Jody Jankovsky has always been enamored of technology.
Back in the 1970s, he and his father built their own computer to take advantage of emerging technological advancements of the time.
Over the years, he points out, it has gone from building your own computer to getting manufactured machines, being “networked” and then being centralized in terms of data and databases.
Now the world has developed things like cell phones and cloud computing and blockchain.
“What it has given me is a really great perspective … on the use of technology and the evolutions of technology, specifically how it relates to the small business,” Jankovsky said. “It’s an exciting time in our technology world.”
Jankovsky is the founder and CEO of BlackLineIT, an organization that has served over 500 customers for more than 30 years and been listed twice on Inc.’s 5,000 fastest-growing companies.
Clients like AT&T, Kraft Foods, Waste Management, National Safety Council and the Army Corps of Engineers have relied upon him for his technical expertise.
Jankovsy, a sought-after speaker, shared some of that expertise in a webinar, “3 Pillars of ‘AI’ Readiness,” hosted by the National Association for Business Resources in partnership with the Best and Brightest Programs.
The focus of the webinar was on artificial intelligence, particularly as it relates to small business, since that’s what he’s been doing for 30 years. He introduces AI to small- to mid-size businesses to help them not only keep pace with technological advancements but lead the charge in their industries.
“IT in general is passionate, technology in general is passionate,” Jankovsky told webinar participants. “But this topic specifically, in terms of AI and what it can do for small businesses, is very exciting.
“I always tell people when they ask what it is that I do … imagine walking into a super Walmart full of technology and really there’s only one or two aisles that small businesses really can take advantage of,” he added. “It’s my job to help guide you to those couple of aisles of what technologies really are practical for the use with inside of a small business.”
Jankovsky, like many others, sees AI as being the “next pinnacle” of technology in the small-business world. While there have obviously been a lot of advancements the last 30-40 years, AI “is really a stair step” into the future, he said.
Jankovsky said there are three what he calls “pillars” to dealing with AI:
- Acceptance
- Practical-use cases
- Ready your business for AI
Embracing AI as a tool
Understanding it may sound a little overstated, businesses should, Jankovsky said, embrace AI as a “technological revolution.”
And it’s just not him saying so. He pointed out that voices from all over the tech industry – Mark Cuban, Jamie Dimon, Jeff Bezos – are saying the same thing.
Industry experts are talking about the fact that AI really is going to “change dramatically what it is that we do in our personal lives as well as our business lives.”
While recommending embracing AI, Jankovsky recognizes there are those who see it as “scary,” as a threat to jobs or to disrupt a business.
“That’s kind of what you’re getting from the outside world … a combination of a lot of scare tactics,” he said. “I really see it as an opportunity.”
Practical use cases for AI
Jankovsky used a mitre box as an example. Carpenters have used a mitre box for a long time to create angles for wood and, with a mitre saw, create a “limitless number of ways” and angles to cut wood.
“Basically it’s the same concept,” he said. “People were afraid of what this new tool might be about? ‘How is this going to affect my job day to day?’”
“There was a time when that was a transition,” he added. “We’ve seen that transition happen.”
Ready your business for AI
When explaining to the business leaders that BlackLineIT works with, Jankovsky uses a framework “that we could rely upon,” one he calls “the hierarchy innovation.”
It’s something he said he’s developed and fine-tuned over the years because it created a platform to have conversations about where technology sits and give insight into ‘how do you get to the next level?’
If infrastructure is just “turning your computer on and making sure that it works” and you’ve got email and an Internet connection, that’s what Jankovsky calls infrastructure.
That allows businesses to put a line of business applications on top of that, where ERP systems, accounting, production, business applications like Word and Excel and all that Outlook, to sit on the line of business.
How much effort it takes to get that information collected drives whether or not you can do business intelligence or AI, because the next level above your line of business solutions is business intelligence. “AI already needs that data centralized, collected, and in one spot so that it can perform its analysis or it can create insights for you, especially if that’s timely,” Jankovsky said.
