 from theCUBE studios in Palo Alto and Boston. It's theCUBE, covering IBM Think. Brought to you by IBM. Welcome back to IBM Think 2020, the global experience. My name's Stu Miniman and happy to welcome to the program Aaron Vomic who is the Vice President and Chief Design Officer for the IBM Cloud Data and AI portfolios. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you Stu, I'm glad to be here. All right, so I always love talking to design people. My background's engineering. I've said it on theCUBE a couple of times. I feel they didn't really teach us in school enough about design. We all know on the consumer side when you have phenomenal technology and beautiful design together, it's an amazing experience. So you've got a broad purview, you've got a very diverse background. Help us understand what a Chief Design Officer across cloud and data and AI is responsible for. So in a gist, my job is to really ensure that we design and develop usable and meaningful experiences for our users, clients, customers and partners in the realm of cloud and AI. Both evolving technologies, adoption challenges here and there, and our job is to simplify the complex at the net of it. Okay, that's awesome. I think back to early web days, we were happy if we just had a UI, let alone didn't think about the UX experience there. So, what are some of the important things? What's IBM looking at to make sure that user interface is something that is useful? So I'll take a step back at your questions to say that in these challenging times, while we're still figuring out new ways to adapt how to get work done and really get the essence of being more productive, design is there to help figure out solutions to these human problems. Because at the end of it, design is really an expression of intent and intent to help solve the problem and overcome everyday challenges. So, we at IBM is basically focusing on helping our users and partners and customers be more productive. And the feeling also is that design has become really important to IBM, not just IBM though. Other design-led companies are having great advantages. So, if I just sort of call it a few studies, in a recent garden study, they found that 89% of companies said that they would focus on UX to step them apart. So, this is about differentiation by design. The second forested data study and they found that 70% of projects fail because of poor UX. And that's a huge number. There's also a study by the DMI of the Design Management Institute that says that design-led companies outperform S&P 500 by 220%. So, all in all, the gist is that design is now a very important aspect of how we go to market and it's essential. The good news for IBM is always been part of our DNA. One of our founders, Thomas Watson Jr., said, good design is good business. So, we're in it for the wrong run. Yeah, obviously a long history there over 100 years have focused on that. One of the big themes we've heard the last couple of years is CX, it's about that customer experience and not only the external customers, but the internal customers are talking about support agents and the like. So, how is IBM making sure that it is on the leading edge for CX? Great question, Stu. So, over the last, I want to say, eight to 10 years, we've really worked hard to develop a culture of design and design thinking across IBM. Whether it's product development, the services we offer, the support we work with with the customers, pretty much every touch point that a user has with us, design has an influence in it. But to get to where we are today, we had to go hire a whole bunch of formerly trained designers who are working across more than 50 plus global design studio to bring in diversity and thought and ideas. And at the end of the day, it's not about just competency and craft. It's also what the way we work. So, we had to hire designers, but we also changing the way IBM is across the organization to work. So, we developed this framework called the Enterprise Design Thinking Framework, which is essentially our take at human-centered line, built to scale for the enterprise. So, the enterprise is the key element here. And the practices we've developed using those frameworks helps our team collaborate better, keeping the users and the need at the center of everything we do. But it's not just for us. We also developed it for generally everyone. So, if anyone wants to take it up, they can try ibm.com slash design slash thinking and give it a shot. And through all of these, we have managed to see some incredible progress internally across our organizations with alignment and go-to-market, et cetera. But we've also seen some great progress externally as well. Just in case in point, over 20 international designer words for design excellence in the enterprise over the last two years across the portfolio. So, it's been a fun ride and our focus for customer experience across the end points of all the touch points has really given us a lot of benefit. Well, congratulations on the awards there. We know enterprises are particular and challenging. They're not necessarily the first to deploy something new. It was one of the big discussions we've had for years when you talk about cloud and AI is skill set and training. So, what are some of the unique challenges that you have from a design standpoint in the enterprise? I think the answer to your question is in your question. And it comes down to the enterprise. Enterprise is unique in many different ways, right? First of all, it's about mission critical needs. And second, it's about productivity. Our clients and our users are coming to us to help them solve these massive complex challenges and problems from data management to automation, to modernization, to being on the cloud or adopting AI. They're really looking to change the way they work and at scale. This means that we as designers and at IBM have to really take the time to understand the users to see what their pain points are, to check the environments and the context that they work in so that IBM can ultimately help solve the complex needs. Now, that's one part. Second, because it's in the enterprise, we're also dealing with the fact that technology is evolving at a very rapid pace. Think about containers, AI, blockchain, you name it. And we know that in order to meet the needs of this modern day age workers, we really need to think out of the box and be a little bit ahead of the curve to design for collaboration and the adoption of these emerging technologies without adding a huge learning curve. So that's the challenge as well. How do we adopt technologies without adding learning curves? So as a profession in design, we have to keep up, we have to adapt and constantly lead with innovations. In essence, designing for the enterprise brings interesting and unique challenges and IBM is up for it. Well, it sounds great to talk about just having a design that is super easy and people get. I'm wondering if you have any tips that you could have out there because I know myself, I'm always trying to talk to other people, understand what they're doing and sometimes it's like, oh, well, today I learned this and I wish I had learned this two years ago because boy, you've saved me an hour a week of my time when I did this. And it's one of the things I enjoy doing is trying to help people with shortcuts or new ways of doing things. So we get set in our ways when we learn a new technology that tends to be where it fossilizes in our brain and it's tough to look at something with fresh eyes and say, oh, I got an update. Gee, maybe I should press that button or float over it to understand what it does. So is there any guidance that you can have as to how do you make it simple and intuitive yet overcoming all of the legacy that we have when we come into it with what interfaces we're used to? I do think that designers have this unique talent of being able to connect the dots and that's our superpower. So in terms of tips, I would say, get to know your users, get to know them really, really well. Think about what exactly are their blockers and then think about technology and see how it can solve sort of connect the dots. So just to give an example, and I was talking about sort of design being broader than just interface design. You know, when IBM started reacting to COVID-19, we did a lot of things. One of the things we did was to kind of design solution to improve human-computer interaction where we're using sort of AI technologies like Watson Assistant and children's hospitals to help answer the huge number of questions coming in around COVID-19. So from that standpoint, design is about beyond interfaces. And I feel if we take a step back and figure out what problem are we trying to solve here and how do we ensure that the user's mental model of the things that they're used to using in their everyday use like consumer apps, how can we bring in those innovations back into the enterprise? That is where we focus on. Okay, you mentioned technologies are changing so fast. You know, AI, containers, cloud, how's your team keeping up with all of this? You know, the pace of change and software drop, you know, we're in a CICD model these days. So what's the role of the designer in both keeping up with the new things and making sure that, you know, you're helping the user along the way? Fortunately, IBM, we have a few advantages in having a broad organization called IBM Research. And IBM Research is a little bit forward-facing and they try to predict the uptake of technology. So we have a little bit of a heads up on the thing. Whether it's quantum computing and such as well, we got enough heads up there. Two, as a designer, the inherent trade for design is to be curious. And part of curiosity is to make sure that we learn and we can imbibe them and sort of bring it in as a sponge. And I think the fact that designers have this golden asset of empathy is where we can then use these superpowers to work with designers in other parts of the business to connect the dots about how can we not only solve the problem as we see it, but also solve the problems that are not visible. So the latent needs of users. So I feel in a lot of different ways designers, you know, have to be curious. They have to solve complex problems and they have to keep up with technology. It's just the way it is. Yeah, I'm curious. It's exciting times. What excites you about the field of design these days? I, well, let me take a step back. Dear question, at the heart of it, I believe that I'm a designer because I believe we can design solutions that impact people's lives. So in some ways, we are adding to a value of a human life. And that's what drew me into design. And especially in enterprise design is about the complexity. It's the messiness of complex infrastructure and business use cases and localization and globalization. It's a really hairy problem. So I feel from an intellectual standpoint, this gives me a way to use my sort of curious mind as well as my expertise to help solve this problem. So that's what drew me into design. Excellent. Well, so much going on at IBM Think this week. I want to give you the final word. What message do you want to share with IBM users, customers and business partners? No, thank you Stu for the opportunity. First, I want to say thank you. Thank you for believing in us, for being a North Star. You are the reason why we've invested so much in design and user experience to really make our lives better. And your willingness to sort of work alongside us every step of the way is really appreciative. I mean, we tend to really feel that you're the secret sauce. So help us innovate, help us bring in great experiences that help you get your business outcome. So on that note, if I could do a little shout out to, one would be for our customers and prospects here who are listening in to join in on the user experience program. So we can co-create experiences with you to solve your problems and hopefully build solutions that you're going to love. So check out the link, IBM.Biz.UserExperience is an easy sign up. And the second thing, I talked a little bit about user research. I'd like to invite you to join in on the research about your journey to AI. It's a still an evolving field and understand we're all going to challenges in adopting AI. So let's all learn, share and help each other in infusing AI into our enterprises. So thank you for being part of our innovation journey. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sharing with our community this update. Love the fusion of technology and design, co-creations, one of our favorite words when we talk about this, it's part of the model that we do on theCUBE. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Stu. All right, lots more coverage from IBM Think 2020, the global experience, I'm Stu Miniman and thank you for watching theCUBE.