From Free Licensing Myths to Responsible AI Practices

Mark Smith: 0:01
Welcome to the Ecosystem Show. We're thrilled to have you with us here. We challenge traditional mindsets and explore innovative approaches to maximizing the value of your software estate. We don't expect you to agree with everything. Challenge us, share your thoughts and let's grow together. Now let's dive in. It's showtime, okay, welcome back to the Ecosystem Show. It's showtime, okay. Welcome back to the Ecosystem Show. We are literally hours away from getting on our flight to Vegas. Will has just got into my suit, while he's about to get into my suitcase, because we're taking him even though he is under duress.

Andrew Welch : 0:36
He's a big man. Like if people have never met him in person, you wouldn't know how impossible what Mark just described would be Mark on the other hand.

Mark Smith: 0:45
We could be put in Will's suitcase. I'll admit Will in person. And you're right, he's a big man.

Ana Welch : 0:54
The funny thing is that you expect everybody to be kind of big, you know, because you're all on calls and we all kind of look the same. So when you meet someone and they're particularly small, it's like who are you talking to?

William Dorrington : 1:09
out of all of us?

Ana Welch : 1:10
I know he's talking about andrew no, she's talking about andrew so last night, last night, andrew andrew's mom and I were talking and she was like so who are you going to like meet at Vegas? You guys have like a list, what are you going to do? So it's all about the conference and I was like you know what, sometimes I really have, you know, trouble doing that, not just because I'm socially awkward, but because people do not look like their pictures. So, and I do have a request from for everybody out there day picture.

Ana Welch : 2:01
But if that wedding happened 20 years ago, it's time I beg you, change your photo man from your, from your like main idea identification records thing, because it's it's awkward, like have it ever happened to you that you're on a call and you're like oh, we're just waiting for this for x, and x is like hi, I'm here you see, this is this is when, when anna and I first got together and I got introduced to the what we'll call the eastern european filter or lack thereof, it's just whatever, whatever it is that

William Dorrington : 2:37
that yeah there it is. How blunt is it? How blunt is it as well? Like it's taken me a long time to get used to that will, but you know what it's nice as an english person will like you, couldn't get less blunt than than your kind, so I mean I was gonna say something very rude then, but I didn't just to uh endorse what you've just said so the conference next week well, that's the thing, right, we're all about to get on flights.

Mark Smith: 3:05
We're all going to vegas. I've already had people putting requests for bottles of tequila to be brought home and whatnot. Um, as what happens in new zealand when you go traveling, you're like the one person in new zealand going overseas, and so the whole country puts in their order and I just have this vision of mark as an early Renaissance goods trader sailing about the world.

Andrew Welch : 3:30
I bring you sheep and you give me things, sheep, things, sheep things.

William Dorrington : 3:34
Or tequila, tequila, or whatever.

Andrew Welch : 3:37
Well, mark brings sheep, and then he collects tequila Exactly Exchange Exchange right.

Mark Smith: 3:47
Then he collects tequila exactly exchange exchange right. So what I'd love to know is what's the plans for vegas? Like I see there's almost 6 000 attendees, based on the app and all the attendees list is that the number? It's about 6 000 well, it's about 5 800 and something and it seems to go up every 24 hours.

Andrew Welch : 4:02
Close enough increases some more yeah well, and when this episode comes out, it will be thursday what? Thursday the the 19th, when, when we are, when we are in vegas.

Mark Smith: 4:15
So, um, we'll, we'll know then yeah, I suppose 73 people are attending our session. Andrew, just just there you go 70 people. 73 people are enrolled what session Andrew, just there you go. Really, 73 people are enrolled.

Andrew Welch : 4:25
What is our session? So again, when this comes out, our session will be tomorrow.

Mark Smith: 4:30
Yeah, the fallacy of free licensing for the Power Platform why free is not cheaper. And what I love about this, it's like Microsoft threw us a softball in that one. They did two things. They released a Forrester total economic impact paper. That really backs up the whole conversation that we're having here. And the second thing is they released the business value assessment toolkit from the CAT team. That's an amazing kit. We love it. And um, and yeah, they've released that so you can actually understand almost in real time the the economic impact of your own deployment of the power platform so I'm laughing because I just just walked on camera and it just makes loads of noise yeah.

Andrew Welch : 5:23
Yeah, yeah yeah, mark has said that these tracks they can be separated, and I needed to sparkle more water, so here we are. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Smith: 5:33
You're 100% right. You're 100% right. No drama there. 5,822 people, as of officially right now, are attending the event.

Andrew Welch : 5:43
Nice, incredibly impressive.

Mark Smith: 5:45
Yeah, what's interesting? The app at this event. I heard someone say it shares more information than Facebook. Great as in the amount of data. I can see every Microsoft FTE that's attending this event, right up to CVP level. Charles LaMana is in the app. I can directly message him. It's they give a lot in here. I'm surprised.

Andrew Welch : 6:10
Well, the drumbeat of people representing developer, outsourcing shops and who would like to talk about synergies, with me that those messages have already begun.

Mark Smith: 6:24
A lot of people are getting those like. I got this one message yesterday where this person said I see you're in Vegas. Um, I'd really like to you know, connect with you. And I'm like, yeah, sweet, and they come back. Okay, I'm, I'm arranging somebody to meet with you at the event. I'm like, hang on a second. You said you wanted to meet with me.

Andrew Welch : 6:41
Oh, you're not even attending the event.

Mark Smith: 6:42
You said you wanted to meet with me. Oh, you're not even attending the event. Oh like don't open with a lie, please. It just taints the relationship when you open with a lie. Yeah, man, yeah, how's it going to work?

Ana Welch : 6:54
I love the fact that you actually replied to those messages. Is it just to troll?

Mark Smith: 6:59
them. No, I reply to everybody because I try to be good. I give everyone a shot, I give everyone a shot right.

Andrew Welch : 7:09
So whatever all the listeners of this podcast are hearing is reach out to Mark Smith about your outsourcing needs.

Ana Welch : 7:19
Or any sort of problems you may have.

Andrew Welch : 7:22
Right, right. He's very eager to hear about your personal problems as well.

Ana Welch : 7:26
In case he read the book about it.

William Dorrington : 7:27
I started off trying to do that and you know and be nice, and then I started templating it and I found that worse than just not actually responding after a while.

Andrew Welch : 7:36
It reminds me of the early days of Facebook. I want to say that, you know, for my birthday in 2004 or 2005, I actually remember this. I was my birthday one of those years, I guess 2005,. I was sitting in Spain on my birthday and this was right after the wall came out like the Facebook wall, and people had left messages on my wall for my birthday and I thought, like the etiquette of the time said, that I had to reply to all 97 people individually and think of something unique to say to them other than thank you. And yeah, so times have moved on, but Mark Smith has not.

Mark Smith: 8:17
Is what I'm saying, ha.

Andrew Welch : 8:21
Anyway. So we have things happening next week.

Mark Smith: 8:24
Well it's this week week. Well, it's this week, right, it's this week, because when this episode drops, this is the stuff that's dropped this week.

Andrew Welch : 8:30
This is what we've done this is what happens when your ecosystem show hosts try to be clever with the space-time continuum and when episodes are recorded versus when they are released. But yeah, okay. So on Tuesday we had the launch of Mark Cloud Lighthouse Learn, tell us about it.

Mark Smith: 8:51
Yeah. So learncloudlighthouse Go check that out. We've got our first courses online. It's the first of many that are actually going to be placed up there and it's based on feedback from a lot of the sessions that have been delivered at various events that people feel like you know we've created an appetite with some content, but they want to go way deeper, so we'll put a few just teaser courses up there. We're going to go into much deeper content. Deeper content and when I say deeper, so like in the ecosystem architecture space, a week-long course deep dive into that space will be coming over time so that people can really kind of get the skills that are just not available on Microsoft Learn or other platforms or maybe it's scattered across blog posts. We want to really structure a deep learning courses around ecosystems, ai in the context of Microsoft in the enterprise, how you should be thinking about it. You know we'll go deep into governance on things like that.

Mark Smith: 9:58
So, yeah, it's a start. It's the teaser. Go check it out, tell us, give us feedback. I'd love for at least 10 people to go and test the payment gateway. Just make sure it works. You just put your credit card in and, uh, yeah, if you get a receipt. Thanks, it works, I appreciate it. Um and uh, yeah, looking forward to your feedback and mark is hopeful.

Andrew Welch : 10:21
You will also receive the course in addition to the receipt.

Mark Smith: 10:25
You will instantly get access to the course.

William Dorrington : 10:27
But as long as the payment gateway works, it doesn't really matter, right?

Mark Smith: 10:31
Mark, exactly, just try again, do the process again.

William Dorrington : 10:34
Just keep trying.

Mark Smith: 10:36
Quality content up there and we hope to continue to add value to the wider community.

Andrew Welch : 10:45
Is there a discount code for the launch?

Mark Smith: 10:47
Mate, like there's a discount code. You got to remember, andrew, when you asked me these questions. Even though I have done them, and and you know there are discount codes, my, my brain's literally like a sieve. You know it's. I don't have a retention factor in my brain, it just doesn't exist. And so, yes, there are codes. Do you remember what they are?

Andrew Welch : 11:11
The code. So the code it's ecosystem show through the end of September. Yeah, so 25% off courses on Cloud Lighthouse Learn with the Code Ecosystem Show. Mark is now off to the side. Creating the Code Ecosystem.

Mark Smith: 11:29
Show no, no, off to the side. I'm now just going, you know was that the code, is that like? I can't remember. But yeah, let me just go check it.

William Dorrington : 12:07
Go check it. It definitely means great. It definitely means great.

Andrew Welch : 12:11
So then yesterday, on Wednesday Wednesday, there was a new white paper. I'm actually quite excited about this white paper. We did it in collaboration with a Microsoft partner, codec great partner, and was happy to work with them, very kind of technically engineering first crowd. So the paper is Ecosystem-Oriented Architecture in the Public Sector. Now we had wanted to I think the ecosystem show crowd here had wanted to actually come out with the really big comprehensive paper Principles of Ecosystem-Oriented Architecture before we started doing these partnerships and the industry-specific deep dives. But then we got subsumed by another project around AI maturity that we'll talk about next.

Andrew Welch : 13:07
So yeah, yesterday, on the Wednesday of the conference, the white paper Ecosystem-Oriented Architecture in the Public Sector white paper, ecosystem-oriented architecture in the public sector dropped and it's got very public sector examples, really digs into not just the principles of ecosystem-oriented architecture but also public sector-specific workloads and how those are integrated into a cloud ecosystem. But even if you are not public sector, you don't work with government agencies. I think it's really probably the deepest dive we've taken in white paper format on ecosystem oriented architecture to date. So I encourage you to go to go grab that. Anna did some heavy proofreading of that, anna. What were your thoughts on the paper?

Ana Welch : 13:59
Yeah, my thoughts on the paper were that, well, ecosystem enablement for public sector is very similar to the ecosystem enablement for everybody, right? But you added a lot of notes and examples from how the US government works and I thought that was incredibly interesting because obviously I did not have any context of that. So I think those examples really bring home the sort of work you can do in the public sector as well, even though this is traditionally a hard area to go into because of all of the regulations, and people are much more conservative.

Andrew Welch : 14:49
And I should say actually so when. So I asked Anna if she would, because she's gotten to know central gov, central government in the UK pretty well she and will spend a lot of time with UK central gov at another amazing Microsoft partner, curve Digital. But my perspective, I've never worked with British central government, or kind of lightly I guess, but I've done a lot of work with the US government. So Anna went through and she changed. She added you know, hey, here's a different phrase.

Ana Welch : 15:20
You sound very American when you put it that way, so it was a really good perspective.

Andrew Welch : 15:26
We internationalized it other than that.

Ana Welch : 15:30
Um, yeah, I think it provided a really good step-by-step guide on where to begin with ecosystem architecture, uh, and, and most importantly, how to articulate the message to you know, your execs, your board, you know yeah, your customers, Even if you're not in PubSec, it's so important that you go read this white paper.

Mark Smith: 15:54
One of the biggest benefits that we bring as consultants into our customers is cross-industry pollination.

Mark Smith: 16:00
Right, I can remember sitting with an executive in a company and they said one of the values and I was actually had my Microsoft hat on, I was representing Microsoft in this meeting, I was with Microsoft people as a partner and they said the biggest value they see that Microsoft provide outside of software and licensing is cross-industry pollination.

Mark Smith: 16:19
He goes you know, you've seen things in other sectors that we don't see because we're just focused on our sectors. And there could be something over there that we don't see because we're just we're just focused on our sectors and there could be something over there that we're not trying because it's not our sector and we haven't thought of it. But the value that you can bring is this kind of world view around totally unrelated industries and you never know what could pollinate or what could spark an idea that could be applied in the sector that, um, he was working in. And it was a ton that thought has stuck with me for over 10 years. That one meeting of the literally thousands of meetings I've been in like that that really resonated with me that the more you broadly understand various industry challenges, it makes you a better consultant. It gives you the ability to advise better.

Ana Welch : 17:06
I think I agree, and nowadays that's valid with technology as well. I was telling Will today that I had a meeting with a team at Microsoft formed for the first time out of three teams actually Power Platform, modern Work and Co-Pilot and they all wanted to sort of form a strategy and go after the same customers, same deals, same projects, and that's how they actually came, you know, in this case to Curve Digital, to say I think you guys can do that, so I feel like the more organizations can go cross industry exactly like you're saying via Microsoft technology, but then also looking across departments from their technology stacks as successful they will be in this day and age, as successful they will be in this day and age.

Andrew Welch : 18:11
That would be a great episode for us to do one day, where we think of some of the industries that each of us have had the opportunity to work in and we talk a little bit about what are things that those industries do with this technology that we wish other industries would learn from and copy and import. I think that would be a cool episode. We should give that a go.

William Dorrington : 18:34
I absolutely agree. But it is a really interesting topic in general because I've worked in healthcare and I've worked in construction and actually it's amazing because when you look at large scale construction, it's multidisciplinary teams building large hospitals. Yeah, if you look at large-scale hospital operations, even down to porters et cetera, it is multidisciplinary teams focusing on an individual. So you start looking at how one optimizes Actually that can be across what we're trying to get. Pollinated, I guess, is the best word for you. So you see stuff like that all the time and it's always in those sort of places where you least expect to see it, because you don't think there is a link that there absolutely is one. It's the same as when you're studying for tech but you start reading business books and psychology books and gaming books et cetera, and suddenly you have these great innovative ideas because you're borrowing from different disciplines. It's the same principle.

Mark Smith: 19:26
It is the smashing together of different concepts that innovation comes about right. And it's interesting that you say that about construction and medical industry, because there's a book that came condoning the need to checklist repeatable processes that experts. You know and he's talking about he was using example with physicians and then construction managers on site, etc that it's so easy, if a skill becomes second nature, for you to create a blind spot to actually doing it. You know, and and so the whole premise was, if you have a checklist, um, that you know, you stop secondary infection in patients based on even a procedure like washing hands in a hospital by a physician.

Andrew Welch : 20:21
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, so so, so we've, we've buried the lead because today, today, the Thursday of of of Power Platform Conference, anna, what is the big one, what's the big, the big project that's out today?

Ana Welch : 20:42
We managed to finish and publish the second edition of the Crafting your Future Ready AI Strategy white paper, and version two is sort of like three version ones. I guess it's huge. It's a huge document. We call it the Bible. We started by trying to correct, or rather refresh, what has happened ever since the first white paper was published, which was only like a few months ago, eight months ago, six months ago, eight months ago eight, nine months ago.

Ana Welch : 21:29
Yeah and we already found. We already found that it was not accurate anymore. So we're like, right, this is going to be accurate, which meant for us we're just gonna change the ecosystem maps like a few diagrams, maybe a few a steps. And then we're like, wait, there are so many more co-pilots and what do we do with them? And, oh my God, responsible AI is such a big, you know subject right now. And for the organizations who already started having an AI strategy and they're employing some of their data best practices, you know, and data readiness activities to use Copilot, how do they measure where they are and what they should do next? So most of the 69 pages of this white paper have been written by Andrew, but we had a lot of input from other people. Shout out to Donna Sarkar in particular here and our buddy, chris, who couldn't make it for this particular episode today. But, yeah, we think we're very proud of our little Bible.

Mark Smith: 22:48
Yeah, I suppose one of the things when they say it's large. Most white papers are about 30 pages in length or maybe 35.

Andrew Welch : 22:54
This is 70, right, this is 70 Word document pages.

Mark Smith: 22:59
Yeah, so we're talking about. Let me just check the font size here for you. This is yeah, this is 0.8 font size. This is uh, yeah, this is 0.8 font size. So we're talking about a lot of a lot, a lot of content, a lot of diagrams, you know, for for those of us that's thinking pictures, this is a solid read. I highly recommend, uh, that you. It's on our website, right? Is that where it's going to be?

Andrew Welch : 23:26
as of today. Yeah, it's on our website, so so go check it out and you know where else it is. It's at. It's at the microsoft link akams slash cloud lighthouse um as well, yeah go, go, check that out, second edition, um, you will not be disappointed.

Mark Smith: 23:41
If you can find holes in it, please let us know there will be a third edition.

Andrew Welch : 23:46
That is uh, we know, I, I think. I think when I I texted the whats WhatsApp group of everyone who's been working on this and I said we're finished 23,000 words and the first thing that Donna said back was well, we're going to do a third edition in November, and I just buried my head in my hands, so we'll see.

Ana Welch : 24:06
Yes, I think that the one thing that the white paper, one of the many things actually that the white paper has, are a lot of you know links and references to blogs and documents and you know that Forrester study and specific direction to you know learn links on where can you learn more about this and kind of like proven information if you will, you know. So I think that the white paper has a lot of facts, if internet can be called as a good fact encyclopedia, coupled with some really good storytelling from Andrew Superb.

Andrew Welch : 24:58
Here's what we've done. The paper now lays out what we call the AI strategy framework, and this is where most of the growth from first edition to second edition is. So we've built this thing. We call it the AI strategy framework. There are five pillars within the framework and they are strategy and vision, ecosystem, architecture, workloads, responsible AI and scaling AI, and then within each of these pillars, there's five dimensions, so there ends up being 25 dimensions across the framework, and they're topics like building your executive vision for AI, your center for enablement, your data distribution and data platform, ai development tools, incremental, extensible and differential AI. An entire pillar devoted to responsible AI, which is new and that's a really important field that I think that not enough people have really gotten tuned into yet, and then an entire pillar on how to scale AI across your AI and your ML ops data governance, technical debt or remediating that technical debt, etc. Mlops data governance, technical debt or remediating that technical debt, etc. Oh, there it is. There's the. There you go.

Andrew Welch : 26:12
So this is the manuscript, pre layout, pre artwork, and Mark, if you are sharing now, maybe, mark, yeah, scroll down a little bit to the next diagram. Yeah, there you go. So those are those dimensions and what we do in the rest of the paper is we actually discuss each of these things. So all 25 of these topics get treatment in the paper how you can navigate it, how you get started, what to look out for, and then we finish up. And we don't go to this, but we finish up with the AI maturity model, which provides guidance on how an organization can evaluate and assess, and which area, which dimensions, do we need to most invest in in the near future, as we, you know, on our roadmap, as we close those gaps and become increasingly AI ready. So, yeah, I hope it's useful for everyone, but it's been a big effort.

Mark Smith: 27:24
One of the other things Andrew's told me he's doing as an extension to this is there's going to be a hyperlink for you to be able to go and do a maturity assessment so you can actually find out where you stand. It'll give you a nice little report at the end and you can take that away and decide what's next. Where do you stand? What steps do you need to take?

Andrew Welch : 27:47
We will build that after I'm done having a stroke, Thank you. Thank you to my business partner, Mark Smith here that might not be coming out for the conference next week.

William Dorrington : 28:00
The week after, wasn't it Mark? The week after the.

Mark Smith: 28:03
Monday following.

Andrew Welch : 28:06
Well, will doesn't have anything to do next week other than go to music festivals, so how about you build it, bro, my?

Ana Welch : 28:11
diary's empty, throw it over, yeah yeah, will actually has a lot of automated maturity models, so he does not have that idea.

Andrew Welch : 28:23
Will loves a good model yeah.

William Dorrington : 28:25
A maturity model for sure.

Andrew Welch : 28:27
Yeah.

William Dorrington : 28:27
A mature model. Yeah well, he was going there. I just didn't want to be explicit.

Mark Smith: 28:32
I just need to do a correction. I need to correct something Andrew said earlier in the show incorrectly, and so I want to correct his incorrection, because he forced me to go and look to see if he had correctly told us the correct answer, which he mentioned something about. That's such confusing dialogue, mark. He mentioned something about the code to our learn site being ecosystems.

Andrew Welch : 29:01
No, no, no. I'm going to have to stop Mark here.

Mark Smith: 29:04
Mark could just create that code and that would allow us to know. No, I'm looking at it. It was launch25 was the name you came up with yesterday.

Ana Welch : 29:11
Yeah, but that's why he said that you were going to create it right now Create the code.

William Dorrington : 29:16
Just create the code Mark.

Ana Welch : 29:17
Yeah, exactly Just create the code.

Mark Smith: 29:21
Honestly, I can't even remember what the code was. I just know it was wrong.

Andrew Welch : 29:26
Mark, what is the name of this podcast? Tell us the name.

Mark Smith: 29:30
It's a very long code. Ecosystem show.

Andrew Welch : 29:35
Actually, I texted Chris earlier. Chris was asking me what the somehow we were talking about this, and I said that the code was Sharks on Skateboards, rad Bro 24. That's the code. That's the code. That's the code.

Mark Smith: 29:50
Nice, I like it.

Andrew Welch : 29:51
We're going to have to create Sharks on Skateboards, radbro24.

Mark Smith: 29:55
That'll be funny if people use it Now that we've created lots of confusion.

Ana Welch : 29:59
But either way, if you guys are listening or hearing, looking at this podcast by any chance, and you want to use the discount code and it does not work, feel free to reach out to Mark. You're going to reach out to him anyway to ask him how he is.

Andrew Welch : 30:19
And to see if he wants to use your offshoring your outsourcing.

Mark Smith: 30:25
And he's just going to smash you, he's going to help you.

William Dorrington : 30:28
I like the way. That's one of the only things I've said on this entire podcast Doing it, doing it.

Andrew Welch : 30:35
Will's back from summer holidays. Go easy on him.

Mark Smith: 30:37
Do you think it'd be too offensive to you? Know how I'm doing these little videos at the moment?

Andrew Welch : 30:42
right Tell everyone the story of these videos.

Mark Smith: 30:45
Okay, oh man.

Ana Welch : 30:50
That means I've, I gotta commit myself again.

William Dorrington : 30:51
I think I told you last time I think I told it on the show that did you say it on the show? Yeah, I think a thousand dollar us. I didn't understand why, but I've been enjoying it anyhow, anyhow.

Mark Smith: 31:00
So so you know, I always try to look for a reason for people to listen, and so the opening sentence is important. I wordsmith those for a while to try and land them, and so my latest one that I've been percolating on is please don't send me your dick pic, sorry I'm still gonna do it right.

Mark Smith: 31:21
The reason is it's the way people communicate on linkedin. On a first connection, they connect with you and the first thing is they go look at all the shit I want to sell you Like. This is what we do. This is like what are you going to? And I'm like mate, you just asked to connect to me and now you're throwing this thing down my throat without any respect whatsoever. I'm like hang on, like build a relationship, take me to dinner, yeah right Mark.

Andrew Welch : 31:50
they want to explore synergies with you.

Mark Smith: 31:51
It's just honestly. Does human etiquette go out the window just because we're using a digital platform?

William Dorrington : 31:59
It's just like? Yes, it does, because they don't apply the same principles and paradigms and take and forget assumptions in a professional setting as they do in a personal way. Actually, when you're first courting, you have to.

Mark Smith: 32:13
Yeah, so this is an analogy. I read in a book around LinkedIn and it said you should consider LinkedIn like going to a networking event. Right, you don't go. And you know the minute someone puts out their hand to shake it. You don't go by the way. Look at everything. Their hand to shake it. You don't go by the way. Look at everything that I sell. Are you gonna buy something right now? And the thing is, people just drop that whole. Yeah, let's have a conversation. First, let's see if we've got, you know, a, an aligned aura, and then let's go forward from that point, is it?

William Dorrington : 32:46
just me, and it's the ones that that you know I I get bombarded, that I think most people do on linkedin these days. It's the ones that don't give up, which I do respect, and I know it is a struggle because it is kind of cold calling in a way, but I do think there has to be a cutoff point, uh, and it might just be me having to respond occasionally, but you are right, it's, it's, it's becoming quite a peculiar place.

Mark Smith: 33:08
Yeah, I actually said that to a lady that messaged me the other day using the exact direct thing, and I just said how rude Would you invite me back to your house when I just first met you? And she came back and apologized and said sorry, I'm like you're so right, it's just offensive.

William Dorrington : 33:33
Yeah, absolutely Couldn't agree more. And you're more likely to get a better reaction if you start off with a few jokes, know each other on a personal level and then jump into business.

Mark Smith: 33:43
Yeah, yeah, do we have something in common? Right, and I just think it can be done smarter. Just because you're using a digital platform as and not just smarter, it can be done more humane the other thing that I tell, and I tell, I tell microsoft partners this.

Andrew Welch : 33:59
So not even the, you're not even necessarily the. I'm going to randomly message people on linkedin um business. But it's fair game if you're trying to sell something, a product, a service, whatever right, because you know most people work and and that's what you do, right. But, excuse me, you have to offer something of value, right, and I don't mean just the product is a value, the relationship has to be a value. So that's why you know I've always been such a big fan of you know, and I tell partners this all the time you need to have some big ideas that you really commit yourself to in terms of creating thought. Leadership is such a throwaway phrase, but I think it's an important phrase right.

Andrew Welch : 34:46
Introduce, introduce useful concepts, useful thoughts you know this can be architecture, or, you know, write a white paper on it, the business opportunity with kind of an open hand and say you know, I'm not asking you to buy something from me, I'm sharing this with you and if you think this is valuable, then you'll want to do more with me, and if you don't, then great, we're not a we're not the right fit. I think that's important.

Mark Smith: 35:26
It's Garyaynerchuk has this kind of way of of working in a digital world and he calls it the. You know, basically a boxing analogy left, left, right, um, from a, from a boxing perspective, which he says what you want to do is give value twice before you then talk about something that you, you do or that they could engage with you. So give lots of value to every one lot of request for, hey, can we talk about me?

William Dorrington : 35:57
It's the same principle of when you're asking a friend that you haven't spoken to for a while. You know you need a favor off them, so you build it up over a few days hey, how you been, how's work been? Do you mind coming around and helping me fix my plumbing, or whatever. It is Right.

Mark Smith: 36:10
Yeah. It's like my boy yesterday calls me from university hey Dad, how are you? And because I'm waiting for the ask, right, Because I know where you're going.

Andrew Welch : 36:19
You know your kind doesn't call unless you need something.

Mark Smith: 36:23
You know, and it's yeah, dad. Like how's your week been? Yeah, no, it's been good. Like how's your week been? Yeah, no, it's been good, it's been good. You know, after vegas things. Oh, dad, I did the, I really enjoyed this. Yeah, dad, I need bond money to go into a new flat, right? Okay, now we're at the point of the call like I know yeah, classic, god, uh, and on that note, shall we?

Andrew Welch : 36:44
uh, let everyone get back to the conference. I'm sure that everyone has taken, you know, an hour out of your, out of this thing. You traveled to Vegas and then, as soon as this dropped, you went up to your hotel room and you listened to, you watched the show. So, thank you everyone.

Mark Smith: 36:58
Thanks for tuning into the Ecosystem Show. We hope you found today's discussion insightful and thought provoking, and maybe you had a laugh or two. Remember your feedback and challenges help us all grow, so don't hesitate to share your perspective. Stay connected with us for more innovative ideas and strategies to enhance your software estate. Until next time, keep pushing the boundaries and creating value. See you on the next episode.