Interview with Natalie Smolenski

What do you do?

I lead business development for Hyland Credentials, which specializes in verifiable digital credentials using blockchain technology. Until the beginning of this year, we were a separate company called Learning Machine. I’m part of the Learning Machine founding team, so I’ve been here since the very beginning.

Learning Machine itself actually grew out of another company that specialised in admission systems for higher education. Blockcerts came out of conversations we regularly had with admissions offices around the world about the difficulties they regularly have verifying official records. We found they were all keen to see a full portfolio package from each applicant: that means fully validated, verifiable credentials, consolidated official records. That technology didn’t exist yet, so we began working with one of our customers – MIT – to build it. We were pulled in on a research project, at the time called Trustless Transcripts, which later became Blockcerts, or blockchain certificates. We released Blockcerts in 2016 under an MIT open source license.

From the very beginning, we’ve been committed to open standards for digital credentials and digital identity. A standards-based future is essential for establishing a successful digital identity ecosystem. It’s really at the core of our mission – there was no way to scale email or the World Wide Web without interoperable and open standards that everyone can use.

In 2017, Learning Machine went to market with the first product for issuing verifiable credentials at scale. We got quite a bit of customer traction, and in 2020 we were bought by Hyland. It’s been a really wonderful journey – focusing on building the open standards as a company, and then personally taking responsibility for making adoption happen as Head of Business Development.

 

Learning Machine has recently been acquired by Hyland – what does this mean?

There’s been a lot of momentum in the digital identity and credentialing space in recent years, and this really validates that market. Credentialing has been the most mature application of blockchain technology outside of cryptocurrency. In fact, a lot of the large players and multinationals have been developing blockchain credentialing solutions, or saying they’re going to, as are a growing crop of startups.

The Hyland acquisition demonstrates that a large, established software player can find a fruitful partnership with a lean start up like Learning Machine, to deliver a leading-edge solution to its vast portfolio of customers.

 

You’ve got a whole range of clients across sectors – so how easy is it to support different companies?

We were fortunate in when we launched our product back in 2017, as it was the peak of the blockchain hype cycle. That generated a lot of inbound interest from institutions who wanted to learn everything they could about blockchain credentialing. People wanted to see blockchain in action, so I became sort of an educator, explaining the underlying technology, doing demos, and showing how our product could be used for standards-compliant credentialing implementations. All to a really receptive audience. Of course, each institution is slightly different – their priorities will vary, but there’s a lot of commonality in how people learn and metabolise a change in the market like this.

The majority of our customers are in education, because that’s the space we grew out of and where Learning Machine had an established reputation as a brand. However, there are countless adjacent use cases. We’ve grown to having customers around the world, ranging from educational institutions (Higher Ed and K-12) to governments and professional licensing organisations. Ultimately, any document officially issued by a provider could be a verifiable credential; for example, vital records, licenses, passports, and property or land titles/deeds. Right now we’re seeing particular interest from healthcare organisations for things like physician and practitioner credentialing, and even prescriptions or medical records of patients.

 

Does that education around blockchain trickle down to the end user?

There are a number of different categories of end users. For those using the credentialing system (our direct customers), they get trained and onboarded, and then we work closely with them to reach out to the students or civil servants (their “customers”) that are using the credentials. We help our clients educate their end users with anything from emails to webinars to partnering with local organisations or people impacted by the change. There’s a whole range of communication methods that helps all people using or affected by the technology to make sure they understand it.

 

There’s a whole range of communication methods that helps all people using or affected by the technology to make sure they understand it.

 

As someone with paper based education certificates, I feel like I really need this

Haha! Yes, I love to say that I sell what I want, which makes my job so much easier.

 

What does a normal week look like for you?

It’s kind of a blessing that I don’t really have a normal week. One day I might be in Malta on customer visits with the Ministry of Education – one of the organisations in the country that we work very closely with. Another week I might be in New York doing a workshop with a multinational organisation or working on a proposal for a major US university school system. The great thing about business development is you fly as fast as you can, so each week can be considerably different to the next.

In this role, you have to very adaptive due to the range of challenges each week. One of the things I learned early on is that being “right” actually doesn’t matter very much – it’s all about communicating in a meaningful way to your audience. People respond as much to who you are as to what you say. If they don’t see you as a partner, as someone who is in this process of transformation together with them, it will be hard to build trust.

Another thing that’s critical in a business development role is that you have your own principles and reason from them, adapting to the cultural context of your audience. Listen to people’s concerns and priorities to find a solution that really works for them. As long as you can forge a joint trajectory that you’re both on, then there’s a path forward together.

An essential part of this is that I never assume that someone I’m talking to shares my vocabulary or understands the context for a particular term or value I hold. So there’s a constant stream of diplomacy underlying my work. It’s kind of a social analogue for open standards being fundamental for establishing common understanding. In my previous life, I was an anthropologist and had to learn multiple languages and cultural idioms. This has come in very handy in my current role.

 

Being “right” actually doesn’t matter very much – it’s all about communicating in a meaningful way to your audience

 

Do you have to explain the fundamentals of blockchain now? Or do you find people are now starting to understand it more generally?

In the early days, all people wanted to talk about was, “What is blockchain?” Today, some still want to talk about this, but more people want to talk about the value of blockchain; what problems it can actually solve, rather than concerns about what the technology is. In the same way that most people who use other software applications don’t really care about all the details of what’s going on underneath, they just want to know the features of the service and whether it will make their lives easier or not.

Because we’re in a more mature market today, people often have a better sense for what they want blockchain to do for them. From that I can dissect their business problem and then start working through a solution—if there is one. Blockchain isn’t a panacea; there are many problems it can’t solve, but some things it does extremely well. It’s all about finding if there’s a fit. Today, anything having to do with credentialing is something we can address at Hyland—from issuing the verifiable credential to all the case management work that happens prior to the credential issuance. The products we have are extraordinarily flexible.

 

Were you always interested in technology?

Both of my parents were software engineers, so I was always around it, but my interests and expertise were in the social sciences. I’m a trained anthropologist, so I’m primarily interested in the social origins and impacts of technologies. One of the things I found really compelling about blockchain is how it’s created this space for experimenting with new governance models, in an era when existing institutions are coming under really intense political scrutiny.

Sovereignty is also fascinating, and was one of the areas of social theory I specialized in during my graduate work. I’m currently working on a research paper on sovereignty in general and self-sovereignty more specifically. When we use these words, what do we mean? For example, how does our understanding of sovereignty affect our view of currency? What would it mean for currency to be de-nationalised (i.e. through Bitcoin)? What would be the implications for the sovereign state and ultimately capitalism? What happens to the form of political economy that we currently live in?

 

If you were CEO what would you make compulsory and what would you ban?

My answers to both of these questions have less to do with setting rules than with looking for certain qualities in the character of the people that I would bring onboard.

I would ensure that people in my company are skilled in what they do, or demonstrate a capacity to learn, but most importantly that they have a capacity to work closely with others to achieve a common goal. A number of studies of successful organisations have shown that this ability to work well as part of a team has more impact on a company’s long-term success than even the skills that people have. This is because people who feel safe and in solidarity with the rest of their team are able to move mountains; even top performers’ abilities are amplified when they can rely on their colleagues to have their back. That said, if you’re trying to build cutting-edge technology and successfully take it to market, you do also need to be able to attract and retain top talent. That is why leading these kinds of organizations is no easy task.

 

People who feel safe and in solidarity with the rest of their team are able to move mountains

 

The one thing I would ban is bad faith, by which I mean people who demonstrate they’re engaging in anything other than good faith interactions. Bad faith is toxic regardless of where people are in a hierarchy. Each person in an organisation is a pillar that supports the success of that company. Conflict is natural and often healthy, but bad faith is a character issue that is tenacious and quickly spreads to others. It is fundamentally at odds with solidarity and just needs to be rooted out.

 

What book/film/music/art would you recommend to others?

There are so many, but I would have to say the most extraordinary film I’ve seen in recent years is Arrival. I actually wrote an essay about it because it showed how science can be a diplomatic endeavour. In the film, scientists are deployed to be mediators between humans and a completely alien species. Their patient proximity to the aliens enables them to learn a fundamentally new form of language. The courage of the scientists is especially moving—they could have been killed at any point in the encounter, but they persisted—for everyone’s sake. It’s a film that’s deeply inspired me.

 

still from Arrival film