Welcome to The Shiproom,
where we learn from tech leaders
at some of the world's most successful companies.
I am Brad Anderson.
I'm the Vice President of Microsoft 365.
If you've used the phone, the internet or TV,
anywhere in Canada, over the last 60 years,
you are going to know the company
that today's guest works for.
Please welcome, Greg Murray.
Rogers was one of the first customers on the planet
to kinda go all in with us on this concept
of secure mobile productivity and email.
You rolled out Outlook to all your mobile devices,
you were one of the first globally to do that,
using concepts of conditional access.
One of the things that I know that you have been big on,
you have this great balance as a CISO,
delivering the security that's required in your role,
but also empowering users in a way
that they feel empowered and agile.
I think there's two sides to that coin,
I think sometimes as technologists,
we forget as we chase the shiny object
that it's all about the customer.
And when we understand our customers
and focus on our customers
and the best outcomes for our customers,
then the conversation is much easier.
The other side of the coin is
that we have to understand our businesses specifically
in order to protect them,
to make sure the bad guys can't defraud us
or hurt our customers, hurt our respective brands.
Our unit spends a lot of time with the business units,
we spend a lot of time on the strategic checks.
We learn a lot about what the business units are doing,
learned about a lot of what's going on
in the competitive markets.
You know, for us, it's a security
of yes and here's how,
versus the security of no, let's not do that.
Every day the network that Rogers operates,
has billions of texts that goes across it.
Most of them are filled with some kind of an emoji, right?
And so to better understand the use of modern hieroglyphics,
we're gonna see a phrase here that is spelled out in emojis
and you and I are gonna try to translate it.
What do you think this one is trying to spell out for us?
It looks to me like it's rain.
Yeah, I think it's raining cats and dogs.
All right, number two.
Time for sun with a parrot and, what's that - a centipede?
Maybe it's a worm.
The early bird gets the worm.
It's like a worm, but it's got feet.
Man, you were good on that one.
Okay, clown house, funhouse?
Clown house...
playing...
Holy cow, this is a hard one.
I just can't get over how cute they are.
Man I'm lost on this. You got any ideas?
Funhouse with playing music.
A clown in my attic is...
is in my attic?
I've never heard of that saying before.
Okay, so you got a squirrel, and cars parking
given what the last one was, is it something like
there's a squirrel parking in my garage?
I don't know, there's a squirrel parking my car,
Brad, you're really good at this, by the way.
Have you been practicing?
Last one!
Man, I know who put this one together.
That's a hedgehog in the middle there.
What's that on the right?
Burrito, eat your burrito.
I don't know.
Never put a hedgehog into a burrito.
One of the things that,
I know you've been a big advocate for
and your organization has really done a lot with is Teams.
Tell us a little bit about how you're using Teams
and how that's, you know, especially enabled Rogers
in a time of shelter from home,
work from home, with the virus.
We were big fans of Skype
and we found that Skype had a lot of capability.
But one of the things that we really wanted
was more scalability.
And quite frankly, we wanted the Raise Your Hand feature.
At Rogers, we're very excited in video conferences
and love to talk and share ideas.
So we look at what Teams has offered us.
I give the Raise the Hand feature
because it seems like such a simple thing,
but I think it demonstrates
that Microsoft has really listened to customers.
And when we look at that component,
along with the reliability of what it provides,
the scalability across our base,
we just really like the platform.
And we've seen a lot of really good feedback,
and our end users enjoy it.
The other component with Teams,
we integrate with customers externally
and spend a lot of time, being able to communicate,
especially as you said in the current situation.
It brings us closer to the customers,
brings our teams closer together.
You know, I'm getting some kind of an alert here,
let me see if I can get this out of the way, oh shoot.
I think I just actually let somebody onto the call here.
Who is that?
Well, hello Brad!
What a completely unexpected and unnecessary surprise.
You've got Greg on the line here.
Worry not, Brad.
I'm always prepared for something like this.
And now that I see you have Greg Murray with you,
perhaps I can share a few ideas I have for Rogers.
Right now, Rogers owns all a part of the Toronto Blue Jays,
the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Football Club,
and something called an Argonaut,
as well as having their name on the side
of a Major League Baseball stadium and two hockey arenas.
So what I'd like to propose today,
are some exciting
new Canadian sponsorship opportunities for Rogers.
And you tell me if you think it would be a good fit.
Sounds great.
The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair
annually awards Best Syrup on Earth.
I can see the banner now,
the Tree Sugar Championship brought to you by Rogers
and beneath it is the Stickiest Trophy on Earth.
It certainly does sound like something
that would bring Canadians together.
How about the World Poutine Eating Championship?
Sounds positively naughty.
I know they currently have a sponsor,
but think what Rogers could do here.
Up in lights, the words:
Go Crazy for Gravy,
All Eyes on the Fries,
The Curd is the Word,
and Rogers with a Dollars.
Sure the rhyme on that last structure is a bit tenuous,
but it is for a great cause.
Well being born in Quebec,
I definitely think we should sponsor that in Quebec.
As recently as 1945,
the 22nd most popular baby name
in your fair country was Roger.
But now it's a paltry 636th. At this rate,
the name will go extinct by 2038.
This cannot stand.
Roger's Communications, will become the official sponsor
of the name Roger.
And you can start by offering new parents
a free year of cell service for every child
they name Roger
With a data plan of course not just for itself, right?
We have to do it properly, we are Rogers.
I'm sure some of these ideas
will work perfectly for Rogers
and maintain your presence in Canada
because after all you can't spell Canada without Rogers.
How is it possible?
Those two words don't have a single letter in common.
One last question.
Any large distributed workforce
has to keep its users productive and secure.
And Rogers strikes that balance
by focusing on the management and security of identity.
Why did you start there?
And how have you made it work?
It's a real interesting question,
cause I think in security or a broader security technology,
you're always trying to figure out
where should you start and where should you end.
And you know, for us, we kinda look at
whether it's clicks or bricks,
the customer journey starts with identity.
And the second component of that
was we thought through Cloud,
identity is the new firewall in Cloud.
And then we said, okay, so what can go wrong with this?
You know, being security technologists,
we came up with three main areas.
One is, a customer experience could suffer
if we didn't get it right.
Two, we'd be cost inefficient,
and three we would be security ineffective.
So what we decided is let's do the reverse of that
and we put a lens on us,
let's build a good solid program.
Let's get our executive leadership team
to approve our roadmap
and our boardwalk risk committee.
Let's report every quarter,
we clear milestones and let's make sure
that we put the customer first ongoing throughout.
One of the things that we have on The Shiproom is
while we're talking, we have AI monitoring the conversation,
and collects, what are the most interesting
or important 12 topics,
and then gives it back to me
in the form of a set of questions
we call it the database dozen.
What was your first email address?
I can't tell you that, that's redacted
What's your fondest memory of dolphins?
Feeding them,
I preferred that more than swimming with them.
Just nice to sit down and have a meal with somebody.
If you could send your 15 year old self,
a 10 word text message, what would it say?
Practice more for emojis when on The Shiproom.
Would you rather go bald
or only gonna cut your hair once every five years.
This is the longest my hair has been
since I was 10 years old,
I probably would probably go bald.
Hey, it's overrated, just look, you know.
You look great.
I mean, yeah, it's a Bruce Willis kind of feel to it.
Do you think it's possible to change the name
of the Rogers Stadium to the Rogers Thunderdome?
Most likely not, but we appreciate the feedback.
Do you think that the queen knows that Canada is hers?
Well there's statute of Westminster of 1931
technically we did reclaim it and then 1982.
So the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in our constitution,
but yeah, absolutely,
she probably still thinks it's hers.
You remember that time at the 2018 Olympics
when the US beat Canada in curling
and then took the gold medal.
No, none of us remember that.
How much snow do you have to get before you cancel work?
And round it up to the nearest kilometer.
I guess it depends how far you are from work, Brad.
If the Abominable Snowman exists,
which cable package would he pick?
Ignite TV, 100%.
Well, Greg, thank you for coming on The Shiproom
and hanging out with us.
People want to learn more about Rogers
or more about you,
where would they go?
Go to rogers.com is what I'd suggest I'm on LinkedIn.
Thank you for joining us on The Shiproom,
for everyone watching
we'll see you next time.
Although I suppose negative century
could have a lot of meanings considering how so far,
2020 looks like the soft launch of Armageddon.