Speaker 0 | 00:06.619

All right, welcome everyone back to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds, where it’s all about popularity. That’s all that matters to get into IT, which is why we’re talking with Sergio Ramon de la Garza today, who comes from an extensive background in manufacturing of various different chemicals, plastics, and things that are really awesome. Right. And, um, but you know, what’s really cool is that you were doing this stuff for, no one can see this cause this is an audio show, but I do want to congratulate you on, um, looking for having been in some sort of technology all the way back to 1996. I would like to say, I’d like to congratulate you and me for how young we look and how good looking we are, you know, cause we need that. We need that every now and then, you know? So I’d just like this, I’d like to say congratulations. Um, but what’s really cool is that you were doing help desk and computer operations back in 1996 prior to Y2K, which I love talking about the old days. I really, I reminisce about the old days. It’s, it’s why my kids know that I’m old now. And, uh, when I was at a baseball game of my kids before one, one of the girls was like, you know, she was trying to talk to my daughter. She’s like, when are we in the 1980s? I was like, Oh, Oh gosh. the 1980s is not long ago it’s not long ago um but anyways let’s go back in time let’s start off by going back in time in in 1996 and tell people how fun it was and scare people with the layer the level of technology that we had to deal with back then well

Speaker 1 | 01:43.168

well so i mean i and i think this was one of the topics that we did say we want to go over um you know originally it wasn’t even um my first choice for career as a matter of fact it wasn’t even called it back then uh we called it uh what was it mis and data processing right and so it was it was the audio visual department it was pretty much so so really it’s me looking for a job to pay the bills while i was in school and uh back then it was really going through your your you know newspaper i mean literally having paper in your hand and going through the one ads and uh Found a role that was… Originally, I wanted to be in finance. And so I was looking for a finance role, clerk or AP, whatever. And so I called my local staffing agency and they said, yeah, come on by, fill out a book of our forms and stuff and whatever. And so I get there, do that. And by the time I was done, pen and paper, filling all that stuff out, those roles had already been filled. I’m like, man, you spent all my time. You could have… focus on the skill set to do the job but anyway people they said those jobs are filled but you know what we have this one computer operator night for nights and i’m like okay i could go to i could work there at night go to school during the day and then try to find something better along the way and that i spent almost 11 years at that place and i mean you talk about drivers for antiquated printers you’re talking about wang systems for erp You know, it’s, I mean.

Speaker 0 | 03:25.479

It’s the good old days.

Speaker 1 | 03:26.600

It’s the good old days. It’s floppy disk.

Speaker 0 | 03:29.083

Bro, it’s just so fun. So fun in Michigan.

Speaker 1 | 03:31.445

Internet, right? You’re going around updating people. We didn’t even have, I mean, there was CDs where CD ROM drives weren’t even available. You know, so you had like disk one of like 30 to install like,

Speaker 0 | 03:45.839

you know.

Speaker 1 | 03:46.824

Oh, we know 3.1, right? I mean,

Speaker 0 | 03:49.165

we should do a group show someday. We should, we should do a group show today with the youngest guy in it. And the guy that was there at the beginning, I just got off doing a show with Brandon Escobar, which is going to release soon. He was born in 1996. So he’s in it and he was born in 96. What does he know? Brandon, we love you. But I was like talking about like, there’s going to be this, this kind of like changing of the guards that’s going to come sometime yeah it’s going to be i was you know i think even the other day we were referring to it as like you know the obi-wan kenobis the obi-wan kenobis are going to die off you know and then it’s going to be like i don’t know this this new school but please let’s let’s i just want to talk i want to reminisce a little bit more about 36 floppy disks to load yeah there was plenty of plenty of

Speaker 1 | 04:37.385

floppies for you know installing windows and you know first you had to partition your drive you know and you only have like maybe Yeah. What mags of your hard drive back then?

Speaker 0 | 04:47.633

The partition’s not big enough. What do we do? What do you do? What do you do when the partition wasn’t big enough?

Speaker 1 | 04:52.377

Yep. I can’t remember. It was always, you know, it was always one thing or another. And then of course you have, you know, your, your, your ring network. So, I mean. you know, worked sometimes then you had all these coaxial cables running down the, you know, in the rafters and in the ceiling tiles.

Speaker 0 | 05:10.170

Awesome.

Speaker 1 | 05:10.831

Awesome.

Speaker 0 | 05:11.231

I haven’t had to, I haven’t had to format a hard drive in a long time and rebuild an entire operating system. Are we still doing that? Even like now I just throw the computer away and just go buy a new one. I’m just like, everything is in the cloud. So I just, you know, I’m like, okay, just log in.

Speaker 1 | 05:26.104

Yep. I mean, it’s, it’s a, I mean, they’re consumables now. You just, you know, with There’s no point in trying to rebuild it. Do you remember that?

Speaker 0 | 05:33.764

Formatting a hard drive. Just format the hard drive and just start.

Speaker 1 | 05:38.086

Get a 36-inch build out. That’s the only people I see building PCs anymore.

Speaker 0 | 05:42.768

True.

Speaker 1 | 05:44.248

But for day-to-day, again, it’s cheaper to just buy a new machine and go on. And you’re right. Everything’s in the cloud. But yeah, those days were interesting. You saw the beginnings of the internet. You had… You know, the browser wars with IE and Netscape, you had…

Speaker 0 | 06:05.626

We had to take Bill Gates to court. Had to take Bill Gates to court and make him look like the evil person that he’s… That no one really knows. He had to take a pie to the face, okay? Poor Bill Gates. He had to take a pie to the… He had… Poor Bill Gates. I mean, the guy, I mean, he’s just, you know, he doesn’t have anything. He had to take a pie to the face for Netscape or whatever it was. No, not Netscape. What’s wrong with me? Internet Explorer. Yeah. How dare you try to monopolize the entire world and control us all with your Microsoft.

Speaker 1 | 06:35.629

I mean, for me also in the beginning, we, you know, I learned Lotus one, two, three, and we’re perfect. And, you know, two years later, it’s like, you know, they don’t even make them anymore. Right.

Speaker 0 | 06:46.194

Have you been listening to the show? Have you been listening to the show? Because I ran into someone and they were still on Lotus notes. Yeah. Yeah. It’s been. It’s been years. It was years ago. But when I say years ago, I mean, like, four years ago, five years ago, I bet you they still are. I bet you they’re still using Lotus Notes. Lotus Notes. And we were talking about upgrading to Avaya. We’re talking about upgrading to Avaya IP office. And the reason and you know, well, the new system’s got to have, it’s got to work with Lotus. I can’t make this stuff up, dude. Lotus Notes. And of course, the IT director had been there for like 36 years. So yeah, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. What do you think about that?

Speaker 1 | 07:30.494

Oh, you know, almost, you know, not too long ago. And not, I say not too long ago, probably about 10 years ago, you know, 2013, 2014.

Speaker 0 | 07:40.002

Less than a lifetime. Less than a lifetime ago. Yes.

Speaker 1 | 07:42.784

A technology lifetime ago. Yes. Yeah. I had a, I had a coworker of mine who was working at a, they were a, a carbon black manufacturer and they were. They had not even migrated to using, they used all Microsoft products, but they did not use Outlook in exchange for email. They were using Lotus Notes. And I mean, that was just a wow to me. I mean, there’s a lot of that was.

Speaker 0 | 08:11.746

But what was the reason? That’s the key. The key is, what was the reason? It’s like, because the CEO really loves this feature. It had to have been something like that.

Speaker 1 | 08:22.433

It was actually Lotus Notes. allows you to develop databases on the fly. And so they had created, I mean, they practically built an ERP out of Lotus Notes doing, everybody had their 20, 30 databases to do their job every day. And so to take that away and try to build it out somewhere else, I mean, would have just been, might as well just shut down the company.

Speaker 0 | 08:50.328

Huh. Sounds like an opportunity.

Speaker 1 | 08:53.291

That’s one of the things that you would wonder why a director or CEO would want to not start planning sooner for stepping off that kind of platform or leaving it to grow, become such a beast that it’s not even supported anymore. I mean, I don’t know what it’s like today, but…

Speaker 0 | 09:11.183

They’re still on Lotus Notes. It’s probably the same company. I bet you it’s the same company we’re both thinking about. We’re going to talk offline about these guys. There’s still people… In fact, I would love… any it directors out there right now if there are any it directors out there right now may the lord above bless you the i need to know if you are still managing in lotus notes i need to know we i am on the search for somebody that’s still on lotus notes we need to have you on and you’ll probably never come on because you’ll never admit it and but there’s someone out there so i’ll even just take statistics i’ll take we’ll bring you on we’ll we’ll we’ll change your voice we won’t we won’t talk about we won’t talk about who you work for i just want to hear you you know, that you, it would just be a fun show. Who has the oldest technology silo out there right now? Any other old technology silos?

Speaker 1 | 10:00.657

That would be interesting to hear.

Speaker 0 | 10:02.104

Maybe we could make a new Lotus note. Maybe that’s the key. Maybe that’s the new email. We need to like bring back, we need to bring back Lotus notes in the cloud. Remember Lotus notes. Did you love it? It’s back. I want to know. I was probably too young. Didn’t care. Remember when you used to be able to look up someone’s address on, in, I don’t know, whatever the first Microsoft email instance was. I don’t even know. AOL, whatever. We had, we had, we had a guy on the show that met his wife. because he remembered he had someone like his high school sweetheart, looked her up in the email address book, the global email address book, found her, connected with her, got married.

Speaker 1 | 10:44.198

Oh, wow.

Speaker 0 | 10:45.279

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Speaker 1 | 13:17.348

That was an interesting time.

Speaker 0 | 13:18.648

It’s just too much fun to talk about this stuff. I don’t even care about modern day technology. Who cares?

Speaker 1 | 13:24.392

I think back then, I mean, it was crazy because it was like everybody was freaked out about, you know, the end of the world. Or, you know, once we go from 999 to 000, what’s going to happen? You know, and all these last minute patch fixes for ERP, for, you know, apply this. I mean, we didn’t, you know, back in those days, we didn’t even. bother testing we we ran the scenario changed the data on our backup system probably like a week before and and nothing happened found a few bugs updated a few patches and then tried again and you know we said i think we’re good enough to get through business for the first week and then we’ll figure out everything after that so i mean it was really a i mean in hindsight right because you you think about 2000 compared to myself That’s year four for me in IT. That’s still a grunt, sort of, still learning. But in hindsight, looking at it today, I’m like, I don’t know how any of that got through. Because, I mean, I wouldn’t let any of that fly. We should have been testing years ago. We should do that today. I mean, we test with our ERPs, but we got so much cloud today that, I mean, there’s really no, I won’t say there’s no failure. But today, there’s definitely a lot more. resources to prepare you for that as opposed to back then you were kind of on your own and good luck and unless you’re paying somebody you know good money for your support you know you were pretty much you know like that company that i started with it’s you know, well, you know, let’s, let’s bite the bullet. Let’s take a hit and see how it goes. Right. We don’t want to spend the thousands of dollars to prepare us. So you want to turn back the clock and just blame somebody else for if it goes bad, you know?

Speaker 0 | 15:12.738

So there’s still a layer. There’s still a certain amount of that. There’s certain amount of that, uh, today. Um, what did we worry about back then compared to now? What’s your, what keeps you up right now? In other words, uh, If I was to ask you, what’s your single biggest, I don’t know, struggle, problem, frustration, concern, and you don’t have to answer specifically, you can answer like in broad if you want. Like, what do you think nowadays, like IT leadership, what their biggest struggle, problem, frustration, concern is? What do you think it is?

Speaker 1 | 15:45.139

I think it’s cyber. I think it’s definitely cybersecurity. Back then, we didn’t care. I mean, there wasn’t really a platform or a footprint to even at least the way it is today. And it’s how. with social media and everything that we can have real-time notifications of what’s going on in the world. I mean, I think cyber is probably the biggest thing where you got to kind of always keep your finger to the pulse to understand what’s going on, the threats, the changes with that landscape. I mean, today you just get a text message that says, hey, I need to change my payroll banking, and that’s it. It’s just a message. It’s the kickoff is the the social part of it the person that’s receiving it Are they gonna act and that’s where you get them not necessarily a link that executes malware or you know a trojan horse It’s really, you know getting the sympathetic user to say. Oh, okay I’ll do that for you and i’ll buy the gift cards for you and you know, and then you’re you know

Speaker 0 | 16:43.416

The gift card thing is ridiculous the gift card thing. It’s like how does the it’s like the nigerian prince And I know that I’m, I know I’m pigeonholing Nigeria here. So I have friends from Nigeria, so I’m allowed to do this. The, um, but the Nigerian Prince letter, you know, that’s like, so I can’t get the money out of the bank. And, but here’s what happens if you help me send this, then I’ll pay you a hundred thousand dollars for, you know, it’s like, it’s like, our people are still getting caught with that. I had a colleague that got caught with the old, um, speaking of classified ads, the old, uh, the old Craigslist thing, which was like, you know, I’m going to send you the money. go ahead wait see the money is in the bank and then send it to me and really what they did was they sent like you know a perfect html like you know screenshot of uh your account inside paypal or something like the money is received and you’re looking at it like wow okay i guess i got it and then you send the thing in the mail and you didn’t even go check your bank account uh so that was a classic one um yeah i don’t know where we’re going with this i just lost complete track of whatever we were talking about what keeps me up tonight versus oh yes peace But that’s not your fault. It’s not your fault if HR gives out all the W-2s. I mean, that’s just like, hey, they’re going to blame you. They’re going to come to you like he should have told me that this could happen. Sergio’s fault. Prior Sergio, he didn’t tell me that someone’s going to text me and ask for all the W-2s and immediately I’m going to need them right away and send them all to Jan over in accounting. And here’s her email. No,

Speaker 1 | 18:09.114

there’s got to be some kind of, I mean, we have awareness training, but I mean, there’s. it’s it’s a lot more than that and i think it’s more vigilance you know that needs to be happening uh the users depend too much on on it to to prevent everything i think i think it’s more you know it’s a collaborative you know i mean it’s like everything it’s just like your own home right it’s

Speaker 0 | 18:29.263

not just me to make sure that i locked the door it’s you know everybody all right oh so true the home you just now you just stressed me out you really did you just stressed me out because now when you said my home now i just thought of like all the things you Because really, there is a lot of things. There’s so many IoT devices, too, inside your home. It’s your kids. It’s your kids that are walking around with devices. It’s people trying to fish your kids. That’s probably one of the scariest things, I think. Yeah, any advice there? Any advice there?

Speaker 1 | 19:01.429

I mean, really, it’s more, I think it’s just like when you try to provide awareness training to your users. It’s the same thing with your kids. I mean, you know, I have a… a mid teenager right now. And, and she has, you know, um, her accounts, but she’s also, I think it’s more because of what we do, uh, as a profession. I think, you know, Hey, you know, watch out for those. Hey, did you know that? But I think for myself, it also extends a little bit more than that because, uh, my oldest, um, is in it. My middle son’s in it.

Speaker 0 | 19:35.779

Okay.

Speaker 1 | 19:36.220

And so the youngest, uh, she’s probably not going to do it, but you never know. But I mean that. But it’s more of like, you know, I kind of use the analogy of like the TV show Blue Bloods, right? They have Sunday dinner at home, you know, all the cops talking shop. And it’s kind of the same thing here, right? We all kind of go over, you know, me talking about the dinosaur ages of, you know, how we did things back then versus today. You know, it’s all about cloud and Azure or what is it called now? Intra.

Speaker 0 | 20:05.060

Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 | 20:05.800

You know, and so, I mean, it’s definitely, you know, we’re all learning. We’re all learning from each other because there’s, you know, old things that still work. And then there’s new things that, ah, I didn’t know that kind of thing. So, I mean, it’s a.

Speaker 0 | 20:18.604

It was a good point. Do you, do you find, and this is something that I’m, I’ve literally just started to kind of notice and I don’t, it’s, it’s not like this big shocking aha moment or anything like that. But I’m noticing the gap of years between the new IT leader and the old school IT leader. So there’s the guys that remember Y2K, and there’s the guys that do not remember Y2K. And they both have the same title. In other words, I’ve interviewed IT directors that are, they’re an IT director, and they’re 27 years old, or even younger. I’ve had, I think the youngest I had was like 19 or something. And like just came and just like. just did such an amazing job and like upgrading the network and stuff and and um yeah so that’s why they were the person they were they’re like oh these youngsters know better than us you know it was like one of those things i was like you know and here’s this you know look everything’s running so great now now that we put jimmy in charge of uh that uh computer stuff we’re good the um because there is a bit of that still kind of old school um company that’s been around forever it’s a mom and pop shop you’ve got all these locations got this huge network and we’re still running on blue screens or green screens or whatever you call it and there’s a gap between there’s an age gap between the two and i’m wondering if we’re getting too old and what i mean that is like are we staying ahead of the of of the curve from uh Because I, and the only reason why I say that is because sometimes, and I’m in technology, and I’m in technology leadership and technology leadership show and been dealing with a lot of enterprise organizations and do consulting for years. Why am I asking my kid to do something for me in technology? Am I just being lazy? Or is there going to be a big change of the guard and they’re just so much faster in technology and client? It’s kind of like, hmm. you know, my father asking me to like, Hey, can you fix all this TV crap? You know, because I’ll be doing in two seconds, I’ll be like, you know, plugging in cords and this and resetting routers and like, why is this not working? How’d you do that? You know? And then they’re like, how, how did you do that? I’m like, you know, you’re like a hero and you reset a router, you know, you reset a router or something, you know what I mean? Like, Oh my gosh, you’re amazing. How do you do that? Like, Oh, I can explain it, but you know, you just gotta reset things in a, in line and you know, whatever. I’m just wondering if you experienced any of that.

Speaker 1 | 22:49.737

I sure have. And I think part of it is the era that kids are growing up today. I mean, everything is technology-based. Everything is social, right? You have your social media. You have, you know, during the COVID period, right? I mean, my kid was sent with the Chromebook home to do all her homework. And I mean, it’s, you know, okay. So the one thing is, one, you’re learning typing skills. Two, you’re understanding. oh, okay, I got to upload my work to the cloud and I got to do this and I got to submit that. And I mean, those are stuff that we, in the beginning, we really didn’t do, right? I mean, we were traditional pen and paper or, you know, an old computer to do our homework and print it out on a dot matrix printer and send it out,

Speaker 0 | 23:37.629

you know. Even on two floppy disks, seven, two, five and a quarter. Was it five and a quarter?

Speaker 1 | 23:43.433

So I think it’s an error that… you know, this generation is growing up in where they have, I’d say, a little bit more experience in technology, though, and the use of technology. That doesn’t replace, at least, you know, here’s me being the old dog talking. I don’t think it replaces the experience of what we’ve learned by starting out before this all began, because then you understand more the business process, you understand, you know, the do’s and don’ts of HR. You understand finances. So it’s, you know, you get the little bits and pieces that are, you know, as a director, you know, it’s not just can I plug in two devices together, get it connected. You know, you get the whole gambit of like, I got to worry how much I’m spending. You know, what about my licenses for this year? What is it? You know, the increase of cost, you know, so there’s a little bit more of that that us old dogs know from experience versus the 26, 27 year old. That’s. Yes, as a title, but we’ll probably learn pretty quickly. But, you know, we’ve had to kind of pay our dues to get where we’re at a little bit more.

Speaker 0 | 24:54.162

Yeah, that’s why I’ve really been thinking long and hard about putting together the course. Because, you know, like there’s so much money being made right now on like, you know, I don’t thought leadership really annoys me. Like everyone, I think everyone’s entitled to their opinion nowadays. That doesn’t mean that you need to be a thought leader or teach anyone anything, especially when you don’t know anything. Somehow people are doing that. But I really do want to put together the course. And I do believe that I have the experience for this. And it’s called the school of hard knocks and common sense. And that is going to be the course that I put together. Don’t do that. Chapter one, don’t do that. That’s a stupid thing. Why? You know what I mean? Common sense tells you don’t do that. That’s a stupid thing. Why did you do it? Example number one, case study. Jimmy decided that he was, no. Yes, there’s a lot of truth to that. Human interaction, empathy, not sitting on your phone. By the way, I do want to warn everyone and I should have a product for this and I should sell it and it should be called Nerd Neck something. I have a slipped disc C6C7 and it’s from doing all this work in front of a computer for so long with bad. posture. So I should be selling some rubber bands that you have to pull apart and neck exercise videos, something like this we should advertise on Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. So that’s it for our video today, or our advertising that doesn’t exist. Which we need. Any vendors out there that want to be on the show, you should. You should be paying us. We do have one vendor that’s coming up shortly that has agreed they want to pay us $5,000 per quarter to be on the show. So congratulations to them.

Speaker 1 | 26:27.724

Thank you, Ben.

Speaker 0 | 26:28.705

The… This is truly a labor of love. But yes, empathy, understanding business, general business process, being able to speak maturely to, I guess, adults and speak in a manner that is quick and to the point and speaks to the CFO and CTOs and CIOs. Like, this is what we had before. This is how much we are paying. This is what we have now. This is how much we’re going to pay. This is what you can expect as far as growth. The return on investment is this. Do you want to do it? Yes or no. Here’s the good, the better, and the best. Here’s your pricing options. What do you want to do? Literally, it can be that fast when it comes to, I guess. Then there’s talking to end users. No, you’re not an idiot, Mr. End User. You’re just old, and you’ve never done this before. Not speaking to people like that.

Speaker 1 | 27:22.082

That is true.

Speaker 0 | 27:23.223

Things like that. Realizing that not everyone is, yes, I don’t know. whatever these things that we try to pigeonhole people into millennials, Z generations, not everyone knows what Fortnite is. I’m really being very stereotypical right now. Is this kind of what you were getting at?

Speaker 1 | 27:40.989

Yes, exactly.

Speaker 0 | 27:42.409

Okay. Yeah. So how do we teach people that? And part of the problem is they’re getting poisoned by a lot of this new stuff. So it’s interesting. I took the TV out of the house years ago and I thought that was going to be like this big, amazing thing. And it was for a while, but nowadays most people don’t even consume stuff via television. Again, unless you’re of our generation, which you’re still being brainwashed by whatever you watch on TV all the time, they’re just getting brainwashed via a different way, whether it’s Instagram or some other thing. I don’t know. So what I found was when I observe my children, where they’re getting information from is a different route that I would get information from. And there’s something to be said there. I don’t know what it is. There’s just something to be said there.

Speaker 1 | 28:23.740

Yeah, that’s true. But I mean, how do you teach that? I don’t know. I mean. do they want to hear it i mean i don’t even see the the the mentorship anymore you know the thank you you know the where you know somebody will say hey you know how did you get there what what what did you do or you know what what could i do differently how can i improve it’s i think it’s also just that mentality like well you know this is what i deserve this is what i need to be at and you know it’s like oh entitlement so we’re going to go the entitlement that’s what i’m looking for okay so i’m on board with you a hundred percent i’m on board with you 100

Speaker 0 | 28:57.642

Forget this entitlement stuff. No, but really there is this, I, it kind of, I’m not very political person. I don’t, I don’t believe in really getting involved in like politics. I pretty much like I’m a law abiding citizen. I follow the rules, but there are things that I see that are very stupid that I think I’m just like how, like this college debt relief thing. And someone was going at it with me the other day. I was like, I’m just like, it doesn’t make sense to me that, you know, I was like, why should I be oppressed when I’ve. paid off all my debt. Why should I have to pay someone else’s debt? And they’re like, well, their benefit is that you get to do that, Bill. That’s what’s so great about it, is that you get to do it. You have the ability to do that. I need a break. I was like, what? It doesn’t make any sense. And you know what made a lot of sense to me was that the banks loaned out that money that they didn’t have to begin with because they’re loaning it out based on a perceived interest rate that they’re going to receive. So they never really have any money anyways, which is… ironic that’s why no bank robbery is happening where there’s no money even in the banks to be robbed then they lend it out to people and then the people can’t pay it back so they’re like well We need to make money anyway. So let’s have the people that do have money pay the government and that will get paid. So it’s like the banks make the money no matter what, which is crazy to me. Yeah. That make any sense? Did what I say, does that make sense? And there’s going to be some, there’s going to be some money person out there. They’re like, Phil is such an idiot. He doesn’t know how this stuff works. But to me, that’s in the book of common sense. Well, I’m entitled to stuff. Where are we going with this entitlement? Oh.

Speaker 1 | 30:24.046

I, we were, we were going from mentorship to entitlement to mentorship.

Speaker 0 | 30:27.727

Okay. So, oh, I know, I know what it was. I know what it was. So my solution was, is like, don’t go to school. Do not go to school. What is wrong with you? Why would you go to school and take a loan out for that stuff? When you can be mentored, I, I’m totally down with the old school. I think we should come full circle and go back to, and that whole little parody of the banking thing, by the way, no one take that. seriously but kind of do um that whole parody was meant to just bring it full circle around to the what happened to internships and mentorships and the old ways of of learning where you would learn underneath someone under a tutelage you know and i think in reality is that you could never really go to school for the job that you do you tell me i don’t think you can go to school and learn y2k in the school even though that’s past time right now it’s really hands-on experience it is you

Speaker 1 | 31:19.785

It definitely,

Speaker 0 | 31:20.146

just like I wouldn’t want to, I just wouldn’t want the guy that just got out of medical school to operate on me. I’d rather have his, the intern that had been watching the doctor for 30 years, take a, do a transplant. I’d rather have him do the transplant than the guy that just got out of medical school.

Speaker 1 | 31:32.351

No, no, I totally agree.

Speaker 0 | 31:34.512

So the key, so the, the, the long 10 minute conversation there is, um, mentors. Where do we go? How do we get them?

Speaker 1 | 31:43.515

I think, um, I think that’s where, you know, like, like us, I think that’s where we fall into that. If given the chance to say, hey, somebody who wants to roll up and learn, right? And instead of, I mean, I think a good example would be another coworker of mine. He has his team under him that one is, I think, is a data person. He does like power or business intelligence reporting and whatnot. And so he’s about to finish his master’s. And so he’s like, okay, great. So once I’m done, you know, my expectation is that you’ll pay me times three of what it is today and I’ll be able to do X, Y, and Z. I’m like, okay, that, you know, talking with my buddy, it’s like, well, I think that’s not feasible.

Speaker 0 | 32:38.683

It’s sad. It’s sad because I’ve got PhD, not candidates. I’ve got people that I know with PhDs that that’s the expectation. That’s the expectation is that once I do this, I’m good. I will not take a job until I get the job. That’s this title and this position and pays this much. Yep. That’s a farce.

Speaker 1 | 33:01.707

It is.

Speaker 0 | 33:02.347

So a lot of them go into education because I’m just going to be a teacher and because that’s, that’s my life because that’s really, I mean, I’m not nothing against PhDs. I’m not saying that. That’s great. I have a lot of friends that are PhDs that are authors and actually do a lot of things. Right. But I’ve got. And then it’s just, I don’t know.

Speaker 1 | 33:23.201

But I bet your friends that are PhDs or near that have done that with the idea that as I’m doing this, I can do a lot of good doing these other things as well versus your single focus of like, okay, I got my degree. This is what I deserve. I mean, just same as our generation.

Speaker 0 | 33:45.956

Exactly what you said.

Speaker 1 | 33:47.117

Yeah. our generation, we’re looking at this, we’re looking at that. It’s like, how do we better ourselves? Right. You know,

Speaker 0 | 33:52.962

because they’re close. I don’t have that. I don’t have that heart to heart conversation with them. And I’m not in that position to say, um, you need to go to the school of hard knocks and realize that that is not the case. And I’m sorry that you spent that much time getting a PhD. I’m very proud of you. You are very smart, but you need to go get in the trenches. Um, it will definitely help you. I mean, it’s the whole argument of like, do we need certifications or do we not? like the phd is like the ultimate kind of like certification right it’s the ultimate certification in what though um you’re i mean you’ve studied for a long time i i don’t know it definitely matters in in many cases um i just it’s just kind of that that there’s this there’s this balance in between of like you said mentorship and where do you think Because I want to take the show to the next level. We’re trying to think of like, what do we do? Do we want to do a retreat for everyone that’s been on Dissecting Popular IT Nerds? I’m thinking like a mentorship retreat or something like that would be great. What do we do? Because everyone says it gets lonely at the top. We have no one to bounce ideas off. I can’t go bounce my ideas off the CEO because he’s going to be worried. I can’t go bounce the ideas off the team below me because they’re going to wonder, am I really the leader that should be in place? I’m all by myself on this single island. So we need mentors. We need people when it’s lonely at the top to bounce ideas off of. But yeah, is there, is there anywhere you can just, you know, how would you go about getting a mentor if you wanted to grow other than, you know, everyone in your family’s in IT and you’re, you know, your kids, you know, have the benefit of being able to sit around a table at night and you can be like, you know, that’s great. And that’s very smart and all that. Don’t forget, you have to be a human at the same time and learn to talk with people, you know, and don’t forget what’s ROI. And they’re like, huh? ROI. What do you mean?

Speaker 1 | 35:33.920

Anyways,

Speaker 0 | 35:34.320

I would love to sit at your table some night. Let’s just do a podcast at your table with your kids and what you guys talk about. That would be fun. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 35:41.624

That would be cool. You know, I know some organizations do a center of excellence, usually within private equities. They have all their portfolio companies and they get all their IT companies together, IT leaders together.

Speaker 0 | 35:58.942

bounce ideas of how they can you know what are they doing how can they do what do they do better you know i mean that that’s one area i’ve seen it i’ve had that but then people always complain they’re like it really was supposed to be the center of excellence but really it was uh 95 vendors talking to us and five percent of us outside and always like dude i thought it was going to be this yeah but anyways go ahead no

Speaker 1 | 36:21.768

that’s true i mean it’s it’s always something like that i mean i think i don’t know i really don’t know because it it you I mean, I think you’re right about that when you say it’s lonely at the top, because I really, if I think about it, again, other than, you know, the dining room table, there’s really nowhere else I could bounce my ideas off for those same reasons, right? You know, are you competent to be at this level where you’re asking me what should I do, right? I mean, it’s hilarious, but at the same time, it’s like, you know, who do you look for, you know, when you’re the director? Who do you look to help you mentor for your next role, right? Who do you… Trust. That’s ideas off of,

Speaker 0 | 36:58.790

right? Yeah, and who do you trust? Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 37:00.951

And that’s a big part of it is also trust, right? Because is your leader that 27-year-old that’s running the department or is it…

Speaker 0 | 37:13.234

All right, so let’s switch gears and provide some mentorship to the people out there. So what is one of your simplest, biggest pieces of advice to help… people make a big difference as fast as possible in a new it leadership role or to grow into it leadership what could they go out and do raise their hands provide i don’t know something well i think i think one of the biggest things is if you if you’re like in your your area right it’s it’s

Speaker 1 | 37:42.174

do something to stand out take the risk right look at if you’re a developer understand infrastructure a little bit if you’re in infrastructure Understand what cyber is doing. You start expanding that broadness of your area and you start to understand, what am I developing and how does that affect the business? Or if I’m preventing these attacks coming through, what is going on on the other end? I mean, you start to see how all of it falls in together, whether you’re looking at… QA, you’re looking at finance, you’re looking at operations. I mean, you start to kind of just poke a little bit in all the little areas. It doesn’t mean you’re going to become an expert, right? Of course, you’re not like that saying, right, the jack of all trades and the master of none or whatever. But by understanding a little bit of every little thing, right, you get to become, in my mind, more valuable and at least saying, you know, what I’m doing is doing this. If I understood what that does, maybe my. the application I’m developing or the app that I’m creating should be more focused towards this with these type of users in mind versus, you know, this is the code, this is what it’s going to do, here you go, good luck, here’s your computer, I’ve added. You know, there’s got to be some kind of consciousness of what you’re doing it for, why you’re doing it, you know, and I think that’s for me the advice that I’d like to give, you know, if I was asked.

Speaker 0 | 39:17.442

you know is you know stand out take risks look around you know stop and smell the roses yeah the couple the three thoughts that made me that popped in my mind is like try and hack some area of the company and say see what i did um the other the other one was is when you’re getting hacked hack the person hacking you and then you know put together a sting operation and then show the give the company a lot of good press um and then the last one was measure results so how do you measure? I mean, to me, I think numbers don’t lie. People lie, right? So how do you provide KPIs or measured results? Or how do you say, hey, look, this is where we were. This is where we are now, I think is very valuable.

Speaker 1 | 40:00.650

I think so. I think the metrics for us, I mean, we definitely, probably the primary KPI is your ticketing, right? If you have a ticketing system, what do the tickets look like? Why are they taking so long to close? Why are there so many open? Or why do we have a low number? And it could be, you know, are the users even using it, right? Because you get into, you know, I mean, it happens anywhere. You get users that are like, hey, you know, hey, Joe. hey, John, hey, can you help me out with this real quick? Doesn’t get recorded, right? So then how do you validate how you spent three or four hours of your day? Well, I got pulled into it. Yeah. I got you. But was it recorded, right? I mean, did we, or did you do the ticket after the fact? I mean, that’s fine too. But I mean, that’s, you know, one of the primary ways of seeing, you know, where things are at, good or bad, you know? And, you know, do we need to… So that starts to look at, you know, do you need more resources? Do you need less resources? Are we having too much resources in one area and need to be in another? I mean, I think that’s the primary KPI, right? And then, of course, everything else is, you know, you start looking at like project deadlines, you know, we’re implementing a new ERP, you know, the milestones that we put along the way, right? Or, you know, networking, how are we off of one? and going on to a new stack. If we’re like, for example, leaving Cisco and going to Fortinet or something like that. I think it’s…

Speaker 0 | 41:29.764

There’s an exodus. There’s an exodus happening right now. A great exodus from Meraki to Fortinet. Oh, that’s big. That’s happening every day. It seems to be like every day right now.

Speaker 1 | 41:42.069

Oh, we did that. I mean, for us, in the last two cycles of life for me, career-wise, we went from a Cisco to a Fortinet shop.

Speaker 0 | 41:52.234

Love it. I love Fortinet. I’ve done it every day. I think we’re looking at three migrations, some consulting on the side that we’ve done already this month with massive, massive multi-locations that need to migrate off of whatever MPLS. And we’re going to do Fortinet, SD-WAN, Lite. And we’re going to do, you know, it’s just, it makes so much sense. And then if you want to do it without a massive capital expenditure and you don’t want to just pay this big bill up front, we can do an OPEX option of that too, which is kind of a secret sauce. um so yeah um someone mentioned fortinet guy i think or something isn’t there a youtube guy that’s like fortinet guy or something it’s like a there’s a youtube there’s a really good youtube guy that’s like he’s i think his name is fortinet guy or something like that it’s like everything fortinet um so yeah we need to we need to collaborate with fortinet guy the uh so that yeah so that i mean that’s excellent um what’s the key to influencing executive management and moving up in the world? And I don’t know what, what should be the, Oh no, I know what I was thinking was, I guess that’s one thing. One question is look, what’s the key to, to influencing executive management and moving up in the IT world? And what’s the, you know, what’s the end game for IT, which I think is a big problem. I don’t think there is a, since a lot of us were born and bred in an area where IT again, wasn’t a real thing. It’s kind of like, well, I’m in this. I don’t even know what is the end game. It’s like, do I, you know, start an MSP and sell it? And I wouldn’t wish that upon anybody. I just wouldn’t. I mean, that can be, you know, I mean, it’s like if it’s just serving small business, because so many small business owners just do not understand the value of IT. And it’s really just about cost. And can I save 50 bucks here? And then this whole battle and you got to go to school and, you know, how to prove that that’s not the case. Anyways. Um, so that can be difficult. What’s the end game? What’s the end game for it?

Speaker 1 | 43:51.048

I don’t know. That’s a good question I don’t know what no one knows.

Speaker 0 | 43:55.390

See that’s the problem. It’s a big problem What are you gonna do 10 15 years from now still be in it cash out on a 401k? I mean, I just again that’s like, uh, it’s uh, we need an answer to that We need some guy’s gonna some guy’s gonna come up as a thought leader on that Some guy maybe I should be me some guy’s gonna come up on a thought leader and it’s gonna be like, you know We have a course, $6,000 a month on how to blah, blah, blah, go from it to retire in the Bahamas. And we’re going to mark it down today. It’s only 1999. Join now. The, yeah, there’s going to be some thought leader on that one. No one has an answer to that. What’s the solution? Solution is have a lot of kids, make sure they get into software development or something and make sure they build something that cashes out for a billion dollars. And there you go.

Speaker 1 | 44:38.845

That’s true.

Speaker 0 | 44:41.354

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Speaker 1 | 48:06.263

Oh, wow.

Speaker 0 | 48:07.464

So I’m just, I just want to figure that out. I want to answer that question because if we answer that question, we’re going to put a team together and we’re going to go, I don’t know, change a country or then we’re going to do it to another country in another country as well. What’s the answer? We’re all going to be rich. Um, isn’t that, isn’t that the truth though? It’s not about money, Phil. It’s not all about money. You’re right. It’s not, it’s right up there with oxygen.

Speaker 1 | 48:31.056

Uh,

Speaker 0 | 48:34.118

just some thoughts. I just, these are, this is just what’s going across my mind right now.

Speaker 1 | 48:38.422

Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah. I didn’t, I didn’t realize that the, I guess the disparity of cost and usage of technologies and somewhere like Morocco, I would think, I’ll tell you what surprised me. I was in a conference, uh, sometime last year for our ERP system. And as we’re one of the topics was logistics and love it.

Speaker 0 | 48:59.614

Two of my two of my one is my favorite. One’s my least favorite ERP, least favorite logistics favorite. As far as pain, as far as pain and suffering goes. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 49:10.864

So the discussion was, you know, using the ERP system and the module and ERP and all this. And mostly everybody in the room is like, well, we still, you know, we still go. And. have our clipboard in the forest filled out. Yep. And another person which uses the CRP system, but their headquarters is based out of Mexico, their Department of Transportation requires… Like all this technology. So everything is a tablet or a smart device to be able to track things from point A to point B. Wow. I mean,

Speaker 0 | 49:51.236

I’m already mind blown. I’m already mind blown for numerous, because numerous reasons, because it shows, it already shows the value of technology as a force multiplier. I can already tell where this might be going, but keep going.

Speaker 1 | 50:08.432

One, totally blown to think, and not to belittle Mexico, but was surprised of hearing that, you know, because, you know, thinking, you know, the great red, white and blue, we should already be there. And we’re not. We’re not.

Speaker 0 | 50:23.698

We spent so much money on infrastructure over the years.

Speaker 1 | 50:26.799

You know, that piece of it. And I really sat and listened to that. And it was really amazing how everything is just, you know, it’s a point and click. It’s, you know. authenticated through whatever security measures they have and then signed off and then you got your weight you got your your shipping documents you know eco terms are all in this right place i mean it’s just it was really amazing to hear that whole conversation it’s like wow i mean you know and then the thing to me is like why are we there why aren’t we we’re still struggling with you know old old edi systems to to manage our logistics of moving

Speaker 0 | 51:05.580

right from here just across the street do you think it’s because we’re fat and do you think it’s because we’re fat and lazy and wasteful i think part of that is i think we’ve become we’re rich we’re lazy we waste money i think we’re we become um what’s the word we’re

Speaker 1 | 51:22.129

just satisfied you’re just not content not content uh it’s like it’s like the whole idea it’s good enough yeah exactly does the job it’s been working for 100 years just keep doing it if it ain’t broke don’t fix it yep

Speaker 0 | 51:35.188

The other thing I noticed two years ago, I was in Saudi Arabia for three months and I’m driving around and I’m noticing there’s just no police officers. There’s police officers, but it’s more in like public places to like for entrance. There is no, no one’s getting pulled over. None of that. The second you enter that country or whatever, right? Like they, like if you’re going to drive a car there. They have your cell phone number. And if you go over the speed limit, I mean, you can’t drive over that speed limit in that country for more than, I would say, 10 minutes without instantaneously a ticket getting sent to your cell phone and you cannot go anywhere without paying it first. If you do not pay that ticket, you’re done. They have a fame, if you go, if you run a red light there, it’s a $5,000. Which is they do reals there. So it’s a $5,000 real fine, which means, which is the equivalent of basically $1,200 in US dollars. You run a red light, you’re getting a $1,200 ticket. You can’t travel out of the country. You’re like, there’s certain things that you cannot do until you, until you pay that ticket. Wow. But what I noticed was it’s so, it’s, it’s technology and it works so well. And it’s not just the, it’s not just the tickets. It’s, it’s. It’s how you renew your DMV. It’s how you, it’s how you do like everything. It’s like this digital, like what everyone’s paranoid about here. You know, like the, the digital. Yeah, the, yeah, it is. It’s, it’s big brother, very good way. And it works really, really well. Um, and it like made me think like, why don’t we have, think of all the like unnecessary traffic stops, the police officers that are put in harm’s way from, you know, a general traffic stop. I mean, just. Like, and people that are running red lights and accidents that happen and they map it all out. They’ve mapped these systems. They’ve mapped out because they have, they used to have like, you know, I think Middle Eastern countries are just renowned for having like, or even maybe even Europe. I don’t know. Crazy drivers. It’s just a different, like, it’s, you feel like, look, man, if you’re going to drive there, you need to be like either from Massachusetts or some other crazy state in the United States. It’s like really known for like aggressive driving, like aggressive. But they were able to correlate. again back to data numbers don’t lie people right they were able to correlate deaths and accidents because of these systems and like you know it’s it’s all going down so there’s an example of you know technology and i’m sure when someone presented that to the budget or something you know i mean like i’m sure it was not cheap i’m sure all these traffic cameras everywhere it’s on the highway it’s there everywhere And they move too. So they have a way of like trick you. So you can’t just be like, Hey, don’t forget about the traffic stop traffic light there. You know, um, there, how they do it. It’s just, it’s just so well done. I must’ve gotten three tickets while I was there. Um, So it’s, it’s, um, yeah, anyways, works very, very well. I think that’s an example. So back to your, the Mexico ERP system, it’s a belief. It’s a real strong belief in people really believing that they can use technology to be more efficient and do things better, faster, um, smarter.

Speaker 1 | 54:54.761

Oh yeah, most definitely.

Speaker 0 | 54:56.001

And I don’t know if everyone believes in that. I don’t know if everyone believes in technology and if every CEO in the U S believes that they should invest in technology, but my, my answer would be yes.

Speaker 1 | 55:05.168

I think one, the investment technology. Two, is really start working with your people to use it, right? I mean, because you still have, like I mentioned earlier, you still got people that you can have the best system. They’re still going to rely on their spreadsheets or pivot tables. And I’m still going to do my job the way I’ve been doing it for 15, 20 years. If there’s even that many companies still with that many legacy employees. I mean, ours is, right?

Speaker 0 | 55:34.100

So great. I guess the answer is ERP systems, which is just such a nightmare.

Speaker 1 | 55:38.963

Or at least work towards adopting that ability to say, you know, instead of spending eight hours a day doing, you know, three spreadsheets, I could use the tools I have and then try. And again, I think it’s more, do you want to better yourself or, you know, just good enough. I get through my day and then go home. Yeah. I think it’s all attitude too. All how you perceive on what you’re doing and how you’re going to use technology.

Speaker 0 | 56:02.719

It’s true. It has been a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you for taking the time to give back to your colleagues. And I guess the main themes are we need to find a way to create more mentorship opportunities for each other. So for the youth out there, go find a mentor that has been through Y2K. And you guys collaborate together because you’ll both mentor each other.

Speaker 1 | 56:32.387

I appreciate it, Phil. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 0 | 56:33.992

Thank you.