Right now, businesses of all sizes, spanning many industries, are scrambling to figure out how they can make remote working a success. Whether you’re already working remotely or transitioning to working remotely — as an employer or an employee — TruTechnology CEO Doug Lowenthal has some wise counsel and advice about bandwidth, cybersecurity, and more to help you successfully navigate remote work.
Listen to other episodes and see videos of the podcast at http://buildingabusinessthatlasts.com
Right now, businesses of all sizes, spanning many industries, are scrambling to figure out how they can make remote working a success. Whether you’re already working remotely or transitioning to working remotely — as an employer or an employee — TruTechnology CEO Doug Lowenthal has some wise counsel and advice about bandwidth, cybersecurity, and more to help you successfully navigate remote work.
Listen to other episodes and see videos of the podcast at http://buildingabusinessthatlasts.com
Jay: 0:00
things seem to be moving faster than ever in business right now, and remote work has become an enormous reality as a result of the Corona virus transitioning to remote work and bring all kinds of issues. So today I want to bring on expert in technology solutions to help with those things, talk through some of those issues and talk through some potential solutions. Today I talked to Doug Lowenthal. He's the CEO of True Technology in Jacksonville, Florida They help companies all over the place really get their I t. Right, And they have some really amazing counsel and advice on this episode with regards to remote work transitioning to remote work, cybersecurity and what to do about it without any further ado. Here's my interview with Doug. Thanks for being on the show.
Doug: 0:54
Thanks for having me.
Jay: 0:55
So I'm really excited about our conversation today because there are gosh probably millions of people all over the world who may be doing remote work for the first time. And you have a ton of experience in technology and and all of the things that wrap around the realities of what people are encountering remote work wise. I'd love to going to start off by. Maybe just you giving us a little intro on what you actually do for people and maybe even how that's changed or been affected in the last couple of weeks as we are dealing with this Corona virus.
Doug: 1:28
Sure, so we manage the technology for small to medium sized organizations that typically have 50 to 100 employees across our client base. We support nearly 2000 employees across all their customers. So this has been an interesting time, you know, with basically networks being turned inside out where people are now from predominantly being inside the office to being outside. So it's definitely last few weeks have been been challenging, but we're excited because we're really helping our clients out. You know, be able to continue to be productive and generate revenue through this unique time we're in.
Jay: 2:04
Yeah, I mean, I think it's really interesting because a lot of people are having to make this transition in some companies. Maybe they've been doing remote work for a long time, but my guess is a lot of them have not, and some of them their infrastructure may not be in a place where they're even able to what percentage? Or you know what's what's the feel that you have a spa. Ra's not even really your client specific. They're probably been more prepared. But people that are outside of that, what's your gauge on how prepared people actually are to manage remote work successfully?
Doug: 2:33
Yes, you know, telecommuting has been a thing for many years now. Its been adapted minimally in a lot of cases or completely and others. So depending on kind of where they were on that curve and then be ableto or needing to work remotely after hours and things that may have had some technologies in place to support that. But where particular thing is not to the extent that we're seeing now again, where most people are shift into the house. So I met with probably 500 CEOs here in North Florida on gotten a good glimpse of what their technologies looked like before we worked. They worked with us, not all of them, obviously of it. And you know, it's ah, it's interesting because you get exposed to things that are in various states of disarray and older firewalls and things that have been left there for many years. So unfortunately, I think across the board outside our client base, there's a lot of people that just weren't ready for this. So they're scrambling right now. And, uh, it's it's, uh, you know, with our customers, we really take a standardised approach to the infrastructure, like the Southwest Airlines Model One airplane. So that's paid. You do huge dividends for our customers. But that's why I wanted to get on this podcast with you to try to help. You know what the folks that are scrambling right now trying to figure out which way is up.
Jay: 3:44
I'd love to hear you explain that a little bit more because I would have guessed. There's probably some people listening that may not even realize what you mean. I know exactly what you're talking about, is replaced in Southwest Airlines, but maybe kind of explained that idea of a standardized approached of what Southwest does in general and then kind of how that relates to what you guys do in order to help people manage things. Well,
Doug: 4:03
sure, you know, they took the approach of one model airplane that meant one set of parks instead of operating procedures. One way to train their staff. So we took that to heart years ago. And there's a lot of core things that exist in and businesses in I t. Environment around firewalls and wireless and switches and things of that sort and even servers to some extent. So we basically have, ah, at a course stack that our team is fully trained in its enterprise grade gear on, and it's really, you know, in this case, paid submit fugitive. It ends because they had the VPN capability. They had the securities on a lot of things to leverage. So for us, I mean, it's our team is certifying on a train done. It allows us to fix things faster, Lassus to deploy things faster so that's been used in the last couple of weeks working with our customers. But unfortunately, you know that's not typically the norm outside of your organization.
Jay: 4:57
So it's interesting because I think that is kind of a little bit of a business lesson as well for people because this podcast, while I want to focus on the ideas of remote work and technology now in the midst of the crisis, I also think it's this is a good time for business owners to kind of steak. Take stock of what have I been doing that maybe wasn't working as well as it should, especially now that it really is going to get tested in this environment and having to make transitions to go. Hey, maybe I need a more standardize approach. Maybe I need a better, more consistent plan. I know it's made me re take stock of everything because in crisis we all the things that were kind of negative to some extent, I think get amplified. But the things that were good can get amplified as well.
Doug: 5:36
That's right. You know, hindsight's 22 money. I mean, people are in the thick of it right now, so just how do we get him out of it, You know, as quick as we can and get them back to business
Jay: 5:46
when thinking about a company that needs to transition to remote work, which most companies now are being forced to do that in some way. What is one of the first thing or the first few things that you think companies need to be considering or paying attention to as their team is needed to make that remote transition,
Doug: 6:02
you know? So for what we dio, I mean the default answer. You'd expect to be security first, you gotta protect your environment. But ultimately got were a list as well. In the business owner, I get functionality is number one right now? So I think that getting people productive and efficient and able to do their jobs in some shape or form from the outside, But then I would say quickly circling back afterwards. And we're doing this with our customers, you know, and making sure that you know the gas that I'm sure will touch on around security and cyber security concerns get addressed quickly, and the exposure isn't there for an extended period of time.
Jay: 6:39
Yeah, for sure. I definitely want to dig into that cybersecurity stuff because I think it's, ah, any kind of security stuff. If we're in the midst of panic, we might overlook some of the things that might be important and leave open access to things that we don't want other sort of public or even people that maybe have negative ideas trying to cause trouble getting access to. So we definitely gonna come back to that thinking about remote work in general. I kind of put down a few notes of areas where I felt like companies had to pay attention to. And I'm curious. You know what you think about these. And if you think there's things that are missing, there's kind of the psychology of remote work, people having to be alone. There's the technology of what people actually need. Then there's the physical space of physically doing work while people are working from their bedrooms or their houses or from their back porches or wherever they can get access to. And then obviously you're side focuses a lot on that technology. But how do you see? You know, the technology and all the other piece is affecting how somebody is able to do their job well in the midst of crisis.
Doug: 7:38
Sure, this is one thing I just want to touch on just the previous topic we just talked about, just like, you know, functionality first, then security. I'm kind of viewing. This is like mass loss, you know, hierarchy of needs. You know, we've got to get them generating revenue and productive and security. But communications is in my mind that next layer voice having making sure that the team's communicate amongst themselves and with clients. I just want to make sure we I mentioned that because I think that, uh, there's levels here of functionality that exists. And as we navigate through this, I think it's gonna be important that we continue toe, lay around things to make everyone as productive as possible. But I'm sorry. I just wanna make sure it's
Jay: 8:17
good. Actually, I would like actually the circle on that down double down, that it's a little bit more when we talk about like what those functional technologies are. Are there any particular tools that you recommend to people Now? I guess that's probably gonna very depending whether somebody's ah ah to person shop or whether they have 50 team members or 500 members of probably varies a little bit. But are there particular tools that you that you recommend that you say, Hey, here's some Here's some tool sets of a stack of software that might be helpful for people, anything specific that you guys like,
Doug: 8:46
Yes, so it's interesting because there's against immediate needs of like I need tohave videoconferencing capability with my clients or prospects and you know, and then something like reason. Right now. Zoom it just it does one thing. Great. So that's it, you know, easy to roll out. People was pretty intuitive on how it's used. So something like that is quick if they already had a most the lion share of our customers are on the Microsoft office 3 65 platform. So, depending on their level of adoption with Microsoft teams, that's typically are go to because it has a lot of that capability and then some. So it takes a lot of other boxes around their team, collaborating and communicating better sharing files remotely things, that's where. So we help a lot of helped a lot of customers through the years. A doctor. We use it every single day, so good, you know, sure that we share with them what we do and how we leverage it. And then what does it show them was possible in that regard, But I was Exumas far is like the quick and dirty on the video. That's the core functionality need. But again, you know, it's, um, this is a good point to make of like have I T departments bet whatever you're considering, because it's easy to do it quickly. Well, sir can find something, but you could potentially be creating security risk and people who may just sign up for something and try to start using it. So have I t vet it evaluated? There may be something already that you're paying for or can get for free, that you can use an and even avoid additional costs with some words of warning there.
Jay: 10:15
Yeah, for sure. It's easy to spend up something that maybe is not the best. Use Microsoft teams is something I've actually been hearing come up a whole lot lately. I don't know why it maybe it's just cause the ever transition of remote work. But even even a month or two ago, I felt like I was hearing that a lot more. I think Microsoft's done a really good job over the last few years. I think that I felt like they were. They were certainly weren't dying off, but they were struggling for a while from a software standpoint, and I think they really totally revitalized that. So some people may not even be familiar with what teams is. I think people think Microsoft they think office, they think excel, they think maybe Power point. Maybe they don't realize what some of these online tools are. So could you talk a bit more about what teams provides for a company and how that might help them, especially in remote work environment?
Doug: 10:59
Sure, so that teams you? Actually, if you have an office 3 65 subscription, you already your to get teams, so there's no extra cost to use it. Microsoft is actually now doing a if you're not a 3 65 user, are companies subscriber? You can actually get office 3 65 licenses for free for six months because of this cove in 19. Well, I'm out. So yeah, I mean, there's one piece of it is obviously the licensing, but it has to get set up. And there's a message saying, depending on your level of adoption, because there's right ways to roll this thing out. So teams had a most basic level can just be used for chat amongst your employees, right? So just one platform for them to go in it has integrated meeting capability so you can schedule meetings through its integrated with your outlook, calendar and your email to that extent, but it also has video capability as well, so it doesn't just have to be voice that could also be video. That's all part of it. A big part that we use is it has a file sharing capability as well, and they give a tremendous amount of storage. Even I think, per person, one terabyte, I think, is the number off my head just a tremendous amount seeking in one place, you know, you can create secure groups, and what I mean by that is like you can have a finance team that and specific people that are in your finance group Finance department Onley They can see those chat conversations only they can see those files that are uploaded there. There's a lot more that you could do with teams. We've done workflow automation. There's a pretty incredible when you could be one. Have you continue to leverage it? We use it for our project management assistance down there, but at a base level, you know, team shat team meetings. You could do meetings with external clients. They don't have to be in your team's platform. You could even invite vendors in externally that something has to be turned on its not on by default, but it actually have them collaborate with your team as well, and then file sharing and collaboration in real time. She mentioned Word, Excel, Power Point. You can. Actually, if you upload files there, you can actually have 10 people in the same word document at the same time, collaborating within teams. There's a lot you could do tremendous amount, and there's tons of online free resource is for training videos. So again there's, you know, there's a lightweight to roll this out with, like, just get chad and meetings going when you start getting into, like, file structure and things like You want someone to help you really structure that right? Because if you just try Teoh address an immediate need right now, you could be, you know, have to go back and read for reverse the whole thing and set it back up again. Once you get through this,
Jay: 13:28
yeah, I think getting that software stuff set up right the first time can make a big difference and correct me if I'm wrong, But here's kind of how I'm seeing this in my head as you talk about this. I feel like some of the individual tools out there right now. Like Slack for messaging, zoom for video chat. There's a lot of others of those the to break biggest brands that come to my mind right now are these individual tools who do do like one thing well, but then the issue is you have to connect all these things if you want to get him to talk to one another, and that could be kind of an even a bigger pain because they're not really in the same ecosystem. And so it reminds me a little bit of like on the marketing side. We use Hub Spot, and you do as well, which is a great tool. We like it because it integrates a lot of different tool sets together, where we might have needed six pieces of software before from separate vendors and then tried to like, integrate them behind the scenes, which is never perfect. It sounds like what teams does this truck is. It basically takes a lot of those things, and it blends them all together. So you have one tool set, one log in one place to go and There's one thing people hate more than just about anything. It's passwords for websites these days,
Doug: 14:33
right? Yeah, yeah, even Ellen ahead. I mean, it's like so we we live in it every day and they said, It's everything passes well, so yeah, definitely brings a lot of those. And in the fact that it's within your 3 65 prescription, you have to pay extra for it. Even makes it better.
Jay: 14:48
Yeah, I mean, it's huge for people who don't have it. If Microsoft offering that free trial or free couple of months, six months, even be is amazing, people should check that out. Astounded, told that I have even played with and I'm kind of a tool junkie, So it's kind of weird that I haven't tried it, but now I want to go check it out. Thanks, Peter, in that let's transition a little bit and talk about what where we were going, which is issues as it relates to remote work and, like said it could be psychology could be the physical space, or it could be the technology. You know, what issues are you seeing people run into as they try and make this transition where people get struggling where they get stuff.
Doug: 15:23
Do you mentioned psychology earlier? And it's funny, you know, with them in my wife, my son or her home. Yeah, he's a good spot of your high school and now virtual school ings that distractions were plentiful. The dogs were left up Right now you don't have to hear the barking that happened, you know, just trying to stay focused, but also still pay attention of them and give them, you know, 11 caring that they need eso It's definitely a balanced and managing that, you know, I would say, keeping your mental health in mind and stopping toe, take a walk, everyone just in a while or get something to eat. I think the first several days of the transition, when most of our clients were making the shift, I don't even 12 hours would go by. And I realized I hadn't even, you know, eating anything. So and then, uh, you know, I think remembering the shaving clean up those little things. I appreciate that the webinar today you should have seen what I looked like a couple hours ago,
Jay: 16:19
said earlier about that on Facebook, and I was like. So if you normally dress up for work, the Are you still doing that? Presuming if not because I've been in a couple of large group zoom meetings where there's, like 20 people in there and you see a few people and you're thinking I don't think that they would have warned that to the office, but like accepted. But I'm wondering what's gonna happen to culture and society when we go back to regular life. People keep saying this, the new normal. I hate that term. This is not the new normal. This is a blip in the road. We're gonna get through it, but we learn some stuff along the way. That's what we're trying to do today is make sure people are prepared. We got to kind of fill the gap from emergency standpoint right now, but then be prepared the next time they need to be removed. Or maybe they find a way to build remote work into their culture in a way that makes sense. What are the issues do you like people are getting stuck with as they make this transition to remote work?
Doug: 17:06
I mean, from, ah, psychology perspective. I think that you know when you wake up in a certain time and you're going into the office and you have your rhythm losing that rhythm, you know? So I think it's even more important to have schedules Now. We're a fan of the Rockefeller habits and they talk about Hoddle's. I've been doing that for many, many years, and so we now have an 8 a.m. You know, all staff huddle. You know, we're smaller company, but larger organizations obviously they could break that up so that we everyone's getting on we're doing and around the around the kind of room check in with everybody, making sure they're healthy and they're OK. So we're doing that every day, eight oclock and kind of sharing some updates or messages. So then having that schedule call every single day and then, obviously the teams have their own rhythm around managing their work. So I think you're sticking to that stuff and not disbanding it if you are already doing it is gonna be, is even more critical right now. I think there's a book I can remember the name, but it was about the Rich Carlton might be called. It's Carlton talked about
Jay: 18:03
excellence, excellence. Winds. I think my horse Schultz don't talk about
Doug: 18:08
OK, yeah, it was not the Ritz Carlton than that one, but basically, it was interesting is that this came to mind when I was thinking about this that they talked about during Katrina, that they actually had more huddles than before to actually keep their team and sink. They were for memory, I think they said they were even sinking up hourly at some point. So during times prices, I think it's it's even schedules become that much more important than this was I mentioned that,
Jay: 18:33
Yeah, it's it's funny that you mentioned earlier like something like remembering to eat. But I think in the middle of crisis, especially those of us who are buried in technology, it is easy to get in front of the screen and just get stuck there and not take that minute. And I have found that sometimes that few minutes of getting up going for Walt getting something to eat, get something to drink can actually make you much more productive. When you come back to the computer, it's easy to lie to yourself. I think you have to just sit there buried in that screen all day and it could be even more likely that something does that when they're removed.
Doug: 19:03
That's right. Yeah, yeah, especially if they're not used to working remotely and this is all needed. Then you gotta get up.
Jay: 19:09
Other two things I had on issues. Let's for potentially the physical space somebody works in where the technology, What issues do you see or have seen so far where people are struggling those areas,
Doug: 19:18
so technology, I mean that that's obviously our our world. But there's challenges at home. There's challenges with, obviously the work in my work infrastructure. And it works, you know, home WiFi coverage, which may have been acceptable before. Now, if you're trying to carve out a space to work from, you may not get adequate coverage wherever you're going, or even depending on the technology that you're given to work with, given example like physical phones some people won't need it wanted to take their physical phones home. If they were voice over I p, and they potentially can connect to the home network. But you know, where is that modem in relation to where they're gonna be working from? Can they actually physically cable. So these are things that you know something people don't think about until they bring their devices home. And then they're like, Oh, shoot where I plug this in where I don't have adequate coverage toe to support that. But another part of it is, you know, band with. And this is the Internet. Speeds not just home is one variable, you know, in regards, especially the kids now shifting Teoh Working school virtual. So they're they're on during the day and have their own band with consumption. They're not doing that. They're demons, still or whatever, and you're competing for that, trying to get your work down as well. So there's there's something there that needs to be looked at. If you're having performance issues and and you can get an upgrade pretty quick from Comcast, wherever 18 T or every provider is if that's what's determined is the issue but banned within the offices. Another consideration because now we have all these people be canning in from the outside, and what we've seen is that some clients had was called asynchronous speed connections, and what that means is that your your download is faster than your upload and when you're supposed to synchronous, which is the same and when you're when you're in the office download is what's important. But on beef hands, when you're outside the office, you're actually holding those files from across the VPN connection. And that's where upload is critical so that the clients that had a synchronous connections are actually, you know, that's more of us. We had to get creative on ways to work around that, you know, if upgrading them to a synchronous connection wasn't an option in real time fashion. So just a band with life I coverage. There's a laundry list here because the world we've been living in but just a few more points just that kind of stir eso thoughts. For some folks out there is the firewalls that in the office that potentially, they're connecting to for the BKN. Some of these have limits on how many concurrent you know, sessions could be running at a time, and, you know, they've never bumped bumped up against those limits before. And now all of a sudden we find out that can only support 50 you know, and they But they got 75 people. So that's something to look at and you know, in that regard. So we bumped up against that in two client environments and fortunately, you know, with Southwest Model. As I mentioned, we have stuff in stock, so we're able toe quickly, you know, upgrade those those two environments, but and then just another thing is from employer perspective is just monitoring the employees and their productivity remotely. You know, they're not in the office focused. And so we have clients coming to us now that we've kind of gotten through the initial pushing sand. And how do we keep an eye on this? How do we make sure that they're doing the work that they're supposed to be doing? And so that's that's a cultural thing, obviously. But you know what technologies can be deployed to, Kind of make sure we're have some oversight over that and managing it properly to just a few points there.
Jay: 22:35
Yeah, I want to Just like Reina, right? Ranariddh a couple of those, and have you kind of circle back for explanation? Let's start with the 1st 1 which is This seems basic, but I think this is the real danger when it comes to like to no offense but to relative technology. Nerves between you and I probably love this stuff more than maybe the average person does. And something as simple is like physically plugging into a router with a cable versus using the wife by talk about the advantages of that of Weissman. I would consider it if they can, depending on if they're routers, not stuck fanatic or my mind's in my laundry room in my house. Happily sit in my laundry room. All right, all right. So
Doug: 23:10
yeah, that's why you need to consider where it's located. Think it sometimes it's is wherever your cable connection comes in, wherever column lines come in typically. But yeah, the best performance that you're gonna get is physically cable. I mean, even in the office, typically, wireless is gonna be much slower performance as well as again signal strength. You know where you and relations aware that wireless access point is, or points are? So yeah, and then But some devices like I mentioned the phone voice over I p phone. If you have them in the office, there was some clients say, Hey, can we take these home and plug him in, and technically, yes, it works fine. But then yet you think about where that rather remote, um is in relation where that phone's gonna because it does have to be connected. There are wireless phones. They do make those. But that's for the out of science on the you typically see, but
Jay: 23:58
yeah, because that's a great example of technology, though that can have a real high impact on people. If somebody has a old traditional phone line, burst some, but it has a more modern voice over I p type set up. At least that doesn't become an option, which is pretty awesome, really, that you could just take your phone playing into a different Internet. And you still have the faint state bone that you had somewhere else. I mean that that could have a big impact on office as well.
Doug: 24:20
Yeah, the next level up from there, which is, is what's called a soft phone. And this is where a lot of our clients that have this capability went because they don't need the physical phone. It's a piece of software you install on your PC, you know, and then with the catches you need a headset if you don't want to talk through the actual open mic and speaker on the computer. But then those got bought up quickly on Amazon. It was amazing Webcams and and and sets where became things that he just couldn't really get much within the in the first few days. But softens, You know, if you have that technology in a cloud based phone system, that's where you know the legacy phone systems in the office. Those air those were getting called out right now is just something That's if they if they want to adapt to an environment like this, they need to do something about if they're dependent on bones for their business and not every businesses.
Jay: 25:06
Yeah, that's true. The other two things that you mentioned after that, which again, this is seems like basic stuff. But it could have a big impact, and sometimes you just don't think about it, especially in the midst of the crisis. I did one of these calls yesterday with somebody, and they don't have the best Internet at their house, and they're up graded as high as they can go, and they have a couple of kids who are now home. And if the kid jumps on Xbox and somebody else a stream in YouTube and you're trying to do a live stream and I mean, all of a sudden that game with can get sucked up real fast before the podcast that literally cold their kids downstairs and said, Hey, can you put your phones on airplane mode and turn off the Xbox? So that way your signal, I mean, sometimes it might come down to that for people is knowing who's doing what on the Internet at that moment, if they have something like this going on, wanted to work as smoothly as possible. So we have good recording for people.
Doug: 25:51
That's right, Yeah,
Jay: 25:52
And then the other thing that you said which I think I had really thought about this either. But people could really just call their Internet providers and ask if there's an upgrade in some of those cases, making to switch a flip, a switch and they could make their Internet faster depend on what kind of connection they have us supposed. But that's a great little tip for somebody. Your Internet problems at home, we get a lot of kids trying to remote work while you're working, you know, call Comcast cold 80 and see. Call, whoever your provider isn't just asked them. Hey, is there an upgrade available? And who knows? They might even be ah, be willing to give you some kind of ah, good deal. Based on the current environment, things it is, is
Doug: 26:24
there actually less expensive than the ones that you might be on? So that was in my case. I upgraded and my cost went down so it could be a win win.
Jay: 26:33
Can't be that. And then some of the other things, you know, like monitoring productivity. And that is a little bit of the cultural thing. And it's gonna vary from company to company, but it's a good time to check in on those things and figure out what you know, what tools you have in place to know that work is ultimately getting done. And frankly, we're all pretty blessed to live in this environment technologically that we live in now versus 20 years ago, because we have a lot better technology now than we did 20 years ago.
Doug: 26:59
All right? Yeah. If an event like this occurred, then I mean it would be just complete stoppage of all work, right? So
Jay: 27:06
So that's I mean, that's the fortunate side. So let's talk about the one of the big things that once we get those functional things in place, this idea of cyber security or security in general of really, what are the risks? What's at stake if somebody does not have the right security in place? And what are some things? Maybe in the short term that they need to look at? They obviously need to bring in a professional mean a company of any good size needs toe have an I T company like true technology to come in and help them sort that out. But in the short term, one of the things that maybe they need to be worried about and then what they need to pay attention to you
Doug: 27:39
got it? OK, you mentioned really about physical space. This actually plays into it because, you know, having that computer that you're using for work, whether it's work, laptop or I mean, this thing is not going with you. The office during the day anymore, it's sitting in the same place. So on, If you if you had brought it work, desktop home and are connecting using that, just making sure that that is not accessible to the kids to the other family members that they want to get on there and surf the Web for or do whatever cause that potentially can cause, you know, can open up the opportunity for infections and things like that. So the physical aspect we could mention earlier that plays into that. The This is interesting because you the computers at at home, like your home PC you know, has not been managed by an I T department. So who knows if there's even an A virus on your end? Point security or anything like that are It's not a potentially being patched. You know the current level so you could be there could even be an infection that exists in on that machine. And then it's interesting when you think about this, you bring home the work computer. It's now connected to the same network, either on the same WiFi are plugged into the same land. Now you know that infected home PC is exposing the work machine to potential infection as well, because that's how some of these they call them worms. They spread, you know, across networks. So that's where there's a lot of risk that exists around this because the whole machine infects work machine work machine is connected to the corporate network through a VPN, and then then it, you know, impacts the servers and other things. And then everyone in the company has affected. So that would be devastating to a company right now when they're just trying to navigate this crisis, let alone have some sort of ransomware events or something like that happen that started from a home computer
Jay: 29:16
way. Don't need a digital virus to go with our Corona virus.
Doug: 29:22
That's right. Yeah, yeah, I know that we're virus in our world was bad to begin with, and now you know, we have this extra words, So we're often I would when that someone says the word virus. We were always brought us to attention before, but now it brings us to, ah, an extreme level of attention. But so definitely, you know, increase the chance of ransom there. Where ranch Somewhere there. I mentioned devices kind of left unlocked. The Children could access and you know, the There's a big thing right now. I mean this. The hackers air, exploiting what's going, the disruption that's happening right now. And they're sending phishing emails out with things that they think are relevant that people would click on. Even I t departments, I think, have to be more vigilant because for us to get a phone call right now saying, Hey, I work for soon So company to get set up remotely You know, we have to do extra diligence to validate that. That person actually works for the organization, and we know where they are that the calls are coming from, you know, their corporate office anymore. Where we know the caller, I d you know, it's coming from some random cell phone number, home phone number, and that even includes password recess as well. So you know, being extra diligent right now and making sure that he knows that you get you know, the sender. You are expecting it. Don't open up any attachments and you know it's always best just to pick up the phone and call the person and ask them if they send you something because that's a good, good check right there. And if you weren't expecting anything probably shouldn't open it. So just some some tips there, You know there's in the compliance side of the world for clients that are in health care, or so you do credit card processing, type of hip on PC I and things like that. So this is a whole another follow acts because potentially there from hip if they can't bring devices home that are unencrypted. So because the risk of violation and even hoping themselves upto a breach in that regard. So there's things that have to be considered around, even intellectual property in a full organizations if they have things that are considered secure, another letting these devices leave their network and be in home networks and that are unsupervised. So something's there, any compliance. And there's there's an idea that, you know, if we just leave the computer in the office and then we remote into that that were probably safer. But depending on what you're connecting from, just to throw this out there, if there is something running some malware on that computer, some virus there's something called a key logger, which they can actually track your keystrokes. So this is where if you're type of using a password to get into your VPN or get into your remote computer. Those credentials could be captured and then leverage elsewhere. So there's a There's a whole lot around this, and I've only touched on a fraction of it, but just some things to be weary of. And there's things to mitigate all of these situations. But obviously again, Number one was functionality. Let's get everybody back to work. But now we got a circle back through these things and make sure that we're protecting the business.
Jay: 32:12
Yeah, and we obviously don't have the time to dig into all these in detail. But I think these things are really important for businesses, and people need to set aside the time to make sure that they are aware of what's going on and then able to either implement the proper changes internally or communicate to their team. I mean, something as simple is like those phishing emails that you were talking about. It's crazy what happens and how easy those things happen. Like Stacy, my office admin gets emails all the time, and they look like they're from me. Sort of. It'll stay like Joo and is the from, But that's not the really email address. And then it will say, Hey, can you help me real quick with something? Which, of course, is gonna for sure. What do you need? And then they reply. I need to grab 10 gift cards 100 bucks each to so and so and mail it to this address. You take care of me. Can you take care of that the next 30 minutes? You know, and and one of the first time she got one of these, I had not really communicated this to the team, but they used the word it. Fortunately in the email, but I would never have used. But otherwise she had not been appropriately educated to know, because, I mean, that's her job is to help handle payments and check snowless. And this happens at high levels. To I saw a story in the news. I don't know if you saw this was a couple weeks ago and was one of the shark tank people. Barbara remember last name, which is the big real estate bubble. She had a phishing email that ended up costing her, like, $350,000. Somebody thought there's a deposit on a transaction. They do that kind of thing all the time. And, you know, I guess when you're a mega multi 1,000,000 or maybe 300 Grand's not that much. But I think there is probably a lot for anybody, especially when it goes out to essentially a hacker at that point. So that just kind of multiplies how important these things are from a risk standpoint and how having somebody like you and your team alongside can make all the difference. Because I run a marketing company on technology company. I need somebody else to come alongside me and tell me, Hey, here's all the things you need to be aware of And and I think that those things that you kind of went through ransomware devices that are unlocked, you know, hackers and phishing emails hip. Another compliance issues connection dependencies based on whether at one of the things people really need to be paying attention to, what can companies do maybe in the short term toe help either educate themselves or kind of improved so that they're at least taking the first step towards protecting it, even if they don't have a company to handle it all for them. At this moment,
Doug: 34:33
sure, on the fishing side just don't want to scare you More of it. I'll just This is a scenario that's even worse than just that. Can you get me some gift cards? It's when the phishing email a lot of were designed to collect credentials, and this is what we're seeing more of with the Cove in 19 stuff. They're basically saying, You know, Hey, look at this company policy. I want you to evaluate or whatever and they're just trying to get them to click on it. It takes him to a page that looks like most people are in office 3 65 or Rule G suite. At this point, it looks like a page that they would have stopped the log in again, and they're collecting credentials and without something called multi factor authentication or N F. A or two F. A. It's a nice is called where you have an additional Let's not just what you know, but it's what you have So like, your phone gets a message with, you know, one time passport that pass. We're using a password that you gave them is good, you know, for them to use potentially for months, depending on what your passport policy is. So the bigger issue around this stuff is that they collect that and then they log into the account and you don't even know they're in there. You know that's the bigger risk because now they're looking at your eating outflow. You're looking at your vernacular, your conversation that you're having with others. And then when they jump into action, which I read statistic the other day, that said, typically they're embedded in your environment for 97 days. That was the not before they actually make themselves known on average, so they could be in there for months. And then finally, when they act, you know they're sending an email that's from you, because they're in the account and it's they make it extremely relevant. And they need you. Hate Suzy has has your son do? And I heard he was sick because they've seen the email interactions. So that person immediately has relevance. They think that it's you and then they take the action, and typically it's a wire transfer, you know, which is I don't know what happened and the shark tank scenario. But that's the scariness of, and that's here. Technology can help me even completely eradicating avoid those those examples. But I wanted to touch on that because I think people need to be aware that that's the bigger risk than the gift card.
Jay: 36:29
Yeah, and I think so. I think a lot of people may be in a place where they don't even understand why they would be that you need to have this two factor authentication type of thing where either it goes to an app on your phone or your You know, it goes to your like a text message, which is the most common one. And that really is lie. Because I remember, actually, years and years ago I had a friend whose father was in the military, and they used to have these, like, had like, a key chain sort of device, and it would have a number that would cycle. So it was kind of like that you had to have that physical device with you in order to log into that account. I guess we're kind of replacing something, someone with the text messages that kind of just say no
Doug: 37:07
they still have those? Because if you think about employees that don't have company provided phones where you're not going to install a napper. So the key FOBs are actually very inexpensive now and you could throw it on their key chain, and that's what they use in every 50 seconds or whatever. The code changes on it Pretty neat. It's a very, very old school, but it still does the trick.
Jay: 37:26
Yeah, is that was pretty cool when I saw that was many years ago. I think I was in high school at that point so that technology's been around for a while. I think it's just now becoming more popular and consumer devices because we're storing so much online, and I think now that people are transitioning where they're doing work things at home, that may be of a more secure nature. We need to be more aware of these particular things, anything else that you feel like you know companies need to be doing right now in order to help protect themselves in the short term.
Doug: 37:53
So I think you know, I was thinking when he asked that shortly ago, and it's the most basic level so that I can go home or more complex in the necessary, the most basic level, not allowing non company owned computers. I don't have the same protections that you have in the office to connect to that VPN that you have. The that's that's like the extreme of getting people functional is just giving them a beacon on their home computers. But that's opening up a whole bunch of security risks. So we've taken a hard line around that and had to work with vespers on. You can use that, but it has to be restricted in a way that just maybe access your work that stop and that's it. So you know, you can use that to connect and then remote in a secure way. So non company owned devices and then with were computers. I mean this No. One. I don't want to get technical around this, but there's there's even different types of VPN connections on. This is something to ask your i t provider. There's something called full tunnel or split tunnel and basically just in layman's terms. Ah, full tunnel VPN means that when you connect all of your traffic 100% of it is sent across that begin, which effectively puts you back behind your corporate firewall again. And that's firewall in the office does is doing a tremendous amount to protect the environment every day. So to be back behind it when you're on the VPN is his great split tunnel, which is some vendors. Depending on which vendor you look at, that's their default. Are some defaulter full? That means that only the server traffic was across the VPN while all other traffic. And maybe you check in your email that could be watching. You know, Fox News on a separate browser that's going across, you know, your home Internet connection. So it's like that computer at that point is it was connected to both networks. That's that aspect of it. So these are things to ask about how we set up. How do we mitigate the risk? Were split in that type of situation. So also when these computers these were computers or leaving the office, whether it be a laptop or a desktop, making sure that they're still getting patched vulnerabilities, you know, are announced every single day, multiple times a day, so they still have to be left on after hours and systems that patch have to be if they don't already support distributed environments. You know that's something that needs to be looked at. If its internal I t. Or otherwise, how do we still patch those computers now that they're not in the office anymore and make me in whatever security software is on them? Same exact thing. If they had endpoint security or no V and a virus, which, you know, that's one aspect of it that was being maintained through a server in the office, and now they're not in the office anymore. How is that thing still getting updated and keeping them protected? So there's a lot security awareness training. It kind of goes back to the huddles of like It met. You know, now is the time not to stop that stuff. This if anything, it's time that even increase the frequency around it. So, you know, some companies we work with, we do what's called phishing testing so well, actually send out emails that look legitimate to see who clicks on him, who actually fills out the form and gave away the keys to the network. You know, you're using word away. So if anything, you do that more now, then before I think they're getting hit. So that's something that you don't want to stop because they're out of the office. So I mentioned the auto locking of the desktops earlier, making sure those air auto locked that drive encryption the multi factor authentication. There's a ton here, So there's again. You gotta prioritize all this stuff. I figure out where your most exposed and just put a planet prioritized plan of action in place to mitigate, you know, the most critical risk first, and then go from there.
Jay: 41:26
Yeah, I have about 1000 questions that I don't have time to answer as it relates to all that, especially on BP ends all kind of other stuff. But I'm not gonna go there right now because we're gonna We're gonna be talking all day if that's the case. But I think what it does do, is it It drums up a reality which is really important of number one. What questions? Maybe I need to be asking and number two. While ignorance might be bliss, it's also can be dangerous. And I think especially in this environment where we're headed, it could create dangerous. People need to be aware of that. You know, they have the right people to help them handle those things next kind of thing. I have my list here, and this is more forward thinking than current scenario is, how do you see this affecting how companies use technology once we're out of this current crisis, which, for my listening, we will get out of this thing. We will move forward, we're gonna grow. We're gonna get better. We're gonna learn. So what do you think? People will learn from this technologically wise. And what do you think will carry forward, hopefully in a positive way.
Doug: 42:21
So I completely agree This is a blip in time, you know, right now that will get through. I think that we still have potentially months ahead, especially with hurts. Some states have cancelled on the school year period, so kids are not going back to the physical school. They're gonna stay virtual. And with that, so that the parents air gonna have to stay home, whether or not the offices were reopened or not. So the remote work reality eyes going to exist for months to come regardless so I think, focusing on how to make it, that your team is highly effective during you know this time and has what they need physically in the House of Head dual monitors or three monitors or whatever in the office. Or let's get them set back up with that again. This maybe months. So let's make sure that there is productive Iskan B and working in the most secure way. So, looking forward, I think that your companies that we're well situated right now to adapt to this have a competitive advantage where they can still serve their customers and productive and efficient way, and we're able to get out in front of it. So I think there's some with disruption. There's opportunity. So there's some opportunity there to seize that, and I think it's it's really forcing companies to evaluate what work in their business can be done remotely. You know, there's some businesses that you can install a fence posts through different through a computer. It something's house depends on what they do and how they were affected by this. So I think just thinking about that and looking at how to diversify in some cases or how to mitigate that risk. I think is gonna be a new, important strategic agenda item for the organizations. And you know, they there's also opportunity here, you know, Obviously there's been a lot of organizations that have been impacted financially by this. So looking at how they can use technology, maybe even staying in a partial tell Otello work capacity to keep overhead down. So that's something that made continue on just for that purpose in that regard. So, yeah, there's just looking forward, strong looking at security practices. You know, there's there's, there's some shifts around, even computing around. You're not necessarily being so reliant on the desktop or the laptop and even shifting to the cloud in that regard. A lot of people you know are the shift to the cloud or sores. Applications go has been happening for years. You looked like salesforce dot com and QuickBooks online. And you know, a lot of people are using things like that, which made this transition easier for some parts of their business. But looking at this and saying like How did we become 100% cloud based and what we do and even how we access our desktops. And you know what? If our desktops in the cloud and that mitigates a lot of these security concerns, you know, how do we set it up in a secure way? So it was a lot of questions to be asked right now and had to be best prepare for the next few months within. Also, should an event like this happened again, being in Florida, you know, Hurricanes, they're not going away. I mean, there's there's going to be events. Hopefully, nothing ever like this again, but that, you know, we have to be flexible for So how do we best situate ourselves? I think those questions are gonna get asked. And I think it's a great exercise to go through to get some answers to him.
Jay: 45:24
Yeah, absolutely. Well done. You've been really helpful helping me think through some of this technology stuff. Really? I felt like I was pretty knowledgeable than I realized. I'm talking to you that I'm really not that knowledgeable about a lot of this stuff, and, um, it's really helpful to kind of think through. And I think a lot of other business leaders need to do that before we wrap up this podcast. Two things I want to dio One is I want to back up a little bit and talk about the idea of building a business that last that is the topic of this pot guest. After all, I think some of these things we're talking about about future growth effect that I love to hear your thoughts first on what you think is something that you want to leave with other business owners. They think about building a business that lasts cause you have done that. And number two, I'd love to hear. I know you've got an upcoming webinar that you're doing the pain. Look, it will listen to this podcast. They may be watching on demand version or something, but a live version is coming up. I know April 1st, So I looked here a little bit about that. So number one, when you're talking to their business owner, another leader, another entrepreneur, maybe and and they want to know Doug, how do I build a business that lasts? That's a very big question with a very long answer. But if you had to distill that down well, but what's something that you would want to leave them with to think about and take away today. It's
Doug: 46:32
a great question. Yeah, that's, uh, give you a long one answer, but just a couple of points. I would say No company culture, you know, having a positive team that's ready to rise to any challenge. And and there's a lot that goes into that, you know, having your core values to find and having hiring in alignment with those and kind of building This army is critical. So called culture, I would say, is, Ah is paramount. You know, maintaining culture through this crisis is not something. It is something that needs to be focused on as well. It can't be left to the curb, takes years to build it, and it could take days to destroy it. So, you know, we're actually doing We're trying this for the first time, but we're doing a virtual happy hour today, five o'clock. So we're doing a team meeting. Everyone's getting on video that could make it, and we're doing a cheers together. You know, it's been been a challenging the last couple of weeks. So, uh, let off a little steam and celebrate. You know, the success gonna maintain it. It's not something that just maintains itself so little. Things like that go a long way. So culture, the other part is just establishing a strong leadership team on getting out of their way. So that would be, I think the key part would have been a business 18 years now, and my leadership team we meet weekly. We could, you know, this was obviously had separate meetings. Just about are coded response, but, you know, empowering them to make good decisions and just getting out of their way and letting them be their things. So culture and leadership teams, I think we'll be two key things of many that helps build a business that last, in my opinion,
Jay: 48:04
yeah, I love that. And it I love hearing into, especially for someone like you who's very technically focused into technology into all the details. It's easy to forget the people element, and I mean for you personally. I just mean, like in Jones, easy for people to forget the people element. And the reality is roll people that work with us able to work for us and people that were that were working for and even something like a virtual happy hour. It's amazing how something like that can just change the reality and the cadence a little bit and go, Hey, we're still in the same team. So I got the same culture salad that you brought that up. I know. Coming up, you've got a webinar. We're gonna dig into this stuff a little bit more. You're gonna teach it and help people kind of have some more resource is to take away. I love to hear you. Kind of just tell us a little about what you're gonna cover there and why Might be helpful for them.
Doug: 48:52
Okay, great. Yes. So on April 1st at 2 p.m. We're gonna start a Kobe Webinar series. The 1st 1 is gonna be specifically about remote work, which we touched on quite a bit. But talking more about making the team was productive and efficient as possible. I think everyone's kind of mid transition right now. So things to think about and then also, you know, I mentioned that office 3 65 36 months is other free resource is that have made available in the technology community in some cases, even like three years of licenses for free. So we're gonna share some of those. Resource is to be a little leverage. And so just trying to help people through this and ned value as much as we can. So the 1st 1 will be on that 2nd 1 which is the next When we have a plan that is, we're looking at a week later around specifically cybersecurity. Last will be more information pushed out about that as well. But, you know, looking at just tryingto educate people and keep their businesses protected through this crisis we're in.
Jay: 49:46
Yeah. I mean, I'm excited about that. I think that the idea of that continuing education right now is really, really important. I've dunmore event in all kinds of different areas lately from financed process to systems. And now I think technology is by one of the most important things. Looks like people can go register for that at true tech remote dot com. So that's something you guys were watching on Facebook or you hear about this later on the podcast, T r u tech remote dot com will take you to a page or you can register. So you get a reminder about that Webinar. Doug, I'm excited that you're doing that. I really appreciate you taking the time to be on the show today and help everybody out with your knowledge and experience.
Doug: 50:22
Yeah. Thanks for having
Jay: 50:25
hope. This episode has given you some ideas or inspiration. It will help you grow your business. If you found it helpful on you know somebody else who might benefit from it as well. I would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time to share this with them. Maybe on Facebook or Twitter were linked in, or even shooting email over to a friend with a link to this podcast in it. And if you haven't already, make sure you sign up for email list at building a business that lasts dot com.