 Oh, hey everyone, welcome back to theCUBE. Lisa Martin and Dave Vellante on day three of Dell Technologies World 2023. Been in Vegas, we've had some amazing conversations. We've had a lot of mobs, but this conversation, with one of our alumni, it's going to be awesome. We're going to be talking with Allison, do the CMO of Dell who's back with us about all things innovation, about how Dell is going to be extending the reach beyond three days in Las Vegas, and believe it or not, avatar. You will not want to miss this conversation. Allison, it's great to have you back on theCUBE. Thank you for joining us. Hey, Lisa, thank you so much for having me. I'm so thrilled to be here. It is one of my favorite parts of Dell Technologies World. Oh, we love to hear that. So talk a little bit about three days. We were back last year. The attendance looks even more than last year. It is, yeah. You know, so one of the things that I'm really proud of is the work that my team did over the few years of COVID and the necessity being the mother of invention. We had already been working for a number of years on digitizing our events and extending our reach. And also, if you think about what happened in the spring of 2020, and the incredibly urgent imperative to connect with our customers, our partners, our stakeholders around the world digitally, we got so much better at making the digital experience more seamless, more interesting, less clues. You know, all of the things better technically and also better at the content. And then last year, obviously, we were back live in a person for the first year and what a great energy that was. And it was so much fun. It was fun to see our team members. It was fun to see our partners. It was fun to see you guys. And then this year, I feel like what we continue to do is build on the best of both worlds. I am so proud of this experience physically. I think it's the best we've ever done. I think the Solutions Expo is so exciting and really great to be hands on with it. And also, I think the way we take the content and extend it globally around the world and for many more days is really best in class. And so I feel like we will always continue to get better. And also, we've gotten the best of both worlds so far. So I'm really excited. I mean, day three here, it's hopping. It's hopping. I mean, it is really buzzing. And the ecosystem diversity is really interesting. We've been talking about that all week. Liquid cooling, telco, companies that you wouldn't necessarily see at a Dell tech world really underscoring the transformation here. You know, one of the things I had, I had a real personal epiphany earlier in the week. I've been at Dell 15 years. I've been a CMO for five years, you know, beating the odds in this role where people usually get fired after 13 months. Not mine, industry speaking. And I was going through, once the Expo was all together and I was going through the tour on Monday night, I had this real personal moment of aha epiphany, looking at the breadth and depth of what we're doing, looking at the edge solutions, looking at some of the places where we're really innovating on software. I'd seen the Project Luna, which is our fully recyclable, easy to open PC. I'd seen the video a million times, but I'd never had somebody take me through the process of just breaking it down really quickly. And I was so impressed having that experience live. I live this every single day. And for me to really experience this sense of, wow, we have brought together so much innovation. This feels very different and feels like an important moment for us. You guys had some great customers on stage on day one. You had CBS, Hyundai, Lightstorm. There's the James Cameron, and don't worry, we're going to be talking about it. We got to get there. I mean, I'm dying. We will, okay, okay. And CBS on stage, really articulating the value prop, what Dell Technologies has enabled them to deliver. I love seeing companies retail manufacturing automotive that are digital, that are technology companies and hearing in the story of how Dell is really kind of the fuel behind that. So the voice of the customer here, incredibly strong. Thank you, I agree. And you know, that used to not always be so easy. And it's gotten easier for us. And we have great customer stories and we have more momentum as a brand and frankly, more credibility. So people want to participate in that story with us, which, you know, maybe 10 years ago it wasn't quite as easy to get those customers to do that. So let's talk about James Cameron, which I just found out he goes by Jim. Yes. So it's kind of confusing, isn't it? Because even the voice of God said James Cameron, but my instructions were very clear, call him Jim. I had two things that they said, don't hug him and call him Jim. And so right before we walked on, I said, right, no hugging. You know, because you got that moment of like the, and he said, I'm Canadian, no hugging. I said, great. So, and I successfully delivered on my two things. I did not hug him and I called him Jim. So the thing is, so last year was Matthew McConaughey and you had told me that he was all over the place because that's who he is. And it was, it took you off your guard. I didn't notice being in the audience. I thought it was a really, really good interview. What was it like this time? I mean, he was so good. He was so great. He was, I mean, first of all, I would done a lot of research ahead of it, but even then I didn't totally understand until I was deep in the conversation with him how amazing his story is and the way he talked about spending a third and third, a third of his time. First of all, it made me feel like I need to do some more stuff and I need to get out there and start saving the world or something. And it was really inspirational to hear about his creative process, the use of technology in the process and also what he's doing around sustainability and environmentalism more broadly. Really amazing conversation. Actually felt easy for me. I hope it looked easy. It felt easy. He is so engaging. He wanted to be there. It was very clear. Yeah, yeah. On the sustainability front, we had some great conversations. We had JJ on yesterday. We were talking with some other leaders in sustainability. There's a big focus this year. There's always a focus, there's a really big presence this year. What, in your conversation with Jim, Jim Cameron, what were some of the alignments from a sustainability perspective that impressed or surprised you? So, finally, just very quick sidebar and then I will focus. My husband's name is Cameron. So, behind the scenes they kept saying, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Cameron. And I kept having this moment of like, what's happening here? So, my close personal friend, Jim Cameron. One of the things that is really interesting is the way he talked about, there's a parallel that I thought was very interesting when he talked about sustainability on the set in terms of what he can control. And he talked a lot about, obviously, recyclability, use of renewable energy, veganism on set. And then also, the behaviors and patterns of others whom he can influence to make for a better world. And I really like that parallel for us personally because we are both very focused on what we can do as a company, how we think about our own energy usage, how we think about recyclability at this event, how we think about our carbon footprint, how we commit to our technologies that make the world a better place. And also, one of the things that's a really important part of our 2030 goals is the way we bring down power usage at our customers and partners. And I think there's a really nice parallel there which is what are you doing and what are you enabling? And so that felt really symbiotic and fun to talk about. Well, the most interesting part, there were a couple of really interesting parts to me is when you got him talking about when he went down, was it seven miles? And then you said, were you nervous? And he said, no. And then he said, I was the night before, but then I got excited, like an astronaut, which was like, I forget what the term is. Something like that, yeah. And so that was really cool. The second thing that was so striking to me, Allison, was the questions that he got from the audience. I was texting my daughter as a huge avatar fan, like, what would you ask James Cameron, or Jim Cameron, she said, it's James. And so, and then all of a sudden, these Dell customers who were in the industry were asking them about John Favreau's technology and that got him excited. And they went really, really deep, but that blew me away. That blew me away as well. And last year, wasn't your wife texting you about what to ask Matthew McConaughey? Yes, what to ask Matthew McConaughey, exactly. Maybe you should ask him ahead of time. I know. Well, usually I can come up with questions, but I'm like, oh my God, this guy is so impressive and amazing. You know, to build on that, Dave, one of the things that I thought was, obviously, we talked to, we want to bring people to the stage who have an interesting technology story, because this is a technology conference. And the work that we do with Light Storm and have done for many, many, many years in terms of enabling the processing power of data and the acceleration of that since the first avatar and what we're doing now, that's an amazing story. There's great good news there from a technology perspective. But in addition to sustainability, one of the things I really appreciated about the conversation with Jim was this focus on leadership. And so we talked a lot, even when we were backstage and again on stage, about how do you create a culture and an environment where it's okay to have a learning mindset? And if you're going to send a sub however many miles down below the seat and you're going to be in it, you better make sure that you've thought through all of the possibilities and what could possibly go wrong and you've done that ahead of time. So I really like that example from a leadership perspective as well, because he was taking so much of what he's learned and the cultures he's built on filmmaking and extending that to his other endeavors and making it safe for people to say, gosh, I don't know how to do this. And there's another bridge back to our own 2030 goals. And I think I mentioned this on stage, sometimes a little bit of a blur. When we set our 2030 goals, we don't know how to achieve all of them. And that's what makes them a moonshot goal. Some of the things that may or may not be possible from a technology perspective, you're hoping that the technology curve accelerates and you can get to a place that some of the things we want to commit to in terms of recyclables and renewables in our products, we don't technically know how to do that yet. But if we don't push into those unknown frontiers, we'll never get there. And that's what I thought was so impressive about Jim Cameron, which is so much of the stuff he's doing, he doesn't know how to do. And he's willing also to take the time and figure it out. He's got a lot of credibility as a personal brand, but how amazing, what a great example for all of us. And Lisa, he had that story about failure. And Allison, you asked him about that. What are some of your, basically you were asking Jeff Clark about his leadership principles. And I was, that was very impressive. He said the team was dejected. You remember that spot? And then he just picked them up. And he said we're creating something that nobody's ever done before. You know, let's do it. And then obviously they succeeded. Really. And incredibly inspiring. I'd love to pivot on your leadership. We talked about this in the very beginning, but being CMO at Dell for five years now, Allison, that's a big deal. Thank you. The tenure is, as you mentioned, is a lot less than that. I would love to understand your leadership principles, what guide you and the team to really ensure that not only are these events impactful, but that the voice of the customer is heard loud and clear. The voice of the partners heard loud and clear. What are some of those guiding lights to you? One of the things I think many CMOs fail to understand is they only think about marketing in a silo and they don't put it within business context. Just candidly, I don't, you know, I don't always love going to marketing conferences because I sometimes find it to be just marketing gobbledygook. You know, and you need to understand your craft. That's not what I'm saying. But you always need to understand your craft and what you're doing within the context of the business objectives you're trying to achieve. So one of the things I've said about myself for a really long time is I am a lifelong marketer. I've always been in marketing since I got out of undergrad when I was 22. I started as a copywriter, but I'm a business person first. So I'm not a marketing person first. I'm a business person first. And that's something I've always tried to inculcate in my own organization, which is don't think about marketing. Think about the business first. And then think about the role that marketing plays. And don't think about, you know, I was just having a conversation. You know, it's not that we support this function or that function. We support the business in partnership with the other functions, product groups, or sales. And oftentimes marketing can find itself in a place of frankly subservience. And that's no good because then you're not doing the things that you need to do as a marketing organization. One of our number one priorities is focusing on the health of the buyer base, understanding our customers. Are they committed to us? Are they staying with us for the long term? Are they buying more for us? And we are both the captain of that game and a player on the field. We have to drive the data. We have to make sure that we educate our stakeholders about it. And we have to make sure we're educating our customers and our partners about our brand and who we are and what we stand for. And then the final one that I think is important is I've really over the years tried to build a culture of one team. One of my very first mantras when I took the CMO gig five years ago was we are one team. We are not a field organization or a BU organization. And candidly, this is sort of, I will show our words. You used to go into the expo and you could see the seams within the Dell organization in the expo. And you can't anymore. We show up as one brand. We talk one story. We look at some of our advertising. Is that consumer advertising or is that the B2B advertising? Yes and yes. I love, love the piece of work that we just launched about the Great Barrier Reef and what customers are doing to take their tech on their holidays, to take their technologies, to really understand what's happening in the health of the Great Barrier Reef. That appeals to customers, consumers. That appeals to technologists. It is a beautiful story and that is a really good example of us getting to one team and I think that's why it sounds so hackneyed but we are stronger together. That's incredibly important. Can you maybe comment a little bit on one of the challenges I've been in marketing a long time myself is alignment, getting alignment with sales and product. And you talked a little bit about that but maybe your top recommendation for other aspiring CMOs out there to get the alignment so that to your point, it's seamless. So I think one of the things is being unafraid to have the conversations. And again, it sounds like leadership 101 but I see people fail to do this all the time which is let's be really clear about what our priorities are. I also, the other thing that I see lots of people do in marketing organizations because they want everyone to like them just a little bit. So they don't want anyone to dislike them so they're not willing to say I'm just making the numbers out of $100. Here's the two things that we can do. They want to say out of $100, here's the 15 things that we can do. You're not doing any of those things at scale. Obviously the numbers are completely wrong but you're not doing any of those things at scale. You're not having any impact. You're sort of pretending to do marketing. And so you have to think about breakthrough and scale and impact and what are the things we're going to focus on. And that's actually really hard because you have stakeholders like, what about my thing? What about my thing? And there's a bravery in there which is nope, here's the things we're going to go do and we're not going to do those other things. Now that is hard. If you had to pick two one thing to do for the rest of the year what would that one thing be? That's a hard question to answer. It's really hard. And most people can't do that because they often marketing is sort of in the middle between sales and the product groups. And so you get this icky muddled middle and that's not good for anybody. Last question for you in our last 20 seconds with you Allison. What's the one major takeaway that you want everyone that's been here this week to walk away with? The scale and scope of the innovation that we are delivering across our product lines, across our commitments to our stakeholders if you think about what we've done with Apex, what we're doing with our own sustainability initiatives so many more. You guys have talked about all of the announcements. It is, there's an inflection point. We are speeding it up and we have brought so much to market this week and over the course of the year and we're so proud of that. And you should be. It's an amazing accomplishment. Congratulations to you and the team. Thank you. We've had a great time here. We have all day today to go but just the amount of innovation that we've seen is impressive. And again, congrats on being seen. Thank you. And thank you for having me. As I said in the beginning this is one of my favorite parts of DT world. We'd love to hear that. Thanks. All right. We've got to talk about Avatar and Jim Cameron. Yeah, for sure. We had Allison do. Thank you Allison do for Dave Vellante. I'm Lisa Martin coming up next. Let me look at my notes here. Couple of leaders about the Dell Broadcom partnership and how Broadcom MVME RAID goes beyond data protection. You're going to be introducing the new newest 900 storage adapter family. You won't want to miss that show and tell right here on theCUBE in just a minute.