Smart Talks with IBM: Working Together While Apart

It's really inspiring stuff. And speaking of inspiring, I'm sure many of you out there have had to deal with massive shifts in your routines as the COVID nineteen crisis continues. Those of you with kids who would normally be in school are definitely seeing a huge change, whether you're working from home or goodness, having to still go out and work for an essential job while your children stay home. It's an added challenge on top of an already challenging time.

And I'm sure, as we've all learned over the last few weeks, there's no shortage of online tools that can help us deal with this. But in many cases those tools were built for general remote working, learning or communication, and they weren't necessarily designed to meet the needs of

a much larger population searching for solutions. In some cases, the tools might have a steep learning curve, or they might not be packaged together, leaving educators, guardians and parents to Jerry Reggae set of assets to try and meet

the educational needs of students. In today's episode, I speak with Kristen wiznow Ski, Vice President of Design and the c I O S Office at IBM, and Grace Sue, Vice President of Education at IBM, to talk about efforts to make powerful educational tools available and accessible, which are

two related but distinct things. You can find the resources we talk about at IBM dot com slash Remote Learning, and there you'll see tools like video broadcasting services which provide a one way communication tool useful for lectures or announcements, video conferencing for classroom discussions or parent teacher conferences, curated educational programs including practical workshops that help students train real

world skills that companies of the future will need. And a digital education platform called open p tech for students aged fourteen to twenty that really dives into topics that will help students interested in tech careers to build the

skills and knowledge they'll need for the workplace. We'll start with Kristen Wiznowski, VP of Design in the c I O S Office, to talk about the challenges her team faced when they received the task to package together remote learning assets, because, as it turns out, making these powerful technologies easy for the average person to access comes with its own challenges. Kristen, I want to thank you for

being part of this podcast. And before we dive into the design ops section, which I'm really fascinated about, I was wondering if I could just sort of get from you your own personal perspective of what it means for us all to be adapting to what a lot of people are calling the new normal here while we're going through these efforts to flatten the curve of the COVID nineteen crisis, What does that actually mean for a lot

of people? Because I think a lot of people out there might feel in this this world of isolation, like they are alone in their experience, and I don't really think that's the case, right, Yeah, exactly, Jonathan. So for me personally, I now am working out of my home in Long Island. I had a three hour commute to my New York City office for a bunch of years, where we've built out a designer hub. I have two sisters who have two kids, and they are parents now

at home, part time educators. They're keeping up households, they're working full time. And I think, you know, I'm seeing the gravity of what people are dealing with as I hear about these stories and look in the community and my neighbors and my friends who are teachers, and UM, I'm hearing the heartbreaking stories, and I'm also hearing the heartwarming stories that just really uplift you and and remind

you of the resiliency of the human spirit. And I think, um, you know, for me professionally, having worked at IBM for nearly twenty years, UM, it's been an odd transition. I first transitioned from the office from home to the office

after nearly a decade. Now I'm transitioning back. And UM, while it was new and unforeseen, it was fairly straightforward, which I think is a testament to the tools that we have available in the approaches that we've learned, and the investments we've made in our ways of working, and the fact that we can leverage and lean on and rely on the human connections that we've spent time forming, and that's really critical I think during this time of need and adaptation, and it was a big driving force

behind the project and the contribution that um we felt we could provide to the world, which what we'll talk about or today. But I think it's just an uncertain time for a lot of people, and to know that we're all in it together and we're all collectively finding ways to adapt, I think is one of the most comforting thoughts I can give myself another's at this time. How is the team that you work on been affected

by this? As I'm sure a lot of people were working in more of a close, uh, you know, cooperative environment. Now we're talking about a lot of people in different remote locations collaborating. Have you have you seen any changes in that regard or has it been a pretty easy transition adaptation into that that work life kind of experience. Yeah.

I think as IBM or as we've been accustomed to working in distributed ways, we've learned a lot in the terms of the ways of working, in terms of etiquette, in terms of how to connect with one another and how to effectively leverage whether you know when there's even just one some remote on a squad and the others are are together. There there's a whole different way of interacting rather, you know, than if the whole team we're

sitting in one room together. You know, design has the ability to impact the human experience in really big and bold and meaningful ways. And so we've looked internally at what we're doing and thought about how we can share that with others, and and to your point, we've had also to to make adjustments. It was certainly not seamless. Um, we've had some some trial in our ways to go about things, and we've introduced new remote forms of staying

engaged and connected. But for the most part, I think the majority of the ways of interacting or leveraged by the tool kit and the tool stack that we have at IBM, which we've made available. But I do think that relying on the softer side of things is so critical at this point. When we talked before we had this this recording session, you had mentioned this whole philosophy

of design OPS. I was hoping you could talk more about what that is des OPS and UH and kind of give us an overview of the philosophy behind that absolutely, so design ops. So we have a shop, the Design Shop, that is about one and forty people at IBM. It's it's a it's a large shop, and it has different subdisciplines that contribute to the broader sense of what we call design. It's user experience design, it's visual designers, user researchers,

multimedia designers, content and communications. We also include design and business strategy, the engagement function agile. So there's there's a lot going on, and the way to orchestrate all of this in a in a highly functional fashion is to

implement a design ops function within your team. So I think the design ops, the way that we run our team and the focus on design ops has enabled us to quickly line up and to have a number of people from each of those sub functions and to bring them together in a as seamless away as possible to attack this really big challenge and opportunity to try to to leverage what we know and what we can do, and to you know, to bring it forward forward to

fruition in a way that's really meaningful two people. And I think people can tell when you care and when you put care and thought into a product or an experience that you're creating. So design ups enables us to come together and really try to solve big problems in meaningful ways, and it requires a lot of empathy more than anything else. You alluded to a really quick time turnaround, a four day turnaround for a project. I thought maybe it'd be interesting to learn more about the specifics of

that project. What was the goal that you were aiming for, and what was the process like in that incredibly quick turnaround to go from here's what we need to do to actually having something to show. So I had I had a phone call on Monday night a few weeks ago, and it was um an idea, which is basically, kids are being thrown into this this new digital world. It's they're learning an entirely new culture that's seen to shape

them and potentially their future careers. How they're interacting. It's it's such a huge change from what people know, and they don't have more than you know. They don't have weeks for years to adapt like I have. In some of my colleagues that I be am, they had to adopt in in hours or if not you know, days, if not hours, And so that became the challenge and so many of us are are connected with teachers in

our in our real lives. We're watching the struggle firsthand, and we're parents or our sister as our parents and our friends, our teachers and all that. So it felt very real and we jumped right into action deciding that we're going to make a site that offers resources to primarily to teachers in this time of need, in this new world that we find ourselves in. We could have just probably put up a technology table, you know, just

staying here's what IBM does. Instead, a big focus of ours from the design perspective became what's the mental model of our users? Let's not leave with the technology. That's probably not how they think. Teachers and educators and maybe administrators and parents and guardians are probably thinking, well, I'm hoping to do X. You know, how might I do that?

What are my options? I think, at the end of the day, just take a little It's a daunting thing for people to try to transition and recreate the social interactions they have physically in a classroom. To do that virtually and with all different age groups, I think it's it's just such a it's a daunting, overwhelming task and Our whole impetus was, let's try to take some of that away, even from the imagery we use and the way the words we choose. Everything was very thoughtfully applied

with this thought in mind. Do you have any observations about the shift of etiquette from the real world space to the virtual space, or anything that you've particularly learned

in this rather accelerated development phase. So we put these sections of the site together that provide tips for most effectively leveraging technology while you're trying to do this, and it's things like join a couple of minutes early, learn where your mute feature is, use it when you're not talking, avoid access noise, try to look at the best position for your camera, avoid backlighting, and if your videos choppy,

you might turn it off. Look at the various layouts that the tool you're using provides so that you can get the most out of it or it can best

suit your preferences. Read facial cues, use your hands when you're you know, there's things that we've learned that make you feel more connected, and so they're provided um in various parts of the site, and and in a it's sort of like, no matter what you're doing, and using We hope you can find some value here because we're sharing some ways of working that are pretty ubiquitous or core can be and hopefully can be valuable. At this time, we thought about different ways for the six through twelve

age group to do. Maybe it's students are the teachers for the day. Maybe it's you know, there's a morning announcement and it gets rotated. There's book clubs or podcast clubs, and so we tried to consider what would be fun, Like we play lunch roulette now that with my team, now that we're remote, we do that just so that randomly you compare up with someone and have lunch and see how it's going for them. And why couldn't that

apply also in an education setting? It definitely could. So you know, have have guest speaker, have somebody come on do show and tell grab an item that's meaningful to you from the room you're sitting in. And we played um literally at my job, my bus hosted a guess who's office this is and we had to send in a picture beforehand, and we had a lot of fun

with guessing whose office that might be. Considering like the broader surrounding that you can't really see on video, and so I think there's there's lots of ways that we

can stay connected. And then there's reminders to to educators to get your keep your like, take breaks, let people get up and move, uh, let them have a sense of control, you know, pass the mic around, UM, ask questions, let people submit, and then we try to think of various ways that others can just even suggest different contents that we We definitely did didn't not think of an exhaustive list, but I think that there's a good starting point and that hopefully it will create or the creative

juices will flow from having read that, and then we hope in time will have some sort of whether it's synchronous or asynchronous, some sort of feedback mechanism where people can interact and say like, here's my hack, here's what I did that really worked. You touched on a lot

of things that that really resonate with me. Kristen can tell you because she can see my video as I record this right now, that I do talk on my hands quite a lot, and uh, and that sort of level of expression, that level of body language is something that is incredibly valuable. Those social cues are incredibly informative.

And anyone who has had an experience of misinterpreting a message sent via text or email because it lacked that that part of human communication can tell you it's very easy to have a misunderstanding when you don't have that that element in your communication. So having the tools there to be able to enable that communication, I think is

is incredibly useful. I mean, I'm I'm old enough to reach point where I did not realize that sometimes using punctuation in text messages could be interpreted as being very uh, stern or directive. I used it because I was trained as a writer and punctuation is how you in sentences

and uh. But then younger friends of mine would say, oh, no, like in our culture, this text based culture, where we use that as a way of communicating, we interpret that as a way of being much more stern with one another. So it's like you're yelling at someone or you're you're chiding them, and uh. So that was a learning experience for me. I've been smiling listening to you because it's all too real, and we've been on the other end of those texts, and we've sent those texts and received

the funds and we know how this goes. So I think we have almost no choice but to become better at interacting right and and being expressive and communicating with one another in new and different and varied ways that I think will serve us well longer term. And I think the underlying point is that we need each other people. We are a community of people, no matter how you slice and dice it, you know, and we're human beings and we need to be connected, and we need to

remember that people want to help. Tools and people and services and offerings and are out there too, and almost overwhelming degree right now, but we're all nobody is alone in this, and I think that there's such comfort in that thought, and so we're here to all work together through this. Christian's team worked on the design side of

these remote learning tools. My next guest, Grace Sue, is the vice president of Education at IBM, and she and I talked more about IBM S programs that provide resources to students and educators, including programs that extend yawned the online world. Grace, before we talk about IBM S initiatives in education, what sort of broad trends are we seeing right now in the wake of the COVID nineteen crisis is people try to attempt to adapt to a new

type of life in this era of physical distancing. Obviously, let's create a lot of disruption. So what are some of the trends we're seeing, Well, what comes to schools. What we're seeing is that educators are really trying to pivot quickly. And I've talked to a number of education leaders and they are working seven tiresly UM finding alternatives for academic learning, but not just learning. Schools are such

the center pieces of our communities. They provide so much so for for many schools, they're also looking for ways to provide food UM for young people who rely on their schools for food UM. They're also thinking about other social services as well, So they're really running the gamut of UM many many different kinds of services that they've got to figure out for children. Can you talk a bit about some of the the services and applications that

IBM has been involved with as far as education. Yeah, in terms of what we're providing for students around the world with distance learning, we actually and the and the timing has been really spot on. Unfortunately, there is a pandemic, but we have just launched something that we call open p tech, and open p tech builds off of a program that we have of Brick and Mortar High school UM.

And within these brick and mortar high schools, the idea is that students are learning the skills that they need for the future of work, so really a focus on guest the academic competencies, but also technical competencies as well as professional competencies, professional ones being what some people refer to as soft skills like problem solving, critical thinking, and we took the those kinds of learning that it is happening within P tech schools and we've put them online.

And so if you go to open p tech, which is off of PTech dot org, you have the opportunity to for free and anyone can access it, go in and participate in digital learning UM, so you can learn about cyber security and blockchain UM and data science. You can participate in free webinars around a number of different subjects, and you can earn digital badges, which is such a great inspiration and motivation for students. And these are the

same badges that ibm R s earn. So we oh that they have cashet in the labor market, so students can put them onto their linked in profiles or other kind of digital wallet, and it signifies that they have mastered a very specific skill. So we're making that available UM worldwide. We know that it's in a number of different languages UM and we also have developed a skill site UM where learners can get a huge number of other kinds of skills off of IBM dot com slash

skills as well. UM. And we know that not everybody can it's going to be able to access these things, but for those students that can, this is an opportunity for them to be able to augment learning that's happening within their schools and build upon their UM, their expertise and really key areas that employers are looking for, so really getting prepared for college and career. And also it's something that can UH see to a need that I think a lot of school systems are probably under equipped

to do. Uh, not saying that all of them are, but I think a lot of schools are are very much focused on traditional curricula and so something like this that is incredibly UM applicable today would possibly be something that people wouldn't even encounter unless they were doing special after school programs, or perhaps a college prep course, or maybe not even until they got into college, if they

started to be interested in something like computer science. I think that this speaks to the larger fact that we know schools can't do the hard work of educating children on their own, and businesses need talent, and it's really incumbent upon businesses to help develop and nurture that talent

working with educators on the ground. So if we are very deliberate about articulating the skills that we need so that students build the skills that they need to engage in the economy and in future jobs, then it's really a win win for everybody. And the other thing that we're very attuned to in our work and in our work UM through the p Tech brick and mortar schools,

is really a focus on access and equity. So through our p TEX actual schools, of which there are two hundred and twenty across twenty five countries around the world, we are serving students from underserved backgrounds and working to give them the skills to participate in the future of work UM and also experiences that their families may not have access to because they don't have the financial capability

or the social networks to engage. So we provide our students with opportunities to have mentoring, paid internships UM, and opportunities to be first in line for job interviews. So ultimately, our students and our p tech schools are earning a high school diploma in a two year associates degree, and we're trying to take some of those opportunities and now put them online to reach even more children. That's that's great, and I'm glad you brought up the uh, the issue

of underserved populations. That's something I definitely want to speak more about because while a lot of us, like myself included, have the luxury of being able to port my work to a different environment to be able to continue to contribute UM, even if I don't have access to the office I would normally be in or the studio I would normally be in, a lot of people don't have those, uh, those luxuries, whether it's because of the type of work they are in UM or because they just don't have

access to those sort of things. We unfortunately don't live in a world where everyone has access to ubiquitous networks and ubiquitous technologies. So since that's something that we often kind of glance over in these conversations, you know, we talk about the online tools and the tech tools that enable distance learning, what about for people who are in those positions. Are there any initiatives that are aiming to

help underserve populations that wouldn't have access to those tools traditionally. Well, we need to do much more. We certainly know that there are students during this pandemic who are not going to be able to participate in distance learning because they simply have access to technology and connectivity. And research shows that students who miss school, um, they do not achieve

at at the highest levels. And I've talked to a number of educators during this pandemic and they have very deep concerns that the loss of learning over this period of time can affect our most vulnerable children across their entire lifetimes. So this is something that we really need to think about seriously. We always think about education as a civil right, um, but we have to think about technology and and the opportunity to learn from a distance

as a civil right too. So I think that's the next area that we need to tackle, and it's certainly not just technology. UM, it's really also about connectivity. It's about giving teachers the tools that will empower them to be able to help teach their students in classrooms. So there's a huge range of different areas that we need to start thinking about shifting over to kind of a

tips and tricks sort of approach. I hate to even phrase it that way, but do you have any insight on things that you think are valuable for either the average student or perhaps average educator or maybe parent or guardian, what they should do to help support a remote learning experience, things like the best practices perhaps, Yeah, I think there's

a huge range. I think for students who have connectivity and are able to be learning from home, a lot of the best practices mirror what happens in the workplace. So you need a good setup, you need light, um, and and saying for the teachers, And I think I've seen teachers, my son's teacher in particular, UM, doing a wonderful job helping students learn how to participate in an online classroom. So how do you mute? How do you raise your hand? What is the best way to participate

and ask a question? UM? So it does remind me a lot about just work the world of work. So they're getting a jump start on that, which is great to see. I think for UM, for schools and educators and leaders who are working with students from vulnerable populations. I know that, UM, you know, the challenges are just greater and different. How do you get kids to come

to the table, um and participate in online education? A lot of that has to do with making sure I know, I've heard a lot of school leaders who are calling families twice a week just to check in. I think the emotional part of school and how amazing teachers are with our young people. UM, we can't forget that piece too. So finding ways to make sure that we're creating these inclusive classrooms where students feel heard, where they continue to feel nurtured. UM. You know, I think that that we've

got to experiment with ways to do that. I think, UM, I know, some teachers are experimenting with smaller classroom opportunities, or they might be having their own kinds of office hours, just like you would do in a university setting to help students who are falling behind. So there's a huge range of different kinds of ways that educators are trying to help, and I think it mirrors many of the best practices that we're seeing in the workplace. I think for us at IBM, what the pandemic has done is

put a greater sense of urgency around our work. We know that innovation happens through diversity. We know that there's so much untapped talent around the world, and we're really committed to bringing the very best experts and skills to the table to drive our business forward and to enable us to help our clients UM and to solve some

of the world's greatest challenges. So, you know, our goal is to be able to nurture talent wherever it exists, give them the tools and the skills that they need by working with the public sector, with educators and government officials and nonprofits to be able to UM, to be able to build the next generation of leaders and workers and IBM ors. So it's UM. It's great to be

part of all of this kind of work. Thank you to Kristen and Grace for coming on the show to talk about ibm S work and creating and making accessible these tools for students, parents and educators. To learn more about what is available, go to IBM dot com. Slash Remote Learning, you'll see links to lots of resources that can be a huge help. Before I sign off, I also want to remind everyone of the Call for Code initiative.

This is a sort of hackathon in which IBM invites app developers and others to form teams and pitch absolutions to really big challenges. This year, there are two tracks of challenges. First is response to COVID nineteen. IBM is already evaluating the initial batch of submissions to put three proposed solutions into implementation by the middle of this month. However, if you have an idea for an app to help in the fight against COVID nineteen, you're still welcome to

submit that idea until July three. That date is also when the final submissions are due for the other track of Call for Code, which aims at the broad issue of climate change. So if you have an idea for an app, or you want to see what ideas are already out there and how you might also get involved, there's still time and you don't have to be a developer. You might be someone with deep knowledge on the subject matter, in which case you can add your expertise to people

who are developing apps. To learn more, visit developer dot IBM dot com slash call for code. The next Smart Talks episode will publish on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, so make sure you check that out and be sure to subscribe to the show because if you like science, you're going to love that podcast. Join Robert and Joe as they speak with IBMS Global Managing Director for Consumer Industries Luke Nazi as they unpack how the pandemic has forced rapid adaptation in the ways we shop and manage

supply chains. You'll find that episode over at Stuff to Blow Your Mind. And as always, I hope you are well and I'll talk to you again really soon. M Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.