Using AI to fuel Office Safety with Kloudspot CEO Guillermo Diaz Jr.

DISCLAIMER: Below is an AI generated transcript. There could be a few typos but it should be at least 90% accurate. Watch video or listen to the podcast for the full experience!

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 0:00
We’ve allowed privacy to be configurable. It’s like, do I want to know everything about Guillermo, what do I want to know, I want to know his employee ID I want to know how he’s tracking. Like, if you look at call center environments, you have a customer as a call center. They want to know, because they’re, they’re not only tracking safety, but they want to know, I want to know exactly how many calls his person is taking. I want to know how many keystrokes they’re hitting.

Alexander Ferguson 0:33
Welcome to UpTech Report. This is our applied tech series UpTech Report is sponsored by TeraLeap. Learn how to leverage the power of video at teraleap.io. Today, I am joined by my guest, Guillermo Diaz, Jr. who also goes by G. You asked him later about that. He’s based in Silicon Valley. He’s the CEO of Kloudspot. Welcome G! Good to have you on.

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 0:53
Hey, how are you? Thanks. Thanks for saying my name correctly. A lot of times I get Guillermo or Geronimo or gorilla. So. So yeah, like just g. g works. Just g if it’s easier. Yeah.

Alexander Ferguson 1:07
I love it. I love it. So now Kloudspot, is a situational awareness intelligence platform. And you guys are really focused on CIOs of enterprise or school other folks that have a lot of people that they have to manage and understand both the data and get some intelligence from that actual on location experience. Now, you previously CIO of Cisco, you were in that role, you had a lot of people you had to manage and understand where they were what was going on? What did that what was that that pain, that headache that you were experiencing? What was that like to be the CIO of Cisco?

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 1:41
Well, yeah, I know. So I was, you know, I was on the other side of the table. And, you know, we had at Cisco had nearly 75,000, people like, to, you know, kind of understand where, what, what their needs were right. And, and, you know, a lot of a lot of the hybrid work that we’re talking about today is a lot of that we were we were already doing at Cisco, but we didn’t really have this, this need for the situation called COVID. or something along those lines, we did it. It was a course of normal business. And so you know, not only me as as managing the inside of Cisco’s four walls, which was very large, but also as this as the CIO of a technology company, a lot of other CIOs, CMOS, and, and really even facilities folks would come asking, Hey, how are you guys doing it inside of Cisco? How are you doing? You’re doing the Cisco on Cisco story? Meaning, how are you using your own technologies to change?

Alexander Ferguson 2:57
What’s going on? Right?

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 2:58
Oh, so I have to also see and be executive sponsor, you know, of many different customers, like industries like retail, whether it’s Target or Walmart, or energy, like Exxon or Chevron, working in the financials, space with, you know, a lot of the city city banks and Morgan Stanley’s of the world, JP Morgan Chase’s and, and then being able to understand their pain as well, because they have they, we all sort of share maybe 75% of the challenge. But when there’s a 30%, that’s specific to their industry, right, right. So

Alexander Ferguson 3:40
break down that 70% what is the pain? What is the problem? Get it? Did the quantify it and describe it?

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 3:46
Yeah, the 75% is really is how do I make sure that my, my clients, my customers, have the tools, the experiences and the productivity that they need, because at the end of the day, we have to make sure that every or every person inside of our organization is productive, has a great experience, and that we understand how to best support them from the operational standpoint. Now, there’s this one aspect called security and safety, which is also there, we had to make sure that everybody’s secure and safe. But let’s be honest, pre COVID. That’s very different. Television was the fourth, third or fourth on the list? I mean, let’s, let’s really put it out there. Guess what, now it’s fast forward over the top is a horizontal and every industry every CEO, cio, ch, ar Oh, they’re all worried about this now.

Alexander Ferguson 4:52
Right? How do you take care of your people? How do you make sure it’s a safe, environment engaged moments people feel comfortable coming And that you’re managing and monitoring it effectively. And that’s where ideally, technology comes into play and being at Cisco, I mean, that talk about IoT and just technology. That is the place.

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 5:10
I mean, do you have somebody there, you’re monitoring, or you have technology, helping you gather in real time, the information that you need to make sure that people are safe, to make sure that they’re productive, having a great experience. So now safety is at the top of mind. And you can’t really scale if you don’t have leverage technology, which which has landed in our laps in the last 18 months.

Alexander Ferguson 5:42
So for you, you joined Kloudspot, but about a year, year and a half ago, actually, right before the pandemic, you join in? February of 20. Yes. And you’re like, Oh, this is gonna be great. There’s so much opportunity. I think, in our pre chat, you mentioned that about, you know, using class about creating badass experiences. And then COVID happened, what did you feel what were you experiencing in

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 6:04
that moment, was interesting, because we were, you know, we were creating these as your combat experiences. And and we were, we were working a lot with, with your large customers, and large events, like physical events, where large amounts of people would go to an event like the RSA conference, or yoga, which is a security conference, and for those that don’t know, or they would go to large automobile conferences and shows, so we would be able to really understand who’s going to the venue, right? How are they moving? And what are they looking at? Are they are they looking at this really cool car, and you know, and now we understand is like, hey, this, this person must really like this kind of car. So let’s make sure that the, you know, the downstream, you know, analytics and insights give us, you know, well endpoint, how are we going to provide that person with even a better experience to say, hey, look at this digital display, there’s a really cool, you know, raffle going on or something along those lines,

Alexander Ferguson 7:18
right, taking a deep breath, moment on this for because I pulled it from your website, taking a moment on this. So you guys, the Kloudspot is, is taking data from Bluetooth, Wi Fi, environmental sensors, connected cameras, and then basically converting all that data into meaningful insights as as the one who’s running this event or experience to then trigger other types of experiences in play in that moment, or just provide like a dashboard of insights that if I understood correctly, that Correct,

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 7:47
yeah, correct. And so what we are, we are a, we were an AI platform, an AI meet IoT platform, because what we’re pulling in is data from, let’s call IoT devices. And an IoT could be an environmental sensor, could be a camera, could be a network access point, or a Bluetooth ble beacon. And we’re in real time we’re taking all of that, you know, it could be even your phone or some other device, a Bluetooth wristband or badge. And we’re pulling that together. And we’re contextualizing that in real time, and we’re driving awareness, both for the for the end consumer, but also for our customer who is the venue owner, or the venue manager, so they can get better real time insights to say, oh, how do I best serve that consumer? And then we really look at how do we predict what action needs to be taken? And then there’s a there’s a continuous learning mode. So we’re, we’re partnered with, you know, the, the sensor brokering that integrate with all the different hardware and IoT that’s coming out.

Alexander Ferguson 9:04
I mean, this this concept of tracking the data, being able to get insights using AI to say, Okay, what the heck, all this inputs from these IoT devices mean? Is this become is this commonplace? Now? I mean, like, when if I go to any event, this is going to be normal? Or is it like, Are we still in that early adopter phase? I’m curious of overall adoption of this type of technology.

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 9:26
Well, I think now, more than ever, technology is going to be a key factor because let’s now put the over the top issue on the table again, which is when when I go to that venue now, I need to ensure that you feel safe going there. And that even while you’re in there, that we provide a level of safety measure and so forth, while we’re giving you an engaged experience,

Alexander Ferguson 10:01
right in many ways COVID has been the catalyst for greater technology adoption. And so you’re saying it applies same to this, this this in person environmental IoT data capturing analysis?

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 10:16
Yeah. And, and being able to then real, really like, for example, you know, and you’re one of our largest, our largest customers. And it’s a it’s a large lot, one of the largest venues, and that will happen this year and events is the World Expo. Right? The World Expo will happen in Dubai starting in October. Well, we’ve been working with them for the last probably 18, you know, 18 months. And we were and so the the original intent of that Expo was to really understand who’s coming into the World Expo. Now let’s put it in perspective. There’s 1000 acres of of land that is covered here. They expect or that, at that, at that time, they expected that over the six months of the World Expo, there’ll be about 25 million customers coming through the door. Well, how do I how do I how do I get them? And the thought was, how do I get them a great experience? while they’re there? How do I know how to send Guillermo to the pavilion of X, Y or Z? Because those are the kinds of things that we know that he likes, how do I make sure that, you know, he that we understand the pattern and the density, you know, they actually they’ve they’ve termed our platform, the density and population management system. So they want to know how many people are in there. They want to know the density, the movement and the patterns. And, you know, and so, but now you go COVID hits, and now we have Oh, by the way, in order for them to even go in there, they need to feel safe. So now you have a layer of safety and security surrounding everything that we’re doing. So we’ve now embedded that into our platform. That’s just gone. That’s now Howard,

Alexander Ferguson 12:29
how are you? How are you approaching? Safety then? Because I’ve heard a lot of ideas in the past year of what it will be like to travel to go to events to to be present amongst a lot of other people. How are you guys approaching it using technology?

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 12:48
Yeah, so I think there’s probably there’s probably a couple of points. And and I think why, in fact why we’re different is, you know, there’s a there’s obviously a point where I’m today I’m I’m almost 100%, remote, or at least 90% remote. So I start my day at my home. And now the world starting to open up again. So offices and venues are starting to open up, well, how do I know it’s safe to go there? Well, I have now a, let’s just take an office space. So I now have a way to what we call cloud hybrid is I can actually check to see what is available in the office, I can see that if there’s a physical space open. And I know that when I check into that, and when I go there, that it’s going to be clean, because already I have sent a signal to the cleaning folks that says when I arrived, or when I check in this, there’s requirements for me in order to be there. And those are, those are first that space needs to be clean. But But the other part is I need to actually go through my health questionnaire. And you know, and then now now folks are starting to say, well, let’s at least ask, maybe this goes into privacy, let’s at least ask if they’ve been vaccinated. Right? So you kind of go through that motion. And then then and then it allows you to check check in now once I’m there, I’m at the I’m at the space and now through either you know a digital display or an what we call vision, okay, our car vision, we’re able to detect if if policy dictate that I’m wearing a mask, right? By wearing a mask. And also we’re pulling in thermal sensors from as a temperature reading. So are you wearing a mask plus, plus, you have your thermal reading you Yes, check, boom, yes, check, boom. Now I’m entered the venue. Now as I move through now I’m understanding the movement and the pattern. Is there congestion happening in the space? If there is there, look the other video in like in certain spaces, and some of our customers, they’ll have a digital display saying, here’s the, here’s the heat map a little bit too much congestion, maybe you might want to send a friendly nudge, you know, kind of keep some distance, right?

Alexander Ferguson 15:35
On the signs around you say, Hey, you guys are crowding take a step back.

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 15:38
And by the way, and those signs could be used, they can be used for safety. But that same signal can be sent to your phone or could be sent to something else. But the same time, it’s like, well, guess what, I’m not just using those signs for safety. I’m also using it to tell the team, hey, here’s our communication of the day. Like if you go to our office, I have whatever I wanted to say to the to whoever’s in the venue, I want them to know, hey, you know, our priority of the day is x. And, you know, we want to be able to tell our customers, what we do. And here’s a couple of your marketing or a couple of sales points you should think about and everybody’s should should know this, right? You’re using it as

Alexander Ferguson 16:28
safe, you’re using that safety and communication, it’s coming back to one of your original purposes. But now that the prime conversation or in front of everyone’s mind at the moment is safety and how you approach it, if you want people that they don’t feel safe, right? Yeah, they won’t want to come. And that’s where if we look at your, your stack that you can just describe all the way through of the many pieces involved. I feel like it’s that’s where I guess the CIO would be be able to choose, which they want to enable, like the cleaning crew, we want them to be able to be all connected to this. So they know to go clean, or we want thermal imaging to be connected to this. So we want the mask detection. Is that kind of like a checkbox to like CIO just goes down the list and say, Yeah, I actually want to full all of it all the way or just a couple pieces kind of thing.

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 17:15
Well, it is exactly that. Because the way that that you go through and actually look, you’re kind of walk through the configuration of the of the platform, it’s very easy. It’s like the Yo, yo, and the pivot for us actually was interesting, because we used to pre COVID the construction zones and construction companies. They they wanted to detect when someone comes in and by wearing a helmet, goggles, gloves, right? And so what when we when when COVID hit, we said, Well, wait a minute, we can actually do this, because we can detect. Now, you know, we just now imaged this, you know, that what the mask looks like. And it takes you know, it took some modeling and so forth. But, but it was already an architecture.

Alexander Ferguson 18:16
But we reapplied it to say instead of hats and gloves, let’s just have mass, and then you could roll it out.

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 18:22
So So what we did now is if you look at the configuration, it’s very simple. It’s helmet, gloves. And then there’s various kinds of gloves because there’s the workloads and then there’s the PP gloves, we had to model those. And then there’s the, the mask, so so it’s like, and if you want to take it off, you just unclick it. That’s how that’s how easy it is. Right? All modeling is happening in the in the platform.

Alexander Ferguson 18:52
So let’s take let’s talk about since this naturally lends into that the end person, the employee, the customer, or I think you also do schools, so like even students, the privacy aspect of like, Alright, you’re you’re tracking me, based off of my phone as I come in, you’re looking at my face. I mean, how do you perceive? I mean, are people gonna get weirded out by how much they’re, they’re being tracked? And and what have you heard and seen?

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 19:17
We, we hear this every in every conversation? What about privacy? What about you know, and, and so, I think if you look at the different industries, if you look at workspace and office space, it really varies by the, the, the actual, you know, but well, it varies. there there’s there’s standard rules now by CDC, that everyone and and the local, you know, regulations that folks have to deal with, right? But But now, each organization each company has their own policy. Right? So for us, we’ve, again back to the Configure configurable approach we’ve made, we’ve allowed privacy to be configurable. It’s like, do I want to know everything about Guillermo, what do I want to know, I want to know his employee ID, I want to know, how he’s tracking. Like, if you look at call center environments, we have a customer as call center, they want to know, because they’re there, they’re not only tracking safety, but they want to know, I want to know exactly how many calls this person is taking, I want to know how many keystrokes they’re hitting. So they have a, they have a they have much more granularity and how they want to approach the, the privacy or the, the, the productivity, privacy and security issue. Because, and, and it’s really up to me, or if I want to, you know, if I want to go to the office number one. And number two, if I want to work in that company,

Alexander Ferguson 21:06
boy self response or self decision, like if I’m gonna work at this company, I know what their privacy policies are. If I if we switch them to customers for a moment, like you talked about the World Expo or other types of events, where you’re going, what’s the approach that you’ve seen there of, I mean, detecting and tracking people? And and what’s the future look like? When it comes to that?

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 21:27
Again, I think it varies. And again, we provide the, the flexibility in the platform to configure privacy, because I may not want to know at all, I just want to know that somebody is there. And that’s okay, too. Because we can we can allow that. But but to this point on sort of open venues like a like a, an event, you know, what, what happens a lot of times is the customer wants you to join the network. And when you join the network, you know, I think we should all probably look in much more detail about what we’re clicking to accept. Right. And so I think, you know, yeah, I think this is the this is this, this social dilemma piece, right, which is, I don’t want you to know anything about me, me, but I want but, but I’m putting all of my stuff on every social platform, and openly and I’m clicking on all the, the, the the events and those kinds of things or the network’s

Alexander Ferguson 22:38
I’ve noticed as well, it’s like comes to all again, people say self responsibility as an end consumer, you should be reading your agreements, though, some approach that there should be a standardization or or at least as everyone knows what it is. And I’m curious what the future will look like.

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 22:54
Yeah, so I think that I think the future looks like, you need to make that much more much easier for consumers to understand. So I think there should be a we need to really keep helping Drive, drive awareness and standards around, you know, here’s, here’s a, here’s a set of common rules that if you’re connecting to any network, here’s the things that you need to know. But I would also say that, that every, everyone that’s providing these and what we what we aim to do is continually put security into the platform, so that when you know you’re connecting to our to us, is that you’re connecting to a secure, you know, secure environment, the

Alexander Ferguson 23:43
data itself.

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 23:45
And we’re not, and we’re going to be responsible with with your data. And we want to make sure that our partners who we partner with, because let’s face it, as technology becomes even more pervasive, which it has in the last 18 months, the number of sensors and devices and apps and API’s are all calling each other, you know, you’re only as good as your weakest link. Right? So if somebody has a security hole, and you’re pushing data to them and an API to them, then you get an A, they have a hole, you have a hole. So you really have to look at your

Alexander Ferguson 24:32
your ecosystem of your IoT devices and everything that’s connected to it. One this this pops in my head when I think of marketing and I think about events you’re going somewhere is sci fi right science fiction, and there’s there’s movies was a minority report where he walks through this hallway and all these ads are popping out to him, john, because they can say his name. It’s all in a database. Now I think some people are concerned and wonder is that going to be the future where we’ll just know who we are. In some ways, it, it can be nice when things are customized to our experience, because then we can get a better experience. But where’s the balance? of privacy? But a good experience?

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 25:14
Yeah, you know, it’s funny you bring up that movie, that movie was like, I think it was like 2003 or four. Right? And, and we often refer to here like, yeah, we, you want to know something before, before it actually happens. And that’s, and that’s kind of what, what I think the future will, will be like, hopefully not, you know, like, sound dramatic like that. But for good for the good of the and the safety. Again, I go back to, we used to think about it in terms of, let’s give a great experience, let’s make sure that we’re capturing data to improve the operation. And then and then ensure that safety and health are there. Now, I think it’s the it’s really safety and health, let’s make sure that, that I already know there that you are, that you feel safe, that you’re getting a great experience, and that we are using that data for the good for that we’re using it to make sure that that we continue to keep you safe, that we’re using it to provide you with the best experience possible. You know, I had, this was, you know, when I first took on, and Kloudspot, and we had done a lot of this at Cisco, but I was I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I was at a at a hotel lobby in the bar area. And noticed, you know, there was there was a woman with my son’s there and there was a woman that was ordering a drink. And, and the manager walked up to her and said, hey, how did you like your steak last night? That it I hope you enjoyed your meal, right? And she was like, Oh, yeah, there. It was awesome. Thanks for even noticing. And but yeah. And then she says, she says we started chatting and. And then she says what do you do? And I and I said why work for this? Now we used to work at Cisco, I work for this company called Kloudspot. And this is what we do. She goes, why do you do that? I don’t want you to know about me. And and I was like, Can I ask you a question like that? I’m not I wasn’t eavesdropping. But I was standing right next to you. When that manager came up and asked you about your dinner and your experience. You were so happy that he did that. Right? And she said, Yeah, he knew all the stuff. So how do you think he knew that? Did you Did he sir? Was he the server? Or was did he was around you last night? She says no. And I said well, is are you a loyal? Are you a loyalty member? Are you you know, connected to the network? Are you? Yeah, she said, yeah. And I said, then that’s how he knows. Right?

Alexander Ferguson 28:12
You’re being tracked, you just don’t this, how it’s comes out and experience.

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 28:17
Yeah. And I went on to say as I am, by the way do you have at home? We have something like, you know, Alexa or Google or whatever? And she said, Yeah, both of them. I said, Yeah, they know about you. Right. And so, so it’s it’s this interesting, interesting dilemma that I think, you know, what I have pushed our team and, and our founders and the other guys that really are working on the platform, we really are continually pushing the notion of how do we how do we drive, not just safety from keeping people safe, but safety in the form of keeping people privacy safe, and people’s data safe as to the extent that that is, you know, allows that the experience and so forth, because because you can also say, Well, you know, you can do you’ve gone too far. And now there’s no I can’t even have an experience that some people opt into that experience. And so this is just the this is that balance that I think we’re going to have to keep keep you’re driving education, awareness and, and technology capabilities into the platform,

Alexander Ferguson 29:43
the technology, innovation is going to stop. If anything, it’s only going to be more opportunities, more IoT devices, more ability to connect and draw in the data, and then the desire in me to track it. But how people understand that it’s us and how It’s used, I think is where most the conversation needs to happen. I feel like that you don’t know what’s happening, but how are companies using it? That like, for instance, you say the hotel Oh, that’s a great example. We want a good experience. We want that company the hotel to, to, to recognize us as a person. And I feel like if companies can do that, and not just feel like, oh, that I’m being watched by something, I don’t know. Yeah, maybe it’s balancing? Yeah,

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 30:26
yeah, I think it goes back to awareness is like, make it aware that, you know, this is happening. And don’t, you know, I think a lot of times is I have a Tesla. So I’m driving in my Tesla, and all sudden, it’s like, hey, for, you know, 14 miles from home, it’s like, I didn’t ask you to give me. Right. But it knew it knew it. No. So, but at the same time, I’m like, Well, I was pretty cool. You know, but then I go over, how did they know? Right? And so I think continuous education, awareness, and then. And you know, that life cycle is just gonna keep getting, you know, more, more and more advanced.

Alexander Ferguson 31:15
Just Just for fun. I’m curious if you could wave a magic wand have any type of technology in existence right now? That’s not, that’s not here quite yet. What would you What would you want?

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 31:28
Oh, what would I want? What would I it’s simple, I hate traffic. Right? So I would want my, I would want to, like drive out of my garage, and my wheels just kind of go from vertical to horizontal. And I lift up and I, and I drive and air travel. Air travel, which, by the way, requires some sense set will require sensors that are not necessarily even in the, on the ground, but in the air. Right. And so how do I keep that traffic? And, uh, you know, moving that

Alexander Ferguson 32:15
whole nother field is, is air travel, I think that’s gonna be the next big explosion in many ways. I don’t know how I

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 32:22
think about it today. Like, if you go like, you know, and like, if you’re driving and an autonomous vehicle, again, Tesla, but it can actually guide you and move you into the lanes and so forth. So, but how do you now take that? to the, to the skies, right. And, and, and so, you know, to answer the question, I, I hate to draw lines. So the thing that the thing that can actually get me through, you know, through traffic and through lines as quick as possible with your case, because otherwise I’m I want to, I want to sit at home and order something and i’m not i’m a people guy I like to be out and about. So I’d rather be out and about and get through the lines that I need to get through in the most efficient way possible. And I think the only way to do that is through technology.

Alexander Ferguson 33:22
I love it. I like Well, I’m I appreciate both the journey you’ve been on from from SEO at Cisco and seeing the people need it and being able to have all this content and then coming to Kloudspot the opportunity to the services and the journey you guys been on from first just bad experiences a your words there too. Now, that safe, be providing safe and engaged experiences. I’m excited to see where you guys are headed and the World Expo being able to support that. But those that want to learn more, go over to Kloudspot.com , that’s kloudspot.com. And it looks like you’d be able to request a demo they get a bit more but your target market for those of their it’s it’s it’s CIOs or probably enterprise companies or large events, or I think schools as well. Did I catch that? Right? fit? I

Guillermo Diaz Jr. 34:09
think I think you know, I think if I were to kind of go in sort of order about I think the world right now is ready to open I think the you know, the priority has been you know, making sure they’re safe back to, you know, back to venue back to office, back to, to a an event back to a while back to a city back to any event and back to school. Right. And, and I still strongly believe that, you know, people say well, why not healthcare? And I’m like, I think healthcare has now gone from this. Again, this is my perspective, from a vertical to a horizontal and so the notion of, of caring for our health, whether it’s like, well, we are a, an illness or just even wellness and having this notion of being able to take to, to create a, an environment, where I, you know, I want to have flexibility, I want to be home, when I need to be home, I want to be in the office when I need to be there, or I can work for, from somewhere in between. But that that kind of connectivity is, is seamless. And the tools that are used are seamless, and are our target, you know, kind of customer is, you know, we say the CIO, but but the CMO and CIO, because we have compliance now and safety, you can’t get people secondly, environment. So so the HR HR team is really concerned with that. And the same time marketing folks, they want to be able to give you that great experience. So what what you see over the last 18 months is it or the technology teams have actually become the glue. And so my aim as a former CIO, and we are being a part of a CIO community is to help the CIO be the hero. And so that’s kind of a

Alexander Ferguson 36:36
I love that you want your CIOs to be the hero that the glue between the entire organization using technology to make it happen. I love it. Thank you so much, G for sharing your journey. This This has been awesome. Thanks a lot. And we’ll see you guys on the next episode of UpTech Report. Have you seen a company using AI machine learning or other technology to transform the way we live, work and do business? Go to UpTech report.com and let us know