Chris Hood is on the show this week, a Googler who is head of business platform strategy and host of the similarly named Google podcast “That Digital Show”. Chris talks us through his rich history of how working in a movie theatre helped to develop a love for movies and media. This led to his work transforming how users engage in content at Fox for shows including Glee, Gotham, Sleepy Hollow, and American Idol. We talk about his passion for gaming and his work at Electronic Arts And of course, we’ll talk about “THE GOOGLE”, what it takes to get …
Tag: Business Value
Problem: How can businesses operate in the cloud? Despite being digital natives and meant to work in the cloud, even SaaS companies have difficulty navigating the cloud. It is always about deciding whether they should build from scratch or purchase a product. As a result, teams typically get stuck in technical debt. So, how can companies, even those in the tech sector, operate in the cloud? SaaS platforms are native to the cloud. We typically call them digital natives because they were built and formed and designed to live in the cloud. Yet, even digital natives struggle from time to …
Businesses have more access to data today than ever before. Cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and Internet 4.0 are making amazing things possible in today’s business landscape. But, most experts feel that what’s been accomplished thus far is only a fraction of our potential for innovation. As a result, there’s been a growing movement to democratize innovation via business ecosystems. Companies with business ecosystems are in a unique position. They can leverage those ecosystems to innovate at a faster pace than their competition. Today, we’re going to discuss how these businesses can harness their true innovation potential through democratization. …
Speed to Value Executive teams across all industries are using digital technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for greater innovation, business transformation, operational efficiency, and speed to value—and intelligent automation is proven to be the shortest path to success. In this episode, Chris Hood is joined by Neeraj Gokhale from Automation Anywhere and Vikas Anand from Google Cloud to discuss how the two companies are partnering to speed value creation for every enterprise using intelligent automation. The team will share how Automation Anywhere’s RPA platform, Google’s Apigee API platform, and associated Google Cloud technologies like Google AI can transform customer …
As UX and business strategies collide, experiences become more complex. Some have even said that over a quarter of large enterprise apps will be multiexperience by the year 2023. But why is that important, and what do you get for embracing that? This article will help you understand what multiexperience is, why it is important and how you can apply it to your business. So, read on to learn about why multiexperience is the future of customer journeys and business value. What Is Multiexperience? Multiexperience refers to the various combinations of modalities (e.g., touch, voice, and gesture), devices, and apps that users interact …
Despite innovation itself being very difficult to measure, we should still aim to foster a culture of innovation where we work. One of the issues with this, though, is the question of how to do that and what to do with it once you have it. Lucky for you, people have already answered some of these questions. This article will help you understand what a culture of innovation is, what its benefits are, and what you need to foster one. By the end, you should be able to help your company create such a culture and in doing so lead it to …
Many of Google’s best ideas begin as experiments or passion projects in Area 120, Google’s in-house incubator. At Google Cloud, leaders often ask for practical lessons for empowering large distributed workforces to find, fund, grow, measure, and launch new product innovations that drive business and customer value. In this five-part podcast Digital Master Class series designed for technology leaders, we set out to ‘open-source’ Google’s lessons learned on growing cultures of innovation, setting 10x product visions, driving organizational transformation, and leading people through the art of the possible. We’ve bottled these insights into practical and actionable learnings to support your …
Now, more than ever, there is an urgency to incorporate diversity and inclusion into every aspect of your organization. Not only because it enhances your ability to be responsive to users and customers, but because it builds trust and a sense of belonging for your employees. Companies have seen massive amounts of change in the past few months. As operations return to capacity, innovation will be vital to accelerating transformation and preventing future disruptions. This is achieved across your organization’s people, processes, data, and technology. In this episode, Chris Hood joins Bella Bardswell and Finn Toner to take an inside …
When you think about a successful company, what do you see? Visionary growth? An in-depth understanding of the industry’s market? A company with a strategy that encompasses not only the technological standpoint but also the cultural standpoint? Yes! All of these make a company great, but something else sets thriving companies apart from those who aren’t doing as well. An innovative culture. A company that fosters a culture of innovation is sure to have continued success for the years that they are in business. If you are looking for more information on how to create a culture of innovation, then …
Customers today are more different than ever before, and their expectations shift quickly. This is where customer transformation begins. The modern consumer is more digitally savvy. They also spend their money on items that matter and toward businesses they want to support. But these are facts that the average business already knows. The question is, how can you use this to your advantage? Businesses have previously been told to adopt a digital transformation plan. However, you should look into a customer transformation strategy for the best results. That’s because your customers have more power than you think. But what does …
Chris Hood is a passionate speaker, podcast host, digital strategist, and writer. He currently works at Google as the Head of Business Innovation & Strategy. His leadership and strategic insights on digital and business transformation have propelled digital success at the firm. For more information, click here. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Los Angeles, CA, September 17, 2021 – Chris Hood is a passionate speaker, podcast host, digital strategist, and writer who has made a career out of storytelling. His career experience spans over three decades in television, film, music, and video games. He started as a film student, and theatre attendant was propelled by his …
Our recent CIO survey with Oxford Economics contained a few takeaways that stood out to me: most companies are using API-first strategies, and those most committed to this concept report faster innovation and greater value from business partnerships. Even so, the survey indicates that a healthy minority of enterprises still think of APIs in integration-first terms. This mindset can block these organizations from many of today’s most important business opportunities and impede their ability to adapt to new opportunities that may emerge in the future. Being API-first means anticipating that an API may have many use cases and enable numerous business opportunities. …
I spent some time with Joel Ward this week discussing strategy, technology, and customer experiences. We covered some great topics around developing technology that meets your customer expectations and building a culture within your organization to support rapid innovation. From startups to enterprises, have a listen and let me know what you think. Available on iTunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/interview-with-chris-hood-google-cloud-strategist/id1552711906?i=1000533406036 or listen here: …
For the past several years, tech giants have been trying to make artificial intelligence in its many guises HPC, data analytics, and other advanced workloads more available and easier to use for enterprises. Traditional OEMs such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell Technologies, and Lenovo are using a combination of hardware, software, and services to make technologies that in years gone by would only be employed by research institutions and the largest of corporations more widely accessible. The public clouds, particularly those that have their own hyperscale applications driven by machine learning and scale, also function a bit like OEMs when …
This week, Google Cloud focuses on retail by sharing a series of podcasts that takes a closer look into how cloud technologies have shaped the retail industry over the last year. In this series, you’ll hear real-life lessons from the industry’s best. These honest conversations will provide insights to help you, wherever you are, in your transformation journey. Our Retail Takeover features a series of conversations with leading brands and retailers where we dig a little deeper into what it’s like to be a leader in today’s landscape. Listen to additional episodes featuring Ulta, Albertsons, Crate & Barrel, and Zulily. …
It's no secret that most businesses are scared of failure. They spend time trying to avoid mistakes at all costs, even if it means not taking risks or driving innovation. But suppose you want your business to grow and be successful in the future. In that case, you have to learn how to embrace failure as a part of the process, especially since disruption and change can happen at any moment. …
To drive modernization and innovation, enterprises are increasingly adopting API-first approaches to connecting services across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. APIs and Clouds are everywhere today and hybrid API management gives you the flexibility to deploy your API runtimes anywhere that meets your business needs. In this episode, we are joined by Parna Bhattacharya, Head of Customer Success in APAC and Bala Kasiviswanathan, Director of Product Management, to discuss how enterprises are increasingly adopting an API-First strategy that connects services across hybrid and multi-cloud environments to help develop consumer experiences faster. Host: Chris Hood – Head of Business Innovation & Strategy, Google …
Some of the most important data at your company isn’t living in databases but in documents, and marketing assets. Yet most companies are still manually writing copy and are reliant on guesswork to get consumers to click or share. Organizations are also leaving heaps of value on the table in the form of new and better social marketing that can be unlocked with artificial intelligence applied to the process. In this episode, we chat with Kate Bradley Chernis, CEO of Lately.ai to learn what she thinks about life, music, innovation, and how her company is reinventing social marketing with artificial …
In 2020, organizations worldwide quickly realized that digital transformation is the biggest driver of their business strategy and APIs are central to the successful execution of any effective digital transformation. In fact, API traffic for Apigee customers increased 46% year-over-year, to 2.21 trillion calls, between 2019 and 2020. Also, our research indicates that nearly one in two organizations report either increasing their digital transformation investments or completely evolving their strategies to become digital-first companies. This report captures insights from global IT leaders to understand what’s driving their API strategy and digital transformation. Join us to stay current on the latest …
Today, retail customers have more #digital-first, convenient ways of shopping than ever before. And APIs are one of the critical pieces of #technology that have made this possible by giving retailers the ability to transform their systems and processes in an efficient and quick way. …
Businesses often struggle with breaking out of the mindset that APIs are solely meant for integrations. In this episode, Chris Hood chats with Raymond Peng, a Global Value Advisor at Google Cloud, to understand how businesses can leverage APIs to improve efficiencies, increase revenue, and navigate changing market demands. Many enterprise technology leaders value APIs primarily for their role in enterprise application integration (EAI), in which the objective is to interconnect applications across a company’s aggregate IT environment to facilitate the flow of information. Older iterations of EAI mechanisms, such as the enterprise service bus (ESB), have been largely supplanted by API …