 Live from Orlando, Florida, extracting the signal from the noise. It's the Cube covering Pentaho World 2015. Now your host, Dave Vellante and George Gilbert. Welcome back to Pentaho World everybody. This is the Cube. We're here live. Day two Pentaho World. Dr. Ben Miners is here. He's the vice president of innovation at IMS. We're gonna talk about connected cars. Dr. Miners, Ben, great to have you on. That's wonderful to be here. Thanks for the invitation and it's an exciting space to be with. I love the title, you know. What's that all about? Innovation is our future. Companies that, you know, don't invest enough in innovation stagnate. Progress halts and others come in to take their place. So innovation is the way for organizations to succeed long into the future. Innovation is what allows us to define the road ahead, to shape that path and bring all of our partners along with us. So tell us a little bit more about IMS and what you're doing in telematics and insurance business. Lay that out for us. Sure. IMS is an organization we've been around for 15 years now making transportation safer, smarter and greener. It's a broad range of topics there, but we do this in many different ways. Everything from at IMS's origins, looking at intelligent airbag deployment systems, occupant safety, occupant classification, understanding even where the head is in three dimensions within the vehicle. We've leveraged those automotive routes to augment that with direct aftermarket solutions. Solutions that actually look at how the driver is behaving, how those individuals in the car are using their thought processes to control the vehicle. Because ultimately, on all issues on the roads today, it really comes down to a human decision. What human decision was made to influence that car's reaction and the resulting outcome? So what we really focus on now at IMS is driver behavior. What can be done to analyze driver behavior? What can be done to influence driver behavior? And what can be done to make our roads safer, smarter and greener through this wealth of information? We do this in several different ways. We leverage a platform that we've developed called DriveSync. The DriveSync platform is a connected car platform that contains a number of relevant services. Services from usage based insurance, a model that transforms the insurance industry from an industry that traditionally looks at age, sex and location or perhaps credit rating information to an industry that actually uses direct measurements of how the vehicle is being controlled, how the vehicle is being driven to get better insight into the risk level of that individual. Uptake has been amazing in the insurance space. You know, actually being able to understand that yes, you are a good driver. No, it has nothing to do with your age or location. It has to do with how you control your vehicle. It has to do with how much sleep you had the night before so you can be focused on the road ahead. Some of the other services include new driver education or young driver's intelligence. But this is a service on the same platform that enables parents or supervisors to better coach their new drivers, to enable those teen drivers to gain experience effectively, to be able to go from a beginner driver to an experienced driver in an accelerated period of time. I want some of that for my teenagers. So, okay, so how does it work? So how is the data gathered in the vehicle? Is it a dongle that goes in the car and then what happens? Well, the information pulled into the addressing platform comes from a wide range of sources. We support everything from a small self-installed dongle that the driver can reach down underneath their steering wheel and plug in themselves. Right to smartphone-enabled applications that can be a quick, simple download from the app store to be able to collect information about how the vehicle drives without anything in the car at all. We also collect from existing sources, so existing telematics and fleets or existing built-in telematics systems. The real value that we add and that we contribute to this ecosystem is in the platform, in the transformation of that data being collected from the vehicles to drive driver insights and actionable intelligence for the parent, for the insurance organization, for the fleet manager, for the vehicle owner, for everyone. Somebody said in the keynote yesterday that, and I love what you said about sort of trying to infer data from, you know, credit history or age or sex or whatever it is. Those are really lightweight indicators. Somebody a long time ago said, watch, big data is going to kill sampling. This is a version of that. Instead of inferring from, you know, some lightweight indicators, you're going to get the data. Love that. Somebody said in the keynote yesterday that if you are a better driver than the inferences, say so you can get a rate reduction and there's no penalty if you're not a good driver. That part made my brain twist. I said, wait a minute, is that true? Is that true? It's absolutely true. In fact, in almost every usage-based insurance program across the U.S., the insurance organizations have already identified a business case, a return on investment to adopt a program, a program such as a use-efficient-insurance service from IMS through our dressing platform that allows them to realize direct benefits from policyholders. You know, upwards of 30% to 40% reductions in cost on those policyholders. The ability to not only identify which drivers or which policyholders are better drivers, but the fact that now that rich information is coming in, minimizes the chances of large claims coming in because drivers themselves, once they adopt these programs, you're self-selecting into a program that you know you need to continue to be a good driver to get those benefits. Oh, so it's behavior that's changing. Because I think what David was asking is, how could there be a net reduction in premiums if there's no net change in accidents? Why is it not a zero-sum game? What you're saying is... You're modifying the game. The cost, of course, of the entire base improves. There's an obvious next step. It's not clear technically how easy it is, which is, help me make a better decision while I'm driving. What, you know, have you guys thought through that? And what would that look like? You guys got a self... In the innovation lab, you got a self-driving car that's next. Or it's not self-driving, you know, just tell me, you know, tell me what's a safer route or tell me not to go, you know, in this part of town at night, you know, whatever. So it's funny you asked that. In fact, we just recently demonstrated risk-based routing algorithms in the Chicago Insurance and Telematic Show back in September. So this actually informs the driver. You're using information about collected risk location information on roads and road networks to allow the driver to not only choose to route based on the fastest path or shortest path of destination, but also route based on minimum risk path. So speed, you have options for speed and risk. Yeah, risk-based routing is something coming on a road map ahead. It is something that makes sense because allowing the driver to make that informed decision empowers you as an individual to take a path to minimize your risk. Would you expect a driver to pay more for that? Of course, an individual makes a conscious decision to drive on a riskier route, may have different insurance implications than a driver that makes a conscious decision to drive on a least risky route. I mean, I would pay for, I'd pay something. I'd pay for ways, I think I'd pay for ways, don't I? I'm not sure. Anyway, so this is, again, a fascinating topic. When you think about innovation, you know, in the technology industry, innovation has, you know, for decades marched to the cadence of Moore's law. But innovation increasingly is coming from combining various technologies that's that combinatorial effect that's adding value. I wonder if you could talk about that. What are those combinatorial technologies that you're bringing together that you see that excite you? Well, it's, the whole space is exciting. From an innovation perspective and the ability to combine, you know, multiple aspects from diverse industries, we're seeing a lot of this in the real world today through our services. I talked briefly about the insurance space, about the young driver space. Well, there's also this whole other industry, the ability to collect revenue on roads. You know, some people consider it a different space, you know, fuels tax, paying gas tax to the pump. It made sense decades ago, almost a century ago, it made sense because every car consumed about the same amount of gas, the amount of gas tax that you're paying is proportional to the amount of damage you're doing on the road. So what we've done to help transform that industry is adopt a similar model, leveraging the same driving platform with a usage-based service to enable drivers to pay a usage fee based on the road. To enable a driver to pay proportional to the amount of damage they're doing to the road, you know, a fair and equitable amount, instead of paying a gas tax. It's a program we've launched in the state of Oregon now and it's quickly gaining adoption across the U.S. because unfortunately, revenues to replace and repair roads are nor near what's needed to actually repair them. So it's a different industry, it's pulled into the same platform. What's interesting is the fact that we can pull all this information together, it's all drawn in the same vehicle and driver behavior information to deliver multiple services. Beyond that, there's also home and health and lifestyle. You know, it's one step to look at how the vehicle is being driven, how that individual is making conscious decisions to drive more effectively or safer. But now imagine being able to understand the health of the individual while in the car or the individual state of mind before getting into that car. Imagine being able to have your vehicle remind you or recommend that maybe you should take Uber today because you only had two hours of sleep the night before. Or your blood sugar level isn't where it needs to be. We really recommend that, you know, you take a cab or get another route to work because now it's not the time to get behind the wheel. So there are some interesting techniques and a whole realm of data and data insights that are coming with this convergence of automotive, telematics, IoT, health, and home. So you talked a lot a couple of times about transformation. I want to ask a kind of an academic question but you've had a lot of years of schooling so you may be okay with it. I saw a chart the other day on the vertical axis that had degree of disruption, not transformation but disruption and the horizontal axis was time and it had mainframes and minis and PCs and obviously very disruptive personal computers and then internet, highly disruptive. And then it had IoT, lower than internet. So I called up the guy who did the chart and said, I don't get it, IoT, everybody's talking about IoT, it's a huge market, you're in that space. And he said to me, it's not disruptive as much as people might think because it's the existing organizations and infrastructure players that are going to take advantage of IoT. So that's kind of, again, academic but interesting thought. Are you seeing that in the industries that you serve that it's transforming them but it's not disrupting them like Uber is disrupting the taxi industry? I wonder if you could comment on that. It's an interesting perspective on IoT. IoT on its own, I agree that yes, IoT is not as disruptive as some other areas but the services and applications that the whole IoT space is creating, those are disruptive. So you have to look at IoT, not just as IoT on its own but all the services and applications that are being derived because of this enabling space, services that include the ability to get those insights into individual behavior. But he's asking, if you take the Clayton Christensen definition of disruption, there's sustaining innovations where the incumbents have the advantage to exploit the new technology versus sort of new entrants or in a new market. And it sounds like you're saying the technologies are disruptive but it sustains the existing companies. Not completely. So the technology is the IoT enablers? Yes, they do help sustain existing organizations. They do help sustain existing paths but there are new services and new complete new approaches that are now being realized. I mentioned home and health earlier. An organization that can come in and provide home insurance or health insurance based on understanding occupancy levels is disruptive to the entire industry. You're no longer limited to saying well, how many fire alarms or smoke alarms do you have in your house? So that is a disruptive service that's enabled by the whole IoT ecosystem. Then new entrants into that space will cause that disruption. Yeah, and so those in the industry that don't adopt that and embrace that, you know, might see hard times. I mean, there's an interesting topic because we just saw the biggest acquisition announced in the history of the computer industry, you know, $67 billion Dell buying EMC, essentially $25 billion company that's going to disappear. I mean, they'll be around but not the name. So we like to talk about these notions in your sort of innovator, a futurist. So what about Pentaho? Where do they fit into your world? We've embraced Pentaho to empower our partners and our customers with insights into how they can operationalize, how they can understand the health of their programs. So for example, an insurance organization now gets the ability to drill in, the ability to get real time information on geospatial deployments, where their vehicles are lit up, where there may be delays in activation, where a person may have left a in-vehicle enabler on their countertop or in their kitchen, haven't plugged it in their car yet. So there's a whole wealth of information around the operational aspects of the program that we've leveraged Pentaho to empower our partners and our customers with that information and those insights to make their programs even more effective. What are you, we were joking earlier about self-driving cars, but what do you make about that? I mean, it's sort of related, it's an adjacency to the future to what you guys are doing. What do you think about self-driving cars? Self-driving cars in autonomous vehicles are a very exciting space. It's a space where the culmination of all of our software and algorithm investments as a transportation ecosystem player come to the realization. And help to disrupt the traditional automotive industry. It'll be interesting over the next five to 10 years to see how well we can cross from an emerging space into a mass market space. That will be the interesting element because it's one thing to demonstrate, it's one thing to deploy and to trial. It's another thing to overcome that mass market piece. And we're excited about enabling a range of connected vehicle in addition to self-driving autonomous vehicle services. I mean, five, seven years ago people didn't think it was going to ever happen. And now you probably see them all the time driving up and down one-on-one if you ever leave San Francisco. I don't know if you do, but I see them every now and then out there. And it's quite astounding. I'm going to see them on Starro Drive pretty soon. But to get to scale is going to, there's a lot of implications there. There's social, there's perceptions and the like. But there are some real immediate advantages in terms of improved transportation, improved efficiency on the roads out there, being able to leverage the same network. Up and down one-on-one in rush hour. I'm not sure if you call it driving. Yeah, it's sort of like walking on, it's like, it's slower than walking. Yes. Well, but the potential for reducing, you know, accidents, I mean, the Google self-driving cars only had, I think, two accidents and both when humans were driving. Well, not one was when they got rear-ended. But so how far away is that in your view? There's many different perspectives on the duration of time between now and critical mass and self-driving autonomous vehicles. In my view, it's at least 10 years out. I know it may not be the popular opinion, but the time it takes to get the legislative approval, regulatory approval, and then to phase out the existing deployment of what 250 plus million vehicles in just the U.S. market with about a 10-year lifespan. Yeah, fleets have a 12-year lifespan. So that transition is, it's about a decade out. So we have a lot of time to plan and prepare. I think we'll see adoption in the autonomous vehicle, self-driving space, in the commercial space, much quicker than we will in the personal life space. And in commercial space, do you mean like taxi lanes in cities, or do you mean like trucker lanes on highways? Both. There's an urgent need in both transportation of goods and services and long-haul transportation to be able to make that transportation more efficient. Imagine being able to, instead of taking a large transport truck and having a half-full of equipment and shipping it across the country, imagine being able to get a fleet of smaller vehicles using telematics, using the information from the vehicles, platoon those vehicles, and get them to drive across the country. But being able to adapt the size of your vehicle to the size of the load. Being able to optimize your transport is a possibility that now becomes available when it may not have been available in the past. Right, as opposed to some inflexible chunk of capacity that's going to go half empty. Very interesting. Any other things, Ben, that are exciting you? I mean, I'm sure there are a lot, but maybe Sierra, we talked a lot about autonomous vehicles, but what else is on your radar? Well, the personal aspect. And we talk a lot about data. We talk a lot about deriving insights from data, looking at actual intelligence. The one piece that's often neglected is the human aspect. Even in the self-driving vehicles, even in autonomous vehicles. Will humans be comfortable giving up control? Will you be comfortable giving up control? No. I want that co-pilot stick in case something goes wrong. Yeah, and that's a popular opinion. So that human element, regardless of if it's a vehicle from today, a vintage vehicle, or a future vehicle, embracing that human element is still extremely important. So no matter what technology we bring to play, whether that's the driver's team platform delivering a range of services in vehicles today to make those vehicles connected vehicles, or for looking concepts in self-driving vehicles, embracing the human elements, being able to deliver services to those individuals, whether they're driving or not, being able to deliver information to those individuals, and being able to empower those individuals is something that we as an industry have to put a more concerted effort around. No, we look around, there are the great technologies, there's great data scientists, there's great insights, but if we can't take those insights and turn them around to influence behavior, to influence change, to inform and make drivers and individuals make better decisions, what good is the data? So that's an area that I think as an industry we need to look at more, the human factor, the human element. So it's not just trying to take the human out of the loop, it's trying to make the human better where he belongs. Absolutely, empowering that person to be more productive, to be safer, to be more efficient, so they can be informed while driving, so they can be safer in transit, so that if they don't need to hold the wheel, they can have access to the information that they need, and if they do need to hold the wheel, they can listen to that information and interact with it in a safer manner. That's a very, very rich perspective. Well, it opens up a whole new line that we don't have time to talk about, but just the whole notion of machines which have always replaced humans seems to be happening at an accelerating rate, so what are those areas where humans are going to excel over computers? But what's most interesting is he's not saying it's binary, he's saying it's Vell Augmentus. Oh, absolutely. Which is refreshing to hear. But there are examples like the kiosk at the airport. Yes. You don't need a human anymore, and there are examples where there's going to be a hybrid. It's interesting to start forecasting what those examples are, because as I said, five years ago, nobody thought autonomous vehicles were even possible. Now they're maybe as soon as 10 years away, I think 10 years is pretty soon. And so that's a challenge for society is what are those things that individuals are going to be able to do and sustain better than computers so that they can maintain employment and all those other things? I mean, what do you think about that? What's the answer? Obviously education is the answer, but educating them for what? Well, I think as long as we keep our focus on the goal, not the technology, and I feel bad saying this as a person that loves technology, but we focus on that goal, so we're focused on making transportation safer, smarter, and greener. We focus on that, and then use the technology as a tool to achieve it, and use the technology as a tool to empower individuals to be safer, smarter, and greener as they drive. Then we can achieve that without being distracted by, is it a kiosk? Is it audible information? What's the chip set in that device? What algorithm are we using? Those all empower the overall solution, which is making drivers and transportation safer, smarter, and greener. I love that answer because you're saying that the innovation is the idea, the vision, the outcome. That's where the innovation is being able to realize that vision is enabled by technology, but the technology in and of itself is not the innovation. Ben. Absolutely. You're an awesome guest, really. Thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. Really appreciate your time. Well, it's my pleasure and it's a wonderful event here and look forward to next steps. All right, great. All right, keep right there, we'll be back with our next guest. Right after this, this is theCUBE, we're live from Pentaho World in Orlando. We'll be right back.