Vision from the Top 2012: Lou Guercia, Scribe Software

Given that the economic outlook in many parts of the world seems uncertain:

What's your philosophy on maintaining a focus on innovation?

In my view, an uncertain economic outlook is precisely the right time to focus on innovation.   At times like these, there tends to be a healthy pressure within companies to increase business impact using fewer resources.  It pushes all of us to be creative, to find ways to do more with less.  Therefore, within my organization I encourage our entire team from the executives to the analysts to be open to new technologies and new ideas to improve organizational dexterity.  An openness to and focus on innovation helps the organization maintain a higher level of energy and focus, which in turn helps employee morale and productivity during tougher economic times.

How do you encourage and foster a growth mindset with your employees and partners?

My belief is that it all starts with open, honest and direct communication.  During my years leading start-up companies, I learned that keeping employees and partners, informed and educated on company goals, progress, failures and successes helps them invest professionally in the company. Once invested, employees and partners work harder and take more risks to achieve the desired business outcomes.  They know intuitively that growth is the ticket to career opportunities, new resources, improved skills, etc...   Creating an ecosystem of invested, talented employees, partners, innovative technologies and forward thinking customers - that's when business is at its best and it all starts with open, honest and direct communication.

What do you do as CEO to keep your organization focused on customers and value?

Two words - customer interaction.  The most important thing is to get everyone in the company to interact with your customers in one way or another.  Asking software developers to attend customer presentations or resolve support issues is important.   Having finance and accounting listen in on webinars, press calls or analyst meetings, changes their perspective on the business.  Hearing customer feedback directly can have a transformative effect on non-customer facing parts of the business.  When everyone in the organization understands the impact of our software and cloud services on a vital operation for a customer, they value that customer more, they increase their focus and they commit at another level to that customer's success - they're invested.

What's the future for hybrid cloud strategies?

Right now, everyone talks about hybrid in the context of infrastructure - hardware and software, things they can touch and feel.  But I believe the future of hybrid is bigger than that encompassing the solution development, performance, data integration, security of business applications.  Regardless of where business applications are deployed, they will need to deliver a similar experience to the user - similar performance, similar security, etc...  Users don't care where it is, just that it works.  The next evolution of hybrid will be that business applications themselves will be flexible and componentized, such that they can run on premise, in the cloud or anywhere in between as needed to meet the expectations of the user and the needs of the business.  It's already starting...

Which tech trends do you think have been overhyped in recent years?  Will they ever live up to the hype?

Trends like social business or virtual worker have been overhyped.  There are a couple of simple axioms in today's age.  One, we want to use similar technologies and tools regardless if we're working or playing.  Two, the idea that we're virtual is an anachronism.  Most friends of mine that are professionals work all the time.  That is they're tethered to mail, IM, phone and files at night and during the weekends.  Instead of this being a ball and chain, it's liberating because it gives us the ability to get more done when we want to and by the means that suits us best.  I'm not sure they'll live up to the hype but they will be how we live.

This interview was published in SIIA's Vision from the Top, a Software Division publication released at All About the Cloud 2012.