>>Hey everyone. Welcome to this cube conversation featuring Sendbird. I'm your host, Lisa Martin, John Kim joins me next, the CEO of Sendbird John, welcome to the program. Talk to the audience about Sendbird. What is it that you guys do? What gaps in the market did you see back in 2013? >>Yeah. Well thank you for so much and I'm excited to be here. So just to give you a quick introduction about Sendbird, we started a company back in 2013, and then we first started out as a consumer based product building social network for moms, but around 2015, when the world was really moving towards messaging, we kind of looked at as an opportunity to build a message feature for our own application. That's when we kind of realized a problem that we, there weren't really modern SDK or API products that can enable modern messaging experience for other applications. So we decided to kind of build that and then actually launched on the side, which actually became the main business. So we applied a wide Combinator with that idea and launched to the world in 2016 and then kind of fast forward, you know, good six years. We're now powering over a quarter billion users on a monthly basis, sending billions of billions of messages, cross different vertical site, online community site credit like door C. So it's kinda where we're today. >>And you're now valued at 1 billion. So a lot of evolution, a lot of momentum since 2013, especially since 2016, but also during the last couple of years. Talk to me about some of the philosophies and the approaches that Sendbird has applied to be driving such momentum during such volatile times. >>Yeah, I think over the years, what we're all came to realize is that more and more and more businesses are becoming mobile first. So by focusing on the mobile basic experiences, conversations really became one of the most efficient and effective ways to build relationship between the users as well as the relationship with the brands. So by incorporating experiences like messaging, people were able to increase the engagement and the retention and ultimately conversion within the applications. And that's kind of where we come in because more and more it's, it's becoming harder and harder for developers and the business operators to build modern messaging experience. So we really want to make sure that all of the developers and all of the businesses can harness the power of in a messaging as easily as possible, getting all the, you know, feature richness plus the scalability that you need. So we really try to build the best in class product so that you can have those know messaging within your application. >>Let's talk about that. So B building relationships in a digital world today is table stakes for any business consumers, patience was quite thin. The last couple of years, it probably still is to some extent, but building relationships in today's omnichannel world, whereas consumers, we expect we can go to many different applications, apps, and complain, or raise issues with technologies or products or services. How is that table stakes for an organization to be able to have that in-app experience to retain the customers, the data, the insights. >>Yeah. Today, if you think about how a businesses are engaging with customers, there are a lot of different channels, right? There's SMS, there's, you know, phone calls, direct mailing emails, and also a messaging. If you think about as a user, what is the best experience you want to have with the, with the brands it's usually through the mobile applications. That's why the entire mobile economy has really grew and exploded over the years. One thing that if you think about again as a user, what are the experience that you don't like to have is if you think about SMSs SM now plagued with like phishing and scams issues, FTC reported that they're more than hundreds of millions of dollars that are costing us consumers last year, and that's more than 50% growth from the previous year. So more and more of these kind of other external channels are becoming a channel for again, for like fishing and scams and really disrupting the user experience. >>But if you think about the, a messaging becoming your default mode of engaging with the brands and other users is secure more reliable, and also as businesses you get, you, you get to control the user experience, plus actually owning the data. So you can actually improve your products and services on top of that. So that's some of the approaches that we've seen over the years. More and more businesses are using in a messaging as the default mode of communication, and then using other channels as a, kind of like a last mile delivery in case, you know, users, miss certain kind of conversation, they may rely on those other channels as all that option. Just to touch a little bit on the, just to touch a little bit on the messaging side of things. So if you think about how the world is using messaging today, you might, you know, think of missing apps like yo meta facing messenger, or, you know, WhatsApp and all of this, this other kind of consumer applications, consumer mobile messaging is kind of really dominating the world. But if you think about individual businesses, you really don't really want to hand over those experiences and the user data to other kind of social media networks. So what you want to do is actually have that similar level, if not better experience within your application, but also be able to, again, own those data, control this, those data and make sure that your users and your customers are having a very clean and secure experience on your application. >>Absolutely. Without secure clean experience is critical for brands. Talk to me about how your customer conversations have evolved over the last few years as brand loyalty, customer satisfaction, scores, churn. All of these things are very impactful to organizations. Has the conversation risen up the C-suite? Is it, is it that impactful these days? >>Yeah. So B really based on the brands that you are operating again, like the customer engagement and customer retention, and sometimes the conversations turning into business outcomes through convergence, all of these things are really impacted a lot by the conversations or in a messaging. So what we've seen over the years is anywhere from the user acquisition perspective, from the marketing also within the user engagement retention, that's happening in your application, whether it be user to user or your sales team, having conversations with the customers, ultimately to like customer support measuring CS, and how do you keep the customers? Sure that customers never hit a dead end. All of this entire customer journey now can be mapped through messaging. So because that's becoming more and more important and critical for your business, now's the, if you think about our buyers today, we are talking to CEOs and CTOs, as well as chief digital officers in some of these enterprises companies. >>That makes sense. I mean, some of the, the benefits that you've mentioned, increasing retention, driving I'm direct sales cross sale up sale, brand loyalty that impacts every aspect of an organization, customer success, et cetera. Let's talk now about some customer examples. I know you mentioned Reddit. I know hinge is another great customer example. Give me a couple examples that really showcase the value that Sunbird delivers. >>Yeah. So Reddit has been one of our earliest customers, even when you're like just a C stage company. If you think about Reddit, red has successfully trans trans transformed from the web based company to a mobile first company. And by incorporating a messaging to a modern experiences, just like, again, once you have on WhatsApp, they're able to increase the user engagement and ultimately the retention on the application. So more and more users are coming back to the application in any given month. So that's one, one example. And again, keeping the community safe and secure is very, very important for a community like Reddit. So offering powerful and moderation capabilities for the community MOS. Those are also very important factors why Reddi decided to work with us. Some of the other examples, like, you know, Crafton pub, one of the world's most successful and largest games today now, they able, they were able to increase their user engagement and ultimately the overall, you know, session time within the game by incorporating messaging that powers the users online communities through lobby chat, as well as, you know, client chat. >>So how to keep the users more engaged in return to game and stay there for a longer period of time, ultimately increasing the lifetime value of the gamers. And then a few other like business industry use cases like keep trucking recently rebranded as motive, drastically improved the collaboration between this, you know, operations control and, and it's truck drivers. So those kind of communication capabilities obviously increase the safety of the drivers as well as the trust and then openness and overall collaboration within the businesses. So those are some of the examples. And I think we mentioned like hinge before, how do you kind of bring all of those conversations to stay within the applications? So the users don't have to reveal their, you know, personal information so that the conversation become, again, stays on the application, keep the user happy, more secure and safe for the, all the users. >>That security is something that keeps jumping out to me. We have seen the threat landscape change dramatically in the last couple of years. It is so amorphous, but you mentioned the SMS security issues that it has. And I, I think a staff that you guys provided to me was that the FTC reported that tech scams cost us consumers 131 million last year in 2021, which as you mentioned, is a huge increase from 2020. Talk a little bit more about the importance of being able to abstract some of that personal information as consumers. We give it out so freely and it's, it's a it's risk. >>Absolutely. So again, some of the most common fishing scams that we all as the consumers receive these days are, you know, pretending to be another businesses telling you, Hey, click here to, you know, get a refund on, on, on a credit card charge or, you know, there's a fraudulent cases. Like there's something that makes you either call a number or, you know, go to a certain link and you kind of have to trust and try to figure out is this a messaging that's really that brand that you are engaging with? Or is this something someone else that's pretending to that, to be that brand? So is the burden is on the end customers, unfortunately, all the fishings and everything's like a law, large, large number. So the more people you send out those messages, ultimately someone will get tricked into those messages and ultimately costing a lot of money for the end consumers. >>Now, the benefit of having enough conversations is that your users are secure when the users get a push notification or in a message, you know, where that's exactly happening, cuz you have full context of the business and the application you're in. And then whenever someone, somebody sends you a message, you know, the sender and the receiver's already authenticated. So those users are secure from the get go. And because of the contextual rich experience you have within the messaging, plus all those extra security layers they're bake to the user experience, the, the end benefit for the customers are incredible. Cuz again, you can trust the conversation that you're having with the brand and then the messages tend to be a lot more richer and better user experience, also better latency and just overall more frictionless experience for the end customers. So that gives a lot more safety and more benefit for the end customer as well as the business brands. >>Absolutely two things that you just said that really jumped out at me. Trust and authenticity. We think of the five generations that are in the workforce today, engaging with companies via apps that, that trust and authenticity and that security is. It just, it gets more important every day. Talk to me about when you're in customer conversations or you're talking with analysts, what are some of the things that you describe as the key differentiators that makes Sendbird in-app messaging really stand out about the competition? >>Yeah. One of the things that we really focus on was can we actually serve the world? So scalability is one of the key important aspects, how we were able to win customers like Reddit, you know, DoorDash and even like incredible customers like Paytm, one of the largest FinTech application in India. So being able to provide us scalability so that your customers, our customers, and the developers can go to sleep at night without having to worry about will this work now, but also other on top of top of those things, the feature richness cuz ultimately what our customer want is how can they engage with their customers in a modern and ale way. So by offering the features that are up in the latest, in the greatest that you'd expect out of other consumer application, again like WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, or even things like slack, we offer a lot of those features from get go. >>So by having those feature richness out of the box, you can implement a modern missing experience from day one. So you can go to market much faster, but also give more trust for the users cuz ultimately end customers are already used to using the best missing experiences out there. So as soon as they kind of feel the experience are a little bit, you know, outdated, they'll stop trusting the brand. So how do you kind of give them moderate and trusting and, and secure experience for the user is very, very critical for the businesses. So you can offer those again from out of the box, >>Out of the box, absolutely table stakes for businesses in every industry. John, thank you so much for coming on the queue today. Talking to me about Sendbird in-app messaging, the values, the benefits, the what's in it for customers and businesses. We appreciate your insights. >>Thanks. So >>John Kim I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching this conversation.

>>from >>around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of AWS reinvent 2020 sponsored by Intel, AWS and our community partners. >>Hi. >>And welcome to the Cube. Virtual in our coverage of aws reinvent 2020. We have a cube virtual, and I'm your host, Justin Warren. And today, my guest is Shauna Wolverton, executive vice president of product at ZENDESK. And she's coming to us from Oakland, California. Shauna, welcome to the >>Cube. Thanks so much for having me. It is >>It is lovely to be here. How's the weather over there? In Oakland, >>we just suddenly went from summer to winter, which, uh, after the weather we've had is no complaints. >>All right, Well, as as a resident of Melbourne, where we have four seasons in one day, I am very familiar with rapid weather changes. So, uh, hopefully it's not too cold for you, and you get a little bit of nicer weather just before you go fully into winter. Absolutely. Now Zendesk and Amazon have a pretty close relationship is my understanding, and we know that Amazon is famous for its customer center at attitude. Wonderful thing about customers, of course, is that they're never really happy with everything that we have. So zendesk fit in with that with that relationship with Amazon. And how is your approach to customer? >>Yeah. I mean, the relationship we have with them is I'm really excited. Really Have gone all in on our move to the cloud. There are sole provider on DWI run all of our services, um, on AWS. And in addition, we have some great partnerships with, uh, Jacob Amazon Connect, which allows us to provide great telephony and call center services to our customers. We have a great partnership around event bridge and a zwelling app connect. So I think there is a fantastic relationship that we have where we're able to deliver not just our basic services, but to really take advantage of a lot of the services that Amazon on AWS provide s so that we can sort of accelerate our own roadmap and deliver great new features to our customers. >>Now, a lot of people have gone through a pretty similar adoption of the cloud of the moment. Unfortunate reason for doing so. But it certainly has driven the adoption very, very quickly. Uh, zendesk, of course, as you say, has been has been doing this for quite some time. So what have you noticed that stayed the same eso from last year to this year? What were you already doing that you're now noticing? Everyone else's discovering. Actually, this is pretty good. >>Well, you know, I think you know the rumors of of the call center and and the telephone as a channel. Their demise are greatly exactly. I think, um, for us. Much as we're all excited about chat and messaging and all of the different ways that we can connect with our customers, there's something about having a phone number and allowing people to pick up the phone and talk to a human that refuses to go out of style. And so I think, um, you know, our partnership with, uh with Amazon connection has been hugely powerful and even, you know, recently when a lot of this sort of acceleration has picked up, we've seen, um, you know, we saw a customer who had a power failure kind of massive failure of their own phone system. Be able thio, come to us, get, get, connect up and running incredibly quickly and start taking thousands of calls a day and that kind of sort of quick time to value fast start ability for our customers. Just this hugely important. Um, now. But really, you know, that's always been true, right? >>Yeah. I mean, when people want to call you and they want to talk to you, then they're not really happy If they can't get through that and particularly right now, being able to make that human human connection for me, I know that that that's been a really important part of getting through this. I work remotely most of the time. So actually, speaking to humans as we're doing now is is really refreshing change from just seeing everything on on a text screen. Um, so yeah, so it's It's interesting that the phone has actually has been so resilient, even though we were here from Ah, lot of young people say, Oh, we never answer the phone when someone calls, uh, but a lot of people are actually calling into businesses when they wanna make contact or when they when they don't see things on the website. So >>how does >>zendesk help, too, to integrate with what people are doing in their online and digital channels through to what they're doing with phone system. >>Yeah, but I think fundamentally people want their questions answered. One of my favorite studies that we did was around our benchmark study and we talked to Millennials. They said the first place they go to get help to their phone, but when you push it a little deeper, it was clear that they actually didn't know that the phone was for making phone calls. It was just all of the other help centers like like the first way that a lot of people today are looking for. Answers is, you know I wanna google it. And for that you need a really great help center has all that information out there and then you want toe have, you know, communities where people can talk to each other and get help. And then, you know, Mawr and Mawr. We're seeing the rise of messaging as a channel, both through the social channels like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger Aziz Well, Azaz native messaging kind of ongoing conversations. He you ordered your dinner. It hasn't arrived. It's so great to be able to go into those applications and just message to the business and figure out what's what's going on and get that sort of instantaneous response as well, >>right? And you shared some stats with this regarding how much has moved across to some of these things phone based messaging channels. So tickets coming in has risen about 50% on DCA, paired to some gains on on live chat. So people are really embracing the idea of being about a message, not just individual talking to your friends in the group chat, but actually using that to engage with with the companies that they would normally use websites or or phone. It's like text chat is a thing. >>Yeah, I mean, it was funny to me. You know, I think we're still, uh, in the U. S. Not quite as far along as a lot of our international friends. When I when traveling was a thing that we did, you know, I was always like it was cool to see that there were billboards and ads that had what that phone numbers on them is a really, you know, way that businesses were wanting to engage. I mean, you think about be wanting to be where your customers are today. So many of us, um do have you know what's happened? Wechat and line and vibrant. They're all in our pocket. And being able to provide all of those two businesses is a new way to engage. I think we're finding is hugely powerful, >>right? So with with all of these dynamic changes that have been happening, and it sounds like it's actually just sort of riding the wave of what customers were already doing, we're just doing it just that little bit mawr. But have you noticed any other larger changes? Possibly ones that aren't related thio a pandemic, Just general shifts that have been happening that you've seen in your customer base? >>Yeah. I mean, like I said, I think so much of what we're seeing is that people, uh, in general want answers quickly, and whether it's a phone call is great. And like I said, people are not going to stop calling. But I think people want to make sure less than like, I need a human to have a conversation I want. I want the answer quickly, and that's where we're really focused in both thinking about how we provide tools around automating some of getting those answers using, uh, a i N m l so that people can come to us, ask questions and we can get them the best answer very quickly without, um, having Thio engage a person. I think things idea of quick resolution is clearly becoming one of the most important things in customer sentiment. I think we know that, um, Mawr and Mawr. This idea of how quickly I can get my question's resolved or how easy it is for me to do business with you is a huge differentiator in how people make buying >>choices. Mm. On that. That automation has long been a new track tive idea. I mean, I'm I'm old enough to remember expert systems and and having a go at doing this kind of heavily automated way of resolving particularly common issues. And I mean, we were familiar with Coulson, a chat scripts. Where there's here are the top three issues and or it will be in the I V. R. Where it's like we're currently experiencing this particular problems, so that resolves your question quite quickly. But there's been a big rise in things like chatbots and and the use of AI. How far advanced. Is that because I still remember some of the early forays into that were a little bit flaky, and that could actually exacerbate the poor customer experience. I'm already having a problem, and and now you're chatbots getting in the way. Have they gotten a lot better? Are they Are they up to the challenge? >>Yeah. I mean, I think what's really critical when you're thinking about automation? Um, in the conversations you're having with customers, it's it's two things. One Don't try to hide that. That you're a computer. No, no, my name is Chad. I am. I am a human. Um, you're not in the vault. Yeah, there's not anyone. Um, so I think being really clear. And then, um e think surfacing how thio very easily opt out of those flows. I think, um, you know, automation is great, but it's not away. You shouldn't think of it as a way to frustrate your users to keep them tied up until you can get to them. It really is. Give them some quick options. And if they don't? If those don't solve their problems, really make sure that your you've got an escape valve, right? We were putting out a new sort of flow build their product zendesk. And we have all of the different, uh, words that someone could say that air like smashing the zero button. That means please transfer me to a person, right? You're driving me crazy. Let me connect you to an agent. Eso We're really making sure that it's easy, um, for customers to provide the solution where their customers can get the help they need rather than I >>really like that. That's That's something I think that gets a little bit lost in the focus on computers and and on automation is that the reason we do this is to help the humans. So when we have these AI systems, it's not actually to replace. The human interaction is to make it better. It's to make mean that we can then get to that genuine connection. Computers a fabulous and when they work, it's when they don't when they frustrate things that that bothers us. And that's generally why we're calling is that something has already gone wrong and we're a bit frustrated. So adding more frustration, doesn't it? Sounds like a good approach. It sounds like zendesk really got that? That dolled in very, very well. Is that something that you've you've always had? Is it something that you've refined over time? And can you teach it to a bunch of other companies? >>Way would love to teach each other. People know, I think e think we have always thought about how the machines can help the humans. And I think one it's how can they help the customers, of course. But the other side that I don't think people talk about quite a much is how can we use computers to help agents? Right. So you're talking to a person, and how can we take sort of the best answers that they've given Thio other customers and surface those, um, when When a new agent is coming on board, how do we suggest, um, you know, the different kinds of work flows that they might want to use to solve this problem in a more dynamic way. So I really like to think of the computers never as a replacement but really as a sort of hidden superpower, Um, that organizations have to make every agent one of their best >>agents, right? Yes, it is a kind of external cyborg thing. I mean, I can't remember anything these days. I constantly right less and they all live in computers. But they are. That's the kind of society that we live with today. And I think we should remember to embrace that side of things. That ah, lot of life has actually gotten a lot better through the use of these computing systems. It's not all terrible. It's, um, and I think more companies could probably learn from zendesk. And the approach that you've taken to center the humans, both the customers and and your internal staff, the call center and and the people who are providing this service. No one enjoys it when things are breaking and and things have gone wrong being able to resolve that quickly. Thanks a better experience for everybody. >>Yeah. I mean, I think we find over and over again sometimes you know, if you can handle an issue that's gone wrong, Um well, you can actually induce more loyalty than you know. If someone never contacted. You'd also if you could really take advantage of the times you have, unfortunately, maybe messed up on bake those customers happy. You really do you know, put so much in the sort of loyalty piggy bank for later. It's really great. >>So for some of the companies that have maybe struggled with this a little bit and particularly under very trying conditions, is there's some advice that you could give to them. Is there some places that they should should start to investigate this when they want to improve the way that they handle customer service, perhaps with things like Zendesk. >>Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of what what we're focused on right now is the this channel that's coming. Like I said, we think a lot about social messaging, but also in native messaging. Andi, how you can have a sort of ongoing long term conversation for a long time customer service, sort of Holy Grail was chat, and you could have a agent online and a human online, and you could solve their problem and then move on right And and sometimes those things take a little longer to solve. Or, you know, you might have a big issue and a whole bunch of people who have an issue and maybe not enough agents to solve them. And so, with messaging. We've really changed the dynamic. So chat was this completely synchronous, Almost like a phone call. Kind of experience and more messaging. You're able to live in this sort of duality where we can have a conversation if we're both here. But just like with your friends, right? Sometimes you throw a message out to offend you. Put it in your pocket, you pick it up, and you could pick up the conversation right where you left off. So bring that paradigm into your customer support experience really allows you to take some of that fear out of handling the volume that might come from chat. To be able to sort of have these ongoing sort of back and forth conversations over time. Andi also and give that that persistent so that we're always both in the same place when we show up again together >>embracing what the technology does well and avoiding what it doesn't do. Well, that that sounds like a plan. >>Shawna, >>this has been fabulous. It is. It is always very edifying for me. Thio here, when companies are doing well and centering the humans to make the technology improve all of our lives. Um It has been wonderful to have you here on the Cube. >>Thanks so much. It was a lot of fun, right? >>And thank you for joining in and and watching us here of the Cube virtual and our special coverage off AWS reinvent 2020. Do come back and look for more coverage off. Reinvent 2020 right here on the Cube. Next time I've been your host, Justin Warren, and we'll see you again soon.

>> [Narrator] From the SiliconANGLE Media office in Boston, Massachusetts, it's theCUBE. (mellow electronic music) Now here's your host, Stu Miniman. >> Hi, I'm Stu Miniman, and welcome to theCUBE's Boston area studio. Gonna be having a different conversation today. We often talk about cloud and data and all the various technologies, and we're gonna talk about a different application of them in the customer experience base. And to help me to do that, thought leader in the space, Steve Papas, who's the senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Panviva. Steve, thanks so much for joining us. >> Thanks for having me, this is great. >> I go back in my roots, and my first job out of school, the company I started with, put everybody into customer support. There's no better way to kinda understand how something works and how people interact with technology as well as the product than taking those phone calls when something goes wrong in customer support. So I have a little bit of experience in the CX space, as I believe you call it these days. You know, watch from the technology space, the call centers, and all those kind, but, maybe start us out, when you say CX here in 2019, what's the scope, what are we talking about that, and we'll go from there. >> That's a great place to start, Stu, 'cause really when we're talking about customer experience, or CX as it's being known, we're really talking about what is the customer's experience when they're interacting with our organization or they're even transacting with our organization. So if you think about it, there's probably the three things that they could do with a company. They can either interact with them and get some information, maybe they're checking on a rate for a mortgage or looking for a car loan or getting claim information from their health insurer, or they're transacting, they're buying something, they're conveying some kind of a transaction together. Or there may be more of a back office approach to it, so that someone's operating on behalf of the customer. So when we think about all of those three dimensions, it's really about, was it frictionless, was it easy to do, did they get to the point where they felt delighted and they're willing to provide a reference or a testimonial because they're gushing because the experience was so good. They got what they needed and they're willing to tell people about it. >> Yeah, that's great. You see friction lists, it reminds me of what we talked for years about with cloud computing, talked about bringing joy and having authentic conversations. We've been talking for years about how social media and engagement should be. I have to think that the balance and interaction between people and machines and technology have to be a hot-button topic there. One of my favorite events that we did a few years ago was with MIT, talking about automation, are the robots going to take over everything? And what we know tends to work best is that there needs to be a balance of the robots, chatbots, whatever they are, and people. It can't be all of one, or even all of the other because it either get too costly, or the experience might not be optimal. >> Yeah, I think you're exactly right. I think all of those different things have their place. And if you think about it, it's kind of like the pie. You're adding pieces to the pie. So you're adding the chatbot as another method, or another medium that someone can interact with the organization, but it's not the be-all and end-all. There has to be a level of human aspect to a lot of things. I'll give you an example. You're not gonna call your hospital when you're feeling some chest pains, and want the chatbot to be on the other end. >> [Stu] Right. >> So there has to be, we have to temper what types of technology we use with what areas, and we have to be thinking about the customer. I always advocate, you always think about the customer at the center of the universe, and make sure the customer has a seat at every decision table. So when we're thinking about bringing technology into organizations, we have to think about, well, how does this make the customer's experience better? Does it help them? Does it make their interaction with us better? And overall, does that technology make the types of customers and lifetimes value increase for us as organizations? >> You hear a lot of organizations, I'm customer focused, you go read Jeff Bezos talks about, I need to be paranoid about my customer, I need to think about everything they're doing, because if they change and they leave us, what are we left with? Bring us into customer experience, what does that matter, how do we get beyond lip service, talking, yeah, it's great to listen to the customers but, I've gotta worry about my bottom line and my employees and stockholders and things like that. >> Sure, well today, if you think about customer service, good customer service, every company in the world is talking about it. That's the baseline now, right? That is where we begin, and we're moving up from there to a level of customer service. So if we're thinking about customer service as, it has to be good, but how do you get from that good to great scenario, it's how do we train our people, how do we make sure they're empowered to provide the customer with all they need, and give them a little bit of decision making power when it makes the difference of keeping that customer for life, and maybe their children and friends and relatives, or potentially losing them at that single interaction. So, when we're thinking about the bottom line, we always have to think that every interaction could be the last interaction. But also, every interaction's an opportunity to make that relationship better. So we have to think about that in terms of how we do things, as well as what technology surrounds that. And obviously, the negative side of customer experience is if we do it wrong, we're certainly losing, but if we do it right, it's exponentially better. >> I'm curious Steve, what your thoughts are, how do I measure that? In the B to B world we talk about the net promoter score, NPS, and we love it, and it's great when you see a high net promoter score, but when you understand the details and what goes under it, that's only part of the picture. And boy do I agree with you about, if you have that opportunity to talk to a customer and turn it around, uh, you know. If you spend any time in the space, it's great when somebody comes back and has something good to say, but if somebody comes and says something bad, it's usually only the tip of the iceberg. There's usually other people that can have it, and you have to take that opportunity to turn it into something good. So, metrics and, how do we measure whether we're doing good or bad in the space? >> Absolutely, well, the contact center itself is metriced to the nth degree anyway. Net promoter score is one dimension of how we have to looks at things. I'll tell you a story, that I recommend to every C-suite person that I interact with, and I'm a member of a lot of associations, that the best thing that they can do is spend time in the contact center. Double check into those calls. Not only is it the best focus group you can ever pay for, that you already have, but also it allows for a C-suite, whether it's a CEO or the Chief Operating Officer or the CFO it allows them to understand really how the interactions are happening between the customer as well as the organization. But it goes a step further. Not only do you measure the customer satisfaction levels, but you also need to measure your employee satisfaction levels that way too. Because having employees that have the tools necessary to provide the best service possible, as well as make sure that they have the training, they have the empowerment to do it. Once you have those things in place, I always say that the CEO and others in the C-suite should be listening to those calls to understand, does the employee have all the right tools to make that customer interaction better. And to extend that lifetime value or not. And that's one way, which is much more of a qualitative versus the metrics, but it's one that's missed all the time. And I have CEOs tell me time and time again, after they've done it, it was absolutely enlightening for them to say, I never saw that part of the business, from that vantage point. >> Steve, bring us inside those call centers a little bit. I've got a little bit of background, but it was often overworked, underappreciated, very much metrics-driven. There's the big thing on the wall, saying how long the average call's been waiting. Have you hit the number that you needed to do? Has it gotten better? What's it like in these environments today? Outsourcing was a big push for a number of years, what's it like in those call centers? >> Outsourcing is still a big thing. A lot of U.S. companies have started bringing some of the things back in-house too. When they found that the metrics might not have been there. But they're also holding their outsources to a higher standard, now. So they're providing not only the training, but what I'm seeing as far as trends, is that they're providing the how-to much better. They're realizing that having a single source of truth that your employees are using, your customers can access via self-service, as well as the outsourcer, is really the key to making all of this work so you have the portability of process much better. Now the call centers are getting much better because they're starting to move more onto the knowledge side as well as the process side. They're looking internal. It's not good enough for them to say, well, it's been working fine, right? It's now to the point with, how much better can we get it to work? How do we get to the last mile? How do we get to the point where these customers are willing and call back to say, hey, I had a great experience. So, we're finding that one of the keys was making sure the employees, the people on the front lines, have what they need the second that they need it. Not to pop their head over the cube, not to escalate to a help desk, right? Because that just increases the overall cost of a contact center. Not to be shuffling through papers, or flipping through the pages of a binder every few minutes. But giving them the tools that they need so that A. They know exactly what the process is, they can remain compliant with the process, they can navigate the myriad of applications that are open on the desktop, as well as know how to say the right things, they avoid saying the wrong things, and they don't come across as robotic. And that's one of the keys that is happening now. And we see that trend happening more and more in contact centers, and I probably walk in and out of 150 of them in a year, and see them from the inside. You know the one thing that I always look around in a contact center is, if there's lots of sticky notes around the monitors, if there's lots of binders on the desk and papers up on the cubes, there are process problems. There are opportunities to make that organization run a lot smoother on behalf of the customer. >> Steve, related to CX, one of the topics you've written about is Omnichannel. Maybe you can explain what that is, and what you're finding. >> Sure, so Omnichannel is really geared around how do we communicate with our customers, our partners, our dealers, our distributors, etc. So how do we communicate properly on any channel necessary that the customer wants? We always say that it used to be multichannel, right? We would have the telephone, we would have maybe the IVR is giving them directions and allowing them some information when they call in. But now customers want to be communicated with on Skype, or Slack, or Facebook Messenger, or Twitter or Instagram, or various other methods that are accessible to the consumer. The consumer has a lot of information as well as a lot of power at their fingertips now, that they probably didn't have, 10, 15 years ago. Now, the Omnichannel is really geared around creating a universal way of, of communicating with the customer where they want to be communicated with, and we say that's probably the best channel, is, what does the customer want, right? Where are they, so how do we get to them where they are? And to make that work there's technology involved. And also if we want to say, well how do we take care of our customers at 2:00 AM, maybe with a chatbot, so they can get some of the information that they need when they need it. It's all about time, right? The thing that we're trying to solve now is the problem of time. How do we make sure that we get the information into the hands of the person that needs it, whether it's our employee or our customer, or maybe our third-party dealers, distributors, etc. How do we get that information in a timely manner so that they can do something of action, of value? And that's really the key. So Omnichannel really is gearing around, how do we maintain all of those? But, some of the keys to it, and I wanna put those out there, is we have to curate content better. We have to look at the fact that, you don't write a procedure for the employee to speak over the phone the same way you're gonna write for Alexa as a virtual assistant, to be speaking out into the air. So we have to think about content curation as, what are the multiple versions of the same thing that need to be housed in one place? And then how do we orchestrate them at the moment of need? When Alexa does call in and says, I need information about your hours, that information and the version of that content has to be pushed in a sub-second method to go to the right channel at the right time, in the right format. >> That machine-to-machine discussion added a whole new dimension for a lot of companies. >> [Steve] Absolutely. To try to solve that. Great, give us, we're here towards the beginning of the year still, at 2019, give us a little bit look forward, what are the challenges, what are the things that are exciting you, as we look throughout this year. >> Sure. I think we're really looking forward to more companies understanding the customer. And by that I don't mean that they have to go through an entire customer journey mapping, but that is a good place to start. But at the end of the day, you have to make sure the operator 24 in Omaha, Nebraska knows the result of all that journey mapping. So there has to be a third dimension if you will, after you've done your analysis and your mapping, is how do they execute? On all of the stuff we've found in the customer journey mapping, how do they execute at that point, at that cold face of business happening, for the benefit of the customer, as well as for the employee satisfaction. So we're seeing that customer-centric conversations are increasing. By that I mean that companies are looking for, what are all the methods, the simple methods that we can incorporate today, which doesn't necessarily mean bringing in all kinds of technology, what are the methods that we can start bringing in to make our employees feel empowered around the whole customer experience paradigm. So, that I'm seeing, is happening. The other one is, as you referred to Jeff Bezos, whenever you have a decision in your company, and you've got the conference room table, put one chair over there and just put the name Customer on the chair, and allow the customer to have a decision. Allow the customer to have a seat at the decision table. And by that I mean that, always think, as you're making your moves in 2019 and 2020 and beyond, what does it mean to the customer? How is that going to affect the customer, and will it be positive for their experience? Those are the types of things that are getting real exciting, that companies are finally starting to look at those and they're not saying good enough is good enough anymore, and they're not looking at, well the whole operation is factored into the cost of doing business. They're all starting to say, how can we do better? And mostly the thing that's driving that is they have to get better at customer experience. Because if you think about it, price, everybody knows the price now, they can search for everything that they're shopping for, and they know who's got the same price, and pretty much there's an equilibrium on that. So, if price is one thing, and size and color and all of those things are similar, and all of the components of that are similar across the board, well what are companies starting to compete on? Companies in 2019 and 2020 are gonna start competing on the experience. So if you think about one of the best competitive advantages moving forward? Is, what is the experience that we give, over and above our competition. And that is so important, we're seeing the trends moving to that and honestly, that's what's really starts to excite me as companies are moving down this path. >> Steve, one of the things I know is that you've written a number of things on this topic. If people want to learn more about CX what are some of the resources they can go to? Which, not trying to pitch product from Panviva, but really thought leadership interface. >> We also work with a lot of thought leaders, and we only approach it from an educational perspective. Matter of fact, we just published a new e-book on customer experience. All the tips from ten industry leaders in customer experience, and that's available on our website, at Panviva.com. They can connect with me at Twitter @SXP01, or by email at spapas@panviva.com. And I'm happy to point them in the direction of any of these resources that fundamentally will help them start a workshop inside, and start the thought process of, how can we get better on behalf of the customer? >> Alright well, Steve, really appreciate you helping to educate our community a little bit more about the CX base and definitely do check out, either reach out to Steve directly, or check out the Panviva.com website to learn more. And be sure to check out thecube.net for all the upcoming shows as well as the archive of everything we have. If you go into the search box you can search on topic, company, or person, we've got the database of thousands of interviews we've done in the past. So, once again, I'm Stu Miniman, and thank you for watching The Cube. (electronic music)

>> From Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE! Covering SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2018. Brought to you by NetApp. >> Welcome to the CUBE we are in Orlando, at SAP SAPPHIRE 2018, I'm Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend as my co-host. We're in the NetApp booth, and we are very excited to talk to the VP of the Chief Customer Office at SAP, Mark Marcus, Mark, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you, glad to be here I appreciate it. >> This event is enormous. One of the things that really struck me in Bill McDermott's key note was, you know, we always here about, oh we are expecting 20 thousand people, he talked about a million people engaging with SAP SAPPHIRE this week, via the in person, and the live, and the on demand video experiences. Massive! 390 thousand customers, hundreds of customer sessions the voice of the customer validating SAP as one of the world's most valuable brands is not only pervasive here its palpable. So talk to us about the Chief Customer Office. What is it, what's it's mission, why was it created? >> Yes, okay that's a great, a great way, so first of all thank you, I appreciate you being here, I live in Orlando so it's great to see this event in my-- People wonder why SAPPHIRE is actually in Orlando, it's because I live here. (all laughing) >> You're the reason! >> You're the reason. >> I'm the reason SAPPHIRE is in Orlando, Florida. >> Okay, you heard it, Mark Marcus, you're the reason. >> No, so what happened is, when Bill McDermott came to SAP, he was a different type of leader, and what he wanted to do immediately is start meeting with customers. So what he did is, he started meeting with customers, and he said if you have any questions or problems, give me a call. And so what happened is, his phone started ringing, people needed help, so he needed somebody that could help him with the customers when he ran North America. And so that was the genesis to Chief Customer Office. So we started off, first, we were extremely reactive. And so what I mean by that is, if the customer had a problem, we'd have to go in, and we'd have to help them. And it's much more difficult when you have a problem, then try to prevent a problem. So what we've been doin' the last several years, is trying to be much more proactive, so instead of waiting for the phone to ring, we've been getting with customers, and making sure, you know, as their project start, begin their steering committee meetings and make sure that things go well. >> So, you've taken that more proactive approach, it's almost how the organization's evolved. What is the focus today? >> Yes, well the focus has always been the customer, but I think it's more of, taking the best practices that we've learned, and actually sharing those with the customers, and helping them explain how other people have done their journey, because what you'll find, is people are in different phases of their journey, and what they like to hear more of is, you know, what did other customers do, what did they do right, what did they do wrong, and how can we be more successful? So we've been able to, over the years, if you think about, just to put it in perspective again, there are, SAP North America has 158 thousand customers, and we're only on, my particular team only has about a hundred of those customers, that we have. So it's a very, very small amount, they're are ones that, you know, are strategic to SAP, that we get involved in. But what we're able to do though, is, through social media and other areas is, customers wanna hear what happened, again, in the past, and how we can, you know, learn from that and move forward. >> So, I'm a big social media fan. Twitter handle has 38 thousand followers, which a lot for your focus on a hundred customers, so I think that, that you're echoing the, the theme very well. Talk to us about how it's changed over the past, 14 or so years, shift has focused from on-premises solutions to hybrid-cloud, to cloud analytics, AI, what's the, what are customers talking about? >> I'll tell you what, you're talkin' my language now, (Keith laughing) okay, because what happened is what we did is, actually what I'm in part, what I'm a part of is actually the cloud ambassador program. And so what that is, is it's focusing on our cloud customers so, you know, success factors, Ariba, Concur, and those kinda things, and so, really what happened, is, you know, when SAP, when I came to SAP 14 years ago, it was all on-premise ERP, alright? So it's very contained, very controlled with what people had now there's Cloud's, we're not really sure what customers are doing, how they're interacting with the solutions, and so what we have to do is we really focus, and again, my group is 100% focused in on that, so. What part of our mission has been is, we're not necessarily know what customers are doing, so we're helping to understand what they're doing, and trying to help educate groups inside SAP to be more responsive and help them. >> So you mentioned having responsibility for some strategic accounts, about a hundred. Do those represent kind of a subset of some of the key areas in which you're looking for the voice of the customer, and their practice using your technology to influence the direction of some of the key technologies? >> Yes, 'cause I'd say they're some of the biggest, most strategic customers that we have, and so what we do a lot of is, we're able to, we align directly with the executives, at the customer, so one of things with Chief Customer Office, is we're aligned at the C level, so it's, the CIO, the CEO, the CFO, at that level, so we're able to say we heard directly from the leaders of the companies, our most important customers, key customers, and we're able to take that back the other areas of SAP, and say, this is the what the leadership's demanding, and that's what we're able to help them with. >> So, as we're going through this phase of digital transformation, through a lot of organizations, that audience is even more important than, what?! (chuckles) Tell me how, as digital transformation has become, more than just a buzzword but a imperative from the C-suite, from CEOs to CIOs, CMOs, CDO, all the C's, CXO! How has the conversation between those groups changed, from the SAP perspective? >> Yeah, I'll tell ya, that is, again, I'm not just sayin' that you are, you're hitting exactly what we focus in on because, traditionally SAP has been focused more on the CIO level, so it's more the IT groups of implemented ERP, it's been more of a back-office type solution, well now, what we're finding is the line of businesses are the people that are actually making the decisions. So what we're finding out is that, it's not necessarily so much that the, technically, how they work, it's more the business processes they have, and how we can help actually, basically automate, and help them run more smoothly. >> Yeah, Hasso Plattner actually, and some of the guys this morning during the keynote talked about that, in terms of, customers were saying, you know, I'm getting kind of confused, there's so many different product names, a lot of acquisitions, he was talking about that, we heard from customers that there was confusion there. So when he was talking about, in the context of C4 for example of, making things simpler to understand, but also to your point, the back office and the front office now has to be connected so they also talked about that, in terms of, the integration with SAP Cloud, and how they really focused on enabling wholistic integration because it's the processes that have to now communicate together, so that, a whole, kind of proactive, customer responsiveness, that was really apparent this morning. 46 years young SAP, you have a new initiative about the customer for life, tell us about that. >> Okay, so customer for life is a new initiative that we have, so what I told you, at the Chief Customer Office we've done, we're able to touch very few customers, but, you know, again, you know we have 156 thousand, in SAP North America, you know, multiply that all over the world, I mean, it's many customers, okay. So what we've tried to do, is take what we've done on a small scale in the Chief Customer Office, and make that pervasive throughout the whole company. And so what we're really good at too is actually, you know, understanding what the customers do, finding them a solution, but now what we wanna do is go through the whole life-cycle of what we do so, I mentioned, you know, having a customer executive assigned to every customer. Being able to be part of the steering committees that we have, and being able to follow them through so we can help guide them, so it's not only selling the solutions but actually helping them through all the way, so the new initiative we set is customer for life, it's something that we're rolling out right now, and we've had, and again, it's taking what we did in the Chief Customer Office and, you know, propagating that through the rest of SAP. >> So, this facility, you like to say it, 16 football fields, American football fields, so that's a big facility. I walked the facility this morning, got in about three thousand steps. Hundred plus partners on the floor, ranging from system integrators, technology partners, and infrastructure space, software SIs. Help us understand as SAP, 20 thousand plus people here at the show, a million people online engaging on SAPPHIRE, SAP is becoming a platform company. How has that changed your role, your conversations? >> Well, I think what has happened a lot is, especially in the cloud projects, again I'm gonna focus more on what I'm a part of is, you know, there's a lot of new partners that come up. Because what happened is that, you know, we acquired several companies, we did, you know Concur, Ariba, SuccessFactors, a lot of big companies, and a lot of different partners. So really what our role is, in the Chief Customer Office is, to basically, to help these partners to understand how to work together, and we do a lot of things in meetings, we have, what we do, is, it's usually like the three legged stool, it is, you know, it's SAP, the partner, and the customer together, and we all do that together. And what I've found is, some of the problems that we've had is not neces-- you know, I always say like, how can take the exact same solution, and it works well in one company, and it doesn't work in another company? And what it is, to your point, with all the partners here, is it's communication, are they working together, you know, is the partner, and SAP, and the customer all working together, and so that's what I'm really focused on today is meeting with all the, you know, do the SAPPHIREs, to meet with the partners, to make sure we're aligned, you know, talk about our key customers, and make sure that we're all working together. >> We talked to one of the gentleman yesterday who was running some of the communities around HANA and Leonardo and, just the massive amount of content that is being generated to enable and educate customers across 25 plus industries, was massive, as well as, leveraging that peer validation from customers, like you're saying, you know, some customers in certain industries have a ton of success with the same thing that others customers struggle, depending on a lot of different variables. So that sort of collaboration and communication, even within the SAP communities alone, was very apparent yesterday that that's one of the big drivers, of I'm sure, the customer for life initiative is, as you have evolved, so have your customers. One thing that struck me yesterday was, you know, looking at, you're now number 17 of the World's top most valuable brands up there with Apple, you know, products that we can engage with and, I saw on a bus yesterday some of the messaging, and ERP you can talk to, and hear from. (Keith laughing) So SAP really set a very lofty ambition of being up there with the Amazons, and the Coca-Colas, and the Googles, and now you have technology that people can, you know, like at home with their digital assistant, talk to and communicate with. I thought that was very powerful message. >> And I'd say that's, I'd say too that, you know, I've worked with SAP for 14 years, and when I came to SAP, nobody had really heard of SAP and what they were, they thought maybe, you know, sometimes on TV when you see SAP when it's translated in other languages or something, that's what they think of SAP, they don't really know what the company is but, yeah, it's been great to see how, you know, people would stop you, you know, whether you're wearin', you know, they'll see somethin' on your laptop, on your shirts or somethin' like that, yeah so it's been good. I think that's been a big focus of getting it out because, one thing is is we have 150 million cloud users, that's a lot of people, so a lot of people use SAP, so. Again, one of the cloud products that we have is called Concur, it's for expense and reporting, and so a lot of times people might not've heard of SAP, but they've heard of Concur, because they all do their expenses, that kinda stuff. So, exactly right, it is pretty good, you know, when you have even family members know who SAP is now. They've done a great job, you know, hiring, you know, with the market department and the people they've hired, it's been great, it's been good. >> So, okay, we talked a little bit about analytics and the customer experience as we're looking at intelligent business. Is that a message that's actually resonating with customers in that top 100 strategic accounts, are they using analytics to actually power business, What are some of the data analysis success stories? >> Yeah, I would say that, what I would say is that, what I've found a lot of times is that, you know, people can get the information in, but they need to be able to get the information out. And so, everybody across that has done it, so, I would just say almost every customer we have has basically needed to get that out, and do reporting and those kinda things, you know? So, part of what we do at the Chief Customer Office is, you know, not only, you know, help them with the reports that they have, but to be able to run that kinda stuff. >> You guys also have, you know, some really interesting use-cases, I'm a Formula One fan, I've worked with Formula One before, I'm, I understand it from a fan perspective. You guys are really involved in McLaren Motorsport, for example, from finance, to procurement, to manufacturing. How are you seeing some of these really big use-cases like Formula One, or Coca-Cola, infuse into some of the, you know, the mid-sized businesses, who, you say, might be using Concur for example. What is some of the value that a small company can get from the massive users? >> Yeah, well I'd say there's a lot of things, because what happens is that from those big massive customers that we have, we're able to put together as we call model company. And so what a model company is, is it takes the best practices you have and puts it into more of a, I'd say nothings out-of-the-box, but makes it much more easier to implement, to be able to do it, so what we're able to do is, you know, with the massive amounts of info like McLaren, I think Hasso mentioned what, there's 400 sensors that they're getting on their cars, and that kind of stuff. So basically being able to take all the information that we have, and then from that, distill it down into where it's a very, repeatable type instance we can use for other customers. So there's a lot, I mean that's what we do with a lot of the, what the customers have, we try to get that back to where other people can use it. >> A Formula One car is basically an IOT device. You said 400 sensors, generating a ton of data, per race weekend, times three days, times 20 events a year. I read from Gartner just the other day that by 2020, which is around the corner, there's expected to be 20 billion IOT devices. What are you hearing from your customer base regarding IOT and being able to synchronize this, you know, modern next-gen data center with myriad devices? >> Yeah, so that is one of our top initiatives that we have right now. Because, one of the things that we've done is, we have an offering that we have called Leonardo, and what Leonardo is, it was named after the inventor Leonardo da Vinci, alright? So, you know, in his time he was, you know, a great innovator, actually went and saw his house and went over to Europe, and I've done a lot with Leonardo, you know what I'm sayin'? To be able to do that, right? But what that is, is that's basically all about, you know, getting devices to be able to get that information in. Because what you do is, you have you know, thousands of sensors and stuff like that and a good, you asked me earlier about a good success story on that, is one of the ones that I think resonates the most on that is in Buenos Aires, they have a massive problem with rain, you know, it rains a lot, and they have severe flooding, and the architecture is antiquated. But what they've found, is the reason that they were having these flooding problems, is because the sewers and the drains were all getting clogged up. So what they did was, they put a sensor in every one of the drains to be able to make sure that they were unclogged and they were flowing freely. So what they did is, they were able to, if the water flow started going down they were able to empty out the drains, even with an antiquated sewer system, because they were keeping it aligned with, you know, using Leonardo now, they can go and keep it cleaned out, they've had massive rains and the flooding hasn't really been there where it is, so now, what's interesting is every time I go by and see a gutter that's all clogged up, I think, you know, they need Leonardo to be able to help! >> I was reading as well about Alicia Tillman, your CMO, who's been at the helm for about nine months now and, in the context of this desire to become one of the top global brands with an invisible product, she said, you know, that one of the most important things for SAP right now is brand narrative, messages and campaigns will change quarterly or, every six months as they should but, she said, you know, to be able to show the value of basically under-the-hood software, you've gotta be able to show how it transforms countries, lives, industries, and that's one of the things that I think is very, very palpable here at the event is how much impact SAP is making in, whether it's rhino conservation in Africa or, you know, helping water scarcity in India, the impact, which is really the most, the biggest validation that you get, right from the voice of your customers is massive. >> Yeah, and I'd say to that, you know I like to say that, you know, it sounds like, you know, yes we're a software company, and, you know, that kinda stuff, but, it is really a noble endeavor, because we are doing a lot of things to help people's lives, and to run their businesses better, and what you realize is that, Chief Customer Office sometimes we see that other side when the systems aren't running properly at times, you know, they're usually runnin' right, but sometimes they have problems, and when they do, you can just see the impact you have on, you know, people's lives and businesses and stuff like that, that it is really running, you know, it is core to what you have, you know. So I'll tell you one of the interesting things that SAP's involved in is, they do a lot with instant messaging, so they have a part of, one of the acquisitions we have does instant messaging, well, you don't think about that but like, when you use, let's say, Facebook Messenger, or something like that, those messages go inside an SAP infrastructure at times, right? So imagine, you know, if you can't change messages, or doin' those kinda things, you know, so. You're exactly right, it definitely does, what we're doing does really impact a lot of peoples lives, so it's important. >> Well mark, thanks so much for taking some time to stop by theCUBE and chat with us about what SAP is doing with customers, how they're really symbiotically working together with you to evolve and transform this company. >> I wanna say one other thing too, it's great to work with two professionals here, you guys have really helped me a lot. >> Aww! >> I don't do this a lot, but it really made me feel comfortable, so you, I appreciate your help, thank you. >> Our pleasure, thanks so much! And, so you're the reason SAPPHIRE's in Orlando, are you also the reason they got Justin Timberlake tomorrow night?! (Mark laughing) >> I would like that. But I would like to say real quick, one thing before we cut real quick, I would like to say one thing just about the NetApp partnership we have. So RJ Bibby is the person that I work with at NetApp, and, just what he's done to basically, because NetApp really helps run a lot of our infrastructure inside SAP, so it's success factors, some of the high-availability in things that we have, and just working with RJ, and kinda learning how we, how we work and can help other customers, they've really volunteered to help a lot of our customers, and so, I just wanna thank NetApp again for helping us sponsor this. >> Great, great closing. We wanna thank NetApp for having theCUBE in their booth. Lisa Martin, with Keith Townsend, we are at SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2018, thanks for watching! (bubbly music)

>> Narrator: Live from San Juan, Puerto Rico, it's theCube, covering CoinAgenda, brought to you by SiliconANGLE. (salsa music) >> Hello everyone, welcome to our special CUBE exclusive coverage in Puerto Rico. I've been here on the island all week, talking to the most important people, entrepreneurs, citizens of Puerto Rico, the entrepreneur, the students, connecting with Blockchain, investors, thought leaders, and the pioneers. I'm John Furrier, the cohost of theCUBE, co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media, and we're here with Crystal Rose, who is the CEO and co-founder of Sensay, doing something really cutting edge, really relevant, and kind of ahead of its time, but I think it's time to get it out there and get that token program. Crystal Rose, thanks for joining me and spending time with me. >> Thank you for having me. >> So one of the things I think that you're doing, and I want you to explain this because it's nuanced, and a lot of the super geeks get it and alpha geeks will get it, but the mainstream people are used to dealing in their silos. I use Facebook, I use LinkedIn, I use Twitter, I use chat, I use Telegram, I use these apps. The world's kind of horizontally being disrupted because of the network affect that Blockchain and Crypto is now the underpinnings of, and there's ICOs out there and other things happening, but it's a disruption at the technology stack with software. You guys are doing something with Sensay in the SENSE token that is changing the equation of how people come together, how people grow and learn, whether it's a nonlinear path of some proficiency or connecting with folks or just learning, whatever it is, it's a discovery mechanism. Take a minute to explain what you guys are doing and why it's so important. >> Well we built Sensay to connect everyone together without any borders or intermediaries, and so really it's as simple as every phone has the capability to have a messenger. We have five billion phones that have SMS on them, and so we wanted to take the most basic messaging system, which is the most important thing that people do, and connect it to any other messenger, so Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Slack, anywhere where people are chatting, we wanted to create a system that is interoperable and can decentralize your contact list, essentially. >> Yeah, so this is important, so like most people when they go to social networks you got to find a friend, you get connected. In some cases I don't want to have to friend someone just to have a chat, I mean I may not want to friend them, or I might want to or it's a hassle, I don't know who to friend. Is that kind of where you guys come in? >> Yeah, that's one really great use case, because things like Facebook max you at five thousand friends, so if you friended everybody that you had a conversation with, if you needed to know something. Let's say that every Google search that you did was actually a conversation, you would cap the number of potential contacts. We have a circle of people around us that extends out with different tiers. But I think some of the most important people in our lives are actually strangers. So instead of building the social graph we wanted to build the stranger graph. Sensay cares more about what you know than who you know. Because if we can connect people together around similar interests and like-mindedness, we're connecting tribes, and that's really the innate human connection that we're all looking for. And it's also when you extend yourself outside of your social graph, you're most likely to educate yourself or to uplift yourself more. So the way to level up is to get somebody who's an eight or a 10 if you're a five or a two, and find someone outside of your current circle. >> And that also eliminates all this group think we've seen on some of these hate threads that have been on, whether it's Facebook or some IRC backchannel or Slack channel, you see the hate just comes in because everyone's just talking to themselves. This is the new way, right? Connecting out? Through the metadata of the chat. >> Exactly, we want people to seek out good connections, helpful connections, and so if you can both contribute what you know you get rewarded. And if you can ask people on the network you also get rewarded. So by asking something, you're receiving a reward. It's a two-way system. So it's not just the person who is helping, so we don't really encourage an economy of experts. We think that everyone is a sensei. A sensei literally means a person who's been there before. So we think of that as somebody who has had that life experience. And I think if we look at the internet, the internet democratized expertise. It gave us the ability for every single person to write what they were thinking, or contribute some kind of content in some way. But for 20 years the internet has been free. It's a really beautiful thing for consumption, and open source is the absolute right methodology for software. When it comes to your own content a reward makes sense, and so we wanted to create SENSE on top of the platform as a value exchange. It was a point system, so kind of like Reddit Karma. And we wanted to let people exchange it out for some value that they could transact in the world. >> So basically you're going to reward folks with a system that says, okay, first ante up some content, that's your SENSE token, and then based upon how you want to work with people in the network, there's a token transaction that could come out of it. Did I get that right? >> Exactly. So the person who contributes on the network gets rewarded for that data, and it can be anything that you've done in the past, too. So if you have a lot historical data on Facebook or on GitHub for instance. Let's say you're a developer and you have a bunch of repos out there that could be analyzed to see what kind of developer you are, or if you've contributed a lot to Reddit, all of that data is out there, and it's been something that defines you and your personality and your skills and who you are, so you can leverage that, and you can get a reward for it just by letting Sensay understand more about you, so the AI runs through it. You get more rewards, though, if you have real conversations. So it's almost like a bounty program on conversation. >> So we have the same mission. We love what you're doing. I'm really so glad you're doing it. I want to get to an example in Puerto Rico where you've reached out with strangers, I know you have. And get that, I want to get to that in a minute, but I want to continue on the Sensay for a second and the SENSE token. As you guys do this, what is the token going to be looking like to the user? Because you have a user who's contributing content and data, and then you have people who are going to transact with the token, it could be a bounty, it could be someone trying to connect. How is the token economics, just so I can get that out there, how does that work? >> Well right now in Sensay the transaction is peer to peer, so both users who are chatting have the ability to tip each other, essentially. They can give each other some coins within the chat. We have the concept that when you're having a conversation it's always a buyer and a seller. It's always a merchant and a consumer, and sometimes those roles flip, too. I'll be selling you something and eventually you're selling me something. But it's a natural way that we chat to transact. So that was the first way that the token could be used. We then realized that the powerful part of the platform is actually everything underlying the application. So the layer underneath really was the most powerful thing. And so SENSE network evolved as a way for developers who are creating apps or bots to be able to build on top of the network and leverage the access to the humans or to their data, and so now the token can be used to access the network. You get paid if you contribute data or users and vice versa, you can pay to access them. What that's doing is it's taking away the advertising model from being the only entity that's earning a profit on the data. So you, the user, when you're giving your data to Facebook, Facebook earns a lot of money on it, selling it over and over repeatedly to advertisers, and while it's technically yours in the terms you own it, you don't actually have any upside of that profit, and so what we're doing is saying, well why don't we just let a potential business talk to you directly on your consent and give you the money directly for that? So that two or five dollars for one connection would go straight to you. >> This is the new business model. I mean, this is something that, I mean first of all, don't get me started on my ad and tech rant because advertising creates a bad behavior. Okay? You're chasing a business model that's failing, attention and page views, so the content is not optimized the proper way. And you mentioned the Facebook example. Facebook's not optimizing their data for a user experience, they're optimizing for their monetization, which is counter to what users want to do. So I think you kind of are taking it in another direction, which we love 'cause that's what we do, we are open source content, but the role of the data is critical so I got to ask you the hard question. I'm a user, it's my data, how do the developers get access to it? Do they pay me coins or... You want developers because that's going to be a nice piece of the growth so what's the relationship between the developer, who's trying to add value, but also respecting the user's data? >> Exactly, so the developer pays the network and as a user you're a token holder, you own the network, essentially. So there is really no real middle layer since the token will take a small amount out for continuing to power the network, but a nominal amount. Right now the most expensive thing that happens is the gas that's on top of Ethereum because we're an ERC20 token. So we're looking to be polychain. We want to move onto other types of blockchains that have better, faster transactions with no fees and be able to pass that through as well. So we really want to just do a peer-to-peer connection. There's no interest in owning that connection or owning the repository of data. That's why the blockchain's important. We want the data to be distributed, we want it to be owned by the user, and we want it to be accessible by anyone that they want to give access to. So if it's a developer, they're building a bot maybe, or if it's a brand, they're using a developer on their behalf they have to pay the user for that data. So the developer's incentives are completely aligned with the peer-to-peer architecture that you have, users interests, and the technical underpinnings of the plumbing. Is that right? >> Exactly. >> Okay, good, so check. Now I got that. All right, now let's talk about my favorite topic, since we're on this kind of data topic. Who's influential? I mean, what does an influencer mean to you? Is it the most followers (mumbles) it's kind of a canned question, you can hear it coming. I'll just say it. I don't like the influencer model right now because it's all about followers. It's the wrong signal. 'Cause you can have a zillion followers and not be influential. And we know people are buying followers. So there's kind of been that gamification. What should influence really be like in this network? Because sometimes you can be really influential and then discover and go outside your comfort zone into a new area for some reason, whether it's a discovery or progression to some proficiency or connection, you're not an influencer, you're a newbie. So, context is very important. How do you guys look at, how do you look at influencers and how influence is measured? >> I think at the bare bones an influencer is someone who drives action. So it's a person who can elicit an action in another person. And if you can do that at scale, so one to many, then you have more power as an influencer. So that's sort of the traditional thinking. But I think we're missing something there, which is good action. So an influencer to me, a good influencer, is somebody who can encourage positive action. And so if it's one to one and you get one person to do one positive thing, versus one to a thousand and you get a thousand people to do something not so great, like buy a product that's crap because it was advertised to them for the purpose of that influencer making profit, that metric doesn't add up. So I think we live in a world of vanity metrics, where we have tons of numbers all over the place, we have hearts and likes and stars and followers and all of these things that keep adding up, but they have no real value. And so I think it's a really, like you said before, the behavior is being trained in the wrong way. We're encouraged to just get numbers rather than quality, and so what I think a really good influencer is is somebody who has a small group of people who will always take action. It can be any number of people. But let's say a group of followers who will take action based on that person's movements and will follow them in a positive direction. >> And guess what, its a network graph so you can actually measure it. That's interesting... >> Exactly, exactly. >> I can see where you're going with this. Okay, so I got to talk about your role here in Puerto Rico. You mentioned earlier about reaching out to strangers, the stranger graph, which is a way, people's outside of their comfort zones sometimes, reaching out to strangers. You came here in the analog sense, you're in person, but on the digital side as well, kind of blends together. Give an example where you reached out to strangers and how that's impacted your life and their life, because this is the heart of your system, if I can get that right. You're connecting people and creating value, I mean sometimes there might not be value, but you're creating connections, which have the potential for more value. What have you done here in Puerto Rico that's been a stranger outreach that turned into a wow moment. >> Our outreach has been so far an invitation. So we bought a space here that's turned into a community center. Even at the very beginning we had no power as most of the places around that have been sitting for a year or two or since the hurricane, and so we put a call out and said we'd like to get to know the community. We're doing something called Let There Be Light, which is turn the power on, and you know, we put it out to a public group and saw who would show up. So basically it's a community, central building, it's a historical building, so a lot of people know it. There's a lot of curiosity, so it was just a call, it was a call for help. It was really, I think the biggest thing people love is when you're asking them for help, and then you give gratitude in return for that help and you create a connection around it. So that's why we built Sensay the way that we did, and I think there's a lot of possibilities for how it could be used, but having that encouragement of the community to come and share, we've done that now this whole week, so this is restart week, and one of the other things that we've done is help all of the conferences come together, collaborate rather than compete, so go into the same week, and put all of these satellite groups around it. And then we blanketed a week around it so that we had one place for people to go and look for all of the events, and also for them to understand a movement. So we since then have done a dinner every single night, and it's been an open invitation. It's basically whoever comes in first, and we've had drinks every night as well, open. So it's really been an invitation. It's been an open invitation. >> Well congratulations. I really love what you're doing. You guys are doing great work down here. The event this week has been great. We've got great content. We have some amazing people and it's working, so congratulations on that. As you guys look forward, one of the things I've observed in my many years of history, is that there are a lot of waves, I've seen all the waves, this wave's the biggest. But what jumps out at me is the mission-driven aspect of it. So I mean I can geek out on what's the decentralize and the stacks and all the tech stuff happening, but what's most impressive is the mission oriented, the impact kind of thinking. This is now, society is now software driven. This is a new major thinking. Used to be philanthropy was a waterfall model. Yeah, donate, it either goes or doesn't go. Go to the next one, go to the next one. Now you have this integrated model where it's not just philanthropy, it's action, there's money behind it, there's coding, there's community. This is now a new era of societal entrepreneurship, societal missions. Let's talk about your vision on this mission and impact culture that's part of this ethos. >> I think impact is the important word there. So we think about, we think about bringing capital, like you said with normal philanthropy, you can bring capital and you can continuously pump capital into something, but if the model is wrong it's just going to drain, and it's going to go to inefficient systems, and in the end maybe do some help, but a very small percentage of the capacity of what it could do. So what we have the concept of is bringing funds here. We have a fund that was just launched called Restart Ventures, and the idea is instead of compounding interests, we want to make compounding impact, and so it's a social good focused fund, but at the same time all of the proceeds generated from the fund recycle back into other things that are making more impact. So we're measuring based on how much impact can be created with different projects. It could be a charity or it could be an entrepreneur. And if we're getting a multiple, most of that money is going back. So a very small percentage goes to the actual fund and to the fund managers, and the lion's share of the fund is going back into Puerto Rico. So I think if we look at how we can help in a way that is constantly regenerative, sustainable is good, regenerative is better. We want to at least elevate ourselves and get to the point of sustainability, but we're not improving at that point. We're still just fixing problems. We want regenerative. So if we can keep planting things that regrow themselves, if we can make it so that we're setting up the ecosystem to constantly mend itself, it's like a self-healing system of software, this is the right way to do it. So I think that's the new model. >> You built in some nurturing into the algorithm, I like that. 'Cause you're not going to do the classic venture capital carry, you're going to rotate in, but still pay some operators to run it, so they got to get paid. So I noticed in the announcement there was some money for managing directors to do it. So they get paid, and the rest goes into the compounding impact. >> Right. >> Okay, so I got to ask you what your view is these days on something that's really been important in open source software, which again, when I started it was a tier 2 citizen, at best, now it's running the world, tier 1. Open source ethoses are sprinkled throughout these new, awesome opportunities, but community made it happen. What is your current view on the role of the community, communities in general, to make this new compounding impact, whether it's software development, innovation, impact giving, regenerative growth. What's your view on community? >> If community operates with a mentality of giving or contribution over consumption we do a lot better. So when you have an open source network, if a community comes and they contribute to it more, that's something that regenerates. It keeps adding value. But if a community comes and they just keep consuming, then you have to continue to have more and more people giving. I think a really good example of this is Wikipedia. Wikipedia has hundreds of thousands of people who constantly contribute, and the only reward that they've ever gotten for that is a banner ad that says please donate because we don't do ads. So it's a broken model, because you want it to be free and you want it to continue to have the same ethos and you want it to have no advertising, yet the people who contribute most of the time also contribute most of the funding to keep it alive because they love it and care about it so much. So how could we change that model so that the community could give contributions while also receiving a way to make sure that they're able to keep doing that. And a reward system works, and maybe that's not the only solution, but we have to think about how we can keep creating more and more. >> Well I think transparency is one thing I've always loved. The thing that I always hear, especially with women in tech and these new important areas like underserved minorities, and also the bad behavior that goes on in other groups, is to shine the light on things. Having the data being open, changes everything. That is a huge thing. So community and open data. Your thoughts? I'm sure you agree? Open data and the importance of having the data exposed. >> One hundred percent. So our platform also has a layer of anonymity on the user by default, and part of the idea of being able to understand whether or not data is good. Because think of human data, we have to figure out quality. In the past there would be a validation system that is actually other humans telling you whether or not you're good and giving you some accreditation, some verification. This is our concept of experts on things. Now we would rather take consensus. So let's just crowdsource this validation and use a consensus mechanism that would see whether or not other humans think the data is good. If we're using a system like that, we have to have open data, it has to be transparent and it has to be able to be viewed in order to be voted on. So on our platform on just the first application on Sensay, we expose this consensus mechanism in a feature called Peek. So Peek basically lets you peek inside of conversations happening on the network. You can watch all the conversations that happen, the AI pulls out the good ones, and then you vote on them. >> It's kind of like when you walk into a nightclub, do I want to kind of hang out here? >> Yeah, you're kind of a voyeur but you get rewarded for doing it. It's a way for us to help classify, it's a way for us to help train the AI, and also it's a way for people to have passive ability to interact without having to have a conversation with an actual human. >> Well you're exposing the conversation to folks, but also you get signaling data. Who jumps in, who kind of walks away. I mean it's a gesture data, but it's a data point. >> Right, and it's completely private. So the beauty of the transparency is there's actually privacy baked in. And that's what I love about blockchain is it has all of the good things. >> Crystal, I got to ask you a final question. I know you're very busy, and thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me today here on theCUBE here in Puerto Rico. This week you've been super busy, you look great. I'm sure you've been up, burning the midnight oil, as they say. What is the, I won't say craziest thing because I've seen a lot of cool, crazy things going on here, it's been fun, what is some highlights for you? Conversations, meeting new people, can you just share a couple anecdotal highlights from restart week that have moved you or surprised you or just in general might be worth noting. >> I've been overall extremely surprised but the sheer number of people who showed up. I feel like a few months ago there was a small group of us sitting around wondering what it would be like if we could encourage our friends to come here and share the space. So just to see the thousands of people who have come here to support these several conferences has been amazing. My most surprising thing, though, is the amount of people that have told me that they bought a one-way ticket and have no intention of going home. So to make Puerto Rico your home I think is a really amazing first step, and I just did a panel earlier today with the person in government who had instituted Act 20 and 22, and that was the initial incentive-- >> Just take a minute to explain what that is for the folks that don't know what it is. >> Sure. So Act 20 and 22 are for the company and the individual respectively. They are a way for you to get a tax incentive for moving here as a resident or domiciling your company here. So you get 0% taxes. I think companies range up to 4% or something like that, and that incentive was created to bring more brilliant minds and entrepreneurs and different types of people with different vocations to the island. So basically, give them a tax incentive and encourage the stimulation of economy. So that has brought this wave of people in who have an idea that no taxes are great. At the same time they fall in love with the island. It's amazing because to me Puerto Rico is a combination of LA's weather, San Francisco's open-mindedness, and Barcelona's deep European history. It's just a really beautiful place. >> And it's US territory, so it's a short hop and a jump to the States if you need to, or Europe. >> Yeah exactly. And no customs and you have your driver's license to get here. Also it's a US dollar. And I say that because most people in America mainland don't realize that Puerto Rico is an American territory, and so they sort of think they're going to a foreign country because it's treated that way by our government. But what I've been really shocked about, though, is the sheer amount of innovation already here. The forward thinking ways of people and the embracing of things like open source and blockchain technology, because their minds are already in a mode of community, a mode of sharing, a mode of giving. >> We interviewed Michael Angelo from Edublock.ido, Edublock, they're connecting all the universities with blockchain. We also interviewed Damaris Rivera, with Puerto Rico Advantage. They'll move you down here. You can press a button, it's instant move. So folks in Silicon Valley who are watching who know us and around the world know theCUBE, there's a group of like-minded people here that have tech chops, there's capital flowing. There's capital people I know have moved here, setting up shop, as well as the Caymans and everywhere else, but it's nice. So it's kind of like LA. >> There is a lot of capital. I have just witnessed a couple hundred million dollars of funds that were established in the last couple of months. And this is around all different types of technology sectors. You don't have to be a blockchain company. You can be innovating in any way possible. One of my favorite projects is a machine that turns plastic bottles into diesel fuel. So one of the problems here is that the generators on the island, when we were here last time we met a guy that was working at a bar in a restaurant, and he was like, "Hey I saw you guys in New York Times "and I think you're like the Crypto people." And he had a conversation, and he said, "I was wondering if you could help my grandmother "who is stuck with no power, and it's been months, "and she's in her 90s, and she needs a generator to run "a machine that keeps her life supported." and so a couple of people went out to bring more fuel, bring a generator to donate. They started understanding that there are so many areas that still need this level of help, that there's a lot that we can do. So when I see projects like that, that's something I want to back. >> Yeah, it's entrepreneurial action taking impact. Crystal, thanks so much for coming out. Crystal Rose, CEO, co-founder of Sensay, real innovative company, pioneer here in the Puerto Rico movement. It's a movement, a lot of tech, entrepreneurs, capital, investors, and the pioneers in the blockchain, decentralized internet are all here. This is like the Silicon Valley of Crypto, right? >> I think they're calling it Crypto Island. >> Crypto Island, yes. It sounds like a TV show. We should be on it. It's not lost, it's Crypto Island. >> Exactly. >> Thanks so much for spending the time on theCUBE. >> Thanks John. >> John: I appreciate it. >> I appreciate it so much. Thanks for making sense of me. >> I'm John Furrier here on theCUBE here in Puerto Rico. Our coverage continues after this short break.

>> Announcer: Live from Barcelona, Spain, it's theCUBE. Covering Cisco Live 2018, brought to you by Cisco, Veeam, and theCUBE's ecosystem partners. >> Okay, welcome back everyone. This is live coverage here at theCUBE in Barcelona, Spain for Cisco Live 2018 Europe. I'm John Furrier the co-host of theCUBE with Stu Miniman, analyst at Wikibon.com and also cohosts theCUBE at many events. Our next guest, Adam Kalsey, who's the Cisco Spark Developer Relations at Cisco. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you >> Looking good today. >> Thanks. >> Love the mojo this year and again, we've been covering DevNet Create this past year. Cisco and developers really coming together and it's a real extension of a dominance that Cisco's had on the network side. >> Sure. >> A lot of Alpha geeks, they know their stuff, but as you guys are moving up the stack, you guys are contributing more to application developers. So we're super excited to see that movement, some open source action. You got a lot of stuff, we're talking about AI in the keynote, IoT. It's becoming software focused. >> It is and everything from Cisco's traditional business core networking, enterprise networking, a lot of that stuff moving to software and becoming developed and run and managed by software. But then also seeing applications and in the application space and seeing everything from enterprise applications moving to a consumer space, moving to APIs, everything becoming open and no longer being an island, and connected together, and we're excited to be a big part of that. >> It's the engineering mindset of networking. Stu and I both have a networking background so we kind of know the culture. They can get stuff done, the designing, architecture, engineering, but now the DevNet has been the big story for Cisco, DevNet as a developer attraction. It's transforming the DNA of the Cisco stakeholder. >> It is. >> An MVP. >> It's not just networking-engineering, it's network ops, network devops, network software for applications. What specifically catalyzes that story for Cisco? Someone's like "Hey, I'm seeing that Cisco's got this whole DevNet vibe." What catalyzes at the mind of the customer? Is it a specific product, is it an approach, is it Spark? What product, what thing highlights Cisco's focus on developers? >> Well, so everything here in the DevNet zone obviously. We've got a lot in the collaboration space, a lot of things becoming developer focused and developer friendly and even products that are being developed with the developer first mindset. We build it for the developer and then work backward from there, rather than trying to tack a developer interface onto an existing product later. And so, we've got everything from the networking and software defined networking and all of our ability to automate network deployment and services deployment to collaboration and communications and allowing people to communicate inside their existing apps. >> What's the big thing impact to customers now because now Cisco's moving up the stack, I get that, love Cisco, have Cisco. But what's in it for me? I'm the customer. >> Adam: Right >> What's the value? >> So the big value to you as the customer is that now developers can bring in the applications that you're using every day into the products that you're using every day to communicate, to run your network, to do anything. The idea is eliminate those islands and those silos of applications where I used to have to go here to get one thing done and then I'd move over to this other thing. Bring them together and either bring those products into Cisco products or bring the Cisco technologies into those other products and start blurring that line. >> Yeah, it's interesting. Stu and I were talking yesterday about the impact of cloud, cloud-native, and certainly DevOps, certainly on-premises and in the cloud as people start doing hybrid and start thinking multi-cloud. There's two kind of schools of thought, replatform everything or incrementally build on top of what you got. I've love to get your reaction to that because we see replatforming as good for certain things. We just want to through away the old and bring in the new, kind of lift and shift or just change. But in some cases you don't. I mean, you don't really want to replatform the network. You don't want to replatform a lot of systems. You've got to build on top of it, learn new things. What's your reaction to that and how would you advise customers who say, "Oh, just replatform the whole thing?" >> We actually run into that a lot with Spark because companies have massive investments in their communications infrastructure and they've spent all of this money building out this communications infrastructure and then you come and you go, "Okay, now we've got all this cloud service." And they're, "We're not going "to throw away our communications infrastructure "to go to the cloud." And so that's why our hybrid model and our hybrid strategy is so effective because you can use all of those things that are inside and those investments that you've already taken to speed up voice traffic and video traffic and your network, but then also take advantage of the cloud, where you've got the rapid deployment and the rapid evolution and the upgrade cycles and not having to go and upgrade everybody's machine every six months and being able to keep that investment and take advantage of that investment while moving to the cloud. >> That's pretty core though, that's like fundamental today. >> Yes, absolutely. >> Adam, some of my friends, some of the hardcore networking people come to the show every year. They're pretty excited about the DevNet stuff. Not just getting my certification, learning about new things. It's like, "I could like, learn to code." >> Adam: Yes. >> And they're getting pretty excited which I know I was glad to hear. Take us inside a little bit, what's happening? You've been right here near theCUBE all week so far. What kind of people are coming, what kind of activities do they get to do? >> So we've got a lot of ... There's a gamut, so we're seeing a lot of traditional network engineers, people that have no background in programming. Highly technical people, but have never written code before, coming and starting to learn to code. I was talking to somebody yesterday. He's very excited, he's taking a certification that requires coding and he says, "I didn't know "how to code three months ago "and I've started figuring this out "and it's so awesome I get to do this." But then we're also seeing a shift toward people that are developers first, now coming to Cisco events, coming to Cisco Live and we're running into them here. Where when we first started doing this ... So I've been with Cisco almost three years now and when I first started coming to doing these DevNet events, we had to start at very basic levels. Here's code 101 and this is an introduction to APIs. Now we're able to get much deeper and start diving a lot deeper, both because the audience that's the traditional Cisco audience is learning so much, but also because we're now attracting an audience that isn't looking at it and saying, "Oh well, Cisco's just a networking company." They're realizing there's a lot of products for developers. >> You're attracting two major constituencies. >> Absolutely. >> I mean, I think the network APIs stuff's really interesting to me. We were talking yesterday with Susie Wee, who's the vice-president, CTO of the group, but it makes total sense that if you look at micro surfaces and then what Kubernetes doing, it's really changing the game and opening up the aperture of what developers can do with programmable infrastructure. So it's always been kind of like, "Oh yeah, I can program some config stuff," but getting down to the network level and doing policy, it's pretty interesting. What's the impact of that? 'Cause this is kind of like a new dynamic that's happening with DevOps where you got pure programmable networking capability. Where are some people using this? Where do you see this evolving? What's the sequence, what's the order of evolution, if you will, with net DevOps, networking DevOps? >> You know, I think the biggest evolution, the most interesting evolution is on the human side. So how this is changing the job role and how the engineer is having to change their mindset from I'm installing and racking equipment and my job is picking up this big heavy box and putting it in here and plugging cables in, to my job is thinking more logically about how the network needs to work and plug in those things. >> So they're slinging APIs rather than slinging cables? >> Absolutely (John laughs) It's also an interesting impact on Cisco's business. We're such a channel focused company. We've got all these partners that are out there selling things and resellers. As more things move to software and move to the cloud, how their business has to change. I now longer make money by buying this box and selling it you. I now money by actually adding value and creating a lot of value there. >> Yeah. Adam, I was wondering if you could take us inside the collaboration space? John and I a little bit old on some of the this stuff. Remember the kind of Enterprise 2.0 wave that come. I worked when Jive was helping internal companies. We've been heavy in social. Where's kind of the UC collaboration, where does all of that fit and Cisco's position in that market? >> Sure. So we see a big move to messaging, obviously, both in the consumer space, Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp? or SMS and text messaging and that's really starting to move into enterprise as well, where it's not just messaging where I'm going to send you a quick IM to ask you a question, but my daily job is happening in messaging. Everybody's promised to kill email for 20 years and for a product everybody wants to kill, it sure seems to have survived a long time. But with messaging and the rise of messaging and integrated messaging and voice and video and conferencing and meeting applications, we actually are now seeing a reduction in email usage among people that are using this. >> What about chatbots has been something that we've been talking, that kind of combination of machine learning with the collaboration. Lots companies using Slack these days as one of the pieces. Where do you see that fitting into it? >> So chatbots are growing in usage in business in general. We're seeing a ton of usage in the enterprise. In fact, to the point where almost every single customer of Spark has a significant deployment of chatbots, either things they've built internally or things that are working with other products that they've downloaded. We've got our app store called Spark Depot, where people can go and download and install different bots into the Spark platform and we're seeing that those being used so much across every enterprise. One of the things that's interesting that we're in a unique position to take advantage of that a lot of companies aren't, is we are completed enterprise focus. We are top down when somebody installs Spark in the network, it's the entire enterprise gets Spark. The entire company gets Spark. So now it's not these little silos of, "Hey, this group is using this platform "and this group is using this platform. So for an application developer, I can go build an application once and know that my target is every company in the world, that as we start taking and becoming a more ubiquitous across enterprise, that your bot then has a deployment target of that same footprint. >> Final question from me is what's the hottest DevNet zone area this week? What's getting the most love and attention and interest from you guys. >> You know, anything that is talking APIs. So we're walking around and seeing all of the classroom sessions, anything that we're talking about APIs and programmability, specifically on web services, REST-type APIs. Crowds of people around the table, not big enough spaces for them, the classrooms are too small to hold the amount of interest that's there. >> Anyway, so I think you guys, just to kind of give you some props here, I think this net DevOps concept is like, groundbreaking. I think it's too new to kind of ... I think main stream won't figure it out, certainly I see people there, like some Alpha engineers there, but that's pretty big. That's really going to be we see Kubernetes really opening up a whole new level of Cisco. That's going to change the game. Congratulations to the team. That's really, not just visionary, it's conceptually relevant, right now. So I think you are skating to where the puck is coming. You're there, so congratulations. >> Adam: Thanks. >> Okay, we're here inside the DevNet zone, talking DevNet developers at Cisco, changing environment, the evolution of the networking persona is now becoming software driven and has been popular here at Cisco Live. I'm John Furrier, Stu Miniman. Live coverage from Barcelona at theCUBE. Be right with more after this short break. (electronic music)

>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Oracle Modern Customer Experience, 2017. Brought to you by, Oracle. (upbeat music) >> Welcome back to theCUBE. I'm Peter Burris, and once again theCUBE is here at Oracle Modern Marketing... Modern Customer Experience, having a great series of conversations about the evolution of marketing, the role technology is playing, and especially important, the centerpiece that data now has within a overall orientation towards customer experience. Now one of the key features of that notion of customer experience is what's going on with service. And this is a great session, because we've got a representative from Oracle, but also a customer, as well. Welcome to Steve Fioretti, who's the VP of Product Management, Oracle Service Cloud and Heather Miksch, who's the Vice President of Field and Product Operations at Carbon. >> Thank you. >> Peter: Welcome to the (mumbles) >> Thanks. >> Glad to be here. >> So, Steve why don't we start with you. >> Steve: Sure. >> Oracle is here talking about how the cloud can help transform field and service operations. >> Steve: Right. >> How is it transforming it, what're the trends? >> Well, there's a lot of interesting trends that are affecting customer service, and I would, you talked about marketing and a lot of people say customer service is the new marketing. A lot of, a lot of interactions that people have with a company is in the customer service group and that really affects their impact on the brand. And there's a lot of things going on in the industry that are affecting customer service. There's new dynamic channels emerging, for example, people want to use Facebook Messenger, or WeChat, or WhatsApp as customer service channels to interact with their brand. It's much beyond just email, phone, chat, things like that. So, new channels are emerging and companies have to think about how do I integrate that into my customer service organization. Automation has really come into the fore. So, you know, in our personal lives we use Siri, and other V, you know, interactions we have with Alexa. So, those are coming into businesses to automate those, perhaps more simple, customer service processes. The internet of things is really taking off, where connected devices are allowing organizations to deliver predictive and proactive service. And on the automation front, they're even extending to where organizations are taking robotics and making robots agents in a retail store, for example. >> Are you talking about me? >> Wow it's Pepper. Hi, Pepper, what are...(Peter laughs) I didn't know you were here, that's awesome. So, Pepper, I'll ask you a question. What makes you a great Customer Service Agent? >> I'm smart, I'm connected, and I'm cool and, most importantly, I'm effective. (Steve laughs) >> And we replaced John Furrier with Pepper. >> Steve: Excellent.(Heather laughs) >> So, going to the next question about the, as we use robotics, as we use many of these things: we have to remember that these are not magic, they're really is no intelligence, in the classical sense, in them, they are still being driven to perform functions, take action, based on the availability of data that is coming off of customers. So talk a bit about the role the data, data integration, and some of these new tools: AI, or Adaptive Intelligence as you're calling it, are playing in ensuring that we can, enhance Customer Experience with new devices, and these new channels. >> You're absolutely right. I mean, if, you know, it's all about making the experience with a device like, like Pepper personalized and effective, and data, knowing what a consumer wants, what their preferences, and perhaps anticipating their preferences before, you know, they even know that; their past buying history, and taking all that, first-party data and third-party data, combining that with artificial intelligence, to deliver those personalized smart experiences is what's really happening. You heard a lot at this conference about Oracle's Adaptive Intelligence Initiative, and in the context of service, we're going to be building applications for things like account health, predictive field service, so, you know, you can predict ahead of time that a machine may, you know, may need service or break. And, you know, our customer here, Heather from Carbon is going to talk a lot about what they're doing with-- >> Well, so-- >> You know, smarts and the experience-- >> Got it, so how does this resonate with Carbon? >> Well, so, Carbon, is a, we manufacture an industrial 3D printer, and we have a process we call Digital Light Synthesis, which allows us to make photo-polymer materials that are robust enough to use in final production. So, our goal is to take customers from their design, of their part, straight into production, using the 3D printer as a means of production. And the reason why this is so exciting to Carbon, is our printer is actually an IOT device. It operates over the internet, and it operates through a browser. As a result, all types of data, from machine data from the printer, are flowing into our databases; as well as operational data, how long is the print taking, what type of resin is the customer using, how often are they printing, are they running into problems with their print? We've also built in a feedback system for the user, directly in the user interface, that flows directly through our channels into our databases, and it actually opens tickets in our Oracle Service Cloud for agents to contact the customers. The way we use this in a very practical standpoint, to give you one example, is for machine failures. The idea that we can monitor our printers in the field, and we can see if a part is having problems, and might fail, and we can actually proactively reach out to the customer and say, "We'd like to be there "in a couple weeks, change out this part. "It's not affecting your machine yet. "It's not affecting your prints." And, the customer is now able, instead of having unplanned downtime, which can be very difficult for a production environment, they now have planned downtime. This technology is nothing new. The example I like to use is, in the nuclear power industry, you don't wait until you have a core meltdown and then call your service engineer.(Steve laughs) Like, it's been around for for decades. >> Form has been around for a while. >> But what's new, is actually taking this technology and putting it in capital equipment, or putting it in devices like Peppper. I mean, she's also an IOT device; or even putting it into some of our wearables, or just other consumer products as well. And once you actually have this data coming through to the manufacturer of the device, it's really almost limitless what you can do with it. And, just in our short time of Carbon actually working on this problem, we have about 70% of our hardware failures are actually predictive. So that we're able to go out and repair the printer before the customer even realizes they have a problem. And some of the problems, we can actually fix before the customer knows anything, and we can fix them remotely from our offices in Redwood City. >> And it's interesting, theCUBE this week was also at the National Association of Broadcasters, in the NEB show, and we actually had an astronaut present over theCUBE. >> Yes, yes. >> One of the things that's interesting is there are 3D printers now on-- >> There are. >> Up on the Space Station. >> Yes, yes. >> So that you can print things a long ways away. That's one of the advantages, one of the great use cases of 3D printers >> Yes. >> Is that you can actually assemble, or you can create and assemble things, in very very, you know, unfriendly environments. >> Yes, yes. So, being able to schedule, and being able to plan that, is absolutely essential. >> Yes, yes and you can see, so for us, for 3D printers, some of the use cases that our customers are coming to us with, is they are companies, their own capital equipment manufacturers that have hundreds of thousands of spare parts, and they don't want to have to keep these inventories of massive spare parts. They want to have a design sent directly to a printer, maybe it's located in another country, closer to the point of use for that part, print out the part, and get it to the user faster. The idea is to actually move, one of the ideas, is to move manufacturing closer to the point of use. So that we're not spending all this time shipping products, you know, across the entire world, when we can actually be producing them much closer to the user. >> So that suggests, when we think about, again, the role of integration, the role of data, the idea of the Service Cloud; that there will be circumstances in which the part is printed and the capital equipment, Lessor, or the person who sold it, is on site to then put it in place, and assemble it. So now we're talking about multiple people operating very very quickly with a lot of new technology. >> Right. >> And, we now see why these types of devices and the need for that data sharing is so crucial. So, how is Oracle, in Oracle's vision of how service is going to be performed in the future, facilitating these types of interactions. >> So, I mean what we have to do is think about the technologies that are powering devices like robots, that are, providing technologies that are powering virtual assistants to automate customer interactions, to deliver technologies that help customers serve themselves. Another example is, more and more people, particularly younger generation, they don't want to phone. You've got a phone in home, they don't want to call you. They don't want to have anything to do with the phone. So, that's why things like messaging, self-service, going to a website and finding their own answer are critical. So, enabling and anticipating the data, the technologies, the way, the channels that people want to use, are all going to allow brands like Carbon and others to deliver great customer service for-- >> How are you using the Oracle Service Cloud, then, to facilitate many of these changes in your organization. >> So right now, what we have is for... We actually have a database we use for our big machine data. So, all the big machine data comes through, all the data coming off of our printers. And then we've integrated that database into Oracle Service Cloud; so then, instead of a customer having to phone up if they have a problem, we actually have, on our user interface, a little button, it just says "Request Help", that's all they need to do, and it's within the print job that they've been working on. All of that data about their print job: who the user is, what the company is, which printer they were using, how long was the print. Any specific information they want to say about the print, like why they're having trouble with it, it flows through into Oracle Service Cloud, and within the Oracle Service Cloud environment we can open up our big machine database, within that same environment, we can look at the actual print job. And then, we have an escalation tool we use for our engineering team. If we need to escalate, we can do that out of Service Cloud as well. And the idea is that there's very little manual entry of any other information. All of that is just flowing through, and everybody within the organization, whether it's the people that are first in front of the customer, or whether it's our engineers, have access to the exact same data. >> But is the system also then, through the escalation process, saying, well, we really got to get someone at the hardware level, or someone here, or someone at the design level. So you're flowing it to the right person. >> Yes, yes, absolutely. And the other fabulous thing about having these internet connected devices, is even when we do need to send somebody out on site to make a hardware fix, because of the diagnostic data we have from the device, we have, until now, 100% success rate in having the right part on-hand. Which is, if you've ever had much experience with capital equipment repairs, or even a repair of your dishwasher, sometimes the people don't have the right parts. We always have the right parts. >> That's too bad you couldn't >> So far, nothing-- >> print the part with the printer when it's down.(laughs) >> That's an interesting thing. We actually do have some parts within our printer that are printed on our printers, so its (laughs) it's pretty fun >> Can I talk about one other short example-- >> Of course. >> Of another customer that actually Heather's met here at the show, Denon & Marantz, so, they make all sorts of audio equipment, high-end audio equipment, and they've got a new brand of speakers, wireless speakers, called HEOS. And, when they first started, selling those to consumers they noticed, these are connected as well, they noticed that a number of them were having, a chip problem, remotely. People were calling in. So they went out, and they, they pinged, if you will, because they're connected, all of their consumer deployments, and they could tell that, you know, a small percentage of them are going to fail. They actually shipped speakers to those consumers before they even knew they had a problem, and they arranged to pick up the old ones, and you can imagine the value the customer, loyalty, and customer sat that that had. So that proactive predictive customer service example in the consumer world, and in a business world, really makes service that much-- >> Yeah. >> So, customer service, increasingly, is taking some degree of responsibility for ensuring that things operate within the threshold, as opposed to fixing things after they've broken. >> Yes, absolutely. >> Exactly. >> Heather: Yes, yeah. >> So how does that tie back into marketing and sales. So, at Carbon what is the, what is the way these feedback loops are being used to also inform marketing and selling. >> So, the interesting thing is that because we're also gathering operational data, we actually use the data coming off our printers for much more than just a service organization. In fact, our entire company is becoming more and more dependent on this printer data. So, for instance, our product group, when they're looking at bringing out a new feature they're actually looking at the data of the actual prints and the features that the customers are currently using, and deciding, do we need to augment this feature? Do we need to bring out another tool for our customers to use? And then looking at the printer data to make those decisions, and to prioritize what projects to work on because as you can imagine we've just got a ton of projects that we'd like to work on, and we need to make some priorities. The other thing that we're looking at is changing customer dynamics. Like we have, all of our customers are broken down into different industries, and we monitor the different printing behaviors, across industries, and we've been surprised. Like, there's certain industries that have grown faster than we would have expected, and because we've got this data that we look at every single day, we're looking at our customers' print data, we can actually make much faster corrections to either marketing campaigns, or sales strategies, or things like that, rather than waiting for a monthly roll-up or a quarterly roll-up or something like that. >> So who's the steward of data within Carbon? >> Who is the steward of data? We actually have a Director of Business Operations, his name is Chris Hutton. He actually works a lot with Oracle. He recently spoke at the Modern Finance Experience with Safra Catz, and I would say that if anyone's the steward of the data, he's probably the Grand Poobah of this data? But many of us have access to it. I mean, I can go into some of these databases and pull all the data I need. We don't really restrict it. >> But he's making sure that every, he's making sure that the data works for everybody in the organization. >> Yeah. Yeah, I'd say to some degree, yes. We also have our software engineers, making sure the printer data is actually-- >> Well, they're always... >> Heather, I think I would... >> Always behind the scenes. >> I think I would like the title Steward of Data. >> Yeah. (laughs) >> I think that's, I think I just found my new title. >> It's a little geeky.(laughs) >> Well it won't be long. Somebody's going to be called, and-- >> Exactly. One other quick example of how that feedback's happening between a customer service experience and let's say marketing, is, back to my Denon & Marantz example. They had another set of speakers, and they can tell, they often, the consumer will label the speaker, based upon, you know, this is the living room, this is the bedroom... And they had some failures on another brand of speakers, and they noticed a commonality, they were all labeled Bathroom. And, basically, they realized that their speakers... Some of these speakers couldn't handle the humidity that was happening in the bathroom; drove that back into product development, built a new series of speakers quickly for bathroom that were more waterproof, >> Yeah. >> Or, more moisture resistant, and created a new product extension that actually sells quite well. So, there's just a simple example of how that data flowed back into product development and marketing. >> So, Heather, you're not feeling like a fish out water here at a customer experience show with all of the-- >> Oh, no, of course not. No, I love this kind of stuff. >> What's exciting you about listening to, mainly marketers, but a lot of customer experience, too? >> I, you know people-- >> Talk about customer service >> That are in service, they get excited. I mean, fundamentally, there's all kinds of reasons for growing the business, and increasing revenue, and cutting costs, and all those things, but fundamentally, people are in service to help other people. Like, that's what gets us up in the morning. That's what makes us jump out of bed. So, the idea that there's all these companies doing these super-cool things, where you can, really, proactively be helping people instead of waiting till they're already in trouble. That's like, you've just burst through a barrier that's existed for millennia; the fact that we can actually start predicting problems. >> But that's also, we also talked a lot here on theCUBE this week about the role that talent's going to play. And, while I've never been in a hardcore customer service job, I know that people who have gone in, often got demoralized because they were always being yelled at because there was problem. >> Yes, yes, yes. >> And I had to believe it's attracting a new class of person because they can actually be participating, and anticipating, and solving problems >> Yes, yes, yes. Well, and I, it does take a certain type to be a customer, to be in front of customers all the time. We always say that the number one rule is you have to hire happy people to be put in that position, because (laughs) >> Peter: So, how about (Heather laughs) >> Actually, that was a very insightful question, because we were on a panel yesterday with an analyst, Denis Pombriant from the Beagle Research and he talked about, well, a couple of dynamics. One is, agents, the profile of the agents that you hire is changing. Because all the simple things are being solved online through self-service, and now that agent has to be a more gifted, even arguably, he called it a controller, a more aggressive agent that's going to be a problem-solver, able to collaborate with others. So, more empowered, and that's one thing, so I thought your question was really insightful. The nature of that agent is changing. And another thing that smart companies do, is they empower those agents. You know, not just with technology, but they give them the ability to, you know, the a brand of hotels, high-end hotels, I won't use the brand, but their agents are given a couple thousand dollars a day, and are empowered to use that to fix any issues. You know, somebody shows up and the room's booked, they don't drag them out of the hotel. (all laugh) They actually find them... Maybe they upgrade the room or they get them a meal if they have a problem so, empowering them also makes the agent feel much better about delivering customer service-- >> Alright, so Steve Fioretti, VP Product Management Oracle Service Cloud. Heather Miksch the Vice President of Field and Product Operations at Carbon, and Pepper from SoftBank. >> Yay! >> Thank you all for being a part of theCUBE here at the Oracle-- >> Thank you. >> Modern Customer Experience >> Thank you Peter. >> And talking about the role that service is now playing in driving customer experience and the role that the Cloud is playing in improving customer service. >> Steve: Great, awesome. >> We'll be back with a wrap-up in a few minutes, and in fact, John will magically reappear. Give us a few minutes and we'll be back with more from theCUBE. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's The Cube, covering Oracle Modern Customer Experience 2017, brought to you by Oracle. (dynamic music) >> John: Hey, welcome back everyone, we're here live. Day two coverage of Oracle's Modern CX Modern Customer Experience #ModernCX. Also check out all the great coverage here on The Cube, but also on the web, a lot of great stories and one of the people behind all that is Des Cahill, who's joining Peter Burris and myself. Kicking off day two, Des, great to see you, Head of Customer Experience Evangelist, involved in a lot of the formation and really the simplification of the messaging across Cloud, so it's really one story. >> Yeah, absolutely, so John, Peter, great to be here. You know, I think the real story is about our customers and businesses that are going through transformation. So everything that we're doing at Oracle, in our CX organizations, helping these organizations make their digital business transformation and the reason they're going through this transformative process is to meet the demands of their customers. I'd say it's the era of the empowered customer. They're empowered by social, mobile, Cloud technologies and all of us in our daily lives can relate to the fact that over the last five, 10 years, the way that we buy, our journey as we buy products, as we do research, is completely different, than it used to be, right. >> Talk about the evolution, talk about the evolution of what's happening this week, because I think this is kind of a mark in time, at least from our observation, covering Oracle, this is our eighth year and certainly second year with the modern marketing experience now, >> Des: Yeah. >> the modern customer experience, where the feedback in the floor, and this is noteworthy, is that the quality is great, people at the booth are highly qualified, but it's simple. It's one fabric of messaging, one fabric of product. It feels like a platform, >> Yeah. >> and is that by design (laughs) or is that kind of the next step in the evolution of, >> Des: Yeah, John. >> Marketing Cloud meets Real Cloud and? >> Yeah, yeah, so absolutely John. I mean that, that is by design and again, to support our customers and their needs on this digital business transformation journey, it starts obviously with fantastic marketing, we've just got fantastic capabilities within our Marketing Cloud, but then that extends to Sales Cloud. If you generate leads in marketing and you're not handing them over to sales effectively or of a good sales automation engine and that goes on to commerce, CPQ, social, and service. And all of this, if we bring this back down to again, this notion of the empowered customer, if you're not providing those customers with connected experiences across marketing, sales, service, commerce, you're not... you're going to, you might lose those customers. I mean, we expect connected experiences across our whole journey. If I'm calling my cell phone provider, 'cause I got a problem, I don't, and I don't want to call one person, get transferred to another person and then go to the website to chat with someone, have a disconnected experience. I want them to, when I call, I want them to understand my history, my status as a customer, I'm spending 500 dollars a month on them, the problems I've had before. I want them to have context and to know me in that moment and as Mark Hertz says, it's like a moment of truth with my cell phone provider. Are they going to delight me and turn me into a customer advocate, or am I going to leave and go to another cell phone provider? >> Well let's talk just for a second, and I want to get your comments on this and how it relates specifically to what we're saying here. Digital has two enormous impacts. One, as you said, that a customer can take their research activities with them, on their cell phone. >> Yeah. They have learned, because of commerce and electronic commerce, they've learn to expect and demand a certain style of engagement >> Des: Right. >> and that's not going to change, so if you are not doing those things-- >> We like to say Amazon is the new benchmark, either B to C or B to B, it doesn't matter, right. >> It is a benchmark, at least on the commerce side, so it's, so that's one change, is that customers are empowered. The second big change though, is that increasingly, digital allows people to render products more as services and that's in many respects, what the Cloud's all about. >> Des: Right. >> How do you take an asset, that is a machine and render it as a service to someone? Well now we can actually use digital technologies to render things more as services. The combination of those two things are incredibly powerful, because customers, who now have the power to evaluate and change decisions all the time are now constantly making decisions, because it's a pay-as-you-go service world now. >> Des: Right. >> So how do those two things come together and inform the role, that marketing is going to play inside a business, 'cause increasingly, it seems to us that marketing is going to have to own that continuous, ongoing engagement and deliver that consistent value, so a customer does not leave, 'cause you have more opportunities to leave now. >> Well, I, so I think that's a good observation, Peter. I do think that marketers can play, and do play, a leading role in being the advocate for the customer within the brand, within the company and as a marketer myself, I think about not just the marketing function, but I think about, well, what is the experience, that that lead or that prospect going to have when I hand over to sales? And what is the experience that they are going to have, when I hand them over to service? And in my past roles as a CMO, the challenge I always faced was that I couldn't get information out of the sales automation system or out of the service automation system, so as a marketer, I couldn't optimize my marketing mix and I didn't have visibility on which opportunities I passed, which leads I passed over turned into the best opportunities, turned into the best deals, turned into the customers, that were most loyal, that got cross-sold and up-sold and were the happiest. So I think, going back to Oracle's strategy in all of this, it's about having a connected, end-to-end suite of Cloud applications, so that there's a consistent set of data, that is enabling these consistent, personalized, and immediate experiences. >> I think that's interesting and I want to just validate that, because I think, that is to me, the big sign that I think you guys are on the right track and executing and by the way, some of the things you're talking about used to be the holy grail, they're actually real now. >> Des: Right. >> The dynamic is the silos are a symptom of a digital-analog relationship. >> Des: Right. >> So when you have all digital, the moment of truth starts here, it's all digital. So in that paradigm, end-to-end wins. And at Mobile World Congress this year, one of the main themes when they talk about 5G, and all these things, that were going on, was you know, autonomous vehicles, (laughs) media entertainment, smart cities, a smart home, you know, talk to things. To your point, that's an end-to-end, so the entire world wants-- >> Des: Throw IoT in there. >> Throw IoT, >> Right. >> So again, these digital connections are all connected, so therefore, it is essentially an end-to-end opportunity. So whoever can optimize that end-to-end, while being open, while having access to the data, >> Des: Right. >> will be the winning formula. >> Des: Right. >> And that is something that we see and you obviously have that. >> And then the other piece is how do you actualize that data? Right, and I know you spoke with Jack Berkowitz about adaptive intelligent apps, it's, we're taking approach to artificial intelligence of saying, how can we bring to bear the power of machine learning, dynamic decision science, so that all this data, that's being collected and enabled by all these digital touch points, these digital signals, how do you take that data and how do you actualize that, 'cause the reality is, 80% of data that's collected today is dark, it's untouched, it's just collected, right. >> Well, here is the hard question for you, you know I am going to ask this, so I am going to ask it, here's the hard question. >> Des: Yeah. >> It really comes down to the data, and if you don't, you, connected networks and all that good stuff is great fabric, end-to-end. >> Des: Absolutely, yeah. >> This is certainly the future, it's the new normal, it's coming fast. >> Right. >> But at the end of the day, the conversation we've been having here is about the data. >> Des: Yes. >> What is your position with Oracle on connecting that data, 'cause that ultimately is what needs to flow. >> Des: Right. >> How does that work? Can you just take a minute to >> Sure, sure. >> to address that, how the data flows? >> Yeah, I think it starts with our end-to-end connected applications, that are able, that are connected with each other natively and are sharing that same data set. We obviously recognize that customers have mixed environments, so in those cases, we can certainly use our technologies to connect to their existing data stores, to synchronize with their existing systems, so it all starts with the cleanliness and quality of that baseline customer data. The second piece I'd say, is that we've made a lot of investments over the last five years in Oracle Data Cloud and Oracle Data Cloud is a set of anonymized, third party data. We've got 5 billion consumer IDs, we've got a billion business IDs. We've got a tremendous amount of data sources. We just announced a recent acquisition of a company called Moat, last week at our Oracle Data Cloud Summit in New York City. So we've made a tremendous investment in third party data, that can augment anonymized third party data, that can augment first party data, to allow people to have not just a connected view of the customer, but more of a comprehensive view and understanding of their customers, so that they can better talk to them and get them better experiences. >> That's the key there, that we're hearing with this intelligent, adaptive intelligent app kind of environment, >> Yeah, yeah. >> where machine learning. The third party data integrating within the first party data, that seems to be the key. Is that right, >> Absolutely. >> did I get that right? >> Yeah, well I would say there's a number of points, so I would say that, that, you know, you can think of the Oracle Data Cloud combining with the BlueKai DMP and being a great ad-tech business for us and a great solution for digital marketers in and of itself. What we've done with adaptive intelligent apps is that we've combined that third party data with decision science machine learning AI and we've coupled that with the Oracle Cloud infrastructure and the scale and power of that. So we're able to deliver real-time, adaptive learning and dynamic offers and content at 130 millisecond clips. So this is real-time interaction, so we are getting signals every time someone clicks, it's not a batch mode, one-off kind of thing. The third piece is that we have designed these, designed these apps to just embed natively, to plug into our existing CX applications. So if you're a marketer, you're a service professional, you're a sales professional, you can get value out of this day one. You've got a tremendous data set. You've got real-time, adaptive artificial intelligence and it plugs right into your existing apps. It's a win-win. Take your first party data, take your third party data, combine it together, put some decision science on there, some high bandwidth, incredible scale infrastructure and you're getting, you're starting to get to one-to-one marketing. You're freeing your marketing teams from being data analysts and segmenting and trying to get insight and you're letting the machine do that work and you're freeing up, you're freeing up your human capital to be thinking about higher-level tasks, about offers and merchandising and creative and campaigns and channels. >> Well, the way we think about it, Des, and I'll test you on this, is we think ultimately the machines are going to offer options. So they're going to do triage on a lot of this data >> Des: Right, right. >> and offer options to human decision-makers. Some of the discretions, we see three levels of interaction, >> Des: Yeah. >> Automated interaction, which, quite frankly, we're doing a lot of that today in finance systems. >> Des: Yes. >> But then we get to autonomous vehicles, highly deterministic networks, highly deterministic behaviors, >> Des: Right. >> that's what's going to be required in autonomy. No uncertainty. Where we have environmental uncertainty, i.e. that temperature's going to change or I, some IoT things are going to change, that's where we see the idea of turning the data and actuating it in the context of that environmental uncertainty. >> Des: Right. >> We think that this is all going to have an impact on the human side, what we call systems of augmentation, >> Des: Right. >> where the system's going to provide options to a human decision-maker, the discretion stays with the human decision-maker, culpability stays with the human decision-maker, >> Des: Right. >> but the quality of the options determine the value of the systems. >> So the augmentation is-- >> The augmentation's great. >> So let me give you a great example of that with AIA. So, take for example, you're a pro photographer and you got a big shoot the next day and your camera, your main camera you bought three months ago, it breaks. And you buy all your stuff at photog.com and you call 'em up and what could happen today? "Hi, what's your account number? "Who are you? "Wait, let me look you up, OK. "I'm sorry, I'm not authorized to get you a return." You know, boom, and the person's like, "I'm never going to buy from them again." Right, it's that moment of truth. Contrast that with a, 'cause the person making that decision, if it was the CEO getting that call, the CEO would be like, "We're going to get you a camera immediately." But that person that they're talking to is five levels down in a call center, Bismarck, North Dakota. If that person had AI, adaptive intelligent apps helping them out, then the AI would do the work in the background of analyzing the customer's lifetime value, their social reach, so their indirect lifetime value. It would look at their customer health, how many other services issues, that they have. It would look at, are there any warranty issues or known service failure issues on that camera and then it would look at a list of stores, that were within a five mile radius of that customer, that had those cameras in stock. And it would authorize an immediate pickup and you're on your way. It would just inform that person and enable them to make that decision. >> Even more than that, and this is a crucially important point, that we think people don't get when they talk about a lot of this stuff. These systems have to deliver not only data, but also authority. >> Exactly. The authority has to flow with the data. >> Des: Right. >> That's one of the advantages-- >> On both sides, by the way, on the identity and-- >> On both sides. >> And I think that employee wants that empowerment. >> Absolutely. >> No one wants to take a call and not make the customer happy, right. >> Peter: Absolutely, >> Yeah. >> because that's a challenge with some of the bolt-on approaches to some of these big applications, is that, yeah, >> Exactly. >> you can deliver a result, but then how is the result >> How is it manifested? >> integrated into the process >> Right. >> that defines and affords authority to actually make the decision? >> OK, so let's see, where are we on the progress bar then. because we had a great interview yesterday with the CMO from Time Warner. >> Yeah. >> OK, Kristen O'Hara, she was amazing. But basically, there was no old way of doing data, they were Time Warner, (laughs) they're old school media and they set up a project, you guys came in, Oracle came in, and essentially got them up and running, and it's changed their business practice overnight. >> Des: Right, right. >> So, and the other thing we heard yesterday was a lot of the stuff that was holy grail-like capabilities is actually being delivered. So give us a slice-and-dice what's shipping today, that's, that's hot and where's the work area that's road-mapped for Oracle? >> Sure, well-- >> And were you guys helping customers? >> Sure, I'll talk about a couple of examples, where we're helping customers. So, Denon and Marantz, high end audio company, brand's been around 100 years. The way music is delivered, is consumed, has changed radically in the last 20 years, changed radically in the last 10 years, changed even more radically in the last five years, so they've had to change their business model to keep up with that. They are embedding Oracle IoT Cloud into every product they sell, except their headphones, so all their speakers, all their AV receivers and they are using IoT data and Oracle Service Cloud to inform, not only service issues, like for example, they are, they're detecting failures pro-actively and they're shipping out new speakers, before they fail or they're pushing firmware to fix the problem, before it happens. They're not only using it to inform their service, they're using it to inform their R&D and their sales and marketing. Great example, they ship wireless speakers, HEOS wireless speakers, highly recommend 'em, I bought 'em for my kids for Christmas, they're the bomb. But customers were starting to... They were getting a lot of failures in these wireless speakers. They looked up the customer data, then they looked up the IoT data. They found that 80% of the speaker failures, the products were labeled Bathroom as location in the configuration of their home network setup and what they realized was that customers were listening to music in the bathroom, which is a use case they never thought of and the speakers weren't made to be water or humidity-proof, so they went to the R&D department, 14 months later, they ship a line of waterproof HEOS speakers. The second thing is they found people, who were labeling their speakers, Patio, they were using it on the patio, they didn't even have a rechargeable battery on it, so they came out with a line with a rechargeable battery on it. So they're not only using IoT data, for a machine maintenance function, >> John: 'cause they were behaving-- >> they're using IoT data to inform, inform R&D and they're also doing incredible marketing and sales activities. We had Don Freeman, the CMO of Denon on the main stage yesterday, talking about this great, great stuff they're doing. >> And what's the coolest thing this week, that you're looking at, you're proud of or excited about? >> I'm excited about a lot of stuff, John. This week is realized, you alluded to this week has been really, really fun, really great, a lot of buzz, obviously a lot of buzz around adaptive, intelligent apps and we've talked about that. But I would say also beyond a doubt, that intelligent apps for CX, we've introduced some great things in our Service Cloud, the capability to have a video chat, so Pella Windows was also on one of our panels today and they were talking about the ability for, to solve a service issue, the ability to show a video of what's going on, just increases the speed with which something can be diagnosed so much faster. We're integrating on the Service Cloud, we're integrating with WeChat and we're integrating with Facebook Messenger. Now, why would you do that? Well again, it comes back to this era of the empowered consumer. It's not enough that a company just has a website or an 0800 number that you can go to for support. Consumers are spending more time in social messaging apps, than they are on social messaging sites, so if the consumer wants to be served on Facebook Messenger, 'cause they spend their time on it, the brand has to meet them there. >> John: Yeah. >> The third thing would be the ability for the Marketing Cloud and Service and Sales Cloud, we've got chat bots, voice-driven, text-driven, AI-driven, so mobile assistant for the sales professionals, so you can input data on the road, "Hey, open an account, here's the data "for the transaction here what's going on." >> John: Yeah. >> Incredible, incredible stuff going on all over the stack. >> I think the thing, that excites me, is I look at the videos from last year and the theme was, "Man, you guys have "all these awesome acquisitions," >> Des: Right. >> "But you have this opportunity with the data," and you guys knew that and you guys tightened that together and doubled down on the data >> Des: Yeah, with banking, yeah-- >> and so I thought that was a great job and I like the messenging's clean, I think but more importantly is that in any sea change, you know, we joke about this, as we're kind of like historians and we've seen a lot of waves, >> Des: Right, for sure. >> and all these major waves, when the user's expectations shift, that's the opportunity. I think what you guys nailed here is that, and Peter alluded to it as well, is that the users are expecting things differently, completely differently. >> Let me share a stat with you. 50% of the companies that were in the Fortune 500 in the year 2000, are either out of business, acquired, gone, 50% and those companies, >> Dab or die. >> Blockbuster, Borders, did they stay relevant? >> John: Yeah. I think changing business practice based on data is what's happening, it's awesome. Des Cahill, here on The Cube. More live coverage, day two of Modern CX, Modern Customer Experience, #ModernCX. This is The Cube, I'm John Furrier with Peter Burris, we'll be right back. (dynamic music)

>> Narrator: Live, from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering NAB 2017. Brought to you by HGST. (lively music) >> Welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here, everybody, with theCUBE. We are live at NAB 2017 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. 100,000 people, all kinds of gear. If you're into video and you're into fun, this is the place to be. We're real excited to have Brian Frager on. He's a VR and AR creative producer for Technicolor. Welcome Brian. >> Thank you, happy to be on. >> And then, on your bio, you have all my new vocabulary words that I've picked up. Photo, I can't even say the stupid word. Photogrametgramatry? >> Gamatry, photogrammetry. >> Jeff: Awesome. >> Yeah. >> So, first off, welcome. >> You've been doing this PR thing, since the beginning, early days. >> It's still early days. >> Jeff: It's still early days. >> Basically, I have a film back on, a traditional film production. But when I saw these new work flows emerging in these interactive stories and really, the whole spectrum of story telling opening up from what was, traditionally, either a film or a video game. Now, there's this whole spectrum of experiences in between that are, very much, a hybrid between the two and you, as a user or an audience, have some agency and some control over how you effect the experience. I was just all in on that. I took a deep dive into coding and development and the game engines and landed at Technicolor within the last few months. >> And that's through the volumetric video response to that, right? Cause you're creating a space or correct me if I'm wrong. >> Brian: Exactly. >> And now you interact in that space. >> Exactly, so you're building a whole environment and the idea is that, the user rather than, most 360 experiences that we're seeing right now that are being shipped as VR, are, really, just from a fixed point. Even though you can look around and that's, a little bit, innovative it's still very restrictive in how you can interact with the space. We focus on real time rendered game engine experiences where you build the entire environment and so, really, you, as a user, can go walk around the whole room, look at anything, inspect things and you just have a lot more freedom to explore. >> On the story telling aspect of that, how does that now, get stitched into what's, basically, a video game engine? >> That's a great question. It is a paradime shift because rather than dictating the sequence of events or the linear story and force feeding it to an audience, you're, really, creating an open world. You want to design it in a way where they still take away a narrative experience or at least some kind of experience from it. But you need to give the user freedom to navigate that world however they see fit. It's about a lot of play testing, to be honest, to get early iterations out into user's hands and to see what they're instinct is. You have an idea for how they're going to consume something but until you see someone in the experience and see what they're impulse is and what they want to interact with, then you can build towards that. So, it's a more iterative process that's more akin to game development. >> Are you sharing any funny stories or surprises or something where you thought somebody's going to go left and they went right, just completely counter to what you built into your script if you will? >> Oh man, funny experiences. You know, so we've been to a few festivals. We premiered it at Sundance and then at South by Southwest. We've put hundreds of people thought it. There's one character that's very anthropomorphized and we had an idea that people would like to interact with it. But the minute it shows up, there's people getting on the ground next to this little water buffalo and he's just chillin and looking around. And there's people sitting right next to him and trying to pet him and do all kinds of things and you realize people, once they feel emersed in a space and they find something they can emotionally connect with, they just want to hang out there and spend some time with that as a microcosm of the experience. So, we added some little interactive elements to him. So, that was an insight. Actually, the fumiest was when I showed it to my mom for the first time. They don't, totally, understand this new world. A character appeared and she happened to be standing, you never know where the user's going to be standing in these paths. So, she happened to be standing directly in the path where the character was going to run. So, she turns around and sees the character and it just starts running straight at her and she just screams and throws the controller. (laughing) And the character just goes right through you but you know, that immersion. You feel like you're about to get hit by something. >> Right, right. So, a lot of us have played, I've got the Samsung thing I put my Galaxy in. What are some of the secrets that help people feel that immersive experience? In terms of is it, really it's not the super quality view cause a lot of times, you don't have that. But a lot of times, it's the softer things is what pull people in. So, what are the things that, really, make it connect with people from VR? >> Absolutely, there's a lot of elements because, really, you are recreating reality, sense by sense. The nice thing about VR is our visual system is so overpowering in terms of how we interpret the world around us that, luckily, that's been the access point and the entry point to this whole VR boom that we've seen. Is that, finally, mobile screens are at a point, the sensors are all packed very tight. So, we can, really, ship at a low cost. Google cardboard, for example, being the widest distribution and give people a pretty compelling visual experience. That's really step one and I'd say that's, pretty well, established and distributed. >> Visuals and audio have been married but, really, it's about bringing the other senses into VR. For example, the agency of being able to move around a space and interact with real things in the space. That's more commonly termed mixed reality and that's going to be the next wave that you're going to see which is highly interactive spaces that are more of a mixture of the virtual world and physical elements. So that, even though I'm in a headset and I see a pen, in the headset, when I reach out and touch it, there's really a pen there that's tracked in the space. That adds a whole other level of immersion that allows it to be social. Because that's a contract between you and I that this is a physical thing that one of us is holding. It allows for a whole new world of opportunities of what can be done in VR. >> How important is the social aspect, in terms of adoption? Yourself or your mom cruising around on her own versus the opportunity to bring other people in? Is that some of the stuff that's going to make this, really, the killer app to get it over the next hump? Or what is the killer app, I guess, beyond cruising around half the time? >> 100%, I think it's making it social. How to open up that world. Because right now, it is a very isolating experience. There's no reason that it has to be, necessarily, it's just that the user base is not congregated around individual platforms. Facebook made a big opening salva last week when they released their Facebook spaces. That allows you to bring in people from the real world into your virtual experience. By being able to, through Facebook Messenger, I can call out while I'm in VR, I can call out to anyone who has Facebook Messenger's app installed. Then, I get a little video feed and they see me as an avatar on their phone screen. So, it's those hybridizations of connecting people in VR to people who are outside in the real world that's going to, really, hit the inflection point of wide adoption. >> There were some early versions of that in the past right? Where you had these virtual reality spaces inside the computer but they were not nearly as immersive as the ones that we have today. Why did those not, really, take off What was the one of them? I can't think of the name right now. Let's say it's Second City but that's not it. >> Brian: Oh, Second Life? >> Second Life versus today's world. What changed? >> Sure well, I wouldn't characterize Second Life as a failure. It had it's heyday. >> No, not a failure but I mean, it was an early attempt at what you just described, really, in the Facebook Messenger which is what triggered the thought. >> And funny enough, the Second Life team is now creating the virtual version of that called High Fidelity. So, they have their own attempt. There's a couple of other like ALTSpace Nobody has the install base of Facebook. And so once you plug in to that community, you're already connected with your friends. It just takes away the friction. The friction of VR is, really, what's holding back people. That and the isolation, I'd say, from wide adoption. Which is that, it's just not a seamless experience. Going in, finding the app I want, connecting with people easily. Being an early adopter, I've tried to run meetings through the Oculus social spaces. There's just a lot of friction with technical issues and people dropping in and out. It improves. They do releases all the time. All those issues are being worked out and the friction's just going to slowly going to go away to the point where it will be more convenient for us to take a meeting where we can sit face-to-face and read each other's expressions then it will to try to get the same amount done over the telephone or something like that. >> I have to laugh cause every time, whether you're on WebEx, pick your favorite meeting tool. It's still technical issues. I was thinking that YouTube video. One of the greatest YouTube videos ever. >> New medium, same problem. >> Yeah, same problem. Is Bob even here? He checks in at the end of the meeting. So, that's very cool. As you look forward and I know it's a fast moving space. What are some of your priorities? What do you see as some short term changes that are going to make a big impact? And what about, say a year from now. I don't even want to even guess much further out than that, that you see coming down the pike that's going to have a huge impact on the adoption of VR? >> Sure, so at the low end, we're starting to see inside out tracts mobile solutions. Meaning that, you can get that same kind of freedom to wander around a space that you can on a Vive or an Oculus but with a mobile headset. So, because the price point and the buried entry is so low, everyone already has or they'll have soon enough, a phone that's capable of running an experience like that. I think that will be an important first step. At the Technicolor Experience Center, which is Technicolor's new VR and AR and mixed reality focused wing, they're really betting that these immersive stories are the future of entertainment and how that will trickle across different market adjacencies and verticals to apply to medical and education and sports and fitness. The applications are just endless. I think we're seeing early Enterprise adoption right now. And then, on the consumer side, gaming is, really, where they found the early niche and there is a modernization model. But what we're, personally, interested in is showing people the very, very high end of what VR can be. Because once we show them the high end, they have a compelling reason to familiarize themselves with whatever it can be to them today. We're working on very high fidelity tract spaces where social and networks and we can be geographically together or remotely beamed in together but we feel embodied in that space in a way that's more immersive than currently available. In terms of being able to move lens and interact with the objects around us. That's what we're trying to prove out at Technicolor is how do we build high end entertainment experiences around those technical infrastructures that are not widely deployed today but they will be coming. I think, for monetization on those models, you're going to see a lot of installed spaces that people will, hopefully, flock to to get these high end experiences. >> So, what's your favorite high end experience right now? >> Well, I did get the chance to do the Void, the Ghostbusters VR Experience after Sundance and that was pretty incredible. It was a lot of fun. Just cause you're in it with someone else. It's like a new version of laser tag. It can apply to other areas, that was just a shooter game. Just that shared experience where we are both in the space together and we just know that we're getting access to this virtual world that no one else is seeing is a really special thing. >> It's just amazing how powerful the social aspect is to all these things. >> You want to talk about it with people. >> You want to talk about it. You want do it with somebody. You want to share it. It's such a powerful impact. >> Yeah and, I think, even on the mobile side that will help open up the world a lot because right now, if it's on a Vive or an Oculus, you can plug it into a monitor or a TV and I can see what you're doing in it. So, that's easy enough for me to feel like I'm, at least, participating in your experience. But when you're in mobile right now, you're, pretty much, locked in and I, really, have no idea what you are doing in the experience. So, I think, making it easily shareable across traditional channels or just me being able to opt into your experience or jointly share one, those are all things that are going to make it much more compelling for us to just say, hey, we have 10 minutes, let's dive into VR and do something together. That would be fun. >> Right, right, very cool. Alright Brian. Thanks for stopping by out of your busy day. >> Of course. Great to talk. >> Alright, Brian Frager. I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching theCUBE from NAB 2017. Thanks for watching. (lively music)

>> Narrator: Live from Austin, Texas, it's The Cube covering South by Southwest 2017, brought to you by Intel. Now, here's John Furrier. >> Hey, welcome everyone back for day two of live coverage of South by Southwest. This is the cube, our flagship program from Silicon Angle. We go out to the events and extract the (mumbles). We're at the Intel AI Lounge, people are rolling in, it's an amazing vibe here, South by Southwest. The themes are AI, virtual reality, augmented reality, technology. They got great booths here, free beers, free drinks, and of course great sessions and great conversations here with the Cube. My first guest of the day here is Ben Parr, a friend of the Cube. He's been an entrepreneur, he's been a social media maven, he's been a journalist, all around great guy. Ben, thanks for joining us today. >> Thank you for having me again. >> So you're a veteran with South by Southwest, you know the social scene, you've seen the evolution from Web 2.0 all the way to today, had Scobel on yesterday, Brian Fanzo, really the vibe is all about that next level, of social to connecting and you got a startup you're working on that you founded, co-founded called AI? >> Ben: Octane AI. >> Octane AI, that's in the heart of this new social fabric that's developing. Where AI is starting to do stuff, keep learning, analytics but, ultimately, it's just a connection. Talk about your company. What is Octane AI? Tell us a little bit about the company. >> So Octane AI is a platform that lets you build an audience on Facebook Messenger and then through a bot. And so, what we do is allow you to create a presence on Messenger because if I told you there was a social app that had a billion users every month, bigger than Snapchat plus Twitter plus Instagram combined you'd want to figure out a strategy for how to engage with those people right? And that social app is Facebook Messenger. And yet no one ever thinks, oh could I build an audience on a messaging app? Could I build an audience on Messenger or WeChat or any of the others. But you can through a bot. And you can not just build an audience but you can create really engaging content through conversation. So what we've done is, we've made it really easy to make a bot on messenger but more importantly, a real reason for people to, actually, come to your bot and engage with it and make it really easy to create content for it. In the same way you create content for a blog or create content for YouTube Channel. Maroon 5, Aerosmith, KISS, Lindsay Lohan, 30 seconds to MARS, Jason Derulo and a whole bunch more use us to build an audience and engage their fans on Messenger. >> So let me get your thoughts on a couple of trends around this. Cause this is really kind of, to me, a key part that chat bots illustrate the big trends that are going on. Chat bots were the hype. People were talking about, oh chat bots. It's a good mental model for people to see AI but it also has been, kind of, I won't say a pest, if you will, for users. It's been like a notification. A notification of the economy we're living in. Now you're taking it to the next level. This is what we're seeing. The deep learnings and the analytics around turning notifications which can be noisy after a while, into real content and connections. >> Into something useful, absolutely. Like look, the last year of bots. The Facebook platform is not even a year old. We've been in that fart apps stage of bots. Remember the first year of mobile apps? You had the fart app and that made $50,000 a day and that was annoying as hell. We're at that stage now, the experimentation stage. And we've seen different companies going in different, really cool directions. Our direction is, how do you create compelling content so you're not spamming people but you have content that you can share, not just in your bot but as a link on your social media to your followers, to your fans, on Twitter, everywhere else and have a scalable conversation about whatever you want. Maroon 5 has conversations with their audience about their upcoming tours or they even released an exclusive preview of their new song, Cold, through our bots. You could do almost anything with our bots or with any bot. We're just learning right now, as an industry, what are the best practices. >> So where do bots go for the next level? Because you and I have known each other for almost over 10 years, we've seen the whole movement and now we're living in a fake news era. But social media is evolving where content now is super important that glues people together, communities together. In a way, you're taking AI or bots, if you will. Which is a first, I mean, .5 version of where AI is going. Where content, now, is being blended into notifications. How important is content in community? >> Content in community are essential to any product. And I feel like when you hear the word bot, you don't think community and that you could build a community with it because it's a bot, it's supposed to be automated. But you, actually, can if you do it in the right way and it can be a very, very powerful experience. We're building features that allow you to build more community in your bot and have people who are talking with your bot communicate with each other. There's a lot of that. What I feel like is, we're at the zero point one or zero point two of the long scale of AI. What we need to do right now is showcase all the use cases that really work for AI, bots, machine learning. Over time, we will be adding more other great technologies from Intel and others that will make all these technologies and everything we do better, more social and most of all, more personalized. I think that's one of the big benefits of AI. >> Do you see bot technology or what bots can turn into being embedded into things like autonomous vehicles, AR, is there a stack developing, if you will, around bots? What you're talking about is a progression of bots. What's your vision on where this goes down the road? >> I see a bunch of companies, now, building the technological stack for AI. I see a bunch of companies building the consumer interface, bots is one of those consumer interfaces. Not just chat bots but voice bots. And then I see another layer that's more enterprise that's helping make more efficient things like recruiting or all sorts of automation or driving. That are being built as well. But you need each of those stacks to work really well to make this all work. >> So are there bots here at South by Southwest? Is there a bot explosion, is there bots that tell you where the best parties are? What's the scene here at Southby? Where are the bots and if there were bots, what would they be doing to help people figure out what to do? >> The Southby bot is, actually, not a bad bot. They launched their bot just before South by Southwest. It has a good party recommendations and things. But it the standard bot. I feel like what we're seeing is the best use, there's a lot of good bot people. What I'm seeing right now is that people are still flushing out the best use cases for their bots. There's no bot yet that can predict all the parties you want to go to. We got to have our expectations set. That will happen but we're still a few years away from really deep AI bots. But there are clearly ones where you can communicate faster with your friends. There's clearly ones that help you connect with your favorite artist. There's clearly ones that help you build an audience and communicate at scale. And I feel like the next step is the usefulness. >> Talk about the user interface. Robert Scobel and I were talking yesterday, we have some guests coming on today that had user experience background. With AI, with virtual reality, with bots, with deep learning, all this collective intelligence going on, what's your vision of the user interface as it changes, as people's expectations? What are some of those things that you might see developing pretty quickly as deep learning, analytics, more data stats come online? What is the user interface? Cause bots will intersect with that as an assistant or a value add for the user. What's your vision on? >> I'll tell you what I see in the near term and then I'll tell you a really crazy idea of how I see the long term. In the near term, I think what you're going to see is bots have become more predictive. That, based on your conversations, are more personalized and maybe not a necessarily need as much input from you to be really intelligent. And so voice, text, standard interfaces that we're used to. I think the bigger, longer run is neurological. Is the ability to interface without having to speak. Is AI as a companion to help us in everything we do. I feel like, in 30 years, we won't even, it's, kind of like, do your remember the world when it had no internet? It's hard, it feels so much different. There will be a point in about 20 years we will not understand what the world was before AI. Before AI assistance where assisting us mentally, automatically and through every interface. And so good AI's, in the long run, don't just run on one bot or one thing, they follow you wherever you go. Right now it might be on your phone. When you get home, it may be on your home, it may be in your car but it should be the same sets of AI's that you use daily. >> Doctor Nevine Rou, yesterday, called the AI the bulldozer for data. What bulldozers where in the real world, AI's going to do that for data. Cause you want to service more data and make things more usable for users. >> Yes, the data really helps AI become more personalized and that's a really big benefit to the user to every individual. The more personalized the experience, the less you have to do. >> Alright, so what's the most amazing thing you've seen so far this year at Southby? What's going on out there that's pretty amazing? That's popping out of the wood work? In terms of either trend, content, product, demos, what are some of the cool things you're seeing. >> So, as it is only Saturday, I feel like the coolest thing will still come to me. But outside of AI, there have been some really cool mixed reality, augmented reality demos. I can't remember the name. There's a product with butterflies flying around me. All sorts of really breaking edge technologies that, really, create another new interface honestly where AI may interact with us through the augmented reality of our world. I mean, that's Robert Scogul's thing exactly. But there's a lot of really cool things that are being built on that front. I think those are the obvious, coolest ones. I'm curious to see which ones are going to be the big winners. >> Okay, so I want to ask you a personal question. So you were doing some venture investing around AI and some other things. What caused you to put that pause button on that mission to start the chat bot AI company? >> So I was an investor for a couple of years. I invested in ubean, the wireless electricity company and Shots with Justin Bieber which is always fun. And I love investing and I love working with companies. But I got into Silicone Valley and I got into startups because I wanted to build companies. I wanted to build ideas. This happened, in part, because of my co-founders. My co-founder Matt, who is the first head of product at Ustream and twice into the Forbes 30 under 30. One of the king makers of the bot industry. The opportunity to be a part of building the future of AI was irresistible to me. I needed to be a part of that. >> Okay, can you tell any stories about Justin Bieber for us, while we're here inside the Cube? (laughs) >> I wonder how many of those I can, actually, tell? Okay, so look. Justin Bieber is an investor in a company I'm an investor in called Shots. Which is now a super studio that represents everyone from Lele Pons to Mike Tyson on digital online and they're doing really, really well. One of Justin's best friends is the founder, John Shahidi. And so it's just really random. Sitting with John, who I invested in and just getting random FaceTime's. Be like, oh it's Justin Bieber, say hi to Justin. As if it was nothing. As if it was a normal, it's a normal day in his life. >> Could you just have him retweet one of my Tweets. He's got like a zillion followers. What's his follower count at now? >> You don't want that. He's done that to me before. When Justin retweets you or even John retweets you, thousands of not tens of thousands of Justin Bieber fans, bots and not bots, start messaging you, asking you to follow them, talking to you all the time. I still get the tweets all the time from all the Justin fans. >> Okay don't tweet me then. I'm nice and happy with 21,000 followers. Alright, so next level for you in terms of this venture. Obviously, they got some rock stars in there. What's the next step for you guys right now? Give us a little inside baseball in the venture status where you guys are at. What's the next step? >> We launched the company publicly in November, we started in May. We raised 1.6 million from general catalyst, from Sherpa Ventures, a couple of others. When we launched our new feature, Convos, which allows you to create shareable bots, shareable conversations with the way you share blog posts. And that came out with all those launch partners I mentioned before like Maroon 5. We're working on perfecting the experience and, mostly, trying to make a really, really compelling experience with the user with bots because if we can't do that, then there's no use to doing anything. >> So you provide the octane for the explosive conversations? (laughs) >> Yes, there you go, thank you, thank you. And we make it really easy. So we're just trying to make it easier to do this. This is a product that your mom could use, that an artist could use, any social media team could use. Writing a convo is like writing a blog post on media. >> Are moms really getting the chat bot scene? I, honestly, get the Hollywood. I'm going to go back to Hollywood in a second but being a general, middle America kind of tech/genre, what are they like? Are they grokking the whole bot thing? What's the feedback from middle America tech? >> But think of it this way. There are a billion people on Messenger and it's a, really, part of the question, they all use Facebook Messenger. And so, they may be communicating with a bot without knowing it. Or they might want to communicate with their fans. It's not about the technology as much as this is like connecting with who you really care about. If I really care about a Maroon 5 or Rachel Ray, I can now have that option. And it doesn't really matter what the technology is as much as it is that personal connection, that experience is good. >> John: Is it one-one-one or group? Cause it sounds like it's town hall, perfect for a town hall situation. >> It's one-on-one, it's scale. So you could have a conversation with a bot while each of the audience members is having a conversation one-on-one. When you can choose different options and it could be a different conversation for each person. >> Alright, so I got to ask about the Hollywood scene. You mentioned Justin Bieber. I wanted to go down that because Hollywood really has adopted social media pretty heavily because they can go direct to the audience. We're seeing that. Obviously, with the election, Trump was on Twitter. He bypasses all the press but Hollywood has done very well with social. How are they using the bots? They are a tell sign of where it's going. Can you share some antidotal stories or data around how Maroon 5, Justin, these guys are leveraging this and what's some of the impact? >> Sure, so about a month 1/2, 2 months before Maroon 5 launched their new song, new single, Cold. They came to us and wanted to build a distribution. They wanted to reach their audience in a more direct personal way. And so we helped them make a bot. It didn't take long. We helped them write convos. And so what they did was they wrote convos about things like exclusive behind the scenes photos from their recent tour or their top moments of 2016 or things that their fans really care about. And they shared em. They got a URL just like you would get, a blog poster URL. They shared it out with their 39 million Facebook fans, they shared it with their Twitter followers, they shared it across their social media. And 10's of thousand's of people started talking with their bot each time they did this. About 24 hours before the bot, before their new single release, they exclusively released a 10 second clip of Cold through their bot. And when they did that, within 24 hours, the size of their bot doubled because it went viral within the Maroon 5 community. There's a share function in our convos and people shared the convo with their friends and with their friends friends and it kept on spreading. We saw this viral graph happen. And the next day when they released the single, 1000's of people bought the song because of the bot alone. And now the bot is a core of their social strategy. They share a convo every single week and it's not just them but now Lohan and a whole bunch of others are doing the same thing. >> John: Lindsay Lohan. >> Lindsay Lohan is one of our most popular bots. Her fans are really dedicated. >> And so you can almost see it's, almost connecting with CGI, looking at what CGI's doing in film making. You could almost have a CGI component built-in. So it's all this stuff coming together. >> Ben: Multimedia matters. >> So what do you think about the Intel booth here? The AI experience? They got some Kinetic photo experience, amazing non-profit activities in deep loading (mumbles), missing children, what do you think? >> This is some of the best use cases for AI which is, people think of AI as just like the direct consumer interface which is what we do but AI is an underlying layer to everything we do. And if it can help even 1% or 1,000% identify and find missing children or increase the efficiency of our technology stacks so that we save energy. Or we figure out new ways to save energy. This is where AI can really make an impact. It is just a fundamental layer of everything. In the same way the internet is just a fundamental layer of everything. So I've seen some very cool things here. >> Alright, Ben Parr, great guest, in venture capitalist now founder of a great company Octane AI. High octane, explosive conversations looking forward to adopting. We're going to, definitely, take advantage of the chat bot and maybe we can get some back stage passes to Maroon 5. (laughs) >> (laughs) There will be some fun times in the future, I know it. >> Alright Ben Parr. >> Ben: Justin Bieber. >> Justin Bieber inside the Cube right here and Ben Parr. Thanks for watching. It's the Intel AI Lounge. A lot of great stuff. A lot of great people here. Thanks for joining us. Our next guest will be up after this short break. (lively music)

>> Announcer: Live from San Francisco it's The Cube covering Oracle OpenWorld 2016 brought to you by Oracle. Now here's your host, John Furrier and Peter Burris. >> Hey welcome back everyone. We are live in San Francisco at Oracle OpenWorld 2016. This is SiliconANGLE, the key of our flagship program. We go out to the events, extract a signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier, Co-CEO of SiliconANGLE with Peter Burris, head of Research at SiliconANGLE as well as the General Manager of Wikibon Research, our next guest is Siddhartha Agarwal, Vice-President of Product Management and Strategy of Oracle Cloud Platform. Welcome back to the Cube, good to see you. >> Yes, hi John. Great to be here. >> So I've seen a lot of great stuff. The core messaging from the corporate headquarters Cloud Cloud Cloud, but there's so much stuff going on in Oracle on all the applications. We've had many great conversations around the different, kind of, how the price are all fitting into the cloud model. But Peter and I were talking yesterday in our wrap-up about, we're the developers. >> Siddhartha: Yeah. >> Now and someone made a joke, oh they're at JavaOne, which is great. A lot of them are at JavaOne, but there's a huge developer opportunity within the Oracle core ecosystem because Cloud is very developer friendly. Devops, agile, cloud-native environments really cater to, really, software developers. >> Yeah, absolutely and that's a big focus area for us because we want to get developers excited about the ability to build the next generation of applications on the Oracle Cloud. Cloud-native applications, microservices-based applications and having that environment be open with choice of programming languages, open in terms of choice of which databases they want, not just Oracle database. NoSQL, MySQL, other databases and then choice of the computeship that you're using. Containers, bare metal, virtual environments and an open standard. So it's giving a very open, modern easy platform for developers so that they'll build on our platform. >> You know, one of the things that we always talk about at events is when we talk to companies really trying to win the hearts and minds of developers. You always hear, we're going to win the developers. They're like an object, like you don't really win developers. Developers are very fickle but very loyal if you can align with what they're trying to do. >> Siddartha: Yeah. >> And they'll reject hardcore tactics of selling and lock-in so that's a concern. It's a psychology of the developers. They want cool but they want relevance and they want to align with their goals. How do you see that 'cause I think Oracle is a great ecosystem for a developer. How do you manage that psychology 'cause Oracle has traditionally been an enterprise software company, so software's great but... Amazon has a good lead on the developers right now. You know, look at the end of the day you have to get developers realizing that they can build excellent, fun creative applications to create differentiation for their organizations, right, and do it fast with cool technologies. So we're giving them, for example, not just the ability to build with Java EE but now they can build in Java SE with Tomcat, they can build with Node, they can build with PHP and soon they'll be able to do it with Ruby and Daikon. And we're giving that in a container-based platform where they don't necessarily have to manage the container. They get automatic scalability, they get back up batching, all of that stuff taken care of for them. Also, you know, being able to build rich, mobile applications, that's really important for them. So how they can build mobile applications using Ionic, Angular, whatever JavaScript framework they want, but on the back end they have to be able to connect these mobile apps to the enterprise. They have to get location-based inside and to where the person is who's using the mobile app. They need to be able to get inside and tell how the mobile app's been used, and you've heard Larry talk about the Chatbot platform, right? How do you engage with customers in a different way through Facebook Messenger? So those are some of the new technologies that we're making very easily available and then at the end of the day we're giving them choice of databases so it's not just Oracle database that you get up and running in the Cloud and it's provision managed, automated for you. But now you can ask for NoSQL databases. You can have Cassandra, MongoDB run on our IaaS and MySQL. We just announced MySQL enterprise edition available as a service in the Public Cloud. >> Yeah one of the things that developers love, you know, being an ex-developer myself in the old days, is, and we've talked to them... They're very loyal but they're very pragmatic and they're engineers, basically they're software engineers. They love tools, great tools that work, they want support, but they want distribution of their product that they create, they're creators, so distribution ultimately means modernization but developers don't harp too much on money-making although they'd want to make money. They don't want to be abandoned on those three areas. They don't want to be disloyal. They want to be loyal, they want support and they want to have distribution. What does Oracle bring to the table to address those three things? >> Yeah, they're a few ways in which we're thinking of helping developers with distributions. For example, one is, developers are building applications that they exposing their APIs and they want to be able to monetize those APIs because they are exposing business process and a logic from their organization as APIs so we're giving them the ability to have portals where they can expose their APIs and monetize the APIs. The other thing is we've also got the Oracle Cloud Marketplace where developers can put their stuff on Oracle Cloud Marketplace so others can be leveraging that content and they're getting paid for that. >> How does that work? Do they plug it into the pass layer? How does the marketplace fit in if I'm a developer? >> Sure, the marketplace is a catalog, right, and you can put your stuff on the catalog. Then when you want to drag and drop something, you drop it onto Oracle PaaS or onto Oracle IaaS. So you're taking the application that you've built and then you got it to have something that-- >> John: So composing a solution on the fly of your customer? >> Well, yeah exactly, just pulling a pre-composed solution that a developer had built and being able to drop it onto the Oracle PaaS and IaaS platform. >> So the developer gets a customer and they get paid for that through the catalog? >> Yes, yes, yes and it's also better for customers, right? They're getting all sorts of capability pre-built for them, available for them, ready for them. >> So one of the things that's come up, and we've heard it, it was really amplified too much but we saw it and it got some play. In developer communities, the messaging on the containers and microservers as you mentioned earlier. Huge deal right now. They love that ability to have the containerization. We even heard containers driving down into the IaaS area, so with the network virtualization stuff going on, so how is that going to help developers? What confidence will you share to developers that you guys are backing the container standards-- >> Siddhartha: Absolutely. >> Driving that, participating in that. >> Well I think there are a couple of things. First of all, containers are not that easy in terms of when you have to orchestrate under the containers, you have to register these containers. Today the technology is for containers to be managed, the orchestration technology which is things like Swarm, Kubernetes, MISO, et cetera. They're changing very rapidly and then in order to use these technologies, you have to have a scheduler and things like that. So there's a stack of three or four, relatively recent technologies, changing at a relatively fast pace and that creates a very unstable stack for someone who create production level stuff for them, right? The docker container that they built actually run from this slightly shaky stack. >> Like Kubernetes or what not. >> Yeah yeah and so what we've done is we're saying, look, we're giving you container as a service so if you've already created docker containers, you can now bring those containers as is to the Oracle Public Cloud. You can take this application, these 20 containers and then from that point on we've taken care of putting the containers out, scaling the containers up, registering the containers, managing the containers for you, so you're just being able to use that environment as a developer. And if you want to use the PaaS, that's that IaaS. If you want to use the PaaS, then the PhP node, JavaSE capability that I told you was also containerized. You're just not exposed to docker there. Actually, I know he's got a question, but I want to just point out Juan Loaiza, who was on Monday, he pointed out the JSON aspect of the database was I thought was pretty compelling. From a developer's standpoing, JSON's very really popular with managing APIs. So having that in the database is really kind of a good thing so people should check out that interview. >> Very quickly, one of the historical norm for developers is you start with a data model and then you take various types of tools and you build code that operates against that development for that basic data model. And Oracle obviously has, that's a big part of what your business has historically been. As you move forward, as we start looking at big data and the enormous investment that businesses are making in trying to understand how to utilize that technology, it's not going as well as a lot folks might've thought it would in part because the developer community hasn't fully engaged how to generate value out of those basic stacks of technology. How is Oracle, who has obviously a leadership position in database and is now re-committing itself to some of these new big data technologies, how're you going to differentially, or do you anticipate differentially presenting that to developers so they can do more with big data-like technologies? >> They're a few things that we've done, wonderful question. First of all, just creating the Hadoop cluster, managing the Hadoop cluster, scaling out the Hadoop cluster requires a lot of effort. So we're giving you big data as a service where you don't have to worry about that underlying infrastructure. The next problem is how do you get data into the data lake, and the data has been generated at tremendous volume. You think about internet of things, you think about devices, et cetera. They're generating data at tremendous volume. We're giving you the ability to actually be able to use a streaming, Kafka, Sparc-based serviced to be able to bring data in or to use Oracle data intergration to be able to stream data in from, let's say, something happening on the Oracle database into your big data hub. So it's giving you very easy ways to get your data into the data hub and being able to do that with HDFS, with Hive, whichever target system you want to use. Then on top of that data, the next challenge is what do you visualize, right? I mean, you've got all this data together but a very small percentage is actually giving you insight. So how do you look at this and find that needle in the haystack? So for that we've given you the ability to do analytics with the BI Cloud service to get inside into the data where we're actually doing machine learning. And we're getting inside from the data and presenting those data sets to the most relevant to the most insightful by giving you some smart insights upfront and by giving you visualizations. So for example, you search for, in all these forms, what are the users says as they entered in the data. The best way to present that is by a tag cloud. So giving you visualization that makes sense, so you can do rich discovery and get rich insight from BI Cloud service and the data visualization cloud service. Lastly, if you have, let's say, five years of data on an air conditioner and the product manager's trying to get inside into that data saying, hey what should I fix so that that doesn't happen next time around. We're giving you the big data discovery cloud service where you don't have to set up that data lab, you don't have to set up the models, et cetera. You could just say replicate two billing rows, we'll replicate it in the cloud for you within our data store and you can start getting insight from it. >> So how are developers going to start using these tools 'cause it's clear that data scientists can use it, it's clear that people that have more of analytic's background can use it. How're developers going to start grabbing a lot of these capabilities, especially with machine learning and AI and some of the other things on the horizon? And how do you guys anticipate you're going to present this stuff to a developer community so that they can, again, start creating more value for the business? Is that something that's on the horizon? >> You know it's here, it's not on the horizon, it's here. We're helping developers, for example, build a microservice that wants to get data from a treadmill that one of the customers is running on, right? We're trying to get data from one of the customers on the treadmills. Well the developer now creates a microservice where the data from the treadmill has been ingested into a data lake. We've made it very easy for them to ingest into the data lake and then that microservice will be able to very easily access the data, expose only the portion of the data that's interesting. For example, the developer wants to create a very rich mobile app that presents the customer running with all the insight into the average daily calorie burn and what they're doing, et cetera. Now they can take that data, do analytics on it and very easily be able to present it in the mobile platform without having to work through all the plumbing of the data lake, of the ingestion, of the visualization, of the mobile piece, of the integration of the backend system. All of that is being provided so developers can really plug and play and have fun. >> Yeah, they want that fun. Building is the fun part, they want to have fun-- >> They want relevance, great tools and not have to worry about the infrastructure. >> John: They want distribution. They want their work to be showcased. >> Peter: That's what I mean about relevance, that's really about relevance. >> They want to work on the cool stuff and again-- >> And be relevant. >> Developers are starting to have what I call the nightclub effect. Coding is so much fun now, there's new stuff that comes out. They want to hack with the new codes. They want to play with some that fit the form factor with either a device or whatnot. >> Yeah and one other thing that we've done is, we've made the... All developers today are doing containers delivery because they need to release code really fast, right. It's no longer about months, it's about days or hours that they have to release. So we're giving a complete continuous delivery framework where people can leverage Git for their code depository, they can use Maven for continuous integration, they can use Puppet and Chef for stripping. The can manage the backlog of their task. They can do code reviews, et cetera, all done in the cloud for them. >> So lifestyles, hospitality. Taking care of developers, that's what you got to do. >> Exactly, that's a great analogy. You know all these things, they have to have these tools that they put together and what we're doing is we're saying, you don't have to worry about putting together those tools, just use them. But if you have some, you can plug in. >> Well we think, Wikibon and SiliconeANGLE, believe that there's going to be a tsunami of enterprise developers with the consumerization of IT, now meaning the Cloud, that you're going to see enterprise development, just a boom in development. You're going to see a lot more activity. Now I know it's different in development by it's not just pure Cloud need, it's some Legacy, but it's going to be a boom so we think you guys are very set up for that. Certainly with the products, so my final question for you Siddhartha is, what's your plans? I mean, sounds great. What're you going to do about it? Is there a venture happening? How're you guys going to develop this opportunity? What're you guys going to do? >> So the product sets are already there but we're evolving those products sets to a significant pace. So first of all, you can go to cloud.oracle.com/tryit and try these cloud services and build the applications on it, that's there. We've got a portal called developer.oracle.com where you can get resources on, for example, I'm a JavaScript developer. What's everything that Oracle's doing to help JavaScript developers? I'm a MySQL developer. what's everyone doing to help with that? So they've got that. Then starting at the beginning of next year, we're going to roll out a set of workshops that happen in many cities around the world where we go work with developers, hands on, and getting them inside an experience of how to build these rich, cloud-native, microservices-based applications. So those are some of the things and then our advocacy program. We already have the ACE Program, the ACE Directive Program. Working with that program to really make it a very vibrant, energetic ecosystem that is helping, building a sort of sample codes and building expert knowledge around how the Oracle environment can be used to build really cool microservices-based, cloud-native-- >> So you're investing, you're investing. >> Siddhartha: Oh absolutely. >> Any big events, you're just more little events, any big events, any developer events you guys going to do? >> So we'll be doing these workshops and we'll be sponsoring a bunch non-Oracle developer events and then we'll be launching a big developer event of our own. >> Great, so final question. What's in it for the developer? If I'm a developer, what's in it for me? Hey I love Oracle, thanks for spending the money and investing in this. What's in it for me? Why, why should I give you a look? >> Because you can do it faster with higher quality. So that microservices application that I was talking about, if you went to any other cloud and tried to build that microservices-based application that got data from the treadmill into a data lake using IoT and the analytics integration with backend applications, it would've taken you a lot longer. You can get going in the language of your choice using the database of your choice, using standards of your choice and have no lock-in. You can take your data out, you can take your code out whenever you want. So do it faster with openness. >> Siddhartha, thanks for sharing that developer update. We were talking about it yesterday. Our prayers were answered. (laughing) You came on The Cube. We were like, where is the developer action? I mean we see that JavaOne, we love Java, certainly JavaScript is awesome and a lot of good stuff going on. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on the investments and to continuing bringing developer goodness out there. >> Thank you, John. >> This The Cube, we're sharing that data with you and we're going to bring more signal from the noise here after this short break. You're watching The Cube. (electronic beat)