Technological Change

Dan Doctoroff talks about how Bloomberg LP stays ahead of the technological curve.

Question: How do you keep pace with technological change?
 
Dan Doctoroff: Well, we hope to actually in many ways be leading that phase and, you know, it used to happen, I think, a little bit more ad hoc within Bloomberg, we just created the position of chief technology officer whose job it is really is to keep us out of at the edge of technological change. We always want to be ahead of things but only in ways that are practical and so we are constantly looking at what's going on out there.
But again, always seeking to adapt to a uniquely Bloomberg environment that is appropriate for our customers, we can't be too far ahead of our customers because they're used to doing things the way they're used to doing things. I mentioned before, we are looking at new look for Bloomberg, well, the reality is we're not just going to turn it on, we can't do that, we'll give our customers a choice because the vast majority of them don't want to change anything, they like it exactly the way it is.
So technology for technology's sake is interesting but fundamentally it has to be applied to something of value to the people that you are seeking to reach and in our case, that is our customers so we take an approach that says, "Let's look to see what's out there and then let's figure out how we can adapt it most successfully to the needs of our customers." That tends to be more evolutionary than revolutionary.
 
Recorded on: April 30, 2009
 

Question: How do you keep pace with technological change?
 
Dan Doctoroff: Well, we hope to actually in many ways be leading that phase and, you know, it used to happen, I think, a little bit more ad hoc within Bloomberg, we just created the position of chief technology officer whose job it is really is to keep us out of at the edge of technological change. We always want to be ahead of things but only in ways that are practical and so we are constantly looking at what's going on out there.
But again, always seeking to adapt to a uniquely Bloomberg environment that is appropriate for our customers, we can't be too far ahead of our customers because they're used to doing things the way they're used to doing things. I mentioned before, we are looking at new look for Bloomberg, well, the reality is we're not just going to turn it on, we can't do that, we'll give our customers a choice because the vast majority of them don't want to change anything, they like it exactly the way it is.
So technology for technology's sake is interesting but fundamentally it has to be applied to something of value to the people that you are seeking to reach and in our case, that is our customers so we take an approach that says, "Let's look to see what's out there and then let's figure out how we can adapt it most successfully to the needs of our customers." That tends to be more evolutionary than revolutionary.
 
Recorded on: April 30, 2009