Blog

Private sector companies spend a lot of time innovating to create the best possible user experience for potential customers. Government agencies by contrast, tend to work with outdated, analog tools. Why aren’t government agencies following suit?

Sean T. O’Kelly spent more than twenty years in the tech private sector. When he was appointed CIO for Financial and Professional Regulation at the State of Illinois, he jumped at the opportunity to help create a more positive user experience for everyday citizens. Sean talks to Patrick and Shelli about innovation as a public good and why he believes all people should strive to serve in a government capacity at some point in their careers.

Tune in for a lively discussion on innovation at the intersection of public and private sectors.

Gone are the days when a company’s IT teams just babysat servers. Today, individual services and outside vendors dominate the industry. With this fast pace of recent technological leaps brings new opportunities to harness technology that can help businesses find creative ways to scale.

Karen Fedyszyn, an award-winning Information Technology Executive, sat down with Pat and Shelli for a wide-ranging conversation about her experiences managing teams for brands such as Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants, Ace Hardware, and HSBC. Karen shares why she believes shadow IT should be treated as an innovation pipeline, the challenges of moving from problem focused to solution focused IT, and her tips for creating productive IT teams that allow members to both learn and work on things they are passionate about.

Tune in for practical advice from an IT industry pro.

Failure isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, Sean Brown, CEO of YCharts, wants to hire failures – they are, after all, risk-takers that aren’t afraid to try something new. On this week’s episode, Sean joins Pat for a wide-ranging conversation about the lessons Sean has learned in his 25+ years starting, selling, buying, and running various companies.

Sean talks to us about why he believes the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) philosophy works so well in business and shares his four-part playbook for developing successful companies. Listen in to find out how to best get to know your customers, how to attract top talent, and why you need full transparency at every level of your business.

Open communication and high performing teams don’t just appear out of nowhere. In order to have a team that gels, you need to put in the work to create a space in which all team members know the vision of your company, have clear expectations, and know how to course-correct when things go awry.

Eric Foster, a CIO with experience spanning multiple technology firms, sat down to speak with Pat and Shelli on his three-part framework for creating high performing teams. Eric also explains why it is so important that you spend time thinking about the culture you want and how to go about creating it. Listen in for tips and book recommendations so you have the tools you need to create an unstoppable team.

It seems like every entrepreneur’s background story starts with the same idea: scratching their own itch. For today’s guest, Allison Robinson, the problem wasn’t how to use some new technology or improve an existing product. It was how to return to the workforce as a mother.

Finding herself looking for the resources she needed and coming up empty, Allison founded the Mom Project to help one of the most underserved parts of the population: mothers. Pat and Shelli talk to Allison about her work expanding opportunities for mothers, the rise of the gig economy, and how the Mom Project matches experienced mothers with companies desperately looking to hire.