 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Dell Technologies World 2018. Brought to you by Dell EMC and its ecosystem partners. Welcome to theCUBE. We are live on day one of Dell Technologies World. I'm Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend. This is a huge event, the biggest they've ever had. 14,000 live attendees expected, an additional 35,000 expected to engage with the live streaming and the on-demand video experience. It's amazing. We're excited to welcome from Dell Education Services, Sophie Barat, Senior Director, and Charles Atkins, VP of Education Services. Guys, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you. Good to be here. Thanks for having us. Absolutely, our pleasure. So this morning in Michael Dell's keynote, he talked about, and we're going to hear a lot over the next three days, of digital transformation, IT transformation, security transformation. There's a fourth transformative element that companies need to apply to be successful. And that's workforce transformation. Chuck, Charles, sorry. I'm giving you a new name, Chuck. We already have a Chuck. You're Chuck for the day. We're old friends. Exactly, we get way back. Charles, talk to us about workforce transformation from a thought leadership perspective. What does that mean? Well, it's key when you think about digital transformation at large. At the end of the day, it's all about people. I mean, you can have a common digital vision for your company, for your infrastructure, but at the end of the day, you've got to have the workforce to make that real. So us in education services, I mean, we talk to our customers on a daily basis. We look at, you know, a nauseating level of research and there's a huge skill set gap that continues to grow exponentially. And when you look at the level of automation that's being introduced and all across the workforce, the gap is continuing to grow. So in education, we're taking a long, hard look at, okay, what are the skill sets of the future that are needed today? When you think about machine learning, you know, artificial intelligence, data, data, data. You know, years ago, big data was, you know, all the rage. Now we have all of that data. Now that data is becoming more intelligent. Now we need to educate our workforce to live and work in a digital age, right along with robotics and everything else. It's a pretty exciting time. Well, Charles, I would love to hear both of you guys are veterans of education, veterans of the IT industry. It has changed tremendously over the past. Five years versus when I cut my teeth 20 years ago in IT, it was very step letter. You know, if I got a vendor certification, I learned their product, I was able to get into the industry. How has machine learning, digital transformation, how has that changed your jobs and your approach to how you educate your customers? So great question. I too come up in that age, right? So back in the day when you needed the Microsoft certification or storage level certification, having that kind of siloed view, all of that has changed. And when we think about skill sets needed today, it's across multi-cloud environment, security, infrastructure. The end user devices are as smart as the data center solutions that are driving the clouds on the back end. So now you have to have a broad range of skill set. So obviously times have changed, skill set development has changed and that's a big reason why we in education services are hyper focused on that fourth tower workforce transformation to enable that digital realization. You wrote a blog recently on skills transformation. Can you kind of break it down to some of the transformation certifications that Dell EMC is enabling? Absolutely, so we just launched four net new transformational certifications. Super excited about this. And when you think about, again, the history, you think about product level certifications. Individuals go out, they get trained and educated on how to use that specific product. But as those silos start to go away and the technology starts to become across multiple platforms, we had to take a step back and say, okay, education today needs to change. Both in how learners learn, how they have need personalized education services, 365, 24 by seven across the globe, but also they need to be less product centric. So we launched four new certifications in the security realm. Converged infrastructure, multi-cloud, enterprise architecture, a big one. So think along the line of an enterprise architect building an end to end company to company solution that is a multi-cloud environment, security architecture on the backend, product level. That's a completely different skill set than we had 10, 15 years ago. So that is the workforce of the future is having those individuals really multi-faceted, multi-skill all across not only Dell EMC products and technology, but also all the strategic line businesses. So we have a co-skill, co-badge certifications available today with VMware and Dell EMC starts to broaden that range of the true skillset that's needed for today and definitely for the future. So I would love to hear from you Sophia about the CIO CTO story. What is the ask? Because there's a combination of university, there's combination of vendor training. What's the ask from the CIO C-suite on the services that they're expecting from Dell when it comes to education? So they're expecting us just as Charles had articulated to go well beyond product level training, right? They want their people to understand the context that they're operating in and they want them to be able to see themselves as service providers. They're managing now a portfolio of IT services and they need to think about how they deliver that portfolio to their customers that could be other departments within IT or onto the end customer, which is a very different way of thinking about IT than when you're just sort of operating a product or a suite of products. So that's something we hear from CIOs pretty often. And the other thing I would say is in return we have an ask for CIOs, which is to understand that it's really not just about sort of training and making sure that people are trained on particular solutions, whatever the flavor of the day happens to be, but making sure that as they're thinking about digital transformation, IT transformation, that they're underpinning it with a focus on continuous learning, right? Because the technology is morphed incredibly quickly. The expectations of IT are morphed incredibly quickly. And if learning doesn't happen continuously, the individuals and CIOs themselves are not going to be able to keep up. So we're trying to enable them with a suite of sort of point solutions, as well as that continuous learning environment and sort of cultural affinity that can help them be successful and make IT really a competitive differentiator. In the spirit of continuous development, talk to us about some of the research that you've done recently to understand and really kind of shape the direction of the new education services that Dell EMC is delivering. Sure, well, actually, you know, one of the really fascinating findings, and I sort of started to allude to it just then, was the importance of sort of the commitment from the CIO level down, as well as the individuals up. And that sort of reciprocity between a person, like an IT professional's commitment to learning and their own development, as well as the management team creating that environment where it's okay to learn, right? And it's okay to admit that, you know, you don't know something or that you have an appetite to develop yourself. So we just did some research that showed that where individuals are the most transformation ready themselves, is actually in IT departments that have a very strong commitment to learning. And that inverse is also true. When we look at IT transformation, as Michael Dell even said this morning, as the opportunity for IT to become a profit center, IT transformation has so much potential to enable every part of the business to use data and apply it multiple times to combine it, recombine it, identify how customers are using that. How can IT, as you're saying, seems like there's much more of a cultural propensity to learn? How can IT help influence other parts of the business to have this appetite to learn, continuously learn? Sure. Let me start with that. And then, Chelsea, you can add your perspective. But interestingly, we have a customer advisory panel here at Dell Technologies World every year. And we'll probably talk about it when we have this year's event tomorrow. But last year, this was actually a topic that came up. And IT professionals struggle with that, frankly, right? How they can better partner with the business to talk the same language as the business is talking and translate the business requirements back into a technology solution and architecture that makes sense for that digital future. And actually, that was one of the main drivers behind our new Master Enterprise Architect certification that Charles alluded to a minute ago. So there's a lot there. And there's a big journey for IT departments to travel, but we're doing our best between helping with those continuous learning environments, the training and certifications that can really sort of bridge the gap right between the business and IT. I think most IT organizations are in that transformation or at the cusp of it. And it really goes back to having that digital vision and really that digital thought of saying, okay, where do we want to go? And how do we get there? Workforce transformation is a big piece of it. Obviously, all the IT architecture, the software development aspect on the back end is huge, but you got to come up with that vision first and you really need to think about the future of the IT organization is really expected customer outcomes. So the customers that they service, whether they're internal or external customers, they're expecting an outcome. So really truly becoming an IT customer service organization. And some are struggling, some are at the onset, some are deep into that transformation. And I would like to echo one of the things that Sophie said, when I looked at all of the research, 61% of employees surveyed said they're not digitally ready. 61% of companies said we don't have a clear digital strategy. So the emphasis really is upfront, now's a good opportunistic time for companies to take a step back and say, okay, what does that digital future really look like? Because when I look over, sorry, when I look over the next five years or so, look at the advancement in machine learning, artificial intelligence, get too far behind that digital evolution, some companies might not be here. So I had a really engaging conversation with one of the leaders in open source, serverless, and he was, he debated that enterprises are absolutely ready for this transformation. Me maybe not so much. How do you help to do that heavy lifting? We talked about enterprise IT inspiring other organizations. But Sophie, you alluded to that this is a two-way conversation. This is not just about Dell EMC education going out and producing materials. IT professionals have to feel motivated to actually consume that data and move forward so that they can embrace the digital transformation and help educate. Help talk to me about the boots on the ground. How are you guys hoping to inspire regular enterprise IT folks? The legacy DNS administrator who's sitting at his desk. I've been doing DNS for 10 years. I know how to do DNS. Now we're asking him to engage and maybe not do machine learning, but embrace DevOps, for example. So there's a few tools that we have at our disposal. Actually, speaking of AI and ML and sort of advanced ways of doing business, we're also trying to incorporate some of those technologies in the way that we create learning experiences. So we're also trying to make the learning experiences themselves more compelling to the people. But that aside, in terms of the content itself, we actually recently did a MOOC, a massive open online course around DevOps. And so there are a ton of resources for IT professionals who want to get started and just kind of immerse themselves in this space and learn sort of incrementally, right? Sort of be exposed to it. And then once they decide that they want to take that step and get certified or whatever it is, we have those more formal tracks for them as well. I'm wondering too, even how much in our personal lives, we have everything in our pockets and we expect that. And how many people have a home assistance and are actually using or part of the machine learning user experience at home and not really thinking about that. How much do you think culturally that's actually going to help the IT folks become more able to make workforce transformation real in the spirit of the event by what's happening in their personal lives? I think that's going to be a big influence. I think it's going to be huge. I mean, look at the automobile industry and the transformation that's gone through just the last decade alone and apply that to our everyday life. I mean, again, if you look at it as a core and edge solution, the edge solution, I mean, the amount of data that is transacted on a daily basis, just me driving my vehicle, everything from health and vehicle reports when it's time to change the oil, et cetera. I mean, it's going to be a consumer driven motivator and it's going to force companies to really kind of think through, okay, how do we get more intelligent with our data because the customer expectations have now increased 10 eggs. And it's going to create smarter devices. I mean, whether it's our mobile phones and I'm old enough to remember when that got introduced, I don't know if that's a positive or negative, but in looking how much that one device has changed my life and now the level of intelligence that I see just in the software apps that are on the phones. I mean, it's going to be a key motivator. One of the things I would like to touch on that Sophie briefly touched on, you said boots on the ground. So we have something called skill set analysis and learning needs assessments where we're going to name it, but really it's an opportunity for individuals to go out and really go through and define what their level of technical expertise is. I think it's something that, you know, when I look at learning and development worldwide, even for myself, I need an area I can go out and kind of test my skills to your point about the DNS person, right? And I talked to these individuals on a daily basis, being an old engineer myself, I already know all of that, but getting those individuals to go out there and really do an assessment of what is their true skill set in this net new world of technology and digitalization helps create at least a profile that tells Charles, hey, I'm not really that good in this, this and this. So maybe there is an opportunity to improve my skill set development in those areas. I think having that personalized level of learning interaction and it allows the individual to be honest with where their skill set is and take a step back and say, okay, maybe I do need to go learn X, Y, and Z and that'll help propel it. And I'm wondering too, you know, with imposter syndrome being something that is so publicized, I didn't even know what it was and I had it until I saw it being talked about and I thought, I know, I maybe feel a little bit better, but I'm wondering on the personalization part, you know, we expect our lives and all of the digital assistance that we have in our cars or home or whatnot to give us a personalized help us through life. How are you encouraging participants to take this assessment and go, you know what, I, maybe I've been in this for 20 years, there are things that I don't know. How do you, maybe that's more of a psychological thing, but how do you encourage people to kind of identify, I have imposter syndrome, but I want to actually get better. What's the cultural education component to that? You have to take a personalized social approach. How many sort of surveys have you done that have randomly popped up in one of your apps on your phone or whatever the case may be. Now, obviously we're starting to have a little bit more internal, really looking after our internal skill set and capability, but as this, you know, user interface goes live around the world, I expect both customers and employees internally to go out there and just be curious, where do you fall? All right, and whether you've done an IQ test online or hey, what are your 10 favorite movies, get in that social action or interaction, I think we'll be a key enabler in driving that. And that's really going to create the stickiness because I would much rather not have a conversation, you know, between individuals and well, Charles are really not that good at X. I would like to go out and do an assessment. So wow, I was right, I'm really not that good at X. Okay, now what do I need to do to drive my own career advancement, my own education advancement? And that really puts, you know, learning in the hands of the end user because I want to be responsible for my career. Yes, I want to do great things for the company, but I'm also trying to figure out, okay, where does my career go from here? And this allows that user to be in control of that. I think it comes back also to that reciprocity, right, between sort of the environment in which you're working and creating that safe space or learning culture where you are empowered to take ownership of your own development, your own career, and that you have the toolkit such as this learning needs assessment, you know, that we can provide as well as many other things to be proactive and to take those first steps and then to have sort of air cover if you will from your organization to do that. Last question, how many people are you expecting to go through certification trainings initiated at Dell Technologies World? Several hundred, for sure. We have many people who preregistered to take exams and there's a continuous flow down through the Proving Professional Center. You all should come on down and check it out. Downstairs, Casanova 501, so we are running exam prep sessions, exams sort of continuously from morning till night, all three and a half days of the show. So we expect probably several hundred new certifications to come out of it. It's a tremendous opportunity. I'm afraid if I go down there and take, I'm going to fail all the assessments. I might need your help. The first failure is free, at least you get an assessment of how you are or not. It's my lucky day. I'm going to go gamble. I'll at least understand the questions on this. Maybe you can be, help me cheat. Okay, so Sophie and Charles or Chuck as we're now calling you. Thank you guys so much for stopping by and sharing with us the continued learning opportunities that Dell EMC is providing. Thanks for having us. Absolutely, thank you for having us. And for my co-host, Keith Townsend, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live from day one of Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas. Stick around, we'll be right back after short break.