(energetic music) >> Announcer: From our studios in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California, this is a Cube Conversation. >> Hi, welcome to our Palo Alto, California studios for another Cube Conversation, where we go in depth with thought leaders about some of the most pressing topics of the day in business and technology. I'm your host Peter Burris. One of the biggest challenges that any company faces is how to get more out of their people, even though we are increasingly distributed, we are increasingly utilizing digital means to interact and work together, and we are increasingly trying to do this with customers and with other third parties that are crucial to making business work, profitable, and grow revenue. A number of things have occurred in the last few years that are actually making it possible to envision how we can be more distributed and yet be more productive. And one of the most important ones is the use of video as a basis for connecting people. How're we going to to do that? Well, to have that conversation, we're here with David Maldow who's the CEO of, Let's Do Video. David, welcome to theCUBE. >> Hey, thanks for having me Peter, appreciate it. >> So, tell us a little bit about, very quickly, about, Let's Do Video, and then let's jump into it. >> Sure. Let's Do Video's, a boutique analyst blog on www.letsdovideo.com. We cover everything having to do with remote technology, anything that allows teams to be more productive whether they're working together or working across the country. >> All right, so in your name is, "video." Let's identify some of the key trends. What really is making it possible to utilize video in this way today where it really was nothing more than a promise made, put forward by a lot of companies 10 years ago. >> I think, well, there's been a lot of factors, but big part of that has been the cloud. A few years ago we had the big cloud software revolution in video conferencing. Before then you had to buy these expensive video appliances to have them at your workplace, and you really needed a team of experts to run them. By running the video in the cloud, all we need is our apps on our phones, and apps in our meeting rooms. And it makes it a lot easier, and it made it a lot more affordable. So, now it's available for everyone, and it was just a matter of whether we were ready for it, and appears that we are. >> So, we're getting the service that we need without having to worry about the technology that's required, the formats that are being employed, the operational complexities associated with video. Have I got that right? >> Yeah, actually there was a long list of reasons we weren't using video. Analyst like myself looked at the video conferencing industry and said, "Guys, you need to fix all of these things "or no one's going to use it. "It needs to be easier, one click to join. "It needs to be more affordable." The stuff was expensive. Needs to be reliable. Balls were dropping. It needs to use less bandwidth. It was taking over our networks. All of these things it needed to be, and they fixed all of that. And we promised if they fixed all of that, people would start to use it. Now we are seeing an absolute explosion in the market of people taking these apps into the workplace and actually using them. >> It seems to me, David, I want to get your take on this. That some of the early suppliers of some of these video related services were treating it largely as a means to an end, and typically that end was, what type of things can we put in the marketplace that's going to increase the amount of network bandwidth that's required so we can sell more networking equipment, or sell more networking services? Let me ask you a question. Because that has been fixed by utilizing the cloud. Does it now mean that we are getting a whole bunch of new technology companies that are stepping into the market place to provide video services as the end itself? And that's leading to better engineering, better innovation, and better customer experience? >> That's exactly what happened. We went from a top-down adoption model, to a ground-up adoption model. And what I mean by that is. It used to be a top-down thing, where these video conferencing companies would go talk to the CEO or CTO of a big company and do an amazing demo in the meeting room, and say, "look at this amazing video quality that you get." And they would show these studies that people like me help write (laughs), showing that if you do use video you'll be more productive. If you do use video you'll have more impact, and if you do use video you'll get all these benefits. So, buy this expensive stuff and then force your people to use them. And that didn't work 'cause they bought the stuff, and they tried to force people to use them. But, like we talked about, it was complicated. it was inconvenient. Now what's happening is, instead of the top-down we're getting the bottom-up. We're getting people walking into the workplace saying, "I'm using this app. I'm using this app. "I need video to talk to my teammates." And the boss CEO has to say, "Okay, okay, we'll accommodate that. "Don't use the consumer apps, though. "Let us find a nice business app that's secure for you." So instead of having, "You should use this "'cause we were sold on it." We're having a great new cloud video industry that's saying, "oh, let's give you what you want." >> So, when adoption happens from a bottom-up stand point, it means that the benefits have to be that much more obvious to everybody, otherwise, you don't get the adoption. So, what are some of the key productivity measures that this rank and file, this ground swell of interest in these technologies, are utilizing to evaluate and to judge how they want to use video within their business lives, workflows, engaging the customers, etc. >> For a long time it was just anecdotal. It just seemed obvious, if you, we all know that when you have a face-to-face meeting you get the work done. If it's a phone call, "oh, I'll explain to them why it's not done." We all know things get done more effectively in meetings. We all know a face-to-face meeting can last 20 minutes and get the work done. While a phone call can go on for hours. But now that we are starting to use it, instead of anecdotal, we're actually getting real data. Companies are reporting that they use to have a... Their web app development team used to take eight weeks before every release. Now they're doing it every six weeks. We're seeing real results. Frost & Sullivan, a big analyst firm in the space recently came out with some statistics. A survey of CEOs, CTOs, and they reported that using video among their team accelerated decision making. 86% of them agreed with that, 83% that agree, that it improves productivity, that's massive. 79% said it boosts innovation. So not only people getting more work done, more leading work, getting ahead of the competition, coming up with new things. And this is a huge one, 79%, this is self-reporting, believe that it improved their customer experience. We know, you know, the customer relationship is everything in sales. >> Why? >> Now we're actually measuring the results. >> Why is that, what is it about video that is so important to allowing us to not only accelerate workflows and achieve the outcomes, but also as we take on more complex workflows, even as we distribute work greater, what is it about video that makes the difference? >> There's a lot to it. I think a lot of it is that human connection. It's really hard to focus on a phone call. You lose track, I mean, you know, one of the reasons that my I named my company "Let's Do Video" is 'cause I'd be on the phone with a partner, a colleague, a teammate, and I'm like, "is he or she checking her email? "Did you hear, do I have to repeat what I just said?" We need to get work done, let's do video. And I think teams across all industries are finding that out now. Once they get on video, the work just gets done. >> But it's not just that they're on video, it's that they're utilizing video as a way of connecting with each other. That you can see whether or not somebody's paying attention to you at the most simple level. You can also register whether or not someone is a little bit agitated with what you're saying, even though you may not hear that on the phone. But video is being utilized as a way of adding to how other work gets done. It's not like we're suddenly, you know, putting a whole bunch of presentations up in the video. We're looking at faces, we're listening to people. We're having a connection as we work in other medium. Have I got that right? >> Exactly, yeah. I used to... When video conferencing first hit the scene 20 years ago, we were marketing it as a replacement for travel. Instead of flying across the country for that big meeting, you do it over a video. And what we realized is you still need to travel for that really, really big meeting once or twice a year, you still get on a plane. Video conferencing isn't getting rid of that niche meeting. It's not fixing that one big meeting, It's not cutting your travel costs. It's upgrading the phone call. It's upgrading the text message, the imChat. It's upgrading the e-mail. It's becoming, like you're saying, a part of how we're normally working. And it's changing the way remote workers see their teams. Let's Do Video, my team is completely remote. I've never met one of my teammates in person till we were two or three years in. We met up at an airport and said, "oh my God, I actually get to see you in three dimensions! "It's amazing!" And if we had started this company 10 years ago, I would say, I don't really have a team. I'm a sole guy, it's all me, I have some contractors. I send them an email, and a month later, they send me the result. But with video, I have a team, there's accountability. We're friends, we know what's going on with each other's lives. And there's a lot more motivation there, because instead of just, "Hey, you're my graphics person, "get this graphics for me. "You're my web person, fix the thing on the site." My colleagues, they're part of the team, and they want the company to succeed, 'cause they look at me in the face and they say, "I got this project done!" They feel good about it. It's a lot more of an investment, and it sounds like happy fluffy stuff, but it affects your bottom line. I don't think my... I know my company would not be as successful if I did not regularly meet with my team over video. >> Well, who doesn't want (laughing) a little bit of happy fluffy stuff every now and then? It's nice to bring a smile to your job. Let's pivot a little bit and just talk about the difference between internally to now externally. Because one of the other things that a lot of these video conferencing solutions offered, was they offered the opportunity to connect with video on a single network, your company's network with specialized end points. Now we're talking about trying to find new ways to enhance the experience that sales people have, service people have. Utilizing video to engage customers, to drive new types of experience, to drive new forms of revenue. How is video starting to alter the way we engage not just internally but also externally? >> That's more starting to happen than already happening. I think video in the workplace is becoming just a normal thing. I meet with my team over video. We're still finding ways to engage our externals. But the drive is definitely there, because we're seeing the results from working with our teams, and we know the impact. I think anyone in sales, they'll do anything to get that face-to-face meeting. They'll do anything to get you to come into their office or let you into their office to sit down. If you give a salesperson a choice between face-to-face or a phone call. That salesperson wants to be face-to-face. So, as we're getting the technology to make it easier for customers to get face-to-face with us, and partners, and externals. The demand will be there, and what's great is that the cloud enables that. The real problem is, like you said, they were on our own network. So, if I wanted to talk to a customer or a partner, I had to open a hole in my firewall, and let someone else into my network, and my IT people would go crazy. Now, the call's hosted up on whatever video conferencing company's cloud, it's safe. So, we're ready for that sort of thing. >> Lot of changes, lot of opportunities, tremendous potential. The types of changes we see in five years are going to dwarf the changes we've seen in the last five years. Again, as folks get used to using video internally, they're going to start demanding it as they engage each other externally as well. David Maldow, CEO of, Let's Do Video. Thanks for being on theCUBE. >> Thanks so much, this was fun. >> And once again, I'm Peter Burris. Until next time, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)