the vision and strategy for AppD Labs, the innovation center of AppDynamics. Prior to this role, she combined her love of product development and football as the VP of Product and Innovation for the NFL, managing the product vision for the owned and operated digital properties across all 32 clubs and the league. Linda was also an original team member at Google (Chrome and Android) where she helped launch and shape the developer ecosystem for the Android OS.

Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:Linda finds constantly challenging herself fun. This means finding new problems to solve, new ways to push herself in new directions and new technologies to explore. She is super curious and loves learning so what’s great about her profession is that she can do all of these in her role as VP of Innovation Labs. It has always been core to her that when she sees things, she would push herself to look at the pieces around her and think about how to reimagine, reorganize and restructure them and unlock new value. A big part of her responsibilities in AppDynamics are focused on thinking about the future of the company. She thinks about the unique spaces that AppDynamics is in and how do they start innovation within the organization to unlock new opportunities which are adjacent to their product line and the industry that AppDynamics would be a good fit for. She also heads their product experience team which thinks about how they can bring the best experience to their customer as they evolve through time.AppDynamics is an amazing tool which crosses the entire technology sack to give you insights on how your digital products are performing. It gives you visibility into the entire complex ecosystem of apps and ties the connection of that performance back to your business so you can be more insightful about how your digital products are doing. It makes you continue to make smart decisions around operating them.Linda’s team focuses on the customer experience side of product development. They partner closely with product management and engineering to understand the new products and features which they want to expose and for what customers. They help design and develop these and constantly iterate to continue to create value for their customers are they go forward.Their task is two-fold: thinking about their user and thinking about the right approach to product development. When you build products, it’s a massive hierarchy of product need so it’s all about understanding a problem and really defining that so you define a value that you want to unlock. Their team is focused on understanding what that problem is and they call it utility. This is their core and they focus their first round of product development surrounding this. Once they move up this hierarchy of need, they then ask how they would iterate after unlocking this utility so they can improve functionality. Once they nail down this to things, they move up to start unlocking the why so they can keep their customers engaged and build a longer relationship with them to get more value.A challenge in AppDynamics is that they are helping companies through their digital transformation so they should be able to run their agent or have visibility into thousands of different technology stacks to be able to give them insights into it. This can be super process complex but their output should be really simple to understand.Being acquired by Cisco, building collaboration and empathy is something which can prove to be a challenge so they came up with Think Factories. These includes identifying problems and cross functional teams, bringing them into a room, defining these problems and identifying solutions. This fosters camaraderie and builds relationships and ultimately transforms an organization. Coming up with these Think Factories entails getting buy in from every level – this is the key. Linda shares that measuring success is really difficult in terms of innovation because a lot of times, you get 95% fails and 5% success (if you are lucky). It’s all about failing fast, learning from every single experience and trying not to make the same mistakes more than once. Success has to be redefined in a different way.

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Our Guest

Vaibhav Vohra is the Head of Product Management for SAP Digital Interconnect IBU Group. He has launched award winning marketing products at SAP. Prior to SAP, he designed satellites and took on other challenges in Aerospace.

Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:Vaibhav has a passion from taking things from laboratory to launch whether it’s a diamond-coated cutting tool or doing a spinal cord injury research for a new treatment. Bringing this lab eureka moment to something that’s commercially viable has become a great passion of his and this is what motivated him all these years. He is also a big fan of deconstructing products like chefs do to food so he loves reducing the clutter to the noise. The unrelenting focus to the problem is something that he is really passionate about and he believes that failure is just a rite of passage. In this day and age where care is defined as financial benefits, what if care is using a mobile device to provide this duty that employers need to carry so we can get responses in just minutes? Mobile is the future of work; it can be the tool which can help employees be better taken care of. SAP is primed to do this around the world for various industries.SAP is one of the largest software companies and much of their growth is due to the cloud. Vaibhav is part of the group called SAP Digital Interconnect which helps enterprises run better through rich, mobile experiences. It’s the last mile connecting mobile apps, processes and people.The SAP Digital Interconnect team focuses on the next line of business applications. They are trying to solve how people want to be connected to and what context are they in and to determine this, communications is the operative word to be able to potentially change a brand or a business. You have to have conversations with your customers and the differentiator between listening and hearing is understanding. The product that they are currently working on which enables better experience is SAP People Connect 365. This system aims to bring in HR and Risk Content data and create content workflows to help enterprises reach their employees in the moment of need.Vaibhav shares that they found that 90% of the APIs fail in their enterprise initiatives but the 10% which succeeds gets exponential growth. He suggested three major things in able to achieve success: APIs should to be simple to understand; mobile developers should connect with others through repositories and communities and build efficient process; and technology independence. The result of these three would be programmable digital interfaces which will take over the world.Products can always be made better as it is an everlasting approach. From a tactical level, think of ways how to expand such as including customers in the design process, personalization and thinking of user experience versus UI.

Our Guest

Jonathon Hensley is CEO of Emerge Interactive, a digital experience company, where he works with clients to transform business strategies, user needs and new technologies into valuable products and experiences.

An accomplished writer and speaker, Jonathon has lectured on topics such as the connected consumer’s impact on business, creating value through data-driven experiences, and user-centric approaches to innovation. In 2012 he was recognized in the Portland Business Journal’s “40 under 40” as one of Portland’s emerging professional and community leaders.

Under Jonathon’s stewardship Emerge Interactive has committed to a simple philosophy: The relationship between Emerge and its clients should exist to create real and lasting value. To change the conversation. To move people to action. To inspire and motivate a team to focus on what matters.

Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:

2:55: Emerge Interactive is a digital experience company which focuses on high-value digital experience on new opportunities and solving high-value user experience challenges. A lot of companies are struggling with digital modernization and there is a void in the marketplace of firms with expertise and experience to solve these challenges -- this is the void which Emerge Interactive fills. Mobile First is an extension of this as this podcast is a platform which aims to dig into what’s happening on this front.

4:52: With 20 years of experience in helping clients create digital experiences, the main friction area which Jonathon sees in not having a co-creative approach in companies is the fact that many businesses do not start as a digital business. The challenge is coming in with just one set of expertise and integrating digital to be part of the core.

6:00: Co-creation is the idea of going beyond collaboration. Instead of working as separate team, you have to work as a single team unified with a common purpose. Co-creation is a methodology to support this. You combine the expertise of people across the business and the experiences of your customers and bring these all to the forefront of the process to quickly and effectively get to the most important needs of the business.  

2:55: Emerge Interactive is a digital experience company which focuses on high-value digital experience on new opportunities and solving high-value user experience challenges. A lot of companies are struggling with digital modernization and there is a void in the marketplace of firms with expertise and experience to solve these challenges -- this is the void which Emerge Interactive fills. Mobile First is an extension of this as this podcast is a platform which aims to dig into what’s happening on this front.

4:52: With 20 years of experience in helping clients create digital experiences, the main friction area which Jonathon sees in not having a co-creative approach in companies is the fact that many businesses do not start as a digital business. The challenge is coming in with just one set of expertise and integrating digital to be part of the core.

6:00: Co-creation is the idea of going beyond collaboration. Instead of working as separate team, you have to work as a single team unified with a common purpose. Co-creation is a methodology to support this. You combine the expertise of people across the business and the experiences of your customers and bring these all to the forefront of the process to quickly and effectively get to the most important needs of the business.  

8:43: Some of the Jonathon’s takeaways from our first 50 episodes are: The spot-on idea that an employee experience is an enabler to the customer experience. Internal transformation can be very difficult but nothing can be more powerful in delivering an amazing customer experience. The reaffirmation that ideas are powerful but what it really comes down to is the ability to execute. This is the make or break in an organization. The ability to build great teams is fundamental to success. Get the right people on the right seats with the right expertise to get you where you need to be as a business.The uniform understanding with our guests that it is critical for businesses to understand their data. Thinking of data as service -- looking at how they move from upstream and downstream -- through the organization is becoming essential.

14:41: Jonathon shares what we can expect from the show moving forward: guests bringing in perspective, best in class tactics, strategies which are taking place, and how they are driving change and innovation in their organization. Beyond sharing experiences and insights, we will unpack to everyone what co-creation is to solve all the problems out there which we are trying to solve.

20:14: Inspired by our guests’ reiteration of the importance of having a great vision and an actionable plan to get there, Jonathon shares that they are working on a product vision and planning checklist which listeners can use as a great resource. On top of this, they will also be releasing an eBook specific on how to make a business case for your mobile initiative in understanding what problems and friction points you are solving for and what kind of impact it will have in the organization.

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!

Our Guest

Kevin is Chief Digital and Innovation Officer and a member of the global Executive Board for HH Global. He is responsible for technology, driving innovation, digital brand control programs, and digital strategy for HH Global. Kevin is also responsible for two HH Global Financial Services customers and digital transformation projects for HH Global’s client base. Kevin moderates the HH Global innovations group, HH Labs, which he formed in 2009, as well as being the Executive Board sponsor for HH Global’s Sustainability and corporate social responsibility programmes.

Here are the highlights of our conversation with our guest:The things that gets Kevin most out of bed everyday morning is the disruption that we are seeing in technology and how this can fire and streamline processes with clients and make solutions better. There’s just so much stuff you can do which will make things better and this gives him so many opportunities to do great things.Technology is one of Kevin’s passions and where you can see something which can make a process efficient, add value or can improve an experience, you have to seize that – and that is what Kevin is currently doing.HH Global is a global marketing execution company. They are in the outsourcing business and they support their clients below their creative master agencies. Typically, big brands have a master agency which creates conceptual items and HH Global is there to help execute that. They do this across three core channels: marketing print, secondary packaging, and cross-creative production. They save their clients’ money and simplify workflows.As Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, Kevin was originally focused on all things digital until they have formed an innovation group called HH Labs. It gained so much traction and interest from clients that he was asked to focus more on this. His role now is to talk to clients how to disrupt and improve what they are doing and add to their business more than those three core channels to advance them to get ahead of the curve in their particular sector.   HH Labs goes out and finds various solutions and what sprung this investment and what caused it to grow to what it is now is the passion of people who have day jobs in their business. Nearly 25% of their workforce are members of the community and effectively are digital talent scouts who are either listening to their clients for what is keeping them awake and feed this back to the group; or they are actively looking in trade shows, listening to podcasts, or subscribing in digital newsletters. They get fired up by all of this as this gives another dimension to their job and their role, and ultimately, they find it satisfying to help solve a problem for a client.Some of the cool things they are doing right now surround digital signage and proximity and point of sale. It’s like a mash up of clever Google technology at traditional point of sale and proximity beaconing. An example of this would be a case study of Coca Cola ads in a mall where it will show you customize ads as you walk through. It uses mobile handset data to serve customize ads so as you walk down the aisle it will recognize that you are male, location, buying habits, your last interaction with Coke, etc. and it will serve an ad which is contextual to you.

Head over to www.EmergeMobileFirst.com and select "Get Free Resources" to get the full list of resources from all of our guest emailed to you!