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