Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

The Big Themes:Consistency: Companies that ask employees to give up the benefits of remote work and come back to the office must also require executives to do the same. Otherwise, trust disappears and team members disengage.Clarity, candor, transparency: Explaining the specific benefits of returning to in-person work is essential. Saying that productivity will go up is not enough—leaders must provide examples, and help employees understand how their experience will improve.Culture and environment: The key to a successful move away from all-remote work is to create an office environment that people want to be part of. Starting at the very top, companies must cultivate a positive and enriching in-person culture.The Big Quote: "The reason why leadership is so hard is because every day, every day as a leader, your job is to show up for everybody but yourself. That's extraordinarily hard... If you are not prepared to very literally show up for everyone else, then you might want to think twice about bringing the workforce back into the office." Want more leadership inspiration from Christian? Connect with him on LinkedIn. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:What's really going on with layoffs? Among the six companies Wayne pulled numbers for, five of them actually have had net-positive employee growth over the last several years. But they are letting people go, and Wayne explains why.Should non-tech companies hire big-tech engineers? There is a big opportunity here, Wayne says, but execs at non-tech companies have to be very, very careful and thoughtful when preparing to bring these folks onboard.What's the best way to have job security today? As an advisor to three very different groups of job seekers, Wayne has honed his most important advice: Learn new things. Always be curious. And don't turn down opportunities to learn and do things.The Big Quote: "This may be the opportunity to shake the tree, to shake the company up and say, What if we had a continuous integration, continuous delivery tool chain? What if we were using more modern tools? ... What are we trying to accomplish culturally? And how can this availability of very cutting-edge talent, who might be disciplined differently, fit into our culture?"--Want more of the CIO and CTO perspective?Connect with Wayne on LinkedIn or through his Acceleration Economy Analyst page. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes:Customer stories at Cloud World 2022: Bonnie praises Oracle for including the voice of the customer in many of the keynote talks at the conference, including Oracle Me HCM customers McDonald's, Marriott, and the Church of Latter Day Saints.Six key takeaways: These three customers talked about their implementation experiences with Oracle HCM technology, and Bonnie wrote up six important insights that other companies considering HR tech upgrades should keep in mind.Fundamentals must come first: Before pursuing HR and HCM software implementation, business leaders must have a strong grasp of processes, personas, and the employee lifecycle and overall experience.The Big Quote: "Role clarity is important... All three organizations felt like it's very important to understand how the team is going to be in the future, in the cloud, because the team infrastructure and what they are responsible to do in a cloud environment is very different than with legacy systems." More from Bonnie Tinder: Connect with Bonnie on LinkedIn or send a message via her Acceleration Economy Analyst page. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

The Big Themes: This is about adaptation, not ageism: Native digitals are not better or worse than native analogs, but they are actually a new category of human being. That may sound like an exaggeration, but it's not.Businesses at risk of obsolescence: Leaders who do not account for the differences of native digitals are going to face (1) the failure to hire and retain anybody under 35 and (2) the inability to market and sell to anybody under 35.The Mentor Myth: Chris says that the secret to native analogs thriving in our native digital world is understanding that the older generations have as much to learn from the younger ones as vice versa. Read more in "The Mentor Myth" ebook. The Big Quote: "We are the last native analogues to walk Planet Earth. period. Human beings have embedded technology into the core experience of life. And that will be true forever going forward." Want more from Christopher Lochhead and Category Pirates? Explore his podcasts, blog, and books Visit Cloud Wars for more.

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. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

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. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

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. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

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. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

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. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

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. Visit Cloud Wars for more.