>> Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're at Data Privacy Day at Twitter's World Headquarters in downtown San Francisco. Full-day event, a lot of seminars and sessions talking about the issue of privacy. Even though Scott McNealy in 1999 said, "Privacy's dead, get over it," everyone here would beg to differ; and it's a really important topic. We're excited to have Michelle Dennedy. She's the Chief Privacy Officer from Cisco. Welcome, Michelle. >> Indeed, thank you. And when Scott said that, I was his Chief Privacy Officer. >> Oh you were? >> I'm well acquainted with my young friend Scott's feelings on the subject. >> It's pretty interesting, 'cause that was eight years before the iPhone, so a completely different world than actually one of the prior guests we were talking about privacy is an issue in the Harvard Business Review from 125 years ago. So this is not new. >> Absolutely. >> So how have things changed? I mean that's a great perspective that you were there. What was he kind of thinking about and really what are the privacy challenges now compared to 1999? >> So different. Such a different world. I mean fascinating that when that statement was made the discussion was a press conference where we were introducing Connectivity. It was an offshoot of Java, and it basically allowed you to send from your personal computer a wireless message to your printer so that a document could come out (gasp). >> That's what it was? >> Yeah. >> Wireless printing? >> Wireless printing. And really it was gyro technology, so anything wirelessly could start talking to each other in an internet of things world. >> Right. >> So, good news bad news. The world has exploded from there, obviously; but the base premise of, can I be mobile, can I live in a world of connectivity, and still have control over my story, who I am, where I am, what I'm doing? And it was really a reframing moment of when you say privacy is dead, if what you mean by that is secrecy and hiding away and not being connected to the world around you, I may agree with you. However, privacy as a functional definition of how we define ourselves, how we live in a culture, what we can expect in terms of morality, ethics, respect, and security, alive and well, baby. Alive and well. >> (laughs) No shortage of opportunity to keep you busy. We talked to a lot of people who go to a lot of tech conferences. I have to say I don't know that we've ever talked to a Chief Privacy Officer. >> You're missing out. >> I know, so not you get to define the role, I love it. So what are your priorities as Chief Priority Officer? What are you keeping an eye on day to day as well as what are your more strategic objectives? >> It's a great question. So the rise of the Chief Privacy Officer, actually Scott was a big help in that and gave me exactly the right amount of rope to hang myself with. The way I look at it is, probably the simplest analogy is, should you have a Chief Financial Officer? >> Yeah. >> I would guess yeah, right? That didn't exist about 100 years ago. We just kind of loped along, and whoever had the biggest bag of money at the end was deemed to be successful. Where if somebody else who had no money left at the end but bought another store, you would have no way of measuring that. So the Chief Privacy Officer is that person for your digital currency. I look at the pros and the cons, the profit and the loss, of data and the data footprint for our company and for all the people to whom we sell. We think about, what are those control mechanisms for data? So think of me as your data financial officer. >> Right, right. But the data in and of itself is just stagnant, right? It's really just the data in the context of all these other applications. How it's used, where it's used, when it's used, what it's combined with, that really starts to trip into areas of value as well as potential problems. >> I feel like we scripted this before, but we didn't. >> Jeff: We did not script it, we don't script the-- >> So if I took out a rectangle out of my wallet, and it had a number on it, and it was green, what would you say that thing probably is? >> Probably Andrew Jackson on the front. >> Yeah, probably Andrew Jackson. What is that? >> A 20 dollar bill. >> Why is that a 20 dollar bill? >> Because we agree that you're going to give it to me and it has that much value, and thankfully the guy at Starbucks will give me 20 bucks worth of coffee for it. >> (laughs) Exactly. Well which could be a cup the way we're going. >> Which could be a cup. >> But that's exactly right. So is that 20 dollar bill stagnant? Yes. That 20 dollar bill just sitting on the table between us is nothing. I could burn it up, I could put it in my pocket and lose it and never see it again. I could flush it down the toilet. That's how we used to treat our data. If you recognize instead the story that we share about that piece of currency, we happen to be in a place where it's really easy to alienate that currency. I could go downstairs here and spend it. If I was in Beijing I probably would have to go and convert it into a different currency, and we'd tell a story about that conversion because our standards interface is different. Data is exactly the same way. The story that we share together today is a valuable story because we're communicating out, we're here for a purpose. >> Right. >> We're making friends. I'm liking you because you're asking me all these great questions that I would have fed you had I been able to feed you questions. >> Jeff: (laughs) But it's only that context, it's only that communicability that brings it value. We now assume as a populous that paper currency is valuable. It's just paper. It's only as good as the story that enlivens it. So now we're looking at smaller, smaller Microdata transactions of how am I tweeting out information to people who follow me? >> Jeff: Right, right. >> How do I share that with your following public, and does that give me a greater opportunity to educate people about security and privacy? Does that allow my company to sell more of my goods and services because we're building ethics and privacy into the fabric of our networks? I would say that's as valuable or more valuable than that Andrew Jackson. >> So it's interesting 'cause you talk about building privacy into the products. We often hear about building security into the products, right? Because the old way of security of building a bigger wall doesn't work any more and you really have to bake it in at all steps of the application: development, the data layer, the database, et cetera, et cetera. When you look at privacy versus security, and especially 'cause Cisco's sitting on, I mean you guys are sitting on the pipes, everything is running through your machines. >> That's right. >> How do you separate the two, how do you prioritize, and how do you make sure the privacy discussion is certainly part of that gets the right amount of relevance within the context of the security conversation? >> It's a glib answer that's much more complicated, but the security is really in many instances the what. I can really secure almost any batch of data. It can be complete gobbley gook zeroes and ones. It could be something really critical. It could be my medical records. The privacy and the data about what that context is, that's the why. I don't see them as one or the other at all. I see security and security not as not a technology but a series of verb things that you actually physically, people process technologies. That enactment should be addressed to a why. So it's kind of Peter Drucker's management of you manage what you measure. That was like incendiary advice when it first came out. Well I wanted to say that you secure what you treasure. So if you treasure a digital interaction with your employees, your customers, and your community, you should probably secure that. >> Right. But it seems like there's a little bit of a disconnect about maybe what should be treasured and what is the value with folks that have grown up. Let's pick on the young kids, not really thinking through or having the time or knowing an impact of a negative event in terms of just clicking and accepting the EULA and using that application on their phone. They just look at in a different way. Is that valid? How do they change that behavior? How do you look at this new generation, and there's this sea of data which is far larger than it used to be coming off all these devices, internet of things, obviously. People are things too. The mobile devices with all that geolocation data, and the sensor data, and then oh by the way it's all going to be in our cars and everything else shortly. How's that landscape changing and challenging you in new ways, and what are you doing about it? >> The speed and dynamics are astronomical. How do you count the stars, right? >> Jeff: (laughs) >> And should you? Isn't that kind of a waste of time? >> Jeff: Right, right. >> It used to be that knowledge, when I was a kid, was knowing what was in A to Z of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Now facts are cheap. Facts used to be expensive. You had to take time and commit to them, and physically find them, and be smart enough to read, and on, and on, and on. The dumbest kid is smarter than I was with my Encyclopedia Britannica because we have search engines. Now their commodity is how do I critically think? How do I make my brand and make my way? How do I ride and surf on a wave of untold quantities of information to create a quality brand for myself? So the young people are actually in a much better position than, I'll still count us as young. >> Jeff: Yeah, Uh huh. >> But maybe less young. >> Less young, less young than we were yesterday. >> We are digital natives, but I think I am hugely optimistic that the kids coming up are really starting to understand the power of brand: personal brand, family brand, cultural brand. And they're feeling very activist about the whole thing. >> Yeah, which is interesting 'cause that was never a factor when there was no personal brand, right? You were part of-- >> No way. >> whatever entity that you were in. >> Well, you were in a clique. >> Right. >> Right? You identified as when I was home I was the third out of four kids. I was a Roman Catholic girl in the Midwest. I was a total dork with a bowl haircut. Now kids can curate who and what and how they are over the network. Young professionals can connect with people with experience. Or they can decide, I get this all the time on Twitter actually. How did you become a Chief Privacy Officer? I'm really interested in taking a pivot in my career. And I love talking to those people 'cause they always educate me, and I hope that I give them a little bit of value too. >> Right, right. Michelle, we could go on for on and on and on. But, unfortunately, I think you got to go cover a session. So we're going to let you go. >> Thank you. >> Michelle Dennedy, thanks for taking a few minutes of your time. >> Thank you, and don't miss another Data Privacy Day. >> I will not. We'll be back next year as well. I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching theCUBE. See you next time.