With EMC receiving so much coverage for its merger with Dell, its continuing business is getting somewhat obscured by buzz about upcoming possibilities. Inside the company, however, pressure remains high to keep developing ways of staying competitive and investigating data-value propositions.

Bill Schmarzo, chief technology officer of EMC Global Services, Big Data Practice, sat down with Jeff Frick (@jefffrick) and Peter Burris (@plburris), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, at BigDataSV 2016, where theCUBE is celebrating #BigDataWeek, including news and events from the #StrataHadoop conference. Their discussion covered EMC’s efforts to simplify marketing, customer engagement and bringing together science with business.

Slaying the Jabberwock

Schmarzo began by explaining some of the reasoning behind emphasizing simple language when discussing product with prospective customers. “I like to talk about the ‘anti-Jabberwocky’ strategy … most sales pitches I hear sound like the Jabberwocky poem, with the belief that ‘if I can confuse the customer enough, they’ll buy it’ … we want to simplify the conversation,” he said. By doing so, customers find it much easier to engage.

Schmarzo also highlighted EMC’s targeting of specific time frames, particularly the “nine- to 12-month window,” past which things tend to become “science fiction.” Part of that is to retain focus on identifying the business stakeholders, as well as the decisions that those stakeholders are trying to make in support of the business initiative.

Scientists and business people

Turning to the behind-the-scenes dealings and enabling business-movers to grasp the science behind new options, Schmarzo noted that while data scientists have had their work simplified considerably in recent years, it’s still not to the point of ease as they provide “the guide to helping the business people understand what’s possible.”

However, this wall is being broken down, particularly by reassessing the role of data science. “I think the biggest mistake is to think of data science as one person,” he said. “Data science is a team sport,” he said, stating that by recognizing that, you become less dependent on finding that one data scientist unicorn to solve everything.

As the discussion ranged across topics of faster iteration, involvement of user-experience designers with the data, economic data-value assessment, and the political struggles over sharing data-silo contents, Schmarzo was perhaps most proud of his involvement with the Pathfinder group at EMC, a select group of innovators looking to transform traditional business practices.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of BigDataSV 2016. And make sure to weigh in during theCUBE’s live coverage at the event by joining in on CrowdChat.

Photo by SiliconANGLE