Speaker 0 | 00:08.842

Hi, nerds. I’m Michael Moore, hosting this podcast for Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m here with Josh Kitchen, owner of Mountain View IT. How are you doing, Josh?

Speaker 1 | 00:18.309

Doing good. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 0 | 00:20.591

Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s time for our icebreaker segment. We call this Random Access Memories. I ask a question and then you respond with the answer that comes to your head first. Your first question is, how many monitors is too many monitors?

Speaker 1 | 00:38.334

Five.

Speaker 0 | 00:39.374

Five. Now, let me ask you a question. Why did you say five? Because I saw that come out of your head like in a media. You’re like, five. Got it. That’s the one.

Speaker 1 | 00:51.721

I had one of my employers, a guy had five. 20 inch T monitors and, uh, just how he had them arranged. It made it feel like, no, you, this is too many. You need, you just get bigger monitors and go down to two.

Speaker 0 | 01:13.309

I like that. Uh, maybe just get to like, uh, 80 inch, uh, TVs and just connect them up.

Speaker 1 | 01:19.752

Yep. Exactly.

Speaker 0 | 01:23.514

All right. Okay. So another one, not. What’s your favorite browser or does it not matter?

Speaker 1 | 01:32.249

Oh, tough. I think I prefer Firefox, mostly because I find it less of a resource hog.

Speaker 0 | 01:43.312

Interesting. Interesting. Personally, these days, I used to use Chrome a lot. And before that, it was Firefox. And or. The only time I used Internet Explorer was to download Chrome or Firefox.

Speaker 1 | 01:58.798

Chrome or Firefox.

Speaker 0 | 02:02.160

But then lately I switched over to Edge, and it’s been pretty nice too. So I don’t know. I have a hard time. Right now it’s Edge, it seems to be the thing. But yeah, I’m sure I’ll change my mind. They’ll come up with something new.

Speaker 1 | 02:20.333

Yeah, different functionalities. caused me to switch between them.

Speaker 0 | 02:28.445

All the time. And you know what? It seems like they’re always kind of suddenly competing with each other on how they’re doing these things, right? You know, they come out with these, we’ll group the tabs and we’ll, you know, we’ll put this, Edge now has like a calculator built in to the, like all the regular tools, you know, built into the sidebar, plus the Bing AI that’s built in now to it. So, you know, but I’m like, I can still just access the… calculator on the computer so i don’t know why i have to do it all in the browser but um here’s your here’s your last question here microsoft used to have a helpful paper clip named clippy do you think they should bring them back or

Speaker 1 | 03:09.745

just leave them in whatever shelf they put them in i’m all for bringing clippy back uh that was one of the fun tools that i uh well

Speaker 0 | 03:22.576

you just get in trouble messing with but uh definitely he can come back i i hear you i actually i’m a fan of i’m a fan of clippy too um i miss him i wish they would bring him back it used to if you go back i i think they had a i think it was before that they had a dog right yes yeah yes yep it was it was the clippy it was a dog and if you want to go further back It was they came out with an operating system called Microsoft Bob. I don’t know if you remember that. But it was like if you know Bob, then you used it. You thought it was hilarious.

Speaker 1 | 04:04.704

But yes, it was.

Speaker 0 | 04:09.245

All right. Well, you know what I’m interested in? You’re an you’re an owner of Mountain View IT. Tell us really quickly, what is Mountain View IT?

Speaker 1 | 04:22.529

Mountain View IT is a full-service IT company. We manage wireless networks. We’ll install cable. Here in Anaconda, Montana, of all places, I’ll connect boilers to Wi-Fi. But yeah, so people can remotely control the temperatures of their house in the wintertime.

Speaker 0 | 04:52.824

Wow. I guess, well, that’s actually pretty nice. You get it to where you want it. So when you get home, it’s all good. You don’t have to like… be uh be freezing cold when you walk in and shivering yep yes uh-huh we we rarely want to run into that problem here in florida usually it’s the other way around usually we’re we’re very hot actually it’s so funny too because i actually wear a um i i actually wear a coat inside most of the time because it’s always freezing inside especially when you go into work and it’s like you know big building and stuff you walk in and they just crank the air all the way down well all the way up which in me you know takes the temperature all the way down and and so you’re in florida all the time i have to have a coat because it’s every but i have a coat on the inside not when i go outside it’d be yeah 90 degrees out uh humidity at you know 87 percent and uh you know We’ve got our stuff on there. Well, that’s pretty cool. Do you find a lot of… I’m sure a lot of people love that.

Speaker 1 | 06:07.672

Yeah. They have a lot of Airbnbs in the area. And so they like it for that as well. Guest registers says they’re going to show up at 6, 8, 6 p.m. House can be at temperature when they arrive.

Speaker 0 | 06:27.973

so it’s I never I’ve never been to Montana I have a good friend that um it comes from Montana and they swear by it they they think of uh they’re like I love Montana so I have to visit sometime um if I were to visit Montana where where would be the best place to visit what Western Montana uh I there’s Glacier National Park um part

Speaker 1 | 06:56.721

about three hours away is yellowstone um so i i would say right here in anaconda montana because it’s uh three hours to glaciers three hours to yellowstone you can take about a three hour trip to idaho um it’s

Speaker 0 | 07:15.231

kind of central yeah i’m sold because i you know yellowstone is one of the places that i uh i want to visit yeah before the you know super volcano explodes the uh no but i mean i yellowstone is just it looks so beautiful uh to me it’s always a place where i’ve always wanted to go and travel uh to and stuff like that i’m sure you’ve been out there several times um but uh it’s just montana just looks beautiful absolutely beautiful yeah when you think of the the western movies and stuff um you can you can think of montana that

Speaker 1 | 07:54.605

At least in the, uh,

Speaker 0 | 07:56.306

the way to the sunset.

Speaker 1 | 07:59.708

Yep.

Speaker 0 | 08:00.728

I love it. I love it. So what, um, you know, what, uh, you know, it kind of energized you to start your own business.

Speaker 1 | 08:10.354

Really? I, I love the idea of helping people. Um, and here there is a lot of older, uh, people that. older ranchers and stuff that aren’t very tech savvy and really just wanted to provide them with the opportunity to not be as frustrated to help them out. Because I was seeing a lot of them being like, oh, this stupid technology, I can’t do anything. And so just being there to help them out kind of drove me to start it. Wanted to have a little bit more say in my hours, maybe who I was assisting and stuff like that. But yeah, that’s really what drove me to start it is the idea of wanting to provide some help, support, service to people here in the area.

Speaker 0 | 09:18.804

I absolutely love that. And. I was looking at some of your LinkedIn experience and stuff, and I saw the ranch at Rock Creek. Was that an actual ranch?

Speaker 1 | 09:33.634

It is. It is a one-in-the-world opportunity to work there. I’m grateful for it. It’s a Forbes five-star guest ranch, the only one in the world. Wow. And yeah.

Speaker 0 | 09:48.969

What makes a ranch five stars? I need to know.

Speaker 1 | 09:53.233

So Forbes has their ranking of two, three, four on hotels. And that same ranking. Is your Forbes five star whatever? Well, you have to pass over 900 different criteria to be a Forbes five star facility. And so, yeah, in fact, that’s why they’re the only ranch in the world that’s an actual Forbes five star. There’s five star guest ranches, but they’re not to the Forbes standards.

Speaker 0 | 10:33.123

uh which are very rigorous wow and that’s amazing and um so so this ranch has taken the time to ensure that they have all of those uh

Speaker 1 | 10:48.709

um what 900 you said right 900 different checks yeah and you have like 900 different checks that they have to do and out of those 900 600 ish of them are actually housekeeping, cleanliness.

Speaker 0 | 11:05.893

Wow. There’s so much here that’s converging because it’s really interesting. So when we look at IT and we talk about risk and compliance and different stuff like that, and then we look at something like, so think of that for a minute, and then let’s talk about this ranch with 900 different checks. And they could be housekeeping checks. They could be checks on, like you said, on cleanliness. Or they could be checks on how they check visitors in and how they do these types of things. You’ve got all these different requirements that they need to meet. Essentially, no different of a concept than risk and compliance, actually. No different of a concept. of it. It’s the same thing. Compliance, you know, is here’s a bunch of checks. Do you meet them? And, and it’s, it’s amazing to me. Um, you know, that’s essentially what it is regardless. And how well can you check the boxes, uh, and make sure the only difference is right. If they don’t meet their checks, uh, they don’t get on the Forbes list, right? Right. What happens if it doesn’t meet their checks?

Speaker 1 | 12:28.478

And And that is the part that’s interesting is IT isn’t really one of their checkpoints. But that’s what is interesting because everything else is dependent on, like you said, their check-in software, how quick they can check someone in, how fast they can report issues. and issues getting resolved, phone communication, you know, because most of the time these are well, well off individuals that are visiting it. And so you have to be very on your toes. From an IT perspective, you have to be able to be able to deal with individuals needing to connect to the guest Wi Fi and and needing to walk them through that uh how to use their desk phone um from their that’s in their room um uh and being able to quickly respond to them as well it that happens a lot in i.t right um

Speaker 0 | 13:43.619

you know we may not be the front line of what needs to get done but we’re a back uh we’re you know we’re we’re like the spine really And I see this happen all the time. And in this regard, specifically, what we’re talking about is a ranch trying to get a five-star rating on Forbes. And here, you’re saying that none of the checks that they have are related to IT, except they are so… Mostly, a lot of them are dependent on IT.

Speaker 1 | 14:24.462

Correct. yeah like it’s such an interesting thought yeah it’s and to to throw it into the mix it’s remote as well meaning it’s it’s out in remote area so let’s talk about that so when you uh say when the internet goes down there’s no communication out there uh when someone doesn’t have a access to a phone there there’s no communicating

Speaker 0 | 14:57.422

It’s actually amazing. I had worked for a company. that sent me out to arkansas and it wasn’t like a um it wasn’t like little rock wasn’t like a big city it was like a small city in in arkansas and i it essentially what happened is i go out there and there’s uh um and i you know so i’m like we need to we need this where can i go get it and they’re like well you have to drive to the next city i’m like okay well maybe we’ll just order it when uh when they get they ship here well let me come in on thursdays What do we mean? They only ship things. Yeah. That’s when the nearest ship facility grabs everything and pulls it into the thing. And I’m just like, Oh my gosh. And you know, I learned about, I learned about the you know, there was a, in another remote location, there was internet access, but you can only use part of it because the rest was allocated to a school. And, and so I’m like, When the school was like, hey, listen, we’re going to reduce our size. We’re not going to use it. Then it was like a bidding war for the Internet access to be able to who’s going to who’s going to take over it. And it was like a bidding war for the Internet access. It’s it’s remarkable to me how how remote. What have you done? How have you worked around these issues?

Speaker 1 | 16:27.808

Well. One of them is this particular facility had a direct fiber connection to it. So they were willing and able to put up the funds to have their own dedicated fiber, which helped with guaranteeing uptime. We also had to make sure and keep track of their… two-way radios and uh and we had to know where we could get service if it went down and um where the the cell spots were so

Speaker 0 | 17:16.757

you’re keeping track of the two-way how do you keep track of two-way radios spreadsheet So you’re doing it. Basically, it’s asset inventory for something you can’t even monitor. You’re just like, well, let’s, you know, let’s grab the I’m assuming there’s a serial number of some sort on there.

Speaker 1 | 17:37.715

Yeah. And we essentially check them out to a department X amount to the department because you you had the housekeeping, the ranch. uh the the actual barn um and uh the dining crew so we would check them out to the different departments wow and and just ask hey do you have all your radios still um yes okay great if they broke they would bring them to it we would make replace them or make see if we could fix them but we were in charge of also

Speaker 0 | 18:22.365

keeping track of the uh cell tower or not so tower but the uh the two-way antenna gotcha yeah uh i i’ve never tried to repair a cb radio uh or you know a two-way radio i i don’t know even where i mean i would obviously check the batteries that would be the only thing that i would do so pull the battery out and put it back in but i don’t know what else you would do that

Speaker 1 | 18:45.261

that was pretty much it we had spare antennas and like clips to clip them to your belt or whatever and and so we had spare parts we could swap them out but for the most part uh we usually sent them in and if they were really damaged either replaced or provided

Speaker 0 | 19:08.267

new i can probably think that that would happen more often than not right because um probably the dust probably the uh um you know the fact they’re probably dealing with things that uh can drop it in mud you can you know i it just i can in my head over all the things in a ranch that you uh could possibly you know oops i i would hate to have my cell phone over there now i you know you would just it wouldn’t last very long it was pretty bad uh yeah make sure you had a rugged case and uh for your cell phone and usually

Speaker 1 | 19:42.869

they would have the uh the pouches that you can put your cell phones in oh that’s good so i mean that’s that’s usually what they did but i’ve got a vision in my head uh of of you just

Speaker 0 | 19:59.278

Like, you know, someone’s like, ah, my, my computer’s not working. Right. And you just hop up on, uh, you know, uh, a horse and just, you know, ride, uh, ride over it coming to help.

Speaker 1 | 20:13.802

Yeah. Well, we, we joked about that. Uh, we, we didn’t, I did ride horses wires there, but not on work time.

Speaker 0 | 20:22.724

Um,

Speaker 1 | 20:24.504

I, uh, they, they did provide me with a, a Jeep. that I could get around the ranch with pretty quickly. I also had a four-wheeler if it was really muddy and stuff. So, yeah. Hey,

Speaker 0 | 20:42.133

pretty nice. It gives a whole new meaning to stable IT, right?

Speaker 1 | 20:46.575

Yes, it does. Because you have these well-to-do individuals coming, day traders, whatnot. They need the connectivity. um and reliability and so we had to provide that um and ensure that it they have it um what uh um what what kind of made you uh um want to uh go work on a ranch i i actually have always liked the the western idea um i i grew up riding horses um you a little bit. My cousin had some and friends. So I loved the horses and ranch idea and was looking for a job at the time, trying to get my foot more into IT. I had been doing stuff, but more into the hands-on part of IT. I did security and compliance before that. was really wanting to try and get back into hands-on IT work.

Speaker 0 | 22:02.803

Well, let me ask you this quick question then. What was it about security and compliance that made you want to get back into hands-on work?

Speaker 1 | 22:10.508

Reading a lot of dull legal documents.

Speaker 0 | 22:16.212

It’s interesting that if you see security on TV and stuff, that’s always they’re like, yeah, we’re… I’m going to hack into this and I’m going to do some of this. But really, security is sitting in front of a screen, reading a compliance document and going, okay, now I got to create a spreadsheet to go over all the things on here and check them off and make sure everyone is doing them.

Speaker 1 | 22:40.812

Right.

Speaker 0 | 22:41.632

Is that an accurate representation of security?

Speaker 1 | 22:45.035

Yeah. For example, yeah, I would have to read Microsoft’s documents and… and say okay they say that email is secured up to this point and so i would put that in the spreadsheet and then go and check and oh yep it is okay next and and going on that and so yeah to me it got a little more uh repetitive and monotonous so i i like the the change that it

Speaker 0 | 23:23.526

general it has um where people will you deal with every different things each day uh and i kind of missed that there’s a there’s a person uh like there’s a personal connection right that happens when you’re fixing a computer when you’re uh um uh you know deploying a solution for somebody and and it changes the way they work in the best way possible and then you make their life easier um there’s that personal connection that you don’t you just sometimes just don’t get uh you know when you’re sitting in front of a an excel spreadsheet uh checking boxes right and don’t get me wrong you know um there’s sometimes that i love to sit in front of an excel spreadsheet and check boxes not have to do that but um i you know i i kind of bounce back and forth wanting to do all sorts of it and then I’m lucky that I’m able to do a bunch of different things. But I’m interested in this hands-on. Did the hands-on approach to you drive you a little bit in creating your own business?

Speaker 1 | 24:38.220

It did. Like I said, I like to serve and help people. And I saw people struggling. And so I wanted to go and help them physically. computer isn’t working okay let’s go get that taken care of um you’re you’re having trouble keeping um internet connectivity to your your house let’s go see what what’s going on and and let me try and help you um so yeah that that hands-on aspect really did help drive me oh that’s that’s fantastic i’m glad and i’m glad that you’re able to kind of um

Speaker 0 | 25:18.760

reckon that you were able to recognize what you love about it and and really focus that it over there you know um i I saw something when I was looking at your profile and it was just over and over and over again. It was certification after certification, after certification, after certification. Even your profile picture has a you’re like graduating cap on. Yes. Right. Is education, continuing education something you’re really big on?

Speaker 1 | 25:49.817

It is. I feel that I.T. is is one of those fields that that you have to. to really stay up on um it’s so quick to change that um you might i i did get my master’s degree in uh i.t management uh but but my my bachelor’s uh was in information security but by the time i got done with both of those what i had even started to learn at the beginning of those were we’re kind of obsolete. And so, yeah, continuing education is definitely something.

Speaker 0 | 26:35.624

That’s an issue, right? If we’re teaching folks based on technology and not based on methods, what’s your thought on that? I feel like there’s too much emphasis based on the technology focus of this.

Speaker 1 | 26:56.574

Yes, I have mixed feelings on that. I feel that a lot more of it should be hands-on rather than book work. And the focus should be on methodology versus… this technology or that technology in the sense of, oh, everyone needs to use Outlook, for example, as their email client. I disagree with that. There’s other tools that are free and do just as well, in my opinion. And so you need to figure out what works for you in your area. Again, going back to that. methodology okay you’re trying to have an app to read the email on your desktop you don’t want to use the web-based or whatever um so okay then we know okay you need an app to an application uh firefox is or uh mozilla’s thunderbird uh is a great substitute for outlook and it’s free and you know and promote and and introducing that to people again, part of my, uh, idea of helping people is education, um, educating people on different, uh, techniques tools that they can use to accomplish the same task. Uh, because I think a lot of times, like you said, people are stuck too much on the technology as to what they’re trying to accomplish.

Speaker 0 | 28:44.627

I love, I love that answer. I think, um, you know, talked a little bit before on here about the need to focus on the information portion of IT. Yeah. Right? And then apply the technology on top of that information once you understand where the information’s going, how it’s going to be, who’s going to be handling it, you know, what the process is around it. The eye in IT is overshadowed sometimes, in my opinion, by the technology. because it’s shiny the technology is shiny right yeah yeah this this new new technology no absolutely right so um so let’s let’s talk a little bit about um the shiny right the technology piece uh and um and how it can be misapplied uh you know as a you know as an owner of an IT company, right? You must run into all sorts of issues and problems and stuff. Have you ever… run into issues where you’ve gone in and you see that the technology has been misapplied and have to correct it yes uh a lot a lot of times people will say oh it’s not working let me get a new one uh well okay

Speaker 1 | 30:12.863

and they get a new one and then they’re like but it’s still not working well yeah that’s because again you you’re just throwing hardware technology at something that is not technology issue. And the issue is the information. A website’s really not working. Email client just needed to be updated. But because it was outdated and not working, they just saw a deal on Costco or Sam’s Club and, oh, let me just get this new one and I’ll start fresh.

Speaker 0 | 30:54.114

Josh, you know, what you said is so critical. So this same thought process, right? And you’re applying it at a very basic tech level, right? Oh my, you know, I went out and got a new thing, but it still doesn’t work. But let’s expand that to a business level because that happens at businesses all the time. And the difference is, it’s not just I wasted the money on a computer, right? It’s, you know, that was what, $1,500 or something? Yeah. Right? Now they’re like, oh, I wasted $25,000 trying to replace a software that doesn’t work because it was shiny. And I didn’t address the core problem. So it’s amazing to me that you were just able to kind of boil it down to the… most simplest of items, you know, that was a very easy, you know, a very easy example that most people would, would realize, but it goes all the way up that scales that problem scales. And I’ve seen companies waste millions of dollars before, before they realized that it wasn’t going to work and it wasn’t going to fix the problem. It’s that’s a, it’s a huge issue.

Speaker 1 | 32:21.114

It is. And in different companies I’ve worked for, I’ve seen that as well. And a lot of it is they forget the idea of the laborer, I guess is the best way to put it. That, you know, let’s actually be patient and try and have someone come and investigate and see what’s really going on. What’s the root cause of our problems? and then address it from that point where, like you said, now businesses I’m seeing are, oh, we need this software because this one isn’t working. Well, why is that one not working? Maybe you have too many users for the small program that it’s made to handle or it’s not scalable. I don’t know, a variety of reasons, but that is something common I see is people not truly engaging with IT to find out the issue. Some of these bigger companies just will throw money at it and truly not fix the issue.

Speaker 0 | 33:40.599

And so how do we get around? How do we fix that problem? What’s the best way to…

Speaker 1 | 33:49.422

um you know prevent being in that situation from an i.t perspective i think it’s remembering and where we came from and that we we do still need a little patience uh a lot of times we’re too um quick to want stuff um immediate gratification yeah immediate gratification yeah we we just want We want things now and we want it to work now because we’re used to it now. And really, I think the key is to have the education to step back and be patient and let’s think things through and methodically look at it. Okay, it worked here. It didn’t work here. Is this more of a user error? Is it a hardware issue? Is it a network issue? So let’s actually dive into it and have that patience to allow that to be done too few times. the reason why they throw hardware at it is because they don’t have the patience to allow someone to look at it do you think um that lack of patience comes from uh you know the our recent technical technological advancements that have just made things quicker quicker and quicker absolutely i think 100 i know for me talking with my my kids and stuff uh They ask me some numbers and I’ll be like, oh, just a minute and pull out my phone and quickly pull out the calculator and do it. Well, when I was in school, growing up and stuff, they used to say, oh, you’ll never have a calculator in your pocket with you all the time. So you need to know math and your times tables and whatnot. But now, yeah, I can just pull it out. Hey, in fact, it’s to the point where. I can just use my work, my voice. I don’t even have to actually touch my phone now. You know, hey, Google, hey, Siri, what’s three times four or whatever? And it will tell me.

Speaker 0 | 36:08.145

You know, if I said that right, if I said that right now and said,

Speaker 1 | 36:12.987

Alexa,

Speaker 0 | 36:14.527

it would it would say it over here. Right. But I’m not going to.

Speaker 1 | 36:18.288

So my phone just did it.

Speaker 0 | 36:23.650

but it’s you’re right you’re absolutely right the the technology it keeps getting it keeps going and getting better and quick faster and i remember doing long division uh you know and you keep going down papers i have to flip it over and everything and you know uh writing really small to fit it in and and you know that that whole thing uh is I mean, listen, I’m not a fan of math. Anyone would probably tell you I’m not a fan of math. But I know I understand its usefulness and everything like that. But I had a calculator. And when they told me that I couldn’t use the calculator, I was just like, I don’t understand. There’s tons of calculators out there. I’ll just buy my own calculator and have it at the time, not knowing that a calculator would be readily accessible no matter where I was. But I guess, you know, if I’m trapped in Yellowstone and there’s no internet access, then maybe I would have to do, you know, long division to figure out when a geyser goes off. I don’t know. That could happen.

Speaker 1 | 37:36.016

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 37:38.397

So that’s amazing, though. So I do love the fact that you have this continuous certification. So one of them, the certifications was in. Project management, right?

Speaker 1 | 37:51.307

Yes.

Speaker 0 | 37:52.288

What was that one?

Speaker 1 | 37:54.210

It’s the Certified Associate Project Management. It’s called the CAPM, C-A-P-M. And I actually got that as part of my master’s degree in IT management. And we had to go through the project management book, essentially, for how to, again, know how to manage a project but it was more on it was less on the the methods um then it’s like most tests I guess you you need to uh know know what they’re thinking um and try and match the best answer with what they’re trying to ask wow so let so let me ask you a question

Speaker 0 | 38:47.718

Um, what was the most beneficial piece of that project management course where you took the course and you said, ah, that’s going to help?

Speaker 1 | 39:00.768

Um, a lot of it was actually being assertive and knowing how to have team players, um, who your stakeholders are, who your, your project. leads are. So that kind of thing, defining each role, I guess, within project management help. And so I was like, that’s the most beneficial because I can now identify and pick out who my stakeholders are and who the key people are, as well as a little bit of the financial aspect of it and planning. lead time, lag times, stuff like that. So those are really the two key points that I picked up from that certification. think were the most beneficial for me.

Speaker 0 | 39:58.665

So one of the things, and those are all great. And the one that I want to pry more into is that assertive piece. Because I’ve had the pleasure of working with some fantastic project managers. And I’ve also worked with some project managers that could have been better. I’ll put it that way. And they all had their different styles when it came to communication. right um uh you know um one of the ones that i thought could have been better um was was very he was very assertive um to the point where uh you know he was a little bit rude and um and i’m being nice trying to be very very nice but but and the reason why i’m bringing bringing him up is assertive communication, right? It can be good. And it also can be detrimental, right? So, there’s a line, right? And, you know, if it’s too assertive, then, you know, you actually start, it actually starts being detrimental to getting projects completed. But if you’re not assertive enough, then you… are kind of like on the other side of where uh and you’re still you know like a project manager that has a hard time because you can’t get the things done so right what do they teach you about communicate assertive communication to help toe that line uh because i think this is important for everybody out there because i’m sure everybody wants to be the you know if they want to be a project manager they want to be a successful project manager that is also not referred to as someone that needs it needs some additional coaching,

Speaker 1 | 41:52.217

right?

Speaker 0 | 41:53.317

So, so what would be, uh, what would be the, you know, how would you define it and how’d you learn it or how you think is, uh, when you talk about assertive, how do you draw that line?

Speaker 1 | 42:07.645

Right. So in my course of studies, uh, they didn’t necessarily put a line other than like we said, not good enough. You’ll fail too far. You’ll fail. So you find that middle ground is basically where it got left off. And through my work and experiences and stuff, I’ve just found that remembering or treating your peers as customers in the sense of they may not understand what you’re asking or wanting. So make sure you’re clear with that. and communicating that, but don’t push them away. Don’t drive them away. So again, know your stuff, be assertive, but be gentle with it. Be kind with your words. Just because someone messes up, you don’t need to say, oh, you’re done. Say, okay, well, thanks for your effort. Let’s try and… and see how we can improve these things next time or you know whatever but but genuinely treat them as as people um i i think too many uh project managers if you will will put themselves up on a pedestal and uh and really talk down and demean people and that to me is not necessarily being assertive that is demanding and and dictatorship being a dictator um and that doesn’t work uh when you’re needing people to to work with you you you have to have some give and take um there and assertiveness doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re always right and so you’re demanding. So you do need to have the idea of listening and then taking other people’s ideas and then applying it. Once you’ve done that and made that decision, that’s where the assertive piece comes in. Okay, we’ve come to this conclusion. This is the stance we’re taking. And so this is the path we’re going to go. That is as far as you really need to be with assertiveness. I love that.

Speaker 0 | 44:42.560

Yeah, no, I love what you said there because it’s, hey, listen, let’s decide on a path. And then that’s the path we’re going to go. And I think the next piece, right, is from a project management standpoint is making sure that people follow that path. Right.

Speaker 1 | 44:59.050

Right. But you don’t need to be rude or coercive. You just make sure it gets done, but do it in a gentle way. Again, treat it as a fellow coworker. You’re all in this together. Without them, you’re not going to succeed, and they won’t succeed without you. So remember that. Some need more coaching to accomplish that task than you thought, but, but we’re all in this together. And in order for it to succeed, we all have to work together.

Speaker 0 | 45:38.556

But I, I, I, I love those answers. I think, I think that’s, I think it’s absolutely correct. Um, you know, the, uh, you know, holding people accountable for what they need to get done, right. Doesn’t have to be done in a way. Uh, that makes, you know, that I think what you kind of explained it, it should be done in a way that, uh, um, you know, still values them as a human, you know, values them and, and, and includes them in as a team. Like you mentioned, Hey, we’re all in this together. Right. Um, I think one of the best project managers that I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, um, she did something that was, I think amazing. uh she could always ask the right questions to the person to understand or at least make the person understand uh that they could have gotten it done or they can still get it done and and stay on top of it um she was amazing at drawing out accountability without uh making the person feel right like like they were being interrogated or anything like that. Right. In fact, you know, just by asking the right questions, she was able to get the person to essentially go, ah, well, I should have done this. You know what? Actually, I can go back and I can do this. And, and it, you know, over and over again, the, you know, conflict didn’t happen because the, the right questions were just asked.

Speaker 1 | 47:18.596

Yeah. I, I agree. I think that, that really a good project manager is going to inspire you to want to do the job and do well. If you aren’t inspired by them or can’t find the inspiration yourself to do it, maybe it’s something you should reevaluate. Because, yeah, truly a good… project manager is going to want to help you grow and improve your skills, your experience, just in life in general. I like the phrase of lifting someone up rather than pulling them down because you’ll definitely get a lot higher. You’ll get a lot more work done, I guess is the best way to put it. when when you are doing that because they feel they want to work with you uh whereas if you aren’t that kind of an individual and you constantly put people down don’t lift them up they’re going to want to drag their feet at work because they don’t want to work with you they don’t want to and by the end of the the thing you’re going to be like well if you don’t want to work then don’t come in to work um but If you can help inspire them, then they’ll want to come every day. They’ll be on time. They’ll do their best effort because they want to. They want to do it for you. So that’s my take on that.

Speaker 0 | 49:02.804

I think that’s an absolute correct take. We’ve arrived at the IT crystal ball. This is our segment where we kind of envision five years into the future what IT will be like. It’s fun because it’s the, you know, you get to kind of predict what’s going on. You can measure yourself in five years and see if you were right. The what I want to understand in this one specifically, and if we could focus on this, I guess I think it’s it’s just an amazing concept. You live in Montana and there’s lots of areas in Montana that are remote. There’s lots of areas that, you know, don’t have. The technology, you know, there’s lots of areas that do, but there’s lots of areas you go that just don’t have the technology that the bigger cities will do. um you know so and this doesn’t happen just in montana this is as everywhere i mean there’s you know there’s places all over the place where they right they just don’t have uh uh this um so my question to you and uh and you can feel free to expand on it however you want right is is there anything coming in the future that is going to help and assist with these remote areas or are we going to go backwards? And are they going to get even more remote and harder or separated from the bigger cities and such?

Speaker 1 | 50:37.252

Yeah, I actually think that’s a very good question because it’s something I am seeing here. A lot of it has to do with funding for IT needs. And I am seeing the gap grow between those rural remote areas having a harder time getting technology they need because of all the bigger cities and bigger areas able to purchase these technology items at a higher cost. And so it’s raising the cost. And then it’s making it more difficult for the more rural areas who don’t have those kind of funds. For example, the schools here. It’s a lot harder for them to purchase computers and purchase iPads because of the expense from being able to be sold at a higher price elsewhere. And so, yeah, I see that being a big challenge in the next five years. And I do worry about that gap growing. And so I think that’s why it’s… important to to help educate people um on technology and not be afraid of it because if we can keep them even though it’s a little bit older um if we can keep it up then i

Speaker 0 | 52:08.930

think it’ll help narrow and keep that gap narrow it and so um that continued education come back to continuing education always with that um is is there any

Speaker 1 | 52:22.376

technical advances that uh technological advances that will um help in that arena for that education yes yes like zoom like this for example exactly um became more widespread and and i think that was helpful um because people realized oh hey we’re kind of leaving these other people out in the dust how are we supposed to communicate with them um when we’re all stuck at home um and Now they’re rethinking things like, oh, wait, we got to actually see how we can help these people stay in communication and talk to them. And so, yeah, I think stuff like Zoom and teleworking is a big thing that will help minimize that gap as well.

Speaker 0 | 53:14.259

That’s great. Nerds, I’m Michael Moore, hosting this podcast for Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’ve been here with Josh Kitchen, owner of Mountain View IT.