Transcript
Speaker: The voice of growth, mastering the mind and market.
Speaker: I started my journey um with one class, which was mind, brains, and computers. I've been with IBM for 25 years. it has been, for me, a great big candy store.
Speaker: Who would have thought that I'd be leading the IBM Lab or the state of Arizona? I didn't. We shouldn't call it artificial intelligence. It's augmented intelligence for humankind.
Speaker: To build out tools and an ecosystem to make our lives better.
Speaker: The fuel that runs artificial intelligence, automation, machine learning is data.
Speaker: And now we're talking about agentic AI where it thinks for itself, it does for itself, it could be a bit more independent. It's still a bit of a toddler.
Speaker: Technology's at their fingertips. You and I didn't have that in the early phases of our lives. They've had it their whole life. So why not ask them to help be the stewards of the future as it relates to technology?
Speaker: It's like a full circle experience.
Speaker: Kelleen, you are someone that I have admired for a while, and I finally got the pleasure of meeting you a while ago at our breakfast club and heard you speak.
Speaker: And the moment I heard you speak, I thought to myself, you need to be on the podcast. Not only were you able to break down some elements of the way that the internet works that I have never thought about,
Speaker: But just your story and the fact that you've... One of six kids, grew up in Yuma, you spent time in Sandia. There's a lot there that really paints ah a beautiful picture that I think that our audience deserves to hear.
Speaker: Thank you for being here Thank you very much for having me. And I'm so happy that I impressed you on that presentation because I was so nervous going into it. Because I'm generally, that's not the audience I generally serve, if that makes sense. Well, who is the audience you serve typically? Usually it's um technology leaders and also um some business leaders. So it's just, it was a different audience. Of course, there were business leaders, though I didn't know if I would be able to bring in like a a valuable message that resonated with them because it was the first time I had ever articulated IBM's value or intent of value in the marketplace.
Speaker: to a new set of, or a new audience for me. I think that's one of the things I admire about you is that you're a rare breed of person who can straddle the very deep technical domain and also make it relatable and make it real.
Speaker: And um I think that you obviously are, well, maybe not obviously, but you are the person that is in charge and runs the Tucson operation. So let's start there. Give us an idea of what Tucson does and with respect to IBM.
Speaker: And then I've got some questions beyond that. Okay. And forgive me, I have my my cell phone here just in case a client calls that might be in pain so I can help. That's fine. Okay. So um Tucson Operation, um that that actually is my heart. um I graduated from the University of Arizona. The fact that I could remain here for a period of time,
Speaker: um And then moved with IBM to New York and then came back. It was a fantastic opportunity. The operation here in Tucson focuses on a key component of compute, and that is data storage.
Speaker: And the fuel that runs artificial intelligence, automation, machine learning is data. And so these are data specialists here in the Tucson lab.
Speaker: um Just a quick story, forgive me. um My father, a professor at U of A, just recently retired. He was with the University of Florida prior. So we were gators for a while. ah i learned of...
Speaker: IBM and IBM Tucson from that time because it was a year after the unfortunate event in 1986 of the shuttle mission disaster.
Speaker: um Later followed and an understanding of IBM Tucson and NASA partnering to be able to get ah so data abstraction off the bottom of the ocean what to read the flight recorder.
Speaker: So they were able to understand some of the final moments, even though we could only interpret what we think could have happened. It was IBM Tucson data scientists, polymer scientists, chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, all working together with NASA to be able to listen to the final moments. And all that means is a flight recorder is a tape storage that fall fell on the bottom of the ocean.
Speaker: They were able to take fragments of media because it was pieces and abstract bits of data in order to pull it together to listen to the final moment. Wow, this is the black box that people think, right? Yeah, yes, black box, it's correct. So you were in Florida, 1986 that happens, so you were already kind of, Tucson, and IBM was sort of on your radar because of that? Yes, well, in for my child, because I was in third grade, so I was pretty young, I just paid attention to the local newspapers, um collected like articles, because I was so interested in understanding why that event occurred.
Speaker: So it was impactful for so many, especially the families, the lost loved ones. And so I wanted to understand how could something like that happen at that young of an age and started to collect this information. My father was unaware that I was i had this interest and I understood, okay, well, i don't know what IBM is. i had no idea what the acronym And later on, um i asked him about um Tucson, Arizona, and he had accused me of um reading some papers out of his bootcase. Why would I ever do that? Well, had no idea he was looking to apply for a position here at the University of Arizona as an agronomist. So like for me, i I didn't connect those and then came here. We were in the Yuma facility at that point. He was the director of Yuma Farms and research scientist there.
Speaker: And then i was able to explore understanding and where Tucson was based on being so close here in Southern Arizona. That's remarkable.
Speaker: So it was it was great how it all connected, even though it was a a disaster that was very, very sad um in 1986. And also and impactful for young people like me to understand, why did science go wrong? That's what I thought in my head at that point.
Speaker: So, yeah, that would that must have been a very impactful experience. ah trajectory changing moment for you. it kind of was for me as well. I mean, I was inh in eighth grade and or maybe seventh grade. And I remember it, I was in my my English class and somebody came in and and told us the news, right? It's this big thing because it's maybe not as relevant of it today as much as it was back in the day. Like a shuttle flight was a big deal. And especially there was a teacher on board and there was all this sort of stuff around it.
Speaker: And I remember it happening. And for me, it was ah kind of a, um it was a pause, you know, i didn't know what was happening. i mean, it was, what, 13 years old, I kind of knew, but I didn't know. But I knew that it was something big. And I knew that it was going to be something that was going be all across the news. And it was going to change a lot of things. And I think that, obviously, for you, it changed your trajectory in life.
Speaker: Yeah, it's um actually helped solidify the foundation of wanting to work in technology. So you spent time at Sandia Labs right before you came here?
Speaker: Yes, c Sandia and also spent time not physically there, but working in Los Alamos as well as Lawrence Livermore. So a lot of those national laboratories work together. And if I was lucky enough to be accepted into my first year, um was just graduating from high school. And I was accepted to work in a summer internship program at Sydney National Laboratories. At that time, i was working on a project to lead or pull together round robin analysis of, um how can I explain it simply?
Speaker: um a steel containment vessel that surrounds a nuclear reactor. So there is steel that basically holds in a potential reaction and also the reactor itself. Similar to like a water bottle, if you turn it over, yeah the actual steel containment vessel looks like a water bottle if you invert it.
Speaker: So you were doing that and that, what was the degree that you got? um i mean, obviously you did that internship and then you you stick with the same thing throughout your career? ah so um Your academic career? i wanted to go into like more of a multidisciplinary set of...
Speaker: um course And that was not something that was advisable from many of the PhDs that were in my family. so they felt that you would choose, like, go with the College of Sciences and focus there.
Speaker: For them, it was more hard sciences. So whether it was chemistry, water, things like that. um With me, I decided to take a different path. I started my journey um with one class, which was mind, brains, and computers.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. And that course, which is actually in communications, um inspired by some of the thinkers like andil Chomsky, to um think about how humans build technology to be more like our own self.
Speaker: And our own image. um And similar to what we were speaking about before, like Mother Earth. So we take things of experience in life and we build it out of technology. Watching an insect, taking an attribute or a use case from an insect that is so efficient.
Speaker: Like, why not? Mm-hmm. So anyways, Minds, Brains, and Computers opened my mind to, hey I could do possibly a degree in human communications. And also um i could actually go take computer science courses. And then i learned of wanting a little bit the business side. So MIS is where I went. So information systems. Yeah.
Speaker: um With that was mostly inspired by data. Wanting to understand, okay, the sources, the inputs, outputs. Which is kind of crazy because of what you're doing now is the business element. You're managing data.
Speaker: And as as I just learned a few minutes ago, you're also moving into a new role where you're supporting your customers in understanding the aspects of resiliency, data recovery, and so forth. And I know this is a half the press, so maybe you haven't digested it too much, but what does that role mean to your your clients and and the world? I mean, I know that you're, and I want to go into this, I'm so excited, of understanding how IBM is really part of the backbone, the connective tissue of the backside of the internet.
Speaker: ah So it is an amazing role for me. So forgive me if I get too excited at moments and you'll have to calm me down somewhat. um ah For me, it's like it's like a full circle experience.
Speaker: I've been with IBM for 25 years, did not think so. It was ah it has been for me a great big candy store. where I could have all these different experiences, these different roles, playing with data, working on engineering, architecting new solutions. Like it was is fantastic, the experience. And i don't feel that even though I work for one company,
Speaker: I didn't ever feel that I only had one role or I had one set of skills that I focused on purely, like here's your swim lane, Colleen. I was able to explore other thinking, other swim lanes. So to answer your question,
Speaker: I was interested and going back to um the disaster in Florida with the shuttle disaster, that is. I wanted to understand for myself, like, meaning.
Speaker: And i thought, okay, well, working in technology, I could actually help build systems, like, and this is part of my experience, to self-heal.
Speaker: self-diagnose, basically, and do it onto itself in its own system of a unit, right? And so I was thinking this autonomic thinking, autonomic thinking,
Speaker: i I felt that with this, I could actually branch into um doing more of this resiliency, like five nines of availability. Like how do you secure full safety of something yeah or a system? So anyways, with this system, now I'm able to help build like a system architecture to um take to the marketplace. Like in one of the instances called Cyber Vault, as well as, forgive me, another acronym is GDPS.
Speaker: And what these are is disaster recovery, just like you said, resiliency assets that could come together as a solution to help protect um end users from ransomware, from security issues or concerns they may have with their actual devices or these larger enterprise businesses at this point of time.
Speaker: So coming out of the gate, the role is to take these reference architectures and provide enterprise clients this value of protection to protect their data for their end users that we all participate in.
Speaker: So is this different than storing the data in multiple places? This is something that's more inherent, right? Yeah. deeper so ah So there is a major component of data storage and you have multiple copies. That's like, so how do you manage your data? You generally have another copy. So you have a golden copy or a platinum copy to restore if, let's say, something happens, right? Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Well, with this is you're building these optimizers in order to protect you or enabling fences of protection for these businesses. So,
Speaker: ah This is just an analogy in my head that I think would be easier for people to understand. is like for For years, um we had a swimming pool at our first home, and I was always paranoid with such a young baby and then eventually daughter that she could drown.
Speaker: So by the time we sold the house, I had four fences around that pool. to protect not only her, but also protect others from act accessing that pool to possibly hurt themselves, not under my watch or my husband's watch. And so what these fences, it's technology fences that we would be building to make it more secure.
Speaker: Interesting. Not necessarily keep you from the pool or keep you from the data when you need to access it, but give you the appropriate fences in order to protect the hole, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does But you mentioned something earlier that i I definitely want to tug at as well.
Speaker: You said self-healing. What does that mean? So some of these systems actually can um self-reset, can actually do like a ah soft boot inside the system that might be like microseconds of impact ah that could impact something at the application layer.
Speaker: Though i would say, or something that would be an analogy is humans at times in order to self-heal, we faint. I see. um And so in other words, just like we sometimes cannot resolve a problem we have on our devices or laptops, whatever it is, we turn it off and then we turn back on.
Speaker: Well, these systems can turn off components that are not acting as well as it usually does. Okay. Would you say this is more like ah like an agent living with the data? And if it sees that the data is is or something's struggling, the the agent, I'm using that term loosely, the the data agent goes in and does the repair or reboots or whatever. Would that be a good analogy? Yeah, yeah I would say that is good. and also it's like kind of a soft reset where it's like, hey, something isn't so right. Maybe I need to go take a nap.
Speaker: Got it. and And though you don't want to make it inaccessible to access the data so of any system, so you you put some of it to sleep.
Speaker: You take a nap for these instances and then you come back online. And you look to minimize how long that nap is. within the hardware, within the software, to revive it. And then the all the system then comes back online is and is healthier. Interesting. That's the reason why for humans, sleep is so important for our brains, which is the first ah computer processor, the first processor, I should say, um on the planet. And our brains have to heal overnight.
Speaker: Yeah, very true. um I want to go into some of the aspects of what IBM does, kind of globally initially, and then we'll kind of jump into some of the questions.
Speaker: I am going to pick up my phone, use face recognition to unlock my phone, navigate to a website, buy a ah one kilogram thing of creatine, use Stripe to pay for it, that my credit card is saved on my phone, have it shipped to my house, and then I'm going to turn off the phone and I'm to put it right there.
Speaker: How much of that has IBM on the back end?
Speaker: Pretty, ah actually all the touch points, especially based on it just ran through a data center in order to enable that use case. So your your local compute, so it has to the Wi-Fi connection in in order to enable the transaction. The transaction has, is running off some hardware, ah some enterprise software somewhere.
Speaker: IBM serves infrastructure, hardware, as well as enterprise software, as well as services. And we enable consulting services as well as um a global full stack operation of serving data centers worldwide.
Speaker: So yes, most likely you just touched um IBM in multiple instances of that use case. That's crazy. IBM is one of those companies that people don't really understand with what's done. i mean, obviously, a global giant, been around for over 100 years, has deep roots in compute from the the big computers to the mini computers to the microcomputers to the...
Speaker: uh, IBM compatible, quote unquote, and the IBM domain, the XTs. I mean, I was part of that. I was building computers when I was, you know, 11 and 12 and 13 and, uh, had a TRS-80 from a Ushag and had a Commodore computer. i mean, I went through all that. And so, uh, and I also went into the business domain and I went into sales and there was a ah term that you probably know, in the sales domain.
Speaker: Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. Buying IBM. Yeah. Nobody ever got fired for buy buying an IBM or Big Blue. ah There was a whole mantra about IBM sales guys and gals wearing suits. It was like a thing, right? Yeah.
Speaker: Having said all that, having even with the backdrop of all walking me through what we just talked about, data resiliency and all that. Where do you see IBM going in the next, I wasn't gonna say 100 years, but that's kind of far.
Speaker: I'll say the next 25 years. Okay, so, and by the way, you can say 100 years because we're thinking that. What's amazing about, um from my perspective, IBM, and this is Colleen's opinion, is the fact that we have a research arm.
Speaker: So much of our business arms, whether it's infrastructure, software, services, consulting, we We feed the overall IBM company, yes, and invest in research because the goal is we want to live another hundred years or we want to participate in making the planet smarter.
Speaker: um And so there's that um overall good aspect. Now, just going back, because I have to say this when you were at your entry, um as of yesterday, I was announced to go into sales.
Speaker: i'm I'm not um a female seller that's coming in with that suit. So I guess I could be seen as a future seller and I'm different. Multicultural female that honestly from technology, so I'm a little nervous because I've never been in sales before.
Speaker: What's great about that is it's it's new. I can be myself. I can hold to my understanding of technology and provide value to end users, clients. And that's what I'm excited about. um And then going back to your reference of quote, IBM is extremely reliable in a number of instances, though i think it's important for people to understand who do we transact with now globally.
Speaker: We removed ourselves from the commercial, the commoditized marketplace. Like we don't sell like PCs anymore or typewriters or or registers. Now, many of you may see when you go to a local store, there's an IBM register there. We don't really do that work anymore. We now are more business to business operations and sales. So our company strategy at this point in time is cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Speaker: Now realize artificial intelligence for us is, you know, we've been building out artificial intelligence, automation, what we do with data, data protection for for many, many years. Yeah, decades. probably Yeah. Probably 67 years at least. I am with you 100% because when you mentioned like some legacy systems before, immediately I thought of like the the mainframe. Yeah. The system Z. Yeah.
Speaker: Now, most banks operate in the backend in data centers globally with mainframe based on the number of transactions that can be processed and its reliability. Remember I mentioned the um five nines of availability. yeah it's It's really just to ensure that we are continuously online 24 by 7 and we resolve problems either autonomically or possibly with the right services, technical services operator. Including you that's got your cell phone out.
Speaker: Yes. I'm sorry. I just have to do that. No, it's all right. This is literally part of the the blue that you bleed. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting. Sometimes like when you're living through that pain, you're like, well, do I have Stockholm syndrome? Because you're constantly always like in the moment or thinking what the IBM way is. Have I responded to that person appropriately in the last 24 hours? Oh, my gosh, that ends up on your hot list.
Speaker: Though honestly, it's because so much of IBM it has great, fantastic people globally. and And people give chances to others. Like, i feel like all the time, have to remind myself, it's like, was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It's like, who would have thought that I'd be leading the IBM lab or the state of Arizona?
Speaker: I didn't. though someone took a chance on me. That's whole bunch of really good people that happened to work at IBM that did. Yeah, I mean, you're you're touching on some really major points. First of all, business at the end of the day is people.
Speaker: It's a collection of people with a culture around it. There's legacy, there's vision. That's all it really is. I really admire IBM because of its resiliency and its adaptability over time.
Speaker: We sometimes look at a ah business over time and we see them change and go in a different direction, adapt if you will. And oftentimes we don't like that as consumers.
Speaker: But we don't understand in the back end is that there's reasons for it. And IBM has been primarily unapologetic about that shift, which for me is admirable.
Speaker: When I look at a company that is doing something and then they shift and then the market doesn't respond and they end up losing, you know, revenue and all that. Well, they made the the wrong decision perhaps.
Speaker: And I can go on and so many examples of that. um But with IBM, you'd you as IBM dropped the personal computer and you said,
Speaker: Sorry, not sorry. We got bigger fish to fry, which is admirable, right? Having had your time at IBM and now going into the sales domain, what what gives you the most excitement about how you can support your customers?
Speaker: a Providing value and understanding the pain points of what they're going through, especially in the cybersecurity world. So if I can provide or the collective us can provide solutions that would resolve some of those issues or what's keeping um folks up at night, then I would be doing my job.
Speaker: And that's what I'm most excited about is providing some excellent assets, solutions, pain point removers into the marketplace. And in the end, it secures people end to end.
Speaker: You do a lot in your role with respect, I would assume, with respect to human resources. You're involved, maybe not frontline, but you're involved with hiring. You're involved with career development, workforce development, all that.
Speaker: What do you see the industry shifting because of AI with respect to career development? So I will start with this because it's I think it's important. it's ah priors are One of our prior CEOs, Junior Rometty, said, we shouldn't call it artificial intelligence. It's augmented intelligence for humankind.
Speaker: we're building out technology to enable efficiency. So many of you can watch like things on like LinkedIn video clips of like Steve's jobs being interviewed and talking about, you know, something like AI in the future. Notice the root of all those videos. And i think janeny Jenny's overall point was it's to build out tools and an ecosystem to make our lives better.
Speaker: to be more efficient so we can capture and understand these higher higher value. And so it helps me understand that our intent is to deliver solid solutions on time for 24 by seven accessibility. um We help clients or customers and users, whatever you think to call them, um to provide an end-to-end experience that is best. So in this AI world, we're looking to ingest data efficiently, automate processes to ensure efficiencies so we can start thinking and focusing on higher value.
Speaker: So think about like before you had your computer you had your smartphone, what what's made your life a lot easier? How many people like pull out maps anymore?
Speaker: Like in the car, on the fly. and No, they use their smart devices. And that's a bunch of really smart engineers, scientists, thinkers that have come up with the big ideas to make things a lot easier.
Speaker: And that's what we hold to in this world of AI, so to speak, is... for For us within IBM, I don't think AI, when we're talking about it in the first phase of 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and now we're talking about agentic AI where thinks for itself, it does for itself, it could be a bit more independent, it's still a bit of a toddler.
Speaker: um when you're thinking about the stage of the human aspect. And I actually don't think there is a a worry as long as we, in partnership with IBM Research and the research institutions like the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, NAU, all these great local universities, we partner with them so we get some of the new thinking as well.
Speaker: to build out what we're doing with quantum computing, which is the next generation of compute. It's different. It's not just zeros and ones anymore.
Speaker: So most people just have to realize, like, I guess, oh what is quantum? I don't understand quantum physics. And you can um use your um chatty eye of choice your application to look up what quantum is. Quantum computing from my simplest view is like, just imagine spinning a coin.
Speaker: Those, the heads and tails at a given point in time almost becomes one. yeah Like you're in essence um playing in a third dimension.
Speaker: so to speak, that can be concerning or scary for some, not for others, because they understand the dynamics of that that third layer yeah and what we can explore and be more efficient. So once we get some of the information validated and we continue to improve and grow that, we actually think there will be something even more impactful for the next hundred years in partnership with quantum and when that comes to bear.
Speaker: I, I to agree with you. There's a lot of, uh, positivity and enablement of a better quality of life because of ai especially as you said, the the, toddler phase, there's some folks that mentioned that AI right now is like an amoeba, single-celled animal.
Speaker: And eventually it'll be, you know, even surpass our, uh, collective intelligence. Um, I tend to be more glass half full about things, but there is a whole segment of society that is extremely fearful of where we're going with AI.
Speaker: If you had an opportunity to to have a conversation with somebody who is, just wants to go and put their head in the in the sand because it's coming, it's here.
Speaker: The genie is already out of the bottle. You can't put it back in. What would you tell that person about their fears concerning ai
Speaker: I like of the more optimistic, glass is half full. At the same time, the part where it's empty, it's it's always good to live with this understanding or having this idea of paranoia.
Speaker: We should always be thoughtful because there's always bad and good actors out there. And so to be on the right side of history with regards to AI is participate in the marketplace with AI and see how you can make it part of your life so it's more thoughtful. And realize, I think as Stuart's taking a step back, because you asked me something very complex and it's tough to really say it so simply.
Speaker: Is that um I think as a technologist and you being a technologist as well, we need to do a better job in our global ecosystem or communities of explaining the fundamentals of or essentials of traditional compute. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Why do we have our smartphones? And what do our smartphones enable us? And we ourselves can articulate or reflect some of that. It's all beneficial.
Speaker: It's been mostly good less bad, even though there are some bad ins ends and things that you can highlight as well. So how can we learn from that and so continuously learn to ensure that we improve as we adopt?
Speaker: Though that, I don't think that we've done a good job of explaining essentials. Essentials of why compute is necessary, why storage data storage is necessary.
Speaker: um These fundamentals will help us then generate in our communities a discussion of why ei is that next thing to embrace as we look to enable technology ecosystem overall.
Speaker: Yes, i I agree. I believe that in some in some ways, technology, you've heard the term that money, somebody comes in and money makes lots of money, wins the lottery, whatever. yeah Money amplifies who you already are.
Speaker: Yeah. If you were a jerk and you win a billion dollars from the lotto, whatever, you're going be a billion dollar jerk. You're going to talk to people, down to people.
Speaker: You're going to drive around your Ferrari, stumbling your nose, whatever. If you're kind and generous, you're going to give it all away. I think in some ways technology is awesome. a reflection of the human side of things.
Speaker: We want efficiency. We want, you know, efficiency is all about mobility, right? Being able to to pay your bills online or make a ah an airplane reservation. Efficiency. We love efficiency as human beings.
Speaker: We love human connection. Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, all those frameworks are in some way about human connection, about feelings. And I mean, there's cyberbullying. There's a dark side as well.
Speaker: So I firmly believe that. There's also this idea, we talked about AI sort of disrupting the world, which it is. I firmly believe that to echo your augmented intelligence quite frame, I believe that AI will not take your job or my job or his job or her job, but people that know how to use AI well will.
Speaker: Right? If you know how to command AI, you're going to displace those that don't lean into it. Yeah. What would you say to somebody right now who is ah freshman, maybe a sophomore at the university?
Speaker: So they got a little bit of a taste. What would you say to them about what direction they should change their, their, their career or their, um, energy towards? What would you tell them?
Speaker: So um I will be um selfish for a moment. um Most um females that I talk to, um let's say commuter sciences in the College of Science at the University of Arizona, I just told them to invest um in mathematic mathematics as well as much um and deep learning or thinking through. it's going to be this generation that tells us how we should live with AI.
Speaker: they're the one They're going to be the stewards of protecting us from possibly the worst case. They know their devices. They've grown up with these devices.
Speaker: Technology is at their fingertips. You and I didn't have that in the early phases of our lives. They've had it their whole life. So why not ask them to help be the stewards of the future as it relates to technology?
Speaker: Specifically, the audience for women is, I would really love to see more people, more women like me in the technology space. So forgive me, though, there is no question.
Speaker: um The men, the great men that I've worked with at IBM have been my ally. They took chances on me. So I, as much, I think the ecosystem overall. So if it was in general, the full population, you're going to serve the solution for us. Even if it means a shared service, like, okay, I want to be a lawyer.
Speaker: um I want to be, you talked about human relations. I want to be an h r vice president for a company in the future. Will that human connections important as well as the, the government, how we govern a system.
Speaker: lee the The lawyers are helpful to us to ensure that we're on the right side of history. And we're behaving appropriately and ethically. um So i i believe that even the shared services will feed into how we'll play in this technology space overall.
Speaker: Interesting. In your time at IBM, did you ever think about quitting? um Yes. So recently i would say, um and I'll just be transparent, this year i will turn, the end of this year I'll turn 50.
Speaker: And i was thinking, well, maybe I should take a sabbatical. Because I felt like I needed a form of a reset to do something different. And not that because it was a ah bad thing. It was just more like I was reflecting and my journal was telling me to explore on the outside.
Speaker: um I guess the only thing that I would say that is really big or that the what has been feeding butterflies in my stomach is um what's going on here in the state of Arizona and globally is about semiconductors.
Speaker: So I think about my electric vehicle has over 2,000 semiconductors. So having those fab labs, especially for America's competitiveness, being built here in the state of Arizona, huge. Yeah, very much.
Speaker: And so that's a pretty cool space. It reminds me of the days of IBM e-business when everything is starting to be interconnected and ubiquitous.
Speaker: Well, now, like with chips, you only can do so much in um within the axis of X and Y. It's about like atomic layering on a chipset. So I keep thinking, wow, that would be fantastic to work in.
Speaker: Though I don't know. um Right now, my role is this sales resiliency opportunity. And I think I'll learn if I want to do something different. So the answer to your question is I've reflected on it this past year only because I'm about to hit a major milestone, half my life.
Speaker: um Though I think it would just be best to be where I'm at, be successful, and then think through what the future holds. One of the amazing benefits of doing this podcast and having that the rare privilege and pleasure to speak with people like you and and others is I did an interview with the former CEO of Macy's, who I think you saw. Yes.
Speaker: And he said, bloom where you're planted, which is essentially what he just reflected. Yes. In a different way. And... I too believe that we have a duty to ourselves to to cultivate stillness.
Speaker: I did a whole little series on stillness early on in my, in this podcast is you need to reflect just like sleep is a way for your body to, to sort of reset and your mind to reset. I think reflection is so powerful and I'm really excited for you in your, your sales role, because what I've learned about sales and having been sales person might almost my entire professional career, except for like maybe one year, because ah as a CEO, you're a sales guy as well. But the opportunity for you in sales is is so bright.
Speaker: When you really deepen the understanding that it's all about human connection, amplified. Because when you so sell something to somebody who needs it and you enable them their community to excel, there's such a deep pleasure in that.
Speaker: yeah There's an old school guy named Zig Ziglar. You can look him up and if you don't know who he is. He's an old Baptist minister that became a sales trainer. And he basically, one of his mantras is like, when you sell something to somebody, you're really selling it to yourself as well. You get the same benefit. You get value.
Speaker: hundred percent. And you'll, you I mean, I'm sure you've been involved in sales a little bit, but when you get like that first sale and you're like, you recognize that there are four wins, I love four wins, where the customer wins, the customer's customer wins, IBM wins, and you win. It's just magic.
Speaker: um As we sort of round out the end of this podcast, give us a sense of, if you had the opportunity to have a day with somebody,
Speaker: morning to night, where you can pick their brain, you can hang out with them, you can do whatever. it Through any time, any place, could be Cleopatra, could be whoever.
Speaker: Who would it be and why? All right, so I just recently wrote this in my journal. It's interesting. It's like, wow, how did he know that? So mine was actually um a mentor I had within IBM. I mentioned her name ah a bit ago. She retired from IBM, and I think about her every time the master's comes up, and that's Ginny Ramadi.
Speaker: So yeah, she retired from IBM as ah the former CEO. i I would love to have just a glass of Chardonnay whatever beverage and have a discussion with her. Like, how's it going? What are you working on What are you thinking about?
Speaker: Like, because she's at that point of reflection, consuming all of her experience. And she just left a few years ago. And now coming in, i would love to have that moment where I could ask her, for you are you up to? What's going on?
Speaker: It'd be great to tap into that history, so to speak. ah The other person, and it's not someone that many know, is like a prior um individual I worked with. um He graduated with IBM um after like 40 years of service, was Nicholas D'Onofrio.
Speaker: You can look him up. He's the executive vice president of IBM and of IBM fellow emeritus. What is that? Highest talent technical ranking.
Speaker: great mind, great thinker, um works on the like worked in partnership with the National Science Foundation. like He's someone that you want to know of because he's he's pretty impactful and extremely humble.
Speaker: And it was wonderful to meet him 2008
Speaker: forgive me, being Catholic, celebrating um the Lent season, I went, I saw him with ashes on his forehead and I had it on mine. And it was just a common connection.
Speaker: like, hey, who are you? Oh, I'm Nick Donovia. I was like, oh my gosh, this guy leads IBM Research like and is the current EVP reporting to San Paul Asano. Like I quickly was assessing that and I was like, here I'm in an elevator. Like how can I connect and get to know him?
Speaker: And I was able to work for him in innovation for IBM innovation for about a year. Wow. I'd love to have another connection point with him. Well, the the rare opportunity could be that you could have a connection with both.
Speaker: Yes. Last and final question. Okay. I promise it'll be a good one. Okay. And I'm sorry I give you two, and you asked for one. No, it's okay. No, this is a conversation, so there's no rigidity here.
Speaker: This is kind of a ah lot to unpack, and one very simple question is what do you want your legacy to be? And it's another way, what do you see yourself in 40 years when you're 90?
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: So um I do right now hope that my my almost 16-year-old actually thinks that I have influenced her life, like legacy-wise from that vie vantage point. My brothers and sisters um within my family, I really hope they realize that I'm always willing to be a mediator and help. and And sometimes helping is just listening. Yeah.
Speaker: So that's my people legacy for family, daughter, um ensuring that my husband, because we're celebrating 25 years of marriage this year, um which is half our lives, which is amazing to me to think about that, um that he recognizes that it's a team sport.
Speaker: He's one of these individuals who came to the table, oh, she has a career, i have a career, we're going to make it work together. So there was never any sort of gender specific roles. We both just kind of felt like something had to get done and we'd attack it together.
Speaker: And not everyone gets the opportunity of having an equal partner. And he has always been that for me. Now, as to answer question on technology, Lacey, she helped build autonomic systems.
Speaker: architecture that can self-heal, self-diagnose, and self-serve.
Speaker: That's powerful. That's powerful. I don't doubt that if God gives you life, he'll be you'll be celebrating 40 years from now that exact thing. Yeah. Thank you so much for your time, Colleen. This has been a rare pleasure.
Speaker: but I greatly appreciate it. Yeah. Cheers. Thank you.
