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Hear from Adam Scheinberg discussing why transformation is hard. "What got you here, won't get you there".
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What is 2m2x - 2 Minutes 2 Transformation?
2m2x is a series of 2-minute videos on topics that will help you transform your business. Join us weekly to discuss Digital Transformation!!
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And we're live. How are you doing, Adam?
Adam:I'm great. How are you, Rajiv?
Rajiv:Not too bad. Happy Friday. I'm I'm keeping you from your margaritas probably.
Adam:Haha. Thank you. Yep. Looking forward to a couple days off. Getting deep in the Netflix catalog.
Rajiv:Haha. Yep. Yep. That's been, the theme of last year, hasn't it?
Adam:Yep.
Rajiv:You don't have any other outlets going on.
Adam:That's right.
Rajiv:Cool. Well, I really appreciate you making a few minutes for this. As you know, we've launched this new, series, the web video series called 2m2x, 2 minutes to digital transformation. And you and I have had many interesting conversations about, digital transformation in the past and organizational transformation in general. I figured you'd be the best one to kick this whole series off. So appreciate you making some time.
Adam:It's an honor. Thank you.
Rajiv:Absolutely. So I'll let you, I mean, I could go on and on about you, but I think you might have a succinct introduction about your background that might be, better than my glowing praises.
Adam:My name is Adam Sheinberg. I'm the vice president of information technology for Massey Services, and, I'm very involved in the community. And most relevant is I, just stepped aside as the chair of the Orlando Tech Council and handed the gavel to you, Rajiv.
Rajiv:Thank you so much, Adam. I appreciate that. And, yeah, I was serious about that. I mean, you've done some fantastic work for the Orlando community, and I am proud to be taking that baton and running forward with it. So appreciate all that you've done.
Rajiv:With that said, let's get into some tech stuff. So, you've got a lot of varied background, and you've been an executive in a, midsized company that is on its path to digital transformation. So where do you feel overall that, you know, you are on your journey towards moving your organization forward and, you know, kind of where you place yourself in terms of the levels of digital transformation? Are you kind of level 0 where, you know, and you're not level 0. I know that.
Rajiv:But, are you further along to the point where you're looking at digitally enabled business models? Are you kind of a little bit away from that yet?
Adam:We are probably not unlike many companies of our size in that we're equal parts postgrad and kindergarten. You know, our business, builds apps in .Net core. We have moved our WAN to SD WAN, which is software defined. We use serverless architecture where we can. We've adopted, agile and scrum methodologies in some of our departments inside the tech teams, but we are manual in a lot of places still.
Adam:One thing that is often surprising is that I am a believer that it's bad to invest in technology because it's cool. And in my industry, there's a lot of manual work and a lot of getting dirty and crawling under houses and going between walls, and there's a lot where tech doesn't offer a huge benefit. So we are very careful about where we make large investments and where we try to be bleeding edge and where we try to be zero edge, which is a term I just made up. But, I trust you on the deck. Yeah.
Rajiv:I like the I like that phrase. I'm gonna use that.
Adam:Okay.
Rajiv:So in terms of where you see yourself as using some of the bleeding edge stuff, what kind of stuff can you share, or is it, like, secret under wraps?
Adam:Well, none of it is really secret, but there are there's a lot of what we do that could be transformed when there's mature technology that exists for these things? I would love to set AI loose on our database and be able to ask complex questions like using 50 points of data, find, you know, consistencies that allow us to better predict customer behaviors and things like that. I would love to be able to do, real time 3D charting so that we could identify, for example, in a hotel, how activity, pest activity moves around. Certainly, I would love if there were 5G connectivity inexpensively, effectively available everywhere. That way we could know, within a within a second of a problem with your irrigation system or, activity inside of a termite station around your house.
Adam:But some of these are just not inexpensive enough for us to realistically build. And some of them, the tech is coming, but it's not there at scale for us to truly transform. So I see it as we're standing on the edge, and we could see where we're going, and we know what tech will be there, but we do have to bide our time until it's available.
Rajiv:That makes perfect sense. So in terms of, some of the more successful projects you've had so far that you feel like, hey. This is really helping us move along on our journey. Anything that you can call out from the last couple of years or so?
Adam:One of the biggest things that we've done that I just mentioned a a moment ago is called SD WAN. We used to run, private lines to every one of our 150 or so, service centers across the nation, which is very expensive and works the opposite of the way that you would think. Large city centers where there's a good infrastructure, where we tend to be larger got very inexpensive lines, whereas the ones that were a little further out or off the beaten path would get very expensive connectivity. We were able to switch to just direct internet. We could run redundant connections at significantly higher bandwidth by putting a cable modem and just, an ethernet line into these service centers using a box with an inexpensive piece of software on it that does all of the balancing on its own.
Adam:It understands, I want my phone calls to be prioritized. I want Internet traffic over the cable modem. I want this this way and shape the traffic. And it was able to reduce, the cost like over 50%, while providing redundancy and also increasing bandwidth. So things like that are really a "Wipe the whiteboard" and start over kind of, transformation for us.
Rajiv:That's really powerful. Yeah. This, just kind of a call out to how this process is going to be shared with our audience. We'd love to have you share any, working documents, any links that you want to share, when we record this and send it out, please let us know, and we'll put that out there too if you wanna if you wanna share any success stories or case studies or anything like that. That's great.
Rajiv:So in terms of that, have you run into, any lessons learned issues that you felt like, oh, wow. I wish people knew this when they were gonna start this journey.
Adam:One thing I can tell you I learned over and over again is that as fast as an IT department wants to act, we when we see a solution and just know that's a solution for us, we can pivot quickly, but turning a business is a little like turning an aircraft carrier, and it it takes a long time. So having patience and understanding which technology is really worth it and and how many times you're gonna have to convey the same information and hold people's hands as they come, to terms with changes, that requires a little bit of patience.
Rajiv:Yeah. Absolutely. So it's been more on the, kind of consensus building and, activation. Like, do you have to let did you have to create brand new teams that didn't exist before with humble teams?
Adam:In most cases, no. In in some cases, teams have been repurposed. You know, when we had a large telecom team managing phones, it was different when we moved to a unified communications platform, and suddenly there really was no such thing as a phone. It was really a computer that looked like a phone, and there was a lot of different, different tasks that the team then had to accomplish.
Rajiv:Gotcha. Very cool. So in terms of what some of the next steps are for you, what are you looking at on your near term horizon, maybe your long term horizon for transformation type projects?
Adam:Road mapping is still a challenge for us. Like many medium and large size enterprise, we've got a we have a level of shiny red ball distraction. So, we have lots of projects that we begin to execute that get pushed down the chain a little bit by, you know, this week's, passion. And I don't mean that to minimize any other, any particular person's wish, but when you have, as many individual departments and as many individual lines of business as we do, there are different parts of the body that require different kinds of attention at different times. So it's always a challenge to understand which is the the area that requires the most attention right now.
Adam:I won't say the squeaky wheel that needs the grease because that doesn't really convey the right thing. That that's sounds like the people who are the loudest, and I'm talking about truly understanding where is the need the greatest and where are we going to make the biggest difference.
Rajiv:That makes sense, but I'm still gonna put you on the spot. What would you like to see happen?
Adam:As far as road mapping?
Rajiv:Yeah.
Adam:I mean, I think
Rajiv:What would you say is exciting that you would hope that at some point you would get to?
Adam:Ultimately, I would love for a business to truly have an all encompassing piece of software that becomes the single source of truth for everything. It is tremendously difficult. Even though it sounds easy, it's tremendously difficult to unify the needs of an HR information system, an ERP system, financial systems, learning management systems, customer relationship management systems, unified communication systems, dot dot dot. I could go on, but I you know, it's a very it's a run on sentence already. And in most organizations, there are half a dozen systems minimum that are accomplishing those exact things.
Adam:So I would love if we could get to some central system. Keep in mind there are some systems that can do all those things right now, but inevitably, every one of them has areas of that software that are weaker. And so sometimes even though there's an HR component to whatever, dynamics, we don't like the that doesn't meet enough of our needs. It doesn't scratch the full edge. And the learning management system is absent from this one or they recommend this other piece of software that they make, which integrates, but isn't truly single source.
Adam:And, oh, yes. We can use it, but it doesn't integrate with the online services that manage our licenses, which creates a new manual component. So I would love if we could get to that sort of one system to rule them all. And then as I mentioned, AI is unquestionably overused. Everybody talks about AI, but what AI can truly be loosed on today is not without limit.
Adam:There are very specific cases where it's knock you out knock it out of the park good, but it's almost impossible to just take a dataset and say, let me explain to you what the relationships between them are, and now you just tell me what's cool. And that, I think, would be the killer app from an AI standpoint. Tell me how I know when a customer of ours is going to cancel based on a lot of different data points that we would never be able to proactively write a report to identify. Right? I wanna know on day 1 what information I've already gathered that's gonna tell me that they are a 3 month customer or a 30 year customer.
Rajiv:That's the wish list I was hoping to hear. Yeah. Exactly. Cool. That's really good.
Rajiv:And, you know, of course, as you know and you've shared already, it's it's about aligning the priorities and a lot of what a technical executive at your level needs to do is really build that alignment and, find something that we can all agree on that we we need to work on in the short term. So do you see, the business as having a lot of priorities that, are kind of maybe lending themselves into technical directions that, are being derived from that? Or do you feel like you're coming up with ideas that, hey. Look. Technology is here with for example, with the the WAN thing.
Rajiv:Like, hey. We know this technology exists. Here's the business case for it, and then we get the approval. Or does it come the other way around where, like, hey. We wanna go into this new business function.
Rajiv:How can you write make technology help write technology that'll help us support that? Do you see that happening, With?
Adam:It's a good question, and the the answer is both. We drive change, and we respond to need. But, allow me to suggest that every IT team is driven in part by ego. We always think we're the smartest people in the building, and, we always think that we have an understanding that nobody else does. In some cases, we truly do because we see data from a different angle than everybody else.
Adam:Of course, in many, many cases, we don't, but we still think we do. So there are, again, generally, in lots of companies, not specific to mine, there are viewpoints that come from, getting under the covers of software and looking at what data you have underneath that I think gives you a unique perspective to be able to say, here's a better way for us to look at this. And so one of the the secrets, that I'm happy to share is frequently when we get specifications, we try to strip away what somebody is saying in words and ask them what they really want. Because a lot of times people are not telling you, here's what I want. They're telling you what they think will get them what they want.
Adam:I need a report that tells me x, y, and z. No. No. You need a report that helps you understand, you know, whatever, a, b, and c. And you think x, y, and z is the best way to understand a, b, and c.
Adam:The more we get what the, the thing you're really trying to get is, the more help we can be to any business unit or person within our company.
Rajiv:Exactly. And that's what I was gonna ask next to the follow-up was, what what are you doing to kind of improve that conversation, between the business and technology teams?
Adam:So, I think that's a a question of nuance. I think that involves a lot of knowing your audience and speaking to them the way they need to be spoken to. Even within my team, I have a very different relationship with all of our leaders, and I, I work with them in different ways based on what I think is going to be most effective. There are certain people that I would never ask to write specifications for reports or software tools that they need. There are others where I would say, here's a piece of paper.
Adam:Just draw me what you think you want it to look like, and we'll go build it. Let me worry about the logic behind the scenes. Right? So I do think that is where you separate just technology, like someone who's writing code, from leadership and understanding how to deal with people. You can be good at one of those things or both, but, that doesn't mean that you're not good enough just to just because you, are are great at one of them and not the other.
Adam:So I've got people I would never put in in front of somebody else to collect that info.
Rajiv:Yep. No. That makes perfect sense. That's a very, very important point. I wanna make sure people pay attention to that because a lot of times, the dynamic between tech teams and the business is that tech teams are pointing the finger there saying, hey.
Rajiv:You didn't give me the right specification. The business is pointing to them saying, hey. Your app doesn't work. And a lot of times, it's exactly what you just said. It's a nuanced dance of really knowing who to ask for what and meeting them where they are, not expecting them to suddenly know all your lingo and everything like that.
Rajiv:So so I'm assuming you have, people that you look at as your, you know, client facing business analyst or, you know, kind of, requirements gathering people who are able to speak the customer's language, understand the business versus, the teams that actually develop it.
Adam:Of course. And in fact, if you if you were to go to some of our most, skilled people, some of our most skilled technicians that are not inside of IT and say to them, what what do you think a user portal should look like? I think you would find, that they would design the thing. They they would almost write the whole thing for you, and that can be very dangerous because they start to think, oh, I know what a customer wants. And what we really wanna do is cut through that and say, don't tell me what you want it to look like.
Adam:Tell me what information you wanted to have in it. Let me worry about user experience. Let me worry about the things that, you know, that are how a user is going to interact with that data. So, yeah, that's that's one that's you you know, it's difficult to to gather real information in that manner.
Rajiv:Right. And what do you use any tools or methodologies in that space, agile design thinking, anything like that?
Adam:We do. We are, our system is sort of homegrown. We do use a lot of agile methodology. We also use, a number of, tools from, ShapeUp, which is from Basecamp, And while their system is really software development focused, I I have found that there are a number of the metaphors in there that are applicable to IT support in general.
Rajiv:Fantastic. Yeah. That's good to know. I'll I'll link that to the audience. ShapeUp, you said?
Adam:Yeah. ShapeUp from Basecamp. I usually tell people to Google agile in a nutshell, which is, you know, 15 slides online that really give you a flavor. And the other thing that I tend to tell people to look at is, Simon Sinek's Why TED Talk, which I'm sure you're familiar with.
Rajiv:Absolutely. Yep. Start with why. Mhmm. That's one of my favorites.
Rajiv:Yeah. Great. So we're, I'd love to hear from you in terms of I know you've been very involved with the tech community, and you've seen how the tech community has changed and evolved over the last 5, 10 years. How does Massey participate in the tech community, and, you know, are you hiring for technical positions? Anything you'd like to share with respect to Massey and your involvement in the community?
Adam:Well, Massey is, part of our mission statement is really tied to, participation in our communities, from, you know, Texas and Oklahoma all the way to the Carolinas down to Florida. We have it as one of our core tenants. So not only do we participate by, for example, servicing government and school buildings and things like that, at no cost, but we are large supporters of, autism awareness, juvenile diabetes, veterans causes, and arts education, which we didn't really talk about, but it's another passion of mine. Massey has always supported me in my participation in tech community leadership and community building. And, I believe as our company believes that people want to do business with businesses that invest in their communities.
Adam:And, you know, particularly my generation and the generation after it, and sadly, the there's a generation after that, really value that kind of participation and support. They're look they're looking for companies that are socially conscious and, give something back. So I think it's great to be able to say that what we do is good for the environment. What we do keeps food and property, safe. And, and by the way, if that's not enough for you, we're also big supporters of many unrelated, causes within our community.
Rajiv:That's great. Yeah. It's good to hear. I know Massey is a strong supporter of the community with lots of initiatives that you're a part of. Also, what do you have, do you have any, open positions?
Rajiv:And now that people know so much about Massey, do you have any open positions you'd like to talk about or anything else you're looking?
Adam:That changes moment to moment, but let me say that I'm always open to receiving a resume. And if we get the right people, we will make room for them. So happy always happy to talk.
Rajiv:Okay. Any, do you have any asks for the community? Like
Adam:You know, the only ask I would really have is engage in your community. Orlando is creating its tech community. It's still forming an identity, and that's a unique position to be in because so many places, you really have to work to be a participant. And where we live on day 1, you can be part of the groups that that help, that help make things happen. You can be part of, of programs that, that are built specifically to help small businesses become larger.
Adam:You can be part of programs that help large businesses find local small businesses to partner with. You can be part of, events that are built for developers. You can be part of, groups that are built specifically for game developers. We have so much potential, and all we really need is for you to reach out, and there are tons of options. So please help.
Adam:Please be a part of this community.
Rajiv:Well said, sir. Well, that was, very helpful. I really appreciate all the time you've, shared with us, Adam. These are some great points. I'm sure it'll help people who are on their journey to digital transformation, kind of thinking about tech leadership in that space, as well as community leadership because that's really the cool thing about what you do is you're you're a tech leader, you're a community leader, and, you know, you have your own, passions as well with respect to what you're trying to achieve.
Rajiv:So I'd love to have, the audience, you know, put in questions, any comments they have, and, you know, if, if they're for Adam, I'll make sure to pass it along. Adam, any thoughts you wanted to share before we close this out?
Adam:I don't think so. Thanks for doing this. I'm looking forward to, future episodes of 2m2x.