Tim Crawford

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All right, we're continuing the conversation talking to the speakers from the CTO advisor virtual conference Year ago, it's actually almost been a year and a half in another couple of weeks. Can you believe it Tim? I can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday. We were having a conversation about this So for those of you who don't know the voices temp profit of Oya He's one of our my peer independent analysts, we are on a ton of different analyst calls together Tim brings a unique view from the CIO perspective.

Obviously, I'm from the CTO perspective and we want to talk Have a little impromptu talk about return to work Tim when I first engaged clients last year when they were reacting to The pandemic and getting folks the ability to collaborate and work remotely I actually had customers taking their desktop computers not laptop desktop computers Off of their desk and taking it home To continue the business of business. Yep. How things have changed We're not talking about the How things have changed We're not talking about Collaboration we're now talking about the impact of all the past year and a half going on Longer than a year and a half now of remote work and thinking about returning to work What's at the top of mind for CIOs as they're considering returning to the office, you know first and foremost Keith It's great to chat with you again always a pleasure and You know, I look forward to these conversations with you because like you said, you know We come from two different perspectives and talk a lot about the same things and bring those two different viewpoints into the mix you know return to work is is Still going on as a top conversation Subject and Frankly what we had planned even just three months ago has now been kind of thrown to the wind and we're having to rethink this All over yet again, and it goes back to something that I've talked about.

I know you've talked about a bit too which is you know, we have to stop talking about the new normal or rather than the New normal as an end state but rather the next normal and how we're gonna go through this process And when we start thinking about that We start thinking very differently about what remote work really means for folks, you know how they're gonna work, you know today Everybody is has moved to better High-speed connectivity in their homes than they've had in the past They probably have a decent microphone that they're using because they're you know doing a lot more audio or a better camera That they're using and so you're right when when we started down this path a year and a half or almost two years ago now You know people were just grabbing whatever they could I know teams that Leaders that told their teams take your credit card Go to every big-box store office supply store grab every keyboard mouse monitor that you can get your hands on Because we need to get that out to our staff and get them functional Now people are functional remotely.

I think the question is, you know What does remote work look like moving forward and what does return to work look like? Moving forward and so timing is one thing, but I think the bigger question is How do we do that in a hybrid sense meaning? Okay, Keith Keith and I normally work together in an office But now we're both remote and at some point Keith might go back in the office But Tim's gonna be remote and then the next day it might be vice versa And so how do we manage that and it's not trivial It's really challenging and so I think when you start looking at the tools you start looking at the processes You have to think through that and this is exactly what CIOs are starting to do is How do we start to and they've been doing it for a while?

I guess I should say How do we work effectively in a hybrid scenario and it's not trivial Yeah, it's as I think through we just returned to church just this past weekend So I came off of the road trip where I was consuming our church sessions on the road Everybody was virtual. So it really didn't matter if I was in Chicago or San Diego or Seattle My experience was equal to everyone else's we return to Regular church services and we can apply this beyond just religious ceremonies.

We can think about school and Other settings where we have to collaborate communities of Standards where we would typically get together and collaborate now. We're collaborating Remotely and that worked fine for what it was now, we're in this hybrid world and Less technically last week was the first week where my church met together and I felt disconnected the Church service was going on and I couldn't you know in the chat session say lol to the to the rest of the members Virtual and Etc.

So it changes the dynamic of collaboration, so I Know part of this is a cultural problem We're not focusing mainly on the cultural problem But mainly on the what the CIO is challenged with and I guess that's the question I want to ask you. How is the CIO? Best equipped to handle something that he doesn't control which is the cultural Aspect of it. He's asked to react or predict he or she is asked to react to predict The changes in culture and adapt the technology to that.

Well, how are they handling that that part of the role? Yeah, I mean, it's a great question Keith and and I think the the short answer is they're struggling with it You know, he or she that is leading that IT organization. They're they're trying different things. They're experimenting trying to figure out how They can leverage technology appropriately and I underscore the word appropriately because not all technology fits every culture and in every situation and I think it's important to Understand that and CIOs are struggling with that right now.

They're trying to figure out and this has been true for some period of time What technologies make sense? Considering the culture of our specific organization and just like humans are different. You're different than me I'm different than the next person. Guess what? Organizations are different to their cultures are different even in the same industry even competing organizations. They're very different Yet we're trying to use this one-size-fits-all technology To kind of plug in and address some of these challenges and it just doesn't It doesn't work that way, right?

It's a it's a real problem So a lot of experimentation, you know, try something if it doesn't work great. Can it try something different? But I think you know to your point about culture I Don't necessarily think the CIO is the right person to necessarily set that culture But they are definitely the right person to facilitate Understanding the company's culture and how tools kind of fit into it and that knits in its own Right is a collaborative process, you know, it's not just simply how do we get on a video call together and talk?

But it's also who are the right people to get on how do we kind of to your your example about church and not feeling connected how do we ensure that the people that are in the room and The people that are kind of calling in or connecting remotely that they're equal citizens in that conversation So this is one of many challenges if I'm remote Into a meeting. How do I become at equal? Footing with everyone in the room meaning I can collaborate equally.

I can see the body language I can feel like I can get my point across without having to say, excuse me. Excuse me Hey, I have a question, you know, we've all experienced that but then the other piece to this is just something that we don't think about often enough and We have to in this new hybrid world, which is how do we make decisions? you know companies are built on a lot of different decisions over the course of Time and so everything kind of revolves around making a decision, you know collaboration results to a decision You know, whether it's the group that makes the decision or an individual that makes the decision It really doesn't matter.

But the point is we have to think about these processes how we work and How we work is broken down into a lot of different facets And so that's why I don't think that sits at the feet of the CIO but I do think the CIO is well suited or They should be well suited to understand how their company makes decisions How they collaborate and how these tools kind of fit into it and so that that facilitation process is Really something that they can strive to lead So we can't again.

This is super early like me and you have been on Social channels talking about what are we going to do about AWS re-event? It's gonna be an in-person conference and probably the biggest event of the year. It's gonna be Probably the biggest in-person IT conference of the year and it would definitely be the biggest remote IT conference of the year and as analysts and Influencers and people who facilitate discussions How are we going to do these things from a practical sense? So I think there'll be learnings from that but as We sit in a unique situation where we're listening to a lot of these tool companies What have been some of the key themes that you can that CIOs CTOs and IT execs and Executives in general can take away from where the two companies are thinking Yeah, you know if we if we use it as somewhat of a litmus test You know just kind of a canary in the coal mine if you will And look at vendor events, you know this summer We started to see and you and I are involved in a lot of the same events We started to see folks that were talking about getting back in person starting this fall Amazon being one of them but even smaller events Some of those have actually since cycled back to say no We're not going to do it in person.

We're gonna go back and do a virtual. We're just not ready yet So they're adapting to the the kind of current state of the world and Understanding that okay, maybe Maybe we'd like to be in person, but we're just not there yet and I think companies Can kind of follow that lead to some degree when you talk about getting large groups of people together the last thing you want is to get a large group of people together have an outbreak and Then all of a sudden now people can't be in the room but worse than that now you've got a whole bunch of people that are sick and So you don't want to be that company that is responsible for that kind of scenario and so even with the physical events, I'm starting to see an increase of Requirements and we see this with Amazon is as one example Where the only people that can attend are those that are fully vaccinated you must show proof of full vaccination It's not enough to say hey, I'm Unvaccinated, but I can test negative.

That's not enough anymore And so, you know, it may sound draconian to some But I think you know You have to think about it from their perspective too. And I think CIOs and and other executives have to consider The ramifications if you are bringing people back together Why are you doing that? And what are the consequences of doing that? Yes, there are some pros to it But you also have to consider the risks as well and then this whole hybrid thing becomes challenging in its own right because if You're all in person like go back two years ago We're all in person whether it's an event whether it's in the office.

We're in person. We know how that works, right? We've been doing that forever and Then the beginning of 2020 we all went remote We figured out how that works in pretty short order The thing is we were all on level footing because everybody was remote. It wasn't like Okay, they took Tim's team and Tim's team went remote, but Keith's team is still in the office No, everybody went remote so it was like it was a level playing field now what we're trying to do is figure out this hybrid sense of Well, what if some people are in and some people are out?

that's uncharted water and We haven't figured out how to do that because the fear is that if you revert back to The way we used to do it for an in-person and you have some people remote now you have an uneven playing field And so you have to figure out how to bring those people together and this is part of the challenge so I think you know looking at the events using that as kind of a litmus test a canary in the coal mine of where Things are going.

I think that's a great Thing look at how some of these companies have said look, we're not going to bring people back into the office We're not even going to entertain that until after The end of this year, you know, let things kind of quell and settle down. There's another piece here Keith that We haven't talked about which is over the course of the last year and a half or so people have moved there are a lot of people who have long since left their domicile of being close to the office and Moved to some other part of the country of their state of the country different part of the world I know people that have actually moved overseas because they're like I don't need to be in the office anymore So I'm gonna go live where I want to live and work remote So, you know, there's there's another dynamic that we have to think about which is what happens if we do need to get people back into an office for a given situation Now they're not all close.

And so this brings another little wrinkle to the planning and the thinking Accordingly and then bring this full circle back to what you were saying with with the with your church gatherings What's the culture of it? What's the culture of the organization and what are they comfortable with and so you add all of this up Keith And I think you very quickly see there are a lot of moving parts to this. It's not as simple as saying Oh, well, we'll just put zoom in or we'll just put teams in and we'll be good to go.

It's not that simple No, it isn't that simple and I think through not just people have moved We've now used the occasion to hire people that we couldn't hire before And remote locations that were probably underserved or undermined for talent before now There's not this hard requirement that that person needs to be in a specific Geography, my son was hired for position in Austin over a year ago, and he's still here in Chicago. So That there's that dynamic I ran into a lovely couple on the road one woman worked for a biofarmer the other one worked for Google and they were casually making their way up to over to the northeast from Oakland because they had this freedom and this supreme talent that You want to keep it's very difficult once the toothpaste is out of the tube.

Hey, we can work We can't work remotely. We've proven that we can be effective and CIOs specifically have to deal with that and this is something that me and you could talk about in the future, which is You know what? This this this you've said it I've said it the number one challenge that CIOs face is talent Yeah, now we have this wonderful tool to attract more talent and how do we keep it but still? Be effective in our roles. Yeah, you're absolutely right Keith and and there's another piece that's going to come into play here I think in short order.

We're starting to see it a little bit, but we'll see it more in more color in short order, which is When you think about ESG environmental social and government's issues So take Texas for for example, and I don't want to make this a political conversation But let's say Texas or California or New York or Florida. They make certain social Statements around laws and what they believe in and let's say you don't agree with that Okay. Well, maybe you don't want to work for a company that is based in Texas then or based in Florida or based in California because of that well now you have the ability to move So or you know the vice versa is true, too Which is let's say you believe in and what's happening in that part of the country you can move toward that and that Wasn't always the case in the past, right?

So I think you know ESG is going to play a Up-and-coming role into these conversations and decisions that are made the other piece that you have to think about is Yes, we opened up the talent pool Globally, so now I told the story sometime back a CIO for a tech firm that was going to relocate someone from Europe and then the pandemic hit and They're like, you know what? We don't need to relocate you stay where you are your family's there You're you're based in in this one country in Europe.

Stay there. You know, you can work remotely and So they didn't have to relocate to the Bay Area great But then the other piece is how do you start to create? Economic parity for some of these folks too, and we're starting to see problems around that, you know I used to live in San Francisco. I was making $200,000 a year and now I've moved to Omaha, Nebraska, which has a lower cost of Living. Can I still make 200,000 a year there or does that job not demand that?

And so the reverse is true, too, right? I'm coming from Cheyenne Wyoming and Now I want to move to San Francisco, you know, we've done that a lot where we said, okay But to come to San Francisco, we got a bump up your salary so you can afford to buy a house or Pay for an apartment or you know just to live well, we have to find equitable ways to make that work and that's one of the other challenges that CIOs are fighting with right now because especially in the tech space which is Very transient in terms of people can move around.

It's easy to move around relatively speaking versus other types of roles these issues are coming front and center for CIOs and So, how do they start to navigate all of these other pieces in addition to everything else that I have that I already put on The table and you can start to see This is challenging. Oh, and by the way Talent, you know hiring and retention That's just one of many things that the CIO has to contend with right now So you can start to see how the CIO role on one hand It's the best time to be a CIO on the other hand There's a lot more going on than you've ever had to deal with too So Tim, we'll wrap up What's really great some of the best times is that technology has never been as great the collaboration tools are getting better We're learning a bunch the public cloud has made Having someone literally take their desktop off of their desk and bring it home has made that a mute approach to The tooling part of it, but just as you brought up, there's a lot of things to consider.

There's talent. There's ESG There's culture. There's the reality of collaboration from a external Organization perspective. How do we engage our communities of interest such as the AWS community? Which is critical towards us leading digital transformation efforts within our Companies there's so much to consider you You approach all of this stuff at Avoya How can people kind of reach out to you to help to help in in some of this journey? Yeah, and you know one thing we didn't talk about Keith just to add to that You know when we were all in the office if you had a truck if you had trouble with your desktop or laptop fine We'll just send a support person over to help you out.

Well now I live in You know Bozeman, Montana, how do I get someone out there? com I'm also pretty prolific on Twitter at T Crawford TCR a WF or D All right, if you want to find more out If you want to find out more about the CTO advisor You can follow us on what the CTO advisor comms the website at CTO advisors. My Twitter handle my DMS are open I'm a brave man, or Don't we'll figure out in a next couple of months So which one which side that come out but all in the effort to open up?

Collaboration and talk and meet customers where they're at because we can not fly as much to meet them We'll talk to you next CTO advisor podcast