[00:00:00] Matt Duench: Welcome to Mistaken Identity. Today I'll interview Marla Hay, vice President of Security, privacy and Data Management at Salesforce. We'll talk about how at Salesforce, Marla helps customers keep their data secure and private. Tune in to hear Marla describe how to treat customer data carefully. And how to build great digital experiences through experimentation and an understanding of the customer.

[00:00:23] She also dives into her experience with user testing to build great products and improve existing ones.

[00:00:31] This podcast is brought to you by Okta. Innovate at scale while keeping your business and customers safe. Ready to see for yourself. Go to okta.com/customer ID for more. 

[00:00:43] Matt Duench: Hi everyone. Welcome today's episode of Mistaken Identity. Today I'm really excited to have Marla Hay, who's vice President of Product Management at Salesforce. Marla, welcome to the show.

[00:00:53] Marla Hay: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here, Matt.

[00:00:56] Matt Duench: Really excited to have you today. I think it's gonna be an awesome conversation around, you know, how we look at building amazing customer experiences and products that customers love. But before we get into that, maybe give the listeners a little insight into what you do at Salesforce. What keeps you busy in your role as, as vice president of product?

[00:01:14] Marla Hay: so yeah, I've been at Salesforce for about six years, in my current role as Vice President of Security Privacy data management at Salesforce. Look after an area where we provide security, privacy, and data management products to our customers. And so,our goal really is to help our customers become customer companies.

[00:01:34] Uh, and my part of that is helping make it really easy for them to keep their customer data safe, secure, private, and generally kind of give them an easy button for the great work they're already doing.

[00:01:46] Matt Duench: And I know you have a lot of really great experience in what's called CIAM, or customer Identity and access management. Maybe just give, uh, the folks a little background on CIAM, you know, your experience with CIAM, and I know you've talked about privacy and obviously security as well, but just, you know, elements of your experience from CIAM in general.

[00:02:02] Marla Hay: Before Salesforce actually, I, looked after product at, uh, CIAM Company and was a really incredible experience. Consumer identity, consumer privacy is so important and fundamental to really the future of where we're going with technology, innovation, and being able to really provide an experience that is useful to consumers, requires that they have inherent trust in their ability to give data to, to you as a company.  and so it was really exciting to be kind of in this space where we're looking at how do we help companies provide, a safe, secure place for customer data and the ability to make connections about what their customers really care about in order to create this incredible customer experience that allows their customers to say, this is an awesome company and I want to continue to invest my time, my, my data, my energy in this organization. And I feel comfortable doing it because I know that they are good stewards of my data. And so that was a, I, I feel like a really exciting place to be and it still is, in CIAM and, and in, uh, consumer identity in general.

[00:03:15] Matt Duench: This is really a challenge for a lot of businesses is trying to balance that, you know, the delivery of the customer experience along with security and privacy at the same time. Do you have any thoughts on how customer identity can be implemented to maybe, you know, address that balance of security and privacy and convenience at the same time?

[00:03:33] Marla Hay: You're really hitting it, like the intersection of the, the spaces that I kind of love the most is like, how do we make,privacy and security so easy that no one even knows that they're doing it? For the Siam space, it is, super critical to really look at how do you make it really easy for consumers to do things like not have to have bad password hygiene, for example. Like, why do we even still have passwords? Just give everybody

[00:04:00] Matt Duench: No kidding.

[00:04:01] Marla Hay: Basically a customer, a consumer, anyone who has to go through a thing that is privacy related, is going to shortcut it as much as they possibly can because we're all overloaded. We're all overwhelmed. They're not trying to do security and privacy. They're trying to do the thing they're trying to do. And security is getting in the way of that. So anything that makes that easier for them enhances that experience, but also ensures that they're saying that they're staying private. So things like, multi-factor authentication, but with a, it's where you could just like looking at a device. Magic links where you're like getting a code or a one time thing where you're like not creating a password that's really like the same password you have 80,000 other places and probably in tens of thousands of breaches is gonna help make it easier for someone to authenticate and then get an experience that is really tied to who they are and what they care about. And,That makes it super easy for them to keep themselves secure and for an organization to keep their data secure.

[00:04:56] Matt Duench: When it's working well, nobody's thinking about it. Right. And I almost, I almost think about it as like an invisible hand. It is that invisible hand when it's working. You're not thinking about it at all, but, oh man, when it breaks, where there's friction in the process, right? You really notice it. maybe, you know, going to your favorite coffee shop and having experience where you have, you've had to reset your password while you're standing, trying to order your coffee at the barista, and you've got angry customers lining up behind you and you're just trying to pay for your coffee.

[00:05:22] that obviously hits a little home for me. That's an experience that I've had in the past, but that's the balance I think that we're trying to strike, between delivering an amazing customer experience at the same time as balancing, keeping folks secure and keeping their their data private at the same time.

[00:05:36] Wondering if you have thoughts on how identity could be implemented from the perspective of driving other business metrics or business outcomes like improving adoption or even driving that customer engagement or even retention of products Really, at the end of the day.

[00:05:52] Marla Hay: The key is like the more you understand your customers, your consumers, your users, your employees, like, the more you can understand who these people are and what's important to them and what they care about, the better you can make their experiences. An authenticated experience is really the best way to do it. And you can't, you it, it's important to do that at the right point too. For example, like retail, like guest checkout, it's like so hard to deal with, but like, you have to have it because it will, cuz you can stop people if you put an authenticated experience in front of it too early. But what you can do is create, make it really easy for them to have an authenticated experience, by the end time they get to the end of it, all you have to do is click yes to basically have an account.

[00:06:35] And then we will help you remember it. It's not gonna be a big hassle every time you come back, it'll be really easy for you now to do things like track where your stuff is and order more things, and for us to know who you are and then like, make great product recommendations and things like that where the user, the consumer is really getting significant benefit out of it.

[00:06:52] And it, you're just kind of stepping them along. Sort of like a relationship, like you're creating this deeper and deeper relationship with them. And then they're giving you more and more of their time and information and access, like as that relationship sort of like grows in mutual value.

[00:07:07] It's a really important part of increasing all of, of those, uh, KPIs that all companies have. authentication is a really critical part of that. And then, uh, uh, and doing it in the right way where you're creating like an engaged relationship with a, with a consumer over time. Knowing who that person is, that authentication piece of it is a critical component to keeping them engaged and to doing the right thing for them and to not making it difficult for them to continue the relationship with you.

[00:07:38] Matt Duench: Yeah. I feel like a theme that you're hitting on there is all around the customer experience, right? It's, it's about really delivering that customer experience. And for me, there was something that I read recently that really resonated with me for companies and that the customer experience is the new competitive battleground. It is how successful companies are going to be successful. They need to think about how they build those journeys, those experiences, those amazing, you know, customer products and experiences together to drive those, customer experiences. But, you know, would love your thoughts on, even from a product management perspective, where the folks that are listening that are actually building these applications and these experiences, what are some strategies or what are some things that product managers or product folks could, should be thinking about in order to leverage customer identity? And that knowledge to provide a better customer experience for their end users.

[00:08:26] Marla Hay: Customer experience really is kind of the new battleground because they're things that just like do not fly now that flew when, when CIAM was far more nascent that you could get away with. I remember like very early days like, you would use a identity provider and the app was just gonna ask for every single piece of information about you possible. sometimes just to even get into the website. This is like 10 plus years ago. This is a long time ago. And like,

[00:08:52] Matt Duench: In tech years.

[00:08:53] Marla Hay: that was a long time ago. And tech years.

[00:08:55] Yeah. Uh, and that was obviously a terrible idea even at that time when we'd always dissuade anyone from doing that, just from like a common sense perspective, but it wasn't like totally anathema, uh, in the tech world or in the app world or in the, in the retail world to do something like that.

[00:09:11] And now it would, it would just be ridiculous. Like that would never fly. everything is done with the lowest friction possible. If somebody encountered a, experiences with even like a modicum of friction there are people who are do now we see what it looks like to do it well. There are enough people who are doing it well.

[00:09:26] Consumers are like, well, I don't have to put up with this. They know what they can demand. And rightly so, like, it is absolutely paramount that we have incredibly seamless and transparent and invisible hand type experiences. I mean, and that's really like, the standard.

[00:09:46] It's not even like, it's not even the gold standard anymore. It's like,that's the baseline. Like you need to have a good, positive experience to retain any consumers, let alone gain, uh, loyalty and build up those KPIs.

[00:09:57] Matt Duench: You're right. It's really the expectation now, right? I think about how my kids interact with technology, right? Touch screens. It seems simple, but it's just, that's the expectation that everything that has a screen you should be able to touch. And I constantly have to clean my, my television, and screen because there's not a touch screen.

[00:10:12] you know, a similar type of experience to my kids. You know, assuming that that touch experience exists everywhere, is becoming how folks are really expecting how they log in or sign up, and then interact really with a digital application. Right. So I think there's a couple things that you hit on earlier around how folks can, like some things that they can think about to improve security, like multifactor authentication and SSO and biometrics, et cetera. What about from a customer experience perspective? What are some ways, uh, that companies could improve that customer experience or the way that customers interact with their digital applications?

[00:10:46] Marla Hay: Put simply make people remember as little as possible. There is no more disappointing feeling than showing up on a screen and then all of a sudden, then the next step. There's a login screen and you're like, uh oh, I don't remember this. Like, who am I on here? What is my username? As much as possible, making it so you are using information that is super easily accessible to that person. And so that's like devices, like if you can, if you can send somebody a code or you can send somebody a link or you can give them information that will help them prove their identity or validate who they are. Use those biometrics, use the location, use the device that they're coming from to help you really kind of triangulate, Hey, we got a pretty good idea of who this person is. and then do what you need to, to validate that.

[00:11:37] Don't give them absolutely nothing and then tell them you, you figure it out. Good luck getting in here.

[00:11:44] Matt Duench: Yeah, that's, that's exactly it. One thing that I'm really excited for is passkey technology. I think some of the things that even Google has announced recently and, and opening up passkey technology across all now commercial and even workplace, uh, you know, properties is pretty awesome. 

[00:11:59] Now, I don't have to remember a password. We're very much on, if not the dawn, we're even past it. It might even be noon or midday around us. Never, ever needing passwords again, which I'm really excited about.

[00:12:11] Marla Hay: Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I feel like for everybody who's been in the identity industry, especially, From earlier days, it's likeeverybody's been beating the same drum of like, we've gotta get rid of passwords. And it feels like it's finally happening. And it really does take, like, it does take like a Google, an Apple. Like it takes these big, big, big, um, identity providers with those types of capabilities to be able to do something like that and to make it like ubiquitous so that you're You're really able to kind of go anywhere and you've got, there's some hint of one of those, elements somewhere that you can, so that you can use PAs keys, really across the board.

[00:12:48] I think it's a very exciting time for, um, for authentication and it's a re it's a good reason to, also make sure we're offloading things like those authentication capabilities to, to companies that are like, that, that's what they do. or like that's a big part of what, what they're working on.

[00:13:04]  it's exciting to see that.

[00:13:06] Matt Duench: Yeah, absolutely. I think you're, you're kind of hitting on one thing that I like to think about as well is this concept of like, should I build it or should I buy it? And I think for a lot of companies, especially if you're just starting out in your journey of your application and you have a development team, it might feel like it's super easy or that because you have developers and builders that you can build these things yourself from a SaaS perspective.

[00:13:27] And I think like every company is trying to balance that, right? They're trying to balance that. Whether they do that, do they spend development time and resources building and maintaining systems that aren't part of their core business? Or do they go to a best in breed solution? What I would love your thoughts and just your experience on sort of this concept of build versus buy when it comes to systems and technology.

[00:13:48] Marla Hay: it's funny, like I'll tell you this story that's like totally not related to identity at all, but when I was like, so. when I was an intern, I was working on this, an application that took a credit card and I was like, oh, I need to make sure that we're encrypting this, this is like a long, long time.

[00:14:03] I'm not even gonna say how long ago? A really long time ago. I was just like, well, I'll just, I can write an encryption algorithm. I'll just do that. And so I spent like a few weeks writing this awful encryption algorithm. It was like, incredibly breakable. but it was an encryption algorithm.

[00:14:17] At the end of the couple weeks I was like, man, I just wasted a whole lot of time doing something badly that, that would've been really easy for me to just go get somewhere else. But you know, I was also an intern. It was a fun experience, but, that's what I feel like happens sometimes with like the build buy. It's like, well, we can build it. But the the litmus test should really be like, does this exist? And is someone else already doing it well? And do I need to do it to a standard or do I have some kind of like, or is it something that it's super free form? And if the answer to the both of those questions is like, yes, someone's already doing it. And yes, there's like a standard that goes with it, then like, you should never build. Why would you ever build that? That is exactly why those things exist. Like people do make it very easy to just consume those things and then they worry about all those teeny tiny little details and keep iterating on it and, and keep on top of all of the elements of it.

[00:15:10] So that's like, things like identity standards are one of those things where it's like, yeah, you, you could, but why would you? It's like, it's been done and it's been done really well, already. So

[00:15:20] Exactly. Spend your time. That's such a great point that that's what that was gonna be. What my next question, as well as what are some of the benefits that you see in, procuring like a, a purpose-built solution versus trying to build it yourself internally. You know, spend your, spend your time elsewhere is a really good one.

[00:15:34] Like nobody's ever said, oh my gosh, I have too many engineers. Like, that's never happened. I have too much time for these projects. Like, do the thing, do the things that everybody should be working on. The things that like only they can do and only that can only be done for their company.

[00:15:52] Or like putting together all of the things that, that need to be put together. But, you need to find places for more time. I know everybody does, especially, in this like, Time in the industry where I pretty much every company is doing more with few people right now.

[00:16:08] Everyone is short on time, so save yourself some headache and give yourself a little bit more room on your roadmap that's exciting to get done.

[00:16:16] Matt Duench: Yeah. And you mentioned roadmap. I, I'd love to get your thoughts on something I was thinking about too as you're, as you're talking, and this is more around how you can integrate customer identity into your roadmap, but what are some best practices, or maybe even from your experiences that you've, you've seen in incorporating customer identity and those customer insights into your product roadmap and within your development cycle? Have you had experience with that?

[00:16:36] Marla Hay: Yeah, I mean, there is always a point where you're like, at what point do we need, does this, do we need to support authentication? 

[00:16:43] Uh, we've recently really released some capabilities around preference management and, and integrating with, uh, authentication is obviously gonna be a huge part of that. the very first use case was like, yeah, I just need to be able to unsubscribe, but I want to keep it super narrow to, to make it like tight to the subscription and like, all right, well you can do maybe some.

[00:17:02] Some behind the scenes authorization. You still need, you'll still need authorization, um, and authentication. But it's maybe is more like, server side, token based, like behind the scenes we're doing like a one time token thing. you will come on the need to, to deal with authenticated users and that is gonna open the door to really enabling a totally different customer experience.

[00:17:26] Matt Duench: yeah, definitely agree. I was thinking about something too from like a product management perspective, and this would be, I think, really interesting for any of the product or, or application builders on, who are listening to the episode right now too. But, how can you be sure that you're building the right thing? Like, how do you know if what you're building is the right thing?

[00:17:45] Marla Hay: Yeah. Oh man. Like. You have to just test it with people. Like, oh, there's no shortcut really. Right. You have to test it with people. We did so like, early, early, early in my career, I would go to user, our user conferences and like set up a little lab and basically sit people down in it and be like, I'm gonna give you a thing that you would commonly need to do, or you can give me a thing you would commonly need to do in this application.

[00:18:08] And I want you to do it. And they would do it, and it would just be so eye-opening. You're like, oh my God. Like why are you clicking over there? Why are you looking over the, at this thing? Like, it's right here. They're never wrong. Like you are wrong. Like you are wrong. if they get frustrated, you are doing it wrong.

[00:18:24] in one case we had, we did this whole application and our expectation was like we had this front end to it. That had all of this information and we thought, this is like the key information. Everybody's gonna use it. And over and over again, people are just like shrinking it to the side and never opening it again cuz it's, it turns out that just real, even though people needed that information and we heard that people needed that information, they, for the most part, only wanted it in a particular context, and were really just trying to get to the thing they were trying to do. And we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have gotten that just through like interviews and talking. We needed to like set something up and put it in front of them and have them try it.

[00:19:02] So there's just, no substitute for getting a thing out the door so that people can put their hands on it and then tell you how wrong you were about how you interpreted what they told you.

[00:19:14] Matt Duench: Ex experimenting. I love it. I mean, pragmatic marketing has this, uh, has this tenant that I just love. And it's your opinion, although interesting is irrelevant. Right. And, and I think like when it comes to product management, I feel like that's, that's a lot of what happens is that as product managers you'll get folks coming to you, sales folks, anyone else from the business saying, you know, we need this because this, and as product folks we're, we're kind of looking at 'em going.

[00:19:40] Okay. Show me, show me the, the number of customers that actually, you know, have asked for this. A lot of times that empirical evidence is hard to find, so I feel like that's one that's always stuck with me too. Is, is your opinion, although interesting is irrelevant to your point.

[00:19:53] It's really around experimentation and getting in front of the users and understanding how they're going to use it. Cuz those are the ones that, that we need to care about. It's, they're gonna be using, you know, our product or application. We need to understand how, uh, how it benefits them.

[00:20:05] Marla Hay: Even if you're talking to. to a user and you're interpreting it and you're like, okay, I've got, so users are asking for X. Like, there's also such an important aspect of really sitting down and getting deeper into like, show me what you're doing here. Like, show me what you're working on and, and why you're asking for this thing. Um, we had a one product we were working on where the users themselves were asking for like particular functionality, and when we sat down and walked through with them, Watch them do their jobs. Watched what they were, what they were doing. It, it was sort of like an aha moment of like, oh, you're not, you're asking for this, but actually, like you are, you are doing so much horrible work over here in this other screen to get to this thing and you're asking for us to make this this much easier for you, but oh my gosh, we can eliminate the, all the awfulness over here too, that you didn't even know to complain about because you're used to just living in this garbage world where you have to do like 8,000 steps and, and you're only asking us to make this a tiny bit easier. So that's, that's really helpful too, like really watch, really seeing the customer.

[00:21:12] I know it's not always possible, and that's not always easy to do. But it there, there's nothing like actually sitting with a customer and watching them use your stuff.

[00:21:21] Matt Duench: oh, I, I just love that. I think that's such a great lesson. Everyone who's listening, make sure you, you take note of that, write that down. Go put it into practice right now. Take your products, get them in front of your customers. Go sit with them too. I just love that. I think there's no, there's no substitute for real market, empirical customer evidence. I used to do this a long, long time ago. When I worked for a telco is I would, I would go and sit in a shopping mall and just see how people interacted with their phones, right? Like, how would they use it? What were they doing with it? And get a better understanding of exactly how we needed to better craft our messaging or develop, you know, other products or solutions that would make more sense to them based on how they were actually using the product. I just, I think that's such a great lesson for everyone.

[00:22:02] Marla Hay: So cool. That's really cool.

[00:22:05] Matt Duench: A lot of fun. But thinking about even just the product, development journey, maybe for some folks that are, that are listening to this episode that are looking to get into product delivery or product management, what are some of the ups, the downs, the highs, the lows of creating a product?

[00:22:19] Like what's great about that process and what do you think is still being improved, or what do you think needs to be improved about the product management or product delivery process?

[00:22:26] Marla Hay: So the highs are really easy. It basically like having man, having somebody say, this is exactly what I needed. Or like, you just saved me a bucket of time. this is going to change things for me. Like hearing that, like making somebody's world better, in that way is so, is so cool.

[00:22:47] It's like just so gratifying and so rewarding. The lows are probably like, there's two that sort of come to mind. One is like, realizing you don't have the, the time or the resources to do the thing that you thought you had the time or resources to do, where you're like, this is, gonna be this big of a thing.

[00:23:06] And everyone's like, yeah, it looks like it. And then it turn, and then you get into it and it's like, oh, but. Actually there's this other thing over here that touches that, or like, this thing actually turns out to be really complicated, and then it turns into this like, huge thing and it starts to feel like, oh man, now what do we do?

[00:23:24] Do we cut bait and ro and like not do it? Do we just keep going and try to make it work? Like, those are like really the low points where you're realizing like, we've invested a bunch of time in something in. We maybe shouldn't keep investing time in it because it's not turning out to be the, to be or work the way we thought it was going to.

[00:23:43] Those are like, that's so hard. yeah. And then the other is, is just like, realizing, at the end, that, no one cares about what you built. Like you

[00:23:55] Matt Duench: Yeah.

[00:23:55] Marla Hay: something that seems like really exciting and then you're like, here you go, world. And then like, crickets, like no one is using it. It felt like everyone wanted it, but then seems to care once it's out.

[00:24:08] Like that's very, that's like very disappointing and sad. That's happened to me.

[00:24:12] Matt Duench: That's a hard one. And, and that kind of gets to, you know, your, your opinion, although interesting is irrelevant, right? It's like we might internally have like a really strong feelings about it. Oh, this product's awesome, it's gonna do all these great things, and then we get it out into the market and we launch it.

[00:24:27] We release it and customers are just like, meh.

[00:24:30] Marla Hay: Yeah. I guess that's cool.

[00:24:33] Matt Duench: Sure if you think it's cool, it must be, I suppose. But yeah, it's, it's really that, inside out approach versus being outside in, I think too, a lot of times and getting that, you know, the evidence from the customer and building what actually the customer wants versus like building things that we think are really cool that when they get out there, they flop.

[00:24:51] I think that's a really good one. I like that a lot. I think, I feel like people can relate to that as well because I'm sure every product manager listening to this has had a situation, you know, where they've launched a product and that's been the case. Absolutely.

[00:25:03] Marla Hay: Totally. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's unfortunately a universal experience practically.

[00:25:09] Matt Duench: Absolutely. Um, love that. Shifting gears a little bit just to innovation and thinking about, you know, how we, how we stayed, in the context of even building things, I think that customers love. and just continuing to iterate and drive that innovation. First of all, Salesforce, how are you, helping to drive that innovation at Salesforce?

[00:25:27] How is Salesforce pursuing innovation? And what do you think is important for driving innovation? What do you need? What are some of those things that help to do that?

[00:25:35] Marla Hay: Fundamentally, an understanding of the jobs your customers are trying to do, like number one, like that's really like, super basic, but informs everything else. And so it's so crucial. If you don't have that part right, you're not gonna get any, you're not gonna get the answer right.

[00:25:49] Even if you have anything else. And then, To understanding like, where technology is going and then being able to apply that to the jobs the customer is really trying to get to get done, are gonna be the most crucial things. You can baby step some level of innovation if it doesn't involve like technological advances.

[00:26:08] So like, at a job a long time ago, we were trying to sort of incrementally improve the process of some folks that were working in an application to to do like credit card processing for like small dollar like product renewals and. We, at first it was like, Hey, can you just make it easier for them to do, to input the data into these like fields in this application?

[00:26:31] And then it was like, if we gave them a different kind of a different application and just we put the stuff in there, we don't have to mess. We could make it a lot easier for them to communicate with the customer, but then it was like, Hey, you know what, why do we even, why do they even need to communicate with the customer? They're like manually inputting all this data. Just why aren't we just like giving them a, payment gateway and having the customer do it themselves. And then they can just email the customer and then like, well wait a minute, why don't we just automatically send the email to why do we have a person doing this at all?

[00:27:01] Like we can just automate these responses and have them do the payment gate. So if you could take little steps like that towards innovation. Like tying the technological leaps to the things your customers, the jobs your customers are doing. So something like, Like generative AI is like such a huge, huge game changer for the way our customers are going to be able to create more personalized experiences to be able to like, help their customers, like, get the help they need to help like, improve the relationship with their customers.

[00:27:34] So that is seeing that technology and then saying like, Oh my gosh. Our customers are doing so many things right now that this will help them with how do we get this into our products ASAP so that they can use them in a way that really helps them speed up their own innovation and their own journeys with like this technology that's really revolutionizing.

[00:27:55] Matt Duench: Such a great point about ai. I'm definitely in, in the same camp as you. I, I just, and I think everyone else, it's just incredible to see how the rapid pace of change, I think that LLMs and G P T and these AI models are bringing to the industry. I think every day there's like 60 new tools, plugins, chatbots, anything that, like, things that you can use to actually drive value for your business and, and, and improve the experience with your application. I think that's incredible. you know, even to stay on another buzzword of disruption, I think it's. It's, it's hugely disruptive, but like in, in a really good way. Right. I think it's, uh, I think it's awesome. But, thinking about like being a disruptor, what do you think that, like, what do you think about the importance of being a disruptor?

[00:28:35] Do you think it's like more important for a large company to be disruptive or a smaller company to, to drive that disruption? 

[00:28:42] Marla Hay: I think any type of company can be a disruptor. I think different company sizes have their own advantages to being able to do that. Like I'll. A larger company, may have, uh, more easy access to be able to like, devote a lot of resources to doing, to kind of like disrupting this industry in a major way and making things like really significant and revolutionary.

[00:29:03] So that's like, that's sort of the tech that Salesforce takes. That's Like Apple and like the iPhone. I mean, that's like a big company doing something super disruptive. And then smaller companies just have the, have the advantage of being able to be super nimble and being able to be a disruptor in the industry with the one thing that they're doing.

[00:29:20] If you look at, you know, like Uber, uh, or Lyft, like coming out with the concept of disrupting the, uh, the transportation industry, the taxi industry, and the shared, the shared ride services industry. 

[00:29:32] Their one sole purpose is, is a disruption to, to an existing industry. And so it's really, it can come from anywhere. and there's just pros and cons in different ways that they're gonna, that a company's going to to be a disruptor, uh, depending on their size and resources.

[00:29:45] Matt Duench: Yeah, absolutely. I was thinking a little bit around obviously your direct, your experience currently around the data and the privacy end of it as well and thinking about innovation and disruption and there was really great podcasts that you were on recently that kind of talked about the future, i, of data versus privacy. And one of the things that stuck with me, I think, from that talk that you gave is just the future of a, of digital identities and why you felt that like privacy, uh, and data, uh, you know, residency are really in the midst of a security renaissance. 

[00:30:12] Marla Hay: You really sh I guess shouldn't, is it the word I should use, have data without privacy. It's just like they, it has to go hand in hand. And I feel like although not every state, every country is gonna make do it exactly in the most efficient way, I think it's really exciting to see privacy regulations, becoming more and more prevalent and more and more dominant in the way that it's shaping how we're handling data.

[00:30:39] Cuz it's one of those things that like, it can add overhead, it does add overhead. To make sure you're doing absolutely everything you can to keep customer data consumer data private and secure, and that you are putting their interests and their protection first. And instead of it becoming a trade off where a company's like, well, we could make this thing, or we could like do this extra privacy feature, the privacy feature's not always gonna win out, but if there's a sort of a mandate around it, like this is the way that we all have to behave. Everybody's on the same playing field, and I'm seeing corporations really relish it for that reason. They're like, we want to do this. This is how we want to behave. We want to be really good at this. we're all consumers too. Everybody in these companies is also a consumer for all the other companies.

[00:31:25] Like we all want our data protected and so, having a mandate around it and saying like, Hey, this is the way that the game's gonna be played here. Like, everybody has to do these things, is, um, I think makes it easier for, for everybody to do the things that, honestly, I think people want to do within these organizations in the first place.

[00:31:44] Matt Duench: Yeah. It's such a good point too, like for any of the, the marketing folks that are listening to the, to this episode specifically, you know, when we think about privacy and security of customer data, it's not that customers don't want personalization, right? we need their consent to use that data first, and they need to know how it's going to be used, right?

[00:32:01] Like in such a way that it's going to make my experience with an application or interaction with that brand better. that's an okay outcome. There's value in that, but that's gotta be the focus is it needs to be consent forward and there needs to be a value exchange, I think between, the company, and the security of that data and the, and the customer at the end of the day.

[00:32:19] That's really what it comes down to is because you, myself, or everyone, we're all consumers at the end of the day too. And we want to be able to find out about, in about new products and new solutions and how they're gonna make my life better. But it needs to be done in a consent forward way.

[00:32:32] And that's something I think that really resonated from that talk that you gave, um, as well around your experience with data and privacy too.

[00:32:38] Marla Hay: Even thinking just personally, when you think about the companies that you engage with regularly and that you have a close relationship with are gonna be companies that you are sharing the most information you have. and you do want those like, personalized experiences.

[00:32:53] Like I want, I would happily give more information to like the airline company I have the most loyalty points with, there's a specific offer for a specific time. They always know I go on a on a family trip, 

[00:33:08] And like, if they're like, Hey, we know that we're sending, we're gonna send you, like a deal, especially for that, that time period for, for this place. Like I would be like, yes. Awesome. but if some company I'd never heard of, suddenly had my phone number and is reaching out to me, I would be like, how are you getting this information?

[00:33:25] This is super creepy. Like, don't talk to me, please. And it would also damage my experience with a brand that I knew did have that information. So I think like, using data in a consented way and treating it very carefully means you're gonna have a really, really great relationship with your consumers. They are gonna continue to invest in you via their business and their data when you're treating the data the way they've asked you to treat it.

[00:33:48] Matt Duench: Yeah, you, you made me think about an example, linking it back to earlier when we were talking a little around the invisible hand and how amazing a customer experience is and so amazing that you don't even really understand or realize what's happening. If you think about how. Maybe 20 years ago, you know how difficult it would've been to order a coffee, specifically like you know, the coffee that you want to order to a location so you can go and pick it up because you happen to be driving by. That exact case happened to me where on my mobile app, because I'm signed into my profile and I'm already authenticated and they, they have information on me.

[00:34:21] They knew my previous order. All I did was hit order that same thing at this location. And then I showed up and hey, mobile order for Matt is ready. And I just walk outta there. I just think about how like, easy that experience was where 20 years ago, I would've had to call that location. Maybe they pick up the phone, maybe they don't. They're busy. They forget my order. They have no information about me. So, you know, it's just, it's interesting to see how that convenience, like also paired, with the consented data that I have given that company to use about me and my profile, and just how amazing it, it has made that experience, but almost so amazing that it's seamless, that it's just, you don't even notice it now. It's just, it's

[00:34:58] Marla Hay: Oh. Totally. I like, I buy like 90% of my home furnishings in decor from a single company now because it's super easy. Like, I'm like, oh, that's, that's fun. I like that. and I push a button and it no, and it's like, cool. We know exactly who you are and it's on its way. it's seamless.

[00:35:19] And I'll do and I'll, on the off times, I'll be like, oh, I really need X or something. I need, um, a very special type of chair. I don't know. And I'll go to some other, I'll just like Google it and then I'll try to order from some other or company, and it's like such a pain.

[00:35:35] Like half the time I don't even get through the checkout process. I'm like, all right, forget it. Like, I'm not, I'm never doing this again. And we're just going back to the one where I can push the button. It really is a game changer in terms of customer loyalty and having repeat business and having a customer who is really like gonna continue to spend money with you. I'm basically like, half my paycheck goes to one furniture company right now.

[00:36:00] Matt Duench: Everyone listening. Marla has a lot of special chairs, uh, in her office and in her house from one company in particular. Oh, that's awesome. Thinking about some of the things that you're working on this year, what are you most excited about,that you're, you're kind of working on this year?

[00:36:15] Marla Hay: It's generative AI is the thing that I think I feel like we're really excited about. There's a couple of assets to it. One. We have capabilities already that are just like tailor made to go with generator avi ai. Like there's a product, um, that we have, uh, called Data Detect that basically will allow you to find data, in fields and objects, in your database that don't, that are anomalous, that, that we don't think should belong there.

[00:36:40] So think of like somebody putting a credit card into a notes field or an email address into, into like a comments field or something. Um, or data that you're gonna potentially use, uh, so data you're gonna potentially use either in training a model, or putting it into a prompt, and you're gonna do that in an automated way.

[00:36:56] We're really excited about the idea that you can make sure that data is exactly the data you think it is, and not accidentally send somebody's PII or send your personal information out into the, out into the wide world of, generative ai. So that's one that, that's one element.

[00:37:14] And then the actual introduction of, um, generative AI itself in, into all of our capabilities. And Salesforce is doing some really cool things in the sales and service cloud space already. They justlaunched, um, generative AI capabilities into Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud as well that are super cool.

[00:37:33] Just the marketing Cloud one's really neat, especially because it's just like, It goes to what we were talking about with.personalization and getting to know, um, your customers better is like creating these really, really super personalized experiences. You have to have a base on a consumer day to be able to do it, and you have to have trust with that consumer.

[00:37:49] And, that is gonna mean in the best cases, authenticated experiences with those consumers.

[00:37:55] Matt Duench: Love it. That's awesome. And I feel like I already know the answer to this question based on how you answered a couple previous, but what, what's the number one tech development that you're most excited about or that you're most looking forward to?

[00:38:05] Marla Hay: Yeah, I think I pro. Yeah, so

[00:38:07] Matt Duench: ai.

[00:38:08] Marla Hay: yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, we're, we're super excited and we're also super excited to be at the forefront of privacy protection around generative ai. I think it's really the combination of those things like just like, user experience and, and privacy, user experience and security feel like they're a little at odds, but they're actually not, they actually go really well together.

[00:38:29] We feel the same way about privacy protections and ai, uh, especially generative ai. There is a way to do those together and to do them well. And we want to make sure that, that we're sitting right on top of. we care a lot about and we're working deeply on it.

[00:38:43] Matt Duench: Love it. Yeah, I, I feel like we, there's no way that we can get through an entire episode without talking about g p t models or, LLMs or AI in some capacity. So I'm, I'm happy that we've covered it, pretty deeply here today and thanks for that. That's awesome. 

[00:38:57] Just in the last couple minutes, maybe getting into a couple things, uh, you know, just a little about you and even just some advice for product managers. What do you think are some really underrated product management skills.

[00:39:07] Marla Hay: The teams that I've, that where we've gotten the most done and we've been able to really like, build cool things together are the ones where we're genuinely friends. Like, we're like you get along with everyone and you really trust everyone.

[00:39:22] So I think like from an underrated perspective, I would say like, it's really the ability to like genuinely get along with people and like them or find a way to like them. If you're in a situation where maybe you don't inherently. because it just makes everything easier at the end of the day. Like you can have tons of processes and, agile methodologies and conman boards and whatever the things are that you're using, but they're all really supposed to just be tools to help you communicate your ideas and your thoughts back and forth and measure things. measure progress. But measure them and measure it in a way where you're like, really getting what you're getting done is something that you're just communicating an idea about.

[00:40:06] And then getting that idea sort of interpreted and built. and there's a whole bunch of people who have to work together to do that. And so the better you understand each other and the more trust you have, and the more you really like can get along with those folks, I think is, uh, you're gonna have the best outcome. So in terms of underweight, I'd probably say that like, Getting along, not being a jerk.

[00:40:27] Matt Duench: Right.

[00:40:28] Marla Hay: Super

[00:40:29] Matt Duench: easy,

[00:40:30] Marla Hay: Yeah.

[00:40:31] Matt Duench: I imagine. No, I I do love that though. I think like the theme for me there, is like of collaboration and trust. Trust is probably the biggest one of, of what you kind of said there. I think that's the key is, if you don't have trust, You're not gonna be able to collaborate and you won't get anything done.

[00:40:46] It doesn't even matter if you're trying to build, great products the customers love. Doesn't matter what it is you're trying to build, if you don't have that trust, I think with the team that you're working with, there's no way that you're gonna be able to get, that done. that's such a great point.

[00:40:57] Matt Duench: A couple of quick hits as well. What's the, what's your favorite thing that you're either watching or reading right now?

[00:41:03] Marla Hay: I mostly watch like garbage because I just want to like zone out and turn my brain off, but, I just read a book called Unreasonable Hospitality and it's like, it's this great intersection because it's like two things that I really like. One is like, foodie things.

[00:41:16] I am not a foodie like I at all. I actually have super simple ta like I could basically live just all like on potatoes. Um,in hot sauce, like that's really, I'd be fine. Um, but I like watching and un and hearing and looking and understanding it, like chef's table type. 

[00:41:32] And then also about, how to absolutely delight people and delight your guests and your customers and your consumers with like, The experience that you're providing, which is super, super relevant and just a, it was such a great take away. Like it's not that hard. It's not that unreasonable actually to, to like make people really feel special and good and important and like you value them like we do.

[00:42:01] and that is just so, so critical, not just for your consumers really in your whole life. A really great confluence of those things. It was a cool book.

[00:42:07] Matt Duench: I love that. I'll have to check that one out. Second last question. If you had to wear, if you had to live. If you had to live anywhere, if you had, you had to wear anything, what would it be? No. Um, if, If you had to live anywhere in the world, where would that be? Or, I mean, if, if not live, like, what, What's one place you would want to travel to, um, that, uh, that you're just dying to go to?

[00:42:30] Marla Hay: Oh man. I think if I was gonna live anywhere? Oh man, I don't, it might, it'd probably be two places. One like Costa Rica, which I everybody's like, Hey, it's fine. Everything's gonna be fine. Just chill out is like one, a little bit counter to my normal state of being in my personality.

[00:42:47] So I feel like I could totally live there. That would be, that would be amazing. or like, on sort of the complete, um, well not complete other side, but like, I've always want, and I've actually always wanted to visit here too, so I guess this is answering both questions.

[00:42:59] Is, um, Nazare and Portugal, I didn't, so there is like this documentary, oh my gosh, what's it, it's called like the hundred foot Wave, I think, or

[00:43:07] Matt Duench: yes, I've seen this. Yes. Yes, yes. Yep.

[00:43:10] Marla Hay: It, it was like, not the documentary's amazing. So good and like so, so, so interesting. But that, but Nazare is where the wave is and it just, the whole town was, seemed like just an incredible place.

[00:43:24] And so that's a place I would really, really love to visit and maybe live, I don't know. I've never been there, but we'll at least definitely visit. It just seemed awesome.

[00:43:31] Matt Duench: Yeah, there's a ton of, I think, videos of that wave specifically. I think you can easily find it online. Uh, but thinking about how folks can find you online, what's the best way, uh, for them? What's the best way for them to find you online? Not riding a hundred foot wave, I'd imagine.

[00:43:47] Marla Hay: nice segue. I'm on LinkedIn, uh, and then also, uh, on Twitter. I think it's just Marla Hay. You can find me both of those places. LinkedIn for more professional version. Twitter for less professional version.

[00:44:02] Matt Duench: Awesome.

[00:44:03] Marla Hay: Marginally. Uh, nothing crazy. Uh,

[00:44:08] Matt Duench: That was Marla Hay Vice President of Security, privacy and Data Management at Salesforce. As we wrap up this episode, remember that privacy isn't just a compliance checkbox. It's the foundation of trust and exceptional user experiences.

[00:44:23] I'm Matt Deunch. Join me next time on Mistaken Identity.