In our flagship episode of Mayhem and MISfits, the host of the podcast, Nicole Grimm, is interviewed by her long-time friend and guest host for this episode, Jeran Wadlow. Jeran sets out to finally answer the question, what is IS and what is it exactly Nicole does for a living.
Transcript
00:00:00 Jeran
Hello and welcome to the flagship episode of Mayhem and Misfit a fun look at what happens when business goes awry and the systems that save them.
I'm your guest host, Jaren Wadlow and our expert to lead us through this series is Principal Information Officer and founder of pure purpose Nicole Grimm.
Well, I have to confess I have been a friend and colleague of Nicole's for a very long time and she probably wants to shoot me every time I ask, “What is it again you do for business? What is your job?” And if I have to keep asking that I'm thinking some of you may have some questions as well.
So Nicole tell us just as simple as you can in a few sentences what do your what do you and your team do for business?
00:00:49 Nicole
Yeah, commonly. People here I'm in IT or information technology otherwise known as IT, and they think that we pull cables or help you buy computers and while that is a small facet of what we do, that's not necessarily where we focus.
I use that computer every day and a lot of times in business we need them to run the business, but we don't focus on that. What we focus on is getting that IT to get more business out the door.
So I don't necessarily care about how the computer works. I've never built one. I don't really understand those pieces and parts of it, but I do understand how to get it to think for me and do things that waste my time or are repetitive so we kind of help business in that area where we help them get more out of that investment they've made in those technology tools.
00:01:44 Jeran
OK, so so if I were to ask you what is the main difference between IT information technology and IS information systems, how would you sum that up? What's the main difference?
00:01:57 Nicole
Yeah, the main difference is that Information Systems and Information Technology are often considered synonymous or in the industry, we may flip flop those terms but from my perspective, and from the perspective of our team, it people deal more with that technology.
How can I make it faster, smaller, smarter? And in IS we're always focused on the business. How to get more business out the door with that technology.
So we kind of are on the same team. We work together between IT and IS. But we use both sides of the coin differently.
00:02:35 Nicole
OK, so.
00:02:37 Jeran
OK, so let me ask you this, if you could give me an example of IS in action show me tell me what that would look like right?
00:02:47 Nicole
So one of my customers I had at one point was had me there to understand how their custom software and their store bought software was working for them. And I was there analyzing how they work, sitting with their employees, watching how they do business. They were walking me through how an order is entered and what's happening in the life cycle of their product and we were interrupted by a phone call. And the party picked up the phone. “Hello oh, let me go check” and she got up from her desk, walked down the hall went to different cubicle came back sat back down at her desk, picked up the phone that was on hold. Told the person that you know "Betty Sue was at lunch and wasn't at her desk." And they said "OK". And then she hung up the phone.
00:03:38 Nicole
So in that moment I was wondering what just happened. You just wasted our progress in reviewing the system. You've stopped business to go see if someone was at their desk or not, who called you? "Oh, someone from our office on the East Coast called us" and we were on the West Coast and they wanted to see if that person was there 'cause they tried calling him and they didn't answer or they had sent them an e-mail. And this was only about three years ago and they didn't have instant messenger on.
00:04:09 Jeran
Oh no.
00:04:10 Nicole
They couldn't see that each other were just there. And the whole time I knew that they had the products to have this turned on, and I, sure enough, I went and searched and they had already bought it. It's already in their stock of software that they own. When you get a subscription to the cloud or whatever these words are, right?
So all I did was simply get everyone to install it on their desktops, introduce them to it, and within a few days they were screen sharing and they could see that each other were away from their desk because it turned from green to orange to red, or if they're in a meeting, or it just exploded.
So that's a super simple way of not spending any more money, not buying anything, not selling them anything but just getting them to use the technology they already have to simplify their lives.
So now that person who answered the phone doesn't need to do that anymore.
00:05:02 Jeran
Instantaneous efficiency I like. Love it.
So you know, I, I think that may be something that we'll find as we dive deeper into these episodes. That is common, I think when you're trying to grow your business it can certainly be frustrating when tech gets in your way or if people simply aren't utilizing the technology to its full capacity.
So you know, people think hey, it's tech.
It should just work, right?
We live in a in the technology day and age where everybody has some level of competency but but it really is about understanding what you have in front of you and learning how to use it.
So if you could share with our listeners, what are some types of information systems upgrades that might be the most common?
00:05:50 Nicole
Yeah, oddly enough there are a lot of different ways that you can have Information systems they don't all have to be on technology, so if we go back one Step 2, what is an information system?
Sometimes an information system can be a sticky note or a piece of paper where maybe you're producing something on a manufacturing line and you're just trying to tick off how many of those objects get out the door, or even if you go to Costco, lots of people go to Costco, right?
And there's that person at the door who's checking your ID. That you can come into Costco and then many people might know this or might have noticed that they all have a clicker. Yeah, and so they're clicking this clicker to say people are there. That is a form of an information system.
It although... it lives in that person's hand, right? So an example of that would be that we would turn that into some sort of information system through technology that could broadcast that pertinent information in real time to the managers that need to make a decision about it. So what is that clicker really trying to do?
Are you just clicking it for fun to see how many people come in that day?
Is it because of this pandemic and there can only have so many people in the store at a time and they have to decide if they have to close the door or not?
So we would take that manual information system and turn it into a computerized information system to allow managers to make decisions and make it as real time as we can to streamline business and make it more effective for them.
00:07:28 Jeran
I love that and I will tell you I just had an a-ha moment. I don't think I'm gonna have to ask you anymore what you do.
00:07:34 Nicole
Well, that helps.
00:07:37 Jeran
I do think I understand it, and you know, I've been thinking of management information systems. So closely linked to technology which it is, but it's not a one way street where that is the only link it really is about identifying where you could make some system in your business more efficient and figuring out the best way to do that so your business can achieve more.
So whether it's technology that maybe isn't keeping up and it needs to be updated or any anything going on in your business internally that leaves you confused or frustrated, or overwhelmed, or just feeling stuck. That is what you, as an expert in your business do with these companies you partner with does that pretty well some.
00:08:18 Nicole
Yup yeah a lot of these things can come out in different feelings.
Like you said either frustration or I'm stuck or I've bought this thing and I can't get it to do what I want it to do 0r I'm in thinking it was going to do something else, so maybe you know everyone had maybe the grandparent or parent or someone older who you get them that smart phone and it just doesn't work the same way as it does when a teenager has it right, but it's the same device.
So what's the problem?
That's the essence of what we're basically doing.
Whether you're the teenager that really knows what you want to do with it, and we can get it to work, but maybe your whole organization isn't on the same page with you, we have some companies that do that.
00:08:53 Jeran
Right?
00:08:59 Nicole
Where the CEO may be very progressive in technology and he knows he wants to run the business from his phone essentially.
00:09:06 Jeran
OK.
00:09:08 Nicole
And then the rest of his team has been there a long time and they really like their paper processes or they don't really understand how to get from where they are today on sticky note systems to systems in a technology sense so.
00:09:21 Jeran
OK. All right, that makes that makes a lot of sense, and I and I do think there's probably a lot of gaps that can be filled with the efficiencies you bring to the table, so I'm very excited to wrap a little bow on this first flagship episode and can't wait to have you back for more.
00:09:42 Jeran
Thanks, Nicole.
00:09:43 Nicole
Thank you very much Jaren.