>> announcer: From around the globe, it's theCUBE covering HPE DISCOVER VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE. Brought to you by HPE. >> Welcome to theCUBE coverage of HPE DISCOVER 2020, the virtual event this year. I'm Lisa Martin, and I have a couple of women from HPE joining me next first time on theCUBE. Very pleased to welcome Jas Sood, the US VP of Sales, Commercial and SLED at HPE, and Sandy Ono, the VP of Marketing Strategy at HPE. Ladies great to have you on the program. >> Thanks for having us. >> Wow, excited. >> So we want to talk about customers, what's going on. The SMB market is one that has been near journal. A lot of folks hearts the last few months, we're hearing so much, even in our local neighborhood about small and medium local businesses, really being challenged as COVID has just disrupted everything. What are some of the things Jas, we'll start with you that you're seeing in today's SMB market? >> Yeah, so I think the SME market is dynamic. And you got a lot of really, really small customers. You have the medium-sized businesses and so forth. So there is a wide range of what customers are feeling today. I think on the one spectrum, just thinking about, how are they going to stay open as a viable business, given the current economic condition? Whereas others are trying to figure out, now that we are in more of a remote working environment, how do they support their employees? How do they make sure that there's remote connectivity that we're able to communicate? Obviously, we're all using the same sort of bandwidth. How do we make that work? I'm also thinking about, there was still a lot of exchange of data going through the remote workplace. And so, how do we make sure that information coming back is secure and so forth? So, one of the things that we're trying to do is just make sure that we're there for our customers, let them know that, "Hey, we just want to hear you. "We want to be there for you." And be able to provide many, many options, which I'm sure we'll talk about here in a couple of minutes. But Sandy, what's your take? >> Certainly, Jas, I echo everything you're saying. I think revenue and cash flow is very much on top of everybody's mind, and just 75% of SMEs revenues have been disrupted. And when you think about that, really, how do you not just move to the new normal, but a lot of businesses are going to have to go through some change. Now, change really first is how do we contain costs? Look at the cost things we need to get done to service customers, have a supply chain, how can infrastructure an IT help with that to contain costs? And then, second, how do you find new revenue streams? The world is much more virtual today than it was yesterday. How do we evolve our businesses in order to actually find new revenue streams? I think is very much on that people signed. >> That's an interesting one, Sandy, that you bring up new revenue streams. Jas, let me ask you as the leader of Sales for Commercial and SLED in the US, how are you finding new revenue streams, knowing that as Sandy said, 75% of SMBs are dramatically affected by COVID, what are you doing? What do you think, even working with your channel partners to open up some new revenue opportunities? >> Yeah, that's right. I mean, channel partners are a key part of our strategy. To go to market strategy first. So we work with them on a daily basis trying to think about, "Hey, how could we really help? "How can we really be out there to provide certain options for customer?" So, one of the few things in terms of helping SMB customers to continue the revenue stream is to provide really lucrative financing options as well. So currently, we have many offers that they don't have to pay until the end of this calendar year, which is the end of our fiscal year. So being able to really think out of the box to say, how could we come together and really be able to help when there is a certain sort of cash flow shortfall right now. I think the other thing too is there are certain industries within SMBs that actually have higher demand right now, healthcare customers, some financial services customers as well. I mean, those are areas that as people in the community that we rely on heavily these days. So, again, being able to be there for those customers to help them think through ways that we can help them to monetize their businesses a little bit more proactively today is also an area where we're trying to help. >> And Jas, how has your role as an executive sponsor in a lot of accounts, how is it changing? >> Very interesting question. And it's more actually often conversation now that we've all been at home. It's not really a, "Hey, can we talk about this project?" Or, "Can we talk about what you have kind of coming up "and how can I help," but it's just more around just a general conversation. So I've had so many conversations with customers just to say, "Hey, how are you guys coping? "How are you dealing with being able to... "Are you able to work remotely? "First of all." I mean, I think we all have that capability, but really to have all your employee base, being able to do that, what impacts does that have on their business long term, short term? And I think that's just opened up just a general, how's it going conversation, we share best practices, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. We're trying to figure that out as well. We are all at home as well. And so it really creates more of a personal conversation. I think the main thing that we want to make sure is that we're just there for our customers. We realize that it's a trying time right now, and cash flow might be tight, and that's okay. Because, eventually, we're going to come back as the United States, as the economy and things are going to come back in, we just want to make sure that we're there for our customer base, whenever that time comes for them. >> That personal vision is so important. Is there I'm a marketer you're a marketer. And for a long time, we've been talking about personalization and how effective those marketing tactics can be when they can really deliver a message to a perspective buyer that hits exactly, "That's what I'm looking for." Even more, as Jas was saying, now it's even more important, not just your SMB customers, to get personal with them, but to allow them to have that experience with their customers. Sandy, how have you changed your marketing mix or even your marketing messaging in light of this new need for a different type of personal touch, that's only virtual? >> It's a great question. Two things are from how you talk to your customer-based perspective. And it's true for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and it's true for all of our customers out there. Really it has to be authentic to the point where we can't just be selling the thing anymore. Everybody is not only cash-strapped, time-strapped. But they're also looking for a genuine connection to something that they need. So to be much more articulate around the problems we solve, the solutions that are readily deployable, how can we help in these moments has been much more forefront and the marketing messages and just the way we talk with our customers. The other thing is from a marketing mix perspective. We're going to the same thing everybody else is right? I was just thinking the other day, probably half of our typical marketing investment is in physical events, just like Discover was a year ago. And really having to rethink what that is now, how do you stay connected with customers? What does a virtual event have to be? What is a meetup now in a Zoom. Getting really comfortable with that. And these technologies that can help us, but still maintaining those customer touchpoints. And particularly, as we think about... Everybody's thinking about new revenue streams, how do you get to the newer customers that don't know you yet? What are the points of personalization, interconnectedness, the ongoing ways you can stay in touch via digital, all become much more forefront as we think about conical the new normal? And along those lines engagement, is so key. You brought a Discover being for how many years before this year physical event, and the cute covers many physical events a year. And so it's very... Everyone's trying to figure out how do we actually engage our customers and our prospects as vendors and maintain their engagement? Because now you're not just in an audience with a phone and email and phone calls as distractions, you're at home, you're sharing bandwidth. You've maybe have kids at home. There's more distractions. So Sandy, what are some of the things that HPE is doing at DISCOVER 2020, the VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE to engage folks and maintain that engagement? >> Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, talk about getting ourselves an order of being very, I guess I'll use the worst snackable, a lack of anything else. We are used to being in a room, talking about the problems we solve, and the solution we have in for an hour. Discover what you're going to find is 15 minutes, that's all people have in a virtual world is 15 minutes. What used to be two, three hours in terms of a keynote, is much more targeted. And we're doing a lot more on demand. I would say that, if one of the things that we're really trying to do, particularly with this fund and across the board, is, how do you stay connected? And it's not just about one way delivery of content, but it's really that interaction plan. Are people talking to our chat agents? What are they chatting about? How do we get them to the next phase? What are all the different ways you can light up in a digital way that helps people follow up? Again, they're going to come in and out experience something. And this is the world of digital is not a one conversation. It's kind of a... It's like a dating game. You got to keep going. To keep the conversation going just the read of me. >> That two-way conversation, is... I'm glad that you brought that up. Because Jas, so many events, every event probably is a big opportunity for every vendor to close some big deals. There's just something about that face-to-face connection where execs can sit down with customers or whatnot. We can't do that this year. So what are some of the ways that your team and through your channel is doing what Sandy was talking about and doing that really, that dialogue, that interactive conversation through just video conferencing? >> Yeah, well, the neat thing about it is that we've still been able to keep some of those personable tracks through Discover. So we have like the CIO Summit, so that'll be an area of open dialogue. It's sort of an invite-only type of thing event. We will be having customer round table specific to many different topics. I'm hosting a couple of those myself. And so it's an intimate group of 12 to 15 customers doing the same thing on the partner side and having our senior executives being there with us to host it. So I think just the neat thing about it is even though it's virtual and to Sandy's point in trying to keep some of the keynotes and of that nature at a shorter timeframes so that we keep attention and make it succinct. I think at the same time, we're able to still chip the small group environment where we're able to have open dialogue. And I think one of the great things about being able to do that now is, there's so much that customers can learn from one another. We talked about us really sharing with them. I mean, customers are a little bit more open to talking to one another as well, and figuring out, "Hey, what are you doing? "Is this working?" "This is sort of issue that we have, "how are you handling that?" So, I think just in our environment now there's a little bit more opportunity, an openness to share. And the good thing about being virtual is, you can do more of that. 'Cause, as Sandy mentioned, some of that too, the sessions are on demand. So a little bit on your own time also based on your own schedule. So I think having the variety of both will be key and successful. >> Yeah, having that mix of those intimate conversations that can help really HPE, from a revenue perspective, close big deals, as well as allowing folks with 70 cents. Give me some... It's like crazy, right? That snackable digestible content on my time, probably one of the things that we're hearing on theCUBE, the last a couple of months of everything being virtual is that so many events are getting even more and more and more attendees because people don't have to travel and budgets and that sort of thing. But I got to ask you a question, Sandy, as a marketer, how do you measure engagement? Typically they think of like badge stands at a booth or downloads is as this pivot was done so quickly, and I accolade HPE for being able to do that. That's hard thing to do. How are you as a marketer... What are you looking to do to measure success for this event? >> It's a great question. We look at success in kind of three ways. Obviously is the reach, how many folks we can bring in this is the first time we're doing this so global, which is quite fascinating to kind of see it come to life. Really being able to address the global audience, the customers, the partners, and our employee base that we're going to be able to reach. Second is relevance. We're thinking about, are we talking about the right things that are going to resonate with our customers? How are they reacting to that? There's so many mechanisms. We are going to get feedback from social to the way they engage with us. They're going to vote by their clicks. That's the end of the day. They're going to tell us what they're interested in after we put the content out there, and we're going to soak that up as digital signals that come back. And then lastly, obviously just driving pipeline, this is a conversation. And hopefully an acceleration point, we in digital marketing have a lot of different ways that we're going to score engagement. We tend to think about it pretty simply. It's either a hot lead, a warm lead, or a cold lead. And it's a way to kind of almost think about engagement in a way of the speed of follow up. Is the customer ready to engage in the next step? Maybe they're super hot. Maybe they're just slightly warm. But we have kind of data science models that help us take all that data that we're going to sit on because it's digital, turn it into something that makes sense and then be able to hand over to like Jas's team, some of those signals. So our sales teams can actually the next steps. >> I like that. It's all about speed these days, right? >> Yeah. >> HPE, quickly to turn this event digital. We also knew that SMBs and customers are having to work quickly to start in place the right digital equipments to move forward. Last thing I want to leave you guys with, Jas, what are some of the things that are going on at Discover that you're excited about to engage with customers? >> Yeah, so I think just one, the virtual experience, I think, is going to be really cool. We have some cool entertainment type things going on as well. We'll give all that away, but I think that keeps it fun. I think it'll be unique experience. I'm really excited also about the different tracks that we have. So we actually do have a small, medium business track, a lot of on-demand sessions. So there's a lot of vertical sessions. There's a lot of industry sessions as well. So really to be able to go in there depending upon what your area of interest is and focus is, I think you're going to find something and it's really easy to navigate. I'm excited because I think there'll be more customers that can come having our state and local government customers be able to log on, and really get a sense for what's really happening in the industry with all of the cares act funding and so forth. So I think it'll be really exciting to be able to showcase tracks like that now that we have a virtual environment that we didn't get an opportunity to do for. So I think there's more that we have to offer and I'm really interested and excited about that. >> More without the... As ladies will know and appreciate that the mass of foot ache-- >> That's fine. >> From walking miles and miles and Las Vegas. (Jas and Sandy laughing). And next thing, Sandy, you're hosting a panel, I've discovered. Tell me a little bit about that. >> Yes, I am. Jas mentioned that we have a whole SMB track. So we're hosting a panel that's going to be just geared for the small-medium businesses. It's going to be on June 30th as we kind of continue of rolling thunder with DISCOVER VIRTUAL. It's with an analyst, couple of our SMB experts really talk a little bit deeper around the solutions that we have, the problems we're hoping to help people solve, and certainly have those on-demand sessions. I'll just add onto what Jas is saying. I'm really excited because, for the first time, particularly for our small-medium businesses, this is a no entry fee type of event. So there's no entry fee. We're actually giving $10 back to charity. So for our smaller businesses to be able to kind of consume this content and really see the demos, see the technology, really help shape what's the next step for them. I think what I'm excited about, that's all. >> Excellent, Sandy, Jas, thank you so much for joining me on theCUBE today. It was great talking to you both. >> Yeah, thank you so much. >> Thank you so much, cool. >> I appreciate it. >> Our pleasure, looking forward to seeing the impact. Well, for my guests, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE Coverage at HPE DISCOVER the VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Hi, I'm Lauren Cooney, and welcome back to theCUBE. Today we have Jeff Frick with us, who is the general manager of theCUBE, and we're here to learn about what goes on at theCUBE, what the business is like, some of the most fun aspects of what he does, and go from there. >> Jeff: Great to be here. >> Thank you so much. So, Jeff, starting out, really, when did you join theCUBE, and really what are your goals and aspirations for theCUBE as you look to business going forward now? >> My first CUBE gig was, I've known John for a long, long time, reached out. It was actually Splunk.conf 2012 in the Cosmo, I'll never forget, and they needed an extra host, we were over-subscribed, and I went and did that show. I did it with Jeff Kelley, and was really touched by this format where you've got kind of this professional looking, newsy, opportunity for people to tell their story, most people don't ever get to tell their story in that context, which I thought was pretty cool. And then also just to personalize the people behind the tech because since Steve Jobs, and that genre of people, people want to know who the people are behind the technology. So not only the people that run the companies, but who creates it. I think Open-source had a lot to do with that where people are interested in other people, not just the tech for itself. And that's what I really like. >> You bring up a great point with stories, and luminaries, and visionaries. Can you talk about some of those folks that you've had on theCUBE, some of the best guests you've ever had? >> Oh my gosh, we've had so much. People ask me this all the time, I need to prepare my answer better. But like Scott Cook, from Intuit, was just phenomenal. Tremendously successful, still focused on the same core vision that he came up with when his wife was filling out her checkbook, writing checks, about just a better way to organize and manage cash. And that show is so inspirational because it's really a small business show pretending to be an accounting show. We've had Robert Gates on, I didn't get to interview Robert Gates, but served with many, many President's. We're really fortunate, we often get the keynotes. Fred Luddy, from ServiceNow, phenomenal founder, goofy, quirky. Maria Klawe who runs Harvey Mudd College, goofy, quirky, great personality. So there's just so many great individuals and then some that you don't know. We had, an original ServiceNow we had this little older lady who had got a ServiceNow POC through, it's some ancient company, I don't even remember what company it was, and it was just fascinating to me how this, you know, she wasn't young and hip and new and on top of things, was able to kind of see the vision, get it funded, get a project underway, and then eventually build into being a customer for them. And how she was able to do that, and what was the story, and how many peers out there are curious to know how they could do that for their company. And those, I love those stories. >> Those are great. And I think one of the things that we want to look at too is that we want to understand for the most part what are some of the bloopers that you've seen out there? What are some of the things that you've noticed that are funny or were oh my gosh, you know, while you were on air, while you were thinking about different things. Can you tell me a little bit about that? >> Well, of course, the classic one that we've referenced over and over and over, and if you've seen any of our promos you see, it was John Cleese. Ironically again, at another ServiceNow keynote he was doing their CIO Summit or something, and he came on and he basically decided he wanted to rewrite the end of the, it became a sketch, not an interview. And just stood up and threw his water all over John and Dave, fried Dave's laptop, and marched off the stage. Half the people there, we had a huge live audience, were laughing hysterically. The other half were petrified. Unfortunately, a number of those were the client senior executives who didn't really know, and we had to go out and do some investigation and find out he actually does it a lot to people. And in fact the guys ran into him later that night and he said, "Wasn't that fun, wasn't that fun?" So that's one that just jumps right off the page. Another great one was Michael North from the NFL was at an IBM event talking about how they build the schedule. And while the analytics are fine, and you run an algorithm and it can plug a bunch of numbers, it's really the softer side. You know, how do you leverage at that point a Peyton Manning versus a Tom Brady match up? Do you use it to leverage an existing relationship? Do you use it to build a new network? Do you use it in your feature presentation to get the most leverage from that asset? So a whole lot of kind of soft, softer sided things in terms of the decision making. Which I think is what's really interesting. >> Yeah, I think that's great. And I want to take it a little bit further into what are the business aspects of theCUBE? What do you do on a day to day basis? What are the things that matter the most for running this business? >> Big question. So most important area is our customers. So what customer, what value does theCUBE bring to people when they take us to their conference? >> Lauren: And who are the key customers? >> Well key customers, right. IBM, and we've mentioned ServiceNow, Splunk, EMC, Dell EMC now, Vmware and their ecosystem partners. So a lot of enterprise infrastructure, a lot of opensource, and a lot of applications. But really there's three key components to why people bring theCUBE and what we deliver when we're there. One of them is just great content. The format that we have, the conversational tone, the way that it all works, we just get people to say stuff that you wouldn't ever ask them to say, especially on the customer reference ones. So the content is great and, you know, conferences are looking for more great content. The second really is our community and our distribution. You know we are a media company, we're super active in the community, we leverage a lot of social tools. We try to ask interviews and get information that's topical and evergreen and can be used often and over and over, and really run that out through a number of different channels and different formats. And then the third thing, which we didn't use to talk about as much, but we really do now, it's really the theater of our presence. There's something to bright lights and cameras when theCUBE is at an event. It's like, oh, theCUBE guys are here. And we hear it all the time, theCUBE guys are here. >> Everyone likes to be a star. >> Everybody wants to be a star. And it does a little bit of, I won't say validates for the greater good, but certainly within our community when we're at an event it's a signal that something's going on, something's exciting here, theCUBE guys are here, and we're covering it. And we hear that over and over. We have people stop us literally in an elevator to say, I look at your guys' upcoming sheet to make some decisions as to where I should plan my schedule time. And, or we've also heard, you know, I just wait and watch theCUBE all day, I can't go, I just have theCUBE running in the background. And get a taste of not necessarily what happened in all the breakouts and all the keynotes and all the other stuff, but we generally get all the same people who run all the keynotes. You're getting those same folks, but you're getting them in a conversational tone, talking often about many of the similar topics, it's just a different way to get that message across. >> So how do you grow the community further? So you talk about the community you have, you talk about the community that's at large right now. How are you looking to grow your user base and your community further? >> Right, so it's really kind of along two angles. One is kind of this natural bundling of subsets within our existing community. And that's like our Women in Tech coverage that we started years ago. Honestly, you know things were kind of slowing again in November, so we're like, you know, there's some great women, they're not getting highlighted, let's go out and do some Women in Tech interviews and integrate that. So that's kind of more of a horizontal play if you will. In terms of more vertical plays, we're trying to get a little bit out of the application infrastructure space and more into the app space. So autonomous vehicles, autonomous drones, commercial drones, we've done a lot of just app shows as companies do their own shows versus more of an industry show. So like I said, I mentioned QuickBooks Connect was fun. So really getting into some of these other areas that are more application specific and not just kind of infrastructure, per se which is the roots. >> So when you so application specific, are you looking at for example, you know Microsoft for example is a very large company. They have application space. Is that what you're looking for? >> Love to do some Microsoft shows, yeah, we have a Microsoft build and Ignite, they have a number of shows. >> What about Salesforce? Salesforce is doing some really interesting stuff around applications and community and the whole nine yards. >> Right, so before we didn't really go after Salesforce per se, 'cause it was just really big and we were just really small, we were trying to get a lot of our processes and structure in place. Since then we actually covered one Salesforce lightly a couple years back. A friend of mine, Lynn Voinovich, was a CMO and we covered the kick off. >> I love Lynn. >> You know Lynn? But we need to get back to Salesforce, that's one that we should be at, it's an important show, we should be there. >> Great, so let's have, let's kind of end here with a fun fact. So tell me a fun fact about your job or something that you do that perhaps people don't know about. >> A fun fact about my job. Just, it's just a lot. >> Lauren: Let's make it fun, not a lot of work. >> Basically our job is kind of like the proverbial duck, right? When we run production, we do about a hundred shows a year. There is, I always tell people it's like catering. There's about a thousand details that you kind of have some idea about, and there's a thousand ideas, there's a thousand issues that you have just no control. So being able to dance, being able to be like that proverbial duck that looks smooth, and cool, calm, and collected on top, but it's really pumping pretty hard underneath, you know we've got a lot of people, we've got a lot of back end processes, we have a lot of dancing that happens to try to make it really smooth for the guests, really smooth for the consumer. And we screw up and things happen. But I think we're pretty good, and we're constantly trying to improve our process. >> Great, thank you so much, and thank you for being here again. >> Thank you. >> I really appreciate your time. And we'll be back shortly on theCUBE with something that is coming up in about 15 minutes. (techno music)