 Live from San Francisco, extracting the signal from the noise, it's theCUBE, covering VMworld 2015. Brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem sponsors. And now your host, John Furrier. Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here live in San Francisco. This is theCUBE's special new innovation, the director set live on the Moscone North Lobby, VMworld 2015. This is theCUBE's SiliconANGLE's flagship program. We go out to the events to extract the signal and noise. We're excited to be, you have a candid conversation with Cheryl Chamberlain and Paul Strong with Cap Gemini. Welcome to theCUBE, our new director set, our new innovation, welcome. Thank you, welcome. I didn't know you work for Cap Gemini. I guess we have to figure that out. I have transitioned. VMware. Sorry, VMware. That's fine. You're with Cap Gemini. I'm with Cap Gemini. I feel included. It's good. Cap Gemini, EMC, VMware, all one big happy family. So welcome to the director set. So talk about the program you guys are running. I want to hear more about the VM leadership. VM women, yes. So really this is about driving inclusivity inside VMware. In the office of the CTO, one of the main, you know, our main responsibility to the business at some degrees around driving things like innovation. There's a lot of data to show that innovation is actually the outcome of the interplay and riffing of ideas of people from various diverse backgrounds, diverse experiences and everything else. So from my personal perspective and VMware's perspective, we need to include that diversity within the workforce. And the clearest group that is actually tends to be poorly represented is actually women. So our first initiative really is called VM women and it's really around raising awareness and helping us as a business do better in being inclusive. And we need more virtual women, right? We've got to have that tech representation. Cheryl, you've been doing a lot of work in the trends we know we've seen each other for many, many years. Where does it come from? Where is it now and where has it been? Certainly it's a lot more mainstream in terms of the coverage, gender diversity and diversity in general and women obviously in leadership, not just in tech, STEM, et cetera. What's the state of the conversation? Yeah, so I would think that it's changed now to be more about advocacy, male advocacy, as opposed to women's leadership or women working by themselves to be more visible and to have a seat at the table. But when it's advocacy, we're actually working together to drive change and innovation in our organizations. And honestly, that's always where I've been sitting on it or the point of view that I've been sitting on this with. See, I'm just chairing the integrated director's set here. Paul, talk about this advocacy because this is really a big deal. We're going to be at the Grace Hopper event formally with the whole cube. This year, last year we did a kind of a drive-by when Satya Nattela kind of stepped on himself when he was talking about and there was a big brouhaha around that. But then that opened up the conversation. VMware is a very inclusive work environment and if anyone's been to the campus knows it's a beautiful place. So the company culture is certainly about workplace, comfort, and talk about the diversity projects and then the role of the women and the diversity in tech. So I think the, if I think about our corporate culture and clearly from a technology perspective, we actually do a pretty good job of hiring in based on the diversity that's in the broader community. I would make a point that I actually believe that that diversity from the get-go is poor. Computer science is one of the few places where the number of graduates of women is actually decreasing, I believe still. And so we need to do better things there. But when we're in the workforce, obviously we want to be in a place where everyone is given equal access to opportunity. It's not just with regards to promotion per se, it's having the opportunities to actually demonstrate the capabilities. And some of that historically has been, I think it tends to have been cornered into the male side of things just because we have a different way of networking and engaging. And I think so one of my big arhars, at least in participation in this program at VMware is really looking at how we become aware of many of these unconscious things, both the bias side of things and just unconscious behaviors. And so thinking about how we move to a world where it's much more about advocacy and being very aware of being inclusive. Because of the biases, you mentioned biases. Yeah, yeah, and most of them are unconscious. I mean, we all do it and women do it enough with respect to other women. It's not just a men, woman, woman, man thing or anything else, right? As human beings, we have a habit of taking shortcuts and stereotyping. And we have a habit of falling into our own bad habits. And so I think as leaders, it's incumbent upon all of us really to make an effort to be both inclusive and to advocate for the talent that sometimes either is poorly represented or doesn't have an appropriate voice. Cheryl, you and I have talked this in the past and you know my position on this. Obviously we're doing a lot of profiling of women in leadership, women in tech, obviously with two daughters. I think about this all the time and I encourage my join us. But there's style differences as one issue. And the other one is about the politically correctness of it. And those are two kind of hot buttons right now. So I mean politically correct. I don't want to quote Donald Trump because he's talking about that in elections. It's not about the politically correctness. It's about really the styles and the work environment. And you share your perspective on that because I think there's a lot of people just throw blanket, oh, women in tech. And we check the box. Talk about what needs to get done. What do you feel? What are you feeling around in the community? Sure. Well, first of all, I think we need to reach out to the people around us and invite them in so that you create an inclusive discussion. And sometimes you invite people that don't have a technology background that have a different point of view. Maybe they have a marketing background and you invite them into an engineering discussion. So they start to get a sense that engineering and technology is not about bits and bytes. It's about thinking. And thinking about things from a different perspective and giving those points of view to the meetings. So that's one way to open the doors. You know, I've always said if you called engineering something else, if you called it something more interesting you would get a lot more women involved. So we need to figure out a new name for technology. And then you'll get a lot more design. I interviewed this great teacher who's doing some cutting edge work in Florida on computer science. And you know, we were joking, you know, having a beer after like, oh yeah, what, you know, talking about which one ranks, you know, geek, nerd, dork, and these kinds of terms. He goes, none of that applies because he's got football players, cheerleaders. Everyone's into computer science. This not even the labeling has become self referential biasing. So there's a whole cultural shift now around what we used to call, hey, geeking out, that's in a way kind of negative. I think the inclusive team and broadening the conversation is critical and even as a business, if we forget the diversity initiative on its own. Look, if I look at what we're about as a company in terms of innovation, there's a vast amount of data to show in NSF and elsewhere that this is all around having that diversity. And most of innovation comes from interdisciplinary work. So when you talk about, it's not just about computer science. It's about human computer interaction specialists, about organizational psychologists. It's about economists. Everything that we do with tech intersects with the world around us in so many different ways. And so creating that inclusive environment for both skill sets, gender, and other forms of diversity. If we're about innovation, it's absolutely critical that we do it. As well as just from, I mean, you mentioned yourself, I have four daughters. And I have conversations with my four daughters, the eldest of whom is 25, and she's a geneticist, so great. But it's really, I want to make sure that she has access to the same opportunities that I have. Paul, that's a great point, because it's computer science in the 80s when I got my degree, it was very siloed, you coded, and that was a very male oriented, it was a few women in the program. But now there's so much diversity in the interdisciplinary side of it, as what you're saying. So with the classes out there, like the virtual classes at Stanford, I've got how many thousands of people took, computer science, virtually on Stanford. So there's a lot of opportunity to migrate between different careers. And not be, I am a woman programmer. I actually think it's critical, because what I think we're seeing is a transition where we worked on core technology capabilities in the dairy weeds. We're developing technologies almost for their own sake and looking for application. We're at a point in time now where technology is embedded with our lives and businesses in a very profound way. In the next 10, 15 years, we'll have it embedded inside our bodies. So this is really about the intersection of the world around us. I've been in tech all my life since I was a kid, obviously, since I was like 16. And I got to say, yes, it's been male driven because just the demographics are there, but it's been inclusive. There's a lot of diversity mindset. A lot of people are pretty liberal about, you know, inclusive. So I got to ask you guys, what's going on at the event here? Give us some specifics around how do people get involved? What's happening? What's the agenda? Where is it? Is there a website? Is there a blog? Is there a Facebook page? Share some details. I'm pretty sure there's a blog site, but for sure there's an event. I wrote the blog. You wrote the blog? There we go, you say. Some long URL. We're meeting between 4.30 and 6.00, I think. Tomorrow in the Marriott Marquis, in the Golden Gate room. Downstairs, lower level. It's like two floors down. Marriott Marquis, tomorrow at 4.30. 4.30 downstairs, Golden Gate Baldwin. There'll be a talk, there'll be a panel upon which both of us will be serving and we'll be having a broader-based discussion and sharing experiences. And again, apart from everything, this is about being inclusive. I remember misreading an invitation once to a VM Women event, and a student of the men weren't invited. That is absolutely not and never the case, actually. So we hope for- This is everybody. This is everyone, absolutely. This is about inclusivity. I actually think that this is even more different. If you are coming and you're a woman, you're to invite a man to go with you. So we're trying to get those numbers up so that it's maybe 50-50. Because of the advocacy message you guys want. It's really important. We have to do this together. If we're not in the room together having this conversation, then how can we go together to make these changes that are needed? I think that's a really good point. This collaboration is really probably one of the best highlights I've heard because that to me speaks of inclusivity. It's not siloing. Now there is stuff going on. You're seeing women venture capitalist firms and I'm all for that too. I mean, people can pick and choose what they do with their time. As long as they're not offensive, right? Okay, so give me more details. What else is inspiring you guys around this? Give us some more color. Inside the company's feedback. What are some of the stats, momentum? Yeah, so to me, I'm starting to see a new change in the world because when I write a blog about women's leadership or women's women leading change, the men are the ones that read my blogs first and they're the ones that are commenting, say I have four daughters, my wife is very interested in this and then all of a sudden the women start looking. So I think things are starting to shift in a way that this is our conversation. It's something that we own together on a global level. So we're creating a new community in partnership. Okay, Paul and Cheryl, I want you to ask a question for me, answer a question for me. If you could have a magic wand and go into the younger generation, elementary school, what things would you change? What one or two things would you change? Whether it's a mindset, curriculum, culture. It's mindset. So I'll give you an example. My 10-year-old daughter, because I have quite a broad range of daughters. What's your oldest? 25. I sometimes joke it's family one.o and family two.o. Little and big, that's what we have to do. Upgrade with expenses, yeah, the rest of it. But if I talk to my 10-year-old, she did a summer school last year at one of the university campuses with other 10-year-olds to do computer programming. And one of the boys told her that was not the place that a girl should be. And I'm not saying it's typical, but it's clearly, we have an inclusivity thing that needs to be really addressed very early on in life. People may have tendencies, gender may have tendencies towards certain things where they are different and that's just fine. But there should not be barriers to opportunity and there should not be this presumption that people have to go down particular tracks. The opportunity should be open to all. It's pretty simple. I think it has to start very early. But even think about the education system. When we teach children, we teach them subjects. We don't teach them how to communicate and work together and think about each other. So if we added some of these other social elements into the education system, I think we could make a different world. I mean, one of the things going on in Palo Alto where I live is social-emotional learning where social-emotional learning comes back to both your points, the social and then this mindset where you don't have to be hardcore and then takes the judgment out of this kind of implicit, younger kind of cultural. I think one of the things is in the educational system, the inclusivity, but also I think we want to be in a space where people see that you teach them that the value of teamwork and collaboration. Sometimes there's a sense that it's a zero-sum game. It's about being competitive and being first, but actually a rising tide floats all boats. You want people to collaborate together to reach the collective goals and make everyone better. I think the trend is swinging towards more of a broader kind of scorecard. Not the, oh, I think getting A plus is checking all the boxes, but then realizing that people can't interact well. I mean, especially at Stanford, some of the things that Stanford's doing and we're seeing it's getting a lot of adoption is this interdisciplinary concept where someone who's an archeologist could come and be a data scientist. So there's a lot of, you don't have to pick your track and I've seen a lot of women go become great computer scientists who didn't go into CS, who might have vected in through some other science track. So that's an interesting. Well, I'm an accountant by training. I'm in the tech industry, so you can change your career, you can change what you're doing if you just believe that you want to go there. As Steve Jobs said, don't live someone else's dogma, live your own path. So it's famous to speak to Stanford, one of my favorites of all time. And I think his point on the value of liberal arts and how it applies to things with that broader spectrum I think is equally, equally true. Guys, thanks so much. We got to wrap here. Any final words to plug and give more information on the event, speakers, agenda? I'll just come and join us. There's a free ball, there's a panel discussion. Come and join us. We'll see you tomorrow. Yeah, be there. 4.30 to six, Mariette Marquis, Golden Gate Conference Room. The VM women 4.30, Mariette Marquis, if you're watching, check it out. If you want to attend, it's inclusive, it's open to all. This is theCUBE live here in San Francisco at the Moscone North Lobby at VMworld 2015. This is John Furrier from theCUBE on the director's set here in San Francisco. We'll be right back after this short break.