Pluralsight Navigate takeaways

Pluralsight Navigate was a full week of buzz and excitement as thought leaders from around the tech world came together to discuss the current technology landscape and how organizations can succeed despite current challenges. The week was jam-packed with data points and quotable presentations from some of the biggest names in software development.

In a previous post, we discussed the major product advancements now available from Pluralsight, but, in addition to those exciting announcements, here are our five key takeaways from Pluralsight Navigate.

1) Doing more with less

The biggest takeaway from all of Pluralsight Navigate ran throughout every discussion and speech: Tech organizations are being tasked to do more with less. Aaron Skonnard, Pluralsight CEO and co-founder, opened his keynote explaining the three factors that make 2022 the latest “unprecedented” year for technologists.

• A challenging economy

• A complicated talent market

• Constant pressures in a digital-first world

These are the realities every tech leader is grappling with, but these obstacles don’t have to stop us from innovating. Economic downturns are the moments in time when opportunistic organizations can lay the groundwork for future growth. As Aaron noted, “Technology is a deflationary force. High levels of tech investment today deliver strong results tomorrow.” This means it’s essential to invest in your people now.

2) Using tech to teach tech

Pluralsight announced a number of significant new solutions and product advancements designed to help you do more with less and get the most out of your workforce and your budget. These updates start at the surface layer of providing tech fluency for your entire organization and extend deep into your tech teams by providing Custom Cloud Sandboxes and deep analytical insights like DORA metrics and Investment Profiles. These tools address the biggest challenges of the tech workforce development landscape:

1. Companies are struggling with an overload of content and how to leverage it.

2. Leaders don’t have an easy way to measure the skills they have today. They need data and skills intelligence to properly measure and map those skills to your business needs.

3. Leaders and learners need more than just video. They need hands-on experience. The definition of skill is the ability to do something well.

Simplicity, speed, and turnkey solutions are necessary to effectively apply tech skill development.

3) Tech fluency for all

While not everyone in your organization needs to understand the tools that your software developers and engineers use to continuously improve your products and services, everyone needs to be able to talk about the technologies relevant to your success. 

Dan Braunm, Head of Global Advisory Learning and Development at KPMG, noted that digital transformation is driving growth in the marketplace. Conversations that may have happened at the tech level in the past are taking place at every level of their organization now. Digital literacy is of company-wide importance and matters in every position. 

Multiple leaders from Wells Fargo talked about allowing people to take ownership in their development, the importance of buy-in from leadership to empower their employees, and driving performance that aligns with their business goals. Tech fluency can extend to tech proficiency when you focus on upskilling and reskilling your employees as well, making it the perfect starting point for workforce transformations. 

Communication and collaboration can only happen if everyone in your organization is speaking the same language. Pluralsight Tech Foundations provides the tools for digital transformation across your entire workforce while laying the groundwork for future talent mobility.

4) Present and future tech trends

Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO of Stack Overflow, gave an impactful keynote address about current and future tech trends. His message was clear: The next generation of technologists are defaulting to real-time online learning. The developer experience comes down to three main things: flexibility, learning, and productivity. These are the aspects of your developers’ daily lives you need to focus on improving in order to remain competitive in our current talent climate. 

Prashanth then provided a number of important insights on developers from Stack Overflow’s yearly developer survey.

• 60% of developers say flexibility is important when evaluating current and future employees

• 50% say productivity contributes to happiness at work

• 50% of developers say opportunities to learn within their companies are important to them

• 70% of developers learn to code from online resources. The same amount are learning a new technology at least once a year

• More than 50% of devs encounter knowledge silos every week

• 53% of developers want to work for companies that prioritize the developer experience 

5) Best in Tech Awards

The week kicked off with a celebration of the Best in Tech awards, where Pluralsight honors and celebrates some of the most innovative thinkers working in the tech space today. 

Winners included:

AdvancedMD - Best in Tech: Data for Good

Capgemini - Best in Tech: Tech for All

Techcombank (TCB) - Best in Tech: Integrated Learning

Wells Fargo - Best in Tech: Cloud Transformation

Rabobank - Best in Tech: Culture of Continuous Learning

BMO - Best in Tech: Learner Engagement

Ford Credit - Best in Tech: Reskilling

Allvue Systems - Best in Tech: Engineering Excellence

Winston Smith - Best in Tech: Changemaker

You can read more of Winston Smith’s story here to learn how he transitioned from phone sales to a thriving cloud career. He currently works full-time as a cloud architect, does contract work, and manages his own ecommerce brand. 

Watch Aaron Skonnard’s full keynote address: