Skip to content

#Altitude21 Day 1 Recap: IT Continues to Reinvent Itself, Plus a Chat With the Assistant (to the) Regional Manager

BetterCloud

November 3, 2021

3 minute read

1201304011476872.nI5VbkhyT0fr0PXA2p2A height640

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Bears, beets, best of breed SaaS strategies.

OK, that wasn’t the line. But on the first day of Altitude 2021, we did get to chat with Rainn Wilson about his career, how his (and everyone’s) approach to work has evolved, and how he uses technology to stay connected with friends and family members. 

We also heard from our CEO David Politis, who kicked off the conference by taking us through the history of IT, the evolution of IT’s role, and the massive opportunity to use SaaSOps to transform the way people work forever. You can check out the full sessions here, but here’s a brief recap in case you only have a few minutes.

Want to join the fun? You can still grab a seat for Day 2 and 3 here, where you’ll also get on-demand access to this week’s sessions and workshops.

SaaS is here to stay, and IT has never been more critical to their organizations

Raise your hand if you knew that in the 1960s, IT was responsible for finding the right physical locations to store mainframes. OK, just me?

Anyway, it’s no secret that IT has evolved dramatically over the last few decades. During his keynote address, BetterCloud’s CEO David Politis walked us through the interesting (and frankly, weird) history of IT. 

The current state of affairs? Enterprise SaaS—and Politis says it’s here to stay for the foreseeable future.

“We are in the century of SaaS. We are going to spend the rest of our careers with SaaS applications in our environments.” -David Politis, CEO of BetterCloud

What does this mean for IT leaders and admins? A brand new mindset driven by the employee experience, zero trust, and IT efficiency. Politis unpacked his keynote in an in-depth blog post, which you can check out here. And you should, because he did a much better job than I could have with it.

Dwight Schrute reflected on how much work has changed for everyone

Raise your hand if you joined us yesterday just to hear from Rainn Wilson. If your hand is in the air, your secret is safe with me.

During a Q&A with our head of customer success, Joe Iantosca, Wilson reflected on his career and how the pandemic impacted how he goes to work as an actor. “You’ll notice that I’m wearing this hat,” Wilson quipped. “And that is because my hair is a mess.”

But on a serious note, Wilson says he’s noticed everyone’s approach has changed in two ways. First, he says it’s abundantly clear that people really want to feel connected to their work. Beyond that, Wilson believes that our current WFH lifestyle is (and should be) permanent.

“The way we view work and ‘go to work’ in the future will never be the same again, because [we realized] how much we can do remotely.” -Rainn Wilson

Wilson adds that he doesn’t believe physical offices will cease to exist. But he does believe that it opens up new possibilities. And he hypothesized what the writer’s room for The Office would have come up with if Dwight and Jim had been forced to sell paper remotely. Check out the full session to hear more about Wilson’s experience as an actor during the pandemic—and for his thoughts on how Kevin Malone would have coped. 

Additional suggested viewing from yesterday’s Altitude sessions

This is the part of the recap where I hope I’ve convinced you to carve out some time to watch all of yesterday’s sessions. To whet your appetite, here’s a brief menu of presentations that you can check out:

This is just a small sample of what you missed yesterday. Check out yesterday’s entire slate of Altitude sessions by registering here.

Categories

Related Articles