APIs in the Experience Economy + How to Get Ahead feat. Charles Araujo, Industry Analyst & Author

Show Notes

This week on the API Intersection podcast, we chatted with Charles Araujo, Publisher of The Digital Experience Report, industry analyst, and keynote speaker. Charlie has seen it all, from running large-scale transformation programs to authoring "The Quantum Age of IT: Why Everything You Know About IT is About to Change" to founding the Institute for Digital Transformation. This all makes him the perfect guest to dive into the bigger picture of how API technology is truly changing the world on a large scale. 

His recent piece for CIO Online explores the experience economy, the ecosystem mandate, and how API design may be the key to competitive advantage. He explains how "to leverage the power of APIs to connect your ecosystem and deliver compelling experiences, and how you need to begin by taking a strategic and proactive view of APIs" to do it right.

To subscribe to the podcast, visit https://stoplight.io/podcast

Do you have a question you'd like answered, or a topic you want to see in a future episode? Let us know here: stoplight.io/question/

What is API Intersection?

Building a successful API requires more than just coding.

It starts with collaborative design, focuses on creating a great developer experience, and ends with getting your company on board, maintaining consistency, and maximizing your API’s profitability.

In the API Intersection, you’ll learn from experienced API practitioners who transformed their organizations, and get tangible advice to build quality APIs with collaborative API-first design.

Jason Harmon brings over a decade of industry-recognized REST API experience to discuss topics around API design, governance, identity/auth versioning, and more.

They’ll answer listener questions, and discuss best practices on API design (definition, modeling, grammar), Governance (multi-team design, reviewing new API’s), Platform Transformation (culture, internal education, versioning) and more.

They’ll also chat with experienced API practitioners from a wide array of industries to draw out practical takeaways and insights you can use.

Have a question for the podcast? DM us or tag us on Twitter at @stoplightio.

I'm Jason
Harmon, and this is API Intersection,

where you'll get insights from experienced
API practitioners to learn

best practices on things
like API design, governance, identity

versioning and more.

Welcome back to API Intersection.

So,funny thing happened as we were
getting ready for the show today.

I speaking with our guest here.

I realized he's written
a lot of really interesting books

and it's kind of a cool moment to realize
I get to talk to somebody who I looked

at their book

extensively around ecosystems
and a lot of the thinking that went into

building out some platforms in prior life
so that is to say, I'm really excited

to kind of get into some heady stuff
with Charles Araujo, our guest today.

Thanks for joining, Charles. Absolutely.

I'm always excited
when someone has read one of my books.

That's funny.

I didn't even realize

till it kind of went through and went,
Oh, yeah, I remember that book.

That was cool.

It it's this funny thing, right?

You write this stuff,
you put it on the world,

and then you sort of forget about it.
You move on.

And I was giving a speech in Poland,
and this guy walked up to me

and talked about how impactful
my first book was to him.

And it was just, you know,

it's always fun and kind of humbling,
so I appreciate hearing it.

Very cool.

I have a I think I'm I'm too bullheaded
to deal with publishers,

so I've never done it myself,

but I respect the people who've gone
through the process.

And Charles has been a multi time
author here around a lot of topics

and kind of transformation
and experience and APIs and ecosystems.

So I think, you know,

our audience

speaks our language
so I think you're in the right place.

But tell us a little bit more
about kind of what you're into these days.

Oh, well, there's a long setup.

I mean,

I think the most important thing to know
is that today

I'm a I call myself, I guess, an author,
a speaker, an industry analyst.

I publish something called the Digital
Experience Report, but it's an evolution.

I realize I get told all the time
that I'm a little bit different,

not just by my wife, but by,
you know, by folks because I don't come

from the analyst side or really even,
you know, the author journalist side.

I mean, I think I ran operations
for $1,000,000,000 health care firm

20 some odd years ago, spent
another decade running large scale

transformation programs in large
financial services and and health care

organizations and then, you know,
sort of became this accidental author.

I was like this crazy preacher
on the sidewalk.

This is ten, 12 years ago,
I saw that the world of I.T.

was changing.

And so, you know, I was like,
this crazy guy going, you must transform.

And these execs that I'm working with go,
OK, into what what's coming?

And I realized
I don't have a good answer for that.

I probably should.

So I went away one weekend,

thought about it,
put some ideas up on a website,

which I don't even know what happened
to, coined the term

the Quantum Edge of I.T,
which was my first book.

And so this publisher reaches out to me
and says, hey, this is really cool stuff.

You ever thought of writing a book?

I thought, well, that can be very hard,
right?

Ha ha ha.

So it's like this year
and a half long process.

I interviewed all these people,
did all this research

and published this first book,
and it was truly transformative,

not only insofar as I started

getting invitations to speak,
and it kind of changed my career,

but it was personally transformative
because it, it forces you

to sort of crystallize
what you think is actually happening.

And so that's been that's been
what sort of started this party.

And I've been on this journey, which I'm
sure we'll talk about today over the last

decade or two,
ten, 12 years now of evolution.

I started focusing on it, transformation

and that evolved
into digital transformation

that has now evolved
into this, this feeling

that it's really all about the digital
experience, in fact, that it, you know,

sort of this kind of continuing, continual
whittle winnowing of my viewpoint

as I sort of get more and more
crystallized about what it really means.

Yeah, it's funny because

having been part of some of these sort
of transformation efforts and, you know,

digital whatever, sometimes you feel like
it's just a lot of words in terms

but I think for my tastes
like this notion that

it's, you know, my day job at stoplight,
certainly

you know, we look at like user experience
and kind of what that became in the late

nineties, early 2000s and feel like
the same things happening for developers.

But I feel like that's also like
way too far

down the stack of concerns
in all of these transformation efforts

and that sometimes don't recognize
like the bigger picture

so I guess from your perspective,

shifting from this generic transformation
to now

like a little more experience focused
and then you know, there's kind of this

maybe we don't go too far
down that path yet, but

like what's kind of
the fundamental shift there?

Well, you know, it's interesting.

I do think I realize that part of that
I was part of the problem.

So over the last I started talking about
digital transformation, about

seven years ago, I'll I'll share a very
quick story just because it's so fun.

So I was at my first book came out,
it was all about the transformation

of the function of it.

And so like I said,
I started getting these invitations

from all over the world
to come speak about it.

And it was I was having a great time
and I ended up on a speaking tour arguing

for speaking gigs in a, in a eight day
period in New Zealand.

And I had this break point.

And so two things happened on this trip
that were really

sort of like foundational.

The first is

I was asked to speak at something
called the Digital Disruption Conference

it was hosted by the Auckland

University of Technology
in the US Embassy,

and it was like
their answer to a TED Talk.

So it was non i.t, it was academics
and CEOs and tech startups.

And I said what am I going to talk about?

And so that was what actually forced

my pivot
to this focus on digital transformation

because I said, what does all this mean
in this broader context?

Right.

And so I gave the speech,
I was the number two trending

topic on Twitter, the entire country
of New Zealand for like an hour.

It was super exciting.

I lived in L.A.

At the time and the entire country of new
zealand has like one 10th of population.

So it wasn't that big of a deal,
but it was like who?

But I got picked up by a friend of mine
who lives New Zealand

to go spend the weekend with her
and her husband.

And I was, you know, on the way there
I was on this high and she says

my husband's best friend is going to
he and his wife are joining us for dinner.

And I'm like thinking I'm going
to brag humblebrag, but I'm going to brag.

And he says, well,
I ask her, so what does he do?

And she goes, He's a dairy farmer.

And I'm like, Oh,
if there's anybody that's just not going

to have any appreciation for anything
I do, it's going to be a dairy farmer.

It's like, Yay for me.

So we get there and, you know, we're
talking the inevitable question comes.

So, Charlie, what do you do?

I think I better keep it simple.

I go, I'm in technology
like Kirsti, my friend.

And he goes, Huh?

Technology huh?

And I'm thinking, he's trying to get out
of this conversation just like I am.

And then he says these words that truly
changed my life because he says,

Yeah, you know, I couldn't run my business
without technology at all.

And he proceeded to tell me how he had

RFID chips and trackers in his cows

tracking how much they consumed,
how much came out the other end.

He had an automated milking system
that came out and pumped in milk, measured

it, tested it for disease or whatever,
discarded anything.

It was
and this his supplier showed up once

a week, pumped all the milk out
and sent him a check.

So I spent most of the time

traveling around the world
on my motorcycle, says it's all automated.

And I'm like,
oh, right, this is like eight years ago.

And I'm like, wow, this stuff isn't B.S.

This is like the real deal.

It's changing everything.

But I realized that people like me
were part of the problem

because we talk about it.

We use this term,
and it became this catchphrase that people

slammed on everything
and and it became meaningless.

And so my evolution to
the digital experience is really about

just really explaining
what is actually happening.

So I'll take a press here.

But but that's,
I think, the kind of precipice

or what has led us to this point
that it's not about that it was too big.

It was just that we weren't
being specific enough about what

this what this shift actually represented.

Awesome.

You know, it's funny, I actually started
my career in software engineering

writing

cattle registry systems
for some of the big cattle brands.

So I got a very early
look early on working with cattle

people and going, holy crap,
this thing is super tech.

Like, you know, the, the amount of fat
in this along the spinal region,

like ultrasound, it was like a number
that feeds into like a university

that does an annual analysis
and that determines like a projection

on what the babies will be like
and that like determines their value.

It's crazy.

Super, super tech
and I think it's funny to like in

looking at the API space,
you know, we see this a lot.

I mean, like our top customers
at a stoplight

or they make beer and electrical parts,
right?

Like, you know, you kind of go, oh, this
isn't a software company thing anymore,

you know?

And I think APIs are kind of everywhere,
but that's reflective that everyone's

trying to think
like they're a platform now.

So I'm curious how you see like this

kind of the platform thinking thing.

How does that mesh
with digital experience?

I think for some people,
they hear digital experience and think,

oh, this is about making consumer access
to your product better.

Yeah, no, it's it's a great question
because I think it's

my fear is that digital experience
is going to have the exact same problem

that digital transformation did is
that people are going to misinterpret.

So I'm doing my best to do a better job
this go around.

So my fundamental belief
is that what we saw over the last decade

was that throughout the industrial age,
it was all about optimization, efficiency,

even the stuff
you were just talking about,

most of the stuff that all of us,
if we'd been in it for any period of time,

almost everything we did

was focused on using technology
to drive efficiency to drive optimization.

Over the last decade or so,
what we saw was this fundamental shift

that those those companies
that we would all think of as disruptive

were not, in fact, out
optimizing their competitors.

They were not being disruptive because
they were highly or more highly optimized.

What we found
is that they were transforming

the nature of the customer experience

and what they really were doing with
shifting the power away from the company

who sort of dictated
the terms of the engagement

to the customer who is now in control.

A combination of lower switching costs
and enabling technologies,

which just meant that the customer
could decide what they wanted.

And so when I talk about
the digital experience, talking about it's

a shift in value where the lever of value
creation in the enterprise

is now the customer experience.

But the customer experience
does not stand alone.

The customer experience is fed
and supported by the employee experience,

and the employee experience is important
now in its own

right because we're competing

for talent in every major organization,
particularly technical talent.

And then it's the ecosystem experience,
our ability to interact because no service

that virtual any organization delivers
can be delivered in isolation.

They have suppliers, they have partners,

and all of that has to come together
to deliver this cohesive experience.

And so digital transformation
is the output of that process, right?

The fact that we are shifting

value creation to the customer experience
means that organizations must transform

business operating and management models
in the sort of continuous loop

to continually innovate
around the customer experience.

And all of this is by digital technology.

So to your question, these are by far not,
you know, at odds, right?

The digital experience is this

interwoven,

cohesive look at how all these parts
have to fit together.

And almost by definition,

that means that we need a platform
or a set of platforms that enable that.

So I talk about the X tech market
as this sort of ecosystem of technologies

that support the delivery, creation,
delivery management and sustainment

of the digital experience.

And the reason I talk about it
that way is that,

you know, traditional analysts
and the industry

at large loves to kind of put everything
in these little silos, every little boxes.

But when we're talking about delivering
these cohesive experiences over time,

all the has to be interwoven, integrated,
and they can't be run in isolation.

So, you know,
we can debate the term platform.

But but if what you mean by that
is this this interconnected,

cohesive set of technologies
that all work together to deliver it,

you cannot deliver a winning
digital experience without it.

Yeah.

All right. Don't take this
the wrong way, Charles.

But I can tell you, you speak
to a lot of enterprise executives

so I'm going to see
if I can translate this for listeners.

We certainly have a lot of like,
you know, architect types,

I believe, who are sort of building
these things hands on

so let me see if I translate this right.

People love the metaphor of like,

you know, building a company
like a set of Lego bricks, right.

And that your Lego brick
is the thing that you're good at and

plugging in all of these other pieces

that I don't want to hear commoditized,
but things that are

sort of universal functionality
that you can plug in.

And I love your concept of workflows
like that.

Totally kind of gave me a new perspective
is how do all these pieces fit together?

Into kind of creating
effective workflows inside the company?

But then I think the other piece,
and you're not really saying it,

but I'm going to tease

here is like that the same is true
for the thing that you build.

You have to see it in light of a broader
workflow outside of what you do

in order to actually be a player
in someone else's Lego bricks stack.

Right

absolutely.

And whether

that is inside of an organization
or between organizations, that is true.

The part that I think especially coming
from a technical background and why I'm

so heavy on this idea
of the customer experience as the center

pin of this or the linchpin of it is
that it's really easy for technical teams

to lose sight of the fact
that the value creation model

starts and ends there with that customer
who's consuming a service.

All the rest of it comes from that.

So we have to connect all those dots
together.

And, and it's a really useful construct
in my opinion,

because it grounds us,
it helps us think through so, you know,

I love talking about workloads
or workflows

from the standpoint of let's connect
this end to end process.

And then when we put this layer
of the experience on top of it,

what we understand is
the experience is the prism by

which create value is
in fact created and consumed.

Right.

And that's not universally true

depending on what it is you're selling,
but it's becoming almost universally true.

Almost everything we deliver
and I test this myself all the time.

I was talking to now the former
he just left former CEO of this company

that is a global distributor
or producer of Valves.

And I'm like, OK, this is probably a place
where the experience isn't.

And I'm talking to him and he goes,
oh, no, no, no, no.

My customers are all about the consumption
experience

of how they want to have a partner.

They want to interact with us
in a certain way.

They want us provide technology
that allows them to.

And so he has to orchestrate this
this vast network

of components and diligence to deliver
that experience that his customers want.

I think it's becoming universal.

And so that PRISM
sits on top of these workflows.

And so I think if we isolate only
in the technology or even just isolate

only on the workflow, we miss that layer
and it can lead us astray.

So we need sort

of these three different perspectives
when we're looking at all these

different components.

Yeah, I mean, I think

teasing that apart a little bit,
you mentioned like,

you know,

we can debate

what platform
means, and I always try to frame it

for folks that like on one side is
how do you build a marketplace

and the dynamics of building marketplaces
are more of almost like a macroeconomic

exercise versus a composable business
or kind of a modular architecture.

But those two things have to be aligned,
right?

They have to be in sync.

And I'll be honest, I've never really seen
anyone get it right,

but I feel like that's the magic thing
that we're all trying to figure out.

How to make work

but I like that
your perspective is the reason to do that.

All is customer centric in nature.

What is it
that customers are trying to accomplish

and that you're just part of a bigger
set of pieces right in the puzzle?

So that's kind of the the I guess
where you're coming from

with customer experience
is that to get that right,

you have to have thought about how you fit
into the broader ecosystem

and how you consume
all those elements of that ecosystem.

Absolutely.

And I think what's
what's really interesting and important

is that that ecosystem
and those building block parts,

whether it's being internally consumed
or externally consumed, are becoming

more important,
not less more complex, not less.

The you know, part of the reason
I love what you guys are doing

is because I'm a huge, huge believer.

I believe, you know,
if people walk away from this

and say there's two things
I really need to get my head around,

it's it's design
thinking, it's systems thinking.

And what I find so fascinating
is that I'm one of the few people

that's talking about both of those
in the same breath.

And I believe you have to talk

about these in the same breath
because the design thinking is the outward

in the customer centricity part of this
to say what is the value creation model?

And the systems thinking is acknowledging
the fact that what we're delivering

and how we're delivering
it is insanely complex

and there's all these unintended
consequences if we do not sort of peel

that onion and get under the covers of it,
and we have to join these at the hip.

And so I love what you're doing is
you're taking something that is typically

a very technical construct, right?

That and is really focused on
the sort of systems thinking side of this

and elevate it to say we have to start
with the design thinking side,

we have to start with what are we trying
to achieve and pull together.

And now if you extrapolate that,
I think that fundamental model

extends to literally the business model
of every organization in the digital era.

So when you talk about a platform, right,

the debate is I know there are
some people will say a platform

from a technology
perspective is only a piece of technology.

I can build other technologies on top of,
but I think more holistically

and I think every organization
is fundamentally becoming a platform

because they have to create this
this enablement, this platform,

I guess, of connecting
all of their partners,

their employees and their customers
together to create exponential value.

And so that becomes this sort of linchpin.

And of all this coming together,
and the minute you go down that road,

you start realizing
how flippin hard it really is.

And that's why, you know,
the stuff that you're doing and others

like you is so vital
because we need to have that sort

of, you know, abstracted perspective
that help us see.

It'll work. Yes, definitely hard.

Having tried to do that
job over the years, I can I can relate

it for me
the way the thing that you're describing

and the term that I think doesn't

really get used as much,
people will lean on kind of API design.

And I mean, obviously like stoplight,
we talk about that a lot because that's

kind of the core of what we do.

But I think the way we think about it more

and I think it's in line with what you're
describing is it's really platform design

it's like
how do you design the big picture of what

you do as a business and how you relate
to all the things around you

and it's weird
because when we talk to podcast guests

and lots of people
who run successful programs

and we go, you know,
what's the most important fundamental?

Where do you start? Right?

It's get the customer language, right?

You know, I mean, it's a really like kind
of, you know,

trying to be like PC term here,
but like screws up

your brain a little, trying to think about
how simple and fundamental and primal

some of these things can be in terms of,
you know, how to do platform thinking.

It's not a technical exercise
most times. Yes.

But I'm curious, you know, in
your kind of engagements and meeting folks

you know, what aspect of this is kind of
cultural in nature and that sort of thing?

I think it's massively cultural.

It's it's massively dependent
on the leadership of an organization.

You know, I

ran I spent ten years running large scale
organizational change efforts.

Right. And, you know,

I used to call it Squeezing the Lemon

from both ends because, you know,
there's folks will say, well, you got it.

It's got to be bottom up
or it's got to be top down reality.

It has to be both.

And the top down part has to do with that
shifting mindset of how we look at it.

I mean,

you talk about API design and API design
is, in my opinion, a dangerous term.

To your point.

It's not really about designing the API.

It's really about designing the outcome.

And and, you know,
so once you start getting that elevated,

which is why I'm such a huge believer
in this idea of customer centricity,

because it forces, you
to get out of that box.

Right.

And so I think that it is it is an
incredibly challenging thing to address.

I think it's particularly challenging
for I.T organizations,

for technical functions,
technical people, frankly,

because we we
you know, I count I still count myself.

I still break out my my fingers and
do some coding once in a blue moon here.

I mean, we got into this space because we
we love the idea

of what technology can do.

And we geek out on it.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

It's a great thing. It's
why we're good at what we do.

But we always have to maintain, you know,
that perspective that it's for a reason.

It's for purpose.

It has to serve some value when we're

screwing around with on our own time,
that's fine.

But with our with our work,
it has to deliver some value.

And we have to understand what that value
is we've got to get there first.

And, and the challenge
with a lot of technical functions

and you talk about culture and leadership
teams, is that it's I'm a huge believer.

You know, what we measure

is what we're going to manage,
the outcomes we're going to get.

And so much of how we treat development
teams in terms of the metrics

we put on them are the antithesis
of the kinds of things we should be doing.

If we're trying to push this idea
of looking at what the value equation

looks like and how we're going to create
that customer centric value with we

everything we're doing.

And so that there are
some definitive cultural shifts

that have to happen within development
teams to sort of bring that around.

Yeah, I love your description
of kind of top down and bottom up.

We talk a lot here on the show
with folks about like this idea of

you know, if you're advocating
for this kind of change in

the organization is like screw
the org chart, build a band of rebels.

Right?

But your first mission is to get executive
buy in on what needs to happen

and start with how does change the way
you measure the success of the business,

which I feel like this is the crux of why

these transformations fail so bad.

Like, you know, by the numbers,
the failure rates are huge

is that you have a group
of technical folks trying to think about

how to modularized
and kind of distribute the architecture,

but they lack the customer awareness
to understand how that funded,

why that changes the customer experience
and ultimately results in.

You have to measure
your business differently,

especially if you're shifting
into marketplace dynamics.

And I'd argue it goes both ways because,
you know, I having having been in it,

you're a technical guy
for most of my career.

I'm very sensitive to this
because, you know,

I joked that they stuck us in the literal
and metaphorical basement

and wanted us to stay there and kind of,
you know, do our thing.

And that's mostly their own
ignorance. Right?

I remember I did this show for Intel
for about a year and a half,

and I interviewed another former I.T.

Guy who was running a digital marketing
company.

And his opinion
was that that the idea of a CMO or

all those were going
to go away replaced with

a C, t, r c that might blow up.

But, you know, the chief technology
marketing officer.

Right, that technology was going to be
central to everyone's business.

And I think that's true.
And I think it's still lagging.

I think that there's still in many of the
enterprise leadership in particular,

there is still a sort of willful
technical ignorance

that is is damaging
because we so, you know,

if I'm if I'm running an API team today
or any kind of a technical function,

it's not just I mean, so part of
this is incumbent on me to understand

the customer impact, understand
the customer experience, to understand

how value is going to be created.

All of those pieces, it's also incumbent
upon me

to use that context
to educate the enterprise leadership team

as to both the complexity
and criticality of building this properly.

Because they don't understand it.

And, you know, it used to be my statement
a decade ago would have been

it's not their job to understand
it. Well, I think that's out the window.

It is their job to understand that
they have to understand the complexity

of what sounds like a simple thing
is actually really, really difficult.

And it's worth investing to do it
right first.

Instead of trying to fix it later.

And the cost,
the the risks and ramifications

in the form of failed experience.

And this is why the anchoring to this idea
of the digital experience

as a driver of value
is such a critical construct

because you can now connect the two.

You can now

say, if you don't do this right up front,
if you don't make these investments,

if we don't adopt a sort of cultural
ethos of design thinking in everything

we do, including
how does doing API design,

then the risks are that
we're going to deliver failed experiences

and once we and I can show,
I can give you the data.

Once you have a field experience,
you've lost a customer.

The cost of acquisition to get that
customer back or to get the new customer

to replace them are astronomic compared
to simply executing on this

and making the investments
in that sort of infrastructure upfront.

And so I think it's a conversation
that has to happen both ways.

And certainly this article I wrote for

CIO is kind of my effort
to try to bring that conversation

around that to help enterprise executives
understand how critical this really is

yeah.

It's not come at a bunch
in this last year.

I feel like after ten plus years
of obsessing over this topic of building

platforms
and APIs, there's finally enough body

of evidence to show folks
you don't get it.

And I would extend that beyond executives
into kind of the investment

community, too.

It's just a broad lack of awareness of
what the heck is going on.

But like in Forbes recently,

another set of my favorite authors
on the platform revolution

book series from Sangeet, Paul

Choudary and Marshal Van Elstein.

Then I'll put out some data in Forbes
showing like

the competitive advantage
that companies with these kind of focused

API strategies have had over
it was like the last

four and six years were kind
of the two increments and it was like

astounding like in the last four years
or something like a 12% improvement.

And I think it was like 40%
competitive advantage over the last

maybe it's 12 years,

but it's like for so long it's been,
you're right, trying to tell the story

and you don't have a way to say why
this this is successful.

But it's been long enough now in 20, 22
there is a large body of evidence

that you can prove this
pretty scientifically, that if you do this

you're going to be more successful
than competitors that don't.

Right.

Well you know you're,

you're part of the,
the problem here with this in the

I think the API industry to a certain
extent has has done itself a disservice

in that there is this massive effort
to make APIs sound and feel like

hey it's so simple now we build this API
and it's all true, right?

It's all compared to having lived through
all the, you know, ETF wars and and EDI

and all that kind of
it was like astronaut quickly easier.

But what there's this there actually
there's a law that I forget what

it's called. But

but as

we create this bubble of abstraction
that allows us to simplify

what it does, it opens the door
to do things that were simply too complex

to even imagine in the past.

And so what happens is the complexity
just follows us.

So yes, it's infinitely easier now,
but now you have this proliferation

that creates
this extra layer of complexity

that makes the management process
that much harder.

And so the challenge,
I think, a little bit is that

everyone thinks about APIs
in this very simple form factor

when an API strategy,
what you're talking about

is really this enabler of an ecosystem
where platform or platform and ecosystem

approach
to how we engage at a business level.

And and there is a tremendous amount
of value and opportunity in doing that.

And interestingly, enough,
I think it's still we're

just barely scratching the surface
on this.

Still, most organizations are you know,
they still have an internal

first sort of attitude
and organization patterns

that build this capability
that you're talking about.

Suddenly that falls away.
I don't have to start.

I can start by saying, what is the best
way of accomplishing this?

How can I create competitive value?

The fastest
because I have this capability layer

that sort of takes the shackles off
and that is transformative

when organizations sort of
get their head around it.

So, you know, my big message right now
to an enterprise leaders,

there's an opportunity here to create some
leapfrogging if you embrace this today.

Yeah, I think the two ends of the extreme
on the one end, I call it the naive Bezos

move of like, thou shalt build APIs
or you'll be fired, right?

Everyone loves
feeling like you can just be decisive

and say that and good things will happen
and they don't those times, right?

You end up with an ocean of
things you don't understand

the other end of the spectrum

is what I think you're describing is kind
of this inverse cutaway maneuver, right?

Conway's law,
the idea that your your software reflects

how you organize yourself
and the inverse time and being have

an intentional view of your capabilities
in customer centric language

so that as you build your architecture
everyone understands it.

Right.

And it's funny because ThoughtWorks
stopped tracking this on their radar

six years ago, but I feel like

that's it's almost like it's off the radar
because it's

just a supposition at this point
that this is the right way to do things.

And it requires having this design
thinking design before you build mindset

that, you know, isn't isn't fully,
widely adopted and understood.

So we're in a precarious time. I think

yeah.

No, there's no question.

I mean, I'm you know, I've been a design
thinking adherent for a decade,

and I'm almost shocked
at how little uptake it still has.

And, you know, most enterprise
organizations, I was super excited

at, you know,

SAP at Sapphire five, six years ago
at his whole thing on design thinking.

And it went nowhere,
you know, it just so it is, you know,

but but the flip side of it, I think, is,
you know, well, here's the reason.

It to your point,
it requires a cultural shift.

It requires an investment in changing
how an organization function operates.

It takes time.

We can't just buy a piece of software,
install it and go, well, I here we go.

But I actually think
all that's a good thing,

at least
if I'm an enterprise leader today,

because I look at and say that means
that still ripe for competitive advantage

means if I leverage this and harness it,

it's not you know, by the time
everyone has done it, then it's worthless.

And so I still think there's a tremendous
opportunity.

I'm actually shocked and chagrined at
how often I see experience

failures across the board
despite just like in the case

you were pointing out,
there is mountains of evidence

of how impactful the experience is to
everything that drives business value.

And yet organizations routinely
not only fail

in their delivery, but they fail to invest
in they fail to even try.

So it's there is

there is so much opportunity in there
and it's all interconnected, right?

So embracing API design
and going down this road and building

an API that inevitably is not going
to create these winning experiences.

But I can also say the converse is true.

If you don't do that, your ability
to deliver and sustain experiences

over the long
haul are all but nonexistent.

So, you know, it's a it's a critical part
of this this equation that is evolving.

I love it.

So I have
to ask because it's just the thing we do.

I'm here to kind of wrap things up
and it feels like we're there is like

that's all pretty complicated,
I think, for a lot of listeners

who maybe are are in that situation where
they're not doing all the right things

and they want to get the ball rolling.

So what's your best advice
on where folks should get started?

What's kind of the best way
to to start thinking this way or start

creating this culture shift
or just doing the right thing?

So I think there's two challenges
depending on you know, who you are,

you may not have the authority
or the power,

you know, the span of influence
to go enact

any of these kind of changes yourself
because it is a big thing.

You know, first and foremost, the the

the person we control is ourselves
and our own way of thinking.

So make that effort. I struggle with it
every day, to be honest.

All right.

My wife and I have another business
and I routinely,

like wake up and start slapping myself
going, what can I read?

Are you designing a customer?

Customer, right? Because I'm an IT guy.
If I go back to these same thing.

So so building some of that yourself
as far as your own mindset shift,

certainly you reading
and educating yourself around this.

I am also a huge, huge believer
in a couple of things.

One, you know,
find people outside the domain

and I'm sorry if this is heresy, but,
you know, get people

that are outside of the API space, get,
you know, a buddy that is

ideally even outside of tech and trade,
the kind of war stories

because as you start hearing
how other people are interacting,

it changes your mindset.

Some of the best things I've ever learned
had nothing to do with tech.

And I asked myself, how could I
translate them to what we're doing?

I remember having a
I used to be in DC a lot.

I was running a project
for a federal agency and I got talking

with the hotel manager that at the hotel.

I stayed all the time and he found out
I was 19 over wine one night.

He'd had a couple that he felt
he could be open and he says, Charlie,

if my i.t organization
would come and spend one day with me,

they would see how their technology
affects my ability to serve our guests.

Right.

Getting out of your seat
and into the field, talking to others

about how all this affects everything.

It's what changes your mindset.

And as you start

sharing that with others, it's
it's like I said, it's a slow process.

If you are a leader,
if you are running an organization,

if you do have that authority
and span of control,

you know, my advice is all those same
things but also start, start, now start

small start doing something around
this sort of mindset shift, right?

The mindset shift is more
important than anything else.

That said, get your tools that help
support it, right?

The biggest challenge

I think with a lot of the technology
is that it actually works against it.

You get people all fired up
and then it takes them down the wrong path

because the tools were architected
for a different time in ERA.

So, you know, it's about making this kind
of strategic investments

and being willing to go down that road.

But but to your point, it is first
and foremost a cultural effort.

Awesome advice.

You know,
I love the last bit there is like

this is kind of the way I see it,
folks, is like pick something and ship it.

Don't boil the ocean,
but keep incrementally moving toward

like kind of a vision of what
you want things to look like and

some idea of what it is

I feel like so many of you will get

these ocean exercises,

the sort of trying to architect
all the things you have and a lot of cost

so I love that advice.

Yeah. And I'll double down on that
just a little bit.

It's something that I would
when I was like mentoring some folks,

I said in the sun,
I do the same thing as a writer, right?

The line when I coach writers, as I say,
you know, every single line earns

you the right for the next one.

And it's the same thing with this is that

you have to earn the right
for the next strategic conversation.

And you do that by getting that win,
by having the proof point

that says, you know,
not only do we deliver on budget on time,

but look at this capability
that we built in the extensibility.

It gives us to drive this sort of change
and flexibility we need.

And that gives you the right,
the political capital

to have the next conversation.
So absolutely.

Yeah, I've also heard of it as the
the existence proof

is when you try to get people
to think bigger and think different.

Sometimes just having an example
go, look, it's possible

suddenly changes everything.

Closing the imagination gap.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Well,
Charles, an absolute pleasure to talk.

I think I'm probably going
to get in trouble

for going way over time here, but
we can geek out about this stuff all day.

So really,
thank you so much for being so open

and sharing all of your experiences,
including the cows, Kiwis.

Absolutely.

Pleasure talking to you.

Thanks for listening.

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