Speaker 0 | 00:09.585
All right, welcome everyone back to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. Today, special guest, Cedric Wells, MBA, MCSEC35, R2D2. Please, why don’t you, well, first of all. I’m a huge fan of Gorilla Glue for all the good reasons. Oh, I know. There’s someone that’s not. I know that there’s probably someone out there that’s not a fan. We’re not going to go there.
Speaker 1 | 00:45.208
We’re just going to leave that right there.
Speaker 0 | 00:48.449
But I am. I’m a huge fan. I don’t know what else to say. My kids are probably a huge fan as well. I wish they weren’t. I don’t know. There’s probably something. There’s some glue. you know there was glue this is my my bad gorilla glue story was i have a light switch going down the stairs and when you have a bunch of kids they just you just give up on on like drywall holes and and painting and and kids i don’t know maybe i just right maybe i just i’m not a good disciplinarian around right yeah but literally one day i came down and there was just a long bead of gorilla glue you going down like the wall just like to the right of the light switch just like a big kind of like orange like and it was well you know what’s gonna happen when you and i basically was like hey who did this who got out the gorilla glue why you know why are you getting into myself like don’t worry we’ll clean you know like in there like you know i don’t know what it was but i’m sure someone was like don’t worry i’ll clean it and i was like no no no no and by that time they had already tried to like take it off so you know now basically what you had was a bunch of drywall you like paper that ripped off, you know, but the glue had kind of seeped through the, the, so there was like this yellow, it was anyways, I’m sure you, you understand where we’re going, but you’re in it, you’re in it and Gorilla Glue. I am. So you can glue everything together. How cheesy can I get? You know, we, we glue the whole company together and make everything work. Um, super cool. Tell me just a little bit about your, I guess, why don’t you tell me how you get started in IT and how you worked your way up to gluing things together?
Speaker 1 | 02:37.260
Yeah, and I will start with saying that I’ll talk a little bit about that, but I won’t focus too much on, you know, necessarily really glue itself, you know, for obvious reasons, but just in general. Yeah, so I’ve been in IT, I mean, I’ve been involved with IT from when I was like a kid. I was just always good with that stuff. I remember from like back in high school, I was the president of the computer science club. I just was really good with computer and all this stuff. Did some coding from back then as well. And in fact, I remember when we were all graduating from high school, this was back in Jamaica. I’m originally from Jamaica, by the way. If you can kind of tell that from my accent or something.
Speaker 0 | 03:18.861
I can. My friend, I’m in Hartford in Connecticut. And I don’t know why we have a lot of Jamaicans here, but we have a lot of Jamaicans here and I have a lot of Jamaican friends. And they introduced me to all kinds of great food. They’re still trying to get me to eat oxtail, which I guess oxtail is really, really good. I just haven’t had it yet.
Speaker 1 | 03:38.128
It is. You should definitely try. I’m actually going to be at that site as of this weekend, actually. I’m going to go visit my dad and I’m actually attending this conference in Boston. I’m going to swing over afterwards. Nice. Yeah, so in any case, yeah, so, you know, I was doing all this stuff from like I was a kid, you know, high school, all that kind of stuff. And it was interesting because in my yearbook, they actually wrote most likely to be the next Bill Gates. The point was that was how good I was at computers, like, you know, back in high school. And I couldn’t even tell you like what my first computer was because, you know, growing up in Jamaica, you know, and being, you know, from a very poor family and stuff, I didn’t like have a computer initially. You know, my home stable was kind of like. the computer labs and all that stuff. And it was just whatever was available. And I started like, you know, working and stuff and building my own computers and stuff. So it was like more pieces of older computers only, you know, put together or whatever. So that was kind of what I did. And then I had a love for flying. I always wanted to be a pilot. So when everybody else was going off to university and stuff after high school, I was like, yeah, I’m not going to do that. I want to go to flight school and everything. But you know, my family was kind of, well, you know, to play for university and this and the other. So I was like, okay, sure, why not? So I did. And I got into some universities and everything. And I moved to the States, by the way, after high school. But I know I had no intention of going, right? At least that’s the way I thought. So I went off to flight school, did all that stuff for like a little bit of a year. And my dad was like, yeah, you know, your lifestyle is too expensive. I really afford that.
Speaker 0 | 05:13.422
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 | 05:13.682
That was that. I’ve always been.
Speaker 0 | 05:18.166
At least he dared.
Speaker 1 | 05:19.287
Everywhere. Yeah, right.
Speaker 0 | 05:21.308
You know, at least he like allowed it for a while, I guess.
Speaker 1 | 05:24.967
Yeah, exactly. But man, it was really expensive. A bunch of hours and all that kind of stuff. So I was like, well, the next best thing was, you know, computers, all the good computers and stuff. So I decided I was going to go back to school. And I did, before actually starting in computers, I was like, I still want to stick with aviation. So I went to Embry-Riddle. I did aerospace and aeronautics there. Then I was like, well, you know, what if I could really merge these two together? My love for aviation. computer science and all that kind of stuff. I went back and started my master’s in computer science. And I was like, okay, I remember why I stopped coding in high school. I actually hate this. There’s no way I want to spend the rest of my life writing code. So then I was like, okay, I guess I’ll just go do just this regular IT thing. So I went back to the subsequent bachelor’s in IT. And that was kind of when my IT career officially took off. Because even though I knew all the things and did all the things, I didn’t have a piece of paper that said I knew what I was doing. you know what I mean so from there on I started doing some things here and there and you know worked my way up I was the you know the engineer the sysadmin the network admin did all the things became a manager then a director and obviously now I’m still a director you know the organization and stuff like that so yeah that was kind of how that came about so this is great completely selfishly speaking
Speaker 0 | 06:50.283
but beneficial to everybody out there. It’s really not self, it’s actually kind of an amalgamation of everything that this, of all the people like yourselves that have climbed the IT ladder, so to speak. A lot of people, I have this argument a lot, whether you need certifications or not. Yours, in your case, obviously absolutely helped and made a big difference. And I think it was a… argument there for that. All that aside, I’m taking all of these great stories from IT managers, IT directors, CTOs, CIOs and I’m going to write a book. The one thing that I don’t… You tell me if it’s been done yet or not. The book is going to be called Speaking the Language of Business IT. Because I think there’s a lot along the ways, and you tell me what you learned along the ways. I’m assuming you have a lot of technical speak, you’ve got a lot of technical jargon, but then what does really IT do at the end of the day? They’re serving the end users, they’re serving your customers inside your company, helping serve the customers outside the company better. But then you’re also dealing with executive management and helping them save more money, make more money, etc. If I was to ask you… When you were growing up in IT, what was your number one question about when it comes to speaking the language of business? What would it have been? What was your biggest kind of gap or hole there?
Speaker 1 | 08:28.286
Oh man, that’s a good question. As I think about, you know, what I used to do to be fair back then, I thought I was just going to be a guy that was going to like, you know, write code and just become wealthy or something.
Speaker 0 | 08:45.415
I’m going to make it personal.
Speaker 1 | 08:46.696
Exactly. But, you know, to kind of touch on what you said earlier, things are a lot different now. In fact, you know, some of the people that I mentor, coach, talk to, whatever, just people who kind of look to me for advice. And so I’m not really big on the whole formal education thing. That being said, I do think there’s something that you get from going to college. Problem is right now, so much of this stuff is overrated and you spend so much money on it and all this. kind of a bunch of things you think about with no hands-on experience it’s like exactly but you think that many years ago things were different then than how it is today so it was just a different world you know i believe and some of the things that exist today um and how much the internet has come of age and stuff like that and you know whatever you can go find on youtube and it was very different back then right and um there’s some stuff that you learned from the base of the principles and that kind of stuff that i think is good But the reality is it’s probably more for the connections that you make for the people you meet while you’re in college than anything else. I’m not really big on that. So I wouldn’t say I ever really thought about, well, hmm, let’s see. you know, no, it wasn’t, it was nothing like that. I was like, I just want to be cool. I want to make awesome stuff. And, you know, that was kind of, you know, my approach to the whole thing.
Speaker 0 | 10:02.220
Well, that was a good non-answer. The, let’s see here. It was, it was the, but let me ask you, let me put it this way then. How about, what have you learned? How do you sell IT to executive management? I guess is the best way to say it. When I say the language of business, how does IT translate into making money for the business or saving money for the business? And were there any pieces that you learned along the way, like the term EBITDA or, I don’t know, let’s see here. What else could we have? You know, P&L, terms like that. Did you learn in college?
Speaker 1 | 10:45.708
Yeah, so no, absolutely not. I mean, I was, me answering the question was kind of going back, you know, when I was growing up, I wasn’t thinking about any of that stuff.
Speaker 0 | 10:52.893
Yeah, no one does. They don’t even know what it exists. We didn’t even know it existed. We’re like, yeah, whatever.
Speaker 1 | 10:56.815
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 0 | 10:57.676
It’s like, you know, chlorophyll, borophyll. You know, it’s like no one knows what it, but anyways, go. Yeah.
Speaker 1 | 11:07.763
Yeah, no. So, I mean, yeah, there are a couple of things that, you know, we learned in college. For example, when I decided that one day I wanted to be a student, I only decided I was going to go back to do my MBA in IT management. You know, there were some accounting and finance classes that, you know, we took that was kind of, that went into some of that stuff and all of that. The position that I’m in or that I’ve held at the highest level that I’m at right now, my career as a director, I’ve never had to, there was always a VP or a CIA or something above me who was, their primary responsibility was to worry about that type of stuff. But even though I learned some of the business aspects. As it relates to IT, it was never really my job to be in certain meetings talking that language. Now, it does help that I can talk to my manager and have that conversation with him or her or whatever, and also be technical enough to talk with my team, my director, and get the technical stuff from them and present that in a way that the business can understand and make decisions based. based on that but in my direct role um when it comes to that kind of stuff it was never something even though i know it and can have those conversations it wasn’t something up to this point that has been required of me so i know enough about it there’s obviously a lot still to learn and whatever but um yeah i that’s
Speaker 0 | 12:29.050
all that’s all there so do you think it’s um do you think it’s an important gap do you think it’s an important gap to fill yeah and what i say to people is that um you
Speaker 1 | 12:42.748
When it comes to business status, and that’s something that I’ve been working on, obviously, I’m still learning quite a bit. You know, I’ve realized a lot more in my experience that a lot of the decisions that are being made, it’s not about the technology, right? That’s almost like the easy part. You know, help the executive, the senior executives, you know, see if you understand, well, what does this actually mean for the business? So you want to go and get this new technology. You want to go implement this. piece of technology or whatever photos that you know help the bottom line and what is that technically going to do and i think that’s something that a lot of it leaders have um probably um struggled with um i think um with everything that has happened over the last two years and so it has given um some visibility more so than normal um to it leaders and i think you know we should all just capitalize on that and use it as an opportunity to get you know into the future of you know what i can actually do and bring to the table for the business versus being just order takers, if you will.
Speaker 0 | 13:43.065
So what do you think is the biggest, if you had to put your finger on one, what would be the biggest, if you had a question about any of the business decisions or any of that when it comes to whether a CIO level or CTO level and getting a seat at the executive table, so to speak, and sitting around that round table, what would your biggest question be?
Speaker 1 | 14:11.224
My biggest question has always been and will continue to be whenever I get an opportunity to talk with people above me. It’s always trying to understand what their biggest problem is. And I attack it from a non-technical perspective. Because in my mind, if I can understand what it is that’s keeping them up at night or what they worry about the most, even if I don’t come up with a technical answer by technical means that technology can solve, I mean, still have an idea just because you know of the things i’ve done and seen and people that i’m connected to all that kind of stuff that may just spark something else so that’s always a question i’m asking what’s your biggest concern what are you worried about um And most of the times you think about it, that’s always from a business perspective, it’s always going to be, or not always, more often than not, it’s how do they make more money, how do they lower costs, how do they improve the employee experience and the coach and all that kind of stuff. So, and it varies from industry to industry, right? And it depends on what the company is about and off it. Some people it’s going to be more about the money for others, it’s going to be more about the people and the coach. And for some it’s going to be a combination of both, you know what I mean? So I think that’s normally what I lead with. Not sure if that’s the answer you’re looking for necessarily.
Speaker 0 | 15:22.097
No, it’s great. And it rolls down, it kind of rolls downhill from there. So when you go to, I guess, what would your, what’s your, I guess, philosophy, so to speak, around communicating with end users and coaching a team? And then there’s coaching a team to communicate with end users as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1 | 15:45.317
so I’m very, very, very big in customer experience. And everywhere that I’ve worked, that’s something that I’ve always tried to increase or make better. One of the things I try to do is get a baseline to kind of see where people are at. What I have found out is that sometimes people don’t want IT to look bad. And so they’re not always honest. But I’m always trying to raise the bar. Yeah. I mean, they’re like, yeah, you know, things are okay. But, you know, you can tell the story. subtle nuances in certain things. Yeah, I want to dig into that a little more because it’s almost like, you know, they want to say more, but they don’t want to get somebody in trouble, you know, type of thing. So I always try to have that open door policy where, you know, you make it very clear, nobody’s going to get in trouble. We do want to make this better and say there are issues that we need to solve. I mean, I don’t care how simple it is, it may seem simple to you, but, you know, if it’s something that, you know, makes your life difficult for, you know, half an hour out of a day every day adds up or whatever across the entire organization is something that can be easily solved then you know i’m all for it but i’m always looking and pushing um the boundaries when it comes to that and the other thing that i try to explain to my team um and i’m really big on this emotional challenges because i think it’s it’s it’s quite frequent um for people to just be like oh yeah you know they identify someone as a um what do you call like a problem style yeah they’re always putting a tick they’re always this they’re always that thing i mean so you know i try to help seem to be like hey you gotta put yourself in this person’s shoes and you know relate to them and and um that that’s sometimes not all the time but yeah so okay
Speaker 0 | 17:28.683
so how do we deal with what’s a typical problem child and I obviously they’re not a problem. Obviously they’re not a problem child. We’ve already, we’ve already said that we can’t label it that we have to figure out what’s going on here or what’s the issue or why, why are they, you know, why are they having issues or why are there, why would I hate putting in tickets anyways? You know, so, Hey, at least they’re putting in a ticket. Right. You know? Right. Um, so maybe just walk me through that coaching conversation with, uh, with like another team member. Can you, I mean, can you think of anything not being too specific,
Speaker 1 | 18:01.376
but you know, it’s probably. Yes, I could think of an example. Just like if you imagine with everyone going home, so depending on the industry you’re in and everybody used to be in the office and now everyone has basically or everyone basically went home. People are used to having maybe multiple monitors and they have their setup and people maybe need to take their computers home because everybody had desktops and laptops and you gotta figure out okay well, no they want multiple monitors at home like they have in the office and all this kind of stuff. stuff and to a support desk or something and be like yeah just like getting me to just work and stuff but they’re not thinking about well no it’s a different docking station that the person have that they didn’t have in the office before it’s a different type of monitor you know it could be any variation of why you know somebody’s resolution maybe screwed up or one monitor is working but the other isn’t working you know all these different kind of scenarios and stuff like that it’s easy for people to just be like yeah just do this you just reboot You know what I mean? Versus taking the time to really understand and asking the right questions so they can get a better understanding of what that actually looks like. And I think that’s the biggest piece of it. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen so much in IT over the years that nothing surprises me. Because back in the day, I used to be so sure and I tell NGW, there’s no way that’s possible. Yeah, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And then you see this stuff and you’ll be like, oh, well. yeah, I take that back. You know what I mean? So I try to put it the same way, like you never really know. And the users, they just want help. You know what I mean? So that’s an example that, you know, come to mind, something as simple as that. And if you think about it… Somebody working in an Excel document or whatever it is, just something where you need multiple monitors, right? But for whatever reason, it’s all screwed up and you’re spending time just trying to get the resolution right or being able to just see what they’re working. And that gets frustrating, yeah?
Speaker 0 | 20:01.558
Yeah. Like when I bought my MacBook Pro, newer version, and realized it doesn’t support two screens. Amazing. There you go. It does not, cannot support two 4K screens. disaster. Who would have thought? That is the last thing I thought. Yep. Unfortunately. Luckily the 4K screen that I bought is so big. I just wanted like half a wall of screen. Oh wow. That’s a lot of real estate. Just didn’t handle the two 4K screens. Just dealing with it for now. Because it was a custom build. Anyways, people get mad because I have a Mac. Anyways, I am a Microsoft Teams person. I am a Microsoft guy, by the way. Just so you know. FYI, because we were talking Teams earlier. It’s like Teams or the other. It’s Teams.
Speaker 1 | 21:00.452
The other.
Speaker 0 | 21:03.132
So what did we have here? Okay. How about Digital Roadmap? And… How do we, I guess the question here is who guides the digital roadmap? Who should guide the digital roadmap, I guess? You know, some organizations we have, we have a lot of shadow IT decisions. We have executive management making decisions and handing it down to IT. Other organizations, we have IT listening in, sitting in, taking part. asking questions, letting people, I guess, asking the right questions again and finding the right solution there. Is it a mix of both or what’s your opinion on who should be driving the digital roadmap and how we should be guiding that process?
Speaker 1 | 22:04.997
I feel very strongly about this and I think it should be both. You don’t want where IT is kind of seen as like you know the folks who are always saying no because they’re busy and there’s never enough time to do anything that the business wants but you know at the same time you don’t want the business going out and getting whatever because the executive was on an airplane and read something in the magazine we are understanding you know the bigger picture of how this all fits together um in the infrastructure so you know what i’ve been trying to put forward in the past is Tell me what it is that you’re trying to accomplish, right? What the end state needs to be, and then allow IT to bring some options to the table that we think will fit with how everything else is and all the other things that are going on. And then based on the rest of the business expertise, they can be like, yeah, I think this would meet all these. And then that way everybody’s happy. IT doesn’t have to feel like, well, they didn’t think about this security thing or whatever, or even these people, you know, all that kind of stuff. And also… Or if you go off and you put something in and the business is like, yeah, you guys are so far off from what we’re trying to accomplish. So I think it’s a clever effort from both sides.
Speaker 0 | 23:21.826
Okay, so where do the big sinkholes and problems lie? And I guess forest fires that go up in flames, right? Where do the problems lie there? My assumption would be that… IT isn’t having enough conversations to begin with. They’re too overloaded. There’s a lack of communication with executive management. That would be my first assumption is that there’s no communication going on there.
Speaker 1 | 23:55.989
Yeah, so communication is very, very important.
Speaker 0 | 24:00.353
And who should be driving it though? But who should be initiating it?
Speaker 1 | 24:08.048
initiating it. That’s just a very interesting position. Well,
Speaker 0 | 24:10.569
I think, I think it depends. IT, if IT’s complaining and yelling and screaming and pounding fists on the table because they got handed, they got handed a CRM to implement. Hey guys, we got a new CRM. I read about it in Time Magazine.
Speaker 1 | 24:24.276
Don’t make it work.
Speaker 0 | 24:25.516
Yeah. If that’s your fault for not having you know, you can’t sit back and just like, oh, no one cares about IT around here. We’re just, you know, we’re like, you know, we’re just like the drones, you know. Then you, I think maybe, possibly, you haven’t been outgoing enough or pushing, you know, pushing the barriers or getting out of your comfort zone and having those conversations maybe with executive management and making sure that you guys are being heard right now. At the same time, if executive management saying, hey, we really don’t care, just keep the blinky lights on, get out of my face. That’s a problem. Maybe you’re at the wrong company. You know, so I think there has to be, it could go both ways. But I guess what I’m saying is, how should IT be initiating those conversations more often if they’re not happening enough?
Speaker 1 | 25:17.966
So you can be real formal with it if you want. You know what I mean? Most companies that, you know, every level in leadership, you know, there are meetings that are happening. But here’s what I believe, you know. My manager and my manager’s managers, they should be having conversations at their level, as I should be having conversations at my level than my direct force, having conversations at their level, right? So nothing should come to me that is a surprise, right? So at the level that I’m at, you know, if my manager is having the right conversations with his or her peers, then I would assume that this is something that comes up and then it’s kind of, yeah, so we’re thinking about this thing, is the relationship is right?
Speaker 0 | 25:58.092
Hmm. Even from a growth perspective, though, like even from a growth perspective, I’ve had other IT directors, other IT managers say, like, look, if, if like, and I’m not assuming this at all. I’m just, I’ve had other people say, I’ve literally had a bad boss before. And I’ve had to go and have just these general conversations for my own growth, for my own growth perspective. Right. You know what I mean? Like, if you don’t have a, like, if you don’t have a good boss, right, that’s not. involving you, that’s not involving you in the business growth and keeping you privy to the vision and mission statements and what the goals are of the company and how we’re making money, where we’re cutting costs or what we need to do and how I don’t know blockchain delivery affected something. I don’t know. Whatever it is then you’ve got to take care of your own growth at the same time.
Speaker 1 | 26:56.740
Absolutely. And so you either find a way how to get around that and make other allies with your manager’s peers, or if the company as a whole just doesn’t see the value in some of that stuff for whatever reason, then maybe it’s time for you to think about, well, from a personal perspective and personal growth, is it time to move somewhere else? Because that does happen, right? And I’ve been in situations where it’s kind of like, yeah, no, this is not. this is not how I want it to be for whatever reason. And sometimes it’s the immediate manager that’s a blocker. And sometimes it’s that manager’s manager. Sometimes it’s the organization as a whole. That’s just not what they’re about. You know what I mean? And so you have to make that decision for yourself. It’s nice when you find the right manager who, you know, brings you to the table and tells you everything that’s going on and enables and empowers you. But that doesn’t always happen, right?
Speaker 0 | 27:48.235
No, no. So, which is an interesting, which I do have this question that I wrote down and I don’t know if it’s appropriate or not at what point or if it makes sense, but well, no, I’m just saying like, you’ve probably been through a few interviews in your life before. Yeah. And when it comes to, I guess, when it comes to other people, and this is for other people out in the environment, for other people listening to the show, when… What should you say in a job interview to ensure that you’re in the right place?
Speaker 1 | 28:25.853
Ooh, that’s a good one.
Speaker 0 | 28:29.776
I’m full of them today. I was just brainstorming before this call. I probably shouldn’t do that. I’m putting too many people on the spot. No,
Speaker 1 | 28:36.801
that’s fine, though. I think one of the things that I’ve done and taken for what it is, is I make a list of… some things that are important to me, whether it’s career-wise, my morals, what things I believe, my philosophy, all that kind of stuff and whatnot. And outside of the knowledge that you have as a technical person or whatever the case may be, there are questions that you can ask based on those core things that you believe to be true, that you’re passionate about, that you’re kind of like, these are absolute deep breakers for me. And again, those are all here, right? But you can ask those questions or… Maybe not even directly if you’re not comfortable with doing that, but find ways how to get an answer, at least to give you an idea what that’s like. I think there used to be a time, and obviously you don’t always get the answer that you’re looking for, but I think, you know, there used to be a time where someone starts a job and if they’re not there for a year. it’s throwing the button all I can. So I think that’s different these days. And people are saying, you know what, this was a really bad idea. And so I’m just going to, you know, go be successful elsewhere. So take that list that you’ve made of what’s important to you and what the deal breakers are. And, you know, try to get answers to those questions as best as you can, obviously, while you’re in the process.
Speaker 0 | 29:58.480
Yeah, and I guess where I was going with it was the environment, right? Is this an environment where IT is a cost center or is this an environment where IT is viewed upon as a business force multiplier? And is this going to be a fun and enriching place to work or challenging place to work? I’ve had some guys tell me, I just went in and said, hey, look, if you’re the type of organization where, you know, IT is just a line item on the P&L. And I’m not going to be, I’m not going to be an environment where, you know, I can help you grow the business and be more efficient and be able to make decisions. If I’m just going to be taking orders, like, forget about it. This isn’t the place for me.
Speaker 1 | 30:41.402
So with that, with that, you know, one of the things that was important to me that was on my list was the days of me being an engineer were over. Right. I strictly wanted to be strategic. And so, so. If I was going to come into an organization and you’re going to have me, you know, trying to help somebody to print, not to say that that is not important. Right. But that’s not where my value is. Right. So there are questions you can ask to kind of see, well, you know, how would that actually play out? And what are some of the plans that you have for IT?
Speaker 0 | 31:12.190
Tell me about the last time you opened a ticket.
Speaker 1 | 31:18.560
I hear that. And then I open it.
Speaker 0 | 31:20.221
No, no, no, no. I’m saying it’s perfect. I’m saying like, Hey, do you have any questions for me? Yes, I do have a, you know, the end of the interview. Do you have any questions for me? Yes. I would like to know, um, the last ticket that you put in, uh, what was it for? You know, like, uh, anyway, so the last request you had from it, did you, um, give it to them or did you ask them? Yeah. Uh, no, it’s, it’s, it’s, no, it’s, it’s true.
Speaker 1 | 31:45.037
You can ask from a question to, as, as, you know, um. your hiring manager, whatever, what their relationship is like with the business and, you know, what some of their, so you’ll be surprised some of the things you find out, you know, just by asking, you know, questions. And some of the things that people volunteer, I always tell people that I’m very observant, you know what I mean? And I pick up on a lot of things. You’ll be talking, going, and then you say something and then my ears just kind of like, wait, what? You know, and I put it all together. You know, it’s not always right when you do stuff like that, but, you know, it gives you an idea. And you still make mistakes even. You start a job and you’re kind of like, oh my God, what did I get myself into? You know what I mean? So it’s not a perfect science, but more often than I give you an idea.
Speaker 0 | 32:29.561
It’s just true. It brings up marriage. Yeah, yeah. I was just trying to think of like, what was the last time I was like, oh, what? It’s true. Yeah. And I’m the type of guy that like will stick it out under a lot of pain for a long time. So, yep. should have never left the call center job for Fazoli’s Fast Casual Italian I’m just thinking way back that was a long time ago well what would you best piece of advice you have for other you know so I think what’s even cooler though is coming from Jamaica coming from a poor background and How can other people do that? Are there any excuses? Are there any excuses? He had this and he had this. He had a dad that spent money on flight lessons. Flight lessons when he had no business doing that. But no, for real, for other people growing up in this world and looking to get into various different roles and stuff, IT is certainly… There’s a lot of job opportunities right now. There’s certainly a lot of learning that can be had as well. And a lot of times people get stuck in, I work in inner city Hartford and I do a lot of work down there and I’ve got a lot of friends that just, you know, got regular hourly jobs or whatever. So I’m just asking for the sake of what other people that want to get into technology or want to look for, you know, a better way, what, what would your advice be? Yeah.
Speaker 1 | 34:19.734
So a couple of things that I’d say for that, you know, being an immigrant and like you mentioned, you can report back on everything, you know, I had, you know, someone to privilege and that, you know, my dad was able to forward, you know, that lifestyle or whatever that I had at one point and all that kind of stuff, you know. But, you know, coming from that background and going to school with people from like all over the world and I’m really, you know, I consider myself very cultured. I like learning about people’s culture and all the stuff that they’re doing and what things are like for them, where they come from, you know, all that kind of stuff. And so diversity and all that kind of stuff is stuff that’s important to me. But what I will say, though, is that the Internet. has almost kind of leveled the playing field to an extent, right? There’s so much that you can learn out there from YouTube and stuff like that. Study on your own and go get a certification, which I’m a huge fan of, right? We were talking to Microsoft earlier. They have, you know, so much learning that you can go do for free and take these exams and stuff and, you know, level yourself up where you can start making a little bit more money. Okay, let me keep studying and keep doing this. and get another certification, get another job. So there are options that are available for people who are really interested and want to put in the work. So I would say take advantage first of all the free resources that are out there. You know what I mean? And I’m drawing a blank right now, but there’s a site that actually lists a bunch of universities and stuff that offer free coding classes or different things that you may be interested in learning.
Speaker 0 | 35:52.878
When you find it, just see it.
Speaker 1 | 35:53.939
It’s an initial attempt.
Speaker 0 | 35:54.956
When you find that site, just send it to me and I’ll put it on the show notes page. Yeah,
Speaker 1 | 35:58.377
I can definitely find it and send it to you. And, you know, start there. And I think sometimes people are like, you know, they want to go somewhere and go pay for something, you know, and all this kind of stuff. But, I mean, there’s so much all that is free. I mean, professors that post stuff on YouTube. I mean, literally just about anything you want to learn, you can find a video or two out there. Start with that, right? And make sure it’s something that you actually want to do, that you’re interested in. Just explore. and then you know take it from there i mean and i think it’s so broad too right and i i don’t think even what what it is today is what it’s going to be 10 years from now no way right you have to have that open mind and be you know flexible you know what i mean how
Speaker 0 | 36:39.816
many hours do you think someone needs to put in before they could just even get a basic job in it i’m just curious i wonder if I started watching YouTube videos and I had a job by this day, you know, and I was doing something like this, but I mean, obviously you had a love for technology to begin with. So you had already had a general level of.
Speaker 1 | 36:59.447
Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 0 | 37:00.548
yeah.
Speaker 1 | 37:01.348
And here’s the thing that people need to understand too. Like you can just start by being curious and getting an internship. Now it may be something where you have to have a little part-time job, you have bills or whatever, and you try to make that work. And I get it. Everybody’s situation is different. And some people may be like, I just. can’t do that. You know what I mean? Or you get in a position where you can learn from someone who’s already doing that. You may not actually be the person doing it, but you can ask the right questions and be exposed to certain things and then take it from there. Because let’s face it, not everybody has that opportunity to say yeah, I’m just going to go do an internship and they got a deal.
Speaker 0 | 37:44.650
Just take the sales job at the technology company. So If I remember, I was stuck. I was so stuck in life. And I was working at Starbucks. Not that that was bad. I don’t want to say it was too bad. I was still the store manager and had a salary, but it was more like a servitude. It was more like indentured servitude because, I don’t know, if you’ve ever had a salaried position at any, not that Starbucks is fast food, sorry, Howard Schultz, but if you’ve ever had a salaried job at a place like that, it’s… indentured servitude. I mean, you got to, it’s just so, so much work. It’s like from the schedule to everything. And I just remember being completely stuck and not knowing.
Speaker 1 | 38:27.633
I think the schedule is the most difficult thing. Like it’s hard for people to do anything else.
Speaker 0 | 38:31.836
Yeah. It’s just like, how, like how do I get out of here? I was completely stuck. I had no clue whatsoever. I think I picked up a Tony Robbins CD that was like giant steps. And. I just, I, you know, cause I, you see these people come in all the time. I’m like, what the heck do you do? He’s like, I’m a mortgage broker. I’m a, this type of salesperson. I’m this type of salesperson. I just figured, well, really that guy is not more intelligent than me. It’s not like, you know, I’m thinking in my head, like I’ve got, like, what am I doing wrong? So I ended up getting the way that I got into technology was I actually got a sales job at a Cisco startup, Cisco startup company. And cause if you don’t have the technology background. Most sales people don’t have a lot. This is kind of one of my biggest, I guess, pet peeves, so to speak, nowadays is when you’ve got these consultants and sales people that don’t have any technical knowledge. Hey,
Speaker 1 | 39:26.501
just wait for their P sales engineer,
Speaker 0 | 39:29.423
man. Exactly. I say that all the time. Why do we need you if we’ve got the sales engineer? I love it when they’re like, yeah,
Speaker 1 | 39:35.507
I don’t have the answer to that question. Why are we talking?
Speaker 0 | 39:41.131
Because the sales engineer just wants to like… He just wants to be smart and have people line everything up for him and talk. And he doesn’t want to deal with the pressure of having a quota and all this other stuff. But anyways, and we can churn and burn through a ton of people that are going to quit their job, right? Which is, you know, anyways, the point is, though, is that for a lot of people, that is a good starting point. You know, like a job at Comcast or something or a job at like, you know, whatever. And then people start to learn and get more technical knowledge that way because they do train you.
Speaker 1 | 40:13.654
they do train you through a lot of that so anyways that was just my thoughts on you know and another thing that’s been pretty big these days for people who want to get more into the computer science and coding and stuff like that is those boot camps that they have for coding that pop up all over the place and stuff like that I’ve met quite a few people who said you know that was kind of what they started they went to boot camp you know for however long and that’s what got them started and you know
Speaker 0 | 40:43.806
Because we need drones of, we need hordes of coders in the world. Like you said, like you said, I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t handle it. I just couldn’t handle sitting there for the rest of my life. If you like doing it, you like doing it.
Speaker 1 | 40:56.751
Yeah, exactly. It’s not for everyone, but if it’s for, it’s for some people, you know, I believe that eventually, you know, it’s going to be a handful of companies that are out there that hire a bunch of coders and everybody’s just going to leverage whatever ecosystem, you know, they provide. And if that’s the case, to make life easier. That’s the subject in there. So, you know, we’ll see how it plays out.
Speaker 0 | 41:17.500
Like a Fiverr for coders or an Upwork for coders. Isn’t that what they are? You’ll probably find like five guys that are going to make me an app right now.
Speaker 1 | 41:25.744
Not for a finger,
Speaker 0 | 41:27.425
right? I need a dissecting popular IT nerds app. I probably have like five emails in my inbox somewhere already for that today. If, for any message out there, final message to fellow IT directors, IT people out there, what’s your message to them or what’s your single biggest struggle, frustration or concern that you can lay some sympathy to?
Speaker 1 | 41:55.541
Yeah, I guess one of the things I would say, so I saw a friend had made a post about this on our colleague on LinkedIn about the fact that IT leaders are very good at the politics and all that kind of stuff, but not the marketing. And I was like, well, that’s interesting because I think that’s the other way around for me. I can market anything I believe in. And having had such a great relationship with marketers everywhere I’ve worked before, I felt like that has just come natural for me. However, the politics is what gets me. I’m just not that kind of person. I can’t do it. You know what I mean? And so what I would say to folks… is it’s true, it’s real, and it’s a part of your job almost. You have to learn what’s important to an organization and the people who are making decisions and use that to your advantage as well as learn how to sell, market, whatever it is that you believe in that’s best for the organization to the people that matter.
Speaker 0 | 43:07.259
Tell me some more. Tell me some more about the politics. I mean, about the politics, because some people get really tired of it, right? You know?
Speaker 1 | 43:17.966
Yeah. So here’s what I’ve seen in the past. You know, you believe that something is the right thing to do for the organization for whatever reason. But someone is, you know, holding on to decisions that may have been made in the past for whatever reason. And, you know, that’s okay because you made the decision that you make based on the information that you have. But the world is changing so fast. especially these days. And even five years ago, you know, that you can’t hold on to all that stuff and think, well, you know, I made this decision. If I say it’s time to pivot or make a change, then, you know, that makes me look like a bad leader or whatever the case may be. You know, and I don’t think that that should be the view. And it also depends on the organization, because some organization can handle it and some can’t. And so that’s kind of where I think you have to learn to. politics when you’re dealing with you know people at a certain level How was that decision made and why was the decision made that was, you know, and then know that you want to do something different. Why do you want to do something different? How do you appeal to whomever you need to appeal to so that they can see your point of view and not just see you as, yeah, I see just like, you know, everything that’s tiny and new, any new technology or whatever, because they just want to jump in it just because, you know, for the sake of IT. So, you know, how you build those relationships and understand what’s important, not just. from a business perspective, but, you know, personalities as well. You know, so you got to almost play the politics again.
Speaker 0 | 44:53.000
And I think that that’s kind of what I was getting at with that job interview question as well. You’re not going to get it right away in that job interview, but how are you going to make this, how are you going to communicate once you’re in the job? Right? And.
Speaker 1 | 45:07.128
Yeah, I think one of the things I’ve had to learn as it relates to that is sometimes it’s not about being right you know it’s about how do you how do you get whomever it is you need to convince how do you get them to think that they are right and you are wrong you know what i mean so sometimes it takes a little bit of that to you know how do you frame things so that they can see from your perspective and make sense of them um speaking in their language so that they can understand speaking their language
Speaker 0 | 45:45.261
Seems so simple, but it’s really not.
Speaker 1 | 45:47.703
No, absolutely not. And I think a lot of times as IT leaders, you tend to, and some people do better than others. It always comes back to the technology. And the more you can speak it in business terms, the more successful you’ll be. If you can speak to the CEO, the CEO is the best. head of marketing, head of CF or whatever, you know, if you can speak to them in a way that it makes sense based on their discipline, you’re going to have a much easier time than you just talking about the technology. Behind the scenes, you can make that work, but you need to talk to them in a way that they can understand and make sense to them.
Speaker 0 | 46:34.152
Make their life easier, make them look good, grow sales. We’re going to get 5,000 new leads if you implement a CRM. through Salesforce this way.
Speaker 1 | 46:44.678
And the flip side though, and the flip side, I’ve seen where people have said some stuff and it’s just kind of like, Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, no, no, please don’t, you know, and people buy it. You’d be surprised. And the promises that are made and all that kind of stuff. Well,
Speaker 0 | 47:03.790
that comes back to, that comes back. that’s a different conversation. So when it comes to the language of business, I have a whole nother bullet point that’s going to be in the book. That’s going to be vendor speak and vendor negotiation. Right. And how do you know, how do you know the real, how do you know the real story? Not the story that’s painted in Gartner magic quadrant, not the,
Speaker 1 | 47:23.059
don’t get me started on that.
Speaker 0 | 47:24.339
You know, how do you know the real story? How do you have the real street knowledge? Right. Because what was said on the street is true. Word on the street is true. But not just, you know, like if you have the data, then you’re going to know, like I could tell you, like, you know, I don’t know, the last hundred installs with whatever vendor. I could tell you, I could tell you what happened. I could tell you how their operations department went. I could tell you how, whether they’re overloaded. I could tell you that the reason why, if they’re number one during COVID, if they’re the number one Teams migration direct routing company during COVID, let me tell you something. that means their operations department is overloaded. That means their operations department is overloaded. And that would be a guess, but I don’t need to tell you the guess. I can actually tell you word on the street, on the inside, what’s going on. So then you know, hey guys, even though they showed up and they’re whatever in this magic quadrant and they’re Frost and Sullivan and they’re this and they’re that and all these different things, I can tell you right now that the implementation is going to be a nightmare.
Speaker 1 | 48:32.248
Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 48:32.368
Because the 100 that are sitting in queue, right? In other words,
Speaker 1 | 48:37.090
Here’s something.
Speaker 0 | 48:38.851
I’m just saying there is a way, there is a way to decipher and clear the smoke, so to speak. And that’s another bullet point. That’s another skill set, I guess you could say in the IT world.
Speaker 1 | 48:52.699
Here’s one thing I pride myself on and it’s kind of staying up to date with what’s happening. They have a bunch of colleagues, you know, all over the country who are CIOs and just IT leaders all over the place and I pay attention to what’s going on. I think what has worked for my to my advantage is the fact that I was an engineer and I did all the things. Anything that I asked my team to do, I’m familiar enough with it. So normally I get in these vendor calls and you know all that and the first thing I say right out the gate is guys I know my title says director, I was an engineer, I did all the things, do not ds me. Because that’s the easiest way to get a boot and I’ve seen instances where they’ve tried to kind of like play me and I’m like no and I start questioning some of this stuff and you’re like oh my gosh like yeah he’s a little bit more technical than I thought oh you know what I mean so yeah.
Speaker 0 | 49:43.687
Just the fact that you’re Just the fact that that happens is a problem. The fact that there is someone over-exaggerating, and it gets back to, I joked about the sales engineer thing, but that is really why the sales engineer exists. So the other person just doesn’t elaborate onto something and say that something, that should not exist. That should not happen to begin with.
Speaker 1 | 50:13.152
I’ll give you an example. In the past, I was on this call and this one engineer, actually, it wasn’t even like a salesperson, you know, he was saying all this stuff and we’re like, well, you know, I think you can actually do this thing. Like, I remember reading something one time and the guy was like, yeah, no, no way. That’s not possible. Never seen that before. And I’ve done however many of this stuff or whatever. And all it took was somebody from the team to do a quick Google search based on what was said. And, you know,
Speaker 0 | 50:42.208
put it in in the meeting and the guy was like oh oh that’s that’s that must be recent and i’m a better googler than you you never 100 yeah i had an it guy say that once i was like why are you so good how do you get to where he’s like i just i’m better at googling than everyone else i’m better at googling
Speaker 1 | 51:02.033
a solution i mean my dad had that oh i have another one yeah i have been i have seen where um you know you’re brought in consultants to do work And let’s say the work is going to be four hours or whatever. And three out of the four hours, they’re on Google trying to figure out what it is that they’re supposed to do. It seems like you have to look up. But come on, man. And then you’re going to bill me for those three hours? No, that ain’t right.
Speaker 0 | 51:29.171
There is a better way. There’s definitely a better way. It has to do with data and vendor agnostics. There’s just such a… There is a way to weed through all this, but that’s the problem. The problem is that most companies aren’t out there for creating partnerships and business solutions. Every technology company needs to make a profit. Every technology company needs to grow and appease investors. And you just need to know that as an IT director or IT leader out there. You just need to know that these companies, their number one goal coming in is to sell you a product. Their number one goal is not to solve your solution or your problem. That’s not it. Their goal is not to solve your problem or solution. It’s to sell you something and appease investors and then sell the company for a profit. So you need to know that.
Speaker 1 | 52:16.599
Anyways. They’re telling you it’s going to be based on whoever has the biggest marketing bucks or who’s giving them the biggest feedbacks or whatever base.
Speaker 0 | 52:24.904
Well, maybe. Maybe because…
Speaker 1 | 52:27.146
In some instances.
Speaker 0 | 52:28.287
I say maybe just because sometimes the number one company has the most money to spend. So it’s like, okay. So it’s kind of a given that… they’re going to have a lot of marketing. They might be the best, but that doesn’t mean they’re the best for you because you have a unique group of end users and you have a unique, you know, I mean, it could be some weird startup out of like, it could be some startup company out of Canada with like a crazy software because they had a bunch of coders and it might be like the perfect solution for you, but you just don’t know it’s there.
Speaker 1 | 52:56.738
For you. Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 52:58.219
Because they don’t have any marketing, you know? I mean, you know. They might, there’s companies, yeah, but it might be like literally perfect for you. And I’m dealing with another situation right now where I have someone that has a very, very, very unique, unique need. And there’s literally just one, maybe two, two software companies out there that can do it. And everyone else is just kind of like failing, right? But everyone wants to come in and do their song and dance and show, you know. you know, do vendor presentations and everything. And I say, look, don’t even, you’re not even coming through the door until you can send me a video presentation that you are demonstrating this particular feature that is an absolute need that’s a deal breaker. Anyways, I digress. It has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show and very, very insightful. And I don’t know, do you have any final words?
Speaker 1 | 53:56.836
I know. I think we covered quite a bit. Yeah, I think we did some advice and stuff, some of my experiences. So yeah, no, I’m good there. Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 0 | 54:07.324
Thank you, sir.
