S3 E5: Cronovirus

0:00Hello and welcome to Datum.

0:02This is episode five and season three.

0:04Ravi, how are you doing?

0:05Statter again.

0:06Season three, episode five.

0:08Does it starter?

0:10It does.

0:11Does.

0:11Okay, fine.

0:13Alright.

0:16Hello and welcome to Dayton Podcast.

0:18This is season three, episode five of the s uh me off.

0:25Throne me off.

0:28This always happens though.

0:29This I always screwed up.

0:30Okay.

0:31Hello and welcome to the Dayton Podcast.

0:33This is uh season three, episode four.

0:35Ravi, how are you doing?

0:36It's episode five.

0:39God

0:41Alright.

0:41Do we do doing the interrupt?

0:43I was so confident.

0:43Do you know why?

0:44Because I've written four in my notes.

0:45Let me write five and then I won't get it wrong.

0:48Okay, here we go.

0:50Hello, welcome to the Dayton Podcast.

0:52This is season three, episode five.

0:53Ravi, how are you doing?

0:55Um I'm doing well, thank you.

0:56I'm uh well sheltered.

0:59in my um abode in Chumsford today.

1:02You b um as I have been for the last ten days.

1:04Um given the current pandemic

1:07Absolutely.

1:08I I'm gonna have to change my own.

1:09I think that's influenced today's topic.

1:12Okay.

1:12Am I a bit too loud?

1:13Yeah, you just shattered that around the down the microphone, but it's fine, it's fine.

1:17Um you you you seem to be in an office.

1:19Who's who's that behind you?

1:20That's um Oh man I forgot the guy's name It's the guy from the US office um Stanley

1:30So we're actually um live streaming this for the first time uh on YouTube.

1:34Yeah uh we thought we'd try something different.

1:36Um so we're currently on Zoom, which is the the platform that has got

1:41Probably the shares have tripled in the last two weeks.

1:43Probably at least.

1:44Well, they haven't moved from zero, which is pretty good given everything's gone down, so yeah.

1:48Yeah, exactly.

1:49Right.

1:49They're they've they've sort of stabilized.

1:51Right.

1:52Um

1:52But this is a virtual background, so I now look like I'm um part of the cast of the US office.

1:57What what's your background, Tim?

1:58Um so my background is the datum uh it's over here.

2:01It's a virtual.

2:02Um it's a datum logo, but the setup is not the conventional Zoom to YouTube setup.

2:08It's actually I'm actually streaming my screen and capturing the audio input from my uh desktop PC

2:14Um and that's what you're seeing this from.

2:16Hence it doesn't have sort of the uh the zoom flourishes as it were.

2:19So it's a much cleaner setup, I think.

2:21But yeah.

2:22Well good.

2:22Um I'm bunkered up uh at home.

2:25I've worked from home for like a a year and a half, so I'm no stranger to this, um, which is great.

2:32I'm all set up already.

2:33But uh it's funny watching um my girlfriend kind of

2:36you know, work from home for the first time in a in like her field of work and it's every single time they get on a web call they they all basically do like a sound check for the first three minutes.

2:47That's cute.

2:48I I think I did the I I think the what's w uh w we'll talk about this a bit more, but we we've been set up for remote work for since day dot, right?

2:54Right, right.

2:55That's why we're we're so immune to it.

2:57Like half my weeks are normally spent

2:59Working from home anyway.

3:00So it's not it's not too different.

3:01Right.

3:02Um but let's recap the last episode.

3:04So last time uh we spoke, I was in Seattle.

3:07We had a um our first analog episode.

3:10Absolutely.

3:10Um

3:11with the hero that is Kent Martin.

3:13It was very spatial to have him on.

3:14I'm gonna use that again.

3:16Um but it was a very good episode.

3:18I I mean I I I say very good, it was mainly 'cause it was you and Kent for what

3:22Three quarters of it because I had to duck out.

3:23Yeah.

3:24Um you introduced uh most of the technical issues with editing that podcast.

3:28I'm sorry if you listened to it um early on because there's some sort of feedback going on.

3:32But yeah.

3:33Um yeah, no, it was a really good episode.

3:34Kent Kent shared a lot of sort of really interesting insights about his career and how he got to Tableau.

3:40I encourage everyone to have a listen again.

3:41Um I can't do it justice to to say how good of an episode um it was having him on

3:46Agreed, it was one of my favorites actually and I think it what was really nice for me is it's one of the first one well it's it is the first one that I've listened to and I have no idea what happened next.

3:54Right.

3:55So it was it was a very fresh listen for me as well.

3:57Um so getting slammed at the end of the episode

4:00Uh w w was was good fun as well.

4:02Um good, good, good.

4:04Um there's also been uh you know uh a few updates out for Tableau 2020.

4:091.

4:09And the beta for twenty twenty dot two just dropped.

4:12Tons of features.

4:13My word, we're gonna be busy.

4:14So um you're gonna be busy because uh if you haven't checked out already you've got

4:19T Tim's been hammering away on his YouTube channel uh for the last three or four months with some incredible videos and examples about the new features that not only just in 2019.

4:294, but 2020.

4:301 and I assume your weekend is gonna be packed

4:32Yeah, I've got a different approach.

4:34I've got a different approach.

4:35I'm trying to guess when it will actually come out and then I'm working backwards from that to to figure out a timeline.

4:40But

4:41There's a lot of really big changes, especially things like the data model.

4:46You know, we just talked to um some developers at Tableau in the last week or so and

4:51Even further than that, the whole product is just just picking up pace in terms of development.

4:56So that's gonna be really interesting um as well.

4:58So yeah, yeah, look out for that.

5:00I think I have to start the videos much earlier than that because

5:03Um everyone's at home uh on YouTube and Netflix.

5:07And so yeah, I think uh this weekend onwards expect to see more on the channel

5:11I think that's going to be the same for everyone, right?

5:13And it's it's you're gonna it's this really nice point for people who are doing online training or any pivot to video to start start doing that.

5:20This is why

5:21As we mentioned, Zoom is doing so well as with other um video conferencing platforms.

5:26Right, right.

5:26I I really thought that this might be the time, the first time Zoom might go down.

5:30And actually, it's it's proved, at least as far as we're using it at the moment, been resilient, right?

5:37But Discord went down.

5:38Discord went down.

5:39Did it did

5:40Dis Discord, for those of you don't know, is a um game is but primarily used by gamers, but it's another collaborative platform.

5:46Yeah.

5:46And it sort of niches um live talk.

5:49Exactly, exactly.

5:50It's it's it's a place where you know gamers used to go on Skype, talk to each other, and then uh gamers got together exactly and built Discord.

5:58But what it's got really going for it is this sort of real-time talk

6:02Really good audio quality, no friction whatsoever.

6:05You don't need to share a link or set up a meeting.

6:08You just literally hop into a room and just start talking, and that's it.

6:11Any device, anywhere, web or without web on your device just works

6:15Um really reliable.

6:16And it's free.

6:17That's the that's the key thing.

6:18It's free.

6:18Um so there's a lot of flexibility there.

6:21So yeah.

6:21And that's why it went down.

6:24Well, they doubled the resources.

6:25They didn't sort of anticipate it because it kinda caught them off guard.

6:28So now everything's back up and it seems to be working very smoothly.

6:32So yeah.

6:33Cool.

6:34But yeah, well today we're going to be focusing on uh remote working, which is obviously a very topical topic.

6:40Does that make sense?

6:41I th I hope so.

6:41Anyway, it's a very topical topic and

6:44We wanted to talk about sort of some of the aspects that we've touched on in the past to do with you know ways of working, how it affects sort of analytics and the way we all work, things like cloud technology, how that all comes together to enable this.

6:56Um and then lastly sort of the the future of work and how that's gonna evolve um long term.

7:01So um I think uh I'll sp sort of kick it off by maybe sort of just touching on

7:06the the obviously, you know, context at the moment around uh COVID nineteen coronavirus, which is the the the which which one is it?

7:14COVID nineteen is like the official one.

7:16But coronavirus is like the name of the family of SARS?

7:19Umbrella, yeah.

7:20So like umbrella family and there's this is like strain nineteen and that that's where it's come from.

7:24Exactly.

7:29um history of that or or whatever, but it's um it's been going on.

7:33I I mean if you look back and th the way that doctors are sort of realizing in the in the medical industries is it's been around almost since

7:40Um late autumn, right?

7:42The first cases that they're sort of tracking back to uh is late autumn where they sort of thought it was flu with different symptoms, um which which is where it is right now.

7:51Um

7:51But yeah, so so COVID nineteen um has been now been officially named a pandemic.

7:56Um I think most of most people or most companies now are recommending all people stay home.

8:02Um supermarkets of you know the Tesco I that's very close to where I live.

8:06Um is a 24-hour test code, it's no longer 24 hours.

8:08So it's changed to being from six till ten to help with um stock um turnover and things like this.

8:15Right.

8:16So a lot of things are changing in in the world around us, um, but for the world of work it's meant that um many companies for the first time are having to look at op opportunities and strategies.

8:26for remote working where they might not have done beforehand, where possible, because of course there are some jobs such as uh lab work which cannot be done remotely.

8:34Yeah, and you know, things like uh finance industry where certain things have to be done on on, you know, on the floor, as it were, or uh, you know, if you take technology where certain

8:44work has to be done in secrecy and so therefore has to be physically um in a particular place.

8:49And so I think what's really interesting is figuring out how companies do all of this.

8:54Um I can't count the number of times I've heard the word VPN in one week.

8:58Uh Tokens.

9:00Tokens, VPNs, uh streamings, webcams.

9:04Um boy, I have so many webcams on my shelf.

9:06If I'd known I'd have put them on eBay um about a week ago.

9:09It's a good time.

9:10It's a good time to sell that kind of stuff.

9:12What is it like m monitors, keyboards, and stands?

9:16They're a rare commodity alongside hand sanitizers these days.

9:19And Lou Roll.

9:20I haven't I don't understand the LURAL, but that's for another day.

9:23For another story.

9:25And so yeah, no, this is this has really sort of kicked things into into focus.

9:29Um I think one of the the the the key things has actually been.

9:33the way in which organizations are working.

9:35So for the companies who have transitioned a lot of their sort of analytical infrastructure to the cloud, broadly speaking.

9:42I've actually weathered this quite fine, right?

9:44So anyone who's running SAS systems, you know, you look at Salesforce, uh, you look at elements of Tableau

9:50Um those all work just fine uh in the setup because you don't physically need to be in a location.

9:55It's really when it comes to processes and systems.

9:58Yeah, this all starts to fall down, right?

10:01Exactly.

10:01I think the uh uh you mentioned it there, but um it's when things are within an intranet, uh which is where you need a VPN, or where where systems are on um

10:10what people call a a a va i in a vacuum effectively.

10:14Um um where you c it doesn't have access to the internet, so you can't even set up

10:19or or change something for for people outside the network to actually get involved with these things.

10:25Um and and and whilst companies do do um what what the fired fire drills for this sort of scenario, um I don't think

10:34I don't think very few companies have thought of it at this scale and if if they have their like enterprise level who who have sort of have the infrastructure and like go time level to go.

10:45Whereas, you know, medium sized companies

10:47who are either very seasonal or very reliant on certain um methods of working.

10:53Yeah.

10:53They're the people who find it trickiest, you know, like um Carphone Warehouse is a great example.

10:58Um with Footfall Falls, which you

11:00But inevitably will, you know, they they've they've chosen to um shut down all their stores so and lay so many people off because in in the short term where they have small short term targets

11:12This doesn't work.

11:12However, the things balance themselves out in in different other industries.

11:16Yeah.

11:17Um As an economist, this is a fascinating time.

11:20Right.

11:20So it's it's it's honestly I I wrote a tweet the other day about, you know, this is

11:24This is pure A-level economics fodder, like uh a twenty-five mark question to explain the the the sort of processes that would happen with this sort of shop.

11:33It's an interesting thing 'cause it's also um in many ways there's almost two sides to this.

11:39There's can I keep my business functioning and w and what elements of that business can keep functioning, right?

11:44Even if you've got stores shut

11:46You still can't shut everything down because the time it takes to wind everything back up will just exacerbate the issue whenever that whenever that is.

11:54And we're looking at, you know, weeks to months at the moment.

11:56So

11:57That's one thing.

11:58Then there is, you know, the organizations where their core business is process, you know, like transport, for example, and logistics.

12:05You know, those things some of that can still happen, but most of it is just um, you know, uh the borders are shutting now, right?

12:12So you know the well if you've got no no goods coming in and out and if you've got uh economy which is just in time production.

12:19Yeah.

12:19Boy, like that that that that's where that's where the issues come in.

12:23And um Exactly.

12:24But but but in the world of analytics I think and and tech, I think you're right.

12:27A lot of

12:28um the folks that we work with uh it might be simpler than than other jobs.

12:34And if we focus in on that about remote working, maybe we can dig in a bit about like

12:39The the sort of technology that's out there right now and how how things might change in the future.

12:43So um we mentioned before that we've been set up for remote working from day day zero.

12:47I think that's um so where we work at the information lab, we've

12:51always been uh we've always had a culture of we'd have an office.

12:55Um right now we have an inverted commas office yeah um which is basically the data school and we can purchase but effectively we're set up for if as long as you've got an internet connection

13:05And a lap your laptop with you, you can probably do your work client-depending, right?

13:10Yeah, that's that's harder than you think, right?

13:12An internet connection.

13:13Agreed.

13:13Everyone's home streaming stuff.

13:15Uh all working, sorry.

13:16Um and and that's it's a it's a f it's a weird thing.

13:24I mean

13:25Technically speaking, if you're fully cloud set up, well you can just spin down some servers, right?

13:30And you know, enjoy the benefits of not having to run all of that stuff unnecessarily.

13:35And the only person crying will be Amazon, but they'll be happy because

13:39A selling Lural instead.

13:42Exactly.

13:42I think I mean the on-premise server is is the one that that's that's at risk the most, right?

13:47So for exactly

13:48People that are have been set up for uh ha you having racks uh uh and and things like this, if they don't have external connectivity, they will need someone on the ground.

13:56to manage the the l the load in the VMs and things like this, especially where there's no remote but but you know access.

14:03I mean most IT teams now do have uh a method of VPNing in or remoting into a a a uh environment.

14:10But I think people a lot of companies after this sort of when we uh do move on eventually, uh in in about a year's time

14:18uh a lot of meetings will be had about how do we stop this happening yeah and what have we learned from this process.

14:24And I think cloud will be

14:26a more viable option um as you sort of uh you have this innovation innovative process where people share what they're doing.

14:34And it sort of makes it more viable.

14:36Yeah.

14:36And when it comes to things like the products, I mean uh just yesterday I think I was saying to someone that you know people picture tableau as a piece of software that they install on their machine.

14:45They don't think of it as a service

14:47um you know cloud service as it were and and they've just been acquired by probably the biggest, you know, SaaS company in the world, right?

14:54Um It's a website.

14:55Like Salesforce is just a website.

14:57Exactly, exactly.

14:58And so that what what's been interesting is, you know, we've we've seen a few

15:02sort of uh challenges some customers are having when, you know, employees have gone home and what they've done is they've copied, you know, data sources onto their

15:10uh stuff locally when they they didn't need to.

15:12They just needed to have a VPN and okay it's slower, but that that's gonna be fine.

15:16And what are the kind of challenges you see in that space?

15:19You know, that sort of cultural education about the way these infrastructures work and how that actually

15:24helps to towards business continuity.

15:27A lot of this comes down to trust, right?

15:28I think trust is such an important facet of remote working and you know, uh speaking to friends and this like, well, you know, the we've trialed remote working with this this department before

15:38And it didn't work because they they their their productivity drops through the through the through the floor, right?

15:44So you just end up saying you're never working from home again.

15:47Yeah.

15:47Um but eventually you're gonna have to people have to adapt very quickly.

15:51I remember when I first you know, the first

15:53Um I had a I had a customer who was working in Switzerland and I was th this is the first instance in my life that I'd had um working from home.

16:01And it's tough.

16:01I think um setting yourself that routine uh of not working long

16:06And also not procrastinating, that that's that's quite difficult because you think you can multitask, but when you need to l knuckle down and get something done, uh you need that right environment and frame of mind and having that routine is so important.

16:17I think in terms of infrastructure

16:20and the way people adapt culturally, I think it will you'll get a lot of other systems and checks and balances

16:30put in to make sure that someone isn't copying something onto a personal computer.

16:35Even if it's faster.

16:36I think what what what ends up happening is people go home and they've got their laptop.

16:40And then they've got their personal computer and they're like, well, this computer is way better.

16:44I've got two screens.

16:45I'm just going to carry on working here and have this open to chat to people.

16:49When in reality you shouldn't be doing that because of proprietary data and um security and to having the right controls in place.

16:56Um but if you're able to do that then then

17:00So that's that that's the uh risks you take.

17:02Exactly, exactly.

17:03Um and not to sort of, you know, make this conversation too dry and talk too much about the sort of

17:08the back end logistics of remote working, but sort of to cap this bit off, I th I I guess in terms of interesting, I don't think security's actually come up that much at all.

17:17I think um That's true.

17:20People or companies seem to have locked that down and I think that point you mentioned earlier about trust has actually maybe petered out.

17:26I haven't

17:27You know, by now I would have expected something to have come out about how someone copied something onto a USB drive by mistake because they needed to work from home.

17:35Yeah.

17:36Uh VPNs seem to be more reliable.

17:38Um however

17:40We're very early on though.

17:41I think we're we're a lot of companies have only just decided to have the work from home policy this week.

17:46I could be jumping the gun, yeah

17:47Yeah, yeah.

17:48I think I think w we're you know speaking to customers today and yesterday, a lot of them had got the call yes or like Monday evening to say everyone's working from home from for the facebook.

17:57Right.

17:59Yeah, I mean people are starting to pick up their laptops for the first time.

18:03Yeah.

18:03Uh and figure out, you know, again talking to friends who are working from the home from home for the first time.

18:07Right.

18:08Um th they're they're picking up their laptops and and trying to figure out all their security systems and all this to start with.

18:14I think next week or the week after you might hear the stories.

18:17pop out about people um doing doing that security issue.

18:20I think right now it's trying to figure out whether it'll work or not.

18:23That that's where most companies are at.

18:25Um if we move the discussion on, I think the other interesting aspect is h is here that um this is this is a brief glimpse into

18:33this dystopian future right where everyone's wearing utopian utopian future utopian mow

18:43Um so okay, fine.

18:44This is a brief glimpse into that utopian future, right?

18:47And you know, everyone I went to uh Tesco today, half people were wearing masks.

18:51I'm in London, so this is obviously a high number of people wearing masks.

18:55Um you go to shops, there's nothing on the shelf.

18:58Um people are literally hoarding anything they can get their hands on.

19:02And we kind of live in this future you've seen in the sci-fi films where

19:06You know, everyone works from home.

19:08That element I agree is dystopian.

19:14Utopian work, dystopian sort of uh living, living, right?

19:18Um and what what I'm sort of really intrigued by is l getting hands on hands-on data about

19:26this next month, you know, that transition from uh, you know, not really being a remote working culture as a as a nation

19:34to being having uh an instance where it's enforced and you get a month's worth of data to really analyse how that works.

19:42Um

19:42So I I mean I think that the I want to only t dig into that supermarket example a bit more because uh there's th there's like again behavioral science-wise this is fascinating.

19:55is so interesting because as I I mean I I again I I tweeted this out yesterday, I went to Tesco uh to buy a few things um and all of the Tesco basics rice gone.

20:07Yeah.

20:07Uncle Ben's, however, fully stopped

20:09So it's like uh Uncle Ben's is a brand.

20:12So it's like the branded items still there, but the cheaper stuff that people wanna sort of

20:17Hord.

20:17Hordes and and take two or three items themselves.

20:20That's what they're taking.

20:20Yeah.

20:21So it's not at a point where people are thinking I need this.

20:24They're thinking

20:25I might need this, so I'm gonna buy a lot of it.

20:27Yeah, yeah, yeah.

20:28Um, which is really interesting.

20:30Um I think the second thing I w I want to talk about there is um the

20:36adaptation of the way the mindset people take when when thinking of things like groceries.

20:42Right.

20:42Um speaking to uh colleagues, you know, they're they're like, well

20:45Usually I just stop by the Sainsbury's Ortesco or other shop on the way home to figure out what I want to eat tonight.

20:52And that that that that's how it works rather rather than what um what I end up doing is

20:56I think about what I'm eating the next week or week and a half.

21:00Yeah.

21:00And then go shopping.

21:01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

21:02Exactly.

21:03Right.

21:03Um so that weekly shop mindset

21:06that's slowly starting to disappear with the way, you know, the millennial workers who work longer hours or different hours than than most traditional workers and therefore their the only time to figure out what they're eating is on their way home.

21:18Because it's cheaper in, you know, the flexibility of it.

21:21Yeah.

21:21Yeah, yeah, yeah.

21:22It's interesting, right?

21:23So much behavioral economics is going to be born from this next

21:26Sort of a month a month or so.

21:28And I think for the first time, you know, I've just been reading a book about um um misunderstanding economics and

21:35The interesting thing is this time round it's going to be heavily driven by data.

21:38I think economists hate the word research, right?

21:40That's what this book was saying, right?

21:42Yep.

21:43Yep.

21:43They hate surveys and research.

21:45So for once they don't trust people.

21:47We don't trust people.

21:48Right, right, right.

21:49People are irrational.

21:51And so you for for once you're actually gonna have like a hardcore data set um that you can actually use.

21:57From a whole range of organizations uh and and even just Google searches alone.

22:02It's it's the first time that this sort of event has occurred and you have this much data, right?

22:06You've got real-time

22:07Data, social media, you've got uh email, you've got text, you've got load put on the electrical servers, you've got

22:15You know, you the the money flows are so interesting, right?

22:18You're you're not spending money in the pub, but you're spending money on buying that new game because you're like, well, I'm home for the rest of the two weeks.

22:24So I'm gonna finally buy FIFA.

22:26Contactless is like a big thing now because no one wants to, you know.

22:29Literally have cash.

22:30Yeah.

22:31Exactly.

22:31I mean I I saw someone men um mentioning like, oh, do I need to hoard cash?

22:35I was like, but why?

22:36But why like PayPal?

22:38Yeah.

22:38Online, like even cafes are reverting to cash uh contactless only systems because it reduces the amount of sort of hand contact that you you have.

22:47And so

22:48There, if you if you're a card processor, just think how much additional data you're now getting when people's almost entire life is going through that system, right?

22:57And you can you can sort of track that journey.

22:59Um to yeah, that's an interesting

23:01Then I the sad thing is I don't think much of this data will be public, right?

23:04This is going to be Of course not.

23:05This is going to be the data that the likes of Google and AWS and, you know, Apple and those those those kind of people who aggregate at such a high level that they have that power to sort of

23:14really get an insight into that.

23:16I think I think the people that the people that will actually get access to that data from these companies will be academics.

23:21I'm not sure.

23:22I'm not sure because it's it's such a key competitive advantage.

23:25And I mean we we we sort of call foul when

23:28trying to have, you know, people on QR codes um being tracked every single way they go.

23:33But then the six exact same thing is happening, but just spread across five companies.

23:39The moment, right?

23:39Facebook.

23:40And and the government in the UK, they have no no no idea because technically speaking the it's not data driven.

23:46Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly.

23:48Um

23:49Uh and so it's interesting, the exact same thing is going on, but here we are in a slightly different world where six companies get all that data and uh that kind of decides what what goes on.

23:57So it's an interesting kind of

23:59Case study, use case, whatever you want to call it.

24:02It's just but we're we're right now we're in the middle of it.

24:04So we can't really think of it as this really cool thing yet.

24:07Because it's like, well, it's kind of crappy.

24:08Yeah, exactly.

24:09Exactly.

24:10Um uh let's talk about work though.

24:12Let's talk about work.

24:13So the the reason I said it's a utopian future we're looking at is because um

24:19All of a sudden, companies that are are so focused on meetings are now having hangouts where everyone's on or got their videos on and everyone's talking and you've got the agenda that's pre-decided.

24:30And stuff that was blocked would have been blocked in for two hours, you've now finished the conversation and got your answer in fifteen minutes.

24:36Right.

24:37Right.

24:37Exactly.

24:38Exactly.

24:39Like

24:39If if you think that the productivity is gonna fall, I think what you're gonna find is once people get into their rhythm of working from home and working remotely

24:47that productivity is actually gonna boost, be be be increased significantly.

24:52Mm-hmm.

24:52Because people find that with that, you know, it's sort of like

24:55Um when I was in university I had a Eureka moment of how I best study.

24:58Yeah.

24:59Which is I just locked myself down for a couple of hours at a time uh to get as much done as possible and then I just

25:05you know, I I like free time to do nothing.

25:07So um that that's my best way of working and and I know that, you know, I've

25:12But similarly, i i in my world of work, I'm so heavily f uh uh driven by my calendar uh because I'll just block time out to do certain tasks.

25:19Um otherwise I'll just get distracted by um supporting the rest of the company.

25:24Yeah, exactly, exactly.

25:25But I think I think it I think that's a natural sort of progression of sort of where all this is going.

25:30I think um i in many ways if you um

25:34If you sort of fast forward the way we we were working today and sort of where things are going, this is why companies like Zoom exist and

25:42uh WebEx and Sit you know Citrix have been growing ever since they they found their companies because we've slowly been heading in this direction.

25:50What's happening is an acceleration caused by like a global phenomenon.

25:54And um

25:55The reason we're actually able to adapt to it very quickly is 'cause the the groundwork was already done.

26:00The concepts, the ways of working, you know.

26:02People have been working from home for quite some time.

26:04It's nothing new there.

26:05The data, the infrastructure, you know, if AWS didn't genuinely exist

26:09that that sort of whole concept of cloud computing didn't exist, we would really be stuck.

26:14We really would be stuck because you couldn't just spin up resources on demand and you know people like Discord couldn't just spin up additional

26:21Servers.

26:21They'd they'd be waiting five months to buy that server and and get it all in.

26:25Because there's because because they aren't being produced anymore.

26:27Right, exactly.

26:28Because of this entire supply chain shock.

26:30Exactly, exactly.

26:31Um and so you know if you've if you've gone cloud

26:34Like the dream business in this situation is a web-only business that runs their entire infrastructure in AWS.

26:44relies on the AWS affiliate uh sorry Amazon affiliate system to sell to ship their stock, right?

26:51And everything is completely sort of not handled.

26:54All they do is manage accounting

26:56from free agent or something like that.

26:58So all that happens right now is, well, you just spin down some servers, your stock sits in Amazon warehouses.

27:04And it just takes longer to to Tina, yeah.

27:06You might have a few logistical issues with with timings and stuff like that.

27:09That always happens in every business.

27:11But

27:12That is sort of the ideal business and that is pretty much the measure of how resilient you are.

27:17If you take Netflix, for example, well, let's have a look at that model.

27:20The reason they're still running, in fact they're gonna do well, is because they're all on their own.

27:24So well.

27:24Yeah.

27:25People are at home spending more time, they can r uh you know.

27:29I don't need to explain it.

27:30If you take um another example, um let's let's take um sort of email software and stuff like that, right?

27:38Well

27:38People need to communicate.

27:39Again, it's all online.

27:41It's very simple.

27:41The process is entirely.

27:43You're gonna get a lot more lot more people trialing productivity apps like Slack, like Teams, like Yammer.

27:48Yeah.

27:49Like Convo.

27:49Yeah, yeah.

27:50Um

27:50And you're gonna get a lot more of those trials, you're gonna get people using GoToMeeting or BlueJans or Zoom.

27:56Yep.

27:57Um but I think I think you're you've hit the nail on the head.

28:00I think companies that have already started to consider these productivity tools

28:04and sort of trying to think about the future of work could are a lot more um agile and nimble in this scenario.

28:11Yeah, yeah.

28:11Um

28:12It's companies that aren't set up for that, that are having to ha have their day of reckoning where they need to figure out what they're doing.

28:17As you said, remote working is nothing new.

28:19But remote working at this scale

28:21Is very new.

28:22Yeah.

28:22Yeah.

28:23Um and the scale the scale isn't actually the issue.

28:26It's the it's the the pace at which it's come, right?

28:30Correct.

28:30Yeah.

28:31It's just been like everyone at once.

28:32Yeah.

28:32Straight off the bat.

28:33Yeah.

28:34Um like this week the amount like I said.

28:36The amount of home office supplies that probably been purchased from Amazon, from Staples, from all these companies.

28:41The sad thing is a lot of it is I don't know is gonna end up in the tip as soon as we're all done with this.

28:45Like it's it's uh uh I I don't feel any sense of sort of um

28:50finality to this.

28:50As as soon as organizations can get back to the way they're doing uh way of doing things, they're just gonna go right back to it.

28:56No n no questions asked.

28:58Um and I think what the only thing will change is that emplo employees will will start to realise actually

29:04I can do more of my own.

29:05There is a better work.

29:06There is a better way of working.

29:07Exactly.

29:08For some people.

29:10Not everyone sort of has an environment where they can easily work from home.

29:13I think co-working space might might might

29:15Might become more popular again.

29:16They basically nearly died of death in the last few years, you know.

29:19Look at we work.

29:20Look at we work and now, you know, had they been around a f a few weeks longer, who knows?

29:25It could have been exactly opposite sort of scenario, right?

29:28Uh yeah, it's fascinating.

29:29Like I said, the future of work is really interesting, especially given that we're we're kind of looking at it.

29:34Um I think you're gonna we're gonna get a lot more um

29:39Are everyone's gonna consider that working from home space when looking at like houses, for example.

29:44Yeah, exactly.

29:45Exactly.

29:45Like um

29:46I was sending a link to my girlfriend about these garden offices.

29:49They're literally companies that come in and build a shed.

29:51Yeah, yeah, yeah.

29:51Yeah, yeah, yeah.

29:52Build a shed in the back garden.

29:53It's basically a one person, a two person, a small business setup.

29:57And you just turn your garden into like real estate essentially.

30:00These are like mini flats.

30:01And you've got the commute.

30:02Yeah.

30:03The commute.

30:04To your garden.

30:05Gosh, that's not a commute.

30:06Um but yeah, um, you know, these these are gonna become sort of more common ideas

30:11The one other place that I think is really fascinating is watching everyone scramble to figure out how to collaborate in an online space, right?

30:18And and I think we touched on this a little bit with meetings, but I mean even before this call, I started this uh this this call with you half an hour ago because for the first time I had to figure out the logistics of

30:31How everything comes together, right?

30:33Yes.

30:33And I spent what was it?

30:35So the first the first time we had this idea was chatting yesterday.

30:39Yep.

30:39Um

30:40On a hang Google Hangout.

30:41Yep.

30:42Uh then we chatted today on Discord.

30:44Yep.

30:44About what we can actually do when we record this.

30:46Then we moved to WhatsApp.

30:48Yeah.

30:48Because you got back from walking your dog and you're like, I'm setting this up now.

30:50Yeah.

30:51Then you send me the Zoom link on WhatsApp to join.

30:53Yeah.

30:54Yeah and then and then you then we have the additional um steps to get this on YouTube live.

30:58From Zoom.

30:59I added myself and another computer, which is what's streaming this at the moment.

31:03And it all goes on.

31:05And the the interesting thing is is that none of those were seamless.

31:08Right.

31:09Right.

31:09I had to kind of hop I had to hop between a hundred things

31:13to get it to work.

31:14And I'm using some other bit of software.

31:16It's called OBS, uh Open Broadcast Streaming is the is the name of the software.

31:20It's open source.

31:21It's free.

31:22It pushes this to YouTube and that's what's hosting this.

31:24Now there is an ability to stream right from Zoom to YouTube, but that requires a paid account, blah blah blah

31:30Could've done it in Discord but didn't want the friction of everyone having to figure out Discord for the first time.

31:35Um and so that was literally giving it.

31:43How we'd record our audio.

31:46Yeah, no, no.

31:48I could actually push to Twitch, YouTube, anything, all on the same system I'm using now.

31:52The issue with Twitch is

31:54Um it it it penalizes you for not having had an audience for the first time.

31:58Whereas YouTube is much, much easier.

32:00I can just set it upstream.

32:02I'm on my channel.

32:03And you've got and you've got a lot of subscribers.

32:05Right

32:05And actually streaming isn't available for everyone.

32:07I should say that YouTube limits streaming until you get to uh a thousand subscribers, but I only have it because

32:14Uh I used to have UT from way back when so I got grandfathered into the policy rather than having it sort of natively.

32:20So that's why

32:21We're doing it here and not on the Dayton Podcast YouTube channel.

32:24We actually do have one by the way.

32:25Um so check check check that check that out.

32:29But yeah, this recording will go there and then we can

32:31We can we can we can host it that but it's it's a good point on integrations, like so the the reason I mean this is this is such a key object of the stuff I do with customer success, which is

32:40Why do people end up using Microsoft Teams or Yammer versus Slack?

32:44And it's because they have Outlook.

32:47It's because they have Office Everything.

32:49So it's easier for them to try

32:51this new collaboration platform where you're trying to stop using emails, um, using Teams, uh, not using, you know, it's trying to bring in something external.

32:59And and again, we come back to companies trusting.

33:01Yeah, you're you're more likely to trust Microsoft than you are to trust Google or Slack, weirdly.

33:07Exactly, exactly.

33:08And I mean

33:10You know, these things go down and even if Google, you know, does something loses your trust, you're more likely to sort of look at the moving average of of sort of trust, right?

33:19They've only screwed up once in the last five years, so I'll let them off.

33:22But somebody screws up again and again.

33:24Like Slack changed their logo, now they're changing their interface.

33:27It just just causes this added threading.

33:30Yeah, exactly.

33:30It just causes this friction that people just start to get fatigued by.

33:34Um and then end that ends up becoming

33:36So the narrative of your project.

33:37Facebook, right?

33:38Facebook for work used to be a thing.

33:39I don't know.

33:40MySpace, the exact same depth, right?

33:42Yep.

33:42Yeah.

33:43I mean Facebook for work used to uh have that that as a platform.

33:46A couple of companies I know use that

33:48Um it just whenever you say Facebook for work, you just it just comes with a stigma, right?

33:54Exactly.

33:54Because what happens, you you're more likely when you say Facebook and work, you're more likely to think about people who are using Facebook or work when they should be working.

34:03Exactly.

34:04Um the other thing how do you see how how do you see this shaking out then?

34:08Let's let's go on to the now.

34:09How do you see this shaking out in the long-term world of work?

34:13Well, I I I still think we're gonna spend two, three months things figuring out.

34:17I think companies who run this kind of software for the first time are actually gonna understand how these systems don't work.

34:24for them.

34:24Right.

34:25Because you build you build all these features with an idea of how they should be used.

34:28Even Zoom, it just recreated a bunch of stuff that we had in in Citrix and w and a webinar.

34:33Uh but you know, real-time transcriptions is something that we saw on Google the other day, right?

34:38And that that was like mind-breaking, right?

34:40Just having that and you know work and go to different languages, then p suddenly people can talk in in different languages to each other.

34:46That'd be amazing.

34:47Um

34:48So I think we're still in this sort of scientific phase where we're still just figuring out where the you know the creases are, how to iron those out.

34:56And I only think that, you know, two, three years down the line will you actually get valuable um sort of feedback.

35:02that actually pushes this out.

35:04Do you know what's gonna be really funny?

35:05I think by the time they figure it out, this all blown over and everyone just goes back to work anyway.

35:11Yeah, I I think so.

35:12I think so.

35:13But I think every company will now have um a risk mitigation policy, right?

35:18True.

35:18Call the viral risk mitigation policy or something.

35:21Whereby, you know, if corona happens again, it'll literally be titled after COVID-19, like what's your COVID-19 strategy or something like that.

35:28What's your COVID policy?

35:30Yeah, exactly.

35:31Um and it will have

35:34Sort of capabilities for things like this.

35:37People will have rolling contracts with Zoom just to be able to, you know, go in.

35:41And actually, there's elements of this which can be taken into the office.

35:45Especially in companies where office space is really, really, you know, tight meeting space.

35:51It sounds weird, but I could see elements of remote working making it into the office um seamlessly

35:57Um the the stuff like Slack and Teams is already there, but other aspects, you know, like Zoom, uh, for example, uh as the technology gets better, it's gonna actually add elements of which you can augment this sort of interaction in a much better way

36:10Yeah, I mean we're we're all of our data school consultants uh uh that all they're teaching is now on the browser.

36:16I think you're gonna see it that disruption happen in education as well.

36:18Right.

36:19You're gonna have more likely

36:20Uh more likely you can have uh you know Harvard professors doing MOOCs.

36:24MOOCs were a big thing about like when I when I was in when I was in uni, like two thousand and

36:29twelve thirteen.

36:30Right.

36:30Everyone's going on about like how MOOCs are gonna change the world.

36:33Massive massive online learning environments, right?

36:35However, the the second thing I think is gonna happen is education is gonna get disrupted in a way.

36:40Um because right now you've got kids at home uh and their parents are trying to encourage them to learn um independently.

36:46So you're almost gonna get this almost forced tan principle where the classroom sort of pivots into

36:53Uh trying to find give your kids the the love of learning.

36:57I think that's that's that's thing that that um that that's missing, right?

37:01So you know the structured education system is great, it's worked for so long.

37:06Um but if you've given kids the opportunities to you know choose from the these sets of resources what you want to learn and find out those curious curious points and then you've got that then there's structured paths for you for you to follow from there.

37:19Um

37:20I mean you think about like the way you learned HTML for example.

37:22Yeah.

37:22That was very much self-directed.

37:24Yeah, yeah.

37:24Um I I I also I'd love to sort of

37:27If I could, I'd love to go into Udemy and see, okay, what's what what are people learning now?

37:33Because it's very this is a really sort of big time affair, unfortunately, for some organizations um who can't keep their staff

37:40Um this is a very much a wake-up call to employees, right?

37:44And so um I watched this guy called Ryan Cronenberg, I think, um a a cloud guru, um who teaches AWS.

37:51And he started learning AWS.

37:53He was a lawyer and he started learning AWS because suddenly there was no need for his services as a lawyer because of the immigration policy between Australia and the UK.

38:02Oh, the c the credit crunch caused this.

38:04Okay

38:04And so he just went and learned infrastructure, technology infrastructure.

38:08He started with Microsoft and ended up with Amazon.

38:10Right now, the exact same thing is going on, right?

38:13Some sort of global change.

38:15Shock, yeah.

38:16And I'd love if sort of Udemy had a list of

38:19Okay, what are what are people flooding to now?

38:21Like what are the things?

38:22Are they all going into um technology based things?

38:26Are actually Are we into data science?

38:27Is Python still hot?

38:28Like Well actually, you know, are we too much in this and actually they're moving more towards things like

38:33the arts and the humanities, you know, things that I can can actually thrive in like a in like a in like a digital space because you you know

38:42Even internally we've seen like uh what is it, the virtual yoga session.

38:46It's like the biggest turnout for that I've ever seen.

38:48Um bigger bigger than the actual

38:51You know, yoga session itself.

38:53Yeah, exactly.

38:54Forty people like signed up to remote yoga session.

38:56It's like amazing.

38:58And so

38:59It's funny how Peloton.

39:00Pel Peloton are about like that they're about to clean up.

39:02Like the amount of times I've seen people say, I may as well just get Peloton because I can't go to spit.

39:06Yeah.

39:07It's like

39:07Yeah, this is exactly what this is the exact use case Paddington was created itself for.

39:12Yeah.

39:13And and it's it's funny because

39:15You wouldn't have thought that would be the case.

39:17In a world where you thought, oh, people can't get out, you would never have said, oh, gym classes are going to go down or yoga s yoga instructors, you know, are going to get more, more sort of interest.

39:27But actually, people

39:29You people kind of focus on the things that they're going to do.

39:31Yeah.

39:32People focus on themselves, they focus on their priorities.

39:34And it actually realigns people's um

39:37What do you call it?

39:37Um priorities.

39:39Priorities in a way.

39:40Um priorities and circumstances in a way that actually suits them.

39:43So um agreed.

39:44Yeah, and and that's kind of an interesting side effect.

39:47This this is the big thing.

39:48I the amount of conversation I saw is like, well, we we're all gonna stay at home for the next few weeks.

39:52What are you reading?

39:53What are you gonna learn?

39:54What are you gonna do with your time?

39:55Like are you just gonna binge watch the West Wing like I am?

39:58Or are you gonna go off and, you know, uh build new content and learn new things, right?

40:03So

40:04What are you what are you doing?

40:05What are you doing in this time?

40:09Straight back in me, right.

40:11Um yeah, I mean I am binging w I mean I've never watched the West Wing, so I that is my

40:15uh current show that I'm watching in the evening.

40:17I tell you what, have you watched uh Westworld?

40:21Uh I've started watching Westworld.

40:23Now that is a show.

40:23That is a show.

40:24It's the final season as well just started now in um the States.

40:28I think it's also in the UK at the same time.

40:29So yeah.

40:30I think it's week by week though.

40:31So I'm gonna wait um ten weeks, then watch them all one one go.

40:35Um but more e more educationally, um I I bought a Kindle.

40:39Um I actually got it right here.

40:42Cool.

40:42Exactly.

40:43I mean I bought a Kindle about a year ago.

40:44Uh or or got a Kindle about a year ago.

40:46Um and I've had books and it's been great on traveling.

40:49Like so ri for example, um I've done a lot of travelings.

40:52um in the last couple of months and it's been amazing.

40:54It's been like I if I want to do something I'll just read for a for a couple of hours.

40:58And it's actually because it's lightweight and has many books on there, it's actually got me reading again.

41:02Yeah.

41:02Uh but surrounded by screens from what, eight o'clock

41:05Up till I mean last night was till half eight or nine-ish, right?

41:09Yeah, yeah.

41:10Sorry my screens for that long and a kinda way is a lot lighter on the eyes, and I think it's also nice to sort of stay away from things like news.

41:16Um beyond that I think I'm learning a bit of Salesforce and going back to my the the the mountain of Udemy courses I purchased and sort of going through I think currently I'm going through statistics.

41:26Cause um yeah Udemy course is the only other thing that I think I hold by alongside Leroy.

41:35Cause when there's a sale and you need to

41:37You like you just look at the piping courses and you just think, well, if I ever need this, I might as well.

41:43It's only ten quid or ten dollars or whatever it is in your class.

41:46Nine ninety-nine.

41:47Exactly.

41:47I did the same with AWS.

41:49I looked at the whole, you know, A Cloud Guru library and I just thought, you know what?

42:01I've actually, you know, i in in response to your sort of um

42:05What you're saying about what you're up to, I've actually got an exam.

42:08Oh, boring.

42:10I got an exam, uh AWS exam.

42:12Um I've been putting it off for a while to be fair.

42:14I've been really busy, but

42:15Like all exams, you just gotta avoid uh putting them off and just just basically do them whether you like it or not.

42:21So I think that's in two weeks.

42:22Might actually get cancelled.

42:24Uh Pierce and View, who are holding the test, cancelled all the exams in the States.

42:28All the tests are closed.

42:30UK ones are still open.

42:31Can you not do remote?

42:32Is that not a remote exam you can do?

42:33I can't do this one remote, unfortunately.

42:35This should make it remote because it's done in virtually the same conditions as the cloud protectioner, but um that is remote, so you know if if you

42:43If you're thinking of getting into AWS, Cloud Practitioner Exam is j you know, pretty much, you know, 30, 40% of the way there to Solution Architect.

42:52Get on that.

42:52It's a really good course to sort of understand and and do.

42:55Um so yeah, AWS in two weeks.

42:58See how it goes.

42:59Um I've got a lot of time now, so I'm gonna try and make use of it.

43:03Uh exactly

43:05Exactly.

43:05Excellent.

43:06Cool.

43:07I think that's a that's a pod.

43:08Good.

43:09Um I'm looking at our streaming metrics here.

43:11I've got this lovely screen that tells me what's going on on my iPad.

43:15Uh I also pulled out one of these like streamer lights, that's why I've got like a nice glow.

43:21Average watch time during this episode was eight minutes fifty six.

43:25So I I think this basically means there's one person who watched the entire thing.

43:29Um because dipping in and out.

43:33Because we've had

43:34Um over the total how many do we have?

43:37We have had 14 playbacks.

43:39So fourteen individuals have have watched this uh live with us, which it was pretty cool.

43:45Excellent.

43:45We have three three viewers currently, I think that's probably.

43:48Of which one is me.

43:49Yeah, exactly.

43:52Maybe the other one is me.

43:53And maybe the last one is Corey if he's still online.

43:56Uh Corey dropped us notes in the in the comments there.

43:59Um yeah, I think he he noticed your background.

44:04It's it's a novelty background.

44:06It's very good.

44:07Good.

44:08Excellent.

44:08Um as as we said, um always always love feedback on the pods.

44:12I mean this is gonna be one that you can actually watch on YouTube if you want to watch us back

44:16Including the first fifteen minutes of Tim scrubling.

44:19Please don't.

44:19Please don't do that.

44:20It's awful.

44:22Uh but thank you all for listening again.

44:24Feedback always welcome on at Dayton Pod on Twitter.

44:28You can also email us at datumpodcast at gmail.

44:31com.

44:31Sorry, at datempodcast at gmail.

44:33com.

44:34But yeah, until next time, everyone take care and we'll speak to you soon.