SE05E08 - Tech Inertia and Intelligent Guerilla Warfare

The forty-second episode of the podcast that you know and love as "We Love Ugly Data!" is out; available in audio form everywhere you get your podcasts from and additionally in video form via YouTube (which we've embedded below). It's Matt and Alan again this month to talk about the first few of the latest drop of vendor profiles, technology market inertia, and Intelligent Guerrilla Warfare for information managers.In this month’s episode:Topic 1: New Research (pt1)First up, we recently published a big drop of new vendor profiles - 8, in fact - for subscribers. For both subscribers and non-subscribers, Alan published a blog post with a brief summary of each. Here, Matt and Alan discuss the first three in the collection; first up is Doc Labs, the first of 2 AEC specialists in this set. They tackle a real problem: document sprawl in the pre-construction phase, where multiple parties manage their share of the documentation in their own repositories, but there's still a need for overall oversight of all project documents. Next up, also in the pre-construction phase of AEC projects, is Togal.AI, take-off software for estimation that extracts relevant details from plan documents. Our returning champion amongst this set is Vertesia - which we last covered a couple of years ago - and since then has developed into an ECM-lite platform for AI-enabled marketing content. From its starting point in prompt engineering, Vertesia has built a platform that handles that, as well as model management, agentic development, and their historic skills in content management. If you'd like to read this profile in full, Vertesia has kindly made it available for free download from their website.Topic 2: Technology inertia?Matt, Dan and Alan have been planning exciting things for the rest of the year (look surprised when they happen), but as a result of that, they've been discussing what feels like an inertia in technology markets, created by the inability of customers to swallow the big agentic automation products that have been pushed in front of them. Matt's written a couple of blog posts ("Looking fast, but standing still" and "Real world problems remain real, until they’re not") and Alan's been thinking along similar lines from his last visit to Silicon Valley. Here, they discuss why we shouldn't assume automation is always coming to replace inefficient processes; sometimes it's replacing ones held together by real human ingenuity and quality of delivery.Topic 3: Intelligent Guerrilla WarfareAlan recently had a speaking slot at a conference in Philadelphia (that he mistook for a nuclear industry bash for some reason). He took the opportunity to provide some hints and tips for information management professionals on how to get themselves involved in AI projects ("infiltrate, don't confront", apparently). Matt also tries a steam train analogy for some reason, which doesn't really land. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnLiyZ5WUcY Related Links for Series 5 Episode 8Download the full Vertesia vendor profile for free from their website.Here's Alan's summary blog post of this entire set of new vendor profiles.Matt's blog posts: "Look fast but standing still" and "Real world problems..."Alan's Silicon Valley thoughts in "Determinism in Silicon Valley".Support the show