Rita Patel Jackson Previews OpenText World 2024

This is Textron tv. Hey everyone, how are you? Welcome back to Techstrong tv.

I am really excited to have my friend Rita Patel Jackson on with us. Rita, if you don't know, is the SVP of Product Marketing at OpenText. Hey, Rita, welcome back to Text Drug tv.

It's great to have you on. It's amazing to have be here with you again, Alan, Thanks for coming in. You know, there's a little turnaround the last couple times you've been kind of interviewing me as we've spoken, uh, for the recent, uh, DevSecOps Virtual Summit that OpenText had.

And I, I was on a few, had a great time, but now, now you're coming in for mine. You can interview me. Yeah.

Now turnaround. Fantastic. Okay.

Be kind. I I you never have to worry. Um, so Rita, if you don't mind though, I would like, you know, a lot of our audience is very technical.

They say, oh, SVP or product marketing, fancy title. She can't be technical, right? And she can't be technical, but surprise, you're technical.

Uh, tell people a little bit of, you know, you weren't always the SVP of product marketing over here. Tell us a little bit about your career path, Rita. Oh, wow.

Well, you can look me up on LinkedIn. Um, I've had an amazing career. So I ended up at OpenText about two years ago, and I am in charge of product marketing for all of the wonderful things that OpenText does.

And I think the reason that this role really, uh, spoke to me was I spent a lot of time at IBM doing a lot of various things. I am actually a programmer by trait. Don't be scared.

I used to program, and this is why this Space DevSecOps is so fun for me because if we had tools back then that we have today, I think I might still be programming versus sitting where I'm sitting today. I've also done a lot with the AI space. I used to work for Watson, then went to GE Healthcare and had a really amazing, uh, ride there where we put AI onto medical devices, specifically X-rays, mammography machines, fetal heart, fetal brain, um, and have done some amazing things back and forth.

But when you look at what OpenText provides, we do everything from security to analytics to developers, to IT operations, to content management, to experiences to supply chain and business networks. So, ba this, this role helps me take everything that I've done in my past lives and kind of put it all together and work with across all of the different business units to kind of really help solve some big problems for customers, specifically around information management. Wow.

So first of all, you folks out there, there you go. Don't ever judge anyone just by their title, because it's a lifetime underneath that. Okay.

I have Been in this space for a long time, and I am an AI geek, so I am fascinated with artificial intelligence and where this space is going. And I truly believe that now is the time. You and I talked about this, been doing this for decades.

I'm not young, but, uh, finally we have enough data and processing power to really hone in on AI and across all of the different functions. Really young is relative. You're still young.

Don't worry. Okay, thank You. I'm gonna take that, I'm gonna take that home with me.

Just wanted to let you know, but, um, you know what they say, every old person looks in the mirror and says, how did I get that old? How did I Get here? I, you know, if I could talk to my younger self, you would never get Things I would've told.

Exactly. You would be both. Um, you know, so you, you spoke a little bit about the breadth of the OpenText solution set, and as SVP product marketing, you're responsible for all of that.

I'm, and you know, I, I firmly believe that you, in order to talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk. And so you need to have some real, real knowledge of these things. Mm-Hmm.

Especially, you know, it's one thing, and I'm not demeaning anything, but it's one thing to do markup, right? Yes. I do my pr I do some lead gen activity.

I, you know, I, I do markup, but product marketing, you've gotta be a product expert in order to do the marketing for that product You do. And that's why a lot of product marketing falls under the product team, not necessarily the marketing team. Right.

How do you, I mean, it takes someone like you with a lifetime of experience to kind of have that breath Yeah. Of knowledge. So, um, I always tell people that you don't go to college for product marketing.

You literally fall into this role. And a lot of us have experience either on the marketing side or on the product side. I came from the product side primarily because I dig in, um, I think I'm the product marketer, uh, the product manager's like worst nightmare.

Sometimes when I onboard on a product line or a product, I literally like to get in and demo. I like to see how it works because the more you know, the more you can articulate it. And then the other side of what product marketing does is we sit with the customers.

So it's one thing to build the product and understand why we built it and for whom. It's another thing to talk to the customers and actually sit down with them and see how are you using the tools that we have created to solve some your problems? And that's where the magic happens, is I think when we sit in product marketing, you get to work with both.

We sit in the middle between the product and well sales, but mostly sales because they, they're, you know, the direct connection into customers. But we tell, I always tell people, my job is to be the expert in the customer. I need to understand first and foremost, what are the problems that we're trying to solve?

How are we, how are they trying to solve them? And then come back and translate all of the technology that we're creating into those problems. So we're translators.

'cause you know, technology folks, I, I was a geek, right? I, I can talk bit and bites feature functions. We love that, right?

As technologists, we love to say what we created, but then on the other side of the, the, the equation, it's really helping to solve problems. So you have to be in the middle and to code the technical into the business, you know, the business language so that you can actually start to converse with the customers in their language. Absolutely.

Very cool. Rita, before we jump into OpenText world, there's one other area I wanted to bring up. I know you didn't come front center with it, much like, uh, vice president Kamala Harris doesn't bring up the fact that she's woman or a minority because it's kind of self, self-evident, it's self-evident that you're a woman as well, but you are passionate about empowering other women, right?

Oh, yeah. Passing it, pay, paying it forward, passing it on, and creating work life balance for women, right? This is, and, and it, look, I'm not looking to mansplain and I can't imagine, I'm not gonna say I could walk a mile in your shoes or anything like this.

Oh. But for women, the whole work life balance thing of raising a fear, it, of having it's, it's real every day. If you don't mind, talk about that a little bit.

Oh, um, well, I, I did that journey. So I have raised two wonderful children who are both adults now. And I, I always put my family first.

My children are always first. And, um, the unfortunate challenge we have as women, and especially minority women in, in this workforce in technology is you get, you reach a point in their career where you wanna be a mother or you wanna get married, or you wanna go raise family, or, you know, I'm in that generation where I have elderly parents and we're the, we're the so much by nature and you, you feel like you have to make a choice and you don't. So I am an advocate.

I was able to raise my children while I had my career and I asked for it. So I was very privileged in the roles that I had that we could do job sharing. Then I could go part-time work, you know, an accelerated 40 hour week and still keep my vice president title, be able to go, literally working two to three hour, two to three days a week on my time so that I could spend time with the children.

Um, and then also asking, I, I feel like the challenge that we have as women in tech is we forget that we have a voice and we have a voice at the table. And don't be scared to use it. Because I think if you don't ask for the, for the, for what you need in order to have the work-life balance, I have a lot of young women that are mothers, that, and fathers, right?

Let's, let's be honest right now in the generation we live in, it's, you know, it's the, the fathers and the mothers are, my son is, I'm a grandmother. And so my son and my daughter-in-law share a responsibility. And I can tell you they're both struggling.

He's, my grand baby's four months old, they're both back in the workforce and they're both asking for what they need in order to have the work life balance. So my recommendation to everybody is ask for it and put your walls around it, right? I mean, you're, it's not like where anybody's asking you to work 80 hour weeks.

We're asking everybody to be efficient and get your job done in the time that you can. So if you put your boundaries around, these are the hours that I'm gonna be fully dedicated to giving the company all that I have, and this is the time that I'm really gonna be focused on being a mother, a grandmother, a a wife, you know, a, a a a daughter. Um, then it works.

Um, I think the challenge we have is we forget to ask. Agree. Thank you for that.

I appreciate it. Very passionate. I met for a lot of young women.

So there, they just keep coming in because it's, it's beautiful. There's um, so many young women in tech right now, and I don't want them to feel like they have to make a choice. They don't.

Right. They shouldn't have to sacrifice. They Don't have to.

No. Agreed. And, and like you said, men too, right?

I mean, yeah. More men today are not ashamed to say I'm actively involved in raising my children. I know I love this about this generation.

They're very, they're partners in raising the children as it should be, right? Yep. I agree.

And I feel like they should both have opportunities and a lot of companies have extended their maternity leave to extend it to longer times maternity leave. My, my son got, you know, two months off, uh, when the baby was born. It's incredible.

Yep. Agreed. Agreed.

Alright, let us know. I'm sorry I took you down this whole other You Did. But let's talk about, um, open Tax world.

It's open tax world 2024. I'm really Excited about everything we have coming. Yep.

It's coming up in Vegas. It's, what is it? It's about, it's three weeks or two and a half weeks at this point.

Yeah, Yeah. Why should, why should people out here care? Why should they go tell us, give us the preview, Rita.

Oh gosh. We have, um, I'm gonna focus on DevSecOps for a second. Um, one of the big things that we're doing at OpenText World, it's all about information reimagined and elevating the knowledge worker.

And so what we're and about AI, security and the cloud. So if you think about three things, it's the cloud, AI and security. Everything is in the cloud.

AI is embedded in everything that we do. And security has to be embedded in every single transaction, every single interaction that we have. And what you'll see at the conference is how we bring that to life.

So one of the privileges that I've had this year is not only do we have certifications, so we have pre-conference education sessions, we have certifications. So if you wanna come in and you wanna get certified on some of our, you know, DevOps products or content or it, um, IT security or IT operations, we, we have certification programs. And then we are going to be sharing through some sessions around our products about all of the new innovation that we have.

4, which is November 18th, which is where our big launches, along with what's happening in the next year. All of the innovation across all nine business units that we have, uh, coming up. Um, and what we are doing a little different, I've challenged my entire, all my product marketers is, it's one thing to tell you what we're doing.

It's another thing to show you. So what you'll see is live product demonstrations. You'll walk into the expo center and see these things in life.

And one of the fun things if you come to our DevOps, um, area, is we've created this, um, what did we call this? I, I think I let it down. Uh, we've called it the expert bar.

That's it. So you come in and it's like, you know, like what you do when you walk in to get support. I'm not allowed to say the the term, but it's like genius.

I get it. I know, But it's similar to that. Okay, you didn't say that.

I did. Come make your Coffee. Sit down, talk to some of our product experts, some of our customer experts, and learn more about the product and actually play with the product.

Because until you play with the, with our technology and our solutions, you, you don't really understand the benefit and the value of what we provide. So what we're trying to do this year is really bring everything to life for our customers. We also have an industry area where you can come in and if you're a healthcare professional or a banking professional or a manufacturer, you can come in and see our technology in the context.

So there's, there'll be hospital beds and ATMs and things like that. So you can see the technology behind the things, the daily activities that you're doing today. So that's the money part this year.

Sounds good. It's all about information reimagined and elevating the knowledge worker and everybody is a knowledge worker. Absolutely.

It sounds great. Now, OpenText world is in Vegas. It is.

It sure is. What what hotel? Venetian.

The Venetian, right? Venetian. And, um, we are gonna be there live, unfortunately I won't be there.

We've got Mike Rashard. Well, they got Mike Mike's the chief content officer and he writes a lot more than me. So, okay.

You better off with him to tell you the truth. But Mike Ard will be there. And Mitchell Ashley, our CTO and VP analyst of FU group, as for DevOps will be there.

We'll be also our video team will be there and we'll be broadcasting. Oh, wonderful. We'll be broadcasting live all week.

Um, and then of course we'll be replaying that on text on tv. So it's not the same as being there. Believe me, if you can get there, get that.

But you know what, if You can't be there live, being there virtually is just as fun. We're gonna try to be of, hopefully with your camera crew, you can go around and see a lot of Yes. We're, we're gonna have a lot of lot of people sessions talk, Talk to our customers, our product experts.

Yep. Uh, we, you know, DevOps is really, you know, come in and look at some of the technology we have around DevSecOps and all around our automation tools, how AI is, And AI as well. Automate all, you know, it'll text Over place.

Absolutely. There'll be, there'll be something for everyone there. There is Something for everybody.

Speaking of virtual though, you guys recently, I guess, uh, it's gotta be about, about three weeks ago now, did a, a DevSecOps Virtual Summit. We did. And it's available on demand still.

And they I did, I did. I was on a few panels. I did a one-on-one with you.

I loved it. So if you wanna see what's happening in DevSecOps, I highly, highly recommend it. com.

If you go to recent events, it'll be on there. Is it available via the OpenText site as well? Rita?

It should be available on the OpenText website as well. Excellent. And Then listen and learn a little bit more about what we're doing in this space.

We had some really good conversations and we're gonna be continuing those conversations at OpenText World as well. So it's a really good precursor to OpenText world. Now, OpenText world, is there a separate website for that, that people can go to?

com if you click there, it's right on our homepage And it goes right. Okay. Right from there.

It Takes you right there Who, because this said, look, everybody's budget is tight. They want to put in for travel funds and everything else. Who should, like, who's the target?

What are the personas that should really Yeah, really not Miss OpenText world? Um, a couple because of the breadth of what we have, of course the, the c-suite that we've got an entire track for executives. But I would say, um, it, it's the users.

This is a user conference and it's really for the users of the technology. And so for this place, it would be the IT operations, IT managers, anyone that is actually playing and using our tools. I hate to say play, but I actually think a lot of our tools are fun.

I'm, I'm that weird person. And, um, and so anybody that's using our tools, so our, I would say the IT operations, IT managers, um, the developers, we have an entire track for developers. And, um, so I think those are the big, big key people.

I would highly encourage everybody to go into the website and look at the sessions. I challenge anybody. I think there is something for everybody.

We've actually even, um, you can sort by technology track if that's what you're interested in. If you're interested in the c-suite, high level keynotes to, um, just get a high level breadth of what we have, whether you're gonna join virtually or in person, we'd love to have you in person. Uh, it's also the same week as Formula One.

So for those of you that love cars, Ooh, the track is set up from what I, Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And the Vacation is connected to the sphere, so you know, on the off time you can.

And There's a group called the Eagles playing. Oh, is there? I don't know if they're playing that week.

'cause I, I might go, I don't know that week. 'cause you know, obviously, I mean there's open text, then we go home for Thanksgiving. Exactly.

And then back to Vegas for reinvent. Yes. And um, I think I'm scheduled to be a reinvent and I'm gonna go see the Eagles.

Well, good for you. Tell me how it is. I will, I'll try to keep, I don't have time when I'm at this conference to, to have any of that.

No, well, no, I'm staying, I'm staying through this Saturday night because who has time at a conference? Doesn't, I don't, I love talking to the customers. I spend most of my time with the customers and the analysts.

It's my one time of the year that we really get to interact with. No, It is, that's Spend a lot time with. Yeah.

You talk about work life balance. I little confession on my part. Okay.

I've got my wife flying out that Thursday of, of reinvent. 'cause it really ends that Thursday night. Friday everybody goes home.

And then Friday I'm spending the day with her. And Friday night we're going to go see the Eagles. Yay.

And Saturday we'll come home. So sometimes you gotta stop and smell the coffee too, right? You do Worklife balance.

I think that you have to, I always say work hard, play harder and, um, you know, it's, it, you can't revolve. That's the only way I I tell my team, you don't take time for yourself. You're not gonna be innovative and creative at work.

And our job is all about innovation and creativity. And so if you're constantly working, you're really not doing yourself a service. Take the time because you're absolute much, much more creative when you've had some time to relax.

Can't wait to see what you're gonna come up with after you see The Eagles are one of my favorite bands. You too. The things you learn on tv.

I know. Crazy. Hey Rita, thank you so much for coming on.

This was, this was delightful. Thank you Alan. Make it a great OpenText world.

We'll be reporting, we'll have tons of coverage, so we'll be right there. com to get you there. Sign up.

We have the provost going on right now as well. Ring a friend. Absolutely.

Security signed Up. Your friend gets to sign up for free. So I'd love to see all of you there.

If you're there, look me up. I'll, you'll see me on the show floor, you'll see me walk in the halls. Uh, come say hi.

Absolutely reader Patel Jackson, a Treasure SVP product Marketing OpenText. You're watching text from tv. We'll be right back.