Hi, I'm Peter Burris, and welcome to another Wikibon Action Item. This was a very interesting week in the tech industry, specifically because IBM's Think Conference was aggregated in a large number of people. Now, theCUBE was there, Dave Vellante, John Furrier and myself, all participated in somewhere in the vicinity of 60 or 70 interviews with thought leaders in the industry, including a number of very senior IBM executives. The reason why this becomes so important is because IBM made a proposal to the industry about how some of the digital disruption that the market faces is likely to unfold. The normal approach or the normal mindset that people have used is that startups, digital native companies were going to change the way that everything was going to operate and the dinosaurs were going to go by the wayside. IBM's interesting proposal is that the dinosaurs actually are going to learn to dance, utilizing or playing on a book title from a number of years ago. And the specific argument was laid out by Ginny Rametti in her keynote when she said that there are a number of factors that are especially important here. Factor number one is that increasingly, businesses are going to recognize that the role that their data plays in competition is on the ascending. It's getting more important. Now, this is something that Wikibon's been arguing for quite some time. In fact, we have said that the whole key to digital disruption and digital business is to acknowledge the difference between business and digital business is the role that data and data assets play in your business. So we have strong agreement there. But on top of that, Ginny Rametti made the observation that 80% of the data that could be accessed and put to work in business has not yet been made available to the new activities and new processes that are essential to changing the way customers are engaged, businesses operate, and overall change and disruption occurs. So her suggestion is that that 80%, that vast amount of data that could be applied that's not being tapped is embedded deep within the incumbents. And so the core argument from IBM is that the incumbent companies, not the digital natives, not the startups, but the incumbent companies are poised to have a significant role in disrupting how markets operate because of the value of their data that hasn't currently been put to work and made available to new types of work. That was the thesis that we heard this week and that's what we're going to talk about today. Are the incumbents really going to strike back? So Dave Vellante, let me start with you. You were at Think, you heard the same type of argument. What did you walk away with? So when I first heard the term incumbent disruptors, I was very skeptical and I still am, but I like the concept and I like it a lot. So let me explain why I like it and why I think there are some real challenges.  Rather, what I'm going to do is I'm going to use my considerable assets to compete and so that includes my customers, my employees, my ecosystem, the partnerships that I have there, et cetera. The reason why I'm skeptical is because incumbents aren't organized around their data assets. Their data assets are stovepipe. They're all over the place and the skills to leverage that data value, monetize that data, understand the contribution that data makes toward monetization. Those skills are limited. They're bespoke and they're very narrow. They're within lines of business or divisions. So there's a huge AI gap between the true digital business and an incumbent business. Now I don't think all is lost. I think a lot of strategies can work from M&A to transformation projects, joint ventures, spin-offs, IBM gave some examples. They put up Verizon and American Airlines. I don't see them yet as incumbent disruptors, but then there was another example of IBM Merisk doing some very interesting and disruptive things. Royal Bank of Canada doing some pretty interesting things. But in a joint venture form, Dave, to your point, they specifically set up a joint venture that would be organized around this data, didn't they? Yes, and that's really the point of trying to make. All is not lost. There are certain things that you can do, many things that you can do as an incumbent and it's really game on for the next wave of innovation. So we agree as a general principle that data is really important, David Floyer. And that's been our thesis for quite some time. But Ginny put something out there that said, Ginny Rametti put something out there. My good friend Ginny Rametti put something out there that 80% of the data that could be applied to disruption, better customer engagement, better operations, new markets is not being utilized. What do we think about that? Is that number real? If you look at the data inside any organization, there's a lot of structured data and that has better ability to move through an organization. Equally, there's a huge amount of unstructured data that goes in emails, it goes in voicemails, it goes in shared documents, it goes in diagrams, PowerPoints, et cetera, that also is data which is very much locked up in the way that Dave Vellante was talking about, locked up in a particular process or in a particular area. So is there a large amount of data that could be used inside an organization? Is it private? Is it theirs? Yes, there is. The question is, how do you tap that data? How do you organize around that data to release it? So this is kind of a chicken and egg kind of a problem. Neil, I'm going to turn to you. When we think about this chicken and egg problem, the question is, do we organize in anticipation of creating these assets? Do we establish new processes in anticipation of creating these data assets? Or do we create the data assets first and then re-institutionalize the work? And the reason why it's a chicken and egg kind of a problem is because it takes an enormous amount of leadership will to affect the way a business works before the assets in place. But it's unclear that we're going to get the asset that we want unless we affect the reorganization and institutionalization. Neil, is it going to be a chicken? Is it going to be the egg? Or is this one of the biggest problems that these guys are going to have? Well, I'm a little skeptical about this 80% number and I need some convincing before I would comment on it. I would rather see, and when David mentioned PowerPoint slides or email or that sort of thing, I would rather see that information curated by the application itself rather than dragged out as raw data and reinterpreted something. I think it's very dangerous. I think, you know, we saw that in data warehousing but it's easier because when you look at building data lakes, you throw all this stuff into a data lake and then after the fact somebody has to say, well, what is this data mean? So I find that, I find it that tough. Now, so Jim Cabela, a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft actually introduced a technology or a toolkit that could in fact be applied to move this kind of advanced processing for dragging value out of a PowerPoint or a Word document or something else close and proximate to the application. Is that, I mean, what Neil just suggested, I think is a very, very good point. Are we going to see these kinds of new technologies directly embedded within applications to help users narrowly but businesses more broadly lift that information out of these applications so that it can be freed up for other uses? I think, yeah, at some level, Peter, this is a topic called dark data. It's been discussed in the data management circles for a long time. The vast majority, I think 75 to 80% is the numbers that I've seen the research bear out is locked up in terms of it's not searchable, it's not easily discoverable. It's not mashup-able, I mean, I'm making up a word, but the term mashup hasn't been used in years, but I think it's a good one. What it's all about is if we want to make the most of our incumbents data, then we need to give the business, the business people, the tools to find the data where it is to mash it up into new forms and analytics and so forth in order to monetize it and sell it, make money off of it. So there are a wide range of data discovery and other tools that support really self-service combination and composition of composite data object. I don't know that, however, that the culture of monetizing existing data sets and pulling dark data into productized forms, I don't think that's taken root in any organization anywhere. I think that's just something that consultants talk about as something that, gee, should be done, but I don't think it's happening in the real world. I think you're probably correct about that, but I still think Neil Ray's a great point and I would expect, and I think we all believe that increasingly this is not going to come as a result of massive changes in adoption of new data science like practices everywhere, but in embedding of these technologies, machine learning algorithms, approaches to finding patterns with an application data in the applications themselves, which is exactly what Neil was saying. So I think that what we're going to see, and I wanted some validation from you guys about this, is a increasingly tools being used by application providers to reveal data that's in applications and not open source, independent tool chains that then expose facto get applied to all kinds of different data sources in an attempt for the organization to pull this stuff out. David Furrier, what do you think? I agree with you. I think there's a great opportunity for the IT industry in this area to put together solutions which can go and fit in on the basis of existing applications. There's a huge amount of potential, for example, of ERP systems to link in with IoT systems, for example, and provide a data across an organization. Rather than designing your own IoT system, I think people are going to buy in pre-made ones. They're going to put the devices in, the data's going to come in, and the AI work will be done as part of that, as part of implementing that. And right across the board, there is tremendous opportunity to improve the applications that currently exist or put in new versions of applications to address this question of data sharing across an organization.  And it also says, Neil Raden, something about whether or not, you know, enormous machine learning deities in the sky, some of which might start with the letter W, are going to be the best and only way to unlock this data. Is this going to be something that, we're suggesting now that it's something that's going to be increasingly distributed closer to applications, less invasive and disruptive to people, more invasive and disruptive to the applications and the systems that are in place. And what do you think, Neil? Is that a better way of thinking about this? Yeah, let me give you an example. Data science, the way it's been practiced, is a mess. You have one person who's trying to find the data, trying to understand the data, the infectious selection, designing experiments, doing runs and so forth, coming up with formulas and then putting them in the cluster with funny names so they can try to remember which one was which. And now what you have are a number of software companies with some brilliant ways of managing that process, really helping the data science create a work process and curating the data and so forth. But if you want to know something about this particular model, you don't have to go to the person and say, when did you do that model? And what exactly were you thinking about it? That information would be available right there in the work bench. And I think that's a good model for frankly everything. So let's- It's because we built into AI development pipeline toolkits. Yeah, that's a hot theme. Yeah, it's a very hot theme. But Jim, I don't think you think, but I'm going to test it. I don't think we're going to see AI pipeline toolkits be immediately or be accessed by your average end user who's putting together a contract so that that toolkit or so that data is automatically munged and ingested or ingested and munged by some AI pipeline. This is going to happen in an application. So the person's going to continue to do their work and then the tooling will or will not grab that information and then combine it with other things through the application itself into the pipeline. You got that right? Yeah, but I think this is all being, everything you described is being embedded in applications that are making calls to back end cloud services that have to have themselves built by data scientists and exposed through REST APIs.  Yeah, I think that's a good point, but I want to test it. But I want to test that. So Ralph Finos, you've been paying a lot of attention during reporting season to what some of the big guys are saying on some of their calls and in some of their public statements. One company in particular, Oracle, has been finessing a transformation, shall we say. What are they saying about how this is going as we think about their customer base, the transformation of their customer base and the degree to which applications are or are not playing a role in those transformations? Yeah, I think in their last earnings call a couple of days ago, the point that they were making around the decline in the... And again, this is Oracle. So in Oracle's last earnings call, yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry, yeah. And the decline in the revenue growth rate in the public cloud, the SaaS end of their business was a function really of a slowdown of the original acquisitions they made to kind of show up as being a transformative cloud vendor and that are basically beginning to run out of gas. And I think if you're looking at marketing applications and sales related applications and content type of applications, those are kind of hitting a natural high of growth. And I think what they were saying is that from a migration perspective on ERP that that's gonna take a while to get done. They were saying something like 10 or 15% of their customer base had just begun doing some sort of migration. And that's data around ERP and those kinds of applications. So it's a long slog ahead of them, but I'd rather be in their shoes I think for the long run than trying to kind of jazz up in the near term some kind of pseudo SaaS cloud growth based on acquisition and low lying fruit. Yeah, because they have a public cloud, right? I mean, at least they're in the game. Yeah, and they have to show they're in the game. Yeah, and specifically they're talking about their applications as clouds themselves. So they're just not saying, here's a set of resources that you can build to. They're saying, here's a set of SaaS based applications that you can build around. Right, and I think, go ahead Ralph, sorry. Yeah, yeah, and I think the notion there is the migration to their ERP and their systems of record applications that they're saying is this going to take a long time for people to do that migration because of complexity and process. So the last point, Dave Flante, did you have a point you want to make before I jump into a new thought here? I just compare and contrast IBM and Oracle, they have public clouds, they have SaaS, many others don't. I think there's a major point of differentiation. All right, so we've talked about whether or not this notion of data as a source of value is important, we agree it is. We still don't know whether or not 80% is the right number, but it is some large number that's currently not being utilized and applied to work differently than the data currently is, and that likely creates some significant opportunities for transformation. Do we ultimately think that the incumbents, again I mentioned the chicken and egg problem, do we ultimately think that the incumbents are, is this going to be a test of whether or not the incumbents are going to be around in 10 years, the degree to which they enact the types of transformation we thought about. Dave Vellante, you said you were skeptical, you heard the story, we've had the conversation, will incumbents who do this in fact be in a better position? Well, incumbents that do take action, absolutely will be in a better position, but I think that's the real question. I personally believe that every industry is going to get disrupted by digital, and I think a lot of companies are not prepared for this and are going to be in deep trouble. All right, so I have one more thought, because we're talking about industries overall. We have, there's so many elements we haven't gotten to, but there's one absolute thing I want to talk about, specifically the difference between B2C and B2B companies. Clearly the B2C industries have been disrupted, many of them, pretty significantly over the last few years. Not too long ago, I mean I have multiple, not necessarily good memories, of running the aisles of toys or us, sometime after 10 o'clock at night, right around December 24th, I can't do that anymore. It's not because my kids are grown, or I won't be able to do that soon anymore. So B2C industries seem to have been moved faster because the digital natives are able to take advantage of the fact that a lot of these B2C industries did not have direct and strong relationships with their customers. I would posit that a lot of the B2B industries are really where the action's going to take, and the right kind of way I would think about it, and David Foley, I'll turn to you first. The way I would think about it is that it's, in the B2C world, it's new markets and new ways of doing things, which is where the disruption's going to take place. So more of a substitution as opposed to a churn, but in the B2B markets, it's disrupting, getting greater efficiencies, greater automation, greater engagement with existing customers, as well as finding new businesses and opportunities. What do you think about that? I think the B2B market is much more stable. Relationships, business relationships, very, very important. They take a long time to change. But much of that isn't digital? A lot of that is not digital, I agree with that. However, I think that the underlying change that's happening is one of automation. B2B are struggling to put into place automation with robots, automation everywhere. What you see, for example, in Amazon is a dedication to automation, to making things more efficient. And I think that, to me, the biggest challenge is owning up to the fact that they have to change their automation, get themselves far more efficient. And if they don't succeed in doing that, then their ability to survive, or their likelihood of being taken over with a reverse takeover, it becomes higher and higher and higher. So how do you go about that level, huge increase in automation that is needed to survive, I think is the biggest question for B2B. And when we think about automation, David, we're not talking about the manufacturing arms, or only talking about manufacturing arms. We're talking about a lot of new software automation. David Vonte, Jim Cabellus, RPA is kind of a new thing. Dave, we saw some interesting things, I think, bring us up to speed quickly on what the community I think was talking about with RPA. Well, I tell you, there were a lot of people in financial services, which is IBM Stronghold, and they're using software robots to automate a lot of the backend stuff that humans are doing. That's a major, major use case. I would say 25 to 30% of the financial services organizations that I talked to had active RPA projects ongoing at the moment. I don't know, Jim, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I think backend automation is where B2B disruption is happening. As the organizations are able to automate, more of their backend, and digitize more of their backend functions, and accelerate them and improve the throughput of transactions, are those that will clean up. I think for the B2C space, it's the front end automation of the digitalization of the engagement channels. But RPA is essentially a key that's unlocking backend automation for everybody because it allows more of the front end business analysts, and those who are not traditional like BPM or business process re-engineering professionals, to begin to take standard administrative processes and begin to automate them from, as it were, the outside in a greater way. So I think RPA is a secret key for that. And I think we'll see some of the more disruptive organizations, businesses, take RPA and use it to essentially just reverse engineer, as it were, existing processes, but in an automated fashion, and drive the backend by AI. Yeah, I just love the term software robots. I just think that that's, I think that's so strongly evokes what's going to happen here. If I could add, I think there's a huge need to simplify that space. The other thing I witnessed that IBM think is it's still pretty complicated. It's still a heavy lift. There's a lot of big services component to this, which is probably why IBM loves it. But there's a massive market, I think, to simplify the adoption of it. I completely agree. We have to open the aperture as well. Again, the goal is not to train people new things, new data science, new automation stuff, but to provide tools and increasingly embed those tools into stuff that people are already using so that the disruption and the changes happen more as a consequence of continuing to do what the people do. All right, so let's hit the action item around, guys. It's been a great conversation. Again, we haven't talked about GDPR. We haven't talked about a wide array of different factors that are going to be an issue. I think this is something we're going to talk about. But on the narrow issue of can the disruptors strike back, Neil Raden, let's start with you. Neil Raden, action item. I've been saying since 1975 that I should be hanging around with a better class of people, but I do spend a lot of time in the insurance industry. And I have been getting a consensus that in the next five to 10 years, there will no longer be underwriters for claims adjustments. That business is ready for massive, massive change. And those are disruptors, largely. Jim Kobielus, action item. Action item, in terms of business disruption, is just not to imagine that you're, because you're the incumbent in the past era in some solution category that's declining, that that automatically guarantees you, that makes your data fit for seizing opportunities in the future. As we've learned from Blockbuster video, the fact that they had all this customer data that didn't give them any defenses against Netflix coming along and cleaning their clock and putting them out of business. So the next generation of disruptor will not have any legacy data to work from, and they'll be able to work miracles because they made a strategic bet on some front end digital channel that made all the difference. Ralph Finos, action item. Yeah, I think there's a notion here of siege mentality. And I think the incumbents are in, you know, with the castle walls and the disruptors are outside the castle walls. And sometimes the disruptors, you know, scale the walls, sometimes they don't. And that I think being inside the walls is a long run tougher thing to be at. Dave Vellante, action item. Yeah, I want to pick up on something Neil said. I think it's alluring for some of these industries like insurance and financial services and healthcare, even parts of government that really haven't been disrupted in a huge way yet to say, well, I'll wait and I'll wait and I'll see what happens. I think that's a huge mistake. I think you have to start immediately thinking about strategies, particularly around your data, as we talked about earlier, maybe it's M&A, maybe it's joint ventures, maybe it's spinning out new companies, but, you know, the time has passed where you should be acting. David Foyer, action item. I think that it's easier to focus on something that you can actually do. So my action item is that the focus of most B2B companies should be on looking at all of their processes and incrementally automating them. Or taking out the people costs, taking out the costs, other costs, automating as processes as much as possible. That, in my opinion, is the most likely path to being in a position that you can continue to be competitive. Without that focus, it's likely that you're going to be disrupted. All right, so the one thing I'll say about that, David, is when I think you say people costs, I think you say the administrative costs associated with people. And people doing things, automating jobs. All right, so we have been talking here on today's Wikibon Action Item about the question, will the incumbents be able to strike back? The argument we heard at IBM Think this past week, and this is the third week of March, was that data is an asset that can be applied to significantly disrupt industries, and that incumbents have a lot of data that hasn't been bought into play in the disruptive flow. And IBM's argument is that we're going to see a lot of incumbents start putting their data into play, more of their data assets into play, and that's going to have a significant impact ultimately on industry structure, customer engagement, the nature of the products and services that are available over the course of next decade. We agree, we generally agree. We might nitpick about whether it's 80%, whether it's 60%, but in general, the observation is an enormous amount of data that exists within large companies related to how they conduct business is siloed and locked away and is used once and is not made available, is dark and is not made available for derivative uses that could in fact lead to significant consequential improvements in how a business's transaction costs are ultimately distributed. Automation's going to be a big deal. David Foyer's mentioned this in the past. I'm also of the opinion that there's going to be a lot of new opportunities for revenue enhancement and products, I think that's going to be as big, but it's very clear that to start, it makes an enormous amount of sense to take a look at where your existing transaction costs are, where existing information asymmetries exist and see what you can do to unlock that data, make it available to other processes and start to do a better job of automating local and specific to those activities. And we generally ask our clients to take a look at what is your value proposition, what are the outcomes necessary for that value proposition, what activities are most important to creating those outcomes and then find those that by doing a better job of unlocking new data, you can better automate those activities. In general, our belief is that there's a significant difference between B2C and B2B businesses. Why? Because a lot of B2C businesses never really had that direct connection, therefore never really had as much of the market and customer data about what was going on, a lot of point of sale perhaps, but not a lot of other types of data. And then the disruptors stepped in and created direct relationships, gathered that data and were able to rapidly innovate products and services that served consumers differently. Where a lot of that new opportunity exists is in the B2B world. And here's where the real incumbents are going to start flexing their muscles over the course of the next decade as they find those opportunities to engage differently, to automate existing practices and activities, change their cost model and introduce new approaches to operating that are cloud-based, blockchain-based, data-based, based on data, and find new ways to utilize their people. If there's one big caution we have about this, it's this, ultimately, the tooling is not broadly mature, the people necessary to build a lot of these tools are increasingly moving into the traditional disruptors, the legacy disruptors if we will, AWS, Netflix, Microsoft, companies more along those lines. That talent is very dear still in the industry and is going to require an enormous effort to bring those new types of technologies that can in fact liberate some of this data. We look to things like RPA, robot process automation, we look at the big application providers to increasingly imbue their products and services with some of these new technologies, and ultimately, paradoxically, perhaps, we look for the incumbent disruptors to find ways to disrupt without disrupting their own employees and customers. So embedding more of these new technologies in an ethical way directly into the systems and applications that serve people so that the people have faced minimal changes to learning new tricks because the systems themselves have gotten much more automated and much more, are able to learn and evolve and adjust much more rapidly in a way that still corresponds to the way people do work. So our auction item, any company in the B2B space that is waiting for data to emerge as an asset in their business so that they can then do all the institutional, the re-institutionalizing of work and reorganizing of work and new types of investment is not going to be in business in 10 years or is going to have a very tough time with it. The big challenge for the board and the CIO, and it's not successfully been done in the past, at least not too often, is to start the process today without necessarily having access to the data of starting to think about how the work's going to change, think about the way their organization is going to have to be set up. This is not business process re-engineering, this is organizing around future value of data, the options that data can create and employ that approach to start doing local automation, serve customers and change way partnerships work and ultimately plan out for an extended period of time how their digital business is going to evolve. Once again, I want to thank David Foyer here in the studio with me, Neil Raiden, Dave Vellante, Ralph Finoz, Jim Cabela's, remote, thanks very much guys for all of our clients. Once again, this has been a Wikibon Action Item. We'll talk to you again. Thanks for watching.


Well today we're in chapter 11 here in the book of Joshua. We'll look as I said at both chapters 11 and 12 But here in verse 1 Joshua chapter 11 will read to verse 5 We'll see how this chapter deals with what we would call a continuing conquest And so beginning at verse 1 reading to verse 5 Joshua chapter 11 we read and it came to pass When you have in King of Hazar heard these things That he sent to you out Joe Bob actually I shouldn't do that the way the pronounces in Hebrew is different than how we say it in English So I'm just going to read it in English because I don't read Hebrew But I know how some of these names are pronounced or sound like but I'll just read it as it's as it sounds and I'll begin again It came to pass when Charlie King of Hazar When Jaban King of Hazar heard these things that he sent to Joe Bob King of Maiden to the king of Shimran to the king of Oshoff The kings who were from the north the mountains in the plains south of Kinneroth in the lowland and in the heights of Door on the west to the Canaanites in the east and in the west the Amorite the Hittite Parasite Jebusite in the mountains the Hivite Below Herman in the land of Mizpah So they went out they and all their armies with them as many people as the sand that is on the seashore in multitude With very many horses and chariots and all these kings had met together They came and camp together at the waters of Merim to fight against Israel Now Joshua as we're looking at the book of Joshua. We need to remember that Joshua had a strategy Joshua had a plan He had a plan on how to conquer what has been referred to as the Promised Land and The strategy that he had was what we would today simply refer to as The the strategy of divide and conquer as we've been looking at the book of Joshua We see how that they entered in the the Jewish troops entered in at first to the center And so the center part or central Israel was initially conquered we saw how they came against Jericho and how they came against the small city of AI After they took Jericho and AI and that surrounding territory They began to go south and as they were proceeding south They went all the way down south if you're looking at the map of Israel they go all the way down south there by the Dead Sea So they began to take the south So by taking the center and taking the south they were dividing those properties or those portions of Israel from the north and So there was a plan involved. There was a strategy involved in the conquering of the land and it was divide and conquer Now undoubtedly this plan was something that didn't simply come Through experience or human ingenuity and the Bible tells us in Proverbs 16 verse one a man's heart plans his way But the Lord directs his steps So undoubtedly this was simply a plan that was given to Joshua By the Lord and so he began his dividing and conquering by entering into central Israel Going to the territory of the south and now he's ready to conquer the territory that is to the north Now we just read of this man. His name is Jabin here in verse one He came to pass when when Jabin king of hazer heard these things So we're introduced to a king by the name of Jabin now Jabin is identified as a king who rules in a very powerful city called hazer Now hazer was to the north when you look at a map once again You see the sea of Galilee to the north and hazer was in that general area. It was to the north there by the sea of Galilee and It was a city that he ruled in that was a very powerful city Hazer was also a very prestigious city in ancient times as I was doing some review on this I wanted to see if there are any Archaeological notations on this particular city that I could share with you and one source said Concerning the ruins that were discovered on the site of ancient hazer that the city also showed signs of having been a Magnificent Canaanite city prior to its destruction. It had great temples opulent palaces that were split into an upper acropolis It had the lower city and the town had been a major Canaanite city And so this particular city that was ruled by a man by the name of Jamet Jabin had had ample time to hear the things that had been going on to his south You see when you begin to look at the conquest of Of the promised land because we're just reading chapter by chapter We don't really get an inside or a sense of the length of time That would have had to have proceeded from the first entrance into the land to the conquering of the land Conservative scholars estimate no less than seven years So from the beginning when they came in and took Jericho AI went south When they went up to the north you're looking at a period of time that was lengthy We're looking at around seven years And so over the years that it had taken for for them to take Jericho and to take AI and to go down to the south and Establish and and begin to work and rule and all of that Well, that was plenty of time for this King up in the north by the name of Jabin to hear of What was taking place and to be at the ready because in the event that these Jews would be coming up to take his His land his city and and all he would have to be prepared And so he has had time to estimate What's going to take place it took years the campaigns took like I said up to seven years Conquests the news of the conquest has reached his ears And so his response is to develop a coalition And so he develops a coalition in order that he might oppose the Jews and he sends to various kings Even as we read their names He sent to Jobab the king of Medan That is a city that was to the north outside of the city of Tiberias if you were to look at a map and you were to look at the Sea of Galilee and you were to look on the Western shore in the center and go about five miles to the west that's where this particular city was There was another city that's mentioned here Shimran. It's a fortified city You had another another city called Ashtafs, which is the word means when pronounced correctly It means sorcery means fascination It may have that may give us some insight into the the religious faith of the inhabitants of that area And then you see something here that I find very interesting and this is something I'll just touch on for you But notice verse 2 when he speaks about the plain south of Kinneroth now I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand, but I am gonna rhetorically ask the question does anybody know Kinneroth and the answer is you all do Even if at the moment you don't recognize it The word Kinneroth the word Kinneroth means harp But it also has a Greek word that is associated with Kinneroth and it's Ganeser it Ganeser it is is another way of speaking of the Sea of Galilee When you read your New Testament you see the Sea of Galilee and we all today in the 21st century when we speak concerning the That giant lake that is there in the north of Israel. We always refer to it as the Sea of Galilee It's reason it's called the Sea of Galilee. It's because it's a large lake and therefore they refer to it as the sea But in the Old Testament the Sea of Galilee is actually called Kinneroth or the Sea of Kinneroth The word harp there is Ganeser it in the New Testament the word Ganeser it is is the word harp in Greek And the reason it's called harp is simply because it had the shape of a harp And so this is simply giving to us geographic location and the key for us if we didn't know anything else and we wanted to know where this is taking place all we need to know is Kinneroth because Kinneroth is to the north that helped me even as I was reading this and and I knew that this was going to Take place in the north and all but that was a geographic location that helped me to be able to localize what was taking place And so all of this has taken place to the north this is up there by the Sea of Galilee So what does he do again? He develops a coalition to oppose the Jews Now in verse 3 it says to the Canaanites in the east the west the Amorite Hittite Parasite Jebusite Hivite below Herman land of Mitzvah They went out they and all their armies with them as many people as the sand that is on the seashore in multitude With very many horses and chariots and when all these kings had met together They came and camped together at the waters of Mirim to fight against Israel And so these people form an alliance and they are going to be opposing what they refer to and would consider invaders They joined their armies and by what is called the waters of Mirim the waters of Mirim if you were looking at the Sea of Galilee and and you saw a Tributary that was leading to it. It's like a line. That's kind of like just a like a small river of some sort that would be called the waters of Mirim and If you've been to Israel, then this will help you It's located in what is today referred to as the hula valley The hula valley we all know the hula valley is where the very first Hawaiian ever danced in the hula valley, but anyway So that's up to the north also and off to the to the west now I wanted to just make an application for just a moment. It's interesting to me I wonder certain conditions people can actually unite for a common cause in This case They were uniting In opposition, but they were uniting Because they wanted to preserve their way of life They united in what we would call today a common cause and their common cause was to resist their enemies and So they unite joining forces to fight against that which they're in opposition to and These are a group of people as we're going to see in a moment I'm going to develop this with you as we go through this study that were really under the judgment of God and Yet they had a heart to unite in opposition To what God was doing Now in their uniting together. It reminds me that of something that happened later on in their history It happened during the time of the prophet Samuel And when you read in 1st Samuel, you see that Israel had gone to fight the Philistines in And the first battle that they had ended poorly for Israel and the Bible tells us in this in this battle They lost some 4,000 soldiers So the Jews were dispirited and what they wanted to do is they wanted to guarantee success And so they had amongst them what was called the Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant was A symbol of the presence of God in the nation of Israel was a place where God Would actually allow his presence to be in order that he might commune with Israel The Ark of the Covenant was something that was of great value to the Jews And so the Jews had lost this battle. They lost 4,000 people They're greatly upset and so they make a determination They're going to continue fighting but now they're going to bring the Ark of the Covenant with them So for them it was really Almost a good luck charm a symbol of God's presence but not in a religious or a holy sense And so when the Ark of the Covenant is brought out amongst the the children of Israel a shout goes up Amongst the people they begin to shout because the Ark is there because they think that this Ark is going to guarantee their success against the Philistines Well the Philistine army Here's the shouting that's taking place and They have great fear Because they so my goodness their God is now amongst them and So they're aware of the stories that relate to God's presence with the children of Israel But the Philistines these these pagan people they were called the sea people these these pagan people Instead of running actually say something that is really amazing. It's found in 1st Samuel 4 verse 9 And this is how they strengthen themselves This is how they comfort themselves in 1st Samuel 4 9 it says that they said be strong and Conduct yourselves like men you Philistines That you do not become servants of the Hebrews as they have been to you Conduct yourselves like men and fight That's what the world does When the world begins to weigh through the options and begin to realize that their way of life The things that they do the things that they like the things that they value are coming under attack They have a tendency of uniting and they fight And guess what they don't quit the world doesn't quit Here's something for you. Some of you are aware of this others perhaps or not Some could care less and others will be greatly interested 1947 ancient history Dodgers had a Manager by the name of Leo de Rocha Anybody here remember the name? Leo de Rocha well-known names. How many of you don't know angel fans Leo de Rocha He was a very well-known Dodger manager. He was not known for being a moral man and Was committing adultery and when he was committing adultery a particular Catholic youth organization Called the commissioner of baseball this is 1947 and said that de Rocha is Undermining the morals of America's youth Because he's an unrepentant adulterer and You know what happened the commissioner of baseball called branch Ricky and told him Who was the general manager for the Dodgers? told him You need to suspend de Rocha Because this youth organization is threatening to boycott baseball games and If you don't suspend him We're going to lose a business and we're going to lose our our our model we're going to lose our our image and So when Jackie Robinson was brought into baseball To play in 47. He didn't play under the skipper. He didn't play under de Rocha He played under an interim manager because there was an uproar By this Catholic youth youth organization because of the undermining of morals and America in 1947 Would not have put up with that Fast-forward to 2013. What would happen now? We'd probably say Well what happened when this african-american basketball player came out and said he's at homosexual He becomes a model the new Jackie Robinson That's what happened that happened since 47 to 2013 The world doesn't stop The world doesn't give up The world continues moving the world continues fighting the world wants its way The church goes to sleep The church gives up But the world doesn't The church loses its traction, but the world doesn't the world keeps pushing It's anti-God agenda and will not cease So we're in a battle, aren't we? we are in a war and Thank God you're here tonight because to me it matters because a midweek study ought to matter We ought to get in the word of God. We ought to be in prayer. We ought to be in fellowship We ought to be aware of the times we're living in You see the Philistines did not want to yield and become servants to the Hebrews So they say fight like men be men That's a word that really should go out to all the believers in Jesus Christ in these last days, don't you think? All right, like people who know what's going on Fight like you understand the cost you see and So the world doesn't stop the world unites forms coalitions Opposes that which God is doing and will fight to the very end Believers ought to have the kind of mindset to realize that we are in a spiritual battle ourselves and We have to be equipped for works of service We have to be ready and we have to be armed and we are dangerous When we are armed and when we're walking in the Spirit we're dangerous to the kingdom of the enemy and so these kings meet together and They are going to fight it says in verse 5 against Israel verse 6, but the Lord said to Joshua Do not be afraid because of them For tomorrow about this time. I will deliver all of them slain before Israel You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire So Joshua and all the people of war with him came against them suddenly by the waters of Merim. They attacked them and The Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel who defeated them and chased them to greater Sidon to the Brook, Miss Rippal Into the Valley of Mispah eastward They attacked them until they left none of them remaining So Joshua did to them as the Lord had told him he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire now These kings were powerful these kings were united they were in opposition You see in previous battles the enemy was not quite as prepared and don't seem to be as determined to oppose him So Joshua needs needs encouragement from the Lord Now the soldiers also need encouragement Even though they'd already seen God's hand as he delivered them before yet God needs to encourage them and he's going to do so it's going to encourage this this this military force through Joshua now Their forces may have been smaller than this coalition I want you to notice that it speaks concerning the fact that that there were there was a great multitude there was a great amount of enemies against them and so When we looked in Joshua 413 The number 40,000 was there telling us that they're at least in that passage We're around 40,000 Israeli soldiers and so they may have had a smaller fighting force than the coalition So they had experience they they'd already gone through battles and they were battle-hardened. That's true But they needed to trust in their God Now in in our spiritual lives battles are part of our walk They're they're part of the life that we live we get saved and And every believer in this room knows this beyond a shadow of a doubt when you got saved Life didn't get easier did it or it maybe it did for you it didn't for me It didn't get easier life became a little tougher Because I had made a choice to to now be living in opposition to the current of the world you see and so When I got saved I No longer could yield to the impulses of my my flesh that worse at one time were just the natural thing to do I now had to learn to Recognize myself to see myself to reckon myself to be dead in Christ and get alive I had to begin to understand that the old impulses were still going to attempt to drive me to behaviors But I needed to recognize myself as being Crucified with Christ and yet alive in Jesus. I needed to see myself as as more than a conqueror I needed to understand that God would be with me never leave me never forsake me I needed to understand that I was going to go through life and there was going to be hardship And that's part of the Christian life in this world.  I have overcome the world There will be opposition there will be pressure and all of that I needed to understand that I had to be aware of that And I needed to know that that though I was going through these things that there were going to be normal and they're going to be actually natural and in the Case of Israel God had already guaranteed them victory But Israel still needed to fight all the way back in chapter one in verses five and six It has said there no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life as I was with Moses So I'll be with you.  Every one of us in this room understand to some degree what that means Because all of us go through battles and all of us go through opposition ourselves And so they're going to learn what victory is and they're going to learn that they're going to have victory in the Lord And so in verse seven Joshua and all the people of war with him came against them suddenly by the waters of Marum And they attacked them and so he uses a tactic here of concentrating overwhelming force at high speed so this kept them off balance and It made it almost impossible for this for the for them to respond effectively against him And so he came upon them and he did exactly as the Lord had said he would do and he hamstrung according to verse 9 Their horses and he burned their chariots with fire now now today when we when we think of horses and chariots We think well, that's kind of like well, that's that that doesn't sound very frightening to me And that's only because we're in a mechanized age But you know right outside here if you go outside by the fences over there We there's some horses over there and some of you were raised around horses and all I I never really was other than that one They used to drop a nickel in and you could ride on in front of the supermarket That's pretty much the only horse I ever was on other than the ponies They used to bring through the neighborhood and put us in a little cowboy hats and chaps and and guns and get your pictures taken But I never was a cowboy though. I do love cowboy music and So I don't have a concept and I suppose the majority of us don't really have a concept of what this is really speaking about when it Speaks of chariots and it speaks of horses But you need to just remember one thing that the chariot was the what we would call a tank During the times of Joshua These these chariots were battle chariots and the horses were battle horses and Those horses drawing those heavy chariots that were armed and had On the on the wheels they would have razors that would just mow you down and they'd run over you with them These were tanks and when you would see all these chariots coming towards you fear would Immediately enter into you because it would be like you standing outside with a slingshot against the tank There was nothing you could do and yet God it said don't be afraid I'm going to be with you and even though they look like they can conquer you you are going to end up hamstringing Those horses those horses will not be able to run and do battle against you. You're going to take care of those chariots So that was almost an impossible thing to believe But that's exactly what God does God will give to you victory so many times and it looks like there's nothing there except defeat Well in verse 10 Joshua turned back at that time and took hazer and struck its king with the sword For hazer was formerly the head of all those kingdoms and they struck all the people who were in it with the edge of the sword utterly Destroying them There was none left breathing Then he burned hazer with fire So all the cities of those kings and all the kings Joshua took struck with the edge of the sword He utterly destroyed them as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded But as for the cities that stood on their mounds Israel burned none of them except hazer only Which Joshua burned and all the spoil of these cities and The livestock the children of Israel took his booty for themselves But they struck every man with the edge of the sword Until they had destroyed them they left none breathing as the Lord had commanded Moses his servant So Moses commanded Joshua and so Joshua did he left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses Well hazer once again, I mentioned hazer to you as we began Hazer was the principal city. So when striking hazer he cuts off the head thus killing the body He kills all the inhabitants and in doing so he's guaranteed that none would arise to seek retaliation in the future Now again verse 11 says he burned hazer with fire Now interestingly enough this has been verified through archaeological finds in the area one source says One archaeological stratum dating from around 1200 BC, which is the time of Joshua shows signs of catastrophic fire and Uniform tablets found at the site referred to monarchs. They named idni adi where idni may be the origin of Jabin and so there's archaeological proof that this actually took place and they are found in the ruins the burned Remnants of a once mighty city now in verses 12 through 14 It says all the cities of those kings and all the kings Joshua took and struck with the edge of the sword So after defeating their enemies Israel now is going to take the spoils of war the way they did at AI in Joshua 8 to it said you shall do to AI and its king as you did to Jericho and its king only its spoil in its Cattle you shall take as booty for yourselves lay an ambush for the city behind it And so they were able to take in pillage the cities now verse 15 I want to spend a moment looking at that with you because verse 15 says as the Lord had commanded Moses his servant So Moses commanded Joshua and so Joshua did he left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses Joshua Joshua was a great soldier when you look at the qualities of Joshua You see that he had tremendous qualities This was a man Who was a man of character a man of integrity? He was spiritual. He was decisive. He was courageous. He was inspirational. He was resolute All of those qualities that he has Reveals him to be a great leader One who is worthy to follow and one that you can trust You can trust a spiritual individual a man who fears God You can trust a man who's decisive somebody who's not Vasylating constantly doesn't know exactly what to say Always kind of looking for a way to not have to deal with something Always putting things under investigation until he can come up with a conclusion He was decisive. He was courageous This was a man that that didn't flinch in the sight of war. He wasn't afraid of battle. He was inspirational He was the kind of man that would cause those around him who were valiant soldiers To take heart and to want to go and to want to fight and he was resolute He made a decision and he held fast to it And that's that's the kind of leader that you want to follow and that's the kind of leader that you'll trust But what was the key to his greatness? All of those things that I mentioned and I could have mentioned many more we've been looking at Joshua We've seen these things in him already. What was the key? What is the key to his greatness and and this is something that is so simple that that the average person misses it This is the thing that the average person doesn't see Especially those who are leaders They don't see it. It's interesting, but it's true The key to his success if you will the key to his greatness was obedience Obedience and want you to see that verse 15 once again look what it says The Lord had commanded Moses his servant So Moses commanded Joshua and so Joshua did What God had told Moses and Moses had given to Joshua Joshua obeyed his obedience to God and His faithfulness to what had been handed to him Revealed the quality in him. That was the key to his greatness revealed his faith It revealed the source of his character the source of his integrity it revealed that he was a man under orders and That he was faithful to that which was delivered to him and That is a man you can trust Paul when he was writing to Timothy and 2nd Timothy chapter 2 said the things that I've given to you I want you to deliver the faithful men Who are able to teach who can deliver them to other faithful men so on and so on and so on through the history of the church Because the church was intended by God to be led by men who were faithfully obedient to God's word That's what the church is intended to be led by men who are obedient to God who take what God is given to them and Do it Joshua did what he had been commanded and Joshua left nothing undone Joshua was a man who was obedient to the Lord Oswald Chambers said the golden rule for understanding in spiritual matters is not intellect But obedience if you want To understand the things of the Lord the deeper things of God Though it is a great thing if the Lord should lead you to go to school I'm very supportive of those who have a heart to to gain in education to be used by the Lord in a variety of ways Through the degrees that they earn. That's a wonderful thing I was speaking to some guys just yesterday several pastors that I meet with on a monthly basis and I said, you know Calvary Chapel has had a had a reputation in the past that We were Anti-intellectualism and there are those who have actually written books concerning Calvary Chapel philosophy who have stated in print that Calvary Chappals are are filled with a fear of higher education. That's not true. What so ever? You know, I was telling the guys. I said, you know when I go to the doctor I'm very grateful for the training the doctors had I don't want to go to a doctor who says, you know what I've watched a lot of doctor shows And I really feel inclined towards doctoring and I'd like to take out your gallbladder just to see what it's like I I don't want to go to somebody who has a feeling that he's got a calling to be a doctor I do appreciate when you had a sense of calling to be a doctor who's also trained and So in ministry in ministry, there's a sense of calling you have to have an anointing of the Holy Spirit that you have to have But it's also a blessing when you have also training and You're able to learn certain things and put certain things into practice and all of that but all the training that you have is Useless if you think that the training in and of itself is what constitutes spiritual maturity Because knowledge puffs up that love builds up and When you look at at at knowledge in and of itself Knowledge is the great temptation that was first offered to Eve When Satan said to Eve When you take of this forbidden fruit you shall know even as God knows You're going to know the difference between good and evil. It was a temptation to knowledge because knowledge is power and Knowledge that isn't under the authority of God is dangerous And one of the most dangerous people you'll ever encounter is somebody who's highly educated with no morals Because they can end up like that doctor who's killing those babies Highly trained at it for a long time with no morals killing children So education in and of itself without morals and obedience to the higher things can be a dangerous thing and So what we want is we want to grow and the way that we grow is through knowing the word of God and obeying God's word and Growing spiritually will always be tied up with simple obedience to the things that we study in God's word It's not what we don't understand. That's the problem It's what we do understand and refuse to obey that that is the problem There are big times that I have spoken to people who have had a problem And I have shared with them listen This is what the Bible says and this is how that problem can be solved and I'll give them a scripture and and and they'll say I already know that I Already know that That's when I quote out of John 13 now Jesus said if you know these things Blessed are you if you what if you do them? It's not enough for you to say oh I already know that see there are a lot of people who who say that they at one time were Christians and They're no longer a Christian because it just doesn't work Now what they've done is they basically claimed to know Christ based on maybe attending church or having a few Bible studies Or maybe reading some of the Bible and then they wanted something desperately that wasn't within the will of God for them in their life They didn't get it. They were upset and therefore God isn't real because he didn't give me what I wanted obedience It's it's simple and yet it's difficult because it requires dying to sell Joshua was obedient and his obedience gave his leadership credibility That obedience Was also true in the ministry of Jesus Christ himself There was a it was so obvious that there was an occasion when a Roman centurion Had approached the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of a servant of his who was very ill and Jesus when he spoke to in the centurion spoke to Jesus about his servant who was ill Jesus had said I'll come to your house and and and the Roman centurion Centurion responded it's found in Matthew 8 verses 8 through 10 where it says the centurion answered and said Lord I'm not worthy that you should come under my roof But only speak a word and my servant will be healed, but he goes on to say for I also Am a man under authority having soldiers under me I say to this one go when he goes to another come and he comes and to my servant do this and he does it When Jesus heard it he marveled and said to those who followed assuredly I say to you I have not found such great faith not even in Israel This man said I too am a man under authority. He saw something in Jesus Johnny 29 Jesus said the one who sent me is with me. He hasn't left me alone for I always do what pleases him Jesus was under authority authority of his father we are under the authority of our God and And when we are under the authority of God that simply means that we are going to be obedient to him Joshua obeyed God and That's what made Joshua a powerful leader and that's what made men and a nation able to follow after him as The Lord had commanded Moses his servant so Moses commanded Joshua and so Joshua did He left nothing Undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses now in Deuteronomy 7 1 and 2 It says when the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has Cast out many nations before you the Hittites Gershites Amorites Canaanites Parasites Hivites Jebusites Seven nations greater and mightier than you and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you You shall conquer them and utterly destroy them You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them and that's exactly what Joshua did He took care of business Now in verse 16 So Joshua took all this land the mountain country all the south all the land of Goshen the lowland The Jordan Plain the mountains of Israel and its lowlands from Mount Alak to the ascent of Seir Even as far as well God in the valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon He captured all their kings struck them down killed them Joshua made war a long time with all those kings The land of Goshen we hear of that if you're looking at a map and you're looking at Egypt The land of Goshen would be to the top north and all the way to the eastern area that would be called the The land of Goshen Mount Alak is south of the Dead Sea Seir is a mountain range in Jordan south of the Dead Sea also and by all God is in the north at the foot of Mount Hermon So it's just giving you a geographic location of all the places that had been taken in verse 14 there was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel except they have hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon all the others They took in battle and we remember that the Gibeonites deceived them into a peace treaty For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle that he might utterly destroy them And they might reason that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them as Lord had commanded Moses the people in That area when you read this you may be thinking that sounds kind of harsh but the people in the area were given over to their various sins and None not the least being the sin of idolatry and As they yielded to these sins They be they were voluntarily hardening themselves against God and and their sins had produced a hardness and this hardness yields to an insensibility to God and An unwillingness to be repentant and so this hardness to God and an unrepentant heart is Enough cause for God to bring judgment Proverbs 28 14 says happy is the man who is always reverent But he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity Proverbs 29 one says he who is often rebuked and hardens his neck will suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy So hardness had taken place in these people and so God judgment against them Romans 2 4 asks a question. Do you despise the riches of his goodness? Forbearance and long suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance So we need to understand that that just because we haven't been judged immediately when we do some sinful act Does it mean that God is showing approval of it? It simply means that God has given a space to repent. He's given us some time to do so He's given to us opportunity to think it through to be convicted in order that we might repent seek forgiveness and change But if we harden our hearts continually then the only thing that's going to happen for us would be judgment He goes on in verse 21 to say And at that time Joshua came and caught off the anarchy From the mountains from Hebron Debra from Annab from all the mountains of Judah From all the mountains of Israel Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities None of the anachem were left in the land the children of Israel They remained only in Gaza in Gath and in Ashton So joshua took the whole land according to all That the lords had said to moses and joshua gave it as an inheritance to israel According to the divisions by their tribes and then the land rested from war Anachem Who are these anachem? They're in a movie called star wars. You know, who is anachem? Well, I just give you I just Cut and paste this because it said it well the anachem Our race of giants descended from anach They dwelt in the south of the land of Canaan near Hebron According to genesis 14 They inhabited the region afterwards known as Edom and Moab in the days of Abraham Their formidable appearance as described by the 12 spies Sent to search the land filled the Israelites with terror They were giants is what they were The Israelites seemed to have identified them with the Nephilim The giants found in genesis 6 and numbers 13 That lived before the flood Joshua finally expelled them from the land Accepting a remnant that found a refuge in the cities of Gaza Gath and Ashton Now those three cities by the way are philistine cities The philistine giants whom David encountered in 2nd Samuel as As well as Goliath and 1st Samuel were descendants of the anachem We all know of Goliath But Goliath wasn't the only giant Goliath as we know through studying scripture and taking into consideration Um The dimensions was a man who was nine foot nine inches tall And I I've read in the past how people say that's why I don't believe the bible is accurate because It speaks of human beings that reached the height of over nine feet But uh, there was an individual who was the tallest individual alive at his time. He was eight feet ten inches tall And so even in in recent time we've had individuals who are well over eight feet tall This was a particular race though that has been referred to here the anachemes And they were a race of giants they were fearsome and formidable and very frightening To the to the jews And even as stated even as I was reading this a moment ago When uh joshua and Caleb and the other ten spies Went to spy out the land in preparation of taking it conquering it We read how that they went out there went from the top to the to the bottom and they were gone for For quite some time and they returned and they even brought some remnants of the fruit of the land to demonstrate how How lush and how it was producing such wonderful things and all and and as they came back They said it's great. There's no doubt about it and the land is absolutely beautiful And but there's one problem that we found with it that that concerns us greatly and and it's the fact that they have giants in the land The giants that are being referred to there are the anachemes the the ones who were they were over nine feet tall And and the way they spoke concerning them was simply this they said They are we are like grasshoppers in their site Which is one way of saying it but the thing that i've always found interesting in that passage is when they said also And we are grasshoppers in our own site the anarchy giants Great opposition The problem that they were going to encounter was human problem. They were giants The giants had this haughty attitude. It's kind of like goliath had even as he showed it to david David looks at him and and then goliath looks back at david and What is this? What am I a dog that you'd come and chase me down with sticks? I come over here. He says so I can I can kill you and I'll give your body to the To the words of the air. Let's get this done quickly I had a cutout when I was taking you through the battle of david and goliath and I had a nine foot nine in Inch cut out of a you know So it was human size that looked human and I some of you may have been here It was a couple years ago a few years ago and I stood next to it and I came up basically basically through the belt I mean that's how huge goliath was And he's looking down at this this little shepherd boy And he comes with five smooth stones and a sling shepherd sling But david's strength was not in his ability to cast a stone in a sling though. He was an expert at it It wasn't even his courage that he had because the man was an absolute warrior himself who took down the wolf He could take down the lion Bear handed basically he was he was a soldier. He was a warrior. This is a man who was fierce and there's no doubt about it But he was coming against an opponent who was nine foot nine a battle hardened opponent one of the giants david said well you come to me with your weapons of war, but I come to you in the name of god and I have to tell you Today he's going to give you into my hands And I'm going to take your head off your body I'm going to feed your body to the birds of the air Because I come to you in the name of god And if we could if we could only understand that Then those things that have become giants in our lives would be overcome Because it's not in your own strength. Listen carefully.  I can't do this That was the key to joshua's greatness Yes, he was courageous and yes He had integrity and yes, he was valiant in every way that you could be But there was something about joshua that we need to learn from today and that is He was obedient Trusted god he did what god said God blessed him god will bless us too If we're obedient also see Now finally chapter 12 It's just a list of the names of the kings that were conquered So we're not going to go through that it simply says in verse 24 All the kings 31 So what you have in chapter 12 are the kings that were initially in the first few verses The kings that had been conquered by moses and then from verse 7 to the conclusion continuation The kings conquered by joshua And so quite obviously we don't need to go through these names of all these kings other than there's one Interesting verse in verse 6 and then i'll close with this where it says in chapter 12 verse 6 Moses the servant of the lord and the children of israel Had conquered moses the servant of the lord had given it as a possession to the rubinites So that shows us that there were mexicans in israel back at that time The rubinites


from San Jose, it's theCUBE. Presenting Big Data Silicon Valley, brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media and its ecosystem partners. Welcome back to theCUBE. We are live on our first day of coverage at our event, Big Data SV. This is our 10th Big Data event. We've done five here in Silicon Valley. We also do them in New York City in the fall. We have a great day of coverage. We're next to where the start of data conference is going on at Forger Tasting Room in Edery. Come on down, be part of our audience. We also have a great party tonight where you can network with some of our experts and analysts. And tomorrow morning, we've got a breakfast briefing. I'm Lisa Martin with my co-host Peter Burris and we're excited to welcome to theCUBE for the first time the CEO of Connecticut, Paul Appleby. Hey Paul, welcome. Hey, thanks, it's great to be here. We're excited to have you here and I saw something as a marketer and terms I grasp onto them. Connecticut is the insight engine for the extreme data economy. What is the extreme data economy and what are you guys doing to drive insight from it? Wow, how do I put that in a snapshot? Let me share with you my thoughts on this because the fundamental principles around data have changed. In the past, our businesses are really validated around data. We reported out how our businesses performed. We reported to our regulators. Over time, we drove insights from our data. But today, in this kind of extreme data world, in this world of digital business, our businesses need to be powered by data. So what are the ways, let me test this on you. So one of the ways that we think about it is that data has become an asset. Oh yeah. It's become an asset that now the business has to care for it, has to define it, care for it, feed it, continue to invest in it, find new ways of using it. Is that kind of what you're suggesting companies think about? Absolutely what we're saying. I mean, if you think about what Angela Merkel said at the World Economic Forum earlier this year, that she saw data as the raw material of the 21st century. And talking about Germany fundamentally shifting from being an engineering, manufacturing-centric economy to a data-centric economy. So this is not just about data powering our businesses, this is about data powering our economies. So let me build on that, if I may, because I think it gets to what many respects Connecticut's core value proposition is. And that is that data is a different type of an asset. Most assets are characterized by you apply it here or you apply it there. You can't apply it in both places at the same time. And it's one of the misnomers of the notion of data as fuels because fuel is still an asset that has certain specificities. You can't apply it to more places. But data you can't, which means that you can copy it, you can share it, you can combine it in interesting ways. But that means that to use data as an asset, especially given the velocity and the volume that we're talking about, you need new types of technologies that are capable of sustaining the quality of that data while making it possible to share it to all different applications. If I got that right, what does Connecticut do in that? You absolutely nailed it because what you talked about is a shift from predictability associated with data to unpredictability. We actually don't know the use cases that we're going to leverage for our data moving forward but you understand how valuable an asset it is. And I'll give you two examples of that. There's a company here based in the Bay Area, a really cool company called Liquid Robotics. And they build these autonomous aquatic robots and they carried a vast array of sensors and they were collecting data. And of course that's usually powerful to oil and gas exploration, to research, to shipping companies, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, even Homeland Security applications. But what they did, they were selling the robots and what they realized over time is that the value of their business wasn't the robots, it was the data. And that one piece of data has a totally different meaning to a shipping company than it does to a fisheries company but they could sell that exact same piece of data to multiple companies. Now, of course their business has grown on and scaled and I think they were acquired by Boeing. But what you're talking about is exactly where Connecticut sits. It's an engine that allows you to deal with the unpredictability of data, not only the sources of data but the uses of data and enables you to do that in real time. So Connecticut's technology was actually developed to meet some intelligence needs of the U.S. Army. My dad's a former Army Ranger, Airborne. So tell us a little bit about that and kind of the genesis of the technology. Yeah, it's a fascinating use case. If you think about it, we're all concerned globally about cyber threat, we're all concerned about terrorist threats. But how do you identify terrorist threats in real time? And the only way to do that is to actually consume vast amount of data whether it's drone footage or traffic cameras, whether it's mobile phone data or social data, but the ability to stream all of those sources of data and conduct the analytics on that in real time was really the genesis of this business. It was a research project with the Army and the NSA that was aimed at identifying terrorist threats in real time. But at the same time, you not only have to be able to stream all the data in and do an analytics on it, you also have to have interfaces and understandable approaches to acquiring the data so that, because I have a background, some background on that as well, to then be able to target the threat. So you have to be able to get the data in and analyze it, but also get it out to where it needs to be so an action can be taken. Yeah, and there are two big issues there. One issue is the interoperability of the platform and the ability for you to not only consume data in real time from multiple sources, but to push that out to a variety of platforms in real time. That's one thing. The other thing is to understand that in this world that we're talking about today, there are multiple personas that want to consume that data and many of them are not data scientists. They're not IT people. They're business people. They could be executives or they could be field operatives in the case of intelligence. So you need to be able to push this data out in real time onto platforms that they consume, whether it's via mobile devices or any other device for that matter. You also have to be able to build applications on it, right? Yeah, absolutely. So how does Connecticut facilitate that process? Because it looks more like a database. And which is, it's more than that, but it satisfies some of those conventions so developers have an affinity for it. Yeah, absolutely. So in the first instance, we provide tools ourselves for people to consume that data and to leverage the power of that data in real time in an incredibly visual way with a geospatial platform. But we also create the ability for it to interface with really commonly used tools. Because the whole idea, if you think about providing some sort of ubiquitous access to the platform, the easiest way to do that is to provide that through tools that people are used to using, whether that's something like Tableau, for example, or Esri if you want to talk about geospatial data. So the first instance, it's actually providing access in real time through platforms that people are used to using. And then, of course, by building our technology in a really, really open framework with a broadly published set of APIs, we're able to support not only the ability for our customers to build applications on that platform, and it could well be applications associated with autonomous vehicles. It could well be applications associated with Smart City. We're doing some incredible things with some of the biggest cities on the planet in leveraging the power of Big Data to optimize transportation, for example, in the city of London. It's those sorts of things that we're able to do with the platform. So it's not just about a database platform or an insights engine for dealing with these complex vast amounts of data, but also the tools that allow you to visualize and utilize that data. Turn that data into an action. Yeah, because the data is useless until you're doing something with it. And that's really, you know, if you think about the promise of things like Smart Grid. Collecting all of that data from all of those smart sensors is absolutely useless until you take an action that is meaningful for a consumer or meaningful in terms of the generational consumption of power. So Paul, when you're as the CEO, when you're talking to customers, we talk about chief data officer, chief information officer, chief information security officer. There's a lot data scientists, engineers, there's so many stakeholders. That need access to the data. As businesses transform, there's new business models that can come into development if, like you were saying, the data is evaluated and it's meaningful. What are the conversations that you're having? I guess I'm curious, maybe which personas are at the table when you're talking about the business values that this technology can deliver? Yeah, that's a really, really good question because the truth is there are multiple personas at the table. Now, we in the technology industry we're quite often guilty of only talking to the technology personas. But as I've traveled around the world, whether I'm meeting with the world's biggest banks, the world's biggest telcos, the world's biggest auto manufacturers, the people we meet more often than not are the business leaders and they're looking for ways to solve complex problems. How do you bring the connected car to life? How do you really bring it to life? You know, one car traveling around a city for a full day generates a terabyte of data. So what does that really mean when we start to connect the billions of cars that are in the marketplace in the framework of connected car and then ultimately in a world of autonomous vehicles? So for us, we're trying to navigate an interesting path. We're dragging the narrative out of just the technology-based narrative, speeds and feeds, algorithms and APIs into a narrative about, well, what does it mean for the pharmaceutical industry, for example? Because when you talk to pharmaceutical executives, the holy grail for the farmer industry is, how do we bring new and compelling medicines to market faster? Because, you know, the biggest challenge for them is the cycle times to bring new drugs to market. So we're helping companies like GSK shorten the cycle times to bring drugs to market. So they're the kinds of conversations that we're having. It's really about how we're taking data to power a transformational initiative in retail banking, in retail, in telco, in pharma, rather than a conversation about the raw technology. Now we always need to deal with the technologists, we need to deal with the data scientists and the IT executives, and that's an important part of the conversation. But you would have seen, in recent times, the conversation that we're trying to have is far more of a business conversation. So if I can build on that, so do you think, in your experience, and recognizing that you're a data management tool with some other tools that helps people use the data that gets into Connecticut, are we going to see the population of data scientists increase fast enough so executives don't have to become familiar with this new way of thinking, or executives going to actually adopt some of this new ways of thinking about the problem from a data risk perspective? I know which way I think. I'm curious which way you think. It's a loaded question, but I think if we are going to be in a world where business is powered by data, where our strategy is driven by data, our investment decisions are driven by data, and the new areas of business that we explore to create new paths to value driven by data, we have to make data more accessible. And if what you need to get access to the data is a whole team of data scientists, it kind of creates a barrier. Not knocking data scientists, but it does create an air gap. It makes the aperture. Yeah, absolutely, because every company I talk to says our biggest challenge is we can't get access to the data scientists that we need. So a big part of our strategy from the get go was to actually build a platform with all of these personas in mind. So it is built on the standard principles, common principles of a relational database built around ANSI standards. It's recognizable. And it's recognizable and consistent with the kinds of tools that executives have been using throughout their careers. Last question, we've got about 30 seconds left. No pressure. No pressure. You have said Connecticut's plan is to measure the success of the business by your customer's success. Absolutely. Where are you on that? We've begun that journey. I won't say we're there yet. We announced three weeks ago that we created a customer success organization. We put about 30% of the company's resources into that customer success organization. And that entire team is measured not on revenue, not on project delivered on time, but on value delivered to the customer. So we baseline where the customer's at. We agree what we're looking to achieve with each customer and we're measuring that team entirely against the delivery of those benefits to the customer. So it's a journey. We're on that journey, but we're committed to it. Exciting. Well, Paul, thank you so much for stopping by theCUBE for the first time. You're now a CUBE alumni. Oh, thank you. You've had a lot of fun. And we want to thank you for watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin, live in San Jose with Peter Burris. We are at the Forger Tasting Room in Edery. Super cool place. Come on down, hang out with us today. We've got a cocktail party tonight. Well, you're sure to learn lots of insights from our experts. And tomorrow morning, we'll stick around. We'll be right back with our next guest after a short break.