Digital Transformation at Scale

Rachel Cossar: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode in conversations in the future of work. Today, we’re gonna be talking about digital transformation at scale. We’ve spent a bit of time talking about some small business side, of the of the world, and now we have the opportunity to speak with someone who has extensive experience with massive enterprise companies and and helping them navigate through change. So with that, I would love to introduce you to David Dodge. Hi.

David Drodge: I’m Dave Drodge, and I am been working in digital for probably 25 years now. And it’s the case that, from, you know, businesses big and small, but, for the last probably 8 years has been mostly bigger businesses and, you know, really working at a global scale. So I’m very excited to be here today. Awesome.

Rachel Cossar: David, thank you so much for being here. And we’re gonna get started. So our first question is, I’d love for you to share with our audience members, you know, what it is that you think the most underrated area of change for large organizations is?

David Drodge: Well, I think that one of the things is that even in the, the statement itself, you know, you’ve got the fact that we don’t have people in there. And people is the big factor. It really is something where especially in large organizations, it’s a lot of people, a lot of different nationalities, a lot of different parts of the business, and you actually have to kind of bring the transformation to the point where you’re saying, okay. This is actually something that’s relevant for me. It’s really happening because sometimes there’s a little bit of, like, glacier move as well and say, well, it’s just really gonna be a transformation, or is it just something that we’re hearing again? And those things are so critical to actually, you know, making the change actually happen and stick. Right.

Rachel Cossar: And I asked so I actually think this might feed directly into our next question, but I’ve heard a lot about some of these, you know, companies who are like, okay. We’re using AI now and hear tools, but if the change hasn’t been brought to a behavioral level and the people themselves haven’t been given the support they need or the infrastructure or whatever it may be. Like, that change is just not gonna really go anywhere. Would you agree with that? Completely.

David Drodge: And I, again, it it comes back to, like, you know, talk a lot about, like, you know, people, process, technology, And a lot of times, the technology gets brought in, but then what is gonna happen to the process? How is that gonna change? And then people don’t have the right mindset going into it. Again, they just might say, well, this is just another transformational change that may not stick and I think as well, you mentioned AI. I mean, and I think generative AI specifically, it’s it’s such a big change that really people need to understand that they need to get on board. Yeah. Wow.

Rachel Cossar: Alright. So moving moving on and related to that, you know, how do you think about facilitating digital transformation? Like, human digital transformation at scale across complex organizations. Right? Cause we’re not talking about just a couple people, businesses here. Right?

David Drodge: So, again, I, I think that, one of the big challenges is it depends on the organization. So, you know, how the company really works underneath the the the the water of the iceberg kind of thing is key. So he, for instance, I’ve worked in a lot of organizations, maybe more on the decentralized side of things. And if you just go over the top down, it just doesn’t work. On the flip side, if it’s just bottom up either, it’s it’s not gonna work. It has to kind of be the 2 of them coming together working, you know, seamlessly, to actually get to that point where you actually have the change that you want to actually see. And I think that that’s a challenging situation to be in, but if you do it that way and fits the culture of your company, you actually have a lot better results. I mean, it could be cutter. It’s just not gonna cut it. Right.

Rachel Cossar: And now that hybrid or, like, now you’re added with the added challenge. I feel like of not even not having everyone in the same place at the same time, at least not physically. It’s so, like, what do you have to say about about that?

David Drodge: So I think that one of the key things is that you know, whichever way I look at it, it’s gonna be a hybrid world going forward. Yeah. And, you know, just the nature of the way we do business now because of the post COVID situation is such that really now we’re used to thinking, okay, we don’t need to just do it physically together first thing. But maybe more importantly, it’s like maybe the right people that we need to have in the virtual room are all over the world. And therefore, we need to work for that. So, like, I’ve been in situations where, you know, we’ll have a morning meeting in Europe, which is like, you know, looking to the east, the evening one, is looking west, and then you bring those two groups together to actually to kind of figure out, like, at the end, you know, like, how you’re actually gonna finish off the project. But it’s the case that you’re actually going with that right away kind of thinking because you wanna make sure you get all the voices, in the room and get to the right conclusion. Right.

Rachel Cossar: So you mentioned you mentioned having multiple different meetings at different different time zones to be able to accommodate people all over the world. What other what other practices have you seen that work well in in trying to, like, meet people where they’re at.

David Drodge: Well, I think one of the key things as well is that, you know, if we actually did get people into the physical room, you know, we don’t just go right into the business. It’s a case that you want people to actually be comfortable with each other, trust each other, actually be able to kind of really collaborate and bring the best of that group together. So I think that’s absolutely critical. And a lot of times, we we skip it. Know, we just kinda say, okay. Yeah. We’ll just we’ll schedule a meeting. We’ll get going or whatever else. And then you notice further down the road, you’ve actually lost a lot of time and you actually have to go back and kind of, you know, kind of, buttress those kind of, bridges and the like to make them hold the weight of actually what you want to achieve. So I think that’s really critical is building the trust together as a group and then going forth and actually trying to figure out, you know, how we’re gonna actually solve the problems because usually they’re they’re big problems that are global problems, and we need to actually work together on these things.

Rachel Cossar: So would you say then that a good approach would be, like, trying to organize some kind of in person session initially that allows some of these bonds to form and then and then maybe the rest of it can continue in a way that’s more hybrid or with virtual channels facilitated. Like, is that even a realistic thing?

David Drodge: Well, actually, a great point.

Rachel Cossar: So I think these days, it’s not something we always have the luxury of being able to fly in people from all over the world in that type of way.

David Drodge: Having said that, prepo COVID, when, one of my former positions, I was in, the WALA Fund, it was a complete virtual team. And one thing that we did do is actually come together at least once a year. So we did have that communal time together to discuss the next year just, you know, keep knowing each other and the new members of the team getting to know that that the rest of the team, that kind of stuff, and that was absolutely critical. And, you know, especially with a big virtual team, if you have that luxury, it’s it’s it’s a great investment. But like you say, it’s something where sometimes it’s not possible, and I don’t think that it’s, prelude, you can’t say, okay, I without that, I can’t go forward. We can do a lot of it virtually. But, again, it’s maybe not the 1st meeting, the 1st day is like, complete into the work. It’s like who are the other people? Who are the other humans across the and, you know, across the screen? Right.

Rachel Cossar: So you would want to even in a virtual or maybe a especially in that virtual world. Yeah.

David Drodge: Exactly.

Rachel Cossar: Taking some time to facilitate a conversation. That isn’t just like, alright. Agenda item number 1, 2. Yeah. Right. Yep.

David Drodge: Absolutely.

Rachel Cossar: I think that’s a great point, as a facilitator myself for for virtual sessions, you know, I think that there’s actually so much more people could be doing to to your to your point to help people recognize the humans on the other end. Before launching into, you know, the the items that that need to be discussed. So that’s a that’s a fantastic point. Anything else that you that you’ve seen work well in kind of facilitating change across hybrid teams?

David Drodge: So I think the other thing too is that I mean, we have lots of tools and and in case whatever tools we have to kinda keep the dialogue open. So, you know, we’ve seen a lot more move nowadays to more kind of, you know, really chat based functions, you know, in the internal social media network, you might say. And to just have that continuous so that, you know, we can’t all work synchronously. So asynchronously, hey. I’ve got a question that came up, you know, like, for instance, and Again, if it’s a really global project and you have this east west kind of divide of the team, you know, it’s continuous that and and then the and that’s a great thing as well because then there’s a case they can work offline when other people are are sleeping as well. Right. Right.

Rachel Cossar: Which can be, like, I super efficient when you think about it. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

David Drodge: It’s almost like kinda going to sleep and the elves have done the work. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: That’s funny. We one of our team members is in Bulgaria, and it is pretty amazing to wake up in the morning, and she’s already done, like, a few hours of work. You know? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

David Drodge: Awesome.

Rachel Cossar: So in terms of, you know, switching tracks a little bit to talk about AI specifically, I’m curious to hear what you think some of the biggest challenge. Like, we know some of the opportunities. Right? But what are some of the challenges to the way AI has been evolving, especially from, you know, your perspective of of these, like, complex larger organizations. Yeah.

David Drodge: So I think that, one of the key things is that you know, in contrast, like, to a startup like yours, for instance, I mean, you can get the team together and kinda say, okay, tomorrow, we’re gonna do x and pivot. Yeah. And in the big organization, the first thing that comes up is, okay, what is the risk here? You know, what’s the downside? And and what what hurdles do we have to get past to actually to be able to move forward. So I think that’s a that’s a huge, problem, but it’s something that’s mitigatable. I mean, it’s a case that you know, we have, like, for instance, big organization policies, there’s ways of doing work and everything else. And even though each emerging technology has its own particularities, which we figure out as we go, especially like French degenerative AR right now, they still have some fundamental risks and we can build for those. We can say, okay. You know, we don’t have a policy yet on x like generative AI, but you know, you still have to kinda keep the idea of the reputation of the company in mind. You still have to keep information confidential. So all those things kind of expand out. And then once you’ve she started to actually move towards, okay, generative AI, we really need to work about X, y, and z for our company. That’s when you can start to build in the policies and their like. So I think that that’s one of the big things is that we shouldn’t let that paralysis kind of hold us it back. It’s really like, for instance, how what can we do today?

Rachel Cossar: And, for instance, in that regard, one of the things is, like, for instance, okay, well, you know, we set it out that the normal things that you shouldn’t be using external tools for.

David Drodge: And therefore, what you can experiment with it yourself. You can actually try some things out that are like, for instance, on public data and things that, you know, you can you just to get a feel for what it’s useful for. And, you can actually go forward. So, I mean, I think that’s one of the mentality differences is is that, okay, it might not be a well known quantity yet. But there’s some things you can do to get familiar so that once we’ve caught up with the, making sure things are safe that we can actually use it, that you can we can continue with that. Interesting.

Rachel Cossar: So you’ve re you bring up a couple of things that I think are really interesting. Number 1, and and we’ve noticed this too because at virtual Sapiens, of course, our technology is pretty cutting edge, especially because we’re we’re looking more at the behavioral aspect of communication. Right? Like, the general gen generative AI text based verbal analysis as people are used to that by now. So we do deal with a lot of, video stuff, and it’s been interesting to talk some of these larger organizations, and they actually don’t they don’t have any kind of policies in place to even know what questions they should be asking and some of those. Right? And so, like, we, of course, have the benefit of, like, everything we’ve done is privacy first. So that’s helpful. But to your point, like so much of this is going so fast that many companies are like, we don’t even know like what questions to ask what safeguards to put in place, and that’s like really hard. Yeah.

David Drodge: And like I say, it just changes so quickly.

Rachel Cossar: So, I mean, you know, even a couple months ago, you know, chat UPT, didn’t actually, you know, take, you know, do visual, and now it does. And, I mean, it’s a case again.

David Drodge: They just bring out these things just so quickly. And then we’re waiting with a date in breath about what Gemini will actually come from Google, but it’s a case that, again, you know, is that gonna change the game again, or is it just gonna be getting par with, open AI again and they’re gonna, you know, kinda go off or this is the open source community really gonna kind of rise to the challenge and actually bring us a better model.

Rachel Cossar: I mean, there’s just so many questions.

David Drodge: Yeah. It’s fascinating.

Rachel Cossar: And, do you so you you mentioned that in some cases, you can have the policy kind of risk component working through its processes, which just are slow with good reason. But then you can almost have a sandbox environment of testing. But is that what you meant? Well, that’s that’s one way of going about it as well.

David Drodge: I mean, even, like, for instance, that, you know, when you’re actually working with, external parties that you’re actually not using any of your real data. I mean, like, for instance, you can use dumb data and actually test out how does the system really work? I mean, and if, you know, if you actually have the team of data scientists and, like, they just turn out some data for you and say, okay. How would this look? And then analyze it both ways and then see what comes out, the other side. So I think there’s a lot of things that it can be done very quickly, but not have a lot of risk. But again, to get to that point within this, like, okay. Yes. This is really gonna be something that really changes the game for us and we wanna take it the risk properly. Takes a bit longer to do, but I it’s definitely doable. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: And what do you think is the most, like, exciting part of of AI specifically in terms of its its, forces of change?

David Drodge: Well, I think that, you know, in the last year, what we’ve seen is that, you know, originally, we’ve heard a lot of things about how AI was gonna take over jobs and things like this. And the automation piece is a much smaller part of it than the augmentation piece. I mean, what it actually helps to do faster often with better quality as well, especially for less experienced people, actually is so powerful that that will be where the the biggest gains come from.

Rachel Cossar: But that’s gonna really have, you know, fundamental change in how people think about their work instead of, you know, blank sheet of paper and filling it, it’s a case might be that, you know, you get a draft from, like an open AI or something, and then you edit it.

David Drodge: And, again, that’s a kind of a mentality change that we’re gonna have to see if it actually makes sense first. And then second of all, that if it does, we’ll then you know, actually using that, you know, it’s gonna be a very different way of working. Right.

Rachel Cossar: Yeah. Definitely. And going back to your point earlier, getting the people of the organization used to using some of these tools because, like, habits around content creation and things like that are very strong. Right? And so I’ve noticed even with myself, like, I’ve had to really remind myself, like, oh, like, that would be a perfect question for chat GPT, or, like, this is actually a question much more suited to, like, Google search, or both. Right? You may wanna, like, confirm and double check, references, but the behavioral part is is that’s a Yeah.

David Drodge: And I think as well when you see that blank kind of line if it’s in, you know, one of the large language models where you see it in Google, the first impulse is keyword keyword keyword. Mhmm. And it’s a case that, you know, a large language model is a chat. You know, it’s in the name, and it’s really something where it’s iterative. It’s it’s like something go back and forth. Versus like Google is actually more going, you know, kind of like throwing hers be to a dog, here go fetch. Right. Right. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: I like that analogy. That makes you know, a ton of sense. And the iterative nature of the AI, generative AI piece, I think, is is is often missed by people.

David Drodge: You know, you ask first question, you get the answer and you’re like, either you’re gonna take that answer at face value or which is dangerous in and of itself or or you’re not satisfied with it, right?

Rachel Cossar: And it’s actually, you can, I guess, like, a partnership a little bit? Exactly.

David Drodge: And I think as well, you know, there’s things like, you know, character dot ai, there’s pie.ai. There’s lots of, you know, conversational agents there that, like, really is meant to be moms, like, a companion. And, like, in the same way with work, it could be a work and it could be someone who’s actually helping you with your work, being your sparring partner. And the nice thing about generative AI as well, you can instruct it and say, okay. That’s what I want you to do in this case. And then after you’ve gotten to a point where you see your answer and you’re like, ah, I’m not really sure about that. You can get it to tweak it and have a complete impersonality to actually have a have a go at that. So I think that that’s the the fascinating part about it, and that’s the case that, you know, we don’t along at how it all have to be programmers and this kind of stuff to get those kind of results. What went from an 8 month project last year could be in days now. Right. Right.

Rachel Cossar: And that I mean, that’s amazing. Yeah. So so zooming out a little bit. I know we just were talking about AI specifically, but, what, you know, application of technology And you can talk more about AI, of course, too, but are are you most excited about?

David Drodge: So, about 2 years ago, I was asked a similar question and I said, okay. 2022 is definitely gonna be the year of augmented, like, you know, augmented reality and augmented intelligence. And I would say, like, we’ve talked a lot about ai, but I out AI could also be augmented intelligence. And I think that, you know, with Apple coming out with their, you know, device next year, it’s a case that I think together, it will be very much an augmented world. Now having said that, especially because of the price point of apples, you know, device, it’s gonna be you know, a very kind of, long kind of introduction you might say from the point of view of of us getting, you know, the average person getting access to that kind of technology. But I think that that’s the way it’s gonna be. It’s very much about augmenting.

Rachel Cossar: It’s about, you know, increasing our abilities with these tools.

David Drodge: And over time that will evolve and and get more widespread as well. But I think that, yeah, I think maybe 2024, maybe 2025 will be the year of Augmented. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: Okay. Interesting. Have you tried any of those? You know, not VR, but as you said, like, augmented tools. Yes. So to be honest with you, no. And it’s like, for instance, though, so I have had, a VR headset for a couple of years.

David Drodge: And again, it’s like, for instance, it’s a classic you know, you don’t have the great content, then, you know, the device is just not gonna, you know, kind of sell and then can keep going kind of thing. So think it’s across the app, we can figure it out. And I hopefully had a much lower price point, but they hit it time we hit 2025, but it’s something where I think that those are gonna be some key key things and see if we get it right. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: That’s so interesting.

David Drodge: It’s, yeah, like, I feel like VRAR and, like, the metaverse have, like, taken a back seat a little bit while and it’s also funny to think about, you know, even, a couple years ago, like all anyone wanted to talk about was the crypto blockchain Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: But all of these technologies are constantly evolving. Right? And Definitely.

David Drodge: And I think this is the thing is that we’ve had those discussions. There’s been a lot of interesting things that have come out of that. And over the next few years as well, whichever things kind of are popular and emerging technologies kind of how these things actually work together. I mean, again, you know, AI is just like, for instance, like, electricity, you know, at the turn of the sent to 20th century. So it’s a case you know, from that point of view, it could really just be an enabler for general purpose applications and all these areas might explode again just because it’s actually now possible. Yeah.

Rachel Cossar: And I think I’m because I’m always so focused on, like, the physical experience for people, I’ll be really curious to see whatever manifestation of this kind of AR technology can work flexibly with people so that it you know, because glasses are hard. Right?

David Drodge: Not everyone wears glasses.

Rachel Cossar: It’s a your face is such a big part of your identity. So for everyone to be walking around with the same glasses, I think is a an unlikely ask of society. Interesting. Yeah. Right? So it’s like so if not, glasses for everyone that’s like what. Yeah. But really interesting, really interesting stuff. Any any other any other thoughts, David, before we go? No.

David Drodge: I mean, I I think that, you know, you know, going back to kind of and and wrapping I think that one of the key things is that we really have to be mindful of the technology. And, you know, and and how we use it and how we interact with it. We can’t be complacent and and I think that, that’s one of the key things is that, like, you know, as this stuff gets better, we’re gonna be going, oh, yeah. It’s gonna give me, you know, 9 out of 10 answers that are right. I’ll just go with the 10th 1, and I think that that’s where we really have to kinda step back and say, always have a critical eye and what is bringing back to us. And always think about, you know, what are the bigger implications for for for us as humans. And I mean, and how we actually go about using these things. I think that’s so critical and it’s something that’s an optimist, especially in a technology side of things. Absolutely.

Rachel Cossar: That’s such a great reminder that’ll bring bring this talk show to a close. So, David, thank you so much for your time for sharing your expertise. I mean, as someone who’s so involved in technology and digital transformation. It’s really interesting to hear both on like the process side of how some of these changes have to happen, but then also like some of the technologies you’re you’re looking at. So how if if anyone has further questions for you, What’s the best way for them to to be in touch with you? Ah, yeah.

David Drodge: So definitely LinkedIn. So I check it too often. And it’s the case that I’m very happy to to to link up on LinkedIn and, you know, discuss things further and the like. So, yeah, that that’d be great if if you want to to join and and continue the discussion there. Awesome. Wonderful.

Rachel Cossar: Well, David, thank you again. And, to all of our audience members out there, thanks for tuning in.

David Drodge: Thank you very much, Rachel.