The Art of Strategic Architecture: Nigel's Approach to Digital Strategy and Data Governance

0:00Welcome to IT Mastermind Talks your access to insights and experiences from thought leaders in the IT services industry and those that support the industry our podcast features not only the season professionals charting their start to exit Journey but also the key contributors who help ensure the success we delve into the diverse challenges encountered within the IT services realm encompassing both professional hurdles and personal obstacles join us be part of our growing community and engaging the conversation hosted by Ian Markram of growth great to have on the show today Nigel it's been a bit of time and making to get to this point I've been working with you for the last 6 months it's been awesome you got a very unique spin on where you are and where you're going as well which is exciting for me not a traditional IT services company so I really would like to talk to you a bit about the background and how the Journey from where you started your it career and how you ended up creating an IT services business yeah okay well the background try to make it as short but there's been a bit bit of a background to it so I didn't realize I guess that I had this strategic skill when I was younger but I I remember in some of the jobs that I had you know there was a a job with a bank there was a job with a fish market there was some other jobs and I always I was always thinking about you know the strategy okay why don't we do this why don't we be better for the

1:32Customer and there was a lot of talk particularly when you're in a lowlevel employee sort of job you've got to do it because that's what the way we've always done it and that seemed to come up quite a bit so when I went to university did business and it at at University and I got out of University I went down to CRA and to the pharmacy Guild of Australia and what was happening down there back in the early 90s so shows my age a bit but anyway so the early 90s and I got down there and quite interestingly the thees were in a bit of trouble if you remember back they they were getting less money from the government for prescriptions and they they didn't have any of the retail that they have now you know the big chemist warehouses and everything else but what I saw there okay we have the you know we've got these shops everywhere there wasn't the night hours so much that are that are there at the moment why don't we get more into retail and I did write a paper on that and now it it did definitely affect the pharmacies and a lot of the pharmacies that that could have gone broke actually succeeded and became what they are today and they don't rely so much on the government funding of prescriptions so so that was a bit of thing and I think okay well it's yeah well I didn't change as well but I changed a little bit and just one of the voices I suppose in in getting that change then my next job was

3:04I want to get back to Queensland camber don't don't mind the northborn Avenue get getting out in particular but yeah so once I got back to Brisbane I got a job with queens and police MH and yeah it was it was even more behind as far as the the you know the Computing and stuff so I arrive there you know I sit down sit down at the desk and there was a ash tray there still and U like it was like a a hot basically hot towel type of thing you can get it hot and bring it out and yeah so I didn't smoke or anything and the first thing I got I around where's the computer so there's no computer there was a couple of files there was a couple of books and stuff I looked around I said AR I I'm employed as a you know a research officer in crime how am I going to do that without it so so anyway comes to the comes to the first task that I need to do and what had happened there was a a big increase of crime in in cans and around the far northern region of Queensland so it's Queensland so so what I said okay well I'm going to have to find a computer so I looked around I looked around there was there was one downstairs there was there was a like a dbase 4 if you remember the technology yeah d base 4 was down there load loaded on that I said okay this is good okay so where do I get the data from and they said oh well we don't

4:37Really have we don't really have a major system at the moment we've got this system 5 years time we'll be crime recording and everything else and I was thinking well I don't have 5 years and I don't want to get stuck into it so I went downstairs and went down to level six and there was this there was this big room and all these people there was paper paper paper and this is the crime stats area and they said like I asked them well where's the crime stats for cans and they said oh go over and there's this big big lot of big lot of paper basically and had all the all the crimes for far Northern Region for the last 6 months or so so I grabbed them went in front of the computer boom boom boom entered it all in then I was I did know you know that there was justice department that had information on you know people and stuff and and that we could use so I was able to match it up and lo and behold the the increas in crime in cans was one person wow so all that all that nysis got you down fun person he got out of jail and it was it was the one person and and then I provideed a bit of a report to it there was then after that we had this crime stats monthly crime stats report bit of analysis and I got got into that doing that but like one of the things was you know thinking thinking a bit strategically like how can we use the it you know we can't wait five or six years for a new system you know this crime

6:09Recording system that was coming in let's let's get stuck into it so did that job but and then I sort of progressed through the public service and I started to do this what we call Enterprise architecture which which is a practice where you try to you know manage and identify strategies and and try to work out your it so what your applications you have what technologies you have you know how do they fix the business and all of that so I was getting into that and I really loved that but then I moved into s sort of more management roles and got got to a director role where I had 50 people and I found that I was going off the tools sort of thing not doing not doing all the like the research and strategies and everything that I was doing before so I was I was starting to get a bit unhappy about the whole situation then then I did this Master's unit so I did this Master's unit at Q and it was all about this about yourself it had this grow model basically where you look at your goals you look at your reality you look at your opportunities and then you look at the way forward so that's the that's the process and I do use that in coaching now so looked at that and I found out that okay what I want to be is an Enterprise architect you know B and do my own thing and Link it to strategies I didn't know about strategic architecture at that stage but I was thinking okay I want to do digital strategies and I want to do Enterprise architecture so from that point started

7:43In the Contracting world and and then it's sort of a change of change of career basically so it's a bit of a long story but that's how I got to that there's always that story that's quite fascinating that someone's moved through to get to a certain point where they actually can stand on their own feed and start an IT services business it's not that easy as we know to have an IT services business so it's always good to to Really reflect on that the the next what was the sort of the initial steps giv us a bit of a broader overview of what you know of your career but what were the steps you know initial steps to actually say I can actually do this was there a client that you won directly as a as a contractor and then cuz what happened with my situation was I never wanted to be a contractor I always wanted to build something to be part of something so it was either work in a consultancy firm or it was build a consultancy firm so you know that was my sort of sort of my thinking at the time when I when I started my business so what was the initial steps that you took to start your IT services business yeah well from that point of being a director in government and having that security security of government was hard to sort of move out of so when I took that step to to be a a contractor and that was with a major Council I was able to focus on the Enterprise architecture but what they got me to do and what what I sort of put my hand up for is the the strategy work so I suddenly started doing the digital strategy the information Insight strategy which was

9:17All about the data and everything else and then I I basically doing these strategies developed an approach yeah and it was it was almost like a pivotal moment sort of thing when looked at that looked that approach and I showed you know very senior Guy Peter Grant the the approach and he said you've got something here yeah and I thought oh okay so this is this is really something different and and that was the the big difference that I thought okay well hang on a minute this is more than just Contracting this is actually you know me you got you got a framework you got method you're building your own IP so that's great then I suppose that's where you thought let's how do I take this to the world typ thing you know well not at that stage I wasn't thinking that big but yeah I was I was thinking about it so yeah so 2017 I think it was May 2017 I started up strategic Architects and from that point I I started to to develop and and talk to others and particularly look at a strategic architecture approach but also look at data and AI because back then AI was definitely being talked talked about quite a bit but but it was wasn't at the stage where it is now so looking at the emerging Technologies and I guess with the strategy side one of the other things about that was more not necessarily just developing strategies it's more talking about technical Concepts to an executive in ways that they can understand so coming to the point with things so say say if you had

10:50A big Discovery and I know data scientists used to come come to me all the time with big discoveries talking about okay we've got this algorithm we've done this of you move stuff from Python and images and everything else but really starting with this conversation you know we can reduce costs by 20% we can streamline things we can automate these processes and really talking to the senior Executives concerns so say a finance person would be interested in the the cost reduction customers they customer managers they would be interested in you know better Services better portals those sort of things the it managers might be interested in new platforms or applications so talking to their concerns and being able to sort of get to the point really quickly probably not at the moment but you know what I mean like quickly talk to their concerns and and and you be able to talk to different people with different levels and understand the pain points and how to address those pain points yeah with some of the stuff so one of the things that has amazed me when when I've been working with you Nigel is the ability from a strategic architect perspective when I think of strategic architect in my world it's someone that's sort of in the back corner you know scrolling away doing some work and out comes a a couple of strategies or landscape diagram or something to that effect but you've got the Knack to actually obviously get to talk to the executives and early on as we were coming up the lift early on today you mentioned a CEO referred another CEO to give you a call and have a discussion about their strategic

12:24Initiatives with their it environment and I think it's it's very very different from what I expected she architect type person to be so I think it's it's congratulations on actually moving above that into the Executive Real as well I think yeah and they do say what is this approach you know one of the consultancies that we did we basically come in there because of the complexity they had five different lots of vendors working on different things they had a massive Cloud transformation pro project happening and you have this poor sponsor that had has all these project managers given them highlight reports and yeah everything swimmingly but they're going off in different directions one of the things I did for that particular thing was did a business capability model that showed okay there's duplication happening in your Dynamics project here with the your sap Erp you're actually both working on HR and you know some of the HR areas and there's duplication so you're creating you talk about Legacy debt you know Legacy techn techologies creating more Legacy debt you know because future future Legacy debt so being able to make things a lot easier to understand is what it's all about with strategic architecture yeah so you got a a really good brand at the moment you're getting out there and that's fantastic and you're doing some really good work but like everyone else it couldn't have been that easy to start off with so you might have had at least I mean I had in my when I started out my business in it

13:58World the ups and downs likeone has can you just mention go back to one one point in time where there was a down and you thought we are not going to make it as a company or this idea I have is just too hard to actually execute on is there something there yeah yeah I'd probably say when we started to to get a lot of work I think that that was one of the one of the things was I couldn't be across everything you know what I mean like you can be at a high level but I found that we didn't have the processes in place which you talk about a lot you know that's what you're helping me with so the process is in place to be able to okay do a proposal do up a high level strategy what are the steps involved you know it's all up in the brains here but it wasn't sort of implemented so having myself too far over a lot of things was one of the issues and I think you were mentioning to me a couple of months ago I think was have the Frameworks have the documentation and everything in place when you talk to the clients you're able to you know get the paining points remember that conversation yes yeah see I list at that day yeah so get the pain points understand it then then align it and and really have the your processes in place that you can Implement your approach but you can also implement it and tailor it to to what we have now one of the big things about strategic architects in comparison to say say a bigger firm is we really try to get from the senior what the themes are the digital the

15:32Principles and everything else we don't come with okay you can choose choose one of these eight themes that we have type of thing we try to get them from the the particular people it might be you know empow employees to deliver or improved customer satisfaction get it from them and if they can own that particular theme or principle or whatever it is then they can see it in the digital strategy or the you know the Cor strategy that you've got and I think that's really that's really important is you can have all your processes in place but you need to be flexible and to be able to tailor and as as along with that is one of the other things is to have regular updates and be able to provide that information to to your your sponsor and your guiding team rather than keeping your information show them a little bit keep going and getting to the end report and say and giving it to them and they said that's not what I was after like keep that sort of that Vision that you have up front and and their Vision because it diverges the moment you start the work it actually starts to divert so you got to bring that Vision together all the times keep that Vision together yeah and you've got to be you've got to be listening and and make sure that you are including in your in the work that you do the specifics of that industry now everyone says they're you know they're individual and whatever but the thing about it is to make sure that that's the key component so I think if we can keep that in our in our systems I

17:05Think it'd be really good and and have those regular chats with the sponsors and with the guiding team to make sure that we're on track and provide them with the editable graphics and everything don't hold back you provide them with the stuff so so when we finish they might okay well hang on this wasn't done right so so they can change it without giving them PDFs and stuff and I think that that's really important good good so what what are the pivotal moments that you that sort of changed you know obviously there was a baseline of work you've done your business was going on Long 2017 you kicked that off and then there's obviously some pivotal moments that's actually lifted it up in growth you've done some awesome things that I've see and I love it because one of the biggest things I always say to my clients in the space is you've got to be Niche you've got to be a thought leader you've got to be out there and you've got to put yourself out there and it's quite difficult because all of us have a a part of a imposter syndrome you know effect and there's a great book by Todd Herman and he talks about the imposto syndrome and I've worked with him he's from the US and he talks a bit about top athletes running onto the field and they actually had this other vision of what they were when they ran on the field they were like the Hulk or they were you know Captain America or something very unique so when they ran on the field they had this Persona that they were special and they could do special things and he actually took that through to the Business Leaders as well so it's that imposter syndrome is really holding a lot of my clients back even holds me back to a certain degree every

18:37Now and then I always I think am I really that person sometimes you're like I am doing this stuff but is it really but You' sort of made that bridge and you've made that jump and that's what really excites me when I talked to you you've sort of gone above that so what was the pivotal moment to to say hey I can do this and I am doing it was there some yeah yeah it's definitely a couple of pivotal moments I think coming up with that approach I think was was key so it was to take the consultancy not only as a consultancy that the provides a lot of good work and we have an approach within ourselves and everything is actually have get that IP out there because what I've always wanted to do because I'm getting getting a bit older type of thing is give back a bit and and try to do that so we found that okay strategic architecture and that that strategic side is something that every executive you know every manager can use can use that approach and we're open and out out front and and working with you guys at the moment loading that growth cat to it is to look at the courses and everything else that we can provide we've been doing courses for a few years now through other providers but actually set that up as something where whereby we can get out there and we can really you know contribute across the globe and and try to get get across in that learning so I think the the pivotal moment to start that was when I started writing a couple of books couple of books that we got because when we looked okay there is an approach here the AI in particular with the AI and data strategy

20:09Book it was I remember when I first showed that to someone he said oh you know this is really good stuff but it's it's a bit early isn't it like AI is you know 20 2019 AI is not really happening I said well it's a strategy book you know Executives need to look at the future so by the time when it when you know Chad GPT particularly got crazy last year it was there and there was a there was a plan in place so it was really I think it was really that giving back writing books writing courses and being able to have that IP side of things so that's that's been a pivotal moment so you've got some of the the training you do a lot of training for clients and it's really good you're going to do sort of more training online in the future and build a community around that I think is really good as well give back to that Community I think it's fantastic and then you got your consult work as well so it really all ties them quite nicely it does it does because I think if you've got a training organization by itself and then you've got consultancies over here the training organization doesn't really have the the latest you know what's happening out in the market what we've implemented because our trainers and I'm I'm one of the main ones really is I can talk about the you know the experiences okay well this worked this this didn't work that that type of thing and and talk about okay these are the Frameworks and the approaches and everything but actually have real life examples of what what's happening and I think that that sort of helps as well we do coach coach people a little bit as well but it's mainly through the training exercise sure yeah

21:42That's been fantastic so how many books have you actually written in yeah just two but interestingly I've got three on the role and we're we're associating each course with that so so the the big one's going to be the Strategic architecture book but we've also got a strategic data govern one coming as well but yeah so so the the books hopefully will come out early next year fantastic the new ones yeah yeah get them off Amazon yeah exactly it's great the next thing is you really are strategic and that's what I like about it the name is strategic Architects all ties in and you really think about where you going and what you want to achieve with with your business and that's and that's awesome what about the company things like company culture and everything else cuz you know your people are your products and yes you're going to in the future have online training products and that's that's very good as well but people are are your culture so what's the culture and your and your team at the moment like how do you ever look at that yeah yeah for sure so we do have regular strategy days and you know whenever we finish a project like today we're going for lunch we're going to you know celebrate type of thing so there's a good culture as far as that's concerned now we looked at our values as well so and that can be that you know things like listening and and attention to customers was one of the things trying to achieve the best quality that we can be Innovative and of course can't forget strategic sort of thing as well so all of those things so we've got a good culture and we've got a induction program that we go through with every

23:16Person that starts and we try to have those regular strategy sessions every couple of months so we've got that I think the other thing about the culture is everyone has their own own skills so they have their own set of skills that are important I don't have all the skills you don't have all the skills you know what I mean and what I found when I made myself too thin early on was that I was across too many things so in effect I needed someone that was similar to me as far as that high level thinking but we need other people and there's and I know I've been working with you on that as well that we need people that can do the an analysis and work or we need people that can do Graphics well we need people that can do automated things so all you know business analysis and that type of thing so those other sort of skills that I'm not necessarily that great at some of us aren't great at to sort of well so the mix of skills across the group is important and there's a we try to get people that are very competent with those skills to make sure that they're there so you got your values that that everyone wants to be part of of and include but then the particular skills that they're important with so for say for instance we did a application and application and information audit rationalization and everything that required a couple of really good business analysts to get in the you know the spreadsheets and get all the requirements and everything else

24:48And they're people that just love it you know they just love it so so they really get into it and being able to just hand the the job over to someone you manage it that's what they like generally you know people people don't want you looking over their shoulder all the time this is what you have and I think if you can be very specific this is your role this is what we what we want to get this is the timelines let them go for it for sure great great look it's really it's interesting some of those things you mentioned there Nigel around when I when I talked to you know a client that's coming on board at Loading Growth I look at what services they provide and a lot of these companies are trying to do just too much and and that dilutes the the team it dilutes the the quality of work you can deliver it d dilutes the actual opportunity of winning further work because you don't have the skills deep enough to show off to a client that you've got you know people can solve their problem you know so I like the way that you've actually really honed in on your areas and you've gone deep which is really powerful and if you think about the big consultancy firms that you would compete with in your land in your landscape they try to do everything yeah and that's the brand that they have and everything else but the challenge with that is the staff that they have get Dil you know get diluted themselves and they don't have a community and they don't actually have you know a real purpose at some point they go you know 10 years into a big organization they go like what what am I

26:21Really doing here I'm one of many I don't have a home within the home as such so yeah that sort of brings me on to sort of the next point is I see the the companies that are really specialized in the niche and have a team they the team's really motivated in the practice and everything else so how do you motivate your team as well yeah so I guess motivating is pretty much my specialty in a way because I'm always fairly fairly excited and lot of energy yeah lot lot of energies lot of energies are always good so we we definitely have that like easygoing sort of environment and and the people that we select are really Keen to do it and they and they work around you know family and and stuff and they I don't care when they're working they could they could be working at certain times but we're very flexible with that and I think that that's key so I like I have worked for a big consultancy firm like you're talking about I I don't see that as a negative thing at all like it gave me the chance to talk to a lot of Executives and it gave me the chance to experience the you know the templates and the that everything you know that approach that the Chicken use and got me the got me across the CEOs and everything that was really good and it did show me how to Mo you know the motivation and everything that can happen but as a small consultancy you can't do everything to everyone you know you're not going to get anywhere with that so so we've really specified government so we're all our Consultants have experienc in government they've used used government

27:55Before and we we've tried to Target the government and and then we try to Target the digital transformation in particular type of activities or in the data space as well quite considered so the motivation comes from having the the right skills and etc for that particular area and keeping everyone on board a lot of things are done on teams now and so we do that so we try to come in on a certain day all get together you know have coffee and we probably don't do as much work that day but we get to collaborate and and have have a good time together so yeah so it's a combination of things but having that experience of knowing what a big firms I like it's it's been useful to be able then and have a smaller one and and tailor things it's nice when you can create your own culture and your own Vibe and the rhythm of the business and you know that's how you want to work and if people follow that then you get the right people that fit into your culture and your values system which is really really good now on the flip side people are complex and and people you know as I saw as I I was saying to someone last night over dinner humans creates chaos you know what I mean they do so how do you handle conflict in your team yeah like I probably did Arrow one time I think I I was a little bit busy with work and there was two two guys that were coming onto a project and I said I I'll come back I'll just leave you two guys to have a chat and when I came back it was both thought they were the the leads on the project and you got

29:28To report to me you got to pre report to me and it sort of didn't it was it was a bit of an error like on the B just going to have a chat but they were actually you know trying to assert their Authority and I think I had a reflection of that and they you need to be clear on okay this is the project we're starting this is the responsibilities and have that high level sort of discussion at the start because if you get there's a there's an old saying about you know if you got Architects together it's a it's basically an argument going to be so so we do tend to have our own opinions with everything so that's always encouraged but try to try to listen to others and stuff so able to sort of T that out and and get the roles and responsibilities and what everyone needs to do so I think that that's key but yeah it's just a natural thing isn't it there's conflict in life so it's definitely know when those those teams which I've seen work quite effectively you could say to the person you know look you're this on this project you're you're the lead and on the next project Jeff will be the lead whatever it is you know and then you just have it everyone just has a bit of a go around because you got a lot of senior people in your organization so they all naturally want to be the lead you know what I mean so that's that is the I suppose the thing that you got to sort of work through that well that's good it's good so Nel what type of services does your company offer currently okay yeah so we've got the services as digital strategy so basically we do a digital strategy we do the workshop we interview people we come back we make

31:00Sure that it's right we align it to your corporate strategy your business strategies and do that digital strategies the the other part of that is the advice component is the the digital advice the boards and stuff and being able to to do that so that digital strategies you know potentially a road map an IT road map as far as it is is one of the services the second one is the Enterprise architecture which is got your basic stuff as far as applications and Technologies Etc you got your business architecture that's across that and all architecture side and it's it's definitely more aligned to your your strategies and that what we have what we're doing so the digital strategies and the Enterprise architecture sort of melds together then we've got data architecture and data governance so a lot of data work and we've done a lot of that and some AI what are the emerging trends that can be out there the other the other parts of the business is really we have a human centered design approach so we we use a human Center design approach in all our in all our arrangements and then and then we have the coaching side the coaching training courses and everything else that we do so it's all packaged up primarily deal with government so we we package that up with government and we we quite often start from that digital strategies lens and then do the architecture do the design and then what we've also been doing is the an evolving

32:34Architecture approach in the Pro in the delivery of the program so you just imagine you know you've done your strategy you've done your architecture but you've got your project delivery out there we've been able to do an evolving AR don't go to Every meeting it might be just a one one day out of five type of thing but we make sure that they're still hitting the strategy they're not moving away from the keep it's great yeah and sometimes there's a reason they might be getting away away from the strategy because the customer has told them certain things so in that instance we we inform the executive okay we got to do an update we got to do an update of the strategy as well so those are the main Services yeah great great pretty awesome can you sort of talk about a time where there was a success story or a case study or something that made you really proud and you know I've got some of those highlights in my career that we delivered something and the client was just you know made for what they got have you got any sort of examples you don't have to mention names or like that but have you got any examples where you've walked away and the and the clients have said sh this was the best you know yeah yeah we do it's a couple of years ago with a commission in Queensland we originally just had a small piece of work really and it was we're just doing a Enterprise architecture work looking at applications looking at Technologies and building a road map of where we're going they had a lot of replacement programs happening Etc so just a short 2 to 3 months work based on that but we delivered more so we actually delivered a digital strategy because we there wasn't one in place we talked to the

34:07Senior Executives we did a business case and then we did the architecture and and it's a successful program at the moment it's a a year in and it's being it's it's delivering good outcomes for queenslanders so we got in there at the start and then we were able to sort of guide it as the transformation came through yeah so yeah a lot of work coming up with the the Olympics next I'm sure you're going to get involved in quite a few of those projects that going to help facilitate that so that's going to be interesting to see what happens over the future as well what are the important lessons that you've learned as a business owner oh that's yeah this I mean major one you've taken so many you know you've like like me and and most of Mark lines you you know you've became a professional person in a certain component of the industry but you never really a business owner such and then and then you left and you started your own consultancy firm and even though it's been a successful Journey so far there would have been times and challenges but what's around the business side that you didn't really understand or or lack of some of my clients don't really know how to even read the financials you know what I mean so but what part of that Journey or around that business have you sort of you've learned or you surprised surprised you the most yeah yeah so I guess from the like financials I wasn't too bad because I accounting at University and a find using you know the the apps and myob and all quite good so I've got up to- dat finan at all any point so that that's a good thing but I think I wasn't expecting to be like a

35:42Business owner at first back in 2017 I was just about to have a a child so he's he's he's now he's he's a run around he's seven now so that was like a an interesting time to sort of jump out and start a business at that stage but yeah I think that was a key so understanding the finances getting that in order was good I'm not a not a person that sort of is into marketing too much I quite often talk about that I'm good at doing consultancies and talking to clients but I'm not a person to sort of go out there send emails and so you we talk about this a lot so so I think that that's one of the areas that I could probably improve on or or like have have Partners to sort of improve on is to get the message out I think so that's probably reflecting on that it's been a building process with that and we're getting getting some runs on the board now I mean you are a typical client s 90% of my clients basically are domain thought leaders in a certain domain and one of the things they don't really understand is the the pre funnel of marketing that leads into sales they sort of understand the part of sales quite well because they've worked in a consultant firm like you have had and you've seen someone perform the sales role before and you've seen and witnessed what a sales person looks like and does and so you've got that idea of sales but you just don't know what happens before that process of sales and that's a typical challenge a lot of my clients have and that's why we do have

37:14An area around the marketing side so yeah it's you are exactly like everyone else that I coach virtually there's only a few people that actually come through from a sales perspective and IT services that don't have the domain deep domain knowledge and such it's quite interesting what trends you see coming up now and you've already mentioned a few of the latest bow words but what are the things that are you coming up in the IT industry and how are you preparing your business to to server some of those those Trends and Technologies yeah so probably there's two things there like the use of AI the use of generative AI in particular which includes the chat GPT using that to be able to automate your processes a bit more Y and be able to to get some of the knowledge and information that that's across that so it all needs to be checked and it all needs to be verified and everything else so doing that and doing automation I think needs to be done so if you're not doing that as an IT consultant business consultant you're not really efficient with your time and you're not really using the resources that are available so the we've always been AC cross AI even the image generation we've done a lot of work so with the rubbish trucks and and using videos and everything else so we're right across that so linking that is is important to any consultancy now so you don't want to be shutting that out you need to be part of that one of the ways we do that with government is to

38:47Make sure that there's things like a a policy in place to to make sure that the proper use of AI and those sort of things to to make sure that you can get the technology in people's hands but you've got the controls your your policies your data governance data security and everything in place so we help government with that the other thing is so with AI with the the automation with everything that's involved in a lot of what we see now is going to change the learning process you know going through University and everything is going to move from straight information knowledge based learning to those that we talk about I did that article metion mentioned before yeah that strategic Architects so things like strategy strategic thinking Innovative thinking the ability to communicate be able to empathize and everything all these things that the AI really can't do so much they need to be more important so it will take a while for the learning process to happen but it'll be it'll be like a lawyer's always been so a lawyer knows knows where to look you know they know they know the information but they they don't know all of the the different acts and the the they know where to look so so we're going to be like that we're going to talk to the clients we're going to find out their concerns then we know where to look to get supporting material automate things and be able to be a lot effective so I think those sort of things so the service Industries there'll be a lot of changes there won't

40:20Necessarily be more sort of customer service people but there'll be more customer managers people managing processes so you won't have 45 people at McDonald's running around making Cokes and stuff but you'll have people customer managers that will that'll have more responsibility and will be running the machines you know what I mean so the good thing is for if you're coming out of uni you know you're you're just getting your first job and stuff you'll have more responsibility with your role than what people used to do in that as entry level jobs from years ago sure it's going to be really interesting my daughter is going to University in a year and a half's Time and it'll be interesting to see if there's any change between now and then you know that's with with that whole Ai and the learning and how to consume that information going be really interesting well there's already been some change like when we originally did the data to Insight book in 2018 there was changes happening then so I couldn't hire a data scientist right I had to hire someone that had done done a mathematics degree but now there's data science degrees you know yeah so that's already changed and and really you don't do maths you do data science more now so it'll be the same sort of change and the the education will will improve in those areas so and there'll be there'll be times where you'll have say a workshop no it related and and people are assessed on on doing that and I've already seen these a few times already doing the the workshop and doing the communications and talking to

41:54Talking to others without the it capability so yeah yeah it's great it's going to be it's going to be exciting times never an it continuous learning you know you got to keep them learning and new challenges that are coming up you know people going to have to have solutions to solve those challenges yeah yeah and it's it's exciting time and the individual skills that we have will be able to utilize those and we'll have more more careers that are going to achieve what we want to achieve you know more responsibility more creativeness being able to be applied and it's exciting time yeah definitely so i' like to say thanks so much for being on the show today it's been awesome rigel Fountain of Knowledge and you've got an awesome business very happy to be associated with Shu Architects it's a great company I can't wait to see it progress over the next couple of years abely thanks so much thank you thanks for joining us on IT Mastermind Talks don't miss out on our next episode hit the follow button and stay updated want to be our next podcast guests contact us and share your expertise with our audience visit www.IT Mastermind Talks.com for more