In this month’s user spotlight blog, we’re talking to Dan Stoll, Director of Technical Marketing at Nintex.
Username: Dan_Stoll
Q: What is your current role, how long have you worked at Nintex, and your career background?
My current role is Director of Technical Marketing at Nintex, which I started in September 2019. However, I have been with Nintex for over 12 years in total. I joined in 2012 as a Technical Evangelist covering the APAC and EMEA region. In 2015, I moved to Bellevue from Australia to join the marketing team as a Senior Manager of Technical Product Marketing and Evangelism. My career journey has been quite diverse - I spent several years in the Australian Army's Special Forces before transitioning into IT roles across healthcare, utilities, construction, and then into the software industry with Nintex.
Q: Which Nintex Product are you most passionate about and why?
I'm most passionate about the Nintex Process Platform as a whole, as it provides a complete toolbox for organizations to visually map, optimize, and automate processes across their environments. But if I had to pick one specific capability, it would be Nintex Automation Cloud. Its low-code, drag-and-drop nature empowers process owners and ops teams to automate processes directly without heavy IT intervention. Democratizing process automation is powerful.
Q: What do you enjoy most about answering Community questions?
The Nintex Community allows direct interaction between customers, partners, and Nintex team members. I enjoy leveraging my technical background to help troubleshoot issues, provide best practice advice, and learn about the innovative ways customers use our products. It's extremely rewarding to support and enable the Nintex user community. I don't get as much time as I used to or wish to spend on the community site, but hopefully, I can get back here more often soon. Before working at Nintex, the community site was my lifeline.
Q: Is there any advice you would give to users learning Nintex?
My top advice is to be bold, dive in, and get hands-on with designing workflows and apps using the products. If you are new, pick a process you know back to front; it makes it easier to visualize if you see the process. Nintex is highly intuitive and has a low coding barrier. Also, you can take advantage of the extensive training resources and documentation available. And, of course, the Community is invaluable for asking questions. Persist through any initial hurdles, and you'll be quickly automating processes! Also, feel free to send support tickets through. So often, I see questions on Reddit or even on the community that should, first and foremost, be sent straight to support. If it isn't something for them, they will let you know.
Q: What's one thing — either industry-related or not — you learned in the last month?
I have learned how important meditation is for mental well-being in the last month. Initially, I thought it was a difficult and time-consuming practice. However, after trying it out for just a few minutes a day for the last month or so, I have noticed significant improvements in my focus, mood, and overall sense of calm. Additionally, I learned about the Japanese philosophy of "Wabi-sabi," which celebrates natural authenticity and embraces imperfections.
From the tech world, this month, I've learned that not all GenAI products are the same.. Granted, I've only been using Copilot, OpenAI, Claude.ai and Bard. Each has its benefits and downsides. Copilot is great for doing research that is backed with references to where it found that information. OpenAI is great for being able to throw a file at it and to process it as you need, Claude.ai is fast and less likely to start hallucinating, and Bard, well, that is just Google Search on steroids. Overall, I use Claude.ai the most
Q: What's something about you (a fun fact) that not many people know?
A fun fact not many people know is that I love music, and used to play guitar and sing in a rock cover band in my late teens and early twenties. A buddy of mine and former lead guitarist of this band now actually has a legit band 😀 called Mammal. Check them out on Spotify. 🤘
