Artificial Intelligence: Turning hype into outcome
MindSpeaking Podcast Episode 8 - Andreas Welsch, VP at SAP
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Introducing Guest
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Today on the mind speaking podcast, I talk with Andreas Welsh. He is a VP at SAP and he has more than 20 years of experience in the software. Industry. His expertise is an artificial intelligence and Process automation. And he's turning hype into outcome is sharing his insights with his intelligence briefing via LinkedIn and his newsletter. And what we're talking about today is how to make AI projects a success, what type of mistakes to avoid, and how to foster AI mindset. Also, we talked about the role of empathy, communication, and a lot of tips how you can do this in your own organization. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Andreas Welsh. And Andreas, nice to see you again.
Andreas Welsch:
Hey, Gilbert, thanks for having me.
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
I'm really looking forward to this conversation today. And we're gonna dive into a lot of different topics. For the people that are watching. They can see your background and I've not had many guests that are that have such a fantastic background. So I'm happy to see that in the first place.
Andreas Welsch:
Thank you so much. I'm really passionate about getting the topic of AI across them. So I wanted to make it as comfortable and as cozy as possible. Yeah, show a bit of personality.
Who is Andreas Welsch?
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Yeah, fantastic. I think it's going to be cozy conversation about AI SE and AI, light blinking in the background or clear in the background, and I'm looking forward and of course, we're gonna talk about AI but I'm also curious about you as a person. So I would like to hear a bit more about you. Where did you grew up? How was how was it for you to grow up? And yeah, tell us a bit more about yourself? Sure, absolutely.
Andreas Welsch:
So as you can probably tell by my accent, although I live in the US, that's not where I am originally from. So I was born and raised in Germany, on the western side of Germany. Very close to the border. Fence, actually only about two three kilometers away. In always lived in kind of a region also lives in the south of Germany, continents, which is right on the border with Austria and Switzerland. Lots of beautiful scenery in the Alps and you know, always different different types of cultures are living on the east coast in the US and Philadelphia, would still consider that a bit of a border region with Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey being close by certainly not as, you know, the same kind of different countries around but certainly you'll also get a different different perspective and a different flavor. And so, you know, growing up, I had a couple of different things I wanted to become. At one point I wanted to become a pediatrician, and a bunch of other things, but it wasn't until I did my first internship in a company in a software company actually that I got exposed to software it and all of that world. So that was really like in my late teens. Whereas what what you can do with it with software, what impact you can have and that's really set me up on that trajectory and was just the starting point for me to learn more about all of that.
Becoming a People Manager
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
He also mentioned that to become a people manager, you need more than technical skills. Can you share more about that? Oh, but your thoughts
Andreas Welsch:
you know, I spent a good 14/15 years in it in my career. That's that's where I would say I grew up personally and professionally. So I had the fortune to work with many great people and uncontained and work with many great leaders and work for many great leaders. But when I saw that I wanted to take on more responsibility. I was kind of hitting a glass ceiling at the time, nobody else above me was moving up or was moving out limited opportunities. And so I said to myself, Hey, by the time I'm 30 I do want to either be a people manager in it, because that's really my was my main subject matter expertise was at that time, or look for other opportunities within the same company. And so that was that was what I ended up doing because there were no opportunities in a short amount of time or a short period of time that I could presume. So I you know, I already knew about data centers and servers and networking in some some bits of automation and scripting. So it was a good way to take that as, as as the foundation and build on it and had a fantastic opportunity and SAP. Were right currently still work to build on that to do what we call a fellowship, which is basically like an internship for a couple of months where you can join a different department learn about what they do, but bring your knowledge to the table as well. And then at that time, expose me to the cloud. And it's like the early 2010 summit 2000 Tim's what customers were thinking about how you build this cloud thing, and again, from there, they led me towards CTO. And at the time 2015 16 digital transformation was just starting. What is it? How do you talk about it? Why does it matter? Again, how does cloud fit into that picture? And so, the next step after that has been similar. So for me, the approach has always been take something that you already have an expertise and that you're pretty good at and see what other new topic you can add to it and where you can learn and where you can grow. So go outside of your comfort zone, but I would say don't delete it completely. Don't leave it behind. You know, build on your strength. Keep learning in keep looking for something
Going outside of comfort zone & building new types of skills
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
interesting. So what you're saying is that you need to build on what you already know, right? Your current experience, so maybe one foot within the comfort zone but also wants certainly one big step outside of it, and how do you think, I guess many people would agree, I think with that sentiment, how do you think companies can adopt such a culture of going outside of your comfort zone and, and building these new types of skills?
Andreas Welsch:
I think what's really key is creating the learning culture giving those opportunities, and certainly not every company will have such a program where you're encouraged as an employee to move around for a couple of months, you know, in your career, but it can be as simple as as a virtual community. Where is your back in the office meet, have coffee with other like minded folks or just exchange? What is it that you do and maybe what is sales look like? Or what is pre sales look like? And what does a day in your life look like and what my life looks like so just get an overall better understanding and see if there are opportunities to collaborate or if not at a minimum learn about somebody else's area and expertise and see if that interests you or if it's something that you want to enter into more
Important traits or skills of a People manager working in a tech area
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
and, and then becoming a people manager you mentioned, what what do you think are some important traits or skills you need to learn as a people manager working in a technology area?
Andreas Welsch:
So in one of my last roles, I live what I think can be best described as an AI Center of Excellence. Now, I'm not a data scientist. I'm probably not even a data person, or don't have a background in data. But I've done a lot of work on automation in this kind of thinking is something that really excites me. So I think having a good understanding of the sub subject is obviously key. So you know, what you're talking about and what to look out for and as you build your team, what types of skills to look for, but I think as a as a people manager, and it gets even more so, you know in pandemic post pandemic world, whatever we want to call it, and it's normal, the new normal. A lot of us are still working remotely where we where we have that opportunity working in, in technology. So empathy, I think is a is a key one because, you know, we were juggling not only our work life, but certainly our personal life as well at the same time. So, not everybody might be available at the same time. People have different work schedules. Now, especially with different things on their mind, whether it's not having been able to see relatives or loved ones or friends for a long time, not being able to go harder, you know, even health topics that have become more or come more to the forefront. So overall that empathy that understanding I think is key, but also setting a clear vision of what you want to achieve. In its I'd say it's fairly easy if you're an individual contributor to just join along for the ride, float along it, somebody else is coming up with the ideas and we just, we just do what we're told. Which is one mindset right? As a leader, certainly you do want to set that vision. So what is it? Where are we that we want to go to then do we want to move towards what are some of the big trends that we're seeing? What's the impact we are making that we can make, and how do we set up our teams? What are the strengths that we have where do we have some some gaps and how can we fill them whether it's developing our people in that area, or bringing on additional ones that can complement that skill set, I think, between empathy, vision and certainly also execution that's a good trend.
Buzzwords
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Yeah. I agree. It's a great triangle and to create that vision and to communicate that vision, you should use different words than buzzwords right because the link that I want to make, as you mentioned, a lot of times as you're looking beyond the buzzwords what does it mean to you?
Andreas Welsch:
So look like buzzwords are not there to to create excitement. It's like this hype right? Everything is AI these days. But when you pull back the curtain, is it really or is it machine learning? Is it predictive? Is it statistics is a rules? So I think being being more realistic, and more open and honest about it, and creating that transparency, what it actually is, is really important in doing that in simple language, so that you understand it you can communicate it but more importantly also the person that you're talking about, sorry that you're talking to, can understand it in a lot of times in data roles. You are the technical expert, when you're talking to somebody who's probably not that familiar with terminology with these buzzwords. So what does aI mean to somebody in finance? What can it do? Why should they care about it? Well, hey, instead of you having to process incoming payments every day and look through a list of hundreds of items, say Well, I think this one matches that invoice. And this one matches it too. And that's a big part of your job today. If we can bring in technology to help you with that, and all you need to look at are the five or 10 instead of the 50 or 100 things that come in if you only look at the exceptions, I think that changes the trajectory for somebody in a specialized role. But giving an example like that makes it also a lot more tangible. Than you know, the misconceptions that exist around Terminator Minority Report The Matrix in everything that the refund seeing from Hollywood, like it's not that it's a lot more concrete, and it can be a lot more impactful.
Cultural Changes
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Yeah. And I like the example that you gave because it shows how if we make it very concrete, we can bridge that gap between it or data and business folks who don't, who may not have the technical expertise that people in technical roles do. But I think that's how you can communicate and bridge the gap and get closer to the to the other side. Absolutely. But I'm also wondering about because you're you're talking a lot on LinkedIn about the cultural training changes that we need to make and AI projects, you know, how to make sure they're succeeding and that we need to treat them differently compared to IT projects. What are some of those cultural changes you think we need to make in companies
Andreas Welsch:
I think the most important one is creating an awareness then AI is so much more than just technology, technology and data have a very, very strong core and component and our center to it. But there's so much more around it. Whether it is skills and skill sets to help again the right people in the right skills. If not, what can we teach them? What can they learn? Where do they find information? Its governance in data. What type of data do I have where I get it? Where do I get it from, but what am I allowed to do with it? Is a personal identifiable information in it. How do I annotate data? How do I create better training data? What do I do if I don't have enough data? Lots of things around that topic. If you if you build this for your own company internally, they're obviously work with stakeholders in different departments and domains that might not even be as familiar with AI and data and other things that don't matter here. So you also become a bit of a multiplier. I think you'd need to create a bit of awareness or that mindset and AI literacy in the company that will help you build projects in a better way and hopefully a more successful way in the thing that I've seen work very successfully is if that happens in close collaboration that happens in Canada because a lot of times if you are working on data and data science, your technical experts again, that's perfectly fine. It's perfectly good. We need that deep technical expertise, but not everybody can be an expert in everything. So we still find that a mix of deep data science expertise, and for example, deep finance expertise or deep manufacturing expertise remains to be rather rare. So when a pair of the two skill sets up, somebody that's an expert in manufacturing that knows how the business process works in your company, and somebody that's really good and data and has deep expertise and put them together so it's almost like a greenhouse effect, but they both can grow together.
Collaboration
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Yeah, that sounds like a great approach and how, how do you think that could work in practice? I mean, I see that it's very effective to combine those two people that have different experiences and different skill sets. What I also foresee or what I have seen is that when two people work together with different expertise, or maybe even different personality, it's more difficult to create a very strong collaboration. What have what is your experience and how do you think we can do this? Well,
Andreas Welsch:
what I've seen been very important is sponsorship sponsorship from the top, then, hey, this is a priority. We need to do this. We want to do this. And we need different people to come together on their team, and it won't be perfect. It won't be perfect the first time and probably not the second or third time. But it's a learning opportunity. So there's something to gain for both in obviously for the company as well that asks you to run this as an employee. So with that mindset, it's a it's a growth opportunity. And you share a little bit and I share a little bit and at the end of the day we're both smarter about what you know what your domain does and how AI and data can apply to it. And the other way around, I think that's a fantastic opportunity. But a lot of times really it needs that sponsorship from the top that this is strategic. This is something that we want to be successful in as a company.
Mistakes that organizations make
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
But but something I'm also wondering about this, if you talk about AI programs, what are some of the frequent mistakes people or organizations make when setting up these AI programs and, and what makes them more successful? Because you've touched upon the mindset, the collaboration between different types of people that have different experiences and knowledge levels. What are some of the mistakes that you see organization make?
Andreas Welsch:
So there there are a couple of things. Maybe I'll start with the ones with the examples where I've seen this work particularly well. In in those examples. The customers that I have worked with in previous roles really defined what the objective was, from the very beginning. Why are we looking at AI? What do we want to achieve? In many of these cases, it was around shared service centers in the finance example that I gave, for example. So naturally, there is concern, there's maybe a bit of distrust, if you put in this automation at this AI thing, doesn't mean I'll be out of a job in a couple of months because that thing you tell me can do the job much better and much faster and much cheaper than I can. So setting the expectation that hey, that's actually not what we want to accomplish. Yes, we do want more automation. We do want to reduce our costs. But we also need you and we need your unique expertise, not only to look at the exceptions, but what would you do if they 60% or 80% of your time was now freed up because we have this AI thing that takes care of the boring, mundane stuff. And you can follow up with the customers insane. So you were supposed to make that payment a week ago, you still haven't documented what's going on in your in your business are you alright should we change the change the terms when can we expect the payments so these kinds of things, you know, where you have a much more personal connection and can a human connection, let the I really worry about the other things. So getting that point across that it's not to replace people, but rather to augment them and to help them genuinely, genuinely do that. That's That's key. The other part is, to your question, what should people not do? I would say do not treat AI as any IT project is any other IT project because it is so much more complex, like something that people Dimension Data, Data privacy dimensions, how do we get access to data? Certainly a business dimension as well because we're not just doing that in a vacuum or for for our own passion of seeing how how we can get the last percentage points when we when you tweak that model, certainly all good and relevant aspects but at the end of the day, we do want to drive business outcomes. with it. Again, increase automation, reduce repetitive tasks, maybe get better insights, give better recommendations to your customers, whether it's like the classic examples like Netflix and better recommendations for movies, or in an E commerce scenario. Better recommendations for products are combinations of products, or upsell customers who've bought this item also bought that but really it's about the value that you want to create for the business. When all of that comes together, and maybe even when you want to market that data product externally and when to bring in your marketing and sales teams and how you do that. That's really a 360 degree view. I would say take that approach in make yourself aware that it takes a lot more than just data which is still at the core
Automation
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
right. What I noticed is that you talk about empathy quite a lot. So in the beginning about when you become a people manager of course you need to have empathy towards your your colleagues or your the people you work with, because they have a different situation and also empathy towards business stakeholders who are not as technical and also to people that might be might be afraid for getting replaced by the by AI. So I think it's it's such a important concept and understanding the perspective of other people. And I also like that you've pointed out that automation and AI is not only arise in, you know, using technology, but actually it can aid the personal connection because you have more time to have that personal connection. And I think is a very important point. Absolutely. If we're talking about automation because you spent a lot of time in automation, you're definitely a fan of it. But you also mentioned that just because you can automate something, doesn't mean you liked the shoot. Can you expand on that and elaborate on that?
Andreas Welsch:
So I see a lot of times when we when we look at technologies when we talk about technologies, we're so focused and narrowly focused on what do we have and where can we use it. But again, it needs a different approach, right? If you take a different approach, chances are you're much more successful because they have a much broader field of view. And range of view of what you can do and what do you want to do. So what I see a lot of folks do is hey, we want to automate. Okay, what are the low hanging fruit? What should we do what's first but second. Getting too quickly. into motion mode in wanting and needing to deliver that return on investment. But I think if you take a step back and you say well, we could actually do this, but does it add value? Does it make somebody's life easier? Do we expect to see a certain return on investment? When do we see that? What maybe business KPIs and metrics can we positively influence and can we measure that? I think that overall to me, is a lot more important in is a lot better. Gives you a lot better chance of success and say, Hey, we cannot amend this. We can automate that. We can automate that. And then you end up with a lot of waste because you really didn't have to automate it. Or there wasn't even a need for this process step tasks to be there in the first place. So think take a little more holistic view. What do you want to accomplish? And then select the right tools for the job. And sometimes, you know, it might not even be AI or it might not even being an automation or robotic process automation. Sometimes it's as simple as a role or organ thing. Do we actually still need that thing? We've been doing that for 20 years? Does anybody still know why we're doing that? And a lot of times, the answer will be Oh, yeah, you know, John or Bob implemented that when we went live with this or that system. I actually don't know if we still need it or why we have it. So that's also a good opportunity. And to to, you know, to clean house and breathing things again. Yeah, I like that.
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
I once read about doing a reverse pilot. So instead of introducing something to see if it works, to delete something and take something out and see if people start complaining and I think for many automations This could also work and I see myself in my personal life also tried to automate stuff or my calendar or productivity things that I spent a lot of time on, that actually take more time setting up the automation and maintaining it then the benefit I have in terms of productivity. So I even see it in my my own life. And I think it's important enough to always take a step back and understand okay, what are we trying to achieve? And also regularly check if it's still still valuable?
Andreas Welsch:
Correct. That's where I think our excitement sometimes clouds our judgment.
Role of communication skills in bringing AI programs to a success
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Exactly, exactly. What I'm curious about this because we spoke about AI projects and what makes them successful or what are some mistakes, what is the the role of communication skills in bringing these programs to a success? And I think I think we see these several levels right sponsorship down to within teams. What do you think are some of the detail changes that we see or what is important when it comes to communication?
Andreas Welsch:
So I think the the part of the important is that is adequate to the stakeholders that you're trying to address that you want to share information with, certainly at the top management senior management level, it's about overall high level concepts, business impact, that you want to drive. What we said about mid level or maybe first leadership, how can we collaborate? How can we bring people together and how can we free up some of the time so that they can collaborate? And what's in it for me, what's in it for you? What's in it for us? And then at the individual level, and it's why is this important? Again, why does it not replace your job and help you actually be more efficient, effective, engaged in the end? I think at a minimum that's, that's that's key. But there's one one story I want to share one example. So last year, we went through a number of pilots internally, things that we wanted to build into our own software products that we sell to customers and as SAP. And so it was an interesting time because it was just just before and between the summer holidays people are coming in, as we're just about to leave and quite frankly, we didn't have a lot of time to prep. But we wanted to meet with our head of architecture in head of portfolio, who at the end of the day assigns money to the projects. So we had a meeting where we brought in our data scientists to explain some of the the intricacies of the projects that they were working on and the progress we were making. The challenge was that we didn't have a lot of time to prepare. So we said okay, between your own vacation coming in you going out. Let's figure out what we do want to show. The challenge we have that in the end, we ran out of money, and we get stuck somewhere in how we optimized the model and with some of the features and parameters where we didn't really get to that point. When one of our executives had to move on to another call. It wasn't really stressful meeting. So in terms of communication in these things, the question is, what is the key information and how quickly can you get that across? And what is the key information for that stakeholder that they need to know to say, yep, that's great. I continue funding this or when roadblocks Do you see where can we help what what else do you need? You know, sometimes things are right. And that's okay. But I would also say take time. And again, think about who's your stakeholder? What's the story you want to tell and what's the outcome you're going to achieve? And rehearse, rehearse and rehearse? Yeah,
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
it's very rewarding. Part is also important, right? And getting getting learnings from every interaction because every time you learn something and you try something new, see if it works, if it does, or if it doesn't, if you successfully persuade someone, or get someone in the right direction. And I think we learn about those interactions every day. What I don't have to do right now, but I will in the future, hopefully. But I want to hear from many people who do have gets to learn a lot from kids and I know you have two kids. And actually they they kind of help you to create content on LinkedIn, because they wake you up very early, right.
Andreas Welsch:
That's a very good way to put it. So yeah, we have a three year old and an eight month old, and so the eight month old is currently teething, not a lot of fun and so when when she wakes up, it's usually around two o'clock or so I try to fall asleep. But if I don't spend enough time waiting between her falling asleep and putting her back in her crib, she wakes up again. I go through the same rhythm and same motion again. So what I've been doing for the past couple of weeks, or maybe a month or two, and I actually sit down and watch her so she falls asleep on my chest and after an hour, maybe sometimes two when I know that she's really in deep sleep, then I get up again and I put her in a crib. And what I've done is actually that's most productive time for me to write content to think about things that I do want to share with with my audience and with the world and LinkedIn because the entire house is quiet, nobody else is up. Work is still a couple hours away. And that's where I really find that calm and an inspiration and peace if you will, to you know, write my tech content think about things that I've seen from my experience that I do want to share with others as well as well. Whether it's as a learning things you should be repeating or you know the other kinds of learning. Like I said within meeting earlier things that he shouldn't be repeating and should be learning from.
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Yeah. And I think it's great that you help everyone hyping up because that's that's a tagline i i Always see with you. Exactly. Looking beyond the buzzwords and I think I think it's very valuable because in the end, we all want to make business impact, right, not just to talk about AI.
Andreas Welsch:
Correct. And then I think the more tangible you can make it with with examples or with with heart defects, the better of a story is to convey value and so long, it wouldn't be
Source of Inspiration
Gilbert Eijkelenboom
cool. Um, I also have a more personal question, or it can be business related as well. But what do you feel inspired or like your best self
Andreas Welsch 31:27
so really, to me, that comes back to the, to the red thread of empathy. I think that you've that you've noticed as well. I'm inspired by working with people that that have a lot of passion, that want to see things moving forward. They want to make things happen but also at the same time, understand where everybody comes from, because I believe when we do find that mix, we all work best together and we can inspire each other and bounce off ideas of one another. So really that collaborative spirit, again with that focus or on an empathy, seeing what others are doing learning from one another. LinkedIn, I think is a great example there as well. With with creators and experts like yourself, that's really inspiring. That's very enriching to me.
Rapid Fire Round
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Fantastic. That blends in very well with the things I'm doing a bunch speaking as well which, which is all about empathy and understanding the business perspective. So I think there are a lot of parallels between our work and I see them more and more in this conversation. I would like to switch gears and go to rapid fire round whereas ask you some quick questions and some shorter answers. So that's, that's how he does it. First question is, what is one thing that surprises people about you going to play the recording?
Andreas Welsch:
Well, I've learned to play the accordion as a kid. It's something that's stuck with me, but it's not all just poker.
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Face no play.
Andreas Welsch:
I still play when I do have time.
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
But maybe 3am is not the best time to play. I'm not sure about your neighbors. Not really so second question, what's your favorite place to travel?
Andreas Welsch:
That used to be in New York City before the pandemic so we haven't been back unfortunately. But my wife and I used to go there at least once or twice a quarter, sometimes every weekend. Because I love how the city changes even from week to week. There are things that we were discovering one week that we hadn't seen the week or two weeks before. So I would say I'm a city person. We're a city person in lots of walking, to to explore it and immerse yourself in that city and become part part of it for a little while.
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Cool, what is your number one place thing or person you go to for learning?
Andreas Welsch:
That is a good question. I would say that depends on on the topic. So something a skill that has picked up last year was much of what you see here, lighting, video, audio, compensation editing. And that's something I've actually learned by following creators on YouTube most of the first quarter last year when I wasn't creating that much content myself yet. I spend watching videos of others explaining how things are done and how they have done it. What you should be aware of so I think YouTube and different creators with a good following and good substance in the content can be fantastic source for that kind of information and learning and keep it keep it relatively short and non committal, I would say,
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Yeah, I recognize that as well. There's so much good information on YouTube for free and more and more people start to treat it like Google right. Many people don't go to Google anymore behavior to YouTube to ask their questions. So yeah, let's see what it means for your YouTube career as well. Next question is what is what are some of the best decisions you've ever made?
Andreas Welsch:
This decisions, I would say were the professionally I would say where were the ones getting out of it, and getting closer to the customer learning more about the business?
Learning more about new technologies and how they apply in that context. And personally, I would say definitely be the move from Germany to the US because we we feel it's again enriched our lives by so much being here and not just when the sun shines, but also when it rains and when you make friends and when you go to work and all these kinds of things. So just getting a different perspective on things and unlife and culture and on your own culture has been a fantastic learning opportunity for me and for our family as well.
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
This question is not on the list, but I'm curious, do you think people should be should go abroad mandatory or mandatory for one or two years?
Andreas Welsch:
No, I think that's that shouldn't be mandatory. So if you do want to do it, and if you have the opportunity, I would encourage people to do it. But I think even within your own country or your own culture, there's so many opportunities to learn into open your eyes. For what else is out there, whether it's inviting people in from other cultures and learning from them. Or even within your own country, right. We have a lot of places we have a north south divide or east west. These these kinds of things. Maybe a little more open in travel. As a first step to broaden your mind, mandatory. I don't think that's that's necessary. I think that's a personal thing.
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Good. And the last question is it's rapid fire round is what job would you be terrible at
Andreas Welsch:
gardening cards. So we we used to have a pretty nice small palm tree that we've had for six years or something. And it survived many vacations. It was at home. We were gone. They were very creative how we can supply with water while we're out. cotton threads put into water cups to the brim. It survived gone for four weeks or something. But then when when our daughter was born two weeks a couple of months ago, rhythm changed of me actually watering it and being able to water it so much less of it. So while it's alive, a couple of vacations. It sounds terrible, but it didn't survive the last addition to the family, but there are other priorities now as what I wanted to say they're
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
out of priorities. So yeah, as the last few questions I would like to to understand what you're working on at the moment or what would you like to share on your YouTube activities or LinkedIn work or
Andreas Welsch:
I've really started content on LinkedIn about setting up your AI programs and in November December and doing that consistently every day now, since I'm in again, I, I feel if you want to set up that program, right, you don't have to have a PhD or you don't have to how to record track record in these things, a lot of things. And a lot of times, it's already good enough. If you have good domain expertise and you want to learn more and you want to branch out and find out what can this AI automation thing really do in that industry or in that domain that I'm very familiar with? So don't think you need to be the kind of a superhero you don't need that cape to become the hero of your journey. And one thing I will branch out a little more from just text based or image based posts is that I will start more live streaming in the coming weeks to bring thought leaders on board but also more importantly practitioners because I think that's the real value of it. If you can hear from others that have gone before you or that are on the journey, and maybe a little bit ahead of you. What is it that they are learning what is it that they have learned good then I think there's a lot of value into that and I want to bring that out and again shared with the community. So that I think overall we can bring more of these technologies more of these benefits into our workplace, into people's lives and really make that impact.
Where to find Andreas Welsch
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Right. And thank you for being so generous with all the content you're sharing and reaching out to people on their journey. And I think it's great to see. Thanks. So the last question before asked where people can find you is what is one of one big takeaway you want listeners to take away from this episode.
Andreas Welsch:
With the done don't be scared. Roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty in something the best thing you can do right now is getting started because there's so much opportunity that you can capture on. Like I said, if you have a good domain knowledge in one area, see how you can pack it on sorry, AI onto that. Because then you can learn you can apply it in that field. You have different kinds of conversations with different people in elevate your skill set, and that skill set of those around you. So that's the huge opportunity. I see. There's so many trainings available these days. Whether it's vendors are on Coursera in all these these platforms or even YouTube, like you said, it's really about starting somewhere and see how you can evolve that
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
right? Yeah, there's so many ways how you can keep on researching for weeks, months or years. But of course you need to, you need to start where can people connect with you follow you?
Andreas Welsch:
So the easiest way to find me is on LinkedIn. Look for my name Andreas wells. Or if you want to get information I have a monthly newsletter, Flash briefing.com You want to sign up for that? It's three topics in three minutes. And on third Wednesdays only.
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Great, very concrete concepts. And I'll put all those all the links in the show notes so people can find you. Excellent. So we're getting to the end and thanks a lot for the great conversation of empathy understanding the other side and the both the business side and the technology side bringing them together and collaboration, what you need as people manager and how to make AI programs to assist. So thanks a lot for sharing all your your knowledge with the listeners. And I hope we speak soon. Thanks a lot, Andreas.
Andreas Welsch:
Sounds great. Thank you so much for having me really appreciate the opportunity.
Gilbert Eijkelenboom:
Thank you.