IT Visionaries

Have you ever picked up a plant at the grocery store and wondered to yourself, can I really keep this alive? Or maybe you’ve planted seeds in the ground only to see them never sprout. Don’t worry, if you’ve struggled to find any success, you’re not alone. But imagine the pressure when the food industry’s supply chain is relying on your green thumb, so you have to find a way to plant trillions of seeds that yield crops covering millions of square miles to feed the world.. It’s no longer about having a green thumb. It’s a full on science and technology based operation, and it can’t fail. That’s where Bayer Crop Science and Elisha Herrmann step in to bring that supply chain to life.“We produce not only the seeds that the farmers plant, but we have to produce the fruits and the vegetables that produce the seeds that the farmers plant.”Elisha is a Global Supply Chain Strategy and Innovation Partner a Bayer Crop Science, a company that is currently utilizing all forms of science and technology, including drones, machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics, to deliver the best produce from the moment seeds hit the dirt to the second you remove them from the shelves. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Elisha describes the unique ways Bayer Crop Science is utilizing technology to ensure quality from both ends of the supply chain, why blockchain is now an integral tool for the food industry when it comes to tracking and tracing products, and much more.Main TakeawaysCan You Track That: Being able to track the lifecycle of a plant is incredibly important when it comes to managing where certain plants and produce are shipped. If a plant or seed is infected with a fungus and is sent to a geographic location of the world that doesn’t have the resources to remedy the causes of that fungus, it could be detrimental in very severe ways.It’s Just Science: Artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies are used to track the overall health and life cycle of crops, but also to manage current and future food trends. By using A.I. and machine learning, scientists can let the growers know if they need to plan for different crops.Blockchain Grows in Necessity: A few years ago, most growers, suppliers, and distributors were tracking the whereabouts of their crops manually. This meant that regardless of where those crops ended up, the data they were inputting was done manually and could have discrepancies. With blockchain, they now have the ability to instantly track where their crops are going, to whom they are being shipped, and how they are getting there.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

Smartphones are incredible pieces of technology. They allow users the ability to track stars, text people around the world, purchase items at the ease of a click, map their next destination, and so much more. Their individual capabilities are truly remarkable.“It's crazy. And all of that is powered by the battery and all of that and really what limits it, the engineer's imagination, you know, they're, they, they know how much, how much they can get out of that in terms of the energy. And so imagine now, if you could get 50% more energy from your phone and do 50% more, more tasks that we hadn't even thought of yet."That’s Rick Costantino, and while what he is saying may sound too good to be true, it’s not. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Rick dives into how Group 14 is reversing that trend by working to replace the traditional graphite anode with a silicon casing material. Plus, Rick touches on why silicon is the future of the battery industry, the impact it will have on devices that use  lithium-ion batteries, and how Group 14 is thriving despite some early stage struggles.Main TakeawaysA New Home: For the last two decades, there has been very little innovation as it pertains to lithium-ion battery casings.  Group 14 bucked that trend and by using a hybrid material of carbon and silicon, the company has found a way to eliminate the use of graphite, allowing batteries to weigh less, but produce more energyCan I get A Charge: It’s important to remember that while silicon allows for longer-lasting lithium-ion batteries, the real benefit is in unlocking the possibilities promised by that more powerful and energy-efficient battery.Built to Last: Another advantage of using a silicon-based battery is its sustainability benefits. The ability to consistently reuse silicon-based batteries means that there is less need to constantly dig into natural resources to constantly produce new batteries.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

Early learning education programs are not new —they’ve been around for years in multiple forms. Whether that’s Dora the Explorer taking you on her latest adventure, or hopping on your computer to travel along the Oregon Trail, the traditional education system has been supplemented with various platforms and programs for ages. The issue is, though, very few of them actually show or measure tangible results.That’s Stephanie Dua, the Co-founder and President of HOMER, an early learning program that is primarily focused on helping children get the best possible start to their education. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Stephanie explains how she was in a unique opportunity to not only help jump-start her own daughter's education, but to bring a scalable education product to market. She also explains what separates HOMER from its competitors and why phonemic awareness is the secret to the product’s success.Main TakeawaysEducating and Entertaining: There are multiple gaps in the education system that have created complexity when it comes reading comprehension. By streamlining and simplifying the reading process for kids, HOMER is creating a less messy hand-off system that is providing kids with the foundational skills needed and it’s working in a way that can scale.Can I Get Some Feedback?: Feedback loops are incredibly important in designing a personalized education program for young children. The more a student engages with the program, the more the A.I. and machine learning abilities of the platform learn the likes and dislikes of the student, but also the comprehension level of the student. So not only is the program then offering personalized content to each student, it’s also continuously challenging them.Have to Give them a Reason to Learn: Studies by the HOMER team prove that kids have a natural desire to learn, but the key ingredient is finding a way to present learning to them to where it is fun and enjoyable. This means creating multiple programs based on a kid's individual likes and dislikes. If a kid naturally likes baseball, and you are constantly providing them with content that is centered around bugs, the likelihood of engagement drops, but if the same content is presented in the form of baseball, the child is much more likely to re engage with the process.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

How many times over the last year have you visited a restaurant and sitting on the table right in front of you was bar code that led you to all the information you needed. From drinks, to desserts and entrees and everything in between, that simple code unlocked a handful of opportunities and experiences all through technologies that already exist within your phone. With more than 2 billion QRC- and NFC-enabled devices in use today (including the cell phone you might be listening to this podcast on), and in the midst of a global pandemic, QR codes have undergone a renaissance and companies such as RRD are rushing to meet your needs.“We create those touch points, something that triggers the experience, and that can happen way before you get to a payment machine, that can happen on a label on the outside of a product, on signage, outside of a building, on a post in front of a parking space, any number of different ways where a individual can engage a device, where they are basically triggering a touchless experience.”Making smartphones smarter and the user experience better through taps, snaps or scans is RRD’s latest piece of communication technology, Touchless World. Ken O’Brien is the EVP and CIO of RRD, a leading global provider of marketing and communications. And while you might not think RRD is known for its transformational technology, you’d be flat-out wrong. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Ken provides context for how RRD’s Touchless World operates and how the company is helping its clients leverage NFC technology to deliver seamless customer experiences. Plus, Ken dives into the challenges that the company currently faces, including how it is managing its technology debt after being in business for more than a century.Main TakeawaysIt’s a Tough World: When a company is more than a century old, that shows that it has adapted, grown, and changed with the times. As that happens, though, technical debt builds up and needs to be dealt with in order to stay agile.But What is A Touchless World?: A touchless world simply means eliminating some of the impediments that can cause a poor user experience, such as waiting in line to checkout at a kiosk. By developing scannable QR codes that incorporate a device's NFC system, RRD. has given the user a streamlined experience. Keeping Up with the Times: One of the most important things for any company is continuing to modernize its tech stack. Regardless of any technical debt that may have accumulated, it’s critical to always have a clear path for your digital transformation efforts.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

The internet is a fascinating place and over the years it has provided tremendous resources to billions of people around the world. It’s brought us closer, and it’s divided us and at the same time. People feel more empowered to make their voices heard. The problem is anonymity has seemingly eroded basic standards of kindness and decency. At least that’s what it seems like when you look at the comments section on blogs, social posts, and more.“The way of communicating online is a massive problem, and it affects our mental health. It affects how we see ourselves and our confidence levels and, and everything about it. It's just this constant cesspool of just the worst parts of humanity. And we wanted to really try and solve that problem. And that's where Yappa differentiates itself.”Meet Kiaran Sim, Co-founder and COO of Yappa, an app that is hoping to make the internet a little more conversational, a little less hostile, and at the bare minimum, more empathetic. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Kiaran discusses how their conversation integration tool monitors and censors bad actors, while simultaneously building a positive internet community and the benefits that brings to the internet as a whole. Plus, Kiaran also details the importance of keeping a clean revenue stream and more.Main Takeaways:Know Your Worth: As a start-up — especially in the social media industry — you don’t want to get in the habit of relying on ad revenue as your primary source of income. Instead, figure out a constant revenue model that takes the pressure and guesswork out of your financial status. If At First You Don’t Succeed: Always make sure you are listening to your users; they will guide your product in the direction that it needs to go in. For the Yappa team, that meant abandoning their initial social media app in order to integrate as part of larger programs. By listening to its customer base, and giving users what they wanted, Yappa overcame two obstacles at once.Taking out the Garbage: By removing the anonymous aspect of commenters, the Yappa team was able to dramatically reduce the number of inappropriate users from a traditional average of 18% down to 2%. When users are forced to verify their identities rather than hide behind accounts and usernames, an authentic community of like minded users can form without fear of anonymous online abusers.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

Problem Solvers, pioneers, but more importantly data nerds. That’s how Sumo Logic describes itself, and well...it’s fitting. Rooted in big data and security, SumoLogic is among the most powerful machine data analytics services in the world, but to reach the pinnacle of any industry, requires a culture that strives to be the best.“There's a lot of discomfort in this type of a culture, because in order to really be willing to disrupt yourself so that you don't get disrupted by somebody else, you have to empower and enable people inside of your company to challenge decisions, to take risks, to take accountability for those risks. But it has to be a culture that relies on transparency, collaboration, risk, and essentially distributed decision-making.”Bruno Kurtic is the Founding Vice President of Product and Strategy for Sumo Logic and on this episode of IT Visionaries, Bruno delves into how the Sumo Logic platform operates, why the pace of change in the technology industry continues to keep them on their toes, and why more-and-more enterprises are utilizing multi-cloud approaches. Plus Bruno dives into what a successful technology culture looks like, how it should operate and every voice matters no matter where you sit in the company hierarchy.Problem Solvers, pioneers, but more importantly data nerds. That’s how Sumo Logic describes itself, and well...it’s fitting. Rooted in big data and security, SumoLogic is among the most powerful machine data analytics services in the world, but to reach the pinnacle of any industry, requires a culture that strives to be the best.Main TakeawaysPace of Change: With the speed that technology is changing, you can never rest on your laurels. Companies must constantly be reinventing themselves and the services that they provide to their clients. One of the best ways to stay ahead of the curve is to implement an agile approach, that lets you pivot on a moments notice.If You’re Note Reliable, What are You?: If you’re a digital business, your application services must be reliable and they must perform and they must consistently perform to the standards you sold the client on.Your product should always aim to be an industry leader in service and repair, because it what will always set you apart from your competitors is the reliability of your product.One Cloud, Two Cloud…: 70% of enterprises now deploy a multi-cloud approach, which is a major shift from just 10 years ago when most companies were getting familiar with the cloud and adopting single cloud strategies. Because of these multi-cloud strategies, it’s affected the way software has to be integrated into the infrastructure of your tech stack.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

Companies flaunt the term digital transformation almost as if it’s a badge of honor. It’s a  phrase that can signify an enterprise is on the cutting edge of innovation with a constant eye toward the future. But Joanne Friedman, CEO of Connektedminds, has another word for it.“It's a misnomer,” she said. “Any company that isn't constantly in some state of transformation isn't alive.”Joanne believes that companies don’t simply go through a digital transformation once and then pat themselves on the back — at least, the good ones don’t. No, she is of the mind that digital transformation is an ongoing process, and it’s one she’s been going through her entire career.  An industry visionary, entrepreneur, and IT executive, Joanne envisions herself and Connektedminds as the leaders of the team helping companies reach their goals when it comes to their IT needs and how to constantly improve.“Coach Is the best description because we stay with the client throughout the whole process,” she said. “It's not just helping them choose technology. It's what do you want to be when you grow up as a digital business? You have to define the outcomes. You have to look at the business model of how that company is going to operate. This is what you're going to have to go through to get to that point. So we act as a coach.”On this episode of IT Visionaries, Joanne dives deep into the world of digital transformations, how companies should be thinking about the process, the role a proper analyst plays in helping to make those decisions, and why it might be time to alter the phase all together. Plus, Joanne discusses the intricacies of IoT and why it’s time to finally set some standards when it comes to connected devices.Main TakeawaysWhat is Digital Transformation: Digital transformation is a gradual process, it does not happen overnight and companies need to stop thinking they can take on large tasks in a swift manner. What they should be thinking about is their technology stack as a toolkit, filled with 15-20 different tools. Each of those tools should have one goal: does it drive value to the overall business? If it does not, it should not be in your tech stack.Coach Friedman: Analysts are coaches, there to help you reach your goals and accomplish the task at hand. When you are an analyst, you have to constantly be thinking about the company's future and what it could be in five to ten years and then reverse engineer strategies to help get them there.Can we Get Some Standards Up in Here?: Right now, one of the biggest problems surrounding the IoT space is the lack of defined standards between consumer IoT, which includes items such as iPads, phones and routers and industrial IoT devices. Currently, there is ambiguity about where industrial IoT falls and the list of guidelines it must adhere to.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

They say one of the biggest attributes any entrepreneur needs to have is the ability to problem solve. To be able to identify challenges large and small and effectively produce a solution for them. It seems simple, but it’s not. A vast number of start-ups fail, and the reason is although they identified and addressed an issue, it’s not the right issue. So how do you know when the problem your company is attempting to solve is the right one? Paul English, Founder and CTO of Moonbeam, has some noteworthy advice.“My advice to other entrepreneurs, when they ask when they should go for it and when should they quit their day job to go work on their new idea is when you have an idea, a problem that you want to solve, and the problem is more important than the solution. Most tech companies don't fail because the programmers couldn't write good code. Most tech companies fail because they solved the problem that no one cares about. What's most important is solving a big problem.”Paul has had a prolific career as a founder, with all the highs and lows you would expect. But for Paul, the thrill of the next big idea and the next adventure is what keeps him going, and his success has been rooted in his. ability to understand the big issues and develop and implement a plan to rectify them. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Paul goes into detail about that skill, and he explains why Moonbeam, his new company, is solving one of the biggest pain points in on-demand programming. Plus, Paul dives into his past experiences, details key pillars that make up a successful CTO, and predicts why Moonbeam is about to take-off.Main TakeawaysHey Now, You’re a Problem Solver: For any entrepreneur that is starting out, you have to answer a few questions before you get started. What problems are you solving, and is the problem something that will resonate with consumers? It’s very easy to get locked in on ideas that are important to you. But if your problem is not something that the rest of the public cares about, your business will most likely failSearch and Engagement: The two most important factors of any social platform are the ability to identify relevant content, make it searchable, and then drive engagement for its active users.The Power of the Algorithm: When you are designing a machine learning strategy, it’s very important to make sure that your algorithm is not just feeding users the same content over and over again. Instead, make sure that your platform has some level of randomness to it, so the user is exposed to new forms of media. IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

In gambling there’s a common saying, the house always wins...After all, the majority of people who spend their nights and weekends throwing dice across the craps table, or contemplating their next blackjack hand are always relying on luck. Yuchun Lee, CEO and co-founder of Allego, is not one of those people.Yuchun is one of the founding members of the infamous MIT Blackjack card counting team portrayed in the movie 21.With his earnings, he was able to bootstrap Unica which was acquired by IBM for 400 million. Now, Yuchun is back building the next great software company with  Allegro, an accelerated learning video-based sales platform. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Yuchun explains how his calculated decision-making removes risk  and details how it is using A.I. and machine learning to empower every sales professional to close the next deal.Main TakeawaysCan You Hop on a Sales Call?: The way companies and sales professionals approach clients has changed drastically over the last year. No longer are tried and true sales techniques closing deals. Now, sales professionals must be able to make a personal connection through Zoom calls instead of one-to-one meetings, which is causing a lot of businesses to rethink their sales practices.Just in Time Learning: One of the ways businesses are altering those methods is through just-in-time learning, which are ways to educate sales professionals in real time, by empowering them with the required tools they need to close deals. These tactics are similar to YouTube videos, but instead are hyper-focused on a client’s needs and desires.Providing Value: While virtual assistants are becoming more popular in the sales world, there is still no equal to a personal human touch.So, while a lot of the more rudimentary work can be done by A.I. and RPA, there is still an overwhelming need for that one-to-one connection. IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform  -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

The term “smart city” might bring to mind images from The Jetsons, maybe flying cars and robots serving humans. And while that’s possible, cities are getting smarter right now in very practical and useful ways. Building a smart city is about its citizens and how their lives can continuously be improved through data and incremental change.“The ultimate goal is very simple: Can we use the combination of innovative thinking, the right technology solution, the right policy making, and the right decision framework to ultimately improve the quality of life for the citizens. Smart cities are not about smartness. It's about a better life for the citizens.”Meet Sameer Sharma,General Manager of Smart Cities and Intelligent Transportation at Intel. He leads a global team that works to drive new IoT growth categories and revenue streams for Smart City Services. In this episode of IT Visionaries, Sameer defines the term smart city, and how cities can harness the massive amounts of data they produce. Plus he  provides some case studies for what cities such as Singapore and New York are doing to increase the quality of life for their citizens. And Sameer also pinpoints key areas that cities that wish to take the next step in their smart city journey must identify in order to reach their goals.Main TakeawaysJohnny (Data) Tsunami: We are in the midst of a data tsunami, and how cities manage the massive amounts of data they collect on a daily basis has never been more critical to the future of those cities than it is today. By understanding the insights data provide, cities can advance things like traffic patterns, infrastructure, and other areas of everyday life that affect citizens. Think Big, But Start Small: City planners and policymakers should always be thinking about the next big project when it comes to improving their citizens’ lives. But while you should always be thinking big, you have to start small. Begin by thinking about how you are managing your networks, and this begins and ends with edge computing. How is your data being transferred back-and-forth? Are you deploying any form of edge computing? Start by answering those questions first because cities that lack that basic tech won’t have the infrastructure to solve many of their problems at the scale they need to.Changing Tide: Previously, CIOS were solely responsible for advancing and implementing technology. Things are different now, even at a city-wide level. Technology is not siloed in the way that it used to be, and with so many more people affected by all forms of technology, everyone needs to have a seat at the table.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform   -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.