May 7, 2025 • 38 mins
Elizabeth Bieniek takes us on a fascinating journey from aspiring creative writer to tech innovator, challenging our assumptions about career paths and technology's purpose along the way. With refreshing candor and New York-style directness, she reveals how her English degree and outsider perspective became unexpected assets in the tech world.
At the heart of our conversation lies a powerful message: technology should connect humans, not separate them. This principle guided Elizabeth's development of WebEx Hologram at Cisco – a groundbreaking system designed to create genuine feelings of co-presence across geographic distances. Rather than beginning with technical capabilities, she started by asking how to solve real human problems, like helping remote participants feel included in meetings or enabling better understanding of three-dimensional objects.
What's particularly inspiring about Elizabeth's story is her approach to innovation within a corporate environment. Rather than waiting for permission, she created opportunities by attending conferences, exploring demos, and presenting solutions that addressed business needs her leadership hadn't yet recognized. When given a small opening, she "took a mile" – leveraging curiosity and initiative to transform ideas into reality.
After eight years leading this venture, Elizabeth captured her insights in "Cake on Tuesday: 25 Lessons to Unlock Corporate Innovation." The playful title references her team's practice of deliberately incorporating joy into the development process – including a "Wheel of Winning" where team members could win cake deliveries during challenging phases.
Today, Elizabeth helps organizations that are successful in one area but need to evolve to remain competitive. Her advice is refreshingly practical: keep innovations simple, celebrate progress rather than fixating on what's left to do, and never underestimate the power of asking "why?" Her journey proves that with curiosity, initiative, and human-centered design principles, anyone – regardless of technical background – can become a successful innovator in today's digital landscape.
Ready to be inspired to bring more humanity and joy to your innovation journey? Listen now and discover how to unlock your creative potential while keeping people at the center of technological advancement.
Check out Cake on Tuesday: 25 Lessons to Unlock Corporate Innovation
This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital
changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I am so thrilled today on Mediascape to have
Elizabeth Bieniuk.
You have such an amazing,illustrious background as a
Fortune 100 leadership veteran,startup founder, a top 10 most
influential woman pioneer intechnology.
You've spoken at schools thatI've actually been exploring
(00:42):
with my daughter, which isreally exciting.
Spoken at schools that I'veactually been exploring with my
daughter, which is reallyexciting.
And one thing that I reallypick up on is that you are
human-centered in your approachto AI, and I think that's so
important to note, because Ialso am a firm believer and so
optimistic about the fact thatusing these tools gives us the
opportunity to be more human,but also that we need to have
humans in everything.
(01:04):
So, elizabeth, thank you forbeing here.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thank you for having me, annika.
I'm excited to be here and Ilove talking about that topic to
you of connecting humans.
When technology works toconnect humans, it's amazing,
like what we're doing right now,when it gets in the way of that
.
I think that's we've gone offthe rails of what the purpose of
technology is for?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, and obviously we're talking before we jumped
on.
I teach grad school at USC.
We teach digital media.
Everything's changed since theprogram was created, you know,
even just a couple of years ago.
Then we started talking justabout generative AI and a few
tools.
Now we're talking about a lotof different tools that people
can use in their work streamsfor every part.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I have to say, by the way, you didn't make it easy on
yourself.
You picked a topic that youhave to redo the curriculum
pretty much every year.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, I don't have control over that, but I do have
control over our live sessionsand so that's where I get to
include all the good new stuff.
So I'd love to hear a littlebit about how you got to where
you are today, because I knowyour background you were in the
arts and writing, and thenbusiness and education.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, I'm happy to talk about that and I love
talking to people that feel likethey have to get it all figured
out and then, like I have tofind the right degree and the
right path and start with theright job and my path and
trajectory are set.
Because it's really not.
I'm in my 40s and I'm stilltrying to figure out what I want
to be when I grow up, and Ithink that's part of life,
definitely.
I'm a firm believer in the ideathat it's a journey, not a
(02:32):
destination, and I don't everwant to feel as if I've arrived,
I'm done, because that's whenthings get boring you always
want to be learning and doingnew things.
So my own background, myundergrad, is in English.
I was very firmly believing Iwas going to pursue creative
writing as my career andobviously I have not done that.
I am hoping to still continueto dabble in that space.
(02:57):
But I fell in love withbusiness and ended up making a
bit of a hard pivot.
I even took all the.
I took the GRE, was ready to gopursue my MFA in fine arts and
then it's like, no, no, I wantto go into business.
And like, oh man, now I got totake a GMAT, got to take a
different test, so I had to gothrough that different route and
pursued business instead and Ithink I just loved.
(03:18):
I loved the idea of the waybusinesses work.
I went to Babson for my master'sand that's a school that builds
reputation on entrepreneurshipand I always have been
fascinated with the concept ofentrepreneurship.
My mom owned a small art studio.
My dad worked for a two-mancomputer office.
For a while.
(03:38):
There was very small businessesand I always thought I was
going to go that route.
But again, life doesn't usuallywork out exactly the way you
planned.
So I ended up working for avery large company in the
Fortune 100.
And then I had an opportunityto build a startup inside of
that.
So I ended up having aentrepreneurial journey.
I don't think I even knew theterm entrepreneur before, but it
(04:02):
was a way to explore thoseentrepreneurial vibes inside of
large organization and thatbrings a whole other set of
challenges.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I can only imagine.
I have not.
I've been adjacent to largeorganizations my entire career,
but I want to talk about thatbecause you were the co-founder
of WebEx Hologram for Cisco.
So talk about moving thisthrough and getting into
business, and thenentrepreneurship which I will
(04:36):
also say a lot of our studentsare entrepreneurs in their
larger corporations and thengetting into technology in a
deep way because that wasn'tyour background.
So how did you come to thepassion for that?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
It was slow, it took a while to get a passion for it,
I think, honestly, my husband,by training, was a biomedical
engineer and I used to alwaysjoke that I married the engineer
.
I wasn't the engineer, but wemade a cross-country move.
We were in Boston at the timeand moved to San Jose for
opportunities for his work, as Iwas finishing up grad school
(05:07):
and I didn't know anybody in SanJose.
It was a new place, a new partof the world, and we were just
really exploring and I didactually my last two classes
from Babson, correspondence fromCalifornia, which was a great
experience too.
I really appreciated theflexibility back when.
That was less common when I wasgraduating from school than it
(05:28):
is now.
But at the time I just reachedout to my alma mater alumni
network and trying to findconnections in the area and some
of it was just you know whatneighborhoods do we rent an
apartment in?
Where do we go grocery shop?
It wasn't even necessarilycareer advice, but I ended up
finding several people that hadgraduated from Babson who were
working at Cisco, which inhindsight is not surprising.
(05:49):
Big school, big company.
It made sense.
But after speaking to, I think,five different people that were
from Babson that were at Cisco.
I was really saying, wow,there's quite a diversity of
roles here.
And I was talking to onegentleman in particular who he
was in a corporate learning andcorporate training function
inside of Cisco and had been formany years I think he was there
(06:10):
for like 20 some odd years andI was just chatting with him
about what I was looking forafter I graduated and he
recommended he's like why don'tyou apply here?
And I think I laughed actuallywhen he said that I was like no,
no, no, I'm not a technologyperson.
This is not my undergrad's inEnglish, this is not my world.
And he kind of laughed back atme.
He's like do you think there'sonly engineers here?
He's like how big is thiscompany?
(06:32):
He's like look at what I do.
I focus on corporate training.
He's like I'm not an engineereither and I've made an.
He floated around internally.
I am getting a call fromsomebody and, long story short,
I ended up with a role there atCisco which was not my original
plan or intent and I think Ispent the first several years
(06:55):
there saying I'm not atechnology person and I had
roles in different capacities.
I worked in finance andoperations, portfolio management
and things that were technologyadjacent, I would say.
But just being around it I gotmore and more entrenched in
understanding the world oftechnology and I had a great
opportunity to move into a role,just being aware that career
(07:18):
paths don't often follow thetrajectory you think, and
sometimes opportunities come inthe weirdest ways.
I ended up getting anopportunity to move from the
services side of theorganization into the product
side of the organization tobasically be the right hand
person to a woman that wasrunning operations for all of
video collaboration.
So she was the head of ops forthat and she was doing it solo.
(07:40):
It was a large organizationwe're talking like a 5,000
person organization, 5 billionannual revenue.
I mean, it's a big group.
She was doing it solo and justhad so much on her plate and so
she got approval to hire anotherrec and we knew some similar
people from previous roles.
We didn't know each other butit just somebody had recommended
me for that and we chatted andlike, oh, this could be a good
(08:00):
fit.
So she pulled me over to be herright hand in that and to kind
of train up to take some thingsoff of her blade.
The caveat, though, I didn'tknow until I met her in person
is she was eight weeks away fromgoing out maternity leave.
So she's like I'm going to giveyou a crash course in this and
you're going to cover while I'mout and then I'll come back and
(08:21):
then we'll, you know, we'llvy itup.
So it was eight weeks oflearning everything I possibly
could and I just had it in myhead okay, I just got to cover
this for a few months and thenyou know, we'll be back, we'll
do this.
Well, she decided she didn'twant to come back.
So opportunity presented itself.
I had that chance to then turnaround and go to my boss, who
(08:41):
was the senior vice president ofthat entire organization, and
say at this point, I think sheextended her maternity leave I
think it ended up being out forsix months and then decided she
wasn't going to come back.
So I had a conversation withhim and saying hey, you could
hire somebody brand new and takea gamble to take over this role
, or?
I've been doing this for sixmonths and it's been working
(09:03):
pretty well.
Why don't we have a chat aboutthis?
And so I sat down with, I camein with a presentation and I
showed him to you just like.
Here's what I've done.
I came prepared and he was agreat person to work for.
He was a very decisive leader,so we just walked out of that.
He's, like all, a reallyundersung role.
It's something that can mean alot of different things to
(09:23):
different people, but the beautyof operations is you usually
get to see how everything works.
You have a behind-the-scenesview of all facets of an
organization, not only thetechnology and the operations of
(09:46):
the business itself, but also,like the people dynamics.
So I had a seat at the tablewith the VPs for every business
organization, all the differentfunctions across the technology
group, and I really got a reallygreat view of how the entire
organization worked.
And I was still claiming I wasnot a technology person.
But after doing that for awhile, one thing led to another
and I was still claiming I wasnot a technology person.
(10:07):
After doing that for a while,one thing led to another and I
just we had any large company,the thing there's always reorgs,
there's always changes and thisand that, and we had some
change in management and thatsenior leader I was working for
ended up moving to a differentrole.
We had a new leadership come in.
I got slotted around, if youwill, into different roles.
I ended up being in more of astrategy role, working for the
(10:29):
new leadership.
And again, opportunity comes inunusual forms.
It was a new leader and newsenior team to this organization
from outside the company andthey were really looking for
people of who knows what's goingon the inner workings of this,
were really looking for peopleof who knows what's going on the
inner workings of this.
So, even though I was no longerin an operations role, the head
(10:50):
of the strategy andpartnerships kept tapping me to
say, hey, could you give me thebackstory in this, like tell me
what's going on here?
And he and I developed afriendship and he ended up
pulling me over to work in histeam and again, just new
opportunities there.
He was another great person Iwas fortunate enough to work for
in that I'm a very opinionatedperson, originally from New York
and I just speak my mind, so hewas very good and open to that.
(11:12):
If you had a new idea, he wouldjust take that.
Whatever you said is like sure,let's entertain that idea.
And we were having aconversation once.
One of the groups he oversawboth strategy partnerships
operations and I think there wasa fourth group once one of the
groups he oversaw both strategypartnerships operations.
And I think there was a fourthgroup and I was focusing on
strategic partnerships at thetime and he had another team
that was more corporate,traditional corporate strategy.
So a lot of people from theconsulting backgrounds you know
(11:35):
the big Ivy League schools andthey were working on their long
range strategic plan, which islike a three year plan looking
ahead, and my input was just totalk about the strategic
partnerships that I was managingat the time.
So I submitted my piece andthen kind of told to go away.
Well, we'll go behind thisclosed door and we'll crank out
this corporate strategy.
(11:55):
And I was having a coffee withmy boss who oversaw both those
teams at one point and I wascomplimenting with him like
giving him a hard time.
To be honest, just being mynormal New Yorker self of like
hey, why don I mean intechnology, three years is not
very long range.
And like, not to mention yourwhole team that's been doing
this.
They haven't left thatconference room in like three
(12:16):
weeks.
How strategic is it if they'renot talking to anybody outside
the company?
Because I was in a partnership,I spent all my time outside our
four walls.
I was really just being a bratand poking, but he was open to
it.
So he kind of flipped around.
He's like, all right, whatwould you do different?
And so I just rattled off acouple of things off the top of
my head and stuff.
(12:37):
And then he's like, all right,show me.
And so he gave me some time togo say, if I were to propose a
corporate strategy, what would Ipropose that the current team's
not doing?
And then, anytime somebodygives you an inch, take as much
as you can take a mile, take asmuch as you can take a mile.
So I went outside, I used mycurrent practice of just working
(12:58):
with other companies around theBay Area and just I expanded
that.
So I started going to all thelocal conferences.
I already had somerelationships from the startup
incubators and accelerators andlike I just started talking to
everybody who's investing inwhat, who's doing this, and I
would go to all the free expos.
A lot of times conferences canbe expensive but the expos could
be really cheap.
So I'd go to the free or cheapones and I would just go around
(13:19):
the floor and see all thevendors and see what am I seeing
again and again.
That gives you such a goodinsight into what's happening
and who's investing in what andwhat's up and coming.
I'd try all the demos.
This is back before COVID, sowe would just put on a headset,
put on whatever, just try allthe things.
And I came back to him with aproposal of like hey, here's
(13:39):
some areas that I think weshould focus on that we're not
looking at, and augmented andvirtual reality was one of them.
We were in the collaborationbusiness and we're not really
investing in this space and thishas the potential to hugely
disrupt the future of ourbusiness.
And one thing led to another.
It was just he's like go deeper.
And so I started talking tosome other companies in that and
(14:00):
coming back with if we were toinvest, here's where I think we
should invest.
If we were to build something,here's what I think we should
look at building.
If we're to partner, here'swhat I think we could do.
And it just kind of built fromthere and it ended up coming to
(14:29):
he wanted me to then present tothe management team on it.
So I spent quite a bit of seeand what we think we could do to
invest in this space and why weshould care.
And the ask at the time wasjust for some engineers, a small
tiger team, to look at thespace and what could we do.
And we got approval for thatand it ended up turning into a
(14:53):
small project.
That again just mentioning howlife was happening.
I was eight months pregnant atthe time with my first or second
kid and I was making a pitchfrom a strategy perspective of
we need to look at this space,we should care, so we should do
something here.
But it wasn't I want to dosomething here.
It's like someone should dosomething here.
(15:14):
I'm going to go have a baby.
So he got approval.
They formed a tiger team, putsomebody in charge.
There was a charter.
I left, had a baby, came back afew months later and found out
nothing had happened.
So I was really passionateabout it because I spent so much
time building the idea for it.
I was like why didn't anythinghappen?
And just finding out you knowcorporate things people had
(15:38):
moved around, priorities hadchanged, the person they put in
charge of it had too many otherconflicting priorities.
He was not really given a fairshake to move it forward and so
I took it back over and ended uppresenting it a few months
later back to the team Once Itook over the Tiger team, like
let's figure this out.
And then we came back with a hey, here's a few things we could
do here.
We could put a tow in, justkind of like, check out, see
(15:59):
what the water's nice.
Or we could go big and reallybuild something in the space, or
do something hybrid, somethingin between.
I learned in business schoolyou always give three scenarios,
three options, because they'llpick one.
And to my surprise they wantedto go big and that ended up
leading to a whole furtherproject of building out.
What would this look like?
And I can go further into that,but that's how it all started.
(16:23):
That's how it all came about.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
But there's a few things here that I think are
really interesting.
You know, you kept followingthe breadcrumbs, kept following
the opportunities that werepresented.
You obviously have inquisitivemind, right?
You want to keep learningdifferent things.
Why is still my favoritequestion?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I never grew out of that pace.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
And also it sounds like, even though it's a large
ecosystem, at Cisco that theygave room for people to bring
ideas for that innovation,creativity which you would
assume that you find in big techcompanies.
But also sometimes you think,oh, it's a really big company,
it's probably very slow moving,you know, there's probably not a
lot of room.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
You find some pockets of it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
And so that's one thing that I really notice in
the digital media managementprogram is we do have a lot of
students going through theprogram who have a career, who
are entrenched in a corporatebusiness, whether it's in
entertainment or tech orsomething, or education or
wherever but they're figuringout projects that they can do to
add value and to do somethingslightly different.
(17:31):
And you also weren't afraid tospeak up, because I think that's
another thing.
We're often afraid to speak ourmind, to share our points of
view, and we need that, becausethat is what breeds more
creativity, more innovation,more amazing projects that then
come on to be, you know, the gobig projects that you're
(17:52):
discussing.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Yeah, yeah, the idea.
I'm going through this with mykids.
I have three little kids thatare 10 and under, and I was
talking to my oldest about theidea of asking permission versus
taking charge in certainscenarios, and that's a hard
concept for a little kid tolearn, especially when you have
school and teachers and rulesand everything that you need to
follow, but at the same time,you don't want to never raise
(18:14):
your hand or never ask or neversay, well, what if we did this
different?
So we're talking about thatconcept of where is it
appropriate to ask forpermission and where is it
appropriate to just trysomething, and I feel like that
really made me think about mycareer and the advice I give
other people that are startingout in their career is you have
(18:34):
to think about that for yourselfin your scenario too.
When you're early in your career, you're hired for a specific
role.
You're filling the seat to do ajob, but from your employer's
perspective, if you can do thatjob and they're going to be
pretty happy about that youcan't always go in.
Sometimes people look at it aswell.
I was hired to do this, but I'mreally good at this, so I'm
(18:56):
going to do this instead Okay,but you were hired to do
something else.
You do have to fulfill thatcommitment of what you came in
for.
But if you can find creativeways to say hey, I've been doing
this for a year or two, I'vekind of optimized this a little
bit, I've got a little bit moreroom in my schedule, now I can
also do this thing really good,what do you think about that?
And when you take thatinitiative to just try something
(19:19):
new or poke holes at somethingor present a solution or
experiment and you're stillmeeting your other goals and
criteria, that's usually verywelcomed.
Because when it's presented toyour manager, your department
head, and they're like hey, I'vegot somebody who's kind of
being a rock star at whatthey're doing, but it's also
bringing this other thingthey're willing to do for free,
(19:42):
usually they're pretty happyabout that.
And so if you're thinking aboutyour audience, of your employer
, it's like how do you maketheir lives easier?
And if you're solving a needthat they know about but don't
have a current solution forthat's great.
If you're solving a need thatthey don't know about but you
present it to them and then theycan turn around and present it
(20:02):
to their boss and they can looklike the rock star.
That's great for them too.
So it's just thinking aboutthem and their motivations.
I think there's a lot moreopportunity than we realize
because we're all worried alittle bit about I don't want to
rock the boat, I don't want tobe the person that's always like
why, why, why, why, why?
I think, just realizing howit's presented, when it's
(20:24):
presented as a win-win of hey, Ican bring some of my skillset
and do something new and fun,but this is going to help you
out too.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
That's a great way to present something, because
people get excited by that Likewhy wouldn't they say yes, yeah,
yeah, and it sounds like youdid a lot of that.
So talk to us about the rolloutof the product.
How was it received?
It was also probably a littleahead of its time.
You know, considering thepandemic was when we all started
(20:51):
really moving.
I mean, I'd used WebEx anddifferent tools, but a lot of
people weren't used to justbeing fully digital.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah, the timing was interesting because this was I
started the project well beforethe pandemic and it was when
remote work was still a fairlycommonplace thing, but usually
more for certain roles or peoplewho are comfortable with video
conversations or audioconversation.
But that's it, the opportunitythat we're really approaching
(21:20):
with WebEx Hologram.
So it was an end-to-endholographic system.
So think of all my originalpitch decks.
I used the pictures from theJedi Council.
I'm like I want to build this.
The idea was how do you createa feeling of co-presence, how do
you feel like you're togetherwhen you're geographically
distanced?
And it was interesting because,again, going back to what we're
(21:41):
talking about, the beginning ofhuman-centric technology it was
never focused like, oh, it'scool, we can have so-and-so on
stage.
Why?
What problem are you solving?
But the origins of WebExhologram were never technology
(22:03):
first, it was always peoplefirst.
And the problem we were tryingto solve was when you do have
somebody maybe you have somebodywho works remote one day a week
usually the complaint that youwould get is you know, I can't
really participate in the groupmeetings.
I don't.
People ignore me when they'rehaving a chat.
Most of them are in the roomand I'm the one person that's
not there.
(22:23):
Or you know, somebody did apresentation and brought
something in to show people, youknow, the new widget.
Whatever that they made, Icouldn't really see it.
I couldn't really understandwhat they were doing.
They're explaining how to useequipment.
It's really hard on a 2D screento understand this 3D equipment
.
I don't know what they're doing.
So we're saying there's certainexperiences that you get when
you're together with somebody.
(22:44):
You feel that camaraderie andif you're talking about
something, you're talking aboutcontent, you're sharing
something you would normallymove around.
When you're in person, you'relike, oh okay, that's cool, let
me look around here, let me lookat the side, and you can't do
that on a flat 2D screen.
So again, the pitch with theJedi Council.
We're really talking about howlife is multidimensional.
(23:06):
So why is all of ourcommunication two-dimensional?
It's really limiting.
So that was the impetus behindit and we were in stealth mode
(23:31):
for many years when we werebuilding this.
But when we were, I don't knowcustomers beating our door down
saying, hey, I want aholographic collaboration system
, but at the same time when wewere like, hey, we got something
, I want to show you what it is.
Let me know your thoughts.
The responses they would comeback were even broader than what
(23:51):
we were looking at it for.
We went with two use casessaying hey, we want to solve
remote training, because it'sreally hard when you're trying
to show how somebody's I thinkof like remote surgical tool
training or something like thisis how you use this tool.
This is how you take it apartand put it together.
Anytime you need to understandthe spatial relationship between
something.
It's really hard to do that in2D.
So that was one scenario, andthe other one was remote
(24:13):
building, like creation of hey,I want to work on this, I want
to add this piece there and youadd that piece there, like, oh,
how do we do this together?
And again, you want thatmultidimensionality.
You understand the spatialawareness of it.
It's something else.
It's really hard to do flat.
So those were the two use caseswe honed in on.
It's really interesting.
One honed in on it's reallyinteresting One of the first
customer reactions we got,though they looked at it and we
(24:35):
were focused so much on content.
When you have to see the otherperson, you have to see the
content and you have to see howthe other person is interacting
with the content.
Those were the use case we'relooking at and the customer was
interested in the use case thatthere was no content.
They were simply saying, hey, wewant to use this for executive
meetings because when we'rehiring a C-suite person like
(24:55):
that's a high stakes position,you want to get the right person
in there and saying, like weusually do a screening call and
then we pay to fly them on site,we have everybody at the same
time and trying to coordinateall the senior leadership to
meet with them for a day or two.
It's so hard and then you findout it's not the right fit.
You didn't get the right vibeand then you get started all
over again.
But they were saying thatfeeling that we're going after,
(25:20):
that feeling of being together.
They felt as if you could buildrapport quicker, you could
establish trust quicker becauseyou felt like you were with that
person rather than just we'reseparated, you're on the other
side of a screen, and I thoughtthat was really interesting and
really eye-opening to me torealize don't put your customers
in a box, because how theymight want to use something
could be totally different fromwhat you think it could be.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, yeah, I love that, and it's funny because the
first thing I thought of wasjust having everybody in the
room, like the example of theJedi Council, right, and it
almost makes me wonder whyaren't we using this technology
for virtual classes and virtualsessions?
You know because?
Then it, because I'm in a lotof programs that are completely
(25:57):
online.
How nice would it be to feellike you are in the room and
just have that extra layer Right.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Right.
Yeah, I think there's a lot, alot of opportunity in education.
I know price point is always achallenge when it comes to
educational environments, butthings have changed a lot since
I have stepped away from thatproject, so I mean things get
cheaper every day, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, clearly, between the start of that 10
years ago to today where now wehave, just like with AI.
We didn't know we needed allthese generative tools until we
had them, and now I know I can'tlive without checking in with
Claude a few times a day andusing a few other tools as well.
(26:43):
So, that takes us to let's talkabout Elizabeth going out on
your own and starting your ownconsultancy.
After all of this experiencethat you had, what prompted that
move?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I think in hindsight, I never expected to stay in a
corporate environment quite aslong as I did.
It was never my original intent.
I always thought I was going togo the entrepreneurship route.
But I was fortunate enough tohave great opportunities and be
able to pursue anentrepreneurial venture.
But that project.
I ended up leading that projectfor I think it was going on
eight years by the time, allsaid and done.
(27:17):
When handed off to the businessunit, I hired a product manager
.
I was able to train her up.
She took it over, take it tothe next steps of all the things
you have to do to makesomething a product and bring it
to life.
So handing that off was reallya huge like wow, okay, now what,
let me take a pause.
And I did take a pause.
I took a sabbatical, I took abreak and it was an opportunity
(27:40):
to think like, wow, those eightyears were a rush, what a wild
ride.
What did I learn from that?
What would I do different goingforward?
Do I want to do that again withanother project?
Do I want to start my ownstartup and build a technology
startup outside of the company?
And I had all these thoughts ofwhat I wanted to do and I
(28:00):
actually started writing themall down as kind of a personal
postmortem looking at.
I think that's two cents ofadvice of anything you do with
life.
But we do a personal postmortem.
You end up doing it so oftenfor projects or large endeavors,
but we don't often think aboutit for ourself, of kind of going
through all the same questionsyou would in a postmortem, like
what would I do differently?
(28:21):
What worked, what didn't, whydidn't it work?
Thinking through that, Istarted writing that down for
myself and realized I just kepton writing more and more,
realizing, page after page afterpage, like maybe I should do
something with this rather thanjust keep this in a journal for
myself.
There's a lot of things Ididn't know what I was doing
(28:41):
going into it and I had tofigure it out on the fly and
like maybe this would helpsomebody else doing an
entrepreneurial venture or maybean entrepreneurial adventure.
And so I started categorizingall the things into like okay,
where does this fit, where doesthis fit?
And a certain logical orderstarted coming out of it and it
ended up turning into a book.
(29:02):
So I wrote my book Cake onTuesday 25 Lessons to Unlock
Corporate Innovation really asit was meant to be a short,
snappy read that could distilleverything I learned out of the
eight-year venture in the hopesof trying to pay it forward.
Could this help somebody elsetrying to do something so they
could do it better, faster,easier?
(29:23):
And that was the point of thebook and how it came about.
But with that I startedthinking what am I going to do
next?
What do I want to do?
And I did go round and round inall thought processes and
realized you know what I reallyenjoyed the process of thinking
through this book and writingthis book, and I want to help
other people do this.
I don't think I want to do itagain right now.
(29:44):
I want to help other people ontheir journey, and that started
raising all sorts of interestingquestions and I started getting
really interesting feedbackfrom the book.
I was obviously focused on thetechnology space and corporate
entrepreneurship, but the amountof people that had, you know, a
small business or somebodywho's like you know, I'm a
single person, real estate, likea solopreneur in real estate
(30:07):
just saying like this bookreally resonated with me and I
could use this in my practice.
And somebody else saying likewe have a small dairy farm and I
could use this and I'm like itwas really cool to see how it
would resonate in differentspaces and again going back to
the donglorifying it andover-mystifying it and saying
like, oh innovation is thisivory tower thing, when really
innovation is just doingsomething new or thinking about
(30:55):
something differently and tryingit, and that's something we're
all doing every day.
We're thinking about new waysto hack our daily routine to
make it more efficient.
How do we, you know, treatthree different kids who all
grow in three different ways andhow do we help them all be
(31:15):
raised up to be the best humansthey can be Like?
We're constantly trying toinnovate and do things different
and unique, and I like thatidea of focusing on innovation.
And how can I help companieswho are trying to innovate?
And my sweet spot customer endsup being the kind that is
successful in something but nowneeds to do something else, and
that's a really hard and scaryplace to be because, hey, we
(31:38):
were successful in this andthere's always that tendency to
want to do let me just do moreof that.
But that's not going to besuccessful in the long term as
the world is changing.
So we do need to do somethingdifferent, but you don't want to
leave your core customer basetoo far behind.
So how do you know how far awayfrom my base do I innovate, and
how do I bring that aboutwithout losing momentum in my
(31:59):
existing business?
And that's relying on a lot ofwhat I did at Cisco, whereas
selling this internally to thebusiness leaders who are going
to take over this venture.
That is very forward looking,but they still have to meet all
their metrics for the currentquarter, and so you're
positioning things in a way ofthis is how you, bite-sized,
handle innovation, and so that'skind of what led to this whole
(32:20):
current path.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Yeah, fantastic, and I agree with everything you just
said, and especially not to.
I mean, at this time right inthe world when everything's
changing with tariffs andeconomically and there's a lot
of uncertainty, finding thoselittle and you know, innovation
doesn't have to be a huge, hugeleap, it can be can start small
(32:43):
but making little changes andfiguring out how you can still
have a business that's viable,that's successful, and just
input things that will make it alittle better every day, will
have huge results for a business.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Yeah, absolutely that .
Keeping it small is huge.
One of the chapters of my bookis all about keeping it simple
and my team used to get sick ofme saying have a big M.
So we talk about MBO, minimumviable offer and say make sure
the focus is on the minimum,because scope creep is such a
big thing and that's one of thebiggest innovation killers is
you start adding more and moreand more and more before you
(33:17):
know it.
It's just you're trying to movethe Titanic rather than have
that small little scrappy change, and so keeping it minimum is
really, really important.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
What is behind the name KCON Tuesday KCON Tuesday.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Well, I think we were talking a little bit at the
beginning about my personaljourney through education and
career and it just it never tookthe normal path.
And when I was going throughthat with my publisher, we were
trying to come up with the namefor the book and they were
coming up with all thesesuggestions, which were
perfectly fine suggestions, butthey just sounded like any other
business book and for me, I'mlike nothing about this path,
nothing about this book, nothingabout this journey is like
(33:55):
everything else.
It's just a wild, crazy,different ride.
I want the title to bedifferent.
I want it to stand out.
So I recommended that.
I'm like what about Cake onTuesday?
And my editor was like actually, I kind of like that.
There's a chapter in the bookthat's called have Cake on
Tuesday and it's specificallytalking about celebrating the
journey and how do you have funand add joy into that, and
(34:18):
that's something I'm reallypassionate about.
Actually, I can tell you aquick story.
Yeah, absolutely, this makesyou think about I just had this
flashback to my very firstcorporate job, which was in
publishing.
Actually, many, many years ago,this was graduating with an
English degree.
What do you do with an Englishdegree?
So I got a job in publishing myfirst sit down review.
So I assume I'd been there ayear and had a sit down of like
(34:40):
here's what you did well, here'swhat you can improve on.
And the criticism I was givenin.
The thing I could improve on ismy manager told me she's like
well, you smile too much, youcould look like you're having
too much fun, which people couldinterpret as you're not really
working hard.
And it just kind of hit me likea ton of bricks.
(35:01):
I was like so do you want me tolook more sad?
Like what is the feedback?
What's the actionable adviceyou're giving me here?
And we had a chat and she'skind of like I don't think I
really wanted you to changeanything, I just want you to be
aware of it.
Okay, but that always stuckwith me.
It's like what an absurd thingto say of like you look like
you're having too much fun, likethat should be in the positive
(35:22):
category, not in the negativecategory.
So bring that full circle.
Team a lot.
And it's a theme throughoutCake on Tuesday of having joy in
the journey and really enjoyingthe ride.
And specifically Cake on Tuesdaycame from one season in the
project where we didn't have anexciting milestone to rally the
(35:43):
team around.
We were just making thesemarginal improvements, trying to
get to the next level, and wewere starting to lose our fun.
And I was having a conversationwith our operations manager at
the time and her and I werebrainstorming like how do we
make this more fun, how do weadd some levity to the situation
?
And she had this idea.
She's like what if I make thisWheel of Fortune style Wheel of
(36:04):
Winning, I want to call it, andshe put everybody's name on it.
She's like at the end of staffmeeting we'll just spin it If it
lands on your name.
If it lands on your name, it'dbe like Annika, you win, and
then we would mail you a cake.
Because we're a global team,we're spread all over the place,
so two days later a cake wouldshow up at your door, regardless
of where you were in the world,and our staff meetings were on
Tuesday, and so that's whereCake on Tuesday came from.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Wow, wow, so creative and how fun, right who?
Speaker 3 (36:29):
wouldn't want to get a kid.
My shout out to Ashley Havoc,my ops manager.
She was fantastic and very,very good at brainstorming
creative ways on a shoestringbudget to make things fun.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah Well, elizabeth, we're going to have your
website in the show notes thatpeople can learn more about you,
how to work with you, where tobuy your book.
But I do want to ask what?
Speaker 3 (36:53):
is a piece of advice that you would have given your
younger self, I think I wouldsay there's a business coach
called Dan Sullivan who haswritten some great books out
there, and he has one bookcalled the Gap in the Gain.
And it's all about why it'simportant to focus on how far
you've come rather than how faryou have to go.
And I would say that issomething I would remind my
(37:16):
younger self and I wouldencourage people to look at,
because it's so easy to getcaught up, especially when you
realize there is no done,there's no arrive, there's no
end.
It is a journey.
It's so easy to get caught upwith like, oh, I still have this
to do, I have so much more tolearn, I have this much more to
do.
We can so easily forget howmuch we've already done and how
far we've come.
And then that perspective andmindset shift is so crucial,
(37:39):
especially when the going getsrough, to remind yourself of
like all right, we've come thisfar.
All right, I've done this much.
Okay, we've learned this.
So I think that perspectivefocus on the gain, not the gap
Gain not the gap.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Brilliant, this has been really fun.
I'm looking forward to furtherconversations with you and
picking up your book as well,because I'm always looking for
more ways to hone in mycreativity and turn it into
innovation.
Awesome, and you know, hone inis one of the key words.
As you said, there can be a lotof scope creep when you're
(38:14):
interested in a lot of things.
So again, elizabeth Bieniak,thank you so much for being on
Mediascape and thank you to allof our students, alums and
everybody else who's listeningto this podcast on your favorite
platform.
Don't forget to leave us arating and review and I, or my
co-host, joseph Ataya, will beback with another amazing guest
to share their story, theirjourney.
(38:34):
Some insights for you on yourjourney next week.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital
Media Management program.
Visit us on the web atdmmuscedu.
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital
changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I am so thrilled today on Mediascape to have
Elizabeth Bieniuk.
You have such an amazing,illustrious background as a
Fortune 100 leadership veteran,startup founder, a top 10 most
influential woman pioneer intechnology.
You've spoken at schools thatI've actually been exploring
(00:42):
with my daughter, which isreally exciting.
Spoken at schools that I'veactually been exploring with my
daughter, which is reallyexciting.
And one thing that I reallypick up on is that you are
human-centered in your approachto AI, and I think that's so
important to note, because Ialso am a firm believer and so
optimistic about the fact thatusing these tools gives us the
opportunity to be more human,but also that we need to have
humans in everything.
(01:04):
So, elizabeth, thank you forbeing here.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thank you for having me, annika.
I'm excited to be here and Ilove talking about that topic to
you of connecting humans.
When technology works toconnect humans, it's amazing,
like what we're doing right now,when it gets in the way of that
.
I think that's we've gone offthe rails of what the purpose of
technology is for?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, and obviously we're talking before we jumped
on.
I teach grad school at USC.
We teach digital media.
Everything's changed since theprogram was created, you know,
even just a couple of years ago.
Then we started talking justabout generative AI and a few
tools.
Now we're talking about a lotof different tools that people
can use in their work streamsfor every part.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I have to say, by the way, you didn't make it easy on
yourself.
You picked a topic that youhave to redo the curriculum
pretty much every year.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, I don't have control over that, but I do have
control over our live sessionsand so that's where I get to
include all the good new stuff.
So I'd love to hear a littlebit about how you got to where
you are today, because I knowyour background you were in the
arts and writing, and thenbusiness and education.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, I'm happy to talk about that and I love
talking to people that feel likethey have to get it all figured
out and then, like I have tofind the right degree and the
right path and start with theright job and my path and
trajectory are set.
Because it's really not.
I'm in my 40s and I'm stilltrying to figure out what I want
to be when I grow up, and Ithink that's part of life,
definitely.
I'm a firm believer in the ideathat it's a journey, not a
(02:32):
destination, and I don't everwant to feel as if I've arrived,
I'm done, because that's whenthings get boring you always
want to be learning and doingnew things.
So my own background, myundergrad, is in English.
I was very firmly believing Iwas going to pursue creative
writing as my career andobviously I have not done that.
I am hoping to still continueto dabble in that space.
(02:57):
But I fell in love withbusiness and ended up making a
bit of a hard pivot.
I even took all the.
I took the GRE, was ready to gopursue my MFA in fine arts and
then it's like, no, no, I wantto go into business.
And like, oh man, now I got totake a GMAT, got to take a
different test, so I had to gothrough that different route and
pursued business instead and Ithink I just loved.
(03:18):
I loved the idea of the waybusinesses work.
I went to Babson for my master'sand that's a school that builds
reputation on entrepreneurshipand I always have been
fascinated with the concept ofentrepreneurship.
My mom owned a small art studio.
My dad worked for a two-mancomputer office.
For a while.
(03:38):
There was very small businessesand I always thought I was
going to go that route.
But again, life doesn't usuallywork out exactly the way you
planned.
So I ended up working for avery large company in the
Fortune 100.
And then I had an opportunityto build a startup inside of
that.
So I ended up having aentrepreneurial journey.
I don't think I even knew theterm entrepreneur before, but it
(04:02):
was a way to explore thoseentrepreneurial vibes inside of
large organization and thatbrings a whole other set of
challenges.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I can only imagine.
I have not.
I've been adjacent to largeorganizations my entire career,
but I want to talk about thatbecause you were the co-founder
of WebEx Hologram for Cisco.
So talk about moving thisthrough and getting into
business, and thenentrepreneurship which I will
(04:36):
also say a lot of our studentsare entrepreneurs in their
larger corporations and thengetting into technology in a
deep way because that wasn'tyour background.
So how did you come to thepassion for that?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
It was slow, it took a while to get a passion for it,
I think, honestly, my husband,by training, was a biomedical
engineer and I used to alwaysjoke that I married the engineer
.
I wasn't the engineer, but wemade a cross-country move.
We were in Boston at the timeand moved to San Jose for
opportunities for his work, as Iwas finishing up grad school
(05:07):
and I didn't know anybody in SanJose.
It was a new place, a new partof the world, and we were just
really exploring and I didactually my last two classes
from Babson, correspondence fromCalifornia, which was a great
experience too.
I really appreciated theflexibility back when.
That was less common when I wasgraduating from school than it
(05:28):
is now.
But at the time I just reachedout to my alma mater alumni
network and trying to findconnections in the area and some
of it was just you know whatneighborhoods do we rent an
apartment in?
Where do we go grocery shop?
It wasn't even necessarilycareer advice, but I ended up
finding several people that hadgraduated from Babson who were
working at Cisco, which inhindsight is not surprising.
(05:49):
Big school, big company.
It made sense.
But after speaking to, I think,five different people that were
from Babson that were at Cisco.
I was really saying, wow,there's quite a diversity of
roles here.
And I was talking to onegentleman in particular who he
was in a corporate learning andcorporate training function
inside of Cisco and had been formany years I think he was there
(06:10):
for like 20 some odd years andI was just chatting with him
about what I was looking forafter I graduated and he
recommended he's like why don'tyou apply here?
And I think I laughed actuallywhen he said that I was like no,
no, no, I'm not a technologyperson.
This is not my undergrad's inEnglish, this is not my world.
And he kind of laughed back atme.
He's like do you think there'sonly engineers here?
He's like how big is thiscompany?
(06:32):
He's like look at what I do.
I focus on corporate training.
He's like I'm not an engineereither and I've made an.
He floated around internally.
I am getting a call fromsomebody and, long story short,
I ended up with a role there atCisco which was not my original
plan or intent and I think Ispent the first several years
(06:55):
there saying I'm not atechnology person and I had
roles in different capacities.
I worked in finance andoperations, portfolio management
and things that were technologyadjacent, I would say.
But just being around it I gotmore and more entrenched in
understanding the world oftechnology and I had a great
opportunity to move into a role,just being aware that career
(07:18):
paths don't often follow thetrajectory you think, and
sometimes opportunities come inthe weirdest ways.
I ended up getting anopportunity to move from the
services side of theorganization into the product
side of the organization tobasically be the right hand
person to a woman that wasrunning operations for all of
video collaboration.
So she was the head of ops forthat and she was doing it solo.
(07:40):
It was a large organizationwe're talking like a 5,000
person organization, 5 billionannual revenue.
I mean, it's a big group.
She was doing it solo and justhad so much on her plate and so
she got approval to hire anotherrec and we knew some similar
people from previous roles.
We didn't know each other butit just somebody had recommended
me for that and we chatted andlike, oh, this could be a good
(08:00):
fit.
So she pulled me over to be herright hand in that and to kind
of train up to take some thingsoff of her blade.
The caveat, though, I didn'tknow until I met her in person
is she was eight weeks away fromgoing out maternity leave.
So she's like I'm going to giveyou a crash course in this and
you're going to cover while I'mout and then I'll come back and
(08:21):
then we'll, you know, we'llvy itup.
So it was eight weeks oflearning everything I possibly
could and I just had it in myhead okay, I just got to cover
this for a few months and thenyou know, we'll be back, we'll
do this.
Well, she decided she didn'twant to come back.
So opportunity presented itself.
I had that chance to then turnaround and go to my boss, who
(08:41):
was the senior vice president ofthat entire organization, and
say at this point, I think sheextended her maternity leave I
think it ended up being out forsix months and then decided she
wasn't going to come back.
So I had a conversation withhim and saying hey, you could
hire somebody brand new and takea gamble to take over this role
, or?
I've been doing this for sixmonths and it's been working
(09:03):
pretty well.
Why don't we have a chat aboutthis?
And so I sat down with, I camein with a presentation and I
showed him to you just like.
Here's what I've done.
I came prepared and he was agreat person to work for.
He was a very decisive leader,so we just walked out of that.
He's, like all, a reallyundersung role.
It's something that can mean alot of different things to
(09:23):
different people, but the beautyof operations is you usually
get to see how everything works.
You have a behind-the-scenesview of all facets of an
organization, not only thetechnology and the operations of
(09:46):
the business itself, but also,like the people dynamics.
So I had a seat at the tablewith the VPs for every business
organization, all the differentfunctions across the technology
group, and I really got a reallygreat view of how the entire
organization worked.
And I was still claiming I wasnot a technology person.
But after doing that for awhile, one thing led to another
and I was still claiming I wasnot a technology person.
(10:07):
After doing that for a while,one thing led to another and I
just we had any large company,the thing there's always reorgs,
there's always changes and thisand that, and we had some
change in management and thatsenior leader I was working for
ended up moving to a differentrole.
We had a new leadership come in.
I got slotted around, if youwill, into different roles.
I ended up being in more of astrategy role, working for the
(10:29):
new leadership.
And again, opportunity comes inunusual forms.
It was a new leader and newsenior team to this organization
from outside the company andthey were really looking for
people of who knows what's goingon the inner workings of this,
were really looking for peopleof who knows what's going on the
inner workings of this.
So, even though I was no longerin an operations role, the head
(10:50):
of the strategy andpartnerships kept tapping me to
say, hey, could you give me thebackstory in this, like tell me
what's going on here?
And he and I developed afriendship and he ended up
pulling me over to work in histeam and again, just new
opportunities there.
He was another great person Iwas fortunate enough to work for
in that I'm a very opinionatedperson, originally from New York
and I just speak my mind, so hewas very good and open to that.
(11:12):
If you had a new idea, he wouldjust take that.
Whatever you said is like sure,let's entertain that idea.
And we were having aconversation once.
One of the groups he oversawboth strategy partnerships
operations and I think there wasa fourth group once one of the
groups he oversaw both strategypartnerships operations.
And I think there was a fourthgroup and I was focusing on
strategic partnerships at thetime and he had another team
that was more corporate,traditional corporate strategy.
So a lot of people from theconsulting backgrounds you know
(11:35):
the big Ivy League schools andthey were working on their long
range strategic plan, which islike a three year plan looking
ahead, and my input was just totalk about the strategic
partnerships that I was managingat the time.
So I submitted my piece andthen kind of told to go away.
Well, we'll go behind thisclosed door and we'll crank out
this corporate strategy.
(11:55):
And I was having a coffee withmy boss who oversaw both those
teams at one point and I wascomplimenting with him like
giving him a hard time.
To be honest, just being mynormal New Yorker self of like
hey, why don I mean intechnology, three years is not
very long range.
And like, not to mention yourwhole team that's been doing
this.
They haven't left thatconference room in like three
(12:16):
weeks.
How strategic is it if they'renot talking to anybody outside
the company?
Because I was in a partnership,I spent all my time outside our
four walls.
I was really just being a bratand poking, but he was open to
it.
So he kind of flipped around.
He's like, all right, whatwould you do different?
And so I just rattled off acouple of things off the top of
my head and stuff.
(12:37):
And then he's like, all right,show me.
And so he gave me some time togo say, if I were to propose a
corporate strategy, what would Ipropose that the current team's
not doing?
And then, anytime somebodygives you an inch, take as much
as you can take a mile, take asmuch as you can take a mile.
So I went outside, I used mycurrent practice of just working
(12:58):
with other companies around theBay Area and just I expanded
that.
So I started going to all thelocal conferences.
I already had somerelationships from the startup
incubators and accelerators andlike I just started talking to
everybody who's investing inwhat, who's doing this, and I
would go to all the free expos.
A lot of times conferences canbe expensive but the expos could
be really cheap.
So I'd go to the free or cheapones and I would just go around
(13:19):
the floor and see all thevendors and see what am I seeing
again and again.
That gives you such a goodinsight into what's happening
and who's investing in what andwhat's up and coming.
I'd try all the demos.
This is back before COVID, sowe would just put on a headset,
put on whatever, just try allthe things.
And I came back to him with aproposal of like hey, here's
(13:39):
some areas that I think weshould focus on that we're not
looking at, and augmented andvirtual reality was one of them.
We were in the collaborationbusiness and we're not really
investing in this space and thishas the potential to hugely
disrupt the future of ourbusiness.
And one thing led to another.
It was just he's like go deeper.
And so I started talking tosome other companies in that and
(14:00):
coming back with if we were toinvest, here's where I think we
should invest.
If we were to build something,here's what I think we should
look at building.
If we're to partner, here'swhat I think we could do.
And it just kind of built fromthere and it ended up coming to
(14:29):
he wanted me to then present tothe management team on it.
So I spent quite a bit of seeand what we think we could do to
invest in this space and why weshould care.
And the ask at the time wasjust for some engineers, a small
tiger team, to look at thespace and what could we do.
And we got approval for thatand it ended up turning into a
(14:53):
small project.
That again just mentioning howlife was happening.
I was eight months pregnant atthe time with my first or second
kid and I was making a pitchfrom a strategy perspective of
we need to look at this space,we should care, so we should do
something here.
But it wasn't I want to dosomething here.
It's like someone should dosomething here.
(15:14):
I'm going to go have a baby.
So he got approval.
They formed a tiger team, putsomebody in charge.
There was a charter.
I left, had a baby, came back afew months later and found out
nothing had happened.
So I was really passionateabout it because I spent so much
time building the idea for it.
I was like why didn't anythinghappen?
And just finding out you knowcorporate things people had
(15:38):
moved around, priorities hadchanged, the person they put in
charge of it had too many otherconflicting priorities.
He was not really given a fairshake to move it forward and so
I took it back over and ended uppresenting it a few months
later back to the team Once Itook over the Tiger team, like
let's figure this out.
And then we came back with a hey, here's a few things we could
do here.
We could put a tow in, justkind of like, check out, see
(15:59):
what the water's nice.
Or we could go big and reallybuild something in the space, or
do something hybrid, somethingin between.
I learned in business schoolyou always give three scenarios,
three options, because they'llpick one.
And to my surprise they wantedto go big and that ended up
leading to a whole furtherproject of building out.
What would this look like?
And I can go further into that,but that's how it all started.
(16:23):
That's how it all came about.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
But there's a few things here that I think are
really interesting.
You know, you kept followingthe breadcrumbs, kept following
the opportunities that werepresented.
You obviously have inquisitivemind, right?
You want to keep learningdifferent things.
Why is still my favoritequestion?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I never grew out of that pace.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
And also it sounds like, even though it's a large
ecosystem, at Cisco that theygave room for people to bring
ideas for that innovation,creativity which you would
assume that you find in big techcompanies.
But also sometimes you think,oh, it's a really big company,
it's probably very slow moving,you know, there's probably not a
lot of room.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
You find some pockets of it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
And so that's one thing that I really notice in
the digital media managementprogram is we do have a lot of
students going through theprogram who have a career, who
are entrenched in a corporatebusiness, whether it's in
entertainment or tech orsomething, or education or
wherever but they're figuringout projects that they can do to
add value and to do somethingslightly different.
(17:31):
And you also weren't afraid tospeak up, because I think that's
another thing.
We're often afraid to speak ourmind, to share our points of
view, and we need that, becausethat is what breeds more
creativity, more innovation,more amazing projects that then
come on to be, you know, the gobig projects that you're
(17:52):
discussing.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Yeah, yeah, the idea.
I'm going through this with mykids.
I have three little kids thatare 10 and under, and I was
talking to my oldest about theidea of asking permission versus
taking charge in certainscenarios, and that's a hard
concept for a little kid tolearn, especially when you have
school and teachers and rulesand everything that you need to
follow, but at the same time,you don't want to never raise
(18:14):
your hand or never ask or neversay, well, what if we did this
different?
So we're talking about thatconcept of where is it
appropriate to ask forpermission and where is it
appropriate to just trysomething, and I feel like that
really made me think about mycareer and the advice I give
other people that are startingout in their career is you have
(18:34):
to think about that for yourselfin your scenario too.
When you're early in your career, you're hired for a specific
role.
You're filling the seat to do ajob, but from your employer's
perspective, if you can do thatjob and they're going to be
pretty happy about that youcan't always go in.
Sometimes people look at it aswell.
I was hired to do this, but I'mreally good at this, so I'm
(18:56):
going to do this instead Okay,but you were hired to do
something else.
You do have to fulfill thatcommitment of what you came in
for.
But if you can find creativeways to say hey, I've been doing
this for a year or two, I'vekind of optimized this a little
bit, I've got a little bit moreroom in my schedule, now I can
also do this thing really good,what do you think about that?
And when you take thatinitiative to just try something
(19:19):
new or poke holes at somethingor present a solution or
experiment and you're stillmeeting your other goals and
criteria, that's usually verywelcomed.
Because when it's presented toyour manager, your department
head, and they're like hey, I'vegot somebody who's kind of
being a rock star at whatthey're doing, but it's also
bringing this other thingthey're willing to do for free,
(19:42):
usually they're pretty happyabout that.
And so if you're thinking aboutyour audience, of your employer
, it's like how do you maketheir lives easier?
And if you're solving a needthat they know about but don't
have a current solution forthat's great.
If you're solving a need thatthey don't know about but you
present it to them and then theycan turn around and present it
(20:02):
to their boss and they can looklike the rock star.
That's great for them too.
So it's just thinking aboutthem and their motivations.
I think there's a lot moreopportunity than we realize
because we're all worried alittle bit about I don't want to
rock the boat, I don't want tobe the person that's always like
why, why, why, why, why?
I think, just realizing howit's presented, when it's
(20:24):
presented as a win-win of hey, Ican bring some of my skillset
and do something new and fun,but this is going to help you
out too.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
That's a great way to present something, because
people get excited by that Likewhy wouldn't they say yes, yeah,
yeah, and it sounds like youdid a lot of that.
So talk to us about the rolloutof the product.
How was it received?
It was also probably a littleahead of its time.
You know, considering thepandemic was when we all started
(20:51):
really moving.
I mean, I'd used WebEx anddifferent tools, but a lot of
people weren't used to justbeing fully digital.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah, the timing was interesting because this was I
started the project well beforethe pandemic and it was when
remote work was still a fairlycommonplace thing, but usually
more for certain roles or peoplewho are comfortable with video
conversations or audioconversation.
But that's it, the opportunitythat we're really approaching
(21:20):
with WebEx Hologram.
So it was an end-to-endholographic system.
So think of all my originalpitch decks.
I used the pictures from theJedi Council.
I'm like I want to build this.
The idea was how do you createa feeling of co-presence, how do
you feel like you're togetherwhen you're geographically
distanced?
And it was interesting because,again, going back to what we're
(21:41):
talking about, the beginning ofhuman-centric technology it was
never focused like, oh, it'scool, we can have so-and-so on
stage.
Why?
What problem are you solving?
But the origins of WebExhologram were never technology
(22:03):
first, it was always peoplefirst.
And the problem we were tryingto solve was when you do have
somebody maybe you have somebodywho works remote one day a week
usually the complaint that youwould get is you know, I can't
really participate in the groupmeetings.
I don't.
People ignore me when they'rehaving a chat.
Most of them are in the roomand I'm the one person that's
not there.
(22:23):
Or you know, somebody did apresentation and brought
something in to show people, youknow, the new widget.
Whatever that they made, Icouldn't really see it.
I couldn't really understandwhat they were doing.
They're explaining how to useequipment.
It's really hard on a 2D screento understand this 3D equipment
.
I don't know what they're doing.
So we're saying there's certainexperiences that you get when
you're together with somebody.
(22:44):
You feel that camaraderie andif you're talking about
something, you're talking aboutcontent, you're sharing
something you would normallymove around.
When you're in person, you'relike, oh okay, that's cool, let
me look around here, let me lookat the side, and you can't do
that on a flat 2D screen.
So again, the pitch with theJedi Council.
We're really talking about howlife is multidimensional.
(23:06):
So why is all of ourcommunication two-dimensional?
It's really limiting.
So that was the impetus behindit and we were in stealth mode
(23:31):
for many years when we werebuilding this.
But when we were, I don't knowcustomers beating our door down
saying, hey, I want aholographic collaboration system
, but at the same time when wewere like, hey, we got something
, I want to show you what it is.
Let me know your thoughts.
The responses they would comeback were even broader than what
(23:51):
we were looking at it for.
We went with two use casessaying hey, we want to solve
remote training, because it'sreally hard when you're trying
to show how somebody's I thinkof like remote surgical tool
training or something like thisis how you use this tool.
This is how you take it apartand put it together.
Anytime you need to understandthe spatial relationship between
something.
It's really hard to do that in2D.
So that was one scenario, andthe other one was remote
(24:13):
building, like creation of hey,I want to work on this, I want
to add this piece there and youadd that piece there, like, oh,
how do we do this together?
And again, you want thatmultidimensionality.
You understand the spatialawareness of it.
It's something else.
It's really hard to do flat.
So those were the two use caseswe honed in on.
It's really interesting.
One honed in on it's reallyinteresting One of the first
customer reactions we got,though they looked at it and we
(24:35):
were focused so much on content.
When you have to see the otherperson, you have to see the
content and you have to see howthe other person is interacting
with the content.
Those were the use case we'relooking at and the customer was
interested in the use case thatthere was no content.
They were simply saying, hey, wewant to use this for executive
meetings because when we'rehiring a C-suite person like
(24:55):
that's a high stakes position,you want to get the right person
in there and saying, like weusually do a screening call and
then we pay to fly them on site,we have everybody at the same
time and trying to coordinateall the senior leadership to
meet with them for a day or two.
It's so hard and then you findout it's not the right fit.
You didn't get the right vibeand then you get started all
over again.
But they were saying thatfeeling that we're going after,
(25:20):
that feeling of being together.
They felt as if you could buildrapport quicker, you could
establish trust quicker becauseyou felt like you were with that
person rather than just we'reseparated, you're on the other
side of a screen, and I thoughtthat was really interesting and
really eye-opening to me torealize don't put your customers
in a box, because how theymight want to use something
could be totally different fromwhat you think it could be.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, yeah, I love that, and it's funny because the
first thing I thought of wasjust having everybody in the
room, like the example of theJedi Council, right, and it
almost makes me wonder whyaren't we using this technology
for virtual classes and virtualsessions?
You know because?
Then it, because I'm in a lotof programs that are completely
(25:57):
online.
How nice would it be to feellike you are in the room and
just have that extra layer Right.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Right.
Yeah, I think there's a lot, alot of opportunity in education.
I know price point is always achallenge when it comes to
educational environments, butthings have changed a lot since
I have stepped away from thatproject, so I mean things get
cheaper every day, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, clearly, between the start of that 10
years ago to today where now wehave, just like with AI.
We didn't know we needed allthese generative tools until we
had them, and now I know I can'tlive without checking in with
Claude a few times a day andusing a few other tools as well.
(26:43):
So, that takes us to let's talkabout Elizabeth going out on
your own and starting your ownconsultancy.
After all of this experiencethat you had, what prompted that
move?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I think in hindsight, I never expected to stay in a
corporate environment quite aslong as I did.
It was never my original intent.
I always thought I was going togo the entrepreneurship route.
But I was fortunate enough tohave great opportunities and be
able to pursue anentrepreneurial venture.
But that project.
I ended up leading that projectfor I think it was going on
eight years by the time, allsaid and done.
(27:17):
When handed off to the businessunit, I hired a product manager
.
I was able to train her up.
She took it over, take it tothe next steps of all the things
you have to do to makesomething a product and bring it
to life.
So handing that off was reallya huge like wow, okay, now what,
let me take a pause.
And I did take a pause.
I took a sabbatical, I took abreak and it was an opportunity
(27:40):
to think like, wow, those eightyears were a rush, what a wild
ride.
What did I learn from that?
What would I do different goingforward?
Do I want to do that again withanother project?
Do I want to start my ownstartup and build a technology
startup outside of the company?
And I had all these thoughts ofwhat I wanted to do and I
(28:00):
actually started writing themall down as kind of a personal
postmortem looking at.
I think that's two cents ofadvice of anything you do with
life.
But we do a personal postmortem.
You end up doing it so oftenfor projects or large endeavors,
but we don't often think aboutit for ourself, of kind of going
through all the same questionsyou would in a postmortem, like
what would I do differently?
(28:21):
What worked, what didn't, whydidn't it work?
Thinking through that, Istarted writing that down for
myself and realized I just kepton writing more and more,
realizing, page after page afterpage, like maybe I should do
something with this rather thanjust keep this in a journal for
myself.
There's a lot of things Ididn't know what I was doing
(28:41):
going into it and I had tofigure it out on the fly and
like maybe this would helpsomebody else doing an
entrepreneurial venture or maybean entrepreneurial adventure.
And so I started categorizingall the things into like okay,
where does this fit, where doesthis fit?
And a certain logical orderstarted coming out of it and it
ended up turning into a book.
(29:02):
So I wrote my book Cake onTuesday 25 Lessons to Unlock
Corporate Innovation really asit was meant to be a short,
snappy read that could distilleverything I learned out of the
eight-year venture in the hopesof trying to pay it forward.
Could this help somebody elsetrying to do something so they
could do it better, faster,easier?
(29:23):
And that was the point of thebook and how it came about.
But with that I startedthinking what am I going to do
next?
What do I want to do?
And I did go round and round inall thought processes and
realized you know what I reallyenjoyed the process of thinking
through this book and writingthis book, and I want to help
other people do this.
I don't think I want to do itagain right now.
(29:44):
I want to help other people ontheir journey, and that started
raising all sorts of interestingquestions and I started getting
really interesting feedbackfrom the book.
I was obviously focused on thetechnology space and corporate
entrepreneurship, but the amountof people that had, you know, a
small business or somebodywho's like you know, I'm a
single person, real estate, likea solopreneur in real estate
(30:07):
just saying like this bookreally resonated with me and I
could use this in my practice.
And somebody else saying likewe have a small dairy farm and I
could use this and I'm like itwas really cool to see how it
would resonate in differentspaces and again going back to
the donglorifying it andover-mystifying it and saying
like, oh innovation is thisivory tower thing, when really
innovation is just doingsomething new or thinking about
(30:55):
something differently and tryingit, and that's something we're
all doing every day.
We're thinking about new waysto hack our daily routine to
make it more efficient.
How do we, you know, treatthree different kids who all
grow in three different ways andhow do we help them all be
(31:15):
raised up to be the best humansthey can be Like?
We're constantly trying toinnovate and do things different
and unique, and I like thatidea of focusing on innovation.
And how can I help companieswho are trying to innovate?
And my sweet spot customer endsup being the kind that is
successful in something but nowneeds to do something else, and
that's a really hard and scaryplace to be because, hey, we
(31:38):
were successful in this andthere's always that tendency to
want to do let me just do moreof that.
But that's not going to besuccessful in the long term as
the world is changing.
So we do need to do somethingdifferent, but you don't want to
leave your core customer basetoo far behind.
So how do you know how far awayfrom my base do I innovate, and
how do I bring that aboutwithout losing momentum in my
(31:59):
existing business?
And that's relying on a lot ofwhat I did at Cisco, whereas
selling this internally to thebusiness leaders who are going
to take over this venture.
That is very forward looking,but they still have to meet all
their metrics for the currentquarter, and so you're
positioning things in a way ofthis is how you, bite-sized,
handle innovation, and so that'skind of what led to this whole
(32:20):
current path.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Yeah, fantastic, and I agree with everything you just
said, and especially not to.
I mean, at this time right inthe world when everything's
changing with tariffs andeconomically and there's a lot
of uncertainty, finding thoselittle and you know, innovation
doesn't have to be a huge, hugeleap, it can be can start small
(32:43):
but making little changes andfiguring out how you can still
have a business that's viable,that's successful, and just
input things that will make it alittle better every day, will
have huge results for a business.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Yeah, absolutely that .
Keeping it small is huge.
One of the chapters of my bookis all about keeping it simple
and my team used to get sick ofme saying have a big M.
So we talk about MBO, minimumviable offer and say make sure
the focus is on the minimum,because scope creep is such a
big thing and that's one of thebiggest innovation killers is
you start adding more and moreand more and more before you
(33:17):
know it.
It's just you're trying to movethe Titanic rather than have
that small little scrappy change, and so keeping it minimum is
really, really important.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
What is behind the name KCON Tuesday KCON Tuesday.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Well, I think we were talking a little bit at the
beginning about my personaljourney through education and
career and it just it never tookthe normal path.
And when I was going throughthat with my publisher, we were
trying to come up with the namefor the book and they were
coming up with all thesesuggestions, which were
perfectly fine suggestions, butthey just sounded like any other
business book and for me, I'mlike nothing about this path,
nothing about this book, nothingabout this journey is like
(33:55):
everything else.
It's just a wild, crazy,different ride.
I want the title to bedifferent.
I want it to stand out.
So I recommended that.
I'm like what about Cake onTuesday?
And my editor was like actually, I kind of like that.
There's a chapter in the bookthat's called have Cake on
Tuesday and it's specificallytalking about celebrating the
journey and how do you have funand add joy into that, and
(34:18):
that's something I'm reallypassionate about.
Actually, I can tell you aquick story.
Yeah, absolutely, this makesyou think about I just had this
flashback to my very firstcorporate job, which was in
publishing.
Actually, many, many years ago,this was graduating with an
English degree.
What do you do with an Englishdegree?
So I got a job in publishing myfirst sit down review.
So I assume I'd been there ayear and had a sit down of like
(34:40):
here's what you did well, here'swhat you can improve on.
And the criticism I was givenin.
The thing I could improve on ismy manager told me she's like
well, you smile too much, youcould look like you're having
too much fun, which people couldinterpret as you're not really
working hard.
And it just kind of hit me likea ton of bricks.
(35:01):
I was like so do you want me tolook more sad?
Like what is the feedback?
What's the actionable adviceyou're giving me here?
And we had a chat and she'skind of like I don't think I
really wanted you to changeanything, I just want you to be
aware of it.
Okay, but that always stuckwith me.
It's like what an absurd thingto say of like you look like
you're having too much fun, likethat should be in the positive
(35:22):
category, not in the negativecategory.
So bring that full circle.
Team a lot.
And it's a theme throughoutCake on Tuesday of having joy in
the journey and really enjoyingthe ride.
And specifically Cake on Tuesdaycame from one season in the
project where we didn't have anexciting milestone to rally the
(35:43):
team around.
We were just making thesemarginal improvements, trying to
get to the next level, and wewere starting to lose our fun.
And I was having a conversationwith our operations manager at
the time and her and I werebrainstorming like how do we
make this more fun, how do weadd some levity to the situation
?
And she had this idea.
She's like what if I make thisWheel of Fortune style Wheel of
(36:04):
Winning, I want to call it, andshe put everybody's name on it.
She's like at the end of staffmeeting we'll just spin it If it
lands on your name.
If it lands on your name, it'dbe like Annika, you win, and
then we would mail you a cake.
Because we're a global team,we're spread all over the place,
so two days later a cake wouldshow up at your door, regardless
of where you were in the world,and our staff meetings were on
Tuesday, and so that's whereCake on Tuesday came from.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Wow, wow, so creative and how fun, right who?
Speaker 3 (36:29):
wouldn't want to get a kid.
My shout out to Ashley Havoc,my ops manager.
She was fantastic and very,very good at brainstorming
creative ways on a shoestringbudget to make things fun.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah Well, elizabeth, we're going to have your
website in the show notes thatpeople can learn more about you,
how to work with you, where tobuy your book.
But I do want to ask what?
Speaker 3 (36:53):
is a piece of advice that you would have given your
younger self, I think I wouldsay there's a business coach
called Dan Sullivan who haswritten some great books out
there, and he has one bookcalled the Gap in the Gain.
And it's all about why it'simportant to focus on how far
you've come rather than how faryou have to go.
And I would say that issomething I would remind my
(37:16):
younger self and I wouldencourage people to look at,
because it's so easy to getcaught up, especially when you
realize there is no done,there's no arrive, there's no
end.
It is a journey.
It's so easy to get caught upwith like, oh, I still have this
to do, I have so much more tolearn, I have this much more to
do.
We can so easily forget howmuch we've already done and how
far we've come.
And then that perspective andmindset shift is so crucial,
(37:39):
especially when the going getsrough, to remind yourself of
like all right, we've come thisfar.
All right, I've done this much.
Okay, we've learned this.
So I think that perspectivefocus on the gain, not the gap
Gain not the gap.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Brilliant, this has been really fun.
I'm looking forward to furtherconversations with you and
picking up your book as well,because I'm always looking for
more ways to hone in mycreativity and turn it into
innovation.
Awesome, and you know, hone inis one of the key words.
As you said, there can be a lotof scope creep when you're
(38:14):
interested in a lot of things.
So again, elizabeth Bieniak,thank you so much for being on
Mediascape and thank you to allof our students, alums and
everybody else who's listeningto this podcast on your favorite
platform.
Don't forget to leave us arating and review and I, or my
co-host, joseph Ataya, will beback with another amazing guest
to share their story, theirjourney.
(38:34):
Some insights for you on yourjourney next week.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital
Media Management program.
Visit us on the web atdmmuscedu.
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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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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.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.