Don't Neglect Deep Work

AI in Action! Check it out

Hey procurement legends,

Firstly, sorry for being incredibly quiet for the last month. I find it inevitable that this will happen at various points in the year, because I’ve been in a constant state of deep work.

Deep work for me is an enriching period where distractions or side projects really do just get parked to one side—despite my almost insatiable urge to get back to them. But it’s been a busy summer moving into autumn, filled with customer visits, events, and a ton of work around building a team. It’s been incredibly rewarding.

I just wanted to bring a few things to your attention:

IBM’s AI in Action Podcast

I’ve recently sat down with IBM for their AI in Action podcast. Their host, David Levy, is an outstanding thinker and host, and I think all of you would get some value from tuning in. Make sure you subscribe—it’s excellent on AI use cases, and there have been some excellent episodes lately.

Definitely go check it out.

SuiteWorld in Las Vegas

I recently attended SuiteWorld in Las Vegas. Vegas is a weird and wonderful place—always one I’m happy to see the back of! But what was amazing was seeing procurement and finance leaders really thinking about how they bring the two functions together and use AI automation to do this better than ever before.

There’s always so much polarising content about procurement sitting in finance. I’m kind of blasé to it, if I’m being honest. I think there’s a huge advantage in many ways to having the two so closely aligned. There are also some disadvantages when you have poor leadership in place, and I think we should all be real about that. But with good, strong leadership in these areas, the two can be an absolute unstoppable force within a business.

Public Speaking at SuiteWorld

As part of this event, I did probably the biggest public speaking gig of my marketing career—there were about 90 procurement and finance leaders in the room. For one, I despise public speaking. I find it incredibly hard and incredibly stressful. I probably over-prep only to then feel completely under-prepped all of the time.

But for anyone currently doing public speaking around their work: I get it. Super challenging, but super fun and rewarding at the same time.

Looking Ahead

That’s it for this week. I really do hope I can get back to these weekly briefs. I know I’m incredibly inconsistent with them, but I only want to bring you super useful, exciting information or personal experiences that I feel will benefit you in your own professional careers.

Thanks for sticking with me,

Daniel