Workology Podcast Ep 129: Disruptive Digital Trends at SXSW

Episode 129: Digital Disruptive Trends at
SXSW

Episode Link: http://workolo.gy/ep129-wp
Intro: [00:00:01] Welcome to the Workology Podcast a podcast for the disruptive
workplace leader. Join host Jessica Miller-Merrell founder of Workology.com as she sits
down and gets to the bottom of trends tools and case studies for the business leader.
HR and recruiting professional who is tired of the status quo. Now here's Jessica with
this episode of Workology.
Jessica: [00:00:26] The South by Southwest Interactive conference is happening later
this week and at the conference I'm attending sessions watching demos and meeting
new people and companies that are on the forefront and the pulse of new and emerging
technology. The conference for me is one of my favorites because it's not an H.R.
recruiting conference at all. It is a technology conference that showcases tech and new
advancements from all areas and all verticals. I love to see what tech is changing and
think about ways that might be impacting our jobs and human resources in the
workplace. Today's podcast is all about digital disruption trends in the workplace. Today
I'm joined with Jay Samit. He is the independent vice chairman of Digital Reality for
Deloitte and the bestselling author of Disrupt You Master Personal Transformation
Seize Opportunity and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation. Disrupt who has been
translated into six languages. Jay welcome to the Workology podcast.
Jay: [00:01:22] Hey thanks for having me.
Jessica: [00:01:23] Can you talk to us a little bit about your background because it is
very interesting how you got from where you started to being the vice chairman of
Digital Reality for Deloitte.
Workology Podcast | www.workologypodcast.com | @workology

Jay: [00:01:35] I've always been the guy looking at the next new thing. So when I
started my career there weren't jobs so I created one for myself. And what I realized
early on in the career you either have to be the best at what you do or the only one
doing it because if you're the only one doing it by definition. So of the three revolutions
that we've seen in technology first the PC then the web and then mobile. I've started
companies in each of these I've worked with Reid Hoffman on on the launch of
LinkedIn. I worked at the very beginning and created the first online auction which
everybody now knows is eBay. And I look around one day and you see that you know
dozens of friends have become billionaires and started multibillion dollar companies and
you realize we're not the brightest. We're not. Didn't go to the right schools didn't have
access to money. But we looked at the world differently and disrupt you is about
teaching people how to do that. And the very nature of employment of a job is
completely different today than it was when I got into the business. And I think that's
something that most people don't focus on the idea that you're going to go get a job and
40 years later get a gold watch is not on the mind of a single millennial. So how do you
recruit the best people. What are the new tool. How do you make a career in this world.
That's what's fundamentally changing.
Jessica: [00:02:56] You have worked and in a lot of different areas and you have a lot
of different background with many many many different types of technology. Let's talk a
little bit about some of the technologies you're working with now.
Jay: [00:03:11] So as it applies to HR one of the biggest changes will be bots chat bots
so welcome to Siri and Alexa at the workplace. What I mean like that is I have a client
right now that hires 20000 new people a year. And most people never get a human
interview. You look at a bunch of resumes certain number people go into the top of that
funnel meeting somebody and then they get their jobs. There's something flawed with
that system. Studies have shown that humans are probably really really bad at
interviewing and the few companies that have taken the time to look at a correlation
between their interviewing skills and what ends up being a good lasting employee.
There's no correlation. So what this particular client. We're building a system using chat
bots so no one will get a human interview but everyone will get an interview. Now the
Chatot may seem impersonal but it does a number of things it has no gender race

ethnicity accent bias. Software can also tell when people are being truthful. It also
allows you to look at questions over time and see which questions were asked to which
candidates that resulted in employees that joined the company fit the culture and thrive.
So it may be more important to ask Do you have a dog than what university did you
attend. And this way you can then analyze over time and get better talent into your
corporation.
Jessica: [00:04:41] I love that because the hiring process is very subjective. People
don't normally always follow the same interview script and they do have these hidden
biases that they might not even know about we call it unconscious bias and human
resources and recruiting and so by using technology to conduct the interview or
removing that. But then you're also using metrics and data to be able to back up those
assumptions because mostly in recruiting we follow our gut.
Jay: [00:05:12] We have a gut feeling like this guy's going to be a great person. Let's go
for that.
Jay: [00:05:17] This is no longer true and there is a complete human bias because what
we like in our gut are people that are like us and we're in specific roles and probably
aren't the right personality for every job and every task in straight engineering jobs it's
easier in jobs where you can test people. People have been using onboarding tests for
years. I remember I was interviewing to be CEO of a well-known company and they
wanted me to have a whole day psychological evaluation with you know a psychologist
and I said Okay this is unusual.
Jay: [00:05:54] And at the end of the whole thing he looks down and says your shoes
untied and they go okay and he gets down on his knee and ties my shoes and I'm like Is
this part of the test. I had no idea why he was tying my shoe.
Jay: [00:06:08] So I think by having something that you can then share the results of
what the software does that you can show people that there's not that bias going into it
and more in fact importantly having transparency to the candidate. Everybody forgets
that interviewing is an overwhelming process for people. Most aren't good at it. And if

they're really good at it probably means because they're not keeping a job very long. So
that's one technology that's changing. The next one is good too. I'm spending a lot of
time on in the on boarding process is that first day or that first week at a new company
is no different than your first day on campus at college. You don't know where the
bathroom is you don't know how to get it to hook up your computer you are or a newbie
with very little knowledge. And yet with augmented reality you can have a path that
shows you where to go get supplies you can have a tutorial that really shows you
around campus or the building. It's a wonderful way to impart knowledge both when the
people get there or if they want to learn some of that before they even arrive in the
office.
Jessica: [00:07:23] And I would say that the first six months of planning for a new hire
is their most productive time so by making them so well smellier having a better
understanding of kind of rules processes where the restroom is is going to make that
person feel so much more valued and comfortable and hopefully be able to perform
better.
Jay: [00:07:45] And the next piece of technology is really how you're laying out where
people work within the physical space because that's changing now as we have more
and more virtual companies virtual offices where much of the work is being done at
home or distant locations. So you really have to deal with that and that's where you start
looking at VR virtual reality jumps the distance of time and space and can put distance
teams in the same room. So working with a major automotive manufacturer that has
people designing cars that are on different continents and have to collaborate.
Jay: [00:08:24] And obviously that wouldn't be possible standing around and sculpting
piece of clay but they could in VR stand around and make changes to in a full scale
auto they can blow up in any particular part or feature they can see with different
lightings at different times of the day.
Jay: [00:08:42] And it's the same physical emotional empathy that you would get being
in a room and collaborating with someone. So a way to make a virtual workforce feel
like there's a physical space so creating that virtual space that they worked in. What that

looks like what it feels like will go a long way in productivity and people enjoying the
experience.
Jessica: [00:09:10] It's definitely a much more personal experience right. And you're
able to look the person eyeball to eyeball be in the room so you're not doing so
disconnected so that you can build those relationships collaborate together and then
you know maybe design the next car or hire a great group of people or be able to finish
have a list of items or a project with your team
Jay: [00:09:37] And beyond that it also lets you sit in the position of what a customer
experience is so you can better understand the customer journey. We have a major
client that wanted to prepare their sales associates for the mayhem known as Black
Friday. And if it's your first time in a busy store on a day when you know you have a 100
x the normal amount of traffic seeing the madness and experiencing that viscerally
feeling it. That's what happens in VR in VR we trick our basic lizard brain and we cannot
tell the difference in reality and what we're experiencing because it's all encompassing.
So the fear the panic the somebody gets in your face somebody is yelling at you and
this can go for training people at the front desk of a hotel up how to deal with a
belligerent customer to field service staff to doctor patient relationships in all these fields
and a lot of study it has proved to be so realistic and so deeply touching her ability to
feel that charities last year in 2017 raised over seven billion dollars using virtual reality.
Jessica: [00:10:46] At last year's South by Southwest. I had the opportunity to do a day
in the life the experience with gap which was really interesting. And I felt like I was on
campus in San Francisco and then I was in fashion week in New York and. It was
amazing.
Jay: [00:11:01] And I had I mean I loved it and I and I don't know what a candidate
would feel like they were right there doing the job and who wouldn't want to be a part of
that.
Jay: [00:11:11] And if you are looking for the cream of the crop and you're going out to
universities today it's almost mandatory that you have a VR experience that people can

write there on their campus get a feel of what it's like to work at your company. And now
you can you know game the system and make it something that feels positive that gets
them excited. Everybody knows the two or three household you know tech company
names that every young graduate wants to work at. And if you're not one of those you
really have to you know put a lot of effort in to get people excited about coming to your
organization. And here's an easy way to do the same way. Universities are now doing it
to recruit top athletes you know walking around on that's beautiful perfect spring day
when everybody's playing Frisbee. Lot easier to recruit them than you know getting
them to Buffalo in the middle of winter and saying what reality could be like.
Jessica: [00:12:08] I love it. And I know there are so many companies that are having
success with using virtual reality that way and I think as the market continues to be
competitive for the best talent we'll be able we'll continue to see these kinds of
technologies growing and use and adoption everywhere 100 percent.
Jay: [00:12:28] And what we're also having is a confluence of what are known as the
exponential technologies so anything that changes the trajectory of a business more
than ten fold.
Jay: [00:12:38] So AI and machine learning as 5G gets out there where we're now
getting real time analytics or real time data of what's going on across the supply chain
through retail to the end customer the workforce needs to be trained of how to respond
in as near to real time as possible to that data. The only competitive advantage that a
company can have in the 21st century is the speed to which they respond to data.
Jay: [00:13:09] The idea of we're going to plan out next year or next season or next
month or next quarter is gone as more and more consumers now have augmented
reality glasses what you're going to see is instead of staring at your phone for five hours
a day you're going to have a ubiquitous heads up display to your life you're going to
have things filtered you're walking down the street and you want to know where a vegan
restaurant is you don't have to look it up on your phone and ask it will just appear you
want to know the rating of a restaurant or store it floats in space in front of them. And so
companies are figuring out how to be that trusted filter to augment a person's life. But

unless companies understand how to get in that they will disappear and I'll give you one
concrete example. Everybody thinks of augmented reality when you think of the the first
downline in football or any of the things added to the environment.
Jay: [00:14:08] But augmented reality can be subtracting from the environment when
you Jessica go into a supermarket.
Jay: [00:14:14] You see 40000 products in a typical supermarket in the course of a year
you will buy for your family less than 200 of those products. So there's a lot of noise.
Every product was designed by excellent graphics and marketing research to jump off
the shelf to the point where it is just a kick cannot kick Khalfani of noise but with A.R.
glasses you'll go to the supermarket and if you just found out that someone in your
family had diabetes or high blood pressure and you want to say I want something
without salt every product with salt would disappear off the shelf the shelves would look
empty except for those things that you could buy or vegan or while or kosher or
whatever the filter might be or things Oprah recommends. So in that world any company
that isn't working to get that date and stay on top of that data will disappear from the
shopping cart of the consumer.
Jessica: [00:15:10] That's a pretty bold statement "disappear" because this is I think for
many listeners over it can be really overwhelming like I don't understand augmented
reality or chat bots.
Jessica: [00:15:23] You know we just got a hiring applicant tracking system in a
workplace. How does H.R. and recruiting try to move their organization to be a little bit
more disruptive with these technologies that you're talking about.
Jay: [00:15:39] First just as when no one thought that if I told you 10 11 years ago that
you'd be spending five hours a day staring at your phone you'd probably ask me Are
you telling me I'm going to have a stroke why would I stare at my phone. And now the
average American does that. So apps have become obvious to us. So the best thing
that you can do for your workforce is get them familiar and using these tools today.

Jay: [00:16:04] How are you using chat bots in the organization. How can people just
ask questions when they're sitting at their desk and get an answer. Is that being worked
on.
Jay: [00:16:14] What are you doing in the AR to get people familiar with the possibilities
of what your brand your company can do and these changes are going to happen very
rapidly. Give you my prediction. We're less than two years away of this being ubiquitous
so we know that 750 million people willing to play Pokemon Go. So there were no
instructions no training nobody had to show how to do in a card game.
Jay: [00:16:39] But last year cross of America people bought 80 million pairs of glasses
for over 100 dollars and those glasses only came with one app. Focus so if you now can
have regular glasses and I'll be showing at South by glasses that do so much more that
look like your normal reading glasses but translate any sign into any language that you
know how to read or any other simple app like that. You'll buy those because they won't
be that much more than regular prescription glasses. So this change is happening you
know over the next two years. And we're talking about a trillion dollar industry. So I
would think H.R. would want to expose their workforce to these changes and get that
education disseminated instantly.
Jessica: [00:17:31] Let's take a bit of a reset here. This is Jessica Miller Merrll the host
of the work Algy podcast today I'm talking with Jay Samit on digital disruption trends that
are shaping the future of human resources and recruiting. You can connect with Jay on
Twitter @jaysamit. Let's get back to it.
Jessica: [00:17:52] Another concern I think that many haven't. And when I first reach
out to you over email I wanted to talk about how Augmented Reality is a job killer
Jessica: [00:18:03] But there are a lot of individuals that I've spoken to on articles that
I've read that are making a statement that these technologies are going to be a jobs
killer for everyone.
Jessica: [00:18:14] What are your thoughts about that statement.

Jay: [00:18:16] So there's there's there's two sides to the coin. Over the next decade
the U.S. will lose 47 percent of all jobs. So most of what we think of as jobs can be
automated and anything that can be automated will so many many positions are
disappearing. Now we don't think twice about when it is the attendant at the garage that
takes your payment is replaced by a kiosk. We don't think about it when it's a truck
driver is replaced by an autonomous vehicle. But you're now going to be talking about
many of the functions in a corporation will be automated that haven't.
Jay: [00:18:58] On the flip side of that having the expertise and the skill set as we go
into this fourth transformation of digital reality will open up a whole lot of new jobs and a
whole lot of new careers of people that are better at building these things better.
Running these things and we're not just talking about tech companies so give it another
example of the client that we're working with. It is very expensive to train a fast food
worker usually for the past 100 years the way that you train a worker if you have them
shadow an existing worker which means you're paying two people to do one job. Now
you can put that person in car.
Jay: [00:19:33] They can learn how to assemble the burger they can learn the motor
skills they can have that already and then when they go on the actual kitchen job
instead of just weren't protective eyewear giving them an A.R. pair of glasses. Using the
earlier example when somebody orders the cheeseburger with no cheese and you've
made a cheeseburger a thousand times and you're putting cheese on without even
thinking twice about it when you go to grab the slice of cheese from the cheese bed
there's no cheese you can't grab something that you do not see. So it gets rid of errors.
The same on the manufacturing floor. This is shame. Same with pick pack and ship
most half of a overnight package delivery persons day is spent looking for the package
that they loaded in the back of their truck. Earlier that morning with a car the glasses will
show you exactly where it is. You don't have to remember. So it's taking a lot of the
knowledge and that's one of the issues that companies and H.R. has dealt with how do
we train our people. And training has two classic flaws one by the time the materials are
made they're out of date and two no one has a 100 percent comprehension. So if you

can change your training to real time feeds into a heads up display you only have to
train people on how to use the heads up display. Everything else will be intuitive.
Jessica: [00:20:59] I think for me there's a lot of good nuggets of wisdom here but the
one thing I want to just reiterate that you said is that this new world that we're going to
be living in in this digital transformation is going to not just eliminate jobs will be creating
jobs that with technologies and tools and the things that we can't fathom so by training
your people to be open and familiar with the types of technologies that we talked about
today.
Jessica: [00:21:28] They're more likely to be able to use and adopt and understand and
grow with that technology as it changes.
Jay: [00:21:34] Absolutely. And if you look back I'm I'm old enough to remember when
companies were just getting PCs and it's like oh your job doesn't need a computer and
then and then there was the. Your job doesn't need to be on the web you know. And oh
you know we don't need to do mobile you know right now getting back to the fast food
example there's very few fast food chains that will not have an app to allow you to order
before your car gets up to the window. Isn't that better than talking to a speaker that
doesn't hear well cetera etc..
Jay: [00:22:07] So we've seen this happen. What's different now is the pace of change
as I wrote and disrupt you were in an era of endless innovation. So the flipside of that is
if you're not innovating if you're doing the same thing you did last year you're basically
writing and guaranteeing that you'll be one of those jobs that gets left behind.
Jessica: [00:22:28] And I think one thing that that I had heard in your TED talk it's the
endless innovation can sometimes feel overwhelming but you really need to love and be
enthusiastic and passionate about what you do.
Jessica: [00:22:40] Otherwise you're not going to have your heart or your soul or your
mind and it's just going to be a paycheck and not necessarily something that is a part of
a fulfilling life.

Jay: [00:22:52] You know my classic line from a TED talk was are you living life or just
paying bills until you die. And for too many people that's the trap that they fell into. And
when you look at today's workforce they are looking less about what are they going to
earn than are they going to find meaning in their work. And so if the purpose of life is to
live a life of purpose companies really have to recruit the best explain their purpose
explain the value that they're adding to society by what they do. And most companies
most corporations add tremendous value to society. It just hasn't been at the forefront of
what they're communicating and so that becomes the new goal for H.R. is how do you
get the core values of what makes your company special communicated by how your
company does its actions and that can be later translated into the marketing department
and everybody else but it starts with their sole differentiator is your human capital.
Jessica: [00:23:57] I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with us today.
Jay: [00:24:02] Tell us where your session is for South by and then where people can
go to learn more about you and the book and all these things that you've shared with us
today.
Jay: [00:24:11] So South by SXSW at the Fairmount on the 11th please come by.
Sessions called augmented reality job killer or economic savior. Give you a little tip. It's
economic savior. You can find more about me or disrupt you at Jay Samitt dot com you
can follow me on social media and if you go to Jaysamit.com there is a 40 page Free
workbook so that you can start working on disrupting your life before you get disrupt you
that you can just download and really start looking at the world through different eyes.
Jay: [00:24:43] Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. I really
enjoyed our conversation. Thanks Jessica.
Jessica: [00:24:49] Talking to Jay reminds us that the speed of change when it comes
to technology is happening and it's moving and even faster pace every single day. We
as leaders make a conscious choice to join the revolution and try our hand at these
tools and technologies or resist them. I fear the latter choice resistance will push H.R.

even further behind. We need to be the creators the innovators the game changers. And
in my opinion that starts with understanding the tech so that we can become the de
facto workplace technology experts and leaders in our organization. We want to be the
person everyone goes to to talk about technology in order to work partner and
collaborate with. Thank you for joining the work Algy podcast a podcast for the
disruptive workplace leader who is tired of the status quo. This is Jessica Miller-Merrell
and until next time he can visit work all day and listen to all our previous podcasts
episodes at workology.com

Episode Link: http://workolo.gy/ep129-wp


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