The Data Binge

David Moricca has been the CEO and Founder of what is now Socialive for over the past 10 years, as it has pivoted and evolved with changes and trending in digital media, live streaming, and now the emergence of video in the enterprise. Socialive is an enterprise grade video creation, production, and deployment platform that allows for the democratization of video capture and content generation.

David has over 15 years of experience in leadership and innovation in digital media all up, with some familiar experiences at places like McKinsey & Company in his earlier career, to Scholastic where as a corporate entrepreneur, David focused on creating a new line of business based on digital learning platforms. An attorney by trade, David has a J.D. in law from Harvard Law School, and generally brings a wealth of perspective to the conversation as we talk about the many cross overs and nuances in David's journey that has gotten him to where he's at today with Socialive. The need for video creation has led to an explosion of content generation as businesses ramp up their internal and external communications, and we'll dive deeper into what David and his team have been busy doing pre and current through this pandemic era.

Things we discuss in depth:

-The evolution of video creation, and the difference between virtual conferencing and scalable video content creation

-The power of creating dynamic video presentations as immersive experiences that engages audiences, in both gated and ungated experiences, and the emergence of LIVE

-How COVID has inspired authenticity in communication, and why the logistics of video production should never hamper the story telling components of organizational messaging

-The importance of democratized capture of video, and why execution, speed, and quality are more effective than the legacy approaches of high quality video production - example use cases included on how agile video can unlock creativity and innovation

-How business leaders are focusing on using internal communications for business continuity, and how it can be used to ignite organizational cultural change and transformation

-Entrepreneurship and raising capital, the challenges and advantages to innovation and talent development across difference market dynamics including in NYC, Silicon Valley, and LA

Thanks for listening!

Ways to contact David:

LinkedIn

Resources:

Socialive Platform

45 Visual Content Marketing Statistics You Should Know in 2020

Sproutsocial: Social Media Video Tips and Strategies

Mixify, LIVE streaming EDM

Books mentioned:

Separate But Not Equal: The Dream and the Struggle

Learn more at www.thedatabinge.com

Connect with Derek:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekwesleyrussell/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN1c5mzapLZ55ciPgngqRMg/featured

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drussnetwork/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/drussnetwork

Medium: https://medium.com/@derekwesleyrussell

Email: [email protected]

Interested in starting your own podcast? Some candid advice here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-start-podcast-3-step-gono-go-beginners-guide-derek-russell

Today's episode features the recording of a LinkedIn LIVE broadcast via Simply Tech LIVE, a program that Ali Mazaheri and I are hosting now on a weekly basis to showcase as much relevant technology and innovation as possible, as it relates to the COVID challenges in healthcare and all up global business. (Date of recording, Friday, March 27th, 2020)

The Topic: "The Crisis Management App for Emergency Response - Organizational Communication for Preventative Measures and Minimal Exposure", a solution that was rapidly developed internally with Microsoft and Schlumberger (Microsoft customer and global oilfield services provider) , to tackle challenges with organizational communications during the current times of crisis.

Guest Speakers:

Jacqui (Cuffe) McNamara: Microsoft Power Platform US Lead - Marketing & Operations

Grant Earl: Principal Collaboration Technology Architect

Items discussed:

-What organizations are struggling with, from communications to establishing a reliable single source of truth for ongoing updates and critical facts

-Application in depth, a multi-component solution that can be assembled quickly cross organizationally, the templates and the code/documentation needed, available on Github - with key premium features currently being made available at no cost

We're all wishing you and your families the very most health and safety in the present and future.

Thank you for Listening!

Simply Tech LIVE LinkedIn Page

How to contact guests:

Jacqui (Cuffe) McNamara: Microsoft Power Platform US Lead - Marketing & Operations: LinkedIn

Grant Earl: Principal Collaboration Technology Architect: LinkedIn

Resources:

Simply Tech LIVE Broadcast: “The COVID-19 App” for Emergency Response - Organizational Communication for Preventative Measures and Minimal Exposure

Corona Virus Self Checker

Bing Covid-19 Tracker

Schlumberger Stay Safe App

Github Link to Application

Today's discussion features Uthappa Kattera Chengappa, a Principal Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft, and his job in the organization from a day to day perspective is to help large organizations, many of which logos that you use or are familiar with on a daily basis, stand up new tech to support their business interests, specifically utilizing Microsoft's Azure Hyperscale Cloud as a backbone for doing everything from hosting applications and databases, to providing enterprise grade networking and security, all the way down to hosting machine learning models and providing workspaces to run python code.

Uthappa covers options for establishing remote working environments in Azure, a technical discussion, and significantly IT focused (far more technical than past episodes as we get into the depth of the remote worker challenges), but for the laymen, people are having to work remotely due to social distancing guidance. From their laptop at home, workers need access to their businesses applications cross regionally, they need to collaborate, they need to access data and resources to continue business as usual, and without all these capabilities they would be unable to service their very own customers and maintain business continuity.

High level discussion points:

-We take a little time to discuss how each of us are being impacted personally, and some stories that bring us together

-How organizations today are being impacted by COVID-19, and real challenges they are facing that we are learning day to day

-Why depending on the cloud matters right now, and how Azure is being used to support business continuity

-Solutions for Remote Working environments that we have learned from our customers, that are now being built and architected at scale to provide fluid remote work

-Helping the largest call center in the world, move their contact center management workforce to a "work from home" environment, scenarios and learnings from this engagement

We're all wishing you and your families the very most health and safety in the present and future.

Thank you for listening!

How to contact Uthappa:

LinkedIn

Simply Tech LIVE LinkedIn Page

Resources:

Simply Tech LIVE Episode #3 LinkedIn LIVE Broadcast

Coronavirus (COVID-19) live map tracker from Microsoft Bing

CDC Coronavirus Health Checker

Working from home statistics

Microsoft Azure Windows Virtual Desktop

Microsoft Azure

Learn more at www.thedatabinge.com

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Today's episode features an audio recording of a LinkedIn Live Video Broadcast of a LIVE show, Simply Tech LIVE , that my co-host Ali Mazaheri, and I host at the Microsoft Technology Center in Irvine, and now virtually for the time being. The mission of the LIVE Broadcast is to focus on the evolving landscape of technology through the lens of Microsoft focus areas, our partner ecosystem, and our customers.

The LIVE discussion features Kevin Orbaker, Chief Technology Architect at the Microsoft Technology Center in Irvine, and we talk specifically about why, It's never been a more important time to utilize technology to quantify and augment behavior that can enhance operational efficiency - and more recently, this could mean reduction of both highly-preventable infections and spread of disease.

A very relevant topic in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we talk about a real life solution hosted with Microsoft IoT and data service technologies. PURELL SMARTLINK, a set of technology solutions from GOJO (inventor of Purell), and how this solution, on Microsoft's cloud Azure, streamlines the hand sanitization process with motion sensors, internet-connected dispensers and a cloud platform that collects and analyzes data.

The CDC claims that hand-washing reduces incidents of common ailments by nearly 60 percent in some cases., and quantifying behavior is a critical component to augmenting behavior.

We talk through the following in the chat:

1) Overview of a LIVE demo of the hand sanitization process - internet-connected dispensers with data analysis in the cloud

2) Motion sensor use cases and other data input feeds for better patient care and operational efficiency

3) Additional IoT use cases and solutions that exist today in Azure, complexities of IoT, and IIot and industrial applications

4) Lastly we talk about World Down Syndrome Day, with is March 21st, the importance of awareness around down syndrome, we talk about challenges of raising kids with disabilities, and what parents have learned from it, and how technology is aiding in these areas

Thanks for listening:

How to reach Kevin:

LinkedIN

GitHub

Twitter

How to watch Simply Tech LIVE

Simply Tech LIVE | LInkedIn LIVE On-demand Feed

LinkedIn Page

Resources:

Handwashing: Clean Hands Save Lives

2016 IoT Attack: Mirai

Microsoft Technology Centers

Seeing AI: An app for visually impaired people that narrates the world around you

AI Powered Agriculture | Microsoft FarmBeats

SwiftKey: Autocorrect that actually works

How GOJO Industries, inventor of PURELL Hand Sanitizer, helps hospitals monitor hand hygiene with secure IoT dispensers

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) | How to protect yourself

How Microsoft is helping make hospitals cleaner

Learn more at www.thedatabinge.com

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Today's episode features Philippe Brissaud, a Principal Program Lead for the Power Virtual Agents platform at Microsoft - if you aren't familiar, Power Virtual Agents is a low code no code AI driven customer engagement platform (under Microsoft's Business Applications product pillar), on the platform, you can build and author topics, deploy bots and agents, and monitor performance of the these agents to enhance and enrich future customer engagements. It's absolutely amazing how commercial these AI technologies have become today, and we'll talk about the implications of AI democratization and the sensitivity to bias and other topics around these concepts. Philippe joined Microsoft, in France, in 2006, and has more than 15 years of experience in the Customer Relationship Management niche. He's spent a good amount of time in the project landscape, from technical scoping to enhancing project agility, and today spends the majority of his time today on customizing the Virtual Agent platform to the Financial Industry, namely large banking institutions.

Beyond Philippe's technical resume, what he brings to the table is a very unique story on what makes him such a great product person, from his personal experiences raising multi-racial children, to his cross cultural professional journey - Philippe is also a Diversity & Inclusion Champion, and has a lot to say around how being uncomfortable is the best way to grow.

Key Themes in the discussion:

-Building inclusive products require inclusivity based habits - how to build better habits to better understand your end user. Creating product for ALL.

-Challenges with American professional culture, overcoming differences, and "shutting-up"

-Microsoft strategies in AI: "Anything we do in AI, should connect people for the better"

-Technical professionals are the guardians of tomorrow's technology - why Diversity & Inclusion is ever more important in decision making

-Critical conversations around social accepts of AI: Creating clarity, transparency, and education on what AI means for our species

-The ambivalence between machines and humans, emotional intelligence, and the hardest challenges of all: parenting

Thanks for listening!

Ways to contact Philippe:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philbrissaud/

Employee Resource Groups mentioned:

Blacks at Microsoft

Women at Microsoft

Asians at Microsoft

Diversity & Inclusion at Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/default.aspx

BAM Scholarships: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/programs/blacks-scholarships.aspx

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/default.aspx

Resources and learning:

Netflix Documentary: The Surrounding Game: https://www.netflix.com/title/81006598

Tess Possner: Collaboration for all, a presentation on bias in Data, and how to ensure responsible and ethical AI: Ethics and Diversity in AI

Learn more at www.thedatabinge.com

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This episode is a LIVE recording from Microsoft Envision in San Francisco, October 22nd of 2019.

Microsoft Envision is an annual multi-city tour, with intimate conference style innovation and industry collaborations focused on helping business leaders modernize their business with the use of technology, across the digital veins of Microsoft's stack. The majority of the presentations focused on how the business landscape is evolving, and what types of strategies and business models leaders are looking to deploy at scale.

Our special guest on the episode today is Ken Miller (whom I caught for a LinkedIn LIVE broadcast, in between sessions at the conference), Ken is the General Manager for Microsoft's Azure, Intelligent Cloud, in the West Region. The Western US covers some very strategic and interesting, MASSIVE organizations and brands, and Ken has quite the exposure to provocative ideas and practices. You'll get to know a little more about Ken throughout our quick talk, and as a certified Level 1 Sommelier, he's even got some tips for you wine fanatics out there. Hang on tight.

Items we cover:

-Hyperscale cloud adoption is real: the current state of how businesses are adopting new capabilities

-Why MSFT has never been in a better place in the market

-How to approach the study of wine (special thread!)

Thanks for listening!

Ways to reach Ken:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/millerken/

Other folks to follow:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judsonalthoff/

Resources:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/envision-the-tour

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/what-is-azure/

Learn more at www.thedatabinge.com

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Today's episode features Brig Lamoreaux, a Sr. Advanced Analytics and AI Solution Architect at Microsoft, and Brig's been with the company for about 4 years. Brig has roughly 20 years of software development and engineering experience. Before Microsoft Brig worked for Apollo Education Group for 10 years, where he spent his time building research and software behind adaptive learning and modeling student knowledge. Some of the systems Brig has been involved in developing and productizing feature novel advances in education including cognitive science theories and data driven personalization. Brig has also spent a lot of time directing, programming, and leading 12-week learning boot-camps where students build hands-on skills using real world examples and projects. Brig finds a lot of value in learning and teaching, and you'll learn more from is lessons around how people learn throughout the discussion.

Themes of the discussion:

-How to measure depth of knowledge, and the feedback loop of learning:

—Teaching basic concepts

—Developing examples that enforce these concepts (which involve different teaching methods)

—Providing measurement tools for what was learned (tests and interviews: "tell me about Java")

-Machine learning in its most basic form, the data science pipeline, and a real world AI project he's using to teach his children how to solve problems with technology

-How to run a successful machine learning project:

—Can you initially draw some correlations from a variable, and it's potential outcome?

—Is there a human practitioner in the world that can make a probable estimate of the outcome you are trying to achieve? Ie, are there "hunches" that you can measure your hypothesis against?

—What specific data sets are these practitioners using? This is critical data

-People and teams, that are NOT successful with machine learning projects. A description of the WRONG approach, and mindset.

Thanks for listening!

How to connect with Brig:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briglamoreaux/

Github: https://github.com/briglx - over 203 contributions in the last year.

Resources and mentions:

https://machinelearningmastery.com/how-to-work-through-a-problem-like-a-data-scientist/

https://towardsdatascience.com/a-beginners-guide-to-the-data-science-pipeline-a4904b2d8ad3

Books:

https://www.amazon.com/Just-Mercy-Story-Justice-Redemption/dp/081298496X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=just+mercy&qid=1579358686&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1537196472/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_DOXiEb9D3DSFK

https://www.amazon.com/Road-Cormac-McCarthy/dp/0307387895/ref=sr_1_1?crid=I0VP897UGVP0&keywords=the+road&qid=1579358941&s=books&sprefix=the+road%2Cstripbooks%2C419&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Thief-Markus-Zusak/dp/0375842209/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+book+thief&qid=1579358970&s=books&sr=1-1

Learn more at www.thedatabinge.com

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Alain Briancon is currently the Chief Technology Officer and VP of Data Science at Cerebri AI. Cerebri AI is a SaaS Startup that focuses on helping enterprise businesses understand what their customers are thinking, by predicting the next best action to take, that will yield the most value for both the enterprise, and their customer based on their actions. Alain refers to this as: "talk is good, but the wallet is better" for predicting future customer behavior and the true measure of customer experience, by truly measuring everything. You can find more information about Cerebri AI at cerebriai.com.

Alain is an Electrical Engineer by training, with a bachelors in EE from CentraleSupelec in France, and a PHD in Electrical Engineering from MIT - although, he categorizes himself not as an engineer but as a technologist. Alain has a background in telecommunications where he spent time working in areas from satellites, to wired communication, to wireless. Alain's had his hands on the data science aspect of prediction, forecasting, and advanced analytics in industries focused on use cases such as winning elections, auditions for artists, and diet management - and he's been the CTO and CEO of multiple startups (Cerebri is his 4th). While in these leadership roles, Alain really sees his central responsibility as creating a diverse learning environment that enables ideas, creativity, and curiosity.

Big themes we cover in our talk:

-"Being curious, and celebrating creation" - the job of the CTO, creating environments that enable ideas, and creation as the highest value activity of a human being.

-The data science interview: What businesses are looking for in The process, the behind the scenes, and how technical talent should holistically approach how to solve challenges and focus on critical thinking. Learned experience as a crutch, or an accelerator to novel approaches.

-Why we should stop talking about the size of our data - and why we all have a tendency to think the size of the data determines who we are. The idea of "Data debt", dynamically changing data stacks, and the true cost of pandering to large data sets.

-Cerebri AI and the success of relying on highly diverse STEM oriented teams: geographic, intellectual, gender, race, age, and many other considerations to diversity that yield highly different ways to approach problem successfully, and unsuccessfully

-Data science as a craft, intuition, and the importance of explainability and bias. The true measure of the customer experience, and how measuring end customers actions are the best indicators of how they are likely to act in the future.

Thanks for listening!

How to connect with Alain:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alain-briancon-phd-70115a/

Email: [email protected]

Resources and mentions:

Thanks for the referral Nabeel! https://www.linkedin.com/in/nabeeladeni/

https://www.cerebriai.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/cerebri-ai-inc-/

https://youtu.be/hIfl98gdYJE

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/22/bill-gates-says-people-with-these-3-skills-will-be-successful-in-the-future-job-market.html

http://www.dbta.com/Editorial/Think-About-It/The-Enterprise-Data-Debt-Crisis-123008.aspx

Alain’s favorite scene, from his favorite movie, Lawrence of Arabia:

https://youtu.be/_EZCG2Ex8Q0

Learn more at www.thedatabinge.com

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Today's episode features a new collaboration project, the audio recording of a LinkedIn Live Video Broadcast that a colleague and I created, co-host Ali Mazaheri, the director of the Microsoft Technology Center in Irvine. Simply Tech Live is a LIVE broadcast, focusing on the evolving landscape of technology through the lens of Microsoft focus areas, our partner ecosystem, and our customers.

"Invincible Expresso: A connected experience with Azure Sphere", features Phil Heine from Avnet. Phil is currently the director of Global Business Development at Avnet, where's has spent over 17 years of his career in roles ranging from engineering, sales, business development, and now product management. Avnet is a global distributor, solution provider, designer, and engineering firm with more than 15,000 employees in over 140 countries worldwide. Their vertical segments include everything from electronics manufacturing and consumer devices, all the way to healthcare and energy. Avnet also became the sole distributor of Azure Sphere just over a year ago, and businesses are taking full advantage of the secure IoT environment that it enables. You'll quickly understand why we call this expresso invincible, but it's founded on capabilities that Azure Sphere enhances. Azure Sphere, is a micro controller unit, or MCU, with built in security and high performance operability right on the chip, including a MSFT operating system, as well as a security service that is designed to guard it's connected ecosystem from emerging threats.

Big topics we cover in today the discussion:

-A live demo (for those who watched live or on demand), of Azure Sphere and the connected coffee experience

-What differentiates Azure Sphere from ordinary microcontrollers in IoT solutions: the secured MCU, the secured operating system, and the included security service

-The importance of a strong security profile, and why device isolation from the cloud can protect against incoming threats, and asset monitoring and predictive maintenance use cases that benefit

-Guidance for businesses who are implementing IoT solutions, but have security concerns do to the complexity of building a secure device

Thanks for listening!

Watch the on-demand episode here:

https://www.linkedin.com/video/live/urn:li:ugcPost:6600117483707994112/

Follow The Data Binge Podcast LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-data-binge-podcast/?viewAsMember=true

Follow Simply Tech Live LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/simplytechlive/?viewAsMember=true

How to connect with Phil

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-heine-a00721196/

Resources:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/azure-sphere/

https://www.avnet.com/wps/portal/us/

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/SevenPropertiesofHighlySecureDevices.pdf

https://azure.microsoft.com/mediahandler/files/resourcefiles/securing-iot-devices/Azure%20IoT_Securing%20IoT%20Devices.pdf

Learn more at www.thedatabinge.com

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Charla Pereira is the lead designer for all authoring on Dynamics 365 Guides. Dynamics 365 Guides, or what Charla will refer to as "guides" is a mixed reality application for the Microsoft HoloLens, that allows an enhanced learning ecosystem by providing holographic instructions within the flow of work, when and where employees need it. So imagine putting together some complex machine on an assembly line, having the worker wearing a HoloLens device, and having a series of step by step instruction cards with image and video visually tethered to the areas where the work needs to be accomplished - ultimately leading to fewer errors and greater retention of learned skills, and we'll talk much more about that in the discussion.

Charla has been in tech for just about 20 years, and she began her career as a graphic designer. Charla joined Microsoft 11 years ago, and she's shipped everything from Microsoft Office to Microsoft Fresh Paint (a project originating from in Microsoft Research, that simulates oil on a digital canvas). Charla spent her time in academia focused largely on graphic design, including some time both at Capilano College in Vancouver, and the Art Institute of Seattle, and she has such an incredible passion for design and talks about how important things like empathy and love are in her ethos, and how these values help her know who her users are in an intimate way.

Discussion themes:

-Charla's biggest professional lesson, incurred at Microsoft, about the importance of knowing how to sell yourself and change your mindset - which for her, was about being more data centric in her design advocacy to team members

-What Design personally means for Charla:

Love, empathy, humanity, and fighting for what is needed for your customer

And, inherently, knowing what your customers need, not just what they want.

Basic design principles: Is it discoverable, usable, authentic, desirable, likable

-The differences between the different technologies; VR, MR, and AR, and specifically how her newest product, Dynamics 365 guides, helps people learn by doing, and she tells some real stories about spending time with first line workers in a high paced manufacturing environment, and all the nuances of working in a factory that she discovered that helped her understand how to design a better product.

-Learning, the importance of giving people the opportunity to make mistakes, some data driven observations about learning, and how workers should and will be learning in the now and soon to come future.

Thanks for listening!

How to connect with Charla:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlapereira/

Resources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIJM9xNg9xs&feature=youtu.be

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/business/microsoft-hololens-job-training.html

https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-us/mixed-reality/guides/

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=288bc3e1eb8d4514f6ed1fd1dcbb9c20

Learn more at www.thedatabinge.com

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