Bridging the Human-Tech Divide with Alexis Bonnell

Alexis Bonnell [00:00:19]:
What I was struck by is the fact that the only thing that we and our adversaries have exactly the same amount of is time.

Alexis Bonnell [00:00:28]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:00:29]:
And so when I think about that, that decision parameter, the ability to make decisions faster, the ability to get the right information, to respond quicker. If I look at time as a weapon, right, how do I actually know contribute to wielding that weapon well and effectively?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:00:50]:
Okay. This is Bonnie Evangelista with the chief digital and artificial intelligence office. I am super excited, Alexis, that you have joined me today. Thank you so much.

Alexis Bonnell [00:01:00]:
Awesome. Thanks for having me. It's great to see you, as always.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:01:04]:
Of course, we don't know each other greatly. I feel like we just connect on a lot of things that we're doing work wise. I will say one of the first things that impressed me about you is when we met on a panel earlier this summer. You were the moderator on a panel I was participating in, and by far the best moderator I have ever come across, either as a participant or a viewer. You were so engaging. You were so good. The flow, it came so naturally to you. I just thank you for that.

Alexis Bonnell [00:01:33]:
Oh, gosh. Well, I think the neatest thing about being a moderator, and in some cases of our roles generally, is just this opportunity to exercise curiosity.

Alexis Bonnell [00:01:42]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:01:42]:
And to rub your thoughts up against someone else's thoughts and come away with slightly different thoughts.

Alexis Bonnell [00:01:48]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:01:48]:
In some way, shape or form. And so I am very pleased to know I didn't let you down that day, but this is something we just get constantly, right. And being servants at DoD and being able to learn from each other. So it's just awesome.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:02:03]:
Well, we're going to turn the tables today. I'm going to get curious about you, so give us a quick rundown about your background, and then I don't want to take away your thunder and tell us your current role in the department, how it led you to.

Alexis Bonnell [00:02:18]:
Absolutely. I mean, I think what's really interesting about the moment I find myself in now is that it feels like a very much kind of circling of the experiential wagon, if you will. Oftentimes, I think we look at our career, and if it's been an interesting and exciting one, sometimes it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Alexis Bonnell [00:02:35]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:02:36]:
People always think that these careers should be these perfect kind of progressions, but I often find the most interesting and exciting ways I've grown have been through unexpected opportunities and experiences. And so I think to kind of loop four of those together. When I was just first coming out in the ice age back in the, was the third employee of the Internet trade Association. And my job was really to go around to places like Fortune 500 companies and say, hey, this thing, the Internet is going to change how you do business. And what was interesting. Yeah. At that time was that those same people whose businesses, of course, are incredibly driven by data and the Internet told me it was a fad, right. And told me like, oh, this is just the next thing.

Alexis Bonnell [00:03:22]:
And so I highlight that because I think one of the things I've been so lucky to kind of understand is what is it to try to bring individuals and organizations along with change, right. And that was whether it was bricks to clicks kind of back in the 90s, but bricks to click.

Alexis Bonnell [00:03:40]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:03:40]:
Remember that? Bricks to clicks, YTK.

Alexis Bonnell [00:03:43]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:03:43]:
Let's really date myself here. But we have to think about why I think that's so critical is even in our work in DoD, that question of what's coming next, how can we be ready for what's next, right. And being able to come into a role that was really about being an ally to people, to help them understand what was coming next, how it might impact them, their organizations, was a really neat place to cut my teeth. And then in a weird turn of events, found myself in war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq and many other places with the United nations and got to, I think, I guess, deploy and implement about $5 billion of DoD money for almost every service. And I think what was really interesting there, Bonie, that's part of where I fell in love with procurement, right. And the fact that our mission actually happens through our acquisitions. And while a lot of people may not think that's very sexy, understanding how the machine works, right, in order to help it, help it achieve the mission was really critical. But most importantly, being in those places with war fighters, losing friends, going through different attacks and being impacted personally, I think was really important to have not only an empathy, but a respect for what it is that people who serve in our national security and national defense take on every day and their families.

Alexis Bonnell [00:05:06]:
Then I was able to work at USAID and help create the global innovation lab and really kind of the science, technology and innovation arm of USAID.

Alexis Bonnell [00:05:19]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:05:19]:
One of the third legs of the stool, if you will. And I think that was really interesting because you really had to confront what innovation, culture and government looked like, right. How you actually tactically shifted that. And then again, another weird turn of events. Had the opportunity to go and spend about three years at Google. And I really did that with a lot of intention that I would come back to public sector. But I went to Google to really think about three things in particular. The first was, quite frankly, to peek behind the curtain and to understand what was real and what was hype in tech, right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:05:53]:
What needed to cost $200 million and what was free and no one was using it. And when people said things like, what about privacy and what about security? I wanted to have the answer. The second, though, was culture.

Alexis Bonnell [00:06:05]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:06:05]:
What is it really that Google did? That was something that I could have done as a federal or defense leader. What was the way that they ticked? And what I found is really about probably 90% to 95% of what I thought was really interesting and advantage to their culture, I could have done as a federal leader. I didn't need any other policy changes. I didn't need even budget changes. It was just a different way of maybe value stacking and exercising those. And the third part for me was really understanding what does it look like to create user driven kind of technology. So you can imagine, as I circle all these things up, coming to a place like the Air Force research lab, being able to serve as our CIO and as the head of our digital capability directorate, it feels like coming full circle, right? It's both kind of championing all of the new tech. It is understanding that it's in service of the war fighter.

Alexis Bonnell [00:07:01]:
It is a lab and scientific place where we are advancing innovation and science and research. And most of all, we got to do it through technology, right? So it feels, in some ways, like a homecoming and in some ways, what a terrifying role, right? To try to get all of that right. And so I'm really kind of honored to be entrusted with that and hope I'm making a difference.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:07:22]:
Oh, man. Well, it does sound like your path perfectly landed you into the spot you're in right now, whether you intended it or not.

Alexis Bonnell [00:07:32]:
Yes.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:07:34]:
That's so cool. And you're pretty new on the job, right? It's only been a few months.

Alexis Bonnell [00:07:40]:
Am I wrong? No. I just passed kind of my nintieth day mark a couple of weeks ago, maybe right before thanksgiving. And wow, right? I mean, 90 days in, first of all, just wow. From the incredible amount of just brilliance, right? I mean, this is the Air Force research lab. We support Air force. We support Space Force with some of the biggest brains on the block. And around the world. And so doing that, but also really kind of saying, what does that practically look like from a technology lens? What does it look like from a culture or behavior lens? What is the types of ways that we want people to behave or to be able to exercise their expertise in a digital age? And I think those are as interesting as whether or not we use a particular cloud.

Alexis Bonnell [00:08:30]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:08:30]:
Or whether or not we're able.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:08:32]:
Well, I feel like even though it's brand new, 90 days, that's not new new, it's not the first month, but it's enough that you've probably got your feet a little bit wet. So you're probably stirring. If I know a little bit of you, you're probably stirring. You're ready to do something, as my guess. So where's your head at? What are you seeing? What vision are you manifest?

Alexis Bonnell [00:08:56]:
Is really neat about kind of going in and out of public sector and private sector and getting to kind of maceinate between the two, is that one of the things I really realize is that in and out journey has allowed me to kind of unhitch my identity, if you will, in a way that I think lets me kind of sit back in these 90 days and say what is interesting about what I'm seeing, right. What is something where, because it's really hard to see the forest for the trees once you've been in the forest for a long time. And so I was eager to come back to the forest, but I think stepping back and saying, okay, what is unique about this moment and not just the place that I'm in and the people I work with, but what's unique about this moment in time? And I think that there are a couple of things that have really crystallized for me. I think one is that when we think about government and we think about DoD and we think about kind of the average change horizon that our leaders had to navigate, that used to be kind of five to 15 years. It would take that long for a concept to come out or a new platform, a new weapons platform, a policy or a value, and for that to kind of play out and become ultimately a legacy system. Right. 15 years later. I think what is interesting now is that five to 15 years is really about six months to 1.2 years.

Alexis Bonnell [00:10:18]:
And if you think about it at a human level, that means that leaders with NAFRL and other leaders that we support across Air force and DoD and Space Force, that means that those leaders are having to make five times or more the amount of decisions in the same period of time.

Alexis Bonnell [00:10:36]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:10:37]:
And that's actually really game changing. If you step back and say, wow, what does that mean for us? The second factor is that about 90% of the world's information really came online, so to speak. And so not only are we talking about leaders who have to make maybe bigger, faster decisions than ever, but they have 100,000 times more information to make that decision. Right. And I think that's a really interesting kind of question of what does it look like to be a great leader? And so when I sit back and I think about the role of CIO or digital, I really ask myself, well, what are the behaviors that I want to be able to empower? I think one is, I really want to be able to empower curiosity, right. Because if we're in a constant state of change, people have got to be able to get the right information, the right time, and ask the right questions.

Alexis Bonnell [00:11:29]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:11:29]:
And we're seeing things like AI or modeling and simulation. And a lot of these types of things really be huge manifestations of that curiosity. I think the other thing, there's kind of three factors that I'm looking at. The first is that relationship with knowledge. What is it to have a really intentional relationship with knowledge? So I'm stepping back in this role of CIO, and instead of saying, what about this platform or that platform or this tool? What I'm really asking of myself and of other leaders here is, what is the relationship with knowledge we want to have, right. Moving forward? The second is time. And what I mean by that is when I step back strategically and I look at kind of the adversarial context, what I was struck by is the fact that the only thing that we and our adversaries have exactly the same amount of is time.

Alexis Bonnell [00:12:25]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:12:25]:
And so when I think about that, that decision parameter, the ability to make decisions faster, the ability to get the right information, to respond quicker, if I look at time as a weapon, how do I actually help contribute to wielding that weapon well and effectively? And the last one, I think, is identity.

Alexis Bonnell [00:12:47]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:12:48]:
Because what I realized is most of the time, the things that slow us down in being able to adapt new technology or ask questions and be curious is really our own identities, right? How do we feel our relationship in kind of the status quo versus the new? And I'll give you an example of that. One of the things that's really interesting about looking, for example, at IT and technologist roles is a lot of times the identity of the IT or technologist becomes very tied to a platform, right? They are the person who implements palantir or Microsoft or servicenow or workspace or any of those things. And if you think about it, when people's identity get tied with platforms, it's not surprising that they may be hesitant to see those platforms or those tools or those approaches change, because who they are has become intrinsically tied to that. I think a really neat opportunity for us is to step back, especially in the it and data and information and knowledge space, and say, hey, I don't actually value you because of the particular tool or platform or system that you navigate on our behalf or our mission. What I value you for is the knowledge, right? And what I want is for you to be a knowledge champion, to make sure that critical information that a leader or an operator needs, that you're in essence delivering that as prolifically, as quickly as know Bonie. What's been interesting is, as we've changed that sense of identity, right. Slowly but surely what you'll find is people will say, well, if I'm going to be responsible for the knowledge, there's actually a different way I do it, right? I might use AI or a new tool differently if I'm a steward of knowledge versus a steward of a system. And I think that's a really interesting question for us on an identity issue as leaders.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:14:48]:
I'm taking a pause because I'm soaking it all in. I'm going to start from the top. Empowering curiosity. My team, I think, relates to this deeply because this also connects with some of the strategy know, you might see coming from DoD or even my office in the CDAO, Deputy Secretary Hicks most recently issued or published the AI strategy. It talks about experimentation, and I think there are lots of undertones of curiosity there, but these are just strategy documents. So where does your head go in terms of how do we foster an environment where people feel they can be curious and whatever culturally they're used to, whether it's being compliance oriented or if your culture dictates you do what somebody else tells you, your superior tells you to do. Maybe it's a chain of command thing. So where does your head go?

Alexis Bonnell [00:15:43]:
Yeah, so many places. I mean, I think the first is, again, as a really unique moment in time when we think about curiosity, most of our relationship with information and the things that we could be curious about within government and defense systems before were all what I would call controlled or structured information. Right. We were very specific about, we want this information in this field and this is valid. And what was interesting is that in most organizations, at best, that might be 20% of the knowledge an organization has that is controlled and structured and organized. So the question for me becomes, and the power of curiosity becomes what happens when the other 80%, right, the unstructured. And if you think about it, Bonnie, the brilliance, the humanness, the judgment, the discovery is in the unstructured, right? It is in the after action report. It is in the scientific research white paper.

Alexis Bonnell [00:16:41]:
That's really where we exercise the incredible richness of knowledge. And so to me, I think the first thing is, if we want to be serious about being curious, we got to put all the knowledge on the table, right? We have to understand the difference between structured and unstructured, but we have to stop only considering controlled information to be relevant. And we have to start thinking that catalytic or curiosity driven information has an equal place, right? I think that's number one. I think number two is we have to realize that people are naturally curious by nature. This is one of the most brilliant, incredible things about being human, right? But what's so interesting is it's so easy to beat that out of people, right? I mean, one of the things that the more we have toil, the harder it is to find information, the more hoops we have to jump through. I call it toil very specifically, and not friction or not, whatever, because toil has an emotional component, right? If it's hard for me to be curious, if it's painful for me to be curious to ask a question, then I'm just not going to do it. What I found in my very kind of back of the envelope level research is that even if someone has significant conviction and passion and believes in their curiosity, if they start going down that path, by the time they hit the third block to that curiosity, they've lost about 70% of their momentum, right? And that's when they're convicted and when they're passionate. So imagine how many people we lose just in the thought of what they'd have to navigate to be curious, right? And that's where it may not be sexy, but making it easier for someone to find a piece of information.

Alexis Bonnell [00:18:25]:
And this is where I think tools like Bard or chat GBT have really exploded, right, because they've allowed people to be curious the same way. Maybe you could google it, right? And that ability to exercise that and to harness that, I think are really key. But we can't underestimate what toil does to kill curiosity. And I actually think that curiosity is the most important weapons platform of our future, right? We are literally going to have to out curious and out create and outmaneuver our adversaries. And it's a muscle, and it's something that we have to have people work out, and we have to remove all the barriers to the gym.

Alexis Bonnell [00:19:06]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:19:07]:
Of that muscle.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:19:08]:
It's almost like you're relating it to the adversary. But I think that curiosity has to start internally, so we have to outmaneuver our own bureaucracy and get curious about why am I filling out this piece of paper? Or I don't even know. Right. Or how do I get access to the knowledge? I think I need to connect the dot. That will improve this end user's life. Yeah.

Alexis Bonnell [00:19:33]:
And sometimes that knowledge comes in really interesting forms.

Alexis Bonnell [00:19:36]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:19:36]:
It could be. Who can I ask about this?

Alexis Bonnell [00:19:38]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:19:38]:
It could be another person. It could be an expert.

Alexis Bonnell [00:19:41]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:19:41]:
So there's knowledge there. It could be work that had already been done and that you just weren't exposed to. But I think the interesting thing for me about this is that even I love the name of the podcast like the Mavericks, because I think one of the things we have to figure out is how to stop making innovation a game of heroics, right? I overcame all of this bureaucracy or these odds, and the reality is, it's perfectly within our control to lessen the heroism required to be curious or to have the right information. And I think that's a really interesting question for me right now. In fact, one of the things I'm asking my team to do very specifically is anything we're looking to improve or to do differently or to emphasize, we start with a toil calculation, like, what does it cost or take for someone to do that now? And before we prioritize it or before we do it, we got to be really clear on what we're improving.

Alexis Bonnell [00:20:41]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:20:41]:
And sometimes that's a policy issue.

Alexis Bonnell [00:20:43]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:20:43]:
It's not a technology or app issue. But being really clear and owning that, I think the other thing on that in particular is as we navigate the richness and the complexity of what it is to be defense contributors and leaders, we have to navigate balance, right. So, as, for example, I might look at something that really reduces a researcher's toil, I have to balance that with security questions.

Alexis Bonnell [00:21:09]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:21:10]:
Or protocols or cyber issues. And one of the things I'm really asking the team to be intentional about is, what is the trade off, right. If we add more from a security load, we have to accept the fact that we're slowing down research, and that might be a perfectly viable trade off. But we should be intentional about that trade off.

Alexis Bonnell [00:21:29]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:21:30]:
We should be able to put numbers and math and make sure our leaders understand that in this game of time being an advantage, we have to start playing the board right. In that way and not just think that adding on this request or adding on this signature or putting this thing doesn't have an impact, because it does.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:21:49]:
Yeah. And I like that a lot because I think the norm is to sacrifice speed for certainty. And I think what you're offering is actually making it a trade off. That doesn't have to be the default. It's an option. But you have to understand what you're trading off and. Couldn't agree more. It's something I think we're not super skilled at applying.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:22:14]:
And I think that's the work you have in front of you.

Alexis Bonnell [00:22:16]:
Well, and I think, too, we don't have empathy for what we're asking of leaders to exist in both of those headspaces.

Alexis Bonnell [00:22:22]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:22:23]:
So as a leader, one of the most interesting things in my first 90 days, or someone trying to contribute to this is what's kind of leader? Am I the kind of leader who's going to really be aggressive and lean in and beat the adversary, or am I the kind of leader who is worried about going to jail and being prosecuted for making the wrong cyber move? And that's a real reality.

Alexis Bonnell [00:22:45]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:22:45]:
I mean, there's real reputation and identity. And so every day I kind of have to wake up to your point of trade offs. And I think my solution has been to be intentional about those, right. To be able to point and say, here is what the trade off looks like, and therefore, here is the decision that I can sleep at night with.

Alexis Bonnell [00:23:03]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:23:03]:
As a leader, as we make those.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:23:06]:
This is all, I feel like colliding in an area where when you talked about the humanness of what we're dealing with and how it relates to, I'll say, modernizing or even doing digital transformation so that there is a humanness that should be addressed that maybe is not always the thing we think about when we're trying to deliver capability. How are you approaching that in your seat?

Alexis Bonnell [00:23:33]:
Yeah.

Alexis Bonnell [00:23:33]:
So I think one of my biggest lessons learned in my last opportunity to contribute in kind of federal leadership and innovation was to recognize that most of what we do, and I'll own this, I'll say most of what I had done previously was we focus a lot on the do, right? It's like we're going to do this differently or this. And by simply kind of putting, recategorizing the do or doing differently, that will solve it. And I think what the humanist comes in when we realize that people don't just do, they also think and feel, right? So to my point of the idea of one of my technologists, or an it person having identity as the steward of a particular platform or tool, part of what I had to do was help them think differently about themselves, right? I'm actually more important than this tool. I actually am a shepherd of this knowledge. And that is a bigger job, right, and a bigger calling and a bigger purpose. And once someone can think, and most importantly, they can feel, they can take pride, right, in the sense that they have a bigger role, that they have a more critical purpose path, then what tends to happen is the do or the change sticks, right? Because it is part of someone's values, it's part of their belief, it's part of how they approach the role, it's part of how they see themselves. And I think oftentimes in government and Dod, we think simply changing the do will solve it. And this is where one of the things I loved about how they set up the approach here is this idea of what are digital capabilities, not digital transformation? Because transformation kind of implies there's an endpoint, like we've been transformed, right? If we want to talk about curiosity, we want to talk about really being leaders in a constant time of change, it's really adaptation, right? It's really capability adjustment.

Alexis Bonnell [00:25:31]:
And so I think as we do that, we can't be so naive to think that our humanness only happens in the do. Because I think where we start in our thinking, our feeling, our values, ultimately really decides whether the do is going to get done.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:25:49]:
I like the play on thinking and feeling versus doing for a lot of reasons. Not only does it make sense in life, in particular in the settings that we're working day to day in, though, recognizing everyone's at a different. How do you meet people where they're at, everyone's at a different level and you can't expect. I actually had a moment, I would say, in cross collab event, where there was people from DoD, fed, Siv agencies and whatnot, and somebody was genuinely asking, what is chat GBT? And I distinctly remember thinking, I am in a bubble. That is a no kidding reality, that there is a group of people who are just not paying attention, not invested, not interested. To your point, we haven't created the value for them internally as to why it either improves their lives or makes their work life better, whatever. So I think that's a valid point. I just wanted to kind of footstomp.

Alexis Bonnell [00:26:52]:
There for a second. I think one thing that's really interesting is if you take chat GBT as an example, when I was doing an AI 101 class for leaders both at Google, and then between Google and coming out of this new role, I ran an experiment in my AI 101 leaders class. And the experiment was that for some people, I would introduce generative AI in the sense of their professional capacity.

Alexis Bonnell [00:27:17]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:27:17]:
And we'd use examples of, here's how you could use this in your work. And then for another group, I would split it and in essence, say, I would introduce it from a personal kind of play level. I would say, hey, use it to write a love note to your spouse.

Alexis Bonnell [00:27:33]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:27:33]:
Use it to make a shopping. You know, Bonnie, you probably won't be surprised that as I was moving forward and as I then kind of asked them to think about how this might be useful in their lives, what was interesting is that the people who were introduced in it from a play standpoint, were actually saw much greater value. But more importantly, they would voluntarily list off out of kind of a curiosity connector, things that they thought that might be useful in their work, where if they were introduced to it from their work, they would actually create far less kind of ways of using it. And what I realized as I pulled into this is that introducing it from that mindset of play and letting someone take it as a journey and that identity to maybe this could be useful to my professional life, was far less threatening than, in essence, introducing it professionally. Because where people's head tends to go is, well, what is its relevance to me? How does it remove or add right to my relevance, where if you start it from a more curiosity based thing, people actually can take themselves on that journey. And I think one of the things with AI in particular that we have an opportunity to maybe correct but probably got out of the gate is we didn't realize that ability to exercise curiosity, that ability to play, to explore, but really the ability to kind of say, why this technology now? What does it actually bring you? Versus kind of our AI versus their AI.

Alexis Bonnell [00:29:07]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:29:08]:
And kind of at the tool level, we didn't take people on a human journey. And I think that's a really interesting and profoundly effective place to start people, and especially to start leaders who themselves aren't clear on these tools or their relevance.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:29:24]:
Well, I love it. I love that someone in your position is saying and messaging these things and challenging their teams to think differently. I think only goodness can come from that. So what does the next 90 days look like for you? Do you have a target yet? Or are you just going to continue to build these foundations you've been describing?

Alexis Bonnell [00:29:46]:
No, I mean, thinking and feeling only matters as much as it impacts doing.

Alexis Bonnell [00:29:51]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:29:52]:
And so I think that there's a couple of things that I'm really excited about contributing to. I think one is being very intentional and cognizant of, again, what is our relationship with knowledge? And that means making technical decisions, right. That's things like how do I ensure that we have as adaptable in architecture as possible, right. And especially in a place like Farl, what a great and rich example of, for example, federated it, right? Really taking it to each individual mission across the research lab. And so I think asking questions about what does an architecture look like that enables the power of that federation, enables the breadth of that knowledge, but also makes it really easy to look at interoperability or portability. How do I serve up that information and how do we as a team, and so really looking at kind of what does API first look like for us, right. What does it look like to bring that information to bear? What are our toil calculations telling us, right? So where are researchers spending losing time? Where might our ability to transition discovery to operators or to private sector or other people that can help at scale? Where are the information gaps on that? And I think big questions like if time is an advantage, how are we going to lean into our AI work, our modeling and simulation work, and the fact that those are really the critical place that curiosity is advantaged and how do we use those as places that people can exercise that curiosity, right. And have that type of joy of discovery that is self perpetuating, if you will.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:31:37]:
Yeah. So you mentioned earlier how you don't want to see the innovation become a game of heroics. So I too believe this is part of, I don't know, my passion project, so to say, is making everyone in contracting, in particular, feel like the hero of their own story. That should be normalized. Everyone should feel like that. You mentioned not just because all roads lead to contracts, but because to your point, it doesn't have to be an occasional or a rare circumstance where the defense maverick comes through and creates a thing that can be anybody, literally anybody. So I'm trying to normalize the concept of a defense maverick. So what does that mean to you? When you hear of a defense maverick, what resonates with you?

Alexis Bonnell [00:32:23]:
Yeah, I mean, I think a defense maverick first and foremost, is humbly curious.

Alexis Bonnell [00:32:28]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:32:29]:
A real maverick isn't about knowing everything, it's about wanting to know.

Alexis Bonnell [00:32:34]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:32:35]:
It's about wanting those options, wanting to know. It's also about the fact that innovation and advancement, it's a contact sport, right? It's a team sport. Sometimes people think, especially about our work in discovery, in a lab. It's not like the movies. It's not like there's someone sitting in a dark room that says, eureka, right? It is like my idea bounces off of your idea, which hits your research.

Alexis Bonnell [00:33:00]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:33:00]:
And so I think recognizing that it's a contact sport and there's an element of humanity, of, like, great. Be a good human that people want to have contact with, right. When someone comes away in working with you, they should feel more invigorated about their mission. They should feel more positive. They should feel more hopeful. And if you are not a person who makes someone feel more capable or more excited about this challenge or this sticky thing that they're trying to tackle, then shame on you.

Alexis Bonnell [00:33:30]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:33:31]:
If someone's willing to step up and willing to do the hard work or face the toil, it's really our job to cheer them on, to figure out how to get the right information, how to co create with them. But we've got to really think about how we show up, right? Because that toil, again, it's not just putting the bureaucracy in place. It's the chilling effect of only pointing out what could go wrong.

Alexis Bonnell [00:33:53]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:33:54]:
Or only pointing out the risk. And so I think being intentional in the way we contribute to others and show up for others is a really critical part to me. First and foremost, of any great maverick and any person that I can look at and say, wow, that person really gave me the confidence or the punch in the arm. There's a woman, in fact, I'll call out and celebrate great leader Jen Gustetic, right, who's been with NASA and was with OSTP for a long time. I wasn't even in the innovation game. And I met her and Tom Cleele and others, and they were like, you can do this. Go do that. Go figure it out, right? And I didn't have any street cred at the time in innovation.

Alexis Bonnell [00:34:34]:
And a couple of years later, I was the chief innovation officer at USAID.

Alexis Bonnell [00:34:38]:
Right?

Alexis Bonnell [00:34:38]:
And it takes, I think, people that tell you you can do it, that are really critical and often unsung heroes in that process.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:34:47]:
Yeah.

Alexis Bonnell [00:34:47]:
It's.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:34:48]:
Taking that inaugural step to the unknown is very scary and very real and takes a village. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciated your insights today. Hopefully, this was a good time for you.

Alexis Bonnell [00:35:03]:
This is awesome. Most of all, for those people out there that have a bit of maverick or a lot of maverick in them. I just appreciate being able to recognize we're in a fundamentally different time. No joke. We are really facing a fundamentally different time in history, a different moment. And Maverick's got to step up.

Alexis Bonnell [00:35:24]:
Right.

Alexis Bonnell [00:35:25]:
You got to bring it, because we are not going to meet the challenges that are going to happen in the next 6 hours, six months, six years, six decades without people being curious, supporting each other, and bringing this to bear.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:35:42]:
I feel like the only way to close this is my eight year old. Every time sharing sentiments like that, she's like, slay queen. Get it, girl. Rolling.

Alexis Bonnell [00:35:50]:
I'm going.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:35:53]:
Awesome job. Thank you so much for some conversation today.

Alexis Bonnell [00:35:56]:
Yeah, awesome.

Alexis Bonnell [00:35:56]:
Thanks for having me, and thanks for making space for people to have these conversations.