Welcome to The Systematic Summary, Systematic’s weekly roundup of the news, books, and interviews that will make you a more informed business technology professional. Every week, I’ll be bringing together the best media for IT and BT leaders to consume in one, easy-to-digest list. Let’s get started.
Catch up on this week’s news:
It’s no secret that automation is a top priority for IT, so CIO spoke with industry experts and practitioners to round up the top skills of elite IT teams.
Sam Babic, chief innovation officer at Hyland, looks for people who have an engineering mindset. “This allows the ultimate solution to be both scalable and maintainable, especially if that maintenance is to be carried on by the business user,” Babic told CIO. Among the other skills mentioned were broad technical aptitude, core technical skills, soft skills, critical thinking and logic, a strong desire to make improvements, and knowledge of business. As automation continues to take center stage in this era of digital transformation, more and more teams dedicated purely to IT automations will become the backbone of businesses.
As ghost kitchens proliferate, startups like plant-based chicken nugget company Simulate are relying on them to build brand awareness and scale their company.
Backed by major investors such as Alexis Ohanian of Reddit and Walter Robb, the CEO of Whole Foods, the alt-meat startup Simulate (formerly known as Nuggs) has already shown that its product is desirable to those willing to invest. Now, they just need to get their product into as many hands as possible. Instead of trying to get his plant-based chicken nuggets into fast food restaurants across the country, Nuggs CEO Ben Pasternak looked to the rapidly growing ghost kitchen industry to solve his problem. Without a brick-and-mortar restaurant or brand partnership, Pasternak’s nuggets have still managed to climb to the top of the Uber Eats charts thanks to a San Francisco ghost kitchen they launched in September of 2020. Unlike restaurant chains or well-known direct-to-consumer brands, Nuggs can now reach its admirers through three channels: their website, delivery services in certain regions, and at grocery stores like Whole Foods.
Slack launched a new feature this week that some are worried compromises your organization’s security. TechCrunch says not to panic.
Earlier this week, Slack announced that they would allow people to message others who are not in their organization through a new feature called Connect. The feature was brought to life as a result of a survey that showed that one of the most difficult transitions since the start of the pandemic was collaborating with external stakeholders. To solve for this, Slack created Connect. While some are excited to be able to communicate more seamlessly with clients or partners, there were definitely flags raised that this could be a security issue. A spokesperson touched base with TechCrunch to clarify a few things, most importantly noting that the feature is “opt-in” not “opt-out,” giving the IT administrators the ability to better control the use of the feature. “Slack Connect’s security features and robust administrative controls are a core part of its value both for individual users and their organizations,” Slack assured TechCruch.
Are you struggling to manage contracts at your organization? Systematic spoke to the business technology community to learn more about the features you should expect from your CLM tool.
As a business grows, so does the number of contracts that need to be managed. A mostly manual process for many organizations, contract management is a tedious and time-consuming task that can have a major negative impact if not done properly. Systematic Community Associate Jennifer Supit talked to community members this week to bring together unique insights about what kind of features are most useful in a CLM tool. After speaking with Steven Han, Sales Systems Architect at Pantheon, and Candice Gervase, Commercial Technology Manager at Metabolon, she compiled a list of 6 important features to look for when choosing between CLM tools.
Hear from the experts:
Mark Settle sits down with Beth Cappello, the Deputy CIO of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to talk about managing innovation and busting bureaucracy in a large-scale IT organization.
New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose joins Nilay Patel on Decoder to dig into the future of automation and talk about his new book Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation.
Feedback for The Systematic Summary: If there is something you’d like to see in next week’s roundup, email me at [email protected] with the subject line “The Systematic Summary.”
