>> Announcer: Live, from Washington, DC, it's the cube.
Covering dot next conference.
Brought to you by Nutanix.
>> Welcome back to DC everybody,
this is the Nutanix dot next conference #NEXTConf,
and this is the cube, the leader in live tech coverage.
We go out to the events,
we extract the signal from the noise.
My name is Dave Vellante,
and I'm here with my co-host Stu Miniman.
Dr. Arthur Langer is here,
he's a professor at Columbia University, and a cube alum.
Good to see you, thanks very much for coming on.
>> Great to be back.
>> Dave: Appreciate your time.
So, interesting conversations going on at dot next.
People talking about cloud
and you hear a lot about virtualization and infrastructure.
We're going to up level it a bit.
You're giving a talk-- you're hosting a panel today,
and you're also giving a talk on strategic IT.
Using IT as a competitive weapon.
It wasn't that long ago
where people were saying does IT matter.
We obviously know it matters.
What's your research showing,
what is your activity demonstrating about IT
and how is it a strategic initiative?
>> Well, if you were to first look at
what goes on on board meetings today,
I would say, and I think I mentioned this last time,
the three prominent discussions at a board
is how can I use technology for strategic advantage,
how can I use predictive analytics,
and how are you securing and protecting us?
And when you look at that,
all three of those ultimately fall
in the lap of the information technology people.
Now you might say digital or other parts of it,
but the reality is all of this sits
at the heart of information technology.
And if you look at many of us in that world,
we've learned very efficiently and very good
how to support things.
But now to move into this other area
of driving business,
of taking risks,
of becoming better marketers.
Wow, what an opportunity that is
for information technology leadership.
>> Dave: So, obviously you believe that IT
is a strategic advantage.
Is it sustainable though?
You know, I was sort of tongue-in-cheek joking
about the Nick Car book,
but the real premise of his book
was it's not a sustainable competitive advantage.
Is that true in your view?
>> I don't believe that at all.
I live and die by that old economics curve
called the S curve.
In which you evaluate where
your product life is going to be.
I think if you go back and you look
at the industrial revolution, we are very early.
I think that the changes, the acceleration of changes
brought on by technological innovations,
will continue to haunt businesses
and provide these opportunities well past our life.
How's that?
So, if anybody thinks that this is a passing fad,
my feeling is they're delusional.
We're just warming up.
>> So it can be a sustainable competitive advantage,
but you have to jump S curves
and be willing to jump S curves at the right time.
Is that a fair difference?
>> Yeah, the way I would say it to you,
the S curve is shrinking,
so you have less time to enjoy your victories.
You know, the prediction is that--
how long will people last on a dow 500 these days?
Maybe two, three years, as opposed to 20, 30, 40 years.
Can we change fast enough,
and is there anything wrong with the S curve ending
and starting a new one?
Businesses reinventing themselves constantly.
Change a norm.
>> Professor Langer, one of the challenges we hear
from customers is keeping up with that change
is really tough.
How do you know what technologies,
do you have the right skill set?
What advice are you giving?
How do people try to keep up with the change,
understand what they should be doing internally
versus turning to partners to be able to handle.
>> I think it's energy and culture and excitement.
That's the first thing
that I think a lot of people are missing.
You need to sell this to your organizations.
You need to establish why this is such a wonderful time.
Alright, and then you need to get the people in,
between the millenials and the baby boomers and the gen x's,
and you got to get them to work together.
Because we know, from research right now,
that without question, the millenials will need
to move into management positions
faster than any of their predecessors.
Because of retirements and all of the other things
that are going on.
But the most important thing,
which is where I see IT needing to move in,
is you can't just launch one thing.
You have to launch lots of things.
And this is the old marketing concept, right.
You don't bat a thousand.
And IT needs to come out of its shell in that area
and say I have to launch five, six, eight, 10 initiatives.
Some of them will make it.
Some of them won't.
Can you imagine private equity or venture people
trying to launch every company and be successful?
We all know that in a market of opportunity,
there are risks.
And to establish that as an exciting thing
So, you know what, it comes back to leadership in many ways.
>> Great point, because if you're not having those failures,
your returns are going to be minuscule.
If you're only investing in things that are sure things,
then it's pretty much guaranteed
to have low single-digit returns, if that.
>> Look what happened at Ford.
They did everything pretty well.
They never took any of the money, right,
but they changed CEO's because they didn't get involved
in driverless cars enough.
I mean these are the things that we're--
If you're trying to catch up, it's already over.
So how do you predict what's coming.
And who has that?
It's the data.
It's the way we handle the data.
It's the way we secure the data.
Who's going to do that?
>> So, that brings me
to the dark side of all this enthusiasm, which is security.
You see things like IOT,
you know the bad guys have AI as well.
Thoughts on security, discussions that are going on
in the board room.
How CIOs should be thinking about
communicating to the board regarding security.
>> I've done a lot of work in this area.
And whether that falls into the CISO,
the Chief Information Security Officer,
and where they report.
But the bottom line is
how are they briefing their boards.
And once again, anybody that knows anything about security
knows that you're not going to keep 'em out.
It's going to be an ongoing process.
It's going to be things like okay what do we do
when we have these type >> response
>> How do we respond to that?
How do we predict things?
How do we stay ahead of that?
And that is the more of the norm.
And what we see, and I can give you sort of an analogy,
You know when the President comes to speak in a city,
what do they, you know, they close down streets, don't they?
They create the unpredictability.
And I think one of the marvelous challenges for IT
is to create architectures,
and I've been writing about this,
which change so that those that are trying to attack us
and they're looking for the street to take
inside of the network.
We got to kind of have a more dynamic architecture.
To create unpredictability.
So these are all of the things that come into strategy,
language, how to educate our boards.
How to prepare the next generation of those board members.
And where will the technology people sit in those processes.
>> Yeah, we've had the chance to interview
some older companies.
Companies 75, 150 years old,
that are trying to become software companies.
And they're worried about the AirBnB's of the world
disrupting what they're doing.
How do you see the older companies keeping pace
and trying to keep up with some of young software companies?
>> Sure, how do you move 280 thousand people
at a major bank, for example.
How do you do that?
And I think there's several things that people are trying.
One is investing in startups with options
to obtain them and purchase them.
The other is to create, for lack of a better word, labs.
Parts of the company that are not as controlled,
or part of the predominant culture.
Which as we know historically will hold back the company.
Because they will just typically try to protect
the domain that has worked for them so well.
So those are the two main things.
Creating entities within the companies
that have an ability to try new things.
Or investing entrepreneurially, or even intrapreneurally
with new things with options to bring them in.
And then the third one, and this last one is very difficult,
sort of what Apple did.
One of the things that has always haunted
many large companies is their install base.
The fact that they're trying to support
the older technologies because they don't want
to lose their install base.
Well remember what Steve Jobs did.
He came in with a new architecture
and he says either you're with me or you're not.
And to some extent, which is a very hard decision,
you have to start looking at that.
And challenge your install base to say
this is the new way, we'll help you get there,
but at some point we can't support those older systems.
>> One of my favorite lines in the cube, Don Tapps,
God created the world in six days,
but he didn't have an install base.
Right, because that handcuffs companies
and innovation, in a lot of cases.
I mean, you saw that, you've worked at big companies.
So I want to ask you, Dr. Langer,
we had this, for the last 10 years,
this consumerization of IT.
The Amazon effect.
You know, the whole mobile thing.
Is technology, is IT specifically,
getting less complex or more complex?
>> I think it's getting far more complex.
I think what has happened
is business people sometimes see the ease of use.
The fact that we have an interface with them,
which makes life a lot easier.
We see more software that can be pushed together.
But be careful.
We have found out with cybersecurity problems
how extraordinarily complicated this world is.
With that power comes complexities.
Block chain, other things that are coming.
It's a powerful world, but it's a complicated one.
And it's not one where you want amateurs
running the back end of your businesses.
>> Okay, so let's talk about the role
of those guys running.
We've talked a lot about data.
You've seen the emergence of the chief data officer,
particularly in regulated industries,
but increasingly in non-regulated businesses.
Who should be running the technology show?
Is it a business person?
Is it a technologist?
Is it some kind of unicorn blend of those?
>> I just don't think, from what we've seen
by trying marketing people,
by trying business people,
that they can really ultimately grasp
the significance of the technical aspects of this.
It's almost like asking someone who's not a doctor
to run a hospital.
I know theoretically you could possibly do that,
but think about that.
So you need that technology.
I'm not caught up on the titles,
but I am concerned, and I've written an article
in the Wall Street Journal a couple years ago,
that there are just too many c-level people
floating around owning this thing.
And I think, whether you call it the chief technologist,
or the executive technical person,
or the chief automation individual,
that all those people have to be talking to each other,
and have to lead up to someone
who's not only understanding the strategy,
but really understands the back end
of keeping the lights on,
and the security and everything else.
The way I've always said it,
the IT people have the hardest job in the world.
They're fighting a two-front war.
Because both of those
don't necessarily mesh nicely together.
Tell me another area of an organization
that is a driver and a supporter at the same time.
You look at HR, they're a supporter.
You look at marketing, they're a driver.
So the complexities of this
are not just who you are,
but what you're doing at any moment in time.
So you could have a support person that's doing something,
but at one moment, in that person's function,
could be doing a driving, risk-taking responsibility.
>> So what are some of the projects you're working on now?
What's exciting you?
>> Well, the whole idea of how to drive that strategy,
how to take risks, the digital disruption era,
is a tremendous opportunity.
This is our day for the--
because most companies are not really clear what to do.
Socially, I'm looking very closely at smart cities.
This is another secret wave of things that are happening.
How a city's going to function.
Within five, seven years,
they're predicting that 75% of the world's population
will live in major cities.
And you won't have to work in the city and live there.
You could live somewhere else.
So cities will compete.
And it's all about the data, and automation.
And how do organizations get closer with their governments?
Because our governments can't afford
to implement these things.
Very interesting stuff.
Not to mention the issues of the socially excluded.
And underserved populations in those cities.
And then finally, how does this mess with cyber risk?
And how does that come together
to the promotion of that role in organizations.
Just a few things, and then way a little bit behind,
there's of course block chain.
How is that going to affect the world that we live in?
>> Just curious, your thoughts on the future of jobs.
You know, look about what automation's happening,
kind of the hollowing out of the middle class.
The opportunities and risks there.
>> I think it has to do with the world
of what I call supply chain.
And it's amazing that we still see companies
coming to me saying I can't fill positions.
Particularly in the five-year range.
And an inability to invest in younger talent
to bring them in there.
Our educational institutions obviously will be challenged.
We're in a skills-based market.
How do they adopt?
How do we change that?
We see programs like IBM launching new collar.
Where they're actually considering non-degree'd people.
How do universities start working together
to get closer, in my opinion, to corporations.
Where they have to work together.
And then there is, let's be careful.
There are new horizons.
Space, new things to challenge
that technology will bring us.
20 years ago I was at a bank which I won't mention,
about the closing of branch banks.
Because we thought that technology
would take over online banking.
Well, 20 years later, online banking's
done everything we predicted,
and we're opening more branches than ever before.
Be careful.
So, I'm a believer that,
with new things come new opportunities.
The question is how do governments and corporations
and educational institutions get closer together.
This is going to be critical as we move forward.
Or else the have nots are going to grow, and that's a problem.
>> Alright, we have to leave it there.
Dr. Arthur Langer, sir, thanks very much for coming in.
To the cube >> It's always a pleasure
to be here >> It's a pleasure to have you.
Alright, keep it right there everybody,
we'll be back with our next guest.
Dave Vollante, Stu Miniman, be right back.