Madi: I have so much faith in people in operations and the people who are participating and helping us grow this ecosystem. There's so many cool people who are here connecting with each other and really thinking about the folks on the front line and the folks in operations. We're all just here to make work better for those teams.

Announcer: You're listening to Augmented Ops, where manufacturing meets innovation. We highlight the transformative ideas and technologies shaping the front lines of operations, helping you stay ahead of the curve in the rapidly evolving world of industrial tech. Here's your host, Natan Linder. CEO and co founder of Tulip, the frontline operations platform.

Natan: Hey Maddie, how's it going? Good, good afternoon. 

Madi: Yeah, good afternoon. We gotta stop only recording podcasts after a big event. 

Natan: Yeah, I know, but it's kind of our thing that we try and step back and summarize what the hell happened. 

Madi: So, I mean, we're here to talk about operations calling, which, you know, is Tulip's annual conference.

I've heard it by other people called the A user conference, which is a totally normal thing for a SaaS company to do and you see all over. I would like to think that our conference is a little more than a user conference and is really a community and cultural event that both celebrates our users, but also celebrates operations.

Natan: So, why did we create this event, I guess? And why is it different? 

Madi: I mean, you and I, we spend a lot of time, like, talking about this, too, right? It's like, if we're going to do something, we want it to be valuable and interesting and really represent what we believe to be true in operations. And so, we wanted an event that was focused on the people who were doing the work because we make content for them.

And that's not just, you know, folks that are on the front line every day who, you know, are obviously included and represented in this content and at this conference, but it's also the people who are applying and driving digital transformation. We wanted not just to have a lot of thought leaders, though.

We also have those folks represented. 

Natan: Yeah, the thing I love about this event, it's like the mix of people who are right there doing the work, the people who do the architectures and thinking about this from an IT perspective and how to support an organization through digital transformation and leadership.

So it's a pretty interesting mix of people, creates totally different conversations. 

Madi: And while like the audience is diverse, I think that there's a shared system of values, which we really wanted to live and like structurally be reinforced at the event. And that's true for how we designed our partnership and ecosystem kind of partner pavilion.

This was true last year and it was true this year that you Join the event. You had to have something that you were bringing, some sort of integration, some sort of content piece, some sort of like valuable solution that not only talked about art of the possible, but showed how to do it and what it would take to do it.

And I think the how part can sometimes get lost in some of these conferences where you're just seeing a lot of slideware. 

Natan: Yeah, I think that's been the golden ticket, so to speak. Like, we had a lot more people wanting to show up and join, but if you're not showing something real, it's just very tough to see it fit in this kind of environment.

So it was pretty awesome to see the pavilion full of people walking through demos, showing their stuff, and Discussing where it can go from there. And it was very cool. 

Madi: Yeah. 

Natan: Loved it. 

Madi: And I think that, I mean, at least from the feedback I heard, that was something that our customers and other folks that are attending, they, they appreciate it because oftentimes, even when people have strong demos at a traditional trade show or traditional user conference, you don't necessarily see the way that different solutions work together and the real underlying value of ecosystem is that it There's connectivity and you're solving a solution.

You can kind of compose these different solutions in a way that makes sense. And seeing it live and being able to ask questions and play with it is unique. Yeah. 

Natan: And you know, the holiday season is coming. Yes. Which means the trade show season is ending. And it's kind of like everybody is like in this trade show fatigue, you know.

100%. And that's like this thing you're talking about. It's like you go to all these trade shows and you have to go through all the booths. And like, you need to create this picture in your brain of like, how this is going to work with that. And that is going to work with this. And I think we're going to stop talking about this next year, but this is really the year COVID is over because it's like, all the trade shows are really back and everybody's flying.

And like, you go through all those shows and it's just booth after booth. And actually, even before operations calling this year, we tried to make our booth experience different, that you're coming to see something, participate, have fun. an artifact that you're building. So with all our pop up factories and not necessarily know exactly what people who are coming to the booth want to talk about.

To me, it's like as if Operations Calling is like one giant booth like that. Yeah. So it's like we replicate that experience, but it's not just about us. It's about like, what the ecosystem can do with this. Just 

Madi: maybe make like a magic school bus reference. We could take a bunch of people in operations and shrink them down and you could kind of like walk through the different like layers.

Manufacturing tech stack, like that was the experience we wanted people to be able to have like this is what this looks like and this is how it works and I could like go in and see how the data is like transmitting between different pieces and that type of unique experience, interactive experience.

It's really hard to do. So we really had to lean on a lot of like other people to collaborate with us on it. But I think that it represents the vision way better than a great slide. 

Natan: Yeah. And there's something to be said about speed because it's not like we're. Doing system integration for a whole year, just for one week in October.

Right. And this all comes together, it's actually like, you know, a few weeks before the event. Yeah. Things come together and I think this is a testament to where composable architectures technology mindset and the ability to implement, assuming there's, you know, when there's a will, there's a way is actually happening.

And to present, you know, this moment where. If two companies, both with a very deep and rich stack, say like Tulip and Snowflake want to make something to change the landscape of, you know, historians for discrete manufacturing, we can just do that and we can just build something that represents that and push it out there and let the people who come to see it experience it.

But then, of course, it lives on. In the internet and people can go and download connectors and applications and stuff like that and start feeling it themselves. And I think that is by now in our industry, should become table stakes. 

Madi: I wanna pick at something you just said. Okay. A little more. 'cause I think it's also something that was a challenge for us and, and I think we're still working on how to make it great, but.

One of the benefits of having people who, like you said, live this reality and understand it, is there something authentic and open about the connections and willingness to share, which if you're trying to learn, like, Specifically how this is done and production processes are so sensitive and so like dear to the company It could be hard to hear from a practitioner and actually know like this part was great But this part was bad or we messed up here.

So like how did we start to work on building that safety feeling? So 

Natan: yeah, so I would say like this is a safe place But actually I don't think people need to be safe anymore because that change has come to how folks in operations I'm going to talk about how we value them opening up, you know, versus not as it comes to learning and impacting what they do.

And so let me be specific about that. First, we need to understand the problem. Why is it so hard for operations people to talk? Because it's decades of like, this is our secret sauce. Or like, we're not going to talk about the defects in our product because, God forbid that comes out, then what does it mean?

And they're not wrong necessarily, or they might think, well, we can talk about our labor rates or our architecture or digital maturity, because what does it mean impacts our employees or our brand? And that's all clear. But when you think about how much information. And how much authentic engagement happens all across the internet.

You know, how many blogs have we seen? Like, here is Google telling again how to optimize your data centers. And this is celebrated. They celebrate this. There's like, we made it better. We proved that it's 25 percent like this or that parameters looking better. And here's how you do it. And we're gonna share because we want you all to come to us, appreciate us.

Learn from us and we'll learn from you. And it's just a very hard thing for operations people to do. And I think that this event and the dynamic made it such that they want to do that. You know, we don't pay speakers. We don't tell people what to say. Maybe we facilitate some panels, but it's really, you know, people come in and say, Hey, this is the topics.

This is what's important for us. Or they break out. And that dialogue you can't artificially create. 

Madi: Yeah, I think the structure of having panels where people can openly answer questions like from their perspective and engage with each other and there's open q& a that that's really free flowing. I loved our keynote this year.

And this is similar to last year where the keynote is really Driven and someone delivering and sharing their vision and and their approach. Yeah. And maybe they also use Tulip for a little bit, but there's so much that they did in addition to it. They're using 

Natan: so many other things. And yeah, tulip is part of the story for sure, but it's like they took the audience into a snapshot of what they're going through in the current maturity curve that they're on, which typically you don't get to see.

You usually hear success stories or launches or kind of normal stuff. 

Madi: Which we had that stuff too, to be fair, like we weren't going to check the core boxes. 

Natan: Yeah, it's still, we have some information to share and all that, but like, it's so tough to have people who are doing the work and actively changing their companies take a moment to stop what they're doing day in day out, come to two days.

Meet a bunch of their colleagues and open up to this level. Then continue to talk to each other for several hours, even when the conference agenda is over and the happy hour is over and need to kick them out of the, of the house. And like, that is the thing that I'm worried about is like, how do we do that at scale?

You talked about the magic bus. So like, it would be great if we can like make people smaller because we can fit them here. 

Madi: No, that's definitely like kind of bottling the magic and being able to scale it is challenging. I think especially some of the things that we added this year that really helped facilitate those like one on one connections and people being able to talk to each other.

I'm thinking of us co locating the Groundbreakers Awards, which for those that The other things that we haven't followed them are where we recognize individuals and organizations that have really led transformative change in a unique way across our user base. Like, we held that next to our opening reception.

And everyone at the opening reception wanted to go to the groundbreakers ceremony. So it was like, so full, but it meant that they got to hear all those stories and like ask people questions and just like meet and continue to kind of build friendships and mentorship relationships. And how do you get more people to be able to have that, that sense of community?

Natan: The networking is very different. You know, some person is running a COE that is matured a few years with Tulip and another person is. They're just starting. They just signed up and they're here to learn and then suddenly they meet themselves, you know, quote unquote, in a year and two years and three years.

And that was so valuable. Maybe that's a panel for next year too. Yeah. Different stages of maturity. Stages of maturity. But then like to the point on scale, because one of the key themes this year is like adoption at scale. So it's like, as far as the event goes, There's something magical, I think, when we open up because we bring people here.

This is where we do the work. This is where we built this stuff and people love to see it. People feel the place. That's the thing. It's like we have finite real estate here. It's not a convention center. So we have to figure out a way to keep that while hosting more people. 

Madi: Yeah. Problem to be solved. How do we keep that like family dinner feel when we need to rent out a banquet hall?

Natan: Yeah, exactly. 

Madi: So I do want to say we wanted to also create kind of this like dialogue, right, conversation instead of just presenting information. And you actually presented a few times, at least three times this year, which, yeah, a lot of conversation versus just presentation. 

Natan: Yeah, we launched some products, the composable MES for pharma.

That's pretty exciting, that was a ton of work went into that, years in the making and finally getting a package that spans processes from wind spans to EBR, packaging and back and it was great to see the turnout also and how that impacted the life science track that is definitely growing. So that was cool.

But it also was like a decade for Tulip. So we're kind of turned 10. And it's like, I kind of call it like, it's like the end of Industry 4. 0. Like that decade is over. So we don't need to use that word anymore. And so that the session with Rick between fluff and not fluff. 

Madi: It was like myth or reality fluff.

It might have been peanut butter. So 

Natan: I think that was a good session and with the McKinsey team, Enno de Boer, it was pretty cool to show a glimpse of what a new production system might look like, which I think is already happening. It's just like it's not fully reloaded or redefined because everybody, do you have a production system?

Of course we do. And like I said, where is it? Once upon a time it used to be like plaques on the wall, like some documentation, but now it's like a bunch of digital tools. So having a chance to talk about that with a whole group of people, audience, get questions and because at the end of the day, yes, of course we care a lot about the platform that we build and sell, but uh, what does it actually do?

Yeah, it allows customers to build new kind of production systems that are just more future proof, robust, agile, digital, you name it. You can add a lot of attributes to it that change how those companies that they work for work. 

Madi: That's one of my favorite pieces is Being able to talk to and understand like how people worked and what they wanted to get out of that.

Um, and I think as like a hyper local session, like it was about 50, 50 U. S. and then traveling internationally to the event as like, you like to say, what is it? Boston's the West coast of Europe and we saw that represented in our attendees. But one of my favorite sessions was actually Liz Reynolds and secretary Yvonne Howes.

Session, which was really a focus on Massachusetts manufacturing and kind of the evolution and challenges there. And one thing that really stands out to me, and we talk about this a lot when we talk about operations, they're unique and they're dynamic and you have all these particular challenges and they look different in different regions.

But in a lot of ways, the core challenges. It's, even the core local challenges are similar to a lot of other regions and places and so you hear different flavors of the same story, but it's also like a connection to Massachusetts. It's a connection to assembly and this place and that we're, we're building the product and that was a really nice kind of loop and deep dive from the two of them.

So we would definitely encourage people to watch that. 

Natan: The design of the space was like, this would be a community place and, uh. You know, we talk also a lot about ecosystem and it's like, not all ecosystems are created equal and some, I want to say there's like the trivial part, like every platform has an ecosystem.

Why? Because, you know, you need people who become experts who can help you implement and help you think all that kind of stuff. But this was different, like a place or a community that represent an operation first type of ecosystem is something else because first of all, they deal with physical challenges and they deal with, uh, Universe of things you can integrate.

Yeah. Like from what do you use for your automation and sensors and like what is your software architecture on the back end IT of the company and no one size fits all by definition needs a completely different approach to the ecosystem and our challenge and it's not going to be just an operations calling it's like we have to continue this and how do we reflect that to our libraries and to the, to how people can continue and experience this because people could see the videos and.

Unfortunately videos don't relay the energy because the energy was like pretty cool to Z But at least they can see what people are talking about then they could go try themselves So like actually closing that loop is super important I 

Madi: think that part that you're talking about is so critical like to bridge the like Marketing or abstract feeling about something to the reality is you can't be a human centric platform without hearing from people And there's this nice feedback loop into like joint solutions in person that you're getting when you're speaking to the people who are doing The work and hearing both their successes and their their criticisms that really makes the event 

Natan: special.

This is where So, you know, back to our favorite word, which is composability is more than just an architecture. It's a different way of thinking about how to structure your operation. And that I feel like this year was not just because of us. It's like, obviously the ecosystem, I think we had something to do with it, but it is maturing.

So it feels like the market starts to understand it better. Yeah. So next year, maybe. It's time to scale it up, like, to more types of applications, connectivity, like, you know, we talked about Snowflake and Astorian, but we had a section in Operations Calling talking about the path for CHMIs, which is, some people are like, what?

Madi: CHMI, a composable HMI. Composable 

Natan: HMI. Human machine interfaces. And for some people it's like super clear and it's like, yes, it's finally here. And some people it's like, what are you guys talking about? Yeah. And, uh, kind of this kind of like this range. And it's really a moment where if the MES can become composable and elements of your automation can become composable, and we used to call the front end of our automation HMI, that in fact, we're talking about composable operations.

Yeah. And that, Is just a first step of, I don't know if it will become a formula, but Daniela, our keynote had like a nice formula for digital transformation. So it was pretty inspiring, but it's a kind of the sum of composable applications or areas of functionality that you can cover with a platform plus an operations first ecosystem.

That's where I kind of played on this notion that one customer told me that I stole shamelessly that said, you guys are kind of like the quarterback platform and I said like, yeah, that's kind of how I feel about it. Not knowing a ton about football. So thank you for teaching me about the quarterback. Of course, 

Madi: yeah, me, the football expert.

Well. 

Natan: Relative. All relative. But then it makes the people who actually use it the quarterbacks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can have the perfect most advanced IT architecture, you spend a ton on it, it's like, everything's great. But if you can't act once it's there, and you can't like, get action out of it, then what's the point?

Madi: 100 percent I think that really is like if I were to kind of wrap our convo on like, what was the, Big takeaway are like kind of my final thoughts when it comes to what happened at the event and what to look forward to. It's, I have so much faith in people and operations and the people who are participating and helping us grow this ecosystem.

So that's partners. That's. Analysts, that's like members of the press. There's so many cool people who are here kind of connecting with each other. And of course the folks that are on the front line and really thinking about the folks on the front line and the folks in operations as those quarterbacks, like we're all just here to make work better for those teams.

And I think that we're at a real inflection point for composable operations, which seems like the best kind of future outlook for those quarterbacks to really. Make the place they want to make. 

Natan: Yeah. I think all of this is to help organizations and the people who work in them take action. And we're seeing it and they took action, they came over and they really inspired us.

Obviously, we're very connected to the customer throughout the year, but like this is kind of like condensed. Hey, what you're all building, what we're building together is so important to our companies and to our partners and to our employees and to our leadership. It's just inspiring and um, can't wait to do it again next year.

Yeah. But you know, what's my takeaway is that we need to work on that magic bus technology to create more space. 

Madi: Yeah, I know. I got my pen right now. Magic bus. We need the magic bus. For operations. Yeah. All right. Until next time. Thank you. 

Announcer: Thank you for listening to the Augmented Ops podcast from Tulip Interfaces.

We hope you found this week's episode informative and inspiring. You can find the show on LinkedIn and YouTube or at tulip. co slash podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating or review on iTunes, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Until next time!