Cybernomics: Where Business Meets Tech

Influence, AI, and the Art of Building Meaningful Connections

• Bruyning Media

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Josh Bruyning welcomes Rafael Ramirez to discuss communicating AI concepts, building community in cybersecurity, and navigating the tech industry as an immigrant. Rafael has almost 30,000 followers on LinkedIn. The conversation reveals practical strategies for explaining complex technologies to non-technical audiences and developing genuine professional connections.

• Context is key when explaining AI – build analogies relevant to your audience's interests and industry
• Free resources like EDX, TED talks, and cloud provider courses provide foundational AI knowledge
• Effective AI communication requires learning storytelling techniques to make concepts relatable
• Building a professional network takes significant time and investment – Rafael estimates $100,000 in opportunity cost over six years
• The golden rule of networking: serve others before asking for anything in return
• In-person connections are more powerful than virtual ones – especially the spontaneous conversations at conference happy hours
• Introverts can succeed at networking by starting with scripts and recognizing their energy limitations
• Immigrants face the challenge of rebuilding social capital from scratch in a new country
• Successful immigration requires immersion in the new culture through networking and volunteering
• "Your network is your net worth" – measure success through connections and impact on others

Connect with Rafael on LinkedIn by searching "RafaRocks" (without spaces) and with Josh at bruning.com or on LinkedIn.


Josh's LinkedIn

Speaker 1:

Welcome to this episode of Cybernomics. I'm your host, josh Bruning, and I'm here today with Rafael Ramirez, and Rafael is a fellow immigrant so near and dear to my heart. I'm the networking side of the fence and migrated, no pun intended, into cybersecurity, and so that's what he does. And today we're going to be talking about a couple of things. One, ai, because, as you all know, that's my current obsession. And the second thing we're going to be talking about today is community building in cybersecurity how to build a network. Raphael has a sizable and an impressive following on LinkedIn, and I'm always curious about how people are connecting within the community. And third, if we have time, we'll just talk about the immigrant story. What is it like? I can share a little bit of what I went through and a little bit of what Rafael has gone through, and if there's anybody out there that's listening to this and you're also making that transition, just know that it is possible to break into cyber. Rafael, welcome to Cybernomics.

Speaker 2:

Hi Josh, thank you for having me here, thank you for the audience and looking forward to this talk.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's start with AI, and specifically communicating AI. Now, this is a challenge that I've recently, painfully, have become aware of, and when you're talking about AI, it's a very new system, it's a very new technology, and so even being able to talk about it to your team, to prospects, to, you know let's just say for lack of better word legacy users who may be interested in using AI, these concepts are really hard to understand. You thought that communicating networking concepts were hard. Communicating IT concepts were hard. Trying to tell somebody what a Cat5 cable is and how it plugs it, these people, most of the time, don't even know.

Speaker 1:

Talking about our legacy end users, a lot of love for you, but half of the time, they don't even know what a computer does or like really what it is, much less talking about an AI agent that's going to be taking over manual processes. So is this something that you think we can overcome with just developing common languages and developing a common lexicon, or do you think that we have to fit the language of AI into existing language? For example, instead of talking about agents, maybe we talk about automated processes. Is that doing it, you know? Is that an injustice? Or what do you think needs to shift here in order to get people to connect the dots.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't think there's one size shirt that fits everything. Yeah, like everything is about context. So I will say you have to go and build analogies close to the industry, close to the person that you're talking. Yeah, so you have to do some marketing research on the persons that you're talking, because you have to make it personal somehow for them to understand. Yeah, so, so if you know the audience and love soccer, so you can make it about soccer. If the industry talks about this, you can make it about that.

Speaker 2:

It's not an easy topic and, coming from a place that I thought we have a lot of acronyms like networking, cyber is even more, has scale and AI is even more. So basically it's hard. I will say everyone is always talking on how to articulate to business leaders. That's the approach, how to put it in those lemon's terms. Yeah, that makes sense to you. So I am learning more storytelling, more analogies. So I build stories with analogies tied to the people that I am talking to. So if I am talking to a kid and I am talking about AI, it's just teaching a computer to act like a human. Yeah, without being told to, and things like that. It's trying to make it simpler.

Speaker 2:

To your point on agentic AI yeah, you can put it on automation level. Yeah, then you can explain that. What is the difference? That is, making decisions is goal-oriented, decision-making is adaptable and you can connect it between them and it becomes more complicated. But we need to understand that the people sometimes that we're talking they don't need to become and they will never become technologists. They have their own knowledge in their industry. So we need to communicate with them at a business level and that's a challenge. I was the guy basically there on the racks in Equinix and data centers AT&T, ibm At the two in the morning putting IPSs off, doing the image, doing those things. So coming from that, when you're just leading with hardware and some software, to speaking to people is different. So I will say that everything is about context and knowing your audience.

Speaker 1:

How have you prepared yourself? Because I was an English major, so I'm somewhat of a wordsmith, but for those who maybe they didn't have an English background from a study perspective, it could be English, spanish, french. Whatever language you speak, you're not a language expert. How do they prepare themselves? How did you prepare yourself to be able to talk about this? Because it seems I agree completely you're going to, I think, talking about analogies and talking in terms of um, that that people can understand in their everyday life. It's very difficult, but you make it sound easy. How did you become such a good communicator?

Speaker 2:

I'm still not there, but I, I just push the can one day at a time and I push it forward. So today I may be learning about how humans behave. Yeah, because I know AI is basically like it's like a compression of all of this human knowledge, so there is always human attributes. So I try to learn about language, I try to learn about behavior, behavioral analytics, everything that I think is tied to it. But, coming to this, there is some resources to start right now, like there is some stuff built up. So I recommend EDX I think it's called. There you can find IBM, you can find MIT, harvard, stanford, a lot of universities that will give you the fundamentals and they're free. Yeah, you may need to pay, maybe for some certificates, but the knowledge as it is is free. So the knowledge is there. Edx is amazing. Ted is another place where you can find a lot of information. Maybe it's not curated, or maybe you can find some playlists that can help you.

Speaker 2:

On the other side, I am a technologist, so I am always trying to build stuff with this, whatever is under the hood. So I have learned Azure. I have learned AWS, gcp a little bit. I think that's the one I am lacking the most, but I went to their own learning courses and learned how they are building this, because everyone has like a different aspect. This is the same, like with quantic everyone is trying to break into it with a different approach, even a hardware approach. So you have to learn how every single company have shaped their infrastructure, because you need, at the end, to put it in that infrastructure. So, so the technical part.

Speaker 2:

I will say the big four, the big five, the cloud providers they have really amazing stuff. There is also a lot of platforms Udemy, odera, even LinkedIn where you can get a lot of knowledge, but it's difficult to know where to go. So I will say go with the fundamentals. Maybe EDX is a good one, a good point to start, and there's a start building from there. You will need to learn about everything. Coming to your point sorry for interrupting you is when you're going into AI, you need to learn also the storytelling part. Yeah, so I have taken also storytelling courses. I was even on a summit in Boston and I got close to that community, even hearing someone speak one hour and telling you how they do it, how they build their presentation, how they write their presentation, how they prepare. That's the other thing. This is not magic. You have to be a storyteller. Sometimes you have to build the scripts, learn it, practice it and learn to pivot. Outside of that, yeah, because with a client you never know A script will never work.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, excellent. Couldn't have said it better myself. Okay, this is what I have done to prepare. I haven't done all the things. I mean I took storytelling classes and all that stuff and and that's undergrad and I probably need a refresher with AI in mind. But one thing that I do is I'll call up my mom and I'll try to explain something to her and I'm like, if I can't explain it to my mom, I probably don't understand this thing well enough. So there's a level of understanding that if you understand something to a great extent, then you're able to simplify it. If you're not able to simplify it and convey it, you probably need to refine your understanding a little bit. So I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit here. Raphael, and anybody who is listening to this as well. If you wanna shoot me a message on LinkedIn with your version of this, I'm happy to publish it and post it and promote it. How would you explain a chat bot to your mom?

Speaker 2:

to my mom. Okay, in my case, my mom was a technologist, without studying anything, but coming to new stuff, like I will put it in her space. So she's a whatsapp user. Yeah, so I will tell her that is something similar to whatsapp, but at the other side there is a computer that can basically chat with her and can do some tasks in the back, but it's still a computer and still managed by men at the back, and a lot of stuff, because we want to keep them not to worry about it.

Speaker 2:

Because everyone is hearing about AI, everyone has seen Terminator, everyone is coming to it the same way. So I wanted to keep it simple and secure for her, but I will also tell her, coming to that, some things that she needs to understand. That is, there is technology, it's driving automatically, that it will interact and it will have some limitations because it will only answer what it was programmed to do. So, yeah, so that's a way I can handle it at the beginning and then get all the questions and start refining and getting it, depending on what is that she hasn't gotten. Yeah, because you have to polish that version as you go.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and I would probably explain. My mom also uses WhatsApp, so that's a good way to put it. I think my mom would come back and say that's some kind of bad juju voodoo magic and she doesn't trust it. And that's a different story for another time, because I don't know if I'll ever convince her of the merits and the wonders communicating AI. Let's move on. I could talk about that all day, but we've kicked that dead horse enough. I think let's pivot into community building in cybersecurity.

Speaker 1:

I think that this is one of the most powerful tools that you can use as a salesperson. If you're like me, if you're in sales, if you are new to cybersecurity and or new to technology, it in general, information sharing is huge. If you are a decision maker, if you're a CISO, if you're leading technology teams, being able to refine your decision making chops is going to be really important to connect with others. But here's the problem we're talking about nerds. I'm a nerd, you're a nerd, let's face it, speaking to other people and getting out of our shell. You wouldn't know it because I'm in sales now, but I promise you, I'm a nerd to the bone.

Speaker 1:

I'm an introvert. I don't like getting out there and talking to people if I don't have to. I have to make sure that the topic is interesting and I find some way to connect to people. And once I connect, you can't shut me up, but it takes a little bit of work. Right, you are someone who is very tightly knit into your community. You've built this community and network of people in tech and you've sort of done this in the Canadian community, which not to knock Canada, but y'all different out there, right? So how have you gone about reaching out to people in the cybersecurity community and what has that done for you and for others?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that calling into this kind of digital networking takes time, passions and a lot of effort, a lot of time. I think I have a post where I did the math. It was over $100,000 that I have invested. I put in all the hours that goes into this, so it's time, it's your life.

Speaker 1:

Sorry to interrupt, but $100,000 in terms of opportunity cost or actual spend, no opportunity cost.

Speaker 2:

I just did like my hour with the hours that I have invested, yeah, and basically got that done. Yeah, it was more than $1,000. Yeah, we're talking about six years of work and every single day I'm doing something in LinkedIn and planning something. So in my case, I started by connecting. Yeah, there is always like layers.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when you start, you don't have an audience, no one knows you, it's going to be difficult to connect. Yeah, so you need to be difficult to connect. Yeah, so you need to make more effort at the beginning. Maybe you have to do some massive connections, personalize those connections, but make it real personalized, not like people that is doing it right now just with chatbots. I always test people because I have my, my real professional story and I have my vision. That is what I have at the top, yeah, and and some certification. So if the person went and read my, my linking profile, I will note that they will touch on something from the past. Yeah, so so you have to make it real.

Speaker 2:

I tell everyone you have to be, you have to read the other people profile and try to make a real connection, like you have to try to find where you have a common interest I know a lot of people do not share. So you have, you just have to use one of the biggest opportunities of the English language. That is the word chat. Yeah, chat can be a phone call, can be a text, can be. Let's speak, let's talk. In Spanish, we have different words for every single stuff. So I like English because it's simple. Yeah, let's chat. Yeah, and try to start connecting and then use, depending on the answer. You have to do different things. Yeah, like I like to get coffees with people during my hometown, video calls, even asking them if they're going to an event. So I try to use LinkedIn as an opener, but I always look for that video, digital opportunity or physical opportunity and I keep it going. Yeah, and there is another thing that I call in. I have a post also on that.

Speaker 2:

My number one rule you have to first try to serve before you ask. So you have to find something that you can give, and I know that's difficult to get your head around, but that comes as you get to know the person and you're really interested. And you don't have to go and connect with someone in AI and serve them in AI. You can serve them in any other area of knowledge. Maybe they're struggling in something? Yeah, and they will ask you for something. Hey, I remember just going into that. Someone asked for where do your son is studying this thing? Yeah, they told you no, for academics you can go to this institution. Yeah, and then I connected, I gave him something small, but that opened that relationship.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, serving is not about big things. Yeah, and I always serve with another thing an intention of not serving to get back. I, I, I always, I, always. I'm not a religious guy, but I have always believed in karma and energy. So you have to give to the world before you ask for something.

Speaker 2:

I am here in Canada and you were talking about how different we are. Yeah, we are a trust, we are in a trust business, and Canada is a smaller country and it has another layer of trust that have built in the society because it's very different from the States. So coming into that is really hard, yeah, so you have, you have to really really give back. Canada is a is a country where volunteering is very appreciated. Yeah, it's part of my daily life. I volunteer time to getting people into cyber for people, elder people, to basically learn cyber, to help people that are coming outside the colleges. So you need to learn how to serve. You need to learn how to connect with these people to get them into that next level, that is, to become a real connection, and there is many steps to that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and establishing trust seems to be, I mean, that's the. You hit the nail on the head. Establishing trust is so hard and when you give without looking to receive, people can feel that, they can feel that you're genuine. That is harder to do, I think, in the US, because I think that maybe in Canada people trust each other more. Maybe I'm making some bad assumptions here, but in the US, like okay, in Canada you all have have really good healthcare.

Speaker 1:

People seem to be generally happier because, you know, I have a friend who lives in Vancouver. She takes vacation like pretty regularly. If you need time off work, they're like yeah, you know, just relax twice as hard to get half as much. And the moment, especially if you're like in New York City, the moment you talk to someone, they're like what do you want? What do you want from me? It's just a very competitive, like America is a very competitive dog-eat-dog kind of country and I wonder if that's why it's harder to connect. Or maybe it's easier to connect because once you connect it's like you found water in a desert and people cling to that.

Speaker 1:

I don't know. What do you think about all that? Do you think I'm just, you know, full of?

Speaker 2:

I don't know. Like I know, everyone lives their life in a different way. I have had the opportunity to study in the States two years. I live in Florida two years. I studied when I was little.

Speaker 2:

So basically I will say one of the biggest and coming to analogies is like, when I think about when I went into France, people are very friendly, yeah, canadians are very friendly, yeah, but don't get it wrong, it's like French people, you're not, you need to meet them. You need to meet them several times to build that connection. It's not as easy as as in America. Yeah, here is a different thing. At least that's what I have felt. Yeah, I feel like when I went to France, it's very European way. Yeah, it's not not. Yeah, you can become friends, talk, people is going to talk to you, but building that real relationship and getting people to really trust you, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I have a number in my mind. Normally it's around five to six meetings, yeah, and those have to be physical. Yeah, this is to make people that you have real connections, yeah, and so it takes time. It takes a lot of time. I go out a month, normally two to three conferences, so that's a whole day conference and going into chapter meetings, my own community. We're talking about three, four more nights happy hours. I love them. So sometimes I don't go to conferences. The best place to be in a conference is is not on the conference. If you're thinking on networking, it's in the happy hour conference. Very good, go and learn, you go and communicate some stuff, you can run it to people, some things. But the networking events, that bar meeting that happens after I don't know RSA sector, yeah, those are specific ones. I think that's where the magic happens.

Speaker 1:

Do you think it's necessary to do this in person versus virtually? Let's say, if you're disabled and you can't really go out and do stuff, do you think that person is more limited or do you think that you can achieve the same results virtually?

Speaker 2:

I don't think we can achieve the same results virtually. And to your point, yeah, there will be some disadvantages.

Speaker 1:

You can connect digitally?

Speaker 2:

yeah, but there is always a difference of you looking to me in a two dimensional screen than looking at the whole me. Yeah, it's a 3D version. You're going to see more movements screen that's looking at the whole me. It's a 3D version. You're going to see more movements. We're going to communicate in a different way. So there is a constraint and I will say the constraint is on time. It will take you maybe more time to build it digitally.

Speaker 2:

Physically it's easier and digitally has another disadvantage that you're missing the small talk. Yeah, that thing that fell off the table and generated a new conversation, that person that passed. That thing that you saw on the TV, that thing that just happened sporadically yeah, that is what makes the difference. That's where the connections get made. Yeah, and over the camera some things are maintained like more strict. When you're physically, everything goes out of script. Yeah, you go out. Oh, you're taking a cab, hey, hey, where are you going? You connect on a different way. We're losing all of that, unfortunately, in the digital world. So I will say you're losing attributes and ways to connect with people in the digital, but you can make it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Are you naturally extroverted Like, does this come naturally to you or is this something that you had to build?

Speaker 2:

No, I'm totally extroverted. I have to basically basically build some filters to not even talk more.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So that's something that's really interesting to me, because I feel like the extroverts win in this arena right. Most of the people that I know. I can tell whether somebody's an extrovert or not just looking at their LinkedIn followers. How many LinkedIn followers do you have? And it's kinda it's hard for the introverts. What advice would you have for an introvert if they wanna go in this direction? I know you're not an introvert, so it's really hard to speak to them, but what's your advice?

Speaker 2:

My advice comes from an introvert that have been my leader for many years and is basically like, forced, somehow you have to build. I think in English they call it like canned material. Yeah, like you have to build something and start running it that you have to be your own. Yeah, can material modified to be your own? So like a script, a script, yeah, a script basically, and start running it.

Speaker 2:

Everyone needs to understand that the first time we do things, we do it really bad. That's how it goes. In school we were learning to add At the beginning I wasn't really good. Now I can do really amazing stuff with that, so we all started there.

Speaker 2:

So I will say it's going to be difficult for an introvert and this one I hear it recently. I know when they try to do this they they're getting drained. So they did. They need to understand that basically they have this fuel and they can only run it for some time. Yeah, like yesterday I was out 12 hours. Yeah, for an introvert, maybe impossible. For me is the opposite way. I got at my house 8 pm and I was recharged. I didn't, I wasn't even able to get to sleep. Yeah, because that's what? That? Because I am taking that energy somehow. Yeah, when I wake up, I don't have energy. I go, I talk to people and I get energy. So you need to understand that, like an introvert, you, I get energy. So you need to understand that, like an introvert, you may get drained soon. Yeah, because you're putting an effort into it. Then it will become natural and as you run it. But you need to understand that it takes time and, yes, you can use a script, you can use a mentor to help you drain on this.

Speaker 1:

And there may be resources, because people might be neurodivergent at times. It might be on the spectrum, and so, understanding those conditions and just understanding yourself, like you said, if you know that you only got two hours of fuel, don't plan to be out for six hours. It would suck. So good, great, great advice I feel like if people want to learn more about I'll do this again at the end, but it seems appropriate right now but if people have questions about these things, is it okay for them to reach out to you and, if so, how did they find you?

Speaker 2:

Normally in LinkedIn. Now it's easier. They can put Rafa Rocks without space. I don't remember Rafael Ramirez, so you just put Rafa rocks without space and write to me. I may take some time, but I try to answer 100% of my messages no-transcript from you.

Speaker 1:

So, um, if we can radiate that energy to that energy to other people, I think that would be great. All right, let's end with this. In the last few minutes that we have, let's talk immigration. Right, and this will be sort of a lightning round. If you're trying to break into cyber as an immigrant, what is, can you give me one challenge that you most likely you will face and one piece of advice that you can give to someone to overcome that challenge?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, on the migration part, and it's tied to what we have been talking, everything is about building something. So when you migrate, how I saw it is I had a social capital in my home country, colombia, and I migrated and I just left it there.

Speaker 1:

You're by yourself, you're out alone, you're in outer space.

Speaker 2:

You're alone, yes, and you have to build this social capital. Yeah, and how do you build it? Networking, volunteering, getting there. You have to get out there. You need to get out of your house, basically, and live there in that country because you have to be immersed. So that's the biggest challenge and that's the way to overcome If you're migrating. You have to come and learn how people is living here. Yeah, and you will start emulating that.

Speaker 2:

In my case, I migrated not to come here and change people. It is to learn, because I know they are doing it better. Yeah, I migrated because of that. Yeah, so I need to come and learn that how they're doing it their way. Yeah, if I want to live like them, I need to become like them. So I look what people is seeing and I remember this is something that my mom always told me when you go to another people's house, yeah, you look what people is doing and you just replicate it. Yeah, and it comes to the same thing when you're talking to someone, yeah, you try to replicate how they're looking, they're behaving, they're postures.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's a testament to your networking prowess and I think you practice what you preach, because we're talking right now and we're connecting, and I'm sure that out of this conversation, others will reach out and our networks will just grow. And it's a cliche, but it's true your network is your net worth and we measure our success not in dollars but in the connections and the impact that we have on the people in our lives. So with that, rafael Ramirez, I appreciate you spending time with me today on Cybernomics. If you want to learn more about Bruning Media and what we do, check out bruningcom B-R-U-Y-N-I-N-G. And if you want to reach out to me, if you have any ideas for topics or if you know anybody who would be a great fit for the show, reach out to me on LinkedIn. You can look for Josh Bruning B-R-U-Y-N-I-N-G. Thanks again for listening to this episode of Cybernomics. Bye.