Hey, everybody. This is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat. I'm talking today with Luke. Hello. Hello. Good morning. It's it's it's good to see you, my old friend. We go way back way back as of last week. Oh, yeah, I know. Yeah, that's we'll see. That's what you get from failing to hit record is, you know, like, I know so much about you already. I feel like, you know, yeah, hey, I've got I have long term like online professional relationships with people where I've only seen their Twitter profile big. So the fact that we've actually talked, I know it's a bit. Yeah. And the thing is, it's kind of like we've had Microsoft build in between our talks. So oh, yeah, even even a week, a lot changes in the technology world. So we should get into that as well. But for folks that don't know who you are, who are you? Where are you? What do you do? So my name is Luke Murray. I'm a technical consultant at in Hamilton, New Zealand. So my role is essentially pre-sale. So technical pre-sale solution architecture, taking business requirements for small, medium businesses around the Hamilton, White Caddo area of the North Island. Estimating projects to move them to the cloud, Microsoft, Azure, modernize and look at, you know, some of their cost optimization and operational processes to make things better. Well, and you also like always like to point it out every time I talk to someone in New Zealand, you live in one of my favorite places in the world.  But in fact, I was in Wellington the day before they the Weta workshop announced that they were doing the Hobbit movies and the day stuff. So I was actually in there the day prior. And there was a lot of activity going on. And we tried, Buddy and mine and I tried to kind of sneak around the gate, if you bid down there, it's pretty secure. And they were starting on some projects for what turned out to be the Hobbit. And so that's why security was Yeah, of the normal. But yeah, it's pretty, pretty awesome to go down there and see what they've done and some of the models. And definitely a place you could spend a lot of money at. Yes. Yes. But it's a no, it's a beautiful country. I've actually I did the Tonga Rero crossing with Buddy and mine. So that's actually two mountains, the two volcanoes that were used for parts of it for filming the Mount Doom scenes and things. I think where the initial battle was kind of the precursor with Elrond and such going on and fighting against the Sauron at the beginning, the opening scenes. You have a time machine. You've probably seen more of New Zealand than I have. Well, I actually, when I was my first time driving on the other side of the road, too, I was alone down the South Island. Yeah. And I was driving along and I'm looking around. Again, this is how much of a nerd I am, though. And I'm driving along and I go an area like this just looks like Rohan. It just looks like it. Yeah. And and so I kind of pulled off and was eating some lunch or something. And it's why I remember this so distinctly, but I was looking up on my phone and they actually had the the road marker of where it was. Like where I thought it looked like Rohan was where they filmed actually where I'm right there and that was cool. Why I remember that so distinctively is because it was at that point that I then entered the highway on the incorrect side of the highway. I was doing the old American thing. Yeah. And almost hit somebody. Scared me to death and I did not make that mistake the rest of the trip. Yeah, we've had the opposite. Well, the same experience, but in the states because yeah. I think I told you last week, but for the audience, I've been to the states a couple of times. I actually got married in Vegas. And the first trip that we did to the states was. L.A. for three days, then New York, because that's always been a dream of mine. So ended up at New York on my birthday. This was, you know, five or so years ago. And then back to L.A. again for for a couple of days. But we we ubered, took shuttles, got flights the first time around. But the second time around, which was three, you know, three years ago, really good timing before the pandemic hit. We went to the states and that's when we got married in the October of, you know, that year, but we made the decision to get a rental car. So we flew in. Got a show to the rental car place. All good. And they just so there was three of us.   So yeah, we essentially had a had a big boat. So here we were. Trying to drive on the other side of the road for the very first time in this massive car from from LA to Vegas. And let's just say, once we got to Vegas, we just ubered everywhere because we just didn't want to take, you know, it's just a distress.  So I had more visibility. I was more aware of where I was. My my next time I was driving in Scotland and it was up in the Highlands and where the roads get narrow and a lot of times single lane and you have to navigate if there's opposite traffic coming. But I found myself, you know, like drifting too far to the left. I, you know, scraping up against the curb occasionally on that side. So, you know, not having the visibility of doing a giant car like I completely understand that issue. Yeah. Well, we're coming from New Zealand, where the majority of our cars are small compared to what the, you know, small sedans versus what the, you know, what we saw in the States anyway. We're all SUVs. All SUVs. We're in a big car. They'll get out of the way, but no, they're all big cars. So it's really the yep. One of my favorite stories, just kind of on this point, then then we'll move on, but my brother-in-law served in the military in the 80s in Germany. He was stationed in Germany and one of his platoon mates, whatever. I guess apparently you could pay 500 bucks and have any car from America shipped over to you because they were there for years. Yep.  And so my brother-in-law telling stories how they would go cruise around and people would just see them coming and move off both directions. And they seem in the rear view mirror or up, you know, even if there's plenty of room, they would just move out of the way and just have that space. It's a I would have loved to have had that vehicle up on the Scottish Highlands or on down the South Island. Some of those, those areas, but anyway, well, let's move on.  You're watching consuming content, consuming content. Watching. Yep. And major takeaways. Yeah, I think there's a couple of exciting. So Azure Container apps is now GA, which is really exciting. Definitely going to be looking at, you know, new customer scenarios to use that technology, Azure Dev, the dev box stuff. So being able to just go and stand up at the VM running Visual Studio code, you know, latest PowerShell version, for example, all, you know, all those binaries really, really useful. Because I know for me personally, I stand up for Azure VM for testing or, you know, it might be running an Azure DevOps agent. I delete it. Yeah. A month, a month later, I go into the exact same thing, create the VM and, you know, and then do what I need to do, then delete it just to save on my Visual Studio Enterprise costings. But, you know, the smart, the smart idea would be shared. And, you know, do an image gallery stuff like that. But the Azure Dev box, I see getting really useful not only for production scenarios or businesses where a developer might come in to do a certain project or a contractor and then they might leave, but not only, but for us in IT being able to stand up environment in another company subscription that has all the controls with conditional access and stuff that the company offers, but, and then it's just deleted afterwards. And yeah, I think the technology's been there with Azure Virtual Desktop and just pays you go IAS machines and image being able to create custom images for a while, but seeing it bundled into like a Azure Dev Labs kind of service is kind of, it's pretty cool to see. So I expect that will be used quite. Yeah, that, that's again, not being, not being a dev in that space, but having helped manage Hyper B environments, Hyper View environments for years. And that was leaps and bounds. There were third party vendors that had similar stand up demo environments or demo, not demo, but, you know, but, you know, quick environments that you could kind of configure the different components and things around there, but have Microsoft actually run it out in Azure. And the fact that it's great that you want to stand something up, build something, test something out, then delete it, remove it, reset it, but that you can take a snapshot, easily stand up a similar environment, or you decide, Hey, you know, actually we want to, we like this, we like this third party, we're going to buy the other licensing board and just move it over into production or and to keep it in place. It's really exciting that they did that. I mean, I've used Microsoft's demo.microsoft.com and demo environments frequently, and it used to be like, it was 30 days, then you're done. That's it. You could, and then they changed that to where you could with permission extend that demo environment. And then they added later the ability to, well, now you can promote that and use it for production. You can pay for it. Like I want to keep this demo environment. I like what I've built. So I would probably never do that because I like mucking around and breaking things. So, so my demo environments in production would be probably, right? Well, that's a whole other discussion. You can, then there's, should you, should you? Yeah, yeah. And that's why they pay us the big bucks in IT, right? Apparently, but that concept. I mean, again, coming from the SharePoint world, there was a big push and we used to refer to it. I was at Microsoft back in the, you know, before the 2007 release and there for 2010 with sandbox solutions. And we used to refer to it as what we want is like a sandbox that we can go and play. And then they, of course, name it that. I was in a team that was a spinoff of Microsoft ID, which became MMS, which became BPOS, which is now Office 365. So I was there at the, near the beginning of that. Yeah. But that was, you know, that's actually the language we would use. Like we want to create an environment where people can go in and experiment, have all of the configurations of the organization, but try things out without breaking everything. So not production. That was back in the day when most people, again, the SharePoint world, if they were testing things out, it was usually on production. Yeah, I think like the technology has changed, but the people process has changed as well. Like five years ago, you still, you know, well, it's just been out 13 years, years now, and it's come a long way in that space. But having the technology is one thing, but you need the people and the processes to align. So you've gone from massive waterfall projects where everything needs, you know, you spend X amount of time on the requirements gathering, making sure you're spending a lot more time very early on. And that's not to say that you shouldn't do that. You should definitely like discovery base of a project is, is ideal to be successful. But with methodologies like agile, you know, being, being a bit more, having a bit more agility allows you to go, oh, we want to try something, but we don't know if it's going to work. Hey, let's just stand up a pock. Yeah, shut it down to leave it afterwards. We have our learnings. This is, you know, it's, it's, it's become a lot more consumable where you're trialing stuff a lot earlier in the piece than doing all the theoretical stuff and then hoping it all fits together at the end.  We're more aligned with doing that. Do you still run into a lot of customers that are more of the old fashioned, the waterfall, the longer projects? Are you fighting those battles? Yeah, and it's primarily because of the space that I operate in, like I, so I work for a MSP, so we, like a men's service provider, so we provide, we do projects for external customers, like standing up or migrate to Azure or migrate to M365, for example. So those, those type of projects we do statement of work, it's more aligned to an agile methodology, where previous organizations I've worked at the whole, right, what's your sprint cycle? So, you know, two weeks sprint, we're going to get this done. It's going to be, right, let's just, so there's a lot more, you can do a lot more continuous delivery when you're in the environment working 24 seven or you've got, you know, a custom act that you're building, for example, but the way that I work currently, because of the nature of our business is the clients want to move from an on-premise file server or exchange environment into M365, we do the statement of work, we have a waterfall based plan, you know, it's going to be done in six weeks, as an example, done, and then we'll look at the roadmap and continuous improvement exercises to go. What else, like you've got the technology now, let's improve it, but it's, yeah, the projects are more, this is outcome we want to deliver and by when it's not as much of a, but it's, yeah, they're a bit more longer pieces of work than like a two-week two-week sprint. So it's a bit, it's a bit hard to sort of use that methodology without, you know, going out of scope of something that we haven't signed off or... Yeah, it's interesting to think about that. I like, I look back at my career, like I, I talked about, you know, early in my career as a technical project manager, my, I had an 18 month project. I did other smaller projects, but thinking about like how I would break that up and like, to your point, it like, it wouldn't really fit. The goal, there were long lead items as part of this. We were doing data center consolidation. And I mean, I guess technically you could break it up into smaller projects. Like one component of that, there were four data centers involved. We were removing all of our systems from two, some of our systems from a third, consolidating to a brand new fourth data center. And so there were, you could treat each of those systems as a project or each of those locations as a, as a project.  But yeah, I guess we could have a longer conversation around kind of technical project management methodology and changes that are happening around there. I could spend hours, hours on this, but yeah. I still find it fascinating. It's funny, I mean, I've been around away from project management type functions, but I'm still really grateful to have had that experience. Like I never got PMP certified. I had a lot as a, as a manager. I paid for a lot of my direct reports to go through and get their PMP certification, that kind of thing. So I'm a believer in there. I look at, I got my MBA. That was project management enough. I don't need to go do something more around that. But it's a, but I'm so grateful that I had that training early on in my career because I've been able to utilize it in other roles throughout my career. Yeah. Yeah.  You know, it's just, it's a function of steps to achieve an outcome at the end of the day. I would always tell people like, I don't care what your methodology is, as long as you utilize one, you know, use what makes sense, but follow something that's structured that'll move you through and, and follow that progress that everyone is following at the same, yeah, yeah, the same process. So in theory, yes. Well, there is that see right there. That's the adventure of project management is because there's always one or more people that aren't following that process. And, and that's where the soft skills come into play of. Yeah. Yeah. I really want to hurt that person that is not following the project plan. How can I do this legally and without a jar getting involved? Yeah, or the place. Yeah, yeah, or the place, you know. There's a certain level of, you know, violent shaking that you can do to another adult before the authorities have to get involved. I think that's okay. So, yeah, another, another product that Microsoft released during build that sounds really interesting as well as, you know, it's, it's going on the same thing as the Azure DevBox. It's the Azure deployment environment. So having a self-service web portal, being able to, you know, select what you want, like you might want a web app with the SQL backend, being able to select that and then have the Azure infrastructure as code or bicep templates kick that off and then create them. I think it's definitely a filling gap that we've been missing, especially around platform teams. So it's going to be really interesting to look at that closer. And get, get access and see what we can break with that, because being able to go, here's your self-service portal. Do whatever you want. Click on a button. Have your SQL app configured to the way that we have it as a standard. Not only with the templates, but, you know, relying on Azure policy as well to force that, but no public IPs exist in a subscription. As an example, IDP is an open TLS 1.2 and above is used on storage accounts. I think it's going to be really interesting to look at that and see where, you know, where that leads us. Well, I know that, you know, Microsoft has really been trying to build out their, you know, infrastructure and platform as a service capabilities so that developers, engineers, you know, entrepreneurs can focus on going and building things, trying things and not getting stuck in standing up environments and making sure the right pieces are there to be able to even start then creating something. So, I mean, this is an area that competitively, I think like Amazon's been doing, you know, really well for a long time, but this is one of the reasons why Azure's catching up very quickly. I still don't know where it is. I don't know how far Microsoft is from Amazon, but it's not too close. Yeah. But that was very cool. So, well, one last thing before we go, I, you know, so you had shared last week, but have you shared again kind of, so what was your path to becoming an MVP? Like, what did you have to go through? What were the steps? People are always interested to know and compare and contrast their own lives and their own desires to become an MVP. Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting one. So, as in like I, when I was 14 years ago, just starting college in New Zealand, the equivalent. So, I started doing volunteer work at a local computer shop, essentially after school, during school holidays, fixing computers. By that time, it was Windows 95 days. Helping out there, then I ended up finishing college, getting a full-time job there, where I spent another X amount of years. But early on during, I think it was early 2000s, there was a movie. And ironically enough, that movie was called Antitrust. And it was about open source. So, at that stage, it was definitely very much playing around with Linux and all sorts of other things. But there was a saying in that movie, human knowledge belongs to the world. And it's always stayed with me. And so that triggered me to start blogging, putting in fixes that I found, all sorts of other things. So, I started a website. I started blogging. I started putting stuff up, even to this day, articles. So, I wrote back then, there. It helped teach me about technical writing. It was only really, at that stage, it was only really for myself to go back and have a look at what things happened. But then over time, as I changed roles, moved across different industries, the, it was a way of me learning publicly and helping to give back to the community. So, people didn't run to the same problems that I did, for example. Or I could go, this is how I've done it. Someone else may have different experiences, different ways of working, and then try and get their comments. So, I believe I never set out to become an MVP as a goal, because to be honest, I never thought I would achieve it. Some nerdy guy in a rural town in New Zealand, it was a goal that never occurred to me. And so, I've always had a passion for technology. I've been brought up alongside Microsoft technologies, Windows Server, Windows Desktop, all sorts of other things. And so, there was a stage in my career that I was a senior system engineer and looking out at all the jobs. And the shifts started to change from managing an on-premise environment into, oh, you need these cloud skills, Azure. It wasn't at the DevOps stage yet. It was more along the lines of, you need to know how to stand up and I SVM or something like that. So, I realized at that point that the environment that I was working in was very much still old school on-premises. And there was no due to data regulation and other things. There was really no foreseeable roadmap to move to the cloud. So, I made a step to leave and that was probably the best thing I ever did for my career because I suddenly got thrust into the cloud Azure world. And I loved it. The continuous change of technology, the different way of working, like we talked earlier about waterfall and agile methodology. So, that agile was sort of starting to come through around the same time in these organizations. So, yeah, for me, it was kind of, I wanted to learn more. So, I started to go write what do I need to learn? I started to write more articles, fleshed out my technical writing a bit more. As part of the learning process, I helped, like I help out on the Microsoft Tech community and the Q&A forums where I can as well because there's a whole lot of, right? Azure is such a huge platform. It's a huge category. Well, that's why I always ask people like, you're an Azure MVP, but it's so broad that there's so many things within that. I'm like, look, I'm part of the largest segment of MVPs, I believe, I'm in Office Apps and Services, which is again, all of those workloads. And so, you always have to ask, well, what do you specialize within that area? So, in Azure specifically. Yeah, so, yeah, it's almost like a sandpit full of a whole lot of Lego blocks and being able to just pick up and build whatever you want. So, yeah, the way, the work that I had and the type of environments that I operated in, I came through in the more, the compute space, the networking, you know, the infrastructure as code perspectives versus a dev. So, I've definitely come up with more of an IT professional focus than a dev focus, but the world's changed where actually, it's my belief that they're one and the same now. You still got your operational people because things still need to run whether in the cloud or not. But, you know, I started to learn things like being able to deploy pipelines with Azure DevOps and things like that. I'm definitely no expert, but... That's a good, that's a great area to go and build expertise around. I spent a number of years, you're probably not familiar with the company, but in the software configuration management space. And my interest in SCM as a category, and I worked with a company called Rational Software. They got bought by IBM, but this is so about 23, 24 years ago. I ended up selling my company, my startup, that I co-founded to Rational. But, you know, learning about SCM and, you know, code management, we actually ended up using ClearCase as a product as the engine for an information management and project management solution. So we actually morphed it and did other things with it. But that's one of those areas, again, we can get back and we can talk project management and technical project management all the time. But it's another area, I guess part of my point is that there are so many different areas in and around this. If you're interested in learning more about Azure, learning more about, you know, like all the different aspects within Azure, even as a business person, I'm marketing degrees, but I've been in tech my entire career, going and learning about this stuff. And there are product companies, there are service companies, MSPs and things that are out there that need marketing people with the basic understanding of the technology to be able to go and better serve their needs. Project managers, analysts, technical writers, I mean, non-technical functions in support of all of these different roles. There's just so much growth, so much opportunity. There is, and New Zealand, because so New Zealand doesn't have, like I mentioned very briefly about the data residency issues at a previous organization I worked at, New Zealand doesn't have Azure region yet. So we're leveraging Australia, like the Australia East and Southeast regions for our services. So there is a New Zealand region coming, which I'm really excited about. And another thing I thought would never happen, so which is going to help drive the growth in this market as well. And because there's a lot of companies still used to capex paying, like they'll pay for something, like a new host or sand, they'll put it in for three to five years, and then they'll sit on it during that period. Security holes, patching. And then if they see any real growth, then they struggle that. They hit those capacity issues very quickly. So yeah, that elasticity of the cloud is one of the most compelling stories of the value of that. And that's one of the reasons why I like it so much, because it is almost my, well, you know, it's everyone's own little mini data center at a pane of glass and being able to create things with scripts and all sorts of other things, like the world in IT has changed a lot. And it's quite exciting to see, because I'm the type of person who doesn't like to sit still and be stagnant. So my path to an MVP, from my perspective, has been mainly around helping the community on the tech forums, sharing my blogs out to the world, my view of what things look like, because you might write a blog about the exact same thing that I've wrote a blog about, but I've discovered something different because something happened or my setup was different to your setup. Well, I would likely write on the marketing or product marketing side of the topic. So it might be very different. But yeah, I mean, I always tell people that same thing. Even if we had similar skill sets, we might be in different industries. We have different real-world experience, customer examples. I mean, deployment experiences, problems that happen at different phases of things. So we'll have completely different perspectives. That's why I was encouraged. I remember having a conversation with somebody who's just like, yeah, but this other person, they really kind of wrote the definitive blog post on that. I'm like, that's ridiculous. They're not you. They don't have your audience. They don't have the trust that you have with your audience to go and write that same thing. If anything, if it is the ultimate blog post on that topic, then reference them, point to it, talk about it, and feedback on it, and then add your two bits to the end of it. And I think if there's a couple of things that I want to share with the audience today, it's being an MVP is nothing if it's not without the community. The technology and ways of working is one thing. But the tech community is just awesome. And it's 24 seven or you can eat. It's no longer I need people down the road from me who know about the same technology that I can talk to. It's across the world. I find that due to time, time zone differences in my work day that I actually talk a lot with the UK technology community more than I do New Zealand. Because by the time I'm working, they're working. And then by the time I finish working, the UK have woken up and started their day. So it is there is no like the community is the core of what the technology can do stuff. But the community make it work and offer their there. And that's what I like about it so much is there is like Azure is really good because it can take a company that's operating locally and serving their own local clients to a global company within that, you know, simplistic sake a few clicks. And the community that's been developed around these technologies and it is the exact same. And I just I love being a part of it and offering my view of what it looks like, whether I'm an MVP or not. It's it's a passion that that really drives me in the continuous learning and challenges because who wants to be stagnant, right? The other thing that I would say so my just to go back to your question, my my is part of my nominations to be an MVP. I had to write in like everything that I've done over the past year. And I think there was a there was a good 180 items that I ended up adding because they were all helping out people on the tech community. There was blog articles, there was sharing stuff. There was editing Microsoft documentation. Like if I saw some if I was reading something and I noticed that something wasn't quite right, I would go and open up a full request on GitHub with my edits. All those things add up and you don't need to be a public speaker. You know, at a huge conference that this is what I like about the award so much is there's so many different ways to contribute and earn the MVP award. Not everyone's the same, not everyone like I learned by reading blog articles more than I would like a video because I'd get distracted. That aspect, it's hard for some people to understand. It is a bit of a black box. There's no checklist of thing. Hey, if you do these 10 things, you become an MVP. It's very different. There are some people that are 100% forums. That's it. They never want to present. They haven't written any books. They're afraid of getting in front of a camera, but they are just constantly on the forums and answering questions and adding value that way. There are others that write books. There are people that are and we see all the people, all the names that are out there that you're familiar with that are regulars at conferences. I used to do two or three conferences a month. I did that for about a decade. And of course, this little pandemic thing happened and slowed that down. But it made me kind of read, look at and prioritize what I want to do. And so I have the ability to go and do things. I work for a company that's supported and will pay for travel to most of these events. But I just, I look at it and say, you know what? I'm doing other things that I'm satisfied with it, that I'm giving back to the community. I'm doing these things. And I'd rather do that than take all the time to travel. I miss friends. I miss getting out and do events from time to time. But it's a mixture of those things. And of course, you know, we're getting ready for renewal. So everybody, every MVP around the world is across. Did I do enough? Did I give back enough for that? But it's a, but there are a lot of different ways that you can give back. It doesn't have to be. So if you are fearful of getting up on a stage, you do not have to get up on a stage. There's no requirement to ever do that. No, but I guess that's the thing, like now I am an MVP and like an award that I never thought I would get. There's so many opportunities for me to either continue with the way that I obviously was adding value to the community because I got the award in the first place. Or I can, you know, I'm quite excited because it's allowing me to step outside my comfort zone like this podcast. For example, a couple of years ago, I would never have had this chat with you. I try to scare people away at those people. See, that's the thing. That's that first layer. I try to make people fearful of talking to me. That's my goal. But and I think at the end of the day, and this is something that I personally struggle with is back yourself. You know, you look at all these articles and you look at the web website and it's that iceberg analogy. All you see is the stuff above the water. You don't see all the failures that people have gone through, all the learnings. You don't see the nights that people have spent banging their head against the theoretical wall. All you see is what the success looks like, all the lights at the top of the iceberg. I look at people and I go, how am I in MVP in the same bucket of people as that person because they've wrote a really awesome thing that automates X. But everyone's quite individual. And you just don't know what is happening. Well, that's something too. Because there are definitely MVPs out there that I kind of put up on a pedestal or like that. Then I got to know them. Still, like good friends with. But then you realize, hey, everybody's human. Everybody has weaknesses. They have their, I just always joke that like nobody knows everything as a SharePoint MVP. Nobody knows everything about SharePoint. It's like, there's actually three or four people that I would argue do know everything about SharePoint, but they have other flaws and other things around them. And again, they're human. And so I actually prefer it when MVPs show that kind of sensitive side. Show, talk about failures as much as successes. I think I learn as much or if not more from people's failures. It's not about the one time where I did something and it worked. It's here's the dozen times. Here's what I tried. Here's what I learned, why it didn't work and what was wrong with this approach. Yeah, sometimes that kind of learning is even more valuable than, you know, this is how you do something. And I think that's one of the things, like going back to the tech community in general. We're all at the end of the day. You know, we almost quarrel and quarrel a family, but we're, well, friends that we can select, but it's a team of people. It's, yeah, I think we kind of mentioned the board collective last week, but yeah, it is, but without the assimilation. But it is, my strength might be different to someone else's. And there, you know, it's being an MVP or even just being someone in the tech community. You know, it doesn't matter if you've got an award or not. It's you're part of a team. And even if you can't do something because some reason or you may not be looking at it the right way, or you might just need to run some, you know, you're struggling with something and you need to run through it with someone else. It's just, there's a plethora of people across the world who are eager to help you. And no doubt they may have problems with something else. Yeah, it's definitely, it's just, we're all learning, you know, whether it's the same technology or different technology or you might be using Azure Web Apps to host one website or you might be using, you know, VM scale sets to run the exact same website a different way. You know, it's just, and there's so many ways you can build those Lego blocks as well. It's just, it's exciting to be around and see. And so I think my path to MVP is mainly trying to give back to the community the best way I know how, which is helping out, helping people out on the forums, blogging, sharing, sharing stuff on my Twitter and LinkedIn and just having the passion for the technology and trying new things and trying to be as cutting edge as possible. Well, one thing I always like to, this is a great, well said, one thing I always throw out there and I'm sure you'll agree is that for those that are watching, listening, if you have questions and if you have an MVP, you know, certainly, you know, Luke and myself that you follow or, you know, have questions for, don't be shy, reach out. These are some of the most friendly and approachable people, which is one of the reasons it is a characteristic of any piece is how approachable we are. There are a couple that are cranky, I will admit, but they're still approachable. It just depends on pre-coffee for me, really. That's right. That's right. Yeah, be aware of time zones when you're reaching out as well, you know. But you're right. It's kind of like if someone, because I've had people message me about, oh, do you know the answer to this and it's kind of like, oh, no, I don't. But you know, let's find out. Let's try it. Or I know somebody. I know somebody who knows the answer to that. Or I know something. Yeah, you pass them on. It's not as if I'm, you know, it's going, I'm here to help as much as anyone else. So, you're right. Well, Luke, I really appreciate your time again for the re-record. I really appreciate the time. And for folks that want to find out more about you, get in touch. What are the best ways to reach you? You can look me up on Twitter, which is Luke Murray NZ. So L LinkedIn, which is L J Murray.   But you can find me through any of those and don't hesitate to. Of course, I have the links. I'll have the links here within YouTube and within the blog post, as well as your blog site as well. So Luke, well, happy. Enjoy the rest of of a build that's going on. So and then we'll connect soon. Hopefully see each other next year for the MVP summit. It's the best part of being an MVP. Is that the best perk within the program? Yeah, yeah, I've already told my wife. It's like just an FYI. You know, I've I'm pre-booking and I'm saving for this trip. I hope it does happen. It'll be a life dream to go to to go to Redmond. But yeah, it's just like I've already put in the feelers the family of going, oh, by the way, I might be taking a trip overseas. Very cool. Well, we'll see you soon. Cool. Thank you.


Hi everyone. Yep. I'm a dumb. I forgot the hundred dollars of break credit if you bought at least two teams There's there's there's the deal right there you saw it. All right, so that was for break 15 Which sold out before 14, so let's alphabetize by your first names Just want to double check make sure I got all the names, right? I didn't forget anybody. All right, great So one spot in 12 is going to get a hundred dollars of break credit nice After Seven times. Good luck. Mame on top gets it Six good luck seven the final time money goes to Michael Mendelson. There you go, Michael Thanks for grabbing a couple teams there hundred dollars break credit going your way. Jasper's case breaks calm


from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Cover EMC World 2016, brought to you by EMC. Now, here are your hosts, John Furrier and Dave Vellante. Welcome back everyone, we are here live at EMC World 2016. It's a Silicon Angle Media's theCUBE, our flagship program where we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier, co-founder of Silicon Angle, and I'm Coz Dave Vellante, co-founder of Silicon Angle. Our next guest is Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Technologies as announced on stage and in charge of the entire conglomerate that is now Dell Technologies. Welcome back to theCUBE, great to see you, great keynote. Great to be with you guys, thank you very much. I'm super excited because we've been following your career since you've been selling PCs back in the early days, and you made a reference on stage about 32 years ago, and your birthday's coming up at the company to now the changes and opportunities. And Joe Tucci passing, kind of the torch to you. He made a heartfelt comment, and you took the time to thank him for his friendship. What was it like up there? Share what you were thinking up there, I'll see you go back with Joe, but that was a seminal moment for this community because you got a standing ovation as a culture of Joe Tucci here, the legacy. Well, it was an honor for me to be on stage with him, and obviously the whole EMC community and family loves Joe and admires what he's done over the last decade and a half, and it's an honor for me to be able to take that on and continue it, and I was so happy to be able to share my excitement for what we're doing in this new company. There's so much innovation coming out of EMC and VMware and Virtustream and Pivotal, when you combine that with Dell, we're just incredibly energized. And you were visually excited too. You could see that you're excited about the future, and I want to highlight the comment quickly on the keynote. You mentioned the next Industrial Revolution, and Dave and I have talked on theCUBE before about how this cycle of innovation kind of blends the best of the PC revolution and client server kind of in one times 10, and it feels that way, right? And you were kind of highlighting that we're on a 10X every five years, kind of pointing to more as we're talking about some relics like Sun data centers and 3G. What is the most exciting thing for you? What it, share with the folks out there, you are perspective, because this really is an unknown time of new things, internet of everything, internet of things, obviously going to change the data center to wearables, connected devices, to how people are doing things differently. Why is it so big, this shift? What's going on is you have essentially an ability to make anything intelligent for almost no cost, right? So the cost of embedding intelligence is just dropping very rapidly. And whenever that happens, you have an explosion in the number of intelligent things. And so going from billions to hundreds of billions of connected things, and then the challenge for every organization is how do you use that information in real time to change your business, provide a better product and service? And we're just at the very beginning of that, right? And so that is an enormous kind of change factor in business and in society and in the world. And so we feel privileged to be a part of that and we feel incredibly well positioned to help our customers as they go into that next stage. When you started the transformation of Dell and you started to purchase software companies, you got into the storage business, more into the enterprise business, obviously EMC accelerates dramatically your vision of what you wanted to do with Dell. What's it like to put a deal like this together?  What's it like to put a deal like this together? How does it sort of start with you and your partners and how do you even conceive something like that?  You know, I'd really go back to the early 2000s when we had the Dell EMC alliance. Many customers remember that and it became a couple of billion dollar enterprise, the Dell EMC partnership. And we actually looked at it in that timeframe, but we didn't do it, right? And as we looked at the evolution of our company, you know, it was, you know, the most recent activity really started up back in 2014, almost two years ago now. So it was the fall of 2014 and I called Joe and I said, hey, we should talk about this again, right? Talk about what we talked about, you know, five years ago and revisit it.  And, you know, we weren't sure at the very beginning, yeah, this is absolutely right thing to do. It took some time for everyone involved. But we went through all that and, you know, the original notion that these two companies together were very complimentary and would make an absolute powerhouse turned out to be true. And we reached agreement with the EMC board. You know, if you read through the public filings, you'll see it was a long process, right? These things don't happen quickly. And it was definitely a very carefully thought through considered decision. Is that the fun part for you? Or do you love the finance side as well? Obviously a very successful individual is the finance stuff for you as exciting? Or is it more the customer, the partners at all, sort of just thrilling? You know, I'd say that the technology is always kind of my first love. I mean, I'm a geek, right? I'm a techie, I love technology.  And I love business, you know? I do, I love business and I love winning and it's fun. I got to ask you because you mentioned something on stage about the next generation. And there's also, when we were talking about you, personally before the intro, he's a hardworking guy. We know you're hardworking because we get texts from middle of the night on Snapchat now. I saw the Snapchat. Hardest working guy he knows. Hardworking guy's fit. Like us, kind of like we work hard, we love tech. You're hardworking.  We're always customer focus. But they always say that to be successful in this age, whether you're getting older or as a company, to always be learning. So the question for you is, what are you learning right now? I mean, what are you really sharpening?  What are you learning now? What are the things that you, Michael Dell, personally are sharpening the saw on to figure out how to prep yourself for the journey? You know, I'm learning a lot about Pivotal and all of the really interesting things that are going on at the application layer, at the microservices layer, sort of above the VM container infrastructure layer. And it's something really amazing going on in Pivotal in terms of how businesses are transforming. This is obviously a lot of new things to learn within EMC and VMware and Virtual Stream as well. So I'm learning about all of those, getting to meet the customers, getting to meet the teams, going around to as many of the EMC and VMware locations as possible and meeting the teams, learning about the business. Tons of enormously talented people. What tech is exciting you? What are you geeking out on the technology side right now? Again, I think what's exciting is all this data and then how does that data get turned into a better business? You know, you look at car companies sort of waking up and saying, you know, we need to make computers and wheels. And if we don't, we're going to have a problem. And how do we have all this information learned so that the next person that drives a car around that corner, around that bump a minute later has a better experience because of something that just happened. And, you know, again, that's a whole new area that we're really just at the beginning of. You mentioned you like to win. You won when they tried to take your company away.  What's the winning formula, the playbook, for winning against the new entrants, the new upstarts like in Amazon who seems to have so much momentum? Lay that out for us. Well, you know, as David said, it's almost a $3 trillion industry. So, you know, if you got somebody with, you know, 10 billion or 20 billion or 30 billion, that's a pretty small part of the $3 trillion, right? So we've got a couple percent. We'd like to have a couple percent more. So it is a very big industry. That's kind of the first thing to begin with. I think when you look at everything that EMC is doing and now together as we close the transaction, Dell and EMC, our ability to compete in both the on-premise, the mission critical cloud, the hybrid cloud, you saw, you know, the updates to all the storage offerings. Incredible growth in converge and hyperconverge is really a function of moving the workload up to the application, data, user, quality of service, security level. That's what we're going to be really focused on.  But look, you know, there are going to be lots of competitors, the public cloud will grow. I think for customers here, what I'm hearing is that they realize that they're going to have a variety of modes, right? They'll have some public cloud, they'll have some software as a service, they'll have some managed services, they'll have some on-premise. We're going to make those on-premise systems a whole lot more competitive. That's where you see this growth in VCE as an example. And EMC's done a great job building that business and we're going to continue to support it. Winning is also the scorecard too, the scoreboard, right? So Vince Lombardi once said, you're judged by the field that you play on, right? So you mentioned now you got Dell Technologies. You highlighted some scorecards of the Gartner 21 categories of siloed quadrants. In the future, what is the scoreboard? It might not be magic quadrants, because in horizontally scalable cloud, what does the new scoreboard look like? What is the new card that you have to look to as you move past under the current? I mean, Gartner's good today. I mean, you've got leadership positions, it's vis-a-vis everything else, but as it shifts from silo-based measurement. It's not a public income statement, evidently. I mean, that's a good way to do it, rev it in. I'll tell you the things that I'm paying close attention to. First is our customer net promoter score. Customer satisfaction, measure that. You know the focus and intensity that EMC places on customers. We were talking about that earlier. Dell does that as well. So customer NPS. Second is our employee, our team member NPS, because our team has to be happy as well. The third thing is the product innovation pipeline. And I was so pleased to see David up there on stage showing off just a preview of all of the amazing things that EMC is going to talk about here at EMC World. They have kept the innovation pipeline on sort of full tilt here. And having had the opportunity in the last almost two years to observe very close up what's going on, there's just so much innovation within EMC. And then fourth, it's our relative market share, right? In this entire, you know, market space, whether it's the data center, you know, all the different modes of computing. And those will evolve in terms of, you know, how they're measured and that sort of thing. But those are the things we look at. And we do all those things right. We've got a successful business. I mean, the leadership thing categories you on the slide there said mid-market global supply chain enterprise innovation. So looking back at the history of Dell, personal computers, you made them personal. You built scale to win kind of the mid-market self-service order direct. We all know that story. And you had innovation from a personal computer standpoint. Laptop, remember when you had the first laptop, it was, you hired the Apple guy away, it was some big hire. And then you guys dominated those categories and moved up into the enterprise with the scale and all those things. Now you have the enterprise, now you have to go personal. Is it the other way around? And how do you achieve those levels of scale? And does supply chain matter now more than ever? I mean, because he's now interesting dynamic. You came in from the personal side, went enterprise.  Do you think of it that way? Is it the way to think about it? I think scale matters. And certainly, nobody has the scale that we have in the enterprise and the data center. So that's a huge advantage. It's also important to remember that the growth in our original business enabled us in the mid-90s to get into server business. And the growth and success there then enabled us now to combine with EMC and VMware. And so we're building a very special company, right? And we're not measuring our success in 90-day increments, right? And we're in this for more than a lifetime, I'll say. Because I'll care about what happens long after I'm gone. EMC and Dell World, have you made any decisions about those two franchises? Sure, well next year, Dell EMC World will be even bigger. And just think of it as we're going to combine the best of both and it'll be even bigger. Michael, thanks so much for taking the time out of your super busy schedule to come by on theCUBE. Final word, what's the vibe of the show here? What's the takeaway this year for the folks who couldn't make it here? What's the big message? I think the big message is customer focused innovation is unbelievably strong at EMC. And as we go into the next few weeks here, transactions totally on track with the original schedule, we're getting all the regulatory approvals, everything's kind of lined up, financing 100% fully committed. We're going to only accelerate that. I'm excited to see you and congratulations and success. Great to see you up on stage. Everything's looking great. I'm super excited. We're excited to have you. Thanks for taking the time. This is theCUBE, live here from EMC World in Las Vegas. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. This is theCUBE, extracting the signal from noise with Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Technologies. We'll be right back after this short break. It's always fun to come back to theCUBE because the discussion is always interesting and relevant.


The next item of business this afternoon is a statement by John Swinney, updating us on issues relating to the Scottish child abuse inquiry. The Deputy First Minister will take questions at the end of his statement, and therefore there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on John Swinney. I would like to provide Parliament with an update on a number of points within my responsibilities in connection with the Scottish child abuse inquiry and other questions in relation to addressing the consequences of historical abuse. First, I would like to set those decisions in context. In 2004, the then First Minister, Jack McConnell, officially apologised to victims of child abuse in residential care homes. What Mr McConnell said then was a first and very important step on behalf of us all, but survivors made it clear that it was in and of itself insufficient to address the scale and the nature of the issue. In 2010, the Scottish Government invited the Scottish Human Rights Commission to work with survivors on a framework for justice and remedies for historic abuse of children in care. Based on that work and at the further request of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Centre for Excellence for Look After Children in Scotland, Celsus, established an interaction group to work with in-care survivors to make recommendations on how they could best be supported. In the two years since the interaction reported in 2014, the Government has taken unprecedented steps to begin to address the wrongs perpetrated by individuals and institutions who should have cared the most for some of our most vulnerable children. Those steps included establishing one of Scotland's most wide-ranging public inquiries into the abuse of children in care, establishing a national in-care survivors support fund, supporting an apology law and legislating to create a national confidential forum for in-care survivors. As Parliament knows, the previous chair of the inquiry and one of our panel members resigned from their posts in the summer, citing accusations of Government interference in the inquiry's work. I did not then and I do not now accept the complaint made. The Government established an independent inquiry, and I am determined that that is what should be delivered. In my discussions with survivors since those events, they have raised with me issues in connection with the replacement of a panel member, the remit of the inquiry and on redress for survivors. I want to update Parliament about all those issues today. On panel membership, I listened to a range of views from survivors when I met them in July and appointed Lady Smith, an experienced judge in the inner house of the Court of Session to lead the inquiry. Lady Smith joins Mr Glenn Houston, who continues in membership of the panel. There may be the need in time for further specialist knowledge to add to that of Lady Smith and Mr Houston, and the Inquiries Act 2005 permits Lady Smith to appoint assessors if need be. On that basis, I do not intend to appoint a replacement panel member. I am not required to consult Lady Smith on that issue, but I considered it appropriate to do so and she is content with my decision. The current remit of the Scottish child abuse inquiry was arrived at following extensive consultation and engagement with survivors and other interested parties. As a result of that, we broadened the definition of in-care settings within the remit to include, for example, foster care, and we also ensured that the inquiry was able to consider not only sexual abuse but also physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect. A timescale for concluding the inquiry was set, reflecting the views expressed by some survivors, particularly older survivors, about it being sufficiently focused to produce meaningful recommendations within a reasonable timescale. Since the summer, some survivors have told me that they wanted to see the current remit extended to include abuse that took place in non-residential settings such as local parishes, day schools and youth organisations. Other survivors pointed out that, if read narrowly, the current remit might not allow the inquiry to pursue evidence of abuse when children were outside the care home, for example when they attended recreational activities or summer camps. Some other survivor groups told me that they were content with the remit of the inquiry and did not wish to see an extension that could prolong the timescale. It is clear that there is not unanimity on this issue across survivors, some are strongly in favour of no change and others are strongly in favour of extensive change. It has always been the Government's intention that the abuse of children and young people in care is to be taken into account wherever it occurred and I want to put that matter beyond doubt. As the Inquiries Act requires of me, I have consulted Lady Smith and I have amended the terms of reference to clarify that point. That is the only change that I intend to make to the remit of the inquiry. I have to ensure a remit that is deliverable within a reasonable timescale. I have concluded that there is a clear distinction between in-care settings and non-in-care settings. In-care settings are those where institutions and bodies had legal responsibility for the long-term care of children in the place of the parent with all the legal and moral obligations that status carries. That is different to the position in non-in-care settings such as day schools and youth groups, where others had a duty of care on a short-term basis but crucially were not replacing the role of parents. In too many cases, terrible crimes were committed in those settings too. Criminal behaviour should be referred to the police and I hope where the evidence exists that will be energetically pursued through the criminal courts. If we set a remit which would in practice take many more years to conclude, we are failing to respond to those survivors of in-care abuse who have taken us at our word, in government and in parliament, that we will learn from their experience and by addressing the systematic failures that existed ensure that it can never happen again. Yesterday, we introduced the Limitation to Childhood Abuse Scotland Bill in Parliament, the first bill of this parliamentary term. The bill will fulfil another recommendation from the Scottish Human Rights Commission's report, and we are grateful to survivors who have long campaigned for this change. The bill removes the three-year limitation period for cases of child abuse and will remove a barrier that has prevented survivors from accessing justice. The bill goes further than any other jurisdictions by including sexual, physical and emotional abuse, where other similar legislation has been limited to only sexual abuse or has only included emotional abuse that is connected to other forms of abuse. The bill also goes further by allowing cases that have been raised previously but were unsuccessful because of the limitation period to be re-litigated, regardless of whether they were determined by the court or settled between the parties without damages being paid, subject to appropriate safeguards where that would be incompatible with the convention rights of the defender. However, the removal of the limitation period will not assist survivors whose right to claim compensation has been extinguished through the law of prescription, which is relevant to abuse that took place before September 1964. That is because the significant legal issues and the human rights legislation made it impossible to establish a sustainable way forward. I regret that there is no legislative solution that can be found for pre-1964 survivors. I turn the next officer to redress. I have been giving this complex issue serious consideration. By redress in this context, I mean monetary payment to provide tangible recognition of the harm done as part of a wider package of reparations that the Government is already delivering. As part of that package or reparations, survivors of in-care abuse already have access to the new £13.5 million in-care survivor support fund. This innovative fund is highly tailored and personalised and focuses on helping individuals to achieve their own personal outcomes wherever those might be. I am confident that it is already making a difference to the lives of many survivors. I have examined very carefully the issues around the provision of redress. I am grateful to INCAS and to FBGA for making proposals as to how that might be pursued. I have looked into how some other countries have approached this in relation to past abuse in residential institutions. I am conscious of the connection with the limitation bill and the position of pre-1964 survivors. There is also the question of how it would be funded and the role of other organisations alongside Government. I am therefore committing to a formal process of consultation and engagement on this specific issue with survivors and other relevant parties to fully explore the issues and gather a wide range of views. Discussions have already begun about that engagement process and its timing. I will be in a position to provide details in the coming weeks and can assure Parliament that I will take this issue forward with the urgency that it deserves. I would like to close by thanking survivors for their continued input and engagement. I recognise the importance of building their trust and confidence while being honest with them about what I am able to deliver. This Government remains committed to addressing the issues identified in the SHRC action plan on justice for victims of historic abuse of children in care. We have made real progress in delivering its recommendations. The decisions that I have outlined today are another important step towards realising our collective goal of addressing the systemic failings that existed. They are part of our collective determination that children in care must be better supported and protected than ever before. Can I thank the minister for his statement? We will allow about 20 minutes for questions and if members who wish to ask a question would press their request to speak buttons now, that would be very helpful. Liz Smith, first. Thank you. I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for a prior sight of his statement and also for the reassurances that he has provided to this Parliament and indeed to the wider public regarding his confidence in the chairmanship of Lady Smith in appointment which I think has been very well received. I wonder if I might ask two very specific questions of the cabinet secretary. Firstly, and most importantly from the angle of complete transparency and public confidence in the future of the inquiry, the cabinet secretary has given a very clear indication this afternoon and also at the education and skills committee that he is wholly satisfied that there has been no inappropriate intervention in the inquiry by the Scottish Government. May I ask the cabinet secretary if he now believes that that statement and its supporting evidence have been accepted by the survivors of the groups who were quite naturally very concerned when the previous chair and one other member of the panel accused the Scottish Government of interference in the inquiry's work. Secondly, in terms of the decision not to replace the third panel member about which the cabinet secretary has clearly consulted with Lady Smith, could the cabinet secretary advise of the possible circumstances in which Lady Smith and Mr Houston might require the additional specialist knowledge to be provided to the panel, as he mentions on page 2 of his statement? I thank Liz Smith for her question and echo very much the remarks that she has made about Lady Smith, who I think is an immensely strong chair of the inquiry, who in her own approach and her record I think personifies the fact that this will be an independent inquiry. In relation to the two specific questions that Liz Smith raised with me, Liz Smith will understand that I do not think that it is up to me to comment on behalf of survivors about their views about the actions of the Government, but I reiterate on the record my confidence that the steps that have been taken by the Government in the past have been entirely appropriate within our responsibilities in terms of the inquiry's act in relation to the work of the inquiry. However, I reiterate to my very clear determination that this should be an independent inquiry and that my appointment of Lady Smith was designed to give public confidence that that would be the case, and I believe that it should be the case. In relation to her second question on the appointment of any assessors, I think that the skills and perspective of Lady Smith and Glenn Houston are well understood by Parliament, but there may of course be issues that emerge that require more specialist interrogation and that will really be an issue for Lady Smith to determine. She has the power within the organisation of the inquiry to appoint assessors if she believes those skills required to be gathered and of course it will be an issue for Lady Smith to take forward to make sure that the inquiry is able to fully address the issues that are contained within the remit. Iain Gray I thank the cabinet secretary for early sight of his statement. The cabinet secretary is right to describe this inquiry as a step to right the wrongs perpetrated against some of our most vulnerable children. He knows well my view that to do that it must command the confidence and support of most, if not all, survivors. That confidence has been tested by what they see as faltering steps and delay. Can I ask the cabinet secretary what assurance he can give us that the decision to continue with two panellists instead of three will not cause further delay or slow the work of the inquiry? Secondly, as the cabinet secretary acknowledged, many survivors have pursued a wider remit for the inquiry because they believe it unjust that most survivors of abuse will not be caught by the scope of the inquiry at all. The cabinet secretary has clarified the remit today, but will he confirm that he has not extended it, that he has not brought any survivors into his ambit who were not in his view already included? First of all, Mr Gray asked in relation to the implications of not appointing a third panel member. I am confident that that factor alone will not extend the timescale of the inquiry because the inquiry is essentially and has been doing on a consistent basis throughout the summer period undertaking the necessary contacts with members of the public to engage them in that inquiry. I do not see the possibility that not appointing a third member would contribute towards the extension of the timescale of the inquiry. On Mr Gray's final point, I confirm the point that he has made. I have clarified the remit of the inquiry to make it absolutely certain that, where abuse took place outside a residential care setting but involved a child that was in care, that abuse that took place in another setting can be taken into account by the inquiry. Where I was concerned about my dialogue with survivors was that a narrow reading of the remit might not have suggested that was the case, so I have clarified that to put it beyond doubt. However, I confirm the point that Mr Gray has made that I have addressed the issue of whether the inquiry should be broadened from its original scope, which was to be essentially focused on in-care settings, and I have decided not to do that. I appreciate that that will be a decision that will not please everybody, but my judgment has rested on the fact that, if I had done so, I would have inevitably lengthened the timescale of the inquiry and that would have been damaging to the interests of survivors who have pressed the Government to make early progress on that question. James Dornan, to be followed by Ross Thompson. I thank the cabinet secretary for his statement and can assure him that the Education and Skills Committee continues to have a great deal of interest in this issue and will play its part to support the inquiry. However, we will also seek to provide appropriate scrutiny as and where it can, particularly to ensure that survivors' interests are properly reflected. I was pleased to hear that the cabinet secretary intends to look more carefully at the issue of redress, and I would expect the committee to explore further that key issue. In the meantime, can he provide me more detail on what he found when he looked into how other countries have approached the issue of redress? I welcome Mr Dornan's comments and, of course, make it absolutely clear that, as I have done to the committee, I am willing to address any issues that the committee wishes to draw to my attention or to question me about in relation to the Government's involvement in the inquiry. There will, of course, be areas of the inquiry on which I cannot give evidence to the committee because I do not have the knowledge because of the independence of the inquiry, but I am sure that the committee will understand that point. In relation to the detail of redress schemes, redress schemes in other jurisdictions take a number of different forms, and some of them clearly require evidence and detail to be provided to substantiate the claim that has been made by individual survivors. Obviously, that information has been gathered by Government and looked at carefully and will be looked at as part of the interaction process that we take forward. I should point out to Mr Dornan, however, that today the Survivor Scotland fund is open and available to provide support to individuals within Scotland, and I would encourage individuals who believe that they would be eligible for support to pursue that option to make sure that they can obtain the support to which they may well be entitled at this time. Ross Thomson, to be followed by Jackie Baillie. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I also thank the cabinet secretary for early sight of his statement. Within his statement, the cabinet secretary draws a distinction between what is an in-care setting and a non-in-care setting, providing that defined legal position. Non-in-care examples of day schools and youth groups are given in seeking absolute clarity. Can the cabinet secretary provide any further examples of what would be considered non-in-care settings? I think that what I would be safer to do is to refer Mr Thomson to the original remit of the inquiry, which provides on the second page of the terms of reference a series of definitions that provide, I think, very sharp clarity about what is included within the scope of the inquiry. I hope that that is of assistance to him. When I looked at the issues raised with me by survivors, particularly about the issue to which I referred to my answer to Mr Gray, I was concerned that there was the potential for there to be some dubiety about abuse that might have taken place out with the boundaries of a residential care setting. The Government was very clear that we did not envisage that to be essentially an artificial boundary for the inquiry. I have taken the opportunity today to address that issue to put it beyond doubt and I hope that that is of help and clarity to individuals. I think that Mr Thomson will find the definitions that are attached to the terms of reference address the issue to which he has raised with me. Jackie Baillie to be followed by Claire Hockey. I am sure that the cabinet secretary will acknowledge that the in-care survivor support fund is completely different to compensation for the injustice that survivors have experienced. He will equally be aware that, given the length of the inquiry and that survivors having to wait years for justice through the courts, we could be talking a long time indeed. Survivors are getting older, some are dying. Let me ask the cabinet secretary, will he consider making interim payments, as they did in Ireland, so that survivors are not made to wait any longer? The first thing that I would say is that I completely accept the distinction that Jackie Baillie makes between the survivor Scotland fund and a redress scheme. My intention in pointing out the survivor Scotland scheme in my response to Mr Dornan was to make it clear that there is support available at this time that can assist people in addressing some of the difficulties that they may face as a consequence of the implications of their experience of abuse. However, a redress scheme addresses a different question and I am happy to confirm that point. One of the ways that we could have taken forward the question of redress would have been to essentially leave this for the inquiry to determine. Of course, I have not done that. I have established a separate process that will enable us to consider those issues and to try to make progress on those questions. I understand entirely the context that Jackie Baillie raises about the experiences and the length of time that this is taking for survivors to have the issue addressed. However, there are many complexities as I explore the issue, which are not easy to resolve. That is why we need to have a process of this type. I advised survivors of the likelihood that that was the approach that I would take when I saw them last week. I commit in Parliament today to engaging in that exercise to make sure that we advance the issues that I know Jackie Baillie has raised on a number of occasions to make sure that we make progress on that question. I am aware that the Scottish Government has consulted widely with survivors and survivor groups and I welcome the steps that have been taken so far. Could the cabinet secretary confirm that he will continue to listen throughout this process so that we ensure that we have the right arrangements and supports in place that we take full account of the impact of abuse on survivors? There has been extensive consultation work undertaken to design the survivor Scotland fund as just one example. Throughout the whole of the steps that have been taken, the interaction process over a number of years, there has been very wide and substantive dialogue with survivors about that point. I am very happy to confirm to Clare Hockey that the Government will continue to approach those questions on that basis. There are, of course, the obvious conclusions that sometimes we cannot do everything that survivors would like us to do. I have been very clear with Parliament about the things that I am unable to do today to address issues raised with survivors. That is not because the Government has not listened, it is quite simply because we have to make a judgment about what we consider to be the right steps to take and the steps that will deliver outcomes as swiftly and as effectively as we possibly can to address the wrongs that have been committed to individuals and to provide them with some means of coming to terms with the terrible experiences that they have had. John Finnie, to be followed by Tavish Scott. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank the cabinet secretary for early sight of his statement and commend much of the work that has happened so far. Including yesterday, the announcement, cabinet secretary, of the introduction of the limitation ball. Can I ask in relation to that, in the comment about real litigation, if any assessment has been made of the numbers likely to come forward there? As others have said, perhaps the engagement is not completely with all the survivors and there may indeed be others who will be emboldened by the legislation and come forward still. Has there been any assessment at all, please? In the financial memorandum that is associated with the limitation bill, we estimate that the range could be between 400 and 4,000 survivors coming forward with a midpoint of 2,200 being most likely in terms of the cases that may emerge. I would be the first to say to Mr Finnie that this rather prejudges the scrutiny by the French Committee of the Financial Memorandum, which I know from my long experience is very thorough. We will really only know the answer to that question when we see it. The best estimates of government are the best. We will engage with Parliament in the scrutiny of those provisions to make sure that such steps can be taken as effectively as possible. Tavish Scott, to be followed by Fulton MacGregor. Can I again thank the cabinet secretary for his statement in advance? In the reference that he mentioned this afternoon, the second one is to consider the extent to which institutions and bodies with legal responsibility for the care of children failed in their duty to protect children. Would you have regard to the evidence that presumably does sit within government that would have come over the years and under different administrations from elected members, from other organisations, from other bodies who will all have given a view to the government of the day about things that they know that were going wrong at a particular time? Would you be prepared to look at that and consider whether it is appropriate to lay that evidence in front of the inquiry as well? I think that I have to set out the terms of reference in a clear fashion. I have taken steps today to just take that to a point where it cannot be doubted at all in relation to the exchange that I have made to the very paragraph that Mr Scott raises with me. Obviously, the inquiry will take the evidence that it takes. It will be for the inquiry to determine the relevant evidence that emerges, but what I can put on the record, which will not be in any way a surprise to Mr Scott, is that the Government will co-operate fully in any request for information that the inquiry makes of us. I know that the Lord Advocate has made it clear that, in giving that commitment from the Crown as well in relation to co-operating with the inquiry, that is the approach that we will take to make sure that the inquiry has access to all of the evidence that it wishes to have. Fulton MacGregor, to be followed by Clare Baker. I was glad to see the Scottish Government show how important that issue is by making the bill the first to be introduced to the Parliament in this session. I look forward to scrutinising it through the Justice Committee to make sure that we get that right. In the gallery today, we have Sandra Brown, OBE founder of the Moira Anderson Foundation. Just today, Sandra described the trauma of Moira's disappearance 60 years ago as a stain on the Coatbridge community. Can the cabinet secretary provide any reassurances to survivors that the bill will at least begin to address some of the horror and trauma that they have been through? First of all, let me pay tribute to the work of Sandra Brown of the Moira Anderson Foundation, who has made a very strong, distinguished contribution to this entire area of policy. Secondly, I say to Mr MacGregor that the significance of the limitation bill should not in any way be underestimated. That is an enormous departure from legal tradition within Scotland, and it has been undertaken to make sure that we can have the greatest level of scrutiny and interrogation of this part of our country's past. For the reasons that I set out in my statement and which ministers have gone through before, we cannot go back with the limitations bill further than September 1964, but I hope that the extensive change to those provisions to enable that to be the case is recognised as an indication of the determination of government. I am pretty sure of all of Parliament to make sure that we do all that we can to address the wrongs that were committed to individuals in our society. Claire Baker, to be followed by Jenny Gilruth. Thank you. I would also like to welcome the publication of the limitation bill. We all recognise the need to enable survivors to have access to justice as soon as possible. That is a very short bill, and the Government has previously introduced legislation and treated it as an emergency. Given the age of some of those survivors for them, that is an emergency. Can the cabinet secretary give an assurance that the bill will be treated with the highest priority and will be treated with a level of urgency in terms of how the Parliament deals with it? I can assure Claire Baker that the Government will co-operate entirely with the parliamentary timetable in terms of advancing the bill. There has obviously been a lot of preparatory work undertaken. A draft bill was published early in the year. The fruits of that consultation and dialogue have informed the bill, so, hopefully, we can, as a consequence of that—as I say, I am intruding on territory that is not mine to determine—where committees can take that perhaps into account in the timetables that are set. However, the Government will certainly do everything that we can to ensure that the timescale is as swift as possible to ensure that the legislation, which I know will be widely supported within Parliament, is able to reach the statute because quickly it is possible. Jenny Gilruth, to be followed by Gil Paterson. I welcome the clarification on the terms of reference. It is important that we continue to make it as clear as we can that the abuse of children in care will be taken into account regardless of where that abuse occurred. I appreciate the difficult balancing act that the cabinet secretary has in finding unanimity on the terms of reference and the timescale, but could he outline how he will support and continue to engage with those who were in favour of extensive change? There is obviously a willingness on the part of government to continue our dialogue with survivors. We have to ensure that we are open to that information and there are specific questions on which we take that discussion forward. It is equally important that the inquiry is able to proceed to address its terms of reference as expeditiously as possible, and I know that that is the focus that the inquiry has. I hope that the clarity that I have given today enables the inquiry to do exactly that. Our final question is from Gil Paterson. Many thanks, Presiding Officer. Given that the Scottish Human Rights Commission established interaction and said previously that the justice system has not and is not working for survivors, is the cabinet secretary confident that the bill introduced to Parliament will fix that and can he outline what discussions he has had with the Scottish human rights commission? I think that the limitation bill essentially is an enormous step, as I explained to Mr McGregor in my answer just a moment ago, by the Government to open up legal redress for individuals who have been the victims of childhood sexual abuse. The bill is a direct response to the quote that Mr Paterson shared with Parliament from the Scottish Human Rights Commission. We obviously have benefited enormously from the process that has been led by the Scottish human rights commission and by Celsus. We will continue that dialogue to make sure that we learn all that we need to learn about how we can address those issues properly and effectively on behalf of the survivors of abuse. I thank the cabinet secretary and all members for their contributions. We will now move on to the next item of business, which is a debate on innovation. We will just take a few minutes or seconds to change seats.


Background attributable fraction, AF, is a measure of how much of an individual's anemia is caused by a specific factor. It is commonly used to identify the underlying causes of anemia and determine which intervention would be most effective at reducing it. This study compared three different approaches for calculating AF Leven's formula, Klein-Minorten and Zhang Yu, and found that they produce similar results when applied to survey data from 10 countries. The authors also found that unadjusted AF estimates were significantly higher than adjusted AF estimates, suggesting that adjustments should be made before using these estimates to inform policy decisions.


Synthetic photochemistry carried out in classic batch reactors has, for over half a century, proved to be a powerful but underutilized technique in general organic synthesis. Recent developments in flow photochemistry have the potential to allow this technique to be applied in a more mainstream setting. This review highlights the use of flow reactors in organic photochemistry, allowing a comparison of the various reactor types to be made. This article was authored by Jonathan Penals, Luke D. Elliott and Kevin I. Booker-Milburn.


Today is Sunday the 8th of December and we've just finished our development and climate day at the COP25 here in Madrid. Unfortunately we weren't able to make it a two-day event like we normally do and we would have done had we been in Santiago but the change meant we couldn't do the full two days and we only did a day long event but it was a great day we had lots of people, lots of discussions and we had a marvelous musical evening closing with the band from Chile who helped us understand what we're doing. The development climate days has been running now for quite a number of years organized by IID as well as a number of other partners and the idea is to use the weekend in the middle of the two week long COP to bring together people working practitioners mainly working in the development arena who are not necessarily negotiators to relax to get to meet old friends, get to make new friends, spend some time learning from each other in a structured manner and most of all having fun together and I think today was a very good example of us achieving that. We hope to continue doing this in future COPs particularly next year in COP26 where we've actually proposed that the development climate days become the focus of COP26 and make this the citizens COP as it were. Let's see if we can get more resonance from perhaps the British government or the Scottish government to support us to do that. So instead of just doing a one-day event we do a two week long event of bringing people from all over the world to come and talk about what they're doing to tackle climate change and not just negotiators discussing commas and words on pieces of paper into the way hours of the night which really is a very very boring way of carrying out a COP. So we look forward to people watching. We've got a lot of films and materials going out on social media from this development climate days. We hope people who weren't here in Madrid will be able to watch that and enjoy it as well.


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