Rick Rioboli says that when you are trying to transform a platform or product space, sometimes you have to forget everything you know and start from nothing to build something truly innovative. And as someone who did in fact transform an entire platform and product category, Rick Rioboli would know that from experience. Rick is the Senior Vice President & CIO at Comcast and during his time with the company he was instrumental in leading the team that built the X1 platform from the ground up, which has won numerous awards, including an Emmy Award for Technology and Engineering.

 On Part 1 of this two-part episode of Future of Tech with Rick, he describes the journey to building that platform, what it meant to adapt to the new work environments when COVID-19 hit, and the importance of the customer experience. According to Rick, the full digitization of companies and customer experiences is on the horizon, but success or failure in that digital transformation will come down to your understanding of your data. And he explains why tech companies need to lead, and not follow, and be open to change. Learn about all of that and more — including what it means to be a good CIO — on this episode and tune into Part 2 next week for more about the X1 platform. Enjoy!

Main Takeaways:

• Adapt and Overcome: In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, just about every company had to adapt to a new type of working environment. With most, if not all staff shifting toward a work-from-home situation, it was important to make sure that employees had the resources they needed,  but also that they were taking care to not overwork themselves now that the boundary between work and home were blurred.
• Building the Best Experience: When building a good customer experience, you have to start by visualizing what the ideal customer experience looks like and then work your way backward from there. And as a tech leader, you have to figure out a way to ensure that your technology can enable that ideal experience. 
• There’s An App for That: As more customers were forced to stay at home during the pandemic, new technology emerged to fill in the gaps left by the removal of in-person interactions.

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