IT Visionaries

When you ask Ted Elliott what gets him excited the answer is a simple one: DevOps. As the CEO of Copado, Ted is helping companies around the world realize how DevOps can assist their organizations, even if they don’t understand how to code. Ted joined IT Visionaries to discuss exactly how Copado is helping to democratize DevOps. Plus, Ted details how his platform, in assistance with Salesforce, is aiding in the fight against COVID-19 through contact tracing.  Main Takeaways Code for Coders: Historically, DevOps has been for coders using complex tools that only coders could understand. Copado’s software helps to eliminate that gap by allowing a whole new set of users into the equation. By setting up guidelines and processes, Copado is empowering basic end-users the ability to push code. Ideating Innovation: The leading benefit for Copado’s Salesforce integration is its ability to allow the end-user to iterate once the product has been delivered. Instead of forcing companies to plan for a release date and only that particular date, now the platform can constantly be updating. No More Silos: One of the biggest challenges surrounding DevOps today is that far too many developers operate in silos. When you operate in isolation, your ability to innovate is limited. Instead, work with multiple teams to develop solutions that benefit the platform and the client. --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 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.

When you’re six years old and your dad says, ‘Take these discs and reformat the hard drive to this computer,’ you know you’re destined for a career in technology. Those were the words Joe Lennon heard in his youth, and today, Joe is the co-founder and CTO of Workvivo, a company that is helping employees communicate with their peers, while staying actively engaged with their employer. Joe joined IT Visionaries to discuss how the platform assisted companies in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and he explains why employee retention is a fight companies didn’t see coming and how it affects the future of work. Main Takeaways Time to Engage: One of the big challenges facing companies is how they can get employees to engage. If employees have the opportunity to communicate with their peers in ways they are familiar with outside of work, the chances for engagement rise dramatically, so facilitating that communication is worth investing in.  Employee Retention: As job-seeking becomes easier and more employees feel empowered to find new opportunities, companies must shift their focus to how they can align their core values with their employees. If employees don’t feel as if the company they work for is making an impact in their life and in society, they are less likely to stay with the company. Future of Work: When more companies empower employees with the ability to work remotely, fewer companies will be able to deploy traditional office environments. Instead, focus on giving your employees the tools they need to do their job from anywhere and at any time. --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 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.

When you’re a multi-time CTO, like Ryan Donovan, your objective is a simple one: find the next challenge that coincides with a mission that excites you. As the Chief Technology Officer at Hootsuite, the world leader in social media management, Ryan believes he has found that challenge. Ryan joined IT Visionaries for a discussion centered around how he manages a global staff from the comfort of his home. Plus he explains the difference between being a first-time CTO to an experienced C-suite executive, and the struggles of managing scale. Main Takeaways Share the Pain: When you manage a global team, make sure you are not just catering to one time zone or one set of employees. If one employee is remote, your entire team is remote. Make sure your meetings and get-togethers reflect that.  Don’t Stop Communicating: When managing through a crisis, make sure your communication increases. When Hootsuite had to deploy work from home orders, they were in constant contact with their employees, deploying new policies and then updating employees on those policies. So, You’re New Here?: When you take over as CTO and you have your sights set on changing things, make that change an impactful one. Find solutions that can make the experience better for you employees and consumers. -- 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.

If you ask Sasha Siddhartha, there are three core barriers that have prevented consumers from living a healthier lifestyle: price, geography, and information. Now, as the co-founder and CTO of Thrive Market, Sasha is working to eliminate those barriers in order to provide consumers with healthier options, all at the click of a mouse. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Sasha discusses the role Thrive Market plays in assisting consumers on their personal health journey and why the grocery industry is making big strides in eCommerce. Main Takeaways Think Big, But Also Small: Big companies offer tremendous opportunity to learn how to build for scale, high commitment to quality, and rigorous repeatable processes, which are all things that can be undervalued with start-ups. Take advantage of the knowledge available to you about what made those companies successful and then tweak it to fit your business. It’s In the Details...Kind of: When you are building a company from the ground up, you can’t be focused on one particular function. Instead, focus on the big picture. Don’t get bogged down with minute details. You have to constantly be thinking about what is on the horizon. We’re The Three Best Friends: Finding the right business partner is key to any company's success. When you’re scouting individuals to go to work with, make sure they know the industry well and make sure they are someone you want to battle with through the good times and the bad times.  --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 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.

Sean McDermott likes to say that his claim to fame is that he sent the very first email at the US Department of Justice. And while he enjoys being a part of that footnote in IT history, Sean — now the Founder and CEO of Windward Consulting Group — admits that the tech industry has come a long way since then, and it continues to evolve. Right now, the industry finds itself at an intersection — the government and the private sector have never needed IT more than they do today, and it’s a CIOs job to bring tech where it’s needed most. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Sean discusses the role his company plays in assisting large organizations at scale, solve their IT issues. Plus he explains what CIOs are looking for in today's climate and the future of technology in the workspace. Main Takeaways   You Gotta Spend Money To Make Money: One of the key struggles most CIOs are encountering is the rising cost of IT departments. While the demand for new technology and people to implement this technology continues to grow, the allocated budgets don’t always reflect the demand. Is the Perimeter Secure?: The number one thing that remains top of mind for all technology leaders is the need to have a safe and secure network. As companies have gone remote, the need for IT operations departments to maintain a safe and secure network has never been more important.   So, How About Some Change?: While IT departments are at the forefront of innovation, they still fulfill a lot of the same rudimentary requests — solving ticket requests, security concerns, and employee setup. Artificial intelligence, once fully integrated into IT workflows, will have a greater impact on the rate of evolution within the IT space. --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 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.

Intro Through the first half of 2020, the United States has reported nearly 30,000 gun violence deaths to date. And if you ask Rob Huberty, that number is 30,000 too many. As a former Navy SEAL turned entrepreneur, the rising levels of gun violence each year frustrates him, but now as the Chief Operating Officer of ZeroEyes, Rob is doing something about those numbers. Rob says, “When you see something you think you need, you go create it.” So he did. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Rob discusses how he’s helping to prevent shootings at first sight, rather than first shot. And he also details his journey from a NAVY SEAL to the private sector and the challenges of running a business. Key Takeaways Learning on the Fly: When you embark on the start-up journey, you have to be prepared for anything and willing to do the unglamorous jobs in order to move the business forward.  Be Diligent, Be Patient: When developing datasets for A.I., you have to be both diligent and patient. It’s going to take time to develop the system and teach the algorithm what it needs to look for. Be prepared to put in long hours to ensure your training the system effectively. A Little Less Reactive, A Little More Proactive: Security systems are important, but very reactive. If you’re just deploying basic security systems, you are not preventing a problem — you’re just capturing it. It’s important to be proactive. --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 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.

Digital transformation is a buzzword that’s fun to say hard to grasp. As more and more organizations embark on these technological journeys, are they really being led by the proper steward?  Rich Penkoski, the CEO of Markets for Deloitte Consulting, believes that in order for companies to have a smooth transition,you have to think of it as  a process that involves two key members of the C-Suite. On this episode of IT Visionaries Rich discusses why the CIO and CFO need to play an important role in any digital journey, and how the relationship between those roles continues to evolve. Plus, he digs into the acceleration of the digital agenda brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Main Takeaways A Growing Bond: The relationship between the CIO and CFO continues to grow in importance, especially when it comes to finding creative solutions to manage ROI while finding agile solutions Roads? Where We’re Going We Don’t Need Roads: The pace at which companies are being forced to implement digital transformations has been expedited. Because the process has been sped up, there is a tremendous burden being put on access to capital. Apple Easy, Google Fast:  IT professionals must now perform their work under the assumption that software must be easy and fast. Because of this new mindset, IT professionals must have a broader understanding of the profession, while being able to freely move across technologies. --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 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.

When Alex Krug was an executive at Behance, he noticed that quite a few tools had been developed to help encourage signups and onboard customers, but once they were working with the product, there was very little help offered. This was a problem he thought he could help solve, which is why he founded Baton. Today, as the founder and CEO of Baton, Alex is helping people streamline their actual workflow with automation and on this episode of IT Visionaries, he explains exactly what that looks like. Plus, he dives into his entrepreneurial journey and what it means to grow a company. Like so many startups, the idea for Baton stemmed from a pain point that founder and CEO Alex Krug experienced first-hand. During his days as an executive with Behance, which was later sold and acquired by creative giant Adobe, workflow.   Main Takeaways   Ouch! That Hurts!: When you’re looking to help companies scale, you need to identify their pain points. Understand the problems that are preventing them from growing. Don’t just throw more people at a problem in order fix-it. Think it through and fully understand the solution. Once you understand those problems, you can help that company grow.   Post-game: A lot of platforms are built to onboard clients and geared toward customer retention. Baton is designed to streamline the post-sale process to help companies automate and streamline their workflows. The A-Team: When attempting to grow a company, employee retention is of the utmost most important. If you can keep a team together long enough to see your original mission through, you’re on a pathway to success. --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 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.

Every company has a breaking point. A moment when an organization realizes it is overwhelmed by an avalanche of inbound calls and emails that bombard personnel with the same rudimentary questions over -and over again. It’s a vexing problem that resembles a scene from Groundhog Day, where team members feel as if they are constantly reliving the same day. But what if there was an easy data-powered solution to this problem? David Karandish is the CEO of Capacity, a company on a mission to solve those pain points through the power of A.I. On this episode of IT Visionaries, David details how the Capacity platform is eliminating common issues by using conversational intelligence and he explains why not all chatbots are serviceable.  Key Takeaways Does Not Compute: Not enough companies are using full-fledged platforms for their A.I. needs. When companies rely on single-use chatbots, those services are not able to escalate conversations to the next level. Instead, there is forced human interaction that otherwise is not needed with conversational intelligence. Build vs. Buy: When embarking on a digital transformation, the first question should always be if you should build your own software or simply buy an out-of-the-box solution If the software is not core to your business, don’t invest resources into it. Evolution of A.I.: The next step for A.I. is to become less reactive and more proactive. As more companies begin to utilize A.I. technologies, the wealth of data produced will continue to grow. Over the next few years, A.I. can go from simply answering questions, to being able to solve tasks for users. --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 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.

What happens when you combine A.I. with human intelligence? One answer is that you get Unbabel, a machine translation service on a mission to solve one of humanity’s most vexing challenges: language barriers. At Unbabel, the ultimate goal is to be able  to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world regardless of their native language. But to achieve that lofty goal we need data, we need translators and we need them to work together. João Graca is the Co-founder and CTO of Unbabel and on this episode of IT Visionaries, he discusses how his company is working to bring those two sides together to get closer to a future when we can rely on machine translation. Key Takeaways A Long Way to Go: While there has been a lot of progress with machine translation, there still is a long way to go. Translation services, like Google Translate, have the ability to comprehend words and sentences, but understanding full phrases and rare words remains a struggle. Unbabel works in real-time with machine translation and in-house translators to efficiently translate emails and marketing materials We Need Data and Need it Now: One of the biggest challenges when it comes to machine translation is the lack of data, especially in uncommon languages. Data from popular languages are used to help decipher sentences and phrases. When we don’t constantly have an influx of data, that challenge becomes greater. You Just Don’t Understand: if we don’t utilize both data and translators to grow machine translation, the intelligence will continue to be stagnant. The biggest issue right now is companies hiring in-house translators, which is not efficient, doesn’t increase the amount of open source data, and is incredibly expensive for companies. --- IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Customer 360 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.