MarTech Interview with Drew Chapin, Vice President of Marketing at Hyland

How exciting is the current Information Management ecosystem today?

Very exciting. The industry is able to move beyond the data you own and bringing in intent data and other demand signals to help predict where demand is occurring.

Tell us about your role and journey into Technology. What inspired you to start at Hyland?

I’ve been in technology since college and served as an Army Signal Officer. I transitioned to Civilian roles at big technology companies like HP and SAP. My move to Hyland was largely driven by the company culture. It’s a people- empowering culture focused on customer success. Hyland’s culture breeds innovation and creativity which are extremely important in category-leading technology companies.

How do you focus on bringing Content Management trends and Data Analytics together at Hyland? What are the core technologies driving your product?

Hyland is looking to provide a first-class experience for developers and partners alike. The experience involves the exposure of easy-to-use, REST-based APIs along with HTML components. A developer can choose to program at any level of the stack, including APIs, Components, integration into the applications or any combination thereof. Hyland has always had a point and click the configurable interface, and we’ve always been believers in and promoted the use of our low code/no-code environments. However, in today’s API economy it is necessary to have access to content services capabilities at all layers of the stack, whether you are point and click configuring the application, extending an existing application, or building a new application out of components and APIs.

Part of the vision here is to provide access to a content services app store, where partners and developers have the ability to post applications built on our technology stack. Applications can be certified, and deployed into customer environments in our SaaS offering. Internally, our own developers both in R&D and Services will have the ability to build and publish solutions to the application store as well, thereby allowing an ecosystem in which customers, partners, and our own services organization can interact, deploy, and extend solutions.

For example, Enterprise Search and the underlying Document Filters technology are two solutions the bridge content services and data analytics. Document Filters has deep file analytics capability, allowing applications (ours and built by third parties) to deeply inspect over 550 file formats and extract all text, comments, and metadata. This is a critical capability for any applications managing enterprise content.

Meanwhile, our Brainware product is an intelligent capture solution that leverages AI and machine learning. So there are a few places across the content lifecycle where we leverage data/content analytics capabilities.

(Note of clarification: Document Filters is an SDK that developers can use in their own applications. It is not a product end-users can leverage on its own. Enterprise Search is an end-user product that uses Document Filters technology to help users find content across the countless repositories and data sources throughout the organization.)

Which businesses and geographies are you currently Marketing to? What’s your Ideal Customer Profile?

Hyland has customers across the globe. We are focused on mid to large enterprises worldwide, growing organizations looking to put their content and data to work.

Tell us about your most recent Digital Marketing campaign and the audience it was targeting? How did you measure its performance?

We are investing more in Account-Based Advertising (ABA), which brings a different set of metrics to the table. We are able to measure the impressions and clicks for the specific accounts we are targeting. We can measure the pipeline health, velocity and quality against a control group to determine if ABA is moving the needle.

Which Marketing and Sales Automation tools and technologies do you currently use?

Salesforce, Pardot, Brightedge, Sitecore, and Kapost (for content marketing)

What are your predictions on the most impactful disruptions in Information Management driven by AI and Data Management technologies for 2019-2020?

Data Democratization is the key to an enterprise’s ability to compete on data. It is difficult to choose a single technology having the most positive impact since there is a whole family of technologies that work together to achieve this.

Cloud storage makes the data available, while data aggregation, federation brings together multiple data sources and data visualization provides insights into a human consumable medium. If there has to be one technology that would assist across these various facets, it would be Machine Learning and other assistive technologies to support data mining and analytics. I believe that term is data discovery, which I suppose can be either a technology or a family of technologies.

Data discovery, if not already on its way, will continue to evolve vertically across specific industries. As with most technologies, as patterns and use cases are identified across industries, the tools and solutions can become more tailored. Even as the data patterns become better known, the algorithms could be tailored for specific data sets and more vertically oriented tools delivered.

What startups in the technology industry are you watching keenly right now?

Anyone focusing on AI, predictive, RPA, blockchain and cryptocurrency.

How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a Marketing Technology leader?

There are two areas where we’re focusing – one, constantly evaluating and testing (in a prioritized fashion) these new technologies, and, two, preparing the organization culturally for the change. The latter is toughest as historical success can stymie innovation.

How do you inspire your people to work with technology?

Mostly by using it myself and asking the right questions.

One word that best describes how you work.

Is data-driven one word?

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?

At work, it is our Business Intelligence tools that shed light on the insights and trends of our business. At home, it is the Alexa hardware and app. I’ve automated my home across the board and I love the simplicity of telling Alexa what I want and making it happen.

What’s your smartest work-related shortcut or productivity hack?

I use an old school prioritized list on a sheet of paper. I keep it to one sheet and refresh every 2-3 days to ensure I’m focused on the highest priority items at any given moment.

What are you currently reading?

I’m getting a lot of my news these days via podcasts and I love “How I Built This” with Guy Raz. It’s fascinating to listen to entrepreneurs tell their stories, and I’ve learned a lot about the importance of passion and perseverance by listening to the episodes.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Hire well, trust your employees and don’t tell your team members HOW to do their job. Align on the outcome and give your employees the power to innovate. They will amaze you.

Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?

Empathic listening and understanding is key to building long term trust.

Thank you, Drew! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.