>>The cube presents, Dell technologies world brought to you by Dell. >>No, that, that you guys. >>Hey, welcome back. Everyone. Live here on the floor in Las Vegas with Dell tech world 2022 cube coverage. I'm John for, with Dave Volante, Allison Ducey, chief marketing officer executive vice president of Dell technologies. Welcome back to the queue. Thanks for coming back on. Hey Allison. >>Hey. Hi guys. It's so good to see you. I am just so delighted to be on the cube and so delighted to see you both live and in person. >>So three years ago was the last physical event. A lot of virtual, a lot of, probably some scar tissue to share there, but give us the quick highlights here. The, the show format what's new, what's different. >>So I think one of the things I talked to my team about a lot is we've learned so much over the past couple of years. It's really important as we go forward to carry the best of what we've learned over the last two years, combined with the best of in person experiences that I know we all missed. So things that really people wanna do in person training, connection, the birds of the feather sessions and taking the technology and communications skills that we've developed over the last two years and making the event better as well. So, you know, Dave and I were talking about how do you extend the reach of the event beyond just three days? How do you engage with the global audience? Not all of whom are back to traveling all of the time. And so we think the impact of this event is the biggest and best that it's ever been. And it's not about going back to 2019. It's about the best of the last couple of years and the human connection. I think we've all been missing. >>So I remember last time here, here, we, we asked, we're coming up to state with Ashton Kucher and I told you about my man crush. And now you bring a on Matthew, which was an amazing interview. I mean, I don't really, no, I mean, I love his work, but wow. What a thoughtful and intelligent individual, and you obviously did a great job, you know, carrying that interview. So tremendous. I mean, you, you know him, right? He's like in your >>He's, he's an Austin Guy. He's really committed it to Austin. He's really committed to the university of Texas. We've done a number of things with him together. So we do know him and still, that was probably the most in depth conversation that we'd ever had with him. And it was so much >>Fun. Let me wait. So, okay. So I gotta make you laugh. So at the, after you were done, you said, okay, let's open it up for audience questions. Now I was really intimidated even though I to get up in front of the audience and ask questions, but I didn't know what to ask him. And I figured there'd be a long line of people asking the question. >>There was not. >>So I saw that and I'm like, I don't know what to ask 'em. So I texted my wife and my daughter who love 'em. They're like, all right. All right. And so my wife texted me a question, but it was too late. The, the session had ended. So I'm gonna ask you her question and ask you what, how you think he would've responded and we can >>Refine it. Okay. I'll give it a whirl. Your >>Question was, he's a big proponent of showing up. Okay. I didn't know this. You could ask him about if the definition for him of showing up has changed over time and how does he stay motivated to always show up? And I was like, wow, what a great question. >>That is a great question. And I will tell you as the interviewer, I think lots of people were sort of intimidated. One, one woman even said, this is making me nervous, but here's my question. So as the interviewer, I was looking out at the sea of nobody asking questions, doing scrambling in my head, trying to come up with some more questions, cuz I had already asked all my questions. So I wish you'd been able to get to the stage, uh, get to the mic and ask that question. But here's what I think he would've said. Who knows? Maybe he'll send me a note if I get it wrong. I think he would've said something along the lines of, it's always about being intentional about what's happening in your life at that moment. <affirmative> and so, as he thought about some there's an example he uses in his book. >>I don't remember the name of the movie where he kind of very early in his career where he kind of just winged it and he got to the set and he realized because he was, he thought he was getting over rehearsed. And so he thought I need to go back to the natural moment. And he realized the script was in Spanish and he said, I need six minutes. How is he gonna memorize script in six minutes in Spanish? And I think that was just an interesting example of when he realized that there's a synchronicity between being your natural self and being intentional and being really thoughtful about where you are and what you're doing at that moment. So I think that that intentionality spans his career. It's the moment of interest inspection about where you are in your life and doing brave things like leaving behind a safe, but no longer fulfilling romantic comedy career. So that's what I think he would've said. And >>Bringing that to the moment is where he gets his inspiration. >>I think so. Yeah. >>Yeah. So he's very impressive guy. I didn't read the book yet. It's green light is >>Green lights. Green lights >>Is able the book. So >>I recommend it and I didn't listen to it. I read it. I'm a reader, but I've had many, many, many people tell me that they listen to it. He narrates the book himself. So I think there's some benefit there because you get it truly in his voice. >>Yeah. That's always fun. Yeah. >>Speaking of in the moment, this event has got two things going on in the format you mentioned, but also the content. It is right on point. And a lot of the execs came in Michael and the COOs were both on the cube, interesting poll position you guys have for this. Now you got the marketing angle going on here. How do you throttle this next? What's next? How does it evolve? You got the content, you got the new format, Dell tech world plus digital now combined. What's next? >>I think, I mean, so obviously we are clearly in an inflection point in the technology industry and we've talked a lot about separating the hype from the reality of the day to day of what our customers are doing in their businesses and the problems they're trying to solve. But if you look at what makes us really, uh, I think special and unique is if the, the last number of years we've continued to show up and deliver for our customer tumors, we were there with them over the course of the pandemic. We helped them get their remote workforce up and running and now we're helping them lean into their data center challenges. And I think, for example, the snowflake announcement from earlier this week, this ability to have the best of both worlds and to have your data on premises whilst also benefiting from Snowflake's capabilities. I think that's just a good example of the kind of thing you'll see us do more of, and this intentionality that we're trying to bring to an incredibly complex and fragmented world. So that's what we're doing from a business. And then from a marketing perspective, I think it's just about this stretchy steady drumbeat. It's no longer one moment in time. It is all the moments in time while it's also keeping people's attention. Yeah. Not boring them to death with four hour keynotes. It's >>It's interesting. You know, we, we've been watching you guys for a long time, as you know, and it's interesting. You have such a big story. Now you have the story at the industry positioning of where it is for growth. You also got product innovation, right? Balancing the, the product innovation, which is still evolving. You got edges exploding, the snowflake deal with the new product use cases. There's still the need for the, the nerds, right. So to speak. And then you got the industry leadership, which is happening. So you've got balancing that. How do you thread that needle? How do you tie it all together? How what's, how do you think about that? What's your thought >>Of the things I think is at its simplest. It's not just about what we do. It's also about who we are as a company and you have to do both, right. We have to talk about where we're innovating in our products and our solutions. And it's also really important for us to tell the world who we are and how we show up in the world. And if you think about it, another one of the announcements from this week that I'm really proud of are our solar hubs. And that's a build off of the, uh, solar learning labs working with 25 communities around the world, underserved in terms of access to technology. And so it's, you have to do both sometimes I think in the past we've been just talking about our products cuz we're engineers at heart. And we're proud of that and not talking enough about who we are. I think some companies talk too much about who they are and you're like, well, what do you do exactly? So, you know, the question always is how do you do that? And so there's a believability gap. What we're always striving for is that combination of what we do, who we are. >>So you know, that what we do is really important and there's obviously a lot of very difficult and contentious social issues. Yes. And, and kind of a of follow up there is, is, you know, what's your philosophy on how to handle those? It's presumably what you do, not what you, you say. I mean, you gotta say things as well, and they're gonna be more, you know, we're hearing about it, reading about it, others that are gonna be down the road, how what's your philosophy on how to handle those? >>The first thing is we try to be really thoughtful about what conversations or actually relevant to us. One of the things I watch many companies do is comment on anything, anything, and everything. They sort of run into the fray of the moment and they over comment. And frankly, then I think they don't stand for anything because they're constantly chasing a press cycle, which is pretty vicious and pretty short lived. So we don't think that that serves us. What we do is we look at almost every issue you can imagine. And ahead of time, ahead of time, have the conversation about where are we going to engage? What are the issues that we stand for? And we've got much more intentional, even on our ESG and CSR front, around taking our moonshot goals and making them more practical so that we can be really thoughtful and intentional. Because as you know, at the moment of time, when a crisis hits you, haven't done that work ahead of time. You're probably responding. And you can see that sometimes without naming any names, because everybody knows some of these players are without my even having to say it, someone responding or flip flopping it's cuz they haven't thought about it ahead of time. >>Yeah. And a lot of that comes from the top and the CEO won't stop on Twitter. But so that to me ties in. Yeah. So it ties into the concept of trust. Going back to some of the keynote messages that we heard from Michael you've earned trust in a lot of ways you were there during the pandemic, you know, your products work, et cetera, et cetera, but the way in which you act builds trust doesn't it. And that we've in, I think came across in, in the keynotes. Why such a big theme on trust? I mean you see apple with privacy, doing certain things really doubling down on trust. Can you talk about that? >>I mean, I think it's because it is core to who we are and if you look at the hype cycle around technology, the hype cycle, around companies who can have kind of a moment in the sun and then you find out actually that their business practices weren't very good or they weren't really delivering on the innovation that they were claiming. So they were probably overclaiming at times it has always been core to who we are. What I think we're doing now is just being much more intentional about how important it is to show up that way. That's why I come back to, it's not just what we do, it's who we are and that's why customers choose us. And you hear some of the customer case studies like U S a a like CVS that we use a lot at the moment in time where they needed help managing through the pandemic. We delivered with a consistency that not everybody could provide. And I think provides us the room and the space to really lean into this trust conversation. I >>Love, I love the high level flag. You guys are flying at ESG stores. You're getting in immersed in issues that you're solving for yourselves. So you can understand them and have good positions, but also on digital. Now you have other ways to drive the business. We just started a discord server week before for Dell tech world and already got 8,000 members. And the only thing they really care about about Dell tech world here is what's the monitors, where's the speeds and speeds. Right? They want the speeds and these they're gamers, right? So there's omnichannels everywhere. Right? You have, that's hard, right? So is it a top down? Let, let things fly. Is there intentionality around execution to drive business value? >>I think that, I mean, one of the things that I would say for the company and for its leadership for me personally, is we're generally pretty intentional about most things that we do. I always have an expression that I, I, I don't like to reward a Smith fireman. If the building is on fire, I'm gonna ask you, why is the building on fire? Not, you know, I'll say, are you okay? But then I'll say, why is the building on fire? So the reason I use that analogy is we are pretty intentional about most things that we do. And then you also have to re leave room for innovation because it is a completely different product experience to build an alien where than it is to build server. And yet there's certain standards around how we think about our commitment to environmental goals and sustainability that's consistent. Yeah. So that's the balance that we're always looking for, >>You know, in the isolation economy, we, we learned that we didn't know what was coming next. Yeah. And now in the post isolation economy, we, we learned, you referenced this. We're not going back to 29 team, a rinse and repeat of of 2019 is not gonna work. So I know it's early. You haven't really had much time to think about it, but what have you learned from this event? We were surprised by how many people showed up. What else? >>I was a little surprised by how many people showed up in the fi. And we got a lot of people show up in the final register in the final week or so. I mean, one of the things I think we knew this, but I think we had to learn it a little bit. The hard way. Yeah. Was maybe you don't need four days of two hour keynotes, you know, maybe, maybe people can't absorb that much information. And so I think we've gotten a lot tighter on our messaging and delivering of the keynotes and then allowing people, the space to engage in other that are really important to them, like their own training. They, a lot of people come to this, this event for their own professional development. We should be proud of that and celebrate it. And one of the expressions I use a lot is let's get our inner geek back and provide people the opportunity to do that. And even with our own employees, one of the things that we've seen is just how happy they are to see each our, so leave space for that. >>The face to face matters. It's really valuable in some say, it's the scarce resource now. Yeah. And the digitals augmentation, what have you learned as the standards are, ER, there's no standards they're emerging in real time. What what's popping out as go to, that's gonna evolve as de facto standard digital event kind of hybrid. I >>Think I, I think the short and easy answer is that hybrid Brit evolves as the standard. I don't think anybody sort of like the cloud. Um, I don't think anybody is questioning that you can have the best of both. I think, um, you know, if I taking it out of the realm of events, we are very committed to a hybrid work environment. Just as an example. And this conversation about many companies say you can have flexibility as long as you're here on Tuesday. Well, that's not actually flexibility. That's just pretend flexibility. And so being intentional about, you know, you obviously have to have the conversation with your leader, but we, we are saying, figure out what works for you and work that way. And the reason I went, I took it from events to that example is because that's just one of the many examples of how we're all trying to figure it out. And it's intentionality, it's honesty, it's trust, you know, maybe your job is something that needs to be in person. Great. Then go do it in person. Maybe it's not then don't but have the conversation. So that's, that's how the conversation is sort of >>Maybe it event native, which is the old model. Yeah. Yeah. Hybrid events is there multi-event Daves club super event, >>Multi, multi hybrid events. >><laugh> >>And there actually we do take this show on the road with the Dell tech forum. So it is multi hybrid event. >>By the way you mentioned the team, how excited the team was. I thought it was a great touch at the end of the, of day one keynote to bring all the team members out. That was a really powerful moment, >>You know, to be honest, I loved it when I saw it on paper, I thought this could either be great or so cheesy. I'll be like climbing under my tour and I loved it. And, but even that was a risk where I thought that's fine. Try it. And if it, if it doesn't work, like it's fine, >>Go bigger, go home if they >>Exactly. So I think you see us trying to lean into those moments a little bit more and be willing to take that risk and see what happens. >>Allison always great to have you on the cube. I love your insight. Love your perspective. Final question for you. What are you into these days? What are you watching personally in the industry or in, in your life as we evolve into this next chapter of the generational of the cultural shift? >>I mean the biggest thing that I'm really thinking about is this question of hybrid work and what does it mean to build connection with our employees, with our customers, with our partners, with our broader ecosystem, whilst also having the freedom and flexibility that the last two years have brought us. I mean, I think you guys know, I, I have an odd personal life. I kind little bit of a digital Noma myself and you know, I, in a let's >>Extend the segment, let's >>Go down and in years for past I would not, um, have been able to maintain my life and my job. And that's the power of technology. You just have to look for the downside, which is maybe people need more connection too. So that's an unanswered question. >>Yeah. I knew fabrics are more urging my minds. Very clear. Yeah. Allison, great to have you on again. Pleasure having, Thanks for having us here in the queue. We really >>Appreciate it. We always love having you at Dell tech world. And it's great to see you personally. Thanks >>Executive vice president CMO Dell technologies here in the queue. I'm John for Dave LAN. We'll be right back with more after this break.