Hello, and welcome to another episode of the process and automation podcast with the automation guys. Today’s episode is a very special one for us. Usually you hear Arno and myself talking about all things process in automation. And recently we thought it would be about time to invite interesting people who share the same patient for process and automation as we do.

Yeah, this was great pressure to welcome our first interview guest. He describes himself as German born Simpson obsessed. And we welcome Richard Farrell Netcall’s long service chief information officer to the podcast. Hello, Richard, thank you for joining us today.

Thanks very much for inviting me. Um, should be a fun session. Great. Thank you. Yeah, please, sir. Tell us a bit more about what you’re doing and what you’re responsible for Netcall. It’s a bit of a West coast U S title, chief innovation officer. Um, I’ve been with Netcall for, for a good number of years, 19 years, in fact, um, and the company has changed a lot over that time.

And my role has really changed over that time. Um, but primarily it’s about, um, looking at the impact of newer technologies. And how have they might be appropriate for our customers both now and in the future when they get to the right stage. So it’s about trying to understand the benefits of the technology, looking at the potential costs, integration challenges, and looking at the sort of use cases and then benefits our customers could derive.

Hm.

Lots of, lots of good fun and lots of hype. Um, but I have to try and Wade through. Yeah, so 19 years. So that’s, uh, at what time, uh, what kind of business process management or what era was it? 19 years ago? Um, well, from a technology perspective, it was, um, most enterprises were, were all client server. So we actually did have a cloud service way back in 2001, which was quite quite an interesting proposition, um, uh, transaction charged, um, platform as a service for some, um, automations, um, predominantly in the, in those days, um, we were dealing with call center.

Contact central automations. Um, and this was about the reason the company name that call kind of came about was because it was trying to instigate voice calls from websites. Okay. So before all of the lovely technologies, web, RTC, and stuff you might use today, how would you actually link websites and those customers into contact centers for a variety of reasons?

Yeah, certainly lots of, lots of development since then. So you, you, you know, you have seen everything in the space of process and automation, um, you know, for sure. Fantastic. And, uh, yeah, I think Arno and myself. Yeah. We haven’t been there in the field for such a long time. Uh, so quite a long time already.

Um, so that we, we now have picked up over this, uh, uh, this long, long time, uh, I think probably working relationships with like 15 different vendors and, um, Yeah. And we, we both are supporting companies with all things of, uh, process and automation and try to, to try to really, um, help them to achieve their, their automation goals.

So, so whether you see then was all these different vendors out in the market, where do you see sort of the sweet spot for Netcall in the market? It’s a really interesting question. And of course you could talk about ones and zeros and we’ve, I can talk to you about some of the technologies that we think make our solutions special, but it’s about more than that.

It’s about, um, what you deliver to your customers in terms of their outcomes. So, um, our customers want to automate processes, but they don’t want necessarily to have massive transformation programs. Um, and so that means that we need to make solutions easy to use for a wider population as well. Um, we also want to get close to where people are and understand the business processes and the challenges with technologies and challenges with systems and so on.

So, um, we think we’re, we’re really good is about enabling, uh, people close to processes with it professionals. To actually make a start and to make an initial impact, and then to leverage that knowledge and benefit to do much more transformational things. So sweet spot, I would really say, you know, in terms of the actual solutions, it’s for us, it’s all about ease of use.

That’s the main goal for us. We want to have the easiest to use platforms. Which then confer other benefits in terms of training and skills and time and value and all of the good business benefits, but that all comes from it’s sort of intuitive user interface, making things simple, um, having a mindset that it’s not for professional developers there aren’t enough.

Um, and the only sort of credible strategy. To the dealing with more automation to get more improved processes within organizations is to democratize it. Then there are not enough it and automation professionals to go around, but we need automate. So how do we do that? I think that all comes together with the user experience.

Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s very interesting. And I think with the advent of low code, um, we always talk about leveraging low code to plug that skill shortage and that gap. But, um, now more than ever, we see that being, um, you know, very relevant, uh, especially when, um, the times we live in, where we need to execute very quickly.

We need to, um, produce results fast and, um, you know, sometimes. We can’t just rely on, on conventional it development and their processes to create these applications and these, these tools for, for the business. Um, so I think it is, it is good. And I, you know, obviously we, as, um, we have got good experience with, with the net core platform and it still amazes me how you can.

Uh, take the platform, take a real world sort of problem, and quickly assemble it. And you know, within a couple of days, come back to people and say, this is what I’ve produced and you know, and they’re still there. They’re still points where, um, you know, people still can’t believe it, you know, which is really exciting.

And, um, you know, that, that’s what we, I guess that’s one of the drives, you know, being. Um, you know, involved with, with, with, with, with all these different platforms and their abilities, uh, Richard, if I may. So in the last sort of 12 months, and, and you know, this, this is very kind of popular with, with our listeners out there.

What would you say, um, are some of the sort of most exciting or impactful use cases that’s been delivered on, on the Nico platform? Yeah, it’s certainly been an interesting sort of 12, 13 months or so. Um, so in terms of, of interest in use cases that there have been many, um, I think what we can do is we can almost see with our customers almost a chronology of what happened with the pandemic and the sorts of applications that were required.

So we have a large number of NHS trust to our customers. We also have a large number of local government customers. And to your point about, you know, the low code platforms have been there and those capabilities have been around. I think what changed in the last 12 months is suddenly we had a compelling call to action.

It wasn’t about, you know, what should we do for our strategy in five years time, it was. We need to deliver new services tomorrow for our health customers. Um, you know, in terms of impact, the very first applications we developed with, with our health customers were around COVID testing, uh, initially for staff.

Um, so it was all about getting data from test systems in a splendid isolation and getting them into the Liberty create platforms so that we could provide dashboards analysis and proactive notification. So in the very early days when there weren’t any national systems about, and the hospitals, but testing their individual workers, how do we get those test results back into proactive notifications?

So that was the very first thing that we did. And then over the period of time, there would have been some really interesting medical use cases. So we’ve seen things like PPE distribution, things like, um, worker safety and work, our location, um, applications, which have been really interesting. Um, and we, we, then we, then if you follow it into the health side of things, we’ve then actually been through, um, into vaccination now.

Which is fantastic stuff. So we’ve got applications out there which are dealing with vaccinations and timings and so on. And that was quite an interesting one. Um, because obviously those in terms of sort of low code and application development, this was something that was a moveable faced with regulation as we, as the applications were being built.

So the NHS trust knew that they were going to be doing some vaccinations, but they weren’t sure to whom with what vaccinations with what time intervals between them. So, how do you work? You know, and you can’t go and buy commercial off the shelf product for that. So it’s fantastic working with those. And in local government, there are a whole load of range of things like, um, business rates, relief grants, um, again, integration with existing systems, whether it’s these days, data of council, tax payers and businesses, and then.

Ways to reach out and notify them that they’re eligible for benefits, some, all of this communication, text and email, but then coming back and managing the process to actually enable these grants and that backend of it. It wasn’t just sending out a check. Um, it was, of course some validation there was fraud checking in there as well.

Um, and then finally the BACS transfer, um, to actually make the payment. So all of that in the low code application. And that was one that Croydon council built themselves and they built in, in 120 hours. And it was also, it was also their first Liberty create application where they integrated it with the rest of their environment.

So we included in those 120 hours with things like. Um, single sign on integration, which can obviously be reused with many other applications after that. So they, they, they were really hot on this business developer, um, and being able to get the applications out quickly. Um, some really great examples of that.

And then probably, um, I suppose the, the, the most interesting one for me in terms of the application of the technology, and then probably the most impactful. Um, low-code application. So the one, the, um, sort of caught me on the back foot was, um, video integration. So, um, immediately the pandemic strike and we’re thinking of.

Technologies that our customers will need. And obviously in health, you’re going to have a reluctance to have face-to-face appointments. There’s going to be a much greater propensity for video appointments. Now that was something that was missing in a compelling event. There are lots of technologies that could do it, but nobody was really driving health to do it.

Um, and so we, um, We, we did our integration with a video solution and, um, we, we built some initial accelerators and models to see how it worked with virtual appointments and so on. And the surprise for me was that one of our customers, the NHB see the national house building. And Confederation, they actually took the technology and the platform and used it for building inspections.

So I was expecting that this is going to be patients end to end with healthcare professionals. It’s not it’s guys out in the field doing video foundations and roofs. Um, so I thought that was quite amusing in terms of, you know, how you predict these things going to be used. Um, I think the most impactful one is back to sort of COVID and health.

Um, Cambria County council built their own test and trace application using the core platform using the Liberty create, um, their context success rate was in the high 90%, but you compare it to national trace and where it’s been, you know, sixties or eighties, um, high nineties percent. Contact tracing. And of course what that means is it stops transmission and impactful, you know, it can save lives.

So that’s, um, that’s probably about the best we can do. Um, life-saving applications. Hmm, absolutely. Fantastic. Yeah. I think definitely the pandemic has, uh, has accelerated as well. A lot of this, uh, uh, the adoption of these platforms and now, um, um, in the need of. Putting these applications out in pretty much no time.

I think nowadays, all seeing the big benefit of low-code. And, um, as you mentioned, you combined, it already was other technologies. I think that leads leads us nicely into sort of the buzz words and, uh, which are currently out there, intelligent automation, hype automation, and all sorts of automation, whatever comes next to so when, when you, um, Yeah, look into your, um, uh, or look into the future.

Um, where do you see things developing for, for, for you as a software company, as a vendor and for companies? Um, uh, around the, the automation space. Yeah. It’s interesting times. Um, you are absolutely right. Pandemic has driven acceleration. Um, I think because lots of things failed. Um, so that’s why there’s a, there’s a big drive.

Um, there’s also restricts restrictions on budgets as well. So how do we do all this smarter? How do we cut out cost and automation obviously can do lots for that. Um, yeah, the buzzwords are great when you’re looking, looking at behind some of the definitions, I think, uh, for us to, with intelligent automation, I think I’ve got 19 technologies.

And I think, um, gardeners, the last time I looked, I think there were 18 specific. Technologies that found a hyper automation. Um, and I always, I was discussing with one of my marketing colleagues today, whether it was hyper intelligent automation. Um, so, you know, we we’ll get some more superlatives in there, but what does it mean?

Um, for us it’s about using the best tools. For different use cases. So I don’t, I don’t really mind so much whether it’s, um, the latest hype term, um, when we moved into low code, it wasn’t, um, a particularly hyped term and we’ve seen that, um, grow in influence and we’ve sort of come to RPA. I think we’ve come a bit post hype we’ve come after the first-generation.

So we’ve, we’re actually building on the failings of the initial pure play RPA solutions. Um, w w what do I think we need to do? Um, I think we need to. Have access to the tools in tool kits, which are easy to use and easy to deploy. So, if we look at specifics, would that means things like it’s got to be in the cloud, obviously.

Um, it’s gotta be easy to use, gotta be safe and secure, go all your data protection and data privacy, um, then leads into other sort of questions about where some of the processing occurs. So for our Liberty RPA solution, for example, we can do, um, AI at the edge, which has some interesting implications in some of the sectors health.

For example, you wouldn’t necessarily want a whole load of. Health data to be matched against the machine learning model, um, in the cloud somewhere, you may want to keep that close within your environment. Um, so, so, so that’s an interesting angle. Um, I think that there’s just going to be more convergence.

I think we will see less, um, pure play vendors. Um, though RPA vendors are already moving into low code and have their own view on, on, on that. And, um, Vice versa, low code experts and moving into RPA. Um, we don’t sort of hang our flag to any ideological movement. Um, and we’re not going to say, um, that one technology is always the right answer because that’s just not true.

Um, there are different use cases where different technologies are, are required in terms of low code and RPA. Um, we can be really purist and say that, um, We’ll only deploy our low code platform. And we’ll only integrate if you’ve got APIs to an open system, but there are real world. Is there a legacy systems out there?

There are, you know, there are still terminal applications in some environments. So the reality is you just can’t get to this data. So, what do you do? You know, you could, you could be sniffy and refuse it, or you could be pragmatic, use some of the tools that are available, integrate them with the rest of your process and just use them way.

You need, you need to, um, theoretically when you’re doing that, you should always plan for the long-term replacement of the system. But again, you know, that’s a bit idealistic in the real world. That’s still a challenge. Things are moving so quickly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously, you know, there’s so many innovative technologies out there and available.

Um, so, you know, we often get a question from our listeners, you know, what technology do we use, which we use it. Um, so in your view, Richard, you know, what advice can you give companies out there that wants to get started with process automation and automation projects in general? It’s interesting. I I’ve, I’ve seen as sort of evolution over the years on how, because there are challenges about deployment and implementation and all the it security and all the things that make it hard to do things in the real world.

Um, the, I think the best advice, especially, um, the reaction for internal audiences is to. Choose a process, often one that’s internal, but quite visible, and that people know is poor and try and automate that. Then you use that as your case study in your reference for everybody else within the organization.

So, you know, I would love it if our customers could come to us with a blank canvas and we can look at, we can define end to end customer journeys and have a brand new technology environment for everything. It’s not, it doesn’t, it happens now and again, but it doesn’t happen very often. So we’ve got to be a bit more pragmatic.

And I would say partly because of the internal PR, um, choose one of these internal projects, um, because then when you bring it back to the business, everybody can see it and they start asking you, um, all right. If I can do that with this process. Can I do it with my process and we see some really good, um, uptake in adoption and different sorts of applications when that happens.

So I’m probably not the purist define your five-year plan, look at your total economic impact and all the rest of it. Um, start relatively small, have a sort of a snowball effect, prove the value, prove the time to market improve, how easy things are to do, and then use that internally. Um, you’d be getting great customer feedback as well.

Um, there was a recent case study, um, for one of our insurance com customers that they actually, um, they’re able to put their name to it. So it’s Tesco underwriting. So their driver for using low code was to improve automation of claims processes. So, you know, w what is customer service in insurance? It’s pay handle claims.

That’s how you differentiate really. There’s no differentiation in price or policy claims is how you differentiate your service. Um, They, um, quoted on it. We’ve got a case study on the website. They quote a 57% improvement in claims throughput per hour. So they’re doing more than half, as many claims per hour as they did previously.

But the other thing that they’re all so proud to show is that that was also coincided with an eight point improvement in the net promoter score for the, from the customers. Sorry, when these things come together, when you can get the positive feedback, either from employees or customers, This is making a difference.

These are some of my pain points. This is stuff that causes friction and lessens value, um, and replaces it by something that’s good.

And another one of our customers, and this, this is a personal anecdote. We had a power failure on you on Christmas Eve. So if we’re thinking about, um, emotional and peak experiences, you know, we’ve got a fridge and a freezer full of food. We’ve got. Um, it was about four in the afternoon. So it was, the darkness was coming in and we’ve got power cup.

Um, I would say fortunately, but, um, UK power networks is one of our customers and they use the low-code platform. Um, in terms of my user experience, it was fantastic because not only did I not need to have an account as check the status and I could drill into the information without giving away a load of personal data.

It also then offered me the options for proactive updates and notifications as well, rather than me getting stressed and having to check on the web page and refresh it. Um, you know, my kids soon noticed the wifi was down. So, you know, I’m getting grief internally as well. While I was getting updated with the status, they were telling me how many houses were still without power.

Um, periodically, they were telling me, you know, where the engineers were, what they were up to. Um, and then they will follow it out by, um, asking me about my customer experience when it was all resolved. That’s fantastic. What’s possible. Isn’t it? Yeah. So when you use the right technology, um, to is really simple then to, to produce this stickiness, isn’t it was your, was your customers and, and the satisfaction.

Yeah. And in terms of promotes. So I will happily mention. Um, UK power networks. I won’t mention my broadband provider in a similar context. Um, but I will, I will mention UK power networks and the, the good news for them is that’s reflected in their, um, customer feedback as well. Excuse me. Um, there w because it’s, um, a regulated industry, um, customer experience is measured a regulatory perspective.

So, um, this is important. Um, not only because it’s doing the right thing, but it’s also because it’s a mandatory requirement and also has an impact on return on capital that can be derived. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I’m not many company or there are plenty companies out there who understand that, but there are still as well, plenty of companies who yeah.

Should start adopting it to, to make a real big difference as well, um, to the bottom line. Isn’t it. So sometimes that initial investment. Yeah. They rule it out somehow because it doesn’t seem to. Too appealing the can’t see the real value of it yet. Um, but, uh, it is incredible when a project is delivered.

Right. And, um, was this, uh, very, very powerful technologies. Yeah. And I think that sort of snowball effect as well. So if I go back to Croydon council, Um, so they started with the business rates grant application and say delivered then within a year, another nine, yeah. Vacations within their team. Um, and now we’ve got to the stage where they’re looking at replacing core systems.

So we’re now at the stage where they’re looking to replace their dynamic CRM with a low-code platform. So, you know, it’s, once you get it in there, it’s much easier to prove the value and then it snowballs from there and you can get really, yeah. Every organization, just go to a contact center and ask your agents what doesn’t work.

Um, you know, just, just go and you’ll go on your website and pretend you’re a customer. You know, there are so many failures and processes and gaps and silos of data everywhere. Hmm, there are some, there’s some real low hanging fruit for most organizations. That’s great. On a, do you like, um, at anything, uh, due to this one as well?

Oh, I think it is. It is really interesting. You know, that’s obviously an impressive array of success stories there. Richard, that’s really good. Um, you know, we see the same on our side as well. Um, you know, using the net core platform, um, and you know, it is, you know, very satisfying too. Um, you know, get to that point where you can actually see the impact.

This is bringing in terms of, um, customer experience. Um, so very, very exciting times. And like you rightly said, um, choose the processes which you think is going to have the biggest impact, um, in terms of, you know, internal promotion that we’ll have a. Yeah, a very big impact in terms of a good success story, because that drives adoption, doesn’t it.

And nothing drives adoption more than happy customers and good customer experience. So, um, so yeah, for very, very good, I think, um, very, very, very good answer. Um, you know, what we see as well, really? Yeah. And especially as you mentioned the impact for once, uh, the use cases really doing good, uh, during a crisis, I think, uh, I think that’s, that’s fantastic.

And, uh, and local government, you mentioned as a, as a big one. Uh, yeah, I think they, they definitely need really good solutions and blaze because their budget will shrink even more, I guess, uh, because the government had to spend so much money. I think it did will get tougher and tougher for them. So they, they even have to come up with more good ideas to do more with.

Well, it’s less than, than doing it all better. Isn’t it? Sure. Can I, I can tell you something that’s really interesting there as well. Um, one thing that we launched, um, a couple of years ago as net core community, and as part of that, we have our community app share and the community app share is low code and RPA and some customer engagement, um, applications, widgets.

Um, configurations flows for different, um, business use cases. And there are right there, way up to full blown applications in there. So for example, we’ve made our it support application, which we’ve built on Liberty, create that’s available through our app share. Hmm, free of charge. No, no, no royalties required and also customizable by the client.

Um, we’ve also done that with our CRM replacement. So that’s available there and there are about 200 items of content. Um, the Croydon application that I mentioned, they made that available on the app, share the test and trace application that Cumbria built. Hmm, they made that available on the app share.

So in local government you can pick up these applications and just install them, do that final bit of modification. And we found that has been fantastically well received by the community and. Um, somebody mentioned gamification to me and I hadn’t really even considered it, but I think there’s almost some gamification going on there between the different councils to see how many different applications we will accept into the environment.

Um, so at the moment there’s a, there’s a bit of a battle going on between coordinator and wellbeing and Cumbria and others. Yeah, it’s great. Yeah. Otherwise you have to go through this lengthy, uh, uh, these procurement processes until they come up to a conclusion what solutions might be. Right. But if you just give it to them, was this app share, um, uh, did just, could just pick it and go with it.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So in local government, every council has to do blue badges. Um, in England that’s a bit different in Scotland, but every, every council has to do blue badges, sort of very similar process. Um, Well, you know, what, why go out and spend on a custom application when it’s really, you know, a pretty simple case management process, um, you can drop in out an application from our app share, um, and you know, you’re 90% of the way there, half a days, customization with your logo and so on.

And it’s there. That’s fantastic. Yeah, this is, this is what we need more off. Definitely in local government, in all the charities and, um, yeah. Uh, public sector, uh, Oh, every company, really, even the small businesses, they would, they would not even jump on this, uh, on this whole, uh, thing of automation because they.

They as well, see the cost hurdle, they see the implementation hurdle to supporting her at all, all that stuff, but now they can now get going very quickly. Yeah. And, and we also, you know, we consider the wider market as well. So it’s less likely for commercial organization to share their recommendation. Um, we’d have some partners that they will stop.

So for things like the CRM, I mentioned in the health sector, I mentioned, and also things like employee monitoring. Um, these are applications that we build and there are available as accelerators on the option. Yeah. Great. Perfect. Um, so yeah, uh, Richard, so we, we, we thought our listeners might to get to know you a little bit more than just the technical and the business side.

So that’s why we thought about sort of five quick questions, uh, um, uh, are you up for it? Yeah, go for it. Okay. So we touched on this during the introduction already. Um, the Simpsons obsessiveness, uh, if this is the right word for it, but what in the end, the techno the Welch techno part. So, uh, how did this come about?

It sounds an interesting up doesn’t it? So, I mean, I’ve been a fan of the Simpsons since, um, since well, since guys started broadcasting it back the day, I do remember on the Tracy Ullman show, even before that. Um, it’s just fantastic on so many levels consistent well-written um, and. The the, the satire and the script works on just so many levels.

It’s fantastic. Um, with pastiches of other movies and content its own, it’s, it’s really good. And you can learn things from it all the time. I learned something about the Simpsons this week, which is that, um, Matt groaning, when he was writing the episodes. Um, he contends that it’s easier to edit a piece of work than it is to create a new piece of work.

So his technique is just to write it all down in one, go with all of the errors and all the corny jokes and stuff that won’t work in one, go and then put it to bed. And then going back to it the next day, when it’s much easier to edit it, then it has to come up with the original idea. That was something I learned only this week.

I’m going to try out the next report. I’ll let you know how I get on with that while it’s a bit like low code. Right. I think you could just throw all the ideas in and experiment and chop and change your mind without the cost of, um, you know, all of the conventional development where it’s, uh, It’s quite dear to throw away code, whereas configuration is okay.

You can move things about and cut things out. Yeah, you can. And I suppose you can reuse components, which we would do in an analogy. So that’s what led me to low code that Simpsons led me to like perfect. Yeah. That’s excellent. So tell us about this, uh, obsession. Well, so what my marketing team, when I got this on the website, they ask some fairly ordinary questions.

Like, what’s your favorite music? Well, what was the last concert you went to? And then they, they of course changed into a Porsche for Welsh techno. So we asked this in question is, um, somebody called DJ Sasha, who is from banger in North Wales. Um, he’s been around as a DJ and as a producer for a long period of time, I actually have, um, On may the 29th.

I have one of my first sort of post pandemic easing concerts, which is at Alexandra palace theater on the 29th of May, um, where he’s performing a DJ set. So, um, that’s where it comes from. And I think it’s similar stuff, you know, um, these are patterns of 32 bars of music, which you move about and chopping gains and modify and customize.

So. Yeah, I think, um, I think, I don’t think that most of my, my patterns and reuse of things. So we have to ask you then, um, you know, who is your idol and why? And is it DJ Sasha? Was he one of them that would be a bit narrow? I wouldn’t know. I mean,

That’s a really tough one. I mean, so the first name that popped into my head was Mandela, um, because of the dignity and the quiet struggle. I mean, obviously there’s a history before that as well. I mean, you know, in the early sixties and so on, um, spokesman Mandela was the name that popped into my head just for that dignity.

Um, and then the, the reaction, um, after freedom, um, where it wasn’t vindictive, um, and it was reconciliation, um, suddenly this, the way it came across in the UK. So that, that was a, that was, uh, the name that instantly popped into my head. Um, music has a little bit narrow. Okay. If you, if you imagine you could get all the contents and knowledge of, uh, of a book instantly, like, uh, like a, like a robot AI, just entire digesting, everything, and then, you know, and you understand which book would you choose?

You know, we played with this, so, um, with IBM Watson and, um, we’re doing some work now with the Q and a. Technology. Um, but we essentially had a, uh, free. Rein on what we’d like to develop as a Corpus with IBM Watson financial language question and answering now. Um, the very first one I did was the, um, registrar’s handbook of Scotland with all the rules, for what happens when people get married and, um, which was a 458 page guide on, um, on all of those rules.

Um, what would I take outside of that? I mean, I could be business and hackneyed and say they are of war. Um, Tom, Pete is Mike, get in there and search of excellence, um, stuff. That’s more well oldest stuff. Um, w Edwards Deming, if you’ve come across him, um, all around process management, um, To heart and people do some work on statistical process control.

This is getting born again. I’m back to numbers and facts. It’s fine, obviously. Fine. I think that knowledge is so practical. Isn’t it? Every day, if you would have it immediately available at every second straight away. Yeah, absolutely. Very helpful. Other than I didn’t pick a novel or anything tonight. Um, 1984.

Yeah. Excellent. So in terms of, if you think back at your life and you know, obviously not just pro professional life, um, just also just sort of growing up, you know, what, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received? Um, That’s a really interesting question, isn’t it? And that’s, that’s a really wide one, so you can choose a humanitarian angle.

So I suppose that the best, the best sort of practical advice is don’t be scared. Um, you know, it’s what is what, what’s the worst that can happen? Um, because a lot of. A lot of our challenges are our own self doubt and our own bias that we’re struggling to overcome. Um, you know, I’ve not done a podcast with you guys before, but it seems like it’s been quite good fun.

Um, you know, what’s the worst that could happen. Um, so, you know, sometimes we constrain ourselves, we, we build our own barriers. Um, so, you know, emancipate yourself from mental slavery. So, um, So yeah, go for it. Um, that’s a good one. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you, you, you will have not got the outcome you wanted, if you didn’t try.

Um, even if you buy old, you’ll have learned something. Yeah. True. Very good advice. I think it is a, um, like you say, sometimes you’re going to be predissapointed into doing certain things and be, um, anxious about it, but, uh, I guess adopting a bit more free thinking mind free-styling stuff. You know, it’s a bit kind of back to the low Kurt again, let’s, let’s kind of just kick around and see, see, see what happens.

And it’s about failing fast and learning from mistakes, picking yourself up and moving forward, right? Yeah. The, the, the, the fear of failure, um, that’s him, you know, it’s a challenge for businesses. I think that’s, that’s something that we have seen with the really uptaken adoption of automation technologies in the last year when organizations had to do things.

Yeah, we would go these great stories. Um, before that, you know, we were still discussing more. What might you do? What could you do? Um, and there were some early adopters and so on. So, um, yeah, remove the fear of decision-making what’s the worst that could happen. Um, something about a cloud platform, you live invested a bit of time and you know, some, a few days training for people here and there, but it’s not the capital investment.

You’re not going to be spending millions on servers and infrastructure. Um, so get results quickly and fail fast. Yeah. You know, Um, it’s one of my charges, one of my son’s birthday’s today. So my, um, all my photo albums on my phone had been looping around for all on this day, in all the, over the years. And of course, you know, you go back to when they’re toddlers and they fall over.

You know, they fail. Um, and what do we do? We encourage them. That was a good effort to try and try it again, if do something a bit differently. And it don’t pull on that. Uh, you know, I put it on that table. Don’t fall on that lamp, all the good stuff, but so governance and control around there, but encourage some failure as well now.

And again. I think that’s, uh, uh, yeah, it’s great. Great advice. Um, and, uh, I think that’s, that’s exactly, I guess. Um, it leads us to the next question. So Olympic athletes, I think they, they wouldn’t be Olympic athletes and, and succeeding in the Olympic games or so, um, if they, um, uh, if they would just hold back, so they go for it, they go for it and they make lots of mistakes, but they’re pushing, push and go on.

So if you could be an Olympic athlete, what sport would you choose?

These are fantastic questions. So, um, not really because, okay, so I will choose you saying bowl. Um, and we should just park that he was the finest sprinter of all time. Um, and we should look at, there are some clips going around on the, on the socials of, um, how we reacted to the kids. And so on that we’re collecting his kit at the star of the races.

Hmm. So if you left it, we’ll have to find one of them we’ll share the link, but essentially you’ve got the young kids who take the tracksuits and stuff away from the athletes just before the races. And at moments before, you know, the most tense and nerve wracking, the culmination of literally years of practice and dedication, um, you’ve got these kids who are taken away your care.

And if you look at you saying bowl is always engaging with them and he’s joking with them and he’s, he, you know, he’s making them feel comfortable. Um, so. He was a good guy is really where it gets to even with all of that pressure and focus and expectation that it was on his shoulders. He still found time to make other people feel comfortable.

So I think, you know, there’s a, there’s a characteristic in a, in a human that was that’s fantastic. So don’t look at the races, look at what he does before the races. Hmm. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. I think lots of a great athletes. Uh, yeah, they, they, um, yeah. They look out for others as well, and not necessarily just to egoistic and yeah, it’s the right mindset.

I think people can just adopt her. Absolutely. Yeah. I think, I think we had Marcus Rashford in the UK this year, not Olympics, but similar sort of idea. Isn’t it? You can, you can transcend your boundaries a bit as well. Hm, well, back to low code again now. Fantastic. Yeah, that, that brings us to the end of the interview nearly.

I think I’m too, too close. Um, um, so if, um, our listeners would like to get in touch with you and your, uh, your company net call, um, how would they ideally, or what is the best way to get in touch? Okay. So, um, for Nicole, just visit the website, um, nicole.com, Nat CA well, and there’s plenty of ways to get engaged there and seek more information and contact for me personally, probably the best way is through LinkedIn.

So, um, yeah, I have to search out my profile on LinkedIn. And then we can engage in that way. Um, and then, you know, for wider information, this is, there’s normally some great stuff on the net called blogs as well. So check those out. They’ve they’ve really got some interest in bits and pieces. No, that’s fantastic.

Yeah, we will put those, all the links and the information, uh, links to your profile, to the website, into the show notes. And, uh, so then everyone can have them, uh, um, in, in any episode, uh, later on. Um, yeah, it was a great pleasure to have you on the show. Um, uh, thank you very much for all your insights and, uh, uh, the views on what’s happening in the market.

And, um, thank you for sharing as well. A little bit more on the personal side. Um, uh, and yeah, it was a fantastic care. Thank you very much. Thanks very much. Thanks for the questions as well.

Unfortunate. Great. That’s it again with this episode of the process and automation podcast. If you liked this episode, please give us a five-star rating and don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast. So you don’t miss any upcoming episode. We hope you will tune in next time. And until then let’s automate it.