>> Live from Las Vegas it's theCUBE covering Fortinet Acclerate 18. Brought to you by Fortinet. (upbeat techno music) >> Welcome back to theCUBE's continuing coverage of Fortinet's Accelerate 2018. I'm Lisa Martin joined by my cohost, Peter Burris. And we're excited to be joined by a Fortinet customer, Troy Miller the Director of Technical Resources from Clark County School District. Troy welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> Lisa: So, you're local. You're in the Vegas area. Tell us a little bit about Clark County, I noticed some impressive numbers of size, and about your role. >> Clark County School District we service about 320,000 students a day, 41,000 employees. It's the entire county which, last I heard, was about the size of Rhode Island. So, basically, that's geographically large as well. My role in the district as Director of Technical Resources. We bring in 80 gigs of internet each day for all those people to consume. And we're responsible for the Edge security. So, we don't get down to the desktop yet but we just make sure they have a successful and reliable internet. >> So, 320,000 students and 41,000 employees. How many devices is that connecting to the network? Or do you have any idea? >> Even ones that were just district-owned might be closer to 420,000 probably, if you count all the labs. And then another everyone brings in their own one or two or three devices with them. Their phone, their iPad, their laptop. So, there's not an exact count but I'm guessing well over 450,000 probably. >> And you've been with Clark Country for awhile and you've been in education for awhile. Talk to us about the technology evolution that you've seen take place. The opportunities that that gives educators and students we well as the opportunities that it provides on the security side that you have to combat. >> Yeah, a long time ago, I've taught for four years from, I think it was '93 to '97, and I got into the department I'm in now. But back then it was one computer that a teacher didn't know how to use and rarely turned on to now they're using, whether it be smart boards, giving out iPads, Chromebooks, and so on. Every kid's connected and it's important. We're now a Google school district. So, Google Classroom using Google sites and so on. And so, it's important. And the evolution of that is just that when you have a reliable internet, and so Fortinet has definitely increased our stature in that. Day to day instruction can take place, not interrupt them. Cause if they lose their internet for two minutes we've deprived these students for all kinds of education. It's important and now everything is reliant upon it. Even our student management system, our ERP. All that stuff is now, some hosted internationally some hosted externally. So, security is a very important part of that. >> And when you think about the role that you play, you have a specific role within the school district. How does the ability to use a Fortinet-like product inside your role impact your ability to collaborate and coordinate with others in the school district to make sure that everything is running seamlessly? >> Yeah, that's important is that for us using the Fortinets that we have, it was important to be able to get better insight. I'm excited about the stuff in the conference this year to really improve upon that. But to be able to properly secure those say VPN connections going out to outside services or to better serve the students in the schools or other business transactions that take place. So, it's important on that. And then we can see if something's starting to break down somewhat where to go. And again, our district's pretty separated. It's siloed a bit. And so, it's important we know which department to go to if we're seeing issues with certain things. >> Now, local government's are notoriously difficult to work with for some technology vendors. How has it been for Clark County working with members of the Fortinet ecosystem. Because security is obviously an increasingly important feature of, well, virtually everything, but including local municipalities. >> Right. And Fortinet's been awesome. We worked with them through our managed service proprietor, Mosaic451. So, when we moved towards Fortinet just a year and a half ago, that made it a very seamless move because they had the expertise that we didn't at the time. We were brand new to the Fortinet platform. They brought in people from all over to help out with that to either install it, to set up the policies and so on. So, yeah, working with municipalities is difficult. Working for one's even more difficult. But Fortinet has made that very easy. >> What was the catalyst for bringing on Fortinet in terms of some of the challenges that you guys have with your firewalls? Was their any sort of one event or type of events that really catalyzed, hey, we're got to transform here? >> Yeah, there was a series of events actually. About a year and a half ago, we were undergoing about daily one hour, two hour DDoS attacks, fragmented UDP attacks. And our previous firewall vendors they couldn't, one they couldn't diagnose it. And two even once they did, it couldn't handle it. We were basically firewalling our firewall with our EdgeRouter. And so, that was when I said something has got to change. And that's when I contacted Mosaic451 and said, I need help. I can't be doing this every day cause the staff, obviously, were upset. And so was I. And so, Fortinet actually back then, our first involvement with Fortinet, they sent out two chassis and said, "Here. Try them out. See if this will stop the attack. We think it will." And we got them going within a few days and sure enough, it did. And so that told me I needed to make a move. It took, obviously, some budget trapeze acts to get that done. But within six months we were then on Fortinet. And again, once we got the equipment back everyone was able to help out and get us set up. We're unique in what we had and moving our policies and so on. So, they've been integral in that. >> So, impact perspective. It sounds like you went from these daily DDoS attacks to zero? >> Troy: Yeah. >> In how short of a time period? >> They stopped on their own beginning of January of that year. But we haven't had one at all since then. Or we've had small ones but the Fortinets handled them without a problem. They barely bumped them, you know. >> So, pretty big impact there that you've been able to make? >> Yeah, we went from-- >> Lisa: Pretty quickly. >> Yeah, yeah it was six months before we finally made the Fortinet decision. And we were fortunate we didn't have to go through an RFP process on that. Because that would have taken forever, and I didn't want to do that. And so, I already said we did our RFP. This one doesn't work. We know this other one doesn't work. So, guess what's left? So, that's the way we ended up with Fortinet. And I said we're very happy with them so far. >> In terms of some of the announcements that they have made today, around utilizing AI technology. They've also talked about their Fabric-Ready Partner Program. You've talked about a partner there. What are some of the things that excite you about what you've heard from them today? Does that give you reassurance that not only did we make the right decision but this is something that's going to help us as we evolve and as security threats naturally evolve and grow as well that you feel like you have a good foundation on the security side. >> Yeah, precisely. I'm very excited from what I saw. And you know, there's things, education, especially in this state, is extremely underfunded. So, I'd love to go out and just say, "Oh, I'd like to buy this. I'd like to buy that." We're up and running with the security fabric. And I'm excited about it. But what I'm really excited is the opportunity to grow. We can really assume some progress with that. And so, while I can't take full advantage of it or even go to the FortiOS 6 probably anytime soon. But we will be able to start laying the groundwork, and I can plan out to start filling off those check boxes in that security fabric, and start providing a better more secure internet for what I'm responsible for, what I can consume. >> So, education like everything else is changing. What are the set of options that become more available to you to Clark County School District as a consequence of bringing in a new security fabric that's capable of accommodating a little more complexity, a little bit more automation? >> Well, yes, a little bit of all that. For us, what I'm excited about with the Fortinet is that one, we've got something robust that's going to last us for five to seven years. Those will last even beyond our 80 gigs we're using now if we need to go beyond that before I retire. But the exciting part of that is, like I said, by adding in those different security fabric pieces I think we'll be able to improve bit by bit. And I know while they're going to improve them even more by the time we finally get there. So, that's exciting. >> You talked about ... I'd like you to elaborate a little bit more on your organization. It sounds, I don't want to say fragmented, but there's different centers. How has, I should say, what you guys have been able to achieve by bringing Fortinet in in terms of we talked about this dramatic reduction or elimination of DDoS. Are you able to leverage that as sort of a best practice within the school district. Do you see opportunities that this Fortinet partnership can have for you in that respect? >> It gives us some validity. It shows that it did make a difference. We didn't just spend some money on it no reason. Yeah, because of its being siloed, what the Fortinets will give us now is we can know exactly which department to send certain tickets to. What we see whether it's to be malware or something pinging out that shouldn't. We can better address where it's coming from and what to do with it. And again, Mosaic is our sock. So, working with them, working with Fortinet we've been able to improve our response to minor incidents as they happen. >> Are there other natural issues that the County of Las Vegas deals with that makes Fortinet especially relevant? I mean, obviously, great distances. But you know, you've got large mountains surrounding here. It's a very dry environment. Are you finding that there's just things about the location that makes Fortinet that much better choice? >> I don't really think environmental ... Pretty much what makes this the best choice is not really where we are but just what we do. Like I said, the internet comes to us, and then we kind of spray it out from there. And so, that availability and reliability is what's important. Sort of where we are doesn't quite matter. But it is the ability to be able to service the customers. >> So, we kind of look at the security transformation that you're on. You've talked to us about some of the achievements that you've made so far in the first year. What are some of things throughout the rest of 2018 that your looking forward to enabling your environment with your Fortinet partnership? >> Some of the things I'm excited about there is, like you had mentioned before the AI part of that. That I'm really excited to hopefully implement. That just takes some ... I can use the eyes I have. I only have four security people basically for that organization. Two of them from Mosaic, two of my own people. And so, if I can have those people addressing bigger concerns than malware or stuff like that. And VAI can better handle that, so instead of digging through logs, we can just, there it is, block it or it's already blocked. That would save us. And I could use that talent for more serious items. We already completed our Edge redesign the networks. Now, we're not redundant on that. We're working on our internal network. So, if we can spend more time making those things more robust to then take advantage of the security fabric as we're able to take advantage of it then that's all the better. >> In most enterprises, there's a partnership that has to be established between security architecture, security operations, the business, and especially the employees. Employees have to take an active roll to successfully do security. Kids and schools are not necessarily well known for having consistent behaviors. How has that affected your environment? And what can enterprises learn as they think about having to serve increasingly unruly customers in their markets? >> Yeah, that's one of the things I'm just starting to dip my toe in to plan for next year is more of an education for it but then holding them accountable for that education. Yeah, I don't know which is worse, the teachers or the students. (Peter laughs) I'm guessing the teachers. (Lisa laughs) They'll click on anything they see. So, it's important to educate them first before I start rolling out some efficient testing on them and so on. But we have to start doing that because otherwise it doesn't matter if something comes in or they get it off their tablet. Now, they've infected the internal and it didn't even get to us, right? And so, it's important that education is important. We're going to start trying to hold them accountable for it. But that's a huge challenge where I'm at. That's like climbing Everest there. >> So, is Fortinet going to help? I think it will. Fortinet's going to be able to help for us to be able to have that insight on what's still working, what's not. We're still seeing these things. >> And also recognizing patterns and seeing what people tend to do wrong will probably help you pinpoint what you need to, that partnership. What the user needs to take more responsibility for. >> Right and that's the thing. It better identifies those issues. You see where they've improved or what still needs to be worked on. >> Peter: Great. >> Well, congratulation on what you've achieved so far. >> Oh, thank you. >> And thank you so much for sharing your success story with us. You're on a journey, and we wish you continuing success with that. >> Thank you. >> For my cohost, Peter Burris, I'm Lisa Martin. You've been watching theCUBE's coverage of Fortinet Accelerate 2018. We'll be right back after a short break. (upbeat techno music)

>>Hello, and welcome to today's event, dealing government emergency responses beyond the pandemic. This is Bob Wooley, senior fellow for the center for digital government and formerly the chief tech clerk for the state of Utah. I'm excited to serve as moderator for today's event. And just want to say, thank you for joining us. I know we're in for an informative session over the next 60 minutes before we begin a couple of brief housekeeping notes or recording of this presentation will be emailed to all registrants within 48 hours. You can use the recording for your reference or feel free to pass it along to colleagues. This webcast is designed to be interactive and you can participate in Q and a with us by asking questions at any time during the presentation, you should see a Q and a box on the bottom left of the presentation panel. >>Please send in your questions as they come out throughout the presentation, our speakers will address as many of these questions as we can during the Q and a portion of the close of our webinar today, if you would like to download the PDF of the slides for this presentation, you can do so by clicking the webinar resources widget at the bottom of the console. Also during today's webinar, you'll be able to connect with your peers by LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Please use the hashtag gov tech live to connect with your peers across the government technology platform, via Twitter. At the close of the webinar, we encourage you to complete a brief survey about the presentation. We would like to hear what you think if you're unable to see with us for the entire webinar, but we're just like to complete the survey. As much as you're able, please click the survey widget at the bottom of the screen to launch the survey. Otherwise it will pop up once the webinar concludes at this time, we recommend that you disable your pop-up blockers, and if you experiencing any media player issues or have any other problems, please visit our webcast help guide by clicking on the help button at the bottom of the console. >>Joining me today to discuss this very timely topic are Karen revolt and Tim Burch, Kim Berge currently serves as the administrator of human services for Clark County Nevada. He's invested over 20 years in improving health and human service systems of care or working in the private public and nonprofit sectors. 18 of those years have been in local government in Clark County, Las Vegas, where you served in a variety of capacities, including executive leadership roles as the director of department of social services, as well as the director for the department of family services. He has also served as CEO for provider of innovative hosted software solutions, as well as chief strategy officer for a boutique public sector consulting firm. Karen real-world is the social program management offering lead for government health and human services with IBM Watson health. Karen focuses delivering exciting new offerings by focusing on market opportunities, determining unmet needs and identifying innovative solutions. >>Much of her career has been in health and human services focused on snap, TANIF, Medicaid, affordable care act, and child welfare prior to joining IBM. Karen was the senior director of product management for a systems integrator. She naturally fell in love with being a project manager. She can take her user requirements and deliver offerings. Professionals would use to make their job easier and more productive. Karen has also found fulfillment in working in health and human services on challenges that could possibly impact the outcome of people's lives. Now, before we begin our discussion of the presentation, I want to one, we'd like to learn a little more about you as an audience. So I'm going to ask you a polling question. Please take a look at this. Give us an idea of what is your organization size. I won't bother to read all these to you, but there are other a range of sizes zero to 250 up to 50,000. Please select the one that is most appropriate and then submit. >>It looks like the vast majority are zero to two 50. Don't have too many over 250,000. So this is a very, very interesting piece of information. Now, just to set up our discussion today, what I want to do is just spend just a moment and talk about the issue that we're dealing with. So when you look the COVID-19 pandemic, it's put immense pressure on States. I've been a digital state judge and had been judging a lot of the responses from States around the country. It's been very interesting to me because they bifurcate really into two principle kinds of reactions to the stress providing services that COVID environment present. One is we're in a world of hurt. We don't have enough money. I think I'm going to go home and engage as little as I have to. Those are relatively uncommon. Thankfully, most of them have taken the COVID-19 pandemic has immense opportunity for them to really do a lot more with telework, to do more with getting people, employees, and citizens involved with government services. >>And I've done some really, really creative things along the way. I find that to be a really good thing, but in many States systems have been overloaded as individuals and families throughout the country submitted just an unprecedented number of benefit applications for social services. At the same time, government agencies have had to contend with social distance and the need for a wholly different approach to engage with citizens. Um, overall most public agencies, regardless of how well they've done with technology have certainly felt some strain. Now, today we have the opportunity to go into a discussion with our speakers, have some wonderful experience in these areas, and I'm going to be directing questions to them. And again, we encourage you as you hear what they have to say. Be sure and submit questions that we can pick up later at the time. So Tim, let's start with you. Given that Las Vegas is a hub for hospitality. An industry hit severely as a result of this pandemic. How's the County doing right now and how are you prioritizing the growing needs of the County? >>Thanks Bob. Thanks for having me. Let me start off by giving just a little, maybe context for Clark County too, to our audience today. So, uh, Clark County is, you know, 85% of the state of Nevada if we serve not just as a regional County by way of service provision, but also direct municipal services. Well, if, uh, the famous Las Vegas strip is actually in unincorporated Clark County, and if we were incorporated, we would be the largest city in the state. So I say all of that to kind of help folks understand that we provide a mix of services, not just regional services, like health and human services, the direct and, and missable, uh, services as well as we work with our other five jurisdiction partners, uh, throughout the area. Uh, we are very much, um, I think during the last recession we were called the Detroit of the West. >>And, uh, that was because we're very much seen as a one industry town. Uh, so most like when the car plants, the coal plants closed back East and in the communities fuel that very rapidly, the same thing happens to us when tourism, uh, it's cut. Uh, so of course, when we went into complete shutdown and March, uh, we felt it very rapidly, not just on, uh, uh, tax receipts and collectibles, but the way in which we could deliver services. So of course our first priority was to, uh, like I think you mentioned mobilized staff. We, we mobilized hundreds of staff overnight with laptops and phones and cars and the things they needed to do to get mobile and still provide the priority services that we're mandated to provide from a safety standpoint. Um, and then we got busy working for our clients and that's really where our partnership with IBM and Watson, uh, came in and began planning that in July. And we're able to open that portal up in October to, to really speed up the way in which we're giving assistance to, to our residents. Um, re focus has been on making sure that people stay housed. We have, uh, an estimated, uh, 2.5 million residents and over 150,000 of those households are anticipated to be facing eviction, uh, as of January one. So we, we've got a, a big task ahead of us. >>All of this sounds kind of expensive. Uh, one of the common threads as you know, runs throughout government is, ah, I don't really have the money for that. I think I'd be able to afford that a diaper too, as well. So what types of funding has been made available for counties, a result of a pandemic, >>Primarily our funding stream that we're utilizing to get these services out the door has been the federal cares act. Uh, now we had some jurisdictions regionally around us and even locally that prioritize those funds in a different way. Um, our board of County commissioners, uh, took, um, a sum total of about $85 million of our 240 million that said, this will go directly to residents in the form of rental assistance and basic needs support. No one should lose their home or go hungry during this pandemic. Uh, so we've really been again working through our community partners and through our IBM tools to make sure that happens. >>So how does, how does, how does the cares act funding then support Clark County? Cause it seems to me that the needs would be complex, diverse >>Pretty much so. So as you, as folks may know him a call there's several tronches of the cares act, the original cares act funding that has come down to us again, our board, uh, identified basic needs or rental assistance and, and gave that the department of social service to go to the tunicate, uh, through the community. We then have the cares act, uh, uh, coronavirus relief funds that have, uh, impacted our CDBG and our emergency solutions grants. We've taken those. And that's what we was going to keep a lot of the programs and services, uh, like our IBM Watson portal open past January one when the cares act dollars expire. Uh, our initial response was a very manual one, uh, because even though we have a great home grown homeless management information system, it does not do financials. Uh, so we had 14 local nonprofits adjudicating, uh, this rental assistance program. >>And so we could get our social service visitor portal up, uh, to allow us to take applications digitally and run that through our program. Uh, and, uh, so those partners were obviously very quickly overwhelmed and were able to stand up our portal, uh, which for the reason we were driving so hard, even from, uh, beginning of the conversations where after going into lockdown into contracting in July and getting the portal open in October, which was an amazing turnaround. Uh, so the kudos that IBM team, uh, for getting us up and out the door so quickly, uh, was a tie in, uh, to our, uh, Curam IBM, uh, case management system that we utilize to adjudicate benefits on daily basis in Clark County for all our local indigent population, uh, and high needs folks. Uh, and then that ties into our SAP IBM platform, which gets the checks out the door. >>So what, what we've been able to do with these dollars is created in Lucian, uh, that has allowed us in the last 60 days to get as much money out the door, as our nonprofits were able go out the door in the first six months pandemic. So it really has helped us. Uh, so I'm really grateful to our board of County commissioners for recognizing the investment in technology to, to not only get our teams mobile, but to create ease of access for our constituents and our local residents to give them the help they need quickly and the way that they need it. >>Just to follow up question to that, Tim, that I'm curious about having done a lot of work like this in government, sometimes getting procurement through in a timely way is a bit challenging. How were you able to work through those issues and getting this up and provision so quickly? >>Uh, yeah, so we, we put together a, what we call a pandemic playbook, which is kind of lessons learned. And what we've seen is the folks who were essential workers in the first 60 days of the, uh, pandemic. We were able to get a lot done quickly because we were taking full advantage of the emergency. Uh, it may sound a little crass to folks not inside the service world, but it was, uh, you know, don't want you to crisis. It was things we've been planning or trying to do for years. We need them yesterday. We should have had them yesterday, but let's get them tomorrow and get it moving very quickly. Uh, this IBM procurement was something we were able to step through very quickly because of our longstanding relationship. Our countywide, uh, system of record for our financials is SAP. Uh, we've worked with Curam, uh, solution, uh, for years. >>So we've got this long standing relationship and trust in the product and the teams, which helped us build the business case of why we did it, no need to go out for competitive procurement that we didn't have time. And we needed something that would integrate very quickly into our existing systems. Uh, so that part was there. Now when the folks who were non essential came back in June and the reopening, it was whiplash, uh, the speed at which we were moving, went back to the pace of normal business, uh, which feels like hitting a wall, doing a hundred miles an hour when you're used to having that, uh, mode of doing business. Uh, so that's certainly been a struggle, uh, for all of those involved, uh, in trying to continue to get things up. Um, but, uh, once again, the teams have been great because we've probably tripled our licensure on this portal since we opened it, uh, because of working with outside vendors, uh, to, uh, literally triple the size of our staff that are processing these applications by bringing on temporary staff, uh, and short-term professionals. Uh, and so we've been able to get those things through, uh, because we'd already built the purchasing vehicle during the early onset of the crisis. >>That's very helpful. Karen, IBM has played a really pivotal role in all of this. Uh, IBM Watson health works with a number of global government agencies, raging from counties like Clark County to federal governments. What are some of the major challenges you've seen with your clients as a result of the pandemic and how is technology supporting them in a time of need and give us some background Watson health too. So we kind of know a little more about it because this is really a fascinating area. >>Yeah. Thank you, Bob. And thanks Tim for the background on Clark County, because I think Clark County is definitely also an example of what federal governments and global governments are doing worldwide today. So, um, Watson health is our division within IBM where we really focus on health and human services. And our goal is to really focus in on, um, the outcomes that we're providing to individuals and families and looking at how we use data and insights to really make that impact and that change. And within that division, we have our government health and human services area, which is the focus of where we are with our clients around social program. But it also allows us to work with, um, different agencies and really look at how we can really move the ball in terms of, um, effecting change and outcomes for, um, really moving the needle of how we can, uh, make an impact on individuals and families. >>So as we look at the globe globally as well, you know, everything that Tim had mentioned about how the pandemic has really changed the way that government agencies operate and how they do services, I think it's amazing that you have that pandemic playbook because a lot of agencies in the same way also had these set of activities that they always wanted to go and take part on, but there was no impetus to really allow for that to happen. And with the pandemic, it allowed that to kind of open and say, okay, we can try this. And unfortunately I'm in a very partial house way to do that. And, um, what Tim has mentioned about the new program that they set up for the housing, some of those programs could take a number of years to really get a program online and get through and allowing, uh, the agencies to be able to do that in a matter of weeks is amazing. >>And I think that's really gonna set a precedent as we go forward and how you can bring on programs such as the housing and capability in Canada with the economic, uh, social, um, uh, development and, and Canada need that the same thing. They actually had a multi benefit delivery system that was designed to deliver benefits for three programs. And as part of the department of fisheries and oceans Canada, the, um, the state had an emergency and they really need to set up on how they could provide benefits to the fishermen who had been at that impacted, um, from that. And they also did set up a digital front-end using IBM citizen engagement to start to allow the applications that benefits, um, and they set it up in a matter of weeks. And as I mentioned, we, uh, Clark County had a backend legacy system where they could connect to and process those applications. And this case, this is a brand new program and the case management system that they brought up was on cloud. And they had to set up a new one, but allow them to set up a, what we used to call straight through processing, I think has been now turned, turned or coined contact less, uh, processing and allowing us to really start to move those benefits and get those capabilities out to the citizens in even a faster way than has been imagined. Uh, pre pandemic. >>Karen, I have one follow-up question. I want to ask you, having had a lot of experience with large projects in government. Sometimes there's a real gap between getting to identified real requirements and then actions. How do you, how do you work with clients to make sure that process time to benefit is shortened? >>So we really focus on the user themselves and we take a human centered design focus and really prioritizing what those needs are. Um, so working with the clients, uh, effectively, and then going through agile iterations of brain, that capability out as, um, in, in a phased approach to, so the idea of getting what we can bring out that provides quality and capability to the users, and then over time starting to really roll out additional functions and, um, other, uh, things that citizens or individuals and families would need >>Very helpful. Tim, this is an interesting partnership. It's always good to see partnerships between private sector and government. Tell us a little bit about how the partnership with IBM Watson health was established and what challenges or they were brought into assist, where they brought into assist with back to requirements. Again, within the requirements definitely shifted on us. You know, we had the con looking at, uh, Watson on our child welfare, uh, side of the house that I'm responsible for and how that we could, uh, increase access to everything from tele-health to, to, uh, foster parent benefit, uh, kinship, placement benefits, all those types of things that, that right now are very manual, uh, on the child welfare side. Uh, and then the pandemic kid. And we very quickly realized that we needed, uh, to stand up a, um, a new program because, uh, a little bit for context, uh, the park County, we don't administer TANIF or Medicaid at the County level. >>It is done at the state level. So we don't have, uh, unemployment systems or Medicaid, 10 of snap benefits systems to be able to augment and enroll out. We provide, uh, the indigent supports the, the homelessness prevention, referee housing continuum of care, long-term care, really deep emergency safety net services for our County, which is a little bit different and how those are done. So that was really our focus, which took a lot of in-person investigation. We're helping people qualify for disability benefits so they can get into permanent supportive housing, uh, things that are very intensive. And yet now we have a pandemic where we need things to happen quickly because the cares act money expires at the end of December. And people were facing eviction and eviction can help spread exposure to, to COVID. Uh, so, uh, be able to get in and very rapidly, think about what is the minimal pelvis to MVP. >>What's the minimum viable product that we can get out the door that will help people, uh, entrance to a system as contactless as possible, which again was a complete one 80 from how we had been doing business. Um, and, uh, so the idea that you could get on and you have this intelligent chat bot that can walk you through questions, help you figure out if you look like you might be eligible, roll you right into an application where you can upload the few documents that we're going to require to help verify your coat would impact and do that from a smartphone and under, you know, 20 minutes. Um, it, it, it is amazing. And the fact that we've stood that up and got it out the door in 90 days, it's just amazing to me, uh, when it shows the, uh, strength of partnership. Um, I think we can, we have some shared language because we had that ongoing partnership, but we were able to actually leverage some system architects that we had that were familiar with our community and our other products. So it really helped expedite, uh, getting this, uh, getting this out to the citizens. >>So, uh, I assume that there are some complexities in doing this. So overall, how has this deployment of citizen engagement with Watson gone and how do you measure success other than you got it out quick? How do you know if it's working? >>Yeah. Right. So it's the adage of, you know, quick, fast and good, right. Um, or fast, good and cheap. So, uh, we measure success in this way. Um, how are we getting access as our number one quality measurement here? So we were able to collect, uh, about 13,000 applications, uh, manual NRC, manually folks had to go onto our website, download a PDF, fill it out, email it, or physically drop it off along with their backup. One of their choice of 14 non-profits in town, whichever is closest to them. Um, and, uh, and then wait for that process. And they were able to get 13,000 of those, uh, process for the last six months. Uh, we have, I think we had about 8,000 applications the first month come into the portal and about an equal amount of folks who could not provide the same documentation that it was needed. >>And self-selected out. If we had not had the, the tool in place, we would have had 16,000 applications, half of which would have been non-eligible would have been jamming up the system, uh, when we don't have the bandwidth to deal to deal with that, we, we need to be able to focus in on, uh, Judy Kenny applications that we believe are like a 95% success rate from the moment our staff gets them, but because we have the complex and he was on already being dependent upon the landlord, having to verify the rent amount and be willing to work with us, um, which is a major hurdle. Um, but, uh, so w we knew we could not do is go, just reinvent the manual process digitally that that would have been an abject failure on our behalf. So, uh, the ideas that, uh, folks had can go on a very, had this very intuitive conversation to the chat bot, answer some questions and find out if they're eligible. >>And then self-select out was critical for us to not only make sure that the citizens got the help they needed, but not so burnt out and overload our workforce, which is already feeling the strain of the COVID pandemic on their own personal lives and in their homes and in the workplace. Um, so that was really critical for us. So it's not just about speed, ease of access was important. Uh, the ability to quickly automate things on the fly, uh, we have since changed, uh, the area median income, a qualifier for the rental assistance, because we were able to reallocate more money, uh, to the program. So we were able to open it up to more people. We were able to make that, uh, change to the system very quickly. Uh, the idea that we can go on the home page and put updates, uh, we recognized that, uh, some of our monolingual Hispanic residents were having difficulty even with some guidance getting through the system. >>So we're able to record a, a Spanish language walkthrough and get done on the home page the next day, right into the fordable, there'll be a fine, so they could literally run the YouTube video while they're walking through their application. Side-by-side so things like that, that those are how we are able to, for us measured success, not just in the raw dollars out the door, not just in the number of applications that have come in, but our ability to be responsive when we hear from our constituents and our elected officials that, Hey, I want, I appreciate the 15,000 applications as you all, a process and record time, I've got three, four, five, six, 10 constituents that having this type of problem and be able to go back and retool our systems to make them more intuitive, to do, be able to keep them responsive for us is definitely a measure of success and all of this, probably more qualitative than here we're looking >>For, but, uh, that's for us, that's important. Actually the qualitative side is what usually gets ignored. Uh, Karen, I've got a question that's a follow up for you on the same topic. How does IBM facilitate reporting within this kind of an environment given the different needs of stakeholders, online managers and citizens? What kinds of things do you, are you able to do >>So with, um, the influx of digitalization? I think it allows us to really take a more data-driven approach to start looking at that. So, as, as Tim was mentioning, you can see where potentially users are spending more time on certain questions, or if they're stuck on a question, you can see where the abandoned rate is. So using a more data-driven approach to go in to identify, you know, how do we actually go and, um, continue to drive that user experience that may not be something that we drive directly from the users. So I would say that analytics is really, uh, I think going to continue to be a driving force as government agencies go forward, because now they are capturing the data. But one thing that they have to be careful of is making sure that the data that they're getting is the right data to give them the information, to make the right next steps and decisions. >>And Tim, you know, use a really good example with, um, the chatbot in terms of, you know, with the influx of everything going on with COVID, the citizens are completely flooded with information and how do they get the right information to actually help them decide, can I apply for this chap program? Or should I, you know, not even try and what Tim mentioned just saved the citizens, you know, the people that may not be eligible a lot of time and going through and applying, and then getting denied by having that upfront, I have questions and I need answers. Um, so again, more data-driven of how do we provide that information? And, you know, we've seen traditionally citizens having to go on multiple website, web pages to get an answer to the question, because they're like, I think I have a question in this area, but I'm not exactly sure. And they, then they're starting to hunt and hunt and hunt and not even potentially get an answer. So the chocolate really like technology-wise helps to drive, you know, more data-driven answers to what, um, whether it's a citizen, whether it's, um, Tim who needs to understand how and where my citizens getting stuck, are they able to complete the application where they are? Can we really get the benefits to, um, this individual family for the housing needs >>Too many comments on the same thing. I know you have to communicate measures of success to County executives and others. How do you do that? I mean, are you, do you have enough information to do it? Yeah, we're able to, we actually have a standup meeting every morning where the first thing I learn is how many new applications came in overnight. How many of those were completed with full documentation? How many will be ported over into our system, assigned the staff to work, where they're waiting >>On landlord verification. So I can see the entire pipeline of applications, which helps us then determine, um, Oh, it's, it's not, you know, maybe urban legend is that folks are having difficulty accessing the system. When I see really the bottleneck there, it got gotten the system fine, the bottlenecks laying with our landlord. So let's do a landlord, a town hall and iterate and reeducate them about what their responsibilities are and how easy it is for them to respond with the form they need to attest to. And so it lets us see in real time where we're having difficulties, uh, because, uh, there's a constant pressure on this system. Not just that, uh, we don't want anyone to lose their home, uh, but these dollars also go away within a December. So we've got this dual pressure of get it right and get it right now. >>Uh, and so th the ability to see these data and these metrics on, on a daily basis is critical for us to, to continue to, uh, ModuLite our response. Um, and, and not just get comfortable are baked into well, that's why we developed the flowchart during requirements, and that's just the way things are gonna stay. Uh, that's not how you respond to a pandemic. Uh, and so having a tool and a partner that helps us, uh, stay flexible, state agile, I guess, to, to, to leverage some terminology, uh, is important. And, and it's, it's paid dividends for our citizens. Karen, again, is another up to the same thing. I'm kind of curious about one of the problems of government from time to time. And Tim, I think attest to this is how do you know when Dunn has been reached? How did you go about defining what done would look like for the initial rollout with this kind of a customer? >>So I think Doug, I guess in this case, um, is, is this, isn't able to get the benefits that they're looking for and how do we, uh, you know, starting from, I think what we were talking about earlier, like in terms of requirements and what is the minimum viable, um, part of that, and then you start to add on the bells and whistles that we're really looking to do. So, um, you know, our team worked with him to really define what are those requirements. I know it's a new program. So some of those policy decisions were still also being worked out as the requirements were being defined as well. So making sure that you are staying on top of, okay, what are the key things and what do we really need to do from a compliance standpoint, from a functionality, and obviously, um, the usability of how, uh, an assistant can come on and apply and, um, have those, uh, requirements, make sure that you can meet that, that version before you start adding on additional scope. >>Very helpful. Jim, what's your comment on this since I know done matters to you? Yeah. And look, I I've lived through a, again, multiple, uh, county-wide it implementations and some department wide initiatives as well. So I think we know that our staff always want more so nothing's ever done, uh, which is a challenge and that's on our side of the customer. Um, but, uh, for this, it really was our, our experience of recognizing the, the time was an essence. We didn't have a chance. We didn't have, uh, the space to get into these endless, uh, conversations, uh, the agile approach, rather than doing the traditional waterfall, where we would have been doing requirements tracking for months before we ever started coding, it was what do we need minimally to get a check in the hands of a landlord on behalf of a client, so they don't get evicted. >>And we kept just re honing on that. That's nice. Let's put that in the parking lot. We'll come back to it because again, we want to leverage this investment long term, uh, because we've got a we, and we've got the emergency solutions and CDBG, and then our, uh, mainstream, uh, services we brought on daily basis, but we will come back to those things speed and time are of the essence. So what do we need, uh, to, to get this? So a chance to really, um, educate our staff about the concepts of agile iteration, um, and say, look, this is not just on the it side. We're gonna roll a policy out today around how you're doing things. And we may figure out through data and metrics that it's not working next week, and we'll have to have that. You want it. And you're going to get the same way. >>You're getting updated guidance from the CDC on what to do and what not to do. Uh, health wise, you're getting the same from us, uh, and really to helping the staff understand that process from the beginning was key. And, uh, so, and, and that's, again, partnering with, with our development team in that way was helpful. Um, because once we gave them that kind of charter as I am project champion, this is what we're saying. They did an equally good job of staying on task and getting to the point of is this necessary or nice. And if it wasn't necessary, we put it in the nice category and we'll come back to it. So I think that's really helpful. My experience having done several hundred sheet applications also suggest the need for MBP matters, future stages really matter and not getting caught. My flying squirrels really matters. So you don't get distracted. So let's move on to, let's do a polling question before we go on to some of our other questions. So for our audience, do you have a digital front ends for your benefit delivery? Yes, no. Or we're planning to a lot of response here yet. There we go. Looks like about half, have one and half note. So that's an interesting question. What's going to one more polling question, learn a little more here. Has COVID-19 >>Accelerated or moved cloud. Yes, no. We already run a majority of applications on cloud. Take a moment and respond if you would, please. So this is interesting. No real acceleration was taken place and in terms of moving to cloud is not what I was expecting, but that's interesting. So let's go onto another question then. And Karen, let me direct this one to you, given that feedback, how do you envision technologies such as citizen engagement and watching the system will be used, respond to emergency situations like the pandemic moving forward? I mean, what should government agencies consider given the challenges? This kind of a pandemic is brought upon government and try to tie this in, if you would, what, what is the role of cloud in all of this for making this happen in a timely way? Karen, take it away. >>Okay. Thanks Bob. So as we started the discussion around the digital expansion, you know, we definitely see additional programs and additional capabilities coming online as we continue on. Um, I think, uh, agencies have really seen a way to connect with their citizens and families and landlords, um, in this case an additional way. And he prepared them like there were, uh, presuppose assumptions that the, um, the citizens or landlords really wanted to interact with agency face-to-face and have that high touch part. And I think, um, through this, the governments have really learned that there is a way to still have an impact on the citizen without having a slow, do a face to face. And so I think that's a big realization for them to now really explore other ways to digitally explain, expand their programs and capabilities. Another area that we touched on was around the AI and chat bot piece. >>So as we start to see capabilities like this, the reason why Clark County was able to bring it up quickly and everything was because it was housed on cloud, we are seeing the push of starting to move some of the workloads. I know from a polling question perspective that it's been, um, lighter in terms of getting, uh, moving to the cloud. But we have seen the surge of really chatbots. I think we've been talking about chatbots for a while now. And, um, agencies hadn't really had the ability to start to implement that and really put it into effect. But with the pandemic, they were able to bring things up and, you know, very short amount of time to solve, um, a big challenge of not having the call center be flooded and have a different way to direct that engagement between the citizen and the government. >>So really building a different type of channel for them to engage rather than having to call or to come into an office, which wasn't really allowed in terms of, um, the pandemic. Um, the other thing I'll touch on is, um, 10 mentioned, you know, the backlog of applications that are coming in and we're starting to see the, um, the increase in automation. How do we automate areas where it's administratively highly burdened, but it's really a way that we can start to automate those processes, to give our workers the ability to focus on more of those complex situations that really need attention. So we're starting to see where the trends of trying to push there of can we automate some of those processes, um, uh, uploading documents and verification documents is another way of like, trying to look at, is there a way that we can make that easier? >>Not only for the applicant that's applying, but also for the caseworker. So there's not having to go through that. Um, does the name match, um, the applicant, uh, information and what we're looking on here, and Bob, you mentioned cloud. So behind the scenes of, you know, why, uh, government agencies are really pushing the cloud is, um, you heard about, I mean, with the pandemic, you see a surge of applicants coming in for those benefits and how do we scale for that kind of demand and how do you do that in an inappropriate way, without the huge pressures that you put on to your data center or your staff who's already trying to help our citizens and applicants, applicants, and families get the benefits they need. And so the cloud, um, you know, proposition of trying, being able to be scalable and elastic is really a key driver that we've seen in terms of, uh, uh, government agencies going to cloud. >>We haven't really seen during a pandemic, the core competencies, some of them moving those to cloud, it's really been around that digital front end, the chat bot area of how do we start to really start with that from a cloud perspective and cloud journey, and then start to work in the other processes and other areas. Um, security is also huge, uh, focus right now with the pandemic and everything going online. And with cloud allows you to be able to make sure that you're secure and be able to apply the right security so that you're always covered in terms of the type of demand and, um, impact, uh, that is coming through >>Very helpful. Tim, I'm going to ask to follow up on this of a practical nature. So you brought this up very quickly. Uh, there's a certain amount of suspicion around state government County government about chatbots. How did you get a chat much and be functional so quickly? And were you able to leverage the cloud in this process? Yeah, so on the trust is important. Uh, and I'll go back to my previous statement about individuals being able to see upfront whether they believe they're eligible or not, because nothing will erode trust more than having someone in hours applying and weeks waiting to find out they were denied because they weren't eligible to begin with, uh, that erodes trust. So being able to let folks know right up front, here's what it looks like to be eligible, actually help us build some of that, uh, cause they don't feel like, uh, someone in the bureaucracy is just putting them through the ringer for no reason. >>Um, now in regard to how do we get the chat bot out? I will say, uh, we have a, uh, dynamic it and leadership, uh, team at the highest level of County government who we have been already having conversations over the last year about what it meant to be smart government, uh, the department of social service and family services that I'm responsible for. We're already, uh, hands up first in line, you know, Guinea pigs volunteering to be on the front end of, uh, certain projects. So w we have primed ourselves for, for some of this readiness in that aspect. Um, but for citizen trust, um, the timeliness of application right now is the biggest element of trust. Uh, so I've applied I've I feel like I put my housing future in your hands. Are you going to deliver and having the ability for us to rapidly scale up? >>Uh, we typically have 120 staff in the department of social service that, that are adjudicating benefits for programs on daily basis. We've doubled that with temporary staff, uh, through some partnerships, uh, we're, we're gonna, as of next week, probably have more temporary per professional staff helping an adjudicator applications. No, do full-time County staff, because again, this rush to get the dollars out, out the door. So having a system where I can easily, uh, ramp on new users and manage them without having to be solely dependent upon an already, uh, overworked it staff who were trying to support 37 other departments in the County, um, around infrastructure needs has been greatly helpful. Sounds to me like a strong outcome focus and one that seems to work. Let's move on now to our audience questions. We're getting close to the end of our time. So let's jump into some questions from the audience. A number of you have been asking about getting copies of today's presentation within the next 48 hours. Government technology will provide all attendees with the link to the recording for your reference, or to share with colleagues. Well, let's go to our first question. So this is an interesting one. And Karen, this is for you did IBM work with other counties and States to provide digital engagement portals. >>We did Bob, uh, we've worked, um, so globally we've provided guidance on this. We work closely with New York city. They've been the integral part of the development also with our citizen engagement offering. Um, we work closely with the States. So we worked with New York city. Um, North Carolina was also another state who, um, improved their, uh, citizen engagement piece, bring up their Medicaid and snap, um, applications along with Medicaid. COVID testing along that. And I mentioned, um, the economic and social development in Canada as well. And we also work with the ministry of social development in Singapore. So a number of our customers had put up, uh, a global, uh, or sorry, a citizen engagement frontend. And during this timeframe, >>Very helpful. I don't know how much did you hear your mom provide you, but how much did it cost for initial deployment and what are the ongoing costs in other words, is this thing going to be sustainable over time? >>Yeah, absolutely. So total, uh, to date, we've spent about a $1.8 million on development implementations and licensure. A big chunk of that again has been the rapid extended of licensure, uh, for this program. Um, I think over a third of that is probably licensing because again, we need to get the dollars out and we need staff to do that and making the short term several hundred thousand dollar investment in a professional support staff and having them be able to work this portal is much cheaper than the long-term investment of bringing on a staff, printing a job, uh, during a financial difficulty that we're facing, uh, the single largest fiscal cliff let's get into that us history. Um, so it's not smart to create jobs that have a 30 year, one way to retirement, uh, inside our in unionized government environment here. So having this, the staff that would come on and do this and get out the door on these federal dollars was critical for us. Um, and there is a $800,000 a year, I believe so ongoing costs associated with licensure and, and the programming support. Uh, but once again, we're going to be moving, um, our traditional services into this digital front end. We'll be continuing this because we're, we're, we're facing, it took us, I think, six and a half, seven years to come back from the previous recession. Undoubtedly, take a little longer to get back >>From this one. Here's another interesting question, I guess really primarily Tim Tim was the solution on primarily on premise or in the cloud. >>So we'll, we've done a mix. Uh, the, and I'm starting a lot of feedbacks. I don't know if you all can hear that or not, but the, uh, I think we went on prem for, uh, some people because of the, uh, bridge into our service case manager system, which is on prem. So we did some management there. I do believe the chat bot piece of it though is in the cloud. So we're bringing it down to, from one system to the other. Uh, and, and part of that was a student negotiations and costs and worrying about what long-term is that we have a very stated goal of moving, uh, our Curam platform, which is on-prem, this is the backend. So how are we? We, we set our IBM Watson, uh, portal up, uh, and moving all of that on cloud, uh, because I mean, we've got, uh, a workforce who, uh, has the ability to retire at a very high rate over the next five years. >>And, uh, having 24 seven support in the cloud is, is as a, someone who would be called to respond to emergency situations like the is, is a much better Cod deal for, for myself and the citizen. So migrating, uh, and, um, our typical on-prem stuff up into the cloud, uh, as we continue on this, uh, evolution of what IBM Watson, uh, and the plug into our Curam, uh, system looks like Karen related question for another user is the portal provided with Clara County and others linked to other third-party backend office apps, or can it be, >>Yeah, the answer is it can be it's interoperable. So through APIs, uh, rest, uh, however, um, assistance that they need to be integrated with can definitely be integrated with, uh, like, uh, Tim mentioned, we, we went to the case management solution, but it can be integrated with other applications as well. >>Tim, did you use some other backend third party apps with yours? Uh, we did not. Uh, again, just for speed of getting, uh, this MVP solution out the door. Uh, now what we do with that on the go forward, it is going to look different and probably will include some, another practical question. Given the cares funding should be expended by December. Can this application even be employed at this late date? And you want to take a cut at that? Yeah, for us, uh, once again, we brought up earlier, um, the emergency solutions grants and the community development block grants, which have a Corona virus, uh, CV traunch, each one of those, and those have two to three year expenditure timeframes on them. Uh, so we were going to leverage those to keep this system and some of these programs going once again, that the housing needs, uh, will outstrip our capacity for years to come. >>I guess probably I should have said upfront Las Vegas has one of the worst affordable housing inventories in the nation. Uh, so we know we're going to be facing a housing issue, um, because of this for, for a long time. So we'll be using those two traunches of dollars, ESE, ESPs, uh, CV CDBG, CB funds, uh, in addition to dollars earmarked through some, uh, recreational marijuana license fees that have been dedicated to our homelessness. And when you consider this housing, uh, stability program was part of that homelessness prevention. That's our funding mix locally. Very helpful. So questions maybe for bolts for you on this one, you can probably also teach respond is the system has been set up helping the small business community. Um, this user's been canvassing and the general feeling is that small businesses have been left behind and they've been unable to access funds. What's your response on that? Karen, do you want to take that first? >>Um, yes. So in terms of, uh, the security and sorry. Um, but, uh, can you repeat the last part of that? I just missed the last part when you >>Behind it, but unable to access funds. >>Uh, yeah, so I think from a funding perspective, there's different types of, I think what Tim mentioned in terms of the cares funding, there was different types of funding that came out from a government perspective. Uh, I think there were also other grants and things that are coming out one, uh, that we're still looking at. And I think as we go into the new year, it'll be interesting to see, you know, what additional funding, um, hopefully is, is provided. Uh, but in terms of creativity, we've seen other creative ways that organizations come together to kind of, uh, help with the different agencies, to provide some, some guidance to the community, um, and helping to, uh, provide efforts and, uh, maybe looking at different ways of, um, providing, uh, some of the capabilities that the, either at the County or at the state level that they're able to leverage. But Tim happy to maybe have you chime in here too. >>Yeah. So I'll first start with my wheelhouse and I'll expand out to, to some of my partners. Uh, so the primary, small business, we knew the idea was a daily basis inside this realm is going to be landlords. Uh, so actually this afternoon, we're doing a town hall with folks to be able to roll out, uh, which they will go to our portal to find a corporate landlord program. Uh, so that I seem a landlord for Camille the application pack and on behalf of a hundred residents, rather than us having to adjudicate a hundred individual applications and melon a hundred checks. Uh, so that is because we were listening to that particular segment of the, uh, the business community. Now I know early on, we were, we were really hoping that the, the paycheck protection program federally would have, uh, been dispersed in a way that helped our local small businesses. >>Uh, more we did a, our economic development team did a round of small business supports through our cares act. Uh, our quarterly unfortunate was not open yet. It was just about 15, 20 days shy. So we use, uh, another traditional grant mechanism that we have in place to dedicate that. Uh, but on a go forward board, willing to Congress passes something over the next 30 days, um, that if there's a round two of cares or some other programs, we absolutely now have a tool that we know we can create a digital opening for individuals to come figure out if they're eligible or not for whatever program it is, the it housing, the it, uh, small business operations supports, uh, and it would apply through that process and in a very lightweight, so we're looking forward to how we can expand our footprint to help all of the needs that are present in our community. This leads to another question which may be our last one, but this is an interesting question. How can agencies use COVID-19 as a proof point providing a low cost configurable solutions that can scale across government. Karen, do you want to respond to that? And then Tim also, >>Thanks, Bob. So I believe like, you know, some of the things that we've said in terms of examples of how we were able to bring up the solution quicker, I definitely see that scaling as you go forward and trying to really, um, focus in on the needs and getting that MVP out the door. Uh, and then Tim alluded to this as well. A lot of the change management processes that went into re-imagining what these processes look like. I definitely see a additional, you know, growth mindset of how do we get better processes in place, or really focusing on the core processes so that we can really move the ball forward and continuing to go that path of delivering on a quicker path, uh, leveraging cloud, as we mentioned of, um, some, some of the capabilities around the chat bot and other things to really start to push, um, uh, the capabilities out to those citizens quicker and really reduce that timeline that we have to take on the backend side, um, that that would be our hope and goal, um, given, you know, sort of what we've been able to accomplish and hoping using that as a proof point of how we can do this for other types of, uh, either programs or other processes. >>Yeah, I think, um, the, you know, the tool has given us capability now there, whether we use local leaders leverage that to the fullest really becomes a coming upon us. So do we take a beat, uh, when we can catch our breath and then, you know, work through our executive leadership to say, look, here's all the ways you can use this tool. You've made an enterprise investment in. Um, and I know for us, uh, at Clark County, we've stood up, uh, enterprise, uh, kind of governance team where we can come and talk through all of our enterprise solutions, uh, encourage our other department head peers, uh, to, to examine how you might be able to use this. Is there a way that, um, you know, parks and rec might use this to better access their scholarship programs to make sure that children get into youth sports leagues and don't get left out, uh, because we know youth suicide on the rise and they need something positive to do when this pandemic is clear, I'm there for them to get out and do those things. >>So the possibilities really are out there. It really becomes, um, how do we mind those internally? And I know that being a part of listservs and, uh, you know, gov tech and all the magazines and things are out there to help us think about how do we better use our solutions, um, as well as our IBM partners who are always eager to say, Hey, have you seen how they're using this? Um, it is important for us to continue to keep our imaginations open, um, so that we continue to iterate through this process. Um, cause I, I would hate to see the culture of, um, iteration go away with this pandemic. >>Okay. We have time for one final question. We've already addressed this in part two, and this one is probably for you and that you've used the cares act to eliminate some of the procurement red tape that's shown up. Well, how do you somehow that's been very positive. How do you see that impacting you going forward? What happens when the red tape all comes back? >>Yeah, so I think I mentioned a little bit, uh, about that when some of the folks who are deemed non essential came back during our reopening phases and they're operating at the speed of prior business and red tape where we had all been on this, these green tape, fast tracks, uh, it, it was a bit of a organizational whiplash. Uh, but it, for us, we've had the conversation with executive management of like, we cannot let this get in the way of what our citizens need. So like keep that pressure on our folks to think differently. Don't and, uh, we've gone so far as to, uh, even, uh, maybe take it a step further and investigate what had been done in, in, in Canada. Some other places around, um, like, like going right from in a 48 hour period, going from a procurement statement through a proof of concept and doing purchasing on the backside, like how can we even get this even more streamlined so that we can get the things we need quickly, uh, because the citizens don't understand, wait, we're doing our best, uh, your number 3000 and queue on the phone line that that's not what they need to hear or want to hear during times of crisis. >>Very helpful. Well, I want to be respectful of our one hour commitment, so we'll have to wrap it up here in closing. I want to thank everyone for joining us for today's event and especially a big, thank you goes to Karen and Tim. You've done a really great job of answering a lot of questions and laying this out for us and a special thanks to our partners at IBM for enabling us to bring this worthwhile discussion to our audience. Thanks once again, and we look forward to seeing you at another government technology event,

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Fortinet Accelerate 18, brought to you by Fortinet. (upbeat techno music) >> Welcome to Fortinet 20... Welcome to Fortinet Accelerate 2018. I haven't had enough caffeine today. I'm Lisa Martin. I'm joined by my co-host, Peter Burris. Peter, it's theCUBE's second time here at Fortinet Accelerate. We were here last year. Great to be back with you. Some exciting stuff we have heard in the keynote this morning. Cyber security is one of those topics that I find so interesting, 'cause it's so transformative. It permeates every industry, everybody, and we heard some interesting things about what Fortinet is doing to continue their leadership in next generation security. Some of the themes that popped up really speak to the theme of this year's event, which is Strength in Numbers. Ken Xie, their CEO, shared some great, very strong numbers for them. 2017, they reached 1.8 billion in billing, which is a huge growth over the previous year. They acquired nearly 18,000 new customers in 2017, and another thing that I thought was very intriguing was that they protect 90% of the global S&P 100. They have over 330,000 customers, and they share great logos: Apple, Oracle, Coca Cola, et cetera. So, great trajectory that they're on. From a security perspective, digital transformation, security transformation, they have to play hand in hand. What are some of the things that you are seeing and that you're looking forward to hearing on today's show? >> Well, I always liked this show. This is the second year, as you said, that we've done this. One of the reasons I like it is because security is very complex, very hard, highly specialized, and Fortinet does a pretty darn good job of bringing it down to Earth and simplifying it so that people could actually imagine themselves becoming more secure, as a consequence of taking actions along the lines of what Fortinet's doing. So, there's clearly a strong relationship between the notion of digital business and the notion of digital security. The way we describe the difference between a business and digital business is that a digital business uses its data assets differently, and in many respects, it is through security concepts and constructs that you go about privatizing, or making unique, your data, so that it doesn't leave your network when you don't want it to, so it can't be subject to ransomware, so that it isn't compromised in some way by a bad actor. So there's a very, very strong relationship between how we think about digital assets and how we think about security, and what Fortinet's overall approach is is to say, "Look, let's not focus just on the device. "Let's look at the entire infrastructure "and what needs to happen to collect data, "to collect information, across the whole thing," what we call a broad approach as opposed to a deep approach. A broad approach to looking at the problem, with partnerships and working with customers in a differentiated way, so that we can help our clients very quickly recognize, attend, and make problems go away. >> One of the things, too, that is interesting is, you know, we hear so much talk at many other shows about digital transformation, DX, everyone's doing it. They're on some journey. There's now such amorphous environments with Multi-Cloud, IoT, opens the-- It spreads the attack surface. I thought they did a great job this morning of really articulating that very well. I'd love to hear your perspective, and we have some of their customers that are going to be talking to us today, but what is the mix of security transformation as a facilitator or an enabler of true digital business transformation? How do companies do that when, as we were talking earlier, companies, and even Ken said, Ken Xie, the CEO, that lot of companies have 20 to 30 different disparate security products in place that are pointed at different things that aren't integrated. How does a company kind of reconcile security transformation to-- as an enabler of digital business transformation? >> Yeah, and I think that's going to be one of the major themes we hear today, is the process that customers are, in 2018, going to have to accelerate. Does that ring a bell? (laughs) Accelerate... >> Lisa: That's genius. Somebody should use that. >> This journey (laughs)... Accelerate this journey... >> Yeah. >> To employing security and security-related technologies and services, much more effectively within their business. There's so many ways of answering that question, Lisa, but one of the-- Let's start with a simple one. That, increasingly, a company is providing its value proposition to its customer bases, whether they're small, residential, whether they're a consumer, or whether they're other businesses, through a digital mechanism, and that could be e-commerce, as pedestrian as e-commerce, or perhaps recommendation engines, or it could be increasingly digital services that are providing, effectively, a digital twin in the home, and, so, your security, your ability to provide those services and those capabilities that consumers want, if those fundamental, or those services are fundamentally insecure, then your brand, no matter how good the service is, your brand's going to take a hit. So, when you think about what Google's trying to do with Nest, if you think about, you know, in the home, a lot of the things that are going into the home, Amazon Alexa, there is an enormous amount of attention being paid to, is our platform, is our fabric a source of differentiation-- security fabric a source of differentiation in our business? Are we going to be able to look a consumer in the eye, or a B2B company in the eye, and say, "You'll be able to do things with us "that you can't do with others, "because of our security profile." And, increasingly, that's got to be the way that boards of directors and CEOs, and IT professionals need to think, "What can we do differently and better "than our competitors because of our security profile "and the security assets that we've invested in?" That's not the way a lot of people are thinking today. >> Why do you think that is? Because, I think you're spot on with providing security capabilities as a differentiator. There's a lot of competition, especially in the detection phase. Ken Xie talked about that this morning, and there's a lot of of coopetition that needs to happen to help companies with myriad disparate products, but why do you think that is that this security capability as a differentiator hasn't yet, kind of, boiled up to the surface? >> I think it's a number of reasons. Some good, some, obviously, not so good, but the main one is, is that, historically, when a CFO or anybody looked at the assets, they looked at tangible assets of the company, and data was, kind of, yeah, was out there, and it was, yeah, secure that data, but we were still more worried about securing the devices, because the devices were hard assets. We were worried about securing the server, securing the routers, securing, you know, whatever else, the repeaters, whatever else is in your organization, or securing your perimeters. Well, now, as data moves, because of mobile, and Ken told us, that 90% of the traffic now inside of a typical enterprise is through mobile, or through wireless types of mechanisms as opposed to wired, well, it means, ultimately, that the first step that every business has to take is to recognize data as an asset, and understanding what what we're really trying to secure is the role the data's playing in the business. How we're using it to engage customers, how we're using it to engage other businesses, how employees are using it, and very importantly, whether the security products themselves are sharing data in a way that makes all that better, and in a secure way, themselves, because the last thing you want is a vulnerability inside your security platform. >> Yes. >> So, the main reason is is that the industry, in most businesses, they talk a great game about digital business, but they haven't gotten down to that fundamental. It's about your data, and how you treat data as an asset, and how you institutionalize work around that data asset, and how you invest to improve the value, accrete value to that data asset over an extended period of time. >> Something that I'm interested in understanding, and we've got Phil Quade, their CSO, on, later today. >> Peter: Smart guy. >> How the role of the CSO has had to evolve, and I'd love to hear... And you asked a little bit about this earlier, the Fortinet on the Fortinet story. What are you doing, internally, to secure and provide security that all elements of your business need? Because I imagine a customer would want to understand, "Well, tell us how you're doing it. "If you're the leader in this, "in providing the products and the technologies, "are you doing this internally?" >> Well, I think, look, I think going back to what I was just talking about, and we had a great... We had a great conversation with Ken Xie that's going to show up in the broadcast today, it is... I think every technology executive increasingly needs to look at their potential customers, their peers, and their customers, and say, "Here's what I can do, as a consequence of using my stuff, "that you can't do, because you're not using my stuff." And Phil, Phil Quade, needs to look at other CSOs and say, "Here's what I can do "as a CSO, because I use Fortinet, "that you cannot do as a CSO, because you don't." Now, the role of the CSO is changing pretty dramatically, and there's a lot of reasons for that, but if we think about the number of individuals that, again, we go back to this notion of data as an asset and how we organize our work around that data. We're hearing about how the CIO's role is changing and how the chief digital officer's changing, or the chief data officer or the CSO. We've got a lot of folks that are kind of circling each other about what really and truly is the fundamental thing that we're trying to generate a return on. >> Lisa: Right. >> When I think about the job of a chief, the job of a chief is to take capital from the board, capital from the ownership, and create net new value, and whether it's a CIO doing that, or anybody. And, so, what Phil's job, or what the CSO's job is is to also find ways to show how investments in the business's security is going to create a differentiating advantage over time. Working with the chief digital officer, the chief data officers and others, but there's a lot of complexity in who does what, but at the end of the day, the CSO's job is to make sure that the data and access to the data is secure, and that the data and the ability to share the data supports the business. >> You mentioned the word "complexity" in the context of the CSO and some of the senior roles, where data is concerned. One of the things I'm interested to hear from some of our guests today, those at Fortinet, and we've got the CSO on we mentioned, and we've also got John Madison, their Senior Vice President of Products and Solutions. We've got their global strategist on security, Derek Manky, but we also have some customers. One from Tri-City, and another from Clark County School District, which is here in Vegas, and I'm curious to understand how they're dealing with complexity in their infrastructure. You know, we talked so much about, and they... have already started today, about Cloud, IoT, multi-cloud, mobile, as you talked about. As the infrastructure complexity increases, how does that change the role of the C-Suite to facilitate the right changes and the right evolution to manage that complexity in a secure way. So I'm very interested to hear how that internal complexity on the infrastructure side is being dealt with by the guys and the gals at the top who need to ensure that, to your point, their data and information assets are protected. We've got some great examples, I think, we're going to hear today, in three verticals in particular: education, healthcare, and financial services. And education really intrigued me because it's been a long time since I've been in college, but there's this massive evolution of smart classrooms, it's BYOD, right? And, there's so many vulnerabilities that are being brought into a school district, so I'd love to understand how do you protect data in that sense when you have so many devices that are connecting to an environment that just drives up complexity, and maybe opens... Perforates their perimeter even more. >> Well, I mean, you know, one of the... We're as a nation, we are living through a recent experience of some of the new tensions that a lot of the school districts are facing, and it could very well be, that voice or facial recognition or other types of things become more important, so I, look. Large or small, well-funded, not well-funded, young or old, consumer or business, all companies are going to have to understand and envision what their digital footprint's going to look like. And as they envision what that digital footprint, companies or institutions, as they envision what that digital footprint's going to look like and what they want to achieve with that digital footprint, they're going to have to make commensurate investments in security, because security used to be, as Ken said when he talked about the three stages, security used to be about perimeter. So, it was analogous to your building. You're either in your building or you're not in your building. You're in your network, or you're not in your network. But, today, your value proposition is how do you move data to somebody else? Today, your security profile is who is inside your building right now? Are they doing things that are good or bad? It's not a "I know everybody, I know where they are, "and I know what they're doing." We are entering into the world where digital business allows us to envision or to execute a multitude of more complex behaviors, and the security platform has to correspondingly evolve and adjust, and that is a hard problem. So, listening to how different classes of companies and different classes of institutions are dealing with this given different industries, different budgets, different levels of expertise, is one of the most important things happening in the technology industry right now. >> Yeah, it's that, how do you get balance between enabling what the business needs to be profitable and grow and compete, and managing the risk? >> And, how... and what is a proper level of investment? Do I have too many vendors, do I have not enough vendors? All those... all of those issues, it's increasing, we have to get-- We have to make our security capacity, our security capabilities, dramatically more productive. And that is going to be one of the major gates on how fast all of these technologies evolve. Can we introduce new AI? Can we introduce faster hardware? Can we introduce new ways of engaging? Can we bring biology and kind of that bio-to-silicon interface and start building things around that? Well, there's a lot of things that we can do, but if we can't secure it, we probably shouldn't do it. >> Lisa: Absolutely. >> So, a security profile is going to be one of the very natural and necessary, reasonable gates on how fast the industry evolves over the next 20-30 years. And that's going to have an enormous bearing and impact on how well we can solve some of the complex problems that we face. >> Well, I'm excited to co-host today with you, Peter. I think we're going to have some great, very informative conversations from some of Fortinet's leaders, to their customers, to their channel partners, and really get a great sense of the things that they're seeing in the field and how that's going to be applied internally to really have security be that enabler of true business transformation. >> Peter: Excellent. >> Alright. Well, stick around. I'm Lisa Martin. Let's hope I don't screw up the outro. Hosting with Peter all day. We're excited that you're joining us live from Fortinet Accelerate 2018. Stick around. We'll be right back. (upbeat techno music)