How to understand Robotics, Data and AI [with CTO Lucien Blondel] - Full video.]

welcome to the sultans of sales podcast i'm your host jamil pendleton today on the show i'm excited to welcome lucian blondo from montpellier france and lucian and i connected on linkedin and this is one of the topics that we're actually going to discuss today is is the magic of linkedin but before we do that our guest today is a medical robotics expert he's very well versed in imaging and ai and kind of this digital transformation that we're we're experiencing real time uh many overlaps from from lucian and i's career in terms of just what we're interested in what we talk about and a lot of us i find myself commenting in on your posts and and vice versa so it's been great to engage with you over a very short period of time and i'm i'm grateful that that we can spend time today lucian is the cto of quantum surgical who is a medical robotics company that is focused on treatment of liver cancer so lucian thank you very very much for joining the sultans and sales podcast welcome to the show hey thank you jay thank you for having me on your podcast uh even if i'm not a sales guy uh i'm more of an engineer but i'm happy to be there at the soul terms of uh sales previously right yes sir we started out as the sultan's spine and then you know i mean i think it's good to to extend the lens beyond spine surgery because i've got a lot of experience in sales before i started in this industry how about you what what is your path been yeah i mean i've been uh working in this field surgical robotics for 20 years so i'm an engineer by background i graduated engineering school back in 2001. and and during this uh this school i did an internship a nine months uh last year internship on a project that was aiming to compete with actually the intuitive da vinci surgical robot so it was a european project developing a tele-operated robot for soft tissue surgery laparoscopic surgery in a general surgery urology all that those fields and that's where i discovered this area and i never left since i mean that's uh that's uh too exciting to to look at other topics so after i graduated i took a gap year with my twin brother and my older sister and uh and and we went traveling around the world we had a project around children um and so we spent uh one year over there uh in asia africa and south america and when i went back i started to work for a very small startup that is called a medtec sa in montpellier south of france and there were just four people in our office with this id from from the founder berta naom uh to develop a surgical robot for me uh for orthopedics actually at the beginning it was for tibial osteotomy which is not a very big market so we quickly shifted to a total knee replacement and uh we developed this uh this product uh we were very small team actually but uh in uh three four years uh we ended up with a prototype get it c marked and fda cleared so that was in 2005 2006 and at that time there was a guy at zimmer looking all around the world to uh to to enabling technology such as robotics and and he found us and and we started to discuss with this company and uh senior management came to montpellier to marseille to do cadaver labs and and they found it very interesting so we entered into our discussions and they finally put the technology so the ip the assets the prototypes uh uh all everything but the company and the people and we helped them for a couple of years uh because they took over the product development and and they invested uh several millions into uh into developing this product for the market unfortunately it it didn't want uh through because they had other issues at that time uh in the company and the ceo change and you know what it is when when you know there is a such a big project led by the ceo and then the guy leaves and and then you know what what happens so the robot is in the closet somewhere and uh and everybody moves on and that's life and that's okay and so we started uh again from scratch and we went back to um an area that we knew already which is cranial neurosurgery and we developed the rosa a brain robot that is intended to help neurosurgeon to uh either place biopsy needles or electrodes deep inside the brain uh based on a pre-surgical planning and a ct and mr images and that's very delicate uh surgeries you have to be very accurate when you do a deep brain stimulation like with a mediterranean system uh you have to be very accurate because otherwise the stimulation is not efficient or the recording of the epileptic seizure is not efficient so accuracy is really paramount for this kind of procedure so what we wanted to do is to really enable any kind of surgeon neurosurgeon to start a program on epilepsy because of that robot that helps you know place 10 to 15 electrodes into the brain with a very complex planning so same steps a couple of years actually two years after we uh we reached the c mark and fda clearance we put the system on the market and we tried to commercialize the the device on our own uh locally in france and then in neighboring countries and then in the u.s china's and stuff like that then i took another gap year uh i went traveling around asia because uh i'm a big fan of uh asian culture and uh and all those different countries that are very very much different from our western society so i took this gap here i came back i went to visit a friend in uh san francisco and he told me hey you you should be on linkedin so i was okay let's do this linkedin story solution sorry to interrupt win win-win was that what year yeah that was in uh 2010 maybe 2011 i started that and uh so i just you know at that time linkedin was just you know uh you put your cv basically and you connect to people to uh to to to get relation and and start something like that and i got connected with people uh in the in the silicon valley uh in surgical robotics and they offered me an interview right there i was in vacation i didn't plan to go back to work you know yeah but but i i was on linkedin and it was starting so i was like okay let's um let's move on to the next step of my life and let's really find what i want to do uh uh as the next career move and so i i went there and uh interviewed that i it was not a fit with the with the company but uh so i i went back to uh to paris in france and i started uh through relationships i i was connected to people that g health care they have a very innovative project in interventional radiology they were developing a really really new system uh angiography room with a mobile robotic system specifically for hybrid or so that those kind of uh of rooms where you can at the same time perform a surgery conventional surgery on a breakable table and you bring the angiography system and you do endovascular procedures so it's a hybrid in a sense that you can do both procedures and you can do also stage procedures where cardiology you can do a coronary stenting and then the surgical face uh a cabbage or stuff like that of the of the on the heart so it's a really advanced technology and i spent there uh three amazing years i love the i love the company g is a very strong strong culture like like i feel medtronic is he has a great people he really really everybody is very accessible so i learned a lot over there i was i'm very curious so i asked people a lot i went to marketing i went to servicing guys i went to manufacturing and i wanted to learn everything because i spent you know i don't know eight years on the startup trying to figure out how you do business and then when you are in a corporate environment everything is very structured it's tailored for mass production and and all process are very regular so i was very curious to learn about that so that's what i did and uh back in 2013 i was called by burton home again and they started this a new robot for spine surgery so there was a spine so i went back to medtec say back to startup back to big challenges and i let the engineering team and the clinical trials so that we can land safely and again see you marking fda clearance or a couple of years at 20 2014 2015. and um 2013 we did the ipo uh we raised 20 million euros and and then the next step of this uh startup germany was you know really to when you want to address the big markets you need a huge investment because you know set up the sales force distribution manufacturing so we were looking for another round uh in the u.s and well through different ways we got connected with the zimmer biomet so they came back new people new business units new business development areas and and we started talking they they quickly understood that the rosa technology in itself it was tailored for brain and spine but it can be applied to many other fields so they they saw the opportunity to to leverage this technology for other businesses of their own like knee and hips and they acquired a company in 2016 and early in 2017 uh with the top management of met ksa we left the company we we let them do what what they're good at you know which is distributing and and doing all the manufacturing and making sure that you can you know sell hundreds of robots a year and uh and we started again from scratch quantum surgical and uh so that's another startup journey we we decided to take some time because you know uh it was quite uh an eventful um 15 years that we had and we took like six months really to uh to take a step back and say okay where is this field of uh therapeutic intervention surgery where robotic can really provide benefits you know we're not into i have this crazy idea of a robot and then i will find where it can be used we just said okay where is this uh this field where the helmet needs clear unmet needs from the surgeon from from the physician and it's uh where there is a complex procedure it's hard to to execute it's it's operator dependent there is a long learning curve and then robotics free surgical planning that can really help streamline this and and democratize this kind of technique to to touch much more patients so we found this and it's uh in liver cancer and uh and yes i mean liver cancer is a big um it's a big issue you know uh cancer in in in uh in general uh there will be an increase from 18 to 18 to 30 million new cancer diagnosed each year by 2040 today like more than 3 million people are diagnosed with liver cancer either primary which is a cancer coming from the liver or secondary which are metastases that comes from other organs mainly a colorectal cancer and for those people there are not many treatments uh surgery is the gold standard of course and it's efficient but uh very few people are eligible to surgery because they are all people with uh comorbidities and so the other i have are left with not many options and uh percutaneous ablation is one option and basically just for the listeners is it's just uh the international radiologist with will insert a needle through the skin uh towards the the tumor that is inside the liver and and it will activate uh some kind of energy so it's either heat or cold radiofrequency microwave or cryo and this energy will just uh destroy the tumor and you just remove the needle and and you're good to go so it can be an it can be it will be uh an outpatient procedure so it's a very quick yet uh very uh a lot of benefits for the patient but it's it's hard to do it's very hard to do because everything is moving in the in the abdomen so that's where you know you need to have a advanced technology to help you uh define where you want to go to locate where is the patient and to guide you to execute what you plan and then to assess what's the result and say okay i've burned enough and i can i can i can finish the procedure or there is still a little bit of the tumor that's not been covered and and i just need to implant another another needle fascinating that was a bit long but uh no i thought it's listen it's fascinating and it feels like that you're very curious uh as am i we've both traveled uh the globe and and i think that that's stems from just a right a thirst for knowledge and for for trying new things and seeing how other people are doing things and i love what you said about when you're at ge and just asking different questions you know from different business parts of the business why do you because i i consider that that is a that is a very good thing that a lot of folks are so tunnel vision into their world that they don't stop to understand even if right across across different functions of a business business unit or an entire corporation it's so important to understand those other people so for example you're an engineer i'm a sales guy i think some of the best relationships that i've had in my career have been with the people that are making the products that i get to sell with the engineers so how do you see the engineer sales relationship today right and then where do you want it to go maybe at quantum or for the entire scope of medical technology robotics yeah that's uh that's a good question first i would say that you know engineers and sales there are like two different cultures so it's like uh it's like when you travel away abroad and and you have to adjust you have to listen to you have to understand that you know every uh party has its own uh challenges its own constraints and and we live in different worlds and that that's what i like about said you know they they brought a lot of energy a lot of fun and but at the same time you know they don't have the same uh you have a lot of pressure on uh you know doing closing the deal and uh we have a lot of pressure on uh doing things right in the right order with a very organized way and sometimes those two uh construit don't perfectly align but where we can meet is on the customer right and and that's where i mean that's where we have to work between engineers and sales and and it comes it comes you know during the pre-sale process i mean for capital equipment it's different than for i'm talking about capital equipment complexity it's a robotic device that not you know commodities um such a big system you have to some way customize it to the customer and you have to make sure that this big piece of equipment it's going to fit into the or in general i mean what are they using as implants what kind of imaging system they have how big is the room where do i plug the system all that stuff that you have to organize because you you you put something into the operating room that is going to you know people will have to to live with that so you have to adjust and you have to make sure that everything will work well so that's right characterizing you know the environment of the user and the needs of the user are one very important uh expectation from from engineers to sales and from sales to engineers and and other thing is i love to get you know customers feedbacks and and and sales people they they're they're on the field uh and they have this you know firsthand and and right and uh they are not that much used to um share that knowledge in an organized way and and and but uh through discussion uh yes and passion uh then we can we we can get this information uh and in return uh we can uh uh sometimes meet the sales need which is like hey this guy he want to buy but you know he he's using this ablation system that is not right but what can you do you know can you can you do it for tomorrow of course it's a bit more complex than that and it is it takes time you know and it's so well said and i think that one of the secrets it's not really a secret but one of the very simplistic way of looking at how to convert a surgeon to using your new technology is very simple it's teaching them something that will improve their workflow or their patient outcomes and that's something that it's it's difficult to do and and i think that you've you've stated the engineering piece of the new technology you have to follow the regimented process because that's critical in terms of safety and efficacy and reproducibility right and you mentioned earlier robotics is about accuracy i would i would i would agree i would also say it's precision it's repeated uh accuracy and reliable precision and accuracy right and well and i love what you said define locate guide and assess and i wrote those down because that's that's really everything and i'd love your perspective on robotics because it's not it's not just the ability to pre-operatively plan it's not just the precision and the accuracy of the instrumentation or the arms or whatever whatever that that robotic piece is the guidance right the visualization but it's then the passive data that can come from that and it's it's knowing that you've done you've done what you came to do as a surgeon from a surgeon's eyes in that moment intraoperatively and being able to assess lucian that they're where they need to be or that they need to continue and that's difficult to do without robotics in navigation and these enabling technologies it's it's almost impossible no it's not impossible but it requires a high skill set and uh from the surgeon you know through experience then then you have top surgery they you know they're as good as anyone with a robot uh but it it takes a lot of time and and and you can go that far you know robotics can for this top surgeon they it can bring them further uh treats uh more complex cases or uh treat complex cases with more confidence you know uh being less uh anxious about you know what's what's going to happen is there going to be a complication during the surgery so it's uh well that that's my point of view but coming back to robotics and accuracy and that stuff i think yeah i mean there are those three phases you have to help before during and after the surgery so that i mean that's for every market segment i would say in surgery and and then depending on on the application then you will have different needs accuracy that's for cranial neurosurgery spine also you want to have that uh but there are other fields where uh like let's say the telopriotic robot for soft tissue what they wanted is dexterity you know they want enhanced vision they want that kind of stuff and so everybody tends to think about surgical robotics like it's it's a one market right it's it's like one car but no i mean you have even even four cars you maybe you you have a bmw a great uh you know car and and and i have a a a more spacious uh a car to have my three kids in the back and being able to you know travel with my kids and so everybody has different uh needs and that's the same in surgery there there are so many different applications that they they are common needs and pre-planning guidance and assessment and then there are very specificities to to each field that's absolutely true and yeah i think thank you for the correction it's not impossible to do surgery without enabling it's just difficult to do it reproducibly and to take on some of those tough pathologies which might challenge right their training in their hands you might need something to assist right we're in the robotic assisted surgery game at least in spine and neural surgery it's not when i talk to my friends and this is great because this is a perfect segue to that question that we were talking about off mic when i talk to my friends about robotic surgery they're thinking like terminator 2 robotics are taking over the world right humans have no control can you explain robotics like take a take a much more layman's approach to explaining robotic surgery to someone that maybe doesn't understand it to your degree yeah okay i'll try at least um yeah that's enough to die i mean you can have a very broad definition uh robotic surgery being any kind of device with a piece of a robotic arm that helps a surgeon to to do a task and and then that it encompasses a lot of different stuff it can be a a robotic arm that is positioning a uh high intensity focused ultrasound so it's high few it's a for focal treatment like a prostate cancer or skin cancer or whatever and the robotic arm is just positioning an end effector so there is also a robotic device in in surgical microscopes so there is now this next generation of digital microscopy and and we're coming to see robots over there so that they can have two cameras instead of those big big optics and and everything is digitized and it's it's robotized so it's helping to move uh an end effector so that's that's one way of doing a medical robotics then there is the the big portion of surgical robotics which are the tele-operated robots where you have uh in soft tissue surgery you transition from open to laparoscopic surgery when you have to enter two three instruments and an endoscope through a throughput so small incision and and the robot helps you to have better dexterity so it's a surgeon console and a robotic cart with three arms that are inserted with instruments into the body and and it's a tailor-operated system even though the the guy is just two meter away from the robot it's still operated and that's one way to do this and and then as you said in orthopedic spine cranial neural a lot of application there are those robotic assistant where the robot is uh collaborating with the surgeon to help him uh do exactly the exact gesture he wants to do based on the planning is is done so it's like milling the bone or it's like drilling into the pedicle or it's like placing an inter body cage or whatever and right and and and that's a different concept and that's i mean that's a the concept we've been working on for for 20 years we're not into a teleoperative surgical robot even though we start with we started the first version of the bridge robot was a tail um milling robot for our knee replacement but we got away from this it's so fascinating thank you so much for the knowledge on robotics it's grateful i'm grateful for for that and hopefully the audience whoever that is uh surgeons sales reps engineers people that are interested in medical technology and specifically robotics who they've gotten some something of value from you lucian so i appreciate that we're to pivot so we're going to stop and now move into a different digital world of social social media specifically linkedin and again i said at the beginning of the show and this will probably be maybe a phase two to the show uh when we launch our episode that's how we found one another that's why we're here today it's becoming more and more um kind of a common uh place to socialize to network to connect to share ideas it's it's incredible and you know i'm using it in multiple different ways uh you mentioned 2011 yeah you linkedin for me used to be just a a live resume and a place to maybe look for jobs and while i still think it is i think it's much different today and it's much more powerful today because you the ability to for you to have and i both we have 5 000 plus followers right so that's incredible like i don't know 5 000 people and i probably won't meet a large percentage of those people but you can still gain share right grow from them that's my take enough about me what are you what are you excited about linkedin just just let's just talk about this what's happening because it's super fun so okay let's start with the beginning right you know uh i don't have any big game plan with linkedin it's just it's just a very simple uh day it was in end of april i just you know realized that i reached this 3 000 followers milestone app i've never done anything to grow my network on linkedin just accepting uh incoming uh requests and and so i reached this three thousand and say hey that's that's something and i'm at the same day i see a a surgical robotics company that i i really like that is doing a great job and they're celebrating their first 1000 followers and i'm like there must be something you know if if if a company doing such great uh product is is happy to have 1000 and then i have 3 000 what what should i do with that you know i have to do something with that so i thought about it and uh i get a connection request from someone who knew someone who knew who knew me and who said hey i he told me i should connect with you because i am interested in surgical robotics and and you're giving some insight so i thought we should connect so that was my purpose you know just what i've done for for 20 years in my in my companies and sharing you know information about what are the emerging technologies first in robotics but i'm also into imaging with my ears at ge and and robotics and imaging is very close together and right now ai is also the third part of this you know yes uh triangle robotics imaging and ai so i'm trying to share also on this topic and and and the why is that you know i'm i'm convinced that uh it's very exciting first and that it will somehow someday someone will will have an id uh coming out of this and and start a new project and and maybe a new company a startup and they will create a medical device and at the end of the day the medical device will provide benefit to the patient and the patient is it's you is me his neighbors is your co-workers is your families your friends is it everybody so that's the that's that's where it started like uh four months ago and and i started from there just uh you know i will start to share and i will uh i will see along the way what's what's gonna going to happen and and i start connecting to people uh and i i started to learn from people and i started to to get inspired by people and and try to you know uh give back to the community so this is something i hear a lot in from american people and and i made it my my own uh my own motto you know give back to the community and uh the medical device space is a community in itself and and i've been working in here in there for 20 years so it's time for me to to somehow give back to the people who are entering this community and who are fresh new they don't know much and and it will accelerate their ramp up in the knowledge and and and for every companies and at the end for the patient that's right we talked about that off mike the reason why i do what i do and i've been asked this question why are you sharing things openly that could potentially help competition it's a valid question but my answer is because the patient deserves it because we all can improve i can improve every day lucian respectfully you can improve every day 20 years experience right and i've got 13 in this space 18 in in sales we can absolutely help lift all lift everyone right for the benefit of surgery uh and of the patient and then i kind of have a separate also piece that it's no secret but i'm here to retain and recruit top talent that's my job it's a big part of my job my new role and when i got this job six months ago i thought how am i gonna do that i don't have a team it's just one guy i'm just one person and i thought linkedin i got a hunch i'm gonna start posting i'm going to start connecting and hopefully inspiring and motivating and building right and it's happening we're here today i'm learning from a 20-year medical technology robotics expert a chief technology officer right and we're having you know it's morning for me afternoon for you but the digital connection allows us to have a conversation and although we're not part of the same company we can still educate inspire right motivate whatever whatever it is and the fascinating thing for me about the podcast lucian is being able to to harmonize your experiences a little bit of mine and share that with whoever ends up watching and listening to this and that's just what's so neat about the whole digital transformation for me and linkedin is you know i think it's just it's such an untapped resource yeah i mean now on my side i've seen uh like a shift in the industry i mean like 10 15 years ago um people were not open to share you know it and and it was not digital so you you you you encounter people at uh at uh events shows ws whatever and then everyone is an attitude booth and you know staring at each other and what they're doing what i'm doing you know and um i the way i see it on linkedin at least that people are sharing much more openly right now because they see the benefit of you know educating each other and and and and if we all go towards the same direction then everybody benefits from this and and it leverage everybody you know it's uh it's for everybody's benefit it and that's right it's you know give give and then you will you will get in return much more than what with what you've given it's just you have to start to give that's right and that's so true i mean adam grant writes one of my favorite books give and take he talks a lot about that givers um they're it's actually kind of counter-intuitive if you haven't read the book i've talked about it before but but the top percent of any rank the top percent ranking of any uh specialty doctor lawyer engineer sales rep entrepreneur athlete right it doesn't really matter the top percentage are givers the middle are the takers and then the bottom percentage are also givers so there's a really fine line about how much you give why you do what you do right and i don't give because i'm expecting to get right i'm giving because i know it's the right thing to do and i feel compelled to do it and to your point you've got all this knowledge and experience right mine's in a different realm but similarly i want to share some of that and sometimes when i turn on this phone typically to record it is almost as if lucian i'm giving advice to my younger self in a weird way right like yep when i started in this industry i was 28 i had sales experience but no medical background right it was a business major and now i'm trying to maybe raise up tomorrow's leaders and maybe inspire them to up their game and tell them it's okay to not know everything and uh anyway what what what do you do what's your kind of strategy or or or whatever you know the question is but but when you when you sit down to post or maybe you post standing up what is your kind of thoughts behind that yeah well um it always comes from [Music] something that's that's exciting you know or something i feel i have to say so last time it was about you know the ones walking on the front line because you know just someone reaching out to me and asking questions and that it brings this this idea and i say this i have to share with other people so that that's motivation and stuff like that then on the content it's it's i have so many so many interesting uh content to share it's more my challenge is more like what i want to select in all this and and how i should package it so that it's uh interesting for other people and and it's the right timing but yeah coming back to what you said um i started also you know to connect to uh more students more junior engineers or general medical sales because at the end of the day if tomorrow i'm leaving the medical device industry so what is left with all that knowledge you know that they've built what is left with all that expertise it goes nowhere so why should i hold this for myself i mean if right if tomorrow i'm not there for any reason then it's for nothing so i started to uh to to connect to younger people to you know it's the future so if you believe in what you say if you really believe that the technology emerging technology will help physicians better treat patients and more patient then you have to invest in the future and and the future are people that are right now in the industry and also people that are entering this industry and that's right that's one one thing that pops into my mind because you you talked about that and and it's also um it's it's yeah you said it it's counter-intuitive because hey when when i was young nobody you know reached out to me and and told me all those things and you know they should you know go the hard way and and and and try to you know write all these experiments by themselves but no actually not that that that's not empowering anybody and it's not useful and and and uh it's uh it's a waste yeah you have experience you have something to say go for it you know go for it say it i agree but but i would push back on one thing you just said i i've actually been blessed with mentors and coaches for a large part of my life whether it was athletics and soccer some of those coaches that just you know got the most out of me or a mentor that i had when i started in this industry right scott tracy and some of these some of these people who just poured so much into me and sure we worked together so there was a it was a relationship that if they build me up then i could be valuable for them and that's good ultimately but but i feel like i have to pay this forward i feel like i to your point it's a waste if you don't and and ultimately what is your legacy going to be well it's we're still working on that you know you and i are still still young still in our prime we've got experience but we've also got a story to tell and so i think it's super fun and it's it's been an interesting experiment called for lack of a better word over the last six months and i'm excited for the next three months six months after that and just to build what let me ask you this do you need to be able to quantify something in order to know that it's valuable well you know i'm i'm i'm someone who works more from the gut feeling so i would say no just you know i mean well in the engineering process and and when you want to reach a performance then yeah you have to to quantify stuff to to verify that you will land where you wanted to to to be uh for the product requirements or customer needs or whatever but uh for the rest it's it's uh you know it's it's not there is no science behind that you know nobody's going to be able to quantify anything any metrics will be irrelevant so just if you feel like it then then then it's it's fulfilling for you and uh you should do it and then it it works or it doesn't work and and then you adjust and it's okay if it doesn't work i mean you will find something else you will by that 15 degrees to the left or to the right like like matthew where scott is saying and and you will find something else you need to move forward you need to to to go to the next step it's inspiring and i agree and and ask that it's kind of an i wouldn't say a loaded question but it's a question that i'm that i'm that i'm asking myself like i mean i mean what's the roi on all this but as a sales guy i'm wired to have a quota and and i do have a quota right i'm responsible uh in in a small part i have a big big team and a lot of great people that i work with we are responsible for a number at the end of the day right and measure the impact right of that number when you don't own the day-to-day right the the ground level to your point i mean i was a sales rep for a long long time and and i lived and died by that measure and so it's been really interesting i think for the last six months to while i am tied to the number the quarterly reports and and all those things are super super important for me i'm playing the long game here right i'm trying to to change uh people's perceptions and to help in a small way with our brand and so that's one of the things that you and i messaged about can we talk about that i mean it's just an intangible but it matters yeah no i mean i mean yeah i mean i will adjust a little bit what i said uh i think both you and i are on the beginning of this journey so at the beginning for me it's not clear enough you know to put a metric to put objectives and and to to see what's the error i i i'm sure that in in 12 years you will be able to figure out what's the roi because you will have i don't know a podcast with that many people listening and and staying for at least 25 minutes i don't know so you will have your own metrics at some point during this journey but coming back to the brand um i i see a lot of discussions on linkedin and i i agree with all those guys that uh there have been a lot of conventional marketing you know in this medical device space and um and with the pandemic situation and the shift to to digital it's not that efficient you know all this conventional marketing with you know my product that's this this crew of five millimeter or you know this device of this size and and and that's the service we provide and and i think this this kind of stuff that you do that uh shine a light differently on on a brand it's uh for me it's very efficient because you it's uh it's unedited israel it's uh it comes from from the heart and and and so you can relate to that you know if it's a con when whenever it's conventional marketing it's sometimes hard to relate to the message uh unless it's very something very brand new like the my intuitive app on on the digital space that that's amazing and that you you have this once in a time and and for the rest everybody knows that you know there are spinal fusion implants and stuff like that and and and when you go back to uh you know what you do i would say for me it it it brought me a much different perspective on the metrolink brand so i've been there for 20 years and you know medtronic i've been i've been alongside medtronic for 20 years i know them pretty well from a very distant uh perspective but as a you know as a big company selling products and stuff like that and having people share different stories where you can relate to uh brings you a different perspective because the the brand is not only the product it's also the people and you know what's the what i like that is the culture you know the culture you have in the company and and through this kind of of uh experience you share a little bit of the culture of the company and and that's that's that's the hardest thing to understand uh you know what's the culture of the company through conventional marketing and and you you only understand that the true culture of the company issue enters into the company but uh then it's it's it's too late if it's not the right one so well said it i am humbled honestly i'm i'm humbled that i've had any sort of even slight impact on on such a global brand uh such as medtronic but but that's exactly what i'm trying to do um just telling my story and if my story happens to resonate with you or with anyone in a positive way and look when you get to a certain point there's there's there's a lot of people that are tired of seeing my face on their feeds than linkedin i get it i understand that that's kind of part of it and i'm not everybody's cup of tea and that's okay that's okay too i don't have to be right i just i'm here and i'm available and i want to connect with people like yourself with competitive reps competitive surgeons right we've got so much of that's happening at such a rapid pace that i just want to i want to capture it i want to share it and i want to share it with more people and bring more people in and that's kind of that's kind of the the rub and i'm just grateful lucian that that we we had some time to to connect live and and and from france to texas where there is a paris texas i'm sure you're aware but if you're not there is in paris texas you crazy americans still stealing our own country's names on our town's names right and it's this vault yeah but every time every time i go to the usa you know there is this city that that that's a french city yeah what's what's what's this doing here you know yeah the best is my brother lives in versailles kentucky and it's we say versailles because it's clearly versaille but in kentucky it's been americanized to to call it for sales it's just kind of a fun wrinkle to what you're saying anything else any questions i i don't want to take too much of your time i know we're at the top of the hour we covered a lot is there anything else that you is worth talking about or you know comments or questions yeah i think we didn't talk about traveling right episode three right traveling what what does traveling mean to you in you know in a simplistic view of it what what is it what is it provided for you that yeah that you use today so i think it comes back to uh two basic things uh the first one is um get away from your everyday life so cut everything that is your routine constraint the pressure of the society you live in all the conventions all that is you know putting you under pressure to do stuff in a certain way and and in a certain timeline so just get away from from this uh so that will open europe to anything that is possible and uh and the second one is connect to people because at the end you can travel 40 100 countries and you can see marvelous landscapes and you can have great activities and you can try delicious food and you can you can do whatever you want but when you come back and and euros are passing and the only thing well the first thing you remember because you remember all that thing also but the first thing you remember is is the people you met and and what you learned from the from the connection so that's uh i think that's the two things from from traveling and and when you when you think about that you can travel not that far to get that right you know if if if you clearly cut yourself from all the the the ties of the everyday life and and truly connect to people you can do it right next door absolutely and and that's the mindset of you know what i've gained as well from traveling it's perspective on the world and then on myself i've talked about that a couple different forums but that perspective is so important and you do need to remove yourself from the comfort zone that surrounds you from the familiar right and i've mentioned this before but i mean i remember vividly he was in barcelona and i was looking around it's just this beautiful place and i was homesick and depressed and i could not enjoy it because it was at the tail end of our trip and you know i just remember that it i started pouring into journaling i had been journaling this whole time maybe one day i'll write a book because it was just such a wonderful experience right for two texans to actually three texans to travel one of our best friends planned it and then couldn't go right at the jump but met us later and you know two of my best friends and we saw the world it was just just so great and i still draw from from that trip and i'm jealous super jealous that you got to take two of them uh at different stages of your life because i'm sure they represent different things for you yep yeah yeah i mean yeah it's different different stages of life and and different approaches to to the same travel but uh yeah it's it's uh it open ups a lot of possibilities because you know when you're you're in uh at school then uh the best best place to go is this place then you finish your school and the best company is this one and then once you're in the company then the best career process this one and then if you don't pay attention then you just follow a path that has been uh drawn for for you for yourself but maybe it's not the one that that you really chose right and and traveling brings you this perspective to you know to know that yeah well we live in a big world first and uh and there are that many people and they have very different stories with different you know trajectories in life they've experienced very different stuff and and and there and we're others we are all the same at the end i mean there are much more similarities between between people and then then there are differences so you can relate to to the stories and say hey maybe i could choose i could choose get inspired by those different paths and and make the right choice for me absolutely i mean you mentioned asia and i i've been to china japan southeast asia just incredible culture rich people right and and uh just so different than how the western world and how certainly in america we we are and we live um and here's the crazy stat and you mentioned it's a big world i i think i've been to 40 countries i think i need to count uh and that's like less than 10 of the world right which is just staggering and and eye-opening and i i dream of a day i know today with the with what's going on in the world economy uh with with the pandemic and other things and the borders or it's not as easy right now to travel as it was when you and i did but i hope that that that soon uh i can bring my children to see some of the rich cultures africa you mentioned they went on a medical mission trip just a few years ago and that was another eye-opening experience right to just see how they live and the smiles on those faces of kids that have nothing it and i didn't mean to get i'm not trying to preach but you know when i when i when i come and i see my kids who i work hard to provide a lot for them you know you just think back to those those children and other people maybe in different places that are that are underprivileged and that are that have a tough right road ahead and um it just gives perspective right still today i draw from it so yeah yeah definitely i mean the third gap year will be with my children so at some point sometime you know it's maybe we'll do it together yeah yeah and i mean i mean meeting meeting people also because when you travel you you meet local people but you also meet travelers and those travelers are i've also uh oftentimes rich experiences to share and and and and that that's how you know i i discuss with israeli people and the israeli situation is very complex and it's very difficult to understand from from where you are if you just read the newspaper and stuff like that and i wouldn't get into the details but you know just relating to this guy and discussing he was just finishing his uh military year uh in israel and and and we get to talk and you get to explain let's see how you feel with the situation and and what his point of view and this is the kind of stuff you you don't get if you don't uh if you shouldn't uh connect with someone and that that that's a lot of a lot of things to to learn to to to experience yeah it's absolutely an israelis is a is a great uh and i draw from uh my time spinning with with quite a bit of israelis uh we met them in fiji there were some in thailand and they the spirit that they have because they all do have to serve in the military women too and they they know that tomorrow's not promised so that's how they live their lives and it's just such a beautiful way to live um and so when i met them i i i was just drawn to that right in in and and came to you know appreciate things about their way and their culture and i'm lebanese right american just completely different right and this was 2006 when i was traveling so the lebanese and israelis were were at war and it was just uh we here we were in a different part of the world coming together and connecting and learning about one another and i think that that bridge and kind of to your point like just the perspective and the empathy that you gain from you know shared experiences and just conversations just like you and i today lucian like this has been so rewarding for me to learn about your path and the lens of an engineer for robotics but also just through [Music] other things such as social media and digital transformations and branding and connections right it's we're all connected and it's just fun so i'm grateful for this time and i appreciate you taking it thank you i mean that's that that was our first conversation and and i really enjoyed it man you do man it will be the last uh if people wanted to find more about lucian blondel uh where would they go where would you tell them to like yeah they go to linkedin to my uh to my profile and just click follow i i accept also a connect connection request anybody in the medical device and i'm very focused on sharing information on robotics imaging eye so as long as you're interested in in those fields feel free to follow feel free to connect and send me a message and and we'll go from there and we'll see we'll see where where we'll end fantastic well lucian thank you so much for joining the sultans of sales podcast the sultans of engineering uh it and and and i'm grateful for the time again and look forward to seeing more of your content on linkedin i draw a lot from it and i educate myself uh this morning's was fantastic about about the the all the french innovation and and technology companies that are that are uh that are out there today from from france so i encourage anyone listening to this when it when it airs to go to lucian blondel's page and read read that post about about the all the innovation that's happening in your country thanks i'll do videos of that definitely absolutely yeah absolutely have a good rest of your day sir i'm gonna stop this recording thank you guys for joining we'll see you next week

2021-09-17 22:49

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