Speaker 0 | 00:06.777
Welcome back everyone to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m your host Doug Kameen and today I’m talking with John Nara who is Director of Information Technology with Greyhound Lines, the bus company. Welcome to the show John.
Speaker 1 | 00:19.120
I’m so happy to be here. This is really a great experience and I appreciate the invitation.
Speaker 0 | 00:23.862
Yeah thanks. So thanks so much for joining us. So I’m just going to jump right in here and ask you a question about like… You got an interesting job. I think many of us know what Greyhound is, and you’ve been there a while. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do there? I mean, you can share what Greyhound is, but I’m pretty sure most everybody does know that.
Speaker 1 | 00:44.818
That’s one of the benefits, or very few benefits, to working at Greyhound. It’s where I don’t have to explain what the company does. And I did start there with not my first IT job, but very close to it. Really, I wrote their dispatching system that they still use today, which they probably shouldn’t still be using it, but that’s neither here nor there. But Ground being a bus company, obviously, but they also still do food service shipping and have all the other IT needs for legal and HR. So it’s just been constant challenges. I didn’t go there to stay there for 25 plus years, but I stayed there for 25 plus years.
Speaker 0 | 01:28.603
Yeah. I mean, being a part of a company in longevity, you know, probably a testament to the company’s ability to, you know, give you the right things that you want to stay around with.
Speaker 1 | 01:38.988
Yeah, definitely the challenges were there. And the technologies that are just going from the mainframe to client server to mobile or even just the junk to the web with everything built years and years ago wasn’t built for the web. So there’s a lot of challenges. And then the culture, that is so key. Just the president, for most of the time I was the president of the company, used to be a baggage handler in Canada. So salt of the earth guy with a huge Canadian accent. So working for him just was very, made it fun.
Speaker 0 | 02:21.228
He wasn’t nuttier than a Tim Hortons maple log, was he? No? Just kidding. I’m just kidding. That’s a TV show reference.
Speaker 1 | 02:30.621
Actually, you’re close enough to Canada. A lot of people down here don’t know what Tim Hortons is.
Speaker 0 | 02:35.204
That’s right. That is true. For the benefit of those who don’t live near the northern Canadian border, Tim Hortons is a donut chain that’s very similar to Dunkin’ Donuts. And they are all over Canada. But so, yeah, so Greyhound, I mean, you’ve been there so long with so many, you know, doing so many different roles. You’re currently. in a role as being a director of information and technology. But I’m just going to go right back to the first thing you mentioned, which was that you originally wrote some of their, did you say bus routing software?
Speaker 1 | 03:08.262
Routing and dispatching and driver management and bus management. I was brought in to help educate mainframe people and get them all to be client server developers. That part was nearly impossible.
Speaker 0 | 03:24.632
main framers don’t necessarily convert to client server developers but sure yeah so like like in your from your experience in your time there like like even though not all of them were always able to make the switch i totally have that experience too like i’ve you know i’ve worked with people i uh different roles i’ve had like as400 and stuff like that and the programmers that are there you know i’ve got this rpg programmer and you’re like hey let’s do this new stuff and they’re like you know and they get you know they give you a kind of glassy eyed look but you’re the leader So what strategies have you used to try and get them over the finish line and help them along?
Speaker 1 | 03:59.098
Yeah, really just make it fun and listen to them and try to understand. Because they’ve got the best intentions usually. Some of them, if they’re really bitter and don’t want to learn a new thing, I can’t force them to do it. But to get others on board and then getting the team all aligned, then they sometimes switch and get on board. Or sometimes they quit. but typically we do we did convert quite a few but and still once they realize too, technology is technology really you can learn, if you understand the logic of one thing you can usually apply it to just about anything.
Speaker 0 | 04:43.105
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 | 04:44.386
And I think my positive attitude really helped get people to cross over.
Speaker 0 | 04:50.069
So when you were well I bet you that’s What language did you write this dispatch software in originally?
Speaker 1 | 04:56.819
It’s PowerBuilder. People have heard of that one.
Speaker 0 | 04:59.284
Sorry, what was that?
Speaker 1 | 05:00.647
PowerBuilder.
Speaker 0 | 05:01.853
power builder i don’t know that i was familiar with huge in the 90s it was okay i spent most my evenings in the
Speaker 1 | 05:09.518
90s on phone calls with recruiters because everybody’s looking for power building developers wow and then then then 2000 hit and everything went into crops so you’re on the flip side of the the year 2000 bug right instead of like the work piling up the work was the work was dropping up
Speaker 2 | 05:29.985
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Speaker 0 | 07:50.003
So in your current role at Greyhound, you’re Director of Information Technology. It’s a wide-ranging tool. I’m looking through what you’ve got listed on LinkedIn. You work with SAP. You’ve got Tableau. You’ve got your… building DevOps and DevOps pipelines for the work that you’re doing, Azure and AWS. Tell me a little bit about what’s a day in the life for you in your current role? And what are you doing? What kind of team are you leading?
Speaker 1 | 08:22.682
Yeah, so as with most companies, there’s been absolute flows and then headcount. And it’s one of the reasons my title’s changed off and on. But really, what’s the phrase? Jack of all trades, master of none. but I can figure out what needs to be done. And I’ve had some key people to help, obviously. You need people. People is the most important thing. But really, of course, Google is my friend. And a lot of leadership I’ve had throughout my leadership has been really supportive in getting people trained, especially, you know. things that are changing we we went to uh web methods which is a whole different animal and really spend the money to you don’t want a workforce of people that don’t know what they’re doing um that’s kind of the worst thing um so so getting people trained and then really having to be that leader to really push for that training for your people um and really realize it’s not it’s a lot of people are afraid to train their people because they don’t want them to leave you But again, there’s another phrase for that one. It’s rather have educated people on your staff than people on your staff that are not educated.
Speaker 0 | 09:45.711
Yeah. Well, I think that’s a great point to bring up about because I have this kind of philosophy and I share this with folks in my circles, too, about the importance of supporting your staff. So like in what I mean by that is, you know, there’s a lot of different ways you can support as a generic term, but. specifically to their growth in their future endeavors. So, you know, I tell my own staff, no matter where I’m at, like it’s literally one of the first meetings I have when I start a new role and I talk to a new team where I’m like, look, I’m like, I want you to be open with me. I want you to tell me if you want, you know, what are your goals? You know, I’m here to support your goal as the leader, even if that goal is not necessarily here in the future. You know, if you want to sit in a seat like mine. and I’m going to be sitting in this seat, so there’s not one for you, then how do we help you get to that seat in the future? And even if that means that a year, three years, five years from now, you’re going to move on. And that type of openness, and even going so far as to say, when the time comes, if you think you’re ready to look for that next opportunity, I want you to tell me in advance. Don’t hesitate to share with me, because it’s not like I’m not going to punish you. for wanting to advance your career. I want you to maximize the value that you give to us during the time that you’re here. And like that type of attitude helps really get, I think that it helps get the most out of what people are willing to give you on a day-to-day basis. It sounds like you kind of follow that similar philosophy.
Speaker 1 | 11:23.430
Yeah, I didn’t grow up that way. And I think a lot of people didn’t grow up that way because I think companies used to be, well, you got to do it. Because I told you, you better not be looking for work and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I’d change that tone. I don’t think I really ever had that tone because I don’t want people to be happy. They’re so much more productive. And really, one of my leaders back a while ago, one-on-ones, where he really, really pressed not to talk about work on a one-on-one. He really wanted to talk about what… what he can do to help me advance, educate myself or, or any roadblocks I need help with. What, what can he do for me? It’s like, I guess that’s the servant leader. And that’s, I guess.
Speaker 0 | 12:10.413
Yeah, absolutely. Servant leadership. That is, that is like the, you know, one of the definitions of servant leadership or one of the part of the definition of servant leadership is how you support the staff, but taken to the most, I don’t call it the extreme level, but the, the, you know, the logical conclusion as a leader is that, I would, you know, I would rather have people that are, um, I must describe this. I would rather have people that are satisfied, motivated, but maybe we’ll move on eventually versus people that are, um, and we’ll, but we’ll share that with me, you know, as opposed to, um, people that, you know, kind of grouse that like, eh, you know, this is, you know, I’m looking, you know, they’ll tell their buddy, Hey, like, I guess when I’m looking man, man, uh, but don’t tell, don’t tell Doug. You know, and I guess it comes back to maybe the perception of I hate surprises as a manager or a leader. Like I tell my team that a lot of like like if there’s one thing you could do to make me as the leader, like feel good about things and be happier myself. Don’t surprise me, particularly when it comes to things like, hey, I’ve been I’ve been deciding it’s time to move on to another role or something like that. Like I can make it easy. So you don’t you won’t be afraid of surprising me. or you won’t be afraid you won’t feel that you need to surprise me in order to do it so so like let’s go back into your history a little bit here and um can you tell us a little bit like like what were your formative years and and where did you learn like some of the qualities that made you and push you into leadership today well
Speaker 1 | 13:45.886
i did i did a little bit of time in the world’s finest navy um and that taught me a couple things it taught me what i didn’t want to do for the rest of my career yeah But also, I was in logistics, which got me – that was quite a few years ago because I’m kind of cutting on in years. But we were using computers a lot to keep the inventory and all that. And also just other technology that just really – that’s really what just got me into it.
Speaker 0 | 14:23.785
How many years were you in the Navy?
Speaker 1 | 14:25.205
Four and a half. I’ve extended half a year just to, I spent half my career in Europe and then the other half on the West Coast so I could see the world.
Speaker 0 | 14:34.556
See the world. That’s the deal with the Navy. So, first of all, thank you for your service. And, you know, it’s, I know multiple people, I mean, I think many of us know people who serve in the armed forces. And, you know, it has its own unique challenges to be in there. You know, notwithstanding, you know, the… you know the differences of bureaucracy in the government and being in such a large organization and stuff like that but you know it does place demands on you um at some points it’s like a young man’s game right or young well nowadays it’s a young person’s game but uh you know having to be like hey you know today you’re today you’re going to be here on you know in arlington or something like that and then you know next month you’re going to be shipped out to be on the west coast or something like that yeah and that didn’t it didn’t teach me leadership really it taught me management uh-huh and how to use uh the system to get things done rather than using relationships yeah so like can you elaborate a little bit on like how do you perceive the difference between management and leadership i love the graphic where the guy that’s you know
Speaker 1 | 15:39.362
helping his team by standing there pointing and telling him what to do that’s that’s managing but leaders are jumping in and helping toe the toe the line um but yeah and then navy too i had to really one of my best friends i was higher ranked than him so i could tell him what to do but i couldn’t do i hated that i hate telling i’m still to this day i hate telling people what to do yeah i like i like prioritize that’s something i enjoy and i think that’s that’s a big a big difference once somebody knows the priority of what needs to be done it gets them more excited about doing it.
Speaker 0 | 16:13.023
So being in the Navy, not necessarily leadership experience, but management experience taught you how to be effective management techniques and strategies and other things like that. You moved on to other roles and also being in there and being in logistics helped you understand more about you were exposed to technology and the technology environment, so that made you interested in this. So where did you go to get into technology?
Speaker 1 | 16:34.933
Yeah, I wanted a good… I wanted a degree as soon as I got out. I could have got a degree while I was in, but I really enjoyed other things like seeing the world. But I wanted to get my degree really quick, and I went to DeVry, which is an accredited school, and that was really important to me. A lot of people kind of frown on DeVry, but it really got me where I needed to be quickly. It taught me a lot of mainframe, which I’ve never used, but also taught me comp better, too. It’s really helped give me a leg up. And really from there, I worked at UPS throughout my tenure in Dubai. And again, that was almost like the military kind of company. But they appreciated my experience. I was a manager there too.
Speaker 0 | 17:20.252
More logistics, right?
Speaker 1 | 17:23.013
Logistics. But still, I wasn’t really a leader. Actually, I did lead my team. That was an interesting dynamic as well. Blood swent. But then my first programming job was actually doing environmental software, which I was not really qualified to do, but it was a great job. Huge complexity in environmental software.
Speaker 0 | 17:45.787
Isn’t that like it for many of us in our career journey? So it’s always that like one job where you had to fake it till you make it. Right. I’m so unqualified for this role. But somehow they decided that I was the right fit and I’m going to show up to figure it all out. And, you know, like it’s almost like a foot race. Can you do it?
Speaker 1 | 18:06.725
Yeah. And you picked up on that perfectly. That’s exactly what that was. Very small company. And that’s where I really started to realize that it’s just I need to be a better value, not just as a developer, but to lead. There’s only one. The president’s doing he’s wearing 15 hats. I need to wear at least a couple to help him out. I can’t just sit down there and notice the code. And that’s where I realized I like that better, too. I like strategizing. I like mentoring. I like motivating. And that’s where I from there just kind of kept that trend. I ended up doing a lot of coding and ground, too. But again, I jumped right into working very close with the business and giving them not just what I think is a dispatch system, but what do they really need. The system had to work in the U.S. and Canada. Canada, we talked about earlier, they got different stuff out there. They’re not just, it was just different culture, just how they use things. And if you don’t do it right, they won’t tell you. They just won’t use it.
Speaker 0 | 19:19.955
They quiet quit audio when it wasn’t before it was cool, right?
Speaker 1 | 19:23.756
I’m just not going to use this.
Speaker 0 | 19:27.457
So, yeah, so you do programming, taught you new things that you liked. And then where did you come into next? Then you landed at Greyhound, right?
Speaker 1 | 19:36.346
Yeah. Yeah. And then I think back in day two, I quickly became a lead developer. But then I was a project manager forever. And I think we threw that title on a lot of things back in the day. It wasn’t really project management. It was managing everything, support and development and business relationship.
Speaker 0 | 19:59.386
Before Agile. So like, you know, what was real project management before Agile? Did it really exist? It’s like a mythical thing, right?
Speaker 1 | 20:08.594
I think we actually, we implemented Agile by using a vendor that called themselves Agile.
Speaker 0 | 20:14.400
mm-hmm that’s not and they didn’t really implement agile all i did was help manage projects so nice so so like now i have 100 like reading up your linkedin profile here and to ask you questions but you
Speaker 1 | 20:30.126
had a stint at gamestop yeah it was i did i we were bought out by a british company and uh they thought everybody would move to cincinnati ohio um nobody moved to cincinnati ohio so so i took a package and i i went to game stop for about a year and i went to nokia for about a year and then i got called back to greyhound hey hey you were you were loved enough to be asked to come back yeah yeah and i thought of when i came back to everything was in a time it was just everything was the same you
Speaker 0 | 21:09.976
It was like your parents had left your room the way it was when you went off to college, right?
Speaker 1 | 21:13.977
No, these were still the parents.
Speaker 0 | 21:16.898
Was your stuffed animal still on the, you know, it was still on the shelf,
Speaker 3 | 21:20.159
right?
Speaker 0 | 21:22.559
So, like, of course, this period of your GameStop, this is like pre-meme stock days for GameStop. This is actually when it was like, I don’t want to call it a legitimate concern because it really is still a legitimate business. But it was a much more substantial business, I think, at this point in time. uh you know it was it was you know this is 15 years ago or so so it’s people were still going to buy video games you did not download video games on the internet very frequently and stuff like that so so like what was it what was it like working in in that type of place it was just very corporate and like you didn’t really have a an influence of the the fact that you’re working for a company that was working in gaming or was it like was the culture interesting in that in some other way yeah they were they tried to be fun um
Speaker 1 | 22:07.100
and they were very siloed very very siloed i kind of hired on to work more in a corner sale um but i ended up working more on their logistics um logistics again in canada um but that they they were i kind of used to think graham was kind of messed up but gamestop they’re kind of messed up they kind of they did a lot of ads and flows with like a lot of companies but they cut out all the let’s say 90 of the developers and then bring me in demands projects without any developer so they cut their way to prosperity exactly and that was just nobody
Speaker 0 | 22:50.776
there to be able to do anything it was really hard to get things done but i tried that’s right yeah but yeah it’s funny i was just so so it might by day job yeah i’m also the you know just like you have a you know an i.t leader But we just went through a demo. I was going through, I’m going through demos these last couple of weeks. We’re looking at new ERP, you know, conference of platforms and stuff like that for, you know, ERP workforce management and CRM. And we had a demo with one vendor that was fantastic. Like they just blew our socks off. And then we had another demo actually just before this call, I was on that call and it was, it was very meh at best. And on one hand, you know, you’re like, oh man, these people wasted our time. But on the other hand, I’m like, it created this comparison reference point for which we can say, like, we understood what we don’t want, you know, even if, you know, even like so. So speaking with them or being there and engaging with them helped us to see and more clearly understand, you know, not just what we do want, but what we don’t. And, you know, you mentioned about, you know, it sounds like you kind of got a similar level of clarity as you shifted around from different roles. You know, you kind of like, oh, man, I’m with the bus company. The bus company is kind of backwards. But then you get somewhere else and you’re like, wait a minute, like other places are also backwards. Maybe this isn’t as maybe this is quite as crazy as I thought it was originally. Maybe maybe the world is crazier than I thought.
Speaker 1 | 24:16.308
Yeah. And even at ground, there’s like I went back to ground and actually I was like the first callback. There’s about maybe five or six callback people, too. And all of us really realized that we were pretty good back in back in the 90s and 2000. We knew what we were doing. We built stuff. The dispatch system, it wasn’t just me. There was a lot of people that put in the effort to make it stay up, run, do what it’s supposed to do. Supportability, I don’t know if people know what that means nowadays.
Speaker 0 | 24:55.322
Yeah, it’s tough. A well-designed legacy application still has a place. If you… Uh, you know, depending on what your needs are. I mean, like, like people don’t really think about how much take like COBOL, you know, the idea is that I actually, when I was, when I was in school, I was at the tail end of still being taught COBOL. um which is much more recent than you think uh like like i was in the late 90s i was in college getting taught cobalt but um the the the even today you know that’s that’s 25 years ago 25 plus years ago now and that skill is still still has some value because cobalt is a language and other languages similar to it that run on some of these mainframes and stuff are still used as the core legacy applications In some of these major businesses, you know, like, like it’s a, it’s a functional language. It was really efficient at financial calculation work. So there, and there isn’t anything newer that’s better. You know, I mean, it’s like you talk about supportability could become a challenge in some of those things, but, but the newer stuff is not any more efficient at it. And matter of fact, it’s, it’s probably less efficient because the coding is more abstract from the actual, you know, as you get down to the base layers of the, of the, uh, uh, you know, the, the. you’re working down the stack into the, you know, I can’t even think of the base language name, but you know, there’s, there’s a lot of, um, because it’s so efficient when you get into these huge organizations, it just makes sense to retain it for a long time and to carry it through into new platforms that will support it.
Speaker 1 | 26:31.911
Yeah. We, we were like a push, maybe five or six years where everybody was, was trying to get rid of all that old stuff. But I think the last few years now, everybody’s realized. we’re going to live with all this.
Speaker 0 | 26:43.379
Yeah, some of it, you definitely will. So let’s change gears here a little bit. Talk about your history and how you got to where you are today to become a leader in IT. And one of the things we always like to ask to share with the listeners of the podcast is, well, first of all, how do you motivate? people. You mentioned through, we were talking about your job history, you were like, hey, this one role kind of taught me that I really like motivating people and I like fulfilling that role. So what do you do to motivate people?
Speaker 1 | 27:21.498
Really just getting their input. Even if I already know what has to be done, I want to talk to the people that are doing the work and give them input on how it can be done, what efficiencies, what ideas they have. again, may not go the way they put their idea, but I find just getting their input makes them feel valuable, which they are valuable. So that’s key. And that’s key for me too. So I kind of look at things the way I, you know, what’s that empathy? I kind of put myself in their shoes and again, I don’t like just telling people what to do. I know people don’t just like being told what to do. So just making part of the… part of the decision making process and sometimes they do come up with a better way of building a better mousetrap and some people’s it’s their job to have that kind of input too but that’s most people are pretty easy to motivate yeah but but even like like one of my strengths i don’t know if you’ve heard of clifton strengths finders um one of my strengths really has always been i guess being strategic thinking it’s hard to be a strategic partner with the business especially being a junior person. But getting that seat at the table, once you get that seat at the table, it’s very, very gratifying. But other junior people need to have that type of input. Otherwise, they’re going to go somewhere else.
Speaker 0 | 28:51.863
Do you have any advice for folks who are trying to get that first seat at the table, things that they could do or try to, you know, what should they be reaching for?
Speaker 1 | 28:59.507
Yeah, really just being patient and having that voice. And then don’t be afraid to chime in. I’m not the best at challenging and piping up. I like to go. I’m too quiet. But don’t be afraid to chime in, but make sure you know what you’re talking about too, though. So be educated, understand the business, take other people’s perspective into account. Somebody that’s been done something for 20 years and you’re just… don’t have that much exposure you might want to get a little more tenure before you start being too strategic but if you got a good idea get it out there so shift gears again here i we always like to ask there’s
Speaker 0 | 29:48.965
a handful of questions we love asking on the podcast about just different i call fun things so uh the the tip the big go-to is always What was your first computer or technology piece? Like, go way back when you were a kid. Like, did you, you know, did somebody buy, you know, an Atari system? Was it before that? Was it later than that? You have some Commodore computer. What was your first experience?
Speaker 1 | 30:15.312
Pong. Pong. Actually, I did have one of the original Pongs, but I had an Atari, and I love the games and stuff, but there was a thing where you could actually program on an Atari. It was just a basic. It was really true basic. Go to commands.
Speaker 0 | 30:34.885
Yeah, was it like Logo or something?
Speaker 1 | 30:38.047
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 0 | 30:38.807
Yeah, I heard of Logo.
Speaker 1 | 30:40.609
I played with that, and I was like, maybe I’m a nerd. I don’t know. But then… I was not a nerd in school. The peer class I took in school, I failed out. I did not. But I definitely, again, I may be being told what to do in school as opposed to doing it on my own. But yeah, that diary was, I thought, pretty hip technology.
Speaker 0 | 31:03.108
Yeah. So you’re doing programming, but you didn’t even, no success, if you will, in school. just you took the computer classes they’re like yeah get out of here man like this is not you know you’re not doing what we need to do here career counselor told me i’ll never i should look in a ditch digging i’m in there they told you to be a ditch digger it’s like it’s like the uh this is a quintessential like like don’t we you know there’s the stereotypical things that the career counselor says you know but that career counselor also like smoking a cigarette while they told you that too probably yeah It’s a way of going back in the day to before, like all these things that we just sort of take for granted that don’t happen now. But, you know, you think about that, like, like I even I remember that I was at the tail end of some of that where where, like, you know, people would do things like like smoking in buildings or others. You know, like I grew up in now you’re in. Are you in Texas? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you’re in the Dallas area. Yeah. So I grew up in Austin. And, you know, even though I’ve been upstate New York now, but. I remember when I was a kid in the 80s growing up, and we had first moved down there. And at various intervals, it was still okay to drink in the car. And you would drive down the road, and you would see somebody in a truck. And some dude in a truck would be sipping openly on a beer in the truck as you’re driving down the road.
Speaker 1 | 32:32.674
I was originally from a very small town in northern Michigan. it was typical everybody had a beer in the car i was like yeah it’s crazy everything is it is it is different in texas at times and and i remember it i remember that i used to smoke too i smoked gin i smoked on planes i smoked in malls yeah it was great i’ll smoke again just
Speaker 0 | 32:56.217
so we know kids smoking is terrible for you smoking is bad and smokey kills you but you know like Like, you know, to transition from those times to today and to think about all the things that we’ve changed, like, you know, it is so crazy how you you become unaccustomed to it. Right. Like, you know, you know, if you walk into a room where somebody smoking, you’re like, what is going on here? Like, it’s it’s crazy. So noticeable. But, you know, you go back 30 years and like you walked into a room and it was like, you know, it was might have been might as well have been fog in the in the upper five feet of the room. And you did you thought. Absolutely nothing on it.
Speaker 1 | 33:35.005
Yeah.
Speaker 4 | 33:35.465
That’s how it was. Hey guys, this is Phil Howard, founder of Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I just want to take a few minutes to address something. It has become fairly apparent, I’m sure all of you will agree over the years, that slow vendor response, vendor response times, vendors in general, the average is mediocre. Support is mediocre. Mediocrity is the name of the game. Not only is this a risk to your network security, because I’ve seen vendors on numerous occasions share sensitive information, but there’s also a direct correlation to your budget and your company’s bottom line. Not to mention the sales reps that are trying to sell you and your CEO and your CFO on a daily basis. That causes a whole nother realm of problems that we don’t have time to address. Our back office program at… Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. We’ve put together specifically for IT leadership, and it’s on a mission to eliminate this mediocrity. And the best part is that we’re doing this in a way that will not cost your IT department a dime. So if you’d like us to help you out, get better pricing, better support, and jump on pressing issues in minutes, not days, then contact us now so we can get on. a call with you and conduct a value discovery session where we find out what you have, why you have it, and where you want to go and how we can improve your life, your IT department, and your company’s bottom line. What you’re going to end up with is, number one, just faster support. from partners who care about your organization’s uptime and bottom line. And because you’re going to be able to access our 1.2 billion in combined buying power, you’ll be able to benefit significantly from historical data. And on top of that, you’ll also benefit from the skills of hundreds of on-demand experts that we have working behind the scenes that are all attached to our back office support program. So if you’d like, again, none of this is ever going to cost you a dime. At the very least. it’s going to open your eyes to what’s possible. Let our back office team provide you the high touch solutions and support that your IT team deserves so that you can stop calling 1-800-GILD-POUND-STAND for support. Now, if you’re wondering, what does this apply to? This applies to your ISPs, your telecom providers, all your application providers, whether you’re a Microsoft shop or a Google shop, what you might be paying for AWS. even Azure, co-location space, any of those vendors that you’re paying a monthly bill to, we can help you with.
Speaker 1 | 36:20.337
Hey, it’s Greg,
Speaker 0 | 36:21.357
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Speaker 2 | 36:24.579
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Speaker 0 | 36:26.300
contact us at internet at popularit.net.
Speaker 1 | 36:29.701
And remember, it will never cost you a dime.
Speaker 0 | 36:33.123
So you had some exposure to technology when you’re growing up, but you weren’t a technology guy. You… you came to it later you came to it through your kind of like exposure in the navy and some other things like that and it sounds to me like you kind of well i don’t say you you fell into programming but you went to school did you go to you did you go to school to be a programmer yeah yeah okay so so you identify that that was something that interested you and then you pursued that but then eventually you moved into leadership so you’re not doing you know now you’re not what was the last time you picked up code uh maybe it was maybe it was yesterday i don’t know maybe it was an afternoon
Speaker 1 | 37:08.366
I’ve had to stay somewhat hip to it. I couldn’t sit down and code, but I’ve done code check-ins and DevOps, just because I haven’t had people a lot of times. But yeah, I couldn’t stay as close to it as I’d like to.
Speaker 0 | 37:27.031
Yeah, and when I went to school, I took computer science. In my career, I’ve always been in IT operations delivery, not in… uh development but my degree is in computer science so i have you know lots of coding i’ve c cobalt c plus plus java you know it’s various intervals i took all those classes uh so i like to joke that it makes me it makes me sharp enough to know if somebody’s like bsing me you know i
Speaker 1 | 37:55.277
can’t sit with the the programmers and be like that’s not really true man that’s a much much much needed skill and especially with a project where the pm is trying to run and and the The PM has not ever done any coding and not intimate with it. They can just get snowballed. And having somebody in the room that can at least call BS. Exactly.
Speaker 0 | 38:21.869
So I’m going to ask this kind of fun question. Just because you mentioned that the early one was Pong. Is there a piece of technology that you hang on to that you would be like, oh, God. Yeah. Nope. I’m, you know. I still use a flip phone, you know, type of deal or, you know, whatever the case may be. Is there is there is there some like old piece of technology you just love to hang on to because you like it and you’re still hanging on to it? But now it’s anachronistic.
Speaker 1 | 38:49.222
Well, I do have one of those game sticks now that has 500 video games from 1989. Yeah. And that’s that’s kind of my my thing where my sons, they they’re doing war games and stuff like that. Well, yeah.
Speaker 0 | 39:06.454
i try to play their games i get killed three times before i figure out who the bad guy is but i still play the old defender and asteroids and space invaders ah space invaders with my kids my my kids are young i don’t know how old your kids are might are six and nine but like we take them to some of the arcades and stuff like that they have like some new space invaders things that has each giant arcade games now and then like space invaders i think it’s called space invaders frenzy and it’s like a 10 foot tall version of space invaders where you sit in a seat with like a
Speaker 1 | 39:35.010
gatling gun type of setup and it just like goes bananas like shooting at the things that are there i’ve seen that with chucky cheese and i think that looks awesome it’s kind of fun to play i’m not gonna lie so
Speaker 0 | 39:50.138
hey so getting back to our serious stuff here um the the you know we are we are a leadership podcast so i want to ask as we kind of come up towards the end of our interview what what leadership qualities would you share with folks who are who you know with our listeners out there uh Is there rules or ideas that you follow? Is there philosophies that you would share? What advice would you give to somebody else, either in the leadership space or looking to come into the IT leadership space?
Speaker 1 | 40:21.830
There’s one I kind of learned or discussed more recently that really kind of hit home to me. And then in spending so many years trying to culture my people to all be A players and fill this, do this, and they’ll. wanting almost everybody to be the same basically but they that doesn’t make really good sense right so i hate to use a sports analogy but you need somebody that’s really good at being a quarterback you need somebody that’s really good at being a defender so you don’t need to make everybody an a player you might need the solid steady guy that’s there to do what he does and really you know and again just getting input from people there’s various different like i the strength finders but there’s also DISC. I love those things. Really teaches you how people work and how they want to communicate, how they can communicate, how can they best be of value. And really helping them, spending time investing in them to do those kind of things makes them feel valuable too. You actually want them to do something for themselves. So again, invest in your people, listen to your people. And just the overall culture. You can’t just build culture. You can’t just say, okay, we’re going to be a positive culture. You can’t tell everybody, minimize the mission statement of the company. That’s a good culture. No, that’s not.
Speaker 0 | 41:48.683
You get the movie Office Space, the banner that hangs across. It’s like, is this good for the company? Stand there. Ask yourself.
Speaker 1 | 41:55.828
But even my wife recently at work, they’re making her sit where she doesn’t want to sit. What would it cost them to say, you sit wherever you want? Then that would change. attitude so instantly but just little things like that and and just and you you gotta you know invest in in cultural realization um the the difference i’m just reading a book on it now but i don’t have the numbers but the the profit ratio of a good culture company versus a bad is huge i mean you got a positive culture you’ve got positive positive income um but i’m doing more research on that that’s just uh Culture is king. I’ve been so lucky at Graham to have a very good culture. That’s been gone, actually. We were bought by a German company about two, three years ago. That great culture is no longer there. Germany is great. I’ve gotten to visit Germany a few times. Love the country and the people, but the overall culture is not. We’re just, I guess, overseas is hard.
Speaker 0 | 43:02.146
Different culture clashes. So, like… I’m hearing what you’re saying as when you’re investing in your people as a leader, you don’t necessarily, as you said, not everybody’s going to be your A player. So you have to meet people where they’re at as far as what their leadership really is. Sometimes having somebody who isn’t motivated to be the next senior developer is totally fine as long as they are satisfied. and happy with the positions that they’re in and you’re meeting their expectations from a leadership perspective. And that’s 100% okay. Then I heard you also say that the culture of the organization is your motivated cultures make motivated staff, which makes motivated businesses. So you’ve got businesses that will prosper if the people are happy that are there and meeting that expectation. Isn’t that significant? Like You used the story of your wife there and how she’s able to move. There’s 100 desks in this place, and they’re telling her she’s got to sit at the one in row 2B. But she could sit anywhere because most of them are just unoccupied, and maybe they’re hot desks. So how do you satisfy people’s needs? And simple things might satisfy their larger needs in the long run.
Speaker 1 | 44:25.693
Yeah, there’s so many little things that might be something so minor that just… tweaking somebody off and you don’t even know it. But wow.
Speaker 0 | 44:34.020
So, all right. Well, we are we are at the end of our podcast. So, John, thank you so much for investing your time with us today on the podcast. So that’s a wrap on today’s episode of Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m Doug Kameen, and we look forward to coming to you on our next episode.
