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Pop Culture Tech podcast 2.5 explores remote work and where we all go from here. Featuring Zoom and Distribute Consulting

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The Great Digital Frontier

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Building a Legacy of Customer-Centric Digital Innovation

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New Strategies to Fast-Track AI in the Enterprise

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Blockchain: What Business Leaders Really Need to Know

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Work As You Are

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From Hotel to Hospital in 72 Hours

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At the onset of the 2020 pandemic, an  interconnected digital web helped power #ZoomLife’s meteoric rise into pop culture legend.  In this Pop Culture Tech episode, we talk about the culture and innovation powering our new world of work.

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Not every work experience outside the office is perfect. Presenters still forget to unmute. Attendees leave mics on. Yet today’s employees are feeling pretty good about remote working.

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In the recent <a></a><a href="https://vmware.com/go/virtualfloorplan" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Virtual Floorplan: New Rules for a New Era of Work study</a>, three-quarters (75%) of employees globally agreed moving to a distributed working environment has meant their performance—and not traditional metrics like time in the office—is being valued more by their employers.

<a href="https://news.vmware.com/category/pop-culture-tech" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pop Culture Tech's remote work podcast</a> episode checked in with two experts to explore how businesses and workers maintain the momentum.

In the 1970s, a very small group of employees began the teleworking trend, primarily doing tasks from home. After Y2K, increasing access to mobile devices and cloud technologies catalyzed work from anywhere and the remote workforce emerged. Then came 2020 and the pandemic, accelerating the growth and acceptance of work from everywhere by decades.

Today, remote and hybrid working styles are commonplace. Employees want these flexible workstyles to continue. And this has leaders around the world strategizing about how to concurrently maximize flexibility and productivity.

“The term ‘remote work’ will cease to exist. Very soon, remote work will just be work, because it will be the majority, and it will be the standard,” said Laurel Farrer, founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.distributeconsulting.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Distribute Consulting</a>.

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Historically, mid-level managers and people farther along on their career journeys objected most to remote working’s viability. The primary reasons: working away from the office was so different from co-located environments and they couldn’t imagine how it would effectively serve the business.

The pandemic eliminated all the resistance and doubt around the credibility of remote work, Farrer believes, because every manager of every business in every industry experienced remote work at the same time. “Leaders were able to experience it in their teams; to see their teams staying productive,” she said. “They now have the evidence they needed to prove the viability of remote work as an operational model.”

The pandemic also changed employees’ perception of work. It’s no longer somewhere people go.

“Work is something we do,” explained Harry Moseley, Global CIO of <a href="https://zoom.us/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Zoom</a>. The challenge for organizations now is “how do you bring people back to the office in a way that is inclusive, like what we’ve experienced…where we can collaborate safely.”

Zoom, the company dedicated to making video communications frictionless and secure, has ideas.

CEO Eric Yuan founded the company on five principles that drive innovation, Moseley said:

The overarching vision that Zoom is working really hard on today, is “how can we make the virtual experience as good, if not better than the in-person experience,” said Moseley.

New Zoom capabilities are a start. Smart Gallery, for example, leverages artificial intelligence to provide immersive views and more so people can continue to experience the nonverbal cues they’ve gotten to accustomed to having while working away from the office.

What the pandemic has taught leaders and employees is that “there’s now a way to do business better,” concluded Farrer. And that includes asking hard questions—about empathy, alignment and shared values—and supporting the answers with modern communications channels and technology.

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What's the future of remote work and tech? Listen to this new Pop Culture Tech podcast featuring Zoom and Distribute Consulting.

Sorry, I Was On Mute! Pop Culture Tech Podcast 2.5

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Sorry, I Was On Mute! Listen to Pop Culture Tech's Remote Work Podcast

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To say we’re going through a “difficult time” is the understatement of the century. Thankfully, digital technologies and innovative service providers are helping us stay grounded during this tumultuous time.

Shining a Light on Mental Health Struggles & Digital Services

In contrast to localized disasters, the pandemic has impacted nearly everyone in the world. And that collective experience has empowered people to voice feelings that typically go unshared. Emotions ranging from isolation and loneliness to anxiousness and worry.

Today, not only friends and family but increasingly business leaders, politicians and sports champions—of note, former McKinsey senior partner and former chief economic and business advisor to the California governor, <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/mental-health-in-the-workplace-the-coming-revolution" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lenny Mendonca</a>, highly decorated Olympic swimmer <a href="https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-news/pages/shrm21-annual-conference-michael-phelps-mental-health.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Michael Phelps</a>, tennis star Naomi Osaka and gymnastic great Simone Biles—speak publicly about mental health.

“There has never been a time in our history where mental health has been so prominent as a part of the collective conversation as it is now,” said Dr. Joe Grasso, clinical psychologist and senior director of Workforce Mental Health at <a href="https://www.lyrahealth.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lyra Health</a>.

“And there is fortunately some silver lining to come from COVID-19 in the form of de-stigmatizing (the) mental health struggle,” Grasso said.

From Empathy to Widely Available Services

Discussion around <a href="https://news.vmware.com/dei/empathy-leadership-trait" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">empathy as a critical leadership skill</a> has risen. So, too, has action by company leaders to promote mental health benefits and get employees who want help, the care they need. When leaders address the subject, it gives others permission to join the conversation.

“The most powerful testimonials come from leaders who speak up and say, ‘I’ve used this benefit. I find it valuable because I also struggle.’ That really shifts a work culture,” said Dr. Grasso.

What successful people coming forward shows, Dr. Grasso found, is that “any of us might struggle, but all of us should consider mental health support from a professional.”

Although attitudes are changing, there are still both financial and physical boundaries employees seeking care must overcome:

“Both of these things can keep people from getting the care they need,” according to Dr. Grasso.

Companies like Lyra work hard to combat both concerns by teaming with organizations to offer mental health benefits to employees. And during COVID-19, this has included becoming even more digitally friendly.

Human-to-human connection is the foundation for quality mental health care. Technology can simplify the process of making connections and facilitating on-going care.

Machine learning in the Lyra platform, for example, complements a self-completed care questionnaire to help match people seeking support to a subset of providers that are a best possible fit. It then goes a step further to offer employees a way to connect with providers—virtually or in person.

“What Lyra is trying to do is enhance the care experience with technology; not replace that human relationship,” according to Dr. Grasso.

Hands-on approaches also are helping people heal and thrive. Husband and wife Joanie and Scott Kriens established the <a href="https://www.1440foundation.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">1440 Foundation</a> and 1440 Multiversity as a way of creating hope for living well.

Yet the idea’s seed was planted much earlier. During Scott’s tenure as chairman and CEO of Juniper Networks, his father passed away, “bringing to light the question of what really matters,” Kriens said.

Today, the 1440 Foundation helps people connect their passions and life’s work—in real, practical, felt experiences that people can carry back with them into the world.

“There is great beauty in being of service others,” Kriens said. “Yet I’ve learned that in service to others, it will be best done by also doing that which one is passionate about themselves.”

One of those areas for him is technology. During the pandemic, technology—even digital face-to-face communication—has proven critical for basic exchanges of information, he said. “Yet, it has also exposed the difference between that and what it means to share in-person energy. And when we do, don’t waste it,” he continued.

<a href="https://soundcloud.com/pop-culture-tech-podcast/24-heart-mind-soul" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tune into the “Heart, Mind, Soul” episode</a> of the Pop Culture Tech podcast for more insights.

Listen to the Pop Culture Tech wellness episode, featuring insights from Joe Grasso of Lyra Health and Scott Kriens of the 1440 Foundation.

Pop Culture Tech Podcast 2.4: Heart, Mind, Soul

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Pop Culture Tech Podcast 2.4: Heart, Mind, Soul - The Wellness Episode

Pop Culture Tech 2.4: Heart, Mind, Soul

VMware "Digital Frontiers" study explores consumer trends and sentiments during the pandemic and the rising demand for better digital experiences across all industries.

From grocery shopping and eating out, to doctor appointments and personal finances, so many experiences changed over the last year. But for the better or worse?

The “Digital Frontiers” global research effort explores the links between tech innovation, people and society. More specifically, it looks at how technology helps push exceptional digital services and experiences—and if consumers feel organizations are doing it right.

To get a pulse on global consumer trends and sentiment during the pandemic, YouGov and <a href="https://www.vmware.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">VMware</a> surveyed more than 13,250 people worldwide.

Here are key insights from the study into how and where organizations are—and aren’t—meeting customers’ digital expectations.

Suddenly and swiftly, the pandemic flipped the proverbial switch to “digital everything”—shopping, living, working, schooling, banking and more. In 2020, over half (52%) of adults embraced new digital services from organizations and enjoyed the experience.

A closer look by industry reveals where respondents believe organizations failed to adapt or improve services with the changing market.

The majority of respondents believe they are personally responsible for increasing their digital skills. However, the youngest generation (18–24-year-olds) are concerned about their elders. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of that group worry their older relatives can’t keep up with the new digital world and therefore, won’t have access to services they need and want. In fact, 3-in-10 (34%) people aged 55+ respondents describe themselves as not digitally active or digitally naive.

Rising Demands for Better App Experiences

Today’s consumers have digital experience expectations. Those surveyed—more than 40% of whom identify themselves as <em>digitally curious</em> or <em>digital explorers—</em>want to know their data and devices are protected. They also want services that are simple to access and use.

Top 5 Consumer Priorities for Digital Experiences

"Still thinking about digital experiences, in general, which three, if any, of the following are the most important things you want to see today from organizations?"

Companies that don’t meet these expectations will lose customers. Only 10% said they’ll remain loyal to companies that fall short on digital experience. Yet, 37% agreed that “2020 has made me more forgiving of organizations getting things ‘wrong’ while they trial new digital services to improve my customer service experience.”

Although key industries*, most notably retail, fell short in delivering cutting-edge digital experiences, consumers remain eager to try new offerings. These are just some of the industry-specific insights the research uncovered:

What’s more important these days than a wallet for financial transactions? Almost half (47%) of survey respondents say their smartphones—32% for the 55+ crowd, rising to 54% among 18–24-year-olds.

Survey respondents were most negative about buying experiences. In fact, only 16% are excited at the prospect of ongoing virtual interactions with retailers vs. in-store experiences. Today, 58% of respondents agree they would leave a retailer’s website if an issue couldn’t be solved immediately. But there is hope for brands.

Healthcare is a bright spot. Over half (53%) of respondents are now comfortable with—or even excited about—replacing all routine medical appointments with virtual consultations.

New innovations are coming into their own in healthcare, particularly AI, robotics and secure personal data.

Survey Reveals Lack of Trust among Consumers in Many Industries

As much as digital now impacts all aspects of our lives, people remain wary. And their trust in technology remains uncertain. Many are convinced of the positive impact tech is having today and in the future. Yet, they don’t believe companies are acting in people’s best interests.

The onus really is on business leaders to set and exceed these digital business objectives:

Organizations willing to rethink digital strategies and reimagine processes have a path forward.

By accelerating digital transformation strategies, organizations can rapidly deliver customer and employee value. A good place to start: modernizing infrastructure and applications—which includes building, running, managing, protecting and connecting apps on a digital foundation—as well as enabling the anywhere workforce. Both are foundational to digital business success.

<p>Accelerating Your App And Cloud Transformation</p>

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VMware "Digital Frontiers" survey explores global consumer trends during the pandemic and the rising demand for better digital experiences.

VMware "Digital Frontiers" survey explores global consumer trends and the rising demand for better digital experiences.

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The Great Digital Frontier: Study Reveals Evolving Consumer Sentiment

From augmented reality to bot-powered websites, shoppers want awe-inspiring experiences. And loyalty is more than the logo. Now, it’s all about the #shopculturetech experience.

Do you remember the first thing you bought online? For many of us, it was a textbook or a resold collector’s item from an online auction site. Fast forward to today—a mere 25 year journey—and there are two whole generations who couldn’t comprehend that before they were born, you couldn’t open an app and have something delivered in two days or less. Or even more recently, pull up to the curb and get it within 2 hours of your order.

Online shopping is a way of modern life. And it’s now so common that the e-commerce market value exceeded $10 trillion in 2020, according to <a href="https://99firms.com/blog/ecommerce-statistics/#gref" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Grand View Research</a>. And over half of consumers use smartphones for shopping, according to a recent <a href="https://99firms.com/blog/ecommerce-statistics/#gref" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Statista</a> report.

These exceptional numbers are due in large part to the crazy world we lived in in 2020. But before we jump into the present day “shop culture tech” experience, let’s take a step back and dive into just how quickly we went from buying <em>only books</em> online to what<a href="https://www.vmware.com/solutions/industry/retail-it-services.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> retailers</a> now call omni-channel shopping experiences.

Looking back, Amazon, eBay and Yahoo! were digital retail pioneers, and “at the time, had a lot going for them,” explained Joseph Skorupa, <a href="https://risnews.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">RIS News</a> Editor at Large. “They were making money in different ways.”

Other retailers saw competitors’ success and recognized it was a trend they couldn’t ignore. Customers demanded efficiency, but no one had the infrastructure in place—the warehouses and logistics—that Amazon did, “so retailers had to catch up and it took them quite a while…but shoppers demanded it… They really drove the process,” Skorupa said.

Because there’s a lot of efficiency in shopping from home, retailers began to imagine scenarios that could optimally blend physical and online retail for the benefit of both customers and brands. Today, that connected, seamless experience is known as the omni-channel experience. And digital technology is key to its success.

Amid 2020’s shelter-in-place mandates, retailers had to pivot quickly to support social distancing and at-home shopping. They also had to scramble as customers surged into stores, cleared items off shelves (like toilet paper!) and put pressure on supply chains.

<a href="https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">DICK’S Sporting Goods</a>, for example, saw a significant spike in demand for sports such as golf and tennis, as well as fitness. “We had to really figure out ways to provide that product to our customers and in a safe way,” explained Jason Williams, VP of Athlete Technology at DICK’S Sporting Goods.

“We often reference our contactless curbside pickup process as one of the big wins that we had during that time. We will deliver that service within 48 hours,” Williams said.

DICK’S Sporting Goods—which, at its roots, is customer-athlete obsessed—was among those most ready for the acceleration of online buying. Its digital foundation already enabled e-commerce and omni-channel experiences. Yet, the pandemic challenged the retailer’s offerings to become even more flexible and creative.

“What we built was based on a lot of services that we already had readily available with our pick-and-pack and real-time inventory processes in the stores for teammates,” Williams said. “We could tie them together and put a product out there quickly across multiple portfolios.”

He said the company’s contactless curbside pickup service was stood up quickly, but truly years in the making. And it really resonated with customers. So has its Scorecard loyalty program.

The retailer continues to invest in data science to understand its customer, “knowing what our customers buying trends are and what they're searching for online,” said Williams. “Our data strategy is really driven around real-time personalization.”

Another innovation the pandemic accelerated is robots. Leading U.S. retailers “recently began expanding robotic fleets by adding autonomous floor scrubbers to make their stores safer,” said Skorupa.

He believes autonomous processes, being handled by robots, is the next major trend. “And I see that really exploding in the next year or two. It will be mainstream, and every retailer will have robots in one form or another,” Skorupa concluded.

From augmented reality to bots, shoppers want awe-inspiring experiences. Now, it’s all about the #shopculturetech retail experience.

From augmented reality to bots, shoppers want awe-inspiring experiences. And now, it’s all about the #shopculturetech experience.

Pop Culture Tech Podcast: Shop Culture Tech

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Pop Culture Tech Podcast 2.3: Shop Culture Tech

<p>Since opening its first store in 1948, <a href="https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/">DICK’S Sporting Goods</a> has put customers <em>(aka </em><em>athletes) </em>first. When the 2020 pandemic hit, the company quickly pivoted strategies to:</p>
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<li>Safely serve athletes and help them enjoy socially distanced sports and activities.</li>
<li>Support a safe working environment for employees (aka teammates).</li>
<li>Deliver on business and revenue objectives.</li>
</ol>
<p>By relying on its legacy of delivering innovative digital experiences, DICK’S Sporting Goods not only weathered the pandemic—they came out stronger than ever.</p>
<p><div id="attachment_24540" style="width: 410px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-24540" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-24540" src="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Jason-Williams-DSG.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="400" srcset="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Jason-Williams-DSG.jpg 400w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Jason-Williams-DSG.jpg?resize=150,150 150w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Jason-Williams-DSG.jpg?resize=300,300 300w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /><p id="caption-attachment-24540" class="wp-caption-text">Jason Williams, vice president of Athlete Technology, DICK&#8217;S Sporting Goods</p></div></p>
<p>We were fortunate to catch up with Jason Williams, vice president of Athlete Technology at DICK&#8217;s Sporting Goods, to talk about the retailer’s digital transformation, omni-channel experience and what’s up next.</p>
<h2>What is the significance of referring to your customers as athletes?</h2>
<p><strong>Williams:</strong> We consider all our customers athletes. And that’s the way we view and treat them. In some way, all of them have an aspiration to participate in sports—whether they’re playing themselves, their kids are playing or they&#8217;re doing leisure-specific or stay-in-shape work.</p>
<p>We’re obsessed with our athletes. That’s part of the roots of DICK’S Sporting Goods. So not only does my title include athlete, but a lot of our technology teams have athlete as part of the naming convention.</p>
<h2>For those that don’t know DICK’S Sporting Goods, how does your digital experience work?</h2>
<p><strong>Williams:</strong> We’ve invested heavily in technology for years. We developed our in-house e-commerce platform as a flexible service, and we build all digital products and services on it. A case in point is our responsive website, which includes our e-commerce platform for all of our e-commerce sites—DICK’S Sporting Goods, Golf Galaxy, Field &#038; Stream. Anytime we build a new service, it&#8217;s on this platform.</p>
<p>Optimal service really resonates with our athletes. What we built is very flexible and nimble, delivering so many different benefits. This is incredibly important for our athlete experience, but also for our teammates. We’ve built capabilities such as an internal app that our teammates use for real-time metrics and communication on the sales floor. This makes their jobs easier so they can spend more time with the athlete.</p>
<h2>How did the pandemic impact your company?</h2>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Come Back Stronger" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xa_Li9RsOH8?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Williams:</strong> At the beginning, we didn’t know we would thrive.  But we did. And a lot of that was due to the amount of work that we had in the past as part of building our technology foundation and platform for services, which allowed us to spin up our curbside offering in less than 48 hours.</p>
<p>We also saw a significant spike in demand for sports like golf and outdoor activities, as well as home fitness. We realized our athletes wanted to remain active and healthy. They wanted to move. Those are some of the activities they could do safely. So, we had to figure out ways to provide those products to our athletes and in a safe way. We stayed focused on that, working with our suppliers and vendors to get product into our stores.</p>


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<h2>Which digital offering stood out during the pandemic?</h2>
<p><strong>Williams:</strong> We often reference our curbside contactless pickup process as one of our big wins. It really resonates with our athletes, and we think it’s here to stay. We may have spun it up quickly, but it was years in the making. It allowed us to provide our products in a way that was safe for our teammates and for our athletes.</p>
<p>We built it based on a lot of services that we had readily available with our pick-and-pack and real-time inventory processes in the stores for our teammates. We were able to tie things together and put a product out there quickly across multiple portfolios—touching marketing, e-commerce and stores. We built a service and quickly lit it up, and then we were able to iterate and add additional features to it.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Contactless Curbside Pickup Available at DICK&#039;S Sporting Goods" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p744UokdH98?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<h2>How has customer engagement transitioned to more of an omni-channel or multi-touch digital experience?</h2>
<p><strong>Williams:</strong> We see our stores as the hub of our omni-channel experience. People still want to come in. They want to feel, they want to see, and they want to try on. And we want to give them that ability, then enable them to either order online or order in the store and combine that experience.</p>
<p>This is also why we are re-imagining the athlete experience through new store concepts like <a href="https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/s/houseofsport">House of Sport</a>, which takes experiential retail to another level by exploring the future of retail through multi-sport experiences inside and outside the store, community involvement, elevated customer service and enhanced technology. We currently have House of Sport locations in Knoxville, Tenn. and Victor, N.Y.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="House of Sport Victor Now Open :60" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aMEDgw6P1uU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Our e-commerce experience is an extension of our stores. We see it as one holistic experience. Whether fulfilling from one of our stores—where you buy online or pick up in store—or shipping from our stores, we can get the products into our athletes’ hands as soon as possible.</p>
<h2>How do you use tech innovation to build brand loyalty with your audiences?</h2>
<p><strong>Williams:</strong> We&#8217;ve done a lot of work in the data sciences space and leveraging data in our athlete hub. We really want to know our athletes—their buying trends and behaviors. And we want to build all our services to really delight them. We&#8217;ve been spending a lot of time on personalization—driving through offers, ensuring they have an optimal experience, and that they’re going to want to come back and shop more with us.</p>
<p>An example of this data-centric innovation is our ScoreCard loyalty program. It’s a key part of our marketing engine. The program has more than 20 million active users and accounts for more than 70% of our sales.</p>
<h2>What is your philosophy around emerging technologies such as modern apps, containers and Kubernetes?</h2>
<p><strong>Williams:</strong> Innovation is very important to us as an organization. We&#8217;re continually looking at ways we can <a href="https://tanzu.vmware.com/customers/dicks-sporting-goods">make our applications more efficient</a> and offer more capabilities to drive new business capabilities. I think the game is going to change in the next five years and staying ahead of it is going to be key.</p>
<p>Obviously, data is an area that we&#8217;re going to continue to invest in—taking a mobile-first approach—whether it&#8217;s the online shopping experience in mobile apps or apps that ensure our teammates are more efficient. Within our stores, connectivity will be a very big topic over the coming years.</p>
<p>In addition, we are hiring more “futurists” that will continue to help us think through what’s next.</p>
<p><em>This interview was edited for length and clarity.</em></p>


<p>How DICK’S moved its software development in-house and aced omnichannel retail.</p>

How DICK’S Sporting Goods’ digital investments power best-in-class omni-channel customer experiences—even in a pandemic.

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As we journey through the digital era, explore how innovative museums and artists help us transcend the physical and journey into the virtual.

Digital Makeovers Keep Museum Audiences Engaged

Digital technology helps us transcend the physical and journey into the virtual—at work and at home. During COVID-19, it took us even further. Literally into works of art.

That’s been fortunate for museums as regular attendance plunged during the pandemic. The top 100 art museums were shut for an extra 145 days on average, adding up to a staggering 41,000 day in total, according to <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/analysis/visitor-figures-2020-top-100-art-museums">The Art Newspaper</a>. Institutions used to long lines and large-scale patron events had to pivot quickly to reimagine visitor experiences.

Staff from <a href="https://high.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">High Museum of Art</a> in Atlanta, for example, quickly went to work generating ideas to adapt programming for online audiences.

“We moved key programs like Conversation Pieces, a 30-minute interactive focus on one work of art, and developed others like Masterworks and Mindfulness to give people a different space to deal with what we're all living right now,” said Rand Suffolk, director of The High.

New digital programming and the staff’s increasing use of social channels kept the community together. The goal, Suffolk said, was to “encourage people to engage more deeply with the work.”

While museum experiences have clearly changed, so, too, has art expression. An amazing case in point: <a href="https://vangoghexhibit.ca/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit</a>. It recently opened in Toronto, breaking what one of its producers called “the fourth wall.”

Attendees of this exhibit are “no longer visiting an art gallery where observation of the art is the piece as it was originally conceived—on the wall,” explained Corey Ross, co-founder and producer at Lighthouse Immersive.

The art is “immersive. It's around you—360 degrees. It's projected on every part of the room, on the floor and its projected on you. And when that happens, you have a totally different experience of the art,” he said.

Ross’ co-founder and co-producer, Svetlana Dvoretsky, experiences patrons’ emotions firsthand.

“When we observe people who come to our exhibit, we see a very wide range of emotions being expressed. Some people cry. Some people dance. Some people just lay down on the floor, in the meditative state,” she said. “I think it’s very interesting…the effect this kind of art makes. It’s not like it evokes a particular emotion. It depends on the state a person is in.”

There’s something else that makes the Van Gogh Exhibit unique and that’s how visitors access the experience. Due to limited capacity and social distancing guidelines, the producers created two options for attendees: walk-in and drive-thru.

“It such a success for us that we're opening versions in Chicago and San Francisco in (2021),” Ross said. “And hopefully there'll be more cities, as well. We've managed to pivot in an interesting way without diminishing the experience."

Listen to how interactive museums, like the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit, help us transcend the physical and journey into the virtual.

Listen now to learn how innovative museums and artists help us transcend the physical and journey into the virtual.

The Interactive Museum: Pop Culture Tech Podcast

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The Interactive Museum: Listen to Pop Culture Tech Podcast

In this podcast, explore how we’re blending our passion for cars with our passion for digital innovation.

People are passionate about cars. And auto manufacturers are shifting gears to electric and hybrid vehicles with even more automation, connectivity and comfort features.

The global automotive industry is expected to grow to just under nine trillion U.S. dollars by 2030, according to <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/574151/global-automotive-industry-revenue/">Statista</a>. New vehicle sales are anticipated to account for around 38% of this value.

Changing customer buying patterns and experience demands have automotive leaders and suppliers charting a new course. All in all, organizations are fast-forwarding digital innovation in cars.

Digital Powers Buying, Systems and Vehicle Changes

Six or seven years ago, Mercedes-Benz began seriously hiring tech talent. Today, that team is called Mercedes-Benz.io. And its people are passionate about translating input from customers into outputs of digital experiences.

Sophie Seiwald, CEO and managing director of Mercedes-Benz.io, describes the origins of one of the most popular sections on the company’s website: the online car configurator. It’s a way for people to see, customize and explore the brand’s vehicles.

“We combined talent from the business about products with our world of technology and customer inputs and were able to deliver different prototypes until we got to an extremely simplified car configurator,” Seiwald said. “We’re now able to extend the passion that people show for our brand by providing a luxurious and premium experience online.”

Suppliers are also navigating new digital frontiers. Sanjay Vishin, an expert in digital automotive platforms, talks about cars as computers on wheels. Today's teams have experts from a variety of backgrounds, such as software development and automotive engineering. And each focus on a variety of innovations, from infotainment systems to autonomous driving software.

Mercedes-Benz.io sees data as a digital accelerator. To overcome silos, Seiwald’s team began a journey to democratize data within the organization. The ultimate goal provides equal access for actionable insights.

Now, Mercedes-Benz.io data analysts actively work with engineers to design and implement innovations. Seiwald values “empowering all of our people—not just data engineers and data scientists—to deal with that data.” Ultimately, that's “critical to how we design our applications.”

For the people who say their favorite car is “the next one,“ there’s good news on the horizon. Vishin is excited about 5G and moving car connectivity beyond today’s link to the cloud.

“We’re also working on things where you connect...to an adjoining car,” Vishin explained. That opens up even more interesting applications—not only for cars, but also for smart cities.

All of the signals are green when it comes to driving innovation. There’s no doubt automotive innovators like Seiwald and Vishin are accelerating technology initiatives to make cars even smarter.

A practical invention is also a pop culture icon: the automobile. Listen to this new Pop Culture Tech episode.

What happens when you blend our passion for cars with our love of tech? Listen to this new episode, featuring Mercedes-Benz.io.

Cars Get Smart | Pop Culture Tech Podcast 2.1

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Cars Get Smart | Pop Culture Tech Podcast Season 2

<p>AI is ready for every enterprise looking to transform its business.  Use cases abound across diverse vertical markets where AI is helping financial service providers improve customer relationships, allowing manufacturers to streamline supply chains, and giving patients better outcomes from their doctors.</p>
<p>Most organizations know they need to invest in AI to innovate quickly, stay competitive and secure their future. But leaders struggle to find the strategy and platform that enables success. That’s particularly true for AI apps.</p>
<h2>3 Challenges Stand in the Way of AI Apps Deployment</h2>
<p>Unlike traditional enterprise applications, AI apps are a recent development. These apps are anchored in rapidly evolving and bleeding-edge code. Unfortunately, this means AI apps also lack proven approaches that meet the rigors of the enterprise in a scaled production setting.</p>
<p><strong>Simply put, AI apps can be: </strong><strong> </strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Complex and slow to deploy.</li>
<li>Hard to scale cost-effectively.</li>
<li>Brittle to manage.</li>
</ol>
<p><img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-24046 size-full" src="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Picture1.jpg" alt="" width="624" height="252" srcset="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Picture1.jpg 624w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Picture1.jpg?resize=300,121 300w" sizes="(max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px" /></p>
<h2>Challenge #1: Risk &#038; Complexity</h2>
<p>It’s difficult to pull together an end-to-end AI solution from disparate parts and integrate it within the existing infrastructure. That’s why just 53% of projects make it from pilot to production, according to Gartner’s “AI in Organizations 2020 Survey.” The complexity of AI solution integration with existing infrastructure is among the top three barriers to implementation.<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a></p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Gartner. “P-19019 AI in Organisations.” Claudia Ramos, Erick Brethenoux, 2020</p>
<h2>Challenge #2: High Performance</h2>
<p>High performance is critical to AI, machine learning (ML), and data analytics workloads. Data engineers need to crunch through vast amounts of data quickly.  Data scientists need to develop and train their models quickly for fast time to deployment.  They also need to be able to scale up performance within a single server or scale outperformance through multiple servers, depending on the workload.</p>
<h2>Challenge #3: Scale</h2>
<p>Going from proof of concepts to enterprise deployments needs effective scaling.  This means making efficient use of precious GPU resources, as well as enabling manageability and availability. The costs of provisioning siloed bare metal AI infrastructure or public cloud infrastructure can also be challenging.</p>
<p>To pull insights from data, enterprises need AI-ready infrastructure that delivers substantial compute power and high-performance access to data, along with the right tools and algorithms for their teams. And now more than ever, leaders need to transform their businesses, while delivering a positive return on investment and scalable infrastructure.</p>


<h2>Strategies to Fast-Track AI Apps in the Enterprise</h2>
<p>Fortunately, infrastructure innovation is catching up to the needs and demands of today’s AI apps. AI workloads require a new platform that’s optimized for the enterprise and supports the full lifecycle of implementation:</p>
<ul>
<li>Experimentation.</li>
<li>Prototyping.</li>
<li>Model training at scale.</li>
<li>Deployment in production.</li>
</ul>
<p>This new platform must offer a unified, scalable solution that solves the three key challenges and withstand the rigors of an enterprise setting.</p>
<h3>1. To combat risk, businesses need an end-to-end solution that supports existing infrastructure.</h3>
<p>Organizations need to streamline deployment and management of AI, machine learning, and data analytics workloads. An end-to-end solution helps businesses avoid AI silos and simplify management. One of the most recent innovations leverages virtualization to fold AI deployments into existing enterprise infrastructure. Ultimately, this will help accelerate AI adoption in the enterprise.</p>
<h3>2. To move faster, businesses need solutions that deliver world-class performance.</h3>
<p>Compute-heavy requirements for AI workloads must be satisfied with a new approach. One is example is near bare-metal performance for virtualized GPU-powered workloads, such as deep learning training and inference. Another is scaling performance up or out by leveraging GPUs in the same server or multiple servers. The solution must also enable faster time to market by running projects and training models quickly.</p>
<h3>3. Organizations need to scale without compromise.</h3>
<p>With data engineers and scientists needing faster, more reliable resources, solutions must flex based on demand. Solutions also need to enable high availability and simplify infrastructure maintenance, such as consolidation, expansion, or upgrades. Finally, capabilities should also include simpler management at scale, automatically placing workloads across AI infrastructure for optimal resource consumption.</p>
<p>“Overall, it’s clear that AI will transform every industry, and we’re just at the beginning of integrating this insight into enterprise applications,” <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maribellopez/2021/03/23/how-nvidia-and-vmware-aim-to-make-enterprise-ai-easier-with-joint-solutions/?sh=510294ab13a5">wrote technology industry analyst Maribel Lopez on Forbes</a>. “Companies need new technology solutions that can speed the pace of deployment, help IT leaders add new insights into applications, and create new products. It’s good to see new products and collaborations coming to market to support this.”</p>
<h2>Innovation Spotlight:<strong> </strong>NVIDIA and VMware</h2>
<p>In early 2021, <a href="https://www.vmware.com/partners/global-alliances/nvidia.html">NVIDIA and VMware</a> delivered an end-to-end enterprise platform optimized for the most powerful AI apps. This platform will:</p>
<ul>
<li>Accelerate the speed at which developers can build AI for their business.</li>
<li>Enable organizations to scale AI workloads on existing VMware infrastructure.</li>
<li>Deliver enterprise-class manageability.</li>
</ul>
<p>“With VMware and NVIDIA’s partnership, organizations can finally extend the benefits of a common enterprise infrastructure for their AI initiatives,” <a href="https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2021/03/ai-ready-enterprise-platform-unleashing-ai-every-enterprise.html">said Ashish Nadkarni</a>, group vice president, IDC. “A single platform for consolidating AI and enterprise workloads provides better security, manageability, and resiliency for AI workloads. Customers can now accelerate their AI initiatives with confidence, knowing that such initiatives will scale well.”</p>
<p><a href="https://news.vmware.com/releases/vmware-evolves-developer-and-ai-ready-infrastructure-to-advance-digital-business">Learn more about the NVIDIA-VMware partnership and joint collaboration</a>.</p>
<h2>Innovating for AI’s Future in the Enterprise</h2>
<p>Leading technology innovators are partnering with customers to turn AI’s promised benefits into real-world value. Now, enterprises can begin to leverage these emerging solutions to fast-track AI and deploy modern, AI-powered apps at scale. Ultimately, these innovations have the potential to bolster the way businesses go to market, support customers, and empower employees.</p>
<p><strong>Dive deeper:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Making AI Mainstream in the Enterprise through Compute Virtualization and Container Orchestration: <a href="https://gtc21.event.nvidia.com/register">https://gtc21.event.nvidia.com/register</a></li>
<li>AI-Ready Enterprise Platform with NVIDIA and VMware: <a href="https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vsphere/vmw-nvidia-and-vmware-solution-brief.pdf">https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vsphere/vmw-nvidia-and-vmware-solution-brief.pdf</a></li>
</ul>


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Companies know they need to invest in AI apps to innovate quickly and stay competitive. But it's easier said than done.

Most organizations know they need to invest in AI to innovate quickly, stay competitive, and secure their future.

New Strategies to Fast-track AI in the Enterprise

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New Strategies to Fast-Track AI Apps in the Enterprise

Why leaders are rethinking the app + cloud relationship and shifting the digital paradigm.