Speaker 0 | 00:09.627
Hi nerds, I’m Michael Moore hosting this podcast for Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m here with Michael Hannah Boutros-Meiring. Did I get that right, sir?
Speaker 1 | 00:20.076
That’s awesome. Yep, that’s correct.
Speaker 0 | 00:23.039
Director of Information Systems and Technologies for Zline Kitchen and Bath. Great to have you on. It’s time. We’re going to throw you straight into the icebreaker segment that we have, which is random access memories. I’ll ask a question. You get to respond with the answer that comes to your head first. Have fun with it. The first one is, what’s the oddest place you’ve ever seen a computer located?
Speaker 1 | 00:51.401
An honest place.
Speaker 0 | 00:53.061
Oh, oddest, oddest, strangest. How about that?
Speaker 1 | 00:55.882
Sorry, the oddest place I’ve seen a computer placed. I’m going to say growing up in the kitchen.
Speaker 0 | 01:05.287
Just in the kitchen. Hopefully it wasn’t in the sink, right?
Speaker 1 | 01:08.649
No, it was on,
Speaker 0 | 01:09.909
we had a little table in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 | 01:11.850
Yeah, we had, growing up in the kitchen, we didn’t have a computer table, and computers were such a new thing in Egypt. We had the computer in the kitchen.
Speaker 0 | 01:25.739
Wow. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Well, that is so interesting. Well, hey, it’s convenient. You know, you can slice bread and type on the computer at the same time. You’re good to go.
Speaker 1 | 01:39.791
I mean, honestly, that was my vehicle to play Monopoly on the computer in the kitchen. So that was all right. And I had a quick reach of snacks.
Speaker 0 | 01:53.034
Yeah, see, that’s the way to go. I think you’re on to something there. I think there should be it. you know, it’s straight up in the kitchen. You got recipes. If you like to cook, you can put the recipes right there. You get everything all done. I think that that might be a good spot for it to be located. Here’s the next one. What, according to you, is the best keyboard shortcut?
Speaker 1 | 02:18.278
On a Windows machine,
Speaker 0 | 02:20.838
Alt F4. Alt F4? Yep.
Speaker 1 | 02:22.239
And then… For a Mac is the command Q.
Speaker 0 | 02:31.091
And tell me what the Mac that one is. I’m still not 100% on Macs here. What’s that?
Speaker 1 | 02:42.937
For me, depending on the application I have, I have shortcuts saved. Command Q for me is turning it on silent. That’s literally the command I just… Pushed. Now I keep joining this podcast.
Speaker 0 | 02:58.023
Don’t bother me. We’re good. And the Alt F4 is the closing out of all of the windows. It’s stuck. Alt F4. Move on. Let’s go. I like it. Here’s your last one. What technology do you wish existed but doesn’t?
Speaker 1 | 03:20.762
Oh, this is a good one. Let’s, you know, I just bought an 8K television. I wish there was streaming or the capability to stream 8K content because I have the CD. I’m like, great. This is super sampling everything I’m watching. I wish technology is there for me to actually.
Speaker 0 | 03:45.590
It’s not caught up yet. They can make, you know, I feel like sometimes they’re just gonna make these TVs that say that do like holograms. And then nobody’s going to provide holograms except for like one channel and it’ll just be like birds flying. So, you know, a fish tank with just, you know, all these fish just swimming out of it.
Speaker 1 | 04:07.538
The only thing I’ve been able to enjoy is literally YouTube videos of like nature,
Speaker 0 | 04:13.360
like
Speaker 1 | 04:13.980
B-roll. And I was like, great, here’s 8K. Let’s just put that. That way I could validate my purchase to my wife. Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 04:22.044
if the YouTube video was uploaded in that 8K. But that was a good one. So I’m so happy to have you on the program. We have a lot of stuff in there. I did my natural LinkedIn stalking on you and found out that not only do you work at Zline, but your prior history. There was a CFO, there was a CEO, another analyst. I mean, you were all over the board. Give me a synopsis of where you’ve been in terms of positions, because this will have a bearing on our conversation because this is pretty interesting.
Speaker 1 | 05:13.539
Yeah. So my educational background is actually in biochemistry.
Speaker 0 | 05:19.724
Wow.
Speaker 1 | 05:21.245
And then I have a marketing degree from the University of Nevada. And then I didn’t finish my MBA from the University of Nevada. I mean, I don’t know. And this is in generalization. A lot of Middle Eastern parents hope for two things. One is either you’re a lawyer or a doctor. I had to I went was going the medical route. And then I realized I hate that. And I just went back to school and went into marketing. And then I loved. I mean, one thing about medicine I liked is the marketing of medication. And then from there, I just, while I was in college again, I was just doing a redo. I got a retail position at Apple and I fell in love with technology. So that’s where that kind of like re-sparked my interest in technology. And then from there, I love, I’m a creative. By nature, I’m a creative. I love drawing. I love photography. And then one thing led to another. I locally in Reno, Nevada, I started a multimedia company where I focused on photography and video and working with Apple and like an enterprise solution, like finding all these enterprise solutions. I found a lot of small businesses don’t have the resources where they could be at the plate. with these big guys. So I really focused on providing resources like websites, e-com, content creation that was really going to go to bat against the big folks. So I really focused on multimedia and really helping small businesses have a shot. I love the band.
Speaker 0 | 07:17.385
Before you jump on to the next topic there, if I could just jump in real quick. This is really interesting because… There’s a kind of a sense sometimes that, you know, computer folks are either really good at math or super logical and analytical and, you know, because that’s kind of where you sometimes need to be. But, you know, that’s not the case for everybody, you know, and like you mentioned, you’re you’re a creative, you know, I’m I’m a you know, I’m a computer guy. And yet I like to write, you know. It is not something where people have to be specifically and like certain things to do it. And I got to give you props for recognizing as you were kind of going up through your career there that you didn’t feel like you were in the right spot in the healthcare and decided to make a pivot. And I did something very similar in mine and also pivoted. It was in the same spot. But. But it’s a smart move because you do not want to be in a position that you don’t enjoy. I absolutely love and enjoy the job I work in and the field I work in. And I get the sense that you do too on this, right?
Speaker 1 | 08:35.302
Yeah. The one thing I guess like the note to take away from here is like, as long as you’re curious enough and you’re willing to… find the answer. I think that’s actually the poor behavior that I look for, for any one I want to bring into my team. I don’t expect, I mean, this is goes into multiple fields. As long as you are willing to find the answer and admit that you don’t know it, but you’re willing to find the answer. I look for that behavior more than the technical training that you might already have. I mean, let’s face it. Technology is what it is. today is not going to be what it is let’s say next week you know there might be some groundbreaking stuff that is completely new and not not relevant to any information that you’ve already acquired through your experience so like you’re right curiosity and perseverance are such a big part of it right yeah so it’s like and that’s what really sparked like it’s from being a creative to Having the technical acumen to solve everyday problems, set up the proper systems to run a multi-billion dollar business. It’s just that mindset of not being defeated, not knowing, but excited to find out.
Speaker 0 | 09:59.986
It makes complete sense to me. And that’s driving. That’s what drives all the innovation. That’s what drives all the different advances in technology. And that’s pretty amazing. It’s really cool to see that on there. And having that different experience and having that spot only can make you better at what you do. Having that experience of CFO, having experience as CEO, understanding business processes and how they fold together. And then being able to apply that in your current position is a great, a great move. So, I mean, I saw a bunch of things on our stuff. Part of that being one of them was digital transformation, right? Which it’s amazing that this day and age that this is still a term, right? But it is. And, you know, you still see people, you know, using paper. Like, you know, I went to the doctors the other day. and had to fill out a paper form and submit. I’m like, why are we still doing this? But it’s still common practice and people are still using fax machines. And so we haven’t really completed that digital transformation yet. And I feel like it’s gonna be a while still until that happens. Um, what’s your thoughts on this? Because like digital transformation is kind of big on your, uh, on your spot. What’s your thoughts on digital transformation?
Speaker 1 | 11:27.955
Buy-in. It’s just navigating change has been a learning opportunity and it will continue to be depending on how large the organization, who’s your audience and how do you adopt change? And like, how do you adopt and encourage your first adopters be your. first leaders on navigating change in your organization?
Speaker 0 | 11:52.132
Well, let’s talk about navigating change because if you, the viewers can’t see, but in the back, you can see what’s behind me, right? And it says, do not be afraid of change, be afraid of not changing, right? But, you know, let’s take that last statement there, be afraid of not changing. Why should we be afraid of not changing?
Speaker 1 | 12:15.268
Why be afraid of not changing? So It’s, there’s a statement that I will continue to bring up from my early days in my career. It’s the one, I guess, attribute that for growth is going to always, you’ll always find that outside of your comfort zone.
Speaker 0 | 12:42.005
That’s true. That’s true.
Speaker 1 | 12:45.527
So if you’re comfortable and you just stay in your… what you know. You’re a routine person. You stay within your comfort zone. You’re not really allowing yourself to challenge what you do every day. And that kind of co-plays with your growth. Because if you’re doing the same thing, there’s no way there’s going to be any change that will be applied to whatever you’re trying to move forward to. So it’s… And it’s just the nature. Like, if you want some different result, you have to do something different. And that requires change.
Speaker 0 | 13:26.289
I agree.
Speaker 1 | 13:27.569
And that’s how you, like, kind of face that fear.
Speaker 0 | 13:30.971
I agree with you. I think you described that really well and so well, in fact, because I will tell people that work with me all the time that, you know, if you’re comfortable, then you’re not doing it right. You have to learn to live in the uncomfortable. And I think you said that so well, because that’s where change happens. That’s where growth. And it’s funny, I see some people sometimes shut down a bit when they’re in that uncomfortable mode. And I have to remind them, you’re doing good, right? It’s just that you haven’t been here before, you know? And I also kind of, you know, you see people and they’ll… talk about their growth and they’ll always compare themselves to other people. And I said, don’t compare yourself to other people. You’re comparing yourself to how you were yesterday and whether or not you’re moving in the right direction. And I always say, if you feel that uncomfortableness, it’s because you’re pushing that bar a little higher and moving forward and you’re learning and you’re in that. learning, that growing is seeing more and more things that are wrong and that need to be fixed and modified. And that’s a good thing. That’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing. So I love that you did a great, great job explaining that. I think that that’s a valid statement. And so when it comes to a digital transformation, you mentioned buy-in, change being a part of that. Right. It’s a tough one because not all organizations, A, like change or B, have a tolerance for it. Everyone’s tolerance for change is going to be different. Right. So what are the you know, what are the things you can share with the viewer? Sorry, the listeners on here that may help them, whether they are business individuals. Do we have some people that are? business leaders that listen and then and or if they’re they’re tech what is what are the things you can give them to help them kind of get that buy-in and enact change honestly this is like it’s more on people skills and this is where i really like
Speaker 1 | 15:50.777
to encourage other business owners and other work environments is really you for soliciting a conversation. This is where I found success. You could either, I mean, for someone like me, I could easily be the villain in the organization, pushing all these policies, just driving this change without starting with a why. I honestly, my first positioning and my first part of joining Z-Line, I’ll take that as an example of where that started. The organization when I joined, we were at 50-some hires. I was like the 53rd, 55th hire for that organization. We are at 200 plus.
Speaker 0 | 16:41.040
That’s a great feeling, isn’t it?
Speaker 1 | 16:43.981
And driving change with a smaller organization, people might think like, oh, there’s less people you have to convince. Actually, the… What’s hard about that being new and trying to drive adoption and driving change is like, hey, here’s some things that these bigger organization I came from was we’re doing is really positioning yourself as an ally. And I literally my statement to the organization was like, hey, my job really is not technical. My job is really my primary focus is make your job easy. I mean, if I accomplish anything, it’s. Your day-to-day tasks are a lot easier because there’s a system in place that allows your job to be more efficient, leaving you to do more things that you want to be doing for the organization instead of the busy work. And God, I mean, I have a laundry list of stuff that was just like, wow, I cannot believe this is happening here. But honestly, when you have that position stated out for the organization to hear you, you kind of… not like accumulate allies to understand why you’re doing things. Honestly, it becomes easier. And now as the organization is bigger, I facilitate a conversation about change. I really, I shoot out surveys saying, Hey, is this a current pain point in your everyday process? How often does this system fail you? And honestly, when I introduce a change systematically, it’s been a conversation. So it doesn’t blindside anybody. And I’ve already, I mean, and this is kind of a sales tactic. It’s like creating a pain point and like, oh, ta-da, I have like a magical solution for you. But honestly, it’s just like having that conversation with everyone in an organization and really giving someone a voice is really empowering for some people, regardless of the position. If you’re in a warehouse, if you’re in marketing, if you’re in sales, and like having them feel that their voice is being heard. addressing a company-wide change really advocates for a change to happen or even be needed. So once that’s done, I really say, hey, I found a solution that addresses a lot of our pain points that we shot the survey for. Let me share the survey results with you. A lot of you said X, Y, and Z. Well, I found a solution that will do X, Y, and Z. And how does that sound? And I share my timelines regarding these systems being implemented. And honestly, like… And then I kind of, in each department, I reach out saying, hey, can you be my first follower? You’ll be the leader advocating for this change. And I just have, and I lean on them to lead that. They’re modeling behavior and encouraging a new system being implemented. And then naturally, you know, you don’t want to be the odd one out. Like if you have your leader in your own department, like loving this change, and you have your colleagues loving this change. The natural thing is like, wow, maybe they have something on there and that will drive the adoption. You always have that one person like, no, no, I don’t like change. No, no, I like the way we do things.
Speaker 0 | 19:58.677
And this is gold. This is. This is great. This is great information. And just to, you know, take what you said here, that I’m going to break it down a few spots that were just really important. One, let’s start with the surveys, right? What a great idea to take the temperature of people beforehand. So you can address those, address those items, and make sure they’re incorporated into the plan when you go to release. So, A, great job there. The next piece was… um uh what next big piece of puzzle is uh getting those champions right getting all of those uh folks that are going to champion your solution by bringing them on board getting their their buy-in of those folks you know that they’re the you know um they’re the so so to speak the uh uh people that other people look to for advice so getting them on board is is huge uh this is all really good advice and how to actually do this. And it just goes to show you that, you know, you know, IT folks are really good at making changes, right? But when, you know, when we, we sometimes, you know, if not done correctly, miss training, miss all the opportunities. I don’t know how many times I’ve talked to somebody in healthcare, where they’ve put in a new solution in healthcare, right? And then you go talk to like any of the people that are using the solution. And they’re like, yeah, it’s not going to work. Right. It doesn’t work at all. I mean, it doesn’t, you know, do what we need to do. If I have to do this for a patient, I can’t do that. So I just end up entering in stuff that’s wrong. And you’re like, but this is like, this is a hospital. And I’m like, you know, how many times you’ve been a patient in a hospital and just seen somebody just do things completely the wrong way just to make the system work and then get going. Right. And you can tell that nobody followed that advice that you just gave to be able to implement that solution. That’s great advice.
Speaker 1 | 22:04.864
I mean, communication is a huge thing. I mean, I going off hospitals, my wife actually is a director of marketing and hospitals at a hospital here locally. And that amount of and, you know, I sometimes I work from home and then sometimes she’s working at home at the same time. And I’m hearing her. maybe my wife is like, hey, you should probably not talk about this publicly. But the amount of communication that she needs to do internally to talk about a new system changes. And I really took note of that. I mean, just noticing like how much communication needs to happen internally when something IT tells marketing about. Communication is key. If like that is not communicated instead of like, hey, here’s an initiative. Here you go. Here’s how to follow it versus really planning out a communication plan about this change. It’s huge. It could make or break the success of a project.
Speaker 0 | 22:59.651
Communication makes or breaks a ton of items. And especially if you’re an aspiring tech looking to get into a position to be an IT director or a CIO, or even a business leader and trying to make sure that you… can enact the strategic changes that you need, either for digital transformation or different projects you got on that are going to be strategic that you need, you are going to need to know communication because communication is the key to accurately getting your vision out of your head and into other people’s and allowing them to spread that vision everywhere. That’s just a fantastic way to look at it. And you’ve brought up a lot of great points on this. Let’s talk about real quick, let’s talk about projects, right? Because you’ve been involved in a lot of them. And when I was looking at some of the things you did, you were, you know, it seems to me like projects have been pretty big on your career. Was that fair to say?
Speaker 1 | 24:07.342
Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s, I swim in and out of different departments looking at what projects are going to be I mean, the extent of like, and you think like, oh, a kitchen appliance manufacturer, right? How much technology is really involved with that? I mean, literally everything, anywhere from an ERP to manage how we bring in items into our four walls, how items get drop shipped directly to the customer’s address, to the EDI and API communication that happens between our big retail partners, to our customer journey and what system is involved with carrying out that. like journey using a CMS to our websites and managing our e-comm sites to infrastructure like network and I mean the amount of different I mean again an organization that had 50 people you wouldn’t think like, oh, I need to think about what our web hosting looks like or how secure our cybersecurity would be for our emails and like stopping phishing attacks and stopping like any vulnerability with our information systems. And it’s the amount of projects that’s like involved with that really involved, at least for my career here at Zline in just short, almost three years. really being involved with every department’s like day to day. So, I mean, like, like project management really comes with having the right expectations for everyone that is involved and really having key stakeholders for parts of the process and like understanding what are the bottlenecks, understanding what communication needs to look like, what are deadlines and like really having measurable goals. throughout the project and if there are setbacks what are and when and how that’s communicated and why um because quite often there’s a lot of i mean ideal was a lot of work that needs to be completed outside with people outside of my organization how do i hold them accountable and how do i manage their work and their succession and have having them feel also part of the team even though they’re not z-line employees um so it’s a lot of navigation i would say
Speaker 0 | 26:31.852
I definitely and I agree with you. And so let’s, let’s take a concept that, you know, I always found was interesting, which is, when is a project completed? Right? Because a lot of people would say, well, when the work’s done, right? But I found that that’s not necessarily true sometimes. What is when do you call a project complete in your mind?
Speaker 1 | 26:58.070
So I mean, I live off a song. That’s been the tool. And I used to be a big Gantt chart type of guy. Gantt charts are intimidating for people that don’t look at projects all the time. So I kind of had to drive adoption with myself. I’m like, hey, you got to adopt a tool that is useful for people outside of your preferences. And I found success in a tool called Asana. So with that, I… every project has a three months after a go live day for monitoring adoption, monitoring any troubleshooting. I have, so I was in charge of training for quite a bit at Apple. And what I’ve found out is the training piece is that most people absorb is in practice. So I’m not sure if that’s true. Most of the time when we launch a new system, I have a sandbox environment just in case people are hesitant to breaking stuff. So I tell them like, hey, look, I’m going to give you a sandbox. I’m going to give you this play area and you can play pretend. Go do whatever you want. You won’t break anything, but I want you to get familiar with the interface. And quite often just telling them like, hey, nothing is going to go wrong and giving them the courage to. explore really makes a whole difference because most of the time people, when there’s a new system or a new change happening, there is fear. There’s a lot of fear based logic that happens, you know, innately. It’s like, Oh, if I click the wrong button, I might break something or I might send the wrong whatever, or, you know, there’s all they think of the consequences that they do something wrong.
Speaker 0 | 28:49.204
You know that, yeah. You know, I, I, I, I think I’ve been doing this for a bit. And I, I don’t think we’ve ever. touched on this, but this is such a good point where, and another aspect of change in projects is, and as you mentioned, people management and calming folks down and saying, hey, listen, we’re implementing something that will affect the way you do your work, right? It is going to have a profound effect on, once we implement it, on whatever happens down the line. And for people that have a low tolerance to change, Or like, I was really good at what I was doing in this one spot. Now the change might flip the tables and maybe someone will be better than me or maybe I won’t be as good as I need to do. These are all of these partial insecurities and stuff. And the concern about what the very real concern about keeping and maintaining your job while these changes are happening has to be nerve wracking. on folks that are not used to changing platforms like IT folks are. You know, I mean, people could throw a new platform at us and we would be like, all right, give me a little bit to figure it out. But otherwise, let’s just do it. But to end users that do not do this, to business leaders that aren’t, you know, used to switching platforms, this is a huge deal. And especially if you put something in like an ERP that touches so many different pieces of it. All right. It’s quite scary for end users to have this change. But I like your approach because you are like, hey, why don’t you play around a bit and get all of that unknown, that uncertainty out of your way and then come back to me and tell me what you didn’t like. Tell me what we need to modify, what we need to change and what things need to be addressed prior to it going live so that we don’t have these problems. That sounds like that would really cut down a lot on a lot of that uncertainty and also increase your buy-in.
Speaker 1 | 30:56.199
You know, this is a lot of, this is going to resonate with a lot of people that have IT help desk work experience. You’re most of the time playing therapist. And this is going to sound really like. Honestly, sometimes you don’t have the solution for the person calling in. But as long as you’re addressing how they’re feeling and just giving them the assurance like, hey, you know, everything is going to be OK. We’ll figure it out. And just addressing that emotion and like how they’re feeling tends to and you might not give them a solution today, tomorrow or next week. But as long as you address like, hey, I understand this is frustrating. I’m acknowledging how frustrating this is. I’ve been in your shoes, but don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. And we’ll get you into a spot where you can do whatever you need to be doing. I guarantee you, nine out of 10 times, that call will end well. And that was Apple’s mojo. I don’t know if you’ve ever, I don’t know if you’ve been into an Apple store. I remember when I first got onboarded. And I was working at a retail job, you know, and I was like, man, I don’t have any technology experience. When they bring you to the team, they don’t give you any technical training. Their secret sauce was how to talk to people and how to address a problem and really looking at the root of the problem. The problem isn’t a broken screen on the phone. And the problem really is a fear. of them losing something precious or a photo that’s in their phone. And really addressing that fear and really giving them the assurance like, hey, don’t worry, here’s some, we’ll figure it out. There is services that you might have turned on, like a cloud backup. Or if I could get into your machine, if you have your laptop with you, I could back up your machine or your phone and we could restore that data. Addressing that fear before actually addressing the problem front facing. has saved me so many conversations that could have gone really bad. And I really take that approach with everything. I mean, obviously, I’m not fixing phones anymore, but I’m fixing systematic issues throughout an organization that’s doing millions of dollars of business a day. And when one of these problems face me, I’m like, what is actually really the problem? And really addressing the person’s… presentation of the problem and why he or she is feeling that way, that typically results in like, okay, they’re calm, they’re collected, now we could talk about next steps and just really laying that out for them.
Speaker 0 | 33:54.457
I love the way you put it. And it is so, so true. You know, I have a lot of respect for Helpdesk. I started in the Helpdesk back in the day. And it’s actually where I got most of my relevant experience for the rest of the things that I’ve been doing in the IT world. I love the idea, and this is such a great way of doing this, of dispelling the fear prior to working the issue. What a fantastic way. And it’s true. It is 100% true. And, you know, you get somebody on the phone, especially if they think that they’ve lost the data. And the first thing you should do is say, hold on. We don’t know if that’s the case. I have a couple different ways that we can try and find this. So don’t panic just yet. Let’s work on, let’s work through these things and figure that out. Yeah, that is, that’s so huge. It’s such a big deal to allow that to happen. And yeah, you know, I think what you’re touching on in a lot of these things is a, as you manage a people management to. allow, like you mentioned earlier about your service leadership, meaning you are there to basically provide a service to allow the people that work in your group. to really do what they need to do more efficiently, more timely, without barriers, without people problems, you know. Yeah, in some cases, being a director of information systems is also being a therapist, you know, and working people through things. And then being a, you know, someone that corrals people and says, hey, this is what we’re going to do. Let’s Let’s all collectively do it. So you’re a coach. You’re a, I mean, we could go through all the different pieces of being, you know, being a leader in information technology. But you’re right. And you’ve jumped on a few of them, which is it’s not necessarily just computers. And a lot of people, you know, we talk a lot of the things, use a lot of acronyms. I could have used an acronym for your name probably, right? Earlier. It would be a good one. I mean, it would be like MHBM, right? There’s a future tech company in that name, by the way. I think you ought to race out to get a domain name quickly before someone snags it, right? So let’s talk about IT Crystal Ball. This is always a fun one because I love to see how people… react about what the future of IT is going to be. But I got to put some ground rules down because too many people are saying AI, and that’s not a future anymore. AI is here. And I mean, we can talk about the involvement and where it will lead. But man, AI is not future anymore. AI is present. And it is here and it is making a splash. So I’m going to challenge you on this one. And I’m going to give you, you know, take AI out of the mix for a minute, right? Where do you see IT, you know, five years from now? I mean, and you don’t have to go crazy and name a whole bunch of things. You can just focus on one if you got it. But where do you see, in the most relevant fashion, to give to business leaders and to IT tech folks, right? what should we be doing and positioning ourselves to be ready for five years from now?
Speaker 1 | 37:46.160
Universal API.
Speaker 0 | 37:48.601
Okay. See, this is a new one. I haven’t got this yet. Explain.
Speaker 1 | 37:54.824
All right. So, I mean, my day-to-day is literally within one system to another to another, and the biggest pain in existence for me. is having one system communicate to another system and developing a unique API endpoint for each individual system that literally will say the same thing, but because of the business process, I need to have four systems communicate across each system one at a time until I can get to the desired result. I strongly think. that there will be a universal API language or keys for each system. So like name, if like let’s say customer’s name will be universally recognized as this API endpoint. So that way when I integrate from one system to another, from CMS to an ERP to a shipping software to an MDM, let’s say you’re involving your own computer. It’s all universal. That same API that you’ve used is going to be going from one system to another without you redoing the work that you already just did because one system already required you to do.
Speaker 0 | 39:19.553
Man, if that is the future, then sign me up. I think that that’s fantastic. What a great way too, because, and I think that you’re onto something because… There are still so many legacy applications that are out there. There are so many people on applications that just say should not be. You go to the website and the website looks like it was built in geocities. Right. And it’s, you know, it’s that weird animation, a guy waving at you like buy our software. Right. And and so and you’re like, you know, you’re like, I just step back to like 1995, you know, and looking at this application. And people might think I’m joking, but this is actually truthful. Like, sometimes I go to websites of people that are actually running applications, and I just, I’m just, what? And they’re still using this GUI that was back in the day that, like, you know, reminds me of using AOL. It is a remarkable. that people are still using these applications, it would be great if we did have a universal API to be able to easily migrate data over, move data back and forth from different applications. Also, for the amount of mergers and acquisitions that happen in the world right now, I mean, that would be gold. to be able to just plug them in and adjust some of the API settings so that they can talk to each other and you can have different billing systems talking to each other and moving the data around. That to me would be huge. It’s going to be a monumental feat. It might even have to have NIST jump in and say, hey, hold on a second. I got a plan. But yeah, that’s a good one. And I have not had that suggestion on the program as far as I can tell.
Speaker 1 | 41:25.375
The reason I say that is because, I mean, by all means, I am nerdy and a geek. And there’s a distinction between the two. What I mean by that is my wife hates me. I mean, my office is literally smart, light, smart, everything in my office.
Speaker 0 | 41:42.879
Me too.
Speaker 1 | 41:45.120
The reason I have so many lights in my office is because my wife has banned any more lights in the house. And you know what? I’m really funny about it. I love Apple. I love HomeKit. I hate that every smart appliance or smart whatever uses their own ecosystem. So I did the next best thing. I was like, look, if there’s an app… there’s some sort of API endpoint that I need to translate. So I kept buying these cheap smart lights from Amazon and looked up their app. And I just said, hey, you know what? There’s a get request here and a post request. All I need to do is build a server that will translate this to HomeKit’s get and post requests. So I, you know what? Instead of spending like a hundred bucks for a light bulb, I was like, oh, look at this $10 cheap. like light bulb that I could do that to do the same thing. Now I could do that with HomeKit. And literally right after I got that done, then I’ve had this for years. I was like, that was like my back pocket, like random, like fun thing that I shared with all my friends. Now that HomeKit is now having a universal language called Matter. So now these smart appliances said, you know what? There has to be some sort of universal language. regardless of whatever ecosystem, we all need to play nice. So now these smart appliances, and the reason I say that is because we are introducing a smart appliance through Z-Line. And I was thinking about that way ahead before they even announced it. So I was already looking at what does the next universal language need to look like? And now there’s a new standard called Matter that Apple now is driving. Now you see all these other appliances saying, hey, we need to get Matter certified for all our systems to talk no matter whoever the end user might be. If they’re on Google, they’re using Alexa, whatever the case may be, all these smart appliances could be transferable from one ecosystem to another. So if that’s something that already exists, why can’t APIs be the same way?
Speaker 0 | 44:02.416
I feel like now I have a vision in my head that you came up with this idea. And usually when, you know, it’s visually representative of an idea, it’s a light bulb on top of somebody’s head. But you had probably tons of them and they were multicolored dancing around up top of your head when you had this idea. Right. That’s I think I think that’s what you did. Wow. You know what, Michael, this was a this was such a great program. And thank you for having me on for the folks out there. This is I’m Michael Moore. Uh, uh, this has been a podcast with a dissecting popular it nerds, uh, here with Michael Hannah Boutros-Meiering or as he’s going to be known from now on MHBM. All right. Don’t snag the, the don’t snag the thing from him.
Speaker 1 | 44:50.482
I’m going to buy that domain right now.
Speaker 0 | 44:53.563
Director of information systems and technology for Z-Line kitchen and bath. Michael, thank you so much for having me on and feel free to come back again.
Speaker 1 | 45:02.147
Awesome. Thank you.
Speaker 0 | 45:03.880
Thank
