 Live from the Hilton at Bonnet Creek, Orlando, Florida, extracting the signal from the noise, it's theCUBE, covering Vision 2015. Brought to you by IBM. And now your hosts, Dave Vellante and Jeff Frick. Hi everybody, we're back. This is Dave Vellante with Jeff Frick. We're here at IBM Vision. Go to ibmvisiongo.com and check out all the social streams that we put together for this event. Mark Jeffries is here. He's an author. He's a speaker. He's hosting this event. I am. Mark, welcome to theCUBE. Not quite now. Right now they're hostless in there. You are the guest. We're hosting. I know, I know, it's great. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to be here. Pass the baton. I think it's important. So former stockbroker, you got out of that gig. I did. Just in time. Good call. You know what, it was, I was there for five years. And I remember thinking, because that was always my goal. I wanted to be in finance. I'm an economist. I thought, I want to get to the city. We call it in London, the city. And I get there. And I managed to kind of talk my way into my very first role. And I realized after a few years, I just didn't enjoy it. I didn't like it. I didn't like the people. I didn't like the hours. I'd been in the office at five in the morning. And it was just insane. I liked the money though. That was good. But it wasn't everything, right? Money isn't everything. It's a lot, but it's not everything. So I just, I got out. So I left. Now you're writing, speaking. Yes. With conferences like this. The journey was interesting because it went via television. A bit like this. So I always fancied being in TV. And I managed to somehow, again, talk. This is my big thing, talking. I taught my way into a role at a TV station, a small cable channel in the UK. And then everything was a stepping stone. And I ended up with a live daily finance show on a channel called The Money Channel in the UK. And what was interesting was, I would be interviewing executives. And at the end of the interview, we got a commercial break. And they'd say to me, Mark, you're very good at this. Why don't you come and do this at our live event? Which I'd never even considered before. Next thing I know, I'm on stage in front of real people, not just cameras and beautiful lights. And it really picked up ahead of steam. So that became what is now my full career. Well, it's very enjoyable to watch you up on stage. You're a natural. Thank you. Now it's interesting, we're here at a tech conference. Yes. A lot of business technology. This is not like super geeky. No. We do a lot of conferences. This is sort of more financial oriented. But do you do a lot of tech conferences? I do. And it's funny, I was having this discussion this morning. I'd say something in the region of 60, maybe even 63% of the conferences that I host and moderate their tech. So some pretty big tech names and some of the smaller ones as well. I have no favorites. I love all my clients. But what's interesting is the more I do, whether I'm with IBM or any other tech company, the more I do, the more I learn about the industry. So really without ever directing myself here, I found out so much about the business of IT and specifically about analytics and the technology around analytics that now people see me as one of the experts. I'm not. That's completely a lie. But it sounds like I know what I'm talking about. So a lot of tech events, but I also do a lot in the pharmaceutical sector and a lot in what we call professional services. So the EY's, Deloitte's, KPMG's, that group as well. So what do you see as the similarities and differences as you go across, you know, industries and talk to different audiences? What's the same and what's different? There's two ways to look at this story. Okay, you're either the audience member or you're the host, the speaker, you're the organization, you're the vendor. So let's think of it from the audience member first. You're an audience member, you come to an event like this, why do you come? What do you want to learn something new? So you've got to make sure if you're putting on an event like this, there is content that I can use. Don't just give me a list of stuff. Give me something I can use. So the organizers of these events have got to think, what's the language of my audience? What do they need? What are their pain points? What can we solve right now? And how can we grow our relationship with them? Now the second big reason for people to attend events like Vision, of course, is for the networking opportunity. It's about making those connections. I know you had been on before and he's absolutely right. It's not just about the weak links, it's the strong links, it's all the links because the people you meet here not only will become part of your extended network, which is crucially important, but they'll also give you advice, ideas and maybe even, and I say this to my audiences in my keynote speech, they maybe even become your unofficial sales team because your network, it's not just who you know, it's who knows you. It's much more important. I love that line, I love that saying. It's so true too, isn't it? It's who knows you, knows what you do, knows how good you are at doing it because those people, if you have that connection, they'll pick up the phone and they will sell you to someone else if you ask them to. There's nothing more valuable than that. So we were just in the city last month. You're talking about New York City, I'm guessing. No, London. Oh, okay. Your city. There was so many cities. And we were talking ironically with some MIT professors who wrote a book called The Second Machine Age and we were in London, the home of the first machine age, which was the steam engine, right? And the whole premise was that machines have always replaced humans in physical labor and now they're starting to do it in cognitive labor. We hear about Watson, Watson Analytics, Jeopardy and so forth. Does that scare you? No, well partially, yes partially, it's interesting there's been a plethora of recent pronouncements by experts like Professor Stephen Hawking and there was somebody else as well, Bill Gates, basically warning us of the rise of the robots. The robots are coming and artificial intelligence while amazing and while exciting and good. We as humans, they say, have to find a way to perhaps limit it just in case the whole war games thing happens or Terminator, the redoing Terminator. So I'm partly talking sci-fi, I'm partly talking real world. I love the exponential growth of technology and what it can do for us. I mean, look at me, I've got my devices in front of me. These really in many ways dictate so much of my life and I love the help they give me. And I've never been a Luddite. If I see an advantage in technology, I'll grab it. Recently I made it, I issued a tweet about Uber. I'm loving Uber. I think it's a great leap of technology. I now know where the car is that I've booked. I know who's driving it, I know the license plate and when I'm in it, other people can track me. I can track myself, I like that. But the sheer amount of hate that I got on Twitter from people who I'm just going to call Luddites, people who probably have an axe to grind, probably are involved in terms of their career and their living and I get that. That's got to be painful when you can see the future and the future is that technology is coming to take over. I got so much hate in it, upset me, because what are we going to do? Are we going to try and stop technology because we want to protect old jobs? No, eventually they're going to come up with the technology that outmodes a host or a moderator and you know what, I'll be done then, fine, it is what it is. You're talking about protecting the past from the future. Well, that's right, and you know, self-driving cars. People are still laughing about it, but it's real, they are absolutely so much better than a human driver. In all the millions of miles worth of testing they've done, the only accidents that have been very few, the only accident has been caused by human intervention. They've been two actually. No, there's 11 accidents and 1.7 million miles in the 20 plus Google cars. Right, but they were all rear-ended. They were rear-ended and they got rear-ended. Exactly, so the other day Wall Street Journal put an article out and the headline was, robot drivers or self-driving cars involved in more accidents. Ooh, that was a Wall Street Journal and I read it and I actually tweeted, this is the most misleading headline of the day. And one of the Wall Street Journal's authors tweeted me back saying, well, it's a way to get attention, but no. Because I'm sorry to get all passionate about it because that is not the story. The story is they're safe and I now I think would feel safer in a self-driving car, the one driven by my friends because technology unfortunately is perfect. Then there's that pesky Uber guy though, so those things need to come together. That's kind of the sort of thing about Uber. Maybe Uber's coming to an end as well. But it's interesting you say that because five years ago nobody thought the self-driving car was possible. No, they did not. And they're going to be driving down Star Road Drive soon. Right, exactly. Right, they're going to be replacing us on the queue. Well then the bizarre thing is when it's just to download onto your Tesla, you don't even have to go get a new car, it's just a software update. Computers are writing, they're replacing financial write-ups at the end of a quarter. Sports write-ups. They're all being written by robots. Okay, so the biggest question is are we afraid, are we worried? And I think no, because you could have asked me the same question, if I was a loomist back in the 1800s running a loom with fabric, am I worried that automation's coming? I'd have probably said yes because it affects my job. And I think we've got to draw the line between where a job is affected and where we hold back our own development as humans. So what do... And by the way, I've seen Battlestar Galactica. I know what Cylons are. And there is obviously an issue out there. Well, I mean, it's like all these things come true with the life. You know, they say everything on Star Trek will eventually come true. That's right. What do humans do well that machines don't? What do you advise children? Like what should you focus on? Well, I think what we have to do with humans, and this really is not my main area, but I think we have to harness what technology can give us. And become better humans as a result. So I have three kids of differing ages, and that's exactly the message I will give to them. They've completely harnessed technology. I learned from them now. Apparently Facebook is not as popular as it was. It's all Snapchat now. Who knew? I can't take Snapchat because you do a video, and then 30 seconds later, it disappears forever. That's why I like Periscope. The beauty of Periscope, exactly. Well, you've got 24 hours. At least you've got 24 hours before the Periscope video disappears. Well, Twitter video is very exciting, I think. Yes, and well, I've just really taken to Periscope because what I love about that is it allows you to build yet another connection, and this comes back to your question. What do humans do better? Now, the answer is communication. Periscope is one of those apps that allows you to build a new connection with people who you know or who know you. It gives them a little bit more of an insight. I have followers, friends who watch some of my Periscopes, and they say to me, we feel like we're with you. We feel like we see a bit of your life, and that's a great way to extend connections. That's something you can't do with humans the whole time because you're on the road, you're not with them. And Facebook, to an extent, is like that. I know what my friends are up to, and I like that new human connection. So in a very long-winded way to come around to your question, I think as humans, we're very good at communicating. We're very good at spotting opportunities, and what we should always strive to be good at is harnessing what's available to us to grow our own worlds, to grow us as people, and to grow our businesses, and to become more successful and to keep being happy. So Mark, an interesting thing on Periscope just came up. So we do a lot of stuff with sports. We spend time with Bill Schlaut, the Giants. They put in high-density Wi-Fi, great 4G, but now with Periscope, I can be my own sportscaster. I can basically sit in my chair at the Giants, leverage this terrific infrastructure that they've given, film the game, and talk about it. So the impact on licensing and decentralization, it's interesting, because sports is still one of the few things that broadcasters can count on a large audience. Exactly, and you know what? They still can, because despite all the fuss about the recent fight in Vegas, people had obviously paid HBO 100, whatever it was, bucks for the fight. They're holding their phone up, they're filming it, so their followers are now watching it, but you're watching a fight on a phone, okay? That's not the same experience. So I think that the likes of HBO just need to settle back and go, you know what? It's fine. We've still got our client base. It's not going to disappear. Yeah, I don't know, because I used to be in the TV business, and we said the same thing. Who's ever going to watch a big movie on a little screen? Boy, we were wrong, the kids never lift their faces out of those things. Well, John Cleese said that when he was on. John Cleese was on theCUBE a few weeks ago, and he's like, why would anybody do that? And he's like, well, I do that all the time. It's a fantastic experience. But for a big live sporting event, when you're with your friends and you're having drinks, you're just not going to watch. Movies, it's a different product altogether. And also the fact is, when someone's on Periscope, unless they're really careful, and they've set it up on a tripod and they've lit it perfectly, you've got a lot of wobble going on. That's not the same experience, but you're getting a little insight. So Ellen DeGeneres, every day now she does Periscopes. You get to see in the dressing rooms behind the scenes before the curtains open up. That's fascinating to me. I'll still watch her show on TV if I get a chance. Because I've seen that doesn't mean I won't then watch the final product. If anything, I'm now more excited about what she does because I get that little bit of insight. What are some of the fun things that you've seen in your travels and your speaking? You can mention other companies. That's okay, if you don't want to, we understand too, we'll be respectful of you, but they know we're independent. So what are some of the fun things that you've seen and done? Well, a couple of things. I think you have to engage your audience always. I do a lot of sales kick-offs. So instead of, like at this fabulous event, we have our customers and clients here. I do a lot of events where the actual team, the members of staff of an organization come together, one or 2,000 people. You've got to, again, the rules are the same. Give them something they can use. Give them something they can actually learn and develop and take away with them. But also some fun too. So I play a game with a lot of my audiences, which is just, it's very successful because it's based on pure maths. So it's called heads or tails, it's basics. What you do is you have everyone in the room stand up and I've done this for as many as 5,000 people in a single game. And you start, hi, I'm seeing people. You start asking questions, very, very large general knowledge questions for which there are two answer choices given and they're always numerical. So you might say, how many tube stops are there on the London Underground? Is it hands on heads 312 or hands on your bottom's tails 313? Well no one ever knows, it's impossible. It's like a red or black roulette gamble. So of course the audience goes heads, tails, you lose half for every question. So with my 5,000 people audience, it took only seven questions to whittle it down to a single winner, who we labeled smart as person in the room. Now it was fun, it was amusing, but it was refreshing. And when you're in an audience, you need those moments to reawaken you. And I tell a lot of my clients this, people will fall into a waking sleep within 15 minutes. You have to keep pressing the reset button, whatever it can be. So when I see fun things like a heads or tails game, I love that, that to me is very exciting. I love seeing video use. I love the fact now that we can grab, whoops, grab an iPhone, shoot some interviews, rehash it on the iPhone and put it on a big screen within 10 minutes of actually doing it. I love the fact that people enjoy seeing themselves on the screen and again it's another refresh, it's another reset. On the other side, can I give you some of my top tips for travel? Because I travel the entire time. That's what the event business is, you know that, right? Two top tips for travel. Number one, when you check into your hotel room, like me, I don't know about you guys, but I'm always staying in different hotels and every week there could be three different hotels, I forget my room number. So the minute I leave, that's right, the minute I leave my hotel room, I go, I take a picture of the hotel room and boom, I'm in. And number two, get yourself to TSA pre. If you're in the United States, it changes everything. We have clear, we have clear, it's even better. Please, good, no, clear's not even better and I'll tell you why. Clear, you still have to take your computer out of your bag. That's right. Clear, you still have to take your shoes off. With TSA pre, you don't have to take anything out of your bags. And the other tip there is don't wear a big belt buckle. Right, because it gets the metal detector going. And then you'll sail right through. And you never, here's my last tip, you never know who you're going to meet. I met someone quite by chance in Vegas once that led me to what has been now nine appearances on the Today Show in NBC. If I hadn't put myself out there, if I hadn't taken that little mini risk and you never know, I don't think I ever would have been on that show and being on that show has added to my overall impact on this business, without a doubt. Take out the headphones, smile, Mark Jeffries, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. I know you got to run and do your hosting thing and really fantastic, loved it this morning. Great segment, thanks for coming on. Thank you so much, I'll see you soon. All right, keep right there, but we'll be back with our next guest. This is theCUBE, we're live from IBM Vision 2015. Right back.