Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This season of Smart Talks with IBM is all about
Speaker 1: new creators, the developers, data scientists, c t o s
Speaker 1: and other visionaries creatively applying technology in business to drive change.
Speaker 1: They use their knowledge and creativity to develop better ways
Speaker 1: of working, no matter the industry. Join hosts from your
Speaker 1: favorite Pushkin Industries podcasts as they use their expertise to
Speaker 1: deepen these conversations, and of course Malcolm Gladwell will guide
Speaker 1: you through the season as your host and provide his
Speaker 1: thoughts and analysis along the way. Look out for new
Speaker 1: episodes of Smart Talks with IBM on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and learn more at IBM dot com slash smart talks. Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Smart Talks with IBM podcast from Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and IBM. I'm Malcolm GLABWEW. This season,
Speaker 1: we're talking to new creators, the developers, data scientists, c
Speaker 1: t o s and other visionaries who are creatively applying
Speaker 1: technology and business to drive change. Channeling their knowledge and expertise,
Speaker 1: they're developing more creative and effective solutions no matter the industry.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is Phil Weinmeister, had a product Salesforce
Speaker 1: America's at IBM. Drawing on IBM's offerings and expertise, Phil
Speaker 1: helps businesses craft better digital experiences for their customers, employees,
Speaker 1: and business partners. A lack of highly specialized software engineers
Speaker 1: is a major challenge for companies trying to improve their
Speaker 1: digital experiences, so using the Salesforce platform, Phil teaches people
Speaker 1: with little or no technical background how to make custom
Speaker 1: digital solutions on their own without needing to write code.
Speaker 1: On today's show, you'll hear Phil's thoughts on human centric design,
Speaker 1: unlocking the potential of the low code, no code approach,
Speaker 1: and how IBM consulting powers digital transformations with the Salesforce platform.
Speaker 1: Phil spoke with Jacob Goldstein, host of the Pushkin podcast
Speaker 1: What's Your Problem and former host of nprs Planet Money.
Speaker 1: Jacob has been a business journalist for over a decade,
Speaker 1: reporting for NPR, The Wall Street Journal, the Miami Herald,
Speaker 1: and is the author of the book Money, The True
Speaker 1: Story of a Made Up Thing. Okay, let's get to
Speaker 1: the interview, just very briefly, sort of what's your role
Speaker 1: at IBM. Yeah, It's a good question because my role
Speaker 1: is it is a bit unique. So we're Pribum Consulting,
Speaker 1: which is a consultancy. Salesforce is one of the platforms
Speaker 1: that we deliver services for. My team is a product team,
Speaker 1: so we're like a product organization within a consultancy, and
Speaker 1: I had that team up. So yeah, it's really cool
Speaker 1: because we get to combine the client needs client problems
Speaker 1: that are brought to us through consulting engagements, but we're
Speaker 1: ultimately product development, so we get to build solutions. So
Speaker 1: I kind of love the sweet spot that we're in there.
Speaker 1: So basically, businesses have problems, and you build solutions for
Speaker 1: those problems, for those problems, but also thinking about future clients.
Speaker 1: So we build it so that we can re use
Speaker 1: it in the future for different clients. So that that's
Speaker 1: what makes it a little bit unique at the consultancy
Speaker 1: versus you know, typical engagement. You solve a problem and
Speaker 1: you move on to the next problem. But we solve
Speaker 1: it while taking a step back and saying, well, what
Speaker 1: are similar problems that other clients um that could be
Speaker 1: solved through the same application that we build. That makes sense,
Speaker 1: It does, and I think we'll get into some specific
Speaker 1: examples which will really help help us everybody understand. Um,
Speaker 1: can you just talk a little bit about the kind
Speaker 1: of challenges around digital transformation that a lot of businesses
Speaker 1: are facing right now. There are a few things that
Speaker 1: I personally seem quite a bit um, one of which
Speaker 1: is that businesses simply don't have the data they need
Speaker 1: to provide the right type of experience. I mean, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, customers want something very easy,
Speaker 1: and ironically it it's actually somewhat hard to provide an
Speaker 1: easy experience. A lot of experiences are probably overthought, over engineered,
Speaker 1: and that creates this divide between an organization and their customers.
Speaker 1: I mean, organizations want to know their customers, they want
Speaker 1: to know their partners, they want to know their employees,
Speaker 1: and if they do that right, it's a game changer,
Speaker 1: it's absolutely transformational. But without that, and that's all data centric,
Speaker 1: data driven, you don't know your customer. You can't give
Speaker 1: them what they want because you don't know who they are.
Speaker 1: There's a phrase that I know is important in your
Speaker 1: work and that I want to make sure we touch
Speaker 1: on here, and and that phrases human centric innovation tell
Speaker 1: me tell me what that means, you know, in this
Speaker 1: case and more generally in your work. Yeah. Absolutely, So
Speaker 1: when we think about a solution, especially with digital experiences,
Speaker 1: we are always thinking about who is the end user? Right?
Speaker 1: And with the digital experiences, you know, one thing I'd
Speaker 1: like to say, do a lot of presentations at Salesforce events,
Speaker 1: and I've spoken on topic of personalization a few times.
Speaker 1: I think it's useful to start with where things have
Speaker 1: been and where we are coming from, which is really
Speaker 1: a one size fits all web experience, and that still
Speaker 1: exists throughout the web in quite a few places. Is
Speaker 1: this is a dissemination of information, right, It's a push.
Speaker 1: I have information I want to get out, or I
Speaker 1: have actions that I want you to complete, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to set up an experience. Do you know, get
Speaker 1: the information you need or do the things I want
Speaker 1: you to do? And we're seeing that the demands have
Speaker 1: significantly changed, right, Customers expect a lot more these days
Speaker 1: and simply one size fits all. So that direction we're
Speaker 1: headed towards is starting with that end user and really
Speaker 1: thinking about who is this person, what do they want,
Speaker 1: what are they trying to achieve? And starting from that perspective,
Speaker 1: So the the audiences that we're building a solution for
Speaker 1: now become more critical than ever and they're not an afterthought,
Speaker 1: but instead who are these audiences that are going to
Speaker 1: be part of the solution. We do things like journey
Speaker 1: map right where we walk through the flow from beginning
Speaker 1: to end. What does their experience look like? What do
Speaker 1: they want at each stage? And we have to think
Speaker 1: about that in the solution. So, uh, you mentioned Salesforce,
Speaker 1: and Salesforce is It's kind of a funny thing right
Speaker 1: in the world of business. Salesforce is this gigantic company
Speaker 1: that has transformed software, has transformed business in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, but outside of kind of enterprise scale business,
Speaker 1: lots of people have never heard of it, right, amazing,
Speaker 1: So just like, very briefly, what is Salesforce? You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's been a complete game changer. It is technically,
Speaker 1: it's a customer relationship management platform, and that though I
Speaker 1: don't think, really captures what it is. And when I
Speaker 1: describe to people I know, technical or non technical, I
Speaker 1: describe it as this is a platform on which you
Speaker 1: can run your business. For me personally, Um, it's been
Speaker 1: it's been completely revel lutionary because I came from an
Speaker 1: organization at the time that had everything custom built, homegrown,
Speaker 1: which I think it was a little bit of a
Speaker 1: sense of pride at that organization, But what was happening
Speaker 1: was everything required hundreds of hours. Any change was a
Speaker 1: major project, super costly, and things broke when changes were made.
Speaker 1: And when I started on the Salesforce platform, I think
Speaker 1: the biggest thing is stuck to me was the low
Speaker 1: and no code development capabilities that business minded people who
Speaker 1: are not necessarily technical in the sense that they write
Speaker 1: code can now be empowered to actually deliver solutions. So
Speaker 1: I think that's how i'd say it. It's it's a
Speaker 1: platform you can run your business on. It is that
Speaker 1: single source of truth. It's the interface that your employees
Speaker 1: are going to interact with on a daily basis to
Speaker 1: get their jobs done. So there was a phrase you
Speaker 1: mentioned in in passing. That phrase was a low mode
Speaker 1: or no code development, and I'm glad you did because
Speaker 1: it's one of those phrases that I've been hearing and
Speaker 1: that sounds kind of amazing, But I also feel like
Speaker 1: I don't quite get So let me take this opportunity
Speaker 1: to ask you what is low code or no code development. Well,
Speaker 1: I love the question because I'm personally very passionate about
Speaker 1: this coming from where I was before, at an organization
Speaker 1: that had, like I said, custom built solutions. Any change
Speaker 1: to the digital experience required code. That that is where
Speaker 1: I was coming from, and that's where a lot of
Speaker 1: organizations are coming from today. So what that means is
Speaker 1: you're always dependent on a technical resource to make that change. However,
Speaker 1: when you want to make some basic changes, some let's
Speaker 1: say some process automation or some update like that, that
Speaker 1: maybe isn't wildly complex, it is fairly limiting to not
Speaker 1: be to actually implement any of these changes yourself. So
Speaker 1: when we say lower no code platform, essentially what that
Speaker 1: means is, there's another phrase that's used by Salesforce clicks
Speaker 1: not code. So think about it this way. Salesforce has
Speaker 1: done all the hard work and written many millions of
Speaker 1: lines of code behind the scenes to provide an interface
Speaker 1: where through clicks we can essentially build a solution. So
Speaker 1: I wrote a book a few years ago called Practical
Speaker 1: Salesforce Development without Code. Right, it's still development. You're building
Speaker 1: a solution that can be implemented and drive value for
Speaker 1: a customer. But it is literally through clicks. Now that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's you know, always super easy, it can
Speaker 1: get pretty advanced, but literally through clicks you can do that,
Speaker 1: so that that's a completely different way of thinking. And
Speaker 1: when you say clicks, you just mean you're using like
Speaker 1: a graphical user interface. You're pointing and clicking, get different buttons,
Speaker 1: dragging things around. Just to be clear, when you say clicks,
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing you made, right, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: exactly right. It's sort of democratizes the technology a little bit.
Speaker 1: And I think the biggest thing though, is you have
Speaker 1: all these you know, smart business people who are business
Speaker 1: minded in throughout the world who don't necessarily code, and
Speaker 1: it just allows them so much more ability to drive change,
Speaker 1: is I think what we're seeing. So it's it's a
Speaker 1: great thing and I and I personally love it because
Speaker 1: it gives us more tools in our arsenal. For sure,
Speaker 1: you work for IBM at kind of the intersection of
Speaker 1: of IBM and Salesforce, right, I mean, can you tell
Speaker 1: me about the way IBM uses Salesforce tools to to
Speaker 1: help businesses improve, become more efficient, adopt a more data
Speaker 1: driven approach. Yeah. Absolutely, we're approached for a number of
Speaker 1: different reasons. A lot of times we work with organizations
Speaker 1: who are coming at us with industry specific requests. They
Speaker 1: have needs, there's quite a variety. So we have we
Speaker 1: are set up to have experts in each of those areas, right,
Speaker 1: business experts, technical experts, and we've gone through a number
Speaker 1: of solutions in each of those paths. At the same time.
Speaker 1: Then we have more horizontal UH experts as well, who
Speaker 1: are Salesforce technical architects for example, business analysts, those that
Speaker 1: know the platform. By combining those, we can not only
Speaker 1: understand what's needed in those industries, but the reality is
Speaker 1: you have to know the platform well right. You can't
Speaker 1: just come in with industry knowledge and try to build
Speaker 1: a solution on the Salesforce platform without knowing it very well.
Speaker 1: And it's now just so massive. There are so many
Speaker 1: clouds they call various products under the platform umbrella clouds,
Speaker 1: and these are these are Salesforce clouds, right, Salesforce so
Speaker 1: megap products exactly. You know, we it started with sales
Speaker 1: cloud service cloud, marketing cloud. There's philanthropy cloud, consumer goods
Speaker 1: cloud just launched, right, higher education cloud. There are all
Speaker 1: these different areas of expertise, So it's it's that combination
Speaker 1: of the industry knowledge, platform knowledge. And then you mentioned
Speaker 1: human centered design and thinking, really trying to putting the
Speaker 1: end user at the center of the experience and thinking
Speaker 1: about their journey and then designing a solution that at
Speaker 1: the end of the day will deliver what they need,
Speaker 1: keep them happy, and keep the business moving along. So
Speaker 1: that idea of combining industry specific knowledge and salesforce specific
Speaker 1: knowledge seems really interesting and powerful. Are there any specific
Speaker 1: exam bowls of that in action that you that you
Speaker 1: want to share. Yeah? Sure, So we recently we built
Speaker 1: a manufacturing solution on the Salesforce platform. Essentially, what this
Speaker 1: was was based on the industry expertise, so we internally
Speaker 1: we met with individuals who had expertise in manufacturing. The
Speaker 1: audience here for these organizations was their partners. So the
Speaker 1: concept of us, how do we deliver a solution like
Speaker 1: a basically a PRM solution for the manufacturing industry. What
Speaker 1: RM stand for Partner relationship management, So, uh, manufacturers often
Speaker 1: are interacting with suppliers, distributors, all of those and that's
Speaker 1: a common need, especially digitally, and you can imagine This
Speaker 1: is one of those areas that was widely neglected for
Speaker 1: many years with either very poor or non existent digital experiences. Right,
Speaker 1: so we met with industry experts internally to understand what
Speaker 1: these use cases were, and then we took a step
Speaker 1: back and looked at how we could leverage this on
Speaker 1: the platform. So the solution we came up with was
Speaker 1: essentially a template. It was a a digital experience template
Speaker 1: that organizations could employ really with a few clicks. Obviously
Speaker 1: they would have to configure it, they could customize it,
Speaker 1: but it was a rapid accelerator that allowed for these
Speaker 1: specific use cases for example, distributing and assigning leads to
Speaker 1: these distributors, providing reporting metrics on opportunities or leads, all
Speaker 1: that type of data we provided and it was a
Speaker 1: template so they could start quickly right, get up and
Speaker 1: running in a few weeks, and then leveraging our professional services.
Speaker 1: They could customize it as well, so they would work
Speaker 1: with us and they could provide their you know, individual
Speaker 1: client needs and take it from there. So that's one
Speaker 1: example of a solution that we built that again took
Speaker 1: the industry needs, but also it was it was married
Speaker 1: to a platform specific technology. If you were trying to
Speaker 1: boil it all down and you wanted to give just
Speaker 1: one tip for a business that's trying to improve their
Speaker 1: digital experience. What would that tip be? I would say
Speaker 1: that you need to be open to change and be
Speaker 1: open to breaking away from the old way of doing things.
Speaker 1: I think I think a lot of times customers can
Speaker 1: hurt themselves by being tied to what exists today, right
Speaker 1: maybe for cultural political reasons that their company that maybe
Speaker 1: they feel like, you know, they've invested so much a
Speaker 1: solution already that they want to try to get as
Speaker 1: much out of that as they can. But I think
Speaker 1: being open to the innovation, being open to new technology,
Speaker 1: I think makes a world of difference because if the
Speaker 1: client is open to a new solution and we come
Speaker 1: in and we can listen to them, really anything is possible,
Speaker 1: and that's where I think the biggest changes are made. So,
Speaker 1: while it may sound very simple, I think that would
Speaker 1: be my number one tip is just be open to
Speaker 1: a new way of doing things. Film mentioned certain areas
Speaker 1: of business like manufacturing or distribution, often neglect the digital experience.
Speaker 1: By finding and connecting experts across IBM salesforce and a
Speaker 1: client's industry. Phil helps businesses bridge these gaps in their
Speaker 1: digital experiences, and Jermaine cognizant of their human end users.
Speaker 1: The clicks not Code approach becomes so important here because
Speaker 1: it empowers almost anyone in an organization to create human
Speaker 1: centric digital solutions. As Jacob and Phil continued their conversation,
Speaker 1: Field explains how he got involved in teaching Salesforce to
Speaker 1: begin with, and how he cultivates creativity in his professional life.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk some about creativity and want
Speaker 1: to start with with your writing. And you're teaching right.
Speaker 1: You have a blog about Salesforce features in the Salesforce platform,
Speaker 1: You've written books on Salesforce CRM online courses. I'm surious
Speaker 1: how you sort of got into writing and teaching in
Speaker 1: the first place. Yeah, it's a great question. When I
Speaker 1: first started building solutions on the Salesforce platform, I was
Speaker 1: very excited about that, being able to do more than
Speaker 1: I ever had been able to before through the clicks
Speaker 1: not code approach, and I started sharing what I was
Speaker 1: learning with other employees. Personally, I feel like it's a
Speaker 1: benefit to everyone and it's a benefit to myself. So
Speaker 1: I started communicating to other employees. You know, a little
Speaker 1: tips and things like that, and one employee my company said, hey,
Speaker 1: have you ever thought about writing a blog? And I hadn't.
Speaker 1: I thought that could be kind of interesting. So now,
Speaker 1: about maybe eight to ten years ago, I started sharing
Speaker 1: some tips. You know, here's how to solve this business
Speaker 1: problem using Salesforce, that type of thing, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was surprising to me how quickly it was picked
Speaker 1: up and people would respond and say, hey, this this
Speaker 1: really helped me out a lot. And then one day
Speaker 1: I got a phone call from a publisher and they said,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to start publishing books that have
Speaker 1: to do with Salesforce. Would you be the author of
Speaker 1: the first book we're going to publish on Salesforce? And
Speaker 1: he said, you can call me if you think that,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm pranking you or something, because I was,
Speaker 1: I was like, where, you know, it was pretty surprising.
Speaker 1: So my first thought was, you know, Salesforce has a
Speaker 1: lot of help documentation. What would the benefit of another
Speaker 1: book be? You know, So I kind of went through
Speaker 1: the is this really going to help anyone out? And
Speaker 1: it's been awesome. Um. I really put my heart into
Speaker 1: these books, and I try to communicate as clearly as
Speaker 1: I can. I use a lot of visuals, a lot
Speaker 1: of examples, so I walk people through, you know, with
Speaker 1: actual data, and it's just been amazing because so at
Speaker 1: this point I've sold over seven thousand books, which to
Speaker 1: me that that seems like a lot. That there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there that using it. And
Speaker 1: I've received a lot of feedback from people who have said,
Speaker 1: you know, this really helped to get me back on track,
Speaker 1: or this helped me learn this concept and really made
Speaker 1: a difference in my day to day job. And that
Speaker 1: just you know, kind of fuels feels the creativity more. Right.
Speaker 1: It's just an exciting thing to see. It's the best
Speaker 1: part of writing is getting that feedback. So I'm curious
Speaker 1: to you, you know, what does creativity look like? How
Speaker 1: do you how do you think of yourself as a
Speaker 1: creative technologist slash business person. So I would say that
Speaker 1: creativity and business is definitely related to just being creative
Speaker 1: in general. And I think that for those who are creative,
Speaker 1: you know, in the business world, they are probably creative
Speaker 1: just across the board in their personal life. Right. I
Speaker 1: think it's about being open, it's about being inquisitive and
Speaker 1: it's being resourceful, at least for me. Also, one thing
Speaker 1: that is unique about this ecosystem is there are a
Speaker 1: lot of information shares and there are a lot of collaborators,
Speaker 1: and so just being willing to talk to others and
Speaker 1: work with others absolutely is a piece of that too,
Speaker 1: because I learned a lot from other people. I mean,
Speaker 1: I learned a lot of new ideas seeing what others
Speaker 1: have done, and so we kind of build on each
Speaker 1: other's shoulders. One thing that I'll mention is, I think
Speaker 1: sometimes being creative actually is just being able to ask
Speaker 1: the right questions. Right. If we go in maybe slightly
Speaker 1: arrogantly thinking, you know, this is all just I'm coming
Speaker 1: up with all of this in my own mind, we're
Speaker 1: missing out a lot. So I, you know, I try
Speaker 1: to be open to others thoughts and work with them
Speaker 1: on things, and so just being able to solicit what's
Speaker 1: in other people's minds and then have conversations about it,
Speaker 1: I think is one way that you know, I come
Speaker 1: up with new ideas too, is asking people the right
Speaker 1: questions and then like I said, listening as well. I'm
Speaker 1: curious about what what you have learned from these collaborations
Speaker 1: clearly you know your things to the clients all the time.
Speaker 1: Are there examples of you know, skills or insights that
Speaker 1: you've recently had thanks to these partnerships, Yes, definitely. So.
Speaker 1: I recently was at dream Force, which came back in
Speaker 1: almost full effect after a few years of being on
Speaker 1: pause because of the pandemic. Enforce is the big salesforce
Speaker 1: gathering you got it? Yeah, it used to be north
Speaker 1: of a hundred and fifty thousand people in San Francisco
Speaker 1: for a week. Um. They toned it down a bit,
Speaker 1: only only thirty five thousand. Um, you know a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago. How big the salesforce universe is, right, People
Speaker 1: who are not in kind of enterprise software business applications universe.
Speaker 1: It's like this giant force behind everything we touch. We
Speaker 1: just don't know it, you know exactly. Yes, it is
Speaker 1: actually very very large. So um, it was a great
Speaker 1: opportunity for me. I was selected to speak UM in
Speaker 1: a few sessions, so on stage at Dreamforce in front
Speaker 1: of different audiences, which is very cool. And I was
Speaker 1: asked to be a part of one particular session that
Speaker 1: had to do with Salesforce and slack um and so
Speaker 1: a colleague of mine. Jared Kingston, who I would also
Speaker 1: call a definitely a you know, a creative mind and
Speaker 1: a great collaborator. He and I worked with Salesforce and
Speaker 1: Slack to deliver a session around It was called build
Speaker 1: the Way You Want with Slack and the Salesforce platform.
Speaker 1: The whole idea was to show the different ways that
Speaker 1: Slack could be used, whether it's you know, with clicks
Speaker 1: with code to deliver solutions and so speaking about collaboration
Speaker 1: and me learning new things. This was a great example
Speaker 1: of that because we took to roles on this presentation
Speaker 1: and I learned a lot from my colleague Jared because
Speaker 1: he and UM, a seasoned member of his team, built
Speaker 1: out some actual solutions. So we're very keen on live
Speaker 1: demos in our sessions, so we we do. I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of presentations over the past few years, and
Speaker 1: UM I very much ms supporter of live demonstrations on
Speaker 1: the Salesforce platform. That's one of the great things that
Speaker 1: we can do with that is instead of just going
Speaker 1: through slides and trying to convince people of the great
Speaker 1: things that can be done, why don't we show them
Speaker 1: live you actually do the thing. You actually do the
Speaker 1: thing right there on stage that you're talking about exactly,
Speaker 1: and it really resonates. People love to see you doing
Speaker 1: a B and C and then they see the end results. So, um,
Speaker 1: he and his colleague built out this solution with slack it,
Speaker 1: you know, showing how you can automatically host to Slack,
Speaker 1: automatically create a spin up, a channel for collaboration, all
Speaker 1: of this. That was part of that session and it
Speaker 1: was great because I learned quite a bit through it.
Speaker 1: So it was, you know, we collaborated together. I learned
Speaker 1: from him. So that was an example that's a little different, right,
Speaker 1: it's not working with a client, but it was working
Speaker 1: with salesforce and my colleague and we're we're able to
Speaker 1: deliver a great session. So uh, slightly more personal question,
Speaker 1: but when that I think will be useful to a
Speaker 1: lot of listeners, and that is you have four kids
Speaker 1: and obviously a big job, and I'm curious how you
Speaker 1: how you sort of fuel your creativity when you know
Speaker 1: you get busy with everything. How do you how do
Speaker 1: you keep going? How do you stay creative? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you are absolutely right that life gets busy. Um. Yes,
Speaker 1: I have four children, three of them are in sports
Speaker 1: right now. That you are very act div so that's
Speaker 1: that's another thing. UM. And obviously parenting at any age
Speaker 1: is NonStop. As you have teenagers, those kneeds just deepen
Speaker 1: into different things. UM. And also, you know, my Christian
Speaker 1: faith is important to me, so I'm very involved in
Speaker 1: my church and i'd lead a couple of groups there,
Speaker 1: so that that's another UM activity. It takes up some time.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of free time, and so
Speaker 1: I actually get asked a lot like how in the
Speaker 1: world do you get this all done? I don't even
Speaker 1: I can't even get my normal stuff done, and you're
Speaker 1: out there writing books. I would say a lot of
Speaker 1: it has to do with balance and efficiency. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure like you, Jacob, you know, I like to use
Speaker 1: my time really wisely. That means trying to use my
Speaker 1: time as efficiently as possible. That doesn't mean never taking
Speaker 1: a break, right, Um, Sometimes you need to take a breath.
Speaker 1: Maybe I play the piano for a few minutes, throw
Speaker 1: the ball around with my kids, or um, sometimes I
Speaker 1: just want to get some wisdom from my my wife. UM.
Speaker 1: But all these things work together to really give me
Speaker 1: a very balanced, satisfied personal life where it gives me
Speaker 1: an energy, um, when I need it. So I think
Speaker 1: balance and efficiency, like I said in in personal life
Speaker 1: and in work life really what allows me to continue
Speaker 1: to be creative, collaborate and have energy to do so.
Speaker 1: I will admit though there are some nights where I
Speaker 1: just you know, I just crashed down on my pillow
Speaker 1: and that's the end of the day. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: is hard. But um, I think that work life balance
Speaker 1: is so critical. It feels so good to crash down
Speaker 1: into the pillow at the end of the day. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's I don't know what it means,
Speaker 1: but it's a it's a nice moment to just lie
Speaker 1: down and go to sleep. I find it is. Although
Speaker 1: now as I get older, you know, like many people,
Speaker 1: sleep doesn't come as naturally as it once used to. So,
Speaker 1: you know, waking up at four o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: when you don't want to is It's not fun, But
Speaker 1: that's just part of life. I'm in that club. I'm
Speaker 1: in that club. Last thing, what are the are the
Speaker 1: trends in the industry that you're excited about? What what
Speaker 1: do you think is coming that's exciting for me? Some
Speaker 1: of the things that we've talked about are are actually
Speaker 1: what I'm really focused on. So the focus on the
Speaker 1: on the consumer, right, the focus on the humans that
Speaker 1: are using our applications. That's going to continue. This emphasis
Speaker 1: on no and low code development again, you know, custom
Speaker 1: development's not going away, but they're just continues to be
Speaker 1: so much happening there and it continues to open up
Speaker 1: what non coders are able to do. And I just
Speaker 1: I think this is really changing business for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. Explainable AI. So that's something that Salesforce is
Speaker 1: stressing a lot, right, the ability to take something as
Speaker 1: complex as artificial intelligence and actually make it accessible UM.
Speaker 1: And that's an area that I need to explore more
Speaker 1: on the Salesforce platform. I've dabbled a bit in that,
Speaker 1: but there's there's a lot to learn. They're so I'm
Speaker 1: excited about that, and I think all those things I
Speaker 1: just mentioned really all point to the democratization of technology, right,
Speaker 1: just allowing people who maybe UM weren't able to leverage
Speaker 1: it to the fullest extent, to leverage that more. And
Speaker 1: that's that's exciting to me. So those aren't things I'm
Speaker 1: excited about. It was great to talk with you. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for your time. Absolutely, thank you so much, Jacob,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I share feel's excitement for greater democratization
Speaker 1: of technology and feels work with Salesforce and IBM consult
Speaker 1: is a step in the right direction empowering businesses to
Speaker 1: create better digital experiences. When a company has the right
Speaker 1: tools to modify the digital side of its business, it
Speaker 1: can create new solutions on its own, deploy those solutions
Speaker 1: on its own timeline, and build human centric digital experiences
Speaker 1: that meet its unique needs. When it's easier for anyone
Speaker 1: in business to build a friendlier, more customized digital experience,
Speaker 1: it becomes easier to do business period. Smart Talks with
Speaker 1: IBM is produced by Matt Romano, David jaw, Royston Deserve
Speaker 1: and Edith Rousselo with Jacob Goldstein were edited by Sophie
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