Appian CEO Matt Calkins explains the low-code revolution, HyperAutomation, business and more
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 Published On Oct 30, 2020

Appian is the low-code company that lets you create apps visually via flowchart, 10 to 20 times faster than traditional ways, in what is a sophisticated reimagining of the coding process. This lets apps, software and ideas flow into life at the speed of thought, and be easily updated and changed. It's also an excellent example of hyperautomation, which is the subject of CEO Matt Calkins' new book.

Appian. https://www.appian.com The company describes itself as providing "a low-code automation platform that accelerates the creation of high-impact business applications" and that "many of the world’s largest organisations use Appian applications to improve customer experience, achieve operational excellence, and simplify global risk management and compliance".

The company's CEO and co-founder is Matt Calkins,   / mattcalkins   whom Forbes Magazine described in a 2019 profile as a "billionaire, board-game god and tech's hidden disruptor" which is quite the description, and when I learned more about Calkins' work and reputation, you can definitely say it's very impressive.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonr...

Calkins is also the author of a new book, entitled HYPERAUTOMATION, http://www.hyperautomation-book.com/ which was published on October 14, 2020, and which iTWire will be reviewing.

More information about the book is below, as is a summary of the questions that I asked Calkins about, but first, my video interview with Matt Calkins is above. The article continues below, please read on!

Clearly, the low-code revolution's time has come, and I came away impressed by learning more about Calkins, his philosophies on business, coding, board games and life, and my guess it that you will likely be fascinated to learn more, too.

There's also Calkins' new book, HYPERAUTMATION, which was one of the things we spoke about in the video.

HYPERAUTOMATION is described as "a collection of original essays from influential technology and business experts examining different aspects of low-code development in the enterprise, and the impact of low-code on the future of business process automation".

It features a Foreword by legendary chess chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, and political activist Garry Kasparov, who discusses how his views on how the human/machine connection have evolved from his historic battles with Deep Blue to today.

In his Foreword, Kasparov states: “The human mind is an unmatched analogy engine, able to apply experience and new information to new circumstances almost instantly. Machines can’t do this themselves—not yet—but with our guidance, they can help feed our insatiable appetite for ever-greater agility."

The book features an Introduction from Appian CEO Matt Calkins that sets the context for the chapters to follow, as he highlights the urgency of the lessons found in HYPERAUTOMATION, writing:

“COVID-19 set the spark for the next phase of the enterprise software revolution. In the pandemic, business realised that change was a matter of survival.”

In my video interview with Calkins, I started by introducing Matt, marvelling at his Forbes profile piece, and welcoming him into the program.

I wanted to know what advances, improvements and innovations that the year 2020 and all of its events had brought to low-code the way Appian does it.

We then spoke about how Appian started - what was the catalyst?

The next topic was "digital transformation" and how it hasn't really lived up to its promises, but how Appian is enabling companies to properly transform themselves digitally - how and why.

We looked at AI, ML and RPA, or robotic process automation, and how automation used to mean replacing people with technology and how the definition of automation today "means complementing people with digital helpers".

We spoke of how COVID-19 changed Appian and business.

Matt told us about some the chapters in the book and their authors, and then we spoke of the future, and low-code's likely evolution.

We talked about Matt's love of board games, to share great advice he had received in life, great biographies that he had read and if any had really stood out to him, the biggest challenges in his life and how he overcame them, his work with the education sector, and his final message to iTWire viewers and readers, and to his current and future customers and parters, and Matt's answers are all in the video interview above!

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