10: Scott Burns | Building a Connected Enterprise

Episode 10: Scott Burns on Building a Connected Enterprise

Today more than ever, large and small companies alike are facing new challenges with their teams. How do we efficiently and effectively manage and engage remote and distribute teams? How can we use people data to put the right people on the right projects at the right time?

My guest Scott Burns spends his days thinking about these questions. As the co-founder of Structural, he is working to develop a new level of productivity and connection inside organizations, that in turn, can help harness the talent you have through intelligent search, AI and data science.

In this episode, we talk to Scott about the power of human networks, the pandemic’s impact on internal teams, and how a “connected enterprise”, isn’t just busier, but also becomes more productive, personalized, agile, and joyful for everyone inside. Take a listen to my conversation with Scott Burns.

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Links:

Learn more about Structural at www.structural.com.

About Scott:

Scott is a leader in bringing data and technology to complex challenges. He started his career at McKinsey before joining one of the first cloud-based software companies in 1999. He co-founded GovDelivery, which became the largest digital communications platform for the public sector, leading that company as it grew from two employees working in a basement to 250 people globally before selling it in 2016. When Scott left GovDelivery, the company was serving over 1,000 government agencies and enabling personalized communication with over 200M citizens.

Scott has developed a unique management approach rooted in three beliefs about work:

1) Empowerment + Alignment = Engagement
2) Networks > Hierarchies
3) Democratization of data and knowledge accelerates performance

With the goal of allowing organizations of all sizes to put these beliefs into practice, Scott launched Structural in 2017 with support of technology industry leaders Steve Case (AOL Founder) and Scott Dorsey (Founder of ExactTarget, which was sold to Salesforce and is now the Salesforce Marketing Cloud). Structural allows clients to bring together existing data from across business systems to create stunningly rich employee profiles. It then incorporates intelligent search, AI and data science to connect and empower people and teams.

Scott has been recognized for his leadership in innovation, featured in Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, Titans of Technology, and Federal Computer Week’s Federal 100 list recognizing the most influential people in Federal technology. Most recently, Scott was recognized as one of Minneapolis/St.Paul Business Journal's ten "Most Admired CEOs."

He graduated from Dartmouth college where he studied Economics and Environmental Studies.