1 00:00:01,439 --> 00:00:05,200 Joel, welcome to the Evolved Radio podcast. Thanks, Todd. 2 00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:08,340 Great to be here. So we'll get straight into it. 3 00:00:08,924 --> 00:00:12,684 You're pretty recognized in the industry at this point. But for the those 4 00:00:12,684 --> 00:00:16,204 that are maybe not familiar or need a refresher, you wanna give us a quick 5 00:00:16,204 --> 00:00:20,000 bit of background on you and your your story? Yeah. Absolutely. 6 00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:24,640 Well, my my time in the MSP space dates back 7 00:00:24,640 --> 00:00:28,395 right alongside yours as we work together, what was it, 10, 8 00:00:28,395 --> 00:00:32,235 12 years ago now? But, yeah, I've been in 9 00:00:32,235 --> 00:00:35,780 the space for my whole career and was lucky enough to join 10 00:00:35,780 --> 00:00:39,540 Chris Day and yourself at Fully Managed and, kind 11 00:00:39,540 --> 00:00:43,220 of worked worked to build that MSP up and, you know, 12 00:00:43,220 --> 00:00:47,055 led the eventual exit of that company to TELUS in 2022 with 13 00:00:47,055 --> 00:00:50,894 about 500 staff. So definitely cut my teeth in in scaling, 14 00:00:51,135 --> 00:00:54,710 an MSP and working alongside, you know, great 15 00:00:54,710 --> 00:00:58,550 great folks like Chris Day and and Mark Scott, my 2 partners in in 16 00:00:58,550 --> 00:01:02,329 this venture, as well as, our fund, TopDown Fund 1, 17 00:01:03,095 --> 00:01:06,854 and all the various companies that we support with Scalepad and Quoter 18 00:01:06,854 --> 00:01:10,695 and backup radar over the years. So, I've had a had great exposure in the 19 00:01:10,695 --> 00:01:14,190 MSP space for a long time. I'm very thankful to to be here and continuing 20 00:01:14,730 --> 00:01:18,170 to do our part to forge the path forward. So maybe 21 00:01:18,170 --> 00:01:21,784 just a quick aside on this as well like, I 22 00:01:21,784 --> 00:01:25,600 think a lot of people in the industry are definitely familiar with Scalepad and 23 00:01:25,680 --> 00:01:28,420 and sort of the the products that are underneath the the Scalepad, 24 00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:33,245 entity. Do you wanna can you talk a bit about sort of Top 25 00:01:33,325 --> 00:01:37,165 down and and the company that, that oversees some of the the direction 26 00:01:37,165 --> 00:01:41,005 there and how that relates to the group of companies? Yeah. 27 00:01:41,005 --> 00:01:44,390 Absolutely. I mean, so TopDown started in 28 00:01:44,390 --> 00:01:48,229 2018, by Chris Day after his exit of 29 00:01:48,229 --> 00:01:51,965 IT Glue to Kaseya. And it was his way of, you know, reinvesting 30 00:01:52,024 --> 00:01:55,865 back into the MSP software community. So he cofounded Scalepad or at the 31 00:01:55,865 --> 00:01:59,659 time Warranty Master with his brother, Anthony. He invested 32 00:01:59,659 --> 00:02:02,880 in a company called Quoter and invested in a company called Backup Radar. 33 00:02:03,180 --> 00:02:06,080 And from 2020, 2021, 34 00:02:06,995 --> 00:02:10,514 Scalepad was was growing quite rapidly. And so we brought in some 35 00:02:10,514 --> 00:02:14,195 external capital from a group called Integrity Growth Partners. They've 36 00:02:14,195 --> 00:02:17,599 been great partners, to scale to help scale 37 00:02:17,599 --> 00:02:21,440 Scalepad, up and, you know, the capital partner for 38 00:02:21,440 --> 00:02:24,855 7 acquisitions. And now Scalepad's, yep, big big 39 00:02:24,855 --> 00:02:28,215 company, number of different products, incredible kind of 40 00:02:28,215 --> 00:02:30,955 evolving platform, 230 employees. 41 00:02:31,930 --> 00:02:35,690 And, but, yeah, top down kind of, you know, behind the scenes has 42 00:02:35,690 --> 00:02:39,450 been supporting, not only Scalepad, but also, you 43 00:02:39,450 --> 00:02:43,085 know, the various other companies I mentioned, as well as Control 44 00:02:43,085 --> 00:02:46,625 Map and a couple of other non MSP software companies. 45 00:02:47,725 --> 00:02:51,430 And then most recently, we're actually launching 46 00:02:51,730 --> 00:02:55,330 a a venture capital fund, for MSP software 47 00:02:55,330 --> 00:02:59,155 companies. And so Mark Scott has come in with Chris and myself 48 00:02:59,155 --> 00:03:02,995 to be our 3rd partner. And, we're super excited to do the public 49 00:03:02,995 --> 00:03:06,190 launch of that over the next couple of months. So stay tuned on that one. 50 00:03:06,350 --> 00:03:09,710 We're not not totally ready to to bring that one out to the world, but 51 00:03:09,710 --> 00:03:13,475 it certainly is coming, and we're excited to get the whole MSP community 52 00:03:23,540 --> 00:03:27,240 planned there as well for sure. So, focus for today is 53 00:03:27,300 --> 00:03:30,900 one of the the companies, sort of in 54 00:03:30,900 --> 00:03:34,645 your in your portfolio is produce 8. So an 55 00:03:34,645 --> 00:03:38,165 emerging product, maybe not as familiar or have sort of the 56 00:03:38,165 --> 00:03:41,879 street recognition as a a scale pad. And I think 57 00:03:41,879 --> 00:03:45,579 a place to start that I, because this sort of goes core to 58 00:03:45,959 --> 00:03:49,545 this being a very different approach to both a software 59 00:03:49,705 --> 00:03:53,545 product in the MSP space but also a different approach to what 60 00:03:53,545 --> 00:03:57,340 you could argue is already an established, bit of software but 61 00:03:57,819 --> 00:04:01,660 sort of really runs counter to the way that we need to go, go 62 00:04:01,660 --> 00:04:05,500 about this. So, before we get too into what the 63 00:04:05,500 --> 00:04:08,724 product is, I really wanna understand sort of where where you were, 64 00:04:09,185 --> 00:04:12,644 and what was sort of the thought around this. Like, you had, 65 00:04:14,144 --> 00:04:17,960 conversations I assume with with Ryan, one of the cofounders around this this 66 00:04:17,960 --> 00:04:21,320 product and he said like this is it. This is this is something that absolutely 67 00:04:21,320 --> 00:04:24,680 needs to come to the market. What was your thinking around that? And I think 68 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:28,414 that that'll help explain sort of what the product is and why it's different in 69 00:04:28,414 --> 00:04:31,794 my mind. Yeah. Well, as as an 70 00:04:31,854 --> 00:04:35,260 operating MSP, you you 71 00:04:35,260 --> 00:04:38,780 rely on the innovation around you from all of your various vendors 72 00:04:38,780 --> 00:04:42,300 to make the best selection of products and and drive your 73 00:04:42,300 --> 00:04:43,005 business forward. 74 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:54,720 You know, on the heels of IT Glue started to create new products that, you 75 00:04:54,720 --> 00:04:58,080 know, are trying to look around the corner and understand what MSPs needs are gonna 76 00:04:58,080 --> 00:05:01,455 be down the line. And so produce 8 came 77 00:05:01,455 --> 00:05:05,235 about. I was actually attending a really, really interesting talk from 78 00:05:05,775 --> 00:05:09,490 a couple of PhD professors at Berkeley. And, 79 00:05:09,650 --> 00:05:13,410 they were talking about productivity in the 20th 21st century and and 80 00:05:13,410 --> 00:05:17,225 the impact of technology on it. And, they they I'll never forget. 81 00:05:17,225 --> 00:05:20,445 They put up this slide, and it showed productivity increases, 82 00:05:21,065 --> 00:05:24,720 in the US. I mean, it was just a rising chart growing and growing and 83 00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:27,860 growing. And then it peaked, and it flatlined. 84 00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:31,965 And there was what they talked about a lot of the different things were going 85 00:05:31,965 --> 00:05:35,645 on at that peak and and our inability to break through 86 00:05:35,645 --> 00:05:39,310 that ceiling. And at the time, you know, they they were 87 00:05:39,950 --> 00:05:43,790 hypothesizing around open office concepts. And, 88 00:05:44,110 --> 00:05:47,515 the release of the iPhone, that was a big one. That it was just 89 00:05:47,813 --> 00:05:51,385 there was a lot of distraction starting to happen to the average 90 00:05:51,385 --> 00:05:54,660 knowledge worker. And and as a result, despite the the massive 91 00:05:54,980 --> 00:05:58,740 improvements in the software that we were using, we actually weren't getting 92 00:05:58,740 --> 00:06:02,520 any more productive as as a a working society. 93 00:06:02,915 --> 00:06:06,515 And that just it stopped me in my tracks, Todd. And I was 94 00:06:06,515 --> 00:06:10,295 like, how is this possible? You know, I spend my career 95 00:06:10,595 --> 00:06:14,150 enabling end users to to use all these 96 00:06:14,150 --> 00:06:17,670 different products and work in a fluid IT environment 97 00:06:17,670 --> 00:06:21,495 and kind of felt like it it was all for nothing. We were just 98 00:06:21,495 --> 00:06:25,175 keeping the lights on if we weren't getting any more productive. So I 99 00:06:25,175 --> 00:06:28,950 became obsessed with with kind of diving into this problem 100 00:06:28,950 --> 00:06:32,390 and looked at all the different players in the space and what they were doing 101 00:06:32,390 --> 00:06:36,085 and what they weren't doing and what was making them successful. There were 102 00:06:36,085 --> 00:06:39,925 some great incumbent companies that had built great products that served a lot 103 00:06:39,925 --> 00:06:43,685 of different needs around employee monitoring and and understanding what was 104 00:06:43,685 --> 00:06:47,350 going on on the desktop because on the surface, it doesn't seem like a difficult 105 00:06:47,350 --> 00:06:51,030 thing to solve. Like, you know, at least we're working on machines. So let's just 106 00:06:51,030 --> 00:06:54,330 track everything on the machine, and and, there you go. 107 00:06:55,544 --> 00:06:59,145 But then then, you know, this this other, you 108 00:06:59,145 --> 00:07:01,805 know, avenue sort of intersected with that, 109 00:07:03,080 --> 00:07:06,680 yeah, this problem that that I was toiling over. And it was the the 110 00:07:06,680 --> 00:07:10,520 pandemic hit, and, everybody went home. And I I 111 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:14,235 often, you know, I often pontificate that if the 112 00:07:14,235 --> 00:07:17,835 pandemic had occurred 10 years earlier, I mean, imagine as the pandemic had happened when 113 00:07:17,835 --> 00:07:21,595 you and I first met Todd. Like, our customers would have 114 00:07:21,595 --> 00:07:25,090 been in absolute disarray as an MSP because half of them 115 00:07:25,090 --> 00:07:28,550 probably didn't have, you know, a VPN set up. They weren't 116 00:07:28,690 --> 00:07:32,275 built for employees to work from home. So everybody would have been all over the 117 00:07:32,275 --> 00:07:35,795 place. So, like, everybody using BPOS or logging in, you know, 118 00:07:35,795 --> 00:07:39,470 terminal servicing into exchange servers to keep the you know, all 119 00:07:39,470 --> 00:07:42,910 these businesses going, it would have been chaos. And instead, 120 00:07:42,910 --> 00:07:46,590 nobody really talks about how smooth that transition 121 00:07:46,590 --> 00:07:50,355 was for everybody to go home and work in the cloud. It 122 00:07:50,355 --> 00:07:54,195 was it was unbelievable, like, from an IT guy to watch 123 00:07:54,195 --> 00:07:57,890 all this transpire. And so that wasn't the 124 00:07:57,890 --> 00:08:01,030 problem to solve, how to make sure everybody is working okay, 125 00:08:01,650 --> 00:08:05,490 in this this remote work environment. It was already solved for us because everybody 126 00:08:05,490 --> 00:08:09,294 was using the cloud or everybody was, you know, well well suited for that 127 00:08:09,294 --> 00:08:13,134 transition. But what kept CEOs up up at night in 128 00:08:13,134 --> 00:08:16,720 those first few months was, what are my people doing? They 129 00:08:16,720 --> 00:08:20,400 became, like, grossly uncomfortable with the fact that they couldn't 130 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:24,065 see their people. And therefore, what were they doing? And 131 00:08:24,225 --> 00:08:27,585 granted, there was a lot of different stresses plaguing all of 132 00:08:27,585 --> 00:08:31,285 humankind around that time. But in general, people were 133 00:08:31,345 --> 00:08:35,059 were just like, what are my people doing? And they couldn't get comfortable 134 00:08:35,059 --> 00:08:38,820 with the idea that they were working at equivalent levels at 135 00:08:38,820 --> 00:08:42,419 home. And so I, you know, I was in a peer 136 00:08:42,419 --> 00:08:46,155 group and and I got, you know, put this question out. And so I was 137 00:08:46,155 --> 00:08:49,995 like, well, this is easy. I've been studying productivity for a while 138 00:08:49,995 --> 00:08:53,810 here. Just install one of these 3 platforms. You can do 139 00:08:53,810 --> 00:08:56,930 it silently. We can push it out through the RMM. No as an MSP. No 140 00:08:56,930 --> 00:09:00,675 problem. It'll bring back everything that your team is doing, and you can see it 141 00:09:00,675 --> 00:09:04,375 all right there. And I thought I was gonna, you know, nail 142 00:09:04,435 --> 00:09:08,035 10 sign ups to a new product in that meeting. And all of them 143 00:09:08,035 --> 00:09:11,830 had this visceral reaction. I'm not spying on my people. 144 00:09:12,290 --> 00:09:16,050 I trust my managers. I would never install spyware on 145 00:09:16,050 --> 00:09:19,270 my team's machines. I was like, oh, okay. 146 00:09:19,714 --> 00:09:23,315 So they they don't they want visibility into what their team is 147 00:09:23,315 --> 00:09:27,130 doing or want some sort of, understanding or relationship or something. They 148 00:09:27,130 --> 00:09:30,110 want they don't even know what they're asking for if they don't if they won't 149 00:09:30,329 --> 00:09:34,010 install monitoring software on their machine. So 150 00:09:34,010 --> 00:09:37,464 so what's this missing middle here? And, 151 00:09:37,945 --> 00:09:41,545 that was, you know, around the time when I I started to really kind of 152 00:09:41,545 --> 00:09:45,140 think the problem through, with with Chris and and with 153 00:09:45,220 --> 00:09:48,200 Mark. And then there's this other intersection, 154 00:09:49,700 --> 00:09:53,435 of, you know, this personal obsession with our own health 155 00:09:53,435 --> 00:09:57,195 data. And here we are. We're trying to understand how many you 156 00:09:57,195 --> 00:10:00,815 know, what we're eating. So we're using this app. We're trying to understand 157 00:10:00,955 --> 00:10:04,060 how many calories we're burning. So we're using this app. We're trying to understand our 158 00:10:04,060 --> 00:10:07,820 sleep, so we're using this app. And us as tech guys, yourself included, I 159 00:10:07,820 --> 00:10:11,655 know, are now just obsessed with Yep. You know, understanding what's going on in their 160 00:10:11,655 --> 00:10:15,415 body. So we're looking at this this path. We're looking at the, you know, 161 00:10:15,415 --> 00:10:19,210 the remote work angle, and then we're looking at productivity. And so we said 162 00:10:19,210 --> 00:10:23,050 we gotta we gotta solve. We gotta figure out a better way to 163 00:10:23,050 --> 00:10:26,810 bring this data together around what people are doing and do it in a 164 00:10:26,810 --> 00:10:30,654 way that is actually productive for the end users as 165 00:10:30,654 --> 00:10:34,334 well as as the companies and and the 166 00:10:34,334 --> 00:10:37,769 employers. And so that's really what started what 167 00:10:37,769 --> 00:10:41,529 catalyzed that, produce 8. And the original, you know, working 168 00:10:41,529 --> 00:10:45,154 name of the company was WorkFor, because we're all kind of Tim 169 00:10:45,154 --> 00:10:48,835 Ferris fans. And we said, look, you know, 4 day work weeks coming 170 00:10:48,835 --> 00:10:52,480 up, the the 4 hour you know, some of our top guys, they're probably 171 00:10:52,480 --> 00:10:56,160 working remotely. They're probably only working 4 hours a day, but they're absolutely 172 00:10:56,160 --> 00:10:59,895 crushing it. So is that okay? I think it's okay if 173 00:10:59,895 --> 00:11:03,654 if they're still producing 8 hours of work. But let's, like, let's try 174 00:11:03,654 --> 00:11:07,415 and figure out what they're doing so we can disseminate that that knowledge throughout the 175 00:11:07,415 --> 00:11:10,900 rest of the organization. And I know this is a long build up here, 176 00:11:10,900 --> 00:11:14,500 so I'll wrap it up here. But, you know, the next things that happened were 177 00:11:14,500 --> 00:11:18,185 really interesting because then we started we started trying to solve for this problem. So 178 00:11:18,185 --> 00:11:21,945 we started building. We brought the initial team together. And then we started to 179 00:11:21,945 --> 00:11:25,250 get some data back from the pandemic, and people were actually 180 00:11:25,470 --> 00:11:29,310 working more hours. Okay. So now one of our inputs is disrupted. People 181 00:11:29,310 --> 00:11:33,105 are working more hours. So the whole what are my people are doing? They're actually 182 00:11:33,105 --> 00:11:36,945 working more. They're producing less. So 183 00:11:36,945 --> 00:11:40,639 productivity started to decline. Again, lots of macro 184 00:11:40,639 --> 00:11:44,480 environmental factors, but the reality is they're working more hours 185 00:11:44,480 --> 00:11:48,240 and producing less. And then this third, vector came in, 186 00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:51,964 which people were getting burnt out at much 187 00:11:51,964 --> 00:11:55,644 higher rates. And so, you know, this is all these things coming 188 00:11:55,644 --> 00:11:59,470 together for, you know, just to to fuel our desire 189 00:11:59,470 --> 00:12:02,910 to solve the problem or at least, you know, start to take things back in 190 00:12:02,910 --> 00:12:06,430 the other direction. Okay. Cool. That's a great sort of 191 00:12:06,430 --> 00:12:09,615 background. I love and I love this. Like, it sort of sets up a bunch 192 00:12:09,615 --> 00:12:12,175 of the things that I wanted to visit on here. And I think the first 193 00:12:12,175 --> 00:12:15,695 is, like, guilty as charged. I, you know, I am 194 00:12:15,695 --> 00:12:19,150 a, you know, an old school biohacker, you 195 00:12:19,150 --> 00:12:22,590 know, quantified self. You know, I got my Oura ring. I've got my Apple 196 00:12:22,590 --> 00:12:25,925 Watch. You know, my wife gives me a hard time about how much I obsess 197 00:12:25,925 --> 00:12:29,365 over my data in the morning, all of those things. Right? I've I've made dramatic 198 00:12:29,365 --> 00:12:32,940 lifestyle changes to sort of, based on the data 199 00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:36,440 that was given to me around things that I knew were true, you know, like 200 00:12:36,440 --> 00:12:39,720 I cut back drinking because, like, once I had an Oura ring I could not 201 00:12:39,720 --> 00:12:43,115 lie to myself about the impact that it had. Right? So, 202 00:12:43,115 --> 00:12:46,495 like, I I love sort of the description of the produce a 203 00:12:46,795 --> 00:12:50,395 produce a product as more of sort of a digital health score. Right? And I 204 00:12:50,395 --> 00:12:53,880 think it's it helps to understand how this is distinct and different 205 00:12:54,420 --> 00:12:57,720 than, like, the other tools that are, you know, 206 00:12:58,100 --> 00:13:01,705 for lack of a better description, they're kinda spy ware. And I'm sure, 207 00:13:01,705 --> 00:13:05,065 like, you've been in those circumstances where, you know, 208 00:13:05,065 --> 00:13:08,665 a, sort of a borderline ethical client asks you to 209 00:13:08,665 --> 00:13:12,300 install some some monitoring software to track employees 210 00:13:12,360 --> 00:13:15,820 and things like that. And it's it is a very sort of strange ethical dilemma. 211 00:13:17,160 --> 00:13:20,625 And I like the fact that this is done in such a more transparent 212 00:13:20,625 --> 00:13:24,144 fashion and really goes towards, sort of the things that you 213 00:13:24,144 --> 00:13:27,820 learned. It's like, I've always hated the term, right, I 214 00:13:27,820 --> 00:13:31,100 need my I need to see my people to know that they're productive, like, that 215 00:13:31,100 --> 00:13:34,779 was never true in the first place. Right? People can be just as 216 00:13:34,779 --> 00:13:38,525 lazy and unproductive sitting in their desk as they are at home. 217 00:13:39,145 --> 00:13:42,825 So I I always bristled against that idea of like I 218 00:13:42,825 --> 00:13:46,550 need to see my people as a management style. As a management consultant, it just 219 00:13:46,550 --> 00:13:50,230 rubbed me the wrong way all the time. So, you know, getting this this 220 00:13:50,230 --> 00:13:54,005 this quantifiable data to understand, you know, what are people working 221 00:13:54,005 --> 00:13:57,685 on and, you know, there's a big difference between effort 222 00:13:57,685 --> 00:14:01,125 and results and you sort of you noted this around people are 223 00:14:01,125 --> 00:14:04,610 working longer. They may feel that they're working 224 00:14:04,610 --> 00:14:08,310 harder but they're producing less, right? So like how does that square? 225 00:14:08,529 --> 00:14:12,205 And that's not something that you can fix for someone. And I think that 226 00:14:12,205 --> 00:14:15,645 goes to sort of one of the key aspects of of this product is is 227 00:14:15,645 --> 00:14:19,405 that this has to be a collaborative problem to be solved. Like you 228 00:14:19,405 --> 00:14:23,110 can't just say to people, you know, I need you to work harder. And 229 00:14:23,110 --> 00:14:26,710 they're like, Ugh, like God, if my boss tells me this one more time. Why 230 00:14:26,710 --> 00:14:30,505 aren't you working better? Yeah. Exactly. What does this even mean? Right? 231 00:14:30,505 --> 00:14:34,045 And I often describe this to junior managers as a really 232 00:14:34,185 --> 00:14:37,710 strong problem. Right? Because it's such a disconnect around, 233 00:14:38,350 --> 00:14:42,110 you know, I'm working hard is their perception around sort 234 00:14:42,110 --> 00:14:45,470 of a subjective experience and the manager has a different 235 00:14:45,470 --> 00:14:48,685 subjective experience of I don't think think you're working hard enough. 236 00:14:49,145 --> 00:14:52,265 And neither of those are correct. Like there's sort of the three sides to the 237 00:14:52,265 --> 00:14:55,545 truth. Right? But what does the data say? What are we producing? What is that 238 00:14:55,545 --> 00:14:59,379 relative to other people? What is that relative to previous performance? 239 00:14:59,839 --> 00:15:03,199 And I think those factors are so much more important to understand of 240 00:15:03,199 --> 00:15:06,615 like what have we done? What are we trying? What are we 241 00:15:06,615 --> 00:15:10,214 experimenting with? And in this age of distraction, it's a 242 00:15:10,214 --> 00:15:13,950 massive massive problem. Right? Like the number of people 243 00:15:13,950 --> 00:15:17,650 that are just, like, completely drawn into teams notifications 244 00:15:18,110 --> 00:15:21,710 and DM hell in in a modern organization is a 245 00:15:21,710 --> 00:15:25,135 very very strong problem. And like a lot of 246 00:15:25,135 --> 00:15:28,595 these, these metrics are really helpful around this of understanding, 247 00:15:28,654 --> 00:15:32,240 like, have I been able to focus this week? Why or why not? How 248 00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:36,000 much time have I spent in meetings versus actually working in a line 249 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:39,755 of business product? These are much more helpful than, you know, 250 00:15:39,755 --> 00:15:43,295 the traditional measures of like, you know, did that person leave 251 00:15:43,435 --> 00:15:47,180 before 5 o'clock? Like, is that an effective measure of whether or not 252 00:15:47,180 --> 00:15:50,639 they're working hard? I don't think so. Right? Yeah. 253 00:15:50,699 --> 00:15:54,380 Yeah. Oh, look. I mean, you're you're, yeah, you're you're hitting on 254 00:15:54,380 --> 00:15:58,025 a number of points, which, you know, through our our 255 00:15:58,025 --> 00:16:01,865 3 plus years of research now have have really surfaced up. And, 256 00:16:01,865 --> 00:16:05,470 you know, the first and most impactful one for me is 257 00:16:05,470 --> 00:16:09,150 that, like, there's there's no debating the fact 258 00:16:09,150 --> 00:16:12,875 that all the social media apps are are designed 259 00:16:13,175 --> 00:16:17,014 to just consume attention. Right? It extends out to the the 260 00:16:17,014 --> 00:16:20,860 gaming apps, you know, these infinite game plays, like roadblocks are 261 00:16:20,940 --> 00:16:24,540 even our kids are are working in these environments that are 262 00:16:24,540 --> 00:16:28,325 just you know, they're they're calibrated and built from the ground up 263 00:16:28,325 --> 00:16:31,705 to hold your attention and pull you back in. 264 00:16:32,005 --> 00:16:35,730 And that's the reality of the consumer devices that that 265 00:16:35,730 --> 00:16:39,570 we work with. But what what we've nobody talks about is the fact 266 00:16:39,570 --> 00:16:43,305 that our work technology actually has a lot of the same attributes. It's all 267 00:16:43,385 --> 00:16:47,065 attributes. It's all fighting for your attention to get you back into that 268 00:16:47,065 --> 00:16:50,745 application, whether it's a Slack notification over here or 269 00:16:50,745 --> 00:16:54,320 Zoom's, you know, a Zoom chat or, an 270 00:16:54,320 --> 00:16:58,080 app notification in Asana. It's all trying to pull you back into those 271 00:16:58,080 --> 00:17:01,764 systems to have, you know, more of your your mind share. And 272 00:17:01,764 --> 00:17:05,605 it's it's if you don't just like on your personal mobile device, if you 273 00:17:05,605 --> 00:17:09,380 don't take control of that, you're just gonna, you know, be a 274 00:17:09,380 --> 00:17:13,220 a victim and and, you know, your time is gonna get eaten up by all 275 00:17:13,220 --> 00:17:16,684 of those things competing for your attention, which is is 276 00:17:16,684 --> 00:17:20,365 ultimately this huge layer of distraction from what you're 277 00:17:20,365 --> 00:17:23,885 actually trying to do or is it any intentional work or 278 00:17:23,885 --> 00:17:27,589 any deep work. So that's a a really interesting starting point 279 00:17:27,589 --> 00:17:30,950 is just to understand it. And I I always go back to, you 280 00:17:30,950 --> 00:17:34,435 know, if you you talk about the the habit 281 00:17:34,435 --> 00:17:38,195 building. And for me, it's as simple as write down everything you 282 00:17:38,195 --> 00:17:41,735 eat for the next 2 days. Are you gonna make slightly better 283 00:17:42,120 --> 00:17:45,640 decisions if you have to write down what you're eat with the intention of 284 00:17:45,640 --> 00:17:49,055 obviously improving? If you wanna see how many calories you can eat, that's a 285 00:17:56,495 --> 00:17:57,940 And you'll start to make little micro adjustments or maybe you'll, you know, And you'll 286 00:17:57,940 --> 00:18:01,700 start to make little micro adjustments, or maybe you'll you'll actually 287 00:18:01,700 --> 00:18:05,065 say, you know what? I'm not gonna eat that, you know, 6 pack of doughnuts 288 00:18:05,304 --> 00:18:08,664 because I gotta write it down, and I'm gonna have to, you know, hold be 289 00:18:08,664 --> 00:18:12,424 accountable to that later on or take a photo. So that's the the 290 00:18:12,424 --> 00:18:15,910 first layer is just awareness. And that's like, you know, what what you 291 00:18:15,910 --> 00:18:19,450 see the same day that you start using the produce 8 platform 292 00:18:19,670 --> 00:18:23,465 is you just start to see that back, and you're like, wow. And 293 00:18:23,465 --> 00:18:27,305 there's you can make big decisions. The the the box of donut decisions is you 294 00:18:27,305 --> 00:18:31,065 know what? I know I'm not needed in this meeting, but I attend 295 00:18:31,065 --> 00:18:34,590 it every single week. And now it's just sitting there in my 296 00:18:34,590 --> 00:18:38,405 face. I could easily read them. It's I haven't spoken that meeting in 297 00:18:38,965 --> 00:18:42,085 6 months. I don't need to spend 90 minutes in that meeting. And we, you 298 00:18:42,085 --> 00:18:45,525 know, we talk about the 90 minutes back. There's your 1st day's 90 minute facts 299 00:18:45,525 --> 00:18:47,385 right there. Probably, it's a weekly meeting. It's 300 00:18:51,162 --> 00:18:51,662 Every 301 00:18:55,045 --> 00:18:58,005 every time you're trying to clear all the gold out of Slack or every time 302 00:18:58,005 --> 00:19:01,605 you're, you know, infinitely scrolling somewhere else in your work 303 00:19:01,605 --> 00:19:05,029 environment. You start to see how much time just bleeds 304 00:19:05,029 --> 00:19:08,789 out. And there's there's lots of uses for 305 00:19:08,789 --> 00:19:12,630 the repurposement of that time. It can be back into the 306 00:19:12,630 --> 00:19:16,435 work that, you, you know, you you you haven't been that that you 307 00:19:16,435 --> 00:19:19,795 wanna spend it in, or maybe it's that you get your workday done a little 308 00:19:19,795 --> 00:19:23,380 bit quicker. And you actually get out there and and do some things that you 309 00:19:23,380 --> 00:19:26,600 haven't been able to do because you're so burdened. And then you're starting to impact 310 00:19:26,820 --> 00:19:30,660 the burnout and all that. So there's so many positive use 311 00:19:30,660 --> 00:19:34,165 cases for technology like this. You know, it's it's tough to to 312 00:19:34,165 --> 00:19:38,005 cover even a, you know, a small port of portion of them in 313 00:19:38,005 --> 00:19:41,470 a session like this. But you start to see that whether you're looking at 314 00:19:42,090 --> 00:19:45,930 work technology designed to distract us, collaboration or 315 00:19:45,930 --> 00:19:49,610 over collaboration or just, you know, the lack of respect of everybody's time 316 00:19:49,610 --> 00:19:53,415 with with with meetings, remote meetings, task switching, 317 00:19:53,635 --> 00:19:57,235 or just the impact on burnout. Very quickly, you can see by just 318 00:19:57,235 --> 00:20:00,929 pulling some basic awareness to to your day, how you can 319 00:20:00,929 --> 00:20:04,690 make positive changes. Yeah. And I think all of those 320 00:20:04,690 --> 00:20:08,450 things are are excellent. Just the the quantitative data to make 321 00:20:08,450 --> 00:20:11,654 informed Right? Like, I I kinda relay the story of, like, 322 00:20:12,115 --> 00:20:15,875 I I couldn't justify drinking as much. Not that I don't 323 00:20:15,875 --> 00:20:19,670 drink anymore, but I certainly drink a lot less. Similarly, you 324 00:20:19,670 --> 00:20:23,110 know, how do I actually spend my day? And whenever I talk to people that 325 00:20:23,110 --> 00:20:26,550 are like, they you always run into people in techno in the technology space who 326 00:20:26,550 --> 00:20:30,105 are are totally overwhelmed. And, like, I won't go on my band 327 00:20:30,105 --> 00:20:33,865 busy rant, but people always describe I'm too busy. Right? And it's, like, well, 328 00:20:33,865 --> 00:20:37,120 what does busy mean? And, like like, what do you mean by that? Right? Like, 329 00:20:37,120 --> 00:20:40,100 are you working on the right things? And one of the things I often, 330 00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:44,215 subscribe to people is do a time audit. And this is just a simpler way 331 00:20:44,215 --> 00:20:47,895 to do that. Right? Like, you run this tool and it it collects information about 332 00:20:47,895 --> 00:20:51,649 what you're doing so you can reflect on it and go, Really? Like, I 333 00:20:51,649 --> 00:20:54,929 thought I felt like I was crazy busy today, but that's actually sort of a 334 00:20:54,929 --> 00:20:58,455 lower level of engagement that I've had in in previous days. And one of the 335 00:20:58,455 --> 00:21:01,735 other aspects that I think is important about sort of p eight being different, again, 336 00:21:01,735 --> 00:21:05,335 like, I I want people to not sort of lump this into, you know, 337 00:21:05,655 --> 00:21:09,179 employee tracking. It's like there's contained data that you see 338 00:21:09,179 --> 00:21:12,940 individually. Right? What are what are my personal sort of digital health score stats? 339 00:21:12,940 --> 00:21:15,794 And I see this, you know, emails you every day to tell you you can 340 00:21:15,794 --> 00:21:19,255 actively review this stuff. And then you can actively 341 00:21:19,315 --> 00:21:23,160 subscribe to a workspace where you collect you collectively share things 342 00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:26,200 that are line of business apps. You know, how much time did you spend in 343 00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:29,800 a ticketing system? How much time did you spend in in teams? Those sorts of 344 00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:33,615 things. So there's the distinction between the personal insights that you have 345 00:21:33,615 --> 00:21:37,430 and the team data that you're willing to share. The subscription aspect 346 00:21:37,510 --> 00:21:41,350 of the apps that are collected information is collected on I think is a huge 347 00:21:41,350 --> 00:21:44,950 distinction in this. Right? But it just goes to that idea of like there's a 348 00:21:44,950 --> 00:21:48,795 lot of personal data here that I think can be really really helpful. And 349 00:21:48,795 --> 00:21:52,255 what we're touched on is like staff engagement is absolutely 350 00:21:52,395 --> 00:21:56,170 plummeting across the board. Right? This is a huge huge issue in 351 00:21:56,230 --> 00:21:59,450 businesses all across, the the business world. 352 00:21:59,990 --> 00:22:03,830 And I I think, like, there's various reasons as to why, you 353 00:22:03,830 --> 00:22:07,404 know, like, you've dug into a lot of this data. What do you what are 354 00:22:07,404 --> 00:22:11,164 sort of your suspicions around why that engagement has 355 00:22:11,164 --> 00:22:14,600 has dropped so much probably in the last, you know, since the 356 00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:18,280 pandemic, but it was on a steady decline certainly before that. Do you have any 357 00:22:18,280 --> 00:22:22,120 thoughts on that? I got I got lots of thoughts, but let's, you 358 00:22:22,120 --> 00:22:25,665 know, let's be so one of the dangerous, 359 00:22:26,445 --> 00:22:29,985 traps about talking about producing is is it can go you can go 360 00:22:30,205 --> 00:22:33,820 totally broad across all knowledge workers because, you know, there's 361 00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:37,480 there's various trends that affect everybody. And that's our big 362 00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:41,245 vision is is that we can get this out into the world for all 363 00:22:41,245 --> 00:22:45,085 knowledge workers. That's a that's a $1,000,000,000,000 problem, and we're not shy to go 364 00:22:45,085 --> 00:22:48,540 out and solve big problems. But we do, 365 00:22:48,780 --> 00:22:52,460 we do, you know, have a ton of respect and appreciation for the 366 00:22:52,460 --> 00:22:56,225 space that we've come from being MSP. And so one of the very 367 00:22:56,225 --> 00:22:59,684 intentional things that we're doing with produce 8 is bringing it to MSPs 368 00:22:59,825 --> 00:23:03,590 first to solve that problem, bringing it to MSPs to bring to their 369 00:23:03,590 --> 00:23:07,429 customers so they can be future of work experts and and have those, 370 00:23:07,429 --> 00:23:10,950 you know, bring them innovative products. It's not just, you know, 371 00:23:10,950 --> 00:23:14,615 email and another cybersecurity product. So 372 00:23:14,615 --> 00:23:18,135 we're being very intentional about that. So I'm going to answer that question talking about 373 00:23:18,135 --> 00:23:21,770 MSPs because, I've got lots of thoughts around, you know, why 374 00:23:21,990 --> 00:23:25,690 general workforce, engagement is declined. But let's let's talk about 375 00:23:26,125 --> 00:23:29,005 Well, let's so let me let me let me square that for you. Right? Because, 376 00:23:29,005 --> 00:23:32,845 like, industry stats that I've seen and and validated against the the groups 377 00:23:32,845 --> 00:23:36,680 that I work with is is 20 to 30% decline in productivity in 378 00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:40,140 MSPs. So, like, it's that's based on real data. Right? 379 00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:43,075 Yeah. Yeah. So we're seeing that in in, 380 00:23:44,255 --> 00:23:47,455 billable hours. We're seeing it in the in ticket close rates. And you you you 381 00:23:47,455 --> 00:23:50,460 and I I mean, you you can reminisce with me on some of our top 382 00:23:50,460 --> 00:23:54,000 performers. And so imagine if our top performers now were 20 or 30% 383 00:23:54,060 --> 00:23:57,415 less effective and productive, and and you can very quickly see, 384 00:23:57,895 --> 00:24:01,655 you know, a big problem there. And so we we know that 385 00:24:01,655 --> 00:24:05,015 the MSP game is hard. The MSP game is is really 386 00:24:05,015 --> 00:24:08,790 challenging for, you know, those those folks that 387 00:24:08,790 --> 00:24:12,590 are growing up in the space and solving problems day in and day out. I 388 00:24:12,590 --> 00:24:16,335 I often joke that nobody ever called and and thanked me for the job that 389 00:24:16,335 --> 00:24:20,175 I was doing as an MSP operator. And that's not 390 00:24:20,175 --> 00:24:23,750 true. We had lots of very, very grateful and awesome customers. But, you know, that 391 00:24:23,870 --> 00:24:27,710 you're in the problem solving business. And so that that wears on 392 00:24:27,710 --> 00:24:31,150 you. And it's, you're in an infinite arms race as well as, 393 00:24:31,540 --> 00:24:35,044 you know, that, you know, 10 years ago, it was ransomware. 394 00:24:35,184 --> 00:24:39,025 And, you know, now it's, you know, these big massive phishing attacks. And 395 00:24:39,025 --> 00:24:42,410 there's a there's just always you're always on onto the next 396 00:24:42,410 --> 00:24:46,250 something. And so, yeah, it's a it's a very tough 397 00:24:46,250 --> 00:24:50,025 business and and the so how did how did the, you know, 398 00:24:50,025 --> 00:24:53,865 the MSP how's the MSP vendor community try 399 00:24:53,865 --> 00:24:57,570 and solve for that? Well, they solve for it by more automation and better 400 00:24:57,570 --> 00:25:01,269 tools and, all these things that are, you know, designed 401 00:25:01,570 --> 00:25:05,255 to make MSPs' lives better. The reality 402 00:25:05,255 --> 00:25:08,795 is that humans struggle to actually shift attention 403 00:25:08,855 --> 00:25:12,560 between manual and automated tasks. And 404 00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:16,180 so as we we infiltrate more and more automation 405 00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:20,184 into our problem solving environments, it's actually 406 00:25:20,245 --> 00:25:23,924 not like something that that is super easy for technicians to 407 00:25:23,924 --> 00:25:27,205 say, I'm gonna help solve you with something, and then I'm gonna jump into this 408 00:25:27,205 --> 00:25:30,940 automation thing. It's actually not the way that the that that we're 409 00:25:30,940 --> 00:25:34,460 wired. So we're actually, you know, putting more 410 00:25:34,460 --> 00:25:37,845 weight on the, on the the service technician's, 411 00:25:39,185 --> 00:25:42,410 shoulders. The more that we evolve the industry. So it's a really 412 00:25:42,650 --> 00:25:46,250 interesting problem to face. And then you think about kind of this 413 00:25:46,250 --> 00:25:50,025 whole first of all, you're you're totally distributed. And so you're if you're 414 00:25:50,025 --> 00:25:53,645 in a hybrid work environment, the the top guys 415 00:25:53,865 --> 00:25:57,705 are constantly being pinged by everybody else to understand, you 416 00:25:57,705 --> 00:26:01,360 know, to trade, which is great. You want information dissemination. And 417 00:26:01,360 --> 00:26:04,740 if you think back to you know, if you're in a in an office environment, 418 00:26:04,799 --> 00:26:08,639 you're on the on the service desk floor, there's a lot of collaboration, which 419 00:26:08,639 --> 00:26:12,355 is great. And it exists inside of Slack too Teams 420 00:26:12,355 --> 00:26:16,135 too, which is great. The problem is there's absolutely no visibility 421 00:26:16,195 --> 00:26:19,690 into it. So you have no idea that your top guy is getting 422 00:26:19,690 --> 00:26:23,450 pinged 45 times an hour because he doesn't 423 00:26:23,450 --> 00:26:27,215 complain about it because he's your top guy. But he's also, like, 424 00:26:27,215 --> 00:26:30,575 it's burdensome to be constantly, you 425 00:26:30,575 --> 00:26:34,034 know, getting inbound from 426 00:26:34,095 --> 00:26:37,820 from, you know, in an in controlled state. At least if there were 10 people 427 00:26:37,820 --> 00:26:41,180 huddled around your top service desk techs desk at all 428 00:26:41,180 --> 00:26:44,765 time, you'd see it. You'd be like, oh, hey. Like, maybe let's give this guy 429 00:26:44,765 --> 00:26:48,445 a break. But the reality is you just can't see all that flow inside an 430 00:26:48,445 --> 00:26:51,480 organization. So the access to each other, 431 00:26:53,060 --> 00:26:56,900 has has incredibly powerful as it is. The ability for me to 432 00:26:56,900 --> 00:26:59,815 just say, hey. Let's hop on a quick Zoom. You hop on the Zoom. You 433 00:26:59,815 --> 00:27:03,515 do the thing. You know? Just not that different than popping over to someone's desk, 434 00:27:03,895 --> 00:27:07,495 but it is. Right? And and it's at 435 00:27:07,495 --> 00:27:11,320 volume, and it's a totally different landscape. So that's where that's 436 00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:15,000 where I think some of this, you know, dissatisfaction at work comes 437 00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:18,520 about is because people generally feel out of control. They're 438 00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:22,155 shifting between things that their their brain isn't 439 00:27:22,155 --> 00:27:25,995 necessarily wired to do all the time, and there's there's 440 00:27:25,995 --> 00:27:29,650 no control of the inbound. And so it's it's actually when 441 00:27:29,650 --> 00:27:33,090 you when you really step back and think about it and you 442 00:27:33,090 --> 00:27:36,850 imagine all the lines of communication in your organization and all these things 443 00:27:36,850 --> 00:27:40,355 that that they're trying to do, it paints a pretty chaotic 444 00:27:40,355 --> 00:27:43,335 picture for what was already a pretty chaotic 445 00:27:43,875 --> 00:27:47,590 business as MSPs. And so again, 446 00:27:47,590 --> 00:27:51,270 yeah, just for us, the big goal is just 447 00:27:51,270 --> 00:27:55,115 try and try and contain it a little bit. Right? Try and understand it. 448 00:27:55,115 --> 00:27:58,875 Try and engage people on the journey of making it a little 449 00:27:58,875 --> 00:28:02,715 bit better selfishly for themselves and, you know, as 450 00:28:02,715 --> 00:28:06,400 a kind of flow through for your organization. We 451 00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:10,160 always we always say to people, imagine a world where 452 00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:13,765 80% of your people are engaged in making 453 00:28:13,985 --> 00:28:17,665 themselves and the work environment better. And that is a very, 454 00:28:17,665 --> 00:28:21,460 very cool thought because, you know, the current state is most people 455 00:28:21,460 --> 00:28:25,059 are engaged in maybe making the business more profitable because of 456 00:28:25,059 --> 00:28:28,875 different goals you've set, maybe doing their job, but not necessarily 457 00:28:28,935 --> 00:28:32,775 in the improvement of of the the work environment and how 458 00:28:32,775 --> 00:28:36,190 the work happens. So we we think that that's a kind of cool 459 00:28:36,190 --> 00:28:39,550 thought. Yeah. I I I strongly agree with this. Like, 460 00:28:40,110 --> 00:28:43,955 that that burnout from just sort of the the overburdened with 461 00:28:43,955 --> 00:28:46,935 a lot of miscellaneous activities that are not necessarily, 462 00:28:48,035 --> 00:28:50,040 continuous and there's a lot of fragmentation in 463 00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:56,360 I would say prescriptively do less. Right? As what I often tell people like 464 00:28:56,360 --> 00:29:00,065 there's a lot of work that gets done especially in MSPs that produces no 465 00:29:00,065 --> 00:29:03,745 value for anybody and I think that that's a really strong problem. But again these 466 00:29:03,745 --> 00:29:07,250 are not the type of things that you can you can really surface any insight 467 00:29:07,490 --> 00:29:11,330 around unless you get to some level of data analysis. Right? Like, sure, 468 00:29:11,330 --> 00:29:15,010 you can kinda review some tickets but that's really ticket data. Does that speak 469 00:29:15,010 --> 00:29:18,835 to sort of the time they spent in teams and escalations they didn't tag their 470 00:29:18,835 --> 00:29:22,355 time on those tickets for, the number of meetings they were in, the number of, 471 00:29:22,355 --> 00:29:25,795 you know, client escalations that they fielded? Like, it's it's a lot more 472 00:29:25,795 --> 00:29:29,510 complex than sort of limited dataset that a lot of people are are sort of 473 00:29:29,510 --> 00:29:32,710 fundamentally working with. And it sort of goes to the second idea that I think 474 00:29:32,710 --> 00:29:36,305 is really foundational here is like, I think there's the burnout 475 00:29:36,305 --> 00:29:39,985 problem. The other problem that I think is actually super prevalent in the 476 00:29:39,985 --> 00:29:43,505 MSP space is is bored out. So there's burnout but there's also 477 00:29:43,505 --> 00:29:46,900 bored out. Right? Like, what are people actually working on? 478 00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:50,960 So I think there's there's a high contingent of people that are just not 479 00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:54,625 challenged by the work that they have on deck. And, like, how are you 480 00:29:54,625 --> 00:29:58,385 actually managing against those types of aspects? Right? Like, what are they 481 00:29:58,385 --> 00:30:01,850 working on through the course of the day? Is it to the level of the 482 00:30:01,850 --> 00:30:05,690 things that they should be working on? How do they if they're wanna be a 483 00:30:05,690 --> 00:30:09,470 highly technical person and they spend 6 hours a day in meetings 484 00:30:09,690 --> 00:30:13,355 and and other sort of administrative tasks, like, are they really that 485 00:30:13,355 --> 00:30:17,115 engaged? Right? So I think, it goes to this idea of, 486 00:30:17,115 --> 00:30:20,830 like, these problems need to be visible so that they can be solved. Right? 487 00:30:20,830 --> 00:30:24,350 And we don't really have the data to be able to wrap around this and 488 00:30:24,350 --> 00:30:27,995 and surface this and discuss it sort of openly as a team. And that's sort 489 00:30:27,995 --> 00:30:31,755 of again, this I think important distinction of of how PA approaches this is 490 00:30:31,755 --> 00:30:35,435 that none of this is punitive. Like, I don't wanna monitor you to make 491 00:30:35,435 --> 00:30:39,179 sure you're working. That's not the point. It's I wanna understand 492 00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:42,620 how you spend your time and more importantly, I wanna understand 493 00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:46,655 how we spend our time collectively. And is that the best 494 00:30:46,655 --> 00:30:50,415 use of our time? Right? And how how how are we able to focus? 495 00:30:50,415 --> 00:30:54,015 And if we're not focusing, how can we reform some of the internal policies to 496 00:30:54,015 --> 00:30:57,160 fix that? And that goes directly to some of the things that we've talked about. 497 00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:01,000 Like, changing the way that your team agrees to interact 498 00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,535 with each other on teams, I think is a really great way. Like, I've I've 499 00:31:04,535 --> 00:31:07,835 seen this surface by some people, working with with, 500 00:31:08,295 --> 00:31:11,529 with p eight and saying, like, okay, you know, like, every time I'm in teams, 501 00:31:11,529 --> 00:31:14,909 you know, I'm popping in and out. Like, I'm constantly sort of in and out. 502 00:31:15,210 --> 00:31:18,755 And so it's not like I'm tending a 60 8 60 minute meeting. Like, 503 00:31:18,755 --> 00:31:22,435 I'm always sort of flipping in and out between things and I'm caught in 504 00:31:22,435 --> 00:31:25,235 DM hell. Right? So all of a sudden you're able to see this and everyone's 505 00:31:25,235 --> 00:31:28,375 like, oh, yeah. That's what mine looks like too because you get, like, this timeline 506 00:31:28,380 --> 00:31:31,980 It shows you sort of your the the time you spend in certain products. And 507 00:31:31,980 --> 00:31:35,420 all of a sudden that's a lot more, it's good data to be able to 508 00:31:35,420 --> 00:31:39,255 say to the team, look. You guys, like, stop messaging each other whenever 509 00:31:39,255 --> 00:31:42,855 something comes to mind. Right? Like, this is a great first step. Like, 510 00:31:42,855 --> 00:31:46,055 people say, oh, you know, it's it's so easy. Like, would you just walk by 511 00:31:46,055 --> 00:31:49,720 someone's office and say, hey, when you've got 15 minutes, you 512 00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,160 know, can you help me out with such and such? And then you just literally 513 00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:56,920 walk away and don't even engage with them and they're like, wait, what? Hang 514 00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:00,135 on. What was I working on? Like, that's literally what we're doing when we DM 515 00:32:00,135 --> 00:32:03,815 each other about things that are not particularly important. Like catalog those things, 516 00:32:03,815 --> 00:32:07,350 put it in into an agenda somewhere so you can capture it, review it at 517 00:32:07,350 --> 00:32:11,190 a more focused time. So you can leave people to really focus on the 518 00:32:11,190 --> 00:32:14,325 work that they're doing. These are the types of things that I think are really 519 00:32:14,325 --> 00:32:18,165 important to sort of curb a bit of that burnout, but 520 00:32:18,165 --> 00:32:21,765 also to be able to dedicate more time to focus on what people 521 00:32:21,765 --> 00:32:25,460 want to and should be working on so that they're also not being bored out 522 00:32:25,460 --> 00:32:29,140 of their mind by working on menial things that don't really reward them in 523 00:32:29,140 --> 00:32:32,885 their career. Right? Totally. And and so, you know, the 524 00:32:32,885 --> 00:32:36,085 way that we tackle this is, you know, we we you could do once you 525 00:32:36,085 --> 00:32:39,860 have awareness, you understand what look work looks like. Then you 526 00:32:39,860 --> 00:32:43,460 can start to think what do I want work to look like. And 527 00:32:43,460 --> 00:32:46,980 then you can start to take intentional actions. You can set goals 528 00:32:46,980 --> 00:32:50,705 around, you know, really, really low hanging fruit just like how much 529 00:32:50,705 --> 00:32:54,465 time you spend in in Zoom or Slack or the collaboration stuff or 530 00:32:54,465 --> 00:32:58,210 email and batching and batching email time. All those things 531 00:32:58,210 --> 00:33:01,810 are are fairly low hanging fruit to me. To get to a 532 00:33:01,810 --> 00:33:05,425 state where we actually have a bit of control around what our 533 00:33:05,425 --> 00:33:08,965 individual day looks like, what our team's day, and our organization 534 00:33:09,505 --> 00:33:13,150 day. Because then you can start to do some really fun stuff. Like, what 535 00:33:13,150 --> 00:33:16,750 do I want the future of work at my organization to look 536 00:33:16,750 --> 00:33:20,290 like? What do I want? How do I want AI 537 00:33:20,510 --> 00:33:23,924 to impact my work? And so think about just setting a 538 00:33:23,924 --> 00:33:27,684 goal around, you know, AI usage in your in your 539 00:33:27,684 --> 00:33:31,220 team and just just to promote, like, 540 00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:35,120 exploration and say, look, everybody do do do 30 minutes a 541 00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:38,915 day. And just we're just gonna all throw a goal, and we're gonna do 542 00:33:38,915 --> 00:33:41,635 it for 2 weeks, and we're gonna see where we get to. And maybe we 543 00:33:41,635 --> 00:33:45,095 start solving some really big problems that we never actually 544 00:33:45,395 --> 00:33:49,030 gave our ourselves the room to solve for. And we're just doing it 545 00:33:49,030 --> 00:33:52,789 by skimming out the garbage on top. And that that is where it 546 00:33:52,789 --> 00:33:56,570 gets really exciting to me that you're actually gonna start to create more. 547 00:33:56,815 --> 00:34:00,495 And so however you you measure productivity in your organization, you 548 00:34:00,495 --> 00:34:04,095 can't can't really argue that if you're create if you're giving people the 549 00:34:04,095 --> 00:34:07,850 room to do more deep work or to do exploratory 550 00:34:08,150 --> 00:34:11,755 work with, you know, productivity enablers like AI, 551 00:34:12,315 --> 00:34:16,014 you're gonna you're gonna start to yield some pretty positive results. And that's 552 00:34:16,074 --> 00:34:19,375 that's what we're just you know, that's the starting point we're giving everybody 553 00:34:20,679 --> 00:34:24,299 with with the product today. It's just give yourself some room 554 00:34:24,519 --> 00:34:28,299 to start working and and, you know, taking back the work. 555 00:34:29,015 --> 00:34:32,215 Yeah. I think that's that's such an important aspect to this is that it has 556 00:34:32,215 --> 00:34:35,835 to be intentional. These things don't just magically happen on their own because 557 00:34:35,895 --> 00:34:39,430 of sort of best intentions. Like you you have to work as a management 558 00:34:39,430 --> 00:34:42,730 team, as a as a team, collaboratively 559 00:34:43,110 --> 00:34:46,455 to make time for these things, to spend effort on them, and to make it 560 00:34:46,455 --> 00:34:50,054 okay to spend time on these these things. So totally agree it has to be 561 00:34:50,054 --> 00:34:53,639 intentional. I guess like a final sort of thought on this is like 562 00:34:54,119 --> 00:34:57,960 a lot of people may feel like like like sure am I responsible for my 563 00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,695 staff's happiness? Probably not. You know, should you create an 564 00:35:01,695 --> 00:35:05,395 environment that allows them to be happy? Yes. You should probably think about that. 565 00:35:05,695 --> 00:35:08,275 Am I responsible for my my staff's productivity? 566 00:35:09,420 --> 00:35:13,260 Probably. Like, should you at least make an effort to to to 567 00:35:13,260 --> 00:35:17,075 make that transparent and support the team to be more effective and to 568 00:35:17,075 --> 00:35:20,835 to to sort of protect them against burnout, I think that's a 569 00:35:20,835 --> 00:35:24,640 really important aspect. But I can see how people would be comfortable with like, look, 570 00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:27,680 you know, I pay these people to come and do their job and I expect 571 00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:31,359 them to do their job. Like, how much support should I be giving them to 572 00:35:31,359 --> 00:35:35,105 do these things? Like, is this really my responsibility or should I just trust that 573 00:35:35,105 --> 00:35:38,785 people should do this stuff? I don't necessarily subscribe to that, but I can 574 00:35:38,785 --> 00:35:42,165 imagine some people may feel that way. You have any thoughts on it? Yeah. 575 00:35:42,625 --> 00:35:46,250 Hey. If if you need to flip it around and just create 576 00:35:46,250 --> 00:35:49,930 value back to the business, that's super simple because we could 577 00:35:49,930 --> 00:35:53,715 just very quickly show the results of of the change and how 578 00:35:53,715 --> 00:35:57,315 that that can impact the bottom line. So if you just wanna create more room 579 00:35:57,315 --> 00:36:00,935 for people to work more and harder for for your bottom line, 580 00:36:01,060 --> 00:36:04,820 then do that and say, you know, wow. Holy crap. Now I see we're 581 00:36:04,820 --> 00:36:08,565 spending x amount of dollars every week in meetings. Let's 582 00:36:08,565 --> 00:36:12,244 let's pull that back so we've got more time to spend solving 583 00:36:12,244 --> 00:36:15,445 tickets and, or, you know, doing sales, 584 00:36:16,230 --> 00:36:19,990 calls. And and that's that's time back and and profit back to the 585 00:36:19,990 --> 00:36:23,750 business. So, you know, as a byproduct, though, Todd, if we're 586 00:36:23,750 --> 00:36:26,985 creating a better work experience for the users, 587 00:36:27,205 --> 00:36:30,645 fantastic. It just happens to enter through a different way, which is, 588 00:36:30,645 --> 00:36:34,320 you know, more of, like, a business performance 589 00:36:34,380 --> 00:36:38,220 management outlook on where people's time is going. So we think that 590 00:36:38,220 --> 00:36:41,785 either way that that produce aid is ingested in an organization 591 00:36:42,085 --> 00:36:45,925 is positive for the end workers because it creates awareness around what's going on in 592 00:36:45,925 --> 00:36:49,610 their day. It gives them something to to give them feedback and 593 00:36:49,610 --> 00:36:53,290 and not just in this perpetual loop of of work and however work 594 00:36:53,290 --> 00:36:56,925 is dictated to them by the tools they use. So if it's, you know, 595 00:36:56,925 --> 00:37:00,525 brought in from a for more of a top down initiative than a bottom 596 00:37:00,525 --> 00:37:04,205 up, like, that's okay because the end the end output to the 597 00:37:04,205 --> 00:37:07,839 end users is the same, and that's awareness and power back in their hands 598 00:37:07,839 --> 00:37:10,740 around how they're working. So, you know, 599 00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:15,425 yeah, it it's a it's it's why it's not a tough 600 00:37:15,425 --> 00:37:19,025 sell. If you look at it if I was looking at it for my 601 00:37:19,025 --> 00:37:22,385 MSP, I'd go, well, you know, whether it's it's 602 00:37:22,385 --> 00:37:26,089 driven by, we want people to have better 603 00:37:26,549 --> 00:37:30,390 days for themselves, or we want people to have better days or less 604 00:37:30,390 --> 00:37:34,175 less of, more efficient days because we we just don't wanna 605 00:37:34,175 --> 00:37:37,775 be an inefficient company and therefore dragging our bottom line. Either 606 00:37:37,775 --> 00:37:41,540 way, positively impacts workers, which is awesome. And it and it 607 00:37:41,700 --> 00:37:45,460 positively impacts the guys that are, you know, running these 608 00:37:45,460 --> 00:37:49,220 businesses, and that's that's just gotta pay the bill. But very quickly, you can see 609 00:37:49,220 --> 00:37:52,775 that it's a worthwhile investment by many orders of 610 00:37:52,775 --> 00:37:55,835 magnitude, by small changes and impacts in the organization. 611 00:37:56,454 --> 00:38:00,210 And then, you know, for MSPs, this is something that as soon 612 00:38:00,350 --> 00:38:03,870 as soon as they understand the impact for their 613 00:38:03,870 --> 00:38:07,635 business, we encourage them to bring it to their customers. Because, you know, 614 00:38:07,635 --> 00:38:11,335 just like we wouldn't want MSPs to sell email without using email, 615 00:38:11,474 --> 00:38:15,000 we would we don't want them to go talk about produce 8 without 616 00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,520 understanding actually how positive the product can be in their work 617 00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:22,280 environment. So get it, understand it, and then bring it to the customers because 618 00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,955 we know that this is a much bigger problem than just it it exists in 619 00:38:25,955 --> 00:38:29,655 MSPs. And all these end customers are gonna be thrilled 620 00:38:29,795 --> 00:38:33,234 to be having that conversation with their MSP around what their 621 00:38:33,234 --> 00:38:37,080 people are doing and how they can do their jobs a little bit better, 622 00:38:37,220 --> 00:38:40,680 a little bit less burdensome from the, you know, technology that they're using. 623 00:38:41,220 --> 00:38:44,805 I like that. Like, not necessarily being prescriptive of about why you should do 624 00:38:44,805 --> 00:38:48,325 this. Like your own intentions can be your own. Right? But like let's be 625 00:38:48,325 --> 00:38:52,000 realistic. Time is the most important resource any business 626 00:38:52,060 --> 00:38:55,900 has. Right? Like if you have human labor as like the like one 627 00:38:55,900 --> 00:38:59,665 of the highest costs of of of your p and l which 628 00:38:59,665 --> 00:39:02,965 is any service company, your highest cost is gonna be your people. 629 00:39:03,505 --> 00:39:07,240 So how do you effectively utilize their time? Like, that is the 630 00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:11,000 name of the game. Right? So we're not talking about draconian measures to 631 00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:14,680 make sure that it's efficiently as, efficient as possible, but let's 632 00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:18,225 be realistic that it is absolutely a resource that will 633 00:39:18,225 --> 00:39:21,905 be utilized and is non recoverable in your business. 634 00:39:21,905 --> 00:39:25,310 So you're better off to manage this with some level of intention, I suppose. 635 00:39:26,510 --> 00:39:29,790 100%. And I mean, look, you can even take it to the next layer. And 636 00:39:29,790 --> 00:39:32,670 we're we didn't talk about this at all today, and we don't have enough time. 637 00:39:32,670 --> 00:39:36,445 But, you know, talking about workflows, talking about efficient use of the tools, 638 00:39:36,445 --> 00:39:40,285 talking about tool utilization and, you know, the order of the 639 00:39:40,285 --> 00:39:44,060 use of those tools. There's so many things that you can start to unlock 640 00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:47,800 when you understand what's happening in your day and what's, you know 641 00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:51,565 and your teams can share what's happening in their days. So, 642 00:39:52,045 --> 00:39:55,565 you know, there's the 2 biggest costs any MSP have are 643 00:39:55,565 --> 00:39:59,070 people and technology. You can really, really start to 644 00:39:59,310 --> 00:40:03,150 understand how this could be positively impacting the business's bottom line by 645 00:40:03,150 --> 00:40:06,610 starting to look at these things, through a different lens. And so, 646 00:40:06,765 --> 00:40:10,445 you know, at yeah. At the end of the day, we we know that this 647 00:40:10,445 --> 00:40:14,065 is a tool that, or platform that that businesses 648 00:40:14,445 --> 00:40:18,220 can get a lot of value back for their the business. But at 649 00:40:18,220 --> 00:40:21,820 the same time, we feel that we can accomplish something really positive for the end 650 00:40:21,820 --> 00:40:25,195 users, and that's gaining, you know, regaining control of their own Workday. 651 00:40:25,975 --> 00:40:29,655 Awesome. Well, I appreciate your efforts, Joel. And, anyone who's not 652 00:40:29,655 --> 00:40:32,910 checked out the products, see for yourself. Right? Like, I I think it's a a 653 00:40:32,910 --> 00:40:36,589 really important aspect to to building, a scalable and 654 00:40:36,589 --> 00:40:40,205 efficient company. So appreciate your time, Joel. Thanks for being on. Thank you so 655 00:40:40,285 --> 00:40:43,505 much, Todd. Take care. Bye bye.