Peter Parker is the leader of the Advanced Analytics practice at Redapt. He’s worked at Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Sprint, and other large organizations focused on complex data platforms.
He’s also a globetrotter—he’s been to 38 countries and all 6 (normally) habitable continents. He loves to travel, and likes to occasionally “set up a base” in other countries and work for a few weeks. About five years ago, he joined Redapt to launch his current practice.
Tell us a little bit about what you do at Redapt?
I run a team of data scientists, engineers, and architects that help clients all over the US develop cloud-forward data platforms and implement advanced analytics programs. On my team, we focus specifically on data science, big data, traditional data platforms, and visualization.
There are 30 of us, and the work we do ranges from strategic planning to very tactical implementations. About 20 of us are in the Seattle area, but I have strategically distributed senior consultants and architects all around the country.
How do your remote team members fit into the picture?
There are really three primary benefits for us in having remote team members. First and foremost, it allows us to source talent wherever it may be, and not have to be bound by where our physical offices are. That gives us the widest possible talent pool to draw from, and lets us employ the best and brightest in our field.
The second benefit to having so many remote team members is that it allows us to have senior talent in-market where our customers are operating, so that we can be as responsive as possible and go face-to-face as needed.
Finally, the third benefit to having remote team members is the total flexibility it offers our entire team — even those of us here in Seattle — to work from wherever they are without missing a beat. That’s possible because of our collaboration tools, including our now indispensable Vibe Board.
How does the Vibe Board fit into the equation?
My Vibe has become a critical tool in my toolbox. In my office, I don’t have a traditional whiteboard anymore. I ONLY use my Vibe for everything from organizing my to-do list to real-time architecture sessions with customers.
But it goes beyond our internal workflows. Vibe has become a very powerful sales tool, and really differentiates us from competitors in the space. Often, we’re going into competitive situations—being able to just pull up the Vibe Board and demonstrate our technological depth and understanding of a customer’s situation can make the difference between closed lost and closed won.
So your Vibe Board fits into your sales process as well?
Absolutely. Recently we had a lead that was difficult for us to qualify and located on the east coast, far from a major city. We opted to have our initial meeting remotely instead of sending someone way out there to do an in-person.
At the last minute, I added an invite to our Vibe Board. The meeting turned into a two hour deep dive into technology, trends in the industry, and how the cloud can enable them. We ended up beating out two other competitors and immediately got in pole position for a large data warehouse project we eventually won.
At the end of the sales process, they said the ability for them to follow along with our work on the Vibe Board, and the fact that we sent out the PNG of the whiteboard work right after the meeting, was a major reason we were selected for the project. The flexibility and responsiveness of the board helped us remove barriers to collaboration and get down to serious, in-depth work quickly—even when we didn’t expect to.
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