ADDY ADEWUSI

Hello soon-to-be automation enthusiasts!

Welcome to Principles of Automation, a platform-agnostic project with a goal of educating business leaders, employees, and entrepreneurs on how to leverage software to automate your business, work, and life. My name is Addy Adewusi and I will be guiding your through your automation journey.

Who is Addy Adewusi and why should I listen to her?

First, why listen to me? Well, I am:

• A graduate of Dartmouth College with a bachelors in Mathematics,
• A Marketo Certified Expert, a certification recently renamed to Adobe Certified Expert – Marketo Engage Business Practitioner,
• A marketing technologist / product marketing manager at Microsoft with an assignment of building marketing automation software,
• A former marketing automation manager for Shipbob,
• A former marketing automation specialist for Bisk Education, and
• One of the only people, if not the only person, discussing automation in a holistic manner.

I shared those facts about me because I knew you would find that information important, but what qualifies me the most for this project is the fact that I have an Automation Mindset. I will explain the Automation Mindset in more detail in the future, but essentially I am someone who, for better or for worse, optimizes for efficiency in everything that I do. This quality is wildly unattractive in most scenarios, but incredibly valuable if you automate processes for a living.

What is missing from most automation software and consulting companies?

Why is automation software decades old, but barely anyone on the planet uses it or understands it? I have narrowed it down to two reasons:

• Automation software is a blank canvas. Someone has to tell the software what to automate and how. Hopefully this person understands the Principles of Automation and possesses an Automation Mindset, but if they don’t, they need to hire an an army of consultants – which leads to the second reason:
• Money. Both automation software and consulting companies make boatloads of cash from people buying magical automation software and having no idea how to use it. There is no incentive for companies or consultancies to teach these skills.

Why is Addy teaching Principles of Automation if there is no business incentive?

Good question. While there is no incentive to teach the Principles of Automation or the Automation Mindset from an automation software or consultancy perspective, there are a few incentives for me to teach them:

1. I want to establish myself as a thought leader in automation. In this age of personal branding, it seems in order to move up in my career I need to start a blog, write a book, or launch a podcast. I am doing all three. Principles of Automation starts as a blog post on my professional website. Then I read the blog post live on Callin so it lives in a shareable audio form. Once I have developed a large enough body of content, I will consolidate everything into a book, specifically, a textbook.
2. I am tired of senior leaders, recruiters, and hiring managers not understanding what I do. Automation is not something that can be summarized into an elevator pitch. It requires a depth of knowledge that can’t be attained anywhere other that working in automation. Principles of Automation is a solution to that problem.

What you will learn from Principles of Automation

• The Principles of Automation, of course. Let’s forget about the software for a bit, and truly understand what automation is and can do for your company or organization. The seven Principles of Automation are:
  • Data
  • Time
  • Modularization
  • Segmentation
  • Standardization
  • Testing, and
  • Reporting.
• Which questions you need to ask and why before spending tens of thousands to millions of dollars per year on automation software or engineers. Some possible questions are:
  • WHY am I automating this process? Reducing overhead? Saving money? Making more money? What problem is automation solving for my business?
  • WHAT data is needed to automate this process? Which types of data do I have? Do I have the right data? What additional data are required? Where does this data live? How accurate is my data?
  • WHICH automation software do I need? Do I have the right automation software solution? Was I oversold on features?
  • WHO do I need to automate these processes? How is this process going to be automated? What does a human do and what does the software do? Do I need a full-time employee, a part-time contractor, a consulting firm, or will I learn to do it myself?
  • How do I measure success? How do I know if automation is helping or hurting my business? What is the return on investment of my automation software and staff?
• Finally, you will learn how to apply the Principles of Automation to other areas of your life such as:
  • Finances
  • Relationships
  • Health

Congratulations on finishing this first step of your automation journey. Hopefully you now understand the value of what Principles of Automation will provide and are eager to learn more! Stay tuned by following Principles of Automation on Callin, Twitter, Instagram or my professional website, linked in all of my bios.