Speaker 0 | 00:00.880
Welcome back to today’s episode of Dissecting popular it Nerds. I’m your host, Doug Kameen, and today I’m talking with Scott Geshell, CIO at Premier Outdoor Living. Welcome to the show, Scott.
Speaker 1 | 00:12.105
Thanks, Doug. Appreciate it. Nice to be here. Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 00:15.166
So we’re talking a little bit before the show. You and I are not actually geographically very far from each other. So you’re just down in central Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 | 00:25.350
Correct. I’m just south of Allentown. My office is in… The Pocono Mountains in Tamakwa, Pennsylvania, And then we also have an office in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, as well as Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Speaker 0 | 00:40.859
Oh, that’s a pretty big spread.
Speaker 1 | 00:42.460
Right.
Speaker 0 | 00:43.300
Yeah. So, periodically, do you get out to Green Bay for work?
Speaker 1 | 00:47.641
I’ve been out there one time.
Speaker 0 | 00:49.262
Oh, one time. Oh, man. What you really need to do is parlay this into some tickets for the Packers game, right?
Speaker 1 | 00:56.464
Yes. Yes, and be a cheesehead for a couple days.
Speaker 0 | 01:00.005
That’s right. Now, are you? normally, I don’t know if you’re a football fan, I’m not a huge football follower myself, but of course, I know that it’s everywhere, so you know a lot about it.
Speaker 1 | 01:09.507
Right, right. I’m typically not a professional sports follower, football follower. I mean, you got to go with the Eagles just because they’re close, but I understand the passion that people have with football. You know. And Green Bay is probably one of the better places to see a game.
Speaker 0 | 01:33.142
It feels like, of course, this is going to be a great little side segue here, because this is like two non-sports dudes talking about sports stuff for a second.
Speaker 1 | 01:44.565
Those sports balls,
Speaker 0 | 01:47.466
all the sports balls, we’re going to talk all about it. But to your point, I think you make a great point, which I would certainly support. It feels like some of the best… Teams, or the best experiences are the small market teams, you know, that great, that experience in Green Bay, you know, I live, um, in the Binghamton, New York, area. That’s why, you know, we’re g roughly close, we’re only probably about 90 minutes apart. And uh, um, but you know, upstate here, like Buffalo, is, you know? The experience of of attending a Buffalo Bills game is apparently quite the scene to behold. And quite the experience to have and be in that field and take part in that stuff. So right,
Speaker 1 | 02:24.804
and from what I understand, it’s the same in Philadelphia for the Eagles, as well as in Green Bay for the Packers. And again, the stadium is just the way it’s situated. The town kind of revolves around it. It’s extremely commercial. Pick a place you want to eat, and they have it there. It is just very, very commercial.
Speaker 0 | 02:49.951
But no table jumping, right? Right. Correct. We’ll refrain from jumping off the table. Yes, exactly. On this podcast. So getting back to more serious conversations here. So we’ve got you here on our podcast to talk about leadership stuff. So you’re the CIO at Premier Outdoor Living. You’ve got multiple sites. Can you tell us, I guess, first of all, what does Premier Outdoor Living do?
Speaker 1 | 03:17.248
So we are a conglomerate of, we have two businesses. Three business units. So the first business under Highwood USA, they, we, um, extrude plastic lumber, and then we make furniture under, under the brand Highwood USA. And then Highwood USA also has a spa skirting manufacturing, where we work with, um, different OEM, um, hot tub manufacturers. And, uh, provide them the panels that go around the hot tubs to hide plumbing and the motors and all of that. And then our second business, our second company, third business is out, it’s called Recycle plastics Industries. It’s out in Green Bay, Wisconsin, And they are a plastic extruder for many other types of industries. Everything from, you know, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, um, other furniture companies, etc. So I’m I’m feeling back like, so you’re in the plastics business, it’s fun, we’re definitely the plastics business, correct? This is like it was like, what was that movie in the 70s? If the graduate or whatever doesn’t often know, like, what’s the future? Man? Like, what should I do? Plastic?
Speaker 0 | 04:38.710
plastics? Exactly, exactly. Yeah, so that that’s the path you follow, you’re in the plastic, right, right. So, uh, and how long have you been CIO here?
Speaker 1 | 04:50.659
So for two years, I’ve been, I’ve been here for two years and again, loving every minute of it.
Speaker 0 | 04:56.556
Yeah, it sounds like a super cool business. So tell us a little bit about your journey to get to the CIO, you know, the CIO job. And this is, you know, this is funny. Normally, I have somebody’s LinkedIn profile to give me a cheat sheet, and I don’t have yours open. In enough time to burn. I’m burning time here to see if I can get it, but I can’t get it fast enough. I can’t remember. This is your first CIO job. But how did you get to be in the CIO, in the leadership role? Like, what was your journey?
Speaker 1 | 05:26.068
So my journey really started back in when I was with QVC back in the early 2000s. I started there as an IT procurement manager, kind of led my way up through different roles to a senior manager role. And then, you know, as many people have experienced over the course of their career, their positions were eliminated. And I was, you know, I left there. And then. Took a position with Versu Materials that was a they’re a process manufacturer for chemicals for the sub for the semiconductor industry. Um, very high tech. Um, you know, it’s, uh, one of those things that from going from online retail and having t-commerce at QVC, going into that process, manufacturing very visual at QVC to. I can’t see it, I can’t see what we’re making, because if we, if I saw it means I’m inhaling, it means I’m dead. So very, very bad, very, very bad chemicals, you know? So that was a big transition and my boss there was an operations manager and he, um, essentially kept in contact with me. And Premier Outdoor Living was looking for someone to move into a full-time CIO role. They had a fractional CIO that previously to me, and they really wanted Mike to come on. Who who was my boss previously. And he’s like, I can’t where I am now. I’m happy, but I have this person and they recommended me. Got a guy, yep, you have a guy, so it definitely. Um, you know, don’t burn bridges and, you know, keep your, keep your contacts and your, and your network alive and healthy. That’s, that’s definitely worked for me over the years.
Speaker 0 | 07:38.168
And so, so, as the CIO here now, and this is, I mean, it’s funny now. In the time you’ve been talking, I made sure to get your profile up so I can follow you. I’m trying to get enough. Yeah. Thanks. I appreciate that. We just acknowledge our, our. Failures here on the podcast. So as a CIO here, in your past roles, you’ve been managers of it, service manager and other stuff like that. But this is your first, I think, by title CIO, it sounds like, right? Yeah. So I’m going to ask a couple questions that will come from this. But my first is, have you experienced the role differently, being titled a CIO versus being, say, the IT services manager or some other kind of? Like the… Leadership IT role, but not necessarily titled as a C-level executive?
Speaker 1 | 08:25.535
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a tough question. Titles to me really don’t mean a whole lot. I think a lot of it is what you do and what you can achieve. If you’re putting your best foot forward, I think it’s building the right team. I had some objectives coming into this role where the… Current leadership wanted to, you know, a build a high performing team. You know, they wanted to have somebody who had some financial understanding, you know, so that’s my procurement background. Um, they wanted, uh, you know, someone who had the technical chops, but not be so technical that it would, you know, baffle people. That’s because I don’t look at myself as a technologist. I look at myself as, you know, as more of a business centric, always focused on where the business is going, what we can do to better improve the business, make it more efficient. And, you know, oftentimes that does start, oftentimes that ends with technology, you know, rather than starting. I’m a very big people process technology person. And sometimes it’s in that order, you know, so. I do think that that is… One of those strong areas that I’m very process-oriented, being an IT service manager really brought me into the process understanding of business processes. And, quite honestly, business processes typically don’t change business to business. Accounts payable is the same. Accounts receivable is the same. It’s when you start getting into the KPIs. I think those are probably more important to the business and how the business measures themselves with technology. So I’m merely an enabler. I enable the business to get to the data that they need.
Speaker 0 | 10:34.304
So thinking back in your career, when was the point, And most people I talk to, they can ultimately put their finger on this time or this instance, or this particular role. You move from being the team member, you know, a part of that team to being the leader of that team. And that doesn’t mean you’re not also a part of the team as the leader. But, you know, as you were working on your journey into leadership, what part? Or was there a time where you were, like, you know what? Like, you look around and you’re like, oh, my God, I’m. I’m not the leader here.
Speaker 1 | 11:11.550
Right. Yeah. I mean, I could think back to, you know, my. I was also a military. I’m also was in the military. I was, I was air force for four and a half years. And then I was in the Pennsylvania Air National Guard for my remainder time. Total was 23, 23 years. Um, and I think it was probably in the military. where, you know, I was always one of those individuals that I was always very proud about what I did and who I worked with. And. I think that when you have someone who’s proud about what they do and they’re excited for what they do, that that feeling can be very infectious. So I had some really good, really good leaders in the military that kind of brought that out of me. I’m not there. I’m not a very, I’m very introverted. I’m not a not an extrovert by nature, but I do think my. According to Myers Briggs, I’m an INTJ, But I do switch back and forth a little bit based on the individuals that I’m leading throughout my journey. It really has changed and opened my eyes to having the responsibility and the collaboration with my team. That kind of drives me. You know, just makes me more energetic to do, to do the right thing. You know, it’s not just me saying we need to go here, here, there, and there and everywhere, but it’s not just what we’re doing, but I want my team to express how, how to do it.
Speaker 0 | 13:03.584
Yeah. So you mentioned your Air Force service. Thank you for your service, by the way. The, the, uh, the, anyway, a handful of times, like, probably. I bet you, probably a quarter of the people that I’ve talked to on this podcast have some connection to our military service. It’s not an uncommon path to get into different ways of leadership. What qualities do you think you uniquely picked up from your time, leadership qualities from your military service?
Speaker 1 | 13:35.584
I do think it’s always about managing self and how you manage yourself. How you manage yourself can easily go to the next level to manage and lead others. And I do know, I know, that there’s a distinction between managing and leading. There is definitely a distinction. I look at myself as more, you know, of a, of a leader, again, bringing the, bringing the best out in people, you know, seeing, seeing things that, I mean, even in the military, I had. People that had reported to me that they didn’t know that this was the right career field for them, you know, and I’ve tried to find, you know, are there other things that they could potentially do and move them into, you know, into other areas, you know, some have been, you know, down the path of being, you know, um, uh, insurance salesman and, you know, and kind of change the direction for them. And, you know, got other people into it because of my connection with, you know, with a lot of it people, you know, through the military, as well as through, you know, my civilian career.
Speaker 0 | 15:00.495
And so there was a friend of mine, a personal friend of mine who served in the military. He was saying, I can’t remember which friend it was offhand, but he was telling me. In the military, there’s always a lot of effort to teach. I would call it like management or leadership. And I know there’s a distinction between the two, but it was like, it was like, even, even the, the, the most basic job, there’s an opportunity to teach something. Like, for instance, if there’s, you know, if your, your, if your job is to go clean the floor, to put two people at it. One person’s job is to clean. One person’s job is to make sure that the job gets done. And probably clean, too. And, uh, oh my God, my little like thing to the thing, right? Right. My Apple thing. So the people on the podcast can’t see this, but, uh, we’re on video talking to each other. First. I just gave like, I did the number two, which looks like a peace sign, which I made balloons appear all over my screen. So apparently we’re celebrating. But anyways, back to what I had mentioned, the uh, uh, you know. So even there, like, he’s like, he was like, there’s even an opportunity to lead there. And that’s one of the things that they try to instill in you is that there’s, you know, we put two people there. Because when he is a chart, right, yeah, on
Speaker 1 | 16:13.914
on the job training is super important. Um, you know, even having one, I look at it as on the job training, you can morph one-on-ones with, with on the job training. So if you’re doing direct training with an individual, and that, to me, is how one-on-ones have, have at least have become. For me, it’s time where, you know, the person who’s reporting to me, you know, has has my, you know, my attention. for, you know, for the, for the time of the one-on-one, they can ask any questions. Um, and it’s, I try to build that, that level of trust that they feel free to, you know, to speak your mind. And, and I always ask them, is there anything that I can do? Is there anything that I can do, you know, for you, for them? It’s not just what they can do for me or for the organization. So I think that opens up, that opens up a lot of, a lot of conversations that go well beyond, you know, just the task at hand, or, you know, the projects that they might be working on.
Speaker 0 | 17:25.492
Yeah. So, like, check it in with your staff to understand where they’re at. Like, just not just like, Hey, you need to get this done. Why isn’t it done today? But, like, let’s understand what’s going on here.
Speaker 1 | 17:34.280
Right.
Speaker 0 | 17:35.642
Yeah. Sometimes in my, so I work in the, uh, uh, the mental behavioral health spaces are. That’s the business I’m in. And we get, you know, the phrase du jour is called, you know, bringing your whole self, if you will. You know, knowing. So we specifically work in an area, or we’re specialists or experts in an area called trauma-informed and trauma-responsive care, which is the idea that everybody shows up with baggage that you can’t see. And I say baggage in the very loosest terms, because I’m sure if, you know. One of the people who was an expert at this would be like, don’t use this sort of baggage. But everybody has traumas, or everybody has challenges that you may not see in that moment. So when they show up to work and they’re frustrated that day, you may not understand that this thing happened the other day to them. A year ago, something made them very anxious about what’s happening today and stuff like that. And that doesn’t mean you can’t hold them accountable. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hold them accountable for their work or anything like that. But having that. That more holistic understanding can help you be a better manager and leader, But also be, uh, also help that individual be a better performer in their, in their roles.
Speaker 1 | 18:53.197
Right. Right. It’s, um, it’s all about empathy, right? It’s, it’s understanding, you know, where they’re, where they’re coming from. You know, did they, did they have something happen in their, you know, in their, you know, last night at home? And they bring that to work and you can see that right away. If you don’t know the team that well, I think that’s where. Remote work has, I think, has suffered a little bit. Because it’s all about getting things done. You can’t just tap somebody on the shoulder and say, hey, you doing okay today? It’s taking forth that extra effort to ensure that you’re… You know that, you know, they, that they, that you have their back.
Speaker 0 | 19:45.033
Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1 | 19:45.395
that’s super important.
Speaker 0 | 19:46.797
Yeah, so I think about intentionality. So you have to be, you know, especially when you’re doing with remote work, you have to be more intentional about your connection points. I mean, you have to come curious, um, you know, with with how you approach people you know, so curious about. Like, Okay, tell me more about why this is? And that’s just I’m going to assume that because you didn’t do it right now, or this thing didn’t happen, that I expected that. It’s. For whatever the assumption may be. Uh, you come in curious to find out, so let me help me understand first. I’ll pass my judgment still at some point here. Because I’m the manager, I’m the leader, and I have to ultimately be responsible and accountable to making sure we get stuff done. But we can start with not making assumptions, bad assumptions, just to get the thing started.
Speaker 1 | 20:30.367
Absolutely.
Speaker 0 | 20:33.269
So, changing gears here a little bit, one of the things we try to ask on podcasts is, obviously, without asking you to be too revealing about things. That might be called confidential or proprietary types of data. But like, what? What are some of the tools and things that your, your company, or you as professional is thinking about, are super interested in? Uh, like, is there a new product you’re working on that’s like, really exciting for you? Or anything else like that that, you know, you found? Like, this is going to change things. Or this is a real thing. I always bring to every job that I do, this product or this tool or something like that, right?
Speaker 1 | 21:13.004
I? I would be remiss if I wouldn’t say AI is a target. But to me, it’s the holy grail of where we need to get to. And we are very infant in that journey. We are still working through our governance, coming up with data ownership, making sure that data is cleansed, it’s clean. We’ve all heard the adage of garbage in, garbage out. And I want to get us to a point where the business can rely more on the data. And that’s understanding the processes that the operators are taking as they’re making that material, all the way through to ensuring that a bill of materials lines up with a GL code on the finance side. So all of those things are super important. And until that data is really cleansed and we have a good grasp on where those data lives, then we can start looking at outside influential data, like market data. We can look at bringing Google analytics and things of that sort to start driving more or better decisions and start looking more to… Be more predictive in, you know, in, you know, what the, what the, Where the market is going from our furniture side, what, um, you know, what our customers are going to be looking for next year, you know, So we can be a little bit more, you know, a little bit more, not crystal ball-ish, but at least a little bit more, um, uh, again, prescriptive on, on where we’re going to go and be more predictive.
Speaker 0 | 23:11.788
So have you been, do you guys have a favorite AI tool that you’re looking at right now, one that you prefer to work with, or are you kind of feeling out the map? And before you answer that, I’ll share on my side, We’ve also been looking at how does AI intersect with our work, which can be somewhat interesting. In that we don’t make widgets and sell things, we do services and help people. So the answers about where the tool becomes useful can be different. So I created… A learning collaborative, so a collaborative learning project. We have a couple of cohorts of staff who are of different experience levels and different areas of the business, get them together periodically. They share their findings to help learn from one another about where the tools are. We’re focused on Microsoft Copilot because that way you can keep the data within your tenant easily. As opposed to having a chat GPT or something where there’s a risk that some of what you could put in proprietary data could escape into the model. So I’ve got a couple of staff that are really superstars at this. I’ve got a gentleman on the finance side who’s like, yeah, So I created this randomization routine using the AI tools. You feed it protected health information data in a spreadsheet that we need to analyze for some sort of contract that we’re working on to code. Data analysis on health outcomes and stuff. Right, right. It’ll build all this stuff. It’ll create the randomized numbers for you. Then there’s a decoder key that it generates to undo it if you need to. He’s using it to sort through fairly large data sets to find patterns and things like that. So we’re finding those uses. And then Copilot itself, we found a lot of use in, more specifically in Copilot. Copilot’s a little more set up, like a coach. I don’t know how much you experimented with it, and I’m sorry if I gave you a chance to talk, too, but we’re finding that it has very specific uses, where Microsoft has pushed it into the various applications that you use. So I’ll let you talk.
Speaker 1 | 25:23.294
Yeah, we… So last year, I had a webinar with Abacus AI. They made almost like a chatbot that inserts into teams and allows you to do searches within Teams. And this was before Copilot came out. That is one of the areas that I want to make sure that… Whatever we do isn’t, does it become publicly, you know, public knowledge? You know, I don’t want to, I don’t want to build, you know, a model that starts bringing in, you know, the internet data, because that’s not going to really provide a whole lot of value for us or expose our data out to the internet. So keeping that close. One of the other things that I was looking at is integration, like an integration hub, you know, to to bring that data in and to localize it. So that, you know, we can build those data models against that particular, against that, that integration hub. And it’ll help us from an operational and operability perspective, a little bit, make us a little bit more effective on how we’re, how we’re automating. I mean, there’s, AI has been used for years in the cybersecurity space, and, you know, monitoring and learning how learning. Different detectors and things of that sort within the cybersecurity monitoring space or the detection and response space. So it’s definitely out there. And how you use it is really where the business is going to kind of dictate what? The appetite of leveraging AI data versus human data. For me, it’s all the same. It’s just how we’re aggregating it.
Speaker 0 | 27:24.721
Yeah, One of the things we found when we turned on Copilot for that group of testing users was, you mentioned about Teams, and Copilot can be used to search Teams. So Teams, most organizations, have some sort of sprawl. You have the sprawly, buggy-controlled, unmanaged teams environment, Because the way it rolls out from Microsoft’s perspective was, hey, we just turned it on. And look, you could do it yourself. So then the self-service nature leads to a lot of unmanaged setups. I have a plan to get ours back under control over time and put some barriers on who can create teams. But in the interim, we’ve found that once Copilot is enabled, it… So, Copilot… The previous search, if you will, of teams was relatively simple. So it might search an individual team and stuff like that, But Copilot, because it’s aware of your whole tenant, all of a sudden, teams that you theoretically have access to, but you aren’t explicitly added to, Copilot is aware that you have access to them now. Right. So it’s like, you want to see this document? And you’re like, wait a minute, what is this? And you’re like, oh my gosh, like, this is the finance team. Yeah. So like, we have to go back to like our finance team. They’re like, hey, you guys, I don’t know if you know about that team you set up, but you know, when you just, I know you, You just set it up to be generally available, and you only added your team to it because you set it up for a general availability. Technically, it’s visible.
Speaker 1 | 28:56.156
Right.
Speaker 0 | 28:56.916
You know, in the tenant.
Speaker 1 | 28:58.337
Yes. Yeah. And I said, in rights, you know, that’s where, you know, access and, you know, and, you know, user rights I think are. Play an even more important part, because now you’re exposing, you know, all the various users within the within the company to to see everything. And with file shares, you didn’t have that because they were given access to specific file shares. Now we have teams, yes, they have access to certain teams, but, you know, um, but different large language, you know? LLMs can see a lot more than
Speaker 0 | 29:36.194
you know just what they’re supposed to see. Absolutely, so I’m going to shift gears again. Here. More to more, I guess all humorous or fun side of the of our conversations. Um, I wanted to ask if you could share. So I always pick a couple of topics I’ll ask different guests on, just depending on how the conversation goes. I feel like I would love to know, and for our listeners, if there is, can you tell us something that we wouldn’t expect about you? You know, and like, you know, a non-tech thing, you know, so like, for instance, I build things. I built during Covid and lockdown, I bought a vintage airstream and I ripped it apart and I rebuilt the whole thing. Including all the cabinetry and everything else. I’m unusually handy, I guess, is the way to put it. Yes.
Speaker 1 | 30:30.598
Yeah. I’m also unusually handy. I do have a woodworking shop in my pole barn. But one of those things I think that most people don’t know about me is that I also farm. Oh. My wife’s family have a hundred… 105 acre farm. We actually subdivided two acres off of it and built our house on that farm. So it’s like, literally right there. And, you know, my, my father-in-law has no longer able to farm. So I, so my wife and I, and my 17 year old son have kind of take that, taken that, that, that load on. We don’t have animals. It’s, we’re mostly, you know, simple hay, you know, hay farm, But my wife and I are going to start doing flowers, grow flowers, you know, So that’s, you know, again, looking at, you know, the future outside of, you know, outside of technology. And I’m sure that there are days I know even very, very successful CIOs, successful people go, you know, a day or two without. Feeling like they accomplished anything and, you know, plowing a field or, you know, or making, you know, making 200 hay bales, you can turn around at the end of the day and say, I did that. It’s that immediate gratification. That’s why I like doing it. And I’m sure it’s the same, you know, with you as I, as you, you know, built the cabinetry and, you know, you put all that effort into it, you have something to show for it at the end.
Speaker 0 | 32:19.162
Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s definitely, It’s nice to have something that’s rewarding, aside from the work that I do, because I do find that rewarding, too. But, you know, just something different, like today, I was in the office, I’m here in my office at Rochester, which I’m not in every day. So I live a couple hours away from the office. And we have this big training room and a couple of other conference rooms. And I get, like, I look at each one has like sets of chairs and tables that belong in them. And then they got all mixed up. You know, because, like, if nobody’s here to do it. And I’m just, like, so I had, like, a half-hour break between two meetings today. I’m just, like, wheeling chairs back and forth between the two. Putting them all back.
Speaker 1 | 32:57.618
Putting them all out.
Speaker 0 | 32:58.801
And I could already hear somebody be, like, dude, what are you doing with that? Like, why? That is, like, essentially, like, you shouldn’t be doing that. You’re the CIO. Have somebody from, like, facilities take care of that. But I’m, like, right. But when it’s done, it’s like I got to accomplish it and it wasn’t hard for me to do. It’s kind of nice to just have something on your task list that just felt like, you know what, I just set out to do something. It took me like 15 minutes and it wasn’t easy, but I still did it myself. Right,
Speaker 1 | 33:22.757
right, right. Yeah, I do that all the time. You know, I see, you know, I walk by a copier. And if I’m going from, you know, meeting to meeting, you know, you walk by a copier and you see, you know, papers out. I’ll just go ahead and I’ll just. Fill not just the one tray, but I’ll fill them all, make sure that we’re good. And then, you know, and continue on, you know, my journey. It’s just those little things. It’s those little things that, you know, I know it would make if I was, you know, starting at my career, would make me feel good. Knowing that, you know, a C-level person is, you know, willing to help out. and, you know, lean in whenever needed, or not when needed.
Speaker 0 | 34:07.590
too. Yeah, for sure. So another big, this is actually my favorite non-iT related question for our guests. So, Star Trek or Star Wars?
Speaker 1 | 34:21.260
Oh, I would have to say Star Wars.
Speaker 0 | 34:23.661
Oh, man. You got me the woodworking and now you’re doing Star Wars? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I’m a Star Trek guy. You might have… Discern that very quickly, but there’s nothing wrong with Star Wars. I just make sure to say that so we don’t get flamed on the podcast.
Speaker 1 | 34:40.976
I understand.
Speaker 0 | 34:44.739
But yes, what draws you to Star Wars and what makes it like, what inspires you about Star Wars? I guess.
Speaker 1 | 34:55.382
I would say my brother-in-law is probably one of… I have two people in my life that have been very, very strong Star Wars people. I don’t know a whole lot of Trekkies. And my brother-in-law collected all kinds of Star Wars things. And I have a friend that he was on my team when I worked at QVC, who has read every single Star Wars book. He, you know… He’ll go to the movies and watch, you know, the, the full, you know, all, however many movies there are. In one, in one fell swoop. You know, so that’s kind of why I lead to Star Wars, but I do, I do like Star Trek New generation. I do like that. I do like the new generation.
Speaker 0 | 35:43.197
Yeah. Yeah. I, I’ve, I’ve managed to pass on the Star Trek bug to my, well, I think, both of my sons, but. Particularly my older son. So he, he and I sit and work through the episode. There’s this stuff where we’ve done, we did the new stuff, like Star Trek, Discovery and Stranger worlds. And, uh, And then we went back through Star Trek enterprise, which I found on rewatching. I found it much better. I didn’t dislike it the first time around, but I was like, this actually was really good. Like it, it held up really well. Uh, and then, and then we went through next generation. We went to do Space out, which my personal favorite. I’m, I’m all. Deep Space Nine. That is my jam. But we’re currently working through an old Star Trek original series, which is kind of great. He recognizes that the storytelling is the important part of it, and not the special effects. You know, like the green Gorn wizard, and it’s clearly like a rubber suit on some dude.
Speaker 1 | 36:40.184
Right, right. It’s like, they say, what’s retro is coming. What was retro is now new. Absolutely.
Speaker 0 | 36:49.988
So, all right, we’re coming up on the end of the podcast here. And I always make sure my final thing to ask our guests is, if you were sharing with somebody who’s coming up in their leadership journey, what would you want to share to them?
Speaker 1 | 37:08.032
I think someone new coming into it is at a really exciting time in their career because they can… They can choose which areas to go into. You know, when I started, it was, you know, you were all, you were all IT. It was, you know, you did everything. And then it started getting into more specialties. I would, when I was, when I was young, you know, candy computers in the library. My first computer was a, was a Commodore PET 64. My mom sent my sister and I to summer school to do coding.
Speaker 0 | 37:52.634
I did that, too, with a TI-99-4A. That was with logo, with the turtle.
Speaker 1 | 37:57.737
Yes. I hated it. I hated every minute that I was there because it was, You spend hours upon hours typing in your code just to see a caterpillar go zigzag across the screen. It’s like, really? That’s all I did? So coding was never my gig. I’ve always been very much device-centric. I’ve always been a computer guy. So infrastructure has fit me really well. And then I started getting into more of the services behind it. I highly recommend anybody who doesn’t know what they want to do is to sit on a service desk. Sit on a service desk, sit on a help desk. Just listen to the calls that come in because that’s going to definitely help you kind of move into the right area that is best suited for you, whether it’s hardware, whether it’s software, whether it’s applications, whether it’s cybersecurity, whether it’s data, if you want to be a data scientist. You know, so I do think that that’s the that to me is is categorization. You know, try to. Try to have that individual categorize. Where do they see themselves going? And you know, I’ve heard, I’ve heard from other podcasters that have been, you know, on the show, have said, you know that they were, you know, had a completely different career path and then got into I.T. Um, there’s just a lot, a lot of a lot of different areas today that that that they can specialize in. Yeah, yeah, for sure,
Speaker 0 | 39:40.002
all right. Scott, thank you so much for investing your time with us on the podcast today.
Speaker 1 | 39:44.228
Absolutely. This was great. This was fun.
Speaker 0 | 39:46.752
So that’s a wrap on today’s episode of dissecting popular it Nerds. I’m Doug Kameen, and we look forward to coming to you on our next episode.
