Innovation and the Digital Enterprise

To innovate, a company doesn’t necessarily have to rush out and invent a new product. Innovation starts when all stakeholders are working as a cohesive unit and have identified a common mission. Matt Kelly, a partner and Business Designer at Do Tank, believes that to be successful, a company needs to take some time to do some business modeling that allows them to increase efficiency and ensure they are targeting the right customer demographics.Matt spoke with Patrick and Shelli about business design and the concept of validating assumptions through pressure tests. If you are interested in business design and modeling, check out Do Tank’s tools and templates in their Business Design Academy.(01:23) - What is Do Tank?(02:43) - Getting the ball rolling(05:56) - Navigating the internal landscape(08:05) - Closing the feedback loop(11:19) - Validating assumptions(14:23) - Agility is key(17:28) - Creating compelling pitches(23:14) - Articulating vision(25:40) - Craving for variety(26:55) - Lessons learned(29:09) - Clients all over the boardMatt Kelly is a partner and business designer with Do Tank, which helps teams create better businesses. Roughly half of Matt's work is in healthcare, and the rest of it is spread around a wide variety of industries. The focus of his work includes building new business models, strategic planning, value proposition design, upskilling folks on innovation, and designing physical & virtual events. He holds a Bachelor's degree in English Literature from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He lives in Chicago with his wife and three year old son.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

To increase diversity in technology, step one is acknowledging that there is a problem. Step two is to put in greater effort to create new pipelines of applicants. Thulasi Kethini, CTO of Shiftgig, believes that there are highly qualified women ready to take on leadership in the tech space but most tech companies don’t take the time to go to the places where these women can be found.On this week’s edition of Innovation and the Digital Enterprise, Patrick and Shelli talk to Thulasi about how companies can create pipelines that encourage diversity as well as ways to encourage more women to enter the tech space. Listen to the episode for more of Thulasi’s ideas.(01:39) - Shiftgig(02:50) - Women in tech(05:42) - Hiring for diversity(10:30) - Creating kismet(17:22) - Technical vs. business awareness(23:12) - Research & duplicate(26:28) - Unlearning(30:03) - Batteries included(34:13) - The MotiveThulasi Kethini is a Chief Technology Officer at Shiftgig, a workforce technology company focusing on empowering people to find local employment opportunities that fit their lifestyles, schedules and career objectives. Thulasi is responsible for the company's technology, infrastructure, web and mobile applications, security, product engineering and software architecture.Thulasi has an impressive track record of designing and implementing large scale enterprise SAAS as well as B2C products, leveraging modern, agile development practices and building high performing engineering teams. She joined Shiftgig to drive their engineering strategy and help the company continue to grow as a technology organization.Thulasi brings 16 years of technology experience and previously served as director of technology at Morningstar. She holds an MBA from Central Michigan University and is very close to finishing her MBA at Northwestern University. She also spends time volunteering for Green House scholars. If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Arrive Logistics is one of the fastest-growing freight brokerages. Logistics, perhaps more so than many other industries, is seeing a big shift toward technology beyond traditional IT. Michael Senftleber, CTO at Arrive Logistics, is one of the people leading this charge.Unlike many professionals in the logistics industry, Michael came from a product background. On this week’s edition of Innovation and the Digital Enterprise, Michael discussed why product driven leadership is so beneficial to hiring. Listen to the episode for Michael’s thoughts on diversity of background and its impact on problem solving.(01:24) - Arrive Logistics(04:45) - Customer connection(08:06) - Design tools(12:18) - Multiple domains(15:19) - Efficiency/productivity arc(17:40) - Cloud first(19:16) - Accelerating adoption(27:24) - Building the coreInnovation and the Digital Enterprise is hosted by Patrick Emmons of DragonSpears, and Shelli Nelson of Madison Industries. Throughout Patrick's career, he has helped highly-regulated enterprises with measurable transformation, through the adoption of Enterprise DevOps, Cloud Native Computing and Data Platforms. DragonSpears partners with their clients to build an innovation engine by working with their engineering teams to deliver software faster and more efficiently. Shelli is currently the Managing Director of Madison Industries. Previously, she led HR teams at Spot Trading, Ibbotson, and Legacy Marketing Partners, consistently achieving organizational transformation by identifying the best talent to build a culture of engagement, agility, and innovation.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Over the course of the last 48 months, the H-1B visa program has been greatly diminished, largely by executive order. This program allows foreign students who study in the United States a path to a green card. Dick Burke is the CEO of Envoy Global, a tech leader specializing in immigration services. He is our guest this week on Innovation and the Digital Enterprise.Dick believes that America needs to change its perception on immigration if we are going to continue attracting top talent. To avoid employment issues such as Japan is facing due to an aging population, the United States needs to recommit to immigration so that the country doesn’t lose out on top talent to immigration friendly countries like Canada.Listen to the episode for ideas on how US businesses can encourage immigration that is distributed across the country and not just in coastal cities. (01:20) - Navigating the immigration landscape(02:15) - H-1B stability(05:35) - Consequences of change(09:39) - Both and(13:10) - The talent cluster(16:23) - Global mobility(21:14) - Will America catch up?(28:50) - The common thread(31:31) - Recommended readingInnovation and the Digital Enterprise is hosted by Patrick Emmons of DragonSpears, and Shelli Nelson of Madison Industries. Throughout Patrick's career, he has helped highly-regulated enterprises with measurable transformation, through the adoption of Enterprise DevOps, Cloud Native Computing and Data Platforms. DragonSpears partners with their clients to build an innovation engine by working with their engineering teams to deliver software faster and more efficiently. Shelli is currently the Managing Director of Madison Industries. Previously, she led HR teams at Spot Trading, Ibbotson, and Legacy Marketing Partners, consistently achieving organizational transformation by identifying the best talent to build a culture of engagement, agility, and innovation.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Changing the culture of an organization is not something that happens overnight. Collaborative design and cross-functional teams can take years to get right. So how do you make the changes necessary to get everyone on the same page? According to Scott Prugh, Chief Architect and SVP of Software Engineering at CSG, using mistakes and miscommunications as a learning tool is key.Today on Innovation and the Digital Enterprise, Scott discusses how to create software-first companies, why incident reports are important for growth, and heritage versus legacy companies. Scott also shares Shook’s Model of Cultural Change to illustrate his thinking. Listen for more!(01:38) - CSG International(03:46) - Bill payments(05:50) - Be heritage, not legacy(12:50) - Value stream alignment(14:52) - Cultural evolution(19:15) - Unplanned investment(22:36) - Beyond the symptom(30:16) - Getting the ball rollingScott Prugh is the Chief Architect and Senior Vice President of Software Development for CSG International. He leads development and delivery teams for CSG’s North American billing and customer care platform.As a 20-year technology industry veteran, Scott has broad experience across development and operations functions for companies ranging from small startups to large enterprises. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Bucknell University.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

The law is as old as civilization. But the legal industry has been very slow to adapt to digitalization. Relativity, a SaaS eDiscovery platform, is looking to change that. Andrew Watts is the CIO of Relativity and joined Patrick and Shelli this week for a discussion on the digitization of law documents and tools.Andrew talked about how the industry is adapting, why it’s so important for lawyers and firms to get on the cloud, and what Relativity is doing to be employee focused in an age where everyone is working remote. Tune in for his insights.(01:25) - What is Relativity?(05:29) - The legal industry of the future(10:49) - New-hire integration(15:35) - Seeing value in technology(19:11) - The complex world of e-discovery(21:50) - Cloud-enabled growth(26:56) - Critical visionary elements(33:07) - Keeping everybody on the same page(36:05) - Talent first(40:11) - Urban hiking Andrew Watts is an experienced IT leader and currently serves as the Chief Information Officer at Relativity. As CIO, Andrew provides leadership in building and supporting Relativity’s information technology along with governance and compliance processes.Andrew has more than 20 years of experience in IT. Prior to joining Relativity in 2016, he served as the director of IT at Morningstar, an investment research and management firm. At Morningstar, he oversaw a 200-person IT department, lead the information technology aspects of 30 acquisitions and two divestitures, and implemented both major system enhancements and significant technology and security improvements. Before moving to Chicago, Andrew held several IT positions in Australia, his home country.  Andrew holds a computer science degree from the University of Technology Sydney.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Burnout can cripple any organization and for many technology firms, it’s the standard by which business is conducted. Dr. Mik Kersten believes that the key to happy software engineers (and the executives that manage them) is to create flow using a framework.Mik joins Patrick and Shelli for a discussion on flow diagnostics, how teams respond to being measured, and why it’s important to understand people’s energies. Listen for his thoughts on flow framework and pick up his book Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework, to learn more.(01:47) - Tasktop in a nutshell(04:00) - Measuring the flow of value(09:10) - Team measurement(16:29) - Elastic capacity of human ability(22:59) - Happiness and trust metrics(25:32) - Hand-offs and dependencies(28:10) - Making the case with data(31:40) - Heightened uncertainty(35:51) - Project to ProductDr. Mik Kersten is the CEO of Tasktop Technologies, creator and leader of the Eclipse Mylyn open source project, and inventor of the task-focused interface. As a research scientist at Xerox PARC, Mik implemented the first aspect-oriented programming tools for AspectJ. In 2018, Mik launched his book, Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework, with concepts to help drive software at the pace of an organization's business.Mik has been an Eclipse committer since 2002, is an elected member of the Eclipse Board of Directors and serves on the Eclipse Architecture and Planning councils. Mik's thought leadership on task-focused collaboration makes him a popular speaker at software conferences, and he was voted a JavaOne Rock Star speaker in 2008 and 2009. Mik enjoys building tools that offload our brains and make it easier to get creative work done.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Nag Vaidyanathan is the EVP and CTO for OneMain Financial. Nag’s organization is over a century old, but when the pandemic hit, the company had to accelerate the pace of its digital offerings. One challenge that Nag has been seeing good results with is creating a user experience that mirrors in-person branch services.This week on Innovation and the Digital Enterprise, Patrick and Shelli talk to Nag about the rapid pace of digitization at OneMain Financial as well as Nag’s experience working in business settings across the globe. Nag shares some of the cultural lessons he’s had to learn (and unlearn) and offers some tips for leaders who skew toward introversion. Take a listen for more of Nag’s insights.(01:44) - OneMain Financial(06:49) - Accelerating through the pandemic(09:08) - Codebase complexity(11:23) - Physical and digital coexistence(14:12) - Diverse global experience(19:17) - Entering a new cultural environment(23:55) - Strategies for introvertsNag Vaidyanathan is the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at OneMain Financial.  At OneMain, Nag is responsible for building the technology capabilities to support and drive business value for OneMain’s customers across channels, as well as ensuring collaborative and end user capabilities for its employees. His expertise includes application delivery and operations, global development, digital transformation, IT security, and data.Before joining OneMain early last year, he worked as Danske Bank’s Chief Information Officer, Digital Banking and Analytics and as Chief Information Officer, Personal Banking. He also spent more than 10 years as a senior director on the legacy application modernization, digital and building global development teams at Allstate.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

When it comes to attracting talent, Thomas South believes it’s not necessarily about being specialized or competing based on benefits packages alone. Rather, he believes that creating a mission-driven culture is key to recruiting employees that will thrive in your organization.As EVP of Northern Trust, Thomas oversees teams of wealth managers with extensive knowledge of the financial industry. While technology is integral to the company’s path forward, Thomas has found that human touch is needed to complement an expanding suite of digital tools.He joined Patrick and Shelli to discuss why mission-driven values are important to any business as well as how to balance human knowledge and experience with increasingly remote, online environments.(01:02) - Northern Trust(04:16) - Competitive edge(07:29) - High-touch service(11:20) - The war on talent(15:23) - Remote-only employees(22:06) - Agents of change(27:04) - Cross-training(32:57) - Human-centered designThomas A. South is an Executive Vice President at The Northern Trust Company and currently serves as Chief Information Officer for the Firm. Tom was appointed Executive Vice President as head of Enterprise Business Architecture in February 2016, responsible for business unit technology strategy development, operations change management, and location strategy to support a scalable global operating model. Prior to joining Northern Trust, Tom served in technology leadership roles at both Automated Concepts Inc. and Ace Hardware Corporation. Tom is active in volunteering and fundraising in various United Way and Make-a-Wish related activities and is seeking opportunities to provide greater support for gender diversity in the STEM fields. If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Scott Kitun is a rock star in the Chicago startup and investment world. His company, Technori, is Chicago’s largest media platform for entrepreneurs and has seen billions invested in its first decade. He is our guest this week on Innovation and the Digital Enterprise and joins Shelli and Patrick to talk about the current state of Chicago’s investment landscape.Listen as Scott shares his thoughts on team building, why money and equity aren’t necessarily good motivators, and why you shouldn’t hire your friends. He also makes the case that founders and athletes like Michael Jordan share the same trait of competing to win.(03:04) - The evolution of Technori(08:49) - Evaluating companies(14:48) - Missing the mark(23:17) - Giving out equity(28:00) - How to get more involved(32:04) - Hot startups in ChicagoScott Kitun is a Chicago-based media entrepreneur, investor and Technori CEO. As CEO of Technori, he has played a small role in shaping Chicago into one of the largest and most inclusive tech ecosystems in the world — where we've helped hundreds of founders raise more than $1 billion in venture funding, with 25+ exits and over $20 billion in collective ARR.As an operator, he has successfully built and sold two media companies, and created the first-ever radio show enabling startups to fundraise directly from a live audience; resulting in more than $50 million invested via equity crowdfunding.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.