IGHS18 Exclusive: Insights from Technology Futures Leader David Gould

Jim Merrifield (00:02.625)
Welcome to the InfoGov Hot Seat Vodcast featuring candid interviews with practitioners, consultants, and solution providers on hot topics in the information governance industry. Here's your host, Jim Merrifield.

Jim Merrifield (00:32.489)
about yourself.

Jim Merrifield (00:39.79)
I switch on the spot. I'm a fun person all the time. It's pretty hard to isolate one aspect of my life. I'm actually teaching my two grandsons about classical music. They each have their own pair of chopsticks.

together I put on some classical music and we conduct the orchestra. That's awesome. Good for you. And you're a winemaker, right? No, I'm a wine drinker. I do have a 37 year old bottle of wine. So one thing I could do is, Jackie, I can keep it for next year and I can bring it here.

and we can see if my preservation strategies would lead to a legal disposition, we can share it right here. I love it, I love it. I love that idea. So let's talk a little bit about your company. I know there's a, you were telling me a little bit last night about it's a startup, right? Yep, yep. E-Compass. Right. What made you start that company? It was actually started by one of my top business partners.

used to manage the content management business at HP and out of Micro Focus. And one of my top partners in the world had an idea around 2013, he was gonna build the next great records management solution.

in the cloud and address a lot of the shortcomings in the product I was asking him to resell. And it's been an interesting journey because we found out a few things. One is that the world's probably not looking for the next great record thing. There's a company called Microsoft which has kind of captured the mind and attention of IT within large enterprise.

Jim Merrifield (02:35.154)
As a result of that, the old maxim, it's good enough, really is pretty true today. Purview is pretty good enough, and I'm not to say that there's not a lot of holes, but from a long-term technology perspective, we also didn't wanna build a business on chasing Microsoft. We wanted to actually work with Microsoft and do things that Microsoft can't do within the Purview environment.

We've explored and we've actually implemented some very interesting new technology foundation that allows companies to basically do three things. Is address the velocity of information, address the accuracy of information, and address the timeliness of information. And that's really kind of what our focus is on because most business problems encompass one, two, or all three of those factors. That's great. I can't wait to track that over the next year.

We can demo it for you tomorrow if you're not busy. Look at that sales pitch on recording. That's awesome. So let's switch gears a little bit. I know David, you've, over the years, you've been in this industry for a while. And over the years you've supported this conference, right? This is the fourth year. It's the fourth year. The fourth year. Next year is going to be five. What has made you support this conference and what value have you...

seen from this conference specifically in Jersey ARMA? Well I think you hit the key word value right? This conference actually provides a lot of value to the people who attended and I have to say that one of the great strengths of Arma is the local chapters each of the local chapters and not each but the large ones like Houston like this one like , where is or Susan um New England.

Their putting together these conferences because in one day or a day and a half, I think the members get a lot of value out of the people. And it's not just people like me or the incredible

Jim Merrifield (04:41.678)
attorneys you've had here. It's the networking, it's the ability to talk about things. And when you're sitting in a room with people in eight hours, sometimes you can get a lot more accomplished than you can by going to Detroit for four days. So I think the value that this conference provides us in learning a lot of things and also the information that we can share with those who attend is pretty important.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, it's a nice alternative, especially all of us, right? Especially the times that we're living in right now with the economy the way it is. It's just not even if we want to go to Detroit this year, it's just not possible for everyone. Right. Obviously, we'd love to have you in Detroit. Love to see you in Detroit. But obviously, it's great to see chapters like Jersey, like New England and New York

Houston still putting on and others that I forget to mention, forgive me, still putting on one day seminars, two day conferences to still give value back to the local chapter.

Right, exactly. And I think that, you know, for ARMA to be successful, I think they've done a couple of smart things. They've created a relationship now with MER and I think that brings a different perspective of information governance to the organization. And I think by pushing more out to the field where everybody is living and working, breathing, those are two things, you know, as the incoming president. Those are the things that I would offer to you, you know, to take back.

to the MER conference, I mean to the ARMA International as you ascend to the role of president, which is a pretty big role. Yeah for sure, at least I have a year to get your feet wet. Yeah so that's great advice. So let me ask you, I asked the same question to Ann and Jackie, the industry's changed a lot. What are you excited about in the next, I won't even say three to five years, what are you excited about this next year?

Jim Merrifield (06:40.15)
Well, I'd like to see how this AI piece plays out. I think it's a no-brainer, but...

You know, there's a lot of work to be done to get it out of the, you know, this industry has been, I've been in it a long time. So I remember client server computing. That was a big buzz term that you had people talking about big data and you had people talking about robotic process automation. And, you know, these are important concepts. Some are more faddish than others and some have real lasting staying power. I think the technology

that you see coming into the market today has tremendous staying power, but it has to be managed. One, it's part of a much larger holistic solution. That's something that Gartner advises

and that's something that I totally ascribe to that. And the second thing is that the solution has to be encompassing guardrails and also other aspects to make the end result, the recall, the presentation of information, trustworthy and explainable. I think those are the two things. The industry has made huge progress over the last year and a half

explainable AI from a vendor standpoint, we still have a lot more to do in that space. And we're committed as a business to proving out as opposed to saying, if we tell you that, that's our secret sauce, I have to shoot you. You know what, you mentioned something in one of your presentations, I think it was about an hour or two ago, if my memory serves me correctly, and it struck a chord with me. Being on the practitioner side and

Jim Merrifield (08:31.682)
I spent a little time on the vendor side. And I think you would agree that the most successful clients are the ones that work together with you, right? Absolutely. Why would you say that? Just for the benefit of everybody. Well, look, I mean, I used to use the tennis analogy that no one's playing tennis anymore. So it's a pickleball thing. When you play doubles pickleball.

you're on the same side, you know, working together to achieve a result. And certainly, you know, the vendors have great answers, but they don't know your business like you know your business. So we're providing a platform, a foundation to provide great answers, but the vendor really has to, the client or the customer has to work with the vendor and really direct the vendor to...

Jim Merrifield (09:26.878)
integrate the culture and the business aspiration and the business problem into the solution. These solutions are all very powerful, whether it's ours or ShinyDoc's or anybody else. There is a lot of inherent computing power in these solutions. But at the end of the day, it's only as good, just like we talked about earlier today, as Jason said, it's only as good as the information you give it.

Jim Merrifield (09:56.802)
Customer and the vendor work together to produce a great result. I believe that wholeheartedly. No, absolutely. It would be fair to say that for us as practitioners and solution providers, business partners, it's a true partnership. We can't view each other as enemies, we're never really enemies, but we must work together with this AI and new technology.

because you can't do it by yourself. No, I can't. But you might have the resources, right, that maybe the client doesn't. Look, I don't know how many meetings I've been in, but the second question we always get asked as a vendor is, you know, where have you done this with my data before? And I've always wanted to be snarky and say, does that mean your data is not stored in rows and columns? Are you storing it diagonally or some other way? But the reality is, is you really have to work together. And look.

partnerships, business partnerships, somewhat like a marriage. So I've had successful business partnerships and I've had unsuccessful marriages. So I kind of know what works on both sides and luckily I'm a lessons learned guy. So I've been able to carry that through. But.

You know, you really, we have to work as a team because we're only as good as the combination of technology and culture and business requirement. If we don't get those things together.

It just doesn't work. The old Heisman trick, stay away from me, you're a vendor. It doesn't work anymore. So that would be another message I would give to a lot of the people who attend the ARMA conference. It's not about the chasques you collect on the show floor. It's about the people who you meet, both within the industry and both. Because vendors can provide answers and solutions and we're getting way better at helping organizations build business cases.

Jim Merrifield (11:55.456)
to prove an acquisition of new things. I mean, that's what we live on. But at the end, there's a flip side to that. That's what you need to be successful in your role to get that bigger seat at the table and to provide real business value to your organization. Yeah, that's spot on. I couldn't agree with you more.

Listen, David, thank you so much for joining me in the hot seat. I know you literally just got up this morning. It was a hot seat for sure. You sat next to me at dinner, but you literally know you're in the hot seat today. I had no idea it was going to be this hot. Awesome. So thank you so much for joining me today. Congratulations to you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to another episode of the InfoGov Hot Seat. Follow us on Spotify, YouTube, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and LinkedIn.

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