June 28, 2023 • 32 mins
In this episode, Darren talks to the CEO and Managing Director of GPA about collaboration innovation's role in bringing people back into the office and why people need face-to-face interaction.
Blog: https://www.embracingdigital.org/episode-EDT145
GPA (Global Presence Alliance) was founded 15 years ago to address the need for a better model in the collaboration space. At the time, video conferencing was becoming more prevalent, and organizations were considering a global strategy. However, they needed more options - relying on regional integrators or dealing with a complex setup that needed to understand collaboration truly.
People, Space, and Technology
GPA aimed to solve this problem by providing a comprehensive global collaboration and video strategy approach. They recognized the need to balance people, space, and technology to create exceptional collaborative experiences. By bridging the gap between different regions and understanding the unique requirements of each organization, GPA offered a better alternative to existing solutions.
While technology has evolved over the years, there is still work to achieve true collaboration. Microsoft, for example, has introduced signature rooms that mimic the telepresence room concept at a fraction of the cost. However, nonverbal cues and physical interaction are still challenging to replicate in virtual environments. As the technology advances, we will see improvements in the collaborative experience. Until then, organizations like GPA are crucial in finding innovative solutions and helping businesses navigate the ever-changing digital transformation landscape.
There still are challenges in video collaboration technologies. However, new advances in technology are overcoming some of those challenges. One of the biggest is the whiteboard brainstorming session. Due to camera angles and other limitations, integrating whiteboarding experiences into video calls is still unnatural. However, efforts are being made to create more natural and integrated expertise using AI and camera technology. Technology can provide a second-best experience; it cannot replace the personal and emotional experience of being physically in the same room as someone. This human element includes things like water cooler conversations and the ability to touch and feel objects.
Unique Business Model
GPA has a unique business model; it takes a bottom-up approach, with business units in 50 countries working as shareholders in a parent entity. This allows them to achieve global scale while maintaining cultural awareness and diversity.
When implementing collaboration strategies for multinational companies, the company takes a programmatic rather than project-based approach. They have centralized teams for account management, project management, and solution architecture while relying on regional teams for deployment and support. This collaborative approach reflects the company's philosophy and is crucial for success in implementing complex collaboration technologies.
COVID-19
There was a profound shift in the collaboration world before and after COVID-19. Pre-COVID, most of our work and collaboration were done in physical office spaces, but with the pandemic, everyone was forced to work remotely. This shift in the work environment required a change in thinking and approach.
In the past, remote participants were often treated as second-class citizens, but now, with the increase in remote collaboration, the experience has become more equalized. People have gotten used to the virtual meeting experience and expect a similar experience when they return to physical meeting spaces. This has led to a demand for a better experience in the office.
The shift to remote work has also highlighted the importance of understandi
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hello, this is Darren
Pulsipher, chief solution,architect of public sector at Intel.
And welcome to EmbracingDigital Transformation,
where we investigate effective change,leveraging
people, process and technology.
On today's episode in taking workersback to the Office through collaboration
with special guestByron Tarry, CEO and managing
(00:26):
director of GPA.
Byron, welcome to the show.
Thank you. Excited to be here.
Hey, we had an interesting conversation.
Where was a couple of weeks ago?
First time I met you guys. Yeah.
And you guys have an interesting approachto two things.
But before we get to talking about GPAand and all that,
(00:49):
tell me a little bit about yourself
and your background.
Well, as as many in this industry,I guess,
came fromfrom a bit of a creative background.
So I came from a theater side of things,stage management.
And as you might guess from the accentfrom.
We're a little further afieldthan the North America.
(01:11):
I originally grew up, spentthe first half of my life in Australia and
but the theater world's not exactly
the place to make your fortune, I suppose.
And, and so like a lot in the industry,lots of musicians and so on
that found a way to find the creative,
find the teamwork, find the technology and
(01:32):
you know in a day job and, and ended up
in, in the audiovisual collaboration space.
So I guess that's that's mean that's
an interesting backgroundbecause theater management is a lot
like collaborationin in corporate America, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, particularly in stagemanagement, you, you you are controlling
(01:56):
all the elements from thefrom the actors to the technology.
Yeah.
To the to the front of house and so on.
So lots of elements going on there.
And that really in many ways in thein our industry
that people space and technologyalignment is, is really the
what we've talked aboutfor probably a decade or more of
you have to get that balancebetween the three right to to make
(02:20):
exceptional collaborative experiences.
And so drawing on that,I mean, I even had a six month
stint of studying architecturein, in, in university
before heading towards the theater spaceand years.
So kind of balanced all those elementsof people, space and technology I guess
now that that's pretty fascinatingbecause you run into all
(02:41):
different types of people in high techpeople with a theater background.
I never would have thought theaterin collaboration,
but totally makes sensewhen you think about.
And so tell me a little bityou guys got GPA.
I mean, why why did you start GPA?
What's the whole back back story on GPAitself?
Yeah, I actually realizedlast week was 15 years ago.
(03:05):
It's like after I'd show last weekand it was actually 15 years ago
last weekthat that the the organization began.
But it began for some context.
And those that have been around fora few years, like you and I might remember
when Cisco acquired a company calledTandberg and Tambo, who one of the leaders
in video conferencing.
And and 15 years ago we we figured thatthat was the the big moment.
(03:28):
Suddenly Ivy would go from fromthis sort of side thing not on my network
as as some of the IP convergencewas just beginning to now Cisco,
a market maker, had stepped into the spaceand the boom was going to happen.
While it probably took another 12 yearsbefore
Kyoto came alongtill really that that boom occurred.
(03:50):
But what what shifted 15 years agowas was this collaboration space
starting to shift from a more real estateproject centric environment?
Build a new building,woke up with some meeting rooms in.
But that was that tended to be
not necessarily linked to a globalstrategy but but as videoconferencing
(04:10):
this was taking more hold and Ciscobrought some credibility to that.
Suddenly organizations were startingto think about a global strategy.
So obviously
the accompanying piece for a startwas about connecting those further afield.
And and at the time,you really had two choices.
You went to a regional integratorwho kind of picked up the phone
(04:31):
around the world and hoped
that they might find a kindred spiritto be able to help them.
When you went to the spacethat really didn't understand
collaboration, you often actually ended upwith a room with with a room
in a box from Cisco on one endand this complex ivy on the other.
And we felt there was a better modelthat was required.
And in fact, as I was saying to youbefore, even as late as 2018,
(04:52):
for us to do a study in suggestsof 96% of the enterprise customers
they interviewed were happy with theirtheir collaboration and video strategy.
So, yeah, whenever you seethat sort of dissatisfaction, always
an opportunity for an entrepreneur,for entrepreneurial ism, I guess.
Yeah,we really wanted to try and solve that.
That problem
(05:14):
because
the be unique andI guess we can jump into that if you want.
Yeah I so I remember,I remember the first collaboration room
I went into it was a Cisco roomand I was managing a team in India.
So we set it up so that the tail,
it was kind of hokey to tell youthe truth.
Right?
(05:34):
Big screens and cameras everywhere,
but it looked likeyou were all sitting at the same table
because they made the tablego into the screen.
The whole concept.
Yeah, but what I what I realizedwhen I actually finally went out
and visitedthese people that worked for me,
I already knew them,
right?
Because I was used to sitting at a table,even though it was a virtual table, was,
(05:58):
you know, there was a bunch of lightingand everything was an unnatural.
But I knew who they werebecause I could see them.
And that collaboration really did happen.
A But that was a super expensive
and time consuming effortto put that thing together.
And, and,you know, there weren't very many,
there was only one roomin, in, in California and one in
(06:23):
Bangalore, India.
You know, back then that telepresence
premise was a three or four or$500,000 room.
Oh, yeah,
you got to get around comes aroundthose telepresence rooms had that that
that table structure that sort of createdthe across the table model.
Well what what Microsoftnow doing with their signature rooms
in the front rowexperiences is tell me exactly
(06:45):
back to that that same kind of premiseonly a 10th of the cost.
But yeah and well and then there's there'salso that's just non-verbal.
One of the things I really miss is truecollaboration.
We don't have this true truecollaboration, collaboration yet.
(07:12):
I did
a whiteboard sessionwith a colleague of mine back East.
I'm on the West Coast
in in the United States
and it was still kind of hokey, right?
He was on video.
I was on video,but we wanted a whiteboard stuff and
we couldn't take the pen from each otherand we couldn't jab each other.
You know, we couldn't say, Moveout of my way, I'm going to do this part.
(07:34):
It's still not the same as beingin the room with each other right now.
Look,I think this there's two elements to that.
The first, I'll say from a technologystandpoint is, is I think that's
that's still evolving.
I mean, Microsoft came out with somea few years back and that kind of
changed the paradigm a little bit,created a bit of a new market.
But I was having this discussion last week
(07:55):
actually with some of Microsoft peoplethat that that that premise
of your video experienceand your whiteboarding experience
being integratedin one of the front of the room is still
still not natural because you've got theseweird camera angles and so on.
There is some work that's happeningnow amongst a number of the the,
the sort of leading industry
(08:17):
vendorsand so on that that's starting to push
that sort of integrated experiencebetween side of wall
whiteboarding experienceand front of wall.
And there's a whole lot of stuffgoing on around AI and camera two
to sort of create a produced experiencethat does make some of that more natural.
But I think the the counter to that
(08:38):
and it kind of talks to theto the struggles
that are going on in the industryat the moment is that in the world
at the moment, in the enterprise spaceof of bringing stuff to the office
as opposed to living that that experiencewe live for a few years with code is
is the still an elementwhen you got to to India
those those years back there was stillan element of the personal relational
(09:03):
there was still a missing element
that you couldn't simply replaceby being across the across a video screen.
Whether that was going out for a beerat the end of the day,
you know, the watercooler conversationor just just
that sort of emotional experienceof being physically in a room as well.
And so I think thoseare the canvas. We can always
we can always try and
(09:26):
sort of createthat second best experience.
And we need to make
we need to to to make surethat we optimize that as much as possible.
But we can't lose sight of the factthat still there's still that
human element in all of usthat that likes to touch and feel and
and be in the same roomwith someone as well.
And I think that's that balancethat we're trying to,
you know,
still try to find a little bit
(09:47):
because there reallyis no best practice in it right now.
It's also new in this postcode environment that is still
and strugglingto figure out what that mouth is.
Yeah, you keep mentioningCOVID, so let's talk pre-COVID.
When you guys were focusing oncollaboration technologies,
your main customer base was all globalglobal companies, right?
(10:08):
Primarily trying to collaboratewith their internal and customers.
Is that what the main focus was?
Well, certainly.
I mean, GPS has being builtfrom an enterprise standpoint.
Primarily it washow do we solve this this global premise
and take the I mean, it's complexenough to deal with that
people space technology aloneand in a in a domestic capacity,
(10:32):
let alone when you add
all the complexities of globaland cultural and geographical and so on.
So certainly we've been built for that
at in solving that global element.
But that doesn't mean that 90%of our business doesn't come from domestic
and that could be servingas an educational customer,
that could be serving a sports venue,that could be serving a broadcast
(10:57):
productionenvironment and so on as well. But,
but yeah, certainly that that sort of
critical factor that that
that we look at ishow do you scale this globally.
So when we first talked,I loved your business model,
the whole conceptbecause you said act globally.
No way, think globally, actlocally, right?
(11:18):
That was kind of your business model.
Yeah.
So I guess how do youhow do we leverage the modern economy?
So rather than a top down
organization of ownershipand so on, in fact, it's bottom up.
It's a little bit ofI use the the uber Airbnb analogy.
So in fact to achieve that scaleand we have a footprint in 50 countries.
In fact,what we've done is we've we've united
(11:43):
what we call 27
business unitswith that that that physical footprint in
50 countries, 170 own officesinto a global organization where
each of those business units are actuallyshareholders in the parent entity.
And that's how we achieve that scaleand also the agility to continue to
to establish footprintwhere our customers go
(12:03):
by actually unitingall these regional organizations.
But by doing doing that,what essentially we did is
we left the cultural awarenessand diversity, the, the,
the local ability to correct relationswith the that the regional stakeholders.
We all know when you push a mandate downglobally, the first thing that the regions
do is push back and say,Oh yeah, I've got my guy.
(12:28):
And so, you know, that balanceof the thinking and acting globally from a
from a strategic standpoint,but still being able to reflect that
wealth, to use that service hub analogy,
the way a surface hubis going to be used in
the US is going to be very differentto Japan
when you've got a very different hierarchyof collaborative input.
And if your fault is down from your boss'sboss's
(12:49):
boss, you're probably not jumping upand grabbing the pen out of his hand
and jumping in front of
that that that surface hopso that, you know, that regional element
is so critical in success, particularlywhen you look at the
the reasons why we're doing this.
And that is collaboration.
That is the the, the very human factorsof how people work together.
(13:11):
So if if you've got a
multinational like Intel, for example,that needs to put in collaboration
strategy,
post-COVID, it doesn't matterwhen you would then call on those
and I need to do itin Latin America and North America.
So all of all of them are.
(13:33):
Do youthen you then collaborate yourselves
with all the regional peoplesaying, here's the big account intel.
They want to do collaboration.
We want some consistent Cbut it needs to be
it needs to be regionalized or whatever.
But you're really no different to I think
(13:53):
in many waysI suppose I see best practices that that
in deployment of any technology,
you have a programmatic approach.
You know, it's typically not a project,it's a program because it's multiyear.
It's yeah, yeah.
You know, it's complex and,and has strategic objectives
(14:14):
that go beyond just the basic scope,schedule, budget element.
And so
we would generally have a centralized team
of account managementto project management
solution architect, service managementand so on.
And then regional projects
spin out of that and get deployed.
(14:36):
And then we have aI have a central corporate team
that that sits atop all that and buildsthe structure and the methodology
and ultimately supports the, the,whether that's that
that central teamor the, or the regional team
in making sure that the programdeploys effectively, but that
(14:58):
is really critical to to success.
So you're kind of livingyour own collaboration
philosophy when you're doing thisbecause it's highly collaborative, right?
Well,it has to be, and particularly in those
where you've got to push upthose regionalized premises,
that has to be that balancewhere the central team trusts
the local teamthat they're not just kind of
(15:20):
bypassing the central strategyand that's the central team
from our standpointor the customer standpoint. But
but but likewise that that
the program is a failurebecause of a lack of adoption regionally
in the the outcomesthat that we're trying to seek.
So but yeahI think that the caution is often
I get hung up in talking about thisglobal premise and I know many of your
(15:45):
your listeners are not necessarilyin that global capacity.
And really I don't think it changesonce you get to any sense of scale.
Does that balance where we're looking forwe actually call it
the four S's scalestandardization, simplification and speed.
But we also have to forget that we don't
(16:05):
try and drive those efficiencies
by forgetting thatthe audience that we're serving and
is finding that balanceand having the trust between teams.
Yeah, from a global basisto to be able to recognize when it's okay
to, to, to divert,when standardization is actually
perhaps a negativeas opposed to witness a positive.
No, I really like that approach.
(16:27):
It is balance.
What has changed
between pre-COVID and post-COVID
in this industry from your perspective?
Because it was it was a fundamental shift.
(16:50):
And how did that affect your guys's
approach to the collaboration world?
Yeah, I mean, look, I think pre-COVID
we largely lived in the physical spaceof the office environment and obviously
what happened the moment COVID hit,everyone got driven to the remote office.
And and so certainly that had to shifta bit of our thinking for a few years.
(17:14):
The focus on building physical spacesin the office
there,excuse me where that really went away.
But what's what's happened withthe return is
is really interestingly the
you know, this premiseof not so much equality because equality
assumes an equal experience,but equity between the remote and the
(17:36):
and the physical meeting roomspace, for example, is has really shifted.
So in the past
you were kind of a second class citizenif you were that remote participant.
It wasn't that that that,
yeah, right.
You were an outsider.
Yeah.
Whereas now we got so used to actuallythat experience of like you and I were,
(17:57):
I've got full face on, on the screenand so on.
So when we go back into the meeting room
and we stopped sending a shotof a room of seven people and,
and the far end of the tableis, is a distant
person that you can barely even seefacial expression and so on as well.
It's actually demanded
(18:18):
a different experience and ultimately,if you come to the office now
and we can talk a bit about the sort ofearning the commute premise,
the reason why I
would come to the office isI need to expect a better experience
by coming to the officethan sitting in my office.
Otherwise, there's really no no demand toto come to the office.
There's lots of other factorsof keeping a quorum.
(18:40):
So one of the reasonswhy I am going to come to the office
and making sure that that experience
at the office,whether it's in the meeting room
or whether it's actually anywherein that that office environment,
because ultimately anywhere in the officeenvironment really is become
a meeting space in some senses now,because that's why I go to the office,
or at least a large part toto collaborate with others.
So it's absolutely shiftedthe thinking that we have to go through in
(19:04):
certainly supportingthe remote participant, but really
challenging ourselves to drivea better experience of the office as well.
That's going to be really toughbecause I have personalized my home office
right?
It's I got to do that,
right?
So it's all set up.
I'm comfortable here.
(19:26):
You know, my set up, I've got it set upfor podcast hosting and collaborate.
I like my you're right.
I don't want to go in the office becauseI don't have all the stuff I have here.
Right?
It's harder to go into the officeand particularly of the offices
driven to things like hot deskingand so on, which which makes sense.
But it's even less personalizedbecause I get to sit at a space
(19:48):
that's got to sort of fitone size fits all.
We had a panel discussion last weekat Infocom where we had someone from UK
Design, big global design, architectureand planning firm and so on.
And and I was talking about thingslike neurodiversity,
you know,
kind of a hot topic these days, but,but how some people come to the office
(20:11):
and noise, for example, just becomesincredibly distracting to them.
And as we nowpush them into these open workspaces
instead of perhaps in the pastwhere they had a quiet office
they could work in and so on,that it just doesn't work for them.
And so you're really having to understandthose human factors in that people
space and technology alignment
(20:31):
become even more important.
Yet we want to create these spacesthat are that that
encourage collaboration, encourage those,those human elements as well.
And so it's, you know, it's not easy.
And I'd say that in the yeah, there isno best practice to go to right now.
Everyone's experimenting.
We've got such a short period of time
since reallythe return to offices has occurred that
(20:55):
even as you get outsideof individual cultures,
within individual organizations, this,there's still a lot of learning to do.
And it's actually one of the areasthat I think as an industry we
we are struggling with is real effectivedata.
Look, we can measure on and often is itbroken and all those types of things.
But yeah, there's some interesting movesafoot
(21:16):
at that same flat panel discussionsitting next to I think I had both
Microsoft and Cisco marketmakers in terms of technology,
whetherthat was the history of Cisco and Tandberg
or more recently Microsoftand what teams has done.
But both of themin two different strategies.
Cisco with a
an offering called
(21:37):
Spaces and Microsoft with places
are both startingto kind of step into that, that
how do we really understand the the trueimpacts, the human impacts and so on.
And they're both coming at itfrom quite different paths.
But how do we take real datato really start to understand
what's happening in these offices,not just to sort of manage the technology,
(21:58):
but manage the outcome, manage thethe returns and so on
that are coming from that.
I really like that.
Do you think that your guy, thatyour focus has shifted to more of that?
Absolutely.
I mean,
challenging ourselves even as toif we got the right skill sets
within some of, you know, some of thatthe traditional ecosystem of staffing
(22:21):
that we had things like business analystsand the ability to take data
and manage it and ultimately becomethat strategic partner to our customers
means not just saying, here'sall the data, you got to figure it out,
but but how do we take thatand leverage that
those decades of experienceand where I guess I,
I feel we as an industryhave an advantage over
(22:43):
perhaps the real estate side of thingsor the more traditional i.t side of things
is that we'veI guess back to that very human element
that we startedwith the sort of theatrical, the musical,
the emotional or the we've understoodand been the experts
in trying to align that, that experientialwith the, with the practical for,
for so long that I put our hand up and saywell we need to leverage that more
(23:08):
but we need to draw on the best practicesand convergence has been going on.
Well, the ABC convergence started 15plus years ago, but now we're seeing
even more convergence is I t are evenhaving to sort of feed into that
that reality as welland become more experientially focused,
less about the states and statesand the security and more about
how am I actually serving them.
(23:30):
I might like true customer, particularlyif the complexity of technology
has gone to the cloud and you don't needall those guys running servers and so on.
And so I, you know, I think the only worldgenerally has had to shift.
(23:51):
Yeah.
All right.
So put on your put on your future hat
five years down the road.
What does the office look like now?
Well, if I had the perfect crystal ball,I'd be a
billionaire tomorrow.
Where would you like to see?
You know, where would you like to seethe office space go To what?
(24:14):
What do you think would attract meback into the office? Why?
And let me tell you something aboutmy commute is across the street.
I literally in like 2 minutes
from Intel headquarters,
I could walk if I weren't so lazy.
So forget the commute part.
(24:35):
What attracts me to the office?
What does it look like?
Well, I think theyou know, the primary thing that attracts
you probably is is people, other people.
But but this is the strugglethat we've got a little bit to do.
I know you're going to be at the officeand if I don't know,
you're going to be that. And I'm like,Oh, come on.
And you've got thissort of vicious circle.
(24:55):
And so I think about particularlywhat Microsoft is
first and foremostfocus on on places is trying to use AI and
and the mass of data
that they have from exchange,from teams, from
from all these other platformsand starting to try
and become more predictiveand make recommendation and so on.
(25:18):
But but first and foremost, it'sI'm going to come to the office
because I know you're at the officeand we can we can sit down together.
We can have experiencesthat we can't have just over a video.
I think there arethere are other elements to that.
There's a wellness element to it.
You're sitting in your your
little home office, maybe notwith optimal furniture, maybe not with the
(25:42):
the gym, the all the other amenitiesthat that, that we often offer.
I think that there is absolutelya wellness space and let's
remember that that for many employees
that they may not have a
a dedicated home officethey might be sitting
at the kitchen table,they might be seeing it.
(26:02):
Sometimes it is actuallyabout having that focused space as well.
May not
always be about meeting with others,but sometimes I actually just need a place
to get out of my my home environmentsand so on as well.
I mean, there's some other interestingthings that are coming out as well.
As I was talking to Cisco last week
around the their
their spices premise, and that's aroundthings like sustainability.
(26:25):
We all think that not getting inthe car is a sustainable premise.
But when we realize that the officeis going to be heated and cooled and
and so on,whether we go into the office or not,
we may actually be consuming more energyby staying at home, particularly
when the commute is on the acrossthe road as you talk about.
And so there are other factors that arestarting to come into this as well.
So I think holistically,you know, it's building that culture of of
(26:48):
why would I come to the office
that that certainly foundationallywill be about that the human impact piece.
But but but I thinkit gets more intricate than that
and and ultimately rarelyis there a one size fits all premise.
And so it's it's attracting
the different things to different peopleand making sure that the
I guess the the the
(27:08):
the company cares about you andis creating a space that reflects its it's
care about you as an employee as opposedto just a number on a spreadsheet.
Yeah, exactly.
Where do you see the
future for the technology side of things?
What new innovations do you see that
are going to make it easierto collaborate with these hybrid workers,
(27:31):
which is which is really complexwhen you think about it, right?
Some days I'm in the I'm in the office,some days I'm not.
My team is now scattered to the wind.
Sometimes we're in the it'sthis kind of mess.
What technologies doyou think are going to help with that?
Well, I think, look, you know, it'sit's it's been a hot topic lately
(27:53):
but anything from chat toI generally I think is
an is going to have to have have an impactbut but
as long as
we understandthe impact and the role of head I can have
I mean I talk about that
that places environment where it's goingto start to give you a recommendation
and so on.
And so being that copilot with youis even actually
(28:15):
to use the Microsoft term of copilotbeing that copilot with you
in terms of
practical things in in our world,I mean, there are
narrow world of of the
we're going towe're already starting to see
a new level of of experiencestarting to be driven
(28:37):
from a bit of Einsteinin camera technologies, for example.
So once you get into that meetingroom, multiple cameras and
and the sort of automated producerwe've actually got quite
used to in coming out reduced eventsbecause that was kind of the way
the way we had to do it
and sort of bringing some of thatwithout having to layer technicians
(28:58):
and people on top of it,starting to let technology
do some of the workto to enhance the experience.
The other thing that I thinkwe're already starting to see is
and it wasn't necessarilydriven by by COVID, although it helped is,
I guess, narrow cast media production.
I mean, a little bitlike what we're doing today. But
(29:19):
we're seeing even at a
much more higher produced level,the number of studios,
broadcast studios we're buildingfor corporate enterprise, for example,
whether that's out to the to a wideraudience, particularly the finance world,
a lot of the banksand so on are creating their own
narrowcasting channelsto to their that constituency
(29:40):
as much as it's being usedinternally to employees and so on.
So I think this whole media explosion,the media workflows that are
that are carrying the technology,that's taking complexity
out of those media workflows
so that that the average personcan can create a higher
degree of engagement as yet as indeedwe're talking about for this platform.
And so I think those things are startingto shift as well.
(30:02):
And so
we kind of look at
the 8020 rule of this, 88% of the roomsthat we're building of these
very standardized rooms, it's the MCI,Microsoft, NCR, Zoom Room or whatever.
That's that's been kind of rule.
But, but the but what that's allowing usto do is take our attention away
from that using standardizationand so on and bring it to the 20%,
which is the really impactful,important experiential related stuff.
(30:25):
And so so yeah, it's, it's
those spaces that I'm most excitedabout interactivity and, and I mean,
large organizationslike Intel have been building experiences
of this for years, but,
but that was typicallythat the big big air experience area HQ
but we're starting to see a lotmore of that distribute out to smaller
(30:46):
realities in the branch offices,in the regions and so on. So
while that
is significant,
that attracts people back into the officeas well, and not just employees.
You know, we tend to look at a lot
about the attract, the employee,but what's going to attract the customer?
I know, you know, we've all found itharder to get customers
(31:07):
out of their office. Oh, yeah.
Just as much as we have employees.
And so it's not just earningthe commute from, from the
the employee, it's earning the commutefrom, from that entire ecosystem
of partners, of customersof, of everybody that we interact with.
That's important now that this is awesome.
Hey, Byron, thanks for your time today.
(31:28):
This was this is enjoyableI really yeah I really like this a lot
because we don't have to talkabout technology the whole time.
The human factor is so important.
So thanks for humanizing collaborationand AV,
especially with your backgroundin theater and stage manager.
I think it's wonderful.
It's a great story, but it's a pleasure.
(31:48):
It's and it's a passion as I say,if you if you love what you do,
you never work a day in your life.
I think you live thata little bit as well.
But certainly it's that human factorthat that makes it makes it fun everyday.
Oh, that's awesome. Thanks again, Byron.
Get down.
(32:10):
Thank you for listeningto Embracing Digital Transformation today.
If you enjoyed our podcast,
give it five stars on your favoritepodcasting site or YouTube channel,
you can find out more information
about embracing digital transformationand embracingdigital.org.
Until nexttime, go out and do something wonderful.
Hello, this is Darren
Pulsipher, chief solution,architect of public sector at Intel.
And welcome to EmbracingDigital Transformation,
where we investigate effective change,leveraging
people, process and technology.
On today's episode in taking workersback to the Office through collaboration
with special guestByron Tarry, CEO and managing
(00:26):
director of GPA.
Byron, welcome to the show.
Thank you. Excited to be here.
Hey, we had an interesting conversation.
Where was a couple of weeks ago?
First time I met you guys. Yeah.
And you guys have an interesting approachto two things.
But before we get to talking about GPAand and all that,
(00:49):
tell me a little bit about yourself
and your background.
Well, as as many in this industry,I guess,
came fromfrom a bit of a creative background.
So I came from a theater side of things,stage management.
And as you might guess from the accentfrom.
We're a little further afieldthan the North America.
(01:11):
I originally grew up, spentthe first half of my life in Australia and
but the theater world's not exactly
the place to make your fortune, I suppose.
And, and so like a lot in the industry,lots of musicians and so on
that found a way to find the creative,
find the teamwork, find the technology and
(01:32):
you know in a day job and, and ended up
in, in the audiovisual collaboration space.
So I guess that's that's mean that's
an interesting backgroundbecause theater management is a lot
like collaborationin in corporate America, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, particularly in stagemanagement, you, you you are controlling
(01:56):
all the elements from thefrom the actors to the technology.
Yeah.
To the to the front of house and so on.
So lots of elements going on there.
And that really in many ways in thein our industry
that people space and technologyalignment is, is really the
what we've talked aboutfor probably a decade or more of
you have to get that balancebetween the three right to to make
(02:20):
exceptional collaborative experiences.
And so drawing on that,I mean, I even had a six month
stint of studying architecturein, in, in university
before heading towards the theater spaceand years.
So kind of balanced all those elementsof people, space and technology I guess
now that that's pretty fascinatingbecause you run into all
(02:41):
different types of people in high techpeople with a theater background.
I never would have thought theaterin collaboration,
but totally makes sensewhen you think about.
And so tell me a little bityou guys got GPA.
I mean, why why did you start GPA?
What's the whole back back story on GPAitself?
Yeah, I actually realizedlast week was 15 years ago.
(03:05):
It's like after I'd show last weekand it was actually 15 years ago
last weekthat that the the organization began.
But it began for some context.
And those that have been around fora few years, like you and I might remember
when Cisco acquired a company calledTandberg and Tambo, who one of the leaders
in video conferencing.
And and 15 years ago we we figured thatthat was the the big moment.
(03:28):
Suddenly Ivy would go from fromthis sort of side thing not on my network
as as some of the IP convergencewas just beginning to now Cisco,
a market maker, had stepped into the spaceand the boom was going to happen.
While it probably took another 12 yearsbefore
Kyoto came alongtill really that that boom occurred.
(03:50):
But what what shifted 15 years agowas was this collaboration space
starting to shift from a more real estateproject centric environment?
Build a new building,woke up with some meeting rooms in.
But that was that tended to be
not necessarily linked to a globalstrategy but but as videoconferencing
(04:10):
this was taking more hold and Ciscobrought some credibility to that.
Suddenly organizations were startingto think about a global strategy.
So obviously
the accompanying piece for a startwas about connecting those further afield.
And and at the time,you really had two choices.
You went to a regional integratorwho kind of picked up the phone
(04:31):
around the world and hoped
that they might find a kindred spiritto be able to help them.
When you went to the spacethat really didn't understand
collaboration, you often actually ended upwith a room with with a room
in a box from Cisco on one endand this complex ivy on the other.
And we felt there was a better modelthat was required.
And in fact, as I was saying to youbefore, even as late as 2018,
(04:52):
for us to do a study in suggestsof 96% of the enterprise customers
they interviewed were happy with theirtheir collaboration and video strategy.
So, yeah, whenever you seethat sort of dissatisfaction, always
an opportunity for an entrepreneur,for entrepreneurial ism, I guess.
Yeah,we really wanted to try and solve that.
That problem
(05:14):
because
the be unique andI guess we can jump into that if you want.
Yeah I so I remember,I remember the first collaboration room
I went into it was a Cisco roomand I was managing a team in India.
So we set it up so that the tail,
it was kind of hokey to tell youthe truth.
Right?
(05:34):
Big screens and cameras everywhere,
but it looked likeyou were all sitting at the same table
because they made the tablego into the screen.
The whole concept.
Yeah, but what I what I realizedwhen I actually finally went out
and visitedthese people that worked for me,
I already knew them,
right?
Because I was used to sitting at a table,even though it was a virtual table, was,
(05:58):
you know, there was a bunch of lightingand everything was an unnatural.
But I knew who they werebecause I could see them.
And that collaboration really did happen.
A But that was a super expensive
and time consuming effortto put that thing together.
And, and,you know, there weren't very many,
there was only one roomin, in, in California and one in
(06:23):
Bangalore, India.
You know, back then that telepresence
premise was a three or four or$500,000 room.
Oh, yeah,
you got to get around comes aroundthose telepresence rooms had that that
that table structure that sort of createdthe across the table model.
Well what what Microsoftnow doing with their signature rooms
in the front rowexperiences is tell me exactly
(06:45):
back to that that same kind of premiseonly a 10th of the cost.
But yeah and well and then there's there'salso that's just non-verbal.
One of the things I really miss is truecollaboration.
We don't have this true truecollaboration, collaboration yet.
(07:12):
I did
a whiteboard sessionwith a colleague of mine back East.
I'm on the West Coast
in in the United States
and it was still kind of hokey, right?
He was on video.
I was on video,but we wanted a whiteboard stuff and
we couldn't take the pen from each otherand we couldn't jab each other.
You know, we couldn't say, Moveout of my way, I'm going to do this part.
(07:34):
It's still not the same as beingin the room with each other right now.
Look,I think this there's two elements to that.
The first, I'll say from a technologystandpoint is, is I think that's
that's still evolving.
I mean, Microsoft came out with somea few years back and that kind of
changed the paradigm a little bit,created a bit of a new market.
But I was having this discussion last week
(07:55):
actually with some of Microsoft peoplethat that that that premise
of your video experienceand your whiteboarding experience
being integratedin one of the front of the room is still
still not natural because you've got theseweird camera angles and so on.
There is some work that's happeningnow amongst a number of the the,
the sort of leading industry
(08:17):
vendorsand so on that that's starting to push
that sort of integrated experiencebetween side of wall
whiteboarding experienceand front of wall.
And there's a whole lot of stuffgoing on around AI and camera two
to sort of create a produced experiencethat does make some of that more natural.
But I think the the counter to that
(08:38):
and it kind of talks to theto the struggles
that are going on in the industryat the moment is that in the world
at the moment, in the enterprise spaceof of bringing stuff to the office
as opposed to living that that experiencewe live for a few years with code is
is the still an elementwhen you got to to India
those those years back there was stillan element of the personal relational
(09:03):
there was still a missing element
that you couldn't simply replaceby being across the across a video screen.
Whether that was going out for a beerat the end of the day,
you know, the watercooler conversationor just just
that sort of emotional experienceof being physically in a room as well.
And so I think thoseare the canvas. We can always
we can always try and
(09:26):
sort of createthat second best experience.
And we need to make
we need to to to make surethat we optimize that as much as possible.
But we can't lose sight of the factthat still there's still that
human element in all of usthat that likes to touch and feel and
and be in the same roomwith someone as well.
And I think that's that balancethat we're trying to,
you know,
still try to find a little bit
(09:47):
because there reallyis no best practice in it right now.
It's also new in this postcode environment that is still
and strugglingto figure out what that mouth is.
Yeah, you keep mentioningCOVID, so let's talk pre-COVID.
When you guys were focusing oncollaboration technologies,
your main customer base was all globalglobal companies, right?
(10:08):
Primarily trying to collaboratewith their internal and customers.
Is that what the main focus was?
Well, certainly.
I mean, GPS has being builtfrom an enterprise standpoint.
Primarily it washow do we solve this this global premise
and take the I mean, it's complexenough to deal with that
people space technology aloneand in a in a domestic capacity,
(10:32):
let alone when you add
all the complexities of globaland cultural and geographical and so on.
So certainly we've been built for that
at in solving that global element.
But that doesn't mean that 90%of our business doesn't come from domestic
and that could be servingas an educational customer,
that could be serving a sports venue,that could be serving a broadcast
(10:57):
productionenvironment and so on as well. But,
but yeah, certainly that that sort of
critical factor that that
that we look at ishow do you scale this globally.
So when we first talked,I loved your business model,
the whole conceptbecause you said act globally.
No way, think globally, actlocally, right?
(11:18):
That was kind of your business model.
Yeah.
So I guess how do youhow do we leverage the modern economy?
So rather than a top down
organization of ownershipand so on, in fact, it's bottom up.
It's a little bit ofI use the the uber Airbnb analogy.
So in fact to achieve that scaleand we have a footprint in 50 countries.
In fact,what we've done is we've we've united
(11:43):
what we call 27
business unitswith that that that physical footprint in
50 countries, 170 own officesinto a global organization where
each of those business units are actuallyshareholders in the parent entity.
And that's how we achieve that scaleand also the agility to continue to
to establish footprintwhere our customers go
(12:03):
by actually unitingall these regional organizations.
But by doing doing that,what essentially we did is
we left the cultural awarenessand diversity, the, the,
the local ability to correct relationswith the that the regional stakeholders.
We all know when you push a mandate downglobally, the first thing that the regions
do is push back and say,Oh yeah, I've got my guy.
(12:28):
And so, you know, that balanceof the thinking and acting globally from a
from a strategic standpoint,but still being able to reflect that
wealth, to use that service hub analogy,
the way a surface hubis going to be used in
the US is going to be very differentto Japan
when you've got a very different hierarchyof collaborative input.
And if your fault is down from your boss'sboss's
(12:49):
boss, you're probably not jumping upand grabbing the pen out of his hand
and jumping in front of
that that that surface hopso that, you know, that regional element
is so critical in success, particularlywhen you look at the
the reasons why we're doing this.
And that is collaboration.
That is the the, the very human factorsof how people work together.
(13:11):
So if if you've got a
multinational like Intel, for example,that needs to put in collaboration
strategy,
post-COVID, it doesn't matterwhen you would then call on those
and I need to do itin Latin America and North America.
So all of all of them are.
(13:33):
Do youthen you then collaborate yourselves
with all the regional peoplesaying, here's the big account intel.
They want to do collaboration.
We want some consistent Cbut it needs to be
it needs to be regionalized or whatever.
But you're really no different to I think
(13:53):
in many waysI suppose I see best practices that that
in deployment of any technology,
you have a programmatic approach.
You know, it's typically not a project,it's a program because it's multiyear.
It's yeah, yeah.
You know, it's complex and,and has strategic objectives
(14:14):
that go beyond just the basic scope,schedule, budget element.
And so
we would generally have a centralized team
of account managementto project management
solution architect, service managementand so on.
And then regional projects
spin out of that and get deployed.
(14:36):
And then we have aI have a central corporate team
that that sits atop all that and buildsthe structure and the methodology
and ultimately supports the, the,whether that's that
that central teamor the, or the regional team
in making sure that the programdeploys effectively, but that
(14:58):
is really critical to to success.
So you're kind of livingyour own collaboration
philosophy when you're doing thisbecause it's highly collaborative, right?
Well,it has to be, and particularly in those
where you've got to push upthose regionalized premises,
that has to be that balancewhere the central team trusts
the local teamthat they're not just kind of
(15:20):
bypassing the central strategyand that's the central team
from our standpointor the customer standpoint. But
but but likewise that that
the program is a failurebecause of a lack of adoption regionally
in the the outcomesthat that we're trying to seek.
So but yeahI think that the caution is often
I get hung up in talking about thisglobal premise and I know many of your
(15:45):
your listeners are not necessarilyin that global capacity.
And really I don't think it changesonce you get to any sense of scale.
Does that balance where we're looking forwe actually call it
the four S's scalestandardization, simplification and speed.
But we also have to forget that we don't
(16:05):
try and drive those efficiencies
by forgetting thatthe audience that we're serving and
is finding that balanceand having the trust between teams.
Yeah, from a global basisto to be able to recognize when it's okay
to, to, to divert,when standardization is actually
perhaps a negativeas opposed to witness a positive.
No, I really like that approach.
(16:27):
It is balance.
What has changed
between pre-COVID and post-COVID
in this industry from your perspective?
Because it was it was a fundamental shift.
(16:50):
And how did that affect your guys's
approach to the collaboration world?
Yeah, I mean, look, I think pre-COVID
we largely lived in the physical spaceof the office environment and obviously
what happened the moment COVID hit,everyone got driven to the remote office.
And and so certainly that had to shifta bit of our thinking for a few years.
(17:14):
The focus on building physical spacesin the office
there,excuse me where that really went away.
But what's what's happened withthe return is
is really interestingly the
you know, this premiseof not so much equality because equality
assumes an equal experience,but equity between the remote and the
(17:36):
and the physical meeting roomspace, for example, is has really shifted.
So in the past
you were kind of a second class citizenif you were that remote participant.
It wasn't that that that,
yeah, right.
You were an outsider.
Yeah.
Whereas now we got so used to actuallythat experience of like you and I were,
(17:57):
I've got full face on, on the screenand so on.
So when we go back into the meeting room
and we stopped sending a shotof a room of seven people and,
and the far end of the tableis, is a distant
person that you can barely even seefacial expression and so on as well.
It's actually demanded
(18:18):
a different experience and ultimately,if you come to the office now
and we can talk a bit about the sort ofearning the commute premise,
the reason why I
would come to the office isI need to expect a better experience
by coming to the officethan sitting in my office.
Otherwise, there's really no no demand toto come to the office.
There's lots of other factorsof keeping a quorum.
(18:40):
So one of the reasonswhy I am going to come to the office
and making sure that that experience
at the office,whether it's in the meeting room
or whether it's actually anywherein that that office environment,
because ultimately anywhere in the officeenvironment really is become
a meeting space in some senses now,because that's why I go to the office,
or at least a large part toto collaborate with others.
So it's absolutely shiftedthe thinking that we have to go through in
(19:04):
certainly supportingthe remote participant, but really
challenging ourselves to drivea better experience of the office as well.
That's going to be really toughbecause I have personalized my home office
right?
It's I got to do that,
right?
So it's all set up.
I'm comfortable here.
(19:26):
You know, my set up, I've got it set upfor podcast hosting and collaborate.
I like my you're right.
I don't want to go in the office becauseI don't have all the stuff I have here.
Right?
It's harder to go into the officeand particularly of the offices
driven to things like hot deskingand so on, which which makes sense.
But it's even less personalizedbecause I get to sit at a space
(19:48):
that's got to sort of fitone size fits all.
We had a panel discussion last weekat Infocom where we had someone from UK
Design, big global design, architectureand planning firm and so on.
And and I was talking about thingslike neurodiversity,
you know,
kind of a hot topic these days, but,but how some people come to the office
(20:11):
and noise, for example, just becomesincredibly distracting to them.
And as we nowpush them into these open workspaces
instead of perhaps in the pastwhere they had a quiet office
they could work in and so on,that it just doesn't work for them.
And so you're really having to understandthose human factors in that people
space and technology alignment
(20:31):
become even more important.
Yet we want to create these spacesthat are that that
encourage collaboration, encourage those,those human elements as well.
And so it's, you know, it's not easy.
And I'd say that in the yeah, there isno best practice to go to right now.
Everyone's experimenting.
We've got such a short period of time
since reallythe return to offices has occurred that
(20:55):
even as you get outsideof individual cultures,
within individual organizations, this,there's still a lot of learning to do.
And it's actually one of the areasthat I think as an industry we
we are struggling with is real effectivedata.
Look, we can measure on and often is itbroken and all those types of things.
But yeah, there's some interesting movesafoot
(21:16):
at that same flat panel discussionsitting next to I think I had both
Microsoft and Cisco marketmakers in terms of technology,
whetherthat was the history of Cisco and Tandberg
or more recently Microsoftand what teams has done.
But both of themin two different strategies.
Cisco with a
an offering called
(21:37):
Spaces and Microsoft with places
are both startingto kind of step into that, that
how do we really understand the the trueimpacts, the human impacts and so on.
And they're both coming at itfrom quite different paths.
But how do we take real datato really start to understand
what's happening in these offices,not just to sort of manage the technology,
(21:58):
but manage the outcome, manage thethe returns and so on
that are coming from that.
I really like that.
Do you think that your guy, thatyour focus has shifted to more of that?
Absolutely.
I mean,
challenging ourselves even as toif we got the right skill sets
within some of, you know, some of thatthe traditional ecosystem of staffing
(22:21):
that we had things like business analystsand the ability to take data
and manage it and ultimately becomethat strategic partner to our customers
means not just saying, here'sall the data, you got to figure it out,
but but how do we take thatand leverage that
those decades of experienceand where I guess I,
I feel we as an industryhave an advantage over
(22:43):
perhaps the real estate side of thingsor the more traditional i.t side of things
is that we'veI guess back to that very human element
that we startedwith the sort of theatrical, the musical,
the emotional or the we've understoodand been the experts
in trying to align that, that experientialwith the, with the practical for,
for so long that I put our hand up and saywell we need to leverage that more
(23:08):
but we need to draw on the best practicesand convergence has been going on.
Well, the ABC convergence started 15plus years ago, but now we're seeing
even more convergence is I t are evenhaving to sort of feed into that
that reality as welland become more experientially focused,
less about the states and statesand the security and more about
how am I actually serving them.
(23:30):
I might like true customer, particularlyif the complexity of technology
has gone to the cloud and you don't needall those guys running servers and so on.
And so I, you know, I think the only worldgenerally has had to shift.
(23:51):
Yeah.
All right.
So put on your put on your future hat
five years down the road.
What does the office look like now?
Well, if I had the perfect crystal ball,I'd be a
billionaire tomorrow.
Where would you like to see?
You know, where would you like to seethe office space go To what?
(24:14):
What do you think would attract meback into the office? Why?
And let me tell you something aboutmy commute is across the street.
I literally in like 2 minutes
from Intel headquarters,
I could walk if I weren't so lazy.
So forget the commute part.
(24:35):
What attracts me to the office?
What does it look like?
Well, I think theyou know, the primary thing that attracts
you probably is is people, other people.
But but this is the strugglethat we've got a little bit to do.
I know you're going to be at the officeand if I don't know,
you're going to be that. And I'm like,Oh, come on.
And you've got thissort of vicious circle.
(24:55):
And so I think about particularlywhat Microsoft is
first and foremostfocus on on places is trying to use AI and
and the mass of data
that they have from exchange,from teams, from
from all these other platformsand starting to try
and become more predictiveand make recommendation and so on.
(25:18):
But but first and foremost, it'sI'm going to come to the office
because I know you're at the officeand we can we can sit down together.
We can have experiencesthat we can't have just over a video.
I think there arethere are other elements to that.
There's a wellness element to it.
You're sitting in your your
little home office, maybe notwith optimal furniture, maybe not with the
(25:42):
the gym, the all the other amenitiesthat that, that we often offer.
I think that there is absolutelya wellness space and let's
remember that that for many employees
that they may not have a
a dedicated home officethey might be sitting
at the kitchen table,they might be seeing it.
(26:02):
Sometimes it is actuallyabout having that focused space as well.
May not
always be about meeting with others,but sometimes I actually just need a place
to get out of my my home environmentsand so on as well.
I mean, there's some other interestingthings that are coming out as well.
As I was talking to Cisco last week
around the their
their spices premise, and that's aroundthings like sustainability.
(26:25):
We all think that not getting inthe car is a sustainable premise.
But when we realize that the officeis going to be heated and cooled and
and so on,whether we go into the office or not,
we may actually be consuming more energyby staying at home, particularly
when the commute is on the acrossthe road as you talk about.
And so there are other factors that arestarting to come into this as well.
So I think holistically,you know, it's building that culture of of
(26:48):
why would I come to the office
that that certainly foundationallywill be about that the human impact piece.
But but but I thinkit gets more intricate than that
and and ultimately rarelyis there a one size fits all premise.
And so it's it's attracting
the different things to different peopleand making sure that the
I guess the the the
(27:08):
the company cares about you andis creating a space that reflects its it's
care about you as an employee as opposedto just a number on a spreadsheet.
Yeah, exactly.
Where do you see the
future for the technology side of things?
What new innovations do you see that
are going to make it easierto collaborate with these hybrid workers,
(27:31):
which is which is really complexwhen you think about it, right?
Some days I'm in the I'm in the office,some days I'm not.
My team is now scattered to the wind.
Sometimes we're in the it'sthis kind of mess.
What technologies doyou think are going to help with that?
Well, I think, look, you know, it'sit's it's been a hot topic lately
(27:53):
but anything from chat toI generally I think is
an is going to have to have have an impactbut but
as long as
we understandthe impact and the role of head I can have
I mean I talk about that
that places environment where it's goingto start to give you a recommendation
and so on.
And so being that copilot with youis even actually
(28:15):
to use the Microsoft term of copilotbeing that copilot with you
in terms of
practical things in in our world,I mean, there are
narrow world of of the
we're going towe're already starting to see
a new level of of experiencestarting to be driven
(28:37):
from a bit of Einsteinin camera technologies, for example.
So once you get into that meetingroom, multiple cameras and
and the sort of automated producerwe've actually got quite
used to in coming out reduced eventsbecause that was kind of the way
the way we had to do it
and sort of bringing some of thatwithout having to layer technicians
(28:58):
and people on top of it,starting to let technology
do some of the workto to enhance the experience.
The other thing that I thinkwe're already starting to see is
and it wasn't necessarilydriven by by COVID, although it helped is,
I guess, narrow cast media production.
I mean, a little bitlike what we're doing today. But
(29:19):
we're seeing even at a
much more higher produced level,the number of studios,
broadcast studios we're buildingfor corporate enterprise, for example,
whether that's out to the to a wideraudience, particularly the finance world,
a lot of the banksand so on are creating their own
narrowcasting channelsto to their that constituency
(29:40):
as much as it's being usedinternally to employees and so on.
So I think this whole media explosion,the media workflows that are
that are carrying the technology,that's taking complexity
out of those media workflows
so that that the average personcan can create a higher
degree of engagement as yet as indeedwe're talking about for this platform.
And so I think those things are startingto shift as well.
(30:02):
And so
we kind of look at
the 8020 rule of this, 88% of the roomsthat we're building of these
very standardized rooms, it's the MCI,Microsoft, NCR, Zoom Room or whatever.
That's that's been kind of rule.
But, but the but what that's allowing usto do is take our attention away
from that using standardizationand so on and bring it to the 20%,
which is the really impactful,important experiential related stuff.
(30:25):
And so so yeah, it's, it's
those spaces that I'm most excitedabout interactivity and, and I mean,
large organizationslike Intel have been building experiences
of this for years, but,
but that was typicallythat the big big air experience area HQ
but we're starting to see a lotmore of that distribute out to smaller
(30:46):
realities in the branch offices,in the regions and so on. So
while that
is significant,
that attracts people back into the officeas well, and not just employees.
You know, we tend to look at a lot
about the attract, the employee,but what's going to attract the customer?
I know, you know, we've all found itharder to get customers
(31:07):
out of their office. Oh, yeah.
Just as much as we have employees.
And so it's not just earningthe commute from, from the
the employee, it's earning the commutefrom, from that entire ecosystem
of partners, of customersof, of everybody that we interact with.
That's important now that this is awesome.
Hey, Byron, thanks for your time today.
(31:28):
This was this is enjoyableI really yeah I really like this a lot
because we don't have to talkabout technology the whole time.
The human factor is so important.
So thanks for humanizing collaborationand AV,
especially with your backgroundin theater and stage manager.
I think it's wonderful.
It's a great story, but it's a pleasure.
(31:48):
It's and it's a passion as I say,if you if you love what you do,
you never work a day in your life.
I think you live thata little bit as well.
But certainly it's that human factorthat that makes it makes it fun everyday.
Oh, that's awesome. Thanks again, Byron.
Get down.
(32:10):
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