Speaker 0 | 00:05.016

Okay. And so basically all I do is I’ll create a pause for a second so they can cut the audio to the beginning of the episode, and then I’ll just jump right into it.

Speaker 1 | 00:14.763

Sounds good. All right.

Speaker 0 | 00:19.386

Welcome back, everyone, to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m your host, Doug Kameen, and today I’m talking with Sean Kelly, Director of Cyber GRC and Data Protection with Highmark Health out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Welcome to the show, Sean.

Speaker 1 | 00:34.240

Thanks, Douglas. Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure and excited to dive in on whatever it is we’re going to be discussing today.

Speaker 0 | 00:41.444

Yeah. So I had to catch myself for a second there because I like Pittsburgh and I almost said New York because you and I live in New York. We were talking a little bit about remote work and other stuff like that. And I think that might be a kind of an interesting thing to talk about. And in a lot of IT jobs, a lot of us are able to work fully remote. largely, and especially if your organization is broadly based, geographically spread out, or just entirely in the cloud, you don’t physically have to show up a lot of times. But it can be challenging, and getting back into the office sometimes is pretty, it’s kind of nice. So we were talking about the drive and stuff like that. So your office is in Pittsburgh, I should say your home office is in Pittsburgh, but you’re coming from whereabouts?

Speaker 1 | 01:29.688

I’m from Buffalo, New York, so that’s where I’m stationed. And I work for Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield. For those who aren’t familiar with the brand Highmark, it’s the fourth largest blue in the country. But interestingly, I started working for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western New York in 2018, but we affiliated with Highmark. So therefore, my headquarters moved from Buffalo to Pittsburgh. And as you mentioned, so that’s our headquarters. I travel down there about once a month to get out of the house. But other than that, I am full remote and kind of adjusting to that lifestyle. But we had this little thing called the pandemic a few years back. Everyone might recall. You know,

Speaker 0 | 02:14.624

I don’t remember.

Speaker 1 | 02:16.625

Yeah, if you don’t remember and maybe we’re so traumatized, we don’t. But yeah, it’s, you know, it really I think for Highmark, it really. you know, change their hiring strategy to be remote, you know, kind of the point you were making and look outside, you know, the state borders to hire talent and opened up a whole new pool of opportunities and probably some challenges as well, you know, for all involved.

Speaker 0 | 02:44.173

Yeah. You know, the strategies, and I’m in the same boat. I mean, I, you know, we’re, so for the listeners of the podcast, Sean and I are somewhat close to each other geographically. My home office is in Rochester, New York, which is only about an hour to an hour and a half away from Buffalo, New York. I live a couple hours outside of Rochester. He lives several hours outside of Pittsburgh, which is where your home office is. But I think one of the things I like to explore here is the challenges of leading and being in leadership as a remote leader. It’s a different skill set, or at least it’s a modified skill set from what you might do wandering around the office. And I think that that’s the like, what do you find that’s most important? And maybe it’s changed from when you were leading before, when you were walking around an office and being like, hey, you know, hey, Bob, hey, Jane, what’s going on today?

Speaker 1 | 03:39.104

Yeah, I think, you know, there are definitely differences. I am a person who I do thrive on face to face interaction. But it’s surprisingly, to me, a lot of the same principles of leadership and relationship building apply. Yes, there may be some different tools. I think we all get a little burned out on the constant Zoom or Teams calls, whatever your conferencing technology is. But to me, it’s just about maintaining those connections. I do like to see people on camera just because, for me, body language is a huge part of communication. It’s not about, hey, are you paying full attention to me? Right. or whatnot. I know my current team prefers not to be on camera. So I have conceded to that fact. And, you know, just for me, it’s more important that people are, you know, engaged. But, you know, the fundamentals of leadership to me are, you know, if you come into work every day and with the mindset of I’m here to support the success of the people that are on my team, the rest to me kind of. follows and flows down through that. Unfortunately, I don’t find that to be a predominant characteristic in all leaders, at least, you know, in the spaces that I’ve seen. So, you know, to me, it’s having those. have that one-to-one. When I became a new leader, it was at HSBC Bank. This was back around 2010. We were struggling with our culture. We already had a remote works flexibility though at HSBC, which was really nice. I think it was at the forefront. It was before people were forced to do it because of the pandemic or whatever else. Um, you know, so it was, that was one of the things I enjoyed. I was raising my son at that time and had a lot of flexibility to be with, you know, at his events and, and that was, you know, awesome. So I really appreciated that. Um, but when I became a leader, we were struggling with culture because, um, you know, one of the biggest pieces of feedback we got is, uh, team members and individual contributors were not getting regular time with their leader. That was the number one thing. That came out of the survey. And this is right around the time, as I said, I was becoming a new leader. So that’s always stuck with me because of probably a lot because of the timing. But so I’ve always made it a point to have regular one-to-ones with my direct reports. Now being a director, fairly new, I’m two years into being a director rather than a team manager. One of the tougher transitions there has been not being as connected with the individual contributors on the team and getting all the, you know, filter. feedback is filtered through, you know, through our team managers. So I’ve started setting up a one-to-ones with all the individual contributors, though I don’t have as much time to do it. You know, I set up two a year, but that’s a new learning for me that that’s been awesome to reconnect with the individual contributors, get some direct feedback from them has really helped me feel more connected to the pulse of the team. So, you know, I’m figuring out how to manage my time in an effective way, but… To your original question, I think one of the fears that people often face when maybe they’re new to remote management situations is, how am I going to ensure that people are working, they’re not goofing off? And I think it’s really about trusting people. You’ve hired people to do the job. And as an effective leader, you should have a way to measure the outputs of those people without having to. visually see them every second of the day. And I think that’s tough for people to get their heads around. But the folks you might worry about in the office are going to be the folks you might worry about working remotely and the same principles apply.

Speaker 0 | 07:35.233

So the way I think about this, when I try to synthesize it down, if somebody asks me, the term that I’ve come up with is that you have to work with intentionality, a different intentionality. when you have remote staff than in person, because some of the serendipitous things that would have happened in person don’t in online, you know, there’s no, there’s no crossing paths with people in the hallway and being like, Oh, Hey, that thing, you know, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve just jogged my memory. That thing we talk about, or we need to talk about, you might, you got 10 minutes in like a little while here or something like that. And that’s, so, you know, I think the thing, some of the things you brought up, I think are things that I would put right into that bucket, the one-on-one meetings that are intentional. So like on my team, I work remotely, but we do have a corporate office where, you know, I’m in an IT, I supervise an IT operations team. And as a consequence, like they have a physical, they have to have a physical presence component. So we have a home base no matter what. And then there’s a rotation of them being in person. I don’t have to be as the executive leader, but the team still gets an opportunity to see each other with regularity. At the same time, because we’re remote most days and most people are remote on those days, we’ve set up things like I have a huddle every morning with the team. You know, just not because they need to meet with me exclusively, but just so that everybody has the same sort of demarcation point to start the morning. Now, my team is of a size that that’s still possible to do. You know, you can get, you know, if you’ve got 35 people working for you, it’s kind of hard to yank them into a morning. huddle but yep uh you know there’s there’s different there’s different approaches and i think about that like level of intentionality that’s necessary to successfully make that transition from the in-persons to the to the uh to the virtual and you brought up about trust and making sure that when people are if you’re gonna if you have a team you gotta at this at some point you just gotta be like let them I guess I call it managing by exception. You have to let them screw up first, and then you get the chance to reign them in. That’s usually a much more effective strategy, and it saves a lot of your energy and time rather than just assuming that everybody’s going to goof off and not be on calls and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 | 10:01.898

Right, right. I know. It really is a mindset, though. There’s coaching moments. I’m not picking on you, Douglas, at all, but you hit on kind of It’s you know, are my team going to be engaged, you know, and figuring out how to lead is really understanding each person’s individual viewpoints. And I think that’s why it goes back to the communication. You know, I think we all fall in the trap of thinking people think like we do. And if you take those, you know, if you take a Briggs-Meyer or any of those tests that tell you kind of what type of things motivate you, what personality, what color you are. You know, I’m an elephant or a donkey. Yes, I’m a yellow. I’m a sunshine yellow. I like personal interaction, but some people are reds and they like, you know, be brief and be seated and be gone, right? So it just, it reminds you that not everybody processes things the same way. And while that’s a challenge from a leadership perspective, it’s also what makes it interesting, you know, is to understand that, you know, people do tick differently, different things motivate different people. But at the end of the day. It’s all about respect and trust is built through respect, I think. And so if you, you know, and that starts with communication. So it kind of goes in that in that order. But, you know, if you take the time and listen, truly listen, right. Not, you know, there’s a saying about, you know, many people listen with the intent to respond and not the intent to understand. And, you know, I’m not and I’m not perfect, you know, at many stretches. Me too. Me too. But at least it’s something to be aware of. And I think it’s important as a leader to also show your vulnerability, that you’re not perfect. You don’t know everything. To admit when you’re wrong, to be able to say you’re sorry. All the foundational things of any relationship really apply. But I think it is incumbent on us to work, demonstrate and lead from the front. that we’re working hard, we’re willing to jump in as needed to support the team if they’re in a tough spot. I think those things go a long way too, that they see you’re not just there barking out orders and then waiting to drop the hammer when something goes wrong. I just have one more point to tack on there because it’s kind of where we started. We talk about failing fast. I hear this phrase now coming. more quickly. Don’t be afraid to start. Don’t be afraid to fail fast. Learn from your mistakes. All these things, which we know are correct. If you look at any inventor, they fail thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of times before they hit on whatever invention they had. But my question would be, or my challenge to that thinking is, how many organizations truly give the space for people to fail? Because if it goes into their… performance review the minute they make a mistake, then is that really encouraging people to fail fast? So I think we have to start thinking about the things we want people to live by and really back them up better with our, and more intentionally with our actions and behaviors.

Speaker 0 | 13:22.307

Yeah. So that’s got me thinking about the, I would call it the other extreme of that. And I love your point and I wholeheartedly support it. So this is not, this is not meant to be a counterpoint to it. But when you were describing it to me, I was thinking about the people who move fast and then use that as an excuse to not operate. Ethically isn’t the right word, but just like they don’t do it right, if you will. They run ramshackle over people. They’re not considerate. They’re not these other things. They’re like, oh, but I’m just like. it’s because I, it’s all because I move super fast. That’s the problem here. And it’s like, no, that’s not necessarily the problem here. The problem here is that you’re not, is you’re not considerate. You could fail at this and still be nice.

Speaker 1 | 14:12.367

Yes. And I love that point. And actually I’m just, and as I told you, I’m a big audio book person. I like to listen into my commutes, but I’m brushing up on the seven habits. Again, I did read the book a long time ago. Stephen Covey’s book. But it does talk about, it’s not a win if you get to the end of a project and you leave a wake of dead bodies behind you and you burned all the bridges and credit that you have with everybody. To me, it’s incredibly important to build and preserve relationships with the stakeholders in your organization that you rely on. I see those bridges being burned on a daily basis for pressures coming down from executive leadership. This needs to get done. You know, we have to find a way to, and I think that’s, you know, as a director, that’s my One of the big roles I serve is being that buffer for the team where they’re not pressured into running roughshod over their colleagues and their peers while they’re trying to get things done and to preserve that collaborative approach to getting things done and build those relationships. Because when you need the favor later down the road, you’re going to get it if you have a strong relationship or you’re more likely to get it. Then again, you get one thing done, but now. everything behind it suffers. So you really have to play the long game. It’s just who has the, you know, who’s really committed to preserving that. That’s, you know, to me, that’s what organizational health looks like. So you’re building those daily credits with people, not burning bridges.

Speaker 0 | 15:49.724

Yeah. So in my organization, we, a number of us, the executives team and our high level leadership folks. like our operations leadership folks. So a couple of years ago, we went through a Brene Brown’s dare to lead and, and training for that. And I think the analogy that Brene Brown uses in her book is like, it is a, is a marble jar. So each time you, you do something good or there’s positive outcome, you kind of add a marble to the jar and you can, you could lose the whole jar really fast though. Like, you know, you, you, you break the jar. and they shatter everywhere and they’re all gone. You know, and so you have to be mindful about how, you know, you build them all up, but you can lose them all very rapidly.

Speaker 1 | 16:38.041

I love that. I mean, I love the vision, having something tangible there that can remind you to do the right things. I haven’t, I’m not familiar with the book, but maybe I’ll check it out. You know, but I love those, the idea of kind of reinforcing or reminding yourself because not all these things are top of mind. You know, I fall, I’ve, I find myself pulling myself out of a certain mindset and kind of, hey, you know, I got to stick to what I’m, you know, be about it. You know, don’t just talk about it is really important. So I like that idea of not, you know, kind of visualizing what you’re trying to do. I haven’t gotten to that point, but I’m always looking at ways I can better organize my tasks at work, prioritize things and, you know, make things a little bit more efficient. Because at the end of the day, that. I do think that leads to people being more happy and satisfied with their job if they understand priority of things. I’m a firm believer we could get our work done 30 hours a week instead of 40 if we could only get out of our own way.

Speaker 0 | 17:43.594

There’s been some studies on this recently. I don’t know if you’ve seen some of the they popped up in the news, but there’s been some academic studies where they I don’t know if they paid these folks or however they did it, but they put these companies on to four-day work weeks and found that the staff liked it so much that they were just more productive, even though they worked less time. Not four 10-hour days, but just a four-day work week.

Speaker 1 | 18:10.101

It’s funny how when people are happy, they produce better work. It’s not just Ryan Grine. It is a shocking revelation. And it isn’t. Anybody listening will be like, that’s super obvious. But think of how many organizations act. actually operate that way. I don’t, I have yet to see an organization that truly stands behind that in word and, and in action. So I do think there’s a lot of room for cultural improvement, um, at least in every organization, you know, I’ve been at and from those that, you know, I’ve spoken to with, with, with colleagues and friends. Um, and yeah, we, we, the rare company will get it, get it right. I’ll just, I’ll just point a couple of them. out because they they these are companies that i think about often um we have a grocery store in our area called wegmans i don’t know if they’re down down your way at all oh yes wegmans is down okay okay yes yes yes so we wegmans is wegmans is like well for those listeners who are not on the east coast of the united states wegmans

Speaker 0 | 19:16.610

is you a particular joy to have in your community at any time. It’s like, it’s a grocery store that is its own destination.

Speaker 1 | 19:24.356

Yeah, exactly. And, and it, my wife told me under no uncertain terms, would I move her anywhere, uh, that didn’t have a Wegmans, uh, grocery store. So it’s, you know, as you said, most people feel the way that you do Douglas and I feel the same way when I’m in there, but why is it right? Why, why does it feel that way when you walk in there? It’s you know they’ve built a culture there where the they do take care of their employees the employees aren’t miserable um they are willing to help you like truly willing to help you so it’s just a nice feel they keep their store clean um they’ve trained every the part i really love is i believe they train all of their associates on the cash registers so when the queues get longer People can come to the front and help. So I’m like, this is awesome. I mean, these are like, if you take these ideas, these simple ideas, and you pull them together and you stick to them, you get a great experience. And I’m glad they’re successful because I think they’re doing it the right way. And I think a lot of organizations could learn from their example.

Speaker 0 | 20:30.548

So your current role, you’re director of, and I just listed it as it’s sort of, because it’s a very, it’s long, it’s an acronym.

Speaker 1 | 20:36.889

It’s long.

Speaker 0 | 20:37.810

So cyber GRC and data protection. So I know what GRC is, but for the benefit of our listeners.

Speaker 1 | 20:44.372

Yeah, GRC. Okay. It’s governance, risk, and controls. The C normally stands for compliance, but we have a compliance area in our organization. So we’ve repurposed the C to say controls. So that, yes, very, very tricky. But yeah, I’m not a fan of acronyms, but we can save that for the next episode. So. So, yeah, that’s my role. And data protection, I just took that team on in January, but I had actually managed that team before. So in a sense, I’m very familiar with the team, and they came back as part of a reorg as part of my organization. So I’m excited to have them back. And the interesting part for those, I assume there are many IT and possibly cyber listeners out in the audience is. You might say, what do the two areas have to do with one another? Because I even had people on my own team asking that very question. So if you think about it from a cyber perspective, think of how different your job would be if there were no sensitive data to protect. There wouldn’t be as much risk. You might still have transactional systems and things of that nature. But on the whole, risk kind of follows the sensitive data. sensitivity of the data and us trying to protect it. So I do think they’re both pervasive throughout the organization and that’s the relationship that we have, how we go about our jobs. There’s definitely differences there. There’s no doubt. But so it’s been an interesting journey. And these are the things that I think about kind of day in, day out is how we can get the synergy between the two teams. How can we do our jobs more effectively?

Speaker 0 | 22:28.715

So this is not the only thing you do. I mean, this is your work. job, your day job, if you will. But you also do a little side gig. So I wanted to tell our listeners a little bit about that. And we’re going to give a nice little plug for your side gig here.

Speaker 1 | 22:43.225

I appreciate it. I’m sure David Spark, who is the producer of the podcast that I work for called Cybersecurity Headlines, it’s part of the CISO series podcast family. And I can plug it shamelessly. I’ll tell you right off, I learned very early in my career because my first job was actually a sales job and I was not good at it. So I can only sell and talk up things that I truly believe in. And I believe in the podcast because I was an avid listener before I joined the team and started working on it, which happened to be during COVID. I met David through Chance Encounter on one of his other podcasts and there was a networking event after. So I met him. He was happened to be looking for a reporter for his podcast. And I’m, I was kind of in the spot. It was pandemic. I needed to get out of, I was in a bit of a gray zone, not feeling like terribly engaged. I needed to basically kick myself in the butt. And I said, I’ll try it. You know, I’m a fairly good public speaker. It’s interesting to me. It will help me keep on top of, you know, the top. cyber news stories which i need to do for my job anyways uh so i i’m like i’ll give it a shot i’ve never podcasted um so and he’s like really you want to try it and i’m sure i sent him a demo and uh the the audio was levels were off but it was good enough to earn me a spot on the team and and i’ll tell you though you know i didn’t start off awesome and i didn’t realize how much work goes into producing it’s a the format of cyber security headlines is it’s like you know six to eight minute news read out of the top cyber stories of the day. It’s every, every weekday, every morning. It’s been successful because I think, because it is short, I think if we, you know, stretched it out, you know, it would, you know, the thing that’s nice, people can drink their coffee. And by the time they’re done with it, be done with catching up on the news. So that’s been the trick to the one that I work on. But, you know, it takes about five hours of production to make, you know, eight minutes of a. podcast. And so I was surprised about how that goes in and how much work goes into a short format podcast. But over time, I’ve been at it for three years now. And over time, I like to think that I got more proficient.

Speaker 0 | 25:09.442

uh at it and uh but it’s been awesome yeah it’s been been a lot of fun and uh learning big learning curve yeah no i’ve given a listen myself it’s uh it’s great it’s a nice little just just these like quick hit tidbits here’s the headlines here’s the stuff if you’re thinking about uh you know if you’re in the space uh particularly and i say if you’re in the space and i maybe i shouldn’t even qualify it that closely because all of us in it whether it’s on the the the it security side or the the operations side like The stuff all applies to everything we do. We all kind of need to be up on it and know about it as it’s going on. So, yeah, it’s a great podcast to get a chance to listen to if some of our listeners get a chance. That’s the CISO Series Cybersecurity Headlines Podcast.

Speaker 1 | 25:52.297

Yeah, thank you for the plug. The other thing, though, I think that kind of comes into it is the phrase, you have to be willing to suck at something before you get good at it, I think totally applies here. Because while I did have maybe some baseline. skills that helped. I really wasn’t very good at it. And you have to be, you know, humble enough to work through that. You know, I didn’t just start off being smooth at it. So, you know, I just thought for even from demonstrating that for myself was useful. And I would encourage those that are, you know, earlier on in their own careers or whatever they’re working on, just have the… grit to kind of stick with things because, you know, you can get good at them, even if maybe it’s not going particularly well for you at the moment, you know, just learn and try to, you know, stick with it and improve. So.

Speaker 0 | 26:47.109

Yeah. And putting, you know, I’m glad you brought that up because putting yourself in a slightly uncomfortable position is a great way to grow. I mean, there was a couple of years ago for me, it’s been going on two years now. So I’m, I’m on, uh, uh, an advisory council for, um, This organization, the American Registry for Internet Numbers, ARIN. So for those out there who are unfamiliar, ARIN is where you get your IP addresses from if you need an internet accessible IP address. They are the organization, the caretaker of those. And when I first showed up, like I knew what ARIN did, but here I was in Los Angeles. I flew all the way across the country to their policy meeting. And. When I get there, they’re like, oh, your time to give your speech for why they should elect you, that’ll be tomorrow at 2. And I’m like, wait, what?

Speaker 1 | 27:44.338

Surprise.

Speaker 0 | 27:47.460

I filled out an application. I was expected to get some sort of like, hey, we’ll tune you in for an interview or we’ll pick from the pool or something. Nope, nope, nope. I’m live streamed on the Internet with. 175 people in the room and I had to get on the diet on stage at the dais and speak, you know, and like, that’s that first of all, you know, that’s of course is hard, but to the point you were making exactly like different, different paths. Like if you’re moving up through leadership, there are times where you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone to make into that next step and get that opportunity to do something different.

Speaker 1 | 28:25.622

A hundred percent. And it’s counterintuitive, right? Like none of us really like feeling uncomfortable. You wouldn’t have preferred someone to drop that little surprise on you about acceptance speech or, um, but, but yeah, it is important. And just, you know, being here with you, I, you know, I was nervous coming on. This is really the first time I’ve been interviewed on a podcast of, of this format. You know, I’ve worked on my own podcast, as you mentioned, but you know, and how did I get here? Right. We, we met because I. presented at the New York State Cyber Conference that you happen to be sitting in on the session and you decided to come up and introduce yourself to me. And I got there because I happened to meet one of the people that I was co-presenting with and decided that, hey, I’ll volunteer to work on Mike Mallory, be a moderator for one of the sessions that he runs in his cyber club. So it does all chain together. And I think that’s why people want to… advance to whatever their goal is in their career. They want to advance with one big step, I feel like, or fall into that trap. Whereas to me, it’s really about doing one small thing and doing it well at a time. I liken it to, did you ever watch anybody pour the foundation for a house?

Speaker 0 | 29:48.649

I have. My brother actually works in that business, not pouring the foundations. He’s a plumber. And so he lives in Texas where they don’t have basements in their houses. So they put, they put dude slab foundation. So I’ve, you know, I have, I have both witnessed and talked to extensively about how this goes.

Speaker 1 | 30:04.002

Well, that was a surprise to me, but I would bet. And I, and I haven’t, and I bet most people haven’t because it would be probably boring for most people who, you know, either don’t work in the field or know somebody who’s working in that field, but you know, I don’t want to live in a house that doesn’t have a solid foundation. So it’s extremely important, you know, for these, you to do kind of do one thing. at a time, do it right. Like I always envision, you know, just forming a brick, making it perfectly level and just setting it down, you know, and if you can do that every day that you come in by, you know, three months, six months down the road, you’re going to be like, wow, I have this foundation that I’ve built because I took the time to do things the right way. Uh, you know, one small step at a time. So that, that’s how I think about success. I think that is the key to success. It’s not big bang or coming up with some, let’s drop the shiny tool into our AI. Before that, it was zero trust networks, and there’s always going to be the next big thing. But you can only move fast if you have taken time to put that foundation in place first. So people want to rush to AI. I think the ones that will be successful are the ones that already have organizational competency. They’re making decisions in the right way. They’re leading their people in the right way. If you are doing those things already, um, I think it will be much easier for you to pivot to whatever the next thing is that you want to implement versus doing the wrong things over and over. And we’ve seen that throughout the course of our career. At least I have.

Speaker 0 | 31:30.405

Yeah, it’s funny you mentioned that, too, because I think about. So, of course, AI in my spaces is that it’s not all over the map for all of us. But in the IT space, you know, I as an IT executive leader, I face. constant questions hey what’s our strat what are our tools what do we want can we use this i want to do that thing and i think about i think this will dovetail exactly what you said to me being a very fast follower so if you’re at the bleeding edge there’s there will be some people who have success at the bleeding edge they will they will stumble their way into like amazing opportunity and then it’ll they’ll hit it big if you will and uh you But I think that most people don’t recognize that the ability to succeed in that type of environment is small. So like 100 people try and like one or less than one really hits it out of the park with that. The real success is the people that follow that group oftentimes. You know, the ones who are a little bit more methodical that are willing to be like, OK, let’s just like let’s let the hype die down for a second here. And then let’s. Let’s use our knowledge to like apply this effectively and not just rush headlog into something because it seems like it’s, you know, the big the new big thing.

Speaker 1 | 32:48.414

Yep. It’s like a moth to the light scenario. And I agree 100 percent. And so it all goes back to, again, that organizational competency that I was talking about. What I mean is many people are not very many organizations are not very good at project management. I saw a statistic like only 10% of large projects succeed. I think they defined it as $10 million or more invested. And the number one reason for that is not having clear objectives of what the project was trying to accomplish in the first place. So the same applies here. Oh, AI, we want to do that. Why? What is the value that you’re going to get? What is the use case that you think will… help your organization. Obviously, in my line of work, working in healthcare, we have regulated data we’re trying to protect. My job is to squarely protect that regulated data with the data protection team. So we have to be mindful of what are the limitations? What’s the risk? It doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. It just means we have to appropriately control it, make sure the right things are in place and the guardrails for using it. Of course, we want the business to be more efficient. uh, operationally and to, to save money and to be able to do things faster, uh, with less administrative and cost overhead. So, um, you know, but again, you, if you are prepared and you know your business well, and again, going back to that foundation, those foundational things, I think you’ll be able to do these things in a more agile manner and figure out what are the target objectives here that we want to do with AI or what things do we think are feasible and who should be involved. in making those decisions about how we want to apply it.

Speaker 0 | 34:36.871

So let’s have some fun talk for a minute here.

Speaker 1 | 34:42.474

This wasn’t fun. I’ve been having fun the whole time.

Speaker 0 | 34:44.815

It’s true. That’s true. It is true. It’s fine. I guess fun wasn’t the right word to use. I’ll use the word. Let’s talk more like personal fun stuff. So you mentioned, it’s funny, you mentioned about you got into your podcast work during the pandemic when you were like, I need something to be engaged with. So, so during the pandemic, what I needed to be engaged with, I decided that we were going to go camping and I bought a vintage Airstream, ripped it down to the metal and built it up. You know, so I took like a year rebuilding it. But what thing, so that’s my segue. Wait, wait,

Speaker 1 | 35:16.786

wait. Did you actually camp in it? Oh, yeah,

Speaker 0 | 35:19.827

yeah. We use it. We use it all the time.

Speaker 1 | 35:21.908

You can strip it down and rebuild it. That sounds like a capture of its own.

Speaker 0 | 35:26.858

It was. It took a year. I did all of the carpentry, so the cabinets, I built all of them. You know, not just the cabinets, the countertops, the drawers, the walls. I sewed the upholstery. I sewed the curtains. Are you kidding?

Speaker 1 | 35:40.682

That is awesome.

Speaker 0 | 35:42.382

So it was a fun project. I don’t want to do it again, but we do use it. And I did chronicle it on a blog, so I have a blog out on the Internet here that you can go see the adventures of my Airstream.

Speaker 1 | 35:53.966

I will definitely check it out and I’ll let you get to your segue. Sorry, I keep interrupting you.

Speaker 0 | 35:57.629

That’s fine. The segue is what interesting thing do you have you done or do that people wouldn’t know about?

Speaker 1 | 36:07.515

Well, you’re going to lead with that. And then I know it’s hard. That was that was a that was pretty awesome. That was pretty awesome. I am. I have hobbies. I love I love music. I say musician in the in the. loosest sense of the word, but I love playing music from a young age. I’ve always had a good ear for it and just been interested. I actually took up the piano over, I took some lessons earlier on in my life, but didn’t really stick with it. And I decided over the pandemic, that was the thing I was going to do. So I ordered an electric piano and I have worked at it for probably four years now. Um, actually tomorrow I’m playing my first, uh, piano gig. So I’m down at a brewery here, downtown, uh, Buffalo and have a small group of friends and family that are going to come out and watch. But speaking of getting yourself out of your comfort zone, I’m very nervous for it. You know, you can’t practice enough, but, um, I’m excited for it. And my wife’s like, it seems a little attention seeking. And, um, and I’m like, it is, I mean, it is right. Like, how do you say like for any actor or any musician? any entertainer or whatever. And I don’t consider myself an entertainer again, using words loosely, but you know, for me, what I like about it is it does bring people together. I, for me, I like, it kind of pushes me to learn and try to be as good at it as possible. So I enjoy that, that challenge and you know, it’s at a brewery and I love, I do love beer as well. So it kind of hits a lot of the check marks for me that are really gratifying. So I’m, I’m excited and nervous for it, but that’s what I do in my, my free time. But I. do also love to camp and I lived in Portland, Oregon for almost three and a half years. And I know Portland’s become sort of a political hot lightning rod in the past few years, but it is an awesome place and it has infinite outdoors activities to do. And I just fell in love with hiking and kayaking. And I was an hour from the coast and an hour from Mount Hood and could make it to Vancouver, BC in four hours. It just is a… The Pacific… Northwest is a magical place. So I really enjoy being in the woods. I’m not a highly religious person, but the woods is definitely where I feel most spiritual and kind of centered. So I try to get out and get out there away from unplugged as often as I can to kind of recharge the batteries.

Speaker 0 | 38:32.471

So this piano gig, what kind of music are you playing at the piano gig?

Speaker 1 | 38:37.733

All right. Well, my figure is I’m not a great singer, though. I will sing um so i i’m working on that but um i try to do sing-alongs so that maybe people in the hopes that maybe people will sing along with me and drown me out a little bit but um i you know so it’s it’s you know it’s the hits it’s billy joel it’s elton john it’s i was billy joel was the first thing i was right yeah but i was like do i do i actually go there i do have i do have piano man down i think you can’t play a gig without it but it took me a lot it took that one took me the longest amount of time the actual um the the main part of it is not that difficult to play but it’s the little embellishments and then it’s the the solo is very difficult and then learning how to play the harmonica part over the top of that you know so putting it all together is very good so you’re doing the harmonica too yeah it’s got the harmonica okay

Speaker 0 | 39:27.833

so so this is growing rapidly here you’re like oh i learned to play the piano but what you’re really saying is you learned to play billy joel’s piano man the actual way the piano the harmonica you know the words like yes

Speaker 1 | 39:39.842

that’s yeah that’s a feat that’s a feat right there it is well we’ll see how it goes tomorrow because this will be the first time out in front of a group of people playing it but i feel like i can make it through i’m not going to say there’s going to be zero flaw free but you know what it what’s worth uh doing that is so it’ll be i’m excited for it hopefully you know people enjoy it too

Speaker 0 | 39:58.476

Yeah. So now for the listeners of the podcast, when we’re recording, it’s the middle of July. It’ll probably be several weeks before this podcast episode comes out. So this gig will have long since passed by the time you’re actually listening to this podcast.

Speaker 1 | 40:11.946

So this is not a promo.

Speaker 0 | 40:13.367

Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 40:14.107

Nor have I told people where it is, but that’s okay. I don’t think it would have a big draw anyways. I’m hoping really, you know, I’m not playing for tips. I’m more of the tip your bartender. I’m just happy to be. coming into this establishment and able to sit down at this nice piano and play for a little while. So that’s how I look at it, but, and maybe get a free beer. That would be a good repayment for, for, for me, but I’m, I’m really excited about it. And thanks for the plug.

Speaker 0 | 40:38.523

It’s just what piano band, like, I mean, you’re going to sing piano band and then you’re going to talk about like putting bread in your jar and all this other stuff that people are going to want to tip you. I know.

Speaker 1 | 40:46.967

Well, if they really want to, I’m not going to push back. I’m not going to push back too hard, but I’m not putting the jar out there. So,

Speaker 0 | 40:53.951

so. Let’s see. Another maybe fun question here. OK. Star Wars or Star Trek?

Speaker 1 | 41:01.112

Oh, I mean, for me, it’s Star Wars all day, all day long. Yeah, I know. I know. I’m going to make a lot of people upset. Of course, that was your point in asking. But yeah, no, definitely. Definitely. You know, Star Trek just didn’t grab me. And, you know, I saw I can’t remember what show I think it was. I’m catching up on suits. So. uh the the netflix series suits and i’m i’m not an early adopter to your earlier point i jump on these things years years after they’ve aired but um you know for me it was the it’s just the effects and you know it just seemed it just didn’t grab me as a kid and whereas star wars it just sucked me right in from day one i had my you know when my son was old enough i had him watch the original trilogy i think it’s episodes four five and six I don’t care as much for the newer ones, but my son got into it, you know, cause those were coming out around the time he was at that age. So I watched some of that weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Such a, such a, I know I, I, it’s such a, I’m going to stay away from Jar Jar, but, but no, I, I do, I, you know, I, I appreciate Star Trek and actually they came out with a newer, newer version that my son made me sit down and watch. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 42:15.779

Discovery is great. Yeah. So, Yeah, I’m a big Star Trek fan. And before I get, you know, before I get, you know, flame mail from the audience of our podcast, there’s nothing wrong with Star Trek. It’s great. I do enjoy a Star Wars, sorry, the role of Star Wars, I should say. I do enjoy a good Star Wars movie periodically. But I saw some statistic that said that the amount of like produced content for the two series. So, so. Because Star Trek was always largely a TV show, the amount of content to consume. So Star Trek has something like 700 hours worth of content over across all of the franchises series. And Star Wars is only like, I don’t know, like 100 maybe.

Speaker 1 | 43:01.303

Wow. I’m surprised by that. That there’s that much of a disparity. So that’s pretty interesting.

Speaker 0 | 43:06.687

Yeah, it’s just. because of the nature of how it’s produced like star up until recently star wars was never a tv show i mean now there’s like all the like the mandalorian and you know all those other shows that are out there uh but but star trek had you know was other than the the you know movies as after the tv shows moved to movies uh they’ve always had tv episodes which is like so you’re adding like 20 30 maybe sometimes 50 episodes a year of content to the to the catalog

Speaker 1 | 43:35.028

Yeah, and I don’t mean this as a personal attack on you now that I know your position on Star Trek or any of the listeners, but I’m going to double down and say watching 700 hours of Star Trek footage, it sounds excruciating to me. So I’ll stop there before I start. Please don’t give anybody my phone number or address.

Speaker 0 | 43:58.060

We’ll publish it. I’d like that.

Speaker 1 | 43:59.081

It’s all good. Okay. I’m safe then.

Speaker 0 | 44:03.663

Thank you. So let’s see. We’re kind of coming up on time here, but I did want to just… Another fun question before we wrap here. What fun… Do you have any old tech? You mentioned you kind of get late to some of these games. Do you hang on to old tech? Is there something in your house you’d be like, I still have this, and I’m kind of almost embarrassed to admit it.

Speaker 1 | 44:26.075

Oh, my gosh. I’m trying to think. Not really, and I was never… I’m going to disappoint you with this one. to end on but um i do have an atari throwback um so i bought so i don’t have the original atari anymore and for it was it 2600 is that 600 yeah 2600 yeah that that was cool before that we had in television and we never had a pong machine though i’ve you know i’ve seen them and uh you know seen pictures of them i should say so i don’t have I don’t have any vintage tech. I’m just trying to think. Other than I do have a couple of my old flip phones around in the garage just for fun. I do. I do. I do have a flip phone. I think it was a Samsung. So, yeah, I have that. But, you know, I don’t I wouldn’t say I was I wasn’t the person that was pulling servers apart. you know when i was a kid i always think that’s the developers and the engineers but um i have nothing against i i have great respect for that mindset um i always did have a curiosity for how things uh work but um yeah so i i would say the the throwback atari is probably the thing that i actually still long for and will take out and play every once in a while so that that would be probably my best answer not a weak one by my own admission so so my house so i live in a mid-century modern house

Speaker 0 | 45:52.348

that I somewhat intentionally keep a lot of mid-century components in it. So on my wall, I have a yellow, you know, one of those like wall hung phones, a rotary dial phone.

Speaker 1 | 46:06.179

Oh, yes.

Speaker 0 | 46:07.260

And it still works. You can make calls with the rotary dial phone in my house.

Speaker 1 | 46:11.864

Really? That is something. Do you have a long cord on it so that you can walk into the other room so people can’t hear you for privacy?

Speaker 0 | 46:19.448

You got it. Yeah, it’s got like that 10-foot cord, the coily cord that can stretch way out.

Speaker 1 | 46:24.291

Yes, ours was yellow. The one that I grew up with was yellow.

Speaker 0 | 46:27.533

Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 46:28.093

this was yellow. Okay. Maybe it’s the only color they come in. I don’t know.

Speaker 0 | 46:31.795

There was like three or four colors. There was like a yellow, like kind of a brownish one. There was a pink one. You know, the peach color, I think, maybe.

Speaker 1 | 46:39.560

Yeah, why do we get so boring with colors? It was pretty cool back in the day. But all the cars, I feel like, are black and white and gray anymore. Navy. So nothing too exciting. I had an orange car, and my neighbors would laugh at me as I drove it. Jumped through the neighborhood. I didn’t mind, but I figured a change-up is okay.

Speaker 0 | 47:02.067

You weren’t committing crimes. Right. Find the orange car.

Speaker 1 | 47:07.108

You literally couldn’t. Yeah, so that was my way to keep from committing crimes was to get the orange car, just keep myself honest.

Speaker 0 | 47:15.332

So just before we leave here, what advice do you have for future leaders? You’ve given some along the way, as we’ve talked for the last 40 minutes or so, but what kind of closing advice would you have for folks who are coming up in the IT space or coming up in the cybersecurity leadership space, which is where you live mostly nowadays? Um, what advice do you have for them about becoming a leader?

Speaker 1 | 47:40.151

I mean, the, the best thing that, and I, I do speak at some colleges. Um, I love talking to, I love talking to college students because they’re very eager to learn and understand, um, you know, what, what are the keys to being successful? What takeaways hungry, hungry for knowledge, very highly collaborative too, which is awesome. But, um, my answer really is always simple. for leadership. If your heart is in the right place, the rest of the things can be learned. And there are quite a few things to learn within leadership. But to me, it’s all about coming with the mindset that your number one purpose is to support the success of the folks on your team, to truly understand what makes them tick, remove obstacles, barriers that might be getting in the way of them succeeding, and of course, to promote their growth. I think too many leaders lead in fear of people leaving them or not liking them or not getting things done. And the truth is, the reality is, and I tell my people this all the time, we’re probably not going to retire together. Maybe we will. It’s unlikely, though, and I’m not afraid of you. You might learn everything there is to know about GRC or data protection, and it’s time to move on. And I will help you find that extra role. give you a reference or whatever I can do to help you in your career is healthy. And I think just putting that type of positive energy, and it kind of sounds corny, but like putting it into the universe, I think is really important to kind of have that mindset. Then we’re all vulnerable. We all have fears, but you really just can’t lead with those fears because that’s when sort of toxicity can, I’ve seen it slip into. you know, people’s habits and the culture. So I think it’s just having that openness and really coming to work every day, just realizing your primary job is to support the growth of your team members and their successes are your successes. Their failures are your failures. And just, you know, get up, dust yourself off and keep at it.

Speaker 0 | 49:46.116

Great. Thank you. So, Sean, thank you. Thank you so much for investing your time with us on the podcast today.

Speaker 1 | 49:53.308

Thanks for having me on, Douglas. It was a pleasure. It’s very comfortable, and that I credit to you, but I appreciate all the questions and the dialogue. It’s been an awesome hour.

Speaker 0 | 50:05.132

That’s a wrap on today’s episode of Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m Doug Kameen, and we look forward to coming to you on our next episode. And there, and we’re done. that was easy hopefully it was hopefully it was okay and i enjoyed it so yeah it’s a great conversation i enjoyed i enjoyed the chat it’s uh it’s good like you’re talking about at the end there the the stuff about like like i that’s that’s very much the same thing that i tell people i’m like i want my staff to tell me when they want to leave because and i make it super clear to them that that it’s not because i want some sort of control but like i’ll literally help you if that’s what it if like that’s the next phase of your career like i’m there and in you know somewhat maybe selfishly it’s helpful because then i know what plan succession planning and like it you know it has a benefit i mean of course i want to help them and there’s other stuff so like i found i found that it’s just easier to just be like look man if like you think that your next opportunity is somewhere else like you don’t have to keep it from me right right just be like honest about it be like hey i think it’s time to i’m going to start looking like okay yeah and i found very yeah it’s been

Speaker 1 | 51:11.372

a very open conversation for my team and myself to have about that um so i’m happy i think it’s just building that trust and them realizing you’re not going to retail like i i think and i’ve seen it actually happen where people get mad when their people are are going to leave or feel somehow somehow some personal slight because of it and it’s just it’s just not not it you know so uh so yeah no it’s it’s good that was that was something we had at at my current role my my boss

Speaker 0 | 51:40.464

uh you know as the ceo and and she’s been there for like 20 27 years 28 years at this point and wow um and while she’s supportive of people leaving like at some point she’s it’s almost like you know there was some reminders we had to make to her recently to be like hey like when people leave like it’s not you know she’s not that she took it personal because she’s not that type of person if she took it personal as if she failed to like do something that would make them want to stay and i’m like you know it’s almost like the opposite right instead of being being upset and angry at the individual for leaving she was upset at herself for like a baby i did something that caused them to go and i’m like no like like i know it’s just not their time to be here anymore like i wish we could i wish we could have dived into that a little bit more because i agree with you 100 it’s

Speaker 1 | 52:32.552

that is um that’s i think that is almost the predominant at least from what I’ve observed. And of course I don’t have the full sample size of the universe, but you know, that’s, that is the, I think how many leaders take it and like that personal, what have I done wrong? And it’s like, no, maybe you’ve done something really right. You’ve helped this person to grow and learn and find that next, you know, opportunity. So it’s, you know, yeah, I think the mindset just needs to, to shift a little bit.

Speaker 0 | 52:59.894

So, yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s hard, you know, and somebody who’s super invested, like in my boss’s case, you know, she’s been at that business for so long. That she’s she she views it as a reflection of, you know, not exclusively her. You know, I mean, we’re 500 people. She knows it’s not just her. But but just, you know, she’s just she’s yoked very closely to it. So it could be hard to build a little bit of separation between the two and be like, you know, hey, let’s encourage this. Let’s do it.

Speaker 1 | 53:27.823

Right. Well, and if that’s your experience and you have been I think it’s commendable to be at a place for that, that. length of time is awesome. I think there’s some advantages. Obviously, it shows your commitment and loyalty, but maybe there’s some other side to that too, where you don’t always see a different perspective that you might have if he’d gone. So it’s a balance. I’m not a fan of, hey, get a job for a year, go to the next, then another year and go to the next. Job hoppers. And of course, I always look at that when we’re hiring. I’d like someone that’s going to dig in for it. few years. It’s my job though. Like we’re in this together. It’s, you know, I, my, my end of the bargain is to give you work that you feel is, you know, that is valuable and that you can contribute with your skillset and also learn and grow. Um, so that, you know, if you have those things, I feel like most people will be relatively happy for at least a period of, of time, you know, and what I’d ask from, from you is that you, you know, you put in effort. and you’re trying and you’re asking for help. I don’t expect it to be perfect, but that you’re putting the effort in. So it should feel good from both sides. And I think I’m just a big fan of keeping it simple like that because things can get complicated with all the challenges that do come along with a workday and an organization and complexities, many of which I really think are… our own making. But, you know, that’s how I think, and that has served me, I think, well in the roles that I’ve had, is just kind of keeping things simple and keeping it about people, you know, keep people focused.

Speaker 0 | 55:08.177

Yeah. So, just to wrap up things, I always make sure to share with everyone. After we’re done here, I’m going to package this up. I’ll upload it to our production team. It’s like So they use like Asana or something like that. So I uploaded Asana. They’ll get it all, you know, cleaned up. They, you know, enhance the audio if it needs it. Although we both have nice equipment, so they may not do much. But they’ll, you know, they’ll trim it up. They’ll create some snippets. They’ll find some quotes that they’ll highlight. They’ll create some graphics and stuff. The episode gets posted on the website, DissectingPopularITutors.com. Generally right now it gets promoted on LinkedIn pretty extensively. So episodes come out currently twice a week, although we were talking about a faster cadence. I think we were talking about getting another host, so it’s possible that they brought somebody on a couple weeks ago. So we might be increasing the pace. But right now it’s two times a week. From today out, I think it would be probably four to five weeks.

Speaker 1 | 56:15.642

you know when we record to when it comes out okay i usually give try to give heads up to the folks who i’ve interviewed like hey your episode’s coming out like to you know this week or tomorrow or if i notice it that day i’ll be like hey it’s going on an hour well that would be awesome no i need to i need to subscribe to your channel on on linkedin too so i would see it anyways but um because i haven’t done that yet but no i i appreciate i appreciate that hopefully they added out the part about star trek where i diss all the star trek uh that’ll make it that’ll

Speaker 0 | 56:44.301

be there

Speaker 1 | 56:45.022

That’ll be right on the, that’ll be, uh, yeah, right over the top of the, of the, of the graphic, I’m sure. So,

Speaker 0 | 56:50.907

yeah, that, uh, uh, that it gets posted on, you know, all the major podcast platforms too. So the episode shows up on like Spotify, Apple podcasts, and probably a couple others. I’m sure. I don’t, I don’t know them all,

Speaker 1 | 57:00.796

but yeah, no, I, I, I appreciate the opportunity. You know, it is, it is humbling to even think someone would want you to be on something like this. So, um, thank you for, you know, introducing yourself to me at the conference and, you know, giving me the opportunity to be on it. It was nice.

Speaker 0 | 57:17.749

Yeah, no, it’s great. I appreciate the interview. It’s great to be able to connect. I’m sure we’ll be able to, because we’re relatively close, that we might be able to keep in touch at some point. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 57:25.153

that would be cool. Yeah. I mean, if you’re ever in the area, and it’s possible I might be out in Rochester, it’d be great to catch up for a coffee or something. You know, I like beer too, so that works. But whatever works, yeah, always happy to meet, or maybe we’ll see each other at a conference down the road, or even if you… even if you want to just bounce something off me and talk about something based on what you know you know about me i’m more than happy to always connect and share thoughts and ideas i think that’s what it’s all about so yeah awesome all right to be connected great oh yeah i should have asked you at the very beginning i called you douglas throughout because that’s how your name comes up is that we you prefer douglas i just want to make sure i go i go by you by doug okay people call me doug because that’s you know because it feels it you

Speaker 0 | 58:09.250

It sometimes feels horrible to be referred to as Douglas, but, um, I always, so I have, I have a, I do have a rule about it. If I write my name down or if my name is presented, written, it’s Douglas.

Speaker 1 | 58:20.355

Got it. Yeah. I would have called you Doug then throughout the, but I, I didn’t want to assume. So yeah.

Speaker 0 | 58:26.417

I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 | 58:28.899

Well, now I know how to address you, uh, and that you’re comfortable. Yeah. You don’t want to take the, take the, uh, liberties. So, um. But no, I appreciate it. It was great to meet you and talk with you today. Thanks for everything.

Speaker 0 | 58:40.193

Yeah, sounds great.

Speaker 1 | 58:41.256

All right, have a great weekend.

Speaker 0 | 58:42.739

You too, take care.

Speaker 1 | 58:43.762

All right, see you, Doug. Bye.