>>From around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of IBM think 2021 brought to you by IBM. Welcome back to the cubes coverage of IBM Think 2021 virtual. I'm john ferrier host of the cube. Got a great story here. Navigating Covid 19 with Watson advertising and weather channel conversations. Sherry back steen. Who's the gM of Watson advertising in the weather company. Sherry, thanks for coming on the cube. My favorite part of IBM think is to talk about the tech and also the weather company innovations. Thanks for coming on. >>Hi, happy to be here, john >>So COVID-19 obviously some impact for people that working at home. Um normally you guys have been doing a lot of innovation around weather weather data um certainly huge part of it. Right. And so lots been changing with AI and the weather company and IBM so let's first start before we jump in, just a little background about what your team has created because a lot of fascinating things here. Go ahead. >>Yeah. So when the pandemic started, you know we looked at the data that we were seeing and of course in weather accuracy and accurate data is really important trusted data. And so we created a COVID-19 hub on our weather channel app and on weather.com. And essentially what it was is an aggregated area where consumers could get the most up to date information on covid cases, deaths in their area, trends see heat maps uh information from the C. D. C. And what was unique about it. It was to a local level. Right so state level information is helpful but we know that consumers uh me included. I need information around what's happening around me. And so we were able to bring this down to a county level which we thought was really helpful for consumers >>share as watching sports on tv. And recently, a few months ago, the Masters was on and you saw people getting back into real life, It's almost like a weather forecast. Now. You want to know what's going on in the pandemic. People are sharing that. They're getting the vaccine. Um, really interesting. And so I want to understand how this all came together with you guys. Is was it something that has a weather data, a bunch of geeks saying, hey, we should do this for companies, but take us to the thought process with their team. Was it like you saw this as value? How did you get to this? Because this is an interesting user benefit. I want to know the weather, I want to know if it's safe. These are kind of a psychology of a user expectation. How did you guys connect the dots here for this project? >>Well, we certainly do have a very passionate team of people, um some weather geeks included, um and you're absolutely right watching the Masters a few months ago was amazing to see, you know, some sense of normality happening here. But you know, we looked at, you know, IBM, the weather company, like, how do we help during this pandemic? And when we thought about it, we looked at there's an amazing gap of information. And as the weather channel, you know, what we do is bring together data, give people insights and help them make decisions with that. And so it was really part of our mission. It's always been that way to give information to keep people safe. And so all we did is took a different data set and provided the same thing. And so in this case, the covid data set, which we actually had to, you know, aggregate from different sources whether it was the C. D. C. The World Health Organization uh State governments or county governments to provide this to consumers. But it was really really natural for us because we know what consumers want. You know we all want information around where we live, right? And then we want to see like where our friends live, where our relatives live to make sure that they're okay. And then that enables people to make the decisions that are right for their family. And so it was really really natural for us to do that. And then of course we have the technology to be able to scale to hundreds of millions of people. Which is really important. >>It's not obvious until you actually think about that. It's so obvious. Congratulations. What a great innovation. What were the biggest challenges you guys had to face and how did you overcome it? Because I'm curious. I see you've got a lot of, lot of large scale data dealing with diversity of data with weather. What was the challenges with Covid? And how did you overcome it? >>So again, without a doubt it was the data because you're looking at one, we wanted that county level data. So you're looking at multiple sources. So how do we aggregate this data? So first finding that trusted source that that we could use. But then how do you pull it in in an automated way? And the challenge was it with the State Department, the county departments that data came in all kinds of formats. Some counties used maps, some use charts, some use pds to get that information. So we had to pull all this unstructured data, uh, and then that data was updated at different times. So some counties did it twice a day, some did it once day, different time zones. So that really made it challenging. And so then, you know, so what we did is this is where the power of A I really helps because a I can take all of that data, bring in and organize it and then we could put it back out to the consumer in a very digestible way. And so we were able to do that. We built an automated pipeline around that so we can make sure that it was updated. It was fresh and timely, which was really important. But without a doubt looking at that structured data and unstructured data and really helping it to make sense to the consumer was the biggest challenge. And what's interesting about it. Normally it would take us months to do something like that. I challenged the team to say we don't have months, we have days. They turned that around in eight days, which was just an amazing herculean feat. But that's really just the power of, as you said, passionate people coming together to do something so meaningful. >>I love the COVID-19 success stories when people rally around their passion and also their expertise. What was the technology to the team used? Because the theme here at IBM think is transformation innovation, scale. How did you move so fast to make that happen? >>So we move fast by our Ai capabilities and then using IBM cloud and so really there's four key components are like four teams that worked on it. So first there was the weather company team um and because we are a consumer division of IBM, we know what consumers want. So we understand the user experience and the design, but we also know how to build an A. P. I. That can scale because you're talking about being able to scale not only in a weather platform. So in the midst of covid weather still happened, so we still had severe weather record breaking hurricane season. And so those A. P. S. Have to scale to that volume. Then the second team was the AI team. So that used the Watson AI team mixed with the weather Ai team to again bring in that data to organize that data. Um And we used Watson NLP so natural natural language processing in order to create that automated pipeline. Then we had the corralled infrastructure so that platform team that built that architecture and that data repository on IBM cloud. And then the last team was our data privacy office. So making sure that that data was trusted that we have permission to use it uh and just know really that data governance. So it's all of that technology and all of those teams coming together to build this hub for consumers. Um And it worked I mean we would have about four million consumers looking at that hub every single day. Um and even like a year later we still have a couple million people that access that information. So it's really kind of become more like the weather checking the weather's come that daily habit. >>That's awesome. And I gotta I gotta imagine that these discoveries and innovations that was part of this transformation at scale have helped other ways outside the pandemic and you share how this is connected to um other benefits outside the pandemic. >>Yeah so absolutely um you know ai for businesses part of IBM strategy and so really helping organizations to help predict um you know to help take workloads and automate them. So they're high valued employees can work on you know other work. And also you know to bring that personalization to customers. You know, it's really a i when I look at it for my own part of a IBM with the weather company, three things where I'm using this technology. So the first one is around advertising. So the advertising industry is at a really um you know, pivotal part right now, a lot of turmoil and challenges because of privacy legislation because big tech companies are um you know, getting rid of tracking pixels that we normally use to drive the business. So we've created a suite of AI solutions for publishers for you know, different players within the ad tech space, um which is really important because it protects the open web, so like getting covid information or weather information, all of that is free information to the public. We just ask that you underwrite it by seeing advertising so we can keep it free. So those products protect the open red. So really, really important. Then on the consumer side of my business, within the weather channel, we actually used Watson Ai um to connect health with weather. So we know that there's that connection, some health um you know, issues that people have can be impacted by weather, like allergies and flew. So we've actually used Watson Ai to build a um Risk of flu that goes 15 days out. So we can tell people in your local area this one actually goes down to the zip code level, um the risk of flu in your area or the risk of allergies. So help to manage your symptoms, take your prescription. So, um that's a really interesting way. We're using AI and of course weather dot com and our apps are on IBM cloud, so we have this strong infrastructure to support that. And then lastly, you know, our weather forecasting has always been rooted in a i you take 100 different weather models, you apply ai to that to get the best and most accurate forecasts that you deliver. Um and so we are using these technologies every day to, you know, move our business forward and to provide, you know, weather services for people. >>I just love the automation and as users have smartphones and more instrumentation on their bodies, whether it's wearables, people will plan their day around the weather, and retail shops will have a benefit knowing what the stock and or not have on hand and how to adjust that. This, the classic edge computing paradigm, fascinating impact. You wouldn't think about that, but that's a pretty big deal. People are planning >>around >>the weather data and making that available is critical. >>Oh, absolutely. You know, every business needs a weather strategy because whether it impacts your supply chain, um agriculture, should I be watering today or not even around, you know, um, if you think about energy and power lines, you know, the vegetation growth over power lines can bring power lines down and it's a disruption, you know, to customers and power. So there's just when you start thinking about it, you're like, wow, whether really impacts every business, um, not to say just consumers in general and their daily lives. >>And uh, and there's a lot of cloud scale to that can help companies whether it's um be part of a better planet or smarter planet as it's been called, and help with with global warming. I mean, you think about this is all kind of been contextually relevant now more than ever. Super exciting. Um Great stuff. I want to get your take on outside of um the IBM response to the pandemic more broadly outside of the weather. What are you guys doing um to help? Are you guys doing anything else with industry? How could you talk a little bit more about IBM s response more broadly to the pandemic? >>Yeah so IBM has been you know working with government academia, industry is really from the beginning uh in several different ways. Um you know the first one of the first things we did is it opened up our intellectual property. So R. I. P. And our technology our supercomputing To help researchers really try to understand COVID-19 some of the treatments and possible cures so that's been really beneficial as it relates to that. Um Some other things though, that we're doing as well is we created a chat bots that companies and clients could use and this chat but could either be used to help train teachers because they have to work remotely or help other workers as well. Um and also the chatbots was helping as companies started to re enter back to the workforce and getting back to the office. So the chatbots been really helpful there. Um and then, you know, one of the things that we've been doing on the advertising side is we actually have helped the ad council with their vaccine campaign. Um It's up to you is the name of the campaign and we delivered a ad unit that can dynamically assemble a creative in real time to make sure that the right message was getting out the right time to the right person. So it's really helped to maximize that campaign to reach people um and encourage them if it's the right thing for them, you know where the vaccines are available. Um and that you know, they could take those. So a lot of great work that's going on within IBM. Um and actually the most recent thing just actually in the past month is we release the Digital Health Pass in cooperation with the state of new york. Um and this is a fantastic tool because it is a way for individuals to keep their private information around their vaccines or you know, some of the Covid test they've been having on a mobile device that's secure and we think that this is going to be really important as cities start to reopen um to have that information easily accessible. >>Uh sure, great insight, um great innovation navigating Covid 19 a lot of innovation transformation at IBM and obviously Watson and the weather company using AI and also, you know, when we come out of Covid post, post Covid as real life comes back, we're still going to be impacted. We're gonna have new innovations, new expectations, tracking, understanding what's going on, not just the weather. So thanks >>for absolutely great >>work. Um, awesome. Thank you. >>Great. Thanks john good to see you. >>Okay. This is the cubes coverage of IBM. Think I'm john for a host of the cube. Thanks for watching. Yeah.

>> Announcer: From around the globe. It's theCUBE with digital coverage of IBM Think 2021, brought to you by IBM. >> Oh, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of IBM Think 2021 virtual, I'm John Furrier, your host of theCUBE. We've got a great story here. Navigating COVID-19 with Watson advertising and weather channel conversations, Sheri Bachstein, who's the GM of Watson Advertising in the weather company. Sheri, thanks for coming on theCUBE. My favorite part of IBM Think is to talk about the tech and also the weather company innovations. Thanks for coming on. >> Hi, happy to be here John. >> So COVID-19 obviously some impact for people that working at home. Normally you guys have been doing a lot of innovation around weather, weather data, certainly huge part of it. And so lots been changing with AI and the weather company and IBM, so let's first start before we jump in just a little background about what your team has created because a lot of fascinating things here. Go ahead. >> Yeah, so when the pandemic started, we looked at the data that we were seeing and of course in weather accuracy and accurate data is really important trusted data. And so we created a COVID-19 hub on our weather channel app and on weather.com and essentially what it was is an aggregated area where consumers could get the most up-to-date information on COVID cases, deaths in their area, trends see heat maps, information from the CDC. And what was unique about it, it was to a local level, right? So state level information is helpful, but we know that consumers me included. I need information around what's happening around me. And so we were able to bring this down to a County level which we thought was really helpful for consumers >> Sheri's watching sports on TV. And recently a few months ago, the masters was on and you saw people getting back into real life. It's almost like a weather forecast. Now you want to know what's going on in the pandemic. People are sharing that they're getting the vaccine, really interesting. And so I want to understand how this all came together with you guys. Was it something that as a weather data and a bunch of geeks saying, Hey, we should do this for companies but take us to thought process 113. Was it like you saw this as value? How did you get to this? Because this is an interesting user benefit. I want to know the weather. I want to know if it's safe. These are kind of a psychology of a user expectation. How did you guys connect the dots here for this project? >> Well, we certainly do have a very passionate team of people some weather geeks included and you're absolutely right. Watching the masters a few months ago was amazing to see some sense of normality happening here. But we looked at IBM and the weather company like how do we help during this pandemic? And when we thought about it we looked at there's an amazing gap of information. And as the weather channel, what we do is bring together data give people insights and help them make decisions with that. And so it was really part of our mission. It's always been that way to give information to keep people safe. And so all we did is took a different data set and provided the same thing. And so in this case, the COVID data set which we actually had to aggregate from different sources whether it was the CDC, the world health organization, a state governments, our County governments to provide this to consumers. But it was really, really natural for us because we know what consumers want. We all want information around where we live, right? And then we want to see like where our friends live, where our relatives live to make sure that they're okay. And then if that enables people to make the decisions that are right for their family. And so it was really, really natural for us to do that. And then of course we have the technology to be able to scale to hundreds of millions of people, which is really important. >> Yeah, it's not obvious until you actually think about it, then it's so obvious. Congratulations, what a great innovation what were the biggest challenges you guys had to face and how did you overcome it? Because I'm curious, I see you got a lot of large scale data dealing with diversity of data with weather. What was the challenges with COVID and how did you overcome it? >> So again, without a doubt it was the data, because you're looking at one, we wanted that County level data. So you're looking at multiple sources. So how do we aggregate this data? So first finding that trusted source that we could use but then how do you pull it in, in an automated way? And the challenge was it with the state departments, the County departments, that data came in, all kinds of formats. Some counties used maps, some use charts some use PDFs to get that information. So we had to pull all this unstructured data and then that data was updated at different times. So some counties did it twice a day some did it once a day, different time zones. So that really made it challenging. And so then, so what we did is this is where the power of AI really helps, because AI can take all of that data bring it in, organize it, and then we could put it back out to the consumer in a very digestible way. And so we were able to do that. We built an automated pipeline around that so we can make sure that it was updated. It was fresh and timely, which was really important but without a doubt, looking at that structured data and unstructured data and really helping it to make sense to the consumer was the biggest challenge. And I'll, what's interesting about it. Normally it would take us months to do something like that. I challenged the team to say, we don't have months. We have days. They turned that around in eight days which was just an amazing Herculean feat but that's really just the power of as you said, passionate people coming together to do something so meaningful. >> I love the COVID-19 success stories when people rally around their passion and also their expertise, what was the technology did the team use? Because the theme here at IBM Think is, transformation, innovation, scale. How did you move so fast to make that happen? >> So we moved fast by our AI capabilities and then using IBM cloud. And so really there's four key components or like four teams that worked on it. So first there was the weather company team. And because we are a consumer division of IBM we know what consumers want. So we understand the user experience and the design but we also know how the build an API that can scale because you're talking about being able to scale not only in a weather platform. So in the midst of COVID weather still happen. So we still had severe weather record breaking hurricane season. And so those APIs have to scale to that volume. Then the second team was the AI team. So that used the Watson AI team mixed with the weather AI team to again bring in that data to organize that data. And we use Watson NLP. So natural language processing in order to create that automated pipeline. Then we had the collateral infrastructure. So that platform team that built that architecture and that data repository on IBM cloud. And then the last team was our data privacy office. So making sure that that data was trusted that we have permission to use it and just really that data governance. So it was all of that technology and all of those teams coming together to build this hub for consumers. And it worked, I mean we would have about 4 million consumers looking at that hub every single day. And even like a year later, we still have a couple million people that access that information. So it's really kind of become more like the weather checking the weather, that daily habit. >> That's awesome. And I got to imagine that these discoveries and these innovations that was part of this transformation that scale I've helped other ways outside of the pandemic. Can you share how this is connected to other benefits outside the pandemic? >> Yeah, so absolutely, AI for business is part of IBM strategy. And so really helping organizations to help predict, to help take workloads and automate them. So they're high valued employees can work on other work and also to bring that personalization to customers is really AI. When I look at it for my own part of a IBM with the weather company, three things where I'm using this technology. So the first one is around advertising. So the advertising industry is at a really pivotal part right now, a lot of turmoil and challenges because of privacy legislation because big tech companies are getting rid of tracking pixels that we normally use to drive the business. So we've created a suite of AI solutions for publishers, for different players within the ad tech space which is really important because it protects the open web. So like getting COVID information or weather information all of that is free information to the public. We just ask that you underwrite it by saying advertising so we can keep it free. So those products protect the open read. So really, really important. Then on the consumer side of my business within the weather channel we actually use Watson AI to connect health with weather. So we know that there's that connection. Some health issues that people have can be impacted by weather like allergies and flu. So we've actually used Watson AI to build a risk of flu that goes 15 days out. So we can tell people in your local area this one actually goes down to the zip code level the risk of flu in your area or the risk of allergies. So it help to manage your symptoms, take your prescription. So that's a really interesting way we're using AI and of course, weather.com and our apps are an IBM cloud. So we have this strong infrastructure to support that. And then lastly our weather forecasting has always been rooted in AI. You take a hundred different weather models you apply AI to that to get the best and most accurate forecast that you deliver. And so we are using these technologies every day to move our business forward and to provide weather services for people. >> I just love the automation as users have smartphones and more instrumentation on their bodies, whether it's wearables, people will plan their day around the weather and retail shops will have a benefit knowing what to stock or not have on hand and how to adjust that this the classic edge computing paradigm, fascinating impact. You wouldn't think about that, but that's a pretty big deal. People are planning around the weather data and making that available as critical. >> Oh, absolutely. Every business needs a weather strategy because whether it impacts your supply chain, agriculture should I be watering today or not, even around if you think about energy and power lines, the vegetation growth of our power lines can bring power lines down and it's a disruption, to customers and power. So there's just, when you start thinking about it you're like, wow, weather really impacts every business not to say just consumers in general and their daily life. >> Yeah, and there's a lot of cloud scale too, that can help companies whether it's be part of better planet or smarter planet as it's been called and help with, with global warming. I mean, you think about this is all kind of been contextually relevant now more than ever super exciting, great stuff. I want to get your take on outside of the IBM response to the pandemic, more broadly outside of the weather. What are you guys doing to help? Are you guys doing anything else with industry? How could you, talk a little bit more about IBM's response more broadly to the pandemic? >> Yeah, so IBM has been working with government academia industries really from the beginning in several different ways. The first, one of the first things we did is it opened up our intellectual property. So our IP and our technology, our super computing to help researchers, really try to understand COVID-19, some of the treatments and possible cures. So that's been really beneficial as it relates to that. Some other things though that we're doing as well is we created a Chatbot that companies and clients could use. And this Chatbot could either be used to help train teachers because they have to work remotely or help other workers as well. And also the Chatbot was helping as companies started to reenter back to the workforce and getting back to the office. So the Chatbot has been really helpful there. And then one of the things that we've been doing on the advertising side is we actually have helped the ad council with their vaccine campaign. It's up to you as the name of the campaign. And we delivered a ad unit that can dynamically assemble a creative in real time to make sure that the right message was getting out the right time to the right person. So it's really helped to maximize that campaign to reach people. And they encourage them if it's the right thing for them, where the vaccines are available and that they could take those. So a lot of great work that's going on within IBM and actually the most recent thing just actually in the past month is we released the digital health pass in cooperation with the state of New York. And this is a fantastic tool because it is a way for individuals to keep their private information around their vaccines, or some of the COVID tests they've been having on a mobile device that's secure. And we think that this is going to be really important as cities start to reopen to have that information easily accessible. >> Awesome Sheri, great insight, great innovation navigating COVID-19, lots of innovation transformation at IBM and obviously Watson and the weather company using AI. And also, when we come out of COVID post COVID, as real life comes back, we're still going to be impacted. We're going to have new innovations, new expectations, tracking, understanding what's going on not just the weather. So thanks for doing that great work. Awesome, thank you. >> Great, thanks John. Good to see you. >> This is theCUBE's coverage of IBM Think, I'm John Furrier, the host of theCUBE. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: From Miami Beach, Florida, it's The Cube, covering Acronis Global Cyber Summit 2019. Brought to you by Acronis. >> Welcome back everyone. We are here with The Cube coverage for two days. We're wrapping up, getting down on day one in the books for the Acronis Global Cyber Summit 2019. I'm John Furrier, your host of The Cube. We are in Miami Beach, the Fontainebleau Hotel. I'm personally excited for this next guest because I'm a huge Red Sox fan, even though I got moved out to California. Giants is in a different area. National League is different than American League, still my heart with the Red Sox. And we're here with an industry veteran, seasoned professional in IT and data, Brian Shield. Boston Red Sox Vice President of Technology and IT. Welcome to The Cube, thanks for joining us. >> Thank you. It's great to be here. >> John: So congratulations on the rings. Since I moved out of town, Red sox win their World Series, break the curse of the Bambino. >> Hey we appreciate that. Thank you. >> My family doesn't want me back. You got to show >> Yeah, maybe I'll put this one up for the, maybe someone can zoom in on this. Which camera is the good one? This one here? So, there ya go. So, World Series champs for at least for another week. (laughter) >> Bummer about this year. Pitching just couldn't get it done. But, good team. >> Happens. >> Again, things move on, but you know. New regime, new GM going to come on board. >> Yup. >> So, but in general, Red Sox, storied franchise. Love it there. Fenway Park, the cathedral of baseball parks. >> Brian: Defnitely. >> And you're seeing that just play out now, standard. So just a great place to go. We have tickets there. So, I got to ask you. Technology, sports, really is modernized faster than I think any category. And certainly cyber security forced to modernize because of the threats. But sports, you got a business to run, not just IT and making the planes run on time. >> Sure. >> Scouts, money, whatever. >> Fans. >> You got fan experience. >> Stadium opportunities. >> Club management, scouts are out there. So you got business, team, fans. And data's a big part of it. That's part of your career. Tell us what the cutting edge innovation is at the Red Sox these days. >> I think baseball in general, as you indicated, it's a very evolving kind of environment. I mean historically I think people really sort of relish the nostalgia of sports and Fenway Park being as historic as it is, was probably the pinnacle of that, in some respects. But Red Sox have always been leaders and baseball analytics, you know. And everyone's pretty familiar with "Moneyball" and Brad Pitt. >> John: Is that a true story, he turned down the GM job? >> I'm told it is. (laughter) I don't know if I fully vetted that question. But over the last six, seven years, you know we've really turned our attention to sort of leveraging sort of technology across the businesses, right? Not just baseball and analytics and how we do scouting, which continues to evolve at a very rapid pace. But also as you pointed out, running a better business, understanding our fans, understanding fan behavior, understanding stadiums. There's a lot of challenges around running an effective stadium. First and foremost to all of us is really ensuring it's a great fan experience. Whether it's artificial intelligence, or IoT technologies or 5G or the latest Wifi, all those things are coming up at Fenway Park. You and I talked earlier about we're about to break ground for a new theater, so a live theater on the outside, beyond the bleachers type of thing. So that'll be a 5,400-seat arena, 200 live performances a year, and with e-sports, you know, complementing it. It just gives you an example of just how fast baseball is sort of transitioning. >> And the theater, is that going to be blown out from where that parking garage is, structure and going towards >> So the corner of Landsdown and Ipswich, if you think of that sort of corner back there, for those that are familiar with the Fenway area. So it's going to be a very big change and you'll see the difference too from within the ballpark. I think we'll lose a couple of rows of the bleachers. That'll be replaced with another gathering area for fans and things like that, on the back end of that theater. So build a great experience and I think it really speaks to sort of our ability to think of Fenway as more of a destination, as a venue, as a complementary experience. We want people to come to the area to enjoy sports and to enjoy entertainment and things. >> You know Brian, the consumerization of IT has been kicked around. Last decade, that was a big buzzword. Now the blending of a physical event and digital has certainly consumed the world. >> Absolutely. >> And we're starting to see that dynamic. You speak to a theater. That's a physical space. But digital is also a big part of kind of that complementary. It's not mutually exclusive for each other. They're integrated business models. >> Absolutely. >> So therefore, the technology has to be seamless. The data has to be available. >> Yup. >> And it's got to be secure. >> Well the data's got to be ubiquitous, right? I mean you don't want to, if we're going to have fans attending theater and then you're going to go to Fenway Park or they leave a game and then go to some other event or they attend a tour of Fenway Park, and beyond maybe the traditional what people might think about, is certainly when you think about baseball and Fenway Park. You know we have ten to twelve concerts a year. We'll host Spartan games, you know. This Christmas, I'm sorry, Christmas 2020 we now have sort of the Fenway Bowl. So we'll be hosting the AAC ACC championship games there with ESPN. >> John: Hockey games? >> Hockey games. Obviously we have Liverpool soccer being held there so it's much more of a destination, a venue for us. How we leverage all the wonderful things about Fenway Park and how we modernize, how we get basically the best of what makes Fenway Park as great as it is, yet as modern as we can make it, where appropriate to create a great fan experience. >> It's a tough balance between balancing the brand and having things on brand as well. >> Sure. >> Does that come into your job a lot around IT? Saying being on brand, not kind of tearing down the old. >> Yeah absolutely. I think our CEOs and leadership team, I mean it's not success for us if you pan to the audience and everyone is looking at their phone, right? That's not what we aspire to. We aspire to leverage technology to simplify people's experience of how do you get to the ballpark, how do I park, how do I get if I want to buy concessions or merchandise, how do I do it easily and simply? How do we supplement that experience with maybe additional data that you may not have had before. Things like that, so we're doing a lot of different testing right now whether it's 4D technologies or how we can understand, watch a play from different dimensions or AI and be able to perhaps see sort of the skyline of Boston since 1912, when Fenway Park launched... And so we sort of see all these technologies as supplemental materials, really kind of making it a holistic experience for fans. >> In Las Vegas, they have a section of Las Vegas where they have all their test beds. 5G, they call it 5G, it's really, you know, evolution, fake 5G but it's a sandbox. One of the challenges that you guys have in Boston, I know from a constraint standpoint physically, you don't have a lot of space. How do you sandbox new technologies and what are some of the things that are cool that people might not know about that are being sandboxed? So, one, how do you do it? >> Yeah. >> Effectively. And then what are some of the cool things that you guys are looking at or things they might not know about that would be interesting. >> Sure. Yeah so Fenway Park, we struggle as you know, a little bit with our footprint. You know, honestly, I walk into some of these large stadiums and I get instant jealousy, relative to just the amount of space that people have to work with and things. But we have a great relationship with our partners so we really partner, I think, particularly well with key partners like Verizon and others. So we now have 5G partially implemented at Fenway Park. We expect to have it sort of fully live come opening day next year. So we're really excited about that. We hope to have a new version of Wifi, the latest version of Wifi available, for the second half of the year. After the All-Star Break, probably after the season's over. But before our bowl game hopefully. We're looking at some really interesting ways that we can tease that out. That bowl game, we're really trying to use that as an opportunity, the Fenway Bowl, as an opportunity to make it kind of a high-tech bowl. So we're looking at ways of maybe doing everything from hack-a-thons to a pre-egaming sort of event to some interesting fan experiential opportunities and things like that. >> Got a lot of nerds at MIT, Northeastern, BU, Bentley, Babson, all the schools in the area. >> Yeah, so we'll be reaching out to colleges and we'll be reaching out to our, the ACC and AACs as well, and see what we can do to kind of create sort of a really fun experience and capitalize on the evolving role of e-sports and the role that technology can play in the future. >> I want to get to the e-sports in a second but I want to just get the plug in for Acronis. We're here at their Global Cyber Summit. You flew down for it, giving some keynote speeches and talks around security. It's a security company, data protection, to cyber protection. It is a data problem, not a storage appliance problem. It's a data problem holistically. You get that. >> Sure. Sure. >> You've been in the business for a long time. What is the security kind of posture that you guys have? Obviously you want to protect the data, protect privacy. But you got to business. You have people that work with you, supply chain, complex but yet dynamic, always on environment. >> That's a great question. It's evolving as you indicated. Major League Baseball, first and foremost, does an outstanding job. So the last, probably last four plus years, Major League Baseball has had a cyber security program that all the clubs partake in. So all 30 clubs are active participants in the program. They basically help build out a suite of tools as well as the ability to kind of monitor, help participate in the monitoring, sort of a lot of our cyber security assets and logs And that's really elevated significantly our posture in terms of security. We supplement that quite a bit and a good example of that is like Acronis. Acronis, for us, represents the ability for us to be able to respond to certain potential threats like ransom-ware and other things. As well as frankly, what's wonderful about a tool like this is that it allows us to also solve other problems. Making our scouts more efficient. We've got these 125 scouts scattered around the globe. These guys are the lifeblood of our, you know, the success of our business. When they have a problem, if they're in Venezuela or the Dominican or someplace else, in southeast Asia, getting them up and running as quickly as we can, being able to consume their video assets and other things as they're scouting prospects. We use Acronis for those solutions. It's great to kind of have a partner who can both double down as a cyber partner as well as someone who helps drive a more efficient business. >> People bring their phone into the stadiums too so those are end points now connecting to your network. >> Definitely. And as you pointed out before, we've got great partnerships. We've got a great concession relationship with Aramark and they operate, in the future they'll be operating off our infrastructure. So we're in the point of rolling out all new point-of-sale terminals this off-season. We're excited about that 'cause we think for the first time it really allows us to build a very comprehensive, very secure environment for both ourselves and for all the touchpoints to fans. >> You have a very stellar career. I noticed you were at Scudder Investments back in the '80s, very cutting-edge firm. FTD that set the whole standard for connecting retailers. Again, huge scale play. Can see the data kind of coming out, they way you've been a CIO, CTO. The EVP CIO at The Weather Channel and the weather.com again, first mover, kind of pioneer. And then now the Red Sox, pioneering. So I got to ask you the modernization question. Red Sox certainly have been cutting-edge, certainly under the last few owners, and the previous Henry is a good one, doing more and more, Has the business model of baseball evolved, 'cause you guys a franchise. >> Sure. >> You operate under the franchisor, Major League Baseball, and you have jurisdictions. So has digital blurred the lines between what Advanced Media unit can do. You got communities developing outside. I watch the games in California. I'm not in there but I'm present digitally. >> Sure. Sure. >> So how has the business model flexed with the innovation of baseball? >> That's a great question. So I mean, first off, the relationship between clubs like ours and MLB continue to evolve. We have a new commissioner, relatively new commissioner, and I think the whole one-baseball model that he's been promoting I think has been great. The boundaries sometimes between digital assets and how we innovate and things like that continues to evolve. Major League Baseball and technology groups and product groups that support Major League Baseball have been a fantastic partner of ours. If you look at some of the innovations with Statcast and some of the other types of things that fans are now becoming more familiar with. And when they see how fast a runner goes or how far a home run goes and all those sort of things, these kinds of capabilities are on the surface, but even like mobile applications, to make it easy for fans to come into ballparks and things like that really. What we see is really are platforms for the future touchpoints to all of our customers. But you're right, it gets complicated. Streaming videos and people hadn't thought of before. >> Latin America, huge audience for the Red Sox. Got great players down there. That's outside the jurisdiction, I think, of the franchise agreement, isn't it? (laughs) >> Well, it's complicated. As this past summer, we played two games in England, right? So we enjoy two games in London, sadly we lost to the Yankees in both of those, but amazing experience and Major League Baseball really hats off to those guys, what they did to kind of pull that together. >> You mentioned Statcast. Every year when I meet with Andy Jassy at AWS, he's a sports fan. We love to talk sports. That's a huge, kind of shows the power of data and cloud computing. >> No doubt. >> How do you guys interface with Statcast? Is that an Amazon thing? Do they come to you? Are they leveraging dimensions, camera angles? How does that all work? Are you guys involved in that or? >> Brian: Oh yeah, yeah. >> Is that separate? >> So Statcast is just one of many data feeds as you can imagine. One of the things that Major League Baseball does is all that type of data is readily available to every club. So every club has access to the data. The real competitive differentiator, if you will, is how you use it internally. Like how your analysts can consume that data. We have a baseball system we call Beacon. We retired Carmine, if you're familiar with the old days of Carmine. So we retired Carmine a few years ago with Beacon. And Beacon for us represents sort of our opportunity to effectively collapse all this information into a decision-making environment that allows us to hopefully to kind of make the best decisions to win the most games. >> I love that you're answering all these questions. I really appreciate it. The one I really want to get into is obviously the fan experience. We talked about that. No talent on the field means no World Series so you got to always be constantly replenishing the talent pool, farm system, recruiting, scouting, all these things go on. They're instrumental. Data's a key driver. What new innovations that the casual fan or IT person might be interested in what's going on around scouting and understanding the asset of a human being? >> Right. Sure. I mean some of this gets highly confidential and things, but I think at a macro level, as you start to see both in the minor leagues and in some portions of the major leagues, wearable technologies. I think beyond just sort of player performance information that you would see traditionally with you might associate it with like Billy Beane, and things like that with "Moneyball" which is evolved obviously considerably since those days. I mean understanding sort of player wellness, understanding sort of how to get the most out of a player and understanding sort of, be able to kind of predict potential injuries and accelerate recoveries and being able to use all of this technology where appropriate to really kind of help sort of maximize the value of player performance. I mean, David Ortiz, you know, I don't know where we would have been in 2018 without, you know, David. >> John: Yeah. >> But like, you know >> Longevity of a player. >> Absolutely. >> To when they're in the zone. You wear a ring now to tell you if you're sleeping well. Will managers have a visual, in-the-zone, don't pull 'em out, he can go an extra inning? >> Well, I mean they have a lot of data. We currently don't provide all that data to the clubhouse. I mean, you know, and so If you're in the dugout, that information isn't always readily available type of thing. But players know all this information. We continue to evolve it. At the end of the day though, it's finding the balancing act between data and the aptitudes of our coaching staff and our managers to really make the wise decisions. >> Brian, final question for you. What's the coolest thing you're working on right now? Besides the fan having a great experience, 'cause that's you kind of touched on that. What's the coolest thing that you're excited about that you're working on from a tech perspective that you think is going to be game-changing or interesting? >> I think our cloud strategy coming up in the future. It's still a little bit early stage, but our hope would be to kind of have clarity about that in the next couple months. I think is going to be a game-changer for us. I think having, you know, we enjoy a great relationship with Dell EMC and yet we also do work in the cloud and so being able to leverage the best of both of those to be able to kind of create sort of a compelling experience for both fans, for both player, baseball operations as well as sort of running an efficient business, I think is really what we're all about. >> I mean you guys are the poster child for hybrid cloud because you got core, data center, IoT, and >> No doubt. So it's exciting times. And we're very fortunate that with our relationship organizations like Dell and EMC, we have leading-edge technologies. So we're excited about where that can go and kind of what that can mean. It'll be a big step. >> Okay two personal questions from me as a fan. One is there really a money-counting room like in the movie "The Town"? Where they count a big stack of dollar bills. >> Well, I'm sure there is. I personally haven't visited it. (laughs) I know it's not in the room that they would tell you it is on the movie. (laughter) >> And finally, can The Cube get press passes to cover the games, next to NESN? Talk tech. >> Yeah, we'll see what we can do. >> They can talk baseball. We can talk about bandwidth. Right now, it's the level five conductivity. We're looking good on the pipes. >> Yeah we'll give you a tech tour. And you guys can sort of help us articulate all that to the fans. >> Thank you so much. Brian Shield, Vice President of Technology of the Boston Red Sox. Here talking about security and also the complications and challenges but the mega-opportunities around what digital and fan experiences are with the physical product like baseball, encapsulates kind of the digital revolution that's happening. So keep covering it. Here in Miami, I'm John Furrier. We'll be right back after this short break. (techno music)

(upbeat electronic music) >> Narrator: From the VMware campus in Palo Alto, California, it's theCUBE covering Women Transforming Technology. >> Hi, I'm Lisa Martin with theCUBE. We are on the ground at VMware in Palo Alto, with the third annual Women Transforming Technology event and I'm very excited to be joined by the CEO of Women Who Code, Alaina Percival. Alaina, nice to have you here. >> Hi, thank you very much for having me. >> So tell me about Women Who Code. You co-founded it a while ago. Give us a little bit of a background about what your organization is. >> Yeah, Women Who Code is the largest and most active community of technical women in the world. Our mission is to see women excel in technology careers, and that's because we have a vision of women becoming executives, technical executives, founders, board members, and of course through a pathway of being software engineers. >> So Women Who Code started, originally, back in 2011 as a community. Tell me a little bit about the genesis of that and what you've transformed it into, today. >> Yeah, it started off as a local community, and it was just a space to get together with other technologists, and what we started to see is it was this thing that was just fun and kind of our little secret for, you know, that first year, and we realized-- at one point I said, "Hey other women around the world deserve to have this, as well." And, that's really where the focus to grow globally came about and focus on women: building on their skills and building up their leadership skills and if you invite software engineers to a leadership and networking event, they won't come, but we hold an average of five free technical events every single day, throughout the world, and at those events, they're primarily technology events where we weave in a little bit of leadership and networking, but it feels authentic and its an event that software engineers are excited to be. >> Five events per day, that's incredible. So, VMware became a partner back in 2015, when you had around nine or 10,000 members. Now, today, its over 137,000 global members. Talk to us about the strategic partnership with VMware and what that's enabled Women Who Code to achieve. >> Yeah, we can't accomplish what we accomplish without the partners that support us. We try not to charge our members for anything. So, those 1,900 events we put on last year were free. We've given away $2.8 million in our weekly newsletter of scholarships, and conference tickets, encouraging our community to go out there in the broader tech community and we can do those things, we can launch in the cities that we can launch in, we can elevate women as leaders around the world, but we can only do that through partners, and VMware is one of our founding partners and what that took is someone in executive leadership to see who we could be, because we're very small, and we were very local when we came to VMware and talked to them about what our vision was and what we were going to accomplish and I say now, what I said back then, is we've only scratched the surface of what we are going to achieve. >> There's some commonalities, some parallels that Women Who Code has with VMware. You know, this is the third annual Women Transforming Technology event at VMware here and its sold out within hours. Walking into that room it's very empowering. The excitement and the passion are there and you just start to feel a sense of community. Tell me about the parallels that you see with VMware and some of the visions that they share about, not just raising awareness for the diversity gaps and challenges, but also taking a stand to be accountable in that space. And what they announced this morning with Stanford, with this massive $15 million investment in this Innovation Lab of actually wanting to dig deep into these barriers to help identify them to help eradicate them. What are some of the visionary similarities with Women Who Code and VMware? >> Yeah, so what you see with that is you know, you're investing in someone or an organization that already has the potential. Our average age of our community is 30. We have a lot of trouble claiming that you achieve what you achieve in your career, because of us. We know we play a part in it, but we know that potential, that raw power, exists within you, and when someone sees and knows that that's there and gives you what you need to be able to harness that potential, you are able to achieve great things, global things. You're able to change the world, and that's what we do for our members and their careers, and that's what our partners, like VMware do for us. >> I saw on your website: 80% of members experience a positive career impact, after joining Women Who Code. 80% of women, that's huge. >> Yeah, and a lot of that comes from the people that you connect with, the sense of belonging. We had a women at the end of Hackathon, in Manila come up to our leaders, there, and she started crying. She said, "I was about to leave the industry and I realize I have a place." And that sense of belonging that you get from coming to a Women Who Code event that's very welcoming, it can really help to override all of those unconscious biases that you encounter every day, throughout the course of your career, and it helps you to realize, "I'm not alone. There's a lot of really smart, talented women in the tech industry, who want me to be in my job and being in my job isn't just for me. I'm lifting up the people around me, as well." >> So one of the things that we hear a lot about is a lot of focus on STEM programs and getting young girls interested in STEM fields to study in college, but another thing that's huge is the attrition rates. Women are leaving technology at alarming rates, and a lot of people think it's to go off and have children, and it's actually not the case. What are some of the things that have surprised you about women kind of in that, maybe, mid-stage of their career that are leaving, and how can Women Who Code help to impact that, positively? >> Yeah, so what you're speaking to is definitely the data showing that women are leaving their technical careers at a rate of 50% at the mid-career level, and they're leaving their overall careers, if you aggregate women in careers, at a rate of 20% over a 30 year period, so that gap is huge and the industry is a great industry for women. You've got a lot of job security, a lot of job opportunity, a lot of flexibility. All of these things are great for women and their careers, but what you're encountering is often being the only, or one of the only, and you really don't overcome that, until you're getting above 20%, 25%, 30% of that feeling of being the only on a team, and what I think is the biggest issue with women coming into their careers at what kind of wears you down is the unconscious bias. It's something that you encounter on a daily, or multiple times a day basis. That thing that if you complained about a single one of them, you'd be the weird person who complains, at your company. And so, what Women Who Code really does is: one, it helps to create a sense of belonging, it helps to build domain-specific and non-domain-specific skills, it helps you to envision your career, not just the next step in your career, but the step after that, and the step after that, so it's really working to combat those things that you're to, on a daily basis, to provide that sense of community, to remind you, you do belong, and to really help you envision and achieve your career goals, long-term. >> So you have about 137,000 members, globally. And when we had Lily Chang on earlier, she was talking about the Shanghai and Beijing and kind of what that sort of thing meant to her going back there now, on the board. Tell us, maybe give me an example of a real shining star, who joined Women Who Code and was able to get that support, and that guidance, and that camaraderie to continue to be successful, and actually be promoted, and succeed. >> Yeah, so one example that I love is a woman came up to me at an event, last year, and she said, "Hey Alaina, I was going to the Women Who Code Python events, and I now, today, because of what I learned, ended up choosing a path in data science. I'm a senior data scientist, and this year, I'm being flown across country to speak, as an expert in data science. I would not be in this career path, without Women Who Code." Another story that I love is a woman who came up to me at a Hackathon and she told me her story that she had joined Women Who Code, in February, and she was going to our events and kind of figured out what she wanted to do, and by the summer she had transitioned into a new job, gotten a job with The Weather Channel, as a software engineer, and she was making more than double any salary that she had had prior to that. >> Wow. >> And so its career direction, competing job offers, which really increases your likelihood of having a higher salary, those are kind of two examples that I love. The one thing that we haven't talked about is our leadership program. We have a global leadership program, which really actions you to build skill-based volunteering and become a local tech leader. It opens up lines of communication between you and executives at your company. You often get called in as a thought leader at companies. You typically will receive a promotion or a pay increase, at a higher rate than you would otherwise. Some of our leaders get press mentions, get invited to be speakers at conferences, or even advisors on advisory boards. And so, when I look at the stories that are coming from our leaders, one of my favorite stories is a woman in Atlanta. She had a master's in CS. She was inside of the box, you know, the person that every company wants to hire. She was incredibly shy, and when she stepped up as a Women Who Code leader she said, "Oh Alaina, I'm going to be the worst leader." And, okay you've got this. At her first event, she stoop up and she was like, "My name's Erica. Feel free to ask me questions," and kind of sat down, as quickly as possible, but she stood in the front of that room. She began to be perceived by the community, and by herself, as a leader. And in under one year, she was invited, she didn't even apply, to speak at three different tech conferences, and she went from barely being able to say her name in front of a nice community to giving a talk to a standing-room-only crowd. >> Wow, very impactful. And is that for other opportunities that you guys deliver, in terms of public speaking, or was that because she was able to, through Women Who Code, to start to get more confidence in her own capabilities and in her own skin? >> Experience, confidence, self-perception, community-perception, I had one lead at our community tell me that she became a leader at Women Who Code, by regularly attending events. One day, the leader was running late, so she said, "Oh, well, you know I can probably get this started. I've been coming enough," so she went and stood at the front of the room, welcomed everyone, got everything going, said our pitch and she said, by the end of that three-hour event, people thought she was a leader and she began to think, "Oh yeah, I'm a leader," and she says, "Hey, I know that I can get an interview anywhere I want. I know that this opens doors for me." I had one leader tell me that she interviewed with SpaceX, and they specifically told her in the interview that they were impressed with her Women Who Code leadership and that was one of the reasons they were interviewing her. >> Wow, what have been some of the things that have really blown you away, in the few years that this organization has been around? >> It's just the individual stories. It's, every step of the way, the impact that it has in the lives of our leaders in our community. And I honestly feel, everyday, that I get to do this for a job. >> With what VMware announced this morning, with Stanford and this huge investment that they're making into Women's Leadership and Innovation Lab, to look at some significant barriers that women in technology are facing and to identify those barriers that we can then eradicate, what are some of the things that you're looking forward to, from that research and how you think that can actually benefit Women Who Code? >> Yeah, I'm very excited to see what comes out from there. I think we need a lot more research to help us to understand at what point things are happening and what things you can be doing that really help to overcome. I think that combining research with the real-world, in-person action that Women Who Code does and the work that we do with our community would have an even bigger impact. >> I also think what it speaks to is accountability. You know, a very large, very successful, 20-year-old organizations standing up saying, "We actually want to study this," and I think that there's a message there of accountability, which is, I think, a very important one that other organizations can definitely learn from. >> Yeah, I think that also they're going to an organization outside of them and funding that. And so, the research that comes out of there might come back and say, "You're doing this wrong. This is how you can be doing it better." And so, the fact that they're willing to make an investment and say, "Hey, we want to see this better, not only for us. It's not just going to be internal. This data's going out to the world." That's an investment in global change. That's not just holding that in at a personal or organizational level. >> Right, so in addition to that news that came out today, what are some of the things that you're going to walk away, from this third annual Women Transforming Technology event going, "Ah, that was awesome. Now, this gives me even more ideas for Women Who Code." >> Yeah, I think this is a great opportunity to connect with, especially, women who are in leadership positions and figure out how we can better service women at the higher tiers of their career, because you don't stop needing support, and you don't stop growing your career, once you become a director or a vice president. You continue to invest in your career, and you continue to needs support. And so, I'm really looking for ways that we can better serve those women. >> And hopefully, we start to see that attrition number at 50% start to come down. >> Alaina: Definitely. >> Alaina, thanks so much for your time. It was a pleasure to chat with you, and we wish you continued success with Women Who Code. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for watching. I'm Lisa Martin with theCUBE, on the ground at VMware, for the third annual Women Transforming Technology event. Thanks for watching. (funky electronic music)

>> Voiceover: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering IBM Think 2018. Brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome back to Las Vegas everybody, you're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante and this is day three of our wall-to-wall coverage of IBM Think 2018, the inaugural event, IBM's consolidated a number of events here, I've been joking there's too many people to count, I think it's between 30 and 40,000 people. Michelle Boockoff-Bajdek is here, she's the president of >> Michelle: Good job. >> Global Marketing, Michelle B-B, for short >> Yes. >> Global Marketing, business solutions at IBM, and John Bobo, who's the managing director of Racing Ops at NASCAR. >> Yes. >> We're going to have, a fun conversation. >> I think it's going to be a fun one. >> Michelle B-B, start us off, why is weather such a hot topic, so important? >> Well, I think as you know we're both about to fly potentially into a snowstorm tonight, I mean weather is a daily habit. 90% of all U.S. adults consume weather on a weekly basis, and at the weather company, which is part of IBM, right, an IBM business, we're helping millions of consumers anticipate, prepare for, and plan, not just in the severe, but also in the every day, do I carry an umbrella, what do I do? We are powering Apple, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, So if you're getting your weather from those applications, you're getting it from us. And on average we're reaching about 225 million consumers, but what's really interesting is while we've got this tremendous consumer business and we're helping those millions of consumers, we're also helping businesses out there, right? So, there isn't a business on the planet, and we'll talk a little bit about NASCAR, that isn't impacted by weather. I would argue that it is incredibly essential to business. There's something like a half a trillion dollars in economic impact from weather alone, every single year here in the U.S. And so most businesses don't yet have a weather strategy, so what's really important is that we help them understand how to take weather insights and turn it into a business advantage. >> Well let's talk about that, how does NASCAR take weather insights and turn it into a business advantage, what are you guys doing, John, with, with weather? >> Oh, it's very important to us, we're 38 weekends a year, we're probably one of the longest seasons in professional sports, we produce over 500 hours of live television just in our top-tier series a year, we're a sport, we're a business, we're an entertainment property, and we're entertaining hundreds of thousands of people live at an event, and then millions of people at home who are watching us over the internet or watching us on television through our broadcast partners. Unlike other racing properties, you know, open-wheeled racing, it's a lot of downforce, they can race in the rain. A 3,500 pound stock car cannot race in the rain, it's highly dangerous, so rain alone is going to have to postpone the event, delay the event, and that's a multi-million dollar decision. And so what we're doing with Weather Channel is we're getting real-time information, hyper-localized models designed around our event within four kilometers of every venue, remember, we're in a different venue every week across the country. Last week we're in the Los Angeles market, next week we're going to be in Martinsville, Virginia. It also provides us a level of consistency, as places we go, and knowing we can pick up the phone and get decision support from the weather desk, and they know us, and they care as much about us as we do, and what we need to do, it's been a big help and a big confidence builder. >> So NASCAR fans are some of the most fanatic fans, a fan of course is short for fanatic, they love the sport, they show up, what happens when, give us the before and after, before you kind of used all this weather data, what was it like before, what was the fan impact, and how is that different now? >> Going back when NASCAR first started getting on television, the solution was we would send people out in cars with payphone money, and they would watch for weather all directions, and then they would call it in, say, "the storm's about ten miles out." Then when it went to the bulky cell phones that were about as big as a bread box, we would give them to them and then they would be in the pullover lane and kind of follow the storm in and call Race Control to let us know. It has three big impacts. First is safety, of the fans and safety of our competitors through every event. The second impact is on the competition itself, whether the grip of the tires, the engine temperature, how the wind is going to affect the aerodynamics of the car, and the third is on the industry. We've got a tremendous industry that travels, and what we're going to have to do to move that industry around by a different day, so we couldn't be more grateful for where we're able to make smarter decisions. >> So how do you guys work together, maybe talk about that. >> Well, so, you know, I think, I think one of the things that John alluded to that's so important is that they do have the most accurate, precise data out there, right, so when we talk about accuracy, a single model, or the best model in the world isn't going to produce the best forecast, it's actually a blend of 162 models, and we take the output of that and we're providing a forecast for anywhere that you are, and it's specific to you and it's weighted differently based on where you are. And then we talk about that precision, which gets down to that four kilometer space that John alluded to that is so incredibly important, because one of the things that we know is that weather is in fact hyper-local, right, if you are within two kilometers of a weather-reporting station, your weather report is going to be 15% more accurate. Now think about that for a minute, analytics perspective, right, when you can get 15% more accuracy, >> Dave: Huge. >> You're going to have a much better output, and so that precision point is important, and then there's the scale. John talks about having 38 race weekends and sanctioning 1,200 races, but also we've got millions of consumers that are asking us for weather data on a daily basis, producing 25 billion forecasts for all of those folks, again, 2.2 billion locations around the world at that half a kilometer resolution. And so what this means is that we're able to give John and his Racing Operations Team the best, most accurate forecast on the planet, and not just the raw data, but the insight, so what we've built, in partnership with Flagship, one of our business partners, is the NASCAR Weather Track, and this is a race operations dashboard that is very specific to NASCAR and the elements that are most important to them. What they need to see right there, visible, and then when they have a question they can call right into a meteorologist who is on-hand 24/7 from the Wednesday leading up to a race all the way till that checkered flag goes down, providing them with any insight, right, so we always have that human intelligence, because while the forecast is great you always want somebody making that important decision that is in fact a multi-million dollar one. >> John, can you take us through the anatomy of how you get from data to insight, I mean you got to, it's amazing application here, you got the edge, you got the cloud, you got your operations center, when do you start, how do you get the data, who analyzes the data, how do you get to decision making? >> Yeah, we're data hogs in every aspect of the sport, whether it's our cars, our events, or even our own operations. We get through Flagship Solutions, and they do a fantastic job through a weather dashboard, the different solutions. We start getting reports on Monday for the week ahead. And so we're tracking it, and in fact it adds some drama to the event, especially as we're looking at the forecast for Martinsville this upcoming weekend. We work closely with our broadcast partners, our track partners, you know, we don't own the venues of where we go, we're the sports league, so we're working with broadcast, we're working with our track venues, and then we're also working with everyone in the industry and all our other official sponsors, and people that come to an event to have a great time. Sometimes we're making those decisions in the event itself, while the race is going on, as things may pop up, pop-up storms, things may change, but whether it's their advice on how to create our policy and be smarter about that, whether it's the real-time data that makes us smarter, or just being able to pick up a phone and discuss the various multi-variables that we see occurring in a situation, what we need to do live, to do, and it's important to us. >> So, has it changed the way, sometimes you might have to cancel an event, obviously, so has it changed the way in which you've made that decision and communicate to your, to your customers, your fans? >> Yeah, absolutely, it's made a lot of us smarter, going into a weekend. You know, weather is something everybody has an opinion about, and so we feel grateful that we can get our opinion from the best place in the country. And then what we do with that is we can either move an event up, we can delay an event, and it helps us make those smarter decisions, and we never like to cancel an event cause it's important to the competition, we may postpone it a day, run a race on a Monday or Tuesday, but you know a 10, 11:00 race on a Monday is not the best viewership for our broadcast partners. So, we're doing everything we can to get the race in that day. >> Yeah so it's got to be a pretty radical condition to cancel a race, but then. >> Yes, yeah. >> So what you'll do is you'll predict, you'll pull out the yellow flag, everybody slows down, and you'll be able to anticipate when you're going to have to do that, is that right, versus having people, you know. >> Right. >> Calling on the block phones? >> Or if we say, let's start the race two hours early, and that's good for the track, it's good for our broadcast partners, and we can get the race in before the bad weather occurs, we're going to do that. >> Okay, and then, so, where are you taking this thing, Michelle, I mean, what is John asking you for, how are you responding, maybe talk about the partnership a little bit. >> Well, you know, yes, so I, you know the good news is that we're a year into this partnership and I think it's been fantastic, and our goal is to continue to provide the best weather insights, and I think what we will be looking at are things like scenario plannings, so as we start to look longer-range, what are some of the things that we can do to better anticipate not just the here and now, but how do we plan for scenarios? We've been looking at severe weather playbooks too, so what is our plan for severe weather that we can share across the organization? And then, you know, I think too, it's understanding potentially how can we create a better fan experience, and how can we get some of this weather insight out to the fans themselves so that they can see what's going to happen with the weather and better prepare. It's, you know, NASCAR is such a tremendous partner for us because they're showcasing the power of these weather insights, but there isn't a business on the planet that isn't impacted, I mean, you know we're working with 140 airlines, we're working with utility companies that need to know how much power is going to be consumed on the grid tomorrow, they don't care as much about a temperature, they want to know how much power is going to be consumed, so when you think about the decisions that these companies have to make, yes the forecast is great and it's important, but it really is what are the insights that I can derive from all of that data that are going to make a big difference? >> Investors. >> Oh, absolutely. >> Airlines. >> Airlines, utility companies, retailers. >> Logistics. >> Logistics, you know, if you think about insurance companies, right, there's a billion dollars in damage every single year from hail. Property damage, and so when you think about these organizations where every single, we just did this great weather study, and I have to get you a copy of it, but the Institute of Business Value at IBM did a weather study and we surveyed a thousand C-level executives, every single one of them said that weather had an impact on at least one revenue metric, every single, 100%. And 93% of them said that if they had better weather insights it would have a positive impact on their business. So we know that weather's important, and what we've got to do is really figure out how we can help companies better harness it, but nobody's doing it better than these guys. >> I want to share a stat that we talked about off-camera. >> Sure. >> 'Cause we all travel, I was telling a story, my daughter got her flight canceled, very frustrating, but I like it because at least you now know you can plan at home, but you had a stat that it's actually improved the situation, can you share that? >> Right, yeah, so nobody likes to have their flights canceled, right, and we know that 70% of all airline delays are due to weather, but one of the things we talked about is, you know, is our flight going to go out? Well airlines are now operating with a greater degree of confidence, and so what they're doing is they trust the forecast more. So they're able to cancel flights sooner, and by doing so, and I know nobody really likes to have their flight canceled, but by doing so, when we know sooner, we're now able to return those airlines to normal operations even faster, and reduce cancellations in total by about 11%. That's huge. And so I think that when you look at the business impact that these weather insights can have across all of these industries, it's just tremendous. >> So if you're a business traveler, you're going to be better off in the long run. >> That's right, I promise. >> So John I have to ask you about the data science, when IBM bought the weather company a big part of the announcement was the number of data scientists that you guys brought to the table. There's an IOT aspect as well, which is very important. But from a data science standpoint, how much do you lean on IBM for the data science, do you bring your own data scientists to the table, how to they collaborate? >> No no, we lean totally on them, this is their expertise. Nobody's going to be better at it in the world than they are, but, you know, we know that at certain times past data may be more predictive, we know that at different times different data sets show different things and they show so much, we want to have cars race, we want to concentrate on officiating a race, putting on the bet entertainment we can for sports fans, it's a joy to look at their data and pick up the phone and not have to figure this out for myself. >> Yeah, great. Well John, Michelle, thanks so much for coming. >> Thank you. >> I'll give you the last word, Michelle, IBM Think, the weather, make a prediction, whatever you like. >> Well, I just have to say, for all of you who are heading home tonight, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you, so good luck there. And if you haven't, this is the one thing I have to say, if you haven't had the opportunity to go to a NASCAR race, please do so, it is one of the most exciting experiences around. >> Oh, and I want to mention, I just downloaded this new app. Storm Radar. >> Oh yes, please do. >> Storm radar. So far, I mean I've only checked it out a little bit, but it looks great. Very high ratings, 13,600 people have rated it, it's a five rating, five stars, you should check it out. >> Michelle: I love that. >> Storm Radar. >> John: It is good isn't it. >> And just, just check it out on your app store. >> So, thanks you guys, >> Michelle: Love that. Thank you so much. >> Really appreciate it. And thank you for watching, we'll be right back right after this short break, you're watching theCUBE live from Think 2018. (light jingle)

>> Voiceover: Live from San Francisco, it's The Cube. Covering Samsung Developer Conference 2017. Brought to you by Samsung. >> Okay, welcome back, everyone. Live here in San Francisco, this is The Cube's exclusive coverage of Samsung Developer Conference, SDC 2017. I'm John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media, and co-host of The Cube. My next guest is Dominic Venuto, who is the General Manager of the consumer division of The Weather Channel, and Watson Advertising, which is part of The Weather Company. Welcome to The Cube. >> Thank you for having me. >> Finally, I got the consumer guy on. I've interviewed The Weather Company folks from the IBM side, two different brands. One's the data, big data science operation going on, the whole Weather Company. But Weather Channel, the consumer stuff, Weather Underground, that's your product. >> Yes, you saved the best for last. We touch the consumer. >> So, weather content is good. So obviously, the hurricanes have been in the news over the years. Out here in California, the fires. People are interested in whether the impact, it used to be a unique thing on cable, go to the Weather Channel, check the forecast, read the paper. Now with online apps, weather is constantly a utility for users. So it's not a long-tail editorial product. It's pretty fundamental. >> Yeah, we want to be where our consumers are. Fundamentally we want to help people make better decisions and propel the world. And since weather touches everything, we need to be where the consumers are. So now, with all the digital touchpoints, whether that's your phone, or its a watch, your television, desktop if you still have one and you're still using it, as some of us do. We want to be there, for that very reason. And in fact, what we're aiming for, is to move from a utility, because if we are going to help people make better decisions, a utility only goes so far, would be a platform to anticipate behavior and drive decisions. >> So tell me about the Weather Underground and the weather.com consumer product. They're all one in the same now? Obviously one was very successful, with user generated content. This is not going away. Explain the product side of The Weather Channel consumer division. >> Yeah, so we have two brands in our portfolio, Weather Underground, which is more of a challenger brand. It's very data rich, and visualizes data in a number of different ways, that a certain user group really loves. So if you're a weather geek, as we call them, an avid aficionado of weather, and you really want to really get in there and understand what's happening, and look at the data, then Weather Underground is a platform. >> So for users to tie into, to put up weather stations, and other things that might be relevant. >> Exactly so, we started out in 2001, originally the first IOT implementation at the consumer level, connected devices. Where you could connect a personal weather station, put one in your back yard, and connect it to our platform, and feed hyper-local data into our network. And then we feed that into our forecast, to improve that, and actually validate whether the forecast is right or not, based on what people have at home. And we've hit a recent milestone. We've got over 250,000 personal weather stations connected to the network, which we are super thrilled about. And now, what we are doing is, we are extending that network to other connected devices, and air quality is a big topic right now, in other parts of the world, especially in Asia, where air quality is not always where it should be, that's a big thing we think we can... >> That's a big innovation opportunity for you, I mean, you point out the underground product was part of maker-culture, people do-it-yourself weather stations, evolve now into really strong products. That same dynamic could be used for air control, not just micro-climates. >> Exactly, yeah. >> In California, we had a problem this week. >> Exactly, California is a good example, really topical, where cities may have had great air quality, and all of the sudden the environment changes, and you want to know, what is it like? What is the breathing quality like outside right now? And you can come to our network and see that. And we're growing the air quality sensors every month, it's only been up a few months right now, so that's expanding quite well. >> So for the folks that don't know, The Weather Channel back end, has a huge data-driven product. I don't want to get into that piece, because we've talked about it. Go to youtube.com/siliconangle, search Weather Company. You'll see all our great videos from the IBM events, that are out, if you want the detail. But I do want to ask you, what's really happening with you guys, there's two things. One is, it's an app and content for devices, like Samsung is using. And two, essentially you're an IOT network. Sensors are sensors, whether they're user-generated, or user-populated, you guys are deploying a serious IOT capability. >> Absolutely, it's one of the reasons that IBM acquired The Weather Company, which houses the brands of Weather Underground and The Weather Channel, is that we have this fantastic infrastructure, this IOT infrastructure, ingesting large amounts of data, processing it, and then serving it back out to consumers at scale globally. >> What are you guys doing there with Samsung? Anything just particular in the IOT side, or? >> We've got a couple of initiatives going on with Samsung, a few I can't mention right now, but stay tuned. Some really cool things in the connect-at-home, that we're excited about, that builds on some of the work... >> Nest competitor? >> Not exactly a Nest competitor. Think more kitchen. >> Kitchen, okay. >> Think more kitchen. >> We had the goods, cooking in the kitchen, from our previous guest. So the question is, IOT personal, I get that. What else is going on with IOT, with you guys, that you can share? Lifestyle, in the home is great, but... >> So again, going back to how do we help people make better decisions, now that we are collecting data from not just personal weather stations, but air quality monitors, we are collecting it from cars, we are collecting it from the cell phone. We are really able to ingest data at scale, and when you're doing that, we've got hundreds of thousands of data sets that we are feeding into our models, when you do that, we've solved the computing challenge, now we are applying machine-learning and artificial intelligence to process this and extract insights. To validate data sets, in our forecast, and then deliver that back to the end user. >> One of the tech geek themes we talk about all of the time is policy-based something. Programming, setting the policy. So, connecting the dots from what you're saying is, I'm driving my car, and I want to know if it's hot, or the road temperature. I might want to know if I'm running too fast, and my sensor device on me wants to impact the weather, for comfortable breathing for me, for instance. The lifestyle impacts, the content of data, is not just watching a video on The Weather Channel. >> No, it's not. >> So this is a new user experience. It's immersive, it's lifestyle-oriented, it's relevant. What are some of the products you're doing with Samsung, that can enable this new user expectation? >> One of the products that we have right now, we we're one of the initial partners for the Made for Samsung program, is, we've got calendar integration in our app. So now we know, if you've got a meeting coming up, and you need to travel to get there, maybe there's a car trip involved, we know, obviously, the forecast. We know what traffic might be, and we can give you heads up, an alert, that says, hey you might want to leave 15 minutes early for that meeting coming up. That's in the Samsung product right now, which is really, again, helping people make better decisions. So we've got a lot of examples like that. But again, the calendar integration in the Made for Samsung app is really exciting. We recently announced, in fact I think it was this morning, we announced integration with Trip Advisor. So similarly, if we see time on your calendar, and the weather is fine for the weekend, we might suggest outdoor activities for you to go and explore, using Trip Advisor's almost one-billion library of events that they have. >> What's the coolest thing you guys are working on right now? >> Oh, that's a very long list. I say that I'm probably the luckiest guy in IBM right now, because I get to work with millions of consumers, we reach 250 million consumers a month, and I'm also bringing Watson to consumers, and artificial intelligence, which is a unique challenge to solve. Introducing consumers to a new paradigm of user interaction and abilities. So, I think the most exciting thing is taking artificial intelligence and machine-learning, and bringing that to consumers at scale, and solving some of the challenges there. >> Well contratulations. I'm a big fan of IBM, what they're doing with weather data, The Weather Company, The Weather Channel. Bringing that data and immersing it into these new networks that are being created, new capabilities, really helps the consumer, so. Hope to see you at the Think conference coming up next year. >> Yes, we are excited about that, and stay tuned, we may have some more exciting stuff to unveil. >> Make sure our writers get ahold of it, break the stories. It's The Cube, bringing you the data. The weather's fine in San Francisco today. I'm John Farrier with The Cube. More live from San Francisco, from the SDC Samsung Developer Conference, after this short break. (electronic music)

>> live from Boston, Massachusetts. It's the Cube covering IBM Chief Data Officer Strategy Summit brought to you by IBM. Now here are your hosts. Day villain Day >> and stew Minimum. We're back. Welcome to Boston, Everybody. This is the IBM Chief Data Officer Summit. This is the Cube, the worldwide leader in live tech coverage. Inderpal. Bhandari is here. He's the newly appointed chief data officer at IBM. He's joined, but joined by Bob Picciano who is the senior vice president of IBM Analytics Group. Bob. Great to see again Inderpal. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. So good event, Bob, Let's start with you. Um, you guys have been on the chief data officer kicked for several years now. You ahead of the curve. What, are you trying to achieve it? That this event? Yes. So, >> Dave, thanks again for having us here. And thanks for being here is well, tto help your audience share in what we're doing here. We've always appreciated that your commitment to help in the the masses understand all the important pulses that are going on the industry. What we're doing here is we're really moderating form between chief date officers on. We started this really on the curve. As you said 2014, where the conference was pretty small, there were some people who were actually examining the role, thinking about becoming a chief did officer. We probably had a few formal cheap date officers we're talking about, you know, maybe 100 or so people who are participating in the very 1st 1 Now you can see it's not, You know, it's it's grown much larger. We have hundreds of people, and we're doing it multiple times a year in multiple cities. But what we're really doing is bringing together a moderated form, Um, and it's a privilege to be able to do this. Uh, this is not about selling anything to anybody. This is about exchanging ideas, understanding. You know what, the challenges of the role of the opportunities which changing about the role, what's changing about the market and the landscape, what new risks might be on the horizon? What new opportunities might be on the horizon on we you know, we really liketo listen very closely to what's going on so we can, you know, maybe build better approach is to help their mother. That's through the services we provide or whether that's through the cloud capabilities were offering or whether that's new products and services that need to be developed. And so it gives us a great understanding. And we're really fortunate to have our chief data officer here, Interpol, who's doing a great job in IBM and in helping us on our mission around really becoming a cognitive enterprise and making analytics and insight on data really be central to that transformation. >> So, Dr Bhandari, new, uh, new to the chief date officer role, not nude. IBM. You worked here and came back. I was first exposed to roll maybe 45 years ago with the chief Data officer event. OK, so you come in is the chief data officer in December. Where do you start? >> So, you know, I've had the fortune of being in this role for a long time. I was one of the earliest created, the role for healthcare in two thousand six. Then I have honed that roll over three different Steve Data officer appointments at health care companies. And now I'm at IBM. So I do have, you know, I do view with the job as a craft. So it's a practitioner job and there's a craft to it. And do I answer your question? There are five things that you have to do to get moving on the job, and three of those have to be non sequentially and to must be done and powerful but everything else. So the five alarm. The first thing is you've got to develop a data strategy and data strategy is around, is focused around having an understanding ofthe how the company monetize is or plans to monetize itself. You know, what is the strategic monetization part of the company? Not so much how it monetize is data. But what is it trying to do? How is it going to make money in the future? So in the case of IBM, it's all around cognition. It's around enabling customers to become cognitive businesses. So my data strategy or our data strategy, I should say, is focused on enabling cognition becoming a cauldron of enterprise. You know, we've now realized that impacto prerequisite for cognition. So that's the data strategy piece. And that's the very first thing that needs to be done because once you understand that, then you understand what data is critical for the company, so you don't boil the ocean instead, what you do is you begin to govern exactly what's necessary and make sure it's fit for purpose. And then you can also create trusted data sources around those critical data assets that are critical for the for the monetization strategy of the company's. Those three have to go in sequence because if you don't know what you can do to adequately kind of three, and they're also significant pitfalls if you don't follow that sequence because you can end up pointing the ocean and the other two activities that must be done concurrently. One is in terms ofthe establishing deep partnerships with the other areas of the company the key business units, the key functional units because that's how you end up understanding what that data strategy ought to be. You know, if you don't have that knowledge of the company by making that effort that due diligence, that it's very difficult to get the data strategy right, so you've got to establish those partnerships and then the 5th 1 is because this is a space where you do require very significant talent. You have to start developing that talent and that all the organizational capability right from day one. >> So, Bob, you said that, uh, data is the new middle manager. You can't have an effective middle manager come unless you at least have some framework that was just described. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, when Interpol talks about that fourth initiative about the engagement with the business units and making sure that we're in alignment on how the company's monetizing its value to its clients, his involvement with our team goes way beyond how he thinks about what date it is that we're collecting in the products that you're offering and what we might understand about our customers or about the marketplace. His involvement goes also into how we're curating the right user experience for who we want to win power with our products and offerings. Sometimes that's the role of the chief date officer. Sometimes that's the role of a data engineer. Sometimes it's the role of a data scientist. You mentioned data becoming the new middle management middle manager. We think the citizen analyst is ushering in that from from their seat, But we also need to be able to, from a perspective, to help them eliminate the long tail and and get transparency, the information. And sometimes it's the application developer. So we, uh, we collaborate on a very frequent basis, where, when we think about offering new capabilities to those roles, well, what's the data implication of that? What's the governance implication of that? How do we make it a seamless experience? So as people start to move down the path of igniting all of the innovation across those roles, there is a continuum to the information to using To be able to do that, how it's serving the enterprise, how it leads to that transformation to be a cognitive enterprise on DH. That's a very, very close collaboration >> we're moving from. You said you talked the process era to what I just inserted to an insight era. Yeah, um, and I have a question around that I'm not sure exactly how to formulate it, but maybe you can help. In the process, era technology was unknown. The process was very well, Don't know. Well known, but technology was mysterious. But with IBM and said help today it seems as though process is unknown. The technology's pretty known look at what uber airbnb you're doing the grabbing different technologies and putting them together. But the process is his new first of all, is that a reasonable observation? And if so, what does that mean for chief data officers? >> So the process is, you know, is new in the sense that in terms ofthe making it a cognitive process, it's going to end up being new, right? So the memorization that you >> never done it before, but it's never been done before, right >> in that sense. But it's different from process automation in the past. This is much more about knowledge, being able to scale knowledge, not just, you know, across one process, but across all the process cities that make up a company. And so in there. That goes also to the comment about data being the middle manager. I mean, if you've essentially got the ability to scale and manage knowledge, not just data but knowledge in terms of the insights that the people who are working these processes are coming up in conjunction with these data and intelligent capabilities, that that that that that of the hub right, it's the intelligence system that's had the Hubble this that's enabling all that so that That's really what leads Teo leads to the so called civilization >> way had dates to another >> important aspect of this is the process is dramatically different in the sense that it's ongoing. It's it's continuous, right, the process and your intimacy with uber and the trust that you're developing. A brand doesn't start and stop with one transaction and actually, you know branches into many different things. So your expectations, a CZ that relationships have all changed. So what they need to understand about you, what they need to protect about you, how they need to protect you in their transformation, the richness of their service needs to continue to evolve. So how they perform that task on the abundance of information they have available to perform that task. But the difficulty of being able to really consume it and make use of it is is a change. The other thing is, it's a lot more conversational, right? So the process isn't a deterministic set of steps that someone at a desk can really formulate in a business rule or a static process. It's conversationally changes. It needs to be dis ambiguity, and it needs to introduce new information during the process of disintegration. And that really, really calls upon the capabilities of a cognitive system that is rich and its ability to understand and interact with natural language to potentially introduce other sources of rich information. Because you might take a picture about what you're experiencing and all those things change that that notion from process to the conversational element. >> Dr. Bhandari, you've got an interesting role. Companies like IBM I think about the Theo with the CDO. Not only do you have your internal role, but you're also you know, a model for people going out there. You come too. Events like this. You're trying to help people in the role you've been a CDO. It's, um, health care organization to tell Yu know what's different about being kind of internal role of IBM. What kind of things? IBM Obviously, you know, strong technology culture, But tell us a little bit inside. You've learned what anything surprise you. You know, in your time that you've been doing it. >> Oh, you know, over the course ofthe time that I've been doing the roll across four different organizations, >> I guess specifically at IBM. But what's different there? >> You know, I mean IBM, for one thing, is a the The environment has tremendous scale. And if you're essentially talking about taking cognition to the enterprise, that gives us a tremendous A desperate to try out all the capabilities that were basically offering to our to our customers and to home that in the context of our own enterprise, you know, to build our own cognitive enterprise. And that's the journey that way, sharing with our with our customers and so forth. So that's that's different in in in in it. That wasn't the case in the previous previous rules that I had. And I think the other aspect that's different is the complexity of the organisation. This is a large global organization that wasn't true off the previous roles as well. They were Muchmore, not America century, you know, organizations. And so there's a There's an aspect there that also then that's complexity of the role in terms ofthe having to deal with different countries, different languages, different regulations, it just becomes much more complex. >> You first became a CDO in two thousand six, You said two thousand six, which was the same year as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure came out and the emails became smoking guns. And then it was data viewed as a liability, and now it's completely viewed as an asset. But traditionally the CDO role was financial services and health care and government and highly regulated businesses. And it's clearly now seeping into new industries. What's driving that? Is that that value? >> Well, it is. I mean, it's, I think, that understanding that. You know, there's a tremendous natural resource in in the information in the data. But there is, you know, very much you know, union Yang around that notion of being responsible. I mean, one of the things that we're very proud of is the type of trust that we established over 105 year journey with our clients in the types of interactions we have with one another, the level of intimacy that we have in their business and very foundation away, that we serve them on. So we can never, ever do anything to compromise that you know. So the focus on really providing the ability to do the necessary governance and to do the necessary data providence and lineage in cyber security while not stifling innovation and being able to push into the next horizon. Interpol mentioned the fact that IBM, in and of itself, we think of ourselves as a laboratory, a laboratory for cognitive information innovation, a laboratory for design and innovation, which is so necessary in the digital era. And I think we've done a really good job in the spaces, but we're constantly pushing the envelope. A good example of that is blockchain, a technology that you know sometimes people think about and nefarious circumstances about, You know, what it meant to the ability to launch a Silk Road or something of that nature. We looked at the innovation understanding quite a lot about it being one of the core interview innovators around it, and saw great promise in being able to transform the way people thought about, you know, clearing multiparty transactions and applied it to our own IBM credit organization To think about a very transparent hyper ledger, we could bring those multiple parties together. People could have transparency and the transactions have a great deal of access into that space, and in a very, very rapid amount of time, we're able to take our very sizable IBM credit organization and implement that hyper ledger. Also, while thinking about the data regulation, the data government's implications. I think that's a really >> That's absolutely right. I mean, I think you know, Bob mentioned the example about the IBM credit organizer Asian, but there is. There are implications far beyond that. Their applications far beyond that in the data space. You know, it affords us now the opportunity to bring together identity management. You know, the profiles that people create from data of security aspects and essentially combined all of these aspects into what will then really become a trusted source ofthe data. You know, by trusted by me, I don't mean internally, but trusted by the consumers off the data. The subject's off the data because you'll be able to do that much in a way that's absolutely appropriate, not just fit for business purpose, but also very, very respectful of the consent on DH. Those aspects the privacy aspect ofthe data. So Blockchain really is a critical technology. >> Hype alleges a great example. We're IBM edge this week. >> You're gonna be a world of Watson. >> We will be a world Watson. We had the CEO of ever ledger on and they basically brought 1,000,000 diamonds and bringing transparency for the diamond industry. It's it's fraught with, with fraud and theft and counterfeiting and >> helping preserve integrity, the industry and eliminating the blood diamonds. And they right. >> It's fascinating to see how you know this bitcoin. You know, when so many people disparaged it is a currency, but not just the currency. You know, you guys IBM saw that early on and obviously participated in the open source. Be, You know, the old saying follow the money with us is like follow the data. So if I understand correctly, your job, a CDO is to sort of super charge of the business lines with the data strategy. And then, Bob, you're job is the line of business managers the supercharge your customers, businesses with the data strategy. Is that right? Is that the right value >> chain? I think you nailed it. Yeah, that's >> one of the things people are struggling with these days is, you know, if they can get their own data in house, then they've also gotta deal with third party. That industry did everything like that. IBM's role in that data chain is really interesting. You talked this morning about kind of the Weather Channel and kind of the data play there. Yeah, you know what? What's IBM is rolling. They're going forward. >> It's one of the most exciting things. I think about how we've evolved our strategy. And, you know, we're very fortunate to have Jimmy at the helm. Who really understands, You know, that transformational landscape on DH, how partnerships really change the ability to innovate for the companies we serve on? It was very obvious in understanding our client's problems that while they had a wealth of information that we were dealing with internally, there was great promise and being able to introduce these outside signals. If you will insights from other sources of data, Sometimes I call them vectors of information that could really transform the way they were thinking about solving their customer problem. So, you know, why wouldn't you ever want to understand that customers sentiment about your brand or about the product or service? And as a consequence to that, you know, capabilities that are there on Twitter or we chat or line are essential to that, depending on where your brand is operating in your branch, probably operating in a multinational space anyway, so you have to listen to all those signals and they're all in multiple language and sentiment is very, very bespoke. It's a different language, so you have to apply sophisticated machine learning. We've invented new algorithms to understand how to glean the signal at all that white noise. You use the weather example as well. You know, we think about the economic impact of climate atmosphere, whether on business and its profound. It's 1/2 trillion dollars, you know, in each calendar year that are, you know, lost information, lost assets, lost opportunity, misplaced inventory, you know, un delivered inventory. And we think we can do a better job of helping our clients take the weather excuses out of business in a variety of different industries. And so we've focused our initiatives on that information integration, governance, understanding new analytics toe to introduce those outside signals directly in the heart and want to place it on the desk of the chief data officer of those who are innovating around information and data. >> My my joke last Columbus. If they was Dell's buying DMC, IBM is buying the weather company. What does What does that say? My question is Interpol. When when Emma happens. And Bob, when you go out and purchase companies that are data driven, what role does the chief data officer play in both em in a pre and post. >> So, you know, I think the one that there being a cop, just gonna touch on a couple of points that Bob Major and I'll address your question directly as well. Uh, in terms of the role of the chief data officer, I think you're giving me that question before how that's he walled. The one very interesting thing that's happening now with what IBM is doing is previously the chief data officer. All at least with regard to the data, Not so much the strategy, but the data itself was internal focused. You know, you kind of worried about the data you had in house or the data you're bringing in now you've gotta worry as much about the exogenous status and because, you know, that's so That's one way that that role has changed considerably and is changing and evolving, and it's creating new opportunities for us. The other is again. In the past, the chief state officer all was around creating a warehouse for analytics and separated out from the operational processes. That's changing, too, because now we've got to transform these processes themselves. So that's, you know, that's that's another expanded role to come back to. Acquisitions emanate. I mean, I view that as essentially another process that, you know, company has. And so the chief data officer role is pretty key in terms of enabling that world in terms ofthe data, but also in terms ofthe giving, you know, guidance and advice. If, for instance, the acquisition isn't that problem itself, then you know, then we would be more closely involved. But if it's beyond that in terms of being able to get the right data, do that process as well as then once you've acquired the company in being able to integrate back the critical data assets those out of the key aspect, it's an ongoing role. >> So you've got the simplest level. You've got data sources and all the things associated with that. And then you've got your algorithms and your machine learning, and we're moving beyond sort of do tow cut costs into this new era. But so hot Oh cos adjudicate. And I guess you got to do both. You've got to get new data sources and you've got to improve this continuous process. By that you talked about how do you guide your customers as to where they put their resource? No. And that's >> really Davis. You have, you know, touching out again. That's really the benefit of this sort of a forum. In this sort of a conference, it's sharing the best practices of how the top experts in the world are really wrestling with that and identifying. I think you know Interpol's framework. What do you do sequentially to build the disciplines, to build a solid corn foundation, to make the connections that are lined with the business strategy? And then what do you do concurrently along that model to continue to operate? And how do you How do you manage and make sure your stakeholders understand what's being done? What they need to continue to do to evolve the innovation and come join us here and we'll go through that in detail. But, you know, he deposited a greatjob sharing his framers of success, and I think in the other room, other CEOs are doing that now. >> Yeah, I just wanted to quickly add to Bob's comment. The framework that I described right? It has a check and balance built into it because if you are all about governance, then the Sirio role becomes very defensive in nature. It's all about making sure you within the hour, you know, within the guard rails and so forth. But you're not really moving forward in a strategic way to help the company. And and that's why you know, setting it up by driving it from the strategy don't just makes it easier to strike that plus >> clerical and more about innovation here. We talked about the D and CDO today meaning data, but really, I think about it is being a great crucible for for disruption in information because you've disruption off. I called the Chief Disruption Office under Sheriff you >> incident in Data's digitalis data. So there's that piece of Ava's Well, we have to go. I don't want to go. So that way one last question for each of you. So Interpol, uh, thinking about and you just kind of just touched on it. He's not just playing defense, you know, thinking more offense this role. Where do you want to take it. What do your you know, sort of mid term, long term goals with this role? >> It's the specific role in IBM or just in general specifically. Well, I think in the case of I B M, we have the data strategy pretty well defined. Now it's all about being able to enable a cognitive enterprise. And so in, You know, in my mind and 2 to 3 years, we'll have completely established how that ought to be done, you know, as a prescription. And we'll also have our clients essentially sharing in that in that journey so that they can go off and create cognitive enterprises themselves. So that's pretty well set. You know, I have a pretty short window to three years to make that make that happen, And I think it's it's doable. And I think it will be, you know, just just a tremendous transformation. >> Well, we're excited to be to be watching and documenting that Bob, I have to ask you a world of washing coming up. New name for new conference. We're trying to get Pepper on, trying to get Jimmy on. Say, what should we expect? Maybe could. Although it was >> coming, and I think this year we're sort of blowing the roof off on literally were getting so big that we had to move the venue. It is very much still in its core that multiple practitioner, that multiple industry event that you experienced with insight, right? So whether or not you're thinking about this and the auspices of managing your traditional environments and what you need to do to bring them into the future and how you tie these things together, that's there for you. All those great industry tracks around the product agendas and what's coming out are are there. But the level of inspiration and involvement around this cognitive innovation space is going to be front and center. We're joined by Ginny Rometty herself, who's going to be very special. Key note. We have, I think, an unprecedented lineup of industry leaders who were going to come and talk about disruption and about disruption in the cognitive era on then. And as always, the most valuable thing is the journeys that our clients are partners sharing with us about how we're leading this inflection point transformation, the industry. So I'm very much excited to see their and I hope that your audience joins us as well. >> Great. We'll Interpol. Congratulations on the new roll. Thank you. Get a couple could plug, block post out of your comments today, so I really appreciate that, Bob. Always a pleasure. Thanks so much for having us here. Really? Appreciate. >> Thanks for having us. >> Alright. Keep right, everybody, this is the Cube will be back. This is the IBM Chief Data Officer Summit. We're live from Boston. You're back. My name is Dave Volante on DH. I'm along.