Interview with CTO Adrian Condon – part two

As promised here is part two of our interview with CTO Adrian Condon.

Missed part one? You can recap here, for Adrian’s experience working for large corporations and moving to B-Secur, career progression and insight on his role as CTO. This week, Adrian talks in more detail on his perspective and goals for the tech industry, shares data from his stress experiment and tips for anyone seeking a role in tech.

This month is stress awareness, in your opinion how can technology help to reduce stress? Why is this opportunity important?
Technology can help reduce stress but it can also induce it! Stress is a natural response from the body and mind and it can be good or bad depending on the situation. For specific information on technology and stress, I recommend taking a read of our latest article.

Overall, exposure to prolonged stress is not good, but the key word this month is awareness. Simply by understanding how do you feel? How well you’re sleeping? How active are you? What your most time consuming worries are, eg. work, finance etc?

Technology such as HeartKey® can give accurate responses regarding stress and a range of other feedback from the heart that you can trust and this can help in your awareness of the changes you need to make to reduce the impact of stress in your life.

This can be as small as incorporating a walk or small amount of exercise into your daily routine! Whatever the stressors in your life are, something can be done about it and remember that health and family should always be the most important focus in your life!

In January 2020, you monitored your physiological data for a 10-day period whilst at CES using HeartKey®, can you draw any comparisons from monitoring your data for 96 hours in January 2021?
CES 2020 was a key moment for B-Secur. We were formally launching HeartKey® and had a range of customers and partners demonstrating the technology across the event. Our team did an incredible job preparing for the event. At the time it was to be the primary event where our technology was being launched, showcased with partners, demoed by key prospective customers as well as being reviewed by quite prominent media outlets – no pressure!

On top of this we were travelling to the other side of the world with a packed schedule with every day having important meetings and demos with key partners and prospects. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to compare a range of measurements before, during and after the event. The data certainly correlated with how I felt, and by the end of that trip I was closing in on burnout to a certain degree. Having this awareness through how I felt and what I measured enabled me to take the relevant steps to recover on my return!

One year on from CES, I monitored my data for a 96 hour period to see the differences. As you can see in the graph below, I’m definitely less stressed in January 2021 compared to CES in January 2020!

What goals do you have as CTO and for B-Secur? What are the most useful metrics and KPIs for measuring success?
As CTO, I need to regularly set goals for myself and our team to deliver on. As a company we continue to stretch the boundaries of innovation and a recent example is the achievement of FDA Clearance for HeartKey®! When goal setting there are a few things I like to do:

• I try to be honest with what I/we are trying to achieve. Starting with who are we doing this for and what is the desired outcome?
• I am always keen to have the input of my team and customers, where relevant, as this can shape the priority and the demand.
• I use the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable Relevant and Time-based) approach to ensure we hold ourselves accountable in whether we achieve the goal or not and what learning and progression is happening.

We have some very exciting new things in development so watch this space!

What is the one piece of advice you’d give to someone looking to move into data and technology?
No matter what the field, find something you are passionate about and the work you do will not feel like it is work at all! Accept that this may take some time to find as you explore how your skills can be used and areas you can apply them. Know that change is inevitable and your passions may change over time – embrace that. I am a big believer in no regrets, keep trying and learn from your mistakes and disappointments, that’s how you will progress at anything.