About
With over 20 years of experience in digital operations, robotic process automation (RPA),…
Courses by Ian
Articles by Ian
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2024 has been quite the year, filled with innovation, collaboration, and impact across #BCG. We've achieved a lot together, from advancing #AI and…
2024 has been quite the year, filled with innovation, collaboration, and impact across #BCG. We've achieved a lot together, from advancing #AI and…
Liked by Ian Barkin
Experience
Education
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Sloan School of Management
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Activities and Societies: Clubs: Innovation, Venture Capital & Private Equity, Management Consulting, Finance
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Licenses & Certifications
Publications
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How AI-empowered ‘citizen developers’ help drive digital transformation
MIT Sloan School of Management
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All Hands on Tech: The AI-Powered Citizen Revolution
Wiley
Supercharge your organization's capacity for innovation
The greatest untapped asset in an enterprise today is the ingenuity of its people. Dive into a future of work where technology empowers everyone to be a creator and builder with All Hands on Tech: The Citizen Revolution in Business Technology. This pivotal book offers a comprehensive look into the role of citizen developers―business domain experts who are driving IT-enabled innovation using technology previously reserved for…Supercharge your organization's capacity for innovation
The greatest untapped asset in an enterprise today is the ingenuity of its people. Dive into a future of work where technology empowers everyone to be a creator and builder with All Hands on Tech: The Citizen Revolution in Business Technology. This pivotal book offers a comprehensive look into the role of citizen developers―business domain experts who are driving IT-enabled innovation using technology previously reserved for professional technologists. Through case studies of citizens and citizen-enabled enterprises, the authors demonstrate how emerging technology bestows unprecedented power on these individuals and unprecedented value on the organizations that channel their efforts. They outline a transformative approach to citizen development that not only enhances companies' innovative capacity via the empowerment of domain experts, but also minimizes risk and liberates IT departments to pursue more strategic initiatives.
All Hands on Tech describes a revolution in work―powered by technology becoming more human and humans becoming more comfortable with technology. This convergence provides a clear pathway for enterprises to leverage the on-the-ground experience and insight of all employees. The authors provide diverse examples of companies that have aligned the work of their citizen developers with wider organizational goals across citizen data science, automation, and development projects. These examples demonstrate why and how to commit to the citizen revolution in your organization.Other authorsSee publication -
Harnessing Grassroots Automation
MIT Sloan Management Review
Companies are increasingly embracing the idea of helping nontechnical staff members — those who have deep business-area expertise — learn to directly automate processes that give them headaches and eat up their time. For instance, human resources employees are uniquely qualified to identify the mundane and repetitive parts of their jobs, such as candidate-tracking tasks, and then, with some training, build automations that will relieve them of chores such as duplicative data entry and data…
Companies are increasingly embracing the idea of helping nontechnical staff members — those who have deep business-area expertise — learn to directly automate processes that give them headaches and eat up their time. For instance, human resources employees are uniquely qualified to identify the mundane and repetitive parts of their jobs, such as candidate-tracking tasks, and then, with some training, build automations that will relieve them of chores such as duplicative data entry and data cleaning.
While the development of such applications by so-called citizens within organizations requires careful planning and governance to be effective, low-code and no-code technologies have become commonplace and made such ventures possible.1 Specifically, robotic process automation (RPA) and a broader intelligent automation (IA) suite that allows for the redesign and automation of workflows are now straightforward enough that functional experts can design, develop, and deploy IT applications and analytical models themselves. No longer do all projects require mediation by IT employees, who might not fully understand end users’ pain points. These tools of citizen-led automation are allowing less-technical people to build complex systems that improve their work experience, and they are already generating considerable value for many businesses.
In this article, we draw on interviews with six companies — AT&T, Dentsu, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), PwC, Voya Financial, and Wesco — to describe their efforts to join the citizen automation movement. We also detail how other organizations can best develop these capabilities and the benefits and challenges of doing so.Other authorsSee publication -
We’re All Programmers Now
Harvard Business Review
Generative AI and other easy-to-use software tools can help employees with no coding background become adept programmers, or what the authors call citizen developers. By simply describing what they want in a prompt, citizen developers can collaborate with these tools to build entire applications—a process that until recently would have required advanced programming fluency.
Information technology has historically involved builders (IT professionals) and users (all other employees), with…Generative AI and other easy-to-use software tools can help employees with no coding background become adept programmers, or what the authors call citizen developers. By simply describing what they want in a prompt, citizen developers can collaborate with these tools to build entire applications—a process that until recently would have required advanced programming fluency.
Information technology has historically involved builders (IT professionals) and users (all other employees), with users being relatively powerless operators of the technology. That way of working often means IT professionals struggle to meet demand in a timely fashion, and communication problems arise among technical experts, business leaders, and application users.
Citizen development raises a critical question about the ultimate fate of IT organizations. How will they facilitate and safeguard the process without placing too many obstacles in its path? To reject its benefits is impractical, but to manage it carelessly may be worse. In this article the authors share a road map for successfully introducing citizen development to your employees.Other authorsSee publication -
Intelligent Automation: Welcome to the World of Hyperautomation
Self Published
This is the first reference book on Intelligent Automation (IA). Also called Hyperautomation, it is one of the most recent trends in the field of artificial intelligence. IA is a cutting-edge combination of methods and technologies, involving people, organizations, machine learning, low-code platforms, robotic process automation (RPA), and more.
This book is for everyone – whether you are an experienced practitioner, new to the topic, or simply interested in what the future holds for…This is the first reference book on Intelligent Automation (IA). Also called Hyperautomation, it is one of the most recent trends in the field of artificial intelligence. IA is a cutting-edge combination of methods and technologies, involving people, organizations, machine learning, low-code platforms, robotic process automation (RPA), and more.
This book is for everyone – whether you are an experienced practitioner, new to the topic, or simply interested in what the future holds for enterprises, work, life, and society as a whole.
Key content of the book:
What is Intelligent Automation (IA)? Why has the use of IA been expanding so rapidly? What are the benefits it unleashes for employees, companies, customers, and society?
How have leading organizations been able to harness the full potential of IA, at scale, and generate massive efficiency gains in the range of 20 to 60%?
How can IA save 10+ million lives per year, triple our global budget for education, eliminate hunger, help protect our planet, or increase the resilience of society to pandemics and crises?
What you will get from this book:
Get the lessons learned from 100+ IA transformation successes (and failures)
Benefit from the largest publicly available library of 500+ IA use cases by industry and by business function
Gain access to insights garnered from 200+ IA industry expertsOther authorsSee publication -
Introduction to Robotic Process Automation
LinkedIn Learning
Robotic process automation—software-based robotics that emulate work that people do—is poised to change the way we work. Using this exciting technology, organizations can digitize and transform an array of business processes and functions. In this course, instructor Ian Barkin takes a deep dive into RPA, explaining what it is, what it's not, and what to keep in mind when adopting it in your organization. Here, Ian shares information that can help a variety of stakeholders—from executives to IT…
Robotic process automation—software-based robotics that emulate work that people do—is poised to change the way we work. Using this exciting technology, organizations can digitize and transform an array of business processes and functions. In this course, instructor Ian Barkin takes a deep dive into RPA, explaining what it is, what it's not, and what to keep in mind when adopting it in your organization. Here, Ian shares information that can help a variety of stakeholders—from executives to IT professionals—grasp the key benefits of RPA, as well as best practices that can help their organization succeed at both the process and enterprise levels. Plus, he lends a real-world context to the concepts covered in this course by providing examples from global companies that are implementing RPA.
Learning Objectives:
What is robotic process automation (RPA)?
The RPA vendor landscape
Differences between RPA and other tools
Best practices at the process and enterprise levels
Identifying opportunities for automation
Prime opportunity areas for automation
Key stakeholders in your RPA journey
Tips for success from the front lines -
Shifting the SS&O Industry from Art to Science
Professional Outsourcing Magazine
RPA presents a huge opportunity for the SS&O community. Just as business process outsourcers and shared service center providers have evolved to address high labor costs (via arbitrage), inefficient processes (via continuous improvement), and lack of a holistic system understanding (via analytics), they will deploy RPA to overcome process and technology constraints. If done properly, they will be able to deliver seamless process execution and great innovation that will propel a new and improved…
RPA presents a huge opportunity for the SS&O community. Just as business process outsourcers and shared service center providers have evolved to address high labor costs (via arbitrage), inefficient processes (via continuous improvement), and lack of a holistic system understanding (via analytics), they will deploy RPA to overcome process and technology constraints. If done properly, they will be able to deliver seamless process execution and great innovation that will propel a new and improved generation of work.
Courses
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Intelligent Automation Foundations (LinkedIn Learning Course)
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Introduction to Conversational AI (LinkedIn Learning Course)
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Introduction to Robotic Process Automation (LinkedIn Learning Course)
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Process Discovery for RPA (LinkedIn Learning Course)
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Process Mining for RPA (LinkedIn Learning Course)
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RPA in Action: Use Cases to Inspire (LinkedIn Learning Course)
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RPA, AI and Cognitive Tech for Leaders (LinkedIn Learning Course)
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Honors & Awards
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Top 10 Thought Leader in RPA
Thinkers 360
Placed within the Top 10 thought leaders and influencers in this category based on personally-authored content, awards and recognitions.
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Top 50 Thought Leader in Future of Work
Thinkers 360
Placed within the Top 50 thought leaders and influencers in this category based on their personally-authored content, awards and recognitions.
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Top 50 Thought Leader in Operational Excellence 2023
PEX Network
https://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/business-transformation/articles/top-50-thought-leaders-in-operational-excellence?preview=aa4dbfba608c0b69f7d676345ee06e8deaf31467#:~:text=about%20on%20LinkedIn-,Wil%20van%20der%20Aalst%C2%A0,-Future%20of%20RPA
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Top 200 World's Business & Technology Innovators
Engatica
Recognized as one of the top 200 global innovators in Business and Technology.
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50 most powerful AI influencers in 2022
Engatica
https://engatica.com/blog/updated-50-most-powerful-ai-influencers-in-2022?contentId=621876196f56fd5ee1a60e55
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Top 100 Global Thought Leaders on Technology to Follow in 2022
The Awards Magazine
https://www.theawardsmagazine.com/global-thought-leaders-technology-2022/
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Onalytica's Who's Who in RPA
Onalytica
A list of the top thinkers, influencers, and entrepreneurs in the RPA industry.
Recommendations received
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Join now to viewMore activity by Ian
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Nice and detailed review of our All Hands on Tech book by Myles Suer, who is well-placed to understand the reception of citizen development by CIOs…
Nice and detailed review of our All Hands on Tech book by Myles Suer, who is well-placed to understand the reception of citizen development by CIOs…
Liked by Ian Barkin
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Can citizen developers drive the next wave of enterprise agility? In All Hands on Tech, Tom Davenport & Ian Barkin explore how #AI and low-code tools…
Can citizen developers drive the next wave of enterprise agility? In All Hands on Tech, Tom Davenport & Ian Barkin explore how #AI and low-code tools…
Liked by Ian Barkin
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