The same is true for technology products. Not only are we seeing more consultation with compliance departments to ensure that new systems don't violate laws, there's actually consultations to see if a system can affirmatively help in ensuring compliance. Let's take an example in privacy. Electronic medical records can be configured to allow access to, or to detect inappropriate access, based on federal and state privacy laws. Technology can also help achieve compliance by making it easier for medical records to be accessible to patients on their own. Bringing privacy and compliance to the table early on as systems are being built is new and it brings value and that's being increasingly understood everyday. >> Compliance rarely had a seat at what I'll call the adult table. It was often thought of as an irritable nuisance, an inconvenience, a burden, something that had to be put up with. Compliance was thought of as ugh, compliance. I have to go through that again. So enough with the corny analogies. Let me give you a real life illustration of the importance of compliance. So one day many years ago, I got home, I was having dinner with my son and I was very frustrated with the legal and compliance issues that have occurred during the day. And my son, to his credit said, what's wrong? Why are you so frustrated? So I started explaining to him the compliance issues that I had to deal with that day and I literally saw his eyes glaze over. And he said stop. What do you do at work? And so I told well, I'm the Chief Compliance Officer and Co-General Counsel, had a private equity firm. And he said wait, stop. What do you do as a Chief Compliance Officer? And I started going through all my responsibilities and what I do on a day-to-day basis at work. And when I was finished, he said, stop. Dad, you're not explaining it correctly. He said, let me draw you a picture on how people perceive compliance. And so, the next day he came back with a picture and it showed how he thought people are perceiving compliance, that people are perceiving compliance as preventing them from their goal. In this case, the goal was money. And he had a second picture and he said, this is how you want to explain what you do. And the second picture was showing what compliance was protecting people from. And I thought it was a great example of taking a step back and maybe I needed a 10 or 11 year old to actually tell me how to express the importance of compliance. And once he explained to me, I think slowly the importance of compliance became apparent, similarly in the industry. People began to understand that compliance could be both prophylactic and reactive at the same time. It was forward thinking and it was strategic. People started thinking about incorporating compliance into all aspects of a company, as part of the, quote best practices for an industry or a company. Corporate governance, culture and compliance became merged. And a strong compliance program is now seen as an indicator of a truly mature organization. >> Compliance is knowing what rules apply and then developing strategies to make them stick. These strategies need to address issues of corporate culture overall, as well as the problem of one guy. In the next module, we'll go beyond the what into a deep dive on why.
