Speaker 0 | 00:10.282

Great. Welcome everyone back to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. Today we have Pascal Mejone on the show in Lake Forest, Illinois. Is that correct? You’re in Chicago?

Speaker 1 | 00:23.906

Yeah, we are. We’re actually consolidating up to Wisconsin as we speak. Yeah, we’re currently just outside of Chicago.

Speaker 0 | 00:32.178

Chicago is an interesting place. Every time I go there, I feel like I’m in a different world. I don’t know why. It’s just, you know, like if I go to a Cubs game or something, I don’t know, like are you like near the city or like, you know, Chi-town or whatever we call that there. Last time I went to a Cubs game, it was just like a weird circus arena of just craziness kind of going on, which is very interesting. And I’ve said this before. I felt like I was in like Dick Tracy or something. I was like, this is kind of like a, there’s, batting cages everywhere. It was just interesting. I’m from Boston. Well, not really from Boston. I’m from Massachusetts. When you go to a Red Sox game, it’s just a different circus. It’s a different circus than a Cubs game circus.

Speaker 1 | 01:10.656

I don’t think I’ve ever been to another ballpark, but I’ve been to Wrigley Field plenty of times. Before the Cubs won the World Series, before they became a playoff team, it was basically just like a party town. It was a place for people to have drinks and beer. It was just the batting cages. Now it’s full of… Same thing,

Speaker 0 | 01:30.562

but more of the… Oh, now you guys are like a legit baseball team. Now you’re like a legit baseball team.

Speaker 1 | 01:33.304

Yeah,

Speaker 0 | 01:33.544

exactly. Okay. So, you know, I don’t drink at all anymore. I used to. I haven’t drank in like 20 years or something like that. I don’t drink. But, yeah, so I was down there walking through completely sober and was like, this is crazy. But anyways, man, not that I has… anything to do with like it whatsoever it’s just uh every time i go it brings me back to that but hey man why don’t we just start off this way because i know we got some important stuff to talk about today but what was um i haven’t asked this from a few guests in a while what was your first computer how do you get started out in this in

Speaker 1 | 02:11.773

this world of technology oh man that’s the uh the idm xd let’s pull it back um it’s funny because i kind of thought you would ask that listening to your podcast I look at a YouTube video of the idea of putting out. I wanted to show it to my wife. She’s never had a computer at all. And I just look at her watching.

Speaker 0 | 02:35.071

Good for you. Good for you. You married young. Can we make this about as inappropriate of a show as we can today? Anyways, keep going.

Speaker 1 | 02:43.757

Yeah. It’s just like, and even I couldn’t even like believe how, you know, it doesn’t even, it doesn’t even sound like a computer, right? There’s like a little clunky worrying up. sound with a drive it almost sounds like if you opened it up it would just be like a medieval machine with like gears inside and um yeah be running on punch cards almost did it have like the green screen was it a green screen um no we had a it was a white screen you know like the one the video that i found was exactly like the machine that we had so nostalgic and we had a hard drive like mind-blowing when people saw that i think my dad paid something like four thousand dollars for his pain And all you can really do is just like documents and put them out.

Speaker 0 | 03:27.939

Yes. It had a hard drive though. You mean as opposed to, as opposed to a boot disc, which no one knows many, many, many know and many do not know is yes.

Speaker 1 | 03:41.029

Don’t have those floppy disks either. They’ll never be readable again or,

Speaker 0 | 03:44.832

or leave your magnets. I don’t know on top. I lost my term paper instead of like, you know, the dog ate my homework. I lost my term paper because my mom put a magnet on top of the disc or, you know, like that would be a more memorable excuse, I guess. So, okay. So, so walk me through this. Walk me through this. I don’t know, development real quick. Did you, did you think you would be in technology? Like I thought I never would.

Speaker 1 | 04:18.748

Um, I, um, yeah, I knew I would because my dad, um, basically said he, even at like Mac, it’s exposure technology. I’m thinking about, um, as a kid, you know, we had basically the closest thing to space camps that you could at our school. We had a really great teacher in fifth grade, Steele. Um, he created like a space program. baseball that we could assemble we had like we started out with the evidence that the west like colleges would demonstrate this thing and uh we had you know like a missing console somebody would donate computers for us to use um there was a software too i don’t remember spectrum holobytes No. No, that goes really back. They had this program called Orbiter Group to simulate a shuttle launch, putting a payload in orbit, all these things. So none of these computers were networked. We all had to do all this stuff individually at the same time on this computer. Some of us would be in mission control, some of us would be actually in the space shuttle. We could have all these missions and plans and details and checklist. So those are things that I get.

Speaker 0 | 05:32.018

My parents got us involved in. And what age were you? Can you remember what grade you were? Oh, yeah, that was fifth grade.

Speaker 1 | 05:35.200

So I don’t know, what age was I at? Nine,

Speaker 0 | 05:40.322

ten? Well, I stayed back in first grade. So that means I was 11. You were like a normal age, like 10. Yeah. So let me ask you this. And this is just, I just popped into my head. But like, what was the, you know, prior to, I guess, us going through puberty and life completely changing and altering, what did you do? Is there a memory that you remember back from a kid that was just like, this was like the most memorable, fun time? Did you have like, you know, did you have that type of childhood where you had a good childhood? Some people would be like, I know I blank out my entire childhood, you know, and, but do you, is there something that you remember doing as a kid that was just very memorable, either technology wise or just in general? Cause I think it might give us some insight into, I don’t know.

Speaker 1 | 06:27.122

something who knows um yeah it was maybe a bunch of different examples but uh i had a great childhood so we were pretty close to my um my cousins my aunts uncles um so you know we would get together and everybody had computers too so like when the kids got together and you know we weren’t outside we were inside on the computer doing something like playing theory games or things like that like what okay so what were you doing what were you playing just curious Oh, like, you know, like the old Space Quest, the old King’s Quest games. King’s Quest. A bunch of different types of…

Speaker 0 | 07:01.343

Heroes Quest. Heroes Quest.

Speaker 1 | 07:03.424

Yeah, exactly. We never played that one, like Gold Rush. There were a ton of really great, like, Sierra strategy games.

Speaker 0 | 07:12.606

I didn’t mention that you played outside, so that’s good.

Speaker 1 | 07:15.747

We did, yeah. We had a mix, you know, it was like, they wouldn’t let us stay inside all day. That’s kind of, you know, the same way where you don’t want your kids staring at the tablet.

Speaker 0 | 07:24.389

We were like a comfy board. We were like… Were you a country boy or did you grow up in the city?

Speaker 1 | 07:29.012

In the suburbs. So we were close enough where my dad could work in Chicago. But, you know, we lived in the suburbs.

Speaker 0 | 07:37.578

Literally, like the Burbs. Remember that movie, The Burbs? Yeah. That was my favorite movie growing up. Of all movies. Like, why that one? You know, like, it could be anything. Like, why was that one, like, one of my favorite movies? I don’t know.

Speaker 1 | 07:50.087

Just was. It reminds me of the Homeowners Association. There’s always, like, some guy.

Speaker 0 | 07:54.510

with the binoculars like watching everybody else do it all right so let’s make sure the bylaws aren’t broken let’s talk about something actually maybe i don’t know we may have lost some people already either that or we’ve really gained a lot of listeners we’ve done one or the other i don’t know but uh let’s talk about let’s talk about packaging um okay and maybe sustainability or or maybe just give me kind of How does IT fit in your company? Because there’s a couple of things, right? Is IT a cost center at your company or is IT this wonderful central communication hub where everyone trusts you and loves you and listens to you and really vibes off you?

Speaker 1 | 08:38.358

I think we’ve really grown it from a cost center to a place where we want people to bring ideas. We want them to, you know, we want to be… Is that… that came from the top level down where they incorporated us more into the strategic side understand how the company runs like these are the problems that we’re dealing with you know we want to understand how technology can solve them um you know how we can address problems how we can move more towards the digital when did that okay so here’s a good question so

Speaker 0 | 09:08.096

you’ve been at the same company for 15 years and 11 months that means you came in after paranoia sat in um, set in, I guess is the correct word. Um, so you came in kind of, uh, you know, 2004 esque. So that’s where like, you know, technology is, is kind of, it’s becoming a something and it’s absolutely a cost center. I would imagine back then what year, what was, when did it change? When did it change? When did, um, when were you guys like, you know, like we really need to take this technology stuff seriously. I mean, back then you had to take it seriously because it It made jobs work easier and faster and crunch numbers. All that, you know, like, you know, why are you using a Babacus? You should be using a calculator, obviously. But when did it change to something different? And did you notice anything change? Did you guys change it? Were you responsible for it? Am I jumping ahead too much? Tell me a story.

Speaker 1 | 10:05.335

No, I think that’s great. And it’s different for everybody, too. Like, on the executive side, you know, we certainly were a cost center, probably still are to some people where it’d be like, you know, we’re spending money on things. You know, we try to emphasize business and ROI and things like that. But, you know, slowly over time, you know, different aspects, different parts of the business started to partner with IT. You know, we would reach out and do those things. uh one thing that i started working for the uh vc of operations he told me uh you know hey we’re gonna go on the offensive and uh i wanted to explain what that means and he was saying you know instead of like waiting for people to come to you and say like you know hey we need we have these needs and blah blah blah you know even if you’re up to your eyeballs and work you know you need to go out there and reach out just take people to lunch um you know understand their problems you know it’s really just uh people process things first and technology is just the answer so really understanding that we’re not a part of the company even when i want to be on board new people it could be you know a manager to see somebody with an extra level position i always tell them like you know hey we’re here for you so you guys need you know because uh there’s like software you guys need it was like you guys you want to bring and we’re totally open to those we want to partner with you um we try to make it like a very all-around approach and uh we really want to work with people too to move those things forward um and so yeah that’s been working pretty well i think overall because i think they trust us for the executive management of the board we got to make you know numerous presentations from 20 different people and uh feedback is always very positive so you know we just basically see ourselves as a partnership and now that there’s also products and solutions and guidance and things that help you you know, put that objective forward. It makes it a lot more easier than possible.

Speaker 0 | 12:08.895

The, I like this. We’re going on the offensive. It makes me think of, it makes me think of like, I don’t know why it made me think of like office space. Like, look, we got to protect our jobs. We got to, I exist because I exist because I’m the people person. I talked to the engineers for you. Um, yeah. You know, I mean, we’re going on the offensive here, you know, you’re really interviewing for your job. Anyways, the what does, you know, what does it look like taking people out to lunch? How do you choose like who we’re going to? I mean, maybe we don’t want to be so biased here. But how do you choose like, hey, today, who are we going to talk with? Like, maybe we can walk through this. You know, maybe we can help someone go on the offensive here that might not be on the offensive out there. How do you choose? who or what to talk with or how do you make these type of decisions and you know hey you know let’s go out to lunch or what’s the best tactic let’s go out get coffee maybe it’s uh i know john um i don’t know i know john’s in the keto diet so maybe we’re going to uh we’re going here maybe i know john likes donuts so we’re going to here i mean what you know what is it like how do you decide and make decisions for people yeah that’s funny you mentioned the name the name john John Smith. John Smith is like the number one. You just say John Smith. Everyone has John.

Speaker 1 | 13:36.621

Yeah. So he was the one that basically brought us to the table. He came in one day. He’s our president and COO. He’s like, you know, why aren’t you guys in the staff meetings? You know, our five-weekly leadership. You know, everybody. You know, like the manager from each group and the executive management meet at least every couple weeks. They review things. everybody kind of gives a synopsis of things that they’re working on and try to keep on the same page so there you get exposure to like what everybody else is learned about what they’re working on the companies and you can establish those personal relationships partner those are great opportunities to kind of see the challenges that people are working on and you know um you can uh meet afterwards offline to say, hey, I’d be willing to partner and help you with this. I have applications and things that I’m working on that may help you with what you’re working on. There’s just plenty of opportunities to add. Even just the managers on the line.

Speaker 0 | 14:37.724

Is everyone’s job very clear? It sounds like in your company, I can always tell when a company is working well because every department And it’s like division is unstated, but we know what it is. And I’m sure it is stated. It’s just people talk as if they know what it is. In other words, every department is working on a certain thing. They’re working on a certain challenge to overcome something, but it all points to one thing. What is that one thing?

Speaker 1 | 15:07.804

Oh, for us, it would be the quality of products really, because our company’s mantra is that we provide the best quality packaging since we work mainly for the pharmaceutical industry. It’s all about quality and reputation in the industry. There’s a lot of local publications that are based on our market that talk us up all the time. Companies are interested in buying us all the time. I keep hearing that the ownership It’s over and over again that they don’t want to sell. So what’s a… It’s a large independent company.

Speaker 0 | 15:42.242

Gotcha. So what’s a… Maybe let’s just touch on a considerable problem that another department might be struggling with where you’re able to step in, I’m assuming because you’re sitting in on meetings, and then makes a light bulb go off and says like, hey, let’s go out to lunch and talk about this. I’m assuming that’s what’s going on. I mean, I’m really kind of like… You tell me.

Speaker 1 | 16:07.780

Yeah, so we work cross-functionally with a lot of departments. At one point, we worked with accounting to implement an electronic AP process. Everything was in folders before and giant file cabinets stacked on the wall, way up to the ceiling. Even doing budgeting, when I started doing budgeting, it was impossible to keep track of what was going on. Either I had to reach out to the founder and be like, hey, can you provide me a spreadsheet of our spend? like you know digging through all these file cabinets for really for invoices and yeah so now you know we have a um you know an ap process where you know like invoices are scanned uh it’s referenced against the co um that information is referenced against our accounting database it’s in a queue for three-way matching you know like co invoice receiver receipt and then payment And then we’re starting to evolve that to handle shipping paperwork. But now, you know, all that stuff is done electronically. So we had to, you know, basically understand how the accounting process works and basically help them, you know, drive the reasons for doing this. And, you know, everybody seems to love it. There’s so many different use cases we’re expanding this out to. And, again, the biggest challenge then is getting the buy-in. And also, you know, tie it together so you can reference information together.

Speaker 0 | 17:26.375

So what was the, what was the, what was the struggle there? Like, look, we got a piece of paper, we rubber stamp it, we file it off. And it’s obviously comes in through our bank ledger anyway. So that’s how we’re tracking it right now. I mean, what was the, let’s just kind of walk through that real quick and how did, you know, what was, was there a pushback was like, nah, I mean, it’s going to be a long time to kind of change this process. And you’re saying, but look at all the time spent here. You know, what, you know, what was it?

Speaker 1 | 17:53.348

Yeah, so the company does realize that, you know, we have to start using technology to address the problems, basically. And, you know, we can’t just rely on these paper processes and things like that. So, and then there’s other opportunities to move that further down the line. So, this could be more efficient. So, it’s pretty much, you know, we partnered actually with the company that was telling us the solution, like, hey, help us write. uh the roi like how are we going to present this to a way you know presented to a cfo a controller the board things like that so they did that and uh you know the creepy days you know you know you know obviously all companies are working on ca like robotic automation projects like that so it was we we did you know we did obviously like with the process have some issues along the way none of these things are perfect but uh Getting the buy-in, I think, was not easy, but really able to be done because we had a partnership within the company with Defender.

Speaker 0 | 19:02.083

Right, and your ROI, when you guys went to… So you had someone help measure, I’m assuming you had someone come in and help measure what? Labor hours, time spent, I’m assuming kind of all these other soft costs and put that into an equation and pop out a number at the bottom, plus or minus 10% type of thing?

Speaker 1 | 19:20.624

Yeah, exactly. And it’s kind of interesting because we rarely ever believe those numbers, but there is some kind of truth in between, you know, what the numbers that they present and doing it the old way. So, you know, at the same time too.

Speaker 0 | 19:36.615

In my simplistic world, I had to justify, you know, hiring a IT manager myself. And in… I had to justify and how did I justify it? Well, look at all the time it takes me to, I don’t know, make changes to the website, to upload blog posts, to, um, to clean up the audio on these files, to then, uh, produce this podcast, then to put it up there. And for what, what, what does this do for me? These are like, you know, I mean, honestly, they’re $10 an hour tasks. So I, what could I be doing during the extra hour a day at a bare minimum hour a day? doing all these things. Is my hour worth that? Absolutely not. It could be producing one extra, you know, one more podcast, which does this, which, you know, there’s, it’s definitely a, it’s definitely a good payback. Let’s just put it that way. But anyways, you mentioned at the beginning, you mentioned at the beginning of the call, you, you, well, first of all, you mentioned your product, you mentioned the quality of your product and why people like it. And you had also briefly talked about sustainability when we were talking earlier. So. I know you want to talk about that a little bit, so I want to hear why IT should be concerned about sustainability. I mean, obviously, you want to work for a company that is a good company and things that are important.

Speaker 1 | 21:08.369

Yeah, exactly. I mean, we’ve been putting that in there for a while, too. And just to give you a little bit of background, we manufacture all these parts, labels, inserts, other packaging for primarily the pharmaceutical industry also. you know consumer products but uh um you know we’ve worked with many of the largest brands in the world smaller brands as well recognized like most of the names of the stir but uh over the years we’ve had a huge push for sustainability and it’s kind of interesting too because as i read about it i see how we’ve been doing that even before you know it’s become headlines basically so none of this is new to us we’ve been part of the sustainable forestry initiative for a long time you may even see like commercials for them every now and then We create, we have patents for products. We have, like, packaging that uses vegetable-based ink. Packaging is completely biodegradable. So, and I think about it too, like, every piece of plastic that’s ever been created, like, still exists somewhere, whether it’s in a landfill or in your basement or, you know, in your pantry and all these plastic bags you have to hand in there before you can get to bring another grocery store. Yeah. But then, you know, like…

Speaker 0 | 22:16.124

Like the first Legos, the first Legos ever made. I was thinking Legos because I saw a guy on Craigslist that was selling his Lego collection for $8,000. Oh,

Speaker 1 | 22:28.667

wow.

Speaker 0 | 22:29.167

This is crazy. Every now and then, my kids need Legos. So it’s like, do we buy a new set for $150? It’s like one set. Or do you go on Craigslist and buy a Tupperware bucket full? I wish they were selling by the pound now. Anyways, keep going. But yeah, the plastic, I mean, it is. It’s around forever.

Speaker 1 | 22:48.322

unless maybe we melt it down and put some you know make more like a weird black smoke into the air yeah with paper you know you recycle it it gets recycled you know you throw it away it biodegrades it’s an environment part of this sustainable process then there’s also like the production of all this stuff right it still takes time to like or still takes power to run the machines to yeah to make it still cost fuel to ship it you know papers are just a lot heavier than plastic that’s why you know use plastic bags just paper to send a bunch of plastic bags to the stores or the paper bags um but you know we’re also working towards uh sustainability currently so you know we bring power from wind farms we’re working towards carbon neutral footprints you know potentially even a carbon negative footprint so um you know we You can see how paper has worked towards the sustainable side of things.

Speaker 0 | 23:53.861

Does that permeate throughout the entire company, this theme of sustainability? Everyone’s bought into that.

Speaker 1 | 24:03.847

Yeah. The CEO of John is really pushing it. you know especially with our sales are like real off our new website is heavy around sustainability the sustainable products that we produce so um in the last few years we’ve really really been making that push and obviously you know the other obviously like the commercial reasons want to be on that bandwagon but i feel that we’ve been doing that for even much longer than the uh active products

Speaker 0 | 24:36.850

Yes, yes. Well, bandwagon or not, it’s still a good thing. Bandwagon or not, I’d rather have sustainability maybe than not. But that also permeates through the rest of the company culture. And I speak with a lot of IT directors that say, if you really want to be, part of being successful in IT or part of loving your job is being in a company that’s growing fast or being in a company that you want to be at. respects IT and understands the power of it. Now, at the same time, again, years ago, you went on the offensive. So do you have any type of planning or goal setting or things that go into your daily, weekly, monthly, even quarterly kind of goal planning that has time set aside for cross communication? And what does that philosophy look like to you?

Speaker 1 | 25:37.473

Yeah, we do cross community or basically pollinate, you know, our ideas to sell the department. You know, internally we meet at least every a couple of months we review like you know tickets and projects try to get you know everybody in line to what we’re doing and a fifth priority you can change as constantly as you know um but yeah you know we try to reach out as well and it’s not just me like doing that as well like our network admin even uh written down a person right now against our help desk and did a lot of applications because of a lot of the applications we use Everybody really has that responsibility. It’s not just me. So we have a really good team that is able to communicate those things, really understand how to, you know, not just talk to people, but understand how people, you know, use technology for their benefit, you know, why we’re doing things, you know, how it’s going to benefit them.

Speaker 0 | 26:36.466

What’s the number one thing that pops out in your head, the conversation that you guys have the most? What’s the number one thing that pops out in your head? Or let me put it this way. What’s your single biggest frustration, problem, and or concern? And what do you do to solve that? Like right now, let’s just use it as an example. Like maybe what’s your biggest, you know, what’s your biggest concern right now? And whether it be shadow IT or whatever it is, what’s your biggest concern and how are you communicating? Yeah, shadow IT. Because like,

Speaker 1 | 27:07.299

you know, most people are going to think that the whole IT department is interchangeable. They’re not going to bring in the first person they see into a meeting about a whole, you know, great big idea that they have, you know. I’d like to at least know about it at some point, like, bring it into alignment with, you know, number one, the IT strategy, how it serves the overall business. And this idea,

Speaker 0 | 27:30.466

the idea, does the idea involve software or does it involve, like, you know, how does it involve you? Because you mentioned priorities shift constantly, too. So I’m assuming that this is how it could happen.

Speaker 1 | 27:45.330

Oh yeah, absolutely. Like, you know, we get, uh, you know, we could, we could, we could run through all of our open projects, like highest priority, you know, long-term tickets, things like that. I would say, I could ask, like, you know, which are these, you know, these are the most important and I get the response that they all are. And, uh, it’s interesting too that I was just reading a book, almost finished with it by Roger A. Grimes, uh, data-driven computer security defense. And it’s the graceful if you need to describe exactly that how you know priorities just constantly and when it comes to especially the security you know he asked people like you know what are dangerous threat factors and things like that and that can also apply to just general it you know what’s the most important thing to be working on the answer is yes it’s really hard to get around you know like you know what should i be doing first um what’s most important so but i would say too the staff meetings now we’re involved with the overall strategy of the company you know then i can make that an open discussion like hey this is the things that these are the things that we’re working on we need to feedback what needs to be done first and then watch people throw punches what’s um what’s a long-term ticket to you oh it was kind of interesting too because like initially uh we only just deployed a ticket system like like four years ago. Wow. You know, by before that, it was all email. And I got tired of hearing every thought with feedback. Like, Hey, this is not being fixed. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there was no paper trail, no discussion, no calls about, you know, this thing being down. So now we, we have to basically re-engineer, um, change the culture around, you know, you log a ticket when there’s something wrong, you know, let the supervisor know so they can do that.

Speaker 0 | 29:35.327

Like, don’t just like come by the desk or don’t just shoot me an email. How long did it take for that to change? How long did it take you? I mean, cause I’m sure you still get emails. I mean, I talk with some people. I did an interview with this, with Leslie Cawthorn. He said, I get, I get Snapchat tickets. It’s not a ticket, but I get Snapchatted.

Speaker 1 | 29:54.022

I was in my car driving home on the hallway and I was just laughing when I heard that one.

Speaker 0 | 29:59.004

He sent me a couple examples. He’s like, please don’t post this, but just to show you that it’s true. You know, and like they had their Snapchat like name, which is not their real name. It’s some other different, like some kind of crazy character or something, you know, and he’s getting a ticket from that. It just, it was wild.

Speaker 1 | 30:17.854

We get all sorts of funny tickets. We get tickets that, you know, people open and then they never respond to. So, like, hey, you know, can you provide a screen shot of the air, something that can help us? You know, just you ask for information that you need to help troubleshoot. Sometimes, too, like people don’t even

Speaker 0 | 30:34.808

They fix their own problem, but in a moment of impatience, they send a ticket through?

Speaker 1 | 30:39.932

Yeah, or they think it’s better than asking them, like, a question. Well, you know. Some of the questions are framed to help narrow it down. If it’s something on your side or our side, you understand. We should do a ticket show.

Speaker 0 | 30:58.225

Let’s just do a show of like, you know, we’ll have like, you know, 10 IT directors on and we’ll be like, okay, craziest ticket you ever got or dumbest ticket ever or funniest ticket you’ve ever received. Go and we’ll vote on which one’s the worst. we probably can’t do that though we probably can’t do that because then people will be like yeah there is a such a thing as a stupid ticket absolutely there is and there is such a thing as a stupid question i i hate to break that to you but there it is no but you have to ask it but please ask it um

Speaker 1 | 31:32.319

yeah but we have we have like tickets that are waiting on vendors to reply soon so they just sit there forever

Speaker 0 | 31:38.390

Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1 | 31:38.870

We do our two bills. We follow up on them.

Speaker 0 | 31:40.931

So talk to me about that because that’s a third party. That’s someone outside. What do you mean you have a ticket that you’re waiting for a vendor to reply to? In other words, I don’t know, maybe we’re waiting for an old phone system vendor to make a change to something and it took two weeks too long. I mean, what are we talking about? Give me a vendor example because these are the ones that are exciting for me. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 31:59.144

we have a particular piece of software that I won’t name, but it’s got a ticket and all because not only do we have a ticket for it. internally our system from our users, but it’s based on, you know, an issue that we have to log. You’re currently in another ticket, you know, online portal. Then they have internal tickets that they have to reference because they’re using like Jira and like, you know, some other products here. So it gets like 40 to three different ticket systems. You know, it just kind of like slowly, you know, loses traction until it’s halted. And then you got to find out, you know, where it stopped and what ticket system. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 0 | 32:35.732

So ticket help.

Speaker 1 | 32:36.693

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 32:37.434

Ticket hell. This sounds like a, I haven’t written this email yet, but I got this crazy email daily email blast too as well. But this one’s going to be, I had some, I had some, okay, put it this way. I had some international to put it very quickly. I had some international tickets, plane tickets that I bought non-refundable. No problem, right? Like there’s, I can’t foresee any reason why come. any reason why I would not get on this plane, even if I was sick or whatever. I cannot possibly think of any reason why I would not get on this plane. And what’s the one reason that I did not see coming? I did not see coronavirus. I did not see the coronavirus blocking me from traveling to another country. And I immediately went into ticket hell. I went into ticket hell because now I’ve got to call this company. Well, we didn’t see this happening. You get transferred from one department to the next, to opening up a ticket to this department. It’s going on 48 hours now or something of bouncing back and forth. So you have your own ticket that you’re managing that has a ticket with a vendor’s ticketing system that you have to enter in a ticket. And then they have their own internal ticketing process that they have to track as well. That’s the definition of ticket hell. um okay purgatory I like that too because you can get out of it because you can get out of it eventually you can get out of ticket purgatory but ticket hell you can’t ever get out of so right I don’t know if ticket hell does ticket hell exist let’s see purgatory yeah we have a ticket open right now it’s over a year old that vendor that person gets killed that vendor gets killed off and he’s forever in purgatory all of us retire yeah so It is possible that a ticket could go to hell and never get answered. And that vendor gets murdered. So how long does a ticket take to get out of purgatory on a very, like the worst ticket ever, like the baddest ticket? How long has that ticket been in purgatory in your, in your, from your perspective point of view?

Speaker 1 | 34:49.255

Oh, you know, some of them could be months old. And it depends on where you’re at. So like some kind of like a. Yeah, some kind of application upgrade, or we’re like 50 for something because the user’s been flying around.

Speaker 0 | 35:04.520

Oh, like a road-mapped item or something.

Speaker 1 | 35:06.242

Exactly. Yeah, we try to go through those and filter them out as long as we know that we’re not going to get an immediate answer. Okay. Then it goes into a… One Note Notebook called Don’t Think It’s Left Behind. We eventually try to follow up on them.

Speaker 0 | 35:26.498

See, this is where these things go sometimes. This right here is the best. The other thing that we could do is a show that’s like all the different metaphors and names for things. And I just wanted you to know, I have been writing down all your metaphors so far. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 | 35:41.570

Great.

Speaker 0 | 35:43.271

First of all, Olive Branch. That’s one. Olive branch is good. I haven’t heard that yet. No tickets left behind. Definitely have not heard that saying. Standing. Ticket hell. Ticket purgatory. What else did we have in here? Going on the offensive. That’s good. Pollinating. I like pollinating. IT pollinating. That’s good. I just imagine this IT bee flying around, dropping yellow dust on things. Just ideas.

Speaker 1 | 36:15.698

you know, like, like the answer is the show.

Speaker 0 | 36:18.161

We got a lot of them here, you know? So again, ticket purgatory, ticket hell, no lift, no ticket left behind pollinating olive branch. That’s what you’ve, that’s what you have given to the listeners of this show so far. So, Oh,

Speaker 1 | 36:31.012

that’s great.

Speaker 0 | 36:32.233

Yeah. So are you telling me we went to paper though for no ticket left behind and it’s a little flip notebook that costs like 99 cents at the dollar store?

Speaker 1 | 36:41.422

No, it’s like a OneNote notebook. I keep them in the back of my head. Okay. I like OneNote, too, because when I’m searching for things, other stuff comes up. It could be like in a particular area. Of course, you get distracted, but then you’re like, oh, yeah, it’s good to follow up on at some point.

Speaker 0 | 36:59.127

You know, OneNote people are OneNote people. People love OneNote. If you’re a OneNote guy, you’re a OneNote guy. I mean, you are. Yeah. um i’ve had people that are like you know one note one note one note i’ve been at conferences and people are talking about one note i’m like okay i mean okay i get it but the people that are that use one note they’re like you know adamant about it like no you you should say something about one note dude yes oh yeah the one thing that blew me away like i knew this happened years ago but like see what i say see what i mean you’re obsessive about this go ahead go ahead go tell me so No, you’re not allowed to say it. Now I must stop. No,

Speaker 1 | 37:37.704

go on. If you write notes, like I do on a surface, I write notes.

Speaker 0 | 37:46.652

So you use like a dongle. What do we call that? Like a dongle or you’re writing with a dongle on a notepad. The pen, the digital pen thing.

Speaker 1 | 37:54.559

Oh yeah, I think Microsoft pen. Anyways,

Speaker 0 | 37:58.382

yes.

Speaker 1 | 37:59.103

I write and it’ll do a CR in the background. And then actually like. Exactly when you start things it’ll start your handwriting or view what you’re doing the mind-blowing thing right now search It does. Yeah, it works pretty well through the OCR has got so much better than it has since the first version

Speaker 0 | 38:17.022

I wonder if there’s an actual cellular person responsible for that idea. Not that it’s like a problem I

Speaker 1 | 38:23.808

I’d buy the beer for sure

Speaker 0 | 38:25.394

We should find that person. Chances of them hearing the show are probably slim to none, but you never know. Someone might know. Okay, so now that we’ve gone past OneNote, that might just be the highlight of the show, Ticket Hell. Again, I don’t think I ever really got the answer of the year, though, by the way. What’s the answer of the year that you guys stepped out of Cost Center into? buy-in? And do you think that, should that be a turning point? So this might be, again, this is getting into IT philosophy, but is there a cutoff year that if you have not changed from IT being a cost center by this year, mentality-wise, thought-wise, you’re behind the curve? What year do you think IT stopped becoming a cost center? And of course, it’s industry-specific in companies. specific, but I do believe that if you’re still kind of stuck in a cost center and your excuse is well, it’s my company, then I think that’s a good chance that that company is behind or getting ready to close up shop.

Speaker 1 | 39:39.191

Yeah, or they’re just going to outsource all or most of the jobs to MSP. The MSP is going to want to do that level of speed to the business side. yeah you know they come in and they yeah they they come in and they say uh there’s something that i see like you know your entire solution is melting with your migration to the cloud and they make everything sound really good and i’m not bad speed on this piece are great huge growth we use them internally for things that we do um but yeah if you’re focusing mainly on infrastructure and all yeah you’re just gonna get rolled over at some point unless that’s like you’re you know it’ll admit the size of a large company that’s your role you know that’s what they need you for you know the security standpoint alone you need to put stuff for people uh whether you’re in the cloud or premise space so um but yeah like smaller shops where you kind of have to address both needs um you you better well get on board with uh you know screaming roi and speaking from a business case and uh being very proactive instead of just react to something so Those are the things that I get feedback on. IT just basically needs to… And so you obviously need to have it from both sides. You need to be willing to make that transition. You also have to have it from the management support. So when that happens, then I think that’s the best case scenario.

Speaker 0 | 41:04.226

Do you think startups nowadays… Do you think a big part of new startups and companies that start up… Start up automatically with a big a much heavier technology. I mean, I think it’s probably the answer is probably an obvious. Yes, but Do you think new startups even have that problem of technology as a cost center? They might they’re lean and mean but I think you know their their whole foundation might be technology to begin with Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 41:31.778

exactly. Like when I think of startup, I think of like all tech companies that have shown up in the last few years. I love any like startup packaging companies. Um, it was kind of like well in front and consolidating institutions. Um, but that’d be interesting. Yeah. I haven’t really heard of too many, uh, you know,

Speaker 0 | 41:51.996

does the Amazon, does it, does Amazon affect you guys at all? Are they a helper hindrance with you? I mean, does anyone talk about the Amazon effect over, you know, with you guys since you’re in packaging?

Speaker 1 | 42:01.501

Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Cause you know, instead of like, uh, you know, buying product, around shells that require like big fancy boxes they the big fancy boxes you know what you see on the screen so we may need a a different type of packaging you know obviously like our products need to be different types of like actually or something yeah yeah uh-huh yeah all sorts of different things are even beyond the pill bottles but um yeah so like this changes our strategy where we look to produce packaging for companies that sell online that would fit in an Amazon type box. You know, how it’s going to be that stacked in there for like multiple, you know, you put more than one package in a box and things like that. So we have to have a design group too that works with companies, small and large, on their packaging needs. And part of our patents are some of the designs we’ve come up with, like the boxes, the cells and things like that. So yeah, certainly the Amazon effect affects everyone.

Speaker 0 | 43:03.608

like every business because they’re involved in everything you know i can’t remember what it is or like what is it 48 cents of every dollar is spent on amazon or some something really absurd online yeah they’re close to like half of all online sales absolutely insane um if you had any piece of advice to give to anyone out there listening you’ve been a company for 15 years there’s people out there that have not you been at a company for 15 years or IT directors that may or may not be living the dream, so to speak, should they start internally at their own company or should they be looking for anything specific?

Speaker 1 | 43:47.893

Oh, yeah. I mean, internally at their own company, that would be the first place. I would say don’t let the job kill you. There’s so many different ways it can get to you. You know, there’s always a path to where you want to be.

Speaker 0 | 44:01.680

What’s killing IT directors? What could kill you?

Speaker 1 | 44:05.161

Oh, it’s just the barrage of, you know, digital evasion, all these different products, the complexity. Like, you know, if you deploy like a Windows machine, like a Windows X machine versus like a Windows 10 computer with all these different settings, you know, the policy configuration is way more complex than it used to be. And then you’re working cross-functionally. You know, like, you know, MSPs are knocking down your door to either, you know, try to tell you how to do things better, take over the whole position as it is. Yeah, yeah. So it’s just, and then, you know, like, ransomware, security, just keeping your own training up to date, things like that. So the advice I’d give is to, you know, to all just pass where you want to be. So, you know, you work with executive management, make the business case as to why you need support, you know, why you would need more funding. more people or why you want to work with a vendor or a managed service provider, maybe take over a portion of, you need to be willing to do that too, like if you just can’t handle the security if you’re a one-man show and your company’s growing, you know, consider working with a managed service provider to handle some functions or or other activities or kind of materials you know there’s different ways to fit it within her own requirements but i would say also have your executive management clarify their expectations so you know what to bring to the table to support their goals um i would say like pushing things that are important like security security awareness training digital processes being involved with the overall strategy that company with your stakeholders One thing that I remember from my course I took was somebody said, learn how to influence people without being manipulative. That was a really good takeaway.

Speaker 0 | 45:58.504

I need you to influence people genuinely and be a good person, not try to manipulate in line to them. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 46:03.428

exactly. Common sense. There’s ways you can prod without seeming like you’re prodding. Like, hey, no, I think this is a great idea. Consider it, you know, hey, would you like me to demo this product? Would you like to see how this works? Would you like to see what I’m doing? You know, do once and learn, son. You know, how you use OneNote and all these other applications you love to use.

Speaker 0 | 46:29.964

Let me start off this conversation by saying that I am a highly biased individual towards this program, OneNote. And I really want you to use it. And that’s why we’re talking today. But I’m going to give you a free lunch. And I’m going to be about as honest and upfront and non-manipulative as possible. I’m just going to be real upfront and honest with you guys. We’re going to be rolling this out. That’s great.

Speaker 1 | 46:57.777

The lunch is key, too. If you want people to show up to your venue, you have to provide free lunch.

Speaker 0 | 47:03.160

I never turn down a free lunch. I think that’s like an ingrained, I don’t know, like a philosophy to me or something. But I just won’t turn down a free lunch. especially if it’s, you know, like burritos, I think it’s probably a good one. Oh yeah. You know, well yes, you know, or the taco bar. Let’s see. That’s another good example. And so yeah. And always leverage your vendors to provide the free lunch and learn as well. Like, Hey, good. Look you guys are going to get about a few seconds of talk at the end here. You got to bring lunch, stand around for an hour. Thank you very much for being on the show today. I think. the highlight yeah the highlight is definitely a ticket hell purgatory and numerous metaphors that are generous gift to us all i

Speaker 1 | 47:59.177

just think about that i’m glad i could do my part yes