Speaker 0 | 00:04.719
I’m still not going to get that right. Even though I just had, I just, I just asked Greg, everyone, welcome back to dissecting popular it nerds, how to pronounce his name. And I said, Hey, you want to just wing this today? And like, we’re just going to make stuff up as we go. Or do you really want to like plan out this podcast and do this thing all professionally? He’s like, he’s like, no, let’s wing it. And I said, Oh great. How do I pronounce your last name? And he said, well, isn’t that part of winging it? And I did kind of hear you, but it’s real Nick.
Speaker 1 | 00:28.758
You got it.
Speaker 0 | 00:29.919
Oh, Man, that’s good. Great. And because I’m practicing languages too. So, you know, empowering CIO is your title on LinkedIn, motivational speaker, coach and mentor, theta healer. No clue what that means. Probably has something that’s like, I don’t, I don’t know. I thought yoga or something like that right away. I don’t know. This is just the first, I have no clue what theta healer means. Okay. It could be, it could be a plan, something that I should know. So. Here’s why I wanted to wing it so much today because we are working really hard on rebuilding our website. We’ve got all these crazy ideas and we’ve got hopefully fun surveys and things that are going to pop up. I want to run these by you as a CIO motivational speaker and you tell me if this falls flat with you or if this you think is going to ring true with IT people. One of the ways that we are going to ask people to take part is in like different quizzes and surveys and things. And the button to get started on the quiz is to boldly go beyond Windows XP. Does that fall flat with you or no? That’s the start button to boldly go beyond Windows XP. Highlight your career. Share your insights with peers. Blah, blah, blah. Get fleeting recognition and fame, like which we’re giving you right now, to start to boldly go beyond. Windows XP. This is just my thought. This is how I spend part of my day every now and then, just coming up with ideas. Curious what you think.
Speaker 1 | 02:00.685
I mean, that’s a bit Star Trek-ish. I would say, but I kind of like it.
Speaker 0 | 02:08.410
Okay, good. So now we’re going to fire off. Well, first of all, tell me, I have to introduce you. Tell me what you do. Take a moment to, I don’t know, brag about yourself and let us know how you can help us save the world.
Speaker 1 | 02:22.796
hmm no pressure so to speak no i mean no i mean what do i do kids so that’s how i’m saving the world well in that case i’m halfway there i got four okay good so uh what do i do that’s a very broad and uh kind of out there question well
Speaker 0 | 02:45.848
In the world of IT, I guess, in the world of technology.
Speaker 1 | 02:49.390
In the world of technology, I have started my technology career over 28 years ago. And just saying that out loud is a scary thought in itself. I started as a software engineer because I really wanted to know what makes programs tick. It’s this curiosity of… you know how do you make that work and how does it help you know the average human being to do whatever it is that they do um and that’s how i started in my in my i.t career but that evolved because once i figured out how programs work and how i can make these these wonderful things on the screen to go beyond windows xp work there we go um i i thought it exactly I started getting involved more in how do I make that which I can make work solve a business problem? Where can I find the gap and what is that gap? And how do I merge the human factor? Because ultimately that is who is going to be using these solutions with the IT problem resolution, right? What business problem do we have and how can we fix it? Because you can buy a widget, a box, a program from pretty much anywhere from anyone these days.
Speaker 0 | 04:20.515
Correct.
Speaker 1 | 04:21.555
But what solution creates value instead of just buying another box, right? And that’s how I got involved and evolved during my career. And I guess that’s what’s kind of separated me apart from everyone else because I wasn’t just curious in how do I make this really cool technology. and write these really nifty programs, but how can I make businesses better as a result of it?
Speaker 0 | 04:49.048
I thought it was because you worked at Broadview Networks and I worked at Broadview Networks at one point. So that’s the beauty of us having this conversation right here, except you left. earlier and i left later before winstream before winstream brought them and that’s like that’s maybe the tech news section of the show is like what can winstream buy and not ruin well you know phil
Speaker 1 | 05:19.742
it’s actually against winston you know it’s a much bigger conversation because you know um i i yes i did work for broadview and i wrote their uh i guess later version of commissioning software, which allow them to be put on the map where they can sell any product by any salesperson and then calculate commission between residential and commercial plans and all that. And that is how they lost me as well, because BridgeCom noticed that that was out there. And so they came after me and they kind of said, we’re going to give you more money if all you do is just… come this way.
Speaker 0 | 06:06.831
And so I went. We’ve got calm. We have a calm on the end of our name was during the calm days. Yep. It’s exciting time. So, but, but think about that back then. Let’s just go back to what were you working on? What were you working on back then? What were you coding on and building? Like, tell me a little bit of like, just like, you know, enrich the, enrich the youth that are listening to this. We’ll have no clue what you’re talking about, but maybe bring me back as to what. Back in our day, we used to have to do this.
Speaker 1 | 06:36.984
Back in our day, it was Visual Basic. I will not want to lie to you. I don’t remember the version. I think it was 5 or 6 or 7 or one of those. But that is what we were writing in. It was VB. Java and HTML were just becoming popular. SQL was at the back end of it. And then we were writing all of these cool programs. you know dlls were becoming a thing and apis were just really coming out and you know if you remember this wonderful person by the name of lenny gordon no i’m ignorant please please continue okay okay so he was responsible for churn oh yeah and that is to to count how what the the the how fast the customers are leaving and how many yeah Yeah, so we wrote that wonderful piece as well. And the ironic thing is that I wrote that commissioning software in VB, and I think the guy’s name was Ben, who was in charge of sales. And I was supposed to go to our World Trade Center location on 55th floor to do a sales presentation and training. And it was supposed to be on 9-11. but that took place a couple of weeks prior because someone up above didn’t want me there and um yeah so i was kind of happy for that um that is kind of wild that goes to show you how
Speaker 0 | 08:18.594
long ago you worked at broadview because i worked at briview nowhere close to that time I was still in college at that time. So yeah, your broad…
Speaker 1 | 08:29.279
This was a while back.
Speaker 0 | 08:30.480
Your broad view days and my broad view days are two different days, but there’s still broad view, which doesn’t exist anymore. So this is the… So one of the questions that we have in the quiz, so you’re going to help me do some work here that I send off to my development guys anyways. So what is your most exciting memory of technology is the question. For example, what was your first computer? How did you get into technology? Is that a good question or should I reword that?
Speaker 1 | 08:51.829
No, that’s perfect. So my first computer was Compact Presario. I would not be able to tell you the model of that. That was just so long ago. I got into it. I actually studied electronic engineering in college.
Speaker 0 | 09:12.304
Like most IT people that worked at Broadview back in the day. They didn’t go to college for, I don’t know. I don’t know. Do you go to IT college? I guess you do go to IT college now.
Speaker 1 | 09:26.051
I went. Yeah, I went to DeVry University. I graduated with a bachelor’s in computer science, but I started when it was just DeVry Technical School or college or whatever the hell it was back at the time. And then by the time I graduated, they had converted into an official university. And if you want to know how convoluted our history is. So I started at Broadview. I started at Broadview. I then went to BridgeCom. BridgeCom and Broadview merged. But that was after I left. And then I was interviewing with Mass Communications, if you know that company.
Speaker 0 | 10:10.590
I was a young’un. I was still a young’un back then. I don’t think DSL had come out yet. Had DSL come out yet?
Speaker 1 | 10:16.392
Yes. Well, my time at Broadview, DSL was out and so was BRI. But just to highlight how incestuous the industry is. So I left Broadview and then years later, I was interviewing with Darren Mass, who’s just a wonderful human being, who was the CEO and founder of Mass Communications. And I was going to join them as their CIO and something has changed. I was literally on my way to their office to sign an offer agreement and something has changed and we’ve decided not to proceed. And shortly after, I think it was a year or two after that, they got bought out by Windstream. And then Windstream bought out what is then known as Broadview.
Speaker 0 | 11:10.135
There you go.
Speaker 1 | 11:11.235
So if I was to stay, it would have been a complete 360 coming back to Broadview Networks.
Speaker 2 | 11:20.520
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Speaker 0 | 13:40.739
What do you have to say about incestuous industry? Would you say over the time, and I’m sure we have some stories, I’m sure we could trade stories that if we told on this call right now that we’d probably be killed. No, for real. I’ve seen a lot, which is probably part of the reason why I started this podcast and why I believe so much in what I do and supporting IT directors and getting them from being pigeonholed into a cost center and all these other things and treated horribly. And now they should have a seat at the executive roundtable. you know be ruling the world like jeff bezos who was just a nerd selling books but now he’s on testosterone and clearly super ripped and walking around like the man um the yes what uh what doth thou have to say about the incestuousness of this industry and would you agree with me in that it’s the 80 20 rule in full effect meaning 20 of the industry is of you high moral character and the other 80 and then there’s the other 80 percent or are we doing better than that i will like is that in general is that as just a human’s act it could just be humans gentle i mean let’s it could just be humans i would love to think that we are doing better than that um
Speaker 1 | 14:57.025
unfortunately some industries are not doing as well so take for example fashion apparel That is beyond incestuous. We literally have people going from company to company to company only because they’ve been in a similar company in the same industry before or they know people that have. I would say that if you have industry-specific knowledge and you are on a manager level or above, chances are if you don’t get out within five years, you’ll get pigeonholed. It’s just… been the nature of the beast i mean you know my career started out in consulting um i got into manufacturing non-apparel manufacturing um i then went into uh broadview which is telecom and once again got you know poached for uh bridgecom and then i went into the apparel industry my family is from apparel okay my my dad spent the last so 50 years in fashion apparel. He’s retired now. And so he taught me and I’ve learned from him every single thing that I knew about fashion apparel and manufacturing. And I got offered a job in the apparel industry and I’ve been in it ever since. It’s been 20 years or something like that now. And it’s… It’s crazy because I look at all of these companies that I’ve worked with over the years, and I know somebody that has gone from one to the other to the other, and that’s just been pigeonholed for 15, 20, 30 years, and they can’t get out. You know? So for those of you that are listening.
Speaker 0 | 16:48.533
Well, listen, you are a motivational speaker, okay?
Speaker 2 | 16:53.456
You are a motivational speaker,
Speaker 0 | 16:55.477
and you are a coach and mentor, and you are… I don’t know what theta healer means yet, but maybe it’s industry pigeonhole feeler. Feeler. I don’t healer. Okay. Could you please motivate this guy that’s been pigeonholed out of this? Can we give some advice to, if you have been pigeonholed, this is what you do. Quit.
Speaker 1 | 17:15.323
Don’t be afraid to take a step back.
Speaker 0 | 17:17.624
Okay.
Speaker 1 | 17:18.784
Do not be afraid to take a step back.
Speaker 0 | 17:21.065
That’s interesting advice. Talk to me. What does that mean?
Speaker 1 | 17:23.725
Well, for example, if you spend 10 years in the industry, And naturally, well, I would say for the most part, you’re probably somewhat someone that’s either on the senior or managerial level at this point. Yeah. Right. After 10 years, if you’re ambitious, you’re hungry, you know, and you want to grow, you’re probably someone that is in some shape or form in a managerial form, position, level, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 0 | 17:53.257
And now we’re just short of C level, something like this. VP of mid-market something, mid-east, mid-something. Okay. Right.
Speaker 1 | 18:05.682
Yes. So, you know, you want to grow, but now you want to go into a different industry. But you don’t have industry-specific experience. Right. Let’s say you’ve been in apparel and now you want to go into finance. How do you go from A to B without having specific experience, without losing rank? Making a stop at. You take a step back.
Speaker 0 | 18:28.091
And enjoy life. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 1 | 18:29.772
And enjoy life. Because you know what? Any day above ground is a good day. Yeah. You wake up. You have lungs. You have air in them. You have rivers of blood running through your body.
Speaker 0 | 18:42.518
Yeah. I’m going to take a step back. I’m going to take a step back. I’m going to enjoy knowing what I’m doing in this new role, in this new industry. And I’m going to take advantage of my old industry and sell some apparel on the side wholesale.
Speaker 1 | 18:59.713
I’ll give you an example.
Speaker 0 | 19:01.033
I’m going to sell cheap underwear. Go ahead. I don’t even know what to do with this.
Speaker 1 | 19:04.674
I’ll give you a perfect example. I should know. So I’ll give you an example, right? So at the age of 28, I made VP. Okay. I was vice president of information services for a sportswear company called Bamskin. Ladies’ Sportswear.
Speaker 0 | 19:21.198
Flying eye. High level VP.
Speaker 1 | 19:23.579
VP. I had the status. I was young. Yeah. You know, I had a family. I was making money, but I wanted more. I wanted to go into luxury, luxury apparel. I wanted to be part of the Gucci’s and Versace’s and Hermes’s and all that. Why? Because that’s why I was hungry. I wanted that. Right. I wanted my career to excel.
Speaker 0 | 19:45.025
I am the VP. I’m the Gucci VP of IT. I’m the only IT director wearing Gucci. All right. Thank you. Does that I’m horrible. Look, I look, let’s be honest. I have a two foot long beard. I wear a car heart. You would laugh at me in New York or wherever I would be going. Okay. They laugh at me. I’d have some like beat up Timberlands on. That’d probably be the most. apparel fashion thing that I did. I am wearing, these glasses are probably the nicest looking thing that I’m wearing. And that’s because my wife picked out these Ray-Bans. I, you notice I had to actually take them off and look at them to just make sure. Is it Ray-Ban? It is, it’s Ray-Ban. Okay. I almost bought a Rolex once.
Speaker 1 | 20:24.095
Oh, once.
Speaker 0 | 20:26.116
Anyways, keep going. Sorry. You could probably do a lot for me. I should have you do, we should do an IT makeover. That’s what we should do. We should do IT makeover. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1 | 20:34.103
totally. Totally. Totally. I mean, I don’t have a beard like you, but I’m going to get slowly.
Speaker 0 | 20:39.948
We’re going to get Bezos steroid dealer. He’s probably just on TRT. Let’s be honest. We can get his workout person. Yeah. We’re going to, yeah. We’ll do IT makeover. Okay. So I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to derail you. I have, I have been up for a long time. Where were we? Apparel industry. Jumping in the apparel. VP of. riding high you were living like the dream role at the time probably working like crazy you were young you had a family you had the what do they call that role that that’s like the anyways it’s the like not the ego role but it’s like you know i was making money but you know like the other people are still making millions at the top and being like yeah we got a vp we’re only paying this so anyways right you know what i mean like there’s this time we’re like yeah i’m like but then you get older and you’re like oh okay um so anyways so you wanted to go to Versace one I actually wanted to go to our meds
Speaker 1 | 21:35.272
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the brand they’re a French luxury brand no
Speaker 0 | 21:40.557
Greg the Frenchman the producer behind the scenes he’s gonna know my producer’s French so okay he used AI to make me speak in French too that’s a anyways keep going so um they had a position which was a lower level position which is director and
Speaker 1 | 21:58.932
Not necessarily more money. It was more of a lateral move.
Speaker 0 | 22:02.452
Cool.
Speaker 1 | 22:03.053
But the opportunity was there. So for my career, I took a hit. I took a step back. I went back to the rock level. But it was taking a step back and then two steps forward. Because from there…
Speaker 0 | 22:19.777
I love this metaphor. Because you took a step back career-wise, but your wardrobe went through the roof.
Speaker 1 | 22:28.720
Uh, not necessarily mine, but my wife’s definitely did.
Speaker 0 | 22:34.442
Okay. All right. I love it. I love it. Um,
Speaker 2 | 22:37.304
that’s great advice.
Speaker 0 | 22:38.184
So we got to get to some of these other questions here just for the sake of making this up. And it’s just for me being selfish and I want to know, um, let’s see. So we had first computer we had, um, Oh, that one’s really deep. We cover that one a lot on the show. I’m just going to say one of the questions is building a strong IT culture? What are your key strategies for fostering a positive and productive IT environment? Let’s be honest, no one really cares about that. So
Speaker 1 | 23:00.898
I want to get- I care about that.
Speaker 0 | 23:02.359
I know you do. I know you do. That’s the most important one, but I wanted to get, but I’m going to let you talk about that. But before we get to that one, we’re going to skip ahead. And I want to know my dream IT super tool. If you could give your IT team one super tool, what would it be and why?
Speaker 1 | 23:21.454
Does it have to be technology? Technology.
Speaker 0 | 23:23.236
You can tell me that’s a terrible question. You can tell me that’s a terrible question.
Speaker 1 | 23:26.237
It’s a wonderful question.
Speaker 0 | 23:28.118
Okay, great. It says super tool. So, I mean, it could be don’t be a tool and just be a good listener. That could be the super tool, right? But that’s kind of like a, that’s where we’re getting into, like, I think theta healing, which I still don’t know what that means. But I’ll give you a two-part answer. However you want. You answer it however you want.
Speaker 1 | 23:49.187
I’ll give you a two-part answer. So. First will be emotional intelligence. Yes. And the second would be empathy.
Speaker 0 | 23:56.651
Which is emotional intelligence. It’s emotional intelligence. Like, and we do like the old, like, you know, a like, or what, what, what does that call? Like an outline or something? Emotional intelligence, a empathy. Okay. So how do we turn that into a tool? We can use chat GBT for that. Hey, my, my end user saying this, how do I have empathy?
Speaker 1 | 24:20.668
So it’s something that most people have, other people’s learn, right?
Speaker 0 | 24:27.990
I’m glad that you said you can learn it.
Speaker 1 | 24:29.330
You can. The feedback that I’ve often gotten from my team has been that I’m not just a boss, which, by the way, is the word that I totally hate. And I don’t hate many things. That word is just something that I totally, if I could wipe it out of my vocabulary and never use it. nothing would make me happier. It’s the fact that I have always approached any situation with emotional intelligence and extreme amount of empathy. IT folks, especially. tend to be a bit more robotic because to them it’s all ones and zero. It ought to work so it doesn’t. But when you work in technology and you work with people, you can’t approach every situation that way. You have to put the human factor in. Put yourself in the situation of the end user, the person that’s calling you or reaching out for assistance. They have a real world problem. and they’re expecting you to solve it for them. But you can’t always go about it and, well, have you tried turning it off and turning it back on? Because it doesn’t always work. We design solutions in the lab, but we test them in the real world. And the real world has something that the lab does not. Human factor. Human beings are naturally designed to poke and break and try different ways and find band-aids and find ways that works for them. We do it in every aspect of our life. IT should not be any different. Yes, you create systems, whether it’s hardware, software, a combination of, with rigid specifications. It has to work, and it has to work in this way. But when you put that technology in a business and real-world scenario, there are a myriad of different scenarios and situations and factors and conditions, and no human being in the world can… possibly account for all of that.
Speaker 0 | 26:33.316
I’m going to bring you back in time. We’re going back to Broadview. We’re going back to commissions and building software for that. And we’re building a tool for humans that humans will break and not follow. So everyone knows Salesforce and objects in Salesforce. And we can make Salesforce crazy complicated. I’m going to go hire like some, even if I just wanted to bring Salesforce in for, oh. managing all podcast guests and all kinds of different stuff, right? It would be like, it just, for my little rinky dink operation, it would be like, okay, we need at least $10,000 in development fees from somebody. And that was maybe 10 years ago. So back to your human piece,
Speaker 2 | 27:12.009
do we use tech?
Speaker 0 | 27:13.349
How do you feel about managers, unempathetic managers? We could just say managers anyway, they’re managers. That’s why they’re called managers. They’re not leaders, they’re managers. And we need you to enter the stuff into the SQL database this way. And now we’ve got this new thing and we’re going to use it this way. And if you don’t have these objects inside Salesforce and different, I don’t know, what do we call them? Call dispositions, call dispositions that we need to drop down and all these different things we’re going to program into the software. Why? To control the human so that we get the data that we need because we need the data, but we need accurate data. We probably don’t get accurate data because of, like you just said, humans that we need to be empathetic with. What’s the balance? What is the balance between, and this is deep. This is real deep. What’s the balance between empathy and hardcore incestuous business world that could care less about your, I don’t know. whatever it is, affinity for something. What’s the balance between good leadership, empathy, and using technology to balance the harshness of the business world and the meeting between the two? Does that make any sense? Is my question, you probably need to be empathetic with me and my question to begin with, but there’s gotta be a balance between the two, right? So you have your unempathetic. manager we need this done I’m not gonna listen I don’t even care you’re even just maybe I T maybe you said there’s a robotic we’re just gonna pinch it home but IT guys into a robotic help desk people now they don’t know how to talk to people okay fine you have crying end-user that comes your if she’s just so up or he is just so upset about this piece of technology not working for them and you’re like what do you mean what’s wrong with it’s easy like just click here so that that’s the stereotype right But there’s also this, the manager that needs all the data and needs the human that’s the hard worker to enter all this mindless data into the system because the human’s thinking, can I just do my job and be successful? But we need the data at the same time. So there’s got to be some kind of meeting here. I don’t know if I’m coming off clear, but there’s a time where we use technology to control humans because if we didn’t use the technology to control the humans, we wouldn’t get the outcome that we needed. But the humans will try to break the technology and get around doing that because they’re humans. So we then have to coach the humans to say, hey, you’re a human and we need to be empathetic with them and say, there’s a reason why we need you to do this. And that’s because of this. And then we all come together through empathy. So what that is.
Speaker 1 | 29:57.244
Well, the thing about all of that, that vicious cycle, is that not all companies and managers. hire the right people for the right job. 80%
Speaker 0 | 30:08.668
of the time.
Speaker 1 | 30:10.330
Only 80% of the time. 80% of the time. So if you’re making an investment into hiring someone, wouldn’t it make sense for you to make an investment in training that person the correct way? So your long-term investment into them, because you’re not just investing money, you’re paying them salary, you’re also investing time, right? And That equates to profit because if they’re not efficient, they’re not doing their job the right way. Someone has to correct it or you have to create other controls around it, right? Implement controls around it, whether IT controls or managerial control to make sure that that person does their job correct in the correct way. So now you have multi-layer.
Speaker 0 | 30:59.696
Crazy multi-layer, which kind of allows us to go back to the. the question that you said you loved which was building a strong i.t culture and what are the key strategies for so we’re just going to layer this into how what are these key strategies or multiple layers because what i’m assuming is spend time training your people but also spend time training your trainers on how to be empathetic and and and um i guess teach people empathy because
Speaker 1 | 31:22.223
it can be connected they they have to connect with the people they work with on the human level right so hire people that not necessarily bring the skill and the experience, but also those that are teachable, that are hungry, that are passionate. Because you can’t teach hunger and you can’t teach passion. You can teach a skill. And through skill, when utilized, they can gain experience. But if you have someone coming in and you’re interviewing them and you see that they may not be the best fit because they don’t have six out of the 10 tools that you use. or systems that you use, or the experience that you want, but they’re hungry, they’re open-minded, they’re passionate about learning, invest the time in teaching them. Because now you’re not just teaching someone that’s going to do your data entry, you’re potentially teaching someone that’s going to be your company’s leader in X time. And that person will teach the next person that comes in, and the next person that comes in, and the next person that comes in, right? And because now you’ve invested that time, you’re building a strong culture that these people are not just numbers, are not just resources. They’re someone that you value and care about. Why? Because you spent the time invested in them, teaching them the right way. So when it comes to my team, I do not micromanage. Why? Because I trust them. Because I spend enough time with them. teaching them what they need to know, and then slowly but surely giving them more quote unquote rope.
Speaker 0 | 33:07.789
You’re making me reach out and touch someone right now. Literally listening to you say that is making me want to reach out and touch various different members of my team immediately right now. It’s very powerful what you said. It sounds simple. It sounds… It sounds basic. It sounds like something that we might hear a lot, but being able to, here’s the difference. A bad manager spends a lot of time trying to fix the broken people that might not be hungry or have a bad attitude and those type of things. And they don’t spend enough time with the people that do have the right attitude that are the hard workers that do all that. They usually just kind of let them run on autopilot and then they wonder why they leave. then they wonder why they leave the team because you should spend your time with your best people. But a lot of times we spend all of our time managing the other people. So my opinion would be fire fast, fire fast. Take a long time hiring and fire fast. Take more time hiring. Don’t hire quickly because you need someone. Take a long time hiring. Make sure you’ve got the right candidate. And then when you don’t have the right people, get rid of them. I mean, within, this is like a very simple, like, you know, general business, like, like saying, right. This is, that doesn’t mean you don’t, um, you know, do whatever coaching conversations and, and make sure that you’re setting correct expectations because you may be a horrible manager that doesn’t set up any expectations anyways. And you just rule by, you know, yelling and screaming and running around and pointing at things like you saying micromanaging and, um, you know, uh, like that type of thing, you know, it could be you fire yourself. It could be like, Hey, you know, take a step back and fire yourself. So I guess that’s my only comments there. Okay, super deep and awesome. I know we could talk about this forever. We’re finishing up the quiz and it’s a beautiful answer. And I would love to work for you. And I, and I think part of the answer was like, we need to come and do motivational speaking. Yeah. Motivational.
Speaker 1 | 35:18.647
And I do. And I do. And,
Speaker 0 | 35:21.170
and if anyone that wants to reach out to you, we’re going to have your link on this show and everything. And maybe, um, if you, if you want, you can come in and speak to my team in the morning because we, I, I have, uh, 12 interns started, um, two weeks ago. And. They’re, they’re used to my motivational speeches, but maybe we should bring in a calm person, you know?
Speaker 1 | 35:43.552
No problem. Let’s set it up. I’ll be more than happy to join a call.
Speaker 0 | 35:47.776
And this is, okay. So next question, tell me if you like it or not, should it be on the quiz? Because you can’t have more than, you can never have more than like 12 quizzes or people just click off. Forget about it. If you have more than 12, I think 12 is pushing it. But, um. And the first question is like, have you ever used one of these before? And it just shows a picture of a floppy disk. So that’s like a two second one. Okay. So this question is biggest it challenge right now. What’s the most pressing issue facing it leaders in the industry or in your industry, in the industry today,
Speaker 1 | 36:23.344
job hoppers.
Speaker 0 | 36:25.786
That’s there. That’s, that’s the most pressing issue facing. I, are they screwing it up for everybody else? What do you mean? How is it a problem? Is it layoffs? Someone told me that they layoffs. There’s all kinds of layoffs going on right now in the IT industry. I was like, we got to talk about it on the show. But I want to hear if yours is job hoppers. Okay. What does that do? Screw up the network? Screw up the business world? I mean, people just know IT roadmap. I mean, what is it?
Speaker 1 | 36:52.578
It goes back to some of the earlier questions that you touched on, right? And that is… investing into people, investing into time, investing into training. So if someone wants to change their job because maybe they’re working for a horrible manager and most people don’t leave because they’re not getting paid well or whatever, they leave because they have horrible bosses. They have horrible managers that do not motivate and inspire them. Maybe they rule with an iron fist. Maybe it’s a combination of. Maybe it’s compensation, benefits, perks, and a horrible manager. whatever.
Speaker 0 | 37:28.918
Uh, a great manager and a crappy company. You’re staying at that crappy company.
Speaker 2 | 37:34.802
I mean,
Speaker 1 | 37:35.082
and I have,
Speaker 0 | 37:36.403
yeah, uh, I’ve worked for some pretty, I’ve, I can think of some of the best bosses that I’ve worked for right now. And some of the companies were very bootstrapped, ton of fun, ton of fun, not going to get wrong. I love, I love, I love a challenge. I love a startup. I love startups. I’m not a, I don’t like just coming into a big, massive thing that’s already running. I need, I need to challenge me personally, but.
Speaker 1 | 37:57.674
Well, a good manager can make a crappy company look good, right? Because now you know that someone is out there appreciating you, your efforts, leading you, motivating you, inspiring you, being a leader, understands that you have flaws because you’re a human being, right? And you’re learning, but still gives you the opportunity, still spends time with you, still kind of points out where you can do better. And most people, when they don’t have that, they leave. Because now if you are not compensated well and you have a crappy boss, there’s nothing holding you there. You can find the same someplace else. So I interview people and I can tell that they’ve jumped from place to place to place. But they fit. They fit the criteria. They fit the skill. They fit all the boxes. And they fit the comp. And so I give them a chance because I am the… Glass have full type of guy. I’m an optimist. And they spend six, seven, eight months here. I invest in them. I invest into their education. I invest into their knowledge. I give them opportunities. I motivate them. I inspire them. I do everything that I can as a leader, not just of the department, but also as a company, to show them that they have found a home and they can stay here. And I’m investing in them. and then they find a job that’s that pays more and the question is that you know if if the comp was the issue why take the job in the first place so they’re hopping is it a place is it a generational thing can we is this some of it is some of it is okay um in other in other instances it’s the economy right so maybe they’re out of work and they just want something and then they’ll settle right maybe they were making 100k and they’re okay with making, you know, 95 because they’re out of work. And then, because it’s easier to find a job when you’re working.
Speaker 0 | 40:01.875
Let me ask you this. Do they show any level of enthusiasm or are they pretty much? like, just like flatlined.
Speaker 1 | 40:11.798
They’re super stoked. They’re enthusiastic. They’re excited because my entire team is vibrating on a higher level, right? We have IT meetings three times a week. We have a full meeting on Monday and we have two standups,
Speaker 0 | 40:28.631
right? So what is it, Greg? I loved it here, man. You’ve been great. It was so awesome, but I just got to take this opportunity.
Speaker 1 | 40:34.876
is that is that what the conversation sounds like they’re paying more they’re offering me a hybrid they’re offering me full remote there you know there you go hybrid full remote it’s always something it’s not right it’s always something okay
Speaker 0 | 40:51.200
hybrid full remote that’s a big one yep that is a good one it is remote is big full remote’s big totally understand that one but when you’re in a support position
Speaker 1 | 41:05.324
It’s not always possible to be remote. You have to be able to go to that person’s station, that person’s machine, troubleshoot it.
Speaker 0 | 41:16.952
So we’re dissecting here, because that’s what we do on Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. The issue could be COVID. COVID screwed everything up. It could be the work from home, the work from home balance. We’re talking about work-life balance. We are talking about work-life balance. That’s what we’re talking about.
Speaker 1 | 41:40.698
Sounds like that. And it’s beyond that. It’s just beyond that. I think you’re right. People have gotten a little bit more accustomed to having the flexibility between hybrid, full remote, or whatnot. And now they’re, I hate to use the word spoiled, but a bit spoiled, right? Because they want a higher comp. But. but they don’t want to come into the office. And so the way companies look at it is that, listen, I’m paying you X dollars. You’re not spending nearly as much as you did on the commute or your expenses associated with working out of the office. So you’re actually making more. And yeah, it kind of works out because I don’t have to account for space in the office. So my real estate needs are not as much.
Speaker 0 | 42:33.424
as big so it’s it’s staffing it’s it’s it’s staffing which is then going to create a larger i don’t know domino effect butterfly effect so then you’re going to have the msp factor that comes into play and then that’s going to screw everything up it’s
Speaker 1 | 42:49.070
that that is a big problem that’s that’s a legitimate big problem it has hit already i’ve seen in the last two years alone i would say i’ve gone through some people and some of them are very talented people and people that I did not want to lose, but I couldn’t come close to, you know, them finding some other opportunity where they were either closer to home or had the hybrid situation or fully remote situation.
Speaker 0 | 43:20.935
In logistics and, um, um, manufacturing to a degree, they call it the Amazon effect. Amazon comes into town, a bunch of people quit. They need to hire robots in the factory now because Amazon just comes in and. offers more money to hourly workers. So I mean, I’m just that was one years ago. I don’t know if it’s I’m sure the Amazon effect is still a term still still out there. But that’s, that’s a real thing.
Speaker 2 | 43:45.711
At dissecting popular it nerds, we expect to win and we expect our it directors to win. And one of those areas where we know that we can help you win is internet service providers as an it director tasked with managing internet connectivity. Few vendor relationships can prove more painfully frustrating than the one with your internet service provider. The array of challenges seems never ending from unreliable uptime and insufficient bandwidth to poor customer service and hidden fees. It’s like getting stuck in rush hour traffic. Dealing with ISPs can try once patients even on the best of days. So whether you are managing one location or a hundred locations, our back office support team. and vendor partners are the best in the industry. And the best part about this is none of this will ever cost you a dime due to the partnership and the sponsors that we have behind the scenes at Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. Let us show you how we can manage away the mediocrity. and hit it out of the park. We start by mapping all of the available fiber routes, and we use our $1.2 billion in combined customer buying power and massive economy of scale to map all of your locations, to overcome construction fees, to use industry historical data, to encourage providers to compete for the lowest possible pricing, to negotiate the lowest rates guaranteed, and to provide fast response times in hours, not days. And we leverage aggregators and wholesale relationship to ensure you get the best possible pricing available in the marketplace. And on top of all of this, you get proactive network monitoring and proactive alerts so that you’re not left calling 1-800-GO-POUND-SAN to enter in a ticket number and wonder, why is my internet connection down? In short, we are the partner that you have always wanted, who understands your needs, your frustrations, and knows what you need without you having to ask. So we’re still human. but we are some of the best and we aim to win. This all starts with a value discovery call where we find out what you have, why you have it, and what’s on your roadmap. All you need to do is email internet at popularit.net and say, I want help managing all of my internet garbage. Please make my life easier and we’ll get right on it for you. Have a wonderful day.
Speaker 0 | 46:05.850
Okay. So the final question. on the quiz is actually would you be willing to share your career insights on a podcast but we’re doing that right now um tech news hot take share your thoughts on a recent tech news story and should that question be on and should that question be on the quiz um i don’t know because it’s more relevant depending on when you ask the question okay well because the first thing that pops in my mind is um Broadcom purchasing
Speaker 1 | 46:40.385
VMware? It’s not relevant for everyone.
Speaker 0 | 46:43.408
Correct. Some people are going to have an answer there. I should put optional. We’ll put optional. We’ll put optional. But some people are going to get real fired up about this. Something’s going to happen. Google buying HubSpot. Heard that one this morning. Is that old news? I mean,
Speaker 1 | 46:56.216
if you are a hardware enthusiast, right? If you are really into IT, not necessarily IS, for you, then that will be something to talk about. for me, not necessarily big news. Been kind of following, not necessarily something huge for me. Now, if we’re talking about privacy and AI and how does that play and cybersecurity, sure, we can have a conversation on that subject. Because honestly, I don’t think that most industries are ready for AI. And the more they deploy it on the front end, the better.
Speaker 0 | 47:34.119
Preston Pyshko That’s why everyone’s selling it. No one’s ready for it.
Speaker 1 | 47:39.001
listen it’s you know it’s like they they started selling electric cars and everyone jumped on the bandwagon on electric cars i want one i want one but we don’t have the electrical infrastructure to support it not everywhere at least when you have constant burnouts and in state like california that has a consistent issue with with you know providing enough supply for the demand And yet they’re saying no gas cars after what, 2025 or something like that. So it’s kind of like oxymoronic in a way. I think AI is very similar to that. Yes, we have the need because the technology is here. It’s not going anywhere. It’s only going to evolve. But when you look at the security factor of it, the front end is evolving a lot faster.
Speaker 0 | 48:30.206
You know what I heard this morning?
Speaker 1 | 48:31.547
Security.
Speaker 0 | 48:32.716
So I sat in with my, and I’m not like, I agree 100%, but my thought when you said, I actually saw, and to your security piece, I saw both an actual real solution with AI involved this morning, and also a security breach factor, which I was wondering about, which at the same time, which was using AI to do. to for voice okay so voice an ai bot using verifying accounts with voice matching but what do we call that what do we call that so i call into i don’t know my um bank i hit the ivr just speak into whatever you need yes i’m trying to reach whatever security i’ve been like my account has been closed down or something and the ai uses voice recognition software to verify that it’s you. I’m wondering, but at the same, there’s also AI software that will spoof my voice and it’s already been done and turned me into French.
Speaker 2 | 49:40.545
So
Speaker 0 | 49:41.566
I’m wondering if there’s a good enough. voice AI copier that would copy my voice enough to allow me to pass the voice recognition software. That was just my thought. That was just my thought off the top of my head. So there you go. Now we’ve like the conundrum.
Speaker 1 | 50:01.818
100%. And it’s already out there. And all it needs is like 15 to 20 seconds of your, of the sample, you know, of your voice and it can put together. And I’m sure you’ve seen it. I mean, just turn on TikTok and you go and then these viral videos where, you know, they make Trump speak to Biden and Biden speak to Trump. These videos where they tell each other jokes using really offensive voices.
Speaker 0 | 50:31.928
I think I may have exposed you. See, you really are not a glass half full guy. You are a glass half empty guy walking around as a motivational speaker. Okay, you are a glass half empty motivational speaker. That’s like a new thing. That’s like a new thing. A glass half empty when it comes to AI motivational speaker.
Speaker 1 | 50:51.138
Well,
Speaker 0 | 50:52.458
I think- No, it’s just the glass. All you’re saying is the glass is a quarter full. What you’re saying is like, look, the AI is a little bit too hyped along with the electric car and the electric car is almost half full. We’re almost half full with the electric car, but we’re still a quarter empty when it comes to AI.
Speaker 1 | 51:09.930
I just think that we need to be proactive on both sides of the coin.
Speaker 0 | 51:13.112
Yes.
Speaker 1 | 51:13.652
And as a technologist, putting my IT hat on, AI is fantastic. Utilizing it on any sort of customer or user interface type of solutions is awesome because you have bots out there that can do a million and one things. However, people also use it for malicious purposes. So if you have a really smart AI and you can ask it to build an algorithm for you to say, show me penetration point for www.whateverwebsite.com, it will actually analyze it and give you specific points where it thinks that site is vulnerable. Now, if you use it for yourself to say, okay, now I understand what that is, I can strengthen it. right i can harden that piece that’s great it’s positive it’s a plus plus right up and up but if you want to use it for malicious purposes purposes right to hack the site that’s not so positive it’s hard to be motivational about that no
Speaker 0 | 52:23.699
you just made me a pen tester and all the pen testers out there that maybe they listen to this show there’s got to be at least one you know um yeah is um he’s job hopping so who cares Who cares? He’s job hopping anyways, because we don’t have enough money to hire a full-time CISO. Yes, that was not very motivational. Now, as however, I’m giving you the last word, the final word as a coach and mentor who has been in IT for at least around, it would be interesting to go back and look at the first network that you worked on. I think that would be very, that would be very. nostalgic and fun to do. So as someone that’s been in IT, as long as you have been in passionate and, and as a mentor, as a mentor, what would your words be to, to the listeners, a dealing with job hoppers or the job hoppers, one or the other. And you’re going to, your final words of wisdom can be anything. I don’t really care. I’m just, that’s, that’s kind of what I was thinking about is maybe it’s to. Maybe it’s just a, hey, I’m with you, other IT leaders that are dealing with a quick turnover, because it sounded like that was like, that can be a hard thing to deal with. And what would your advice and mentorship be to the listeners, other IT leaders like yourself?
Speaker 1 | 53:48.491
Well, first of all, you know, stay hungry. No matter what the challenge is, if you’re hungry and you’re focused, you can achieve it.
Speaker 0 | 53:57.826
How do we stay hungry though? That’s difficult. Like if you’re not hungry, how do you get hungry? Starve yourself? I mean, I can, I can understand that.
Speaker 1 | 54:04.788
What’s your vision? What is your goal? Because if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there? Got to identify what your goal is. Think about it. You have a car, right?
Speaker 0 | 54:17.011
Sometimes you just get tired, man. I’ve got a big, big goals. I’ve got big goals. Sometimes you just.
Speaker 1 | 54:24.474
you just get tired you you get in the car you know you plug in your gps if you go in some place that you’ve never gone before you know you don’t always know the route to take but you still gotta plug in the direct the the you know the uh the location and
Speaker 0 | 54:41.018
ah that’s that’s profound that’s actually That’s actually pretty profound. I don’t even know if you knew how profound what you just said is. So if you’re not hungry, get in your car and plug in a location you’ve never been before.
Speaker 1 | 54:59.171
You have a talent of taking other people’s words and just kind of turning them around. Nope.
Speaker 0 | 55:03.752
That’s pretty profound. No, no, for real. Okay. For everyone out there listening, you’re bored. You’re like, you’re miserable. Like whatever it is, plug in a location you’ve never been to before. That’s pretty profound. Don’t you think?
Speaker 1 | 55:18.502
Have you? I suppose.
Speaker 0 | 55:20.263
I know it really is. And I’m going to tell you why. Because, okay, so here’s my story. And I’m going to do exactly what you did. Because I wasn’t hungry. I was tired. I was like, how many more years can I do this? And I really did some like thinking and some soul searching. And what came out of it was, well, you’ve got to give back more. It can’t be just about you. Okay, so your family’s taken care of now. This is taken care of. Okay, how do you take it to the next level? Which is basically what you’re saying. How do we stay hungry? How do we get, so how do I get more hungry? So by taking it to the next, we’ve got to give back. We’ve got to get more people involved. We’ve got to get more interns. We’ve got to teach other people how to do this. Yours might be teaching people how to not job hop, you know, whatever it is, right? This is basically what it is. And then how do you take that and grow it to the next level? Part of that. The GPS piece is I had to hire an integrator. His name’s Greg also, Greg Liddell, the Frenchman. There’s a couple of things he has in common there. The French piece, maybe apparel, and you both have the name Greg. So anyways,
Speaker 2 | 56:29.592
he’s in Morocco.
Speaker 0 | 56:30.974
I found him in an AI forum, in an overhyped AI forum. And he has been so helpful to the growth of this podcast. But what did I have to do? He was in Morocco. I didn’t know where he lived at the time. He’s like, I’m in Morocco. He’s like, you know, like, come on over. Like, check it out. And I’m like, no, I’ve never been to Morocco. I got in the car and I put in a location that I’ve never been before. And that location just happened to be going to La Guardia or whatever in JFK in New York. And I had to get on a plane and go to Morocco. But that was amazing.
Speaker 1 | 57:05.424
So look at what you’re doing.
Speaker 0 | 57:07.126
Look at what your words, look at what your motivational, your motivational cue and mentorship just did for me. I just reminded you just, you know, you just made me hungry again.
Speaker 1 | 57:16.920
Well, it is five o’clock. So, okay.
Speaker 0 | 57:20.044
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for being on Dissecting Popular IT Nerds and winging it with me today and letting me fire complete random questions at you. I’m assuming this quiz is going to be a success, then this is a good quiz. We should send this out and it’s going to get people hopefully hungry and thinking.
Speaker 1 | 57:35.900
Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like fun.
Speaker 0 | 57:38.842
Thank you, sir.
