we.CONECT: The pop in your job – you work as Senior Director, Digital Workplace at Tapestry – what is most exciting about your role, and why are you passionate about your job?
Dante Ragazzo: There are so many things I love, it’s hard to pick just one or two. In terms of tasks, I love the detective part of my job – finding an issue, and tracing back to the source. Sometimes it’s a conflation of multiple systems or processes not working correctly, and figuring out the problem is really kind of fun. I also really love the innovation component of my job – finding new technologies, and understanding how they may or may not help our business. That’s part of the detective work, too.
As you might imagine, I get a lot of vendor solicitations and I sit through a lot of demos. I spend a fair amount of time determining the reasons a given system will NOT be a good fit for us, and that usually means a little digging and asking challenging questions. Ultimately, I want to understand if this is really going to improve the experience and digital ecosystem for our employees. Or is it just going to create yet another resource or website they need to remember to check?
we.CONECT: You will present “Cross-department collaboration for a rocking digital workplace” at Intranet Reloaded USA 2023. How would you define your approach?
Dante Ragazzo: We’re creating a community across areas that are typically siloed from one another – within IT and across our business units. By fostering relationships and communication between these teams, we’re cutting down on duplicated efforts and re-investigations of the same technologies.
We’re also focused on capabilities rather than tools. This is a huge distinction. Focusing on Capabilities keeps us from getting into “I want this tool because I used it at my last job” debates, and allows us to further leverage existing investments, instead of spending on more.
we.CONECT: What are the biggest difficulties in this regard? What do you see as particularly problematic?
Dante Ragazzo: Maintaining a cohesive vision, and keeping the team from fraying at the edges – are easily the biggest challenges. Firstly, we’re breaking new ground here. A team focused on the digital employee experience has never existed before, and so getting leadership to understand and support the vision takes a lot of communication. Secondly, the individuals who work directly with the business, especially IT managers and business partners, have got to be empowered to say “not so fast” when requests for new technologies come in. It’s critical that these folks know what our team is doing, and that they funnel such requests into our review process every time. That takes a lot of education, influence and reinforcement.
we.CONECT: Looking to the future, what topics and upcoming trends in intranet and internal communications do you expect in the next 12 months – how will the industry develop?
Dante Ragazzo: I think we’re finally accepting that one platform can’t support all the unique use cases that most enterprises provide; however, I also think we’re moving toward an “intranet as the cornerstone” approach, with “micro” applications connected to it that support those unique use-cases.
we.CONECT: What are your learning expectations from the event? Which topics are particularly important for you?
Dante Ragazzo: I always enjoy meeting my peers, but it’s impossible to know what I will learn. That’s what makes it so fun to attend, I always learn something I didn’t expect, often where I never expected!
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