Tech Seeking Human

The story of Dynatrace is a remarkable one. If you listen to this podcast in the entirety you will hear the evolution, from early days, to success, to reinvention, to new scale. 

But what if the board didn't agree to let the company pivot, right when it was in the midst of leading the market? To allow itself to basically disrupt themselves. What if the team didn't come up with the idea that it had to reinvent itself?

For those that don’t know, Dynatrace monitors the performance of applications, the clouds they run in, and the users accessing and using these apps for nearly every enterprise out there. The tech 'heads' call it observability, in that their software can observe all the inner workings of all these applications, services, infrastructure, networks, and everything else in between. 

And given the world is run on apps, and they are increasingly complicated, it’s a fairly important observation. A single line of code is wrong, and the software stops. 

And with it, … that companies ability to transact. You’ve seen examples of this, almost weekly, on the news, when airlines are forced to shut down flights, point of sale systems go down, or heaven forbid Facebook goes down. 

Thankfully the systems that run these systems are getting smarter, with AI, and the likelihood of whatsapp being down is less and less. What a relief. 

So how on earth do you come up with the monitoring software that debugs the software that runs the world? 

Where do you start? 

Why? 

And given how quickly the world changes, and with it, tech changes, how do you keep pace with all the latest tech, scale, and modern systems. 

Not easily. 

Bernd Greifeneder is the founder of Dynatrace. His role now is CTO, visionary leader, and honestly cultural identity of Dynatrace. I was lucky to work with him, and see first hand, not only his ability to grasp what’s next, but to inspire teams to be ready, and to execute on the changes needed to be the best. I joined as a marketing leader in the first wave of APM, I was part of the transformation you will hear about, as well as the successful IPO.  Leaving not long after this, in the middle of covid to come home from the US with my family, that’s where I left the story, and I was so keen to find out what has been going on. 

Turns out … quite a lot. 

Christine Yen is not like other CEO's. She's an engineer, that co-founded a company that has gone onto become, not just a leader in an industry, but also a company that defined the industry category - Observability.

I have watched and admired the rise of Honeycomb from a very close vantage point. Formerly in my role at Dynatrace, who is also a leader in this observability space, I saw them quietly go about their business, without really ruffling any feathers. The Datadog's, New Relic's, Appdynamics, and Dynatracers of the world would end up in head to head battles. We'd be quick to jibe back about each other's capabilities but Honeycomb seemed to be walking to the beat of it's own drum.

It fascinated me to the point that I really wanted to know more.

In this podcast, I had a long sit down, with Christine Yen, the companies co-founder and CEO. We talked about the companies origin and original idea, early success, through the challenges with Go To Market, and being a female tech leader.

Enjoy. I certainly did.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say "Michelle makes Privacy cool, maybe even oddly attractive."

"If you have customers, or want customers, you really need to be thinking about privacy up front. It can no longer be an afterthought." Michelle Finneran Dennedy

I’ve been thinking about privacy a fair bit. And in talking to some entrepreneurs, that have an app, they are hell bent on collecting data, but haven’t really thought through their data strategy. 

What can I collect? How? Where is it stored? 

Too often I hear; yeah well Google and Meta does it therefore I can right? 

No. 

I sense a perfect storm might be brewing. The collection of data, the ability to process it, the ability to piece it all together, and the ability to profile people from it.

In intrigued me to the point that I thought I really need to talk to someone about it. I don’t mean old mate down at the pub who’s typically response is; 

Yeah na mate, I don’t really care what they know about me, I’m just not that interesting. 

This podcast isn’t for old mate.

This podcast is for people that are interested in the in’s and outs of privacy from an expert that not only wrote the book on the topic, started the Chief privacy functions of some of the largest companies, but has gone out on a limb, to start her own company hell bent on educating people about privacy and ensuring the next generation of leaders get their privacy strategies, documented, ethically tested, and are sustainably sound. 

She makes Privacy sound cool. I really didn't think that was possible.

Michelle Finneran Dennedy

Michelle literally wrote the book on privacy engineering that raised a generation of ethical, empathetic, and business-minded privacy professionals. She is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of Privacycode.ai, a start-up privacy engineering platform for business-focused privacy teams.

Before PrivacyCode, she held seminal Chief Privacy Officer roles at Cisco, McAfee/Intel, and Sun Microsystems. She also served as CEO of the data company Drumwave.

She holds a JD from the Fordham University School of Law.

Follow Michelle on Twitter: @mdennedy.

Lucie is the Chief Product Officer at digital experience leader Contentsquare. This chat happened in a Paris, after a long day workshopping, and we delve into some really interesting topics;

1. Why Digital Experience is so important
2. Why empathy, and really looking at your digital experience analytics can play a significant role in helping users enjoy their journeys, but can also provide sustainable benefits.
3. Leadership traits, including being raised without gender bias.

Beena Ammanath is a global thought leader in AI ethics and an award-winning senior technology executive with extensive experience in AI and digital transformation.

In this podcast we talk to Beena about the evolution of AI, and draw some interesting conclusions on it's maturity, the challenges of adopting AI in companies, and what the future could hold for AI.

"Will AI cure cancer in the next 5 years?"

"Yes, with human help".

Beena is an extremely knowledgable business leader, and author of a fantastic and groundbreaking book, Trustworthy AI.

Well, whilst I wait for an expert to help me decipher what is going on with the fastest growing app ever, I figured, given how smart it is, I'd just chat to ChatGPT myself. I enabled a voice plugin to do this, and like everyone else that has used ChatGPT so far, I was in awe of it's ability to process natural language and respond.

Yes even my Australian accent.

Mental health is something we don't really talk that much about. And yet, with the increase in social media, a pandemic that caused the biggest disruption to our work and life, and of course the constant fears now of an impending recession, mental health is just something we all should be talking more about.

We just don't seem to ever talk about mental health. And this is a problem.

According to the World Health Organisation there are over 700,000 suicides each year. That number is simply heart breaking.

And whilst there is no evidence that the pandemic cause an increase in suicide rates, the majority of governments, have seen a dramatic increase in mental health support services, and our workforce productivity has slowed with the burden of home schooling, juggling kids, losing jobs, and worrying about the future.

Mental health issues affect so many of us. It's proposed that nearly 50% of the population suffer from one form of mental health illness in their life time. And so the feelings of anxiousness, a loss of productivity, a lack of self worth .... these are not uncommon, and yet for the vast majority of the population, we are simply not working as productively as we could.

And maybe it's because we don't know how to address mental health issues in the workplace?

My guest on this podcast, is Greg Muller. Greg is a successful businessman, has floated a company on the ASX, but more importantly, he is currently channeling his efforts toward organizations that are addressing significant social challenges.

Greg co-founded a not-for-profit charitable foundation in 2020, The United Project Foundation focused on the early detection of mental health risks at work. His work, and the work of the United Project Foundation volunteers, is based around governance and training for company leaders to help facilitate a healthy, and happy, workforce. This is no easy task, but like my favourite peloton quote 'it's never easy, but it's always worth it.'

Greg is also working with Nestd, who provide quality, architectural yet affordable, self-contained compact living solutions to the retirement, tourism and holiday home sectors. So basically think - quality prefabricated tiny houses. That's pretty cool, but what is cooler is, Nestd is a social enterprise of the Kids Under Cover charity where all the Profits from every Nestd home sold go to fund Kids Under Cover’s life-changing work with youth who are at risk of homelessness.

About Greg Muller

For over 25 years, Greg has established himself as a highly regarded business leader, entrepreneur, innovator and commercialisation expert in corporate and government business, both domestically and internationally.

Greg specialises in strategy, growth and commercialisation advisory, governance, capital raisings and digital technology. A deep, curious and expansive thinker, Greg challenges existing ways of working to help businesses and leaders reposition and deliver accelerated growth.

Across his career, Greg has been the recipient of multiple business, industry and innovation awards, achieved multiple exits of companies he founded, including listing a technology business he founded on the ASX in 2016. He is an experienced Chairperson and is a Non-Executive Director on numerous company boards and is a sought-after speaker and mentor.

Greg now prioritises his time supporting purpose-led organisations and entrepreneurs who have a vision and commitment to deliver widespread impact for humanity and the environment; delivered ethically and sustainably, at scale. His project and investment portfolio is primary focused in health, housing, food and technology.

In 2020, Greg co-founded a not-for-profit charitable foundation, The United Project focused on the early detection of mental health risks at work.

Greg holds an MBA (University of Melbourne), Bachelor of Applied Science (University of SA), a Certificate in FinTech Risks & Ethics (University of Hong Hong) and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Follow Greg on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregmulleraus/

Check out The United Project Foundation - https://www.theunitedproject.net/

Donate to The United Project to support them in delivering their impact - https://donorbox.org/the-united-project or use PayPal.Me  - https://paypal.me/theunitedproject   

I hope you enjoy this podcast.

John Rocker is the social media director at Boston based tech firm Dynatrace. He is just one of those people, you know, someone that you just want to hang out with, listen to, have a beer with, work with. I got to do all that.

Social media managers are rarely recognised for what they do. They are customer support, product update, demand generation, brand awareness and community evangelists. It's not an easy role, often under-appreciated, and yet so critical to companies.

In this podcast, I'm joined with my old co-host Claire Palmer, to chat to our old friend about social media, the tools he uses, what he likes and dislikes about the role, and how to make events fun.

It's a fun episode, on the longer side, but it's always my rewarding having a virtual chat with your friends, who are humble, and yet are so good at what they do.

I hope you like it.

About John Rocker in his own words

Jack of all trades. I have a variety of interests which include social media, journalism, videography and analytics. I’ve applied these interests in the workplace and have diligently leveraged them to achieve successful business outcomes for organizations and clients.

10+ years of experience in the marketing industry including stints in healthcare, online/mobile gaming and higher education. I have created or assisted in the creation of strategies to increase brand awareness, drive user acquisition/retention and build engaging online communities via social media.

Have a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a great asset for any organization, including: social media strategy, social media advertising, social media training, market research, client management, online community building/management, analytics, insights, conference planning, public relations and user acquisition/retention strategy.

Never stop learning. That is the philosophy I live and work by. Our world is rapidly evolving. New platforms, technologies and ideas are continually emerging that can help myself and businesses achieve new milestones. It’s imperative to stay current, stay informed and stay relevant. In order to achieve these three goals, continually pushing oneself to learn, is not an option, but a necessity.

Working from home, remote working, back to the city, back to the grind, hybrid, virtual, deep breaths people. The way we worked was defined in the industrial revolution, where it was deemed we should roll our sleeves up 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday.

And whilst we humans have argued one way or another for 4 day weeks and working from home, it tended to be an exception rather than a norm.

And it seemed like just when we reached a tipping point, where work related stress was higher than ever, and we were working longer hours that we ever have before, we went remote. And replaced our in office back to back meetings for days on zoom calls.

It's fair to say 'shit got real weird' when we finished up our work Zoom, then transitioned straight into 'happy hour' with the same mob, whilst playing strange party games.

So now what?

We haven't quite come to terms yet with what successful working can and should look like. More so, it's not the same for every culture, industry, company and generation. A generation that is used to going to an office, vs a generation that graduated at home for instance.

How do we define the new ways of working? Who is getting it right? And how are people feeling about their own productivity and self empowerment.

Jeez that's a fair bit to tackle in one podcast. So in this chat I had Derek Laney, an evangelist from Slack, join me in my home studio to dissect some of these topics. And hot-off the press is the latest research report that Slack has conducted which has some remarkable statistics.

I hope you enjoy this podcast and for more information on Derek and the report he was sharing in this podcast please see below.

Research

• https://futureforum.com/pulse-survey/ 

Book

• https://futureforum.com/how-the-future-works/
• Harvard Business Review, Stop the Meeting Madness, August 2017

About Derek

Derek has held a broad range of roles in his 25-year technology career from startup developer, product manager, consultant, offshore development leader, solutions engineer and product marketing executive.

Derek now works as an evangelist helping organisations adapt for the future of work and advising on tech trends and the learnings of Slack customers.

Derek spent 15 years at Salesforce, working with the Salesforce ecosystem and the local technology industry in Australia, Asia and India exploring digital and customer experience. Derek has spent 9 years leading product marketing teams; 6 years in solutions consulting; 8 years developing and implementing software.

“I want to make work simpler, more pleasant, and more productive, I love experimenting with my own work-life joining Slack’s own Digital Headquarters from on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland or when towing a caravan around Australia.“

Try Slack for Free

• Slack.com

Twilio is a leading SaaS software company that makes it easy to send and receive phone calls, text messages, and a host of other comms functions like video, email and more using its web service APIs.

It’s a company I have known, but not known enough about. Their events appear in my LinkedIn feed, and it looks like everyone is just having way too much fun.

Given the importance of customer experience, and communications lying at the heart of this experience, it’s no wonder that a platform that can make communication easier, is flourishing.

In this podcast I was excited to chat to Vanessa Thompson, who is a senior marketer, from NZ based in San Fransisco.

Our conversation wandered around a few interesting topics;

1. The evolution of API driven communication?
2. Practice what you preach, a team that codes, and why that's important.
3. What is the culture, and the values that aligns Twilio together as one.
4. The importance of embracing a developer culture and being transparent.

About Vanessa Thompson

Vanessa is a Senior Director of Product Marketing at Twilio. Vanessa's team covers the major communication channels; messaging, email, video, and account security as well as international team members in APJ and LATAM. Prior to this role, Vanessa was the marketing and hardware partnerships leader for the IoT business at Twilio.

Formerly, Vanessa was Senior VP of Customer Experience Insights at Bluewolf (a Salesforce consulting firm) and a Research VP at IDC, an industry analyst firm, where she spent 6 years building multiple research practices around collaboration, social software and customer experience.  Earlier in her career, Vanessa worked in various roles in banking, technology, and government in her home country of New Zealand.