Ep. 216: Robert Cooke - Streamlining Data Management: An Inside Look at Fintech Solutions

Today we're excited to have Robert Cooke, the founder and
Principal Architect of 3Forge, a New York-based fintech company
that focuses on solving complex data problems in the accounting
world. Robert joins Count Me In to share his story about his
lifelong passion for computers and his journey to founding
3Forge. He breaks down the three buckets of data that the company
focuses on: real-time streaming of data, asking computers about
data, and data entry. Robert emphasizes the importance of having
the right technology in place to analyze data properly and shares
his experience working with various organizations to solve their
data problems. Join us as we explore the fascinating world of
fintech and data.


Episode Transcript:
 


Adam:           
Welcome to Count Me In. The podcast, where we examine all things
affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm Adam Larson, and
I'm excited to introduce our speaker today, Robert Cooke. Robert
is the founder and principal architect at 3Forge, a New
York-based provider of data visualization and visualization
technology. Today, Robert and I discuss his passion on the
interrelationship between computers, people, and data. And
describes the future trends he expects to see in data
management. 


 


Businesses of all sizes can gain value through using data to
optimize and streamline their business. And we discuss how the
technology chosen plays a role in driving a competitive
advantage. Let's listen in to learn more.


 


Well, Robert, I want to thank you so much for coming on the
podcast today. We're really excited to talk about you and your
organization, and fintech. And before we go there, I just wanted
to start with maybe you could tell a little bit about your story
and how you got to where you are?


 


Robert:         
 Okay, yes, great, Adam, thanks for having me on
today. So my story is I'm a lover of all things computers. I've
been into computers my whole life, ever since when I was a little
kid. I went through the natural learning curve, which is,
originally, I wanted to build video games, and this is in the
early '80s. So I was focusing on what does it mean to write
efficient code and things along those lines. And then later on,
we had this club, and in the club people could buy sodas and buy
candy bars, and things like that and it was like a Boy Scouts
equivalent. But it was all being paper-driven in terms of the
accounting and everything. And I felt, "Well, this is a great
opportunity for computers."


 


And that's when I realized, wow, computers, as a kid, I always
saw video games, and I realized these really are business
machines, they can really help streamline things. And, so, our
little club was actually, probably, one of the first grade school
clubs to, actually, be managed through electric accounting. 


 


Now, I'm embarrassed by the system I built at the time it was
very hardcoded for sodas and candy bars, but it still got me
started on the concept. So I've really spent my whole life
thinking about, abstractly, what it means to connect humans to
data. And that can take you in a lot of places. 


 


And then I ended up working in fintech, it was Bear Stearns, it
was in 2002. And I was head of infrastructure at the dark pool
Liquidnet. My work product has been at many of the tier-one
banks, but all the while it's been this, I would say my story has
been one of interest in computers and interested in how humans
and data interact.


 


Adam:           
And that's a huge part of, especially, in the accounting world.
Where you have to understand where your data is and what your
data is doing. To be able to visualize it properly, to give the
right reports to your CEO and all of those items. And, so, we all
understand how important data is. What does your organization,
what does 3Forge do in terms of data? How do they look at data?


Robert:         
 Well, I look at data, I've actually broken the
problem down into three buckets. I think two of which are very
important for accounting. But to be exhaustive, I'll go through
all three of them. The first bucket is what I would call
real-time streaming of data. And that is not necessarily as
important for this conversation, but it is something that we
focus on as well. So the idea is, as data is taking place
somewhere you want to be able to have that streaming in, and as a
human be able to read that in real-time. 


 


An example I could give is, if you think of, at this point, cars
are pretty advanced. That dashboard in your car, that's real-time
streaming information coming to you, telling you your speed
limit. You don't have to ask the car, "What's my speed limit?"
It's just always showing it to you, that's real-time. I think
very cool things could be done in accounting with that, as you
start to move into workflows, but I'll digress on that. 


 


The second thing is what I would call asking your computer about
data. And, so, a very simple analogy would be you simply go on to
Google and you type in, "Who is Adam Larson?" And then it comes
up and gives you an answer. That would be you, a human, invoking
a question, asking the computer and the computer comes back,
that's the second thing. 


 


And then the third thing is data entry, which is pretty much what
it sounds like. The ability to fill out a form, hit Submit and
send that. And then that goes into the computer. Maybe it goes
through some validity, maybe it goes through some workflow
process, with the ability to enter data. So, to recap, we break
it into three buckets– 


 
Data moving in real-time.The ability to ask questions about
data.And the ability to enter data. 

 


And I think one of the cool things is, and this is like decades
to come up with this answer. It almost seems embarrassing because
it seems so simple, at the end of the day. But once you've
thought about it in those three buckets, you can really start to
tackle just about any problem that comes your way. And, frankly,
accounting has some of the most deceptively, challenging problems
there is. 


 


I mean, some of the systems that I've seen built on our platform
are way beyond my understanding, to be quite frank. You know what
I mean? But there's a lot that goes into it.


 


Adam:           
Yes, there is a lot that goes into it. So that just goes to show
it's really important to have the right technology in place, at
your organization. To make sure that you can analyze your data
properly. What have you seen as you've worked with many
organizations. As they come to you with different problems and
having to work through their data issues?


 


Robert:         
 Well, it's interesting because it goes without
saying that Excel is the predominant piece of software being
used. And Excel, I'm sure if I look, I've got five monitors here,
I'm sure if I look around enough I'll find Excel up on one of
them for something. 


And, I think, Excel is an incredibly powerful tool for certain
activities, especially, if you're trying to mock things up
quickly. You're trying to aggregate some data, maybe determine
interest rates, something like that it's very good for
that. 


 


But I do think it has a tendency to be overused, to the point of
abused, and I think a lot of people would agree. But a...