>> From Sand Hill Road in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE. Presenting, the People First Network, insights from entrepreneurs and tech leaders. >> Hello everyone I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, we are here in Sand Hill Road up at Mayfield Venture Capital Firm for their 50th anniversary, their People First Network series, produced with theCUBE and Mayfield, I'm John Furrier, with Bill Schlough, the Chief Information Officer of the San Francisco Giants, CUBE alumni, great to see you thanks for joining me today for this People First Series we're doing with Mayfield's 50th anniversary, thanks for coming in. >> Good to be here, John. >> So, been a while since we chatted, it's been a year, A lot's happening in tech, you can't go a year, that's like seven dog years in tech, lot happening, you're managing, as the CIO for the Giants, a lot of things going on in baseball, what's the priorities for you these days, obviously, you guys, great social, great fan experience, what's new for you, what's the priority? >> Man, there's always something new. It's what I love about it, this'll be my 20th season with the Giants comin' up. And, it never gets old, there's always new challenges. On the field, in the seats, off the field, you name it. As we look toward next year, really excited about bringin' in a new video board, which we haven't publicly announced, maybe I just did publicly announce, we're breaking news on theCUBE today. So we're puttin' in a new video board, it'll be over three times the size of the one we have today. That's big news, we're doing a lot of exciting things in the ticketing world. The ticketing world is really transforming right before our eyes in terms of the way fans buy tickets. It's changed a lot. Once up on a time you could call a game a sellout, and we sold out 530 straight games at AT&T Park, but really there's no such thing as a sellout anymore I mean, at any point you can get a great ticket, so we have to adapt to that and change the product that we're delivering to fans, so making some changes on the ticketing front, the fan experience, the ballpark with the video board, and another thing that's changing a lot is the way fans consume our game when they're not at the ballpark. It's rare that you're going to see somebody sit on a couch for three plus hours and watch a game continuously anymore. Fans are consuming through mobile devices, streaming, catching clips here and there, all different methods, and it's fun to be a part of that, because, fans still love the game, but they're just consuming it in different ways. >> Yeah, I love having chats with you on theCUBE because one of the things that have always been the same from nine years doing theCUBE is, the buzzword of consumerization of IT has been out there, overused, but you're living it, you have a consumer product, the ultimate consumer product, in Major League Baseball, and the Giants, great franchise, in a great city, in a great stadium, with a rabid fanbase, and they know tech, so you have all the elements of tech, but the expectation of consumers, and the experiences are changing all the time, you got to deliver on the expectations and introduce new experiences that become expectations, and this is the flywheel of innovation, and it's really hard, but I really respect what you guys are doing over there, and that's why I'm always curious, but, always, the question comes back to, is, can I get faster wifi in the stadium? (laughs) It's always the number one question >> It's funny that you ask that because it is AT&T Park, you know, so, honestly, we got to check that box, and we've had to for years, all the way back to when we first rolled it out, way back in 2004 when we first rolled out wifi in the park, people weren't asking for it then, people were coming to the ballpark with a laptop and plugging a card into it, and there were about a hundred of them that were accessing it, but today, what's interesting is, who knows what next, but we're not talkin' about wifi as much, wifi is just kind of, expected, you got to have it, like water. You're talkin' about 5G networks, and new ways to connect. Honestly, this past season, our wifi usage in terms of the number of fans that use wifi, what we call the take rate, the percentage of fans, was actually down 30% from the previous year. Not because we had less fans in the stadium, because this is the take rate, a percentage of fans in the stadium, went down, because AT&T made some massive investments in their cellular infrastructure at the ballpark, and if you're just connecting, and you got great bandwidth, you don't feel the need to switch over to wifi, so who knows what the future will hold? That's a great point, and you see the LTE networks have so much more power, it used to be you needed wifi to upload your photos, so you'd go in, log in, and if they auto login that's cool, but people don't need to. >> Not with photos, what they need it now for is when we see it really maxing out is events, like our Eagles concert, or Journey concert, or a really big game, like opening day, or honestly, Warriors playoffs game, 49ers football games, that's when folks are streamin' to video. For streamin' to video, they're still goin' to that wifi. Yeah, that's the proven method, plus they don't want to jack up their charges on the AT&T site, but I won't go there, Let's talk about innovat-- Most say unlimited, I will go there, most say unlimited these days. >> Really, I got to find that plan, my daughter's killin' me with her watchin' Netflix on LTE, I tell her. Innovation is changing, I want to get your thoughts on this, 'cause I know you're on the front end of a lot of innovations, you do a lot of advising here at Mayfield. The VC's always trying to read the tea leaves, you're living it, what's the innovation formula look like now for you 'cause as you're sittin' in your staff meetings, as you look at the team of people around you, you guys want to foster, you do foster, innovation culture. What's the formula, what do you guys do when you have those meetings, when everyone's sitting around the table sayin', what do we do next? "How do we create a better experience? "How can we get better fans, and better product "in their hands as fast as possible?" What's your strategy? >> You know, it's funny, people talk about the secret sauce for innovation, what's the formula? I would say, for us, it's really a symbiotic relationship with a lot of things, first of all, where we are, geographically, we've got folks like Mayfield, down the street, and many others, that we can talk to, that are, when innovation is happening, when the startups are incubating, they're being funded by these guys, a lot of times they are here, and our phones are ringing off the hook with a lot of folks so my formula for innovation is answer the phone and take the meetings, but, to be honest, that creates its own problems, because there's so many great ideas out there, if you try to do all of them, you're going to fail at all of them. You got to pick a very small few to try to experiment with, give it a shot, we just don't have the bandwidth, we only have 250 full-time staff on the business side. For us, geographically, you have to really be laser-focused and say okay, there are so many great ideas out here, which are the three or four that we're going to focus on this year, and really give it a try, that's really going to drive, propel our business forward, enhance our product on the field, whatever it might be, but I'll tell you where it really truly starts. It's from the top with our CEO. And, I've had a few different bosses over the years, but with the Giants, our CEO is singularly focused on all of us doing things folks have never done before regardless of what business unit you're in. Whether you're in ticketing, finance, marketing, sales, what drives him, and drives all of us, is innovation. And his eyes glaze over when I talk to him about cost-cutting, and his eyes can glaze over really fast. But when I talk to him about doing something no one's ever done before, that's when he sits forward in his chair, he gets engaged, and I just have a great boss, Larry Baer, he's been with us for 25 years wit the Giants, and he is the driver for it, he creates the culture from the top, where all of us, we want to impress him, and to impress him, you got to do sometin' nobody's ever done before, and what's even more interesting is there are some challenges and some changes talking place across our industry, as I said before, ticketing and other areas, and I've sat in meetings with him where somebody might raise their hand and say, "But this is happening across the industry, "so it's just a macro trend," and he'll get upset, be like, "I don't care about macro trends. "We are here in the Bay Area, "we're the San Francisco Giants, "we're going to do it our way." >> And so when you do it your way, he promotes risk-taking, so that's a great culture. What are some of the things you have tried that were risky, and/or risque, or maybe an experiment, that went well, and maybe ones that didn't go well, can you share some color commentary around that? >> Sure, over 20 years we've had some of all of those. I would say, I've had some real scary moments, our culture is collaborative, but I wouldn't call it combative, but we all have strong opinions, a lot of us have been there a long time, and we have strong opinions and so we'll battle, internally, a lot, but then once the battle is over, we'll all align behind the victory. Thinking back, one of the most stressful times for me at the ballpark was related to wifi, when we decided to take our antennas and put 'em under people's seats. No one had ever done that before, and there were two major concerns with that. One is, honestly are people going to get cancer from these antennas under their seats, it's never been done before, what's going to happen, and whether it's going to happen or not, what's the perception of our fans going to be, because, these are, the bread and butter is, the golden goose here, all the fans, so, yeah it's great that they're going to be, have faster connection here at AT&T Park, but if they think they're going to get cancer, they're going to cancel their season ticket plans, we got to problem. Number two is, we're taking away a little storage space also, under the seats, so it was very controversial internally, we did all of our research, we proved that having a wifi antennae under your seat is the equivalent to having a cell phone in your pocket, most people do that, so we're pretty safe there, and from the storage space perspective, honestly, it actually elevates your stuff, if somebody spills a Coke behind ya, it'll fall all around your purse, which is sitting on top of that wifi antenna so we came up with a good solution, but that was an example of something that was really controversial >> So beer goes on the antennae not your bag. (laughs) >> Exactly, your bag stays dry, we found a way to spin that but, there have been so many, I can go way back in time, back to the days when it was the PalmPilot that ruled the day instead of the apple >> Well you guys also did a good job on social media, I got to give you guys props, because, you're one of the first early adopters on making the fan experience very interactive. That was, at that time, not viewed as standard. Yeah, built the @Cafe at our ballpark, which is still there really to try to bring social media to the fans. >> I think you're the first ballpark to have a kale garden, too, I think. >> That's a little off topic, but yes, driven by one of our players, who's a big kale fan, yeah, the garden out in center field. >> So sustainibility's certainly important, okay, I got to ask the question around your role in the industry, because one of the things that's happening more and more in Major League Baseball and certainly as it crosses over to tech her at Mayfield Venture Capital, there's a lot of collaboration going on, and it's a very people-centric culture where, it used to be people would meet at conferences, or you'd do conference calls, now people are in touch in real time, so these networks are forming. It takes a village to create innovative products, whether you're inside the Giants, or outside in the ecosystem, how have you personally navigated that, and can you share some experiences to the folks watching, how you became successful working in an environment where it's collaborative inside the walls of the San Francisco Giants, but also outside? >> %100, the topic is near and dear to my heart, and from when I started with the Giants, that's what I love about our industry We compete on the field, and only on the field. When you look at who the Giants competitors are, from a business perspective, honestly the Dodgers are not a competitor from a business perspective. The A's are barely a competitor from a business perspective. We got a lot of competitors and very few of them are in our actual industry, so we collaborate all day, and it's been amazing, I can count on one hand, across all of sports, folks who have not been collaborative. There's a very small group of teams, your favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, are not on that list, they are very collaborative, but their arch rival, well there's a few others out there that may be less collaborative, but most of them are highly collaborative, from top down, and so, what I did from when I first started the first trip I made, was to Cleveland. And this was many years ago, Cleveland Indians had a reputation of being very progressive so I called up my counterpart there, I said, "I'm new to the industry, can I come out, "can I learn from you?" And that's where it started, and ever since, every year, we travel to two cities, I take at least four of my staff, to two cities each year and we meet with all the sports teams in those cities. This year, we went to Milwaukee and we met with the Brewers, and we did the Packers as well. Every year, over the 20 years we've visited pretty much every professional sports city, and we just go through it again, and always, red carpet, open door, and you build those face-to-face relationships, that you can pick up the phone and make the call, in a few weeks we're all going to get together in Denver at our MLB IT Summit, my job at the IT Summit every year is I host the golf classic, so I bring all the golfers, the hackers, the duffers out, and we have a great time on the golf course and build those relationships and again, the only thing that we don't really talk about that much is the technology we use to enhance the product on the field. Everything else is fair game. >> So share the business side, but the competitive advantage, where the battle's really having Dodger and Giants obviously on the field, highly competitive-- >> But what's cool about that is then I can meet with the other sports teams to talk about that, so I'll leave the teams nameless, but we've had some awesome collaborative discussions with NBA teams especially to talk about what they're doing to assess talent, and there's no competition there. >> So there's kind of rules of the road, kind of like baseball, unwritten rules. >> Right. >> So talk about the coolest thing that you guys have done this year, share something that you personally feel proud of, or fans love, what were some of the cool things this year that pops out for you? >> Sure, the technology that we invested in this year that I thought was a game-changer, we saw, we experimented with last season, but this year, we've been experimenting with VR and AR a little bit. But, a technology that we thought was really cool is called 4DReplay, it's a company out of Korea. And we saw them, we did an experiment with them, and then we implemented them for the full season this year and we've seen them at some other venues as well, the Warriors tried them at the Playoffs, but we had 'em full year and what we did was they put in about 120 cameras, spaced approximately five feet apart, between the bases. 120 of 'em, and they focus on the pitcher and the batter, so when you have a play, you can 3D, or 4D, 4D rotate around that play and watch the ball as it's moving off the bat, and get it from that full perspective, it's awesome for the fan experience, it gives them a perspective they never have, I love watching the picture, because you can see that hand, in full 4D glory pronating as it comes through on every pitch, if you can watch that hand carefully you can predict what kind of pitch it is, it's something that a fan has never had access to before, we did that for the first time this year. >> I had a new experience, obviously you see Statcast on TV now, a lot of this overlayed stuff happening, kind of creates like an esports vibe to the table. Esports is just coming. >> And it's just the beginning >> Your thoughts on esports, competitor, natural evolution, baseball's going to be involved in it, obviously, thing in the emerging technology's looking interesting, and the younger generation wants the hot, young... Sure, we feel like our game has been around a long time, and it still is, the rules haven't changed that much, but fans still enjoy it, but they just consume it differently and our game can be incredibly exciting in moments, but, there's also some gaps in there when you can build relationships. Some of the younger generation may fill those gaps with watching somethin' else, or two other things on their devices, but that's okay, we embrace that at the ballpark, but in terms of the emergence of esports, and the changing demographic of our fanbase, what we're trying to do is just package our game differently. One thing I'm really excited about, and startin' to see, we're in the early days, I consider with virtual reality, we experiment with it, maybe two or three years ago we've been doing some stuff with it, but I'd say it feels like we're in the second or third inning with virtual reality, where we're really going, and I've seen Intel doin' some of this stuff, I was out working with Intel in Pyeongchang, at the Olympics this past year, working with their PR team, and where it's going I can already visualize what this is going to be like, this concept of volumetric video. Where, it's not about having that courtside seat, in basketball, or that seat right behind home plate, it's about being wherever you want to be, anywhere in the action. And to me it's not about doin' it live, because in baseball, you don't know where the ball's going to go, it's about doin' it, replay, right after, okay, that ball was shot to Brandon Crawford, he made the most amazing diving play, picked it up, gunned it to first, where do you want to watch that from? Everybody's different, some people might want to watch it from right behind first base, some people might want to watch it right Brandon Crawford, behind the batter, with volumetric video and the future of VR, you'll be able to do that, and this esports generation, this fan's instant gratification want, unique experiences, that's what's going to deliver it. >> This is such an immersive environment, we're looking at this kind of volumetric things from Intel, and you got VR and AR, immersion, is a new definition, and it's not, I won't say putting pressure, it's evolving the business model, who would've thought that DraftKings and these companies would be around and be successful, that's gambling, okay, you now you got that, your VR so the business model's changing, I've been hearing even token and cryptocurrency, maybe baseball cards will be tokenized. So these are kind of new, crazy ideas that might be new fan experience and a business model for you guys. Your thoughts on those kind of wacky trends. >> That's why I love working with companies like Mayfield 'cause they're seeing the future before we see it, and I love being where we are, so we can talk to them, and learn about these companies. Another example, along those lines is, how are fans going to get to the ballpark five years from now, and how do we adapt to that because we're doing a major development right adjacent to the ballpark, we've got 4,000 parking spaces. Are we going to need those five years from now? Well we're going to build out that whole parking lot, we're going to put a structure in there. But five, ten years from now, we're building that structure so it can be adaptable, because, is anyone going to need to park? Is parking going to be like typing, you know on a typewriter, 10, 15 years now because everybody is in either self-driving cars, or ride shares, and the cars just, poof, go away, and they come back when you need 'em. >> Like I said, everything that's been invented's been on Star Trek except for the transporter room, but maybe they could transport to the game. >> We could use that in San Francisco. >> Bill, got to ask you about your role with Mayfield, because one of the things I've always been impressed with you is that you always have a taste for innovation, you're not afraid to put the toe in the water or jump in the deep end where the technology is, these guys are lookin' for some trends, too. How do you advise some of these guys, how do you work with Mayfield, what's the relationship, how are they to work with, what's the intersection between Mayfield and you? >> Well the one thing that Mayfield does is they put together a conference, each Summer, that I love comin' down to, and I get to meet a lot of my counterparts and we talked about meeting with my counterparts in sports, but I love meetin' with my counterparts across all industries, and Mayfield makes that possible, they bring us all together with some really interesting speakers on a variety of topics not all directly tech related, so it's a great opportunity for me to just get outside of the daily routine, get outside the box, open my mind, and I just have to drop down the road to do it. So that's an example, another thing is, Mayfield, and other firms will come to me, and just say, "Hey, here's a technology we're evaluating, "they think it would be a great fit in sports, "what do you think?" And so, I can give them some valuable feedback, on company's they're evaluating, companies will come to us, and I might throw them their way, so it's really a two way street >> Great relationship, so you're a sounding board for some ideas, you get to peek into the future, I mean, we've interviewed entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs here, it's a seven, eight year build out, so it's almost like an eight year peek into the future. >> Yeah, and it's super valuable, especially given where we are geographically and our inclination toward being on the leading edge. >> I want to just end the segment by sayin', thanks for comin' in, and I want you to show the ring there, 'cause I always, can't stop starin' at the hardware, you got the ring there, the world champion. >> It's a few years old at the moment, we're going to have to get a new one sometime soon. >> We got to work on that, so is there any cutting edge technology to help you evaluate the best player, who you lookin' at next year, what's goin' on? What's the trades goin' on, share us-- >> Are we off the record now, 'cause I have a feeling you're asking this for personal reasons, for your squad, so. >> I'm a Red Sox fan of the AL, obviously, moved here 20 years ago, big fan of the Giants, I love comin' to the games, you guys do a great job, fan experience is great, you guys do great job and I'm looking forward to seeing a great season. >> Thanks, yeah, hope springs eternal this time of year, we always block off October and expect to be busy, but when we have it back, it just gives us an opportunity to get a head start on everybody. >> Well Bill, thanks for coming in, Bill Schlough, CIO for the San Francisco Giants, here on Sand Hill Road talkin' about the 50th anniversary of Mayfield, and this is the People First Network, getting ideas from entrepreneurs, industry executives, and leaders. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, thanks for watching. (electronic music)

>> Hey, welcome back. You're ready, Jeff? Rick! Here with the Cube were Oracle Park recently, A T and T Park just renamed. It's a beautiful day home in San Francisco Giants. They're on the road. We're here at a pretty interesting event is called Sports Tech. Tokyo World Demo Day brought together a coalition of about 100 startups. 25 of them are given demos today on technology as it relates to sports. But even more importantly, that can then be used in other in others. Beyond sports. We're excited to have an athlete on not just another tech crazy guy. He's Brendan Harris. He's an athlete in residence at 76 Capital. Brendan. Thanks for stopping by. >> Thanks for having me. >> So what is the effort, Principles and entrepreneur in residence? Where is the athlete residents do? It is >> essentially a play on the entrepreneur in residence. I was introduced to 76 Capital finished playing in 15 and I was doing my MBA at Warden and in Philly and got introduced Thio Wayne and the guys at 76. And they are kind of putting together an athlete venture group. Whether they're bringing in a lot of athletes don't wannabe investors and kind of providing them access to deal >> flow and >> um, >> and then also leveraging their social capital. So, uh, he was He was kind of tickled when he came when he coined the term athlete residents and he threw it on my business card. And and that's where we're at, >> right? So I'm just curious your perspective as an athlete as you look around at all the technology that's going into sports, right? Kind of the big categories are, you know that which helps the players play better. There's that which helps the people run, the team's better. And then there's that, which is really kind of part of the fan experience. I mean, you actually to go down and try to put wood on a ball coming at you in 90 plus miles an hour. All this other stuff. Do you see it as is it interesting is distraction. Is it entertaining? I mean, how do you look at it from an athlete's perspective? >> So yeah, so a lot to impact. So first of all, I have this ah, equally the equal view of fascination and frustration where a lot of this wasn't he wasn't around when I when I was playing it, certainly from the field. Now we're taking in things like recovery and rest and sleep. Ah, but I think players and me personally are fascinated with How can we improve on field performance? And I think baseball. It's such a perfect game and you fail so often, being able to turn to turn things that were previously subjective and applied data and in tech to make them objective and give you answers. I think it's fascinating and the ways that we can use data to to kind of promote performance and health and and all those things air Very fascinating. So from players, point of view, we're all about it. But at the same time, I think it certainly says why I've loved to get into sports. Tech is there's a lot of data that's just noise that's coming in and things. And so the tough part is, um, kind of weeding through and what is actionable info on what can actually help improve the on field performance? And then along with that, you know, we want to feel the product on the field, but also what the service is for the consumer and the fans are. And how can we improve that and then engage them? Because certainly sports are part of the culture and part of life now, and it's fascinating. These fans want to know more and more and more, certainly what's going >> on. And it's been It's been a >> great journey, >> right? So on the fan experience specifically, and we've been we've been here a number of years. Bill Styles, a good friend of mine off another word and other work. Brad and and, you know, talking about high density WiFi and you know the app on your phone and delivered, you know, food delivered to your seats. I mean, >> as a as an >> athlete on the field. Do you look at kind of all these things is as a distraction. Do you appreciate? It's kind of a more competitive environment these days in terms of people's attention and kind of that entertainment dollar. But I would imagine from between the lines it looks like Hey, you know, the game's down here people. It's been >> interesting because, um, you know, one of the problems of a major league baseball's been trying to address his pace of games right. And if you really look at the data, they're not that much longer. What's different? We're wired differently, right? So our attention spans are short and we're constantly so our technology. So these, you know, guys like Bill, you are trying to leverage that and try to have your food delivered and try to increase the social component. Increased the value in the in venue experience so that you're not only watching the game, but you're socially enjoying at the same time and kind of fill in those gaps. Ah, lot of it is yes on. And I think there's been balls flying into the stands since baseball's been playing, but they need to put the netting up. Has come a lot of times because nobody's watching. Some people aren't not nobody, but a lot of people aren't watching. The games are getting hit with a lot of these foul balls. So there is that component where you know there's there's some unbelievable things are going off on the sides. But um, you know it's baseball is still gonna be kind of very somewhat within within the confines. >> The other piece that I find really interesting on the data side, right? Is there so much data? Right? There's data data data. Obviously, baseball is built on data and arguments about data and conversations about data, but now it's kind of gone to this next Gen with, you know, wins over replacement and all these other things. But sometimes it's funny to me. It feels like they're forgetting the object of the game is to win the game. And it feels like sometimes the metadata has now become more important than the data. Did you win or lose and is not necessarily being used as a predictor for future performance? But it's almost like a standalone game in and of itself. Like we forget. The object is to win the game and win a championship, not to have the highest war number views since that frustration is that sound? Yeah, I think what you're getting >> into a lot of times is our know how are we making decisions right? And in the game? A lot of times people forget that human beings are out there performing and so I think that's how we've gotten into Moneyball 2.0, looking at development and certainly mental health in focus and game preparation have come into play more and you're seeing some managers. I mean, Mickey Callaway just came out and said 80% my, you know, Susan's go against the data, which which I thought was a little bit interesting, but, ah, so there is that fine line right where you have to filter in what's noise and what's actionable. And at the same time, um, you know, allow you know, your managers and your decision makers some flexibility to go with, You know, they're they're in the heat of the battle and they kind of know their guys. And they know the human element that's involved. So it's it's an interesting, you know, trying to balancing act, >> right? So from your from your new job in your new role, what are some of the things you hope to see today? What are some things that you're excited about? Um, you know, from kind of an investor. And having played the game as well. As you know, I'm looking forward to the evolution of sports. Two >> things specifically how the, uh certainly bias the performs on the field in the human element. And certainly everybody wants workout secrets, and I don't feel like it's whether it's athletes or the kind of weekend warrior or people that are, you know, kind of your senior citizens. And I don't think it's a simple as this has worked, and you should do this. It's a very personalized experience now. And I think some of this personalized digital fitness is fascinating to me on and then how it relates to and how your body relates to, you know, your diet and nutrition, your sleep, your recovery. I think all those air fascinating that, uh, advances that I want to look into more. And the second is a CZ, I kind of mentioned is the fan engagement aspect. How do we drive those those fans that digital, >> um, and >> make it actionable and monetize, right? So that you know, you have your fans that are following you know, your Facebook, twitter and all those things. And so how do you not only gauge them, but collect that data and then kind of personalized that experience? Engage your fan in a way that can kind of grow your brand. Yeah, it's interesting to me, >> really interesting to have to have your perspective, and I'm sure will be a great day and you see all kinds of crazy stuff. So thanks for taking a few minutes. >> Yeah, Any time. >> All right. He's Brendan. I'm Jeff. You're watching The Cube were at Oracle Park in San Francisco. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) >> Hey welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. I wish I could give you my best John Miller impersonation but I'm just not that good. But we are at Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. We haven't really done a show here since 2014, so we're excited to be back. Pretty unique event, it's called Sports Tech Tokyo World Demo Day. About 25 companies representing about 100 different companies really demonstrating a bunch of cool technology that's used for sports as well as beyond sports, so we're excited to have one of the companies here who's demoing their software today, or their solution I should say. It's Albert Ng, he's the founder and CEO of Misapplied Sciences. Albert, great to see you. >> Great to see you, thank you for having me. >> So Misapplied Sciences. Now I want to hear about the debates on that name. So how did that come about? >> Yeah, so I used to work part time for Microsoft, at Microsoft Research, and one of the groups I worked for was called the Applied Sciences group. And so it was a little bit of a spin on that and it conveys the way that we come up with innovations at our company. We're a little bit more whimsical as a company that we take technologies that weren't intended for the ways that we apply them and so we misapply those technologies to create new innovations. >> Okay, so you're here today, you're showing a demo. So what is it? What is your technology all about? And what is the application in sports, and then we'll talk about beyond sports. >> Yeah, so Misapplied Sciences, we came up with a new display technology. Think like LED video wall, digital signage, that sort of display. But what's unique about our displays, is you can have a crowd of people, all looking at the same display at the same time, yet every single person sees something completely different. You don't need to have any special glasses or anything like that. You look at your displays with your naked eyes, except everyone gets their own personalized experience. >> Interesting. So how is that achieved? Obviously, we've all been on airplanes and we know privacy filters that people put on laptops so we know there's definitely some changes based on angle. Is it based on the angles that you're watching it? How do you accomplish that and is it completely different, or I just see a little bit of difference here, there, and in other places? >> Sure, so at the risk of sounding a little too technical, it's in the pixel technology that we developed itself. So each of our pixels can control the color of light that it sends in many different directions. So one time a single pixel can emit green light towards you, whereas red light towards the person sitting right next to you, so you perceive green, whereas the person right next to you perceives red at the same time. We can do that at a massive scale. So our pixels can control the color of light that they send between tens of thousands, up to a million different angles. So using our software, our processors on our back end, we can control what each of our pixels looks like from up to a million different angles. >> So how does it have an edge between a million points of a compass? That's got to be, obviously it's your secret sauce, but what's going on in layman's terms? >> Yeah, so it's a very sophisticated technology. It's a full stack technology, as we call it. So it's everything from new optics to new high performance computing. We had to develop our own custom processor to drive this. Computer vision, software user interfaces, everything. And so this is an innovation we can up with after four and a half years in stealth mode. So we started the company in late 2014, and we were all the way completely in stealth mode until middle of last year. So about four years just hardcore doing the development work, because the technology's very sophisticated. And I know when I say this, it does sound a little impossible, a little bit like science fiction, so we knew that. So now we have our first product coming on the market, our first public installation later next year and it's going to be really exciting. >> Great. So, obviously you're not going to have a million different feeds, 'cuz you have to have a different feed I would imagine, for each different view, 'cuz you designate this is the view from point A. This is the view from point B. Use feed A, use feed B. I assume you use something like that 'cuz obviously the controller's a big piece of the display. >> Exactly, so a lot of the technology underneath the hood is to reduce the calculations, or the rendering required from a normal computer, so you can actually drive our big displays that can control hundreds of different views using a normal PC, just using our platform. >> So what's the application. You know obviously it's cute and it's fun and I told you it's a dog, no it's a cat as you said, but what are some of the applications that you see in sports? What are you going to do in your first demo that you're putting out? >> Yeah, so what the technology enables is finally having personalized experiences when in a public environment, like a stadium, like an airport, like a shopping mall. So let me give an airport example. So imagine you go up to the giant flight board and instead of a list of a hundred flights, you see only your own flight information in big letters so you can see it from 50 feet away. You can have arrows that light your path towards your particular gate. The displays could let you know exactly how many minutes you have to board, and suggest places for you to eat and shop that are convenient for you. So the environment can be tailored just for you and you're not looking down at a smart phone, you're not wearing any special glasses to see everything that you want to see. So that ability to personalize a venue stretch, is to every single public venue, even in the stadium here, imagine the stadium knowing whether you're a home team fan or away team fan or your fantasy players. You can see it all on the jumbotron or any of the displays that are in the interstitial areas. We can have the entire stadium come alive just for you and personalize it. >> Except you're not going to have 10,000 different feeds, so is there going to be some subset of infinite that people are driving in terms of the content side? >> Mhmm. >> So on your first one, you're first installation, what's that installation going to be all about? >> The first installation is going to be at an airport, I can't see right now publicly where it's going to be or when it's going to be or what partner. But the idea is to be able to have a giant flight board that you only see your own flight information, navigating you to your particular gate. You know when you're at an airport, or any other public venue like a stadium, a lot of times you feel like cow in a herd, right? And it's not tailored for you in any way. You don't have as good of an experience. So we can personalize that for you. >> All right, Misapplied Sciences. Oh I'll come down and take a look at the booth a little bit later. And thanks for taking a few minutes. Good luck on the adventure. I look forward to watching it unfold. >> Appreciate it, thank you so much. >> All right, he's Albert I'm Jeff. You're watching theCUBE. We're at Oracle Park, on the shores of McCovey Cove. Thanks for watching, we'll see ya next time. >> Thank you. (upbeat music)

(upbeat electronic music) >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We are at Oracle Park in San Francisco for a really special event. It's called Sports Tech Tokyo World Demo Day, really bringing together a bunch of innovative companies in the sports tech space, really with a focus on not only sports but beyond sports. And we're happy to have really one of the key players here that made this all happen from Dentsu. He's Fumihiko Nakajima, the Senior Director of Business Development from Dentsu. Welcome. >> Hi, nice to meet you. >> Yeah absolutely. So for people that aren't familiar with Dentsu, give us a little overview of Dentsu as a company and then we'll get into the specific event. >> Yeah, Dentsu has a long history focusing on broadcasting rights and sponsorship for event globally. But combining such kind of global asset and new technology to create a new business in sports tech industry and beyond sports industry. >> Right. So pretty interesting way to do that, so you didn't just go find some interesting companies, you guys have created this event to bring a lot of companies together, demonstrate their technology. What was kind of the thinking and how did you guys get involved? >> Yeah. Combining the new asset and technologies and global asset, there are lot of the Japanese company global brand, SoftBank, ITOCHU, Sony Music, Microsoft, and CBC. Such kind of companies very interested in, create new business with innovative staff all over the world. So that's a basis of this event. >> Right, right. So, you got the Tokyo Olympics coming up in a year, so that's kind of a catalyst to make all this happen. Is there anything special that you see between, you know, kind of sports technology and managing teams, sports technology applied to the athletes, and then sports technology applied to the fan experience that you're most excited about? >> Yeah, that's correct. This is a beginning. Next month world Rugby World Cup, the next year, Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic we have. That's a beginning, so, you know the, the sports and live entertainment beyond live entertainment, health cares, biometrics, bio mechanics, from the point of sports. But we enter into the new field and explore the new business field. >> Jeff: Right. >> With the great start-ups and industry leaders on the basis, that who joining these communities. >> Right, right. No, it's pretty interesting because you know the, companies spend so much money now on the players and really look at them as investments. A lot of players get hundred million dollar contracts now. So it's pretty interesting on kind of the health care and the like we talked earlier, sleep and nutrition-- >> Yeah. >> And all these things to keep that athlete performing, are really applicable to everyday people like you and me. >> Yeah. You know that Dentsu has more than one century history in marketing and branding all over the world. And our assets, such kind, properties and, global network, will really help the new technologies and new start up, the new business field. >> Jeff: Right. >> Grow rapidly. >> Jeff: Right. >> All over the world. >> Right. It's interesting, too, that so much of the stuff around the sports, you talked about sponsorship and rights beyond just the score, you know, is so important these days. To feed the 24/7 news cycle, to do fantasy sports, the changes in the gambling law, so there's so much stuff around sports that's beyond the sport that's watched in this industry grow and grow and grow. >> Yeah it's a very interesting point. We know new, legal we will need, a new legal and a new set-up structure for the new business. >> Jeff: Right. >> In specific Tokyo, a lot of specialist joined to help such kind of structures for the futures. >> Right. So before I let you go, it's a busy day, have you been to this park before, home of the Giants, and what do you think? >> Yeah very, very, very special day. It will be very memorable day that one of the best historic venue in America, the San Francisco Giants stadium, Oracle Park. We really excited to share our progress, concrete progress, and want to expand our trial to all over the world. >> Great, well thanks for inviting us and we're, we're excited to watch the story unfold. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Alright. He's Fumihiko, I'm Jeff, you're watchin' theCUBE. We're at Oracle Park in San Francisco, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick with The Cube. If you can't tell over my shoulder, we are at Oracle Park. It's a glorious day. The marine layer is burning off and it is really spectacular. We're happy to be here. Haven't been here since, I think 2014. It's an interesting event called Sports Tech Tokyo World Demo Day. About 25 technology companies in the sports area are giving demos all day today. It's a huge program, and we're excited to have our next guest coming from the analytics side. She's Sezin Aksoy, Global Data Strategy and Analytics for AXS. >> Correct. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Glad to be here. >> So Global Data Strategy. Everything's all about data. >> Correct. >> So, somebody's really happy to have you on board. What are so... What do you, what are you working on, what was top of line. >> Sure, so it's going to sound cheesy but data is the power of the world. >> Yes. >> It's going to empower people making better decisions, so that's kind of my role is at AXS. So AXS is the ticketing platform for live entertainment events. We operate in the US, Europe, as well as in Japan. And, if you think about it, when a consumer comes to your website, that's the first touchpoint that you have. Whether they buy the ticket or don't. Whether they buy or sell, and transfer the ticket, or they attend the event, all those are various touchpoints that we are collecting. So that we can inform our clients to make better decisions with data. >> Right. >> Whether it's pricing decisions, or marketing decisions, or scanning an event, which gates will be more busier than others. So, that's kind of what my team works on. >> Excellent. So, let's jump into a little bit on the dynamic pricing. >> Sizen: Hm mm. >> Because we saw, we've seen dynamic pricing. And you said you were in the airline industry. >> Correct. >> We've seen it in the hotel industry. >> Yup. >> My father in law talks about when he was doing dynamic pricing as a young kid. >> Sizen: Okay. Just making a call when somebody came through the door, at eleven o'clock. >> Sizen: Yeah. (laughs) >> Jeffrey: What's my marginal cost... >> Okay, yep. >> Jeffrey: with somebody in that room or not. There's really slow to get beyond, kind of the entertain, oh excuse me, the travel industry for other people... >> Hm mm. Yep. >> To kind of get on board the dynamic pricing. >> Yeah. We saw the Giants here... >> Yep. >> Actually a couple of years ago. We came by, they were starting to do dynamic pricing. >> Sizen: Hm mm. >> A Friday night Dodger game, compared to a Tuesday day... >> Sizen: Yep. >> Milwaukee game, very, very different. >> Sizen: Hm mm. >> So, what are some of the factors going in, what are some of the resistance, >> Sizen: Yeah. >> that had to be overcome for people to actually accept that it's okay to charge more for a Friday night Dodger game, than a Tuesday afternoon Milwaukee game. >> Yep, so yeah, so my background start with the airlines, which is where dynamic pricing, revenue management started at, specifically the American Airlines. If you think about there are a lot of similarities between airlines and live entertainments. Fixed costs, you have to, flight has to go, or the game has to be played no matter how many people are there. So, you really have a limited time to really maximize your revenue. And you kind of have a product that the demand level is different by day, whether it's a Tuesday game or Friday game. It really something you have to study the sort of the behavior from the consumers when they buy their tickets. What are the factors they put into play to make that decision? And in that mix, San Francisco Giants was one of the first teams that actually incorporated dynamic pricing about ten years ago, that slowly. The challenges with it is we are not as the consumer, not as trained to know that the price may change. Hotels, airlines been doing it for years and years. >> Right. >> And for them, also it didn't start from like doing all the flights in day one. So it's really needs to be a phased approach. It needs to be a lot of education for the public, and to think about the right way to think about it is, you want incentivize people to buy early. And you want to make sure they are the ones that getting the best price, and not necessarily the people that are buying last minute. >> Right. >> If you're buying last minute, then you must accept that it maybe the available today you're not looking for or the price not you looking for. But I will say though that plans change, people decide to not attend the game. The reason is that, potential for finding other seats for that similar game. But, really for you, have your plans. It's better to buy early, and that's kind of what the industries needs to be trained on, more and more. >> Right. >> Was there more opportunity in getting additional value out of that high demand game? Or was the bigger opportunity in getting, kind of lowering the prices on the less desirable games, and getting kind of marginal revenue on that side. Where was the easy money made, >> Yeah. >> Jeffrey: On dynamic pricing? I mean the immediate impact is from the high value seats for the high value games, cause that's really is your premium product at that point. But in the meantime, there's always a low number of seats that you have in your premium area. And if you find the right price, and if you start earlier. And really the goal is to sell all the seats, and to fill all the seats. >> Right. >> Also, just selling the seats is not, doesn't get you far enough. You want to make sure people actually come to the game, and they're the people that are going to attend the game. Right? >> Right. >> So, if you kind of, the lower level has many more seats, so it's really has to be both ways. It can't be in one area, either dynamic pricing and you don't do it. It's just all about training the public and consumers. >> Right. Now, the other interesting you said in your kind of intro, was keeping track of... What are the busiest turnstiles? And where people coming? And the flow within the game. >> Sizen: Yep. >> What are some of the analytics that you do there, >> Sizen: Yep. >> And how are teams using those... >> Sizen: Yep. >> that information to provide a better fan experience? >> Yeah, so we have scanned data, and we actually have it real time. So, we are able to provide the teams. We have kineses streams, not to go too technical, to kind of empower them to do their game operations in a certain way. So example would be, you could study the past games and understand where people came from. Typically for a Friday game verse a Tuesday game, your crowd will look different, right. The Friday game, maybe the more the families or Saturday or Sunday. But Tuesday may be more corporate world, right. So understanding they're patterns, but also than having that data accessible to you to real time. So, that way you're able to see how many people are coming in from this one gate to other. You can man the gates differently that way. And the real time data is not something that comes just easily. There's a lot of infrastructure built for it. >> Right. >> But we've done it at AXS, and we've been able to provide to the teams so they can manage their getting in better. >> Right. >> So real time's interesting cause you know a lot of these conversations about real time, and I would say, "How do you define real time?" And in my mind, it's in time to do something about it. >> Exactly. >> So, using real time, I mean are there things they can do in real time to either lighten the load at an overdone gate, or... >> Sizen: Yeah. >> What are some of the real time impacts that people are using this data to do? >> Yeah, so exactly the example you provided. Like making sure there are more people at this one gate as opposed to others. But also, like knowing who's coming into the arena. So AXS's I-D ticketing, I-D based ticketing platform, so we actually know who's coming in. It's a rotating barcode, so if you just copy-paste the ticket, and text your friend. That doesn't work, that eliminates fraud as well. But because we know who's coming in, you can actually empower your sales reps as a team to make sure you are, you know, if they are coming to a suite or a premium area. So in so actually just scanned in, so you kind of come up with ideas for sales reps. As well as some of the marketing activations, like... It could be that you have people that typically come in late. You want to incentivize them. You could actually come up with promotions on merch and food and beverage to incentivize them early, right? Or at the same time you can actually, there are some platforms that do marketing activation. You may have had a lot of hotdogs left that you couldn't sell. Towards the late quarter, you could send a message to everyone saying, "Okay, ya know, hot dogs are 20 percent off." >> Right, right. >> So that, you need real time for it, for data for that. Cause you again need to know how many people scanned in. You may want to know how many people scanned out. So for some conferences and other type events, you want to make sure there's a Fire Marshall rules, so you want to make sure. So all the real time data is helpful for that if you just look at the purchaser data, you're not going to get that specifically there. >> That's really interesting cause I was going to say, What are some of the next things that we can expect to see dynamic pricing applied to, and you just went through them which are really situational specific. >> Yep. >> Opportunities to clear inventory, to do whatever. >> Exactly, it's not just a ticket purchase. It could be applied to other things as well. >> Right, Right. >> Yeah. >> How cool. So what other kind of data sets are you looking at to help teams that maybe we're not thinking about. >> Sure, just when people buy their tickets. What marketing may have they done, so that we can understand the web traffic, and did they buy the ticket when you send out that email. Or did they buy it three days later. So that's one area. As well as sort of, the inventory that you have available for that game. Does it sell faster for that Friday game versus a Tuesday game? We also, we're a comprehensive marketplace where we have both primary and secondary in the same map. To give the convenience back to the consumers, so you kind of have a chance to see all the inventory available in front of you. So, a bit of understanding how tickets transact in the secondary marketplace is helpful for the teams to really price their product better. Cause sometimes we have... I work for a team, so I have that background where you may have just 20 price points, and you've done it for 20 years but it's been certainly changing then. But now that you have all these different data points on the second, you also you kind of maybe is like, 'Okay I need 40 price points really because there's that much differentiation demand. >> Wow, really sophisticated analysis... >> Yeah, it's a passion area for me, so... >> And doing the real time, real time data flow and everything. >> Yeah, yeah. A really interesting, interesting conversation. >> Yeah. >> To go so far beyond just dynamic pricing. >> Exactly. >> It uses more sophisticated methods to get more value, provide better experience for the fans. >> And actually in Japan, they do more about dynamic pricing. So they utilize our platform to actually able to price every seat differently if they wanted to. We've just went out with on sales for Big League teams, and that's how they apply that. So it's been used elsewhere, maybe in the U-S in sports. It's definitely catching up, and it's much much big difference from the 10 years ago. But, I think Japan has already been kind of doing that. >> Excellent. >> Mm hm. >> Well Sizen, thanks for taking a few minutes, and sharing those stories. There's a lot going on behind the scenes that may not be conscious of, but hopefully we're getting the benefit of. >> Yeah, thank you. >> All right. Sizen, and I'm Jeff. Yes, we're live. They're banging on something down there. I'm not sure what, but keep watching. We'lls be here at Oracle Park in San Francisco. Thanks for watching, and see ya next time. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Rick here with theCUBE. We're at Oracle Park, recently AT&T Park just renamed, it's a beautiful day. Home of San Francisco Giants, they're on the road, we're here at a pretty interesting event, it's called Sports Tech Tokyo World Demo Day, brought together coalition of about 100 startups. 25 of them are giving demos today on technology as it relates to sports but even more importantly, that can then be used in others beyond sports. We're excited to have an athlete on, not just another tech, crazy guy. He's Brendan Harris, he's an athlete and resident at SeventySix Capital. Brendan, thanks for stopping by. >> Thanks for having me. >> So what is that, I've heard principles and entrepreneur residence\\\, what does a athlete residence do? >> It is essentially a play on the entrepreneuring residence. I was introduced to SeventySix Capital, I finished playing at 15 and I was doing my MBA at Wharton and in Philly, and got introduced to Wayne and the guys at SeventySix and they are kind of putting together an athlete venture group where they're bringing in a lot of athletes that want to be investors and kind of providing them access to deal flow. And then also leveraging their social capitals, so, he was kind of tickled when he coined the term athlete in residence and threw it on my business card and that's where we're at. >> Right so I'm just curious, your perspective as an athlete as you look around at all the technology that's going into sports, right. Kind of the big categories are that which helps the players play better, there's that which helps the people run the teams better, and then there's that which is really kind of part of the fan experience, I mean, you actually had to go down and try to put wood on a ball coming at you 90 plus miles an hour, all this other stuff, do you see it as interesting, is it a distraction, is it entertaining? How do you look at from an athlete's perspective? >> So, yeah, so a lot to impact, so, first of all, I have this equal view of fascination and frustration where a lot of this wasn't around when I was playing, certainly from the field, now we're taking in things like recovery and rest and sleep, but I think players and me personally, are fascinated with how can we improve on field performance and I think baseball's such an imperfect game and you fail so often. Being able to turn things that were previously subjective and apply data and tech to make them objective and give you answers, I think it's fascinating. The ways that we can use data to kind of promote performance and health and all those things are very fascinating. So from a player's point of view, we are all about it but at the same time, I think this is why I've loved to get into sports tech is there's a lot of data that's just noise that's coming in and things and so the tough part is kind of weeding through and what is actionable info and what can actually help improve beyond field performance and then, along with that, we want to feel the product on the field, but also what what the services for the consumer and the fans are and how can we improve that and then engage them because certainly sports are a part of the culture and part of life now and it's fascinating, these fans want to know more and more and more, certainly what's going on and it's been a great journey. >> Right so on the fan experience specifically, we've been here a number of years, Bill Styles' a good friend of mine, and another Wharton grad. And talking about high density WiFi and the app on your phone and food delivered to your seat, I mean as an athlete on the field, do you look at kind of of all these things as a distraction, do you appreciate it's more competitive environment these days in terms of people's attention and kind of that entertainment dollar but I would imagine from the between the lines it looks like, hey, the game's down here people. >> Yeah. (laughing) It's been interesting because one of the problems major league baseball's been trying to address is pace of games right? And if you really look at the data, they're not that much longer. What's different, we're wired differently, right? So our attention spans are shorter and we're constantly addicted to our technology. So these guys like Bill, are trying to leverage that and try to have your food delivered and try to increase the social component, increase the value in the in-venue experience so that you're not only watching the game but you're social enjoying it at the same time and kind of filling those gaps. A lot of it is, yes, and I think, there has been balls flying into the stands since baseball's been playing but the need to put the netting up has come a lot of times because nobody's watching. Some people aren't, not nobody, but a lot of people aren't watching the games are getting hit with a lot of these foul balls. So there's that component, where there's some unbelievable things are going off on the sides but it's baseball still going to be kind of very similar within the confines of lines. >> The other piece that I find really interesting on the data side right, is there's so much data, right? There's data, data, data. Obviously baseball's built on data and arguments about data and conversations about data. But now it's kind of gone to this next gen with wins over replacement and all these other things, but sometimes it's funny to me. It feels like they're forgetting the object of the game is to win the game and it feels like sometimes the metadata has now become more important than the data. Did you win or lose and it's not necessarily being used as a predictor for future performance but it's almost like a stand alone game in and of itself. We forget the object is to win the game and win a championship, not to have the highest award number. Do you sense that frustration, does that sound like something you see-- >> Yeah, I think what you're getting into a lot of times is how are we making decisions, right and in the game a lot of times people forget that human beings are out there performing and so I think that's how we've gotten into Moneyball 2.0 when looking at development. Certainly mental health in focus and game preparation have come into play more and you're seeing some managers, Mickey Callaway just came out said 80% of my distances go against the data which I thought was a little bit interesting but so there is that fine line where you have to filter in what's noise and what's actionable and at the same time, allow your managers and your decision makers some flexibility to go with they're there in the heat of the battle and they kind of of know their guys and they know the human element that's involved. It's an interesting balancing act. >> Right so from your new job and your new role, what are some of the things you hope to see today, what are somethings that you're excited about from an investor and in having played the game as well as looking forward to the evolution of sports? >> Two things, specifically how the, I'm certainly biased to the performance on the field, and the human element and certainly, everybody wants workout secrets and I don't feel like it's, whether it's athletes or the kind of weekend warrior or people that are senior citizens. I don't think it's as simple as, this is work and you should do this, it's a very personalized experience now and I think some of this personalized digital fitness is fascinating to me and then how it relates to and how your body relates to your diet, your nutrition, your sleep, your recovery, I think all those are fascinating that advances that I want to look into more. And then second is, as I kind of mentioned, is the fan engagement aspect and how do we drive those fans, that digital, and make it actionable and monetized, right. So that you have your fans that are following your Facebook, your Twitter, and all those things and so how do you, not only engage them but collect that data and then kind of personalize that experience, engage your fan in a way that can kind of grow your brand. It will be interesting to me. >> Really interesting to have your perspective and I'm sure it will be a great day and you'll see all kind of crazy stuff. So thanks for taking a few minutes. >> Yeah, anytime, thanks for having me. >> All right, he's Brendan, I'm Jeff, you're watching theCUBE. We are at Oracle Park in San Francisco, thanks for watching, we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>> Male Voiceover: Live from Atlanta, Georgia, it's theCUBE, covering Citrix Synergy Atlanta 2019. Brought to you by Citrix. >> Hi, welcome back to theCUBE. Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend and we're coming to you live from the show floor of Citrix Synergy 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. And we're welcoming to theCUBE for the first time Adam Jones, the chief revenue officer of the Miami Marlins. Adam, it's great to have you on theCUBE. >> Pleasure to join you both today. >> So, baseball fans, White Sox, San Francisco Giants, Miami Marlins. Always cool to talk sports and technology when we can bring those two things together. I think the San Francisco Giants and the Miami Marlins might have something in common right now, but regardless of the standings, everybody wants to go to a game. You have to deliver, as chief revenue officer, a great a fan experience. You got to make sure all the vendors are there to deliver what those fans want, regardless of the standings. People still want to go to the games. Talk to us a little bit about your role as the CRO of the Miami Marlins, how long you've been doing it, and then we'll get into what you're doing with Citrix. >> Sure. So, joined the Marlins 18 months ago as part of new ownership and the new leadership team brought in to reset the standard for what the Miami Marlins organization could be. We want to be a world class sport entertainment enterprise. That means we're going to evolve beyond a traditional baseball team and ballpark. 26 years into the history of the franchise, eight years into the operating rights of a ballpark, and there's a lot of work to be done around those two assets but as we take the organization forward, we want to continue to broaden that enterprise to focus on more sport and entertainment offerings. >> So, chief revenue officer. We don't get many chief revenue officers at a technology conference. Help make the connection. You're a busy person. What made you take time out of your schedule to come to Citrix Synergy? >> Well, I think it's indicative of the culture we're building within our organization that we're putting data at the very center of our culture. We're going to make informed and timely decisions and we need our technology to enable that culture. And so, when it came to where we were going to align our IT group and it's a group that has built out a very robust, on-prem infrastructure over the past seven years following the opening of Marlins Park, the alignment under strategy, which was my initial title coming in, and now chief revenue officer as I took on more responsibility for the business side of the organization, was a strategic decision to make sure that the infrastructure was meeting the requirements of the organization as we rapidly evolve what our priorities are and what we need in order to deliver on their very aggressive and lofty expectations for their organization. >> So this morning during the keynote, we heard a lot about the digital workplace, the employee experience being really critical for any type of organization's digital transformation, and I just thought it was a really interesting viewpoint because we go to a lot of tech shows here at theCUBE, all over the world, and we don't often talk about employee experience or even culture, as a leading edge indicator of how successful a digital transformation is going to be, but employee experience is really critical to any business because whether those employees are interacting with seven to 10 apps a day based on their job, or they're interacting with your other users, in your case, Marlins fans, making sure those employees are productive, have what they need, in a personalized way, is critical. Talk to us about what the employee experience means for the Marlins, and also, as an indicator on the revenue side. >> Absolutely, so we have an evolving workforce. It's very young across a very diverse enterprise of activities. What we've been able to do in partnership with Citrix since day one of the ballpark, where we went from an organization of roughly 100-150 employees around the team to 300 plus across the team and the ballpark, is build out an infrastructure that was very light in terms of hardware, focused very much on the digital workspace keeps us very nimble, allows us to deploy capital in areas that we see tremendous value back in terms of application and utility. So, as we continue to make our workforce more mobile, I ask them to deliver and work at a higher rate of speed. We need to arm them with the tools that allow them to perform those roles in the office, out of the office, engage beyond more just than a 81 day transactional relationship across Marlins baseball, but how across 12 months out of the year, creating that 365 day touchpoint. They still have tools and access in order to create those memories, those engagements that we want with the market. >> So, talking about customer experience, Marlin baseball is more than just the 300 employees. It is your partners, it's all of your contractors. When I go to a ballpark, I don't see Mark the hot dog vendor I see Mark, the guy that works for the Marlins. My user experience, my customer experience needs to be excellent across that. As CRO, that's part of your responsibility, assuring that the whole Marlin family is presented as one unity. Talk to us about from not just a user experience perspective but also, security expectations of how you need to make that real for your customers. >> Sure, on the experience side, what we are doing is resetting the standard, not only for Marlins and for South Florida, but the industry as a whole. We've brought on a lot of great talent to the organization from across the industry that knows what's worked, what hasn't across our peers. We're applying that. We're challenging conventional practice trying to get out in front of the curve as to what is going to be the future of a game day experience, what is a sport entertainment enterprise more holistically. And so, as a result, we have to arm our employees with those tools that will allow them to engage consistently across all the touchpoints with our fans, with our partners. Try not to centralize data to the point where only a select few have and feel informed and empowered to make decisions and take action, but disseminate that information and empower everyone to deliver consistently across all of those touchpoints. On the security side, being a public interest entity, we're vulnerable. We're a target. There's plenty of precedent around the type of activity that these types of organizations can be prone to try to address, and so, security is a number one priority of ours to make sure that the IP we're creating maintains and stays ours, as well as the information we are collecting around our customers, around our players, stays within that secure environment as well. >> So if I think about going to a baseball game, which I love, there are so many sellable moments there. Whether I'm in the stands and I want to go buy food and beverage, or I want a new hat, or some sort of merchandise for my nephew or something. You have, as CRO, you've got all these different sellable moments, not just in the ballpark, in the physical experience, but even online. So having this kind of cohesive opportunity to sell not just tickets, but food and beverage, merchandise, in person, on mobile, on a tablet, on a desktop, it's got to be a critical part of your strategy Talk about the alignment with yourself and you said a lot of your IT guys have FOMO cause you're here, but I imagine that those experiences are essential that you have the right foundation and technological foundation to deliver sellable moments that deliver. >> That's right. So the ecosystem of a sport is a fairly diverse one from the ticketing transaction to all of the ballpark touchpoints. What we're trying to create is that 12 month relationship with a fan, so that goes into creating a lot of content and how we distribute that content, in order to continue to earn that engagement well beyond 81 plus dates of baseball. And the technology behind there, in terms of our storage and our accessibility, is what allows us to begin to personalize and tailor not only those core, traditional transactions and touchpoints of sport, but how we've begun to transition into more of that broader entertainment enterprise in making sure that we can deliver those as personalized and tailored as we can. >> So there was another Chicago team that showed the age of baseball. It was over 100 years before they won a-- >> Another Chicago team-- >> Yeah, another Chicago team that won a championship. So baseball has a lot of tradition. You're in a unique opportunity that you're coming into a new ownership, but still, baseball has traditions that are hard to compete against. So let's talk about what are some of the cultural changes and opportunities that you see that baseball needs to engage in where technology can help. >> Why I think an interesting thought around baseball and where it's been scrutinized as whether we pace a play or number of games, of not keeping up with the times, not being as snackable, short-form consumption as other sporting content. As everything tracks that way, baseball starts to differentiate itself in terms of the ability to create a very distinct and differentiated experience to a millennial, to a family, to an older consumer who has grown up with the traditions of baseball. And so while baseball needs to continue to innovate and modernize, there's actually this interesting equilibrium as to how much it continues to challenge those traditions that differentiate it from many of other points of contact and where it should continue to preserve those elements to hold what has been generational-type engagement. >> You know a great example of that is mlb.com and being able to watch a game anywhere. Baseball does an amazing job of embracing digital transformation, at least in baseball. One of the things that we talked about, or that David talked about onstage today, is the seven trillion dollar opportunity. That's big, even in baseball numbers. There's no bigger sporting numbers than baseball, but seven trillion dollars is opportunity. What are you excited about coming out of this show when you look at some of the potential game efficiencies from some of the automation announcements that were made today? >> For our organization, while there has been significant investment in infrastructure, great collaboration with Citrix up until this point. The exciting transformation for us is our migration into more of a hybrid cloud environment, which is going to allow us to onboard a number of new applications, tools, for our sales team, our service team, our game presentation groups, to continue to innovate and challenge how they've gone to market in the past. And having Citrix as a partner that has that environment for us to step into, one, gives us a ton of assurance in taking that next step and having someone that continues to bring us new tools within that environment, as well. So our ability to collaborate across the organization, I'd say we've only just skimmed the surface as to the true capability and power of a lot of the tools we've had in place, and very excited about unlocking the true power and potential of that environment moving forward. >> So this is your second season with the Marlins. You spent 15 years at PWC and before we went live, I thought, wow, that must have been a pretty big change going from PWC to major league baseball. But you actually have quite a history in sports. Tell us a little about that and maybe some of the similarities between major league baseball as an industry to other industries that kind of surprised you. >> Sure. Organizations couldn't be different, more different, in terms of profile and in set-up. What I did day-to-day, advising across sport and entertainment leading the sports practice at PWC positioned me for this incredible opportunity or challenge that is the Miami Marlins and what we're building in this aggressive vision that we've set as to how we're going to reset the standard and become world class as an enterprise. PWC and the history with the firm and professional services gave me a unique perspective as to how to take on many of the challenges that we have. Had the opportunity working across sport to really understand what works, what doesn't, so that we can avoid some of those missteps that others who have taken on this roadmap ahead of us have encountered. The breadth of infrastructure that a firm of PWC's size, also gives me a little more of a lens as to what the power and scale of a large organization can deliver in more of a small, mid-size business form, and not accept size or employee base as a constraint as to the types of tools and sophistication of our technology that we can deploy within a sports organization. >> Well, Adam, thank you so much for joining Keith and me on theCUBE this afternoon, talking about how you are helping to make big positive impacts for the Miami Marlins. We appreciate your time. >> I enjoyed it. Thank you. >> Go MLB. All right, for Keith Townsend, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE, live from our first day of coverage of Citrix Synergy 2019. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: Live from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, it's The Cube! Covering DevNet Create 2018, brought to you by Cisco. >> Hello everyone, welcome back to The Cube's special coverage of Cisco DevNet Create here in Mountain View, California, the heart of Silicon Valley. We're at the Computer History Museum. I'm here with Lauren Cooney, who's co-hosted with me for the past two days' wall-to-wall coverage. We've been kind of getting down in the community with Cisco's DevNet Create, which is an extension to their main DevNet developer program, which is mostly network-centric, classic Cisco developers, guys configuring networks, the power players in the enterprise and all around the world as we know it. But now that the cloud native's taken off we're here exploring that DevOps equation. Our next guest is Rowell Dionicio, who's a network engineer at Stanford, welcome to The Cube, thanks for coming on! >> Thanks for having me. >> Love Stanford, very progressive, always having state of the art facilities, I mean, hell, the campus just gets better every year. It's like a cathedral of new buildings- >> Rowell: It's always under construction. >> Always under construction, football team's been decent for the last decade, which is good as a season ticket holder, but the network drives it all, the great facilities there. So now see you're here as a Cisco practitioner. Networks have been running the show for many, many years, now comes cloud, Stanford's got a lot of stuff going on on campus, obviously academic computing, business computing, is there a lot of cloud going on there? And is there a lot of DevOps happening? Give us a quick take on- >> There's a lot of cloud. I come from the infrastructure side, so this is my first time here at DevNet Create. I wanted to get a feel for what's coming. What do I need to learn in order to make that next step to help bring a better network, help students connect, help staff connect. >> Yeah, the network guys have all the power, always have been, but what's interesting is Susie Wee at Cisco, she's leading the team around DevNet Create, we talked at their last show in Barcelona about on top of that she was introducing, which I love, network ops. Which is essentially what DevOps is, but making the network truly programmable, at a level where it's a service. That's the nirvana scenario, that's the dream scenario. >> It is, yeah, and we actually have a lot of that already in place, but obviously there's still a lot of areas that we can improve, especially in maybe the wireless space, and that's why I'm here. What can I do on the wireless side to help drive that? Is there something that we can do better, more efficiently? >> I mean, we always do this ad hoc, unscientific surveys. We interviewed the guy who runs the stadium for the San Francisco Giants, the guy who runs the stadium for the Sharks, Levi Stadium. The number one complaint is wireless. And it's like in the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. >> It's a tough one to crack. I hear those complaints, I get 'em, and I try to fix them as quickly as I can. But it's one of those things where you can't see it, and I think wireless is just such a robust technology that it'll work even in the worst scenarios. >> That enables a lot of IOT, but also the consumer side with the students and the faculty. Is the strategy at Stanford just to blanket coverage of campus, you guys just throw the RF all over the place? >> We don't, we don't just put it everywhere and anywhere. We actually think about it and it's not just in terms of coverage, it's also capacity and how people want to use it. And so we try to design around those requirements, and also if we're bring in IOTs, how do those devices work with wireless? Am I going to deploy something that those devices actually work well with it? I don't know, and so we have to do a lot of testing, ask a lot of questions. What's the use case? Where do they want it? Is it even possible? >> The analytics are interesting, right? You look at the patterns, and they're humans, they're connecting, so you can see where the crowds are, probably, I imagine you look at the concentration? >> We're not even at that point yet. We're actually just looking at it. That's why I'm here, to see how can I do this on our network: is it possible, how do we deploy this and make it work with other schools on the campus? To see whether or not it's a great use-case for us. >> 'Cause the schools have their own kind of kingdom kind of thing, or how does it?- >> A little bit, yeah. >> So there's some job there maybe, yeah? Well, let me ask a question, as you're creatively looking at the solution, if you could have the magic wand, what are some of the things that you want to do, if you kind of think about some of the dream scenarios, the futuristic kind of view? >> Yeah, if it was just as easy as putting it up, and making it work, that would be fantastic. But we have to work with physics, radio frequency, so it's not that easy, not yet. >> So what are you thinking about when there has to be a lot of compatibility that you're looking at in terms of the different campuses, what will work with what, how can we make it more streamlined, mesh-like, etc., is that something you're considering? >> It's a lot of planning that's involved. So not so much mesh, we don't do too much of that, but a lot of it has to go around with the requirements of the building, for one. A lot of the buildings on campus are considered historic, so we can't really place access points the way we want them to be installed. So we have to work around that challenge. And then it's getting it to the areas where people want wireless, which is also another challenge. And then budget and infrastructure. Then people start throwing devices and then that we don't even know about, so they'll want IOT everything, whatever you can put wireless on, they want that. >> How are you mapping for security purposes? What are you doing for that? I mean that has to be something that you're looking at. >> We definitely have a network that's secure, which uses certificate-based authentication. We have our regular Stanford network, but we really secure the infrastructure side and allow students, staff, teachers to really try to innovate around that. So we don't put a lot of restrictions on the network. We do protect anything coming from the outside coming in, but going out to the internet, if they want to develop something, there's a lot of great stuff that comes out of Stanford, and we don't want to inhibit any of that process. >> As a Cisco kind of champion, you guys can look at Cisco, and honestly, certainly the network enables a lot. What are you learning here, what do you hope to walk out of here with, what sessions have you played around with, what did you gravitate to? >> I gravitated toward some of the beginner sessions, which would have to be with how to program using Python. I looked at some location-based stuff. Maybe there's location-based services that we want to roll out to the campus. That's a big topic amongst the industry right now. And then efficiency as well, how can I deploy faster if it's just me working on a certain project? Those kind of things, and even reporting, how can I get statistics, how do I know how many devices are on a section of the campus or an AP? Those kind of things, something that will be easier for me and maybe my co-workers as well to get the information we need and then be able to deliver the services and the infrastructure faster as well. >> How's the tooling for you guys over there? Obviously with DevNet Create you can almost see the dots connecting. Apps could be developed, either custom apps, and they're different, you can't really have an off-the-shelf app. You could have general purpose EDU apps for maybe networks, but you guys are a pretty unique environment there. Are there apps now that you use or are they coming? >> It's very unique. It's a big campus, so there are apps that just don't fit right out of the box, so there's a lot of custom apps. Some of the stuff I'm not part of, but I do use them and they are custom. It's very tailored to what exactly we need, what information are we trying to get, and they build tools around that. >> What the Stanford network like? Stanford as a school, top shelf, everything's great. They have a smokin' network? I mean, what's the bandwidth, give us some numbers! What's the upstream? We know from a live-streaming standpoint, we've been there- >> We have a good upstream, I'll tell you that. And there's multiple, for redundancy, so at least 10 gigs for some parts of the campus. And we do get a lot of devices on wireless. I think the last number I've seen was around 40,000 unique devices on wireless. So it's getting larger. >> Rogue devices, I mean obviously, we were talking before Cameron, just joking, there's a lot of power there, a lot of network, I can see kids bitcoin mining in their dorm rooms. I mean it's what I would probably try to do. >> I don't monitor, we don't monitor what they actually do on the network. We just deliver the pipes. >> You realize there's thousands of people rejoicing now over what you just said. (laughs) >> I'm sure there's entrepreneurs out there. >> I'm not on the security team, so maybe the security team does something, but as far as I know on the wireless, we just try to deliver connectivity. I don't want to do anything that inhibits somebody from doing a project that they're trying to do. 'Cause they always develop a lot of great applications, a lot of great products, I don't want to be that guy that says no you can't do that. >> But you got to also make sure, you don't want to restrict the creativity, because Stanford does have a lot of students who go out and start companies, Snapchat, you name it, they're all there. >> We'll see a lot of rogues, and I do go and get the bad ones, but there are some people who are trying to build a network to create a use-case around this application that they're building, and that I won't block because I know what they're doing. I tell them how you should go and approach it, so that way there's no security issues. If there's a potential security issue, I say, hey, you need to talk to the security team and get them on board. >> So you guys are lackadaisical, but you're actually encouraging them, but there's an honor system it sounds like, if they kind of come clean you guys give them some barriers to bounce around on? >> Yeah, we have the fences in place. I won't talk too much on the security side, because I'm not the guy who does the security. >> But you're not locking people down, it's not like a hard-core, chop your hands off- >> It's not like we're filtering a lot of content or anything. But if you're doing something bad, you'll be found. >> What else can you tell us about what's going on at Stanford that you think is well-positioned vis-a-vis the theme here, which is take the network, move up the stack, these things like kubernetes, this is bringing kind of a new concept. You guys are already progressive in the way you posture to the audience out there. >> A lot of the people on campus have the freedom, I would say enough freedom, to go out and try these kubernetes or maybe like Node-RED. And those are the kind of things I want to see if I could leverage those technologies as well, on our side. I think the campus is adopting the cloud, so a lot of people are moving to the cloud. I think there was some push-back there, but I think people are starting to see the full benefits of using it. >> Are there some bug bounties out there all, any incentives for students? >> Oh I don't know, maybe for the other guys. >> Rowell, thanks for coming by, I appreciate it. And good luck on your journey, appreciate it. Thanks for coming on The Cube. Okay, Stanford here, talking about network, It's hot, I've been there, I can tell you the bandwidth's strong at Standford, a great university. It's The Cube, bringing you all the action here in Silicon Valley in Mountain View, at Computer History Museum for Cisco's DevNet Create 2018. We'll be right back with more after this short break.

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's The Cube, covering the VMworld 2017, brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem partners. >> Welcome back to The Cube. We are live at VMworld for our continuing coverage of the event, day two, exciting morning. I'm Lisa Martin with my co-host Stu Miniman, and Stu and I are very excited to be joined by a Cube alumni Chhandomay Mandal, the Director of Storage Solutions Marketing at Dell EMC. Welcome back. >> Glad to be here. >> Yeah, we had you on The Cube a couple of times at Dell EMCworld. >> Yes. >> Just a couple of months ago. So, virtualization. Still a mainstay of the data center, right? Some big announcements yesterday and today. Can you talk to us about some of the trends that you're seeing in the virtualization market today? >> Sure. So, as many organizations are going through the IT transformation, data centers are becoming even larger, running thousands of applications, many thousands of VMs, right. So what we see is as many applications run, the underlying storage load becomes hugely random, the platform needs to be able to deliver very high performance all the time, 24/7, 365. Also, getting into the private cloud type environment, we see a lot of VM cloning, VM deployment, coming and happening in a rapid space. We also see the need of efficient copy management, to prevent the VMs' flaws in a very nice, contained, efficient manner. And finally, as we are hearing at VMworld, giving access to applications and data from any device, any application, any time, anywhere, that's becoming another aspect we are increasingly seeing across all of our customers. >> You bring up a lot of really interesting points. You know, I think back, the early days of virtualizations, like oh, we're going to give this abstraction layer and it's going to make everything really easy. Come one, invisible infrastructure, I shouldn't have to even worry about storage, right? But the reality is, there's a lot of work that goes into making sure that storage works well, and when we're talking virtualized environment, when we're talking cloud environment, what's that conversation you're having with customers? I think virtualization in cloud, who is it that brings up, hey, we got to make sure that storage meets our needs? What are some of the biggest things that you're hearing from customers and how are you helping to solve them? >> So as you look at the customers, right, maybe like five years ago it used to be pretty storage admin, or IT admin-centric conversations. We are seeing a transition into CXO-level business, solving our business challenges conversation. It's not that, how much storage I need, how many copies do I need to create, but it's more along the lines of, I need to bring my cloud-native application faster to market. It's taking six months of development cycle. How can it bring it back to like, three months, how I can hit the corner cases before the customers actually run into those in my keyware cycles? How I can run better analytics real-time, as opposed to having to wait for like 24 hours? So these are the business challenges customers are asking us to help solve, and we are evaluating where they are in their IT transformation journey, and how we can map those requirements into the underlying infrastructure that will help them get to that new era of virtualization, cloud-native applications, all those things. >> One of the things that Michael Dell talked about this morning on stage with Pat Gelsinger, was that the data conversation is, like you were saying, it's a CXO-level conversation, it's on the CEO agenda. Can you talk to us about some of things that Dell EMC is doing at that level of customer conversation where costs are concerned. We have this exploding growth of data volume, that's not changing, centers of data, not data centers anymore. How is Dell EMC helping to position where you can work with customers on the storage element that will really help drive cost efficiencies across an entire business? >> So, I'll start with a solid example, right. I mean, I was working with a customer who is running huge number of databases, and to run his business, he needs to have copies for his DevOps operations, he needs to have copies for his backup environment, copies to run his analytics environment, and there are storage silos everywhere, because he really was afraid of touching his production environment to meet his SLAs. Now, I'll give you an example of one of our portfolio products, Dell EMC XtremIO, in fact we literally announced the general availability of X2 here at at the IMC World. Now this is a purpose-built all-flash array that is designed to handle application-level problems. So for example, it can not only provide very high performance with consistently low latency for DB workloads, but because of its intelligent in-memory content over metadata architecture that's built for flash media, it can create copies without consuming any extra space instantly, and the admins, whether that's a DB or storage admin, they can actually consolidate production workloads with non-production workloads like DevOps environments analytics, thereby hugely reducing the storage capacity of it, but then there is an added benefit to it. Say for example, the application admin needs to deploy a VM for his latest application he's developing, right? So instead of having to go to a DBA to ask storage admin, he actually can self-service with the application-level plug-in, saying like, hey, I want to clone 10 VMs. And you know what? The DBAs are happy, the storage admins are happy, because they are out of that chain. They can monitor and make sure everything is running fine, but at the end of the day, the self-service is actually helping the developers bring the product to the market in a more timely and cost-efficient manner. >> So reduce TCO storage cost... >> I actually want you to kind of put a point on that because we'd actually looked into, you know when flash came into the marketplace, it was like, oh great, we're going to improve performance, but the business outcomes, what happened to the business, and one piece you talked about, the dev and test environments, used to be, you know, let's give them sold old gear, they kind of work on whatever could have. They can now increase their agility. Number one thing we hear, the keynote this morning talked about, how do I move faster, and giving them the tools in there, all of those copies, I'm putting them to use, I'm leveraging my data, I'm leveraging, you know, increasing the speed of my application development, and that's the number one thing that we hear from all customers is right, how can I not have storage be a boat anchor, but help me move my business forward. So you know, be a driver, not a cost. >> They don't need to be in the business of optimizing storage. It is helping them transform the business application workflows as opposed to, how do I plan for this, how do I keep monitoring, what do I need to do for the next upgrade, et cetera. >> So from a customer's perspective, can you talk to us about, to Stu's point, maybe one of your favorite examples of a customer who dramatically improved business outcomes, reducing cost of ownership, getting to market with products faster, launching new products. What are some of the big business outcomes that you've seen through a great customer example? >> So I actually have a couple. I'll start with one in the health care space. Scripps Health is a big, integrated non-profit health system down in San Diego area, and they are running their electronic health record systems, which are pretty vital for all the clinicians to access their patient data very quickly. Now, they had multiple problems. One was how to keep up with the explosion of all the images that were getting created, like copies for their EHR systems, et cetera. And at the same time, they had to back up their data, and they had to create many copies of their SQL Server environments. In fact, they could not keep up with that and the time it was taking was getting enormous. Once they moved to this XtremIO platform, they actually started to see, pretty much like that time to create the copies reduced by more than 80%. And then they also saw the advantage of data reduction. They are getting anywhere like four S21 to seven S21 data reduction on their storage capacity, and with the help of this integrated technology, now their doctors are able to see more patient in a day, pretty much like saving lots of doctor hours. >> Can imagine they can pull back large images faster, it's on all-flash, being able to get information to patients faster, make diagnoses maybe, improve their ability to do that as well? >> Chhandomay: Yes. >> Yeah. >> And changing the spectrum completely. I mean I'm from the Boston area, Red Sox is my favorite sports team down there along with Bats. Now, again, even with baseball, right, they need to run lots of analytics. They want to have their spectators in the historic Fenway Park the latest and greatest digital experience of the games that are going on, right? And they have to run all of their business applications as well as customer-facing systems on a platform that can keep up with the growth, and give their latest experience. Now again, they moved to XtremIO, they are seeing great performance, they are seeing seven S21 data efficiency, and literally, they say us, their business processes and the customer experience have changed. They don't really need to worry about how the backend is working, they can actually focus on the strategic outcomes of baseball operations and giving the viewers at Fenway the best possible IT experience through the mobile network, social networking, like all those things. So that's kind of like two of my favorite examples from completely different spectrums. >> Okay, so we're here at VMworld. Any specific use cases that you're especially seeing popular in this community as compared to the general storage market? >> So I would say one of the aspects we heard, I mean in the keynotes, any device, any application, like one cloud. For us, what we are seeing >> Stu: It's actually any cloud now, right? >> Yeah, any cloud. So it's pretty much the same, right? I mean it's any device, any application, anywhere, anytime access. So I want to say the end user computing is becoming very important. It was always important, but there were storage bottlenecks, but now with all these abstractions that are possible, the mobile device management that is coming in, we see a great uptick in terms of the desktop virtualization market, and again, bringing back to what we just announced, right? This XtremIO X2 platform is exceptional for VDI use cases. I mean, in our previous generation we had 700 plus customers running 2.5 million plus virtual desktops. Now with this new platform, I mean a single X-Brick, which is like a small, two-controller array necessity, it can host up to 4,000 desktops. And I mean we are seeing tremendous performance improvement, snappy desktop experience, with huge data reductions. So that's one area which we see keeping up with our customer base as they're going through that IT transformation through digital transformation. >> So one of the things, I love that you brought up the Red Sox, I'm a San Francisco Giants fan, but if they don't make it at the wild card, which is probably not going to happen, I might root for the Red Sox. But what I love that you talked about is, a baseball team is a technology company. A hospital, a university is a technology company. Presumably with a lot of legacy infrastructure that needs to be updated to modernize IT, how is now Dell EMC, with XtremIO, helping these companies on this path to digitalization, but on this legacy upgrade process? What's unique about how Dell EMC can do that leveraging XtremIO? >> So for us, at Dell EMC, modernizing IT infrastructure is essentially we think based on four pillars. Flash, one is flash, scale-out architecture, cloud-ready, and software-defined storage all backed by the world-class data protection. Now I want to take it one step back. It's not just about XtremIO or XtremIO X2, it's about the power of the portfolio that we have. So customers might have legacy infrastructure, both from us or from other vendors, but we provide the kind of like, walk into their environments, what we call get-modern assessments. We actually run various types of applications to see where their bottlenecks are, what performance do they need, and then take a portfolio approach to provide the complete solution in terms of how we can non-disruptively transform all of their workloads into a newer platform, be it based on XtremIO, or VMAX or ScaleIO, any of those platforms. But the key is, having the ability to non-disruptively move the legacy workloads into this modern infrastructure as well as enabling them to do those cloud-native applications digital transformation journey. >> You've mentioned cloud-native applications a few times. That modernization of the applications, one of the toughest journeys that we're going on. We've talked about virtualizing, we talked about cloud, but the application's something that it's pretty tough to make a change there. How is the infrastructure enabling that and what are some of the, just kind of in general, what are you hearing from customers, how are they doing along that journey? >> So in that space, right, we are seeing a great adoption of the platforms that can provide 24/7 365, not only just uptime, but great performance, at a lower TCO. And we are seeing adoption in terms of conversion, hyper-conversion, software-defined. So those are the elements that are helping the customers transform into that space, meaning, think of it in a automated self-service world where pretty much, like, I'm developing my applications and I click couple of buttons and all the infrastructure get provisioned as I need and when I'm done I kind of like decommission it. So that's the ultimate nirvana of self-service, automation, orchestration, that the end developers can use, and IT become a strategic operations, as opposed to kind of like keeping the lights on and making sure we are in the business. >> Excellent, well Chhandomay, we thank you so much for coming back to The Cube and sharing what's new at Dell EMC with the different technologies, and some great use cases across different companies that are tech companies at heart. We hope you enjoy the rest of the show. >> It was a pleasure of being on The Cube, thank you. >> Thank you. And we want to thank you for watching, I'm Lisa Martin with my cohost Stu Miniman again, we are live, covering day two of VMworld 2017. From Las Vegas, stick around, we'll be right back.

>> From Phoenix, Arizona The Cube at Catalyst Conference. Here's your host, Jeff Frick. (upbeat music) >> Hey welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with The Cube. We are on the ground in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. About 400 people, fourth year of the conference. They're going to be back in the Bay area next year. Really a lot of good things going on around the Women in Tech theme that we cover on The Cube, so we wanted to come down, check it out. Our first time here, I'm sure we'll be back again. And we're excited by our next guest, Hilary Weber, the founder and CEO of Opportu. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> So what is Opportu? >> Opportu is an unusual company. It is a coaching and consulting company that focuses on innovation. So I have two main audiences that I work with. >> Okay. >> So startups are one because startups are innovation in essence, but 95 percent of them fail, so we're trying to make sure that less of them fail. And we're focusing on sort of innovating their innovation by a culture focus. >> Mm-hmm. So it kind of process of innovation? Culture of innovation? There's a lot of kind of way to slice that. >> It's both, but it's all around people. It's all around people. And not just startups' struggle with innovation, bigger companies struggle with it too. So what we're trying to do is kind of help startups act a little bit like bigger companies 'cause that's what they're aspiring to be. But really preserving that wonderful culture that they usually have and if they don't have a wonderful culture, making sure we work on that right away. >> Right. >> And then the bigger companies, as companies get bigger and bigger and bigger, they tend to lose their innovation edge and it typically is rooted in culture as well. So we have some interesting tools that we work with. I've been partnering with UC Berkeley on some really cutting edge innovation tools, being able to actually measure a company's propensity for innovation, their capability to innovate. So it's brand new, right? >> Right. Right. >> So that's very exciting. So that's what we do. >> That's great. One of my all-time favorite interviews was with the San Francisco Giants and we interviewed them specifically around the kale garden. Which, I don't know how much kale you eat... >> A lot. >> They put the kale garden behind the center field wall. >> Wow. >> Where you can now go get a salad, and they'll pick it off these hydroponic things growing all the lettuce. It has nothing to do with baseball, but to me it was a fascinating story on a culture of innovation. The Giants are really innovative, Bill Schlough over there, the CIO. To me, it was, who came up with this idea, A, and then was able to get it through their organization to have the confidence to say it, to get it funded, and to actually get it implemented where now you can go stand at the Giant's game and pick a piece of lettuce and they'll put it in a bowl, put some salad dressing and you're eating salad. What are some of the secrets of having a culture of innovation as opposed to just innovation in terms of making interesting things? 'Cause it's really about the culture. >> Well it is. You mentioned the confidence word. Confidence is a big focus. A lot of people think that hiring millennials is going to solve their innovation problem. Maybe yes, maybe no. It's really the mix. It's how are these people collaborating, how free is that newest newbie to share an idea? If you get in there and you realize this company operates by having ideas come from the top down, and I'm not going to stick my neck out. >> Right. >> And especially for women. And especially for women, since we're here at Girls in Tech, where they're by far the minority around the table, so the risk of them speaking up is higher for them. They feel more of an outsider. >> Sure. >> So, figuring out ways to honor the diversity rather than make it be a problem and creating a team that just fires on all cylinders, and so ideas just come. >> So if I'm running a company, and I know I've got a disproportionate, a bunch of male engineers of the tech company, what are some of the things that I can do to help to encourage that young woman with this great idea to get it out of her? To make it comfortable for her to share? What are some of the things that I can do from this side of the table to really enable that? >> I think part of it is really raising the awareness of what it's like for others. There are multiple tools out there that you can use but sometimes working with someone from the outside that can help them see things differently. The function of a coach is often holding up a mirror. And when you're inside of something it is really hard to see what's really going on. Sometimes I'll describe to the startups that we work with, I'll say, "If you're on the inside of an apple, it looks all white with these big black seeds. From out here, it looks shiny and red. It's still an apple, but it looks very different from the inside to the outside." So having a different perspective. The other thing is that kind of vibe starts with the leader. They have to model the behavior. They have to look at their own behavior and see, what am I doing or not doing that is encouraging that and enabling that. And, maybe hire some more women. Have women on your board. It's proven. You have a woman on your board, you get 20 percent more revenue and productivity. >> Right. >> There's statistics all around that. >> So do you find the value in what you do, a large part of it is simply putting the mirror on? There's techniques and stuff but just get, take a minute, take a breath, look at what's happening here from the outside and you'll see and it'll be more obvious. Do people just get kind of wrapped up in the way they've always done things, or busy, they don't really have time to lift their head up and take a breath? What do you find in you clients? >> Awareness is the first step, certainly. >> They wouldn't bring you in, right, if they didn't want to make improvements. >> Precisely. Precisely. If there's a lack of awareness, then a lot of times it's... >> A self perpetuated thing. >> Yeah, exactly. But a lot of times there'll be sort of a moment that will happen, unfortunately sometimes where somebody's super unhappy or there's a lawsuit or something like that. That's an extreme case but... >> But sometimes it takes a catalyst like that, unfortunately, right. >> Sometimes, sometimes. But hopefully you've got one or two people who are, "we're at a certain stage where I think we need to really up our leadership game, up our professional development, look at things differently. We're losing too many people." Those kind of things. >> Right. What tips for the woman on the other side of the table? You're by yourself, you're outnumbered, maybe you're not as loud, maybe you're not 100 percent sure that this is the answer you want to give or the suggestion you want to make, but you think its got legs. What are some of the tips and tricks that you give them to get your voice out? How do you kind of counsel ways that they can get that out? >> Mm-hmm. Well, confidence comes in all forms. Women tend to have been successful in their lives, there's statistics on this too, where we tend to be rule followers when we're younger, right? We get all A's, we get the praise of the teacher. And we finally get to the workplace and kind of following all the rules really doesn't work. So they haven't had a lot of chances to fail, basically. >> Right, right. >> So I kind of give them failure lessons. Learn how to fail at something small. One of my clients went out and did trivia night with her friends, and she knew she was going to not do well in some categories, even though she's super smart. >> I should practice doing that. >> To kind of flex the failure muscle and be okay with, not all your ideas are going to be winners, and it's okay. >> Right, right. >> The other thing I would really say is take a look at your own values. I have a values assessment that I put on my website so anybody can do it. I think it's really underutilized for individuals and for companies to do a values assessment. "What do I really care about? What are the battles that I am going to go to the ends of the earth to get to? What are the things that I really want to promote and why?" If you know that inside of yourself, that can really fuel your confidence when you're sitting in a meeting where it's a little bit scary. >> Right, but that almost, again sounds like the mirror thing that you talked about before. It's reconnecting with those values in the context of the moment as opposed to, you know we all just get so busy. You're just wrapped up with getting stuff done and trying to get through, whatever you're trying to get through. >> Exactly. And I think a lot of people either go through their day kind of just trying to get through the day, kind of please just get me to the end, or they get into fight mode, where they're just like, it's me or you and that doesn't really work. Trying to get out of that sort of overly me orientation and starting to think about how can we make this something better. How can we be more than the sum of our parts? >> Right, right. Important stuff you're working on there, Hilary. So how could people learn more, how could they reach out and connect with you? >> They can go to Opportu dot com. O-P-P-O-R-T-U dot com. They can email me, H Weber, with one b, H-W-E-B-E-R at Opportu dot com or find me on Twitter or Facebook. >> Excellent. Well thank you for taking a few minutes. Really important stuff you're working on. >> Thank you very much. >> All right. Hilary Weber, I'm Jeff Frick, we are at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. You're watching The Cube. Thanks for watching.

it's the cube covering vmworld 2015 brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem sponsors now your hosts John furrier and Dave vellante okay welcome back everyone we are live in San Francisco moscone north lobby here for vmworld 2015 this is silicon angles the Q this is our flagship program we go out to the events and extract the Sigma noise i'm john frieda found us look at a humdrum echoes dave vellante co-founder Wikibon calm research our next guest is Robin Matlock the CMO of VMware we are in the cubes set and the two sets here this year we have the director set new innovation here at vmworld again setting the stage the leadership of VMware and the person behind all this is Robin Matlock CMO thanks so much first of all for letting us come and do your lobby here it's been great so far it's one say thank you you guys you know we love having you you're a big part of this program for us six years now we've been watching the transformation it's been interesting this year has been fun to watch because of all the outside noise and certainly the products are doing great at Gelson's keynote this morning was really a home run he really knocked it out of the park so the messaging is tight this year really good it's looking forward it's got a longer perspective it's not a short-term driven messaging it is that by design i mean this is kind of showing the future yeah absolutely we really tried to change things up this year and you know that's important is that we have to reinvent we have to make ourselves relevant and part of it is taking something like the program at vmworld and making sure that every year it delivers fresh new a different perspective for these attendees so we changed things we started with Karl talking about one cloud any application any device very much frame the conversation for V emerald in the keynotes but also more of a 12 18 24 month kind of view and today we closed with Pat Gelsinger on the stage and you're right that was all about forward-looking what lies in the next to 35 years and what is our point of view on it and I agree with you I think that really did an amazing job this morning the ecosystems changing we've been monitoring the ecosystem on our crowd chat platform some great conversations with the thought leaders it's changing the demographics seem to be changing you own IP they got great market share and traditional IT that's being where's legacy wheelhouse so the Ops guys are all here but sad event the DevOps focus is really scratching the services at a whole new developer community do you guys were you guys aware of that is that kind of like the big AHA this year was it is that a big part of the ecosystem can you share some color and how this dev ops team is now resonating through the ecosystem sure and without a doubt it i wouldn't call it an aha i think it's a very strategic intentional move frankly the reality is the world is changing and it's impacting IT you know as part of the core of that transformation so I T needs to change to be relevant for business and DevOps is a part of that how are we going to build applications in this cloud native world how are we going to do it faster more agile and serve our businesses quicker well DevOps plays a key role there and what we can do is help IT serve at development community I mean obviously we had a lot of big announcements that are coming out this week and we wanted to make sure we had a way to deliver that content to this new audience so the ecosystem is evolving and it needs to because part of it is how we all transform so I'm glad you're noticing some of those changes are very strategic I mean the other thing about vmworld that that is been since day one is the core of the practitioner you know community and the peers and people are excited to be here they look forward to it they come early to hang out with their friends but a lot of parties but the content is very much around the customer and so you've been able to preserve that but at the same time you know provide an interesting layer of you know senior management perspectives high level customers when you talk about that chair at the core we really do see vmworld as a technical conference that would be the one thing that's anchored in the ground now as the people that need to engage with technology and as technology itself shifts and changes and VMware's offerings shift and change the ecosystem we have to be able to address a broader set of different types of audience so the practitioners are core but now you get the DevOps audience you get mobility professionals you get networking opps people you get you know storage folks so although the content will always stay very educational and technical in nature i do think we've done a really good job starting to broaden to appeal to these different audience types and so that's the other piece that i wanted to address is i think you know the roles are shifting with in IT and sometimes to me what this conference does it allows people who want a different career path to find one here they don't have to go to 10 different conferences and that's unique I think in the industry there was a wonderful tweet you'll have to pull it up for your audience and I'm sorry I can't reference the gentleman that did it but it it was at the end of yesterday while KITT kolbert and Rio Pharaoh were presenting we ran over a little bit so some people were moving on to their sessions and he tweeted that those that are leaving the hall right now I predict they may not have jobs five years from now because of the shifts and changes and how relevant it is to be in this cloud native world well I think if you know initially the the knee-jerk reaction to that change is somewhat negative and disconcerting but I think when people come to this event and they get back on the plane they start thinking about the opportunities they see this affords a lot of different avenues and it's really grown tremendously over the years i think vmware is doing a lot to help people bridge the two worlds and that's a big part of our philosophy it's a big part of how we're helping customers kind of get from point A to point B and helping the practitioners leverage the skills they've built over the last decade and really apply those to what's going to be required of them on the next decade I'm glad you mentioned that was a big theme of Pat's talk you know the bridge and you hear a lot of talk from the analyst community you know Gartner particular talks about bimodal IT my friends at IDC talk about the third platform but the problem i've always had with that is it's more silos like you know you don't want to be part of the old and i want to be part of it both what you guys are saying your messaging is we're going to bring the existing that asset base that you have along we recognize you want to go from point A to point B without just ripping everything out and so that's fundamental to the strategy and that's coming through in the messaging that's great to hear that is funny Massimino Ray fairing is the guy who said the cube we just pulled it up on our real-time analytics system but he said I feel those leaving you know during kit cobra session may be without a job in five years fact hashtag fact but that is a vibe of the show what are some of the stats on the number share some of the inside the numbers attendees sessions what can you share yes I mean I'm really proud of the stats actually so we exceeded our goal we have 23 5 23 thousand and five hundred plus attendees and they're still coming in the door as you can see out at the registration desk so biggest vmworld ever really solid growth and the demographics is shifting we're starting to see more of these new audience types so really excited about that we have over 400 breakout sessions very well subscribed the demand for the breakouts is quite incredible we have almost 300 289 or so exhibitors and the solutions exchange there is simply no more floor space if I could add another building I'd be able to scale out and get another hundred in the door but I'm just simply have a finite resource of space and we're chatting over Howard feet let's go there so I got it I got to ask about that there's never anyone it's always hard to please everybody at these events and you always feel oh nothing new at vmworld they have people coming oh sorry so fresh and relevant so you have you have a lot of people from the old guard and the new guard kind of coming together as Pat said cowboys and farmers kind of working together it's just quote on the q what is that vibe right now how would you describe that because you thought people scratching their heads and saying what's new this year femur I'm not seeing anything new so for the record sheriff Oakes what's new this year absolutely the new stuff yeah I think there's a lot of new stuff but we are getting into a more iterative development world where you know we're doing kind of lots of little or releases instead of you know five years ago where you just you held out for two years and then it was just one huge release you've got the evo SDDC that was new right and within that STD evo SDC manager brand new quickest way to really implement and get to a software-defined data center a tightly integrated software stack with new management capabilities to under you know manage the underlying hardware in infrastructure you have the whole photon platform right which kit Kolbert and rail Pharaoh launched so the photon platform which is largely open sourced with the exception of the very small in a just enough virtual machine all brand new photon OS photon controller the photon machine part of the photon platform then today we talked about business mobility so you have the workspace sweet Sanjay talked about that what we're doing with air watch we also then of course rolled out security and NSX 6.2 we have all kinds of new cloud services that came out vCloud air the disaster recovery on demand some new sequel database as a service technology so they're really I can just focus on stage Tigers are shaking it up here guys so I got to ask you so as a CMO your job is to kind of watched the trends walk to fashion if you will in the industry and you know the trend oh it says don't fight fashion you got to be fashionable and be relevant I get that but it's a hard thing to market vmware is its unique company you have a core a lot of things going on around the company I'll see the Federation EMC conversations you have customers that are changing hat laid out essentially a whole new future vision what's going to happen to VMware it basically devices world global global company how do you market that and how do you what's your approach and and what's your philosophy how do you how do you do that I think one of the most important things and I hope you got this from the keynotes this week is we are unifying behind a common narrative that is really relevant to our business and the value we deliver to our customers and everything we do somehow connects to that storyline and that's really this concept of one cloud any application any device and ago by one cloud I mean really the simplicity of managing something as one but it's really about a multiple cloud unified hybrid cloud strategy all delivering any application on any device I think the other common theme that we anchored around is what is our relevance to applications because at the end of the day that's what the business cares about so we've worked really hard to make sure that our customers understand how is it what we're doing is enabling them to deliver modern and traditional applications to their business really in any way they want to comply observation there Robin is when so that's great to have the high level messaging but when you test beneath Italy we ask pat ok so how do you live in that heterogeneous world and he basically explained ok took each of the levels of the stacks that is what we're doing there we can't do it at the you know this level we are will do it at this level with a very precise answer as to how that strategy turns along to reality so that to me is the ultimate test not just marketing a little marketing tagline and the reason why that's so important is because that when you test it with the customers and they're actually gonna be doing it you know down the road can't B's give a tie back and that's yeah thank you i would agree customers it has to be has to be relevant to customers I the end of the day they need trust in the vendor ok that I ask a question that everyone wants to know what's the party the big party everyone I mean VMware always has parties as so many parties going on did the event I mean I think there's like 10 different parties happening tonight now if we can't go to all of them but we'll try our best the big party at 18 c 4 share the big party yes it is always one of the highlights of the week i must say for all this technology it boils down to how great is a party well I have good news the San Francisco Giants cooperated and they went ahead and left town for a Wednesday night so we're able to get the park which is fabulous love being at the park so we're back at the park we're featuring two great bands and we very intentionally picked bands that are the up-and-comers you know not the kind of tried and true rock and roll we're going for someone sees every year all the different question the envelope John so you better get comfortable and come out and hang out with us Neon Trees opens up the act and then we're closing with Alabama Shakes and the rumor on the street is if you want to go to a good concert you go see Alabama Shakes perform so come join us it's going to be our walk we'll do our best to sneak into the VIP booth like they did her imagine dragons I hope to see you there okay thanks so much for coming on the guy know you're super busy thanks for sharing the insights and time and update almost love what you guys are doing it's a great audience love to have you thank you it would be back more live at San Francisco moscone north the Emerald 2015 things are shaking up up and coming new things a lot of stuff happening we'll be back after this short break