Futurum Tech Webcast

In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Interview Series, Futurum co-founder Shelly Kramer hosts a roundtable discussion on how automation is being used in exciting ways in the Oil & Gas industry. Her guests include Brad Onofrio, Sr. Director for Sales Ops for Calumet, Frank Wilson, Business Solutions Manager at Patterson-UTI Management Services and Jon Gilman, CEO and founder of Clear Software. They're conversation included:

• Brad Onofrio sharing some information about Calumet and describing some of the customers they serve as well as some of the challenges the industry faces.
• Frank Wilson gave an overview of Patterson-UTi Drilling, what the company does, who they serve, and some of the challenges they've faced in a year that was difficult before a global pandemic came around.
• Jon Gilman introduced us to his company, Clear Software, a bit about his career backstory, as well as what he and his team at Clear Software are doing in the Oil & Gas industry as they work with energy companies who are interested in intelligent automation.
• Frank shared his experiences on some of the areas at Patterson UTI where they have implemented automation technologies. He candidly shared their strategy, their challenges, and what he sees for the future of automation at Patterson UTI.
• Brad talked about what's happening at Calumet as it relates to automation throughout the organization, the challenges they've faced and the exciting opportunities they see ahead for automation and intelligent automation within the Oil & Gas industry.
• Jon closed our roundtable discussion with some examples of other use cases from Clear Software's energy customers, as well as even what customers in other industries are looking for as it relates to automation and intelligent automation, and what he sees ahead in the coming two to five years.

This is a great discussion and one conversation you don't want to miss.

In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast – Women in Tech series, host Shelly Kramer has a conversation with Akanksha Mehrotra, VP Marketing for Dell Technologies on Demand Program and Services & Dell Digital Bus about her work on Project APEX, the trend to everything-as-a-service and end-to-end aaS that we are starting to see a lot of in the marketplace.

This is particularly timely because companies of all sizes are finding that IT operations are just too complex, they are having frustrating experiences with the inconsistency between on prem and off prem management and operations, and they are also dealing with the reality of both a global pandemic and a distributed workforce, along with a dearth of skilled tech talent.

Dell's Project APEX is the expansion of the consumption-based offering that Dell initially brought to market in 2019 and Akanksha explained that the offering is all about simplifying how Dell Technologies' customers can consume IT as a service. Here are some key highlights of our conversation:

• APEX is designed to deliver a radically simplified experience, featuring pay-as-you-go and pay-as-you-use options.
• Akanksha explained what she sees as the reason there's growing interest in as-a-Service offerings for on-prem infrastructure.
• She also explained why Dell Technologies' is doubling down on as-a-service offerings, which is largely in response to what they see as customer desire for ease and agility, along with the attraction of security, performance, low-latency, and control that you get with an on-prem solution
• She shared that an additional strategic move here is that Dell Technologies is looking to serve a wider base of customers than only the enterprise, and infrastructure on demand, wherever they need to run their workloads, along with a pay-as-you-go solution, is attractive to a wide range of organizations of all sizes.

Lastly, Akanksha and I we discussed Dell Technologies' Cloud Console, which is a single web interface that customers can use to navigate their entire IT journeys. Cloud Console will provide the foundation for Dell's Project APEX, and the solution is meant to unify the company's as-a-Service and cloud strategies, technology offerings, and go-to-market efforts. APEX aims to provide a consistent as-a-Service experience wherever a company runs its workloads, including on-premises, edge locations and public clouds.

All in all, our conversation was an interesting one and one I think you'll be interested in if you're thinking about your organization's cloud journey, simplifying IT operations, and also exploring Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings to see how they might benefit you. Dell's Project Apex is rolling out in beta now and Akanksha provides more information in our interview on what's ahead on that front.

This episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast – Interview Series is part of our recently launched Women in Tech Series. I'm thrilled to have as my guest today Lisa Joy Rosner, Senior Vice President of Brand and Digital for Oracle. She leads the team that is responsible for all things around the verbal and visual identity of the company. But more than that, and like me, Lisa Joy is living the life of a busy executive while also managing to raise four kids in the process.

Our conversation was intended to tackle a tech-related topic, but once we realized we had so much in common, we decided to quickly pivot and discuss something even more important — women in tech and the impact of COVID-19.

The stark reality of the impact of a global pandemic on women is not pretty. Women have been three times more likely to have their careers impacted in some way by the pandemic compared to men. According to the National Women's Law Center nearly 2.2 million women left the workforce in 2020. And, despite the positive job market gains in the last few months, women are re-entering the workforce at a slower pace, if at all. Many continue to stay home, because the strain of being an educator, caretaker, and employee has been too much.

Women in Tech and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Lisa Joy and I have both lived lives that have been largely comprised of balancing work and family. We've also both witnessed firsthand the impact that the last year has had on our female colleagues, so we thought it was time to have a discussion about what leaders in tech — and other industries too — can do to help ease the strain of the pandemic for everyone, but especially for women.

Our conversation covered:

• The importance of empathy for ourselves, colleagues, customers, and partners.
• How understanding and flexibility from leaders can go a long way.
• The little gestures that make a big difference for employees.
• The mental and emotional toll the pandemic is having on employees and how we as leaders need to do a better job.

It was a fascinating conversation and an incredibly important one to be had right now. No matter where you are in the workforce hierarchy, this is definitely be one episode you don't want to miss.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Podcast – Interview Series I am joined by Mike Nash, Chief Technologist and VP of Customer Experience and Portfolio Strategy, Personal Systems at HP. Mike is responsible for making sure products and technology that HP develops meets the needs of customers — a vital role in today's business climate.

Our discussion centered on how HP is delivering on the future of work and play at CES 2021 and was a great addition to my conversation with HP's Alex Cho on The Six Five Podcast with Patrick Moorhead. Be sure to check out that conversation as well.

The Future of Work and Play at CES 2021

My conversation with Mike also revolved around the following:

• An exploration into HP's 2021 CES theme "The Three C's" and how it ties into 2020's theme "The PC is Essential"

• How remote work and hybrid work might continue to evolve this year

• How HP is building the solutions to meet the changing needs of consumers

• What HP is excited about sharing at CES 2021 including the new advancements being made in software and services

CES is an exciting time of year for tech companies as they launch new products. And even though this year is remote, the advancements that are being announced, including a few from HP are going to continue to move digital transformation forward. This episode is a must listen for anyone interested in the technology that will continue to transform the way we work and live.

Disclaimer: This show is for information and entertainment purposes only. While we will discuss publicly traded companies on this show, the contents of this show should not be taken as investment advice.

In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, I was joined by my colleague, Fred McClimans, to take a look at the Russian government hack of the multiple government agencies, likely some Fortune 500 companies including telecoms and global accounting firms — and counting. We explored the timeline as we know it today, how the hack happened and the role Texas-based SolarWinds software played in the hack, how it was discovered, and the role the Three As: acquisition, aggregation, and activation of data play in a cyberattack.

For starters, it's safe to say the U.S. in general has been stunned by this attack, and with good reason. This is easily the biggest crises the NSA has encountered and the threat and risk of exposure for critical information, security, and infrastructure is high. Early assessments point to a state actor, Russia's S.V.R., a successor to the KGB, as the mastermind behind the cyberattack. The hackers, known by the nicknames APT29 or Cozy Bear are part of the SVR and are the same group that hacked the White House email servers and the U.S. State Department during the Obama administration. Our discussion included:

• The timeline of the attack, first discovered by FireEye, a global cybersecurity firm, about a week ago. After reviewing some 50,000 lines of source code, the FireEye team discovered the culprit — a backdoor vulnerability in a product made by SolarWinds, a software provider serving all five branches of the U.S. military, the Pentagon, the State Department, NASA, the National Security Agency, the Department of Justice and the White House. Also 10 leading U.S. telecoms companies and top five U.S. accounting firms are SolarWinds customers, along with many other of the Fortune 500.
• The Treasury Department and Commerce Departments were the first breaches discovered, and we now know those affected includes the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, whose Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is in charge of — well, cybersecurity, and there are no doubt more targets that will be discovered as the investigation continues.
• FireEye said that its investigation had identified "a global campaign targeting" governments and the private sector that, beginning in the spring had slipped malware into a SolarWinds update. This malware gave hackers remote access to a network, making everything visible.
• SolarWinds estimates some 18,000 users, both private and government entities, unwittingly downloaded the Russian-tainted malware as part of a routine software update.

The attack was "the day you prepare against" said Sarah Bloom Raskin, the deputy Treasury secretary under the Obama administration, and it's safe to say there are cybersecurity experts the world over who've been operating on little sleep since the hack was discovered.

We talked in depth about the three As of a hack (this one or any cyberattack) as being very simple: it's all about data. Data Acquisition, Data Aggregation, and Data Activation. Getting it, organizing it, and then figuring out how best to use it to achieve your goals, nefarious or otherwise.

The CISA issued an emergency directive this past Sunday to power down the SolarWinds software. While that is a logical, and important move, what it means is that a whole lot of very large organizations are likely "flying blind" without the use of software they've long relied on for access and visibility into their systems.

This hack is a direct hit to the digital supply chain and is an example of what happens above the operating system. It no doubt will be a security event that will likely have far-reaching impact, and we're certain there are many interesting discoveries still ahead.

We've done research on security and the role it plays in the enterprise and in governments for both Dell and Cisco in recent months. If you're interested in security and what business leaders are thinking about their organizations' security, we encourage you to download and read this research. You'll find it here:

Four Keys to Navigating the Hardware Security Journey (done in partnership with Dell)

Unified Communications and Collaboration: The Primacy of Security, Privacy, and Trust (done in partnership with Cisco)

Unified Communications and Collaboration: The Essential Differentiators for 2020 and Beyond (done in partnership with Cisco)

In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Interview Series, which we streamed on LinkedIn Live, I'm joined by Don Schuerman, the CTO of Pega for a conversation about the culture of digital transformation based on a recently published Futurum Research report commissioned by Pega.

The Futurum report: Four Insights on the Culture of Digital Transformation Today, was the result of a survey of over 500 business leaders and general staff across North America, EMEA and APAC, with an industry split across automotive, communications, financial services, healthcare, media, and the public sector.

The goal of this research was to do something different from all the other research on digital transformation out there. So much of DX conversation is around processes and technology, but we wanted to look at the people part of that equation.

Instead of focusing exclusively on gleaning insights from the C-Suite and middle managers, we wanted to explore how what workers throughout the organization as a whole thought about their company's digital transformation efforts, how different roles contribute to driving digital transformation initiatives.

Lastly, we tackled what we called the "real meat" of this study, and the fact that it will hopefully serve as a wake-up call to senior leaders about how to successfully think about the company's digital transformation journey. The key really is about culture and working to create a holistic culture of digital transformation where everyone is involved, and everyone plays a role. In addition, there are a few other things that business leaders can do to make this a reality — and you'll want to not miss that part of our conversation. Don also shared some insights on how Pega is working with customers to help overcome the challenges they face, and that's all about collaboration, transparency, and customer experience.

Download the report today: Four Insights on the Culture of Digital Transformation Today

In this BIZTALKS roundtable I recently hosted, sponsored by AT&T Business, I was joined by Kevin Jackson, CEO of GC Globalnet, Helen Yu, Founder & CEO of Tigon Advisory Corp, and Jason Inskeep, Director of the 5G Center of Excellence at AT&T.

Our conversation in this roundtable discussion was focused on the fact that technology is getting smarter at an incredibly rapid pace. From traffic-routing networks to autonomous vehicles, the future of business will be automated, intelligent, and connected. With that in mind, we wanted to tackle the topic of how business leaders can guide their technology investments for the coming year and beyond. Making smart investments in the right emerging and existing technologies will allow organizations of all sizes to not only survive, but also be competitive in 2021 and beyond.

This panel of incredibly smart business leaders discussed:

• The current mood among business leaders right now and what we see ahead in 2021
• The essential tech investments that business leaders should make next year
• How to make long-term plans around investing in technology
• What processes and skills business leaders should be looking for to make full use of their existing technology
• The indicators business leaders should be keeping an eye on throughout the next year to guide investments in the years to come
• The no-brainer tech investments our panel recommends for Q1 of 2021
• The importance of assessing tech talent, infrastructure needs and other assessments — and why that's important to do
• Tips for making businesses more resilient and more capable of embracing and succeeding at digital transformation in 2021 and beyond.
• What to stop doing and/or investing in in 2021 and beyond.
• The skills that businesses should be looking to train and/or hire for in the coming year
• The role 5G is playing and will play for business in 2021

And be sure and join me, Tamara McCleary, Bernard Marr, Kevin Jackson, Glen Gilmore, Dez Blanchfield, and Jason Inskeep on Wednesday, December 9, 2020 at 12pm CST over on Twitter for another one of @ATTBusiness's #BIZTALKS Twitter chat, where we'll be exploring more about 2021 tech trends. You can find the chat here and we'd love to have you participate. Bring your amazing questions and your insights and jump into the chat.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Podcast - Interview Series I am joined by Cristina Rodriguez, Vice President for the Data Center Group and General Manager of the Wireless Access Network Division for Intel. Cristina is part of the global organization that is driving change through 5G network build-out, edge computing, improving AI, and improving radio access networks. It's an exciting space to be in right now as the demand for faster networks and easier access to data increases across enterprise organizations.

Our conversation covered several aspects of network transformation including a broad overview of digital connectivity and networking. We also explored how Intel has focused on the transformation of the network and the importance of that role this year. 2020, while crazy in a lot of aspects, really created new opportunities for the growth of 5G and network transformation.

The Transformation of Network Infrastructure

My conversation with Cristina also revolved around the following:

• How virtualization and transformation of the network will enable opportunities in the future.
• The role Intel has played in transforming the network architecture from core to edge to access. Specifically the few things the company has focused on in the last few years to deliver this transformation to customers.
• An exploration of the partnerships Intel has made to achieve the core to edge network transformation.
• Intel's thinking around RAN transformation and what they anticipate for 2021.
• A brief overview of Intel's partnerships with Amdocs, Verizon and VMware.

Where We Go From Here

2020 proved that we need faster connectivity speeds which means we need better networks and stronger infrastructure. Intel realizes this and is partnering with various organizations to build and deliver the solutions that we need. If you'd like to read more about what Intel is doing in this area, check out their website. These changes will impact all of us in the coming years. If you are involved in network transformation in your organization make sure to put this on your 'must listen' list.

Disclaimer: This show is for information and entertainment purposes only. While we will discuss publicly traded companies on this show, the contents of this show should not be taken as investment advice.

Futurum analysts Daniel Newman and Olivier Blanchard discuss in detail the allegations of the EU against Amazon.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Podcast – Interview Series I am joined by Jeff Scheaffer, VP of Product Management and Strategy at Cisco. Jeff leads the group focused on networking across data centers, campuses, branches, and the wide area connections — a hot topic right now given the current global situation. Digitization of the network is really the underpinning of a lot that is going on in the changing business world. Developing this foundation for your organization has never been more important.

Our conversation covered several aspects of network transformation, AI in the network, and intent-based networking. Jeff also shared an executive's perspective on what is really going on in the enterprise. It was a fascinating conversation and one you don't want to miss.

Intent-Based Networking is Driving Change

My conversation with Jeff also revolved around the following:

• How businesses and people shifted in 2020 and the various pieces of infrastructure that made it all possible.

• The transition to digitizing the network in order to improve the application experience driven by the concept of intent-based networking.

• The security challenges companies must overcome moving to a zero-trust environment.

• Ways Cisco is taking intent-based networking to the next level in the coming years including how they are leveraging the automation of the digital environment.

• The benefits for organizations who are able to turn to automation to manage their network environments.

• How Cisco plans to drive value and innovation for customers in the future.

In my opinion, the intent-based networking and the changes that Jeff talked about will be a key component to driving digital transformation in the future. If you are part of maintaining the network for your organization then this episode is one that needs to be on your 'must listen' list.

Disclaimer: This show is for information and entertainment purposes only. While we will discuss publicly traded companies on this show, the contents of this show should not be taken as investment advice.