Podcast:  Getting clear on AI & ML with Felix Hovsepian

Felix Hovsepian

CTO at Blue Manifold & Professor

Podcast – Episode 18:
Getting clear on AI & ML

Musings on AI, ML, and leading tech R&D

There is much talk about AI and ML (Machine learning). The terms are misused, and the hype around them creates much confusion. So what can they offer in real terms, if anything?

Well, Felix Hovsepian joins us on CTO confessions to clear up the subject and explore some interesting use cases. Key takeaways from the Podcast are:

  • Why ML and AI are not the same things.
  • Examples of AI and ML.
    • Generative design
    • AI at the Edge
  • Being a tech leader in R&D

Felix is a colorful character with interesting ideas in several fields. After listening, share your thoughts on AI/ML. Are these fields starting to emerge from the hype cycle?

“The thing is the two weeks is not long enough to do research, to try and see what the nature of this problem is. And at what point do you pull the plug? Once you start looking at those types of projects, then the teams tend to be small. My specialty is looking after teams that are typically between three and seven people (five plus or minus two). Within a team like that, it really does take on some of that “spirit of Agility” because there are no seniors and managers. Everybody is in it at the same time. It’s a self-organizing team. You need to have people who think differently. I think that is the real key. I think that’s the real key for technology as well as education. It’s the key for the 21st Century. We need to start literately thinking about our thinking.”

TLDR: Straight to the point
(Quick Links)

We all live busy lives, and sometimes a long Podcast is too much of a time-footprint for our busy schedules. So, to help you get to the bit you’re more interested in, use our table of contents below. Quick links to help you get straight to the point.

Transform your technology organization with IT Labs teams.
Reach out to us.


Podcast:  The Lessons of Amazon with David Glick

David Glick

CTO at FLEXE

Podcast – Episode 17:
The Lessons of Amazon

Tech Leadership Tips from an Insider

It’s always interesting when you meet people who’ve made dramatic shifts from one field into another — in this episode, we speak with a scientist who made a spectacular, successful and exciting leap into the tech world. You may have heard of the company where guest David Glick ended up: a little startup they call Amazon! David Glick shares the inside scoop on how immersing himself in the “Amazonian” culture molded his tech leadership. Now CTO at FLEXE (a flexible on-demand warehousing and fulfillment company), David Glick has much hard-won leadership wisdom to share.

“… don’t know what you call it, a macho thing, kind of a firefighter theme, which is, “Oh, we’re so good at putting out fires.” After about 10 years of that, even about one year of that became not as much fun for me. I said, let’s do fire prevention!”

Key takeaways from the Podcast are:

  • The layer cake of leadership (how to enhance and advance your tech career).
  • Lessons from leading in Amazon.
  • The truth about AI/ML.

TLDR: Straight to the point
(Quick Links)

We all live busy lives, and sometimes a long Podcast is too much of a time-footprint for our busy schedules. So, to help you get to the bit you’re more interested in, use our table of contents below. Quick links to help you get straight to the point.

Transform your technology organization with IT Labs teams.
Reach out to us.


Podcast: SME tech leader tips, from a successful serial startup CTO with Steve Books

Steve Books

CTO at Slingshot Technology

Podcast – Episode 16:
SME tech leader tips, from a successful serial startup CTO

Creating a startup culture in SME organizations for hyper-growth, innovation, and business survival

One of the consistent things we see here at IT Labs through our ‘Teams as a Service’ (TaaS) and Business Agility consulting is companies’ need to have a startup mindset. Especially if they are in a phase of innovation to get one step ahead of competitors. Some of you may be thinking when wouldn’t this be the case 🙂 Well, many SMEs know the lessons but have forgotten them through their journey of growth. It’s almost like growth creates some form of ‘wisdom amnesia.’

Though IT Labs target audience is not startup’s, but because we are learners, we actively seek out these nimble little organizations’ voices to see what they are innovating and how they work. We desire to pick out their gems of advice and understanding through the lessons of success and beautiful moments of failure, to garner revived thinking for our community of technology leaders.

“[Smart businesses intentionally] try to cannibalize themselves, because they know that’s how they win in the end.” (e.g., Apple iPad)”

Well, Steve Books, CTO at Slingshot Technologies, joined us for an enlightening discussion on his serial startup journey. He’s what we like to call a starter-upper. I know not a real word, but it’s what we call someone who consistently gets involved in startups and nurtures them to exit. So here’s your opportunity to get a look under the covers of someone with a startup mindset and see things in a little bit more detail.

Key takeaways from the Podcast are:

  • Lessons from a series of startups and exits.
  • Tips on getting the most out of teams.
  • How to make remote working work for you as a tech leader.
  • Why business cannibalism is bizarrely good for your organization.

TLDR: Straight to the point
(Quick Links)

We all live busy lives, and sometimes a long Podcast is too much of a time-footprint for our busy schedules. So, to help you get to the bit you’re more interested in, use our table of contents below. Quick links to help you get straight to the point.

Transform your technology organization with IT Labs teams.
Reach out to us.


Podcast: Leading technology with a toothbrush with Brian Hough

Brian Hough

CTO at Beam Dental

Podcast – Episode 15:
Leading technology with a toothbrush

How to create customer-centric innovation and market disruption

Tech leaders sit at the heart of an organization. They are the enablers of the businesses in this digital world we live in. Decisions they make, impact the present, and mold the future.

In this episode of CTO Confessions, we speak to the tech leader of a very niche business. They have taken the simple toothbrush and added an impressive dimension to it. Marrying the world of personal preventative dental health care with that of dental insurance, through a technology-enabled toothbrush. What you might call “smart dental care.”

“You have to view yourself as the connector. One of the responsibilities we have as CTOs is that our world touches everybody else’s world, and vice versa. That very rarely happens for other parts of the organization. And so, once you recognize this, you start to realize that you need to have a relationship with those folks. You need to have signals that you’re pulling in, and you need to share the responsibility for the KPIs those people have.”

Brian Hough, Dental Beams CTO, joins us to talk about his tech challenges and wisdom around creating a truly customer-centric product. He describes how, through organizational and tech leadership, Beam Dental creates a strong feedback loop between the development teams and the needs of the end customer. Forming tight awareness and close feedback loops to get the product offering absolutely right.

Key takeaways from the Podcast are:

  • Why it’s important to invest in development that sets the groundwork for future innovation and product agility.
  • Creating high performing engineering teams that fully own their work.
  • What is ‘Sentiment Analysis’?
  • How to improve the success of a product by having more eyes on the customer’s needs.

TLDR: Straight to the point
(Quick Links)

We all live busy lives, and sometimes a long Podcast is too much of a time-footprint for our busy schedules. So, to help you get to the bit you’re more interested in, use our table of contents below. Quick links to help you get straight to the point.

Transform your technology organization with IT Labs teams.
Reach out to us.


Podcast: Humanizing AI with Swathi Young

Swathi Young

CTO at Integrity Management Services

Podcast – Episode 14:
Humanizing AI

The future is not all AI dystopia & terminator (creating technology ethics, transparency, and fairness)

You hear a lot about AI. It’s a bit of a buzz word, right?! Often misused and misreported. One area that is starting to get a lot of debate space is the ethics around this mystifying and still futuristic technology. It’s an important subject that is starting to have an impact on our everyday lives. As we all know, the world we live in is full of data, and it’s creating more and more consistently and relentlessly. With big data comes opportunities to be one step ahead, to help, to enhance human life, and on the dark side, oppress and control. So the subject of ethics around this subject is an important one. One that we should all take heed of. Especially us tech leaders out there.

“I believe that the [AI] future is imminent and we all think about the future in multiple ways… Some of us think about the utopian future. Some of them think about a dystopian future … ”

Swathi Young shares her expertise in this Podcast, her hopes, and her vision for AI. Especially around the ethics and impact it has on us humans now, and in the future. Swathi is an expert in the field of ethics and AI. In fact, at the time of the recording of this Podcast, she was currently working with the US Government creating an ethics framework for this emergent technology.

Key takeaways from the Podcast are:

  • What is Humanizing data?
  • How can we start considering the ethics of AI?
  • What is ‘Sentiment Analysis’?
  • Tips for tech leaders on where to start when considering AI in their products and organizations

TLDR: Straight to the point
(Quick Links)

We all live busy lives, and sometimes a long Podcast is too much of a time-footprint for our busy schedules. So, to help you get to the bit you’re more interested in, use our table of contents below. Quick links to help you get straight to the point.

Want to turn data science into business value to your customers?
Use our FREE 1-on-1 workshop


Podcast: A new shiny large-scale simulation tool for the SME toolbox

David Freed

CTO at OnScale 

Podcast – Episode 13:

A new shiny large-scale simulation tool for the SME toolbox

(Democratizing supercomputing power that’s easy to use, low cost, and on tap)

Whenever one reflects on huge steps in innovation, we usually see some disruptive democratizing of capabilities. Where the tools of the elite, and those with deep pockets, become available to the masses. Well, that’s what this Podcast is about! It’s about democratizing this ability to have large supercomputer platforms’ capabilities, brought to the toolbox of SME businesses. 

 … it’s just so difficult to go after the big prize right away. You want to set up an achievable development path that gets you some milestones and some wins along the way.” 

In the context of this disruptive story is an interesting and passionate tech leader, David Freed. CTO of OnScale, a company leading the way in achieving the democratization of high-level computing for large scale simulation. David is a self-confessed computer engineering geek with a background in Physics, chemical engineering, and a Ph.D. in fluid dynamics (in the context of Nuclear waste disposal). A heady mix of subjects all converging on a passion for bringing disruption to a niche market, thus gifting groundbreaking capabilities to the SME market. 

David shares his desires and vision for OnScales platform, his leadership style to achieve this, and what he wishes for tech leaders out there. 

Key takeaways from the Podcast are: 

  • How novel solutions can bring historically expensive, out of reach capabilities to the masses by being bold, creative, and establishing cost-reducing ideas. 
  • How businesses can accelerate innovation through affordable large scale simulations (removing complexity and need for deep expertise) 
  • How to be a leader in a disruptive business and getting the best out of your teams 

TDLR: Straight to the point
(Quick Links)

We all live busy lives, and sometimes a long Podcast is too much of a time-footprint for our busy schedules. So, to help you get to the bit you’re more interested in, use our table of contents below. Quick links to help you get straight to the point.

Transform your technology organization with IT Labs teams.
Reach out to us.


Podcast: Tech-ing up the construction industry with Jeff Olin

Jeff Olin

Vice President of Technology at HomeSphere

Podcast – Episode 12:
Tech-ing up the construction industry

 

Do you think the building industry is tech-savvy? It’s a good question. To some degree, it’s yes and no. Through this Podcast, we shine a light on the current state of affairs. It seems that the industry is on the cusp of a step-change. Its finally making attempts to bring technology and infrastructures that have advanced so many other sectors into its arena. Bringing technology, new tools, and the use of big data to strengthen its ability to create thriving, innovative, and efficient businesses.

Well, Jeff Olin, Vice President of Technology at HomeSphere, is a person with many years of experience from software programming, to project/product management, to leading technology groups. He joins us in this Podcast to share his thoughts on leading tech within his current role, in an industry that’s finding its feet in the modern digital world. Jeff is clearly passionate about doing his part to help the construction industry catch up. Find out about what HomeSphere do, and the tips that Jeff has to offer on creating highly flexible architectures for customer-centric products, at two ends of the building industry (builders and their building suppliers)

“The construction industry has not improved in efficiency in the same way as most other businesses over the last 50 years. So there’s lots of room for technology improvements to make the construction industry more efficient.”

Key takeaways from the Podcast are:

  • How the construction industry is picking up the technology pace, and how it can improve its bottom line
  • Creating an architecture that makes it easy to maintain and deliver customer-centric outcomes
  • Leading as a CTO with Agile in mindset

TLDR: Straight to the point
(Quick Links)

We all live busy lives, and sometimes a long Podcast is too much of a time-footprint for our busy schedules. So, to help you get to the bit you’re more interested in, use our table of contents below. Quick links to help you get straight to the point.

Transform your technology organization with IT Labs teams.
Reach out to us.


Podcast: CTO's voice from the Banking as a Service Industry with Taylor Lilley

Taylor Lilley

CTO at Global Payroll Gateway

Podcast – Episode 10:
CTO’s voice from the Banking as a Service Industry

(Setting up high performing resilient remote teams and architectures)

Tech leaders today are multi-faceted. There is the obvious requirement to understand technology, at least from a high level, but also a need to be business-minded and understanding what creates the best high-performing teams in one’s leadership scope. In this episode, Taylor Lilley joins us to give us an insight into his lessons over varied his journey. Taylor is the CTO at White Label MFG with a straight-talking style that gets the nub of where the challenges are and what the options are. Rewinding his timeline on experience, you get to see a colorful journey, one that started in the United States Marine Corps.

“…make sure that your [soldiers] in the trenches know the battle plan.”

Key takeaways from the Podcast are:

  • Try not to treat your highly intelligent engineers as task doers
    (get the best out of your high IQ people)
  • Communications is the key to making remote teams deliver the outcomes you want
  • High-level tips on creating high volume resilient architectures
  • The importance of having a business head as well as a tech one

TLDR: Straight to the point
(Quick Links)

We all live busy lives, and sometimes a long Podcast is too much of a time-footprint for our busy schedules. So, to help you get to the bit you’re more interested in, use our table of contents below. Quick links to help you get straight to the point.

Transform your technology organization with IT Labs teams.
Reach out to us.


Podcast: CTO's roles in driving revenues for SaaS Companies with Gene McNaughton

Gene McNaughton

President of Growth Smart Consulting

Podcast – Episode 10:
CTO’s roles in driving revenues for SaaS Companies

(In sales, seemingly small things can make a huge difference)

Selling is an art, and like any art, we can use techniques to improve or suppress the probability of creating the desired result. In the modern world and COVID19 crisis, interactions in the digital world are becoming the norm rather than the exception. The normalities of face to face meetings have, at least for the short term, turned into a rarity. Thus, impacting the ability to develop a healthy rapport between the seller and potential client. Gene, a thought leader in the space of sales and company growth, shares his wisdom on how technology leaders can set up their sales representatives to tip the scales towards success. What appears to be small things can make an impact on online meetings, which smooth the path towards a sale or, at a minimum, a stronger client relationship. Gene is an author on the art of selling, who has lots of experience working with many large organizations to drive revenue growth, and a man with many years of experiential success for his clients. So, what Gene has to say to Tech leaders holds weight. His advice will help your organization’s bottom line.

“What a seller should be doing is bringing in their engineers [to their sales meetings], bringing in their technology thought leaders. … [the] technically inclined people whose job is to ask the hard questions. Whether it’s the CTO, an engineer, or a subject matter expert, they are vital in today’s buying and selling processes.”

Key takeaways from the Podcast are:

  • Tech leaders can drive sales revenues in more ways than you initially think
  • Partnerships with Sales, Marketing and technology offices create a powerful synergy
  • The disruption of the COVID-19 crisis highlights an opportunity to employ technology to reduce Sales function costs and increase customer engagement

TLDR: Straight to the point
(Quick Links)

We all live busy lives, and sometimes a long Podcast is too much of a time-footprint for our busy schedules. So, to help you get to the bit you’re more interested in, use our table of contents below. Quick links to help you get straight to the point.

Listen to all our episodes on iTunes and on SoundCloud.

Transform your technology organization with IT Labs teams.
Reach out to us.


Podcast: CTOs as Champions for Innovation with Jeremy Basset

Jeremy Basset

Founder and Managing Director of CO:CUBED

Podcast – Episode 9:
CTOs as Champions for Innovation

(Providing innovation to enterprises in uncertain times)

Large corporations attempt to innovate internally, sinking vast amounts of money, balancing high levels of risk, and rarely succeeding in achieving the innovation opportunities they crave. So what can tech leaders within these organizations do?

Jeremy Basset, Founder and Managing Director of CO:CUBED, a company providing an interesting bridge between the large corporates and the vast sea of startups. Previous to that, he was the innovation director at Unilever. In short, Jeremy has a vast amount of experience in the innovation space. With gratitude, he joined us for a conversation on how CTOs and tech leaders can be the champions of innovation by taking a rather different approach to invigorate innovation in an easy, de-risked way.

“… we’re going into a new era now where it won’t be… step-change transformation, but just ongoing incremental innovation that happens every day and over the medium to long term. [i.e. consistently] deliver[ing] ongoing transformation.”

Key takeaways from the Podcast are:

  • How can tech leaders of large enterprises maximize their ability to innovate?
  • How can corporates make innovation easy for themselves?

TLDR: Straight to the point
(Quick Links)

We all live busy lives, and sometimes a long Podcast is too much of a time-footprint for our busy schedules. So, to help you get to the bit you’re more interested in, use our table of contents below. Quick links to help you get straight to the point.

Transform your technology organization with IT Labs teams.
Reach out to us.