Podcasts about datapipe

Send us a Text Message.Dr. Arti Garg, Ph.D. is Head of Technology Strategy & Evaluation, Office of the CTO and HPE Sr. Distinguished Technologist, at Hewlett Packard Enterprise ( https://www.hpe.com/us/en/home.html ). Previously Dr. Garg served as Deputy, Global CTO for Data & AI and Lead Sustainability & Edge Innovation Architect, as Chief Strategist for the AI Strategy & Solutions organization, overseeing HPE's advanced AI technology programs, and as Emerging Market and Technology Director, at Cray Inc. which was acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise in September 2019. Over her career, Dr. Garg has held several data science leadership roles in the computing and industrial sectors, including at Datapipe, NRG, and GE. In the past, Dr. Garg has also worked in the U.S. government, at the White House Budget Office where she oversaw over $5 billion of R&D investments at the Department of Energy, and as a legislative adviser in the U.S. Congress, as a American Physical Society-sponsored AAAS S&T Congressional Fellow. with the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Her science policy journey also includes working for the University of California, Office of the President (UCOP). Dr. Garg holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University, an MS in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering from Stanford University, and she did post-doctoral work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as part of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. Dr Garg is also founder and chair of Engineers & Scientists Acting Locally ( ESAL - www.esal.us ), a national organization dedicated to increasing city, county, and state level engagement by professionals with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Support the Show.

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT Using data is pretty much integral to just about any ambitious and involved digital signage network being spun up these days, but for a lot of vendors and their customers, it's still a relatively new concept and approach. That's definitely not the case for the Toronto-area CMS software firm Omnivex, which has been around for more than 30 years and has always made data-driven communications central to what it does. More than 20 years ago, the core Omnivex solution included a module called DataPipe. I know, because I was using the thing way back then for a digital ad network I launched ... probably 10 years too early, but that's a story for another time. While a lot of its competitors have developed and marketed platforms that are pretty and loaded with bling, Omnivex has resolutely stuck to its technology guns with software that's quite involved and very powerful. The net result is Omnivex gets involved in a lot of the more complicated jobs in which real-time data, and the context it provides, shapes what shows up on screens. Airports, for example, are a very active vertical. I had a long, detailed chat with Neil Chatwood, a transplanted Brit who runs the global transport file for Omnivex. We could have gone on for hours, as he has a lot of insights about data, security, and programming content for large, very involved environments. Neil, thank you for joining me. For those people who don't know Omnivex, can you just give a quick rundown on the company?  Neil Chatwood: Yeah, for sure. So, Omnivex was established back in the dark ages of digital signage, 1991. It's a privately owned organization, just outside of Toronto, Ontario and Canada. Oh, come on. It's in Toronto. Like, Toronto goes on forever.  Neil Chatwood: Yeah, it's right. Pretty much right on the border. Well, it's on the subway line now. They've expanded the subway, so that finally happened.  Yeah, it's not like you see countryside on the other side of the parking lot though. Neil Chatwood: Not anymore. In the last 10 years, there's been a Vaughan skyline, as depressing as that may be. But yeah, I've been around a long time in a private family owned organization and it's really grown off the back of our focus on leveraging real time data, integrating with basically any system we could possibly think of. And that pedigree has kept us in the business for over 30 years now.  Yeah, I have a history in a network I started more than 20 years ago using Omnivex. So I was familiar with Omnivex products and datapipe and everything. So we were talking before we turned on the recording. I found it amusing that a lot of the software side of the industry has awakened to the idea of data integration and data handling for the last four or five years when it's something you were doing like 25 years ago.  Neil Chatwood: Yeah. Back in around 2009-2010 when a lot of the industry was yelling Content is King. Right. Don't say that.  Neil Chatwood: I know. You see. I do. Yeah, it's a classic. And our ownership at the time, you know, they like to have fun and they took that and changed it into Context as King and we've really kind of run with that since inception. But I joined the organization in 2010 and data and complexity is where we've always really hung our hat. We're a software vendor but the majority of our revenue comes from licensed sales. But we really do find ourselves in the trenches with our partners and our clients getting in there and providing pseudo consultancy on what data do you have in house?  Like, how has it been stored? What methods can we use? And figuring out the solution in parallel with all of the stakeholders, even though at the face of it we're just slinging CMS licenses. So that's our heritage and when I'm when I start talking to someone who's interested in looking at the market or you get a lead or you're talking to someone at a trade show, my advice is always to take a look at a bunch of companies. Take a bunch of companies, look at all these CMSs. In all the old guard, there's a good handful of companies that I might say some names, Navori, for example, StrataCash, Scala, right. They're all pretty old guard, when we talk about the digital signage industry.  I encourage people to take a look at all the products that are on the market and once you start to get those demos and you start to go through the sales process, you can really see the DNA of where that company's come from, right? Like, are they focused on a really pleasant UX/UI experience? Are they focused on performing high end post processing within the platform itself and are good at asset generation as opposed to creating it in a third party piece of kit and bringing it in. Our DNA has always been on the data side our position is that if you're going to make good images and assets that you're going to bring into the CMS, trying to ask a creative to use a tool, that's not something they're already comfortable with, you know you're kind of paddling upstream on that. So we've always taken the position of let people use the software that they're already comfortable with. Let's not introduce a knowledge gap, bring it in. And that leads us to, well, if we're not going to focus on the asset side, let's focus on the data side. So yeah, that's where we've come from. And it's where goals are set for in the future as well.  Well, when you have literally hundreds of software options out there these days and I would suspect most of them in some way say, yes, we do data handling, we have data integration, we have APIs or whatever it may be. How does an end user discern what's real versus just you the bare essentials? Neil Chatwood: That's a good question. When the user is going through that sales process and they're doing their comparisons, they have to show you it works right? Like, we're in an industry that is extremely visual, very creative. And you and I have been to a lot of trade shows and a lot of the DSEs in our time and if you're walking around there on setup day, I've seen plenty of CMS vendors running their showreel on windows media player, right. Before the crowds arrive and it's like, well if your stuff's that good, why are you using that? Like, why are you doing it that way? So if I was a buyer or if I was a third party consultant trying to guide someone through this, I'd be like the first couple of calls you're going to have with them. You're going to get the dog and pony show, right. They're going to show you all the sexy stuff, right? Oh yeah, all works great. Do you want to bring this plug in? Get your IT team involved, right? The people who know where your data lives and what format it's in, how accessible it is. And get them to sit down with the sales engineers of these CMS companies and get them to POC and get your data into their product, right? Most CMSs at this point, they're cloud hosting their software as a service, right? If they're sitting there and they're saying this is really easy. We can just go bing bong bop and it comes in, alright then show me. Just don't accept it at face value if you really want to dig into this stuff. I don't know any software vendor out there that isn't going to entertain the idea of a proof of concept or at least won't say, yeah, sure like any salesperson just wants to get the sale. Right.  So, if you've got this accessible data, right. Let's say it's up on Azure, right. It's some kind of blob storage or if it's accessible through an API. Can you just give me the keys? Like, let me in and I'll show you it in real time and then we'll bring it in. Once they can prove that to you, then it's not about data accessibility anymore. It's then you need to start looking into the assurances that they're going to be ethical and they're going to have the same levels of governance and control over that data that is being ingested into their system. That's where a lot of our focus is now. And you've really kind of touched on that with APIs. Back in the nineties, when we were asked to integrate with all these different data sources. We were lucky if there was documentation, it was probably RS232, serial cables.. David:That's a term I haven't heard in a long time. Neil Chatwood: Yeah. Using Telnet to get in. So like, a lot of the solution building was just kind of banging your head against the wall just to even access the data and make it legible to processing that data into information and then getting that information down onto the screen. That is less of a concern now because we're at the point where any data provider, they've probably got a fully or semi documented API or they've got an SDK, a software development kit where for the most part, if we're looking to POC a data integration. It probably takes us two to four hours, right? But based on how well documented it is, if the data structure is easy to work with and more often than not, the biggest part that takes the most time is liaising with the third party organization to let us in, right?  Because the client will say, Oh yeah.we use such and such for this and we're using this product for our bus timetables, our bus scheduling. Can you guys hit that? So it's like, well, there's a good chance we've already hit it because we've got clients there already but if we haven't, then we need to start up an engagement and start talking to that third party organization. This is the sticking point, right? Because when we start talking to that third party organization that controls that data, that the client is already paying for and leveraging it in house. Depending on the attitude and market position of that third party, they might not want to let us in, right? Like there's a bunch of organizations out there that sell digital signage as a value add, right? So, a good example of that would be, the historic vendors for flight information display systems, right? Screens in airports showing arrivals and departures. They sold data and the screen element was like, Oh, by the way, you probably want to show this on a screen, right? So we'll just sell you that too. It's a value add, it's not a true CMS. It's a point solution. So when we're engaging with that third party vendor, I'm often at the head end of this for transportation, I'm like, Hey, we're working on this project with a mutual client, they want us to get into your data. Is there any way you can provide a sandbox or some test keys so we can just prove this out? Depending on where they're at, they might not want to let us in. So, the sticking point becomes, then I have to go back to the client and say to the client, I don't wanna cause any friction here, but we can't get in without credentials and they're not giving us any. So can you please get involved? And those are the conversations where things start getting political. We're not looking to roll logs under our course friction anywhere. But as far as I'm concerned, your client's already paying for the data, right? Like if you know if you want to bolt on some charges for hey now you're using it for digital signage, so we want to charge you an extra 5k a year. That's on you. But as far as I'm concerned, an existing client is paying for the data, they want to use it this way. You're standing in the way of progress here. So, how do we deal with that? I spend so much time dealing with that now. And a reaction to that about five years ago, I started a scum works team internally. Here in order to proactively build data partnerships so that when a client says a key phrase, Everbridge is a good example, right. For mass emergency notification. So when a client says Everbridge, we don't have to go through an uncertain process of reaching out to someone we don't know, not knowing what their position is. It's like, we've actually already got this working somewhere else. We can get in here. I can show you an example of it already working or if you can give us access, we can actually prove it with your data. So that, yeah, that's the business. I just wanted to ask,  I've seen companies that talk in terms of what I call functionality apps so that they developed a data handshake with, as you said, Everbridge and then they sort of market that as an application, this is something that we can activate for you. Is that how you look at it? Or is that kind of a different angle?  Neil Chatwood: We look at it that way, conceptually because it's modularity, right? So, in our product, we're going to use a mechanism to reach out to that, that could be through some custom scripting or it could be within a product in our stable that has a full UI, in order to access that data. Like a good example would be, back in the day we had a via link for a via phone system. Right. So, that functionality that some organizations call them widgets, right. Where it's like, Hey, I just want to slot in this functionality. It's a couple of clicks. I put in my username, put in my password and away we go. We operate that in the backend of the system. But at this point, don't have a full kind of walkthrough where it's like, Hey, put in your Twitter username and password and away you go. Ours is a little bit more behind the curtain. We do it that way because we have user personalities. We actually used to use the Simpsons characters too, like, are we dealing with a bar? Are we dealing with Maggie? Like, who are we dealing with here? So those user profiles. It's like, you should be doing this, right? And if when we're looking at building out a data integration, that should really be set and forget it. There really is no reason to go in there on a regular basis and be changing that information or that query or the way we're massaging the data. So that is an administrative function, right? That is something that's behind the scenes. By virtue of that, we're probably dealing with someone who's a bit more technical, as a bit of an IT background. So, we have a relatively open system, right? So, whereas when we're dealing with widgets and a simplified user experience. Click this button, put username in, click this button, put your password and click this, or it comes on screen and now you can kind of like trim that down like that. That's what I've seen some CMSs do and I think that's a really light low friction way to get that data in there. We take the approach of like we're a toolkit. We're going to assume that our users and our clients and our channel are matching our products and our toolkit to the right levels of user. So, in the backend, it's like, here's a fully open interface that you can do whatever the heck you want with, we can give you some foundational building blocks or modules to enable and empower that user to take it where they want to take it. And that speaks to kind of one of our other positions in the industry where anyone who's been around kind of knows that Omnivex deals with relatively complex situations because we've got that wide open back end that frankly is quite and is a bit scary, right? To a user that just wants to change a welcome board or change some numbers that are on a restaurant board. So that's really not our target market, right? Our target market is predominantly enterprise level. They've got an in-house IT team or they've got a good system integrator involved where we can really get into the weeds on what data you have. Data has a cost, right? Well organizations are paying to cultivate it, gather it, store it in house. How do we make that data actionable by adding incremental value to it? That's what we're looking for. So when we go into a situation, we want to find those people, those stakeholders within the end client and within our channel to get into those deeper discussions on like, I know you want to point an arrow to the right but if we look at what data you've got in house, like, let's say, modern elevator system or a modern escalator system where we're able to tie into the back end of, Hey, on a Monday, this elevator serves floors 8 through 12.  But, on weekends or on bank holidays, that elevator is completely shut off. Then, I probably don't want that arrow to go right, when that elevator is offline. I want it to point straight ahead like a zero degrees rotation, right? Instead of 90 degrees rotation. So if we don't have an awareness of what data the client has and the client doesn't have the kind of persona or has the team in house that knows, how their systems work and how their architecture and what data they have, then they might not be the best fit for the kind of challenges we're looking to tackle. You're doing a lot more than changing a price or a soup of the day.  Neil Chatwood: Yeah, that's the table stakes, right? I mean honestly, it's a bad word in our industry, but If you really want it to go down, PowerPoint is able to do that now. Like you can integrate PowerPoint with Excel. So I know, ever since I've been in the industry, you're always kind of one step away from someone saying, well, why wouldn't I just use PowerPoint for that? It's like, well, you're missing a whole bunch of functionality on top of it. But fundamentally, any CMS worth its salt has two core elements that it needs to play with. It needs to play with data and it needs to bring in assets and basically import those two elements into a layout, right? So by that definition, can PowerPoint do it? Yeah, If we really boil it down but there's so much value on top of any of these systems. But getting to that data, exploring the data with the clients is where our ROI comes in and that's a scary term for a lot of people in this industry too. I honestly think digital signage was really looking for ROI metrics for what feels like 20 years, we were really struggling. We only really started to get metrics around that in certain fields. Right. So it's really easy to establish ROI when we've got a camera pointed to the audience, we're looking at expressions and demographics and we're triggering it and we're detecting when eyeballs are looking this way. So ROI on that is really easy. You want me to give you ROI on a wayfinding arrow changing from zero degrees to 90 degrees. That's going to be a bit more obfuscated but maybe you're going to see that down the road when you have an independent audit on your facility and your KPIs go shifted five points because your space is a lot more usable now. So, adding incremental value on that data is really what we're looking to do and you mentioned menu boards. Menu boards are a real quick win. It's very transparent, the value of that is very clear but when we start to talk around, passengers flow around an airport or like nudge theory, convincing people to move one way instead of another way because that benefits the operations of the environment. That is a little bit more tricky to prove ROI on but the humans walking around that space are going to have less friction and less stress while they're in there. But it really all comes down to weaponizing the data like how do we get the most out of it? How do we turn data into information?  I could ask a bunch of questions but we probably talked for about three hours. I'm curious about a big job that you were directly involved in and Omnivex was obviously directly involved in at Minneapolis airport which is considered one of the better airports on the planet now. What's all involved there? Because there's a lot of data handling and a lot more going on than just saying that the flight to Seattle is at gate 47.  Neil Chatwood: Yeah, there is a lot going on at MSP and just to give them a quick shout out, MSP just won the best airport in North America for the third year running. I think that came out a couple of days back and I think they've won it like seven times out of the last eight years. So, they've got a dedicated team in house that takes care of this stuff. And I really want to focus on not Omnivex for a second here because the airport deserves to be called out here and so do us. We've got a system integrator in there called radiant technology as well out of Columbus, Ohio. And the success there has really started with the vision of their CIO, Eduardo Valencia. He was directly inspired by sports stadiums, right? And he was personally quite frustrated when he went to a sports stadium. How come the puck goes in the net, the whole stadium changes color and everything goes whiz bang and all of a sudden I'm being advertised, Coca Cola and like why do my screens in my airport suck? But I'm able to see this when I go to a hockey game. So there's got it. So he used certain mechanisms to figure out what's going on in the industry and who's able to power these full experiences within a facility and thankfully led him to us. So it really started with that frustration and they took a strategic view at the airport where you'll hear Eduardo talk about it. The entire airport should just be treated as a single pane of glass and I should be able to control any screen in the airport any way that I want which is a great ambition and a lot of facilities, it's not just airports. A lot of facilities have a similar ambition and it's very easy to start with that dream but it's not going to happen unless you align resources in house. So, MSP have their own decision making panel for digital signage.  They've got a group in house that is responsible for pushing this forward. Nothing good, nothing worthwhile, nothing award winning happens by accident. Like, they've taken a real pragmatic approach to this. So, they took a look at their screen estate. They took a look at the use cases. They took a look at that data and they engaged that system integrator as I mentioned, Radiant to like all right, how do we make good on all this stuff? So, it started from the top which kept teams engaged. It kept them focused and that's why this is a success. So, a part of that with a foundational piece of technology in there. But we're really just a toolkit and it speaks to what I mentioned before about, Hey, our backend might be a little bit scary but you can do whatever the heck you want. That's the power of a toolkit. So, to go back to what you mentioned about that widget and that usability you can have a really like turbo linear workflow but that really hamstrings capabilities, right? So when you're making a product, you've got to decide which way you want to go?  Do I want to go a mile wide? And an inch deep or do I want to go real deep where the scary stuff lives? That's where we typically are. Where were the, you know, where were the angler fish? So, that was MSPs approach and that example I mentioned was about what the elevators are doing, what the escalators are doing. What's happening operationally right now within my airport. So that's where you start. Like what's happening right now. Okay. So what's happening now? Well, Delta airlines have these check-in counters open. So well, I know my building, I know where the check-in counters are. So the screens that are directly parallel at the curbside to those check-in counters, then let the people pulling up in their cars know, Hey, if you want to go Delta, there's a big Delta logo and it says open underneath it. Okay. Particularly airports that are dynamically assigning check in counters for smaller airlines, right?  Neil Chatwood: For sure. Yeah. Multi-use, environment. So, when we're, yeah. So there's always going to be situations where like, Oh yeah, that terminal that's United terminal, right? So like, there's no real variance there, but there's a whole bunch of smaller airlines and they call it common use. So, yeah. So, you know, we've got systems where, you know, let's say, you know, a smaller airline, you know, logs in like, you know, one example could be Flair. I don't, it's not around anymore. Right. But flair could log in. Okay. Well, they've only got two flights a day but they need to take over the ticket counter, they need to take over this gate temporarily. So when they log into the common use platform which is what's on those screens in front of those agents. When they log into that common use platform by virtue of them logging in, I know who they are, right? And I know that they work for Flare. So now it makes sense to change the screens that are physically behind that desk. Put up the default content for Flare right now because until this agent makes some decisions around, this screen is going to be the backdrop. This screen is going to be a priority checking or whatever. Maybe we just want to highlight that this is Flare's house now and then as they go through their login procedure the screens can be set up any way that they like and what we can do is we can provide dashboards and linear use case tools that makes it easy for that user. That's where things should be easy where someone's interacting with digital signage as this is not their job. Like their job is to make sure that they're processing passengers and getting them to where they need to be. There might be really high turnover. They have no interest or time to be trained on how to use a content management product. So it's like, look at that requirement. So what do I need to do? I probably need to present the screens that are behind them, I need to present to them the assets that are available to them and I need them to highlight which flight that they care about right now, that could all be manual. So, their experience is like, okay, I'm Neil, I've logged in, I'm at Flare, bang, screens change. Okay, I've got four screens behind me, what do you want on each one of these screens? I want to do image one, image three and image five. Instantly goes up on the screens behind them. All right, I'm done. So that's where it's really important to reduce that friction and make it easy. Not necessarily when we're setting up the data flow because again, I'm only really going to be setting up that data flow once and then maybe changing it when upstream data sources change. That experience for that airline agent, that is multiple times a day. That's where we need it to be frictionless, not on the data integration side. I think it's interesting with airports and other large footprint facilities like mass transport hubs, stadiums, multi use areas where there's a stadium, restaurants, residential, commercial on and on and on and airports in particular, I kind of see two threads to how experience works. I see these gorgeous, very ambitious, very expensive, digital art installations and giant LED walls in newly built airports and they talk about the experience of that and how people are going to feel good about flying and so on. But I see this whole other side and it is much more what you're talking about. A great experience in an airport is not being panicked, not being lost, not being delayed, not knowing where things are, all that sort of stuff. To me, that's a far more important experience, is that kind of how you see it and how some of your clients see it?  Neil Chatwood: There's a few hats I could wear on this. The first hat I'll wear is someone who wants to sell as many licenses as possible. I would rather they have a thousand flat panel screens, right. But that's not where the industry's going. Right. And the big reason for that is, we as an industry, we've watched the price of DV LEDs really just go through the floor to the point where there's real comparisons where it's like, is this a parity with like a 55 inch flat panel now For me to get a DVD, like a modular DVLED the same price. So that's a huge part of it. It's like the cost has finally come down to a point where it's reasonable at scale but a lot of it is also just straight up hype, right? Like airports, like anyone else have to sell and compete with other airports. And this is something that you don't really think about until you get into it but when you've got two airports that are within an hour's drive of each other. They're not only competing for passengers, they're competing for the airlines.  Yeah.  Neil Chatwood: Right? So it's like, If I'm courting with the idea of trying to bring a major airline two that are right next to each other but a good comparison would be like SFO in Oakland, right? So it's like, okay well, if I'm in Oakland, how do I convince people not to go over the bridge to SFO? I'd probably need the carriers that carry the most passengers.  San Jose? Neil Chatwood: Oh yeah. Good example. Yeah. So a lot of these big sexy installations are coming from, you've got to keep up with the Joneses. But also the price of DVLEDs is reasonable now. So there is that part of the market where it's all about the LinkedIn posts and the marketing and the wow factor. Yeah, you're exactly right. So there'll be like a handful of those within an airport, right? Like a good example would be, Nashville. We worked on a project with Nashville airport and the content that provided for that was, Gentle Home out of Montreal, where they all are. So, they provided that in an awesome job but that is just one. It's essentially two screens in probably in a state of, I think about 800 or so,  Something like that. Neil Chatwood: So, the big glitzy installations are now basically a requirement for any new build or any renovation for any airport. There's a couple of projects that I'm aware of that are really interesting. But in terms of decision making, like when I come back down to the fundamental goal of signage in general, not just digital, is to convey information quickly and clearly guide decision making in an environment. Is this generative AI artwork doing that? No, it's not going to help me get some flight on time but it might bring down my blood pressure a little bit, that's what these art installations are, right?  Like they're looking for an opportunity for facilities to express themselves, reinforce their branding, market the local area but also sell advertising which is a huge driving factor on some of these big installations too. So, there's very much like, let's call them the anchors, right? Like they're the anchor installations now where there's millions and millions of dollars being spent and then it's why I've always kind of enjoyed your outlook and your material Dave is like, the boring stuff and that's what I'm into as well and when I'm walking around the world. That's the stuff that I'm like, Oh, that is cool as hell. One of the best bits of boring signage at MSP is that good design is invisible, right? So, there is an underground walkway. It's not a walkway. It's more like a hallway but it's very much a liminal space and you're going under there. I'm trying to imagine putting my hand up. It's probably about 10 feet tall. So it's like, well, there's not much opportunity for overhead signage cause we can only really add probably about eight inches to this, like overhead. So, that team works with a display vendor and they put in, I think it's roughly around it's about a hundred or so feet wide. I know I'm probably over, I get it. It's probably about 80 feet wide. But 80 feet wide by about seven inches high.  So number one, okay, well, we're still compliant with safety and we've got this screen in this hallway now. What's great about it is it's pure wayfinding. All it does is just show people where they need to go. But upstream of this, like this very boring sign is I would estimate two and a half thousand data points. Yeah. In order to get the arrow point in the right way showing, Oh, you're looking for this airline or you're looking for a route with accessibility or you're looking for the TSA. When you add together the time to get to the queue, plus the queue time, which way should you go? What condition are the elevators in? What condition are the escalators in? Where as an airport, do I want to drive people right now, based on what's going on in my space? All that intelligence is above that sign, logically. But as a passenger, I look at it and I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm going with Air Canada today. Bump, I'm done. But the solution is so complex behind it but ultimately, it just means, Hey, this logo appears on screen and this arrow is at 220 degrees and that boils down to that. And I think that use case is beautiful like simplicity in design, it gets rid of the friction. It gets people where they need to be. That's what we're in this business for.  But the bottom line on that is it looks simple to the end user, to the observer, but there's a lot going on behind the curtains to make that work seamless.  Neil Chatwood: Yeah. Again, good design is invisible, right? Like you would have no idea the complexity that goes on with that screen. Like I said, we could talk for a very long time but we're already running longer than I usually do. So I got to wind this down, Neil, this has been great.  Neil Chatwood: Thanks, Dave. Omnivex has been around for a long time. I've been around a long time. You've been around a long time. I'm surprised we've not get to this earlier but thanks so much. I really respect Sixteen Nine and what you've done for the industry. And I encourage you to keep at it. We need a rational voice in this craziness.  All right. Well, thanks. Thanks again.  Neil Chatwood: All right. Thanks a lot, Dave. Take care.

Welcome to another episode of Action and Ambition. We are joined today by Ed Laczynski, the co-founder and CEO of Zype, the infrastructure for digital video. He is focused on Zype’s vision, talent, and corporate strategy on the mission to connect the world’s streaming video. Prior to Zype, Ed was the SVP of Cloud for Datapipe, building one of the world’s fastest-growing and pioneering enterprise cloud management companies. Before then, he was the founder of LTech, an early cloud backup and management software startup and early Google and Amazon Web Services cloud partner. Ed has also held product leadership positions at Volt and Credit Suisse. Let’s discover how Ed went from where he was before to connecting the dots to where he is now with Zype. Stay tuned! You’re going to love this episode!

Today we have Patrick McClory joining us. Patrick is the founder and CEO of IntrospectData. He brings a great deal of experience and expertise across multiple industries. He has focused a lot on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Patrick has been writing code, managing DevOps, and designing scalable application infrastructures for over ten years. Before founding IntrospectData, he served as a Sr. Consultant for Amazon Web Services, a Platform Engineer with DataPipe, CTO of DualSpark, and more. Patrick shares so much great information about data, AI, ML, and technology in general.  We talk about remote working, tools for better efficiency, and ethics in AI and ML.   We specifically talk about the misconceptions and steps for getting started using AI. He has so many great insights. Show Notes:[01:06] Patrick started his experience in software engineering and as cloud became a thing he found his home there.[02:33] He found the software world was fascinating to him. He thought he was going to be a doctor when he went to college and he ended up with a degree in psychology.[04:19] He is always interested in the cutting edge, but also looking to find how to apply that cool new idea into real-world value.[06:25] CIOs often become so engrossed in internal operations that they fail to see the opportunities to manage cost and drive forward.[07:54] We get so focused on cost control and providing services that we forget that we are trying to run a business.[09:59] You have to be hands-on with your customers either internally or externally to understand how to make good decisions.[12:24] Shadow IT is a leading indicator of what your users want.[14:44] The problem with working remotely isn’t technical, it is about getting people comfortable working in a collaborative environment from home.[15:39] You have to make it that when people make a mistake it is not the end of the world. You can do this socially or technically.[17:07] Patrick’s company uses Google apps connected with Zoom and Slack. It is important to have a tool that does immediate communications.[19:04] People still want to feel that connection.  They want to feel like they are part of the mission of the organization.[21:57] They are really chipping away at the amount of time and confidence that a company has to make decisions faster than anyone else.[23:51] There is not a whole lot of positive useful AI. There is fear around what AI could be doing and what it looks like.[25:44] Regulation is usually five years behind innovation.[26:33] Financial services have been leading the forecasting and predictive analytics space for years.[28:32] Many industries don’t have the budget or bench to speculate about different technologies.[29:50] Often organizations can’t get out of their own way.[31:15] From a science and engineering perspective we can do lots of cool things, but from a marketing perspective we are not ready for something that is bigger.[33:12] Until it is easy to understand people are still going to be wary of AI even if it does produce great results.[36:29] Patrick’s advice is to continue to exercise being curious in work and life in general.[38:10] Think outside of your space and take that first step.[39:11] Patrick shares his best worst boss story.[42:12] Organizations looking at AI at a technical level need to be focused on getting their house in order.  Getting your data ready for AI and ML is step one.Links and Resources:State of the CIO Podcast WebsiteState of the CIO Podcast on Apple PodcastsDan on LinkedInPatrick on LinkedInPatrick on TwitterIntrospectDataSlackZoom

Michael Tobin OBE Michael is a highly successful serial technology entrepreneur & pioneer with over 30 years’ experience in the telecoms & technology sector. As Chief Executive, Michael Tobin OBE led TelecityGroup plc, a leading FTSE250 Technology company from 2002 to 2014. He joined Redbus in 2002 delisting it from the main market to AIM, & then took it private, winning the London Business Awards “Business Turnaround of the Year” award in 2005. After engineering the merger with Telecity, & the acquisition of Globix he successfully re-listed TelecityGroup in October 2007 winning the accolade of UK Innovation Awards IPO of the year 2008 & the techMARK Personality of the year in the same year. Subsequently, he grew the business organically & acquired businesses in Manchester, Helsinki, Dublin, Sofia, Istanbul & Warsaw transforming the company from £6m market cap in 2002 to being a top performer in the FTSE250 worth over £2.5Bn, being recognized as Britain’s Most admired Tech Company in 2012. As a Non Exec Director, Tobin was instrumental in transforming PACNET in Hong Kong from a Sub Sea Cable operator to a successful Datacenter operator culminating in its sale in 2015 to Telstra for $800m. In 2017 he was the key driver of the sale of Itconic in Spain to Equinix generating over 7x money for Carlyle in just 19 months, and as a NED oversaw the sale of Datapipe in New York to Rackspace and Basefarm in Norway to Orange on behalf of Abry Partners. In 2016 he slept in the streets to raise money and awareness for Action for Children and raised over £100k running 40 Marathons in 40 consecutive days for the 40th anniversary of the Princes Trust. In 2014 he was honored in the Queens New Years Honours List with the Order of the British Empire (OBE) medal for Services to the Digital Economy. Also in 2014 he launched his first book, “Forget Strategy, Get Results” to great acclaim, and his second book, ”Live, Love, Work, Prosper” was released in 2018. Founders365 is hosted by business coach Steven Haggerty and shares 365 insights from 365 founders during 2020.

Patrick McGlory is the founder of IntrospectData.He previously served as a Sr. Consultant for Amazon Web Services, a Platform Engineer with DataPipe, CTO of DualSpark, and more. We discussed startups, technology and the tools needed to become a consultant.  Support this Podcast & get Exclusive Perks by going to patreon.com/turningpointpodcast  Take a look at all the Free Resources by visiting: turningpointpodcast.com  

Patrick McGlory is the founder of IntrospectData.He previously served as a Sr. Consultant for Amazon Web Services, a Platform Engineer with DataPipe, CTO of DualSpark, and more. We discussed startups, technology and the tools needed to become a consultant.  Support this Podcast & get Exclusive Perks by going to patreon.com/turningpointpodcast  Take a look at all the Free Resources by visiting: turningpointpodcast.com  

Patrick McGlory is the founder of IntrospectData.He previously served as a Sr. Consultant for Amazon Web Services, a Platform Engineer with DataPipe, CTO of DualSpark, and more. We discussed startups, technology and the tools needed to become a consultant.  Support this Podcast & get Exclusive Perks by going to patreon.com/turningpointpodcast  Take a look at all the Free Resources by visiting: turningpointpodcast.com  

You know those moments when numerous people tell you that you "NEEEED" to talk to someone because they think you'll instantly get along, and then you finally meet the person and, in fact, you discover they were spot on? Well, this episode was one of those moments. Paul is a fascinating character with experience in marketing, sales, sales engineering and... traveling the world creating and playing music for world dignitaries. We cover what it was like watching Rackspace evolve from just a few dozen employees to a few thousand while honing in on the customer first culture that has helped the company scale so fast over the past twenty plus years. I also address Rackspace's shift to adopting a managed public cloud service offering, acquiring Datapipe, and the strategic decision made years ago to focus on Open Stack. Listen and learn folks. Listen. and. Learn.

Ed Laczynski is the CEO of Zype, a B2B technology company that enables OTT video distribution for media companies. Prior to Zype, Ed served as SVP Cloud Services at Datapipe and then CEO of Clearlogin. Earlier in his career, he worked as a software engineer in the finance and advertising industries before launching his first startup, a tech consulting firm called Ltech. In this episode, we explore everything related to Over The Top (OTT) video distribution. This technological shift is fundamentally changing the way consumers watch video from traditional broadcast and cable to Internet-delivered content. Ed explains the different business models for OTT video, from SVOD for serialized content with loyal audiences to TVOD for niche content and AVOD for mass-market audiences. We also consider the economic and strategic imperatives for entertainment brands to build their own service versus licensing content to a distributor like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon. And finally, we debate OTT video’s greatest challenges: content discovery, fierce competition for audience, and monetization. Host: James Creech ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates about the key issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the rise of multi-channel networks (MCNs) and the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital video. Follow All Things Video on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for new episodes and updates! ABOUT THE HOST James Creech is an entrepreneur focused on technology, online video, and digital media. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Paladin, the essential influencer marketing platform for media companies, agencies, and brands. OUR SPONSOR This episode is brought to you by Shareability, a social content company that makes videos people actually want to watch. They work with brands and influencers to create content that explodes across the web through social sharing and organic discovery. For years, Shareability has been topping the charts with crowd captivating videos for brands like Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Sony Entertainment, and Cristiano Ronaldo’s ROC, delivering over 1B views, 5M shares, and 50,000 press mentions. Check out some examples of their work on shareability.com. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

The DevOps kids have decided to come up with a new term “observability.” We get to the bottom of the WTF barrel on what that is - it sounds like a good word-project. Also, there’s a spate of kubernetes news, as always, and some interesting acquisitions. Plus, a micro-iOS 11 review. Meta, follow-up, etc. Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/sdt) - like anyone who starts these things, I have no idea WTF it is, if it’s a good idea, or if I should be ashamed. Need some product/market fit. Check out the Software Defined Talk Members Only White-Paper Exiguous podcast over there. Join us all in the SDT Slack (http://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/slack). Is “observability” just “instrumentation”? Write-up (https://medium.com/@copyconstruct/monitoring-and-observability-8417d1952e1c) from Cindy Sridharan. This guy (https://medium.com/@steve.mushero/observability-vs-monitoring-is-it-about-active-vs-passive-or-dev-vs-ops-14b24ddf182f): “Thinking directionally, Monitoring is the passive collection of Metrics, logs, etc. about a system, while Observability is the active dissemination of information from the system. Looking at it another way, from the external ‘supervisor’ perspective, I monitor you, but you make yourself Observable.” So, yes: if developers actually make their code monitorable and manageable…easy street! It’s a good detailing of that important part of DevOps. Cloud Native Java (http://amzn.to/2jPJHcv) has a good example with the default “observability” attributes for apps, and then an overview of Zipkin tracing. Weekly k8s News Heptio gets funding (https://www.geekwire.com/2017/heptio-raises-25m-series-b-funding-round-kubernetes-takes-world/), now “has raised $33.5 million in funding to date.” I think we’ll cover this press release in a WP episode. Also, something called “StackPointCloud” now with the Istio (https://thenewstack.io/stackpointcloud-drops-istio-service-mesh-integration/). Mesosphere adding K8s support (https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/06/mesosphere-says-its-not-bowing-to-kubernetes/) - “Guagenti also noted that he believes that Mesosphere is currently a leader in the container space, both in terms of the number of containers its users run in production and in terms of revenue (though the company sadly didn’t share any numbers).” "I think it’s fair to call Kubernetes the de facto standard for how enterprises will do container orchestration,” Derrick Harris (http://news.architecht.io/issues/with-oracle-on-board-kubernetes-has-to-be-the-de-facto-standard-for-container-orchestration-73880). Is Kubernetes Repeating OpenStack’s Mistakes? (https://www.mirantis.com/blog/is-kubernetes-repeating-openstacks-mistakes/) - Boris throwing bombs Meanwhile, an abstract of a containers penetration study (https://redmonk.com/fryan/2017/09/10/cloud-native-technologies-in-the-fortune-100/), from RedMonk: "Docker, is running at 71% across Fortune 100 companies. Kubernetes usage is running in some form at 54%, and Cloud Foundry usage is at 50%” This update from the Cloud Foundry Foundation (https://www.cloudfoundry.org/update-containers-2017-research-shows/) is a little more, er, “responsible” in pointing out flaws. Instead it just says there’s lots of growth and tire-kicking: 2016/2017 y/y shows those evaluating containers went up from 31% to 42%, while “using” ticked up a tad from 22% to 25%, n=540. Oracle’s in the CNCF (https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/13/oracle-joins-the-cloud-native-computing-foundation-as-a-platinum-member/) club! K8s on Oracle Linux, K8s for Oracle Public Cloud. “At this point, there really can’t be any doubt that Kubernetes is winning the container orchestration wars, given that virtually every major player is now backing the project, both financially and with code contributions.” James checks in on Red Hat (http://redmonk.com/jgovernor/2017/09/21/red-hat-is-pretty-good-at-being-red-hat/). (https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/13/oracle-joins-the-cloud-native-computing-foundation-as-a-platinum-member/) Acquisitions & more! Rackspace acquires Datapipe (https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/rackspace-acquires-datapipe-as-it-looks-to-expand-its-managed-cloud-business/) “The reason we’re buying them is that we want to extend our leadership in multi-cloud services,” Rackspace chief strategy officer Matt Bradley told me. “It’s a sign and signal that we’re going for it.” Bradley expects that the combined company will make Rackspace the largest private cloud player and the largest managed hosting service. Datadog acquires Logmatic.io to add log management to its cloud monitoring platform (https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/07/datadog-acquires-logmatic-io-to-add-log-management-to-its-cloud-monitoring-platform/) Puppet Acquires Distelli (https://www.geekwire.com/2017/puppet-acquires-distelli-bolster-cloud-computing-automation-platform/), known for their Kubernetes dashboard. Jay Lyman at 451 (https://451research.com/report-short?entityId=93381). Sizing Puppet: “The company has grown to more than 500 employees, and has estimated annual revenue in the $100m range.” Coverage from Susan Hall: “What we haven’t had up to this point is all the requisite automation for moving infrastructure code and application code through any kind of automated delivery lifecycle” and now they gots that. https://thenewstack.io/puppet-will-extend-infrastructure-automation-capabilities-distelli-acquisition/ “In May, the company launched its Kubernetes dashboard K8S. It allows users to connect repositories, build images from source, then deploy them to that Kubernetes cluster. You can also set up automated pipelines to push images from one cluster to another, promote software from test/dev to prod, quickly roll back and do all this in the context of one or more Kubernetes clusters… The Kubernetes service is offered as a hosted service or in an on-prem version. It provides notifications through Slack.” Google pays $1.1 billion for HTC team and non-exclusive IP license (https://www.axios.com/login-2487682498.html?rebelltitem=2&utm_medium=linkshare&utm_campaign=organic#rebelltitem2) Security Corner The Apple Effect? — Why BMW might get rid of car keys (http://www.autonews.com/article/20170915/OEM06/170919789/why-bmw-might-get-rid-of-car-keys) Don’t blame Apache — EQUIFAX OFFICIALLY HAS NO EXCUSE (https://www.wired.com/story/equifax-breach-no-excuse/) Is there anything to do here? Setup layers of credit cards? Require Touch ID (etc.) approval of all financial decisions and transactions in your “account”? Food & Safety like inspectors for security? Hackers respond to Face ID on the iPhone X (http://bgr.com/2017/09/21/iphone-x-release-date-soon-hackers-eye-face-id/) iOS 11 Coté has been running the beta. It seems fine. There’s the usual Re-arrangement of how some gestures work that’s jarring at first, but after using it for awhile, you forget what they even are. The extra control center stuff is nice. The Files.app is interesting, but not too featureful. The new photo formats are annoying because, you know, non-Apple things need to support it (which they seem to?) Bonus Links Coté gives up on defining DevOps, and more Interview about DevOpsDays Auckland (https://www.infoq.com/news/2017/09/michael-cote-devops-days-nz). (https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/13/oracle-joins-the-cloud-native-computing-foundation-as-a-platinum-member/) Is Solaris dead yet? Strongly confirmed rumors that Oracle is shutting it down (http://www.zdnet.com/article/sun-set-oracle-closes-down-last-sun-product-lines/). This guy has written a big Solaris-brain to Linux-brain manifesto/guide (http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2017-09-05/solaris-to-linux-2017.html), plus: “[n]owadays, Sun is a cobweb-covered sign at the Facebook Menlo Park campus, kept as a warning to the next generation.” SICK BURN! Layoffs and more (http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2017/09/04/the-sudden-death-and-eternal-life-of-solaris/): “In particular, that employees who had given their careers to the company were told of their termination via a pre-recorded call — “robo-RIF’d” in the words of one employee — is both despicable and cowardly.” HPE We Can See The New Hewlett Clearly Now, Says CEO Whitman (http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2017/09/05/hpe-we-can-see-the-new-hewlett-clearly-now-says-ceo-whitman/?mod=BOLBlog) - AI in storage arrays, Docker in OneView. Clearly (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hp-enterprise-has-yet-another-confusing-plan-to-simplify-itself-2017-09-05)? Making money (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/05/hpe-earnings-q3-2017.html). They bought CTP!? (https://www.cloudtp.com/doppler/hewlett-packard-enterprise-to-acquire-cloud-technology-partners/) Selling hardware to cloud providers is rough (https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/09/06/prospects-leaner-meaner-hpe/). Huawei New board (http://talkincloud.com/cloud-services/chinas-huawei-braces-board-revamp-western-markets-beckon). Microsoft app support. We can all agree on food Someone has to pay attention to this real world stuff (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming/). This Tiny Country Feeds the World More on VMware/AWS The possible failures in the partnership (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-01/how-vmware-s-partnership-with-amazon-could-end-up-backfiring) - sort of an odd article in that the larger point is “maybe it won’t work.” Meanwhile, Matt Asay does some loopty-loops on it all (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/11/kubernetes_envy/). JEE Code put in github (http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/06/oracle_java_ee_java_se_github/). They’re giving it over to the Eclipse Foundation (https://blogs.oracle.com/theaquarium/opening-up-ee-update). Probably a good idea. VMware’s OpenStack Little report form 451 (https://451research.com/report-short?entityId=93303&type=mis&alertid=693&contactid=0033200001wgKCKAA2&utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=market-insight&utm_content=newsletter&utm_term=93303-VMware+sheds+free+version+of+its+OpenStack+distribution). “Going forward, users pay a onetime $995-per-CPU socket license fee, in addition to ongoing support.” Recommendations Brandon: Prophets of Rage (http://prophetsofrage.com/). Matt: American Gods (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gods_(TV_series)), the TV show. Zero History (https://www.amazon.com/Zero-History-Blue-William-Gibson-ebook/dp/B003YL4AGC/): finale(?) to William Gibson’s Blue Ant trilogy LOT (https://www.lot2046.com/): a subscription-based service which distributes a basic set of clothing, footwear, essential self-care products, accessories, and media content. Engineering the End of Fashion (https://www.ssense.com/en-gb/editorial/fashion/engineering-the-end-of-fashion) Coté: Rick & Morty (http://amzn.to/2xrHo3L). These cultural guides (http://www.commisceo-global.com/country-guides) are fucking awesome! See America (http://www.commisceo-global.com/country-guides/usa-guide), Australia (http://www.commisceo-global.com/country-guides/australia-guide), and Latvia (http://www.commisceo-global.com/country-guides/latvia-guide) (no one sang at the meals I was at!). Cardenal Mendoza (https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/p/996/cardenal-mendoza-brandy-solera-gran-reserva), brandy de jerez (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandy_de_Jerez). And, you know, cognac/brandy in general - be a fucking adult already, you damn kids.

In this episode of the ARCHITECHT Show, Packet co-founder and CEO Zachary Smith explains his company's attempt to carve out its own cloud computing niche by offering "unopinionated" access to bare metal resources. Among other things, Smith discusses Packet's audience of tinkerers and DIYers; the unique benefits of custom hardware as a service; the challenge of trying to bootstrap a business in world of cloud giants; Packet's plan to power the advent of edge computing; and Smith's own journey from Juilliard to cloud hosting. In the news segment, co-hosts Derrick Harris and Barb Darrow (Fortune) discuss Rackspace buying Datapipe, Cloudera buying Fast Forward Labs, and Amazon's search for a new HQ.

For an IT organization to be successful in rapid cloud assessment or iterative migration of their infrastructure and applications to AWS, they need to effectively plan and execute on a strategic cloud strategy that focuses not only on cloud, but also big data, DevOps, and security.