December 6, 2024 • 26 mins
It’s good to identify a problem. But’s it’s even better to find a solution.
We speak with Elizabeth Bieniek, an innovation consultant and a former Cisco strategist who spearheaded the creation of Webex Hologram – the first real-time, photorealistic holographic tool to transform business collaboration.
Elizabeth shares her journey from a strategic partnerships role to leading the development of revolutionary technology. Learn how a seemingly simple disagreement transformed into a pivotal moment, igniting a quest to redefine remote collaboration.
Listen to the full episode below or wherever you get your podcasts.
Featuring: Elizabeth is the author of "Cake on Tuesday: 25 Lessons to Unlock Corporate Innovation.”
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We knew we had something on,on some of those early user
tests where you end the call.
And like I said, it was very abruptand people would literally jump.
They'd be like, where'd they go?
I was just talking to this hologram in theroom and they're just like, they're gone.
Poof.
That's weird.
I'm like, okay, we need to add some, uh,some features here to make that not so
abrupt, but it really proved the pointof we did find something different.
(00:20):
We did create that feelingof, of togetherness.
In the world of technology,heroes are everywhere.
They're overcoming disruption, deliveringsustainable outcomes, and fearlessly
forging the future to solve what's next.
Join me, Ed McNamara, as we meet thepeople and businesses driving change
in our constantly disruptive world.
(00:42):
This is Innovation Heroes, apodcast brought to you by SHI.
Some people set out to innovate,for others, innovation finds them.
That's exactly what happenedto Elizabeth Bieniuk.
In 2015, Elizabeth's career took anunexpected turn when she found herself
thrust into a new role at her company.
(01:03):
She was assigned the task ofidentifying the next big disruption
in video collaboration technology.
Then came the really hard part.
She had to figure out how to build it.
That technology is WebEx Hologram.
Released in 2021, WebEx Hologram wasthe first real time, photorealistic
holograph tool to transformhow businesses collaborate and
(01:25):
communicate in the digital age.
The technology combines augmentedreality and real time 3D holographic
projection to create lifelikerepresentations of meeting participants.
It breaks down geographical barriersand allows teams to collaborate
as if they were in the same room,enhancing connection and creativity.
while maintaining the nuancesof in person communication.
(01:47):
Today, Elizabeth uses the lessonsshe learned from leading the
development of this revolutionarytechnology to help other businesses
innovate in their own industry.
Hi, Elizabeth, and welcometo Innovation Heroes.
Hi, Ed.
I love talking about this topic.
Awesome.
It's something that we've alllearned a lot more about in the
last few years, but take 2015.
(02:07):
You know, what were you doingat Cisco, and how did you get
started on WebEx Hologram?
I was actually working instrategic partnerships.
So it was focused on some of the bigalliances that our company had with
other large tech giants and looking athow can we do things better together.
But my, my then boss at the timeoversaw all of our corporate
strategy for this organization.
And, uh, basically he and I had anargument one morning, grabbing a cup
(02:32):
of coffee, and I just was feeling alittle cheeky and started asking like,
Why do we do our strategy this way?
This doesn't, it's too short term.
We're not going outside.
Like, why do we do this?
Can't we do this better?
Right.
And
he flipped the script on me a littlebit and kind of gave me the challenge
of, well, if you're going to bringup a problem, bring up a solution.
So if you think you cando it better, show me.
(02:52):
And we had a good relationship.
He gave me a littlerunway to go check it out.
You know, when we're talking about,um, you know, office collaboration
tools, it struck me that this was2015 when everybody's, you know,
usually in the office or you'redialing into conference calls.
Like, When you went to developthis technology, it wasn't like
(03:13):
we had had a couple of years ofall sitting there using various
technologies for remote conferencing.
Like, do you think that was anadvantage in some ways that you didn't
have all of this, you know, userexperience that you had to kind of
live up to or judge yourself against?
Absolutely.
I think the naivety for myselfand just for the user base was
(03:34):
both a plus in this scenario.
Uh, it was still the era wheremost people were in the office.
Most of the remote collaborationwas done with people who were
geographically separated.
So you're working with yourpartners or extended team in a
different country or geography.
And audio calls.
Were, or the status quo, we were reallypushing video conferencing at the time.
And that was the focus for Cisco WebEx,but there was still a large percentage
(03:57):
of people that didn't turn on video,even when that feature was available.
So audio was king.
So in terms of holographic video, youknow, you go on this journey to find
the next big collaboration technology.
And did you even know itwas going to be holographic?
How did you, how didyou get to that point?
Yeah, I started with a really open charterof what should we be looking at for
the future, and I wanted to get out ofthe normal corporate strategy approach,
(04:22):
which is looking at your tangentialimprovements in the next two, three years,
and really think what's really out there.
What's the fringe tech right now?
What is, if I'm looking 15 years fromnow, how I think collaboration should be?
If I start from thatperspective, what changes?
And I spent a lot of time getting outsideof our proverbial and physical four
(04:45):
walls and going to a lot of conferences,going to startup accelerators and
incubators, doing all the, all theconferences that had the expo floors
that you can go and try the demos andanybody from anywhere, I'll try your demo.
And that really did start pointing metowards augmented reality specifically
of just seeing a lot of clunky,but great potential on the tech.
(05:09):
I think what was really interesting aboutit is the amazing thing about augmented
reality versus virtual reality, and bothof them have their, their own applications
and both are amazing in their own way.
But with augmented reality, it'sthe fact that you're not blocking
out your physical world, you'reenhancing your physical world.
I think that's what was most compellingof putting on a headset and then
(05:30):
it's not only do I see everythingI just did, but now I see more,
and it, it kind of opens up that.
Possibility in your mind of whoa, Ican have information at my fingertips.
I can augment my experience.
I can curate my experience tobe basically a superhuman here.
(05:51):
I can add more to this and that.
For somebody that works in innovationis excited about possibility.
That's huge because yourmind just starts going.
And I talk a lot about the, thehuman centric side of technology,
the people first approach.
And for me, it was really about what'sthe experience you're trying to create.
This was.
Pre pandemic.
(06:11):
This was before video conferencingbecame the status quo for everybody.
And it was still, like I said, a lotof people didn't want to turn on the
video, but we're all trying to solvethis problem of if you're here in
San Jose and you've got a partnerin Norway, how are you having that
conversation and feeling like you're.
That's hard on an audio conference andvideo improves it some but you still
(06:35):
have that awareness that I'm here You'rethere and there's a screen in between us.
Is there a way to bring people together?
And that's what augmented realityreally had the potential to break
down that that perceived barrier.
I started Like I said, honing inon augmented reality and had those
conversations with my boss andhe agreed, like, yes, this, this
definitely has the potential to disrupt.
(06:55):
Let's, let's go deep here.
And so I started doing more research inthat space and let's just start there.
So clearly you had to build a team.
Like, you know, what, whatwas your strategy there?
You, you've talked about somethingthat's called, uh, good peopling.
What does that mean?
And, and how did, howdid you build that out?
Good peopling is the phraseologymy husband and I use every time
we're talking about this, because,you know, you always end up.
(07:16):
Chatting a bit about your workscenarios and what you're facing.
And we would have our afternoonbreak and just kind of talk
through some of the stuff.
And we just started using that phraseologyof like, well, that's just bad peopling.
And then all the time, somebody else dosomething, well, that's good peopling.
And so it was, it was our way todescribe of is the leader of that
(07:38):
team or organization or effort.
Are they taking full advantageof the people that are on it?
And are they putting things togetherin a common sense way that people
want to rally behind that cause?
Are they being a jerk?
Are they putting
people first?
And like I said, I'm very big on puttingpeople first, everything is people
centric, life is driven by relationships,technology is driven by relationships.
(08:00):
So any time that you're thinkingabout Tech first, people
second, it's not going to work.
So when you're focused on peoplefirst, how does the tech support
that that's going to work?
And so that's how thegood people in came about.
And, and I guess because you're, you're,you're human centric, what kind of
skills that people need to have forthis very unique, you know, project?
(08:22):
I mean, you're, you're buildingsomething that's human centric.
It can't just be somebody who's like,you know, I just like to be speeds and
feeds and I'll put my head down andyou know, it must have really needed
to be like, A bunch of differentaptitudes across everybody on the team.
Is that fair?
Yeah.
We had a small team, like we call itthe, the, if you use the Steve Jobs
terms, the two, two pizza box team.
(08:43):
And I've tried to look at it as ifthis were my company and I was running
this as a startup venture, who doI need and staff it accordingly.
So even though it was runas an engineering stealth
project out of our CTO office.
I had business development, I had userexperience, I had operations, I had
(09:03):
UX, I had, I had a lot of different,um, pieces that you would see as part
of a whole company or a whole startupventure, not just core engineering.
Because if we just had great tech,but didn't know How to pitch it even
internally or market it or sell it ormake deal with those user experiences.
(09:25):
It was not going to be successfulbecause you had to treat this as
we are a startup trying to getVC funding for a new venture.
It just so happens to bewe're inside of a big company.
From a psychology standpoint, likewhen you were going to develop this,
like, was there really a considerationof like, what will people believe?
What are they comfortable with?
Did that have to be considered?
And where did that start if it did?
(09:46):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
We, we started.
Absolutely.
With the user experience of whatare we trying to accomplish here?
And you couldn't start with the tech.
I mean, it was the idea of augmentedreality that got me excited about, ooh,
we could create a different experience.
But then it became 100 percentabout the experience, what the
experience we're trying to create.
And what we really wanted to go for isIf I'm here and you're there, can we
(10:08):
create that feeling of being together?
That feeling when you're in aroom together, you're sharing
a coffee, you're, you're just,you're just catching up, getting
to know somebody, building rapport.
Can you recreate that experiencewhen you're geographically separated?
And audio's not cutting that,video's not cutting that.
It's an improvement for sure, butyou're still, you're aware that
you're not physically together.
(10:29):
Can you eliminate that barrier and almostin a way trick your brain into thinking
that you are together with that person?
At some point, there's going to bea prototype phase, you know, um,
what were the biggest challengesyou had in building the prototype?
And was there ever a moment whenyou thought, wow, can we do this?
The whole startup of the initial thing,like you're trying to try to sell this
(10:51):
idea to your executive team of like.
This is awesome.
And we know exactlywhat we're trying to do.
And this is the visionand yes, we can do this.
And at the same time thinking like, wedon't know if we can do this because
nobody's done it before and we think thisis true, but until we actually get some
people on there and try it, we don't know.
So part of it is it's, it'sthe fake it till you make it.
You gotta, you have to have the excitementand the confidence of this is where we're
going and yes, we're going to hit this.
(11:11):
No problem.
At the same time, you'regoing in uncharted waters.
You just simply don't know.
So, you're trying to find that balancebetween bravado and, and reality.
Bring your team along on that.
And it, it was interesting.
We, We definitely had somelearnings in the process because
it's, it is a new user experience.
(11:32):
We had some fun little examples thatcame out in the user testing of when
we, when we first started tryingthe experience on people that the
experience was pretty mind blowing.
People were like, Oh my gosh,I feel like this person's here,
but we, we were early stages.
So it was bare bones.
We didn't have a, howdo you start the call?
How do you end the call?
(11:52):
It's just, you just have theexperience in the middle.
Thrust right into it.
And we, we knew we had something on, onsome of those early user tests where you
end the call, and like I said, it was veryabrupt and people would literally jump.
They'd be like, where'd they go?
I was just talking tothis hologram in the room.
They're just like, they're gone.
Poof.
That's a weird, like, okay, we need to addsome, uh, some features here to make that
not so abrupt, but it really proved thepoint of we did find something different.
(12:17):
We did create that feeling of, oftogetherness because when you hang
up a video call, you don't have this.
Whoa, where'd they go?
You know, where they went.
Do you remember when you first, thefirst day that you looked at what
you had and you said, wow, we, thisis, this is what we're supposed to
be doing and this is going to be big.
Do you, do you remember,did you have an aha moment?
Uh, I did.
I, the end of that first four monthphase, when we, we hit our milestone,
(12:42):
we spent the last few weeks ofthat phase right before our, our
milestone was a demo to our executive.
And we spent the last few weeks, wewere constantly talking to the team
of like, we're, we're going for wow.
Like we don't want the response tojust like, Oh, okay, that's cool.
Like we want, wow.
And when we, we rehearsed everything, wehad like, when I walk in their room, this
(13:04):
is the experience they're going to have.
And we had an amazing obsoletethat's kind of like going through,
they're going to sit here andI'm going to bring them water.
And then we're going to walk from here.
I'm going to do the teeup story with these ones.
While these ones are doing the demo.
And then we're going todebrief with those ones.
Like, look, we scripted everything.
So we wanted to curate that experienceso you could control it from.
Start to finish.
(13:25):
And when our, our primary executivewalked out, um, walked into the
demo, put on the headset, did theexperience, his response was, holy shit.
That's when we knew like,we have something here.
We got to wow.
I love that this new technologyis designed for people to feel
(13:46):
like they're in a room together.
And when you demoed it, you scripted outevery aspect of actually being in a room
with the person that you're showing it to.
Like, so like, at the end of the day,we're still people like meeting in
a room, you know, checking this out.
That is so cool and ironic and I love it.
The release happened in,in October of, of 2021.
(14:09):
And I think everybody, you know,pretty much has an idea of what
they were doing in October of 2021.
And it wasn't, it's a little bit morethan we had been in October of 2020,
but still, you know, um, depends onhow confident you felt in going out.
But when it was released during that time,you know, what was the market response
and, and kind of what was the customerreception to the, to the Webex hologram?
You know, the timing of the worldand what was occurring was very
(14:32):
interesting in this project.
Like we said, we started itway before remote collaboration
was on everybody's radar.
It was something thatcertain organizations did
it for certain use cases.
And during that time, when we wereseveral phases into the project, is when
COVID and the global pandemic and allof a sudden remote collaboration went
(14:55):
to the forefront of everyone's mind.
Um, and you hate to capitalize on a,uh, such a negative issue as that,
but it was great to be working on asolution to a problem that now became
much more apparent to a lot of people.
So at the time that we went public inOctober, 2021, everybody was looking at.
(15:17):
What's the best way for meto do remote collaboration?
And for some people that was simply, Hey,we never did video conferencing before.
And now we're doing videoconferencing and that's what we need.
That's all we need.
But for the specific use cases wewere going after, when you're really
trying to build something with someoneon the other side of the world, or
you're trying to review somethingthat has some multidimensionality
(15:38):
to it, and you need to see not just.
This piece in relation to that piece,but what does this look inside of that?
And how do we have that back and forthconversation as we're looking at the
content, those types of, of scenarios,it was a game changer to allow
people to have an option to have thattogetherness, that co creation experience
(16:00):
and be geographically separated.
So it was, it was a solutionwhose time had come.
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(16:22):
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(16:43):
that you and your people will love.
Did you give any anecdotal feedback aboutpeople who were just like, wow, it just
feels really great to feel like you're inanother room with, with coworkers again.
Did you, did you hear, didyou hear any of that back?
Do you have any, uh, good.
Good, good stories to share there.
Yeah.
I think that the use cases sidewas interesting because we tried
(17:04):
to keep it pretty limited, uh, of,we were trying to focus on remote
design and, and, um, remote creation,creation, design, and review.
Uh, but one of our, our customer feedbacksthat we started getting pretty regularly.
Was more than one company came backand saying they wanted to use this
for their, their, um, C suite hiring.
I thought that was reallyinteresting because the feedback
(17:27):
was really around that idea of it.
You have to see somebodyin person to build rapport.
And so a lot of times, a lot ofcompanies, they'll do the C suite hiring.
They might do a screening or a premeeting virtually, but then you're paying
to fly them on site, meet the team andreally get to know them because you're
trying to build trust very quickly.
And so it was reallyinteresting to see that.
(17:48):
More than one company came back to say,Hey, this, that feeling that you get
when you're in person with somebody,we're getting that feeling in these,
in these holographic conferences.
Like, and if we don't have to flythat person there and align schedules
perfectly such that we can geteverybody on the executive team at
the same time, it's like, that's huge.
That's a huge savings.
So I thought that was really interestingto see how, you know, we had one
(18:11):
idea of how you're going to use this.
experience of togetherness and copresence, but your customers are
always going to surprise you with othernew and innovative ways of using it.
After you left Cisco, you, youwrote a book called Cake on Tuesday.
Can you explain the title and thentalk about like some of the lessons
that you've learned throughout your.
career in corporate innovation.
Sure.
The full title is Cake on Tuesday, 25Lessons to Unlock Corporate Innovation.
(18:35):
And it is really meant to be a short,easy read that is a synopsis of all
my learnings over those, I think itwas eight years of this, this project.
It started as a bit of a, it'sjust self reflection, okay, we're
wrapping up, moving on in the next.
thing, postmortem for theproject, what worked, what didn't.
And I just started writing more andmore things down and realizing this
(19:01):
is, I learned a lot in this process.
And if I keep that all tomyself, that's kind of selfish.
So I bet this is going to helpsomebody else trying to do some sort
of crazy entrepreneurial venture,and maybe they can do things a little
bit faster, quicker, easier than me.
And that's why it, it sort of formeditself into a book, if you will.
And.
In hindsight, you know, looking back atsomething, your perspective was always
(19:24):
a bit different than when you're in it,going through it, and the book really
broke itself down in five sections of fivelessons each, and the first three sections
are largely about starting, inertia,persistence, moving the idea forward, how
do you unlock that action, which is whatled itself into the title, and then the
third I'm sorry, the fourth section is allabout persisting when it gets really hard.
(19:48):
Once you're past that buzz and excitementin the beginning and you're just trying
to make marginal improvements and clawevery inch forward, how do you keep going?
And then the fifth section is insightsfrom the rearview mirror, which is
again, those lessons you don't, youdon't see when you're in it, but looking
back you, you realize, okay, that,that was the takeaway I was supposed
to have gotten from that process.
(20:08):
Yeah, you mentioned just gettingstarted and Cisco is a big company.
Um, and, and it's not alwayseasy for, for big companies to
keep that, that startup mindset.
You know, how, how important was itthat they, they said, yes, we're going
to give you some, some tight deadlines.
But for the most part, youknow, we do know that you're
building this from scratch.
How do you keep that startupmindset as your company gets more
(20:29):
successful and obviously grows?
Yeah, it really helped having those shortphases with a significant deadline at
the end of each phase because it allowedthe leadership to say, Okay, we're going
to get something in this four monthsor six months, whatever this phase is,
I'm going to see the answer to X, it'sgoing to be yes, or it's going to be no.
So it gave them something clear enoughto say, All right, I can handle funding
(20:52):
this project for that period of timewith these resources and whatnot.
Uh, but for us in working on theteam, it gave us a clear and guiding
a milestone to get to of each.
The end of each phase was we're goingto live or die by this milestone.
And again, you're looking at it.
Like if you're a startup with VC funding,like I'm running out of my, this current
series, can I get the next series funding?
(21:13):
And if I don't have my proof point,I'm not going to get that funding.
So it really helped.
Keep that startup mentality of weare fighting for life every phase and
we have to prove our worth and thatwe're getting our accomplishments.
And if we miss something or something iswrong, or we prove that it's not possible,
like then we needed a story and we need topivot for what next and how do we do that?
(21:36):
And I think that's what helped it.
Uh, stay alive because the, theflip side of having that the short
phases is I was able to have a lotof freedom within those phases.
And, and that's something I talkedto our executive team about of, we're
trying to do something we've never donebefore, so it's going to look different.
than anything we've done before.
And some of it is like, you'regonna have to trust me a little bit.
(21:59):
And I will try to prove that why thattrust I'm being trustworthy with that.
And then if you trust me for thosefour months, I think I'll have
something pretty cool at the end.
And when we hit that first milestonethat garnered some trust for the next
phase, and then we hit that milestoneand garnered trust for the next phase.
So that allowed us to runit with some more autonomy.
When you are going throughuncharted waters, doing something
(22:20):
that no one's ever done before,there's going to be the naysayers.
And there's a point where you have tofind that balance between having wisdom
and many counselors, but realizing peoplecan't lead where they've never been.
So where do you find the balance betweenthe two and being careful who you Who
you're listening to and sometimes youhave to be your own cheerleader and kind
(22:40):
of move yourself forward through that,bring yourself through that process.
So there were a lot of times Iwould say when things got a little
dicey and I wasn't sure, but partof that being an umbrella and
a shield for your team is, is.
Protecting them from the noiseand allowing them to move forward.
And you're passing on the confidenceof, look, we're going to get there.
(23:01):
You might not know how you're going toget there, but you're passing on the
confidence with your team, we're goingto find a way because we did it before.
We're going to do it again.
And you don't have to bring them intothe details of every little thing
and every little threat of loss offunding, every little hiccup, you
have to shield your team from thatnoise so they can continue to execute.
And that's part of your job as theleader is figure out how you're
going to navigate that path.
Yeah.
Nothing shuts down innovationquite as quickly as, as, as
(23:24):
the fear of taking a chance.
Right.
I, I'd like to ask, you know,your opinion on, on the future.
I mean, I, I see, you know, that,that people are talking about in the,
in the future, you know, wheneverthat might be that, you know, there
might not be a need to have giantsports stadiums anymore because, you
know, everybody can, uh, can, can.
Just experience the exact same thing.
And like, you're sitting next to yourbuddy at an event and he might be
(23:46):
in one place and you're in another.
I mean, it can't, can it, can itget that, that, that great, we get
to get that big and that great.
I'm not, we're going to get realphilosophical if we go down this path,
be honest, because you start gettinginto, can the experience be better?
I mean, already just sitting at homeon your couch, watching a football
game, like you have a much better.
Vantage point than you do ifyou're at the game, right?
(24:08):
So many advantages to that and youcan see the replay and you can get the
close up and all that But people stillspend a lot of money to get tickets
to go to a ballgame to be right Frozenand stand out in the crowd and hungry
and see your feet sticking to the floorand whatever the case There's something
magical about when people come togetherso I, despite being in the technology
(24:32):
space, I don't think we will everreplace physical human connection.
I think there is a reason that we havestadiums and crowds and there's something
about when you bring people together,I mean, there's science behind this,
about you have enough people in the samespace, they start sinking their breathing
and heart rates, especially when peopledo something like singing together
or chanting at a game, like, there'sstuff there that you cannot replicate
(24:55):
with technology, at least right now.
Um, and I don't know if weever will, quite frankly, I
think there's a reason humans,
And I think that will always be there.
I just wanted to say, thank you so muchfor being with us again, Elizabeth for,
for listeners interested in learningmore about, you know, who you are and,
or would like to reach out, you know,what, what's the best place to find you?
(25:17):
Sure.
I have a website now, elizabethbjernyuk.
com.
You can also find me onLinkedIn at Elizabeth Bjernyuk.
I post daily.
They're most frequently recentlystarted an Instagram and X accounts
both at cake on Tuesday And of courseyou can find the book 25 lessons
to unlock corporate innovation.
It's available on Amazon BarnesNoble anywhere You find a book
awesome.
Well, you summed it up way betterthan I could have So I just want to
(25:38):
say a big thank you to Elizabeth forsharing her story and her innovation
philosophy Elizabeth's new book,Cake on Tuesday, 25 Lessons to Unlock
Corporate Innovation, is out now.
And until next time, keepinnovating, stay ahead of the curve.
For Innovation Heroesand SHI, I'm Ed McNamara.
We'll see you again in two weeks.
We knew we had something on,on some of those early user
tests where you end the call.
And like I said, it was very abruptand people would literally jump.
They'd be like, where'd they go?
I was just talking to this hologram in theroom and they're just like, they're gone.
Poof.
That's weird.
I'm like, okay, we need to add some, uh,some features here to make that not so
abrupt, but it really proved the pointof we did find something different.
(00:20):
We did create that feelingof, of togetherness.
In the world of technology,heroes are everywhere.
They're overcoming disruption, deliveringsustainable outcomes, and fearlessly
forging the future to solve what's next.
Join me, Ed McNamara, as we meet thepeople and businesses driving change
in our constantly disruptive world.
(00:42):
This is Innovation Heroes, apodcast brought to you by SHI.
Some people set out to innovate,for others, innovation finds them.
That's exactly what happenedto Elizabeth Bieniuk.
In 2015, Elizabeth's career took anunexpected turn when she found herself
thrust into a new role at her company.
(01:03):
She was assigned the task ofidentifying the next big disruption
in video collaboration technology.
Then came the really hard part.
She had to figure out how to build it.
That technology is WebEx Hologram.
Released in 2021, WebEx Hologram wasthe first real time, photorealistic
holograph tool to transformhow businesses collaborate and
(01:25):
communicate in the digital age.
The technology combines augmentedreality and real time 3D holographic
projection to create lifelikerepresentations of meeting participants.
It breaks down geographical barriersand allows teams to collaborate
as if they were in the same room,enhancing connection and creativity.
while maintaining the nuancesof in person communication.
(01:47):
Today, Elizabeth uses the lessonsshe learned from leading the
development of this revolutionarytechnology to help other businesses
innovate in their own industry.
Hi, Elizabeth, and welcometo Innovation Heroes.
Hi, Ed.
I love talking about this topic.
Awesome.
It's something that we've alllearned a lot more about in the
last few years, but take 2015.
(02:07):
You know, what were you doingat Cisco, and how did you get
started on WebEx Hologram?
I was actually working instrategic partnerships.
So it was focused on some of the bigalliances that our company had with
other large tech giants and looking athow can we do things better together.
But my, my then boss at the timeoversaw all of our corporate
strategy for this organization.
And, uh, basically he and I had anargument one morning, grabbing a cup
(02:32):
of coffee, and I just was feeling alittle cheeky and started asking like,
Why do we do our strategy this way?
This doesn't, it's too short term.
We're not going outside.
Like, why do we do this?
Can't we do this better?
Right.
And
he flipped the script on me a littlebit and kind of gave me the challenge
of, well, if you're going to bringup a problem, bring up a solution.
So if you think you cando it better, show me.
(02:52):
And we had a good relationship.
He gave me a littlerunway to go check it out.
You know, when we're talking about,um, you know, office collaboration
tools, it struck me that this was2015 when everybody's, you know,
usually in the office or you'redialing into conference calls.
Like, When you went to developthis technology, it wasn't like
(03:13):
we had had a couple of years ofall sitting there using various
technologies for remote conferencing.
Like, do you think that was anadvantage in some ways that you didn't
have all of this, you know, userexperience that you had to kind of
live up to or judge yourself against?
Absolutely.
I think the naivety for myselfand just for the user base was
(03:34):
both a plus in this scenario.
Uh, it was still the era wheremost people were in the office.
Most of the remote collaborationwas done with people who were
geographically separated.
So you're working with yourpartners or extended team in a
different country or geography.
And audio calls.
Were, or the status quo, we were reallypushing video conferencing at the time.
And that was the focus for Cisco WebEx,but there was still a large percentage
(03:57):
of people that didn't turn on video,even when that feature was available.
So audio was king.
So in terms of holographic video, youknow, you go on this journey to find
the next big collaboration technology.
And did you even know itwas going to be holographic?
How did you, how didyou get to that point?
Yeah, I started with a really open charterof what should we be looking at for
the future, and I wanted to get out ofthe normal corporate strategy approach,
(04:22):
which is looking at your tangentialimprovements in the next two, three years,
and really think what's really out there.
What's the fringe tech right now?
What is, if I'm looking 15 years fromnow, how I think collaboration should be?
If I start from thatperspective, what changes?
And I spent a lot of time getting outsideof our proverbial and physical four
(04:45):
walls and going to a lot of conferences,going to startup accelerators and
incubators, doing all the, all theconferences that had the expo floors
that you can go and try the demos andanybody from anywhere, I'll try your demo.
And that really did start pointing metowards augmented reality specifically
of just seeing a lot of clunky,but great potential on the tech.
(05:09):
I think what was really interesting aboutit is the amazing thing about augmented
reality versus virtual reality, and bothof them have their, their own applications
and both are amazing in their own way.
But with augmented reality, it'sthe fact that you're not blocking
out your physical world, you'reenhancing your physical world.
I think that's what was most compellingof putting on a headset and then
(05:30):
it's not only do I see everythingI just did, but now I see more,
and it, it kind of opens up that.
Possibility in your mind of whoa, Ican have information at my fingertips.
I can augment my experience.
I can curate my experience tobe basically a superhuman here.
(05:51):
I can add more to this and that.
For somebody that works in innovationis excited about possibility.
That's huge because yourmind just starts going.
And I talk a lot about the, thehuman centric side of technology,
the people first approach.
And for me, it was really about what'sthe experience you're trying to create.
This was.
Pre pandemic.
(06:11):
This was before video conferencingbecame the status quo for everybody.
And it was still, like I said, a lotof people didn't want to turn on the
video, but we're all trying to solvethis problem of if you're here in
San Jose and you've got a partnerin Norway, how are you having that
conversation and feeling like you're.
That's hard on an audio conference andvideo improves it some but you still
(06:35):
have that awareness that I'm here You'rethere and there's a screen in between us.
Is there a way to bring people together?
And that's what augmented realityreally had the potential to break
down that that perceived barrier.
I started Like I said, honing inon augmented reality and had those
conversations with my boss andhe agreed, like, yes, this, this
definitely has the potential to disrupt.
(06:55):
Let's, let's go deep here.
And so I started doing more research inthat space and let's just start there.
So clearly you had to build a team.
Like, you know, what, whatwas your strategy there?
You, you've talked about somethingthat's called, uh, good peopling.
What does that mean?
And, and how did, howdid you build that out?
Good peopling is the phraseologymy husband and I use every time
we're talking about this, because,you know, you always end up.
(07:16):
Chatting a bit about your workscenarios and what you're facing.
And we would have our afternoonbreak and just kind of talk
through some of the stuff.
And we just started using that phraseologyof like, well, that's just bad peopling.
And then all the time, somebody else dosomething, well, that's good peopling.
And so it was, it was our way todescribe of is the leader of that
(07:38):
team or organization or effort.
Are they taking full advantageof the people that are on it?
And are they putting things togetherin a common sense way that people
want to rally behind that cause?
Are they being a jerk?
Are they putting
people first?
And like I said, I'm very big on puttingpeople first, everything is people
centric, life is driven by relationships,technology is driven by relationships.
(08:00):
So any time that you're thinkingabout Tech first, people
second, it's not going to work.
So when you're focused on peoplefirst, how does the tech support
that that's going to work?
And so that's how thegood people in came about.
And, and I guess because you're, you're,you're human centric, what kind of
skills that people need to have forthis very unique, you know, project?
(08:22):
I mean, you're, you're buildingsomething that's human centric.
It can't just be somebody who's like,you know, I just like to be speeds and
feeds and I'll put my head down andyou know, it must have really needed
to be like, A bunch of differentaptitudes across everybody on the team.
Is that fair?
Yeah.
We had a small team, like we call itthe, the, if you use the Steve Jobs
terms, the two, two pizza box team.
(08:43):
And I've tried to look at it as ifthis were my company and I was running
this as a startup venture, who doI need and staff it accordingly.
So even though it was runas an engineering stealth
project out of our CTO office.
I had business development, I had userexperience, I had operations, I had
(09:03):
UX, I had, I had a lot of different,um, pieces that you would see as part
of a whole company or a whole startupventure, not just core engineering.
Because if we just had great tech,but didn't know How to pitch it even
internally or market it or sell it ormake deal with those user experiences.
(09:25):
It was not going to be successfulbecause you had to treat this as
we are a startup trying to getVC funding for a new venture.
It just so happens to bewe're inside of a big company.
From a psychology standpoint, likewhen you were going to develop this,
like, was there really a considerationof like, what will people believe?
What are they comfortable with?
Did that have to be considered?
And where did that start if it did?
(09:46):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
We, we started.
Absolutely.
With the user experience of whatare we trying to accomplish here?
And you couldn't start with the tech.
I mean, it was the idea of augmentedreality that got me excited about, ooh,
we could create a different experience.
But then it became 100 percentabout the experience, what the
experience we're trying to create.
And what we really wanted to go for isIf I'm here and you're there, can we
(10:08):
create that feeling of being together?
That feeling when you're in aroom together, you're sharing
a coffee, you're, you're just,you're just catching up, getting
to know somebody, building rapport.
Can you recreate that experiencewhen you're geographically separated?
And audio's not cutting that,video's not cutting that.
It's an improvement for sure, butyou're still, you're aware that
you're not physically together.
(10:29):
Can you eliminate that barrier and almostin a way trick your brain into thinking
that you are together with that person?
At some point, there's going to bea prototype phase, you know, um,
what were the biggest challengesyou had in building the prototype?
And was there ever a moment whenyou thought, wow, can we do this?
The whole startup of the initial thing,like you're trying to try to sell this
(10:51):
idea to your executive team of like.
This is awesome.
And we know exactlywhat we're trying to do.
And this is the visionand yes, we can do this.
And at the same time thinking like, wedon't know if we can do this because
nobody's done it before and we think thisis true, but until we actually get some
people on there and try it, we don't know.
So part of it is it's, it'sthe fake it till you make it.
You gotta, you have to have the excitementand the confidence of this is where we're
going and yes, we're going to hit this.
(11:11):
No problem.
At the same time, you'regoing in uncharted waters.
You just simply don't know.
So, you're trying to find that balancebetween bravado and, and reality.
Bring your team along on that.
And it, it was interesting.
We, We definitely had somelearnings in the process because
it's, it is a new user experience.
(11:32):
We had some fun little examples thatcame out in the user testing of when
we, when we first started tryingthe experience on people that the
experience was pretty mind blowing.
People were like, Oh my gosh,I feel like this person's here,
but we, we were early stages.
So it was bare bones.
We didn't have a, howdo you start the call?
How do you end the call?
(11:52):
It's just, you just have theexperience in the middle.
Thrust right into it.
And we, we knew we had something on, onsome of those early user tests where you
end the call, and like I said, it was veryabrupt and people would literally jump.
They'd be like, where'd they go?
I was just talking tothis hologram in the room.
They're just like, they're gone.
Poof.
That's a weird, like, okay, we need to addsome, uh, some features here to make that
not so abrupt, but it really proved thepoint of we did find something different.
(12:17):
We did create that feeling of, oftogetherness because when you hang
up a video call, you don't have this.
Whoa, where'd they go?
You know, where they went.
Do you remember when you first, thefirst day that you looked at what
you had and you said, wow, we, thisis, this is what we're supposed to
be doing and this is going to be big.
Do you, do you remember,did you have an aha moment?
Uh, I did.
I, the end of that first four monthphase, when we, we hit our milestone,
(12:42):
we spent the last few weeks ofthat phase right before our, our
milestone was a demo to our executive.
And we spent the last few weeks, wewere constantly talking to the team
of like, we're, we're going for wow.
Like we don't want the response tojust like, Oh, okay, that's cool.
Like we want, wow.
And when we, we rehearsed everything, wehad like, when I walk in their room, this
(13:04):
is the experience they're going to have.
And we had an amazing obsoletethat's kind of like going through,
they're going to sit here andI'm going to bring them water.
And then we're going to walk from here.
I'm going to do the teeup story with these ones.
While these ones are doing the demo.
And then we're going todebrief with those ones.
Like, look, we scripted everything.
So we wanted to curate that experienceso you could control it from.
Start to finish.
(13:25):
And when our, our primary executivewalked out, um, walked into the
demo, put on the headset, did theexperience, his response was, holy shit.
That's when we knew like,we have something here.
We got to wow.
I love that this new technologyis designed for people to feel
(13:46):
like they're in a room together.
And when you demoed it, you scripted outevery aspect of actually being in a room
with the person that you're showing it to.
Like, so like, at the end of the day,we're still people like meeting in
a room, you know, checking this out.
That is so cool and ironic and I love it.
The release happened in,in October of, of 2021.
(14:09):
And I think everybody, you know,pretty much has an idea of what
they were doing in October of 2021.
And it wasn't, it's a little bit morethan we had been in October of 2020,
but still, you know, um, depends onhow confident you felt in going out.
But when it was released during that time,you know, what was the market response
and, and kind of what was the customerreception to the, to the Webex hologram?
You know, the timing of the worldand what was occurring was very
(14:32):
interesting in this project.
Like we said, we started itway before remote collaboration
was on everybody's radar.
It was something thatcertain organizations did
it for certain use cases.
And during that time, when we wereseveral phases into the project, is when
COVID and the global pandemic and allof a sudden remote collaboration went
(14:55):
to the forefront of everyone's mind.
Um, and you hate to capitalize on a,uh, such a negative issue as that,
but it was great to be working on asolution to a problem that now became
much more apparent to a lot of people.
So at the time that we went public inOctober, 2021, everybody was looking at.
(15:17):
What's the best way for meto do remote collaboration?
And for some people that was simply, Hey,we never did video conferencing before.
And now we're doing videoconferencing and that's what we need.
That's all we need.
But for the specific use cases wewere going after, when you're really
trying to build something with someoneon the other side of the world, or
you're trying to review somethingthat has some multidimensionality
(15:38):
to it, and you need to see not just.
This piece in relation to that piece,but what does this look inside of that?
And how do we have that back and forthconversation as we're looking at the
content, those types of, of scenarios,it was a game changer to allow
people to have an option to have thattogetherness, that co creation experience
(16:00):
and be geographically separated.
So it was, it was a solutionwhose time had come.
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(16:22):
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(16:43):
that you and your people will love.
Did you give any anecdotal feedback aboutpeople who were just like, wow, it just
feels really great to feel like you're inanother room with, with coworkers again.
Did you, did you hear, didyou hear any of that back?
Do you have any, uh, good.
Good, good stories to share there.
Yeah.
I think that the use cases sidewas interesting because we tried
(17:04):
to keep it pretty limited, uh, of,we were trying to focus on remote
design and, and, um, remote creation,creation, design, and review.
Uh, but one of our, our customer feedbacksthat we started getting pretty regularly.
Was more than one company came backand saying they wanted to use this
for their, their, um, C suite hiring.
I thought that was reallyinteresting because the feedback
(17:27):
was really around that idea of it.
You have to see somebodyin person to build rapport.
And so a lot of times, a lot ofcompanies, they'll do the C suite hiring.
They might do a screening or a premeeting virtually, but then you're paying
to fly them on site, meet the team andreally get to know them because you're
trying to build trust very quickly.
And so it was reallyinteresting to see that.
(17:48):
More than one company came back to say,Hey, this, that feeling that you get
when you're in person with somebody,we're getting that feeling in these,
in these holographic conferences.
Like, and if we don't have to flythat person there and align schedules
perfectly such that we can geteverybody on the executive team at
the same time, it's like, that's huge.
That's a huge savings.
So I thought that was really interestingto see how, you know, we had one
(18:11):
idea of how you're going to use this.
experience of togetherness and copresence, but your customers are
always going to surprise you with othernew and innovative ways of using it.
After you left Cisco, you, youwrote a book called Cake on Tuesday.
Can you explain the title and thentalk about like some of the lessons
that you've learned throughout your.
career in corporate innovation.
Sure.
The full title is Cake on Tuesday, 25Lessons to Unlock Corporate Innovation.
(18:35):
And it is really meant to be a short,easy read that is a synopsis of all
my learnings over those, I think itwas eight years of this, this project.
It started as a bit of a, it'sjust self reflection, okay, we're
wrapping up, moving on in the next.
thing, postmortem for theproject, what worked, what didn't.
And I just started writing more andmore things down and realizing this
(19:01):
is, I learned a lot in this process.
And if I keep that all tomyself, that's kind of selfish.
So I bet this is going to helpsomebody else trying to do some sort
of crazy entrepreneurial venture,and maybe they can do things a little
bit faster, quicker, easier than me.
And that's why it, it sort of formeditself into a book, if you will.
And.
In hindsight, you know, looking back atsomething, your perspective was always
(19:24):
a bit different than when you're in it,going through it, and the book really
broke itself down in five sections of fivelessons each, and the first three sections
are largely about starting, inertia,persistence, moving the idea forward, how
do you unlock that action, which is whatled itself into the title, and then the
third I'm sorry, the fourth section is allabout persisting when it gets really hard.
(19:48):
Once you're past that buzz and excitementin the beginning and you're just trying
to make marginal improvements and clawevery inch forward, how do you keep going?
And then the fifth section is insightsfrom the rearview mirror, which is
again, those lessons you don't, youdon't see when you're in it, but looking
back you, you realize, okay, that,that was the takeaway I was supposed
to have gotten from that process.
(20:08):
Yeah, you mentioned just gettingstarted and Cisco is a big company.
Um, and, and it's not alwayseasy for, for big companies to
keep that, that startup mindset.
You know, how, how important was itthat they, they said, yes, we're going
to give you some, some tight deadlines.
But for the most part, youknow, we do know that you're
building this from scratch.
How do you keep that startupmindset as your company gets more
(20:29):
successful and obviously grows?
Yeah, it really helped having those shortphases with a significant deadline at
the end of each phase because it allowedthe leadership to say, Okay, we're going
to get something in this four monthsor six months, whatever this phase is,
I'm going to see the answer to X, it'sgoing to be yes, or it's going to be no.
So it gave them something clear enoughto say, All right, I can handle funding
(20:52):
this project for that period of timewith these resources and whatnot.
Uh, but for us in working on theteam, it gave us a clear and guiding
a milestone to get to of each.
The end of each phase was we're goingto live or die by this milestone.
And again, you're looking at it.
Like if you're a startup with VC funding,like I'm running out of my, this current
series, can I get the next series funding?
(21:13):
And if I don't have my proof point,I'm not going to get that funding.
So it really helped.
Keep that startup mentality of weare fighting for life every phase and
we have to prove our worth and thatwe're getting our accomplishments.
And if we miss something or something iswrong, or we prove that it's not possible,
like then we needed a story and we need topivot for what next and how do we do that?
(21:36):
And I think that's what helped it.
Uh, stay alive because the, theflip side of having that the short
phases is I was able to have a lotof freedom within those phases.
And, and that's something I talkedto our executive team about of, we're
trying to do something we've never donebefore, so it's going to look different.
than anything we've done before.
And some of it is like, you'regonna have to trust me a little bit.
(21:59):
And I will try to prove that why thattrust I'm being trustworthy with that.
And then if you trust me for thosefour months, I think I'll have
something pretty cool at the end.
And when we hit that first milestonethat garnered some trust for the next
phase, and then we hit that milestoneand garnered trust for the next phase.
So that allowed us to runit with some more autonomy.
When you are going throughuncharted waters, doing something
(22:20):
that no one's ever done before,there's going to be the naysayers.
And there's a point where you have tofind that balance between having wisdom
and many counselors, but realizing peoplecan't lead where they've never been.
So where do you find the balance betweenthe two and being careful who you Who
you're listening to and sometimes youhave to be your own cheerleader and kind
(22:40):
of move yourself forward through that,bring yourself through that process.
So there were a lot of times Iwould say when things got a little
dicey and I wasn't sure, but partof that being an umbrella and
a shield for your team is, is.
Protecting them from the noiseand allowing them to move forward.
And you're passing on the confidenceof, look, we're going to get there.
(23:01):
You might not know how you're going toget there, but you're passing on the
confidence with your team, we're goingto find a way because we did it before.
We're going to do it again.
And you don't have to bring them intothe details of every little thing
and every little threat of loss offunding, every little hiccup, you
have to shield your team from thatnoise so they can continue to execute.
And that's part of your job as theleader is figure out how you're
going to navigate that path.
Yeah.
Nothing shuts down innovationquite as quickly as, as, as
(23:24):
the fear of taking a chance.
Right.
I, I'd like to ask, you know,your opinion on, on the future.
I mean, I, I see, you know, that,that people are talking about in the,
in the future, you know, wheneverthat might be that, you know, there
might not be a need to have giantsports stadiums anymore because, you
know, everybody can, uh, can, can.
Just experience the exact same thing.
And like, you're sitting next to yourbuddy at an event and he might be
(23:46):
in one place and you're in another.
I mean, it can't, can it, can itget that, that, that great, we get
to get that big and that great.
I'm not, we're going to get realphilosophical if we go down this path,
be honest, because you start gettinginto, can the experience be better?
I mean, already just sitting at homeon your couch, watching a football
game, like you have a much better.
Vantage point than you do ifyou're at the game, right?
(24:08):
So many advantages to that and youcan see the replay and you can get the
close up and all that But people stillspend a lot of money to get tickets
to go to a ballgame to be right Frozenand stand out in the crowd and hungry
and see your feet sticking to the floorand whatever the case There's something
magical about when people come togetherso I, despite being in the technology
(24:32):
space, I don't think we will everreplace physical human connection.
I think there is a reason that we havestadiums and crowds and there's something
about when you bring people together,I mean, there's science behind this,
about you have enough people in the samespace, they start sinking their breathing
and heart rates, especially when peopledo something like singing together
or chanting at a game, like, there'sstuff there that you cannot replicate
(24:55):
with technology, at least right now.
Um, and I don't know if weever will, quite frankly, I
think there's a reason humans,
And I think that will always be there.
I just wanted to say, thank you so muchfor being with us again, Elizabeth for,
for listeners interested in learningmore about, you know, who you are and,
or would like to reach out, you know,what, what's the best place to find you?
(25:17):
Sure.
I have a website now, elizabethbjernyuk.
com.
You can also find me onLinkedIn at Elizabeth Bjernyuk.
I post daily.
They're most frequently recentlystarted an Instagram and X accounts
both at cake on Tuesday And of courseyou can find the book 25 lessons
to unlock corporate innovation.
It's available on Amazon BarnesNoble anywhere You find a book
awesome.
Well, you summed it up way betterthan I could have So I just want to
(25:38):
say a big thank you to Elizabeth forsharing her story and her innovation
philosophy Elizabeth's new book,Cake on Tuesday, 25 Lessons to Unlock
Corporate Innovation, is out now.
And until next time, keepinnovating, stay ahead of the curve.
For Innovation Heroesand SHI, I'm Ed McNamara.
We'll see you again in two weeks.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.