 Live from Cambridge, Massachusetts, extracting the signal from the noise, it's the queue, covering the MIT Chief Data Officer and Information Quality Symposium. Now your hosts, Dave Vellante and Paul Gillan. To Cambridge, Massachusetts, everybody, I'm Dave Vellante and with my co-host, Paul Gillan. For the last two days, we've been covering the MIT IQ, hashtag MIT IQ. Check out the crowd chat at crowdchat.net slash MIT IQ. And Paul, this is our third year here. Thanks to you, we're here. And we've seen the sort of evolution of this discussion. The Chief Data Officer has gone from sort of single digits and very narrow set of industries, is slowly emerging as a role within organizations of more prominence, but still one that's fuzzy to a lot of observers like ourselves. You know, very clearly there's a need for a Chief Data Officer as an evangelist. It's emerging in those regulated industries, financial services, healthcare and government. They're sort of leading the charge, but it's still, the role is still stuck in the mire of governance and the edicts of risk with the hope of trying to deliver value to the organizations. And it's very clear that people are struggling with that value proposition, how to quantify it, how to articulate it, how to organize for it, where it should sit in the organization. It's very clear that there's a need for elevated awareness of data in all organizations and the value of data and the importance of good governance and data quality. Whether there's a need for a CDO role, I think is still an open question. And I hosted a panel today of the question, almost open-ended topic of the future of the CDO role. And it was a very dynamic discussion with the whole room was very involved in this and there was really no agreement. And I think that it sort of came down to the CDO role could turn out to be symbolic in the same way that people used to talk about the Chief Customer Officer or the Chief People Officer if you remember those trends that were popular for a few years and then kind of fizzled out. But they still had a value because they raised awareness that yes, customers are important and our human resources are important. So they served a function. The Chief Data Officer could end up being that. It could be a title that does not have a lot of staying power but it serves the short-term purpose of alerting companies, of getting companies really organized around data, really data-driven. On the other hand, something I pointed out to the crowd today in my session, I said, when I grew up, data and information were synonymous. So we have this Chief Data Officer and the Chief Information Officer. Isn't that the same thing? And if we need a Chief Data Officer, is that actually an indication that the Chief Information Officer has failed in that role? To which the head of the MIT Chief Information Officer Symposium vigorously objected. But the point was we're in a transition stage right now. Infrastructure is going away. Not quickly, it's not going to happen overnight, but over the next 10 years, we're going to see a lot less infrastructure in corporations and a lot more in the cloud. And so what is the role of the CIO in that function? And does the CDO, does really the asset that's left behind is that data? And does the CIO become the Chief Data Officer? I would argue that many of them are not, don't have the skill set to do that. Does the Chief Data Officer supplant the CIO? Or do they sort of merge into one role by that name or something else? What's your take on this? Well, I'm listening to you. I'm reminded of the most interesting interview I think we did in theCUBE last year, 2014, was at the HP Big Data User Conference where the gentleman named Alan Nance of Phillips. And he said that his CEO came to the conclusion wanted to have to do all this analysis and announced to the team, 80% of our IT effort and spend is undifferentiated. And that has to change. Now I thought about that and said, that's probably not far off from most organizations. The vast majority of what they do, what they spend on keeping the lights on is non-differentiable. And the CIO is the steward of that undifferentiated spend. So something's got to give. So what has to happen? So I think the organization has to transform its infrastructure so that it's getting rid of that non-differentiated heavy lifting. It has to reskill so that it can become maybe a broker of those sets of services and focus its attention on innovation. What does that mean? Well that means finding ways to add value that are differentiated, whether that's through software development or through new partnerships or through exploiting this, what we sometimes refer to as the digital fabric, Dave Michela sort of coined that term, exploiting that in ways that can develop new business models. Now, in thinking about that digital fabric, sure there's cloud, that's great. You can become a cloud broker. I think CIOs are in a position to sort of manage that transition. But if they're not doing all that heavy lifting, the requirement is going to become much more, you know, rote, much less, you know, like the head of engineering or securities or physical security services. Yeah, that's right. Or you're overseeing an asset, you're protecting an asset, but you're really not delivering any value to the organization. That's right. And who wants to be there? And so, and then if you've got a big application development team, you're talking about your big task ahead. You got to take your systems of record and your systems of engagement and you have to build out systems of intelligence, what IBM calls systems of insight. And you've got to make those systems work together. You've got to extend them into the real time, you know, nature of data analytics. So that's a big job. And then you've got this data layer that you're going to leverage. And so, it seems to me that the success of the CIO is going to depend on how well they can leverage that data layer and what role they play in organizing their catalyzing and organizing their company to exploit that data layer. And, you know, it's very unclear to me how that evolves. As I say, in the regulated industries, the starting point was governance. In the, you know, not less regulated industries, it's the line of business that's going to be driving that. And they are not going to want to be subservient to some kind of corporate chief data officer role. I don't see that happening. I think there's one thing that's clear is that the data belongs on the business, on the business side. The chief data officer represents the interests of the business. Where does that lead the CIO? If that person is representing the needs of the need to protect assets, to keep the lights on, then that is not something that the business side is going to relate to very much anymore. You know, I attend CIO conferences, you and I both attend a lot of CIO conferences. How confident are you that most of the CIOs you've met are ready to make that leap to really being business innovators? I don't see it. Well, I'll tell you where I do see it, is there are pockets of innovative CIOs that you see that are really driving hard toward new business models with cloud and mobile and social. And a good example is at the Service Now conference, you meet a lot of CIOs that are just really driving transformation hard. They're jettisoning their old system thinking, not necessarily their old systems, but their old system thinking. And they're moving virtually everything they possibly can in their application portfolio to the cloud where it makes sense, except those things that give them significant differentiation that they're managing, very, very carefully. And I would say that in less than 10% of the cases, that CIO is a business savvy leader. I'm not saying they're not professional or smart, but they're not, they're not capable or qualified to step in and run a business P&L. An increasing number is, maybe it's 15%, but the vast majority are sort of overseers of the technology infrastructure. And so I do see that role changing. Now you asked me how confident am I that that role will sort of be around, essentially is what you're asking. Well, those people will step up to that role. Yeah, so I think that the dynamics of that change are going to force, create a vacuum and people with the right skills will fill that vacuum. But I do see a lot of disruption coming in there. The disruption that we're seeing in the business is not just the vendor community. It's the practitioners that are going to see the biggest disruption in their business. And then again, everybody uses the examples of Uber and Airbnb. Every industry is going to see that disruption and transformation. Now, I think the good news for industry is they're sitting on a lot of cash. They get a lot of resources. Productivity is up. Technology is helping them do more with less. Very clearly, machines are replacing humans and cognitive tasks are being replaced. So productivity is going through the roof. So I do think that ultimately the rich get richer in this scenario. And I think the large cap companies will figure it out because they have the resources too. And I think they have the buying power to acquire companies that can help them get there. So I am fairly sanguine about the large cap US economy. I actually think it's got a good future ahead of it. And I would say the same thing is true for the technology vendors, but not necessarily from a growth perspective. As I always say, HP has to shrink to grow. IBM is shrinking. Companies like Oracle that are growing in the single digits are super happy because they're gaining share. Microsoft's quite interesting actually. But I think those companies have the resources to wear with all and the buying power and the leverages to sustain. So I think that it's kind of interesting, the practitioner side and the vendor, the big vendor side, I think they're a mirror image. And I think these small innovators, I think most of them get gobbled up or they die. Well, my favorite Samuel Johnson quote is, there is nothing like a noose to concentrate the mind. Certainly that's happening to the IBMs and HPs of the world. I would say coming out of this conference, maybe some CIOs should be looking at it that way as well. Cloud is a great thing. It's a great development and most CIOs are totally on board with the value of cloud. But cloud could ultimately make a lot of what they do irrelevant. And that means that they need to be thinking now, looking around those corners now to figure out how are they going to remain relevant to the organization. The smart people, I'm sure a lot of them are going to figure it out. But I was reminded of it. If you remember about 20 years ago, the Harvard Business Interview ran an article that entitled Career is Over about the CIO. And that was a crisis that that job function went through. And there was real serious questions about the value of the CIO role to the organization. And that job function, that C level job function, did make it through that gauntlet and came out the other end as a really robust function. I think we may be entering into another crisis of that nature. Yeah, well the other not whole was Nick Carr's article, does IT matter? Does IT matter? Right. And that created a crisis within the CIO community. And they came out of that very strong. I think that this time around it's, well it's very clear that IT is becoming utility. There's no question about it. Now whether that's going out to the cloud, the public cloud, or it's going to be some form of a hybrid, this hybrid cloud notion is. It's not a utility like electricity is utility because it's a programmable utility. Yeah, absolutely, it's with an API. And that's where the value is. So the successful CIO is the one who is going to take his or her organization and skill it and gear it toward the ability to program infrastructure as code and serve new application development that's going to be driven by mobile and analytics. And that is going to be, I think, the model for the successful CIO. Now what role that individual plays in terms of the data steward I think is limited. I do think there is a need for a data steward or a series of data stewards. The big question I have is, should that be an individual centralized role or is it going to be, as you point out, the business should own the data? Well I shouldn't the business own the data, you know, czar, multiple data czars. And you might end up with multiple data czars. And there's certainly, there is value to getting the data in order to normalizing it, to federating it, to knowing where it all is. You know, as Jamie from Gartner said in our interview just now, that the data stewardship is strategic. It does have value. Ultimately it may not be a centralized function. I think for a lot of companies right now it should be a centralized function because their data is a mess and they need to get to track it and figure out where it all is and make it all interoperable. Michael Andrews from PNC Financials said, today they're 80-20, run the business versus transform the business from a data perspective. And he said very shortly there'll be a 50-50. I don't know how you go from 80-20 to 50-50 quickly. That sounds very aggressive. So, but I think to the extent that happens, I would predict that what's going to happen is the individual lines of business who do own the data are going to learn from, you know maybe there's an ex-officio framework that exists. Okay, these are the standards that we're going to develop. And oh, here's the good, I do see that reverting into a governance role. I just don't, just the nature of organizations. I mean we were an organization that was highly decentralized at IDG and innovation occurs close to the customer. And even in a centralized organization innovation occurs close to the customer. And so it's those that are close to the customer that have the authority, that have the power, they have the chops. That's just the way companies work. And I don't see them relinquishing the data asset and the data agenda to a centralized individual. I see them happily relinquishing the governance, compliance, and security edicts to a centralized individual. So you go figure that stuff out and tell us what to do and we'll comply unless there's more business value and the risk is less than the opportunity. And they'll make that decision as their P&L dictates. But I see that, I just don't see the CDO getting out of that governance role anytime soon. I think you're right. I mean ultimately this is data has to become the entire organization, the culture has to be data oriented. The organizations that are going to succeed will be those that have data infused into their cellular structure, right? And are just thinking constantly of ways that they can use analytics and data to do things differently, to improve the customer experience, to be more efficient. And one person is not going to do that. If there is one person who could do that, it would be the CEO. It is not going to be someone reporting two levels below the CEO. I would agree. This is not necessarily bad news for the CDO. I think it's just a reality check that says, essentially what you want to do is be an agent of change. Affect that change and then get out of the way. And if it ends up being a governance task, then so be it. Give it to somebody and then move on to the next change agent opportunity. And the change agents make a lot of money. And they can affect organizational leverage in a huge, huge way. So as I say, it's not necessarily bad news, but I just don't see that boring, but important topic of governance going away anytime soon. Right, well, Paul, this has really been a pleasure working with you as always. As always, Dave. And thrilled that you're moving back up here and we're going to see more of you on a day-to-day basis and look forward to working with you more on theCUBE. Hey, Andrew, Sam, nice job. Luke, who wasn't here today. We got a great, great team behind the scenes at SiliconANGLE, check out siliconangle.com, check out wikibon.com for all the research. The siliconangle.tv will have these replays and all the conferences that we've been to. What's next? The HP Big Data event is next. The guys in Palo Alto probably have some stuff going on. Come on next month. Yeah, Art, John Wilson, Christian Nicole, thanks for all your help at the back end and Brendan for switching him over, good job. All right, we're a wrap. And oh, Bert Lattimore on the crowd chats, check out crowdchat.net slash MIT IQ. You'll essentially see a transcript of theCUBE over the last couple of days. We're a wrap, this is theCUBE from MIT. Good afternoon, thanks for watching.