EP 53 - Hitting Refresh at NISC

Recently I picked up a new book by Satya Nadella. Hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. He is the current CEO of Microsoft and the name of his book is "Hit Refresh." I found his book to be very fascinating and although the scope of Microsoft is much different and broader than NISC, there are many similarities and many lessons that we can learn by watching the transformation that is going on or the refresh that is going on at Microsoft. Here are a few observations. For starters, I don't know about you but from time to time, as I have visited with my fellow employees, one of the comments they have made is that as NISC has grown in size, they feel it's much more difficult for them to make a difference, for their work to be noticed, or acknowledged, or appreciated. And you know I absolutely understand how an employee could feel that way and to be perfectly candid, there has been a time or two in my career when I've had some of the same feelings. One of the reasons that I feel so strongly that that isn't true, that we can't make a difference, is just to look at what's happened at Microsoft since 2014 when Satya assumed his new role as CEO. Now Microsoft has about 120,000 employees. So, from an employee perspective, they are a hundred times larger than NISC. But yet, when Satya, one of 120,000 employees took over as CEO of Microsoft, their stock price was at $37 a share and for a publicly-traded company that's one of the most important measurements that points towards the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the CEO. Today, four years later, that same share of Microsoft stock trades at around $92 a share, a 250% gain in four years or about 62% a year increase in value. Now I think that any of us would welcome that type of appreciation in our 401k account. But as important in that amazing gain in their share price, I would say that in the last four years there has been a notable improvement in their product quality and innovation. And certainly, the culture of Microsoft, a very large ship, has been changed dramatically in the last four years, and there is no question that the major catalyst for that change was because of Satya. One of 120,000 employees. Now I speak these very complimentary words of Microsoft knowing full well that I've spent some time in these BlogCasts talking about Apple, and I'm kind of a self-proclaimed Apple bigot. Just ask David Aichele. And one other comment about David. Although I have teased him for years about Microsoft, he has been a constant advocate and supporter of that organization and even when the brand was tarnished, he stuck with them. And you know, I respect that loyalty. Now David can bask in the glow of "I told you so." Good for you, David. But I still say the quality of a Surface is no comparison to an iPad or a Mac Pro. I'm just saying. But back to the topic of making a difference in the workplace. In all the material that I have read about Satya, there is a constant assessment of his leadership qualities. He is described as being humble. Imagine that. There is that humility quality again. He is said to be forward-looking and pragmatic, meaning that he deals with challenges very sensibly and very realistically and not a lot of drama involved. For NISC to succeed in the digital age, I think that we have to be very realistic and we have to understand that the computing industry has never been more complex. An example would be when iVUE was released, there were about 6 million lines of code. Today the NISC Enterprise comprises over 30 million lines of code. Many companies, besides NISC, are doing innovative work in the industries we serve. There are companies like SAP, Oracle, SEDC, and Innovative and the crowd of competitors is crowded and fierce.   The exciting fact is this. That despite all this rapid change in our industry we are still truly at the very beginning of the digital revolution, or as they say "we haven't seen anything yet." Think of all the time that we and our Members spend manually organizing, performing mundane activities from scheduling meetings to generating billings, receiving payments, paying accounts payable, processing payroll, scheduling work, keeping a smarter grid, and the broadband networks humming. I am convinced that artificial intelligence will have a tremendous impact on our daily work activities and that block-chain will dramatically change the way we transmit sensitive data, bill for services, and process payments, as well as buy products like electricity and broadband.  Our challenge here at NISC is to figure out how these emerging technologies like AI and Blockchain will fit into and improve our Enterprise solutions. The number of technical challenges we face every day here at NISC continues to grow at a very rapid pace, but so too the opportunities that each of us has to truly make a difference in the work that we do. We may be one of 1,200 but make no mistake about the dramatic impact your experience, dedication, and innovation can make for our organization. And yes, each of you has an opportunity to reinvent, to refresh NISC, your co-workers, and most importantly the Members we serve. Thanks for all you do and for listening to these rambling thoughts. I appreciate you. Vern Vern.