 From theCUBE Studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE Conversation. Hello everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of AWS Summit 2020, it's virtual online and we're theCUBE virtual here in our Palo Alto studios with our COVID-19 crew. We're in place here, getting all the content remotely and also digitally, we're going to bring that into the virtual, we've got a great guest here as part of the program at AWS, but more importantly part of the community doing its part, both on building applications, but also around COVID-19. We've got Dean Gray, the CEO of Skylab Apps Inc. And they've got an app that's being featured called Do Your Part, hashtag doyourpart. Dean, thanks for spending the time to come in and talk with me. Thank you, I'm excited to be here. Hey, you got to love this virtualization going on and I think the sad news around what's going on is really an indication of a new world order that we're seeing, a new expectation of virtualizing the world that we live in. Obviously we've been doing content at events, now it's virtual or digital, but still people are online, they're converging their lives with digital technologies. You guys are in that business, you have an app that's pretty compelling and relevant for the COVID-19. Take a minute to tell us about yourself and Skylab Apps Inc and Do Your Part app. Sure, well thank you for having us on here first of all. Well, what we do at Skylab Apps is we launch rapid response platforms, an entire platform that about a week's worth of time is if you had your own Facebook or Instagram overnight. We do them for causes, tribes, organizations, or if there's some sort of situation that requires you to throw something together quickly where you can shape, reward and track behaviors of that community to hit a certain goal. So since we've been doing this for years with all kinds of communities, when COVID hit, we started hearing all these things on the news about companies coming forward and making face masks or hand sanitizers, which were great products, but there was nothing out there that was tracking and helping the people that were being quarantined to highlight the little heroes inside all of us. So we knew that every night on the news we were being told to stay home, but how did we track that stuff? So we just had the ability to do it and we stepped forward and said, Amazon, AWS, will you help us? And they said, absolutely, we'll give you credits. The servers, we'll handle the server stuff. You handle the platform and let's reward all these people at home, the kids and the parents. Talk about the app itself. You guys are doing your part in flattening the curve. Tracing has become a topic that, hey, we're digitally connected. Why not use the technology for a good? You guys have an effort to flatten the curve and track and people are opting in. It's not like a surveillance, government surveillance. This is actually an opt-in, do your part. You mentioned heroes. It's a hero journey, if you will. But people are doing their part every year. That's the whole, talk about the app. What's it all about? So when you go on the app, it's a one-stop shop to learn about links to the CDC, information that first of all you want to know, making sure you have real news, getting quality information, so a resource for education. But the unique thing about it, because there's tons of those out there, is that you have all the actions listed where you can now wash in your hands, social distancing, reaching out to heroes, saying thank you, spending time with pets, unplugging. All the things that are just not psychological, but actual COVID actions that are saved in lives, people voluntarily go on their report that they're doing them by clicking on them. It instantly shows up on a wall, like an Instagram feed, but it's private. And everyone now can see what people are doing. They're high-fiving, they're chilling each other on. They're earning badges. And major companies are jumping on board, like whether Budweiser or all kinds of companies outside of Amazon, that are going, when people are doing these things, we'd love to highlight and reward them for these actions of staying at home. So it's pretty exciting. It's really awesome. I think it's, well, first of all, it's awesome that you're doing it and that you're agile enough with AWS. I want to get into that in a second, but I think the trend with COVID-19 that I'd like to get your thoughts on, is I think this has a lot of headroom, is not so much the feel-good nature of it that I'm doing my part, but you're starting to see the user experience. People are tired of sheltering in place. We're pushing now two, three months now into this and it's going to go on for more and more. Universities want to open, people want to open up their jobs. And there's almost a new norm developing where the tribes, if you will, or groups of people, my daughter lives in San Francisco, she's got some roommates, they're sheltering in place, they're watching their actions. They also want to socialize. So it's almost like a badge, like a license to get into a bar. It's like, hey, I'm doing my part. So it's almost a signaling kind of tribal thing that you're seeing. I think this might be part of a future that we're going to live in because if I'm aware of my responsibilities and I'm doing my part, I want to communicate with people who are doing their part. And there are people who aren't doing their part by the way, that's well-documented. And then there's a trust element in all of this. Bring this together for us. What does this all mean? Is it tribals or communals or norms are developing? Interactions and expectations are emerging. New roles and new responsibilities are emerging from this. Your thoughts. Well, you're hitting the nail on the head. Everything is tribal. And that's what Skylab is focused around is, for example, we started to help the cheerleading industry because it was a bunch of young athletes from ages six to 22. And we have over 40,000 kids, for example, that are tracking behaviors and want to be recognized for doing the things that really matter in life, not just taking a selfie and being rewarded for being cute. So how do you compete with all the concepts of being famous for the wrong reasons? So for example, in this cheer app, we reward people for being better athletes, taking the actions to advance their skill, being a better human being, doing their homework, getting their mama compliment, doing the dishes, and then making the world a better place. We were already doing that now and making the world a better place in addition to stopping a bully, reaching out, don't be a mean girl. Now we have the COVID actions of making the world a better place, tracking it. And what was shocking is we can now show that we've got kids that have had 200-day streaks over the last year and they were addicted to the positive things, not just being cute anymore. Well, so it fit perfectly to throw COVID actions in there and people are just loving it. So we've got groups, whether it's with Navy Seals or whether it's with cheer or whether it's with any type of a family group that's out there. It's interesting because- People love to see the likes on their selfies, on their posts. This is a new kind of social signaling, but it's got, again, social responsibility kind of built in with the gamifications in the right way. That's what you're saying, right? Is that kind of what's happening? Yes, and you're hitting on a white paper that we wrote recently. It's called Beyond Gamification is VRS, Value Reinforcement Systems. And it's highly, it's much more addictive and sustained engagement for long-term because gamifications what's done to you without you really knowing VRS is you or the organization grabbing the steering wheel and deciding what are the behaviors that you should be reinforcing. So VRS is the next evolution of gamification. I think that's a huge point. I'd love to do a follow-up segment on that because I think this is exactly what I call the Facebook blowback, which is the user's the product. That's been kind of the Silicon Valley kind of vibe. And that's really true. Facebook has been, you know, not exploiting using the free service in exchange for leveraging you and being gamification applied to people. Here, the script is flipped. The users are exactly right. They're telegraphing their data into a system that's rewarding them for positive things. And it could be on anything. Well, and it rewards them in our system is when you're going to grow a tribe, when you want to take something and grow it bigger, you have to have the basics. Talk to me, follow me. Here's all the resources and channels. Here's the behaviors I want you to do consistently. And then maybe here's some certification courses you can go through. So it's like five little apps in one that are geared towards growing a community because learning something I know is not proving that I am. And I am is a huge gap between just knowing. And so everyone who's teaching out there today needs to start backing up their incredible keynotes with an incredible continuity program to create sustained transparent change. And as you mentioned with the GDPR rules, the world has wised up and realized, I don't mind telling you what I'm doing, as long as I get to see what I'm doing and I'm volunteering data, but don't go scrape that behind my back when I'm at a party. And when they're on general social media, they feel like they're at a party and you're tracking without the permission. That's totally different than going to a specific app to tell you what I'm doing. This is innovation. I think this is a great innovative trend. I think this is going to be around much longer and have a lot of headroom to it because I mean, everyone wants to be an influencer and have influence. But what you're getting at, it's interesting, it's reputation, it's who you are and your actions are contributing to that. You can control that. That's a really great trend, awesome stuff, great stuff. Well you just said on a very key word, we call them everyone likes to be influencers, but they don't feel they can compete with the beautiful, super powerful influencers on social media where you've got 10 million followers or a million and you have to just be the ultimate look, the ultimate fame. People are now realizing they can be micro influencers and their attitude is as long as you recognize us the same way, we want you to know that we're not just a customer, we're not just a fan, I'm a micro influencer. As long as you'll recognize me and I'll tear the door down, that's what's happening. Well you know what, that's something that's near and dear to our hearts, obviously theCUBE, we have a CUBE alumni network, we don't try to monetize it, it's just really smart people we share content with and no network is too small in our mind, we think that is ultimately where it's going to go. Really appreciate that. With COVID-19 as this evolves, you guys had this rapid app, Amazon's helping out, obviously they're involved, they're giving you some credits, what's going on with Amazon? What's the relationship, free credits? Are you an Amazon customer using Amazon Cloud? What's your relationship with AWS? Well first of all, we wouldn't be able to do what we do without them, so all of our apps for our communities are all powered by Amazon and AWS. So and then in addition to that, by then giving us credits, they didn't just help to do your part app, they helped all of the other existing communities that could rapidly deploy these actions like the cheerleading app for young athletes, like the ones for personal development. So we suddenly were able to track over a million actions taken in people's households of people having to sharing funny moments and githies with what they're doing and basically just making it popular. So Amazon really stepped up and helped not just the general public app, but all the existing ones with their leveraging their technology that we run off of, as well as providing credits for all of those people. Well congratulations for being featured on the Amazon Summit virtual online, so there's the Cube online here as well, virtual. Great stuff, love to follow the progress. Quickly get a plug in for the company where you guys are at and share the link for that white paper. I think that's something that's worth promoting the white paper you mentioned. So people can get all this information at skylab.world. So skylab.world and we're basically a platform that people have access to that's white labeled. So you have a community or organization that you want to be able to train, track and award your people, own your data, and we allow you to own a copy of your source code. So we truly are empowering people to say if you already have a tribe, man run it, it's your world. We're in the science of engagement business. We'd like to help you get that sustained engagement. So what are your capacity for it or what's the pricing model? Yeah, so we try to set up fee and then a monthly fee unless they end up buying out the code and then they typically just pay us to maintain it. So I was the customer. I was someone as a young person who had developed a large tribe, well, decent size of multiple countries and then realized when I sold my company all of my people were on Facebook and Instagram. So I was only valued at a certain value. Had I had all that community on a platform that I owned, oh my gosh. So I was like a young little rock star who realized I didn't own the label. Yeah, well now you're growing up the rock star. And again, having a social graph and having that interest graph really creates a lot of value. And congratulations and look forward to seeing the success. And thanks for doing your part, literally, figuratively with the app, do your part, check it out online. Bringing social responsibility and gamification in the hands of the user where they can control the reputation. Dean, thank you for coming on theCUBE. Really appreciate it. I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching. It's theCUBE virtual covering AWS Summit Online, their virtual event as we are in our quarantine crew studio here in Palo Alto doing all the remote interviews. I'm John Furrier. Thanks for watching.