 Live from Vienna, Austria, it's theCUBE, covering Dot Next Europe 2016, brought to you by Nutanix. Here's your hoes, Stu Miniman. Welcome back to theCUBE. Happy to welcome to the program the first-time guest and special speaker here at the Nutanix conference, Dr. Art Langer, who is a professor, author, speaker, and social entrepreneur with Columbia University. Thank you so much for joining us. It's great to be here. All right, Dr. Langer, could you just give those who are audience that aren't familiar with the books you've written, kind of the speeches, the presentations that you give, your background, what you work on, what you do today? I'm focused very much on the effective technology, on organizational behavior, organizations, how they compete, what the plight of the digital world is going to be in our society. Everything around that, with a particular focus on management, as opposed to necessarily just innovation. There's a difference between those two. Okay, excellent, and I'll set you up. Can you give us kind of the thumbnail of that difference? Well, innovation by definition is simplification. It's the invention. It's one thing to invent something. It's another to implement and manage it. One of the interesting things that we're finding right now is there's lots of good ideas. And when we look at certain aspects of why things fail, very often it's poor management. And managing in the digital disruption era is a challenge. Yeah, it's amazing. I've now been in technology long enough that it's like there's certain people that say, oh, there are new ideas. It's like I talked to my friends that did mainframe, and it's like, oh, they did virtualization back there. Hyperconvergence, oh, it's like a new mainframe, some of these things. So some of these things come again and again, but some of them, it takes a few times for them to catch up. So I totally agree. The idea is, sure there are new ones, but that's just a piece of the overall discussion. Yeah, you sort of name it something else, and it's certainly more robust. I think that's the key word, right? So virtualization 10, 20 years ago was certainly not as robust as it is today. Yeah, and it's interesting. From a historical standpoint, you always look back and you see, oh, here were the big disruptive trends there. It was when the internet first came out, everybody was like, there's this weird little toy that we're not sure what to do with. It had a pretty big impact. Just a little. So the thing, you know, my role as an analyst always is when do I have enough dots that I understand that this might be something big and change, and yeah, that ripple effect through the organization is a huge thing. So it sounds like you focus, you know, on the people side of things more than the technology. It's the people, it's because the management, it's the management of those people as well. And I think the big difference here with digital disruption is how quickly it can happen. Plus two other factors. One of those is that we have to take more risks if we're going to compete. And the second one is security comes in with those risks. All right, so when you talk about management, I've heard the case put forward that, you know, we haven't changed our management style in over 150 years. It's very hierarchical, follow very much a militaristic. You know, here's your chain of command, here's how you're doing things. And lots of people have talked about how do we break things down, everything. Developer communities, how do we do the two pizza size groups? What's your take on that discussion? Where are we? It's an interesting thing. I'm actually less focused on structure as I am in terms of leadership and mindset. I think if you were to ask many people, particularly in the project management area, what is the single most important thing that they would want to ensure success of their projects, they wouldn't tell you structure. They'd probably tell you, give me the best people. Give me the best people, and I can get anything done. I was like, the communication styles are one of the things that's really challenging, and especially in the IT world, is there's so many ways, is how do you effectively, you know, get somebody in the loop, understand what's happening. We worry about the dispersion of the workforce and the latency of communication can definitely break down a lot of what happens. One of the things that I'm really worried about is historically what we tend to do when something new hits us, we come up with processes, structural changes, that somehow will magically make a difference. Well, you know, every one of these structures has their positives and negatives. There's success stories, there are unsuccessful stories. What I'm more engaged with, particularly at this time, is the necessity for change of behavior. The way people think, the way they act, the way they deal with change, the way they deal with challenges, all of that is new, which has come along with digital disruption. So, I think about the changing workforce. We have a lot more entrepreneurs, there are a lot more people doing multiple jobs. I would think that that would say that they have less management. You know, less people or maybe more managers, but are getting less, you know, training from their managers, less guidance from their manager, more kind of self-driven. Is that true, what do you say? I think the issue becomes that because of the necessity to make decisions faster, that one can't wait for the executive committee to meet to make those decisions. So, what we have to do the way I would suggest it to you, would be we have to drive down a culture and get people to do things more automatically, empower them to do it, allow them to take some risks, or else we can't scale and we can't respond fast enough to the changes. And in particular, this is what the very large organizations are going through. How do you transform 280,000 people? You can't do it with the same structure. You've got to be able to empower people and find the right combinations for them to be successful. Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious your take, you know, things like data science, you know, machine learning, all those things, then we have a lot more data. How can I push those decisions to the edge that I can, you know, kind of get access to the work? And this is a very interesting time because we've seen recently from various different things that have occurred that the data is only as good as the data is. So if one depends too heavily on the data, you know, we used to call it GIGO, garbage in, garbage out, all right? So I have an article that I wrote in the Wall Street Journal a number of years ago which basically said it's not just about the data stupid. If you remember the ideas of KISS, keep it simple, stupid. But I do think this is going to happen and let me phrase it a slightly different way. What we're seeing now is that there's so much data that the human mind cannot conceivably deal with it without machine learning help. So when you do a search on Google and you get 7,000 hits, do you go through all 7,000? You go through the first five or 10, but think about what that means because you may be missing valuable information. So we need this machine learning to capture this data, to assist the regular manager to be able to make better decisions. So, okay, so you scare me a little bit. I go back to some of my favorite readings when I was in school and the existentialist, you say brave new world. It wasn't that you hide information, you put so much information in front of people and you can even kind of guide them a little bit and people won't be able to make the decisions anymore. It's just kind of made you there. I mean, is that dystopian view? I think what we're seeing with machine learning and artificial intelligence is that's what's the major breakthrough and the early signs at the universities, including mine, is that the power of artificial intelligence is moving faster than what we ever thought, which means the impact of smart data, all right, and smart machines is going to be a factor. So you're right, just having the data and having some statistics is not enough, but having some data with some artificial intelligence that provides more than just the data is going to make a huge difference. So, Dr. Link, give us a little bit of a snapshot about what you talk to, kind of a technology audience like this. A lot of these people, heavy into virtualization, they might know some storage, they might be doing some digital transformation. What tips and guidance are you giving them? I think this is all about the consumer. In fact, when I think all of this is over and a couple of 100 years have gone by and we look back on this era, we won't call it the internet revolution and we won't call it the digital revolution, we'll call it the consumer revolution. And what I'm trying to get across to many of the people that are here today is they better get closer to their consumers and they better understand the need to be agile and that even if they're B to B, somewhere along that B, it gets to B to C. And if they're closer to the C, that consumer, then they're going to be able to provide their customers with better service and that consumer is running wild right now. They're smart, they're changing their mind all the time, they're demanding and they want it personalized. And that's changing the scope about how we service our constituents. Yeah, it's interesting, we think about B to B, the pace of change is usually pretty slow. Consumer, as you said, changes faster. So I feel like it's connecting the dots and saying it's going to be looked more like B to C kind of that consumer interaction because that will help speed up a little bit the enterprise. Does that hold water? The closer you are to C, the more effective you're going to be. Even if you go to your clients and you say, I know about your C, I know about your consumers and here are things that I can do for you to help you with that relationship. Hey, that's music to my ears. What kind of, you go to various events, what are you seeing out there? What's kind of interesting you in the marketplace today? I think there's a lot of ignorance and fear, all right? I think some people are thinking that maybe this is going to go away, that it's just a fad. And more importantly, and we're seeing this at boards, it won't affect us. Be careful, it's affecting everybody right now. So it's very, very important that people get on board and understand where they are, what things they need to do and how to create agile or what I would call change ready organizations. Yeah, it's interesting, you know, we talk about change readiness. The Heath Brothers talked about how, you know, making change is so difficult, but the most drastic change to everybody's life is one that everybody embraces. It's like marriage and having kids. It's like those are the things that will probably disrupt your life more than anything else. So we say that people won't change, but we're always embracing change in some way. What other ways can people embrace change and be ready for that kind of thing? You know, here's the first thing I would say to you. Most of us has been brought up in a world in which we said if it's not broken, don't fix it. Well, let me tell you the new one. If it's not broken, it will be. So this is now adding in these other factors that you can't deal in this competitive world by being conservative, by being safe. You have to take risks. They have to be calculated risks, all right? And then you have to deal with the security issues that come along with those. But this is an intrapreneur world for most people, not an entrepreneurial one, but we need people inside of organizations to be more intrapreneurial and take those risks. That's a huge change with the type of people that we have in many, many organizations. And on top of that, something I study a lot is how do we integrate millennials, all right? Because they're the ones that are the digital natives. And I don't know if you've thought about this, but people who run companies at the highest levels are probably baby boomers. And the ones that are managing the day-to-day business are Gen Xs. And the people that are coming in that know the most about the digital world are the millennials. Put those three together and what do you have? I'm not sure. Yeah, absolutely. I've heard some people say that, you know, there's a certain part of the enterprise that will just fight the change. Just don't worry. In a couple of years, the millennials are coming in. They're not going to go down and, you know, they weren't learning COBOL anymore. They're not learning some of the, you know, older technologies here. They are born digital. I think Tapscott was the one that said that. And, you know, they're embracing. They grew up with these new technologies. Absolutely. And the other part about this, I think, is that historically, we've seen this a hundred times, you know, even at IBM, the mainframe people thought, you know, they're going to protect that. So the dominating force in any organization will continue to try to protect that dominance and have a disbelief that it's ever going to go away. And that, of course, is extremely dangerous in what we're looking at. Add to that the gig economy. The idea that the workers, the labor markets, will be completely different over the next 20 years. That people will not work the same way. They may not even have the same employer. So all of these things are happening all at once, but let me give you another interesting aspect to this time different than that. It's accelerated. So if you look back on the Industrial Revolution, whatever happened then is going to happen a lot quicker. Example, it took 38 years to reach 50 million people when the radio came out. Pokemon Go reached 50 million users in 19 days. Think about the quickness of getting to the consumer and having them change. Absolutely, the dispersion of innovation adoption, you know, greatly increases. Want to give you the opportunity, you've got a book that came out recently. Tell us a little bit about, you've written a number of books. You know, why this last book, what was it about? Well, I've written a book on strategic information technology or digitization, which basically is trying to give the leaders of technology and in businesses the understanding that integration is not maybe. Integration must be. So when you say where is technology in our organization, the answer better be yes. This is no longer a time where we're going to be sitting there and saying, well, maybe I should integrate some technology people. Everybody has to know technology. Sure, they'll be a technology world. They'll be an accounting department, but everybody has to be dispersed in a way. And this is the time for technology people to take hold of this as leaders. It's a great time for us to show that we can guide the way in this digital transformation. That's what the book is about. All right, so you're at Columbia. I guess the last word I want to give you is, you see, you know, the younger, I mean, some smart people, prestigious school, what does it tell you about the world we're in today and where do you think we are going forward with these kids? Well, look, we're about to be hit and are being hit with the same thing, right? Because of technology, online learning, our students are very much consumers. Now, even though I'm dealing with a high level student, a certain intellectual level and competitive, I still have competitors like anywhere else. And they're coming with demands. They want to be able to do and explore things across schools, across universities. And we have to be agile enough now to deal with that and still keep that quality level. So we're not immune to it either and it's a great time for us. But as you would imagine, a university the size of Columbia, moving that along and dealing with that is not an easy thing. Dr. Art Langer, pleasure to meet you. It's been a pleasure. Really appreciate you sharing with us. Great to meet you. We'll be back with lots more coverage here from the Nutanix.NEXT conference in Europe. You're watching.