Speaker 0 | 00:09.562

Hey everybody, Mike Kelly and Stuart Smith. And we’re interviewing Stuart Smith today for Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. And Stuart, why don’t you go ahead and give us a little introduction? Who are you and what are you doing?

Speaker 1 | 00:24.306

Hi Mike, great. Thanks for having me and talking to me today. So, yeah, so I’m… I’m Steve Smith. I’m currently an IT Director at Medtronic and I work in the quality space primarily. So I deal with the product lifecycle management or PLM systems, HAPA audit, document management, and I’ve been in Medtronic 22 years and recently going through a restructure right now and a good opportunity to kind of reassess where I’m at, where I’m going, and kind of what’s next in my career. So I appreciate the time today.

Speaker 0 | 00:54.492

Yeah, not a problem. We appreciate your time. So a quick fundamental question here, and I know we talked about it just a tiny bit beforehand, but nerd or geek?

Speaker 1 | 01:09.718

I would probably go on the nerd side. I don’t know that I could qualify as a geek. I’m not that technically astute in some areas. As folks that know me, I actually have a background in my – Right. My degree is in, I have a BA in economics and Norwegian. I went to St. Olaf College and spent a year in Norway. That’s my family heritage and really enjoyed that opportunity to explore that while I was in school. And a great place to travel and go to. And I think what I’ve leveraged from that, though, is I actually took my first job after college. I went to Japan and I taught English as a second language over there. And you’ve got to go Japanese, Norwegian, and how does that work with IT? And really what I’ve done with that since then is, uh, it’s been the translation person, right? So you can, you come and you learn about how to talk different languages, different cultures, how to meet people where they are. And, uh, when you’re the, uh, the only white person in the town of, uh, 20,000 other people, and they’re all Japanese. And then you’re the, you’re the one person that looks different. Uh, you, you learn what it’s like to be on the other side of the, of the fence on things. And so you go forward and you figure out, okay, how do I, how do I operate here? And then when you come back to the United States, then you kind of think about, okay, how is it like to be other people? And I used to be in that space. And how do I kind of work back and forth between what’s technical, what’s not, and then how do you have that dialogue? And because I have a business background, it was easy for me to do this. And although I started my, quote, unquote, IT career in middle school, working with the help desk at the Apple IIe computer bar that we had that we learned how to type on, which is a great experience. I knew computers loved working on them, but I really was not the coding person to sit down and get it done. So I think that therefore puts me more in the nerd space and the geek space, because if you ask me to code, we’d all be in trouble and that we shouldn’t be doing that.

Speaker 0 | 03:03.583

Yeah. You know, when I started off, I promised I was not going to be a coder. And then when I was going to school and working on my my bachelors, I found a real talent for for debugging code. And so that kind of flipped that one for me. So it was strange. So, all right, my kids have defined that nerds are people who, like, focus in on a specific topic and really learn about that topic, whereas I’ve always picked geek because it was, you know, I grew up back in the 80s and revenge of the nerds, and they weren’t the coolest people back then. None of us really were when it came to the words nerds or geeks. So what’s your thoughts on that about nerds? Is nerds more of the technical thing or is it more of just a focus on a specific area?

Speaker 1 | 03:58.962

Well, I think as I think about the word geek and we think about geeking out, we use that in technology. We kind of want to go deep and let’s talk about all the technology. Let’s talk about the code. Let’s talk about the switches. Let’s get into the wiring and really get into the computers. And I think that’s really where you get into that space. And so it feels like for me, because you’re in IT, therefore you’re either one or the other. And because I can’t self-identify as a geek, therefore I’m a nerd because I’m on the outside because I work with them. But I do enjoy going into those conversations and geeking out because it’s a great opportunity to learn about how these things work. And also how people think, right? You sit down and listen to the networking team and they talk about firewalls and security and what they’re doing to keep us safe. And then they can go deep. And then they talk about, and you see their passion come out about what they’re working on and why it’s so important. And what… what they do day in and day out and how it keeps us safe as you think of it as you think of the cybersecurity example goes and then you learn what’s really important to them and how they approach their work and that’s their opportunity to really learn from me I’m picking up on okay how do I talk to them when we talk about what’s important and how do I relate with what they’re sharing to what our customers are thinking and need on the business side. So when we say, oh, we changed this firewall because we saw all this network traffic coming on, and we’re like, well, we’re in the middle of a data conversion effort, so you just cut us off and cut us off in the middle of that. How do we have that conversation in advance and say, hey, by the way, we’re doing this really important conversion. You think about keeping us safe and all the things you’re monitoring. When you see this thing pop up, here’s what we’re doing to go forward with, and here’s why it’s important to the business. And they’re like, oh, so when I see these anomalies, first thing I can do is call you. Absolutely. Let’s get on the phone. Let’s talk about it. before we take action. And that’s really, I think, a great opportunity to kind of talk about between like geeking and nerding out. The geek out is important as part of the nerd organization, but you got to know what you’re talking about and be able to go deep with those people. So better to, in my case, self-identify, hey, I’m here to learn and listen. If you guys geek out and I’ll learn, but if I start to glaze over, it’s because you lost me somewhere about 10 minutes ago. So be patient with the nerds in the group as well.

Speaker 0 | 05:56.464

Yeah. Well, and, you know, I… I’m hearing you talk about something that I’ve picked up on my side, too, that one of the things that helped me get to the seat that I’m in is being able to talk business and then talk nerd and being able to ride both sides of those conversations. So your ability and learning or the Norwegian, the Japanese, the English as a second language, all of those pieces of it, I think, probably helped with that translation and learning how to talk to people. Because that’s. I think that’s one of the biggest things that, that a lot of us don’t excel at, you know, lots of us like to hide in the closet and don’t want to have to deal with people and just want to be the guy, you know, slip the pizza and some Red Bull under the door and leave me alone. You know, there’s, there’s that group of people, but then, then you got to have people like us to be able to talk.

Speaker 1 | 06:50.633

Yeah. And, and I. I think a lot of that’s going away, though. I think that’s a challenge right in front of us as you were talking about outsourcing, and we’re going through that, my company, and a lot of companies I’m talking to now are doing the same thing, and they’re continuing to see things that we’ve seen over the last 10, 15, 20, 25 years ago. Those are continuing forward, and I think part of the challenge, and one of the things I enjoy as you go into the technical folks is bringing them out of the closet, and they really have a lot to share in bringing that past in the table and meeting with the business clients. Because I think on the business side, the community as a whole is getting smarter in technology. Technology is becoming easier to use, and they’re getting much more exposed. Like the first thing you do when you think about Costco is you walk in and what do you run into? You actually see, you walk into the technology section. You got your TVs, your phones, your network gears, your hard drives, all these things that 10, 15 years ago, the only place you could find them was over at Best Buy or Micro Center or some other place that you’re trying to find it. And now people are going in there feeling comfortable buying that stuff, bringing it home and using it. Even if they don’t totally understand, they learn about it. So you’ve got to go in and say, what’s the value of those people that are running those cheap technologies? And that’s just getting more and more complicated. Although it’s easier to get it started, the complications of it are so much broader. And as we think about it, as we’re going into things like this AI and as we’re going to like the Internet of Things, and as that comes to fruition, you’re actually getting a smarter business client that you’re actually able to have more of a more intelligent dialogue. And I think it’s been OK to bring everybody to the table. Let’s sit down and have that pizza together. Let’s pass out the Red Bull, the coffee, whatever we got. And let’s have that dialogue and really open it up because that’s where some of the best things happen because the business people, as they’re learning and talking to the technical people, they can see, okay, here’s some opportunities and here’s how I can learn and build out my business. And the technical people are saying, oh, here’s the value I’m providing. I’m not just sitting in the closet, plugging wires, punching code. I’m actually explaining what’s important about it and why this matters to them and how this can help them with their business. So I think it’s a great opportunity for us to really, as you talk about us in the translation business, to bring and facilitate that dialogue. And once that gets going, then it’s just sit back and take the notes and let the magic happen at the table. And that’s the really cool thing that I’ve been able to see and operate on over the last, I’ve seen a lot more of that in the last five to ten years.

Speaker 0 | 09:02.870

What about your co-workers and your staff? How many of them do you see that have the ability to bring everybody to the table like that? Or do you… help facilitate those conversations. Because I think that’s an area where, you know, some of my coworkers, they just get right into that geek space and they can’t get out of that box. And they have a hard time hearing the business needs sometimes. So they really need somebody kind of in between going, wait, wait, wait. Did you hear what he said? How important that is to the business. The fact that you just shut down all of the traffic going through the firewall because you saw an anomaly and you didn’t check with anybody, you know. Yeah, I get why you want to do it, because you want to make sure that they’re not pilfering all of our data. But if it’s a by design thing and you just cost us X number of dollars, what about your coworkers? How many of them can do this?

Speaker 1 | 10:00.675

I think more are coming along with that. And I think it’s more about teaching the skill because I think most people are capable of it. And it’s just introducing and working with them on a different level. Because some people, like you said, go super technical, super fast. And then you got to get them an example of, okay, let’s pull that back. So sometimes there’s some pre-work you want to do. Hey, we’re going to go talk to the client. Here’s what’s important to them. Here’s how we want to explain it. And then it’s going to do the pre-work and set up that conversation in advance with them. to make them feel comfortable because I think people come back as they start to get going on the topic. They start to go really deep, really quickly, and they don’t realize that they’ve lost people as they’re going. And so it’s a matter of kind of recognizing and pulling them back and saying, okay, here’s what’s important to them. Explain it early on because you’re talking to people that have a huge raw intelligence that really can dig in and really dive into these detailed things. So they’ve got the capabilities, but it’s a matter of kind of bringing them out of their own shoes, putting them in the business client’s shoes. And then letting them see kind of as their perspective, saying, hey, look, you said all these things, but you lost me at step five and you went to step 20 and you didn’t realize you lost me. So how do you kind of slow down, pace yourself, do your checkpoints, making sure you’re checking in and that the business client is kind of following along. And I think as you train and work and develop people, most people will do that more or less comfortably. And you got to be okay with that. And, you know, coming up with some analogies is a great way to do it. I had an employee of mine who was a pilot, and he was very technical, and he was in the analytics space. Very good at that, and I brought him in to business meetings. He got really uncomfortable, and I said, what’s going on here? And he’s like, well, you know, I get into this, and I really want to go deep in this. And I said, okay, wait, why do you want to go there? Well, because I know that. I said, well, what about what the business client really wants and what they’re trying to get from you? And they’re like, well, it makes you uncomfortable. And I said, I pulled it back and said, well, what do you do when you’re flying and you hit some turbulence? And he kind of looked at me funny and said, well, you fly the plane. I was like, what happens if all of a sudden you take a nose dive because something goes sideways? Well, my job is to fly the plane. I said, well, how did you get used to that? So when my instructor said, my number one job is fly the plane. I said, but you’re fighting gravity all the time. He’s like, well, I’m comfortable with that. I’m like, you’re comfortable sitting over, hovering over gravity, constantly pulling down? He’s like, well, yeah, it’s uncomfortable, but I got used to it. And I said, it’s no different than working with a client. You’re sitting there. You have to be okay being uncomfortable. no they’re uncomfortable too you’re both going to be uncomfortable and you have to get used to be comfortable getting being comfortable being uncomfortable and that’s just something you just got to take practice and work and most people can get there and i’ve seen technologists time and again once they get the concept get a little bit of practice get some coaching then it’s just let them go and see where it goes and that’s where that’s i think back to where i think the magic happens and that’s a lot of fun to sit and watch yeah it really is it’s it’s tough to get to that

Speaker 0 | 12:52.807

point of being comfortable being uncomfortable and recognizing hey okay i’m out of my element what am i looking for and start trying to figure that out or listen to that um so one of the other things that that you mentioned a minute ago that i i actually hadn’t picked up on yet well 22 years with with medtronic so what position did you start out in

Speaker 1 | 13:17.575

Well, so those have been in IT for a while. I remember the dot-com that was then becoming the dot-bomb in about 2000. So I had kind of done my international work, had tried out some different things, actually dabbled in the restaurant business, was going to go that direction, decided that there’s not a lot of money there, and it was passionate, but is there really a way forward, and how do you have a family life with that? So I backed away from that. I was working on my MBA at the time. I got going in an internet startup company. That was taking off. started to slide, saw the things writing on the wall, and then had an opportunity to actually intern at Medtronic. And so they had posted an internship through my MBA program at the University of St. Thomas up here in Minnesota. And there was an opportunity to interview for the role. And I was also taking Internet startup companies. They were still coming up like crazy, so I had to weigh the two things, take the job at the Internet startup company or work at Medtronic as an intern. And in Minnesota, Medtronic’s a bellwether company and really had an opportunity to say, well, this is my entry point in. I started as an intern there, and that was 22 years ago. And I really haven’t looked back since. It’s got a great mission statement. They do a lot of great things in the company and really offered me an opportunity to do a lot of different kinds of roles. So I started in the marketing space, kind of built out that, you know, Medtronic was trying to figure out what was the internet, how do we get on it? So we really started in marketing and then really got into sales, automated sales reporting, remote reporting. did some of the things around doing some e-learning and connecting to LMS through what was dial-up at the time. And so that was the cool thing of, hey, we can take a test. I can take a CD-ROM class. take a test online and I can upload it to my LMS. That was really cool. And that was groundbreaking work at one time. And then just really worked across that. Kind of really worked into some CRM, some Siebel deployments, did some handhelds that, you know, everybody remembers the Palm Trio, how well that was or wasn’t successful as it went forward. Had an opportunity to work on one of the first iPad deployments, had some great clients that were forward thinking, and then got a shift over to manufacturing, helped run it. manufacturing sites, did Windows 2000 upgrades, PC integrations and things like that. It was a great opportunity. Medtronic’s a manufacturing company, so make stuff. Got to learn how to do that. And then about 12 to 15 years ago, got into quality. Did a bunch of analytics reporting, quality management, back in with some of the businesses. And then just kind of worked through that from went into complaint handling and then got into PLM. And then my role just kind of continued to expand from that. So. And Tronics really offered me a great opportunity to learn, grow, develop, and go wide. I mean, I’ve just really covered a lot of ground in a lot of places, and it’s been a great opportunity for me. And kind of going forward right now, it’s really just kind of looking out and saying, okay, this is a great growth opportunity, and now how do I grab my skills that I’ve learned here and look for another place to take that forward and do something maybe in like the cybersecurity space we’re talking about before. That’s a huge market. I’ve done a lot of risk management, working with regulated bodies, working with the European Union, trying to think, okay, how do we continue to sell products over there? Because the world is getting more complicated, right? Regulations are growing. I’m used to working in that space. And how do you take that and then really kind of, you know, we talked about before, taking the nerd or the geek and then bringing that out into other places and working with more senior leadership and opportunities like that.

Speaker 0 | 16:42.425

Okay. So, man, you just threw me off.

Speaker 1 | 16:45.808

I just stuff in there.

Speaker 0 | 16:47.588

So for that iPad deployment, that one really kind of piqued my interest because the way you’re talking about it, you’re doing that before MDMs and all of the protection that, that we now layer into the mobile devices. So tell me a little bit more about that project and, and just kind of what you guys were doing and, and what your part was in it.

Speaker 1 | 17:11.135

Yeah, sure. So we, we, I was actually working on the project. I had a visionary marketing manager who’s accelerated her career and really run from there forward and really driven a lot of things in Medtronic. But she had this vision of, I heard about these iPads that are coming, and I really think if we get these in the field organization, it will take the complicated, because medical therapy is really, it depends on what you have, what kind of device you’re talking about. It’s super complicated. You think about when you get time with a medical professional, Their time is super valuable. You get maybe one, two, three minutes. How do you take a complicated message, a complicated process, procedure, therapy, and visualize it for them fast enough? Well, if we can get that on something that they can show in 30 second clips, let me show you how this works. Let me show you the concept. Let me show you some of the results. Let me show you the patient stories. And field representatives, you know, back 10, 15 years ago, mobile data was an up and coming thing and you couldn’t count on it. So you had to have, what can you put in the hands of a sales rep? that allows them to have that conversation with a medical professional. And so we were doing all kinds of things. We’re trying to figure out how do you get data from Medtronic onto a handheld so they could do that with a vendor that wasn’t even in the same state. So it was fairly complicated to lay this out because we’re trying to figure out how to take a USB stick, plug it into the bottom of an iPad, and upload my photos. That was like foreign concept. We couldn’t do that, right? So it really was trying to pull that apart and trying to get those images, those messages, all the marketing in a succinct way. makes it easier for the field rep because there’s so many things the rep has to concentrate on how do we get something they can have in their hand that i can turn on it’s available right you used to remember the five ten minute boot up on your pc the medical professional’s long gone your battery died three hours ago you got nothing ipad was able to run real fast real quick instant startup all day battery life and if i can get those videos and i can get that animation animation is really becoming a an easier thing to work with then i can download that make it work like then the challenge was how do you make it compliance because then it had to be reviewed and the regulation process it always takes a long time and with a third party you’re back and forth on these data it was just it was a challenge but we just worked we found a way to work through it right you just take one of these new things it comes out and then over time that just becomes kind of standard of care that’s what we expect to see but you’re right this was back in the ipad was like a concept and then it came out it was like oh this is really cool how do i get stuff on it that was the biggest challenge how do i get my my content from my you what visual audio whatever that content is and get it to the device because syncing it with my with my laptop that was updates were hard to push you can remember how hard you had to plug the thing in to do that wireless wasn’t a thing yet right you had to plug it in it was hard devices and that was just

Speaker 0 | 19:51.280

you just work it through and and sometimes ahead of the time but it was one of those things that you just you got an opportunity to jump on and you go with it and you get some good partners both in and outside your company to work with and that’s how we were able to make it work right on that sounds like a fun project especially back in 2007 2008 you know that time period when it was just coming out so it was emerging technology now everybody’s used to the thought of a tablet today and just being able to I mean, we can download any movies or shows that we want on it. And it used to be it was I’d spent as long uploading movies onto a device so that I could watch it on the plane. And now I just, you know, subscribe to the service and go. So,

Speaker 1 | 20:34.290

right. Yeah, it’s amazing how much technology has changed. And that’s a very short amount of time where you take things for granted that 10 years ago, we’re like, man, this is cutting edge. Now you’re like, like, what was that thing again?

Speaker 0 | 20:45.140

Yeah. And now the kids are looking at you going, why are you doing it that way? It’s like super easy. Do it like this. And you’re just like, how? Yeah. Yeah. I was going to ask you, you know, did you ever, I think we’re, we’re somewhere close in age. So it sounds like at some point in your life, you were told go outside, go play and, and, you know, come home when the streetlights come on. Did, did you have that kind of a childhood?

Speaker 1 | 21:12.160

I did. I actually had the dinner bell, right? Your mom went out the front yard and rang that ring, whatever they had. My parents should live for a time in Europe. And my mom actually had a Swiss cowbell and she would go ring it. And you had to be within listening distance of that. And but you had five minutes, you had to get home. It was on the bike, running, whatever you had to get home, but totally that case. And yeah, it’s a very different lifestyle today, right? For safety reasons, and just for lots of other distractions, right? But yeah, that’s I remember those days. Well, a lot of fun.

Speaker 0 | 21:39.988

Yeah, well, and we had no internet. Come on, we only had like four channels, if we were lucky. And then when the cable box came out, or the Atari, you remember when the Atari came out?

Speaker 1 | 21:52.478

I do. I remember the cable. You knew which of your friends had the cable box, and it’s funny how all of a sudden you do it at their house a lot more, and they, hey, how you doing?

Speaker 0 | 22:01.545

Yeah. Well, especially the friends whose parents went and paid for the extra stuff to have the movie channel or HBO.

Speaker 1 | 22:08.911

Totally. Yep, I remember my turn up the street. Yep, that was the day that things changed.

Speaker 0 | 22:13.394

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, those are the days. So we’ve seen a lot of changes. Speaking of those changes and things, here’s a question that came to me that wasn’t in my list. The consumerization of IT. Have you run into that and seen that, felt that? Because I remember for the longest time, for me, I’d hear that term and I was just like, oh, whatever. And now… Now I’ve got times, so many times when somebody goes, I can do it on my phone, why can’t we do it in the business? And that’s when that really flipped for me, the consumerization of IT, because now, you know, somebody creates something for the millions of us that are out there as individuals versus what I can get access to to create for an organization. Because the organizations now are the small guy compared to all of the individuals in the world.

Speaker 1 | 23:09.908

Right. You got a lot of topics in there that are really interesting to kind of dive into. If you take the last one too, right, you talk about how much leverage does a corporation have with a vendor, right? You know, I referenced before I was talking about the Palm Trio. And we actually had to do a swap out from the 600s to the 610s. And they’re like, well, don’t they know we’re Medtronic? And I said, do you have any idea how many devices they sell annually for these things? And we basically had to roll up to the VP and had to send three VPs out to Palm to say, unacceptable, roll this back and get us back on what we need to have to deploy the field. And we got a free upgrade out of it. But it took a lot of arm-twisting to get that to happen. And that was really the beginnings of, I think you talked about this, the consumerization. Because it doesn’t matter how big of an organization you are, even if you’re a big one. Let’s say you take the Fortune 5 and you’re 300,000 plus employees. That’s not even close to what a regular, you know, the first iPhone, how many, when the iPhone comes out, how many are sold the first day? doesn’t even compare, right? And so you’ve got so much of this change in the marketplace where the companies really are challenged of how fast can we adopt, and depending on how regulated you are. I know you said you’re in transportation. I’m in medical device. You talked about being behind the eight ball. All the regulations you have to do to go forward to try to keep up with that. And so it’s a matter of, I think, in our case, is really trying to pull it apart and decide what’s critically important and what’s not. But I also think there’s some challenges around people coming into the workforce, right? Because now you’re dealing with the 20-somethings coming over who, when they were born, Wi-Fi was a thing of the, that was already real, right? Cell phones were out. They don’t remember a time when there wasn’t an iPhone. that’s their reality. So they’re used to, give me my handheld, give me my thing, make it go faster. And as a company, our challenge is how do we keep up with what’s critically important and put so much on the handheld as we can? But is it the business transformational thing? And the transformational things are the ones that are expensive. And then how do you sell the case? And it’s a real challenge, right? You get down to, there’s 10 things you should do, but you really only have money to do two. And you probably only have enough staff to do one. So how do you figure out what that one thing is to work on? And then how do you sell it up across the matrix organization to really focus in on what’s critically important? And then as you get success with that, then how does that become into more things? So, I mean, there’s so many things. I think, like you said, in your conversation on packet, I think it’s really a matter of figuring out what’s critically important to the business. And how do you make those wins go faster so that we can get it? But I think we also have to focus on that because if we’re going to attract new talent and we’re going to bring people in, if you said, yeah, here’s your green scheme, they’re just going to laugh at you and go, what’s that thing? And you’d be like, well, you know, that was the latest and greatest. And they’re like, when, when your grandparents were around? And you’re like, yeah, but so we have as employers also have to think about it from that perspective, not what transforms us, but how are we going to keep and attract those employees and bring them in? But I think once we can get that figured out and get moving on that, then I think that’s your opportunity to really let them go and hand the reins off to them. And I think that’s where as a manager, I get really uncomfortable. Like, well, I’m supposed to be in charge and I’m supposed to know more. And I’m like, you know what? My job is back to this conversation facilitation. here’s what the business wants here’s some technology constraints here’s what we have in the market here’s what our regulations are okay you guys go figure this out and whoever the team is go let them go because they can they will wave all your mind away with what they can come back with and say here’s all the cool stuff we can do and i’ve seen so many things like this and like the factory of the future and some of the 3d printing as if you look at some of the examples that have been out there of the things that you can do that i wasn’t even aware was even on somebody’s mind and they’re doing things real time right there and i think it’s a matter of getting out looking at that bringing those new talent in, getting exposure, and just letting people go and see what they can come up with. And then the business case around it. So there’s a lot to do with it, but I think there’s some great challenges, but we need to embrace it and run with it. Otherwise, we’ll get left behind. And then that’s when you’ve got problems.

Speaker 0 | 26:54.852

Yeah. See, one of the things I find myself having to do is try to curtail some of that, ooh, this is cool, we should do this, versus, you know, we’ve got to keep a focus on what the business wants. Where’s the business value? How do we… How do we monetize this? How do we show profit from it? And like we’ve gone through a restructure here of the IT department so that we can start putting more of a business case around all of the things that we’re doing. Like you were just talking about, here’s the 10 things that we need to get done. Here’s the two that we have the money for. Here’s which of these two is the one that we have the staff for and which one’s more important. Which one brings the best benefit? And then once you start getting on or going on that path, how do you protect it? Because, you know, I’m amazed that there hasn’t been somebody like peeking in through the windows behind me, that they haven’t just opened the door and said, hey, we need, you know, it’s there’s always. How well is the IT department trusted at Medtronic? I mean, are people always coming to you for solutions? Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 28:05.624

I think that’s our challenge is there’s so many solutions that they need that the challenge is how do we keep up and pick carefully about where we go? And it’s leveraging kind of the IT smarts that are out there in the organization and picking up what’s important and what’s not. And what is IT’s job and what, you know, in our space, the research and development, when we’re going out and talking to engineers, I’m talking to everybody at the table is a software, electrical, or mechanical engineer. And they’re doing all this stuff that. that they need to do to support the product, but they’re all a bunch of IT people really at the core. And so my job is to figure out what, what on the R and D space is theirs and what can IT take off on their side to unload. They’ve been used to running servers and all these kinds of things on their, by themselves and their own under their desks and their closets and the conference rooms, whatever. And it’s like, Hey, look, software management. Let me take that. Let me take the contact management. You, you people need to be out thinking about it. As you’ve seen some of our, like our leaflets pacemaker. the miniaturization and putting out there and going after these really groundbreaking technologies. Let’s focus your energy out there and let IT focus on how do we help run the business and let us do more of the things that we’re really good at and start to pull that apart. I think that’s where our opportunity is. Because of the commercialization of IT, you’re bringing in the smarter workforce that have this. Let them figure out what they need help with, what does IT’s job and what’s our role to play, where does the business then, as they’re in the R&D space, where can they focus? And then how do you share that in a way that helps them trust you and have you trust them so that there’s enough go between so that you’ll know where their roles start and stop and where you are. And in the gray areas, you have to know you’ve got that trust that you can pull that apart and figure out how to help them more and that they know that you have your back.

Speaker 0 | 29:49.074

Yeah, that pulling apart and trying to keep people in their lane, so to speak. That’s definitely one of the challenges that we’re facing today is trying to keep people, the R&D team, man. They’re wanting to fire up those servers and everything else. I’ve got a team specifically for creating those servers and taking care of that infrastructure for them. So, yeah, trying to keep people in their lane. You mentioned cybersecurity earlier. And right now, man, my inbox gets flooded every day with like the 15 different companies who are the only ones that can protect our organization from A, B, and C. So what are your thoughts about cybersecurity? Tell me a little about that. And being in medical, your level of responsibility there is you’re being held to a little bit higher of a standard, especially in like data loss prevention and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 | 30:44.277

Bye. Yeah, and it’s also when you think about a device that you put inside somebody’s body, how do you know what’s in there, right? If you remember the days when Dick Cheney was vice president and he had to have an ICD put in, there was questions of, okay, what’s in there, how safe is it, and can somebody hack into the VP in the White House, right? That was real-time things that we had to think about, and we’re still wrestling with that. I think before it’s always based on location, and you had to be within so much space of a device, but because of connectivity, the physical… distance is no longer irrelevant because you’ve got Bluetooth connectivity, you’ve got all your different networking capabilities that are over the air. And so you’re not really doing anything that requires you to be within 20 feet of somebody to cause something to happen. And there’s some benefits and some drawbacks to that. And so it’s really a matter of trying to lock in on where your vulnerabilities, understanding that and figuring out what you’re going to do to mitigate those. And those are constantly changing because the devices are constantly changing. And you’re dealing somewhat with older technology too, that you’ve got vulnerabilities and devices that are on the market. So how do you deal with all of your kind of your legacy stuff as you’re going forward? And that’s clearly something we’re wrestling with right now. And I think working with understanding what’s the software that’s in these devices, and then how do you keep them safe so people don’t hack into them? That’s an area that we’re expanding into and doing more into, and there’s a lot to be done. And I think more questions are being asked by regulated bodies. What are you doing to protect patients? and how do you keep them safe? And so we’re kind of turning our attention more into that area. And that’s definitely an area we’re exploring. As far as kind of on the cybersecurity threats as a whole, that’s definitely not my area of expertise. I’m starting to get into that. I’m kind of branching into that right now and taking a certificate program and interested in learning more and expanding that space. But in general, yeah, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Those are what we’re seeing a lot of, and no matter where you look in that space. And so it’s a matter of understanding what’s out there, what the threats are. And then how do you protect yourself both physically and on the network side? So electronically, how do you do that? And that’s a challenge day in, day out. You look at things that, for example, the State Department does, right? They’ve been doing it for years. How do you keep the bugs out? How do you keep your information safe inside your four walls, let alone once it leaves? How do you do that? And I think that’s a challenge that we’re going to continue to dig into, and I’m looking forward to learning more about that in the near future.

Speaker 0 | 33:02.240

Cool. Yeah, it’s one of those areas that… You know, what was it last year or the year before we had the Stormwinds stuff. And when I finally turned my eyes back on to cybersecurity and like went to a couple of SAMS conferences, virtual conferences, I was amazed how much that industry has changed in the last five years. Because I used to really kind of keep an eye on that, pay attention to that, knew about firewalls, networking, about all of the different challenges that we had were our biggest problem. typically is is the person in the chair um you know the the problem in between keyboard and chair you know the the old pebcac thing um so yeah luckily i i don’t have to deal with the uh security of devices in people’s bodies man that’s that’s got to be a whole nother level um i noticed you had some stuff um about scouts You got any stories about scouts and technology? Any good intersections there?

Speaker 1 | 34:07.833

Sure. Yeah. So I just recently retired as a scoutmaster of one of the oldest troops in the country. We were founded in 1915, actually, so we’re 107 years old. We’re almost as old as scouting is here. 80-plus scouts got him through COVID, was there for five years, and handed off to the next scoutmaster, which is great. So I saw a lot of things there, and actually I’m off to the National Order of the Arrow Conference in about a week. And they’re actually hosting a hackathon there. So they’re doing all kinds of cool things there. And I’m the incoming lodge advisor for 250, I’m sorry, 2,500 to 3,000 member organizations. Get to work with youth as leads and training them on how to lead these big events, inductions and all the things that go with joining an organization. And so technology clearly has changed, right? Where we had… Registration used to have to be on paper. You had to send the thing in. And we’ve gone through a pretty large change fairly quickly. And I gotta give credit to the national office. They’ve done a great job with acquiring an internet-based track here for advancement. So their Scout Book program is great and really works well for troops that have different things and really challenge across the board. And it’s a great way to interact with your parents. Often the Scouts have to teach the parents what’s going on, how to do it. And that’s a challenge. But it’s definitely coming along, you know, you have to fill out the cards or sign off in the book. And you do both of that, you’re kind of doing a mixing. And you think about, you talk about kind of what we’re doing in the field. You know, once you leave, you walk outside and you’re out in nature, which is what you think about scouts and outdoors. That’s what we’re out doing. Obviously, a lot with the wireless technology, it’s gotten a lot easier to work with that. GPS and geocasting is a big component of scouting, getting outside and kind of intermingling technology with the program. But I think the challenge at the leadership level, at least what we’ve been wrestling with, is, okay, they have their phones. We used to be able to say, okay, let’s put it in a bucket and we’ll give it to you when we leave the camp out. But now it’s like they haven’t grown. They almost don’t know what to do without it. And so it’s about teaching them how to use it as part of the program so it doesn’t become a distraction but becomes interrelated because that’s really what their life is like. So if I understand and I have a safe space for how do I work with what I have, so how do I look up and learn about things and use that as in the field? And as an example, I was actually just, I just came back from a trip in Europe. There’s a site near the Battle of the Bulge where they still have these foxholes that are still out in the woods. And what was really cool is they built this interactive programming. So you’d walk, you know, about 100 yards and there’d be a cutout and there’d be a QR code there. You scan the QR code, you hit the button, and then you connect to the internet. And then you bring up a website with some audio files. Here’s the actual soldier in the picture. Here’s what he’s describing what was going on when he was there. So… As I see this kind of evolving in the outdoors, it’s how do these things kind of work together? And that makes it much more of a rich experience. So I was able to get history, was able to be physically on the site, and be able to appreciate what it was like to kind of be there in the moment. And it’s how do we pull those things together? And I think that’s what we’re working on in scouting is how does that fit into what we’re doing? But also how does that become how do we prepare our scouts for the future? Because we’re dealing with the 11, in my case, the Boy Scouts, they’re from 11 to 17, the Ordovieros, these are from about 15 to 20. How do we grab what’s interested to them and bring it into the program to keep it relevant? Because if we keep technology out, they won’t come because they’ll be like, hey, I got my thing. I got to bring it with me as part of who I am. So we have to interact that way. You know, the last example I have is, you know, I’m a patch creator. And what they’ve done is they’ve put QR codes on patches now. So you can kind of scan it. How many of these were made? Where is it from? What can I learn about it? And those types of things. And that’s something that we’re trying to figure out how that fits. And that’s become part of what’s in the hobby now. A challenge is also though, somebody says, well, hey, there’s only a hundred of mine made. There’s a thousand of yours made. So is mine worth 10 more than yours? And that’s a whole different conversation you got to get into that we haven’t figured out. But it is something we’re working through. And it is important of the program to integrate it. Because if you don’t, like I said, they’re not going to come and it won’t figure out how to fit in their life. And then it’s going to be a real challenge.

Speaker 0 | 38:07.060

You’ll have to hit me up after the show and stay in touch with me. I got a couple of patches that I can send you from this part of the country that you… they don’t have any QR codes. It’s been way too long since my son was doing that stuff. So, um, okay. Interesting. Cause yeah, I was, when I was involved with scouting, um, we were still that generation of, okay, everything, leave the phones in the cars or leave them at home. You’re not bringing them with you. And, and you got to learn how to use a compass. You can’t use the GPS. and now I’m thinking, you know, you go out on those weekend retreats, how are they trying to keep their phones? Who, who, do they have a contest to see who can keep power to their phone the longest? Or are they all just carrying power banks with them so that they’ve got enough energy or, or, you know, the solar collectors and things like that. So,

Speaker 1 | 38:59.446

yeah. Well, definitely the latter two for sure. And if you, if you go actually the, the the natural world jamborees that are hosted in West Virginia, AT&T was a huge sponsor and a big promoter of that program and they put wifi there. But then there’s docking stations all over the place with all the different networking cords you plug in, whatever you got. Stand there for 20 minutes, take a charge, go to your activities for a couple hours, but you’re constantly looking for that source of power. And until we figure out how to get the – how do I get when I’m running I can power my phone figured out? That will change the dynamic. Otherwise, you’re running around with those extra power packs and those battery chargers. So definitely familiar with using those things.

Speaker 0 | 39:33.924

Yeah, those things are kind of heavy too, but you get the right ones. They’re not that bad. So let’s jump to that other topic. You received some news June 1st. So tell us a little about that and what that means for you and what’s happening going forward.

Speaker 1 | 39:53.250

So, I think the more that I’m talking to more people about what’s going on, there’s a restructure that’s in flight and it was impacted. And so, my, you know, what you mentioned, I’ve been trying for 20 years, wasn’t really thinking about it and gave me an opportunity to kind of step back and kind of think about where I’m at, where I’m going and kind of what’s in my future. So, I’ve been there a while, been a medical device and really had a really fantastic opportunity to do lots of great work, learn a lot. and now it’s an opportunity for me to kind of step back and say, okay, what’s next for me? So I’m spending some time with that, networking out with some folks that used to be at Medtronic have gone to other places, and looking at some other opportunities outside and really looking to try to see where can I align. We talked about scouting, how important that is to me. I’ve been doing that since I was about seven years old. And how do I take those same values, serving other people, improving what’s there, and really leaving it better than when I showed up. And that’s really important to me. And so I’m looking kind of for my next opportunity to be in an organization that’s focused on that and really is driving the future and pushing it forward and interrelating technology. Plus, how are we improving our workforce here? There’s a huge opportunity for us to really teach and have our younger people here really learn from us because we’ve been around the block. We’ve done a lot of great things. And we look at where we have leadership gaps and opportunities today. And I think those are the things we want to avoid in the future. And how do we do that? Well, we do that by going after and training our young people on how we want them to go after the world, approach problems, do the critical thinking, and think about it. It’s not just the bottom line, but it’s how you make people feel and what you left behind that really matters. And I think if we get that ethics trained in early, there’s a huge impact. And we see that with scouts that come out of our program and go into the workforce. That’s important to them. And when we do that, then that’s when we’re successful. And so that’s really what I’m looking for. And my next goal is an opportunity to. work with that and really develop and help younger people get better at what they’re doing and really leave the world better than it was when I got there.

Speaker 0 | 41:56.794

You know, that brings up another topic that we haven’t really touched on too much, and that’s like the difference between a manager and a leader. It’s some of the things that my organization’s really been going through lately is, you know, trying to help create a little bit more of a division between those and start trying to grow the leaders within the organization more. And that’s one of the primary things is that leaving things better than where you found them, you know, getting that improvement and not being afraid of things advancing around you and potentially in front of you, but helping guide them that direction so they can. So I think that’s a really important thing for a leader versus, you know, just a manager. One of the things that we’ve talked about it is like the leader is the one with the vision. And the manager is the one that executes and trying to be comfortable with that. Back to earlier part of the conversation, being comfortable, being uncomfortable, you know, being like one of the things that I’ve found over my career of all of this is going from being the one that was in there doing it and helping fix everything and learning about all this stuff and how to make it work together to saying, well, you know, you should probably look at it doing this. And. and start guiding others and having them do all of the work and then just kind of stepping back and watching or or just nudging it that little bit here and there um it’s uncomfortable sometimes to do that instead of being the one right in the middle of it you know grabbing the soldering iron and or

Speaker 1 | 43:30.205

control delete reboot and you think about it almost like driving right now that’s how i kind of approach it and so i’ll talk about two different ways one of them is driving the second one The scouts have a program, how they train, it’s called EDGE. And you lead, but you do the example, then you demonstrate, then you guide, then you enable. So I show you how to do it. I explain it, then I show you, then I help you while you’re doing it. And then I step back and let you make it happen. And I think that’s a critically important. You take that in the car example, and my kids are just past that phase. And I’m still a little bit uncomfortable when they drive because they’re not super experienced, but they’ve got enough. But when you’re first driving with them, right? It’s how do you get comfortable sitting in the passenger seat where you don’t have the foot brake in front of you and don’t have control of the wheel? And how do you help them get from basically never doing anything to being fully capable and doing it on their own when you’re not there? And that’s really what I think that’s really how do you get that? And you’re right. It’s being comfortable being uncomfortable because you just have to let it just happen. And when does the mistakes happen? When is it okay just to be like, okay, and scouting, we look at it this way. Is it a learning opportunity or is it a safety issue? Well, it’s a safety issue. That’s when we come in and step in. Okay, where is the critical not to fail thing? Or where are we going to have a potential problem with electricity? You think about a storm. Okay, we’ve got to get out of the boats and off the water. Or, well, this isn’t the safest idea to go down those rapids in a canoe, but… you know what we’ll be okay and we’ll learn from this experience and if we tip over as long as we’re wearing helmets and we’re being safe we’re okay and i’ll learn maybe i shouldn’t have done that in the canoe maybe that would have been better to walk it around and and portage and so it’s about trying to figure out how to assess that and i think as a manager as you kind of grow from manager to leader that’s how you mature and learn how to do that more effectively i think it’s a struggle every day like you said you’re always tempted to whoa and you got to keep your hands out and sometimes you’re it’s you don’t always get it right but that’s okay everybody’s got something to learn

Speaker 0 | 45:24.074

Yeah, you know, you’re talking about that age where you’re going through teaching your kids to drive. My youngest is 18, so I’m going through that stage of, you know, I either got to take my hands off or they’re like, just leave me the hell alone, Dad. You know, they’re taking my hands off and saying, stop it.

Speaker 1 | 45:45.440

Why are you here? And I got this, really. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 0 | 45:49.081

Even if I don’t, Dad, leave me alone. Oh, man. So what’s the hardest learned lesson that you have from IT, from your career, really? It doesn’t have to be IT. You know, yeah, we’re dissecting the IT nerds, but, you know, what’s one of those things that you’ve learned through experience and just kind of struggled with until you finally said, okay, I get it and changed the way you handled it?

Speaker 1 | 46:23.382

Um, I think two of those things, right? I think, I think you’re used to, we think we have a lot of control and we can always get it right. And we’ll keep banging away at it until we do and recognizing when you’ve just made a mistake and got to kind of call a timeout and say, you know what messed up, reset, reback, back it up. And we got to try it again. I think that’s a hard one. I think the other one is, is when you’re asked to do multiple things from, from your business partner, from a technology perspective, and you’ve got a lot of things to get done. And you look across the organization and go, I just don’t have, I don’t have enough, or I don’t have the right talent or, um, you know, whatever the challenges are, I don’t have the right money, the funding or whatever. And you’re like, you know what? I’m IT. I’m supposed to just get it done. And I put my head down and go for it. And, uh, then you run into the wall that you thought you were going to, but you still try to scale it anyway. And then you find out that you just don’t have enough rope to get over the top. Right. And that’s, and that was recognizing some, one of those early on in the project was. I had a choice. We had two prizes to keep on. We had a big transformation, bringing somebody on from M&A, while we were transforming the technology and the process underneath it. We had a small team that had sunk over time, and we were really focused on the talent. I focused on what the business wanted to do and how did we get this done with the small team that we had while we were trying to add staff a little bit at a time. What we really needed to do was just take a pause from both things and say, look, I know you want to do these two major efforts, the integration plus transformation. We just don’t have the team. We just don’t have quite enough talent. We just don’t have enough people to get this done successfully. We need to focus on this. Give me a month or two to get this figured out, get this started, get this moving. Then when we come back and do that. So I ended up having to kind of reboot with the client and say, look, I’m really sorry. We messed up. We thought we, I thought we could get this done and we can’t, we got to hit the reset button and adjust our timelines. And you know, what was interesting about that is that’s actually one of my, one of my, my favorite and probably my most trusted business client on the side. Cause they know. that when I have a mistake, I’m going to call, I’m going to call it on myself. We learned from that. And I didn’t know that they can trust me to be able to do that early on. And we can have that open dialogue because that saves us a lot of things, a lot of heartache down the road. But it’s okay. You had to be, had to be okay to say that. And that was, that was a challenge because when you’re early on in your career, like, man, I can get this done. It’s just a matter of putting more time, more effort, more noise to the grind. So we can do this. You just can’t. And you have to recognize that and be okay, pulling that up. And Not everybody likes that conversation, but if you don’t call it then, it only gets worse later. And then it’s just, as we say in our house, waiting solves no problems. It just makes them bigger. So you’ve got to step back before as soon as you recognize it, take a pause, call it what it is, and be okay saying, you know what, we just can’t, and here’s what I need to get done. And that’s when you really find out who can you count on your team and how good your relationships are with your clients, which is why it’s so important to have that early on dialogue as you’re going through. and developing both the relationship as well as understand what the project is.

Speaker 0 | 49:14.819

So I heard three lessons in there.

Speaker 1 | 49:18.840

Number one,

Speaker 0 | 49:20.300

know when to restart. Because that one, oh man, I know that one. That one, it was Oracle that taught me that. You know, I kept trying to tweak a database and kept trying to tweak it and kept trying to tweak it. And I spent hours and hours and hours trying to get it back to work in the way that it was supposed to. And had I just called it and thrown it all away and started, fresh, followed those instructions exactly, I would have been done in half an hour. And instead, I spent hours and hours and hours. So that was a tough learn lesson there. I’m still kind of struggling with that other one. When to say no. No, we can’t do it. We don’t have the resources. Luckily, one of the guys, one of my newest co-workers, he’s real good at that. He’s like, wait. And so I’ve learned to listen to him when he says that. And then that third one, you know, you’ve got, I think that’s one of the things that sets some of us apart is the ability to admit when we’re wrong or to learn from when we’re wrong. stop and be honest about it and just say, hey, okay, this was, we didn’t do this right, or we can’t do this, or, you know, this is where we’re at. And it does exactly what you said. It helps build a level of trust that’s going to empower you and make you much stronger in your career and your life. You know, it’s a life lesson. It’s not just an IT lesson.

Speaker 1 | 50:47.017

I encourage people to cook. Right. I mentioned I love to cook and that’s a great hobby, but you never get it just right. But you get constant feedback from people and it’s OK. You know, you’re going to mess that up a lot, which is, you know, another lesson in scouting. Right. Let’s let the scouts burn the pancakes. Why? Because they’re going to learn how to not to eventually. But if you keep stepping in and getting in their way, they’re never going to learn. You got to just let them do it. And you’re going to eat a few burnt pancakes. That’s OK. Same with cooking. You’re going to you’re going to overcook, undercook, overseason, not season enough. There’s so many lessons in there, but you got to be open to the feedback and you got to be willing to get back on the horse and try it again. Okay, I burned your burger. Yep, I did. I did it this way. Should have turned the heat down, whatever. If you think about it, you’re grilling. How much have you matured over time as you’re doing that? You got to learn all those different things, and it’s just like life. I mean, work is like that, and you have to be open to the feedback and go in humble, listen, learn, reflect, and then adjust, and then go at it again. But you know what? Every day, you got to eat, so you got to keep cooking. So same thing for work, right?

Speaker 0 | 51:41.436

Right.

Speaker 1 | 51:43.216

Yeah, man.

Speaker 0 | 51:44.437

So anything else you want to add? promote tell us about anything this is here’s your chance man so what what do you want the world to hear from this and and what do you want what thought do you want to leave them with um so i i think i think for me i like i talked with just a little bit about it a minute ago it’s about being humble and being willing to try something new and

Speaker 1 | 52:09.047

be able to learn from that and bring people along on the journey um as i look back and kind of been reflecting on the last last month and a half or so on my time at Medtronic and what I’ve gotten from that. It’s really about the people that I’ve worked with and taking them along on the journey. Either they taking me along or me taking them along and all the great people and all the great experiences I’ve had. And one of the things that’s really been hammered home this last set of reflection, you’ve done some great work and you’ve done a lot of cool things and you’ve got these awards or you’ve gotten close to these awards and you have all these wonderful trophies you have. But really what people remember most is really how you made them feel while they’re working for you. And then that’s what they remember when you’re done and wrapped up, if it’s retiring, if it’s moving on to a new job or whatever that transition point is. And that’s when you realize that people step up and they remember, hey, I remember when you did this. And it really made me feel like that. And you think sometimes it’s small, but it’s really important on how you work with your coworkers and what you leave with them. and how you make them feel at night when they’re done working or when they’ve worked those long weekends. Because IT works a lot. I mean, we’re the workforce and keep companies running. And that’s always what we have to do. But it’s the how that we really have to focus on as leaders. And we really need to make sure that we’re keeping people whole, making them feel like they’re valued, and really bringing them along for the journey for their benefit. Because that’s what’s going to keep them going. And that’s ultimately what keeps us going as leaders. I think that’s a reflection time. It’s so important. I’ve had a chance to look back on it. I really appreciate all the, all leaders I’ve had that have done a great job with me with that. And my, my, my staff has come back and reflected with me on that and makes me feel good about kind of wrapping up and moving on to that next role.

Speaker 0 | 53:53.873

Cool. Yeah. It’s a great, a great way of thinking about it and handling it. You know, it’s, it’s definitely one of the things that I’m always telling myself and trying to make sure that any of the people that I work with, with i call them co-workers instead of the ones that work for me and you know they uh as long as they leave better off than when i met them that you know we were talking about that earlier and i think for me that’s one of my goals is to always try to enrich and help them move on and sounds like you’ve got that same thing so awesome um and uh i gotta throw in a little plug for us so if you like the podcast you gotta go back to your favorite uh media source, wherever you’re getting this podcast from, leave us a review. Let us know how we’re doing, what we can do better. And if there’s other topics that we want, it’s been great to meet you, Stuart. Like I said, get in touch with me again. I got some patches that I can send you because they’re just sitting there collecting dust, dude. But go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 54:53.966

I was going to say I appreciate the time and look forward to talking with others about these topics. So I really appreciate the chance to come and jump on the show and talk about nerds versus geeks and where we all fit in the mix. So, yeah, thanks so much.