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Designing Intuitive Technology with Empathy and Purpose with Josh Smith and Jonathan Sasse
Episode 23619th July 2023 • Be EPIC Podcast • Brent Williams
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This week on the podcast Matt sits down with Josh Smith, CEO and Jonathan Sasse, Chief Strategy Officer of Metova Strategies. During the episode they discuss their roles at Metova and how the company has pivoted through the years since the initial founding in Franklin, Tennessee. They then dive into how empathy and effective listening to customers gives Metova a competitive advantage. They focus on understanding what customers actually need, not just building technologically capable products. They finish with a discussion around the importance of mobile-first design, the Internet of Things and other technology shifts like generative AI.

Transcripts

Jonathan Sasse:

And it's remarkable how many companies

Jonathan Sasse:

are so internally focused on how do we do the right thing for the

Jonathan Sasse:

business? How do we build the things we want to build, without

Jonathan Sasse:

ever really spending enough time with our customers to know what

Jonathan Sasse:

do your customers want from you in the first place? And what's

Jonathan Sasse:

most important to them?

Matt Waller:

Excellence, professionalism, innovation, and

Matt Waller:

collegiality. These are the values of the Sam M. Walton

Matt Waller:

College of Business explores in education, business and the

Matt Waller:

lives of people we meet every day, I'm Matt Waller, Dean of

Matt Waller:

the Walton College and welcome to the be epic podcast. I have

Matt Waller:

with me today, Josh Smith, who is CEO of Metova. And Jonathan

Matt Waller:

Sasse, who's the Chief Strategy Officer. Thank you both for

Matt Waller:

joining me today.

Jonathan Sasse:

Thank you. Good to be here.

Matt Waller:

So Josh, would you mind telling us a little bit

Matt Waller:

about Metova?

Josh Smith:

Sure, yeah. So. So Metova was founded in 2006.

Josh Smith:

Really, around developing mobile applications. And at that time,

Josh Smith:

really, BlackBerry, and Palm were mobile. And so for the past

Josh Smith:

17 years, we've continued to lean into mobile and have

Josh Smith:

expanded beyond just not just Franklin, Tennessee, where we

Josh Smith:

started, but we're, you know, throughout the US and in Latin

Josh Smith:

America, doing all sorts of things mobile, but then also

Josh Smith:

digital transformation, digital technology partner to large

Josh Smith:

corporations.

Matt Waller:

And, Jonathan, I know, you have you're the chief

Matt Waller:

strategy officer. What does that mean? What do you what do you

Matt Waller:

focus on as Chief Strategy Officer?

Jonathan Sasse:

Well, a lot of the companies that we work with

Jonathan Sasse:

are at some point of a pivot in their strategy, their roadmap,

Jonathan Sasse:

they're facing some kind of transformation. Typically, it's

Jonathan Sasse:

not in their DNA to do that, especially if it's leaning into

Jonathan Sasse:

technology that they don't understand. So a lot of what I

Jonathan Sasse:

do is working with those companies, the senior

Jonathan Sasse:

stakeholders, to better define what their customers need from

Jonathan Sasse:

them, what their capabilities are, and what their roadmap

Jonathan Sasse:

should probably look like in order to deliver on that.

Matt Waller:

I see. Josh, you know, you're in Bentonville.

Josh Smith:

That's right.

Matt Waller:

But the company didn't it start in Little Rock?

Josh Smith:

Company started in Franklin, Tennessee.

Matt Waller:

Oh, Franklin, Tennessee ok.

Josh Smith:

Yeah, that's where the original founder was from.

Josh Smith:

And then a gentleman from Arkansas acquired it back in

Josh Smith:

like 2010 or 11. That's when we became begin to have an Arkansas

Josh Smith:

presence. It's a long road after that, there's been several

Josh Smith:

different transactions that have happened, private equity

Josh Smith:

investors. But this latest iteration, no longer do we have

Josh Smith:

any institutional investors and, and we relocated headquarters to

Josh Smith:

Bentonville.

Matt Waller:

Well that's great, and you've been with Metova for

Matt Waller:

almost 10 years at this point.

Josh Smith:

Yes. Crazy to think. Yes.

Matt Waller:

So tell me a little bit. Now I know you've you've

Matt Waller:

had different roles there. But you've been CEO for almost six

Matt Waller:

years. Would you tell me a little bit more about your

Matt Waller:

company positioning? I know you where you started? Are there any

Matt Waller:

verticals, you focus on more than others?

Josh Smith:

Yeah, I'll be pitching us to Jonathan here.

Matt Waller:

Well, you know, and and I've noticed for you,

Matt Waller:

But it's really fascinating because we've been doing this

Matt Waller:

for so long. And actually, Jonathan and I were originally

Matt Waller:

introduced by the founder of Metova. We were both had our own

Matt Waller:

startup companies. Josh had Slacker Radio, I had First Orion

Matt Waller:

Privacy Star, we were trying to solve the same problems. But

Matt Waller:

being serial entrepreneurs and and being able to work with all

Matt Waller:

these companies for all these years. It makes us kind of

Matt Waller:

industry agnostic. We can go in and learn, you know, how a

Matt Waller:

company makes money, how they lose money, where maybe adjacent

Matt Waller:

revenue opportunities are, who the stakeholders are, who their

Matt Waller:

customers are, and then from there, build out you know their

Matt Waller:

product roadmaps and strategies going forward and then have the

Matt Waller:

development talent to go ahead and deliver on that.

Matt Waller:

Jonathan, also have been involved with another Arkansas

Matt Waller:

company, First Orion. And I had actually I've done a podcast

Matt Waller:

recording with Charles Morgan. Seems like it was a year or two

Matt Waller:

ago, I can't remember exactly, but he's an amazing individual.

Matt Waller:

Are you still engaged with First Orion at all?

Jonathan Sasse:

Yeah, I do still communicate with them. I'm, I'm

Jonathan Sasse:

a big fan of Charles, I've worked with him pretty closely

Jonathan Sasse:

as we've that company went through a number of

Jonathan Sasse:

transformations as well. So I kind of came in to do very

Jonathan Sasse:

similar things I'm doing at Metova now, which is take a look

Jonathan Sasse:

at the opportunities to the future and try and rewrite the

Jonathan Sasse:

roadmap a little bit. And with Charles's help and with, you

Jonathan Sasse:

know, Jeff Stalnacker and some of the others that were there.

Jonathan Sasse:

We turned that company in a pretty sharp direction, in a

Jonathan Sasse:

short amount of time and really created an opportunity for the

Jonathan Sasse:

future. That was, that was a good stretch.

Matt Waller:

And I noticed that you are on the Forbes

Matt Waller:

communications council. So you contribute articles to Forbes,

Matt Waller:

what kinds of articles do you, do you write?

Jonathan Sasse:

A lot of what we focus on is, is helping people

Jonathan Sasse:

through those transformation challenges. So, you know, when

Jonathan Sasse:

do you do it? How do you do it? What kind of signals do you look

Jonathan Sasse:

for? You know, really trying to get people very specific things

Jonathan Sasse:

to key in on to help them understand, when's the right

Jonathan Sasse:

time to invest? Do you need to seek help? You know, are there

Jonathan Sasse:

internal resources you can tap into for that? So really trying

Jonathan Sasse:

to write, you know, a lot of super helpful content for people

Jonathan Sasse:

that have big decisions to make and are looking for, you know,

Jonathan Sasse:

how do I take the first step in the right direction?

Matt Waller:

Josh, maybe, let's suppose, you know, technology, a

Matt Waller:

lot of times people think of technology as just being

Matt Waller:

something behind the scenes. But technology, the technology that

Matt Waller:

you have, in your company can actually affect the brand that

Matt Waller:

you wind up building. Is it hard to get companies to see that and

Matt Waller:

to understand that?

Josh Smith:

It's a very long process. So I'm not sure who

Josh Smith:

said this, but the best technology is a technology you

Josh Smith:

don't even know you're interacting with it, right? You

Josh Smith:

get, and then the coding part of it, not a lot of people are able

Josh Smith:

to see that. It's not something they can participate in. So when

Josh Smith:

we're working with clients, usually the the strategy piece

Josh Smith:

of it and design, a lot of input goes into that, because the

Josh Smith:

customers can, you know, they can see it, and can help drive

Josh Smith:

that and are our goal is to really kind of stay focused on

Josh Smith:

what is it's gonna drive their business forward, and how to do

Josh Smith:

that in the most simple way, from a human interface

Josh Smith:

perspective, and then do the hard part with it with the

Josh Smith:

engineering to make that make that possible.

Matt Waller:

And I know that, you know, workflows and internal

Matt Waller:

communication patterns and trying to enhance customer

Matt Waller:

experience. You know, a lot of that you can do with technology

Matt Waller:

you have, but that you develop with your companies. But what

Matt Waller:

about companies that say, look, we we need your help here. But

Matt Waller:

there's also existing technologies in these other

Matt Waller:

spaces? Can you? Will you help with that as well?

Josh Smith:

We, generally, that is always part of the equation,

Josh Smith:

right? It's usually companies have been up in business for a

Josh Smith:

long time, sometimes 20, 30, 60 years, and are looking to make a

Josh Smith:

transition to digital. They've got a huge investment in that

Josh Smith:

technology stack that they've developed over the years, and

Josh Smith:

you can't just rip and replace it. So it is a very gradual

Josh Smith:

process of identifying what parts of the business can we

Josh Smith:

impact now? And what internal systems do we need to leverage

Josh Smith:

to be able to do that? And how do we expose those capabilities

Josh Smith:

to actually make that experience happen? And I remember one

Josh Smith:

client in particular that we had several years ago, first

Josh Smith:

question we asked is, how does a user create an account, and it

Josh Smith:

was all blank stares in the room as well, they call into customer

Josh Smith:

service, and the customer service person takes the

Josh Smith:

information down, like okay, so now we know where we need to

Josh Smith:

start.

Matt Waller:

Well, you know, Jonathan, when you it seems like

Matt Waller:

for me, at least, so many of the apps I use on my phone,

Matt Waller:

unfortunately, seem like they were created for my computer.

Matt Waller:

But this concept, would you mind speaking a little bit to this

Matt Waller:

concept of mobile first?

Jonathan Sasse:

Yeah, I mean, the thing with mobile that, that

Jonathan Sasse:

is interesting, when you think of it, there's everything you do

Jonathan Sasse:

on your phone, your banks, your pizza delivery, whatever it

Jonathan Sasse:

might be. It used to be that, as businesses, we would look at

Jonathan Sasse:

other businesses like ours, to see what was competitive. You

Jonathan Sasse:

know, if I'm a lawn care company, I look at what the

Jonathan Sasse:

other lawn care companies do. If I sell TVs, I see what the other

Jonathan Sasse:

TV guys are doing. But today, and as to your point, I when I

Jonathan Sasse:

go through all the apps on my phone to me, I'm I'm engaging as

Jonathan Sasse:

a customer in the same universe. And so I have certain

Jonathan Sasse:

expectations I have as I go from app to app to app, I don't care

Jonathan Sasse:

what the other gym apps do. But I know my other apps work really

Jonathan Sasse:

nice. And they're really easy to use. And I can tap exactly where

Jonathan Sasse:

I want to tap and they're really intuitive. And that's the level

Jonathan Sasse:

of the way that customers are looking at things. Amazon does

Jonathan Sasse:

things a certain way. For me, Walmart does certain things for

Jonathan Sasse:

me, Netflix, whatever it might be. And so I have those

Jonathan Sasse:

expectations that every app I use should be able to leverage

Jonathan Sasse:

that technology, the elegance of the design those I have those

Jonathan Sasse:

expectations. So it's a lot easier to be disappointed as a

Jonathan Sasse:

customer too when you open up a new app, you're like, this isn't

Jonathan Sasse:

as good as it should be. And I have that lens I can apply to

Jonathan Sasse:

that because I have 10 other apps that can do that. You know

Jonathan Sasse:

whether it's telling me when the delivery is going to be made, or

Jonathan Sasse:

recommending things I might like or just making it easy to book

Jonathan Sasse:

an appointment. And so we have to be really aware of that, as

Jonathan Sasse:

we're designing apps, we're working with companies and

Jonathan Sasse:

brands to make sure that you might have looked competitively

Jonathan Sasse:

across your landscape to see what everybody else is doing and

Jonathan Sasse:

try and make something as good. Or maybe even slightly better

Jonathan Sasse:

than that. But you have to realize that your customers are

Jonathan Sasse:

comparing you to the best experiences in the world every

Matt Waller:

That is, right. And you can tell a big difference. I

Matt Waller:

single day.

Matt Waller:

mean, there's some apps you use that you think this is so

Matt Waller:

intuitive, and others, you know, there was one app I was using

Matt Waller:

not too long ago, and it had pretty good ratings. But it was

Matt Waller:

for keeping track of your time. It's used primarily for

Matt Waller:

consultants, but I, I like to keep track of my time, where am

Matt Waller:

I spending my time, compared to where should I spend my time?

Matt Waller:

This thing was so unintuitive, I think it's hard to take

Matt Waller:

something that already exists and make it mobile first, if you

Matt Waller:

will.

Jonathan Sasse:

Yeah, the investment in that is always the

Jonathan Sasse:

challenge because you spend all these resources to get where you

Jonathan Sasse:

are. And and then you release it to the world and find out that

Jonathan Sasse:

it's not what everybody hoped it would be. And it's very

Jonathan Sasse:

difficult at that point, where you start taking a look at your

Jonathan Sasse:

customer experience after you've produced your thing. And that's

Jonathan Sasse:

where, you know, when we talk about these early strategy

Jonathan Sasse:

sessions with with people that we work with, is trying to get

Jonathan Sasse:

through that first, before you ever write a line of code is

Jonathan Sasse:

let's make sure we understand what this experience needs to

Jonathan Sasse:

be. So that we don't build a thing that's functionally

Jonathan Sasse:

capable, but almost impossible to use.

Josh Smith:

And then what you know and what do your customers

Josh Smith:

use? You've got all all that system of ERP, all that user

Josh Smith:

input, where are the users spending their time and elevate

Josh Smith:

those features to the top and maybe push them those other ones

Josh Smith:

down so it's not so complicated and overwhelming to deal with.

Matt Waller:

One of the things I'd like to talk to you about a

Matt Waller:

couple others, but this concept of the Internet of Things. This

Matt Waller:

is still a you know, it was really popular for a while, you

Matt Waller:

don't hear about it as much anymore, but it's maybe more

Matt Waller:

critical now than it used to be. Would you mind speaking to that

Matt Waller:

a little bit?

Jonathan Sasse:

Yeah. So you know, one of the things that's

Jonathan Sasse:

interesting about Internet of Things, to your point for, you

Jonathan Sasse:

know, five years ago, it was super buzzy term, you know, what

Jonathan Sasse:

crypto and NFT's were maybe last year. And I think what we saw is

Jonathan Sasse:

the difference there is Internet of Things today, we interact

Jonathan Sasse:

every day, everything we touch is something's broadcasting

Jonathan Sasse:

something somewhere, you know, from your vacuum cleaner to your

Jonathan Sasse:

laundry machines to your refrigerator, whatever it is. Wi

Jonathan Sasse:

Fi is ubiquitous, we're able to monitor these things, get alerts

Jonathan Sasse:

and stuff. So it's been an interesting pivot in that time,

Jonathan Sasse:

where the forecast of the Internet of Things becoming a

Jonathan Sasse:

common everyday occurrence, this kind of happened. You know, we

Jonathan Sasse:

connected 1000s of devices, whether we know it or not, you

Jonathan Sasse:

know, throughout the day. And so it's shaping the way we live and

Jonathan Sasse:

work and play in a way that it's become so ubiquitous now that we

Jonathan Sasse:

may not even realize it. And so as we've worked with that, we've

Jonathan Sasse:

enabled businesses who 10, 15 years ago, the tech wasn't there

Jonathan Sasse:

to even try this. And so they weren't even inspired to pivot,

Jonathan Sasse:

when the web revolution happened, when the mobile

Jonathan Sasse:

revolution happened, they still didn't need to move, technology

Jonathan Sasse:

still wasn't actually solving their key problems. And so when

Jonathan Sasse:

you look at something like fleet rentals for like heavy

Jonathan Sasse:

equipment, that's a business that's been on paper and phone

Jonathan Sasse:

calls, and literally giant machines, you know, going off

Jonathan Sasse:

into locations where they didn't know where they went or where

Jonathan Sasse:

they were, or how they're being used. And that was a project we

Jonathan Sasse:

worked on where you retrofit all these devices with the ability

Jonathan Sasse:

to communicate. And now all of a sudden, I know where every piece

Jonathan Sasse:

of equipment is, I know what state it's in, or you know, what

Jonathan Sasse:

status it's in? Is it being used? How many hours is it being

Jonathan Sasse:

used? You know, is it been returned on time? If I need to

Jonathan Sasse:

go find it? Where is it, you know, so that completely changed

Jonathan Sasse:

their business in a way that technology, you know, changes

Jonathan Sasse:

over the previous 15 years, were kind of irrelevant to them. But

Jonathan Sasse:

then it became, we can get rid of all this paper, we can get

Jonathan Sasse:

rid of all this processing, we can find equipment in seconds

Jonathan Sasse:

instead of maybe hours or days. And we're servicing the things

Jonathan Sasse:

that actually need to be serviced the efficiencies

Jonathan Sasse:

through the roof. It completely changed the trajectory of their

Jonathan Sasse:

business. And that's where we're seeing, you know, on IoT, it's

Jonathan Sasse:

either you have this massive inflection point for companies

Jonathan Sasse:

that suddenly you know, logistics, shipping freight is

Jonathan Sasse:

massive changes, but down to the smallest thing where I get an

Jonathan Sasse:

alert on my phone, that my dryer is completed its cycle. So go

Jonathan Sasse:

get it, like, okay, it's now it's not sitting there for till

Jonathan Sasse:

tomorrow, because nobody remembered it was in there. And

Jonathan Sasse:

we just start naturally in engaging with these things. When

Jonathan Sasse:

we're like, oh, my car has an alert or my, you know, my

Jonathan Sasse:

refrigerator tells me that the door was left open or whatever

Jonathan Sasse:

it might be. And we don't really think of that as Internet of

Jonathan Sasse:

Things. We just think of that that's just modern technology in

Jonathan Sasse:

my world now.

Matt Waller:

Good point, you know, I there's there's a place

Matt Waller:

that they go on a regular basis that when you enter, you've got

Matt Waller:

to pull out your wallet and show it the barcode, but it's not

Matt Waller:

I've noticed lately, as I'm walking up to this building, it

Matt Waller:

pops up. And so I just click on it. And I thought, wow, that is

Matt Waller:

so nice.

Josh Smith:

very handy.

Matt Waller:

Yes. Now the fleet is an interesting topic too,

Matt Waller:

because I read an article, it must have been 10 years ago, I

Matt Waller:

don't remember, it was talking about one that one of the states

Matt Waller:

in the United States, but they were talking about how many cars

Matt Waller:

were in their fleet. And it talked about how many they

Matt Waller:

didn't know where they were. And they really didn't know it at

Matt Waller:

any given point in time where they were, which shocked me, you

Matt Waller:

know, I thought wow, that's a huge amount of resources that is

Matt Waller:

completely unaccounted for.

Jonathan Sasse:

That's the glaring problem that gets solved

Jonathan Sasse:

by that, right was that I mean, you think about just fleets in

Jonathan Sasse:

general, whether it's the cars in California, or the trucks in

Jonathan Sasse:

Wisconsin, or whatever it might be, is, you know, up until very

Jonathan Sasse:

recently, that's how was for everybody who knows where they

Jonathan Sasse:

are, you know, you might have to call a lot of people to figure

Jonathan Sasse:

out where something is where today, you just pull up your map

Jonathan Sasse:

and oh, there it is, like, I know exactly where that is,

Jonathan Sasse:

every time.

Matt Waller:

Well, the pandemic really pushed telehealth

Matt Waller:

forward. And it still is moving forward. And I think it's going

Matt Waller:

to keep growing in the in the country. Are you all engaged in

Matt Waller:

that at all?

Josh Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. We've got a variety of health

Josh Smith:

care clients, one of which is innovator health, that has a

Josh Smith:

very good telehealth platform that's used within the

Josh Smith:

department defense, able to take compressed video and do you

Josh Smith:

know, medical procedures out on the battlefield, or at high

Josh Smith:

altitude with someone who's on the ground. So I think what

Josh Smith:

we're seeing on that side of the house, I look forward to seeing

Josh Smith:

it make its way over to the commercial side, because it's

Josh Smith:

talk about time and time wasted. As far as, you know, lab results

Josh Smith:

and go into a doctor's office and all these things can be done

Josh Smith:

much, much faster. And then on the IoT side of the house, are

Josh Smith:

vitals in our body, there's no reason that you know, blood

Josh Smith:

pressure cuff once every six months, probably not giving you

Josh Smith:

the most accurate reading on your health.

Matt Waller:

Well you know know I have an Oura ring, the Oura

Matt Waller:

ring, you know, captures so much data like it captures your

Matt Waller:

average and resting heart rate, while you're sleeping, your

Matt Waller:

heart rate variability, which is an important metric, your body

Matt Waller:

temperature, your respiratory rate, you know, it keeps track

Matt Waller:

of your activity so you know how many calories you're burning,

Matt Waller:

the frequency of your your workouts, just all kinds of

Matt Waller:

variables. And it also keeps track while you're sleeping,

Matt Waller:

have your average oxygen saturation, your breathing

Matt Waller:

regularity. And I thought, well, then you go into the doctor's

Matt Waller:

office, once every year, whatever. And they take your

Matt Waller:

blood pressure and weigh you and poke around on you and look in

Matt Waller:

your ears and stuff. And I thought this is way more

Matt Waller:

valuable than that. I mean, your blood pressure on one reading is

Matt Waller:

tells you nothing. You think that the medical system would

Matt Waller:

want to be taking this data as well and using it and maybe they

Matt Waller:

do? I don't know.

Jonathan Sasse:

I think that's coming. The other thing that's

Jonathan Sasse:

interesting, I think that we're gonna see in the next we're

Jonathan Sasse:

seeing it now, but certainly over the next few years become

Jonathan Sasse:

more ubiquitous, is a lot of these tools are great at

Jonathan Sasse:

tracking stuff, right? But to your point, you track your

Jonathan Sasse:

sleep, you track your heart rate, you track all your

Jonathan Sasse:

biorhythms all these things. But the pivot there is what do you

Jonathan Sasse:

do with all that information? What does it mean? Right? So

Jonathan Sasse:

being able to use some of these AI models and some of these

Jonathan Sasse:

other learning tools, you know, these systems can now start to

Jonathan Sasse:

be like, what's normal for you? And what's not normal for you?

Jonathan Sasse:

And what should you do about that maybe in real time, right?

Jonathan Sasse:

We talk, we go to the doctor once a year, and they give you

Jonathan Sasse:

like, hey, you should lose weight, you should do this, and

Jonathan Sasse:

you come back a year later, and they check your blood pressure

Jonathan Sasse:

again, right. But now you have something that's checking 1000s

Jonathan Sasse:

of things all the time. And you can start to learn, like this is

Jonathan Sasse:

a normal thing. It might be abnormal for someone else, but

Jonathan Sasse:

it's actually maybe normal for you. And these might be

Jonathan Sasse:

indicators that something's up, maybe you're not sleeping well,

Jonathan Sasse:

maybe you're not eating well, maybe you're not getting the

Jonathan Sasse:

same exercise you did before, whatever it might be. But

Jonathan Sasse:

starting to turn into more prescriptive types of things

Jonathan Sasse:

instead of like, here's a report of last 60 days, do what you

Jonathan Sasse:

will with this information. It might be we've been collecting

Jonathan Sasse:

information over the last 60 days, you should do these things

Jonathan Sasse:

in order to improve these other things. And I think that's where

Jonathan Sasse:

the medical community will start to lean into that a lot more

Jonathan Sasse:

heavily too as you start to connect to these devices to your

Jonathan Sasse:

healthcare systems and things like this where now you do have

Jonathan Sasse:

that I think we're mainly I think the legacy systems that

Jonathan Sasse:

they have make it harder to adopt this technology quickly.

Jonathan Sasse:

But I think everybody's looking at this to make sure that you

Jonathan Sasse:

know a doctor can thoroughly monitor a patient through a

Jonathan Sasse:

whole year, not just in that moment where they're checking

Jonathan Sasse:

your temperature one day.

Matt Waller:

That's encouraging to hear. So there's lots of

Matt Waller:

companies you can go to, to have software developed. But to be

Matt Waller:

successful, especially from a strategic perspective, and you

Matt Waller:

all have obviously had lots of success, there's got to be

Matt Waller:

something there that's giving you a competitive advantage. So,

Matt Waller:

you know, in terms of, what do you do differently? How is your

Matt Waller:

culture different? How's your experience different? Or how do

Matt Waller:

those combined to give you a unique competitive advantage in

Matt Waller:

the marketplace?

Josh Smith:

I'll take the the culture piece of it. So I think

Josh Smith:

our organization over the past probably 10 years, has evolved

Josh Smith:

like everyone else, every other organization, but we lean

Josh Smith:

heavily into empathy, as one of our core values, which is an

Josh Smith:

extremely hard practice empathy and, and with each other, with

Josh Smith:

our clients. And with that comes the follow ons of communication,

Josh Smith:

accountability, and these, these other, you know, tenants that

Josh Smith:

ultimately leads to empathy. And I think we've, we've got a team

Josh Smith:

that practices that daily, with each other, and with our

Josh Smith:

clients. And I think that that's the first part of this, I think

Josh Smith:

that sets us apart.

Matt Waller:

Interesting. Well, there's a book called creative

Matt Waller:

confidence. And it was written by the founders of the D school

Matt Waller:

at Stanford design school. And a key part of effective design is

Matt Waller:

empathy. You know, really trying to understand, put yourself in

Matt Waller:

the shoes of the customer in that case.

Jonathan Sasse:

You know, a lot of companies focus on the wrong

Jonathan Sasse:

things when they're building technology or using technology,

Jonathan Sasse:

which is just, can I make it work? Not necessarily am I

Jonathan Sasse:

making work the right way? Or even am I making it work for the

Jonathan Sasse:

right people. And so invariably, what happens is, you end up with

Jonathan Sasse:

a product that is not really built for anybody, it was just

Jonathan Sasse:

built to do something. And so when we look at things, we're

Jonathan Sasse:

always working with our clients to start there. What what do

Jonathan Sasse:

your client why do your clients even hire you in the first

Jonathan Sasse:

place? What do they expect from you? What are they trying to do?

Jonathan Sasse:

And how can we make that possible? And so taking that

Jonathan Sasse:

approach is very different than something like a dev shop. And

Jonathan Sasse:

that term gets thrown around a lot. And there, there are dev

Jonathan Sasse:

shops out there teams of engineers waiting for you to

Jonathan Sasse:

call them and do work for them. But if you don't know what

Jonathan Sasse:

you're building, having a team of engineers is not terribly

Jonathan Sasse:

helpful, actually. And so, for us, we've built our organization

Jonathan Sasse:

with, you know, leadership, who's been through the wringer

Jonathan Sasse:

of startups and technology, and building and shaping things for

Jonathan Sasse:

customers and knowing where some of the landmines are, and what's

Jonathan Sasse:

really tricky. And also, how do you make sure you're listening

Jonathan Sasse:

to your customers, and you're not just building you the thing

Jonathan Sasse:

that you want, or the thing you think your business needs, but

Jonathan Sasse:

the thing that your customer wants, and that they need. And

Jonathan Sasse:

so, when we bring in a team, you know, we spend sometimes weeks,

Jonathan Sasse:

sometimes months going through those cycles with customers,

Jonathan Sasse:

making sure they understand what value do you bring to your

Jonathan Sasse:

customer base, and to the people, you want to be your

Jonathan Sasse:

customers.

Josh Smith:

And those can be hard conversations, once we've

Josh Smith:

exposed everything, talk to all the constituents of the clients,

Josh Smith:

you know, their customers, their, you know, the people

Josh Smith:

within the company, and, and sometimes think things aren't,

Josh Smith:

as they thought they were. And their customers actually come to

Josh Smith:

them for something totally different than they thought they

Jonathan Sasse:

Yeah, And there's one question that I ask

Jonathan Sasse:

were.

Jonathan Sasse:

a lot, especially if we're, if we're at a crossroads somewhere,

Jonathan Sasse:

which many of the customers we're working with are. And it

Jonathan Sasse:

is kind of a tough question. But why does? What is your customers

Jonathan Sasse:

even care that you exist? What what value do you really bring

Jonathan Sasse:

in here? And that can be a very tough question for people to

Jonathan Sasse:

face, especially when they've just been business as usual for

Jonathan Sasse:

quite a while. And then you get to that point where like, why do

Jonathan Sasse:

your customers care that you still have the products you have

Jonathan Sasse:

or the services you have customer? I say, you're choosing

Jonathan Sasse:

not to make a good experience for me. And so I'm going to

Jonathan Sasse:

apply some judgment to that.

Matt Waller:

What are you all seeing in terms of integration

Matt Waller:

of current technology with generative AI tools? Are you

Matt Waller:

seeing my sense is in talking to senior people at companies is

Matt Waller:

many of them are still not, they wouldn't even know what I just

Matt Waller:

said that that was possible. What are you seeing with that?

Jonathan Sasse:

Well we're certainly seeing, I think the

Jonathan Sasse:

point you bring up about training your own data, using

Jonathan Sasse:

some kind of an AI tool is is a really positive direction

Jonathan Sasse:

because you know, the source of truth of that information. One

Jonathan Sasse:

of the things that's challenging with a lot of the tools we have

Jonathan Sasse:

today, and a lot of the ones you described is the results you

Jonathan Sasse:

get. It's hard to tell what level of accuracy it is? Or

Jonathan Sasse:

even? Is it accurate at all? Or what was the source of the

Jonathan Sasse:

information in the first place. And so you're casting a pretty

Jonathan Sasse:

wide net, with also a lot of uncertainty of the result you

Jonathan Sasse:

got, which could be totally wrong, or it could be totally

Jonathan Sasse:

right, you don't know.

Matt Waller:

But I mean, students are getting into this

Matt Waller:

problem, because they trust it too much.

Jonathan Sasse:

That's the interesting thing about it is,

Jonathan Sasse:

we're at this infancy of this, everybody has their theories of

Jonathan Sasse:

like, you know, we're going into, you know, Terminator days,

Jonathan Sasse:

or this is going to change our lives for the good, or whatever

Jonathan Sasse:

it may be. But I think that's, that's gonna be the one thing

Jonathan Sasse:

that shifts a lot, I think, you know, in the coming year or more

Jonathan Sasse:

is using these tools on datasets that we know to be good. And so

Jonathan Sasse:

it'll get better at answering the question correctly, when

Jonathan Sasse:

it's using a set of data that's known, and not just wherever it

Jonathan Sasse:

might cobble some of these things together. And so, you

Jonathan Sasse:

know, I think as you get, you know, certain industries, I

Jonathan Sasse:

mean, we all have interactions with chatbots. And these things,

Jonathan Sasse:

and a lot of them are pretty poor, those things could get

Jonathan Sasse:

considerably better with the right set of learning and

Jonathan Sasse:

training on that and get real useful feedback with complicated

Jonathan Sasse:

questions. I think that's where we'll start to see some of the

Jonathan Sasse:

early benefit, but then that internal use of to your point,

Jonathan Sasse:

training on a set of known data that goes back maybe a long

Jonathan Sasse:

time, and be able to mine and utilize that data in a way

Jonathan Sasse:

through, you know, the same way we do today with Chat GPT, or

Jonathan Sasse:

others, but getting responses back that you could rely on in a

Jonathan Sasse:

much more credible way. And I think we might see some of that

Jonathan Sasse:

where being more transparent in the results. It almost feels

Jonathan Sasse:

sometimes, like, when you talk to somebody who doesn't really

Jonathan Sasse:

know what they're talking about, and they just give you a

Jonathan Sasse:

confident answer, and you're like, well, that's probably

Jonathan Sasse:

true, that seems reasonable. And then you find out that it wasn't

Jonathan Sasse:

at all

Matt Waller:

Yeah,

Jonathan Sasse:

that's how a lot of these chat tools feel the AI

Jonathan Sasse:

tools feel like is it? It can't, it gave me a very confident,

Jonathan Sasse:

plausible answer that if it in because I know very little about

Jonathan Sasse:

the subject I was asking about, it seems believable. But it's

Jonathan Sasse:

really difficult to check that in any way. And so you might use

Jonathan Sasse:

that for inspiration for more research and be like, okay, I'm

Jonathan Sasse:

gonna go learn and this is true, but not everybody's gonna do

Jonathan Sasse:

that. And then that's the risk of kind of where we're at, like,

Jonathan Sasse:

at this moment, I think.

Matt Waller:

First of all, Josh and Jonathan, congratulations on

Matt Waller:

the great success of Metova. And, you know, it's it's

Matt Waller:

encouraging to have a company here in Northwest Arkansas

Matt Waller:

that's doing business all over the place, not just in Arkansas,

Matt Waller:

and doing well. So congratulations, and thank you

Matt Waller:

for taking time to visit with me.

Jonathan Sasse:

Thank you.

Josh Smith:

Thanks for having us.

Matt Waller:

On behalf of the Sam M. Walton College of

Matt Waller:

Business, I want to thank everyone for spending time with

Matt Waller:

us for another engaging conversation. You can subscribe

Matt Waller:

by going to your favorite podcast service and searching.

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