Skilling For a Digital Future @ #DellExperience at #SXSW 2022
work. Welcome. Good morning I need a bell or something. Call mean everybody down welcome today whatever South by Southwest.
Interesting enough we have days in the real world and zoom we have no idea where this rate is nice to be the real world you can know when it's a Sunday I used to call it the next Monday we stopped five Mondays in a week. Welcome I'm the global chief technology officer at Dell Technology this is a dialogue around the scaling for the future. A lot of South by Southwest habit about technology and people. There is no future technology if there aren't people to use it, consume it, get value out of it and unfortunately as technology changes that causes humanity to have to change and humans don't change as fast as technology. We'll have a fascinating discussion. A couple of structural concepts that we will use.
It's meant to be a dialogue I'll be an active facilitator we will try to talk knowing these folks will go where were probably going to go. We have three chapters to talk about about what the future is in the tools and the way that they use technology to collaborate in the following to that. From a Q&A perspective I don't want to keep it super formal.
If something is on your mind and you have a question put your hand up there is microphone runners. Will try to find you and keep the dialogue going. It should be more than the four of us in this conversation. Thank you for having us.
I will simplify the introduction we have three great friends appear. Were knocking to do big introductions you will get to know us as we talk. All of these folks know that we talk a lot. In no particular order we have Nancy your official title is strategic futurist which is fascinating.
But you will hear why. Amber Allen is one of the cool newest examples that is a real example of applying concepts of the meta-verse to the commercial world. Amber and I had a great conversation about the meta-verse in the panel. And a former member of Congress, not in government but still very knowledgeable about the space and as a great history of understanding about the public and private side that this is not just you as an enterprise or by yourself that the entire ecosystem including governmental, startup venture world.
We have a nice diverse panel, were not homogeneous. Let's jump into the discussion. If this is about scaling for the future.
What is the future? How do we think about the future, what are the dimensions that we need to be aware of. The future is what it is but other major technology areas were major structural areas that will be different or more difficult that will have a consequence on her skill set and the people involved. Let me start with a downer, not will but the topic. One of the things about the future that I am 100% certain is true is that it will be more risky. It is going to be more of a hostile adversarial security environment. Cybersecurity is not easy it is not something that people fully understand we had a difficult time staying ahead of it.
If we project with more digital value there becomes digital risk and becomes an asset to attack. Cybersecurity becomes critical. We spent a great amount of time on the topic to figure out not just in government but local government and educational institutions. What issues on the future of cybersecurity and what we can do to make sure we don't fall behind. >> The future of cybersecurity is good AI versus AI.
Good artificial intelligence versus bad artificial intelligence. Hackers always have an advantage. When you move at the speed of AI you will be able to see the defender and evolve just as quick. Whether were talking 20 years from now or now. We know the basics, good digital hygiene making sure that we understand that. We talk about the skill set that people need, do you know how some of these things work.
I don't need to know how the engine of my car works but I know the basics. You have to put a few things in their in order to get it to go and the skinny makes it go fast and if you push the big petal it makes it stop. Understanding that but the interconnectivity.
We will also see the free and open Internet. The Internet is no longer free and open, you cannot close enclaves so businesses will have to learn when you're looking in or grown the different markets and dealing with the enclaves. Also, this'll be my last point on this. Regulation does matter and when we talk about skill sets people need to understand what kind of behaviors we want to incentivize and what kind of policies do we want out there that make sure the entrepreneurial spirit that we keep the Internet free and open. These are active conversations and right now Europe is leading when it comes to policy in the United States a little bit behind but us in Europe are little bit closer than Europe is with some of our adversaries in Asia. It is complicated but we will be able to figure it out.
>> I gave a talk a few years ago to a bunch of cadets at the Virginia Military Institute and the cadet that took me around and graduated with a degree in cybersecurity and I was like how did you like your AI classes and he's like I never took one. This is the issue, were right there and people are not getting the skills that they need to do the work that they will be called on. >> Who's doing in the program Dell Abingdon AI Associates degree. Ethic I started with a couple years ago. The people that have those skills will have to be the one to teach it.
It is not like there is computer science teacher chilling Ada coffee shop waiting to tap you on the shoulder. They do not exist. We will have to make new ones. The. >> The advice that I gave. >> Were already off the rails.
>> The advice I would give to the student, the content is after even if it's not on the syllabus or 9:00 a.m. when you have a slot open and ideas that they defined the content in seek for people who were offering it. >> Years ago I had a phrase to talk to technologist about security, I said there is no neutral with respect to security and technology.
What your decisions and how you implement will have an additive security or a negative to your security posture and I'll make the stronger weaker. There is no piece of technology that you can say this does not affect my security strategy or risk profile. That was the first time I talked about a 15 or 20 years ago even today when I have that conversation you find the silos where people are obsessing on cognitive development and they're not contextualizing those bigger systems and security is one that your future will involve taking about your security posture and making sure your de- risking the potential threats of your new technology.
It's on all of us to connect the dots. Isolated discussions about security are counterproductive and putting it into context are very useful. >> How is your structure. >> Security is one of the things of having a spa compliance has been really important especially because will have anybody from kid age to adults and have users and profiles. What are the biggest things we looked at how can they own their own security so they have the right to get what data that they want to give and that way they also see their data which I think is something I'm strongly pushing for web three, we were talking about this earlier trying to transform from one platform to another but still owning what my data is and how you get to use it or see it. That will also be coming into alliance.
>> Technology has evolved to make that easier. There is a concept letter frontier have designed in you have a ring. As you walk through the environment that you're in you can choose what you want to give your data for how long. It'll be much more dynamics decision making and I hope I got it right and I can't change it. >> That's what's so fascinating when you allow them to be a part of the story they give you more. We see this all the time.
>> Carrying on and shifting away from purely security. But who you're going to interact with. That example I have the ability to grant the right to use my data and interact with me. The way we think about that, nothing is another human being. Not going to be true in the future. I remind people in the meta-verse you think about the long-term path it is not an environment that is a collection of people represented by avatars.
There's lots of things that are not people. It's very likely you will have an AI system that are participants in your interaction or sitting there on the sideline doing things to make your interaction better. The intersection between AI and security interest in this idea of who are the users is going to be very different as we look forward.
I think we touched on it you have to blend the curriculum and plan the thinking I'm curious if you see the same thing in early examples. The most prevalent example, if you were in something like Zoom or teams and there's dynamic translation going on that is not a person translating that is an AI capable of doing voice recognition and real-time translation. It is absolutely listening and part of the conversation and the question is do you trust it or understand it it's bill in a secure way and most people taken for granted because it's just there. >> Understanding how that came about my daughter recently went to buy a certain brand of soup she said she had never heard of the name of the soup and she bought it and add popped up on her phone for the brand and it freaked her out. You feel like it may not even a connection and might've been coincidence but this young group is very weary of where they are being surveilled and how they're being surveilled. >> When you use technology or talk about online and having your tribe it's not just your people it's also your software.
We have an oral ring, both of us are wearing that. My Alexa, we already have technology all around us. It is how we're bringing it in into your point how are we making sure they have the certification.
>> Trust becomes a giant thing. We talked about building algorithms and intention around technology so it's empower versus exploits parade you have my best interest that I'm more willing to give that data and be a participant in if I do not believe that we will find more and more ways, humans are also going to figure out how we can get around the systems that currently exist. >> The people developing these tools will have to start making these decisions. >> Were to do what's best for us and if you don't create the customer experience where they feel like they're giving me the options and giving me the freedom to use my data however, I want.
Then you will not see people that will be built from the very beginning. When we are interacting with AI and AI produces something. Should it be copyrighted, should it not. The copyright office said no. Is that the right move, I don't know the answer to that. These are some of the questions we are going to have to figure out and when you're interacting with something like that do you know you're interacting.
I had a friend who bought a barbecue pit is was listening to a podcast and he said the podcast always talks about it. And I'm like you know that is an ad to get you to buy the grill. He's not grilling on the weekends. I haven't seen on his Instagram. Prater people going to understand what the interacting with and how the data is potentially being thrown back at them we have smart AI and dumb AI. Right now were on dumb AI.
All of that is from a dumb AI appeared we need smarter AI so we can actually have roles. >> I'm on the board of open AI we are looking to build artificial intelligence one algorithm being smarter than any other human. Honestly it is kind of scary and would we built one of the first models the natural language processing turned out to be really basis.
Because it was gathering all the garbage on social media. Then you had to prevent it from being in that way. Can you teach things to do the right thing, yes, do you know it'll do the right thing the way you intended it, that is a big question.
>> One of the things we advocated for the future of AI. We described empathetic AI. It's from a technical perspective. An AI system is a learning system.
It's not static. The learning comes from a source of inputs. The sources of inputs are data that exist somewhere and that's what you get the races fought pretty for give it races data becomes racist. The reality other inputs you can provide into an AI system that aren't conventional but you can offset that. Sympathetic says if AI is in service of humanity how are we measuring the human experience of interacting with AI and whether it's biofeedback.
Fighting AI the understood your heart rate and all kinds of things there were biophysical indications of stress and it could tune the algorithm to avoid that in the job was not to create stress. The job was for a more pleasant experience. Now we have a counter input that would understand if it was behaving in a racist or misogynistic way that would cause stress on the audience and they would understand that should be scored lower.
Let's change the weights on the algorithm. That does not exist in Indian meaningful way predicted thing about the fact in the future world is not just about an insecure wild West but were machines and people interact. How do we make sure the interaction is done mutually in a beneficial way through technology. >> I was going to say how do we incentivize people to make those decisions, those are humans making those decisions. We could decide to do that or not do it.
How do we incentivize people to build businesses that are holding people well. >> Comedy computer science programs across the country for she did take six hours of ethics or philosophy. >> I meet them all the time, they're very concerned about that. I also meet entrepreneurs why question do you think this is an appropriate thing to build and I said no but if my competitor build it I will do it to. But if you build that you take responsibility.
There is a lot of learning all the way through the system and also incentivizing people to understand this is how we need to build a feature that we want to live in. >> This is how difficult the tools and skills the people that a crafting these algorithms and data in the diversity of the skill set and it's not just hard technical skills if you haven't taken a data analytics course, shame on you. This is something that is a go for everything that we do.
>> As well as a philosophy. >> I did not take one I was gonna be a computer science major and now I'm reading all these texts that I wish I would've had a professor hold my hand. >> That's what I think is interesting skill for the digital future trade what I love about where the world is going with the meta-verse, is more visual and more storytelling in the creative side.
We pair up our engineers with their storytellers and our producers and creators will be billed. If we do not build something through playing interaction then of also flat and cold. I just want to build that. >> A great segue.
By the way the last discussion should make you concerned. It basically says the future is pretty complex. There's a lot of hard challenges and a lot of things coming at us. They are what they are, would gotta get there.
If you have any questions put your hand up and we will talk to you. But transitioning, great we have a really hard problem to solve. Are we in the journey by yourself, the answer is no.
As much as our technology creating complexity and new opportunities from a technical level, there's a huge amount of investment saying how do we augment humidity and make it easier to learn and do work. How do we collaborate. I want to shifted that in the idea of using emerging technologies to basically help rescale but basically by eliminating something that you don't necessarily have the skill yourself. There will be technology that makes it easier. Let me start with you you have a great quote the shift from $20 an hour work to 25 hour dollar work.
How are you seeing and what are the areas emerging as technology that is new and revolutionary that is going to improve by magnitude. The ability for people to do work in the future. >> I'm a huge fan of software appeared with quite a bit my company I'm always saying with my people if we can find software that will do the admin work and logistical things in details. You don't have to do that you could do the 500-dollar hour of work, why wouldn't you. What we do in the platform that we have refocused on and no code toolkit so people that are storytellers and creators and artist can actually build and not have to code that they're building on this platform. I think that is also a play that you were talking about a comes back in where I want them to be able to go.
What the interact with and have fun with, they remember better. >> The result of that if you make collaboration easy, the network changes in the human network and human interaction. You spent a great deal of time thinking about not the technical network but how humidity composes itself.
You have a new book out in a number of things. What is your thought about where we are currently within networks of humidity and more as we look forward in the new rescaling of the world. How does that play a role in what you people need to realize about their skill set. >> I was thinking were to be in a world -- I describe it relieving the industrial era and certain physics and roles and experiences of how we built that and were moving into the exponential productivity era. We will be able to create value, exchange value in doing so much more faster and exponential growth in regenerative. There is a whole different way that we will build things, I'm gonna blame on daylight savings time.
But the idea we will have a different way which we will see in exchange values. The whole societal way in which we set things up and up for redesign. When I talk to people building the future I describe as visionary, entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers and investors and asked them how far along.
We are so early to reimagine what this is all going to look like. If you think about how the Internet just changed and we get information via Wikipedia versus encyclopedia we will have a whole different way of leveling up and understated our surroundings and being able to assess our value and how we exchange it. >> Were the dimensions of the future of networks that were going to leverage is there an impedance mismatch on speed? You spent some time with the government, not saying the government is low but the government is slow it works at a different speed. If we think about the future world where we will fundamentally have to move faster in tools and capabilities to iterate faster and take more risks. We had a discussion about standard versus open-source war, the open-source community is moving faster to get to technical consensus and as they move above the commodity line. The things below become standardized, hardcoded in the very repeatable.
Not model will be think about the ecosystem that were going to need in the network includes regulation and policy and governmental incentives. There is a lot of that out there that is very foundational and quite valuable. What are your thoughts on how we should think about the governmental role in the policy role in the networks were engaging with and what can we do to help. >> Not all open-source is good.
You have thousands of voters banging on the code and it secure. We always have to be mindful of those things. The problem becomes you have people that are writing these rules and regulations that do not know anything about the tools.
Let's be honest I could probably bang out a four trend 77 code right now. But some of the stuff that you're doing I would be like what's this I'm getting need that development platform because I don't understand the underlying tools. But I know enough in order to talk to people that are involved in the day-to-day. There is a number of things the government can do in you my opinion you can have smart phones coming out of the technical programs and work in the government for X number of years for scholarships and when they go back into the private sector and they come back for 3040 days a year. And the ability to have that cross pollinate station.
Some of these great entrepreneurs have a great event. The figuring out what the next best thing is good to be. Through the government says all the equity that you build up you have to get rid of that. Those people are not going to do that kind of thing. Don't pay them or pay them a nominal amount and let them keep the resources but they can loan expertise into the government and see if it's a problem and potentially build something around that. There is no perfect answer but we also need people that are educating their members anybody in this crowd that is in technology have you actually met the district director of the member of Congress in the area that you represent.
Have you talked about some of these things that matter. I was IT procurement guy nobody's ever held a parade for IT procurement. When I'm talking to ranchers and farmers about IT procurement, the like who is this person. They are able to explain.
I had folks come to me and say this was a problem. Part of the industry is to educate those folks that are potentially getting in the way but can be a force multiplier. >> They can figure out where the network smash. The future command center in Austin is a great example of breaking down the silos between a rigid structure. In university community and they figured out a way to work closely together. >> There is Army futures command that is set up software factory in Austin could be to the college.
Were very involved on Friday the number of folks. It was an interesting discussion. It is a place where modern software the most modern software technology in the world is happening there into liver in the Army in this case. I will call a board meeting but all the people in the public-private partnership from the Pentagon having this roundtable and one of the obligations that we all felt we needed to do is to protect different. It wasn't because somebody wants to deliberately kill it it was a radical shift into the New World and the organization that is not shifted in the New World it is very easy for some layer of bureaucracy to do something that makes it impossible for them to execute. We took it personally and say we invested a lot of time and energy, is the right answer is our responsibility whether in government or working with government to be vocal advocates and encouraging and making sure they have air cover.
There is a phrase you can believe about government all you want but if you're not doing surveyed about it you're not part of the dialogue. A lot of us in the private sector, I encourage people to not join the government, that can be complex but sit on an advisory board and spend some your time I sit on district eight advisory board I don't have time but I found time I believe the work they're going to have to do around virtualization and 5G if they do it by themselves will get what were going to get. But if we are there we have to risk it and prove it. A shameless plug the government need your help. >> I would say local school boards.
At one point we were on the conversation of whether or not a tablet should go into the classroom and the parents got flipped out they could not control the security of what the kids were doing on the weekends or the evenings when they were in class there was a lot of debate and they did not understand this is where were going and all of a sudden thank God when the pandemic hit this group of students were well-prepared compared to other bodentered everybody. >> The community is so important you can say all that you should research this. And I can say great, where do I go. If I'm going to a website and it's one-dimensional in your sitting there saying I read, how do I help. Shooting e-mail to this person, that is not where we live right now, we live in a world I have two way communication and learning play. That's one of the biggest things what is the community were building around in the platform were allowing to have a voice.
He let people have a voice but in numbers and you find the biggest ambassadors when you're part of it. Our government lives in the one-dimensional world. There are members of the Senate that don't use e-mail. They have their assistance printing things out or highlighting newspapers with a sharpie. For the people that are getting in the way of what you need to unlock we have to meet them where they are. Opportunity is for legislatures to meet where the real people are and that's the actual opportunity.
But were some of the folks, I told the story last night I use a typewriter as a prop when I give speeches to kids. They have never seen that and when I unveil it out of a box there's all these whose and odds and people start to clap. You would've thought I raised King tut from the tomb. For them that is so old and archaic but for some that are making a rules they were comfortable with that then their smart phone.
>> The generational gap, we were talking about this yesterday the technology that we rebuild how do we make sure were not always talking about the product and ten years from now which a lot of people are doing with meta-verse and were looking at how do we do the bridge products free to your point if we don't get them to step one and step two you will never get them to step ten. >> The other thing when you think about technology hel helping us rescale two topics one is an underlying technology that can help us do that. Were not anywhere near the end of that journey, we've gotten better, think about your experience the day COVID started for you whatever that means when you had to work from home. Your technology set was probably not optimize. Your screen was not big enough your audio didn't work your video was terrible and you might not have had a place to do your job. Fast-forward two years into the future it is different.
You probably built your nest that has technology around you I have a big mess for a lot of technology and then I had to travel and realized it's awful to be in a hotel room on a little laptop screen where I'm used to a 65-inch screen and great audio and great lighting. I have front lighting, backlighting inside lighting. But it turns out what we learned at home is going to make its way into our hotel rooms and our conference rooms. Most enterprises are reconfiguring our conference rooms on the assumption of a mixed reality environment. Half the people will be on his and call the other people in the room you wouldn't oriented to be on the side somewhere because actual person might be in the zoom meeting and the people in the room might be the audience. We have a lot of technology coming out us that will continue to get better and will bring into the virtual and mixed reality world.
It seems like that isn't would be the biggest problem as long as were open-minded. The other thing that we talked about the rescaling is not individual effort. It's a network effect. Hopefully you get some thoughts is not just to you know is what tools and networks allow you to get access to the other dimensions of your future. The advice I give people about their network, envision your world and work five years from now and ask who are you depended on, who will you consume. What is the resource map of five years from now.
If there are pieces of the resource map and groups you have no access to now that is your rescaling journey. If you're in industry that's related and you have no idea how it works, there's a lot of people that can call up gladly talk to you and open up the dialogue. If you strengthen your connective tissue to the regulatory side that is a skill that is incredibly valuable.
If you do the same thing with the supplier base or your customer base or adjacent industries. It's not just about underlying technology letter video and better audio is about better networks. Those are some of the tools any questions feel free. Let's shift to the actual skills, we didn't get to that.
What do people have to know, do they need a new programming language, do they need language skills, one I been a big proponent of the last seven years, working on your empathy, it turns out your bad software developer if not empathetic, you're really good if you are because a lot of software development tasks are actually. You work with someone else. A highly empathetic and can work in the environment you are more productive. >> That's an extraordinarily thing.
When I worked with the start up several years ago and watched how they did that with. Coding is a very different experience than the ops world would we have to learn in exchange and not have the engagement, we have such high expectations for this world to continue to do it the old way and there's a lot we can learn about software developers. >> Two topics to talk about what are those skills, empathy is an important one in second where do people get them he been working in education on the local level. Are we heading in the right direction or do we have programs and structures that are going to be there to help people get access to the skills and what are your thoughts on the critical skills. >> It is improving but it's not where it needs to be.
Let's talk about something very basically coding. When I was 17 years old working in the computer lab at Texas A&M University. Although volume ballplayers came to me too create a website because they didn't know how to use HTML.
Now anybody can build a website and note codevelopment that you're talking about you will not have to have the highly technical skills but it's a foundational experience. I think more people should have it. If you take something that simple not basic prior to the pandemic only 40% of high schools in the United States of America taught computer science in classrooms which is crazy. There is so many groups out there and one that has a number of programs. You're looking to nongovernmental organizations that are providing some of the services and guess what these kids will have to do on your own time and figured out.
I'm Dennis still want your things. If you cannot get the message out and can't explain why this is important and if you don't know how to use the current tools then shame on you, we barely talked about the need to understand ethics and philosophy. I'm sorry to keep going back to artificial intelligence but there's a scenario in which the sea EO calls at the Moore's law for everything.
If every two years all the goods and services are going to decrease by half what kind of world will that create and how will we be ready for that environment. You need to have fundamental learning in this. Now in my job when I was in Congress there is very fundamental basic questions what is America's role in the rest of the world.
These are things I had to learn back and not necessarily where America's role is but the power at the time. Those skills are way broader. The data analytics is when you gotta have pre-data analytics and coding if your high school and you can get access to data analytics and coding that will serve you for the rest of your life regardless of what the industry is.
>> We are entering a data world. Interestingly there are new jobs for me that people are not aware of. If you're in a modern IT world today it is not the same job. There programming jobs people who build application software and using low code and no code environments. The skills that they need our user stories and to understand what problem layer starting to define the product.
Those programmers are usually using an infrastructure they don't know anything about and that infrastructure is a multi-cloud infrastructure and typically highly automated but it turned out even if you automate the infrastructure somebody needs to care for the automation there is a new job called SRE Google twined the curtain and it spread across the industry. Who is the keeper of the robot. If infrastructure is a robot who make sure. >> If you believe robots are self-sufficient, by a rumba. It's not a 0 effort project it makes her life a little easier but there's an investment and learning skills to maintain your rumba that you did not have to do before the rumba. The IT jobs are not going away they are just different you're caring for infrastructure and data management world there are data scientist that people take about algorithms but data engineers who think about how do we put that into production and use the stack.
As we go forward everything about what job you're going to have don't look back look at the industry and get to know the stack and target those. >> You have descriptions for all of those. The somebody know that is a possibility and we look at the number of positions that are open if someone has some skills.
Job descriptions don't shows things in the right way and the skill set that you don't always need you to always need a PhD in some serious thing in order to fill the position. A part of that is making sure we are articulating what the skill set that you need. >> Although younger three years ago we did that for the future for college and high school students and I see a young student here.
We try to get them to think about jobs and roles and we did a scenario can you imagine drone delivery of a food company. What are the roles that will be needed to bring that to life. The kids were brought to light the wide range of roles. Back to your point about storytelling or make it concrete way the reality is not just technology that is out there and it's not just the one discrete proportion that gets built out. One concern there's not enough women, where the women and why are they dropping out instead of adding to it. >> You see the end result.
For me a lot of my friends and my nephew play Fortnite trade explaining to the parents it built on an engine my 11-year-old nephew loves Fortnite and he wants to know how it's made is like Legos. He is young he is not coding but he's building an engine already he can figure out how to move pieces and I think that is one of the things of the fundamental if you love this what does that mean to get there. >> You made a very good point about understanding the roles the roles are constantly changing. One example I've seen recently we do a lot of work with McLaren. Pretty cool cars and race cars. McLaren has official jobs for gamers.
What they realize their hit heavy AI and before a race they have run many simulations of the race in a gaming environment to understand how the car will behave in the surface to behave it turns out is not a machine they hire world-class gamers that sit in simulators and race the track over and over again to provide human interaction to the AI system and the model that they will use for the race day. As you're familiar every week it reinvents itself technologically they have to keep moving forward. Who would've thought there was professional jobs in the private sector not in the gaming industry for people who are really good at gaming.
>> They can actually model a crown and whatever the program is of the day as opposed to an artist to molded and painted. They're doing it now in more sophisticated ways. >> Your core question what is the one skill set I would we say curiosity.
If I can find people that are curious and want to learn in the critical thinking they can learn anything. Having the hunger to know that you don't have the answers you were talking about this with meta-verse, we don't know where it's going but I don't know but I will dive into it. >> Wondered and resistance cannot coexist.
When I explained to people someday we will have AI doctors that do so-and-so, that will never happen. My question what if, just experiment and say what if that were to happen. >> I remind people a very long time are you sure.
>> My whole entire career it always ends up happening a lot with empathy and curiosity I talk about agency that you can go and be a part of the solution solution. We've engineered a lot of the out of her education system in our families and to rebuild the sense if you see something you can sense and respond in the capacity to be part of a solution. >> I hear that so much people are like I don't like where this is going.
Great, change it we are literally in the innovation side of this nobody has built any foundational in this area. If you don't like it you the opportunity to change that. >> Every single industry will change not just this particular one coming into vision but banking will change in education will change in retail will change and schooling and education will all change. If you don't like something or even if you do impart a building as assuming somebody else will figure it out better than you, we are all a part of it.
>> Don't be afraid of a technical space because you assume it only values technology technology. Like I said modern software development teams, the skill set necessary to build software there are technology and people that write code and understand but people that said another roles that don't have any codes necessarily. There technical to understand and appreciate what their real skill is how to contextualize what were going to do.
It's not a software programming skill to look at a complex problem and break into bite-size chunks that translate into sprints that the engineering team will execute to make forward progress on a multidimensional problem. What skill set where it is I created is only in computer science or are there people to have cortical thinking and logical thinking from radical environments. >> A session two days ago my friend brought Roe V. Wade and why you have lawyers in scientist and why we have artist that can help us imagine what is possible. I think the whole idea of imagination is a big part of this thing is not always scientific or data in its digitally there's a very big component that is about humanity and imagination and artistry. >> Or the visualization to imagination.
>> Have a question, if somebody came up to you while you're at the taco stand and said I have the skill set in your like I will hire you on the spot, what is that. What do you need right now. The bottom line is the biggest area were focused on that I am personally focused on my job is to make sure we understand the broader future and a strategy to execute I joke to make sure the company doesn't drive off a cliff we missed the technology we have to see the future clearly.
The biggest area we believe will impact the future is not about an individual technology it's the ecosystem we existed. Technology without context is not valuable pretty forgettable technology that will revolutionize healthcare or change the gaming industry the educational environment or do something entirely new that we never thought about. Having the ability to understand ecosystem from a first-hand perspective as important a building the technology. I don't know what to build if I don't know what problem and who the consumer will be. Currently a lot of people this Monday I brought in a new head of ecosystems. I'm a technical guy but the reason I hire him he came out of the automotive and led the autonomous vehicle work in the space and one of the major OEMs I hired him because he lives in a really complex ecosystem that had to reinvent itself and he is contextualize this idea of change in the ecosystem.
Every ecosystem Dell serves will change navigating is critical. You think it would only care about software developers and hardware that I care about people contextualize and understand the industries and ecosystems we have to working in the skill set that we are hiring for people can understand how to build the relationships and how to get people to get into a former relationship whether contracting or otherwise exchange for a CTO to say I evaluate people based on their ability to get a contract executed. I'm not a legal team but I want the technologist to appreciate the outcome of her ecosystem is a commercial relationship with someone. If you don't understand contracting a, that's a great example my biggest priority is expanding her ecosystem capability and making friends and new networks. Right now we have a good baseline of technology. It's very fragmented and silent we need to break those all down that is not a technical problem that is an ecosystem problem.
>> Can I add another job title. They just hired chief wellness officer, why would we do that were humans at the center and whether a talent inside or people whom are building our understanding where they are salesforce has achieved ethics in Maine technology officer. I think again phenomenal. These are the jobs that are not just about the technical side or the ecosystem side but understanding the humane side of the work that were doing.
>> One thing I gave you a reasonable answer but what are the messages that are looking for a job hiring people but you have to suspend your prejudice about baseline skills these days you cannot assume the only person to do the job is the one that has a PhD in the experience doing in the old world yet to get beyond that and can ignore, those are interesting but they should not be a filter they are context and looking at holistic person we are struggling to do that because we go to a formula a approach of hiring people. We encourage our people to think about this in to look beyond the traditional areas. Dell has a big effort and shift shifting the committee to college networks.
It sounds pretty obvious but we have bright people and we know the future doesn't look anything like the past. Why do I care about what you did ten years ago. I care about your aptitude and your ability to participate. Community colleges are producing hungry brilliant people that don't really have the easy path into the tech industry. We made a conscious decision and were vocal and we think universities are great to but as a manager or leader building a team if you come in with preconceived biases of what a software developer look like or p.m. and it doesn't reflect the
real future you will build the wrong team. >> Is a community college grad I appreciate that. >> Is my life depended on hacking into computer defended a computer the first 20 people I will call that had no technical degree and don't have any certificates. I think the notion that more folks are hiring have to understand that in the organization has to have system to allow that person to articulate to the hiring process process. I've been a CTO since I was 27 years old and back then 27 that was really young I had to deal with the complexity.
What are the things I had probably 100,000 technologist work for me in my career I had a bachelors in science in electrical engineering I was working full-time at a tech company by my junior year of university. I do not need a PhD to do my job. I value people with PhD's because there brilliant aptitude for certain things but it's amazing in environments today when I go in and people will call me Doctor Rhodes as if there's an assumption that I have that degree.
I sit them down and I say why you make that assumption. The technology industry is about your skills it's not about your diploma but your diploma is a good tool, we need to get beyond the imagine that behavior blocking out all the people that can help solve your security problems because you have a legacy approach of thinking about skill set. >> We have so much access to technology ourselves. You were talking about that to go out and find the answers or to teach herself.
>> Also say years ago we were building a I and we talked about attitude and aptitude and the ability to play with others but self-awareness became a key defining characteristic that could understand how they handle ambiguity, conditions that were stressful, how they can handle the intimidation of I don't have a PhD but I work with PhD's were people who are younger or different in any diverse way and they challenge the way that I think it bega being an organization where we have to learn I'm talking learning and leading is really hard it is not something we've been groomed to do very well. Being in places where we understand who we are and we can work more effectively becomes a key skill to do these other things. >> If there is a test let me know.
>> It is asking people well-rounded questions when were interviewing them people who have taken out or fought through cancer or help the relative get through something have had life stories that prepared them very well for the future or where it has a been so perfect those are people that can handle the complexity and ambiguity better. >> We have a funny story called pivotal labs, it was part of the ecosystem. When he founded the company he was the bleeding edge of advance agile development. It is a fantastic environment.
One thing he created was the RPI it stands for Rob programming interview. What it has for his empathy it is not test for programming skills. They want to make sure if you're gonna come into the programming environment that you are capable of having empathy in the environment because not all software developers do. When we used it at AMC six years ago. One in 40 could not pass.
It's way better now because demographics are in our favor. People are entering the workforce, younger demographics tend to be more collaborative. Doesn't mean people that are older can't do this. Once you tell people that empathy is important before they apply for the job if they know were going to test for they start to think about whether or not they're empathetic or what they can do better were higher probability of passing this. It's fascinating that were engineers and we want to make sure we can measure things and measuring the soft skills in a technical environment is useful.
>> Sometimes I found will have technology that will be built and I've seen it multiple times. Actually didn't build the technology for the day-to-day person, it was so complicated and we go back to what we said earlier you have to build where you will do that again, step one and step two. We have a lot of storytellers but a lot of producers that are creating personas. They will actually do the personas before it gets over to the engineering department, how are people using this and how did they have the human connection, where is the commonality of how to get to know someone. Once you build it that way it could go into the other design. >> It used to be called marketing and everybody ignored on the technical side now it's ingrained to the product.
Were almost at that time hopefully this is useful and entertaining or whatever were trying to do. Let me wrap up with a quick question for all three of you to give the audience advice. This is about future scheduling and preparing for the future. If you are sitting next to a nephew or niece or somebody that you knew coming into the industry and looking at the chaos iron.
What is your top piece of advice. >> First off the thing that I need, I need help with my social so I have to do a lot myself. I think it goes back to something Amber said.
If you find something that interests you, be curious and figure out why. I was fortunate to be exposed to a female engineer who is involved in robotics in the '90s I didn't realize how big of a deal it was. I want to be just like her, what do I need to do and she said take a computer science course.
Find the things that you like and figure out what that thing is that is needed and figure out how to do that. I think that would be my first advice. >> I will bounce on that. I did a lot of people are really afraid of the future, I encourage that to curiosity. The thing that you are so worried about, learn more about it and then you're a participant. I go back to we are students in her own learning and responsible across our lifetime right now.
Resources out there and the people are out there, ask a lot of questions and there's no dumb question. Have a lot of compassion for yourself and others. It's a really fast-moving time and we will not always get it right and recognize that that is okay. >> Mine was burned down to the ground if your left brain or a right brain. That whole concept that you're very tacky or creative is so false.
As were building and creating more in the spaces, be able to be okay that I met the smartest people that say I'm a lead I intact are they literally have a computer and a phone in front of them. It's scary, if we say with that we know it all, you RBS seen. The fact to learning some of this in the storytelling in the art and every single one of us has been moved by a song or some kind of art. There are ways where the world is going to be so much more visual.
Everything from all of it we have an opportunity to be creating in the space. It is pretty awesome. >> Great advice. >> What is your answer? >> My answer, we want you on the journey with us. The future, what you heard today the future doesn't look anything like the present.
It is expansive and open an ecosystem and networks is not just technical it is everything. Don't be afraid, don't stay out of the game. Especially if we look at women and underrepresented minorities and demographics, liberal arts people, scientist, artist, there is a role for all of you in the digital future but you have to be a stakeholder, you have to be curious and push herself and find the right company or the right team or the right leader who is open-minded. Hopefully you heard from us we are kind of like that.
We need you and want you to be involved. There is so much work to do and so much opportunity. Thank you for joining today.
It's a great random conversation conversation. Hopefully it was enjoyable to all of you and we appreciate
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