Speaker 0 | 00:08.463

Hi nerds, I’m Michael Moore hosting this podcast for Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m here with Steve Cole, IT Manager at Clingspor Abrasives USA. Hey Steve, how’s it going today?

Speaker 1 | 00:18.172

Great, how are you?

Speaker 0 | 00:19.293

Very good, very good. I’m going to start off with our icebreaker segment that we always start off with. It’s Random Access Memories. I ask a question and then you respond with the answer that comes to your head first. Your first question is, if you could change one thing about current computers, what would it be?

Speaker 1 | 00:38.208

Oh, current computers.

Speaker 0 | 00:41.290

Can be anything.

Speaker 1 | 00:42.551

Yeah, I guess I come from more of the I love to assemble computers and, you know, kind of old school, put them together. And. And a lot of that’s kind of going, I don’t want to say going away, but the commercialized segment of IT and computers, you know, if you walk into Best Buy, you know, that’s not really heavily promoted a whole lot. Very true.

Speaker 0 | 01:10.486

We don’t even have like, you remember the computer fairs of the day, back in the day?

Speaker 1 | 01:14.588

Oh, yeah. You know, my brother used to work for Microsoft and they had the, I forget what they’re called, but basically it’s the camp. the code camps where you could go and learn coding and, you know, as kids, right. You could go do that. And I just think it, it helps with a lot of learning and understanding about the computer when you can actually open it up and, and see the components and understand how they work and maybe even mess up, you know, that’s fine. You’re just out a few hundred dollars, but you know, it’s, I appreciate the simplicity. It’s almost like when you’re looking at automobiles, you know, the newer automobiles, they make it almost impossible for the DIYer to change your oil. You know, 15, 20 years ago, it was a lot simpler to dig into your car to do that sort of thing.

Speaker 0 | 02:12.966

That’s very true. I don’t think I could change my oil. So even back in the day. Right. No. So, yeah. So the big change, the one thing you change about computer computers, it would just be that you you want them to be able to be messed around with again.

Speaker 1 | 02:31.454

Yes. Yeah. And and again, you know, I don’t want to knock any certain make. Yeah. And I won’t mention any any names. But, you know, the that’s kind of why I gravitate gravitated toward the PC side of things. is really just because I have that ability, you know, on the hardware side to really dig in. And yes, I know you can on the other side as well, but it’s just it feels a little bit more free form, if you will.

Speaker 0 | 03:06.273

Very true. Very true. And I do miss that as well. If you had to spend one day as a smart device, right, to be any smart device, what would what would it be?

Speaker 1 | 03:17.982

Oh, probably my wife’s phone. just because uh boy she uses that thing like crazy and uh you know i uh i mean i’m just trying to be silly but at the same time you know it is amazing when you think about where we’ve come uh you know where was it moore’s law you know uh things get smaller my favorite law by the way yeah you But, you know, it’s amazing the amount of computing power that is just in our hands. And yet we still, as humans, and I’m speaking about myself, we still complain about things, right? We have an entire encyclopedia, dictionary, world of knowledge at our disposal at our fingertips walking down the street, and we still find time to complain about it. That’s so terribly helpful. But yeah, you know, probably just if I was a smart device, I’d probably like to be a phone.

Speaker 0 | 04:25.602

There you go. I like that. You know, I was thinking about this and I was going to write examples and limit you because I’m like, they’re going to say phone, right? Or TV. I go, I was going to initially write this to say whether or not you could be a smart refrigerator or small, small bulb. But I said, no, I can’t do that. That would just be awful. trap you into those two devices.

Speaker 1 | 04:49.673

Right. Well, if I was a refrigerator, I wouldn’t have to go raid it in the night. So there you go.

Speaker 0 | 04:53.297

There you go. Here’s your final question of this segment. What is one perception of IT managers? that you wish you could change?

Speaker 1 | 05:06.184

For me personally, maybe it’s not so much IT managers. Well, let me first start off by saying, we all start from somewhere. At least for me, I can remember distinctly starting at the bottom of a totem pole and clawing my way, working my way up. And I think… It’s not so much that I want others to see and know that about me and manage or maybe other IT managers. But I want us as managers never to forget that where we came from. And because I think that being relatable and I think you had said that on one of your previous podcasts, being relatable is such an imperative quality in not just management, but just. in IT. You know, we, this is what I started to say before, you know, IT already has a stigma, right? There’s always already a thought with, you know, when you’re talking about like a company, for instance, other departments are like, well, I don’t want to call IT there. I’m not going to understand a thing they say, you know, they’re always talking above me, you know, there’s always that wall or between IT and the rest of the company. And I want… I want people to realize that there are those of us out here in IT that have come from that side of the business and have, you know, we are we can be relatable, I guess, is where I’m trying to go with that. No,

Speaker 0 | 06:46.597

and that makes so much sense, too. Even, I mean, in life, right? If you’re not able to relate to people, and that’s the whole point of communication and talking. It’s one of the reasons I absolutely love. doing this podcast. And I, you know, I was so happy when, you know, Phil contacted me about being a co-host on here because I absolutely love chatting with people and relating with them and figuring out, you know, what I have in common and what I can learn from folks all around. And you’re right on that. That is a good point. Being relatable.

Speaker 1 | 07:27.530

Yeah. Being relatable. And, you know, um, Full disclosure, I had no idea this podcast existed until just last week. And I’ve already listened to quite a handful of them just, you know, gleaning other insights. You know, I don’t know everything and I don’t claim to know everything, but you can always learn and, you know, graft more good information and good qualities that you learn from other folks. And again, not just IT, but just in life, you know. life lessons.

Speaker 0 | 08:01.575

I know. I totally agree. And glad to have you as a new listener. That’s amazing that you’re able to, to jump on there just last week and, and listen to a bunch of it. There’s a, it’s, you know, it’s a treasure trove of content on here. But I think we might be up to what, 200 something episodes. There, there is a free information. Yeah. It’s free training. Of course, it’s on IT and not just for IT professionals, but for business owners, executives, for anybody that wants to, you know, excel within IT. You know, this, you know, this can be taken in so many different ways. So I’m glad to have you on as a new listener and also on the podcast. This is this is great. So I have to ask. So I tell everybody I Facebook. sorry, except Facebook. I mean, LinkedIn, Stock, everybody, right? Prior to getting you on here, so I can know what to ask. And so as I was doing that to you, I came across the post in which I had to just put it up here. And I have to ask you, Fish3Steve0.

Speaker 1 | 09:16.935

Oh, wow. I’m trying to remember what is the date on that post?

Speaker 0 | 09:21.519

Oh, it’s probably old. It was like one of your earliest things, but literally it’s Fish… three, Steve zero. I believe you had a bad day out there someday.

Speaker 1 | 09:31.345

Oh yes. Okay. Yeah. I remember now. Uh, yeah. So my family, uh, on my wife’s side, uh, they live in Florida, uh, and, uh, they love the fish. Uh,

Speaker 0 | 09:46.691

a lot of people do. I’m in Florida. So a lot of people do.

Speaker 1 | 09:50.152

I, I like to fish, but I get very frustrated. very easy. And I think that was a day that, you know, I think my wife. was reeling them in and she probably wasn’t even baiting her hook. She was probably just throwing them in. They were coming out. And yeah, that was a very frustrating day. I remember that post now that.

Speaker 0 | 10:12.553

At Dissecting Popular IT Nerds, we expect to win and we expect our IT directors to win. And one of those areas where we know that we can help you win is internet service providers. As an IT director tasked with managing internet connectivity, few vendor relationships can prove more painfully frustrating. than the one with your internet service provider. The array of challenges seems never ending from unreliable uptime and insufficient bandwidth to poor customer service and hidden fees. It’s like getting stuck in rush hour traffic. Dealing with ISPs can try one’s patience even on the best of days. So whether you are managing one location or a hundred locations, our back office support team and vendor partners are the best in the industry. And the best part about this is None of this will ever cost you a dime. Tell us a little bit about Clingspore Abrasives USA and what they do.

Speaker 1 | 11:09.399

Sure. Clingspore Abrasives USA, we’re actually part of a larger global business, Clingspore, which is based out of Haiger, Germany. And they run and facilitate approximately… 36 facilities across the globe. The company has been in existence for quite a while. I’m probably going to get the number wrong. I’ve only been with the company just over a year, but I believe, if I’m not mistaken, the company is over, if it’s not close to 100 years old, it’s over 100 years old. It started off as a glue company. And… like way back and there’s some special that’s why they’re still around that’s right that’s right and there’s some beach over in europe where it’s like a certain sand and it’s got a certain coarseness to it and uh you know one of the clingspore family way back the ancestors they married the glue and the sand together and he came up with the sandpaper and uh Hence the word where sandpaper came from. Now, full disclosure, I knew nothing about sandpaper until I started working here. But so, yeah, Clinkspore USA, we operate out of Hickory, North Carolina. And we also help facilitate our, call them a sister company down in Tijuana, Mexico. And… We have approximately 400 to 450 employees. We have 100, maybe 150 office workers and factory workers, about 200 plus sales reps out in the field. The beauty of sandpaper is it really sells itself. And, you know, but… But the sales reps are out there, obviously, to put a face out there and to push the sandpaper, so to speak.

Speaker 0 | 13:34.473

You know, you had mentioned that you didn’t know much about sandpaper until you started working here. And then I started to question myself and going, well, I know that I know that they’re what sandpaper is and I know that it has different grades. But I go, maybe there’s more to know than that.

Speaker 1 | 13:59.353

Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s simplistic, but yet when you realize it’s used in every industry, some of our biggest customers are hospitals. I still have yet to understand why. We have a lot of automotive and Harley Davidson is one of our customers as well. Um, we have, uh, I, uh, I guess I’m allowed to say that. Uh, but yeah, so, you know, metalworking, woodworking, uh, really anything that requires, uh, polishing, sanding, uh, is going to, uh, require sandpaper or some sort of abrasive. Um, but, uh, yeah, it’s a, it’s a fascinating business. Um, You know, again, I’m on the IT side, not on the manufacturing or sales or anything, but, you know, being in IT. I kind of have to know a little bit about every corner of the business. So I’m not there yet, still learning, but it’s quite a fascinating business. And one of the reasons why I came to work there is the gentleman I work for, matter of fact, he just turned 24 yesterday. And he’s one of the clings for, you know. family. And, you know, he’s just, he’s a visionary. He’s, you know, got a lot of ideas and just kind of reminds me of like, I don’t want to say Steve Jobs, but just a very much, you know, he’s, he’s a forward thinker. You know, again, it’s sandpaper, but still. Well,

Speaker 0 | 15:55.548

but, you know, you said something here that was to me it got me right which was i need to know the business right because i gotta do it for the business so i need to know the business and and uh and this is such a a fundamental piece of how things should be uh done from an information technology standpoint um if you don’t know the business how are you supposed to run the it for it right i mean it’s you know it it it becomes backwards if you don’t. If you try to just work the technology and not hit the business portion of it, then you’re going to not align with the company’s vision and stuff like that. And I also love that you know about the history of this and you’ve started diving into this piece. You said, I’ve only been with this company for a year, yet a year in IT time is like seven. I mean, at this point, I mean,

Speaker 1 | 17:01.031

dog years,

Speaker 0 | 17:02.072

right, right. Right. I did in dog years. I think they’re about the same. So but yeah, so I mean, it’s interesting. So I went to the website. Right. And, and, and you’ve got, you know, right on the bat, there’s a there’s a catalog. Right. You know, you’ve got videos hosted on here, you can, there’s whole promotion and pieces and stuff like that. It’s a lot of stuff. There’s a cart. So people ordering from here. So already we have I.T. just all over the place. Yeah. Tell us about some of the and you have to you don’t have to just leave it at Clinkspore. You can talk about other experiences you had, too. But let’s talk about some of your challenges that you faced from an I.T. perspective.

Speaker 1 | 17:56.523

uh you know with some of these things you can use clinkspore if you want it it’s a it’s a good one sure uh i i’ll probably you know just more of a generalization because i’ve i’ve noticed it pretty much everywhere i’ve been it’s hard to find good people and and again you know good good is subjective but what i mean by that is and i’m not you know trying to you know pat myself on the back or by saying this but I pride myself in kind of some of the things you had said. When I join a company, you know, I’m going to be at the company more than I am with my family. And so, you know, just by the nature of working, right? But I need to invest and I need to, you know, talking about going, learning about the business. They’re not going to come to me. They’re not going to come to me and say, hey, Steve, let me offer you. Let me share with you how this works. I need to go to them and take the bull by the horns and roll my sleeves up. And maybe that’s going out on the floor for a day and spending the time with the people that ship or the people that make the product. That goes a long way. And I know we’re kind of going off a tangent of IT. But. It all matters to establish a foundation of what we’re trying to build. And, you know, because it’s not IT versus the rest of the departments. It’s Clingspor. It’s any of the other companies I was with. It’s, you know, we’re all trying to do the same thing and we all need to work in concert together. But I think it’s hard now boiling it down to more like the technological side of things. You know, like… I think it’s, you know… Sometimes when you’re riding in the car and you’re hearing on the radio these commercials for a fly-by-night computer learning, you know, learn this in three days and you can put it on your resume and you’re an expert now. These classes you can go to. And I think, and don’t get me wrong, you know, there’s a place for that. But I think giving people… The idea, not everybody’s built for IT, right? You have to have a certain temperament for it. You have to have, to me, a certain aptitude for it.

Speaker 0 | 20:35.680

That’s true. That’s true.

Speaker 1 | 20:37.862

And people look at it as like a quick money-making, oh, if I’m in IT, I can earn money, right? Well, I’ve seen people realize real fast that, oh, man, I shouldn’t have changed careers. Then other people like… They thrive because they focus on the actual, you know, the meat of what it is about.

Speaker 0 | 21:04.968

Well, it’s like and I’m paraphrasing because I can’t remember the exact quote, but that Citizen Kane, where he goes, you know, if if all it’s not it’s not hard to get rich if all you want to do is get rich. Right. You know, you know, you want to make money. and be really unhappy, then that’s very simple. Pick a job that pays a lot of money, but you get no satisfaction from. But I think what you’re saying, the majority of people that probably want to be out there want to have some pride in what they do. They want to, yeah, we definitely want to make money, but we also want to enjoy what we’re doing and believe in it. So, yeah, I think I think it’s a good point. You mentioned something, too, that’s really interesting about good people. Right. We’re not it’s hard to find good people. I think that was what she said. And I want to jump back on that. I want to pick that apart. Um, what when you say it’s hard to find good people, you know, in your head, you probably have a. here’s what I check for, right. When I go to hire somebody and I want to pluck that out of your head and put it on this podcast.

Speaker 1 | 22:34.278

Yeah. Well, uh, all right, let me put my interviewer’s hat on. Uh, no, I mean, you know, it’s, it’s some common sense things. Well, well, I would hope it’s common sense, but you know, number one, um, if you write something down on your resume, Because a resume, again, it’s a way for you to get in front of the interviewer. So it’s the best representation of yourself. And so when you’re seeing a lot of misspellings or you claim that you’ve done something, but you can’t answer it, technical question. So probably the integrity factor.

Speaker 0 | 23:21.061

Yeah, big one.

Speaker 1 | 23:22.546

uh integrity uh to me that the just having a an aptitude for problem solving uh i think you know it as a whole when it you know how do you define it well it’s like saying if i if i said uh you know i work at the hospital right well that could mean a lot of things am i the janitor am i the the orderly am i the doctor am i the lawyer right there’s a lot of you know so you know in it there’s a lot of little facets to it there’s a lot of avenues and directions you can go so but i think the core of what we do in the information sector is problem solve and and so if you have a You can tell right away when somebody has just a knack for that. I think confidence. I can’t tell you how many times, and I can’t believe I’ve been mending this on a podcast, but I don’t know how many times somebody’s asked me a question. I’ll be like, yep, I’ll be right on that. And I’ll turn around and I’ll say, I have no idea what he’s talking about. But. The difference is I’m like, okay, I have, like, for instance, I don’t know anything about X, Y, Z, but over the weekend, I’m going to learn it and I’ll be an expert by next week.

Speaker 0 | 25:01.564

That’s so true, though. And that’s such a big piece that I learned earlier on. And I was lucky to work with some fantastic people that kind of taught me that. But there’s this great guy that taught me the very same thing you mentioned. And it was, listen, you’re not going to know everything. And that’s fine. But the difference.

Speaker 1 | 25:29.272

is is that you will know it yep and or having the the fortitude to you know the problem ends with me exactly yeah yeah to say you know it’s the that’s the whole quality assurance problem right the the uh i forget exactly what it’s called but you know if you see if you’re walking down the hall and you see a piece of trash laying on the floor oh well somebody else will get that right and keep walking well, you recognize the trash, you are responsible for that quality. And I think that that’s what we’re missing. And I look for that whenever I’m interviewing, whenever I’m meeting people, even outside of IT. That matters to me.

Speaker 0 | 26:19.958

You want the person that’s going to put the shopping cart back when nobody’s looking.

Speaker 1 | 26:24.099

Yeah. Yeah. And that doesn’t mean we’re all perfect either. You know, there, there are days when, you know, it’s pouring down rain and I don’t take the time to put the shopping cart back. But, uh, you know, but I think it’s, it’s, it’s the, the, you know, it’s, it’s you as a whole, right. It’s, it’s, it’s, uh, you know, uh, are you, you know, maybe I didn’t see the trash, but next time, uh, oh man, I, I, I’m, I’m going to pick it up this time. And I think the integrity character, again, we’re going back to that aspect. And to me, that matters. You mentioned something about somebody that had mentored you or somebody that had given you good advice. I, as a manager, am only as good as the people I put around me. If I’m upholding this standard for myself, then I would want to have some similar like-minded people around me. And so, again, I’m not looking for perfection, but I am looking for people who want to head that direction.

Speaker 0 | 27:45.254

It’s amazing to me when we describe… Uh, and I’m very similar with a lot of the items that I look for, uh, when I hire and what’s, what’s amazing to me is of all the things that we’re asking for, none of that is technical and, and, uh, and it’s, it’s, it’s the same concept when I go and hire as well. None of it ends up being technical and, uh, um, you know, you got to have the generic technical requirements for the job, but. But really, that’s not what’s going to impress on an interview. It’s going to be usually character and stuff like that. And yes, you can line up with all of the line up all the skill sets and dots and answer all the right questions technically. But if you don’t answer the if you if you don’t show your true character and ethics and show that show that up front, then no one’s going to even care about the technology.

Speaker 1 | 28:44.371

Right. And. And let me just throw one more in there. Honesty. I think if you’re asked a technical question under your interview and you don’t know the answer, say you don’t know, but I’ll find out. And let me give you an example. I remember I was in an interview and I was trying to work my way into. more of a mid-level, senior-level developer position. And I was asked a question about SQL joins and what’s the difference between… Now, for a lot of your listeners that are going to hear this question, they’re going to go, well, duh, that’s an easy question. But at the time, I was flustered and didn’t… Just my mind went blank. But I was asked about what’s the difference between a write join… an inner join and a left join. And I was like, oh man. And I knew it, but it just didn’t come to me. And well, I thought I messed that interview up. And so I, they called me back. I was kind of surprised actually. Uh, but I had studied up on it and, uh, there was another person who was asking me the questions and, uh, said, yeah, you, uh, I want to ask you this question again, right? Join, enter, join, left, join. And I spouted off the answer right away. And they, and they were, they were very impressed with that. They said, you know, um, There’s a lot of people that come through here that they would just, they wouldn’t take the time to do that. And again, I’m not trying to say anything about myself, but that, you know, that drive to say, you know what, I don’t know, but I’m going to know. Or, yeah, I messed up. It’s not so much the mess up. It’s what you do after the mess up. That, to me, that’s what matters.

Speaker 0 | 30:52.009

Yeah. I think you nailed that, actually.

Speaker 1 | 30:57.176

And, you know, because look, we all mess up, you know, but it’s, it’s how you, you learn from your mistakes. And I think, you know, I learned a valuable lesson about embracing failure. Now you have to, you know, be careful promoting this because, you know, some people will take it to the nth degree and, you know, oh, I can, you know, I can push this big red button. No, don’t do that. But embracing failure to the fact that, you know, okay, yeah, you shouldn’t have run that script at that time and deleted the user table. Yes, you shouldn’t have done that. But let’s learn from it. Let’s see how we can make it, you know, so it’s not as easy to do something like that.

Speaker 0 | 31:51.454

Making mistakes is. it is the way we learn that is it is unfortunately it’s the best way to learn you know as long as you do what you said which is learn from the mistakes you yes i agree with you embrace the mistakes when you make them and and dive into it problem solve how can i how can i uh put barriers in place to make sure i don’t do this again but i remember i remember being uh um setting up a a monitoring program And I was talking to the team and I told them, I said, listen, we’re going to start this monitoring problem. It was a monitoring program. And when we do, every time there’s a problem, I want you to look at why, you know, and then turn around and put a put a monitor there for it. You know, and let’s see if we can keep self healing the monitors. And, you know, we had outages that were stacked up. And they just started resolving themselves after a while. And all the auditors went down and made. And it was just because we didn’t have any process in place. So if you’re if you’re making a lot of mistakes, right, throw some guards there for yourself. Start learning from them and you start making less mistakes. Never going to know. I’m never going to be perfect.

Speaker 1 | 33:12.660

Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, we’re always trying to fix the symptoms. And but until you start looking at the actual problem. Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 0 | 33:23.700

I completely agree. And I love the I love the way that you describe the hiring process and in such detail. And I hope that the folks listening can take that to heart and and change their interview questions to to really kind of pivot towards those those qualities, because I have found and I think you probably have. since you’re saying this is if you find the right people, uh, from a, from a, um, ethical, uh, honest and, um, integrity standpoint, uh, these are the types of people that are going to want to learn. They’re going to want to put their best foot forward and you’re going to get the most productivity out.

Speaker 1 | 34:12.548

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep.

Speaker 0 | 34:14.990

Um, you know, the, uh, um, When I when I go when I went through some of your stuff on LinkedIn, I came across this this quote. And I don’t know if I you know, it says it’s from Albert Einstein. But, you know, you can never you can never trust anything on the Internet anymore.

Speaker 1 | 34:35.716

That’s right.

Speaker 0 | 34:36.797

So if it’s not, you know, don’t blame me. But it’s a good quote. Regardless, stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.

Speaker 1 | 34:50.240

Yeah. There’s a phrase, and I’m probably going to get it wrong. that one of my first managers in IT always used to say, and it just stuck with me, and it was hilarious, but it’s so true. You know, don’t be the solution in search of a problem. And I was just, I mean, I laughed at first, but he was looking at me, he’s like, I’m not joking. I was like, oh yeah, okay. But it’s so true. You know, sometimes, you know, now An IT project, especially a software project, it’s never done, right? It is always work to be done. There’s always upgrades. It’s never going to be finished. But that doesn’t mean you always have to, you know, fix, you know, problems that aren’t there. And sometimes when we inject our, oh, this is cool. I want to do this, man. And, you know, we inject more problems than what we should have. So again, that goes back to understanding the business. You know, if, if, you know, I was listening to the gentleman from last week who worked with Excel sheets as a way of, you know, earning trust with his coworkers. And, you know, while I don’t agree with having all these data connections with my Excel sheets everywhere, you know, don’t. to automatically, you know, create a cliff event and remove all that from those people, you know, that that’s going to be, that’s going to be a huge problem. You know, again, I was, you know, I was trying to, Oh, I’m going to fix this. No, you just, you just created a big rift between all those people in, in it. And that’s the very stigma that you’re trying to fight.

Speaker 0 | 36:49.873

Yeah. It’s a good point. You know, if you’re, you know, you shouldn’t, And this goes back to earlier what you said. It’s not a battle. It’s, hey, what are you trying to do? And how about you help me make it more efficient?

Speaker 1 | 37:05.790

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 37:07.331

Right? Yeah. I mean, you know, I think we’ve all been, we’ve all visited finance and seen how they use Excel and just been baffled how it works. And just been like, how is this not a problem? program. I don’t get how is this not falling apart?

Speaker 1 | 37:28.181

Yes. Yes. I know that in the obscure access program that somebody has in the corner office and you don’t know about it until it’s too late. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 37:39.886

I’ve designed my entire business process around Outlook and I need you to take these hundreds of thousands of emails and make them run quicker.

Speaker 1 | 37:52.111

Oh, yeah. Oh, and it’s Outlook. 2010, by the way. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 38:01.211

Sorry, I’m the only one that’s allowed to use Lotus Notes, and I’m going to have to keep using it.

Speaker 1 | 38:06.933

Okay, now you’re dating yourself.

Speaker 0 | 38:08.754

I know.

Speaker 1 | 38:12.375

Oh, man. There were some good things about Lotus Notes, but I’m so glad I’m not using it anymore. That was such a nightmare.

Speaker 0 | 38:23.248

The greatest thing about Lotus Notes is that I didn’t have to use it for very long.

Speaker 1 | 38:28.731

There you go.

Speaker 0 | 38:32.473

Microsoft eclipsing it was fantastic.

Speaker 1 | 38:35.594

Yes, I applauded that.

Speaker 0 | 38:37.235

Well, in true fashion, we talked a little bit about the old stuff. Let’s move to our segment, IT Crystal Ball, which completely takes that and says instead of going… looking at the old and the past, let’s look into the future of IT and where it’s going. Let’s talk about, you know, we talked a lot about where we were. And even in the beginning, we had talked about what would you talk about when about the computer? What would you change? We even referenced, hey, well, you know, I would love to tinker around more of the thing, and it just doesn’t allow me to do that anymore. And We’ve seen that progression. Is this something that we’re going to see a continued progression towards? Less and less tinkering? More, here’s the device, don’t mess with it?

Speaker 1 | 39:37.784

I think for certain things, yes. I think that’s going to become more and more of a thing. I still think there’s enough of a, I guess I’ll call it a hobbyist segment. where that you’re going to have a revolt if they ever. really fully do that. But, you know, and I understand. I mean, you know, when you look at the big picture, I understand why it’s moving that direction. You know, it’s because, you know, if you look at your tablet or phone, for instance, you know, we used to be able to change our, well, if you have an iPhone, you used to be able to change batteries. Now you can’t even do that.

Speaker 0 | 40:24.689

I don’t think I… I have an Android and I can’t even do that on my phone.

Speaker 1 | 40:27.771

Yeah. So, I mean, it’s like, you know, again, they’re wanting to make it simple. I’m using air quotes. Simple. But I think, again, you know, are they searching for a problem? I don’t know. You know, but I would say certain things are headed that direction, but I don’t. I don’t think you can remove it completely. It’s just like, I don’t think you’ll ever remove paper. You know, everybody wants to go digital and, you know, be good to the environment. And I get that. But I don’t think you’ll ever totally get rid of paper.

Speaker 0 | 41:10.127

It’s funny. I was in a fun story. I was actually sitting in my office one day, and this is a previous company. And the COO. walks in and we’re chatting and we were chatting for a good five minutes until he looks at my desk and goes, why, why is there no paper on your desk? He goes, I, I, there’s nothing. There’s no paper or anything. He looks at me and I look at him. I go, aren’t you working? Aren’t you like spearheading a project right now, uh, that I’m helping work on called, you know, digital transformation. Uh, right. I go, why would I put. paper on my desk i’m all digital man and he just started it was just it was a good it was a good uh good time between the two of us but but you know uh but here’s here’s somebody that uh clearly and i’ve walked i went into his office before stacked with paper everywhere right um you’re right some people just love paper and having that physical feel of paper and you I’m not one of those people.

Speaker 1 | 42:23.091

Yeah. Yeah. I’m kind of both. It depends what it is. Like if it’s a good book, you know, it’s just something about, you know, it’s just something about opening up a book and smelling the pages and, you know, going to the bookstore and whatever. But if it’s like a technical paper or something like that. Yeah. I don’t, I,

Speaker 0 | 42:49.362

rather read it on my phone or or the computer now i i agree with you um there’s there’s really nothing that can uh um actually uh you know replace a good book i actually bought uh um my daughter a book she’s really interested in reading uh the specific genre and i said you know what i said that i have uh i read this one book and it’s really good and i uh um had read a few excerpts from it and she was like you Oh, that does, that does sound really awesome. So I just, uh, you know, I ordered her the hardcover book from Amazon and said to her, like, here you go. And, uh, um, you know, and, uh, I was very happy that she, she’s like, I actually like to actually read and read the books. I’m like, oh, I raised her right.

Speaker 1 | 43:37.397

There you go. There you go.

Speaker 0 | 43:39.899

No, that that’s good. So, well, let’s, so, you know, it’s interesting because you bring up this, um, the hobbyists, right? Um, so. it seems like there’s a portion of it that is moving away from the hobbyists, so to speak. And, and they’re moving towards standardizations, something non-customization and stuff like that, which is normal. I think, right. That’s, you know, the, you know, when you get away from that customization, you can mass produce, you can send things out, you can have less problems. But you also lose the that little gem of, you know, the the thing that made it cool, so to speak. I don’t really know. You know.

Speaker 1 | 44:27.911

Yeah, no, it definitely. Well, I guess, you know, I’m really speaking for myself and all this, you know, I.

Speaker 0 | 44:36.359

Well, you’re the guest on the podcast, so you can do that.

Speaker 1 | 44:39.902

Well, I guess that’s fair. You know, I grew up. You know, I was born in the 70s, grew up in the 80s, got married in the 90s. So you kind of know my age roughly. But I remember distinctly the day that my dad. bought a Commodore 64 and he had nowhere else to put it except in my bedroom. And that was it. You know, I was in the third grade. I remember distinctly, uh, you know, and, and yeah, at first it was fun to play the games, but, uh, I was, I was in there. I can’t explain to you what, well, maybe you understand being in this, in this field, but I was more interested in how it worked. What? how did they, how did they do this? How did they get those pixels to move on the screen? How did they, you know, so I, I was writing, you know, a lot basic, you know, in fourth, fifth grade and, you know, learning, you know, about peaks and pokes and, you know, all those, you know, all my Commodore 64 friends out there know what I’m talking about. Load star comma eight comma one. So, you know, to me, I guess it’s kind of ingrained in me, the tinker, the hobby side of things. And really, you know, my venture into IT, it never really, I never aspired to do it as a career. It was a hobby. It was a passion of mine that I wanted to do on the side. And actually, I stopped myself from getting into IT because I didn’t want to tarnish my. passion. And it was my brother who said, the one I told you who was working for Microsoft some years ago, he had said, man, why don’t you move into a career in programming and IT? And I’m like, I don’t know. I was putting it off, putting it off. And I was like, all right, fine. Because everywhere I’d been, I… you know, I aspects of it always found me, you know, everybody, you know, it was like, Hey, can you, can you format the spreadsheet? Hey, can you set up this access database? Hey, can you do this? So I, you know, just, uh, one thing led to another. I’m so, so when I talk about the tinkering and the hobbyist side, it’s probably I’m saying that because that’s me. And I don’t know how many more of me there is out there. Uh, I know there’s still quite a few, but the whole aspect of how does that work? How does the chip know to differentiate between computing the math versus the rest of it? Just all the aspects of it is fascinating to me. I guess I don’t want that. to die it’s nostalgia to me i don’t know if that makes sense but uh well i think you know you mentioned what you’re mentioning is a genuine curiosity about the technology and

Speaker 0 | 48:13.212

what and what that you know brings upon which is that that hobbyist mentality of wanting to tinker and understand more um you’re a problem solver yeah You you want to and no matter how much you try to fight destiny, it’s going to be pushing you in the IT realm. You might as well just go with it. The IT in the future. Right. The question is, will that hobbyist live on? And I think you answered the question because you basically brought it back to creativity. And. creativity uh never seems to die with uh uh the human population yeah that’s so yeah you know i was thinking about this yeah i actually think about some odd things from time to time but uh

Speaker 1 | 49:12.427

you like if if you know there was a you know god forbid some sort of an apocalypse or whatever and you know there’s no electricity and there’s no computers and I’ve often thought, okay, well, what’s going to happen to the IT segment? Will we thrive, survive? And I think to myself, well, of course we are. The computer is an extension of that creativity and that problem solving. It’s an easy way for us to express that. Just because you remove electricity and the computer itself, that problem solving is still there. that you know the computer isn’t isn’t what made it happen it’s it’s you you know you’re the problem solver not the computer so in the apocalypse remember everybody grab a nerd because you want them to help you troubleshoot things absolutely yeah and make sure make sure if you see all the nerds running one way you run the same direction

Speaker 0 | 50:28.174

nerds i’m michael moore and uh been host of this podcast for dissecting popular it nerds with steve cole it manager at clingspore abrasives usa steve thank you so much for coming on and having a great great conversation uh uh love

Speaker 1 | 50:44.834

to have you on again great thank you so much