Speaker 0 | 00:09.646

Welcome, everyone, back to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. And today we have Barry Goldstrom on with us, Chief Information Officer. And you are in Michigan where they don’t manufacture any car parts.

Speaker 1 | 00:25.977

No, not at all. Not at all.

Speaker 0 | 00:30.780

There’s no snow. They don’t do snowmobiling or people, they don’t, you know, drive snowmobiles around with guns and go hunting in the upper peninsula or anything like that.

Speaker 1 | 00:40.883

Only in the UP. That’s right. Only in the UP. Here in the metro Detroit area, you just have to watch the drive-bys. That’s it.

Speaker 0 | 00:48.045

Oh, I don’t like where I’m at in Hartford, Connecticut too. Oh,

Speaker 1 | 00:51.906

okay.

Speaker 0 | 00:52.846

It’s somewhat safe around here.

Speaker 1 | 00:55.667

Oh, I live in a, you know, I live in one of the suburbs of the… of uh the detroit area it’s a great area um and detroit is great don’t get me wrong it’s uh you know has its uh has its ups and downs like any major city but uh a very very good city yeah what was that there was some there was some like like

Speaker 0 | 01:14.076

slapstick comedy back in the day where like the the punch line was send them to detroit i can’t remember what that was but never no i don’t know that one but uh it’s you know uh you know detroit

Speaker 1 | 01:27.208

Was at its lowest and it’s going up. It has no place to go but up now and it’s going well.

Speaker 0 | 01:33.793

Yes, yes. My friend flipped a house there in Hamtramck.

Speaker 1 | 01:40.559

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love that area.

Speaker 0 | 01:42.640

My dad grew up on, was it like nine mile or something? I’ve told this story over and over again on this show, which you haven’t heard it before. So we might as well tell it one more time. Sure. My dad, when I went home years ago, he had M&M’s DVD Nine Mile still wrapped in cellophane.

Speaker 1 | 02:01.789

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 0 | 02:02.209

Was it Nine Mile?

Speaker 1 | 02:03.710

Eight Mile. He’s on Eight Mile.

Speaker 0 | 02:05.671

He’s on Eight Mile. I’m sounding really white right now. No.

Speaker 1 | 02:10.634

No, Eight Mile is the geographical boundary between Detroit and the rest of the suburbs. So that’s the geographical border.

Speaker 0 | 02:22.942

Or I’m just sounding old to like a father.

Speaker 1 | 02:25.244

Hey man, you know, my, my rapper’s name is 10 mile.

Speaker 0 | 02:30.169

Anyways, my dad, so my dad grew up on that street and he still shows me, he’s like, Hey, let’s look at my old address. It’s like all boarded up and burnt out and like, just like no second floor left to it. Oh no. And I was like, dad, why do you have this DVD? Is that must be like some kind of. documentary or something i don’t know i gotta watch this it’s the street i grew up on i was like and you know because i have seen the movie i was like that when you are you’re gonna be pleasantly surprised when you uh oh nice you gotta watch that anyways well i live on i live off a 13 mile there you go so there you go all right all right i gotta get out to uh i gotta get out to detroit and see what it’s all about sounds like oh it’s nice it’s real nice yeah so my but anyways my friend bought the house for like five thousand dollars oh yeah literally bought the house for like and that was i guess Now people kind of caught on. So everyone’s been doing that. So the houses aren’t that cheap anymore as they used to be, but I guess people were buying houses and flipping in and, and gentrifying, um, you know, whatever that is. Yeah. So, uh, we do talk about it every now and then on this show.

Speaker 1 | 03:33.183

Sounds good.

Speaker 0 | 03:33.703

Yeah. Um, on your profile on LinkedIn, you have the first bullet point is confidence, which, which is beautiful because, um, you probably do have to be. confident in IT with all the question marks around you that other people ask and possibly executive management. And we have a book coming out soon. I have a book coming out soon called Speaking the Language of Business IT. And it’s really about how someone grows, what people can do in the IT leadership world to earn their seat at the executive round table, so to speak. But then it has dot, dot, dot guaranteed. If someone had asked you like, hey, look, look, Barry, tell me whatever I need to know. I want to grow up in the IT world. I want to get a seat at the executive round table. And I want you to tell me what to do and guarantee me that if I do these things, I will eventually get there. If I work hard enough and do this, this, and this, and I do these few things, what do I need to do to get there?

Speaker 1 | 04:34.132

So for me, and I would recommend this for anybody, to not narrow your focus, to have a broad basic basis of education and broad, you know, get your hands in everything. Don’t be afraid to be the help desk. Don’t be afraid to be the network manager, the technician, the programmer, all of it so that you have that broad knowledge to come in and be able to really answer the questions when they’re asked. Now, you may not have 100% of that knowledge or anything like that, but that’s why you have the people surround you to guide you and lead you in those. with those answers. But for me, how I got seated at the table was the broad knowledge, education, certifications, and just being a hands-on guy in every aspect of the career.

Speaker 0 | 05:22.041

People get caught up in certifications a lot. Do you think certifications are… People come to me and they ask me for advice from time to time, younger folk. Phil, should I… I was thinking of going and getting a certification. I was thinking of going and doing this. I was like, no, don’t. Just… Go get your hands dirty first. Get this job. Take this. Take that. Don’t waste your time with… I’m not saying certifications aren’t bad if you’re doing it. To me, certifications seem like a side item.

Speaker 1 | 05:50.451

It is. Oh, absolutely. Okay. Absolutely.

Speaker 0 | 05:52.873

It doesn’t seem like it’s the main thing. You shouldn’t go, I’m going to go do all these certifications, and then I’m going to apply for a job.

Speaker 1 | 05:58.316

Oh, no, no. I think… Absolutely, no. No, I think… And if you’re going to do a certification, which a lot of the colleges are now, they’re building their curriculum around the… CCNA bootcamp, the Cisco bootcamp. That’s a great foundation to build your knowledge and get that foundation. But ultimately, it’s getting your hands dirty. You could be the greatest CCIE or whatever level, but if you have no hands on practicality, what good is that going to do you? You have to be out there in the field. I’ve gotten my hands dirty and I’ve always prided myself on the opportunity and the ability to just dive in and do it. I’m a working manager. I’m a working manager. you know, director, anything I’ve done, I’ve, I’ve been in the middle of it. I’m not sitting in the, in the offices.

Speaker 0 | 06:45.023

Um, sleepless nights. Have you had any? Oh,

Speaker 1 | 06:49.747

more than I can count more than I can count. Gosh. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 06:53.630

Okay. So there, so it does happen. So it doesn’t happen.

Speaker 1 | 06:56.793

Ah, yeah. I’m getting too old for them, but, but I’ve had many, um, you know, in, in industries like, um, uh, one of the career fields I had up here was working at, uh, uh in ann arbor uh for a parking company parking structures who knew three o’clock in the morning i’d be getting a call about some system that wouldn’t let a car out like what in the world you know come on yeah yeah yeah yeah but yeah lots of uh lots of sleepless nights they’re getting fewer and far

Speaker 0 | 07:28.053

between but i still have had them yes i i guess for the sake of learning and and preventing Were there any sleepless nights that could have been prevented? Can you think of like the worst nightmare you’ve ever had? And can we tell that story just for fun? Like horror stories? I haven’t had this yet. Horror stories on the show. This is what we need to have.

Speaker 1 | 07:46.638

Yeah, no, you know, I mean, I’ve had a lot of horror stories, but I think, and I don’t even know if this one could have been prevented, but it was a really interesting case that I had. If you’ve seen my profile, I moved here from New Mexico and lived in Roswell, the city. infamous oh we haven’t got we haven’t gotten to the the um the conspiracy section yeah there you go but uh but i was i was working at a smaller city uh south of there and uh one night uh right after work i started getting these random calls from my uh my law enforcement guys hey you know network blah blah network issue blah blah i’m like i get on i’m not seeing anything and nothing’s really nothing’s really standing out to me is but These calls keep escalating. Now I’m getting the police chief. Now I’m getting the fire chief. I’m like, okay, well, fine.

Speaker 0 | 08:35.882

What are they saying?

Speaker 1 | 08:37.263

Well, there’s no network access. My files are going. My files are gone. I can’t do this. I can’t do that. And I’m like, this is not making any sense. When I’m logging into the servers, I’m seeing everything okay. I don’t see what they’re seeing. So I only lived a few miles from the office. So I went in and… started looking at servers and things like that and everything looked normal but then all of a sudden i decided to look look at my uh at the time you know you know antivirus is still was still more of an infancy and this was and i don’t want to tell the company but um essentially what happened is they put out a bad update and it isolated and quarantined everything on my servers inadvertently so you know i had And this took some troubleshooting because it really wasn’t making sense because everything was operational, but there was nothing pointing to anything that was really an alert that says, hey, here’s what’s going on. So finally, yeah, I… I finally figured out that it was a bad update that one of the companies put out. They quarantined everything. And I spent like two days. And this is before, you know, real good, you know, backups and imaging and cold restores and, you know, rebuilding servers. Then I had to go around and rebuild workstations because the workstations that weren’t on that night weren’t. affected because they didn’t get the update. You know, that whole theory of, Hey, please leave your computer on. So it updates.

Speaker 0 | 10:14.591

I remember that.

Speaker 1 | 10:15.712

Yeah. Yeah. So that backfired on me. So, um, so I spent a couple of days and I was a one, you know, I was by myself. So this was a one thing. So, you know, I had a couple of hundred users, but in the end there, I had like a hundred users that I had to go rebuild machines and cover data. The, the company, the company did that take about four days.

Speaker 0 | 10:35.968

Oh my Lord.

Speaker 1 | 10:37.488

Two of just straight. Cause I had to get the servers back up and running. You know, it took out domain controllers. It took out file servers. It took out, you know, the, the whole thing, the company, my, my mayor, you know, barked up the tree and got the company. Basically they, they compensated us for downtime and my salary for that time. And, uh, I mean, they made good on it, but, uh, it was, uh, it was a nightmare. I mean, I’ve had other nightmares, you know, uh, um. you know, a hardware failure here and there, or, you know, a piece of equipment going out unexpectedly, you know, but those, those were the late night ones right there was, that was the longest one I ever had was, was doing that.

Speaker 0 | 11:20.419

That vendor, I mean, so they compensated you guys, but how many other customers got affected?

Speaker 1 | 11:25.844

Right, exactly. And that was kind of, you know, I think they…

Speaker 0 | 11:29.206

Like the end of their, the end of their, like, we’re done.

Speaker 1 | 11:34.311

Exactly. I mean, you know… I mean, I don’t know how many went out, you know, I don’t know how many other companies went after them or what after, but, you know, my mayor was adamant. He says, you know, he says, look, you know, what you did was wrong. You know, what, what happened, you know, we want something in return, you know, and, and they, they compensated us and, you know, got some, you know, got some money. And I think we got, I think we got free licensing for the lifetime of the product and now, you know, kinds of things. Uh, they promised to make it right. And they, and they did, but boy, that was a long night of something that was completely beyond my control and out of my, you know, uh, in a million years would have never, you know, I don’t mind, you know, if I was hit by a virus, well, that’s my own fault, you know, but this was, this was a problem of a company.

Speaker 0 | 12:21.692

Did you have choices in other vendors?

Speaker 1 | 12:24.214

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I could have used any vendor, but at the time.

Speaker 0 | 12:27.776

I was just curious. I’m just, you know, there is, there are some. There are some vendors out there that have the benefit of only having one or two competitors. It’s kind of rare nowadays, but it does happen from time to time. There’s probably some chat GPT guy that does the only thing. It would be something like that.

Speaker 1 | 12:48.701

No, this was a big name company. They had a little bit more of a niche in a particular area that I needed. Yeah. But. But ultimately, there was competitors. Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 13:05.832

Of all the things that someone would have, all the bullet points that a good IT leader should have, what would you say is one of the most important? I’ve got all the certifications. I’ve got all the knowledge. I’ve got the broad knowledge. I’ve worked the help desk. I’ve worked this. I’ve worked that. What is maybe one of the most important things that you would say someone needs to learn that they might not have?

Speaker 1 | 13:30.470

One thing that most IT people are accused of not having is people skills, and I would say people skills and empathy.

Speaker 0 | 13:36.616

Okay.

Speaker 1 | 13:38.998

Because you have to be able to explain, describe why you exist, why are you an important part of this organization, and why or what you’re doing. what is tangible about what you’re doing? You know, it’s not like the road crew, you know, I have a lot of municipal government, so it’s not like the road crew or the sewer company or the water side of it, or the billing company is what, what tangible, what do you bring that’s tangible? Do you have empathy? You know, empathy in the fact that, you know, the organizations that I was, was in, in most of them, you know, knew nothing about technology. Their technology knowledge was, oh, I have a computer and I can play solitaire.

Speaker 0 | 14:21.623

when it goes on the internet you know but what it’s solitaire isn’t it interesting though just side note how solitaire is still going strong so it is i know it’s like i’m on the plane and i’m just like kind of look down the aisle and i look at what people are doing on their you know tablets and stuff yeah there’s at least two or three people playing solitaire still i know it’s amazing it’s it’s uh you know it’s great you know like anyways okay uh but

Speaker 1 | 14:49.610

yeah having that empathy because you know, prior to me getting into these organizations, you know, I had, you know, these were isolated pods of groups, you know, oh, the water department did this with this software and the water department did this with this software and purchasing did this and police did this. And so all these isolated pods, but now it’s like, okay, now how do we get everybody to work together in one harmonious system where everybody. can do things better, help the customer being the public. And the customer for me is my end user. So yeah, so it’s, yeah. So I think in the end, it’s, for me, it’s two skills, people and empathy.

Speaker 0 | 15:39.127

So empathy can be a, we talk about it and we say that we understand it or that we have it and this type of thing. But do we really, you know, if you say that IT guys are are, you know, they may be, they may easily confuse empathy with sympathy. And I think most IT people or the accusation would be as well. Yeah, no, we have empathy, but they really might be more sympathetic. At least the sympathetic, the sympathetic example would be the old Saturday Night Live guy that was, you know, basically, you know, I feel bad for you. You’re so stupid. I’m sympathetic to you. I’m sympathetic to you that you’re so stupid. I experienced it speaking with some Bitcoin guy. And if most of my friends know that I think Bitcoin’s a load of crap because it’s not based on anything. I’m not against blockchain. I’m not against blockchain, but I am. But I anyways, the I just remember this this software guy going, I can tell by talking with you that, you know, nothing about money. And I was like, oh, I like to think I know something about money, but, you know, I’m not broke.

Speaker 1 | 16:50.331

Right. Exactly.

Speaker 0 | 16:51.431

And I don’t pay a mortgage and I don’t pay, you know, I try to live debt free and within my means. So I like to think that I know something about it. But he was right. He was right. But it was if anyone spoke to an employee like that or his his whole attitude about it was very arrogant and very it was very off putting. So I think but he may not have even known. He may not have even known that he was being that way.

Speaker 1 | 17:22.509

Right.

Speaker 0 | 17:22.789

He may have legitimately been, you know, like unaware of how I am. So is it fixable?

Speaker 1 | 17:31.555

Yeah. And I’ll give you an example if you don’t mind. So after I got hired in Roswell, you know, my task was to, you know, again, start an entire infrastructure, start a new department, people, places, everything electronic. And, um… I had a longtime employee who, well, you know, she was an odd woman, but very knowledgeable. She was odd. You know, I mean.

Speaker 0 | 17:58.228

You’re being very sympathetic here. I mean, we’re being very empathetic. No, just.

Speaker 1 | 18:02.770

It was very dark and, you know, very dark. And you’re like, are you a mad scientist in here? What are you?

Speaker 0 | 18:07.913

It actually sounds kind of cool. Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 18:09.814

You know, very, very, but, you know, with lots of knowledge, you know, she had that. internal knowledge of everything that was a city, especially finance. And one of the goals was to really upgrade our financial systems. And I would go to her for questions and ask questions and really try to pick her brain. And she was very hesitant. And this went on for months. And finally, one day, we were just chatting about something in general. I don’t know. I think we found some common ground to talk about. And-

Speaker 0 | 18:48.355

after what so that’s key that’s a key point so we need bullet points here common ground you know we found common ground yes i got to talk about and then as we were talking a bit further she alluded that

Speaker 1 | 19:04.603

she was concerned that as we progress down this technology highway and all these upgrades that she was going to be basically not you know replaced Yeah, she’s going to be replaced. And I said, I’m sorry. I said, I’m not sure how you came about that conclusion, but

Speaker 0 | 19:27.365

I need you. But it’s true. You might be replaced.

Speaker 1 | 19:31.128

Yes, yes,

Speaker 0 | 19:32.049

yes.

Speaker 1 | 19:32.329

You might be replaced. However.

Speaker 0 | 19:34.131

I’m not going to lie. Yes. That’s fine. Imagine.

Speaker 1 | 19:38.314

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, she ended up retiring after a while. She ended up retiring because the workload that she used to have, because she took it all on, was still. But my point is, is that, you know, I made it clear to us like, hey, you know, I need you on this ride. You are an integral part of what we are trying to accomplish in this city, trying to upgrade these systems. And I need you part of my team. You will be included in every conversation I have. Everything that revolves around this system, you are an integral part and I need you. You’re almost like a second hand to the IT department. So, yeah. So that’s how I think empathy comes into play. You know, really just understanding that.

Speaker 0 | 20:21.965

Look, here’s the deal. Your job is going to be eliminated. I need you to help me eliminate your job, but we’re going to bring you on to the help desk.

Speaker 1 | 20:28.091

That’s right. Exactly.

Speaker 0 | 20:28.991

We’re going to, we’re going to, I mean, look, it’s inevitable. Okay. You can, you can, people are talking about chat. GBT is going to eliminate this. Okay. Yes. I’m sorry.

Speaker 1 | 20:40.401

Yeah. I mean, ultimately, yes, she did retire after about a year or two because the workload that she had. just disappeared i mean it was just amazing i just i saw the writing on the wall but but ultimately you know yes yes we all have to embrace this we have to embrace this somehow we have to be we have to be living in some kind of reality that you know uh otherwise i mean how do we evolve or you

Speaker 0 | 21:05.401

know live you know i i know there’s something about uh i took um i i had an opportunity to you you know, sell a portion of a company of, of one of mine. And I thought, you know, well, what am I going to do? Maybe I’ll take a year off, maybe I’ll do this. And, you know, so I kind of did, I kind of did take a year off to kind of evaluate it and think about it. And we did some of the, you know, podcast and the, I was doing the book thing. So I haven’t, I’m personally haven’t recorded as many. I have, I have some more hosts for the show, but the, what I found out was that I, personally, I do not thrive just kind of being complacent and just showing up and doing, I think anyone, if you can show up to work and not just do a job, there’s this certain mentality. And maybe it’s, maybe this, maybe this applies to some of the IT as well, but there’s a mentality of showing up, clocking in, clocking out and getting paid a, there’s this, there’s this worker mentality in that I think has been bred into. maybe 80 to 90 percent of the workforce in america maybe it’s the the fact that we went through the industrial the industrial revolution maybe it’s the fact that people worked uh you know you’re in detroit worked you know uh a um assembly line for years but there’s this and and i know it when i hear things like i got an extra week of vacation Or I got an extra this, or I got an extra that. And it makes it, a little light goes off in my head and makes me think, I don’t thrive in that type of environment. I really need to have my hands on and be involved in a business and help grow that business and everything. And I think once you do that, regardless of vacation time aside and all these types, I think, and one of the points that I like to coach. it leadership on or it people as they grow up in an organization or how do i get to the next level i say well don’t think about it as like a new position or a new title or i’m going to get more money or maybe i get an extra week of vacation why don’t you go if you really want that if you really want the next level why don’t you do uh an mbo or a management by business objectives why don’t you go to cfo or cceo or whatever it is cto and say hey I want this next role and you don’t have to pay me any extra. You don’t have to do any of this until I deliver X, Y, Z results. But if I deliver results, then I want to get paid. Yeah. And then you know that it’s all on you. It’s not like I’m going to get paid no matter what, whether I do well or not, I’m going to get paid based on the level of my, I don’t know. sweat equity people might not like that because then they might feel like well then you know everything just revolves around work and i’m kind of like a slave to the system but i’m the opposite of a slave to that i like that idea i think that you know i think a lot i think in some ways uh

Speaker 1 | 24:12.878

you know there should be more of that you know you you know perform for, you know, pay for performance essentially, you know,

Speaker 0 | 24:18.621

bonus structure, something, you know what I mean? Because if it is really going to be a business force multiplier, if we’re really, you know, and we’ll throw out a bunch of, uh, let’s have the, like, you know, what do we call that? Like, you know, buzzword bingo or something, you know, buzzword bingo, uh, digital transformation and, and a single pane of glass and, and, you know, um, If it is going to digitally transform an organization, if they’re going to be a business force multiplier, that’s and that’s what the IT leadership should be doing in the organization is aiding to that. Right. And helping other people and users do their job better. If they’re going to do that, why not link business success somehow to that from a matrix, from a metrics matrix, from each matrix standpoint?

Speaker 1 | 25:07.142

Absolutely. I think. you know, and I agree a hundred percent because, you know, while I love working in municipal government, you’re not a, you’re not in it for the money.

Speaker 0 | 25:17.268

So that’s a good point. How do we then apply that to, you know, nonprofits? Yeah. Right. Exactly.

Speaker 1 | 25:21.611

So because, right. Cause my point is, is that there was some, especially in Roswell, there was some significant savings that I was able to recoup, uh, from some bad, uh, decisions earlier, way earlier before I got there was basically recouped.

Speaker 0 | 25:37.856

Low-hanging fruit.

Speaker 1 | 25:41.298

This was two examples. Number one, I did an audit on our phones, our phone bills.

Speaker 0 | 25:51.365

Now this is close to heart because I was in telecom for like 20 years. That’s like an easy one.

Speaker 1 | 25:58.230

Oh, yeah. So I audited it and come to find out that we were being billed and we were paying because dummies. We were paying for basically a phone service to a building that no longer existed in the city.

Speaker 0 | 26:10.960

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 | 26:11.540

You know, and we got like 20 years of that. So we got like 20 years of that money back. But, okay, what did that do?

Speaker 0 | 26:18.185

They gave it back. Wow.

Speaker 1 | 26:19.807

Well, we could prove. We said, hey, look, you’re, hey.

Speaker 0 | 26:23.450

Usually in some stupid telecom fine print contract, they say something like, you know, well, anything over 12 months is your own fault, you know. Yeah. It had to have been AT&T knowing where you’re at.

Speaker 1 | 26:33.458

Yeah, it was. It was one of the big bills. We actually had them dig up. I had them dig up where the, I mean, if you can believe it, they actually had the actual disconnect notice when we said, hey. Oh,

Speaker 0 | 26:45.507

that’s different then.

Speaker 1 | 26:46.508

Yeah. We had the disconnect notice. It took me a while. It took me several months to get to it. But I recouped double digit thousands.

Speaker 0 | 26:58.478

There is a lot of that going on.

Speaker 1 | 27:00.139

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 27:00.952

I found one. I found one during COVID.

Speaker 1 | 27:04.013

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 0 | 27:04.453

Believe it or not. So during COVID, here’s a good one. And anyone that wants to call me and speak with me personally, I’ll help you do this. It won’t cost you a dime. I didn’t do this for you. But here’s one during COVID. We need to migrate to Microsoft Teams. Great. Click the button.

Speaker 1 | 27:19.039

That’s right. Click the button.

Speaker 0 | 27:20.120

Click the licensing button. This organization had something like, I think, 60,000 users. Between 40,000 to 60,000 users on Microsoft, whatever their general Microsoft licensing was, clicked the button to upgrade to Microsoft Teams. So basically, what does that mean? That means you have to pay $8 for the voice licensing SKU, and you have to pay another $12 to voice-enabled Teams. So we figured, $12, that’s $12. It seems like a good deal from a voice line perspective. So… i what is that math i don’t even know that math is ridiculous so we’re gonna do uh let me pull out my calculator here because i stayed back in first grade uh sixty thousand times 20 bucks basically is what that is right 120 is that is this a real number that’s 1.2 million dollars yeah per month wow times 12 is 14 million dollars per year and i said to this person i said um um you do realize there’s something called direct routing microsoft direct routing for teams where we can actually just you know pick a telecom provider and and and we don’t need to pay per user and we can do you know basically trunking that’s direct routing with teams and you how many of those 60 000 people actually need a phone number or need of live active call path. Exactly. You know, call back. I was like, let’s just, um, how about we just do, um, 10,000, um, active phone lines or call paths, you know? Right. And, uh, Oh, that sounds like a good idea. And how about we do that for. five dollars so now you’ve got ten thousand times five that’s 50 grand a month right not 1.2 million and then it was just like well um we’re just gonna ignore yes right and we’re done because um so believe it or not they’re still paying that wow wow so what that mentality in the it world you There’s, there’s a lot of wasted. To me, that’s, that is unacceptable. That’s unacceptable. That’s wasting money. It’s, we’re not going to acknowledge that at this moment because we have too many other things on our plate. So before we move on, we’re going to talk next about how we balance. I want to ask you, how do you balance all of these competing priorities? Because there’s a lot of, a lot of that money waste and a lot of that. type of thing happens when you grow into a larger organization and you don’t have time to like look for all these things i want to ask that but before we do that we have to go to this part of the show called what did you do before the internet was invented what did i do before the internet we got to go back in time let’s let’s just go back walk down memory lane because you know my son might listen to this podcast someday sure and um what did we do before the internet was invented for fun

Speaker 1 | 30:43.098

Ah, solitaire notes with cards. That’s right. Well, yeah. So before the, well, you know, we had computers, we had dial up. Um, and even before that, um, you know, well, you know, for me, you know, before it, you know, I was, I played outside, you know, I, uh, I was a model builder. I was in electronics, you know, I tinkered with electronics, um, you know, uh, build circuits and, you know, dumpster dive for. parts and see what i could build and you know things like that um so you know even get a you can’t even step away from technology can you oh i was so hard well before this you know so but as i played outside yeah played out well but as i’ve gotten older you know i leave technology at work and i do woodworking and i do oh

Speaker 0 | 31:31.022

you know honey do’s i do honey do’s but okay so what kind of woodwork so woodwork i’m i’m i’m a i’m a recent i’m a recent um i’m a noob when it comes to woodworking but okay i really i have a barn outside i’ve been thinking of converting the barn right now is this huge like workout facility with the jujitsu mats upstairs and everything i’ve got blown right hip now and i’m like um so i’m kind of maybe going through a midlife crisis of some sort but

Speaker 1 | 31:57.763

uh i did buy a saw stop oh beautiful well that’s the best saw you can buy yeah that’s the best side you can buy won’t cut your finger off yeah yeah well hopefully No, that’s no way. Hey, you know, they, they’ve proven that you’re not going to cut your finger off on that thing. So, yeah.

Speaker 0 | 32:16.831

So the owner came into, so I love woodcraft and I love woodcraft.

Speaker 1 | 32:21.473

That’s a beautiful,

Speaker 0 | 32:22.153

it’s just something, there’s just something about, yeah, it’s like, I think it’s probably like cooking for some, there’s a, you know, just kind of like turn off for a moment. This, this creative of this, this act of creating something or building something, even though. There’s something relaxing and therapeutic about it.

Speaker 1 | 32:42.865

Yeah. I just finished a shaker table. It was all traditional woodworking, mortise and tenon. There’s only four, quote unquote, screws in it, which holds the top to the frame. But everything else is mortise and tenon and joints. There’s nothing. There’s no other joinery to it. It was all mortise and saw. It’s a shaker table. It’s one of my nicest things I’ve ever built. But I built it. yeah tables i’ve built you know i built my wife some planters i’ve remodeled you know closets and pantries and all those kinds of things but um that’s where i’m at right now i just want to be able to do built-in cabinets oh yeah yeah you know there’s a lot of good things you know um it’s it’s like it’s like i.t you know okay i i built this little thing now can i go bigger and bigger and bigger and then until you get your you know, your confidence up. Oh yeah, I can do that, you know? And, uh, yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s, that’s the way it is. But if we want to go back before the internet, um, man, you know, uh, yeah, I mean, I’m the child of the seventies and eighties, you know, that, uh, you know, didn’t know about computers and video games, you know, prior to the, to the eighties. So, you know, we were the outdoor kids, you know, come home at, come home when the streetlights come on, um, you know, uh, nuclear family, you know, we, uh, uh, I was a military brat, so I moved around a lot. So I was always the new kid, always the newbie.

Speaker 0 | 34:10.148

How was that psychologically on you? Because my kids, we’ve moved like four or five times. They’re like, tell me we’re not moving again. Tell me we’re not moving again.

Speaker 1 | 34:18.932

I moved like nine times. I moved like nine times. For me, for me.

Speaker 0 | 34:24.394

How did it help you?

Speaker 1 | 34:25.995

In some ways, you know, in some ways, you know, I’ve, you know, it’s. It was good and bad. You know, I’ve seen, you know… I have friends that have never moved outside of the town they grew up in. I’m from Pittsburgh originally, and I have friends and family up there who have lived there their entire lives. No problem with that. But, man, I’ve lived all over, and then I went in the service myself and moved and traveled. I think it’s good. It was good. I see people, places, and things. It really helps out. It helps out with that, like we were talking about, the empathy, the understanding of where you’ve come from, where you’ve been. And what… you know, cultures and all kinds of things. It’s really helped out. It’s, you know, it was, you know, I’ve never, it helped my people skills along the way. Cause you know, IT people are accused of not being the most people-friendly in the world. Um, it, uh, and that was something that helped me work on that and really improve and, uh, really hone that skill down.

Speaker 0 | 35:27.290

So excellent. Beautiful. I want to talk about woodworking now, but I’m not going to. We’re not going to. All right. So the number of things. So one of the things that made me want to start this podcast years ago was I realized that there’s this IT hero kind of in an organization. When you look at. And I see the IT guy as the 100-level to 200-level college professor in a biology 101 class, where you come into the lecture hall, it sits 200 people. I went to Colorado State University. I can still picture the lecture hall right now, this big half-moon, oval-shaped, like, you know, half of a coliseum type, you know. uh you know with a professor way down there and if i get out some binoculars i can probably see him i’m seeing at the back yeah yeah and if i’m really brave i’ll sit up front and you know and anywho teaching from powerpoints well it wasn’t powerpoint but then he was teaching from the old old slides the clear papers that we put underneath that magnifying glass thing what was that oh yeah the head projector overhead yeah you know like it’s just laughable now you know writing with a marker you know yeah dry with that heat i don’t need to use a blackboard anymore um you know uh that’s what i imagine the it director in a company and and and all the students are the end users and how do we answer all of their questions and and make sure that they you know learn what they’re learning and if they don’t care and they just kind of doodle off on the side and click on things and get fished um you know so That’s how I see the IT director. They’re doing all these different things, and then they’ve got all these other competing tasks at one time. What do you do? Do you have any tricks of the trade or anything to manage the numerous onslaughts of different things going on? How do you sit down and get a picture of the whole organization, map it out?

Speaker 1 | 37:39.232

I mean, for me, it’s always been going back to that people skill. Whether I was the only person, the only IT professional, or if I had a team, I always pride in myself. And I go back to the example of the person in accounting. I’ll walk around, go sit and talk with them. Just kind of get to know the organization. I don’t know what accounting does compared to, well, I do know, but I don’t know what their issues are.

Speaker 0 | 38:11.590

And if you just-Sit there and be unempathetic. Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 38:17.613

And if you just sit there and listen to them and let them talk and, you know, hear what they have to say, you can kind of start pinpointing what issues are going on and where their bottlenecks are, or maybe what their fears are, what they’re concerned about. And then, you know, and their concerns in accounting are different than purchasing and different than the water department and different than the, you know, solid waste. And, you know, and even, you know, I listened to one of your… your podcast, we’re talking about PLCs over there and, you know, in, in a wastewater plant, water treatment plant, we have PLC. So then I have a whole, I have to shift gears and understand that, you know, I have a whole nother, you know, beast to, to tame here with security and all these things. So the needs of a solid waste are this big, but, you know, accounting and purchasing are this big in IT because they’re going to be more heavily users on that side of it. But that for me has always been, how do I do the task? So then I’ve got all this information and then we start dissecting. Okay. It was kind of, I don’t want to say easy, but for me, for the first two big things I did in New Mexico, I was coming into a place that had absolutely no technology. So what was my first task? Well, I got to build this infrastructure. I got to build a network. I got to build, you know, I got to put policies into place and okay, we’re going to build a network. And then what are we going to do with that network? And how does that conversation get started? And, you know, in the one town, you know, got started when the mayor came to my office and he says, how come I can call you in your office with three digits, but the water department across the hallway, I have to dial the full number.

Speaker 0 | 40:01.072

Well, they’ve got a different phone system.

Speaker 1 | 40:02.694

That’s right. There you go. And I said, well, they have a different phone system. He says, well, why do they have that? I said, well, sir, I just started, but I will get that answer for you. But then, you know, that conversation was, well, how can we improve that? How can we make a phone system for the entire city? How do we do that?

Speaker 0 | 40:19.958

We’re going to click the button. That’s right. We’re going to click the button. That’s right. We’re going to click the button. It’s called Unified Communications, and we’re going to do it.

Speaker 1 | 40:30.822

right how do i in the middle of nowhere new mexico of a town of 14 000 uh great would it be though if that was if that was the number one question they always ask you how do we unify that’s just that’s like i know what to do we’re gonna slam dunk that one but anyway that’s right okay okay yeah so you know it’s like okay so how do we do this and what do we do and so you know you’re you’re kind of sitting you know when you’re three hours from any major metropolitan area with with anything going on how do we do this you know And so, you know, that led to, okay, now we’re going to build a network. What’s the network going to look like? Well, how are we going to get it? Well, we’re going to put up fiber. Well, how are we going to get the fiber there? And, you know, this. And so then we built the fiber network and then we built the phone system on it. Then we built the network on it. And all these improvements kept showing up and going and these improvements. And so for me, that’s how the priorities. So you’re asking me about priorities. Well, for me, it was easy that I had to build those structures. And then we built from there.

Speaker 0 | 41:28.713

Foundation first.

Speaker 1 | 41:29.930

foundation first right that’s interesting so yeah so yeah it’s kind of like um layer one layer two layer three layer four absolutely absolutely so you know building that foundation um you know and then okay well our our you know our we have a department that is six miles from city hall that’s outside and it’s not economically feasible to run fiber out there how do we get it how do we put it into wireless fixed wireless on top of the big water man i miss

Speaker 0 | 41:59.610

This is great. I feel like it’s a test. I’m passing the test. Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 42:03.251

Yeah. So, absolutely.

Speaker 0 | 42:04.792

So, where was that located?

Speaker 1 | 42:06.612

In Artesia, New Mexico, which is south of Roswell.

Speaker 0 | 42:09.054

And that was how many years ago?

Speaker 1 | 42:12.835

Almost 15 years ago.

Speaker 0 | 42:15.096

How many miles away was the water tire?

Speaker 1 | 42:17.397

That was six miles from the point. So, I had four.

Speaker 0 | 42:22.439

Let me guess. Let me take a guess. Let me take a guess. Well, back then, we had Motorola. We had Dragon Wave. That was only for like a one mile shot. We had, oh, why can I not remember the name of that drum? So six miles, was it like a three foot or a four foot antenna?

Speaker 1 | 42:41.820

It was a big antenna. It was Proxim. We put a Proxim. Tsunamis.

Speaker 0 | 42:46.742

Okay, okay, nice.

Speaker 1 | 42:48.102

And they were, I mean, I’m telling you, we ran, you know, and it was, but again, you know, you run it.

Speaker 0 | 42:52.785

It’s faster than fiber. It’s faster than fiber. you know what i mean it’s faster what do you mean you can’t go past the speed of light you can’t circumnavigate the speed of light yes but the speed of light has to hit routers and have to go through routes it has to go underground it has to hit this as it that it slows down it goes back to this yeah with with line of sight boom straight shot immediately there yeah but it’s wireless i’m like yeah but you don’t understand the different the different um you know spectrums that these things work on i mean it’s not like we’re not talking like 5.4 gigahertz or something yeah i don’t know what the anyways um That’s why I did fixed wireless for a long time. It’s a past life. It was a very, very fun. It was a very, very fun job back in corporate in the corporate world. And, but, uh, we used to, you know, back in the day, the New York stock exchange, they were, they were, they were swapping out all kinds of fiber or at least having, you know, their primary links be fixed wireless because they could trade, um, stocks at like fractions of a millisecond faster, which made a difference.

Speaker 1 | 43:53.957

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 43:54.814

Anyway,

Speaker 1 | 43:55.914

that’s it. Yeah, that’s nice. So, you know, it’s so building these foundations. And then, of course, that same task came about in Roswell when I got hired in Roswell, when the city manager reached out to me, building out the network, you know, step by step by step by step and things like that. But how do I keep the multitask? So now all these tasks. So now you have all these people who are like, oh, man. This is cool. How do we do this? Man, you mean I can do this? And then they start getting interested or you have this group that is interested and others are like, no, I don’t want technology. And then you put these competing tasks in place. You look at them as a priority, as a group. And sometimes IT is the bus driver. Other times it’s a passenger and those tasks and those policies are dictated by the governing body. And they say, yeah, we want to do this, go forth and prosper. So that’s how we move forward with that. Navy, 1987,

Speaker 0 | 44:58.155

1991. Yeah. Were you on a boat for a while or what?

Speaker 1 | 45:02.939

Yeah, I was on a destroyer tender as a repair ship. A World War II destroyer tender with the first. Yeah, she was built during World War II, towards the end of World War II. I mean, still functioning still. And one of the, it was the first ship in the U S Navy to have a full compliment of women on board.

Speaker 0 | 45:28.017

So the that had to have been interesting.

Speaker 1 | 45:32.159

Yes. Very interesting. It was a very unique, you know, coming from a Navy, coming from a military family, a father who was retired Navy just several years prior to that, me going in you know, it was, it was different, but made it very interesting. You know, It was a repair ship. We could do everything from watch repair, woodworking, molding. We had a full complemented machine shop. I worked in the data processing department. So we were doing that.

Speaker 0 | 46:03.416

Okay. So let’s talk about it because it’s interesting how you have ships nowadays and how we get internet to them and various different things. Just again, back in time, what was the network and computer system like back then? When you say data processing. And this is 1987, and we’re going to get to the conspiracy theory here in a second because we have to. But 1987, what kind of data processing and computer speeds and navigation did we have back then?

Speaker 1 | 46:31.227

You will love this. So I get on board this ship, and here I am. I’ve taken some college, and I know all these computers. And I walk into that computer room for the first time, and there’s punch cards, and there’s ticker tape. And I was like, what? Like,

Speaker 0 | 46:50.517

wait a minute. On a naval ship.

Speaker 1 | 46:54.639

On a naval ship. Now, we had other processing going on there. But the first thing I see when I walk in that computer room is punch cards. And I was like, I looked over and I’m like, does that thing still work? They’re like, yep. Chunk. And start feeding it through. Why? My gosh.

Speaker 0 | 47:11.206

Why?

Speaker 1 | 47:12.927

That’s the technology. So. okay 1987 again right 1987 so so to continue so like when we would get underway when we were deployed before we get there before we before you go any further um that was 1987 yep i

Speaker 0 | 47:31.137

want everyone to hold a date in their head of 1969 this was 1987 so just keep going and this is on a u.s naval ship that was meant I’m sure we had money to spend on things to do things right. So keep going.

Speaker 1 | 47:50.750

So, yeah. So underway, the radio guys would come down with this bag, and it was ticker tape with just a bunch of a lot of punch holes in it, right? So we’d feed it through the system, and it’d suck in the data, and it puts out this data, just pop. And we’d have to go through and edit it and make it pretty and then put it into the computer system. So. This was before even live updates. So what I’m talking about is that, let’s say, you know, the cook takes, you know, 10 cans of soup out. Well, that inventory doesn’t get updated until the next night when we run the updates. So we would run an entire computer system update, and we would update the systems overnight. So we had no live updates until we ran it overnight. And we, you know. tape sorts and all kinds of you know where the data was coming to bang bang bang the network consisted of okay i had two systems and i would pick up these file cabinet size drawers you know imagine a file cabinet size of a drawer hard disk in the computer and in order to get it to the other computer system i’d have to turn it off lock the head pull it out shimmy across there and slide it back in turn it back on and then it would read it into the next system So you can imagine, you know, here we are on a moving ship. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 0 | 49:14.037

And what is all this doing?

Speaker 1 | 49:17.052

This is doing supply. This is doing data sorts for repair jobs. It’s doing payroll. It’s doing supply. It’s doing orders for whatever they need on the ship on our mainframe system. Okay. So then the second year, then the second deployment, we finally got PCs on board, DOS based. just computers they weren’t anything more for than glorified typewriters we were using word perfect in the old you know the old blue screen word perfect that um that i was asked to go and teach everybody how to use word perfect so i was pretty schooled in word perfect for a long time so

Speaker 0 | 49:59.724

that’s what was going on navigation systems and stuff on board did you have any idea of what was going on as far as navigation systems and stuff like that navigation on this ship was um a very um

Speaker 1 | 50:11.880

old you know it was a loran of some sort or what’s that i mean a loran of some sort nope no it was by the stars by the maps and uh we’re going that way you know that way yeah really yeah so the quartermaster to have this map you know we know we’re going here and be okay and we’ve got our surface radar we have a surface radar we’re non-combatant so we have a surface radar That’s all.

Speaker 0 | 50:36.188

Sextants and stuff like that. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 50:38.209

they’d be out on the signal deck with the sextant. And, you know, of course, we’re in contact with the other ships.

Speaker 0 | 50:45.195

Here’s my question. Yeah. Here’s my question. This is the, this is the, and I’m not, I am not saying definitively anything. I’m not definitively saying anything. I’m saying it’s a conspiracy section of the show.

Speaker 1 | 50:57.964

Sure.

Speaker 0 | 50:58.304

220,000. miles away round trip 440 000 miles okay how did we navigate our way to the moon and back i know 1969 without any flaws without any mistakes without any problems and my second question would be and i talked about this on the last show we’re gonna have to start bullet pointing this um Well, anyways, do you know anything? Are you a gun guy? Do you fire guns or anything?

Speaker 1 | 51:28.260

Oh, I’m a gun guy. Yes, I’m a gun guy. Yes, I have lots. Yes.

Speaker 0 | 51:30.681

So what’s your fastest, most powerful gun that you own, probably?

Speaker 1 | 51:36.483

I have a.308.

Speaker 0 | 51:38.283

Okay. So a.308. Any idea what the muzzle, the bullet speed leaving the muzzle of that gun is?

Speaker 1 | 51:44.285

I just know it’s reach out and touch someone. That’s about the way I look at that.

Speaker 0 | 51:47.706

That’s awesome. All right. So.223 assault rifle. I was looking that up the other day because I remember my dad had… 223 like back in the day i have those two yeah yeah and but i mean like 3006 i had back in the day yeah hunting you know and anyways but uh leaving the muzzle of the guns between somewhere between 3 000 to 3 500 feet per second so that’s the speed of a you know like remember better you know faster than a speeding bullet anyway so 3 000 3 500 mock six how fast is mock six which no plane can go which no plane on the face of the earth can go the fastest planting is an epic what f-15 f-16 well one time it was the uh sr-71 but right now it’s probably the if you know the f-15 or yes f-15 goes it goes mach 5.2 somewhere in that range okay right but mach 6 is 6 000 feet per second right so faster than a speeding bullet right re-entering the atmosphere in 1969 again you We just talked about 1987.

Speaker 1 | 52:52.504

That’s right.

Speaker 0 | 52:52.924

We talked about 1987 still navigating via the stars and stuff, which is supposedly one of the methods that the astronauts used to navigate around the moon.

Speaker 1 | 53:00.987

I remember that.

Speaker 0 | 53:01.887

Yeah. Was look out the window at the star. Really? Yeah. I’m just saying. I’m just saying, you know, please don’t insult my intelligence. I’m just thinking about this. Re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere in a. blunted object backwards triangular blunted object re-entering the earth’s atmosphere what speed was that going oh my gosh faster than the speed of bullet oh it was going faster than a speeding bullet for yeah i i don’t even remember i dare say it was faster than mach six speed of re-entry let’s just be accurate google speed re-entry um a polish you 11 apollo 11 i think or apollo 11 was the first one yeah all right let’s see apollo this is so unbelievable i just i’m sorry i’m just trying to think it’s got and the reason what slowed it down was the supposedly um the friction and we’ve got to keep because i mean we need this money coming into the government i mean we can’t stop Whatever this money is going for taxpayers, fine. Tell us it’s going to the DOD, wherever. It’s fine. Okay. This number is so unbelievable. It’s so unbelievable. Triangular blunted object reentering Earth’s atmosphere at 36,303 feet per second.

Speaker 1 | 54:31.436

I mean, how that thing didn’t just disintegrate.

Speaker 0 | 54:35.259

Yeah. i know a lot of smart phds engineers and stuff and i just you know i just asked my my son-in-law who’s he works for um well what i think is it b a b a d b e whatever the electrical the huge massive electrical company making you know he’s like literally like trying to blow stuff up with electricity like new new electrical plant panels and stuff i’m like how’s the new electrical plan it’s got blew up today you know anyways arced something you know so he plays with like crazy electricity i was like how um an object traveling at this speed how would you slow that down he’s like oh it would have to have a reverse engine there’s just no other way i was like how about three parachutes he laughed yeah yeah you know i was like oh but i’m just throwing that out there you were in roswald for a while we had to slow an object down that was going 36 303 feet per second which is way faster than a speeding bullet It’s how many feet are in a football field? 300,

Speaker 1 | 55:36.754

300. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 55:37.974

So it’s going, how many, I just want people to, I want people to wrap their brains around what we’re being told. And just because you watch something on TV, you know, the minister of affairs, you know, the, the, the, the, the, whatever the public or PR relations person for Hitler said, right. We’re just going to tell a big enough lie. We’re going to tell it over and over and over and over and over and over until they believe it. Okay. So 36,303 feet per second divided by 300. It won’t even allow me to do it without some weird. Okay. Divided by 300. 121 football fields per second.

Speaker 1 | 56:15.872

It’s amazing. Yeah. I agree.

Speaker 0 | 56:18.314

It did happen. It’s in 1969. Yeah. Let me remind you punch cards. Let me remind you no cell phones, no computers. Not to mention communicating 220,000 miles away when you replaced, we were working on POTS lines, that phone call to the moon via that little umbrella, which it was an umbrella.

Speaker 1 | 56:46.346

That’s right. It was. Via

Speaker 0 | 56:47.887

Nixon sitting in the Oval Office from one step above rotary dial via POTS line sent to AT&T, sent to Houston. Anywho.

Speaker 1 | 56:58.371

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 56:59.536

um please keep in mind latency jitter bandwidth bandwidth which didn’t exist they didn’t get done but it’s right was arpanet even out yet no arpanet was uh no no arpanet there was not even arpa nope so that will complete unless you have any comments that will complete our my section of no i i you know i’m fascinated with this i have gone down the dark i am telling you i have gone down the rabbit hole of this i have got a stack of books i am reading about the f1 engines the lift the lift capacity the weight everything the how the russians laughed at it and said there’s no way they did this they’re mathematicians and they were rocket scientists i talked about how we i mean there is we recruited some of the old like nazi rocket scientists because well you can either go to jail or you know work for the u.s for us right yeah um so anyhow yeah

Speaker 1 | 57:50.708

No, I agree. You know, I mean, that’s why, you know, when I walked on board that ship, I just, I did a double take and I stepped out. I was like, what the hell is this? I, I mean, I’m in supposedly in the greatest Navy on the planet and I’ve got punch cards. I’m like, wow.

Speaker 0 | 58:10.333

19. Well, yeah. 19 is in. We had at least Nintendo was out. We can’t, we at least, we had at least have, you know, can we at least have an NES on board running this thing?

Speaker 1 | 58:19.275

Yeah, we did. we did this uh second year i was already seeing apple 2c apple 2c should have been out by then i think or apple something well the apples were out because i was using those in high school yeah okay the 2e was already out but we got a nintendo on board uh uh in our um in

Speaker 0 | 58:34.980

the enlisted uh library space uh that we had on board ships yeah and again for anyone out there that doesn’t know what we’re talking about these computers you didn’t just turn on no you turned them on but you had to put a boot disk in first. There was no, like, turn a computer on and… And it’s just there. No.

Speaker 1 | 58:56.629

No, and these were on, and then once they were on, they were on. You didn’t turn them off. You don’t turn them off. You know, what? Oh, Raph, what do you mean you lost power? Oops.

Speaker 0 | 59:09.616

Can you stick a pencil in the back and reset that? Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 59:12.698

Router?

Speaker 0 | 59:13.859

What do you mean, router?

Speaker 1 | 59:15.684

Yeah. Hey, hold on. Here’s,

Speaker 0 | 59:16.964

here’s my network card. What’s a network card?

Speaker 1 | 59:19.685

Yeah. No network card. This was, this was even before BNC, you know, 10 base two, you know, there are 10 base T. I mean, this was way before that. So yeah, it was, yeah, it was different. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 59:32.809

Barry it’s this has been a pleasure. It’s been a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 | 59:36.290

Yeah. It’s been a lot of fun. I, man, I love it. You know, I hope it was beneficial.

Speaker 0 | 59:42.184

It was definitely entertaining for somebody. I hope, you know,

Speaker 1 | 59:44.785

I hope so. Yeah, I hope so too. I hope that it’s, uh, and I hope it’s beneficial. I hope somebody learned something from my, uh, uh, from what I can offer them. Um, and, uh, you know, yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 0 | 59:56.554

Any, um, any words of wisdom for anyone growing up in 19 nowadays that, uh, didn’t have to play with punch cards, um, anything.

Speaker 1 | 60:03.499

Diversify, just diversify. Don’t, don’t go down the single, single road, even though it’s. It’s they’re, they’re dangling the, the beautiful carrot, become a cybersecurity and you’re going to make a billion dollars, you know, do it, do it, do it. No.

Speaker 0 | 60:18.673

I’m still sick of cybersecurity. I’ll just be honest with you. I just, and I, I would, I, I just, I don’t know something about it. This depressing. I’m sorry. Cybersecurity guys.

Speaker 1 | 60:30.440

I mean, I’m, I’m mentoring. I am a mentor at one of the local universities and I’ve had two. two sets of students so far in cybersecurity. And one of the things that I, they come in, and then I start talking with them. They’re like, well, yeah, I tell them diversify. Okay. It’s good to know this because this is a foundational issue that you will have in IT, but please diversify.

Speaker 0 | 60:54.134

It’s interesting too, that you say that because, and we’ll end with this because usually the opposite is true. Usually like the riches are in the niches, as they say. You want to go kind of like, what is it? Thin, narrow and far, right? But no, not if you want to be like an IT leader and grow at least in the business world. If anything, maybe take some business courses or something.

Speaker 1 | 61:21.993

Yeah, absolutely. My undergrad is in business. My master’s is in MIS. So yeah, absolutely. You need to diversify. Submerge yourself in everything related to IT. businesses, companies, different types of companies, manufacturing. I’ve done pretty much everything in every pretty much type of industry. So I’ve seen it and done it. So it’s been a very diverse career field.

Speaker 0 | 61:53.450

Excellent. Barry, thank you so much for being on the show.

Speaker 1 | 61:55.651

Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank