Hello and welcome to this discussion on the introduction to the Dell Data Lakehouse with Dell Technologies and Starburst. I'm Rob Streche, Managing Director with theCUBE Research. Today we'll speak with Vrshank Jain, Product Manager at Dell Technologies and Harrison Johnson, VP of Technology Partners in Business Development about how organizations are leaning into data lakes and experiencing challenges with data management as they try to monetize their data as data products. Well, welcome to the show. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. So, why don't we start with you, Vrshank? I think that one of the things that is key that people are always trying to understand is what are some of the challenges as you go out, because you talk to customers of all various different sizes. What are some of the key challenges they're having getting into data lakes? Yeah, I think it really starts with AI, right? And everybody's trying to get to AI and generate AI. But every single conversation of AI starts to get into, well, what about the data? And I think the rapid pace of the growth of the data and as well as the proliferation of the data sources is really what customers are facing with. They need a modern data platform to really simplify all of that. But when they look at the choices that they have, that's either go to the cloud or stay on premise. But when you go to the cloud, yeah, there's some ease of use, obviously some really good innovation there. But it's a non-starter for a lot of companies because they're not really inclined to move any of their sensitive data to the cloud or sort of the loss of control or even the cost around using the cloud. But even when you stay on premise, you start to deal with a lot of DIY solutions, a lot of open source that you have to go and manage and stand up on your own. So really two suboptimal choices, I think people need a better answer. So I think that better answer is basically an easy button that sort of works with their data gravity versus against it. And then they need help from an expertise perspective, right? They need a bench of people who just know exactly what they're doing. They can come in and they can help customers stand this up, run and manage at scale. I think that's a big challenge. Yeah, definitely because I think even nowadays their budgets are not necessarily getting any larger. And having to reskill people or have people with multiple hats on really is tough. And I think don't kind of bridging off of that. I think that when you start to look at from your vantage point, how is it that platform engineering and data engineering are becoming kind of forefront and center for these organizations? Yeah, I think their role has evolved significantly, right? If you think about any sort of modern data platform, it's made up of three large things, right? Number one is the infrastructure. Then you have the technology, sort of the platform that makes the data platform. And then you have this extended set of tools or technologies or solutions that you want to make work with the rest of the platform. And there's a lot of innovation that's happening at every single layer. There's a lot of disruption happening at every single layer. And the data piece continues to pose a lot of challenges. So I think what customers have started to do is have more of a platform thinking versus a piece part thinking, right? People need sort of a platform that does two things, right? One, give them a lot of ease of use and scale and ability to modernize as they go along, but also gives them choice to make sure that if tomorrow a new technology comes along, they should be able to use it. They don't get locked into something that they made a decision on maybe five years ago. So I think all of this is, I guess the problems are exacerbated because if you think about what the business team is doing, they're putting a lot more pressure on the IT teams. They're saying, I need this done faster and I need this done cheaper. And then the IT teams are sitting there thinking, look, I have the business teams wanting more on one side. I have the technology that's proliferating at an unprecedented rate on the other side. They're really getting stuck. And I think the list of things that they have to manage is growing so much. You think about software operating systems, Kubernetes experiences, servers, storage, protocols, data formats. I mean, the list is endless. So I think ultimately people are going to start to reject niche piece parts and they're going to start to want more end-to-end holistic solutions that are easy. Yeah, it totally makes sense. But so give us a little insight into why Dell with Starburst. Yeah, I think it really started maybe a couple of years ago when we were starting to look at this landscape that I just described. Clearly customers needed a better answer. But we wanted to work with a partner who shared our ethos for where I think the world is going, which is a lot more distributed data. And maybe the answer is not necessarily centralizing to another data sort of, let's say a data lake or a data warehouse, which really is a walled garden today. We're talking, I think we wanted to work with the company that agreed with us in the sense that some of this data is always going to live everywhere else and some of this is going to get centralized. And so we needed a technology that does both really well. The federation side of the house, where you're trying to get access to data spread across all your environments, as well as really high performance access to data that's now centralized in your data lake. So I think that's where the most urgent need is, which is let's get access into the hands of the data analyst or the data scientist and then let's centralize the most high quality data or the most valuable data. I think Starburst does both really, really well. And I think combined with the strengths that we bring, I think one plus one is really equal to three at this point. I think that you're on target with the whole evolution of IT into platform engineering and data engineering and how they're coming together and trying to understand that. What are you seeing from the Starburst side that really drove you from a customer requirements perspective to say, hey, partnering with Dell made a lot of sense? Yeah, absolutely. I think it was a pretty easy decision, a natural decision for us because of its alignment with what we're hearing from our customers. We're hearing meet me where I am, meaning support me in my existing architecture and then support me or be able to support me as I evolve. We're hearing simplicity and optionality, meaning make it really easy to use, make sure I can tap into my existing tool set and also have the future ability to evolve along with the technology landscape. And then the last piece is just around being able to operate in a world where data might not just be in one place. This idea that there might be all the data on-prem, but even on-prem it exists in multiple regions and multiple systems. Maybe it's a hybrid architecture with cloud and on-prem, maybe it's multiple clouds. Just this idea that data strategies will require hybrid capability going forward. And for us, there was a natural alignment with Dell, not just in terms of ethos, which Prashant mentioned. And you'll hear most of our answers. You can tell we've spent so much time together building this. But yeah, there's a shared ethos between the two companies. And then I think the Dell Data Lakehouse powered by Starburst really couples world-class architecture and Dell's market-leading infrastructure solutions, particularly their AI and analytics compute-powered solutions as well as, and probably most importantly, their object store offering with Starburst governance and access layer, which allows customers to sort of defeat the idea that, you know, the market, the public cloud era, most AI and analytics vendors in general, have left the customers on-prem and the data on-prem behind and have sort of created this move to cloud or cloud-only ultimatum for most of our customers. And while we all acknowledge that the cloud has a critical role in our customers' future, I think the why Dell specifically for Starburst was the commitment to building a simple streamlined offering that would allow them to successfully operate in their current state, drive business value, and then be able to evolve comfortably without having to disrupt the business. Yeah, I think it's very critical and we talk about it a lot on this program and other programs that there's really becoming a balance between where net new apps are being built between, you know, cloud, they're being built cloud-native, but they're also being built cloud-native on-premise and in the cloud. And we're seeing actually in the data that we have with our partner ETR, it's becoming really within balance from a 50-50 perspective. But how do you see this playing out for Starburst customers going forward as well? And what can customers of this product set, this solution and platform really expect in the future going forward? Yeah, absolutely. So I think the most important thing that I think we're going to be centered around in terms of how the products developed and the way we support our customers is really going to be simplicity. That's going to be the name of the game. Vrashank mentioned earlier that the option for you as a customer, if some or all of your data is on-prem, is to do it yourself, right? You are the architect of your own future, meaning you are completely responsible for piecing together a cloud-like experience. And what we're going to do together is really change that paradigm for customers. We're going to give them two things. We're going to give them a powerful, integrated, complete, open offering that allows them to plug into their architecture today, be able to add incremental value throughout their transformation journey, and also be able to take advantage of new technology that none of us could even imagine here sitting at the table. And then the second piece is the unparalleled growth of data coupled with the unparalleled demand for access to data for everyone has really made a lake an important center of gravity from a cost perspective. And then coupling the Starburst engine or other lake engines with that brings about the lake house paradigm. The lake house is really only available today, if not only available today in the public cloud, right? And the reality is for most of the customers that we support, which is the large global enterprise, the cloud is absolutely a part of their strategy, but it's tied directly to their architecture that they already have and their footprint on-prem and their need to be able to operate between cloud and premise. And so I think you're going to see a really thoughtful approach around how do you make a customer successful in a hybrid architecture versus most of the other offerings in the market which are pretty focused on getting all the data into one place, their place. And I think we certainly are looking to help customers centralize data when it makes sense, but also allowing them to exist in a world where data might be everywhere. I think that's the key is that it's simplicity and choice of where the data is so that you can bring it together when you need it. And I think obviously we'd be remiss and you kind of hit on it a little bit, but if we don't talk about AI, we'll get kicked out of the club or something like that. So how do you really see AI and how do you see Dell's infrastructure really supporting that and customers' AI strategies and data apps going forward? Yeah, I think data and AI are both very big strategic priorities for the company. It's no surprise that obviously AI has been a big growth story for us in the last maybe a couple of years. But like I said, every conversation about AI eventually gets to, well, what's your data strategy that's going to feed this AI strategy? And it's becoming pretty clear that the modern data strategy is essentially a modern data lake house. I think there's a race to get to sort of enabling that AI and therefore there's a race to get to this modern data platform. And I think customers are asking us to basically make that journey more simple for them. So I think from our perspective, right, data and AI are sort of very, very tightly coupled. But it's not just AI from our perspective, like you talked about multiple clouds. I think this intersects with our sort of existing strategy for the multi-cloud. And we define multi-cloud as not just on-premise or not just one cloud or not just even multiple clouds. It's actually all of the above. And so having a solution that lets customers access the data across their clouds and on-premise, maybe even a call load, maybe even an edge location is really the name of the game. So I think that lake house has to adapt to this type of a notion versus being another centralized sort of repository. So I think the timing is perfect really for us to partner with Starbucks and get into this market because people are going to need this more and more going forward. Yeah. And I think that's a good segue because, I mean, again, that's where Starbucks lives is really the intersection of data and data apps and bringing the data to where it needs to be utilized and kind of, you know, you can think of it as either bringing the AI to the data or the data to the AI. But to that point, multi-cloud hybrid cloud is true. And we're seeing it everywhere. Where do you see from a strategy and around AI that, again, the onus is on those organizations to really bring and feed the AI that data? How is it that you see that Starbucks is really providing value in that space? How are you bringing the data to the AI, I guess you could say? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we're as excited as everyone else about the, you know, the value that AI can bring particularly and, you know, bringing the value of data to the forefront of business decision making. We have a couple of areas where we're, you know, either already delivering outcomes or investigating and investing in the first ones I would argue for any organization is sort of like table stakes, which is just to make sure that the in-product customer experience is infused with AI. So just sort of simplifying the in-product experience. A good example of that would be natural language to via SQL. So the ability to either speak natural language that will then write SQL or vice versa. But that's sort of an example of our foray into simplifying the Starburst offerings with AI. The second one is actually something that we already do. And it's supporting traditional ML and AI use cases. I never thought I'd have to preface machine learning and AI with the word traditional, but I will in this case. And we played a role for a long time in the discovery and the wrangling and the governance of the model creation workflow. Just helping data sciences, data engineers and data consumers in general be able to get everything they need and package it up the right way to then feed it into a model. The third area is around furthering the platform's capability for analytics to lean in even more to supporting that predictive AI and traditional ML use case. We have ongoing conversations with customers, with partners and with Dell on how the Dell Data Lakehouse can really lean in there. And then the last one is around generative AI and in particular value creation in combining unstructured and structured data. And how do you do that in a way that allows one to enrich the other? How do you do that in a way that that's easy and reliable? And a lot of that effort is actually going to probably come from this partnership where we're going to leverage our ability to securely access any structured data with Dell's leading footprint in storing, protecting unstructured data. Yeah, I think that we've kind of beat around the whole solution a little bit in kind of the use cases. So let's kind of dive in a little bit for Sean, if you could kind of lead off with some of the key features and highlights from the infrastructure and data perspective and what the outcomes for those teams that would be using this product could be. Yeah, so I'd like to describe the solution essentially in four big parts. If you think about sort of the most basic components being your compute infrastructure, which obviously we're really good at, and we're tailoring it to particularly this type of workload. We have our leading object storage platforms that's going to basically serve as the Data Lakehouse, sort of the Data Lake where you could store some of that data. You have the Dell Data Analytics Engine, which is a new introduction into the market powered by Starburst. So that brings the massively paralyzed performance of the Starburst engine with inbuilt access control, encryption, masking, the ability to create data products, support for both long running queries as well as ad hoc analytics. So really sort of the full package of pretty much anything you'll want to do from a query perspective. But that's not it, right? And I'll pause there because I think a lot of customers when they do DIY, they tend to get these piece parts and they try to stitch it all together on their own. We're introducing another sort of piece of the puzzle here, which will help complete the stack, which is the Dell Data Lakehouse system software. And that system software really converts this piece parts into something a lot more integrated, a lot more turnkey. And it gives significant benefits to both the IT and the data teams, right? From the day zero of when you're sort of trying to purchase this to deploying this, we can take that deployment experience from weeks to, I guess, months to weeks, right? Because we're shipping the entire integrated solution from the infrastructure all the way to the software stack. We're taking on support for the entire stack, which means customers don't have to triage anymore. They don't have to second guess themselves in terms of who to call if something breaks. It's all 1-800 Dell from that perspective, right? And then ongoing from a day one, day two perspective, you get much better lifecycle management that's pre-integrated. It comes shipped into the box. So hardware alerts, things going down, adding and removing nodes from the cluster, adding and removing data catalogs or sort of connectors, if you will, into the platform, inbuilt security. I think there's a lot that we're sort of packaging in that makes this sort of an easy button while not making any of these things locked in, right? So the data formats are open. So you're not restricted, you're not sort of, you're not picking a horse, right? You're basically saying, I can keep any data I want on this lake house. The engine is obviously based on open source Trino and that's really, really extendable. And then we're providing a whole host of services around it. And I think, you know, being Dell, that's sort of one of the biggest draws for a lot of companies to work with us is because we provide amazing deployment services, support services, and then a lot of professional services that we're adding into this mix. So if you think about the data lake house, a lot of companies may be able to buy the software, but it takes another effort to even implement it, see the ROI and then grow from there. So we're providing implementation services and residency services to sort of complete the package here. So I think both for data teams who are looking to get a modern data platform that's highly performing, open, they're in luck. And for IT teams who are looking for cost effective, easy button and simplicity, I think they're also in luck, I guess. So it's really the best of both worlds. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's part of it is that day zero to day one stuff, I think people get, and you know, maybe they're big enough that they can throw people at that. I think it becomes okay, understanding, not only do I need to know the roadmap, if I was going to say use open source Trino or something like that, I need to know that plus the roadmap for every other component that goes along with that entire stack in my modern data stack. And the more components you have there, it becomes really hard to support ongoing. I guess this isn't the only place, you know, or the only game in town. There's a lot of startups and established companies that are really aiming at this. What is it that, you know, really makes this solution unique? Yeah, so I mean, I can start and then add to that. But I think it's really the combination of your best to breed in every single sense, right? You start from the query engine with Starburst, right? It's a market leader, accelerates time to value, super simple to use. You have the object storage that's already sort of, you know, geared for performance and security. You have amazing compute platforms that we're already building. And then you add sort of this lake house system software to the mix. That's a combination that doesn't really exist in the market today. And then it's not just that, right? I mean, we're not even stopping there. Then you add the experts that a lot of companies, you know, maybe barring a few do need to take this from an idea to a reality. So I think the one plus two plus three plus four really is sort of the unique value proposition. Yeah. And I think just to just to add to that, I think this is the only purpose built offering of its kind for customers deployed in an on-prem or hybrid architecture. I think there's an understandable retrofitting of existing offerings to try to solve future problems or current problems. And I think this is the this will be the only offering in the market that's actually purpose built to solve these problems. And because of the combined commitment to create a cloud experience on-prem, but not focused on barring the customer from leveraging cloud, we're able to bring a lot of capability that you see Starburst and similar vendors bringing to customers in the cloud on-prem. An example being warp speed. That's one of many things that Starburst does for its customers that adds a tremendous performance gain that's actually only available in the cloud because of our ability to control the infrastructure configuration with our SaaS offering. And by partnering with Dell, we're able to bring cloud like capability. And again, this is one of many examples that would traditionally only be available in a public cloud to customers on-prem. And then the last thing I'll mention that, you know, you there are many folks trying to figure out what's their role in this stack, both longstanding and new players of the game. I would say that Dell and Starburst's ecosystem first, partner first mentality to supporting customers and going to market is also a pretty like massive differentiation between most of the other games in town. If you look at some of the other organizations from a technology perspective and from an advisory and services perspective that are going to be, you know, voicing their opinions and support about around this offering, I think that is, you know, as important as anything in terms of customer success because the platform we defined is certainly a center of gravity for a customer data strategy. But also it plays a role in a much bigger picture that we've taken into consideration and we've engaged a lot of the necessary parties. And so I think you're going to see customers able to move a lot faster with our offering than they may be either piecemealing things together or potentially leaning into a smaller, more per, you know, more targeted, you know, outcome oriented offering. Yeah, no, it totally makes sense. And I think, again, your guys comment that people want the ease of use of being in the cloud but want it on premise. And I totally agree on the privacy and the protection and compliance and governance, especially when the data is your intellectual property. So I think this solution sounds awesome to people and they should check it out. So I'm excited to have you guys launch this and introduce it here. So, you know, thank you both for being on today and, you know, welcome back anytime. Thanks for having us. Thank you for having us. Yeah. Thank you for watching this introduction to the Dell Data Lake House on the Cube, the leader in high tech enterprise analysis and coverage.


But every day you can do something different. It can be big, but mostly a Big change or do something very big That's difficult because then we see a mountain that high But if you do something small then we can handle that better and if you fail That day then always there is a brand new day to try it again Very positive message. Thank you for that Here is the clicker. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. How has it been? since 2014 a lot has happened, I guess yes, it's an amazing journey, yeah, and I never would have imagined what kind of journey it was and Yes in the past five years I I Need to say that when I started this journey into an agile way of working. I really didn't know anything about agile and You also that you we should mention that you're also writing a book. Yes, I Left ING already this summer to start my own business Helping other companies in their journey to the agile way of working or to become more agile It's not only by changing structures, but there's a whole world behind it And I'm writing my book about the people journey into the transformation. I'm so curious. Yes Good luck now. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, and thank you for having me here Yeah, we met four years ago. Yeah, and I learned a lot from you Thank you. It was then by then it was a short talk But along the way I learned more from you and last year I was here and it was very inspiring for me And I went to the deep dive session about business agility from Evan he was here last year and I'm very excited to be here and to share my story and Hopefully to inspire you and help in your journey. Great. We are eager to listen aren't we one more applause for Alice Thank you So what is the nicest thing about this song a brand new day because I have a lot of songs that I love but this song When I was younger and we went out on Friday and Saturday evening and this song they played this song then everyone jumped on the dance floor not one state besides and that's because it's a really inspiring song and It doesn't matter if I know you or I know you or I know you But if this if they play this song then we all dance together And that's a bit what you want in your organization, isn't it because we all have a talent It doesn't matter if you can dance, but you can do something else and we have gold in our organizations But how to kick that cage open? I'm a Lisa Hofmeister and I want to introduce myself by my purpose Gather a team set up the expedition still through the waves and explore beyond horizons It's not about discovering new landscapes, but it's about seeing things in a different way It's about teams and teamwork collaborating because I Don't believe we can do the things on our own in the future anymore we need each other and That's why I am here. I want to help you in your journey Not by changing all kinds of landscapes structures But seeing things in a different way and how can we make small steps and if we are a bit blocked By frameworks or if we are blocked by laws, what can we do? Within the framework, what can we change to make it a bit more better a bit more agility and Can do things together? It's also about sharing the story and that's why I'm here Why I think and that's also why you are here that the case for business agility is pretty clear this The time to volume decrease rapidly and If you look at this picture, then you see that it took the phone 75 years to reach 50 million people Can you imagine that and Along the way, we see that the time decreases rapidly 90 days One game was faster. Who was it? Do you think who we have a lot of it in here? Who knows? ah Mario eight days and Ten years ago now, I think 12 years ago. I got my first iPhone That's only 12 years ago. Can you imagine that that you can live without it? No, no, I can't but the thing is That we know better than the doctor What is happening inside our body because we search for it on the internet? So it becomes far more difficult for every organization to respond fast on the needs of our customers So we need to change and we need to try new things. We need to come up to speed how we call that and Can you imagine that maybe in a few years? We stay at home.  What does that mean for our jobs? What does that mean for ourselves? Because we need to learn and to learn fast. We need to reskill and we read to upscale But where do we come from? We come from this this 100 years ago We worked in factories and it worked very well We split our tasks in small pieces and Everyone knew what he did. We didn't need to think Because the thinkers that were the managers and the managers Were there and we as employees are here This was inventive and you know it all I think and in most organizations it still still looks like this But we need to do something different and that cost you can imagine that cost time Because we did 100 years to work like I showed you before and yes, of course Along the way something changed, but not that much in most organizations and If you look to research from world economic forum, then within four years Look at this picture. We have 27 percent new new roles in the next years That doesn't mean that we can that we are able to do all these roles. So we need to learn We need to use all the intelligence in the organization, but how are we going to do that? Yesterday, it was very funny. I read an article. It was a research from Accenture And it says that a lot of people 60 percent of employees know of this They know that they need to change they know that a lot of new technology is coming in and they want to embrace it But another part of this research told that business leaders Do not spend more time or more budget on training training on skills So they are not on the same level business leaders and employees And if you work in an organization and you know that a lot of things are going to change then you need to do something You need to take a lead on this We all need to do that because we need all people in the organization. So what are most companies do nowadays? We are implementing new structures the architecture evolves Maybe you know this one. It's the so-called Spotify model I don't think Spotify agrees with me, but this is how it is mentioned. We work in squats We work in tribes. We work in chapters We also know the circles and Within the circles we have all kinds of different roles most of the organizations who work with circles have some functions, but they also work with roles and you can tell or decide in the team what kind of role you want to do and After a period you worked in this role you can give it back and you can change the role But together you need to do the work or this one the scrum of scrums the team of teams Or this one we introduce safe It doesn't look very easy. Isn't it? It looks very difficult for me to understand what that means and in the future We go there a networking organization. We are already told what hire is doing They work in small groups small entities and You really need to read what is written about it because it's very interesting and that's our future Is it? We don't know yet because it's a bit complex and it's unpredictable But in this structures there were people and People need to know what this means. What does it mean for you if you work in a kind of tribe structure on a squat structure Is it the same as you did before or do you need to do something different? We work in multidisciplinary teams What does that mean? What is someone of it doing? What is someone of marketing doing? What is someone of HR doing and how do we work together to achieve our results or our purpose? You need to explain that So what do you see when you see this picture? What do you say? Happiness. Yes. Some more. What do you see? Yeah, okay. Yeah, nice Freedom. Yes. Nice Water. Yes Something else Meals only. Oh, okay. Yeah, maybe I need to change that in the picture, but that was not the case. Yes, sorry. Yeah fun, yeah patterns Okay fun maybe energy Flow and That's what you want to see in an organization. Isn't it? We want to have fun and we want to have energy because it helps us in our way of working and in all those structures there were people and People need to know they don't go from A to B the way we want it No People go Forward they go backward they go up and they go down and they need help And why are they doing that?  We're not sure We need to change. We need to work together in multidisciplinary teams What happens is our in our brains is what we call the systems, but what happens that is our most oldest brain working from the time that we were hunting and when there was a bear behind you Then people they fly or they freeze or they fight and that's normal So what we need to do together Is help people Show them What the next stages are and that you are not telling it? but that you want to involve Because people we always say people don't want to change, but that's not true. That's not the case people want to change But they won't don't want to be changed So transformation is a journey and it impacts our behaviors and our mindset And we need to do that together. It's not an event that you can do today. Well, we change Into a different structure structure Go ahead and success No We can implement it one day because we have to but then the change is starting and then the journey is going on and Yes, in the beginning we talked about transformation But what it exactly is the change is a never-ending and We want to achieve a kind of sustainable growth And we can only do that by doing the things together So how if we have that those stretches How are we starting? We build the house together Five years ago when I was asked in the transformation team I Already told in the beginning. I knew nothing about agile and most of our team didn't and Of course, I was very excited because I have a kind of change heart. I worked in the HR department back then and And I started to read a lot of books and we started to talk about agile and We visited some companies, but not a lot of companies were already working in this way of working and We announced a communication session. It was a big town hall first for the senior managers and then for the employees and Yes, there are a lot of questions from the people you can imagine that because it's quite a change and They also asked and I will never forget that one of the guys in The room they said if you want us to change into self-organizing teams You want to empower us And you want us to be end-to-end responsible Why is this communication so top-down? That was something to think about and we went back to our departments. I went back to the HR department and Communication went back to the communication department and The board went back to their room and we thought no, this is not the way We need to feel what it is to work in multidisciplinary teams We need to experiment ourselves and we need to do this totally different We need to involve the people and Build the house together. So we organized a team a transformation team With people from business with people from data analytics IT with people from communication with people from HR and with people from facilities and We started we started to work In a multidisciplinary team we started to work with scrum and that doesn't necessarily help everyone Because not everyone if you are in an operations department then scrum Mostly doesn't work. You need to do something else But we use this and we got an agile coach and he challenged us on everything and Then he came in and we thought oh my god there. He is again And we it was a lot of pressure Of course because we had just small time to develop new concepts But it was very good and I learned from from him that You need to have a look on a different way at the things you can do in your organization Do it small and Another thing is communicate different Because you can't put everything on the wall You can say okay. It's not I but it's me It's not about individuals, but it's about the team It's about helping each other to be successful It's about curiosity, but what does that really mean you can put it on the wall nice But that doesn't help you So you what you can do if you are in this kind of transformations You can organize sessions with people in your organization invite them and Help them and let them help you Because they know exactly what curiosity means for them But if I ask that to all of you I get from all of you a different answer So you can imagine that if you work in a team And you need to collaborate. What does that really mean? So discuss this in your team Discuss what it means for you discuss what hierarchy is or what it isn't and Discuss in your team and make agreements on that Because if you and what you also see in these organizations We not only work multidisciplinary But we also work cross-border So in the future you work more and more with people from abroad and They have a totally different view than you have I Have my Dutch view I have that from my culture For my education from my parents how I grow up From school From the organizations where I work but for example people who live in Turkey or Spain or in China or in Moscow or wherever They have a different view and To understand what helps them in The team and how to collaborate together you need to discuss these kind of topics For example, I was in In a country in the south of Europe we discussed about hierarchy and I know that from the stripes on the shoulder That's a bit my view about hierarchy, but it's my individual view. I Have the stripes so I can say you need to do that But in that country one of the one of my colleagues she said In our country, it's based on respect We have that not only in our organization, but also in our culture Because people have the expertise and they are older and that's how we view hierarchy It's more about respect having respect for each other And that's a different view and you need to know that and discuss that. It's very interesting to hear and Only that way you can help each other inspire and work through purposes You already heard my purpose and I'm very happy that I have my purpose and Why because my purpose is something that is for me That's who I am There's a whole story behind it. I didn't tell you But that's too long. That's there's a whole story. It tells what my talents are where I stand for Then I am getting more happy What I like to do and what I don't like to do it's not alone not only about the working life But it's also about just my life my family my friends my children my husband me who I am It's totally different than having a function profile Then I can say okay. I'm a people in change lead, but what does that say? But does that mean nothing nothing about me, but that's the box where we are in in our organizations We have function profiles and if an organization is Able to change that To work from their purpose the higher meaning What are we stand? What do we stand for our organization? And if you are able in your organization To have for every department and every team a purpose then we work on the same things Then it's not only the HR department. It's not only the IT or the marketing. No Our multidisciplinary team has a purpose that is aligned with the higher purpose of the organization and Everything we do is challenged by the purpose so we can prioritize and If we do something in our team that is not aligned to that purpose, is it urgent do we need to do that? No, so then skip it Because if everything is urgent nothing is urgent and it doesn't help your organization, but it certainly doesn't help your customers and That's where we work for isn't it we want to stay relevant and we want to At value to our customers together within the whole organization So if you are able to create a purpose Through your organization create the purpose for the people or your people create let them create their own purpose And you can align them together Then people are working on the things where they are good at and what they like Where they get energy from And where they have fun because fun is very important for our brains Together we identify constraints because it is not that way that if we change our Structures if we change our way of working that we don't have constraints anymore. We have a lot and we get new ones But you can identify them together. I Don't know if you heard about the elephant roads Who knows what an elephant road is?  So if there are fences on the road and They cannot move them away. They go around it. And that's also what people do So if you change the structures and your way of working you need to change your way of thinking your way of communicating and then all of a sudden Only if there is just one team working in the multidisciplinary way or self-organizing and the rest of the organization isn't they feel That they get blocked by the processes in the organization The finance process like Bearta already told they are mostly yearly But how are DHR processes in your organization? Also yearly Are they done by the teams by the people in the organization or are they done by the management the leaders? And how can you change that for example a hiring process in In a new organization. Are we still doing that only by the leaders? Are they only responsible for hiring? No, they are not and the people in the teams They like to hire the new people for their team for their department for their organization So why shouldn't we experiment with that? And I know from experience that people are very capable to do that and They like it and they also like to do self-selection in the beginning of our transformation We did the selection on behavior Not on skills because we knew a lot of people had the skills But on behavior and along the way when people started to work in the new organization They said hmm. This is not really my function or my role. I want to do something different and Then they started to do their own hiring process. They did a self-selection and They did it not once, but they did it twice and they did that by their own and They are very capable everyone is capable everyone who is sitting here can do that, isn't it? But we are not used to do that Because we worked only in our team on our function in our department and Now that is changing and so it's also for the performance It's not a performance cycle or the yearly performance cycle, but help the teams to enable performance So if you need coaching or if you need feedback and I rather Like to talk about feet forward not feedback because then we only look back But we need help about the things we did not achieve yet So I want to talk about feet forward better What can help you what can help you but help other teams to move on and that's something if You work within HR and you lead this transformation if you want to do things different experiment that with one team and If it works, then go to other teams and Let them Inspire each other and help them because people will always find their way And if there is a fence we go over it whether you like it or not we do it and That's also in your organization Maybe you have an example. Maybe not. Maybe you have something in your head. I see you smiling So people always find their way another thing is we talk a lot about leadership and Yes, of course a lot of things are changing for managers and leaders And what kind of leader or what kind of role model do you want to be? Do you have that clear in your mind? If you look at this picture, then you see a swarm of starlings and I like the metaphor of starlings because if you look at it in real life Then not once one starling falls down They start to fly and they fly and it's a movement It's a flow It gives you also energy. It gives me energy if I look at it But how are they doing that? I don't know One starling is looking at the other and they follow But they only follow the starlings around them But this starling which is followed by him He follows another one and so it's going on and going on until the end and this is I think also What you need to do in an organization you need to view your organization as a whole So when are you a role model? When are you a leader? Are you a leader because you have a lot of followers? Or are you a leader because you follow? Because you follow the people in your organization and you enable them to do their work You help them to get rid of the impediments You don't need to be a manager or a leader in function name But also in the team you can be a leader. You can be a role model for others And if you think hey Now we have find something that really works well What do you do with it? Do you share it with other teams? Do you set up a kind of meeting or? Like here a conference, but maybe that's too big in your organization and share the ideas Make the shift from control to trust Do we view our employees as an X or as an I? I don't think there are X people. We have a view of X people, but I don't think there are X people We only have processes that make them behave like X people and let's try to change that Because people are inspired by purpose. They want to do meaningful work They want to contribute not only to the organization, but they want to contribute to society. It becomes more and more important So what can we do in our organization? to change that and To get all the talents in the organization involved and not only the talents of the talent pool of The talents of the nine grids The talent of the trainees No, if you know what purpose are for people then you also know what their talents are and that's far more than only those small pools Because everyone is part of the system Not only the multidisciplinary teams But also the HR people team and maybe in the future if we work only in multidisciplinary teams Then we talk about the HR expertise and Not about departments because an employee journey of an employee experience A people experience is made by the people in the organization Not by HR alone the agile coaches they are part leads sales We heard more about it this afternoon Finance the board procurement consultants if you work with external consultants invite them in your team Don't work separately invite them Because only then you are aligned and you know what is happening in the organization And I know sometimes you need to hire people from abroad from extern And that's fine Because they can help you but they also need to train you and Because otherwise they go back and you don't know what to do next Communication very important stakeholders part of it Support every support function everyone is part of the system So involve them in your team and If they are not going to work in a multidisciplinary self-organizing team that doesn't matter But they need to know what you need They need to know how it works They need to know That's a yearly budgeting or a yearly performance cycle Don't help enabling the performance They don't have to work that way But they need to be able to help the teams and to change the processes so you can do it in a different way That helps you faster Create the right environment probe sense and respond We are not able to analyze everything so we need to try every day a brand-new day to try something different Experiment see how it works if it doesn't work. Why doesn't it work and improve? Build communities and co-create together If you work always with the same team and you are sitting in a room you have a meeting every week Then the ideas get stuck We have echo chambers Because everything we mentioned is already mentioned before so I think two or three years ago I started to go to Roundtable sessions and I discussed with people from totally different companies What the problems were and we are not used to do that because it's a bit scary and Maybe the first time I went to that kind of round table. I thought Okay, but if I have a kind of idea, what is he going to do with it in that company? But I can tell you you cannot copy paste Because what works in one team doesn't work necessarily in another team and What works in one company doesn't necessarily work in another company? Because we have different products. We have different customers. We have different people in our organization and We do things differently our sizes are different if you copy paste a structure from a small company To a company, which is big Do you think it works the same way? I don't think so Because you and then you have to adapt it and embrace it in your own organization tweak it change it learn from it and improve Co-create together and if you go back tomorrow of afterwards to your organization Then share all the information you got today in your organization Share it with your colleagues Don't keep it for yourself, but share it help each other and make it better Experiment and learn Every day again Agility is a mindset and It's a mindset. I thought When I heard that the first time I thought what is that really a mindset and I listened to Carol Dweck. I don't know if you know her Carol Dweck she Teaches especially to children schools and she talks about the fixed mindset and the growth mindset And it's not the case that you have a fixed mindset or you have a growth mindset. No We all have both And if things become difficult Then mostly we go back to our fixed mindset and we go back to the things we always did before and I remember every time because I have the same if it's a bit difficult and scary then I think oh my god What am I going to do and then I think of Pippi Langström? I think you know her and She always said I've never done it so I think I can do And if I feel or if I do not achieve right away the thing I want to achieve Then I try the next day again And that's what a growth mindset is So you have got in your organization. You have talents everywhere Take the lead Involve all people work from purpose identify the constraints Experiment learn improve build communities and be the role model. Thank you


The Society for Museum Archaeology is the subject specialist network for archaeology in the UK and, as such, has a coordinating and representative role to national organisations such as the Arts Council and the Archaeology Forum. Overall, the SMA welcomes the initiative taken by the Society of Antiquaries in attempting to identify and address the issues that beset the practice of archaeology in England today. At the same time, we recognise that their manifesto was written several governments ago, priorities have shifted and the situation is extremely unclear and confusing. In some ways, this makes a more emphatic case for archaeologists collectively to accept that those issues persist and recognise that change is required. From a museum perspective, there is an increasingly urgent need for positive change. A new period of so-called austerity beckons and museums frequently suffer very badly from cuts to public spending. Reductions in curatorial expertise as well as museum opening hours can be expected if indeed museums continue to function at all. Closures are likely. The manifesto, in line with organisations such as CIFA and FAME, makes much of the way archaeology in the planning process is a £200 million per year business. But how much of that is invested in the future? How many archaeological contractors or businesses willingly invest in the security of and the provision of continuing access to the archive material that represents a resource of such great potential benefit to future generations? What fraction of those millions has gone to the museums who are expected to curate all those project archives? The ALGAO report planning for archives showed that between 2013 and 2018 digital archives were deposited with ADS for only 424 of a potential 43,000 archaeology projects. This is hardly indicative of full recognition by contractors of their responsibilities towards future research. Many museums will be able to tell you that they too are waiting for archive depositions from projects ostensibly completed many years ago. All too frequently, it looks as if archaeology is governed by a short-term approach that values the next project more highly than those nearing completion. That's nothing new as those numerous unpublished backlogs from the 70s and 80s bear witness. But until the important role of archaeology collections and their curators is recognised, true progress in the ways we organise archaeological practice is unlikely to be universal. Although there isn't much about museums within it, the manifesto represents a step forward. In 0.33 there is recognition of the need for a national strategic approach to archive curation as a remedy for persistent reductions in museum budgets. Even so, the SMA would have liked to see mention of museums in 3-4 the role of local government. There has been success in achieving statutory status for HERs, but in order for local authorities properly to safeguard the archaeological resource in all its forms, museums should receive the same recognition. The SMA has long called for museums to be a statutory service, and that must be a logical next step, which we'd like to see included in the manifesto. That would surely help to promote the collaborative and innovative culture with research and public benefit at the forefront that the manifesto calls for. The manifesto promotes a regional approach as the best way of achieving that. The model of regional repositories with enhanced storage capacity that are centres of curatorial expertise and foci for research and advice is a feature of the Southport Report and has been discussed frequently for many years. But given the current political and economic situation, a network of regional repositories seems an even more distant prospect. All the same, the concept mirrors one promoted in the recent ACE and HE funded report options for sustainable archaeological archives. Apart from looking into the feasibility of developing local, regional or national archive repositories, this project also promotes the concept of a national collection of archaeological archives. This would use the existing network of museums in a collective effort to develop a universal approach to collection, curation and provision of access. In that sense, this recognises the issues raised in the society's manifesto and offers a similar solution based in existing structures and utilising the extensive expertise that already resides within our museums and repositories. The options appraisal was one project among several being promoted by Historic England's Future for Archaeological Archives programme. The SMA is represented in the programme board for that initiative and endorses the course it is currently following. From the options appraisal, the programme is promoting the development of a single national archaeological archive store. This would answer the immediate pressing need to provide a home for archives that currently have no repository to go to whilst also offering a sustainable resource for well into the future. Here we are reckoning that a single store is the most realistically achievable option in the medium term. The SMA fully supports this initiative and is working on several supporting projects including a survey of archive usage. We can see a synergy here with the aspirations of the manifesto. A single national repository built as a single element within a national collection, ideally based in statutory museum services, would be a framework that would complement and support a network of regional research hubs. Working together, the aim would be to promote archaeology as the research activity, supporting the progressive development of local heritage resources while also identifying the regional, national and international significance of the results of archaeological endeavour. It is possible at the moment to view much archaeological work as driven by a commercial imperative. There has been little benefit to museums from that approach and that, as the Society of Antiquities has recognised, must change.