 Live from Seattle, Washington, it's theCUBE, covering Smartsheet Engaged 2019. Brought to you by Smartsheet. Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of Smartsheet Engaged here in Seattle, Washington. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, co-hosting alongside Jeff Frick. We are joined by Mark Mater. He is the CEO of Smartsheet. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Good morning. Thank you. So great job up there on the keynote. We know this is the third annual conference of 4,000 people from 39 different countries. The theme is achieve more. And the theme is actually tied to a very special announcement you've made today about the achieve as one alliance. So can you tell our viewers a little bit about that? Yeah, the achieve is one alliance is really figuring out how to take the cultural changes that are in flight right now and marrying those with the people and the technology. And we think that it's important as things like concepts that are intimidating people, AI and ML, worker replacement, it's like whoa, whoa, whoa. These are things where we actually think technology and people should work together as opposed to being a replacement for. And I think there's a lot of education that needs to take place. So what we plan on doing is doing research through this alliance and then publishing that work. Because I think a huge part of this is educating the market and giving them confidence to take that step. It's a different way to treat people. You're in this weird spot where there's super low unemployment and yet so many things are services and a lot of your assets walk out the door every single night. You hope to come back the next day. So you're trying to give them meaning, you're trying to do more than just kind of the core function of the business. You had a great hackathon yesterday for good. So it's a really challenging time for employers to keep the workforce engaged. And you're really trying to help them kind of move some of the roadblocks and make it easier for them to keep those folks engaged. It is, Jeff. And what we're seeing is, and you see the studies come out where there's never been a higher percentage of people who feel disconnected from their work. And I don't think that's just giving them good tooling. They actually want to know who is being benefited ultimately. What's the endpoint benefit? And if they can somehow feel connected to something purposeful, that is a mechanism for feeling connected to work. So we want our team, we want our customers showing up to their offices every day, our organizations feeling motivated. And I think absent that human dimension, absent knowing who you're helping, I think it makes it feel a bit hollow. So that's one of the things about Engage. It brings this together and you see it firsthand. Very invigorating. So talk a little bit about the customers that you had up on the main stage telling their smart sheet stories and what are the ones that you find most inspiring and most sort of life affirming to you as the CEO of this company? Well, the thing that never gets old for me, Rebecca, is when somebody felt something one day was completely unattainable and then they have that unlock moment like holy smokes, I pulled it off. And what's even more exciting is when they pull that off with very few resources. They didn't have to go to IT at every turn. They didn't have to mobilize on a big budget ask. They just got it done. So one of the real memorable moments for me this year was when I visited Syngenta out of North Carolina and I spoke with the head of health and safety and she said, we mobilized on smart sheet. We enabled all of our team members to submit issues, safety concerns they had. How do you simplify that process of taking a picture of a potential issue, getting into a queue, getting it responded to? They saw a 500% increase in the number of people who were saying, I think that could use improvement. I think that could use improvement. And a 65% faster resolution time. So she is convinced that people's lives are being materially impacted to the positive because of this. I mean, how can she not feel empowered? That is a pretty big, that's a pretty amazing feeling. So that's one that really stands out to me. In terms of the other customer stories, one of the things that also struck me was just how adrenaline pumping the main stage show was. Talk a little bit about what it means to put up the customers who have these very compelling visually interesting stories from outdoor clothiers to travel destinations. And also what it means for smart sheet employees to be in the audience hearing these stories about what they're doing to help their customers. I think we all want to wake up every day feeling like whatever we do matters, right? Whether that's individually or with your family or with your business. And when you see someone like an Arctic or a Spartan race or a Vulcan, which is helping do census on elephants and preserving that species, coupled right alongside it with Cisco that is protecting our networks, which are more complex than ever before. And you're participating in that? Okay, that can, again, back to that connectedness, right? And I think the diversity in who we serve also keeps it interesting. You never know who you're going to serve next. One day at Cisco, the next day it's agriculture, the next day it's saving elephants. That diversity keeps things fresh. Mark, one of the things that struck me in the keynote is there was a story of this guy, I guess he's going to fly around the world in a fling and plane in five days or eight days. But one of the test flights are a significant change. He was trying to fly to Hawaii. There was an equipment failure and he had to divert. And when you see the screen grabs and people working in Smartsheet, it looks super detailed. It's like a project plan and there's resources that are tied, research utilization. But in this case, they had to be able to flip on a dime. They had to be completely agile. And I think she said they had eight teams around the world, I presume, where the stops are. That's a really interesting dichotomy of the tool that you guys are delivering to have the detail to be numbers focused, AI focused. But at the same time, be real. The real world stuff doesn't always go as planned. Yeah, be real and do it instantly. So if we have an issue with the plane, we're not going to host a summit to talk about how to get back on track. We got to do it now. So the thing that's also neat, that example, is you're talking about eight to 10 people across multiple continents who have to work right now. There is no mobilization. There is no, as I said, summit. And I think being able to do meaningful things quickly, that is a fairly rare combination, right? Very often, meaningful stuff is heavy, complex, takes time. So again, this constant pursuit of faster, more meaningful, more depth, more value. And this kind of cross silo collaboration too. I mean, that's the theme that comes up over and over again is that you need contributions from lots of people and lots of formerly silo departments is maybe what they're going to be called in the future to get to resolution so that you can move forward. Yeah, and I think the thing that we spoke to in one of the product announcements was we are so inundated with information. And Rebecca's like, Mark, I need it faster. I need it faster yet again. It's like, holy, Rebecca, I can't actually process it all. So one of the things we're trying to do is how do you also improve the context within which people see things, right? So if you ask me a question and I don't have to tab out to another application, I can actually see your question in the context of that work. And that's when I think we're under the real big breakthroughs, we're releasing this engage. I mean, when you think about the current status of work and you really see it, I mean, from where you sit, I mean, is it almost shockingly abysmal about how bad things can get at companies in terms of how many silos there are, how the number of communication breakdowns, the way the communication breaks down, because as you said, you could just be working on a different version from someone. It's a great question, Rebecca. And the reason I would say it's not shockingly abysmal is because we've been doing this for years. It's like, it's the norm. It's the cost of doing business. So what our job is to, how do we get people to get that spark to elevate a business? Oh my goodness, there is a better way. And it takes a lot to change people's behavior. You can't just say, well, there's a better way. They have to experience it, right? So we're in that pursuit of how do you get more people to clear that hurdle the first time? Because the norm is, it's hard. The norm is, it's distributed. The norm is, I don't know what version I'm on. So that's where we're trying to unlock for folks. And you said in the keynote, once they get that spark and then achievement becomes the new norm, that has its own momentum too. Yes, it's the, Jeff does something amazing and I'm like, I want in. It's like, Jeff doesn't have a monopoly on that. And that's the viral effect. And it's not so much a vendor saying, hey, Jeff did something, now you should be motivated. You should feel that way, Rebecca. And that's what we see at this conference. This is 4,000 people who weren't told to go to the conference. These are 4,000 people who want in. And that is a really, I think, special part of the conference for us. Mark, shift gears is a little bit on artificial intelligence and machine learning, because we hear about it all the time. And I think everyone now has kind of figured out that it's not going to be a company delivering AI and ML. It's really applied AI and ML within an application. When you guys look at the opportunities, especially with the data flow that you have and your SaaS application, where do you see some of the short-term wins and opportunities using AI to even better eliminate some of this redundant, painful work? I think part of it starts with educating people on the potential benefits of it. And then I'm an experiential learner. I think many people are. So instead of talking about the theory, demonstrate how it could help. So we've already started doing things like recommending to people certain things based on actions they take. It's also very important as a vendor we have made a commitment to being very clear that for more advanced types of AI, people need to opt in. So again, part of this what's happening to my data, who's working it, that's part of our platform. And when I look at the future, it's the first step I think is really how do you drive convenience improvement recommendation? How do you let someone take better advantage of the systems they're already using? And what people don't have to appreciate today is by exhibiting this behavior, by intaking information, structuring and reporting out, the system will observe a pattern. And ultimately, should they choose to opt in, the system will get to a point where we'll be able to make recommendations, recommendations and derive insights. But again, a lot of this is fairly theoretical. We're in the early innings of this, Jeff. People are just starting to figure out, I can automate something. So I think there's a much like people said 10 years ago, the future is now, the future's kind of showing up today. And then the next phase is still a couple of years out. But it's a very exciting, it's a very exciting prospect. So those recommendations then can become best practices, because I'd like to get it back to this, this achieve as one alliance and sort of how you're going to take that research and educate the market, and then use it to implement these new technologies and best practices of this is how we can get more done and achieve more together. Yeah, and I think by showing examples of how AI and ML can contribute to someone's performance, as opposed to you did these 10 things, the machine is taking over those 10 things like, well, what's my role in it? It's like, that's not a very exciting conversation to have. So I think by demonstrating how somebody's game can in a sense slow down. So if the machine can help me further inspect more deeply assess, have that next moment of insight, that's contributing, not taking away. And again, we need to show examples as an industry that happening until we show it, it's sort of all for naught. So I'm really excited about helping our customers through that journey. Yeah, there's so much opportunity. And the other one that comes up in other times is unplanned downtime, right? So a lot of talk always about unplanned downtime on machines, right? It's completely disruptive. You don't want to schedule maintenance, but no one really talks about unplanned downtime of people, not necessarily in the way of being sick, but being distracted by often mundane, often wrote, often an anticipated task, I won't even call it work, that suddenly get dumped into your lap that you have to take care of. And those really, I think huge opportunities to add some automation and get those things kind of off the plate. Yeah, you think about the breakthrough ideas you've had in your lives. Does it happen when you're like feverishly working away? No, it's usually when there's a moment of just peace where you're able to process, that's when the breakthrough happens. So one of the things we talked about today was how also as leaders, we need to empower our teams to not just drive for more yield and throughput, take that extra benefit and actually look at the board, process the board and think about what we're going to do next. And I think, again, you need to give people the permission to work that way because we're all feeling this pressure to innovate, you got to give people time to do it. And do more with less too. I mean, do you think it's realistic? Do you think leaders are going to be able to do that? I think the leaders of successful companies will do that. And role model that too because they can't also be worried about their own throughput, as you said. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, as Gabby reset at the end of her talk, you have to exhibit the behavior you want others to practice, right? So I think that was a wise statement. Well, I really love the outdoor clothing company who specifically said we want our people out doing the things that our customers are doing, experiencing what they're experiencing and really baking that into the culture, not just saying it, but get outside and go run around and do what we want our customers to do and what our customers do do. Very different approach. It is, it is. And I think, again, back to us understanding what our customers are doing, this is equivalent to our Super Bowl every year, right? We get 4,000 of these people coming in here and there is no substitute for that in the flesh interaction. And that's, again, one of the reasons why everyone's in such a positive, engaged mood right now. So they're not only interacting with the Smartsheet folks, but they're interacting with each other and learning how each company uses Smartsheet. Yeah, I mean, when you think that one half of all collaboration that takes place on our platform is cross company. It's not a surprise that people interact with one another here. It is happening. We have companies who interact with hundreds of brands outside of their own. So we serve as that cross connect for companies. And that's the modern company. I don't know of a company that is completely insular. So if you can help promote that safely, that's a real advantage for a company. Wrapping up, what do you think you're going to be the themes for next year's conference? What are sort of, what's on your plate? What are you thinking about? What are the big challenges that you're gnawing on right now? Yeah, I think the continued shift from efficiency to effectiveness. People, I think most people are still measured on the output goal. How many units did I do? How many still, and while that may serve you well in the quarter or the next quarter, it does not prepare you for years two and three. So you have to be very committed to the investments today that may not pay off in that six to 12 month window. You have to. And I think stories will come out as people are learning new ways to work of examples of here's what we did in 2019 which ended up being a home run in 2021. So it's back to effectiveness, effectiveness versus efficiency. That is going to be, I think one of the themes we speak to next year. Thanks Mark, a pleasure having you on the show. I'm Rebecca Knight for Jeff Frick. Stay tuned of more of the Cube's live coverage of Smart Sheet and Gauge.