Digital Transformation with...

Each month we chat to transformation leads across the public and private sectors to understand a little about their digital journeys and to (hopefully) extract some best practices. This episode we chat cloud technologies, conversational data and working to a flat IT structure across the Chelmsford City Council organisation. Enjoy!

Digital Transformation across the Public Sector is widespread, varied... and not without its challenges. There are so many lessons to be learnt from those doing transformation well. We include Kay O'Flaherty in that bracket, and it was fascinating to hear how Kay is driving Wrexham County Borough Council's digital adoption; and how her most recent journey differs from her previous Local Authority roles. Enjoy!

During this Botcast episode, we talk to Emma Jackson, Digital Programme Manager and Abigail Barton, Communications and Engagement Manager at Monmouthshire County Council.  We Build Bots have been working with Monmouthshire County Council to develop their bilingual chatbot; Monty. Monmouthshire welcomed residents to ‘Love Digital’ on Friday, 25th January – St Dwynwen’s Day, the Welsh equivalent of Valentine’s Day – with the launch of Monty which is available 24/7/365 on Monmouthshire’s website – monmouthshire.gov.uk – and via its Facebook messenger service – @MonmouthshireCC. Monty is the first local authority chatbot in Wales and is set to enhance Monmouthshire County Council’s digital experience.  During this episode, they share how they have approached their digital transformation strategy, the key challenges they face as a council and how Monty is helping to combat these challenges. We also talk about what challenges they foresee for councils over the coming years and how they think chatbot technology and AI will help with these challenges. Lastly, we ask them what advice they would give to Councils who are wary about chatbot adoption.  If you're a council interested in learning more about how chatbot technology could help you save money, increase efficiencies and transform your customer service, book a demo ⇢ wbb.intelagent.ai/book-a-demo or email us at info@webuildbots.ai. As always, we love to hear what you’re enjoying, what you’re not and what you’d like to hear more of so please send your questions/ requests/ feedback to us via the Anchor.fm app directly or using #thebotcast on any of our social channels listed below. Twitter - @webuild_bots Instagram - @we_build_bots Facebook - @webuildbotsai Linkedin - @webuildbots

At the end of each month, Lucy Hopkins, Digital Marketing Manager at We Build Bots and Craig Pugsley, Director and Creative Lead at StudioFlow explore the hottest tech news and this month it's all about CES 2019.  They discuss how the major players in Voice showed up at CES and who came out on top, the best wearable tech applications and how practicality as apposed to novelty is key this year, how IOT has evolved from the Internet of Things to the Intelligence of Things thanks to AI, autonomous vehicles and of course LG and Samsung's impressive new TV releases that have got everybody talking. Plus much more! Botcast Listeners - We would love to hear what you’re enjoying, what you’re not and what you’d like to hear more of. Please send your questions/ requests/ feedback to us via the Anchor.fm app directly or using #thebotcast on any of our social channels listed below.  We'd also really appreciate a review on iTunes so that we can get The Botcast in front of even more like minded people. Your support is always hugely appreciated!  Twitter - @webuild_bots Instagram - @we_build_bots Facebook - @webuildbotsai Linkedin - @webuildbots

During this Botcast episode, we talk to Kane Simms, Host of VUX World (https://vux.world/) about what he's learnt from interviewing voice specialists over the past 6 months.  We also talk about voice search becoming the new organic search and whether voice search will be the death of SEO. We would love to hear what you’re enjoying, what you’re not and what you’d like to hear more of so please send your questions/ requests/ feedback to us via the Anchor.fm app directly or using #thebotcast on any of our social channels listed below. Twitter - @webuild_bots Instagram - @we_build_bots Facebook - @webuildbotsai Linkedin - @webuildbots

At the end of each month, Lucy Hopkins, Digital Marketing Manager at We Build Bots and Craig Pugsley, Director and Creative Lead at StudioFlow explore the hottest tech news stories to hit the press that month.  During this episode they discuss Alexa reaching it's 50,000 skills milestone, Google Pixels Night Sight and Google Assistants new feature releases, how voice SEO works, news hot off the press regarding the tag team that is Apple and Amazon PLUS some great Christmas gift ideas for the technophiles in your life. This one isn't to be missed! Botcast Listeners - We would love to hear what you’re enjoying, what you’re not and what you’d like to hear more of. Please send your questions/ requests/ feedback to us via theAnchor.fm app directly or using #thebotcast on any of our social channels listed below. Twitter - @webuild_bots Instagram - @we_build_bots Facebook - @webuildbotsai Linkedin - @webuildbots

During this Botcast episode, we interview Charlie Cadbury, CEO at Say It Now about what he's learnt working with major brands such as Marriott Hotels, Ministry of Sound, Virgin Media, Aviva, Greggs and BBC. Stores using conversational commerce in the right way are said to be increasing annual revenue by 7 - 25% so we talk to Charlie about best practices, how conversational SEO works and what the future of communication looks like for brands and customers. We would love to hear what you’re enjoying, what you’re not and what you’d like to hear more of so please send your questions/ requests/ feedback to us via the Anchor.fm app directly or using #thebotcast on any of our social channels listed below. Twitter - @webuild_bots Instagram - @we_build_bots Facebook - @webuildbotsai Linkedin - @webuildbots

At the end of each month, Lucy Hopkins, Digital Marketing Manager at We Build Bots and Craig Pugsley, Director and Creative Lead at StudioFlow explore the hottest tech news stories to hit the press that month. During this episode they discuss Facebook Portal, Google Duplex, Amazons new machine learning courses as well as how screens and smart phones have alienated an entire generation but how voice could hold the power to reconnecting them. Botcast Listeners - We would love to hear what you’re enjoying, what you’re not and what you’d like to hear more of. Please send your questions/ requests/ feedback to us via the Anchor.fm app directly or using #thebotcast on any of our social channels listed below. Twitter - @webuild_bots Instagram - @we_build_bots Facebook - @webuildbotsai Linkedin - @webuildbots

Over the next three episodes, we focus specifically on Voice ~ The Botcast VUX Series. During this episode, we talk to Craig Pugsley, Director and Creative Lead at Studio Flow about what he's learnt working with conversational user interfaces, his time at Just Eat where he created the UK’s very first e-commerce Alexa skill and his VCSW meet-up where he brings together a community of VUX designers, chat engineers and conversational product owners to talk about all things Voice. We also chat about IFA 2018 in Berlin, Studio Flow's approach to building voice interfaces and what Craig predicts the next 5 years will look like in the world of voice and chat bots. Remember to use #TheBotcast to share your thoughts, topic ideas and guest suggestions.

We talk to Adam about what he learnt during his one month tech pilgrimage, his continuous experimentation in the voice space and how Greenwood Campbell has evolved and adapted in this rapidly changing landscape.

We talk to Pete about how companies can embrace digital transformation, the importance of testing and celebrating failure and how slow and steady no longer wins the race.

We talk to Paul Shepherd, CEO of We Build Bots about their rapid growth after overfunding by 55%. We also talk about micro services, how WBB's product IntelAgent is revolutionising customer services and what chatbots can do for businesses as a whole.

We talk to Lisa about her personal organisation chatbot; 'Our Canary' which takes all spheres of life into consideration - not just your calendar. We also discuss opportunities within voice and what it's like being a minority in the tech industry.

The World Economic Forum have said that it’s going to take 217 years to close the gender pay gap. Dr Zara Nanu (CEO at Gap Square) and her team are aiming to do this in under 20 years. If you are interested in learning about how AI is being used to close the gender pay gap then you are sure to enjoy this episode with Zara. Zara mentioned that for companies with 10,000 employees it would take around £14 million to close the gender pay gap if it were to be done now and for every year that they don’t look at this issue they accrue another £250,000 pounds that will need to be spent eventually. Take a listen to learn how you can go about solving this issue in your business. During the news section of The Botcast, blockchain based platform Opet which is designed to address the divide in education was mentioned. You can find out more about them here: https://bit.ly/2nz

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We caught up with Dorset Council recently as a part of their digital network initiative; a monthly gathering of council team members and external technology providers that examines best practices in digital transformation, and explores the art of the possible. This month was all about AI, automation and robotics, and we managed to chat with Lisa Trickey, Digital Strategy and Design Service Manager, Penny Syddall, Senior Communications Officer, and Laura Hall, Digital Manager. Here are the best bits!

This week, we chatted to Dave Vincent, Chief Digital Officer Tourism Northern Ireland.  We're keen to learn more about their mission to build the value of tourism in the local economy and how technology plays a part in this. We talk about the success story of tourism in Iceland (having grown considerably in economic significance in the past 15 years) and how Ireland has mirrored this with their successes using emerging technologies such as AR & VR. We ask Dave what the main challenges are within Tourism Northern Ireland and which technologies are helping to combat these challenges as well as which tech is currently falling short. We ask all of our guests which resources they use to enhance their digital transformation knowledge. Daves' top picks are WIRED, Gartner and Forrester as well as events such as Digital Tourism Think Tank.  As always, we love to hear your thoughts and suggestions, so please send your questions/ requests/ feedback to us via the Anchor.fm app directly or using #thebotcast on any of our social channels listed below. You can also find us at ⇢ wbb.ai or email us at info@wbb.ai. Twitter - @webuild_bots Instagram - @we_build_bots Facebook - @webuildbotsai Linkedin - @webuildbots

The Botcast is one year old! During the best bits part two, we highlight our conversations with the following guests … Michael Sage, Head of Digital Transformation, Chelmsford City Council. We talk about the top challenges he's faced working within local authorities with the rise of digital. Karen Cawte, Digital Transformation Manager at West Lothian Council. We talk to Karen about their contribution to setting up the Local Government Digital Partnership along with 31 other Scottish Local Authorities plus much more. Alex Cousins, Business Development Director at Capita. Alex offers a fantastic birds eye view of 20 years in transformation. Steven Kyle, Transformation Programme Manager at Dundee City Council. We discuss what their transformation model looks like in relation to service design, how they're approaching digital transformation as a whole. Lee Jones - Head of Contact Centre Newport, Lucy Parton - Head of Transformation and James Harrison - Head of Robotics and AI at Lloyds Banking Group. We talk about Lloyds £3 billion investment in technology and staff to improve digital services, how they're planning to better engage with their 14 million digitally active customers. Jenny Nelson, Digital Newcastle Programme Manager at Newcastle City Council. We talk about how Jenny’s tackled imposture syndrome, the adoption of their adult social care bot, how Newcastle is set to become the UK’s leading Smart City plus much more! Paul Ward, Head of ICT & Digital at Coventry City Council. Budget cuts are a challenge faced across the board so we talk about how they're using technology to help make savings as well as drive innovation. Natasha Bhambhra, Senior Strategy Advisor at Government Digital Service. We talk to Natasha about the GDS Academy, DDaT Fast Stream programme as well as their Emerging Technology Development Programme. Derek Hobbs Interim Director of Business Development and Digital Transformation at Careers Wales. We discuss Derek’s highly praised Carer’s Allowance Digital Service which has an impressive satisfaction score of 90% and a take-up of over 70%! Aaqib Usman, Founder & CEO at Midwest Immersive. We wanted to know how the public sector could use immersive technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) to better engage constituents. Let us know your favourite episodes and top takeaways using #thebotcast on any of our social channels listed below or via Anchor.fm. You can also find us at ⇢ wbb.ai or email us at info@wbb.ai. Twitter - @webuild_bots Instagram - @we_build_bots Facebook - @webuildbotsai Linkedin - @webuildbots

The Botcast is one year old! And in celebration of it’s first birthday, we thought we’d throwback to some of the best bits and top takeaways over the past year! There are so many, so here is part one where we highlight our conversations with the following guests … Julian Harris, Head of Technology Research at CognitionX. We discuss Digital Autonomous Organisations (DAO’s), how London has just emerged as the AI Capital of Europe and how to harness the power of AI in business. Dr Zara Nanu, CEO at Gapsquare. The World Economic Forum have said that it’s going to take 217 years to close the gender pay gap. Dr Zara Nanu and her team are aiming to do this in under 20 years so we talk about how she’s planning to achieve this. Lisa Matthews, CEO at HellyHolly. Lisa is building a personal organisation chatbot called 'Our Canary' which takes all spheres of life into consideration - not just your calendar. We also discuss opportunities within voice and what it's like being a minority in the tech industry. Pete Gatenby, Chief Strategy Officer at B60. We talk to Pete about how companies can embrace digital transformation, the importance of testing and celebrating failure and how slow and steady no longer wins the race. Kane Simms, Host of VUX World. We find out what Kanes learnt from chatting to voice specialists over the past 6 months. We also talk about voice search becoming the new organic search and whether voice search will be the death of SEO. Emma Jackson, Digital Programme Manager and Abigail Barton, Communications and Engagement Manager at Monmouthshire County Council. We talk about the launch of their new chatbot Monty and how it’s helping them better engage with constituents. Cindy Rose OBE, CEO at Microsoft UK. Microsoft publicly commit to re-skilling people already working in the tech industry in areas such as the Cloud and AI - specifically in the public sector so we wanted to know what this looks like and how Cindy see's AI impacting the Government as a whole. We also talk about how with the potential of AI often comes unintended consequences and lastly we touch upon how AI is being used to address broader societal issues. Alison Hughes, Assistant Director of ICT Strategic Partnerships at Wigan & Bolton Councils. Alison was voted #2 Female Gov Tech Leaders 2018 and Top 30 Women In Tech Manchester. We chat to her about the challenges they face at Wigan and Bolton and their decision to outsource IT in a £47m contract in 2013 and how they go about storing and effectively utilising the data of 600,000 citizens plus much more! Kieron McGhie, Strategic Transformation Workstream Lead at Barking and Dagenham Council. Kieron has helped generate vast savings by integrating 2 major councils with digital solutions resulting in them offering services online as well as being an influencer and significant contributor as part of 2 major digital platform roll outs with 2 large local authorities. We were excited to understand Kieron's birds eye view perspective on councils across the world in order to really understand challenges across the board. Let us know your favourite episodes and top takeaways either via the Anchor.fm app directly or using #thebotcast on any of our social channels listed below. You can also find us at ⇢ wbb.ai or email us at info@wbb.ai. Twitter - @webuild_bots Instagram - @we_build_bots Facebook - @webuildbotsai Linkedin - @webuildbots

This week, we went international and caught up with Chicago based Aaqib Usman, Founder & CEO at Midwest Immersive. In July 2016, Aaqib set up Midwest Immersive which is an interactive technology studio that works with brands and agencies combining new media art forms and emerging technologies to create one-of-a-kind consumer experiences. They’ve worked with a number of major brands including Nike, Adidas and Cadbury as well as won multiple awards for innovation.  Aaqib tells us about some of the most interesting and exciting projects he’s working on including the creation of a Snapchat lens that gained 24,000 views in just four hours as well as working on a project with Adidas during the 2018 FIFA World Cup.  I wanted to know how the public sector could use immersive technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) to better engage constituents. Aaqib came up with some great examples so if you’re looking for ways to better engage your community, grab a cup of tea and take half an hour to listen to this episode.  We ask all of our guests which resources they use to enhance their digital transformation knowledge. Aaqib’s top pick was a podcast called AngelList where you learn investing from experienced angels and VCs. As always, we love to hear your thoughts and suggestions, so please send your questions/ requests/ feedback to us via the Anchor.fm app directly or using #thebotcast on any of our social channels listed below. You can also find us at ⇢ wbb.ai or email us at info@wbb.ai. If you'd like to be a guest, you can contact our host directly ⇢ lucy@wbb.ai.  Twitter - @webuild_bots Instagram - @we_build_bots Facebook - @webuildbotsai Linkedin - @webuildbots