Like, pretty intense stuff. And, you know, so he he had that whole phase of his life, came back, got into engineering and controls, kind of became his own self taught electrical engineer, and, from there became a got into software development. So he started coding on these you know, he's telling me what these machines are like. They're huge. They've got little tiny screens, four inch screens. Right? These big clunky keyboards, and he'd code on these things. And he'd said start start the software compiling. I get up and go make a pot of coffee and come back. Like, that's how slow they were. Ultimately, wound up building software that did, like, plan giving calculations. So they needed all these actuarial calculations to to predict when people would die and all that sort of stuff. And, worked closely with the IRS to try to figure those things out, and, ultimately, his software resulted in the IRS having to republish all their manuals. He he found this discrepancy and reached out to him, and they tried to reconcile it, couldn't figure out. And, ultimately, they're like, wow. Your software is getting it right, and our calculations are wrong, so they had to republish their manuals. I'm like, man, like, just did a lot of really interesting things in his life, comes back, gets involved in doing missions because he wants to go back to Africa where he felt a real connection with the people down there and started doing leading mission trips for his church down in Africa and did that all the way up until up until his eighties. In fact, he would go to these these remote villages, where you'd have to canoe and then get out and carry your canoe and then canoe some more and, like, really way off the beaten path. Right? And develop relationships with these families, and he would keep going back there and relationships over time. And one of my favorite stories he tells is that there's this, baby that was born while he was there, and the family decided to name the baby Jim Nichols. But I think it's funny to think that there's a Jim Nichols running around in a in an area of Africa that doesn't speak English.

Right. So Right.

Refer to him as Jim Nichols. So

And that's n I c o l l s. Right.

Yeah. That's my dad.

That's your dad. Such an amazing story. I love it so much. I do. I love it so much. And he really you know, along with your brother, Michael, but, really Oh, yeah. Fueled that passion for technology. And, let let me ask you this. So so, Matt, you started working with Technology Partners in nineteen ninety eight as a consultant. Technology Partners is really known in the industry for their transparency, for paying our employees really well. How did this resonate with you when you became a consultant ninety nineteen ninety eight? How was it different from what other people were doing and experiencing?

Yeah. Well, my brother, Michael, as you mentioned, is the reason I'm a software developer now. My dad was an inspiration. I was pursuing art. My dad told me I was probably gonna be a starving artist, so get comfortable with that lifestyle in a nice way. And then my brother offered me a job. And, so I moved back from Indianapolis, learned what software development even really was, and, and it it went off from there. The next influence my brother had on me was he started at Technology Partners First. And at the time, I was consulting through another firm, and and he kinda shared with me the model, this low transparent margin, which would allow me to make significantly more money, allow the clients of Technology Partners to pay less money. And it just was a really open, transparent, great way of doing business that really attracted me. So I applied, and you guys, rejected me and said you can't come here for us because

you believe that we

You reject work. Yeah. Well, it was it was on it was on good merit. Right? It was like you work for a client of ours, and

Mhmm. You

can't poach people from our clients. And so, eventually, I left that client. I went and worked for another company for six months or a year, I can't remember, and reapplied. It's hired me. And And

then we hired him.

And I've I've kinda been working with you guys in one way or another ever since.

Yeah. Yeah. And it has been it has been such a blessing. And just, we've seen a lot of change, and we've seen a lot of lot of change. But, Matt, some things have not changed.

That's right.

Our model has stayed the same. We will still reject you

That's right.

If you try to apply and you're at a client. So, those principles really have remained true, with how we operate as a company. But, you know, we decided when we decided to add the solutions to our portfolio of services about fifteen years ago, Matt.

Mhmm.

We looked at each other. Greg and I looked at each other, and we basically cherry picked you. Out of all the consultants that we had worked with, we said, who is the person that could really help us build this? And you truly were one of the smartest consultants we had ever worked with.

That.

Well, no. It's true. It is true. You're I think you're you're probably a chip off the old block with your dad because what our listeners may not know is that Matt is part of the Mensa society. So Matt, is incredibly intelligent, really, like I said, one of the smartest that we had worked with. But we also knew that you would bring passion, creativity, and professionalism to the role, Matt. And, so that is when we talk to you, and and the rest is history as they say. But, today, you are the practice director of custom software solutions for the company. And, truly, I think, we have one of the most incredible team of human beings out there. I tell people all the time, I would put our team up against anyone in the industry.

Hundred percent.

Built an amazing, amazing team of technologists. Your team has been really blessed. You've worked with billion dollar enterprises designing, building custom solutions that power the backbone of operations. Iconic brands. Really iconic brands, Matt. From Mastercard to Panera Bread to, you know, oil pipelines and power grids. I mean, truly, you guys have worked with some of the best teams out there. It has been really a blessing. But I wanna get into more about what your team is doing today, and so I've got lots of questions for you. Really, you know, everything in IT if you're in IT, there's one thing we can all agree on. The change is incredible. The rapid pace by which technology is is changing. Lightspeed. Yeah. AI, cybersecurity, infrastructure, modernization. So let me ask you this. What are you scrambling to get ahead of right now?

You're a hundred percent right about constant change. If you ever have, a vision in your mind as a as a young professional that in IT, you're gonna get to a point to where you can just be settled and be in a leadership position and and coast, that will never happen. I remember when my dad told me, I brought him some new technology, and, he said, you know, I'm just kinda tired of learning new things. And I'm like, well, you're done then. You're done, bro.

Right.

So you you you always have to be ready ready for that change. And, you know, what's what I'm really excited about, what I'm really focused on the big change ahead of us, you know, obviously, AI is top of the heap. Everybody's figuring out how they can, leverage AI the best in a in a in a responsible way, right, a safe way, secure way, but really harness that power. I remember the first time I used, GPT when it came out, and I'm my first thought was, this is gonna change the world more than the Internet. Mhmm. Things are gonna be completely different. And, but what a lot of people aren't thinking about is the infrastructure that it's gonna take to support the demand for AI. The compute needs for AI is, very, very expensive, and the the demand is going through the roof. Mhmm.

So when you think about the data centers that we're gonna have to build, to support the demand in our country alone, we're gonna have to double in the next four, four and a half years, double that, which is gonna be hundreds and hundreds of data centers, which means a lot of construction and, cooling. How are we gonna cool the data centers? We gotta get water there. We gotta get power there. We have to manufacture chips. There's a a seven a seven trillion dollar investment in this level of infrastructure. Trillion with a t. Now we need the the companies to to be able to step up and do that. We need those infrastructure companies to be able to step up and do that. And so I wanna take everything that I've learned and everything that my team's done over the years. And by the way, going back to your comment earlier about good teams Yeah. If I had a hundred dollars, I would bet all one hundred dollars on my team because they're they're they're so good. They're

so good.

So proud of them.

Best of the best.

But I wanna take everything we've learned. How can we how can we use digital innovation to support those infrastructure efforts that are gonna support the new critical infrastructure? The new critical infrastructure is AI in those data centers. Because if those go down, every business in our country will, in one way or another, be

It's gonna be affected.

That's gonna be affected. Right?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

So if you think about the the critical infrastructure, that's gonna support the critical infrastructure, that's where our focus is right now.

Yeah. And I've got a lot more questions around that, and I'm excited to talk about it more. Matt, you have said that nothing compares to the moment we're entering into right now. What do you mean by that?

A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, if you think about the technology arc that's happened since the creation of the wheel. Right? Wheel fast forward to the Internet, like, long time. The the arc between those two bits of technology, I think, may be less than the arc that we're about to experience in the very near future. Because if you think about AI, include robotics, of course Yes. And then quantum computing, you know, and nanobots, like, you marry those things together with with just some of the just some of the things that we've heard about quantum computing just in the last few weeks and month about the the computational power and speed, it's going to drastically change the world in ways that I think that we can't even really comprehend right now. Mhmm. I'm really excited to be alive in this time, and be a part of that.

Absolutely. Yeah. I know our good friend Pete Hogan at Campano. Mhmm. He loves quantum computing and loves talking about that. Matt, you and, you and Pete should have lunch and talk about, all things quantum computing. Well, Matt, I mean, we're hearing that CEOs and boards are looking directly to their CIOs to have the answers for AI. The pressure is to move fast.

That's a real pressure, but there is also a fear too. Because if you move too quickly, you risk making the wrong bet. You go too slow, and you're reminded that your predecessor's only a few interviews away. What are you seeing?

Yeah. You know, going back to what we talked about before with this relentless need for education and and and and learning to stay ahead of the curve. The CIOs are not that's nothing new to them. You know? In order to be to where where they are now, they're used to that. Right? So

Yes.

I would say just back to the basics, you know, AI and and quantum computing, both of those have this nonlinear process to them. Right? It's not it's not like a progression of old technology we've seen before. This is this is new and completely different.

Mhmm.

And sometimes magic. And so, I would say to any any CIO, start with education, but not just yourself. Educate those around you. Educate your executive leadership team. Educate your board so that they understand, AI. I mean, we we'll do these AI workshops with leadership teams, and it's literally sitting down and, building a building an AI. Right? Building a custom agent. Right? And and helping them get their hands on it, really understand what's possible. And it changes the the tone from what are you gonna do, CIO, to what can we do together? Absolutely. People are collaborating and they're thinking about it and, how it can they're thinking about how it can apply to their their vertical within their organization. And that's that's exciting. But, yeah, CIOs are faced with this whole, ready, fire, aim. Right? Everybody has expectations, and how are we leveraging AI, and how can we maximize this potential to for competitive edge or to streamline our operations or whatever. And they do. They have to take measured steps there, be very pragmatic. Otherwise, they find themselves in a dish down the road.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. I I love what you said, Matt, that it's really, you know, empowering your people. I mean, literally, AI is gonna change the future of work.

Mhmm.

And that is whether you are a contracts person, whether you're in HR, whether you're in procurement. It is going to change. So I believe what you said, it's like, how can we do this together? How can we do this together? And, looking for those opportunities in the business to help your people do their job more efficiently.

That's right.

Yeah. I tell you, I heard a speaker from MIT recently, and I absolutely love this quote. And I've hung on to it, Matt, that he's talking about AI. And he said, you know, AI is not gonna replace the human being. You're gonna continue to need humans, but he said somebody who is really good at AI, a human being that's good at AI, may replace the human being who does not know AI.

Hundred percent. Yeah.

Yeah. That was such a powerful quote.

I don't know I don't know if the first part of that is true, that getting back to we we're not even fully able to comprehend what what the possibilities are yet or how far it can go. So I don't know. Maybe someday it it can replace humans. We'll see. But right now, humans are the orchestrators of the AI, especially when you're talking about GenAI and at the desktop level. We've all gotten emails before that we read them, and we're like, oh, that was generated. That was a that's a Claude email, or that's a Gmail. And we gotta go in and refine our prompts or edit the content so it feels more authentic. Right? That's really true for us, which which it is at the end of the day. But it's those people that really know how to learn, to to leverage them and orchestrate them. Mhmm. Developers on my team are using different AI tools to generate code in the same way. It's like, well, we you have to know how to write it yourself so you can validate that whatever is output by the AI is legit because a lot of times it is not.

There's still some hallucinating going on.

Yeah. Right? And so, you know, still being that orchestration layer of I need to know what to build.

Mhmm.

Right? I need to understand how to get there, and then I can use an AI as a force multiplier, as they say, to speed things up. Let's get that velocity going. Let's let's get rid of the tedious stuff, so we can focus on higher level things. And, that's where we are right now.

Mhmm. For sure. Well, Matt, I wanna get back to something that you talked about in the in the beginning of our talk, and I want you to really explain this more. You've been talking a lot about this CI for CI, critical infrastructure for critical infrastructure.

Yeah.

Tell me a little bit more about what that means if you could get even a little bit deeper into that, and why does it matter?

The reason it matters is the demand to build these data centers and all the necessary infrastructure to to connect them all and pull them together is is exceeding our our capabilities right now. So we have to figure out a way to optimize these infrastructure companies, the construction companies, cooling, manufacturing, and all of that to be able to operate more efficiently to be able to meet that demand. You know, I'm thinking about Todd Fenders at Maraton. Right? I know I know they're they're providing cooling for data centers, and that's a big part of their business. And he's he's thinking about how can I make this how can I make us more efficient? How can I meet that demand? How can we how can we be there to get that mark market share? And, that's gonna be through digital is gonna be a big part of that. Right? Mhmm. How can we streamline your processes? How can we automate some of those processes? Right? How can we how can we ensure growth and scale while ensuring quality? Because that's always a problem. Right?

Absolutely.

There's no there's no room for error there. Right? And so, so those are the that's where we wanna really make a big impact. But, even taking a step back and and looking at a bigger picture outside of just the CI for CI to support AI and the and the industries that support this growth, every business has their critical infrastructure piece. Right?

Exactly. Mission critical.

Yeah. What are those mission critical pieces that have to work, that have to be there? And, that's what our focus is. You know, we we how can we be part of solving your biggest, scariest problems and

get

the right people at the table to tackle it and be that critical infrastructure for your critical infrastructure.

Right. Yeah. And you guys have already been so successful in at many, many, and many organizations doing that. And, yeah, it'd be fun to continue to be a part of that, that conversation. Well, let me ask you this. You've said before modernization is a new innovation. Explain that. Dig deeper into that, Matt. What do you mean by that?

Yeah. And maybe a better way to say it is is modernization is the gateway to innovation, because there's a lot of opportunity, out there right now to modernize old tech. And it's just it's a have to. We have to do it. We gotta you know, this is just old and clunkier. It's out of support. It's a security issue. We've gotta modernize this old tech. And, we need to make sure that we're focused on not just lifting and shifting to new technology. We need to be we need to take a fresh look at whatever problem that was was being solved by that old tech and apply some innovation. And to me, innovation is the creative application of technology to solve a problem. So how can we think about it differently? How can we apply a little creative thought and reimagine what this new solution is gonna be? So it's not just a technology lift, but it's it's a new way of doing it. It's a more innovative, better, more efficient way of doing it to help push your organization forward.

Right. Yeah. Why would you wanna just lift and shift? I mean, you do need to, as you said, take a fresh perspective and step back. And because there's been so many advances, right, in the technology, you know, probably since that system was even put in place, at the beginning. You know? So

Right.

Don't just, do that. I love that. So Yeah. Really

If you lift if you lift if you do a technology lift without evaluating for the opportunity of innovation, you've kinda failed, I think.

You've missed it. Yeah. You've missed a big opportunity. Well, I'm gonna ask you one more question, then we need to take a quick break. And we've talked a lot about AI already. Our digital intelligence, it's not a new thing. You know? It's not. I mean, it's been around for a long time. But, you know, it's the the use cases and the way that we can use it. It's just become so much more accessible, I think. Yes. Acceptable and yes. But, you know, how should CIOs, do you believe, really be thinking about this? And you've already talked about the education piece, but what else would you like to say about that, Matt?

Well, I think it's important that especially at the speed at which AI is moving, because of accessibility like you mentioned before, that it's not just about learning. Right? It's about surrounding yourself with the people who already know. You earlier when you were talking about our team and you said, oh, Matt, you know, we brought you on because you're good at this and whatever. Like, I quickly learned I needed to have people around me that knew a lot more than I did. So I can I can prove you wrong right there? But if and and CIOs know this. Right? You've gotta surround yourself with good people, talented people because there's a breadth of technology that's under your watch, and you can't know it all.

Mhmm.

But, the fastest way to learn, is to bring in people who already know it. Right? People that you know, that you trust, that have been there, done that, that you can rely on to be an adviser for you. Mhmm. Be cautious in moving forward. So cautious optimism with constant learning. I think it's key for that.

Yeah.

You you don't have to know everything. Right? You don't have to know everything, but you have to know enough to hold people accountable so that that you know what they're saying rings true and and you have faith in faith in it.

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, not to put a shameless plug in here, Matt, but that's why you need good partners.

Yeah.

That's why you need good technology partners.

That's great.

Yes.

Hundred percent.

Yeah. Well, we do need to take a quick break, and we'll be right back with Matt Nichols on the Something Extra podcast.

In business, the tendency is to seek out partners who are bigger, faster, stronger. When it comes to IT, you should be looking for smarter, faster, better. That's That's just what you'll find with the talented technologists at Technology Partners. Our experts develop custom solutions to tackle your most complex challenges, all to simplify your processes in the smartest, most efficient way possible. The time to be swift and nimble starts now. Go to technology partners dot net slash solutions and see what's possible.

Welcome back, everyone, to the Something Extra podcast with Matt Nichols. So, Matt, you've been in this space for almost three decades. Three decades. That's a long time, Matt.

Great, Link.

There has been so much that change has changed. Right? How how are how do you think CIOs, based on what you saw thirty years ago, how are CIOs seen differently in the business now?

Yeah. That's a that's an interesting one. It really has changed quite a bit as of a shift from focusing on IT in general, not just the CIO, but all the way down to the boots on the ground. Right? We're seen as, like, an IT IT was like a support function for the business, kind of a siloed organization. Many CIOs were reporting to CFOs. They didn't really have a seat at the table. And, you know, IT was an enabler, but it was also a hassle for people. And, oh my gosh, my password and this and that. They didn't really they weren't really speaking the same language. It's really important that you're able to speak the business's language. Mhmm. And that can be a real challenge. Went went through the TechLX program, and they had a big, focus on marketing, which is really key. In fact, my daughter just graduated from college, and and we were down there meeting with some of the other parents. One of the parents I met with was actually a a CMO. And for a while in his organization, he stepped in as a CIO, which is a which is an odd leap. And we had a great conversation about the importance of being able to communicate your ideas in a way that's in the the what's in it for me message. The looking for the true benefit. The the so what question that I talk to my teams a lot about, which is if you're trying to communicate an idea to somebody and at the end of your statement, somebody could ask the question, so what? You haven't gotten to the root of that issue yet. And and so I encourage them, just keep asking yourself, so what? So what? So what? Every time you make a statement because the truth is in there somewhere. And when you get to that, you'll be able to communicate that in a way that a nontechnical person will get it. And I think CIOs are learning that. Right? They they've they've all they've got seats at the table now. Right? They're they're being seen as the business. Like, the the organizations that are that are that are kind of the front runners in that space, the CIO is no longer a a support silo within the organization to enable IT and enable the business. They are the business.

Mhmm.

And and I encourage our teams and and, the teams that we partner with, don't see your your software engineers as an example, as a team that's gonna build you some software. Those engineers need to be embedded within your business unit.

Absolutely.

Their their their next paycheck, their bonus should depend on achieving a business objective, not delivering a piece of software. And shifting that perspective is going to make it so you've got real team real team between your IT and your business. They're all in there working together to get the ball into the end zone.

Mhmm.

That's the biggest shift that I've seen. And, it's really it's really gonna catapult these businesses forward.

Agreed. Yeah. And we say all the time. I mean, we are business people first, Matt. We're not take knowledge is first. We're business people first. We solve challenges. We solve, you know, and look for opportunities

Yeah.

Right, to drive business.

It's the the the man I was telling you about, the, the the CMO who became the CIO interim, his son is going to school for cybersecurity and data science. And I was asking him, well, are you gonna do this? He's like, well, I'm not so sure. I'm like, well, you're about to graduate next year. So he said, well, I really want to be in a space where I can work with people. You know? And I'm I I I enjoy engaging with them, learning about those problems. And I said, buddy, you're in a good spot.

You are.

In data science, you've gotta be able to bridge the gap between the need. What are you really trying to accomplish here? What's the business objective? And having the technical chops to go understand the data and the technology behind it to make that happen, you're gonna be a star in that space where there's gonna be a lot of people in that space that don't have the interpersonal communication skills and the soft skills that you have in your your ability to understand business, and that that's gonna set you apart.

Oh, no doubt. No doubt. No doubt about that. Well, Matt, you talk to CIOs every day. What do you and I'm sure that there are CIOs that that because of this rapid change that we're seeing, that they feel behind or they feel overwhelmed. There's more to do on their plate than they have feel like they have the time for. What would you what kind of advice would you have for them?

You know, I'd say if you're feeling overwhelmed, a lot of times, it's because you're well, probably a hundred percent of the time. It's because you've got a technical challenge in front of you or a business challenge in front of you that you don't know how to solve or you don't have the expertise for. And there's an interesting balance there, and it's not just CIOs. It's across the board. You've got you've got, you know, IT directors, engineers that have worked for a company for ten, fifteen years. Right? The great thing is is they have deep domain knowledge, which is irreplaceable. It's very difficult to get specific domain knowledge, but it's at the expense of missing out on technology exposure.

Mhmm.

Right? I feel super blessed to be working with so many different organizations in different industries because it gives me and my team a lot of exposure to different technologies, different approaches to applying that technology in creative ways. So you need a balance having, you know, having your teams that have been there for a long time and you trust them and they've got that domain knowledge with bringing in fresh perspective and being open to doing things differently and being open to thinking differently.

Mhmm.

Because it doesn't take long for your team to elevate and learn that new technology. If if somebody's been brought in that understands that technology, it can help elevate them quickly. Right? And you you don't wanna lose them. You wanna keep them fresh. You want those committed team members. They're irreplaceable. But that's a good place to bring in partners or being open to hiring people with more modern, skill sets and things like that. And that goes from all from boots on the ground all the way up to the CIO.

Sure. You know, Matt, as you were talking, it just reminded me, we've been really blessed many times, haven't we, to walk alongside teams where we where our people and their people are collate located together

Mhmm.

And co laboring together for a solution. Right? And Yeah. As you said, that really can help elevate a team that has that deep domain knowledge, but maybe needs a little bit fresh perspective on what's possible with technology. So, it just reminded me of that. Well, Matt, you've worked across lots of sectors from food service to energy to logistics. How do you tailor your approach to innovation when the definition of mission critical looks so different across these industries?

What you learn, in working across these different industries is there's they have a lot more in common, than they think or realize. And when we're working with a new partner and they're like, do you have experience in this domain or this tech stack or whatever? I think that I think that it's best for them to open their mind a little bit and stop looking for we need somebody with deep industry domain. Look for look for experiences outside of your domain to come bring a fresh perspective. Right? And so the way that we compose our teams are we have our solution engineers. They're the innovators. Right? They're the ones who understand the technology. They've got the business brain. They've got the creative side. Right? They have the ability to show the art of the possible to come in and understand the need and and show the art of art of the possible. We've got our app app devs and and delivery leads that help get the ball into the end zone and and deliver. We've got UI UX that brings that human centered engineering, that functional design to the table, which is mission critical. And, and then we have domain specialists. Right? Oh, we need to integrate with this ERP. Well, we'll bring somebody with that specific knowledge into the team to help us navigate those waters. But the team would be upside down if we said, well, that should be the primary focus is integrating with the ERP. Really, what you want is you want the the solution minded team that comes to the table Mhmm. And augment that with the with the specialist in that domain or the specialist in that technology stack.

Right. Very good. Well, let's go back to CI for CI, critical infrastructure for critical infrastructure. You've said a couple times now that this is your mission. Can you, give us an example of how this really shows up in practice? What does it look like to build a technology behind the technology? Maybe you've got some examples that you can share with our listeners.

Yeah. For sure. So you had mentioned earlier, partnering with these organizations to help advance their mission. You know, a lot of times, they've got they've got the teams. They've got the talent. They've got the technical some of the technical exposure. Maybe they haven't done it yet. Let's say they wanna move. They were trying to move to the cloud, right, in a in a more sophisticated way or a more, a deeper investment into that stack, and they've got some experience with it. Well, it's not that they can't do it. It's that they'd they'd like to have someone come alongside of them that can help help navigate around the the pitfalls and potholes and show them where all the skeletons are buried and all that sort of stuff. Right. It's not that they can't move forward. It's that they wanna be able to move forward with confidence. And so, with all the ever evolving landscape of technology, we'd like to be able to come in and bring our experience to the table to help those companies advance with confidence.

Yeah. That's the key.

Mhmm.

Advance with confidence.

Bringing in some some perspectives from other organizations that we've worked with. Like, how did we how did we solve the that's happened so many times when we've been doing a discovery assessment or workshop, and we're we're we're kind of collaborating a whiteboarding with a team. And Jason and I will look at each other, or Brian and I will make a connection, be like, we this is just like what we did for

Yes.

On the board. Right? But we can totally lateral this over here and apply it in this way. And, it's been such just such a benefit to have the experience in in having all those different, you know, those different solutions to provide, and it really brings a lot to the table. So, we're hopeful that we can bring some of that and really make a meaningful difference. We're very business objective oriented. We're very ROI oriented. So when we when we look at doing projects, we wanna lead with that. We wanna lead with does it make sense to do this at all and why? Like, what's the real what's the real reason we're doing this from a business perspective? And so if we can if we can look at an organization like, Black and Veatch, you know, Mike Adams is doing a phenomenal work out there. And just being in the room with a guy for an hour, you're like, man, get ready because he's moving forward a hundred miles an hour. Right?

Right.

He's changing the in in in their building data centers, and they're solving all kinds of cybersecurity problems and infrastructure problems. And and if there's anything that we can do to take a fresh perspective or fresh look at that and bring some fresh perspective to the table and help supercharge their team in any way, I wanna be a part of that. I wanna be a part of that because if we can help ensure that we're able to lay the groundwork with this seven trillion dollar investment that these organ companies are making and governments are making in our country, I wanna make sure it's successful.

Mhmm. Talk about velocity. Right, man? With Mike, and, I know you really highly, highly respect him and what he's doing at Black and Veatch right now.

Yeah. Well,

I have a few more questions here for you, and then we'll we'll get into, something extra. But you've you've referenced the AI agent infrastructure, composable platform, scalable frameworks. These aren't one off tools. They're systems of innovation. What does that shift look like when it's done right, Matt?

Well, I think some of the things that we're helping, partners with is kind of destructuring their legacy architecture into more composable parts and pieces that can be orchestrated. Right? So we have we have legacy systems. A lot of them are monolith systems. And I always say, you know, if if we're gonna if we're gonna upgrade this legacy tech or we gotta break apart this monolith, I I always equate it to how do we change the oil in the truck while we're driving it. Right? And there's some there's some great technology out there and architectural patterns you can follow to decouple all these parts and pieces. And, once you get to that place, it allows you to say, okay. All these parts and pieces are decoupled. They're integrated, but they're not type tightly coupled. So we could potentially swap out this one piece, modernize just that one piece without affecting the downstream systems. And we've got a number of case studies around doing that very thing where we've got, you know, for Ameren, they've had seventy two applications of varying degrees of legacy technology from something modern all the way back to VB three or AS four hundred or whatever. And they're all tightly coupled to this Oracle database. And Mhmm. They wanna move something to the cloud. How do you do that? You you can't you can't you can't plan to flip the switch and have a D Day moment three years from now and hope that everything works. Mhmm. You first have to take a fresh look at that architecture, decouple all of those parts and pieces so you can move forward in a more measured, pragmatic way.

Mhmm. Yeah. That's really wise. Really wise. Matt, you talk about the customer customer of my customer a lot. What does that mean to you, and how does it change the way that CIOs should be building? Customer of my customer.

Customer of my customer. We say that all the time. And that is, at the end of the day, if we're if IT is building something for a business unit or they're or it's customer and customer facing, it's like, that's where your that's where your focus needs to be. Because if I'm gonna help you, I'm gonna help you help the person you're trying to help. That makes sense. I don't know if that's but but at the end of the day, that's where the rubber hits the road. That's where we wanna stream streamline and optimize if you're looking for something internal. If you're customer facing, how can you improve that customer journey and customer experience? And if and if you're thinking about your customer's customer, you're always gonna be in alignment with your customer.

Yeah. That is so true because that's who they're serving.

That's right.

I mean, Matt, it just reminds me because our tagline is improving the world, you know, harnessing the power technology to improve the world. And what we mean by that, truly, I'm even thinking mission wise, we want our customer's mission to become our customer our mission. Right?

Mhmm.

And their mission, they've got customers themselves. So Right. I mean, it's it really, there is, what I wanna say, common thread there, that truly I mean, I've always thought, you know, Bear's mission is to feed the world. Well, every time we help Bear with something, that that's our mission too. Yeah. That's right. Right?

And, Customers are their farmers, but their customer's customer, it's us.

Absolutely. And if that doesn't get somebody excited, you know, that that that'll get you up in the morning when you Yeah. When you think of it that way. So

Yeah. I'd say another part of that too is, like, really getting to know your customer's customer. You know, we spend a lot of time shadowing people, really understand what they do every day to really get it.

My grandma used to say, if you don't have time to do it right, what makes you think you have time to do it again?

That's a wise grandma.

How many times have you heard a company does, you know, invest in a in a new system or a modernized technology, and it gets into the end user hands. And they're like, what is this? What what we can't use this, or it doesn't really meet the needs. So you really need to start with an empathetic approach of really truly understanding putting yourself in their shoes. It saves so much time. You know? Just get get down there with the end users and figure out what they really actually need. Mhmm. Bring some of your experiences to the table and maybe show them what's possible. Yeah. I love I love starting a sentence, and I did it earlier today talking to, a partner and said, wouldn't it be cool if and then fill in the blank. Wouldn't it be cool if we could automatically and then having them say, oh my gosh. Yeah. That would be awesome. Right? Because now you know you're onto something. You've shown them the art of the possible. You got them excited about what what how their life could improve, how their business could improve, how their customer's experience could improve. And, it's very, it's very excited exciting to be in that type of a collaboration.

Oh, for sure. You know? And, Matt, I'm just thinking I'm I'm going back to the conversation that you had with that young man this weekend at Ellen's graduation.

Yeah.

And I'm thinking, is communication important? Is that an important skill for a technologist to have?

Yeah. It's it's it's critical. And and many engineers really don't. You know, a lot of engineers on my team don't. You know, they're introverted, and they're quiet. They're geniuses. Right? And that's okay. We need that too. So not every technologist has to be, you know, up up in front of the room waving their hands and drawing out whiteboards and and all that. But that has to be that's an important component of your team that has to be represented.

Such an important component. Yeah. And I know, you know, our TechLX can have, you know, help with that. But, yeah. The and the communication, when I say communication, I'm not just talking about the speaking part. I'm talking about the listening. Listening is probably more critical. Right? Seek to understand first, you know, to borrow a line from Covey.

Covey. Yeah.

Mhmm. Well, you know, IT is a complex beast. Even for those who've been in it their whole lives almost, Matt, speaking you know, you've done this your almost your whole career. But how can a CIO best communicate and educate the executive leadership team and board to understand and support the mission?

Yeah. I think that starts with empathy first. Right? Understanding where they're coming from. And then you've gotta be the genius that can figure out how to adapt your technical issues down to terms that they can understand.

Mhmm.

And that that's across the board whether you're meeting with the board or with your business partner or with your end users. I can't talk to them in terms of of technology because they glaze over. I can barely tell my my wife's friends what I do for a living without them getting bored. You know? So we've gotta be able to relate it to terms that mean something. And that's important for communication. But at the end of the day, we really just wanna make an impact. You know? Engineers wanna make an impact. They wanna make a difference. And in order to make the difference, you have to understand what the true need is.

I was gonna say you've got to understand the business objectives. And you have to map it back to those business objectives. Right? So they don't wanna hear about features. They wanna hear about the benefits

That's right.

Of whatever it is that you're building.

You nailed it.

Well, Matt, I mean, you've led, built, scaled for some of the most complex companies in the world. You know, if you had to say, what is that something extra that you think every leader and maybe if you wanna be specific a technology leader needs, what would you say that that would be?

You know, I think especially in technology, it's it's easy to get, narrowly focused on on the technology itself. You know, we talked about understanding having empathy, for your customer's customer and for your board and your leadership team really understanding that. But I think it's bringing art art to the table. So, you know, we've got STEM. Right? Yeah. And and now it that's kind of evolved into STEAM. And that a that was added is for art. And, you know, Apple ran some ads back in the eighties, the think different campaign, and I've got a a whole collection of that artwork. You've seen it. It used to be in my office. Now it's in my home office. And I just loved it because the people that they brought front and center were not all technology people. In fact, most of them weren't technology people. I mean, Einstein was was in there, but Jim Henson was in there. Right? That guy thought different. You know? Jane Goodall thought different. And so thinking different is a is a key part of solving the solving the need here. Apple did a great job with that. Right? They they humanized, the personal computer. They humanized, you know, the iPod became like the extension of your hand and then the iPhone. Right? It's not design. I I I don't remember the quote exactly, from Steve Jobs, but it's design is not just how it looks and feels. It's how it works. I was like, that's how it works. And so being able to bring full circle art back to the table with user experience, customer experience, has been very fulfilling for me, because I I love that it's really what adapts this powerful technology in a way that a a human can use it. And we've all used those apps before that we get up more frustrated and and it they're clunky or slow or hard to understand, and it it adds frustration to your day and it brings you down and it makes you not wanna go back to it again. And we've all used those systems where it's so smooth and so easy. And, oh my gosh, I love this ecommerce site because it just works so great. And, that user experience is really an act of engineering. We we didn't this is not an invention of ours, but we refer to that as functional design. And I had a great conversation with Laura Dierberg produces one time when we started working with them about the end user experience. And, I said I referred to our designs as, you know, you're gonna love it. They're beautiful. And she's like, I don't need it to be beautiful. I need it to be functional. And I'm like, you know what? I'm never gonna say the word beautiful again because we that's true. That we make them functional. But at the end, when you see something that's really a sophisticated and elegant design, it's Mhmm. Functionally amazing, and it's also beautiful. You know? It just it has symmetry to it. It's got appropriate use of white space, so it's not overly cluttered. It's it's balanced. You know? And and all those things really matter at the end of the day even if only incrementally. We, we're building some software for Dierbergs in some of their mission critical customer facing departments. Right? They get very, very busy. And, the technology that they had at the time, sometimes they just revert to just writing things down on paper. Right? And there's nothing easier than writing an order down on paper, but but then you you can't track it. You you don't have reporting. You don't you know? And it's hard to where where did that piece of paper go? It's in the folder. Well, which folder? You know? The handoff can get clunky. And so so we're building a solution for that that's gonna be put the technology in the hands of these people taking orders. Well, that's fine on a Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock unless it's the Tuesday afternoon before Christmas Eve, then it's not fine. Right?

It's like

it's like red alert. You got twelve people deep in line. Everything's moving at the speed of light. And and I said I said to the team, I said, listen. We need to be thinking about the UI, the UX design, the user experience of this as if there are twelve people deep. It's the day before Christmas Eve. There's a hundred people behind the counter trying to fulfill orders and whatever else. And the last thing we want is for them to throw that tablet on the floor and pick up a piece of paper and start writing again because that's the easier, better way.

Right. So how

can we come up with a user experience that's better than scribbling something on a piece of paper, that they'll wanna adopt and use? Mhmm.

That's a great litmus test, I thank Matt for it, and I know you guys have done amazing work. Another one of our, very esteemed we love we love Dierbergs. We love working with Laura and her team. Well, Matt, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much. I know that you're you're busy serving clients, and, I just appreciate you spending some time with me on the Something Extra podcast today. And I know that, your words and your wisdom, it's gonna help our listeners. It's gonna help them on their own journey.

I appreciate that. It's been an honor to be on Lisa, so thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening to today's show. Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production. Copyright Technology Partners Inc, two thousand and nineteen. For show notes or to reach Lisa, visit tpi dot co slash podcast. Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen.