Calculus of IT - Episode 23 - 5/8/2024 - "New IT Leader's Survival Guide - Years 2 and 3 - Strategy Revisited"

For shits and giggles, I let Buzzsprout's GAI do the description for us this week.  :-)

Discover the charm of IT land's peculiarities and the sharp wit of tech leadership as we embark on this episode's engaging narrative. We'll unravel the intricacies of integrating private large language models into enterprise ecosystems, and while grasping the strategic elements vital for business agility, we're also going to share a laugh over our quirky experiences, including tales from Waltham and the million-follower feline Sockington. Pull up a chair with us at the Painted Burro in Somerville Mass, and let's indulge in both the humorous and the profound dimensions of IT.

Strap in for an in-depth exploration of the dynamic AI platform landscape and its impact on your strategic business maneuvers. We'll dissect the importance of adaptability within the IT sphere, ensuring that you're not just keeping up but staying ahead of the curve. And when things get too serious, we lighten the mood with a twist, pondering over life's trivial annoyances and the odd chance of a zombie apocalypse disrupting our well-laid plans—because who says strategy can't be fun?

Wrapping up, we delve into the core of what makes a strong IT strategy: a blend of robust planning, flexibility, and the occasional spontaneous live streaming security hiccup. You'll walk away with a fresh perspective on balancing rigidity with the necessity to pivot, and an understanding of how to craft a 'Plan on a Page' that aligns with your company's trajectory. Join us for this insightful yet amusing journey through the maze of strategic planning, spiced up with the latest AI buzz and a side of light banter.

Transcript

Tech Talk and AI Banter

Speaker 1 0:00

Code in the Matrix. It's how we play algorithms, crafting the future our way. Silicon visions from dusk till dawn. We're the wizards of tech where progress is born With every line. We're defining the time, creating a world where the virtual climbs Sai Chai is for winners, sad salads, profound Monies and bubble gum floating around Tech Accord. Who's bored the calculus of IT With Nate and Mike? Drown in the nether or just escape to Neverland. Thank you for joining.

Speaker 2 1:48

You made it. Don't have an elbow spasm, by the way. Knock that in my lap, knock it open. Oh, it's jumping, jump in, yeah. What are we talking about? Well, I can't see the script because the video is up.

Speaker 3 2:09

That's okay, you never read the script anyway, mike, what are you getting?

Speaker 2 2:13

I do I read the script. Oh well, I like your scripts. You do, I do, I love them, you're going to like this one, then I do.

Speaker 2 2:20

Well, I'm going to read it off the screen here, because I don't have all my special lighting, but you know, welcome to the Cognitive IT Podcast, aka the Cognitive Load, aka Home of the Sad Salad and the new intro song aka AIS Fuck, aka Just that Is Zero. And the official home of the Tech Accord. Each week, we do our best to bring you a new take on what it is like to be an IT leader and how to survive out there in the dark alleyways and murky corners of the nexus of the nether, aka IT land, or Neverland Neverland In a positive way. Next to me is Mike Crispin, or Senor Crispin. Senor and Senor Crispin and Senor McBride, we are coming to you live from. Oh, you don't want to have any more of that drink. No, there's a little bit at the bottom. I can scrape it up. Ooh, that's tangy. Sorry, it's my tangy spot. Leave my eyebrows sweat a little bit.

Speaker 2 3:31

Senor Crispin and Senor McBride, we are your digital custodians. Oh, there you go. Yes, nachos. Yes, right in the middle. Okay, that's good, thank you. In the middle of the right. Okay, that's good, thank you. We got some food coming here. We can probably get rid of it. We can probably get rid of the salsa there. Perfect, thank you all right yeah, there we go.

Speaker 2 3:59

Yeah, we got. We're good. All right, I don't have a beer, but are you the beer? No, I'll go on my commission. You put that like way over, all over this idea. As I was saying, I am weak Caliente. As I was saying, this is the 20 I got, fix this. I wrote 23ST. How do you pronounce that? 23rdest? 23st? This is the 23rdest episode of the Calculus of IC podcast. We've been doing this since November. I think 23rd is just amazing. I almost had to cut a couple of spells. I know we are coming to.

Speaker 2 4:47

You live from the Painted Borough in Somerville Mass. Originally slated to be at the Mighty Squirrel Brewery in Waltham Mass, but that fell apart. So now here we are. Best laid plans, as they say. I had to set some fun facts about Waltham. I'll read them even though we're not in Waltham. Waltham is known as the watch city of America because the Waltham watch company was the first US city to mass produce watches in 1854. Like my watch right here, produced in Waltham. Waltham was home to the Boston Manufacturing Company, the first integrated textile mill in the United States. I have no idea what integrated textile mill means. A cat named Sockington, the first cat to reach 500,000 Twitter followers. Resides in Waltham. Actually, sockington now has over 1 million followers. To be exact, sockington is 1 million, yep, so Sockington the Cat has 1 million followers. We should get Sockington the Cat on the podcast.

Speaker 2 5:58

We're going to learn all about this Carol Spinney, who is the voice of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street, was born in Waltham. I did not know that. Yep, fun fact. Fun fact Also Waltham has many hiking trails, which is a fun fact. Apparently, when you ask Google what fun facts are about wall fam, it ends with and it also has hiking trails. So that's great. Um yeah now when you do the same thing for.

Speaker 2 6:39

Cambridge, you don't get any fun facts. I think of the fun fact about the May Squirrel brewery too, but we're not. You don't get any fun facts. No, I did get a fun fact about the Mighty Squirrel Brewery too, but we're not there, so I'm not going to read it. But actually I will read it because it's important. The Mighty Squirrel Brewing Company in Waltham got its name from the founders using the word squirrel as a code word for protein. We're discussing their idea in public. Word for protein when discussing their idea in public.

Speaker 2 7:07

After two years, the name stuck and the word mighty was added to suggest that something small can grow similar to companies' growth. So I was thinking earlier today, like instead of saying certain words, we should have code words for words. Okay. So like we wouldn't say AI anymore. Okay, what would we say instead? Like mayonnaise, For everything that we have a word for, we should have a code word for it too. That way, we can talk in open and no one will know what we're talking about Most likely us too. If I was to say to you the toast is flying from the house at the Liberty Bell, you would immediately know that I was talking about a new Gen AI engine.

Speaker 1 8:03

I would lose that code. No, you don't think so.

Speaker 3 8:04

You'd steadfast, I would lose that code.

Speaker 2 8:05

No, you don't think so, you'd steadfast and then, as I was thinking about our new code for everything, I was thinking about that Ocean's 12 episode, that Ocean's 12 episode movie, ocean's 12, where they go into that bar in, I think, france or something, and they meet the guy and they're playing a joke on Matt Damon, where they're like making up playing a joke on Matt Damon, where they're making up all the random words Matt Damon's trying to follow along. Have you ever seen that? Oh, yeah, you can tell me you haven't seen it. I've seen it. There's no line on this podcast. 113, right, 12. Alright, that's Linus' character. Yeah, I remember that I was trying to pull a fast one on him. Yeah, yeah, I love that. It's debatable whether, well, because Moby's in it, it's debatable whether episode one is better than episode two. The end of episode one is that Moby 2. The end of episode 1 is that Moby song, which I freaking love. And but episode 2, or Ocean's 12, also had some good music in it, including when the cat, what was the burglar's name? Oh, danny Ocean. No, no, no, the French guy, the French guy who was the? Oh, the fox, the night fox, the night fox, yeah, when he was doing the laser dance. That song, that song. It's the. All I Met is what it's called yeah, din-a-din-a-dins, din-a-din-a-dins yeah, he really did that too, that actor, didn't? He do a good amount of that himself, maybe? I don't think that was like a double. It wasn't AI generated. It was one of the days of AI.

Speaker 2 10:05

So we had a big event today, a night cloud event at Google headquarters in Cambridge. It was really, really good. Actually, it isn't surprising. They had a great lineup. I was on two panels. I was on one panel which was talking about AI, gen AI, and I was on another panel right after that which was kind of like an open forum where I asked the expert. So I don't know why they had me there, but did you already have one of these, by the way? Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 10:43

And so I had to be the guy on the panel who was the skeptical, cynical one. Oh, really, I know I'm surprised. I had to go out of character for that and explain that the A in AI is, I mean, automation, which means artificial, which is a problem, and AI and GAI are two different things entirely, and so I kept kind of trying to bring everybody back to those points. But I also felt like I was a party pooper, which I know. Right now Kate's listening. She's like Nate, a party pooper Shut the front door. I think deep down you love AI. You're very excited. I like using AI, but it's a clever toy.

Speaker 2 11:31

It's going to get interesting soon it is. We'll see what happens Once Industry 5.0 takes off and all the data you thought you had access to goes away. Just do whatever you want. Just do whatever you want. Just do whatever you want. People will love it. You've seen Red Dawn right Red Dawn, the original. You know what? I haven't seen it. Patrick Swayze yeah, You're familiar with Red Dawn. I am familiar with it.

Speaker 1 12:00

yes, Are you familiar with?

Speaker 2 12:01

any apocalyptic movie where everyone's dead? Yeah, except a few people. Well, how do they communicate? There's no more news, there's no more like New York Times. Huh, they read books. Books become currency.

Speaker 1 12:16

Right Knowledge, knowledge.

Speaker 2 12:18

Right, I don't think we're at that point yet where it's an essential threat Not even yet I don't think we're going to get to that point. But I think that he or she who controls the data will make the most money. Well, they already do, right? I'm sorry, you don't think people will want the data to make the most money. Well, think about this Right now. I'm sorry, you have to give them all the data. Think about this Right now. I give away my book for free, right, but to get my book, you have to have a Gmail account?

Speaker 2 12:55

Well, not necessarily. You can make it for free on the Internet without a Gmail account. You can have e-pubs and stuff, but it's easier to find if you have a Gmail account. Exactly At what point in time will I lose the ability to share my document? Or it will be folded into some LLM that I'm not aware of. I don't know what it is. Well, openai just bought. You know, they've been buying up data sources for the last month.

Speaker 3 13:30

They bought, like Politico and Elpice and LeMans. They're all signing these contracts and stuff right.

Speaker 2 13:32

Yeah, to get exclusive access to the original data sources. Well, they just signed with Fortune today. I think that the sources are going to sign with this. Well, you know, the whole of that was the New York Times. As soon as the New York Times opens up their door and sells it, everyone will have a rush to the doors to sell everything. I think the New York Times. They've already done a deal.

Speaker 2 13:58

I think that that's how they're going to make money. They're just going to sell to these AI companies. That'll be one piece of it. There's still people who want the user experience of a digital paper or newspaper or something that's on their phone that's formatted specifically for the New York Times.

Speaker 3 14:17

You know what will happen.

Speaker 2 14:18

Brand awareness dies, it no longer appears in the New York Times anymore. You know what will happen is it will open up a whole new era of news. So small, mom-and-pop news places will be able to come out of the woodwork and build themselves, and you'll subscribe to the ones that align best with you because they'll be cheaper.

Speaker 1 14:36

Yeah, podcasts. Largely, podcasts are becoming the most popular place to get news. Largely, podcasts are becoming the most popular place to get news now. Reliable sources like us. It is weird eating Like eating and doing this.

Speaker 2 15:04

I had like a stuff ball out of my mouth. I wonder if the microphone picked up all my chewy sounds. No, it's not. It hears the talking sounds. You do chew quite loudly. What's that? You chew quite loudly. So, as I always say every week, if you want to continue the conversations on our shows or deep dive into anything else, come and find us and let us know. You can find the link to join the Discord server in the show notes. So come by Discord and share your innermost thoughts and feelings. You can also find the Discord link at our website. Thecoitus A coitus, but with a dot in thecoitus A coitus, but with a dot in the middle of coitus. Essentially, I also want to mention that if you like the show, if you like watching us eat, listening to us eat, give us five stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or YouTube or wherever you listen to the show. In our show description we have links to buy a beer and also buy merch, like this amazing shirt and all the other shirts that we have that are fantastic.

Speaker 2 16:13

Sweatshirts and stuff like that Very good stuff. You can even buy a thong Thongs yeah, we're going to do a thong. That's a great idea. Yep, yeah, we're going to do the cross. That's a great idea. Yep, our sponsor is taking a week off. So, yeah, we'll hear from our sponsor again next week. Okay, so we don't really have a sponsor. We could have gotten Mighty Squirrel sponsors. Is this a carrot? Is this a real carrot? It's like two carrots. That's a carrot. They put carrots in there. Huh Well, get me veggies. Carrot, like two carrots. That's a carrot. They put carrots in there. Oh, you gave me veggies.

Speaker 1 16:49

I had a couple veggies, um.

Speaker 2 16:57

So one of the things we talked about today was how AI is kind of coming full circle in terms of platform, yep, oh. And why do we need Gen AI? Well, everyone thinks it's amazing. Is kind of coming full circle in terms of platform, yep, and why do we need Gen AI? Well, everyone thinks it's amazing. I was there, sorry about that. In truth, aws is the first company to sort of not send us backwards, but bring us closer to the finish.

Speaker 2 17:19

So they released a new offering called Custom Model Import, which is on Bedrock and provides enterprises with the infrastructure in a box, hosted, fine-tuned, any internal private LLMs, which means, basically, you're buying a platform to use AI, when you could have just already bought a platform to use AI, but do you have more capability to build on it? Is that what they're trying to sell you on? That's basically what they're trying to get you on, when you could have just already bought a platform to use AI, but do you have more capability to build on it. Is that what they're trying to sell you on? That's basically what they're trying to get you to do, and then, of course, I'm sure the cost will be astronomical. So what we've done is we've gone from this new wonderful chat GBT open AI thing where everyone can sort of download Lama and build their own, everyone realizes they don't have enough horsepower to do it. So chat gbt open ai thing where everyone can sort of download llama and build their own, everyone realizing that they don't have enough horsepower to do it, so you gotta use somebody else.

Speaker 2 18:08

So these vendors saying, well, we'll just give you a platform to build it on, all those platforms are the same. So essentially, you're buying an lm, you're basically just buying chat gbt. You're better off just buying chat gbt license and calling it a day and then trying to go a whole other end route to get to the same result. They're building, they're trying to sell you a platform that you can build direct to either their engine right, I mean, I know what OpenAI is doing. It's the same to some extent, but not at the baseline level that Amazon is with integration and all their service catalogs that already exist, right? Or is it strictly a separate entity that they're releasing? That's not an entity that they can use? Well, here's the catch. According to AWS, the move aligns with increasing enterprise demand for tailored AI solutions. It also offers tools to expand model knowledge, fine-tune performance and mitigate bias.

Speaker 2 19:09

And additionally, the custom model import allows model integrations into Amazon Bedrock, where they join other models such as Lama 3 or Cloud 3, which gives AI users the advantage of managing their models essentially alongside established workflows already in place on Bedrock or Cloud 3, which gives AI users the advantage of managing their models essentially alongside established workflows already in place on Bedrock. So it's interesting, because so so many companies have built such a substantial application through the construction of AWS that if they make the hook easy enough, those existing customers will probably get value out of that right. So InfoWorld wrote a piece on this and I forget the.

Speaker 2 19:51

Author but I'll find it later and attribute it. Anyway, this guy said that what does this mean for everybody? Well, they're going to see a ton of these types of releases in the next year. As public cloud providers look to lock in more business on their AI services, they're going to release them in an accelerated manner. No evidence given for that statement, but that's what he wrote.

Speaker 2 20:12

Given that the AI land grab is going on now, once customers get hooked on AI services, it's going to be difficult to get off of them. True, he goes on to say this is also the basic strategy for selling cloud storage back in 2011. Once you're using native APIs, you're not likely to move to other clouds. Only when things become too expensive do businesses consider repatriation or moving to an MSP or a colo provider. Yeah, he's saying passive least resistance. Of course it is. You're going to take your untrained model that you had to get out the door as fast as possible, put it in Amazon and you've locked it for years. But this is part of their AI also to manage infrastructure. If you're managing, so, if you're not writing up an application, you can use their AI engines to help manage disaster recovery and other things. That was another part of AWS events, I believe, was set those parameters, but those are pretty straightforward automations I think that they're providing, which is cool. I mean, it's kind of a race to nowhere, right. Everyone that's racing is going to have some hangovers a year or two from now.

Speaker 2 21:29

If you notice, this is the thing I think a lot of people are going to notice. Look at Google. They release stuff all the time and they just continue to know what it is. The same thing will happen with a lot of this stuff. I think Microsoft announced they're building their own GPT engine so they can problem open AI. I mean, who would have thought it's amazing? It's how fast this stuff is moving. It's like, okay, we've got the buzz of GPT and now they're building some big internal model. There's small models, but also large language models they're doing so. Things can change every week. It's crazy. How do you keep up? How do you make business?

Speaker 1 22:12

They're going to run out of compute power at some point.

Speaker 2 22:16

Oh, that's not a big problem, right, it's not infinite, but that's, the race is on right, Like the smaller nanometer chips, the graphene chips that are coming out, all this stuff that's happening. Will that grow as fast as the QP? That's pretty amazing. Well, not only will it grow fast as the QP, but will it be accessible by average Tom Dick and Harry, or will it be so expensive only very large corporations can afford it?

Speaker 1 22:45

I think it will be used as long as you can, or if you corporations can afford it, we'll see.

Speaker 2 22:52

Oh, look a squirrel. So tonight we're. Last week we finished talking about budgeting in your second year and you've covered sort of the seven main areas you'll have to think about. That's by no means the end of the subject. There's a lot more we could have gone into, especially because we were talking about Like sort of how to prepare for flexibility, how to prepare for change. But this is a theme that much like employee experience, was a theme that showed up for much of the second half of the first part of the book. Now we're going to start to see this flexibility theme show up.

Strategic Flexibility and Communication in Planning

Speaker 2 23:56

If you haven't read the whole book, it's become obvious to you after tonight's episode. But this is something we'll continue to revisit. So tonight we're talking about strategy reassessment. So you had your first year, your strategy. Most people bought the fact that you put together a strategy kind of based on limited information and that you kind of knew what you were doing. But not necessarily. Now you really have to put together an honest-to-goodness IT strategy, and this could be a one-year, 18-month, three-year, some form of it, but it's going to be a longer-term strategy, and so not only will it be an evolution of what you did in year one, but it will. You know, you need to consider all the myriad possibilities and opportunities that have evolved since you walked in there. So before we get into that Mike is a pony, by the way, he showed up in my script Before we get into that, I want to just dive into one of the areas we'll discuss, and so I have a question for you.

Speaker 2 24:57

I'll let you finish the chewing Before I hit you with it. Good, so when I think about strategic plans, one of the key elements is the incorporation of flexibility. Yup, okay. So same way we talked about this with budget. In a way, we can separate flexibility from adaptability, because flexibility, I think, is well, let's put it this way Adaptability is your ability to change as the business changes. Flexibility is your ability to sort of pivot in more of a microversion and semantics right, they can both be translated the same thing. Flexibility is I need to push this out two weeks. I need to start this platform in the next quarter, so they're not mutually exclusive. So, when you sit down and put pen to paper, what are some of the ways in which you incorporate flexibility into your strategic plan?

Speaker 2 25:56

Now not your budget, like last week, your strategic plan minimize disruption when unforeseen circumstances arise. So, first off, from a budgetary perspective, having things spaced out the budget appropriately, buckets of the budget that you're going to use for your rich innovation projects. Before, often, that's a budget of me, but having space throughout the year is something I know will be a forecast. You're able to forecast how long it is and it gets you to know when you'll be able to move things and when you won't. It's just how you manage the time of work. So that's the first thing I would say. But I'd say after that maybe less for the budget, more about the platforms. How do you feel it would be less for the change in the time. Let's assume though I'm trying to interrupt, but let's assume that the budget isn't affected by a pivot yeah, but rather your strapland isn't affected. Oh sure, yeah. So how would you? Let's say the budget remains neutral, there's no changes to it, but all of a sudden, because you're going to buy that thing, but you were going to buy it here, now you're going to buy it there how do you plan for those sort of areas of flexibility?

Speaker 2 27:11

Well, I think it's communicating. So sometimes you can't plan as well for those things because they just happen and you've got to be able to communicate and build that partnership with businesses to tell them that things aren't going to happen where they are. But I think often when you've got a system that you're trying to put in place, where you've got projects that are happening, there's a big change in business conditions. The whole business is disrupted. So you've got to make sure you are socialized for discussing what their needs are and how they're going to change. And it's less of a strategic plan to be as part of communications and most tactical and collaborative. You don't have to have a major business change. There's a lot of abstract plans to go out the window in a negative situation.

Speaker 2 27:54

But in many kinds of situations. I think it's having a realistic goal from the beginning, giving yourself a first buffer over the course of the year to say look, we could probably do 12 projects but we're going to do 10. Because if something happens, if we're going, to want to have a little bit of flexibility to move around. It's easier said than done, I think. In my case I've always gone with 12 or 24, we should do 12.

Speaker 2 28:24

But the reality is that, if I was to do it again, we are only doing 8% of what these projects and we could probably really get 4% done just in case XY, y, z or a. So it's almost having stretch goals right, stretch goals strategy.

Speaker 2 28:44

Well, so you mentioned change management communications so to a degree, as part of your flexibility plan, you have to make sure that you're constantly communicating people that this, this thing, could get pushed by the way, and if it did, here's what would happen. Yeah, um, I think that's key as part of your flexibility. You can't really write that in. That's just more of a default behavior, but that's right. By putting that spacing in yet you may not even make the immediate goal, but you're preparing for change. That's something you imagine. Something of your journey is going to happen.

Speaker 2 29:15

It almost always't know who this does. It seems to be really conservative. Well, I think if you go into a strategic plan with the assumption the tacit assumption that it won't stay, you're better able right out of the gate to understand, okay, what are all the possible things that could happen and how would I address them and what would be the impacts. We'll talk about this in a moment, because we'll talk about wargaming and scenario planning, which is we did last week. But we've got to keep going with this one because it's a big one.

Speaker 2 29:48

But you can't write in 10,000 scenarios you have to think of like okay, if I have 10 or 12 projects, let's say four of them are mission critical. The other eight are important, or maybe four are critical. Four are important and four are nice to have. You have to have a flexibility plan such that you know which ones you can immediately stop. If you had to, which ones you'd have to maybe do a little bit of negotiating with and then which ones? You'd have to maybe do a little bit negotiating with and then which ones?

Speaker 2 30:20

can't like what's gonna, and even the ones that can't like. For instance, you're putting in the ERP. Right. Let's say you put in the ERP and it's going right according to plan, and then, two weeks out from going live, you find a big problem and you gotta do aggression testing or go back in time, figure out what went wrong, and so it pushes out the end timeline by two weeks. Yep, well, would you write it in two weeks, your project planning, uh-huh I. I back to high level again. I would just say if you've got four projects that must be done, those are the ones you should do. If there are four projects that's too much for your team for the year, you should make sure you are planning with the executive team. This is what we have the resources to do and give yourself some extra time and room.

Speaker 2 31:12

Are you saying put extra time in your strategic plan.

Speaker 2 31:14

I would say put time in your strategic plan that's unaccountable for. It's not quite why it's just as a buffer. It's a expect for change to happen regardless. It could be some minor change, it could be a major change. Can I get a year with Dr Nandu? Dr Nandu, yeah, yes, I'm good for that. I just think it's sort of having a buffer in place goes a long way to.

Speaker 2 31:39

When you go and set expectations for the next year, you know you're probably going to execute those four core goals, even if the business changes. Yeah, no, last thank you I'm going to call it. There's a number of things that you can actually achieve. It probably falls to our minds. We were here on a strategic plan. Thank you so much. We can do more than this, but there's always something that comes up, especially companies of our size, where it's.

Speaker 2 32:10

I don't want to say set the bar too low, because this stuff is not easy, but have a strategic plan that really is conservative with your time, based on your resources. I'm a strategic planner Really is conservative with your time, based on your resources, and make sure the things you're doing are must-do things that are going to create value, that you can get done and not like this big risk. That's how I hope it all works. I think that there is a calculus that goes on with this, which is you've now had well, maybe not a full year, but you've had time to meet with all your key stakeholders, assess their goals, align with their vision, start thinking about how that affects your plan. But even more sort of on a softer level, you come to know these people. You've come to understand like this person's probably a risk, this person, by virtue of the way that they operate and do things, they're likely to not have planned, as well as, say, a different person. So I think you want to take all the environmental factors that you're aware of, every single data point, and you factor that in your plan too. Which is to say, if I have a very risky person in this role and they have a track record of poor projects or strategy or poor vision, I'm going to definitely put in more time with that person than I normally would. Even though they say four weeks, I'm going to do eight, because that person's a big risk and just having not just the people being risked but knowing that that is again strictly a small business model, planning is just totally key. But I would say conservative planning is even better because you just don't know.

Speaker 2 33:47

Well, it's easy, because things change when you're in a small company, especially in life sciences. Well, strategy plans kind of come in a couple different layers, right? So you have we need to have this clinical trial up and running in 24 months. Okay, well, you can work back to some of that. That's just an easy plan to sort of write down. Or we want to deploy this ERP and have it go live before ERN close. So you have hard and fast things to work back with.

Speaker 2 34:13

These are like project level things that define your strategy, though. But then you might have IT strategy that says, well, we want to move, uh, to this security platform by this date. On that level you can probably be more flexible than you could for, like, a hard, fast erp, go live. If I have a it project and I'm like, well, it'd be the ideal date, go live this year. The um, okay, it's not so bad date is here. Here's a date where, okay, like we can still do it, but we should have gotten our shit together. And then there's like this other date which is, okay, we really screwed that up. And then we can afford to do that because we're, of course writing the strategic plan. But we reserve the right to sort of pull those levers. But with the business you kind of have to build that out first.

Speaker 2 35:02

And then again, it's a matter of assessing everybody, and if your company has corporate goals already, that should be like the yardstick in which you're at.

Speaker 2 35:12

Yes, your non-IT projects should all align with that yardstick. Yeah, absolutely so. As a further question and flexibility is important there's a let's assume there's a flexibility line. So I want to give you a scenario that I think about, which is, on one end, you have no strategy, you just kind of wing it all the time, sure which happens. And then the other end, you're so rigid, everything is down to the hour which happens. On the other end, you're so rigid, everything is down to the hour for 12 months. Somewhere in the middle of that is a flexibility line where if you went a little bit too far, then it would obviously reflect poorly on you as a leader, but it would also give a lot of people too many things to happen at once, whereas on the other side of that line, you can potentially get too restrictive?

Flexibility in Strategic Planning

Speaker 2 36:01

Sure, absolutely so. When you think about the flexibility line A, do you think that there even is a line? And B, do you think that there's? Even with that sort of where you need to be flexible, that thing itself moves if there isn't back the line. I feel like I'm more flexible at certain times of my strategic plans execution than I am at others, and it's nothing to do with the projects themselves. They could all be going swimmingly. But I'm less likely to be flexible in certain conditions, Like, for instance, if I have a very long-term goal and there's a sequence of phases and the rest of my plan is affected by that, I'm more likely to be on the we're going to do this to the hour If I have a long-term plan, but it's very, very loosely defined.

Speaker 2 36:53

Then that flexibility line goes way. The other direction, which is I still have a plan. There's still things that need to be done, but I'm going to reserve the right to be more flexible. Do you feel like that's unique? Do you feel like you do the same thing? Do you feel like that's more? Yeah, I think there are definitely things that you're Especially around compliance timelines. So it's like that has to be done. It has to be done in this state. It needs to be done by this time. The organization needs to be educated on it by this date. You've got to stick to that.

Speaker 2 37:28

And I think there are other things that are aligned with corporate goals, that are enablers for the company, that need to align with the program plan. That's why it's really important to make sure you have an idea of what the business strategy is and corporate goals. Make sure you have an idea of what the business strategy is and corporate goals, but also in the first year and even two years, it's managing through change and what you're going to put in place when and where, and realizing that you're a small company and everything's going to be an emergency, because a lot of times in a small company. Big corporate moments are game breakers. You know what I mean. It's bad. So you've got to be flexible. You've got to be willing to say that may not happen this month and your organization may be happy that you're not forcing it because it's as important as I'm not making this deal enrolling this group of patients or whatever it might be. So that's where, when I think of flexibility, it's like I've got to pull back a little bit. We don't have to drill everything right away. No one is grading us on if we meet a timeline. They're grading us. If we do it right, it's effective. It helps them get the business. They're not going to go. You didn't get this done in November, so you can't, Unless it's a compliance thing.

Speaker 2 38:47

I think that's the only time that a small company is like look, yeah, you know they're a monk, let's just make sure we do it right, because this is going to be our platform, that we work on. This is making sure we have a cybersecurity posture. So I think it's important to have a strategic plan. It's your point making the flexibility. But there are things that you're less you know a little more less planned. You're more willing to be flexible. It's because you can Right. Then there are other things. It's like look, this is the deadline, we are going to supply, we're going to publish, or we're going to launch the drug on the stage, or we've got an audit coming up and all these things need to be done. Hey, you've got to get that shit done. You don't know what happens. Well, that's a strategic plan that's got a risk applied to it too. Yeah, exactly, it's risk management.

Speaker 2 39:34

Having that as like we don't, and that's when. That's when it becomes. I know, every time we do like steering committees and stuff. You know my tasks, but everything's a must do. It's like well, we don't do this. Are we going out of business? No, you know. Is this FDA going to shut us down? No, you know it's. Are we going to be less productive? Maybe, Okay, that's, that's a two. Yeah, it's great. We want to be better, we want to be faster and automate. That's where the sexy stuff is, absolutely. But that's the next level and I think when we're in a smaller property, that's like the situation we keep.

Speaker 2 40:13

We're not publicly traded yeah we're in early days, we have the flexibility to kind of push things a little bit more, but we get up against some deadlines. I think there'll be. We focus on compliance and all that stuff. So largely the strategic plan right now we have is just a smart sheet of tasks over the course of the next year and then going out is a basic roadmap, which are just blocks. It's a very good, not graphics, but it's a basic block on the timeline, based on what we know about the rest of the organization, how we're going to execute. But it's not as no more specific than that. And they're nice because they're blocks and you can move blocks around the Lego piece. I'm going to go around the Lego piece. Oh my God, forward back. All right, I was going to wear that. You can wear that into the bathroom. Yeah, right around the corner it's going into the restaurant. Oh, yeah, I'll keep talking, absolutely so, yeah, I think the strategic planning element is really important.

Speaker 2 41:17

You've got to have that in place. But plans are meant to be changed. I think small companies and business plans change too. As much as it seems like, oh, what would our plan? Business strategy changes a lot, with the exception of the long-range planning. It should stay in place for a lot of companies. But you've got to be willing to change and be flexible. That's important.

Speaker 2 41:52

So I do agree with Nate To some extent. We need to have the structure, we need to have the plan communicated well, we need to have the flexibility and adaptability built in, but so does your business partners, your business, your functions, your rooms. Now they need to be adaptive too. So, willing to work with you, willing to adapt, willing to change. And I say you know digging. We're looking for a microphone. That's going to be nice. Digging, where Kate and I are right now is that we really do have a hard slate and we have a lot of good people coming to the organization that experience different things. Yeah, so we've got to manage that. It's good when you have a place to distract. Well, this is good because we're talking about revisiting your strat plan. Tonight. We're going to come back to this topic of flexibility from the standpoint of wargaming, which we'll get to after the chapter Wargaming. Wargaming, which we'll get to after the chapter.

Speaker 3 43:00

Wargaming. You said wargaming, wargaming.

Speaker 2 43:01

Yes, I'm obsessing about it right now, so it's my obsession of the moment. I'm actually going to, I think, put out a blog post tomorrow or Friday or maybe even next week about it. Can we talk about wargaming? For a second, or are you going to cover that in a minute?

Speaker 3 43:13

We'll cover that in a minute. I I'm going to do the chapter.

Speaker 2 43:15

read it's not a really long chapter tonight. Should we listen to this? Sloppy Deli is already trying to sell ads.

Speaker 3 43:23

Should we?

Speaker 2 43:23

listen to College first. It's a great song. I never wish I would. I at the moment it's young, dumb and broke. Oh man bro, oh yeah, okay, so to the dulcet tones of college in the background.

Nate Reads Section 2: IT Strategic Planning

Speaker 2 43:50

I'm going to go ahead and do the chapter read. That's not chapter read, that's the wrong phrase. We're in the middle of a very, very long chapter. This is a section of the chapter called Strategic Planning. Here we go. You want to give me the audible? This is audible. I'm always remarkable. It's always remarkable how I haven't been sued yet. Okay, here we go. Strategic planning you know what? That's the word. We should substitute strategic. Instead of saying strategic, we should have a different word, like milk, Milk planning, milk planning. I wrote milk planning.

Speaker 2 44:33

We have already covered the construction of your first year one plan and the first three-year plan under which it falls, back in chapter 14. Oh, chapter 14, remember those days. As we move on into years two and three, this overall model does not change. Simply stated, every year you will construct a new one-year plan. Each time you do, it will reflect its specific period in the three-year plan under which it falls. For instance, your first three-year plan, years one through three. You have year one, you have year two and you have year three and your second three-year plan. You'll have year one, year two, year three and so on and so forth. Now I'm going to go off script for a second and just say that it's not always that cut and dry, because you'll have a rolling plan, you will have your three-year plan, you'll have a one-year plan, but it's going to kind of be rolling. Things are going to change and you're going to roll through that. So the three-year plan if you reflect on chapter 14, is to give you the biggest framework possible to execute your individual one-year plan. All right, back on script.

Speaker 2 45:48

So I want to answer two of the biggest questions that arise from this model, and answering these questions should enrich your planning for years 2, 3, and beyond. Number one what happens if a one-year plan needs to change so much that it no longer reflects the three-year plan under which it falls? That's question number one. Question number two how do I decide whether to write a static three-year plan or a rolling three-year plan, three years? Let's take a crack at the first question. What happens if the one-year plan you created needs to change so much that it no longer reflects what you had established in the three-year plan under which it falls. So only after we have fully assessed why such a deviation occurred in the first place can we begin to answer the question.

Speaker 2 46:29

In the case of a year one plan having to deviate from the three-year plan, it was either because it deviated out of something entirely out of your control for instance a pandemic scandal, bad data acquisition or it deviated because your three-year plan was poorly written. That's too inflexible to consider all the possibilities you should have considered. It's maybe a little bit of gray between those two, but those are really the two primary reasons why a one-year plan would have deviated so much from a three-year plan. You'll have little deviations. Think about big deviations. In the first case, if the one-year plan had to deviate due to circumstances outside of your control, it is necessary to spend the time to properly update the one-year plan to be accurate and then revisit the three-year plan to determine what consequences stem from the deviation. With any luck, the consequences will be minor, but an extensive domino effect will occur in most cases. For example, suppose you had a platform that would be deployed during the year with validation activities attached to it. Due to the deviation, the installation of the platform now has to wait until the following year. In that case, you must return to the business to determine the next possible deployment time that meets their schedule. Furthermore, this will be impacted by competing priorities, resources and, most certainly, the timeline expectations for the new deviation. To conclude, when multiple projects must be delayed, the situation can compound over subsequent years.

Speaker 2 47:57

You may have to throw away your three-year plan entirely and simply focus on the immediate one-year plan prior to redrafting a new three-year plan after the deviations. That's a mouthful, I know, but hang in there. As I mentioned earlier, this happened to me twice in two years and each time I had to throw out the entire three-year plan and start anew, and we'll come back to why those happened to me at the end of the chapter. In the second case, if the one-year plan had to deviate due to poor planning, you have a more manageable though more humbling action to take. You need to amend the balance of the three-year plan to reflect the changes that resulted from the deviation and republish or redistribute for your normal channels.

Speaker 2 48:38

I cannot suggest strongly enough that you do not put yourself on a petition where you might have to amend more than once due to carelessness. Consider this amendment your only mulligan. Take the time to understand how you made your error so that future mistakes can be avoided. So in either scenario, the ultimate result was the same the three-year plan needed to be amended. Small deviations will occur every year. This person may leave the company, so you must delay the XYZ project by six weeks or the vendor may take a week longer than expected to provide a deliverable.

Speaker 3 49:09

They happen.

Speaker 2 49:11

These are rarely worthy of a three-year plan overhaul. Small deviations should be expected in your planning, hence flexibility. You should consider your response if anything in your one or three-year plan shifted a few days in one direction or another. If you see significant impacts arise from these theoretical challenges, then amend your plan accordingly. So before deciding whether to write a static three-year plan versus a rolling plan, let's first define two keywords in context static and rolling. Your company may use different terminology, but the concept will be the same for each. That is to say, static will be a single start date followed by fixed milestones with a singular and fixed end date. Rolling a single start date followed by a series of milestones with an end date that continues to move forward in nearly constant increments quarters, years, etc. So, for example, if I am writing a three-year static plan, it will start on January 1 of year 1 and end on December 31 of year 3. Between those two dates, a set of predetermined and carefully planned milestones will occur and I will not write a new three-year plan until the conclusion of the first one. On the other hand, if I am writing a three-year rolling plan that will start on January 1 of year one by the end of every year or whatever frequency you choose. I will just continue to add a year to the end, so it is always three years long. It never stops. I will amend as I go along to reflect changes in the business, but never stops. I will amend as I go along to reflect changes in the business, but it never ends as a plan. But I'm always looking three months, three years ahead, rather Deciding which type of plan to choose. You should first know that you may not have much choice. One key to writing a solid IT strategic plan is aligning it with the company's strategic plan and then budget. The budget is a rolling budget. The strategy is a rolling strategy. The answer has been decided for you. Don't even think about writing a static three-year plan. In that scenario. If you have the option to choose whether you can use a static or rolling plan, the best course of action you can take is one that considers the scope and resource demands of initiatives across the entire business. Be especially mindful of those actions, scopes and resource demands and how many potential exceptions could generate if there is a deviation. When evaluating what to do if a one-year plan deviates significantly enough that you must amend your three-year plan, remember that some deviations are beyond your control. Challenge yourself to see how much flexibility your plan allows if a significant shift occurs as you construct this objective and time frame. The logical conclusion, of course, is that if it appears likely that multiple significant, if a significant shift occurs as you construct this objective and timeframes, the logical conclusion, of course, is that if it appears likely that multiple significant changes could occur, then a rolling plan is better for you. If all information points to a relatively rote period of time, it might be better off using a static plan. In either case, make every effort to adhere to the longest-term plan possible to minimize disruption to your IT team and customers. One final note Whether you use a rolling or static model for your three-year plan, your primary objective is to not deviate from what you have planned.

Section Read Concludes: Banter Continues

Speaker 2 52:14

Do not use the plan's rolling aspect as an excuse to rewrite the entire three-year plan every time there's a change. It's not a get-out-of-jail card. There's no point in even having a long-term plan. If that will be your approach, just wing it. Make it your business to know what is happening in the business and then coordinate your IT plan accordingly. That's the end of the chapter. Read Now I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter that this occurred to me twice. Both are the same company. When I was at AMAG, I'd written a three-year plan in 2014, only to find out three months after I wrote it, that we were acquiring a company rapidly. Now leadership called it a partnership, which is bullshit. It was an acquisition, but they refused to use that word. That's what it was. So we had to throw the whole plan out because everything the whole department's focus changed. Okay, no problem. And it took about six months to acquire that company and fully integrate it.

Speaker 2 53:15

So as that integration started to come to a conclusion this was nearing the fourth quarter of that year I started to write a new three-year plan. So I kind of threw everything out. We had a new company that we had just acquired, Wrote a new three-year plan, Got the whole department's approval. There you go. January comes, we start executing a new three-year plan in 2015. And we're a couple months into it now. It's going perfectly by my opinion. And guess what? We acquired another company. How many three-year plans of our peers, our CIO peers, do you think?

Speaker 1 53:55

that all the work that goes into the creation has actually been done.

Speaker 2 54:00

I mean seriously. I mean three years is a long time for an industry where there's acquisition, m&a, failed drug launches, issues with clinical trials. We build these big three-year plans setting false expectations.

Speaker 3 54:18

Well, you want to know how far I have to go.

Speaker 2 54:19

You want to know how far I have to go back to have concluded a three-year plan. I have to go all the way back to the one I wrote in 2011 and finished in 2014. Sorry, the end of 2013. That was the last time I was able to write and fully execute a three-year plan. Since that time, every company I've worked at I've not been able to do a three-year plan. Since that time, every company I've worked at I've not been able to do a three-year plan. It has not lasted long enough.

Speaker 1 54:44

You're talking about small, small media, but you have to do it. It doesn't give me a reason, not to do it.

Speaker 2 54:50

No, no, I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, I'm just saying that I guess where I have a little bit of disagreement is if you need to change it More and more not in the world. It's not like Body slinging your plan, but I feel like that's. It's more about being upfront, honest and a white and Highlighting a business condition or business change. Yeah, it's totally cool. I Mean, I remember my first set of plans, my starting characters, as hard as they can you make some big milestones.

Speaker 2 55:39

You help enable the business. Really, you're being hired to kind of a lot of times to get the foundation. Yeah, that's why the first year plan is foundational building. And they're looking to you and the IT leadership to make the decisions and if one of those decisions is to change the plan they trust you.

Speaker 2 56:00

They will respect that and understand that. You have a good reason. You're not like I don't feel like doing it, so we're just going to cancel everything that's different than here's a business reason, there's a resource reason, there's a cybersecurity reason, there's any other things that could disrupt your projects. I like to think that almost at this point now a year and a half, because you have enough of a budget to get into that next year forecast In the rolling year, you're out another year and a half, I think in the second half of the year you're going to basically be able to cut the first half of that next year, Kind of cookie-cut it, as long as you have a forecasting mind.

Speaker 2 56:38

So you're doing a rolling 18-month. Is that what you're talking about? Rolling 18-month? And you're talking on how much time at the end of each cycle a half-year or a full year Six months, so, yeah, Rolling 18. Well, that's how it's done and, yes, I've been asked for three-year plans. I've done whatnot in the past. We have the past absolutely in our positions, but it's a very difficult problem.

Speaker 1 57:01

Well, we made this Unless the rest of the business is a career plan. We made this argument back in Chapter 14.

Speaker 2 57:06

We made the argument that you don't necessarily need to write a three-year. You can write a shorter plan.

Speaker 1 57:12

There's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 2 57:14

No, there's nothing wrong with it at all. It's just the rest of the org has to be. In order to execute the rest of the org, you need them too as much as they need you. But remember the upside is to having a longer-term plan, or that you can communicate what's going to happen to the business, to anybody who asks Sure, and they might be like I can't even think that far out. You're like, okay, no problem, well, I can and I am, can and I am, and here's what's going to happen. But yeah, let's focus on the today, right now. Yeah, the next year and a half is a blink of an eye, it really is. But I think going out three years, it's very difficult. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it by any means. We definitely should have a three-year plan.

Speaker 1 57:53

But it is curious how many of them, because of the things we just talked about, get derailed into having to have a really good sub-project.

Speaker 2 58:02

They have to be very reactive, which they don't want to be, and just when you think your company is going to settle on a single strategy, you can have executives who are completely off their mind and decide to just become this new kind of company overnight, in which case you have to adapt. If you know the plan and your company is to commercialize, then you're in for your plan. That's an open-ended context with a good organization, isn't really there. You have a very critical development, early development, and I think you'd be a little more casual with what your three-year plan is. You can do very traditional things that you've not done in your three-year plan when it comes to business applications, data management, data architecture all those things that will require an organization goal to be successful.

Speaker 2 59:02

That's where I think you really need to make that into the three-year horizon. It's really the business, your point. To have things documented and something your team can operate on so they know where you're going and what you're doing is paramount. That's it. I think there's more for your team. Well, I mean that's do is paramount, absolutely. I think there's more for your team. Well, I mean, that's the other part too. Like, if you're operating solo or a team of two, then how important is a three-year plan to your partner? Probably not as important, because you're talking all the time about what you're doing.

Speaker 3 59:36

Like there's no. What are we doing tomorrow?

Speaker 2 59:38

You know what's happening. You know again, the chapter was written with the concept of if you're a new IT leader in the chapter was written with the concept of if you're a new IT leader or getting back into the game. The point is that don't just take your first year strategy and continue to not plan. You need to write a new, robust strategy at the end of that. Now we talked about flexibility before we got into the chapter read. Now I want to go to the next level of flexibility, which is sort of it's a little bit some might consider it absurd, but I used to love doing this at AMAG. We would do it all the time which is wargaming. So scenario planning for all the most likely scenarios that could happen. Now, even when we did that, we still didn't consider an acquisition. We considered that we happen. Now, even when we did that, we still didn't consider an acquisition. We considered that we would get acquired but not that we would acquire. So that actually lesson learned Like okay. So now from now on, whenever I scenario plan, I'm going to assume even if it seems like it's so remote, like there's no fucking way someone would acquire us I'm still going to scenario plan for acquiring and the stack that I've built technologically makes it so easy to assimilate as a company that any person who's acquiring this just has to literally click a button. Unfortunately, if you're GSK, you can't click buttons. You have to go through 18 months of process to acquire the simplest technological stack on the planet, but that's're here nor there. So I think it's a scenario plan, right? That's kind of not just affect your org but your community, but the entire organization. So that's an incident response rating, right. Yeah, that will impact your strategic plan in the next three years.

Speaker 2 1:01:52

If that happens, how much time does it take for your organization to learn? How much time does it take for your organization to learn? How much time does it take for your organization to learn? How much time does it take for your organization to learn? How much time does it take for your organization to learn? How much time does it take for your organization to learn? How much time does it take for your organization to learn? How much time does it take for your organization to learn? How much time does it take affects your organization. Basically, I went back to our documents from 2013-2014 that Steve Simmons and I had written and worked on about this. We had come up with a whole bunch of thoughts about how we would potentially write scenario planning and true wargaming. I'll read some of these to you. Jump in when something resonates to you. So first is identifying disruptions right, that's obvious one.

Speaker 3 1:02:45

So when you're gonna do scenario planning, what do you got to do?

Speaker 2 1:02:47

we got our list and even if they're like like a fireball comes from the sky, hits the company I'm going to go to that level, but you really want to consider everything, especially disrupt your company.

Strategic Planning and Communication for Disruption

Speaker 2 1:02:58

So what's a scenario that could impact your strategy? You could be sued, you could have a security incident, so on and so forth. You have to consider every single one of these, right? I'm talking about ones that impact your strategy, not like a protest out in the parking lot from the local union, and we have protests all the time from the Yule Hill Union, and we had protests all the time from the welders, you know non-disruptive take facilities this should be a whole chapter in the book where it's just one page says oh you new IT, your IT, don't fucking take facilities yeah, oh hey, do you mind?

Speaker 1 1:03:36

uh, you know, we got this thing over here. We need to see, don't fucking take facilities.

Speaker 2 1:03:40

Yeah, yeah, oh, hey, do you mind? We got this thing over here. We need to see someone to do the desks. Can you just do the desks?

Speaker 1 1:03:46

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 1:03:50

So the people and I know plenty of them Julie Como is one of my favorites but the silly people that take shit day in and day out because my desk isn't high enough, or now it's too high. My seat isn't comfortable enough. I just pooped in my chair. So that's number one. And you have to consider factors like technological advancements. So that's something that we now have to factor in, which is okay. My strategy considers the fact that technology will continue to move at a certain rate of time and then, all of a sudden, gen AI comes out and everyone's just like even though it didn't impact anyone's strategy, everyone just pretended that it has. Market shifts Could have another complete global economic downturn, where your company shuts down or has to go to a skeleton crew, and global events like pandemics, which nobody saw coming, or economic downturns. Did you ever see the MSA that Amazon has for the zombie apocalypse? Zombie apocalypse yes, you should. Amazon has for the zombie apocalypse yes, you should definitely play it for the zombie apocalypse it's still there.

Speaker 2 1:05:04

Just go, look at the Amazon website. Listen, there are government things going on that we don't know about. I prepare for it. Why do you have Steam on your desktop? Me, that's my game.

Speaker 1 1:05:16

This is my personal laptop.

Speaker 2 1:05:18

What Steam game is that? That's a game we stick's my gift. This is my personal laptop. Which team game is that? That's a game we stick with? Watch? You ever play that At home? It's unbelievable. We just learned something new about Mike. Yeah, great, thank you. Okay. So then step two. After you've defined all of these disruptors, okay, what's the next thing to do? Well, you want to go ahead and assess the impact on the IT strategy, so you come up with like a one to five score. That's what we did. Okay, one means no impact, five means it destroys your strategy, and then consider, like the impact, whether or not there's the likelihood okay, and the areas that would be most affected. So, would a zombie apocalypse rank a five? Sure. What's the likelihood, though? Well, probability Three.

Speaker 3 1:06:10

Three and a half.

Speaker 2 1:06:12

So we would want to then plan for a zombie apocalypse, in which case I'm not really worried about my IT strategy anymore. My IT strategy is to GTFO.

Speaker 3 1:06:21

GTFO.

Speaker 2 1:06:22

GT, f, f and O. Oh, so you want to do assess the impact. And again, there's no rubric for this out there. You can Google and find 10,000 rubrics for assessing this stuff. Nist has a risk assessment scorecard. Just make one up. One, bad, five, good, whatever, then for okay. So now you've gone ahead and defined, identified your disruptors, you've given them all a score. Okay, then you want to develop a response plan for everything that falls into like that top category. So if you have, say, 30 things that could happen and you've identified five of those as being both likely and high impact.

Speaker 2 1:07:04

Then there's your scenario plans boom, simple math. Now you can go ahead and go into like the threes and the fours if you wanted to, but again we're focusing on the big guys. Um, okay. So now that you've done that, what's the next thing to do? Well, look around at all the people you have in your department and who am I most likely to fire. No, I'm just kidding. Who is going to handle these things? And here's what you do not want to do. Do not say okay, we have five things that are going to go wrong and that would impact us, so I'm going to have Mike take care of all five of them. I'm in.

Speaker 2 1:07:41

No, you're not in, I'm just going to do everything and get you done? Nope. Because you're the first person who would try to shoot the zombie while it was walking towards you. Instead of turning around and running, shoot it now. No, you're running out of bullets, so don't assign the same what. I'm sorry, no, no go ahead, they're not infinite.

Speaker 2 1:08:08

The gun, holding a whole zombie bullet, hit him in the head. That has to come off. Everyone knows this. Okay, the point is don't assign all of your remediation plans to a single person or the same people. Spread the wealth and, if you have somebody on your team, if you're out of bodies, go find somebody on your team that's ready to learn and go to the next level and say you're now part of the remediation plan for the zombie apocalypse, get you out of fire, shock. Good, so now it's getting good. So now we've identified disruptors, we've figured out which ones are key, we've assigned people to resolve those, and now we have to communicate this. So what you should do and what we did at AMAG was we created a book and it's a simple well, it was a Google doc. Google's awesome. We created a book which was our work gaming scenario planning book, and you only do is go like this oh, it's a zombie apocalypse, go to the zombie section.

Speaker 2 1:09:17

Okay, this is the point of the show where Nate's going to shit all over Phil Collins. I can't believe he did this. What with Phil Bailey? It's a studio. You're going to love it. I'm not saying anything. So you don't like collaborations that Phil has done. I thought you liked Phil's other stuff, no Name something else I liked. I thought you liked, uh, you liked the Tarzan soundtrack. That was your favorite, right, you mean Baltimore. You'll Be In my Heart. That's a nice love song. I know you like the ballad. I like Sergio Mendez, benny Mar Donuts, but Against All Eyes, against All.

Speaker 3 1:10:25

Eyes. Is that a collaboration?

Speaker 2 1:10:26

No, that was a soundtrack. I know it was a soundtrack. I was in the 80s. Was it a collaboration though? No, no, that was just a separate live collaboration. Yeah, so, Land of Confusion, Jim, Good one. And then he's got the one where ding ding, ding, like about the people, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding the people. Oh, oh, oh oh. Another Day in Paradise, Another Day in Paradise.

Speaker 2 1:10:54

The one about the people. Yeah, that's it, the homeless people. Of course I was trying to be appropriate. Oh, it's okay to say that that's what he was trying to help them out. Do you think he'd give us money regularly to homeless people? No, he did at his shows. He used to have people donate at his shows. That year, that tour that was before I got to go to studio. I was the only like me and a couple friends were like 19-year-olds.

Speaker 2 1:11:22

I gotta admit as much as this when this song comes on or the studio comes on in my car, my reflex is my finger immediately goes to the thing, but sometimes I just pause. You just can't do it. I pause because I want to hear the badness. Wow, unbelievable.

Speaker 3 1:11:40

I want to hear the badness.

Speaker 2 1:11:42

I know I don't listen to. Like there's certain bands that are banned. In my car, tom Petty's banned, the Cars are banned, eddie Money is banned. Like those come on instant. Sometimes you have a hard time with those, is what you're saying. I just want every song that comes on by Phil Collins to be in the air. Maybe this is one. Well, I just want every song that comes on by Phil Collins to be in the air. So maybe this is one of those preambles that they do for an artist and they're going to actually play the good song and then In the air tonight, you can deal with it, and then, a minute later, you're like well, I'm already a third of the way through it, so I might as well fucking just finish it.

Speaker 3 1:12:17

So that's how it is All right, so that's okay.

Speaker 2 1:12:24

So this is well. This is the unfun part of the whole process, which is communicating, so you tell everybody hey listen, I got this book and we've thought about all the plans. This is what we're going to do. And everyone's like, oh my God, you're so amazing. And then nobody says that. But you've got to tell everybody that you have a plan and you can just leave it at that. But in that plan, you're going to specifically write okay, zombie apocalypse communication plan.

Speaker 2 1:12:51

Zombies approach building. Call Mike, okay. And then step two, call Nate. Step three run home.

Speaker 2 1:13:06

It's telling you precisely who to communicate to and how, so that people aren't like, oh hey, this thing just happened. We've got a book here, but I don't know who I'm supposed to tell. Now, chances are good it's not going to be that spontaneous. Still, you want to just make it. Go, spend the extra five minutes and write down who gets communicated about what when something happens. Now here comes the fun part. So that was the boring part.

Speaker 2 1:13:29

The fun part is testing. To test scenario planning. You can actually do a lot of testing with scenario planning. You can literally nearly test the whole thing Other than shooting a zombie in the head. You can pretend zombies. Test the whole thing Other than shooting a zombie in the head. You can pretend zombies approach the building but pretend Nerf bullets or, in all seriousness, you could have almost any scenario. Okay. So, kate, go in the data center and just pull this plug out, and then we're going to go ahead and see what happens. What company is it that routinely does this, like every week or day? Is that Google? Or somebody does this. They pull one cable.

Speaker 3 1:14:10

They pull one cable.

Speaker 2 1:14:11

Yeah, Someone does this. That's pretty badass. I like that. We do that anyway, just because I don't like things being on, so we just unplug things and then wait until someone cries. But from a testing perspective, yes, you want to regularly test and you don't want to just test once. Oh, that test worked. You want to test. It's like back in the old days with disaster recovery. You want to test it a couple times. Things will change. Then you just continue with some improvement. Every time that you test, you're like could we have made that five minutes faster? Could we have removed a step? Could we have?

Speaker 2 1:14:45

you know you're just going to go ahead and do that and rewrite the book. Then we're almost done. Take that and you integrate it with the business continuity planning, If the business even has continuity planning. If the business is not, then guess what. If the business doesn't, then guess what. If the business doesn't, then guess what? You're the new continuity plan.

Speaker 3 1:15:06

It's not all bad, it's not all bad.

Speaker 2 1:15:10

You get the limo and the private jet and stuff. If they do have a strat plan, a business continuity plan, then you just integrate yours in there, like, okay, when it gets to the IT part here's our book, here's what we would do Then part here's our book, here's what we would do. Then, in addition to the communication part, you want to make sure you have leadership down. So it's pretty easy, hierarchically speaking, like your whole IT department intact. And this event has happened. We're up to now. We're saying dire events. Let's just say it's acquisition. Well, as part of the acquisition, half the department's gonna be let go. So you need to plan for okay, if this person leaves, who's person leaves, who's next in charge and who's next in charge and then who's next in charge.

Speaker 2 1:15:47

So you want to have a leadership and decision-making tree done for these scenarios. And then lastly and I want to lie, I lied before this is tied for my favorite part. So the testing and simulation is my favorite. But also the last step of this is after the destruction has happened, doing your post-mortem and then comparing it with what you wrote and then learning.

Speaker 2 1:16:15

So we did the first acquisition at amag of a company, um, and of a company in some Midwest town. It was important too. I forget I'm drawing a blank St Louis, st Louis, this is Lumar and so we didn't have a scenario plan for this. But after it was over, we immediately sat down and we wrote all the things that went right and went wrong, and we used that for our scenario planning for our acquisition. After we did the second acquisition of CBR, we literally went right through that book and we learned again. Now we did better. We didn't do great on the second one. We did much better, though had we had another one or another two, I think we would have killed it.

Speaker 2 1:17:04

But I still have those books. So now I have that work to go by. So I don't think I actually use the word post-mortem anymore. It's like post-activity review or whatever the hell. It's been canceled. So now, whatever the new post-mortem is, I'm going to call it post-mortem. You would do that. So that's it. That's wargaming scenario, planning for your strategy in a nice, easy to follow sort of 10-step model. I'll put this in a blog post because it doesn't exist in the book, although I don't know why I didn't put it in the book. I'll put it in a blog post so you all can see it, but ultimately, that's where we're going. So that was me talking about a bunch of shit Wargaming, now, learning review, reading rainbow.

Speaker 2 1:17:57

So no longer calling it post-mortem, now we're calling it reading rainbow. We're actually going to use Reading Rainbow as our code word for postmortem. That's a good one. I love this song, the theme song. Take a look, it's in a book, it's a Reading Rainbow. Yeah, well, books are going away in 10 years. So, oh, there are. Yeah, you're right, that's right. You better save them. The AI will burn them all.

Crisis Sites and Response Planning

Speaker 2 1:18:23

So, wargaming we just went over scenario. Well, we don't even call it Wargaming. We're going to cancel that word too. It's called Scenario Planning. So Scenario Planning. Mike, what do you think about that list, and how much of this, let me ask you. Let's start with a basic question Yep, will you set up Scenario planning at any point in time? Let's suppose a Carderian runs the mile and gets all its things that it wants to do, which would be great, yeah, yeah, yeah, would you do it? And at what point would you start doing scenario planning? I would start probably depending on where we are, probably a year from now, next year from now, next year, yep, and what scenarios? You don't have to say specifically, but what kinds of scenarios would you most likely plan for besides the zombie apocalypse?

Speaker 2 1:19:13

Well, as I mentioned before, cyber attack is over now we are reviewing crisis sites and response planning, scenario planning of any M&A activity that was never to happen. Any change in financials that would be one of the things. Any change in personnel, so certainly personnel leaving the organization Scenario plan for that.

Speaker 3 1:19:42

Does that affect the?

Speaker 2 1:19:42

it strategy. It does, yeah, a lot, of, a lot of small, small companies. So if one of our partners or potential implementation resources this appears that that's right, yeah, okay. But also I think to some extent it's like how big, as big as it is, it's what's the impact if we don't do certain things? That's an assessment score. Yeah, so we don't do certain things at a certain time, but I think that scenario is traditional M&A. What compliance guidelines we have against what if we lose key personnel? Those would be the key things I'd say, probably about a year from now. Right now, it's still very much in build mode and moving things forward and you're going to be more reactive, so hopefully you're inspired, like right now. The first thing, when you check what number one is, what happens when you check with number one right is what happens if something happens to you as a sole person, a sole leader, and how will that affect you? The hit-by-a-bust scenario, that's serial plan number one, when today is started right is you are being entrusted with credentials and key information.

Speaker 1 1:21:00

Yeah, you have to implement these systems with people.

Speaker 2 1:21:03

One you're who has the keys and if something happens to you unexpectedly and you're not reachable, that can have a very big impact on the federal community. You can't help but see how well you secured this. You're welcome. So I think resource scenario is starting day one, but in terms of true documenting, what ifs, it's probably a year away from us. I agree with that. Well, I think that what the takeaway should be is that first of all. Well, a couple takeaways.

Speaker 2 1:21:48

It can be fun, okay, writing your IT strategies isn't always the most fun thing to do, but after you've written it, it's fun to say hey, what happens if I just slide this whole project to the right? How much does that screw everything else up? And then you ask that question. And then you're like what happens if we got acquired? What happens if we had to acquire? I mean, the question never comes up. Until it comes up, which is we're like oh, we're a small company, we would never buy somebody.

Speaker 2 1:22:19

Not true, definitely not fucking true. Tomorrow your CEO could walk in and say hey, guess what? We scored a huge deal. We're buying so-and-so. They have 40 people, they're distributed throughout the US, I need you to integrate them. And you're like LFG, what the fuck do I do now? How can I do that? The thing is, with a lot of those scenarios, some sort of supplemental understanding of the reason the budget is going to come to you. I don't think a lot of organizations are going to be like okay, what's your plan? There's a supplement of budget for this they're like no.

Speaker 2 1:22:57

Well, yes, you're talking about budgeting, though In a budgeting scenario, it's likely finance will go. Hey, tell us what you need. We have a thing that might happen. We can't tell you about it, but can you tell us? Can you do four budgets for us right now by?

Speaker 3 1:23:11

the end of the day.

Speaker 2 1:23:12

Except by the end of the day, yeah, which is why you have a big plan, right, because you're going to have to create it in a day anyway. Yeah, that's happening before. Like, hey, by the way, just out of curiosity, it's totally just throwing darts at a wall, but can you write four plans for your budget where, all of a sudden, you get $3 million? I'm like, yeah, I can do that and also write one where you have no money. I can write that one too. Yeah, what are you going to do? How do you handle the? Well, that's probably a good. You can table it for another episode. But when you're in that empty scenario, you meet that other head of IT for the first time. Oh, let's talk about that now.

Speaker 3 1:24:00

That's a good one.

Speaker 2 1:24:03

We don't have to wait for that. You're right, that's good, that's right. Oh, let's talk about that now. That's a good one.

Speaker 2 1:24:12

we don't have to wait for that, because I've done it a few times. How about you? Have you done it? Oh yeah, oh yeah, yep, it's uh, it's not, it's an awkward meeting. So I've done it three times and, um, well, I'll tell you what happened. I've done it three and a half times. The very first time I did it, we didn't actually acquire them. We, at the last minute it was scrapped.

Speaker 2 1:24:30

So I had met this guy, super nice guy, but he had been there for 10 years. He was going to lose his job and he was stressing about it and I'm like I, I'm sorry, man, we'll give you a nice parachute, do the best we can, but we don't need you anymore. And we had gotten right to the end, where he knew he was losing his job. He pretty much severed all his ties and then they pulled the deal at the last minute. Then they kept him and they actually made him a CIO about a year later, which was the right move for retention, poor bastard.

Speaker 2 1:25:04

The other two times the first one I walked in and the guy knew. The other three times. The guy knew right away. He was like just tell me what you need. He was done. He checked out. Second time it was a competition. It was me versus him. I won out. I wouldn't say it was a competition, it was me versus him and I won out. I wouldn't say it was a victory per se, it was more like a pure victory. And the third time it was just friendly agreement, like, oh yeah, yeah, here you go, here's all the stuff, peace out. The exact person made a shit ton of money.

Speaker 3 1:25:40

They were very happy. They were very happy.

Speaker 2 1:25:43

They were like oh my god, I lost my job. That's terrible. By the way, here's this massive Oracle database that doesn't work. I never got around to it. It's all yours Bye, thank you. So it was, I know. I know I've always said, if I was getting acquired and I was going to lose my job, I would be like've always said, if I was getting acquired and I was going to lose my job, I would be like, just like I try to do with GSK. I was talking to them. I couldn't even get to talk to the CIO, way too busy. Couldn't get to talk to anybody down the entire chain, to like the bottom of the chain, and I was like let us know what we can do. We were very set with Box and Slack. What are we gonna do? Just give me the passwords? Oh, no, no, no, we have a plan. We have a hyper care plan to incorporate you.

Speaker 2 1:26:29

I'm like, no, seriously, just just take the passwords and then you're good. No, no, no, we're gonna fucking six months. I tried to give everything I had to them and they wouldn't take it and they still haven't finished integrating. That was August of 2022. Holy moly, both of mine were very straightforward and cordial, so luckily it was not a big contest or anything like that. Though, when, when early days there with uh, with uh, we met at um, that it was definitely uh who has the bigger you know what. Oh, I forgot about that one, yeah. So there was another one where I ran into my counterpart and he was a dick. Yep, he was a straight-up, absolute British dick. Not that I have lots of British friends, but this guy was the opposite of cool and he played us. Well, we weren't going to check it, I agree. Yep, he was Bonafide, d-i-c-k. And we say what did we say at the end of every episode, mike?

Speaker 2 1:27:41

Don't be a dick, don't be a dick. And he was class acting. I think it was by design to get us to leave. Yeah, they basically this guy could have every opportunity to be class acting and he chose not to, despite everything we were willing to do to help him out. I forgot about that one. You had suppressed that one. That was really bad experience, but that wasn't in our control. And we had a strat. That was really bad experience, but I stuck around, but that wasn't in our control and we had a strat plan that was really really well thought out at the time. And now it was sprung upon us at the last minute but the company that had bought us was basically saving us and anyway, we don't need to go into that. But that one nobody had planned for. I knew this would be easy. I love her that afternoon as well. At the Miracle of Science. Probably at the Miracle of Science All bad and good things happen. At the Miracle of Science, wonderful place. Maybe that's where it should be next.

Speaker 2 1:28:40

We could podcast in there? Yeah, we could set up. Why didn't we go to the Miracle? That would have been very OG. Our old friends from the company seem to have made us. Maybe One of them doesn't use social media, one of them is never around. One of them probably would make it Sure, but I think we would only get one. But that's okay. We could sit at that triangular it Sure, yeah, but I think we would only get one. That's okay. We could sit at that triangular table Triangle table when, if you're not careful, you're going to get a graphite point in your butt, your bellies, yeah, rock and roll.

Strategic Planning Process and Collaboration

Speaker 2 1:29:18

So I did have some additional questions, but we don't have to get into those. Well, I mean I was, let's see. Times are closed. My phone is like 36%, oh yeah. Okay, I was going to ask you about strat. Plans are generally proportional to growth of the company in terms of the scope of the plan. That's not necessarily always true. You can have a very small company and a very broad plan, but sure. But generally, as the company grows, you're going to have a larger strategic plan. It's going to cover more stuff. Um, so when you do strategic plans, how do you involve your department in the creation of them? And do you involve the business? It's not at all, not at all. The business right? No one, no one, nobody, just me, just you, just you. I don't involve in the business in the creation of the strat plan, because I'm already hearing them.

Speaker 2 1:30:31

It's really collaborative. I think the internal team makes their best effort to build out, based on their knowledge of the business conditions and the business model You're talking about the business strategic plan.

Speaker 2 1:30:41

This is your IT business. Oh, yes, yes, yes, oh. I think within IT, you definitely have to build it with everybody, but in terms of your overarching plan to support the organization, if it starts in IT, you should have people in other businesses in your group. If you don't, that should be a good framework. And then you've got to go through your interviews. You need to know what your corporate goals are. You need to know what your corporate goals are. You need to know what your operations plan is. Well, not only do you need to know, but your department should know. So it's your responsibility to make sure your whole department knows, they know what's going on.

Speaker 2 1:31:10

But I've seen so in my 10 years as an IT leader, I've seen and worked with a couple different models. I worked with a CIO, my boss, who had everybody write their own strategic plans as a unit and then submit them up, and he consolidated them. That's one, one way to do it, um. Another way to do it is which is the way I did it, uh was the it leader writes the skeleton with all the key points and then works with everybody to fill in the gaps. I've seen it where you have maybe two or three of your direct leads go ahead and assemble their whole areas, but then the four of you or five of your direct leads Go ahead and assemble their whole areas, but then the four of you or five of you would sit in a room and then go through all of them and then write it together. So there's different approaches. Or you could just be like sit in a dark closet and write it yourself and then not tell anybody until you're done. Just do that at the review. It's like this is the plan.

Speaker 1 1:32:06

Don't really appreciate that Not at all Exactly.

Speaker 2 1:32:09

They should totally be involved in the plan. Or what you can do is you can do like the super special pull it out of your pocket trick, which is you're just going along and you're installing this and doing that and then one day some person looks at you and says, okay, what the fuck?

Speaker 3 1:32:26

Do you have?

Speaker 2 1:32:26

a plan or what, and you're just like, yeah, I do right here, thank you very much, do you want to read it? And they're like, oh, I thought you were just winging it. And you're like, nope, here's the plan. That's kind of probably not going to get you a whole lot of points but it is really cool to do it on somebody Because they think you're like an asshat.

Speaker 2 1:32:43

And then you're like no, I've got a plan right here. And then you pull out a giant three-ring binder and hand it to them, written in 6.5. So here you want to read this no bullets, no periods, no commas. Yeah, that was really the only question. I mean the rest of the questions I don't think I think we covered everything.

Speaker 3 1:33:07

I don't know if you have any other points on.

Speaker 2 1:33:10

No, I was going to say Strategery. It's awesome to have a. That's a big question. I'm really enjoying this. Nacho, I think this is what's her name. What was I going to say? Who does Fireball? Yeah, fireball Firework. Or Katy Perry? Yeah, it's Katy Perry. I don't know, it sounds like the same beat. It's basically the same song as Firework, just different lyrics. Oh, that sounds the same. This might be the Weird Al version, the guest singer. All right, go ahead.

Speaker 2 1:33:46

What I'm going to say is it's a one-page plan. You can put things on one slide. You can do like a one-page plan. Oh, the one-pager. I think that's huge, because it forces you to really be succinct in what your points are, but also to draw a picture. You can continue to slide that. So your CFO, your COO, your psychologist, you know, just give your class one slide. It's a reference slide, it's a speak-to-it slide, yep, and it should have a thousand words on it. It should be able to draw very key points in mind business goals, what you're doing for the year.

Speaker 1 1:34:21

One page, one page. It's hard to do, it's not easy, but if you can do that, you can create that one pager don't listen.

Speaker 2 1:34:28

First of all, you can use 11 by 17 tabloid for your page. Size, number two you can, you can you can write into 5.5, I think you just put a big giant poop emoji in the middle here and give it to people. Here's my strategy right here. Yeah, done. No, it's called plan on a page, one pager plan on a page it's called plan on a page, not one pager it's

Speaker 2 1:34:52

called a one pager nope one pager is a software package that goes for bolting on a powerpoint. It's called the one plan on a Page, the POAP, the POAP. There you go, there's your next piece, the POAP, the Plan on a Page. That is you basically telling the whole world, in three bullets or less, your story. You are special, you are special, you're a special person. You're a special person You're special.

Speaker 1 1:35:22

You're special. You know what your special person. You're special. Your plan on a page is special.

Speaker 2 1:35:26

It is. No one will ever forget the co-op. The co-op. I'm going with you on this. I'll go with you. The co-op, right there on my laptop. I wonder if Siri will be able to do a POAB after June 18th. I wonder if we'll be able to say that. Will we do a special podcast live on June 18th?

Speaker 3 1:35:54

I won't be. I'll be in.

Speaker 2 1:35:54

Sicily. Actually, I won't be able to do it. Oh, you know what we can do a podcast, live broadcasting, live from Sicily. I was going to say you and I should fly over to Cupertino and try to get on campus without a ticket to see what happens.

Speaker 2 1:36:11

That'd be great. We're Apple OGs. Yeah, we could be in there. I'd wear my WWDC t-shirt from 2004. We'd get right in. I'll wear my. You have a 1998 WWDC t-shirt, yes, but I also have my University of Virginia Beowulf cluster shirt. They did 1,100 G5s and they set the performance record for a day. I forget who beat them. I just remember we were sitting in line 2005 WWDC in line for four hours and some guy had a bag full of nips and he just passed them out inside the Moscone Center. We were all getting wasted For four hours. Some guy had a bag full of nips and he just passed them out inside the Moscone Center. We were all getting wasted For some reason.

Speaker 2 1:36:49

I know I've been to the Moscone Center about 20 times. I can't recall any of them. Oh, I had some of those. Those were the funnest promises for me that I went to. Yeah, because everyone was just as big as me and, in spirit of Phil Collins, they removed all the homeless people from outside the Moscone Center. Oh, really, yeah, they moved them three blocks down and they put a cord in there, because Phil Collins wants everyone to be away from the homeless people, as he so clearly says in the song. He says you know, put money in the buckets on your way out. You've heard him say that. Right, yeah, which goes right back to his you know he killed somebody. And the whole song in the air tonight is about and some people leave.

Speaker 2 1:37:37

Yeah, the guy was in the audience and pointed at him right when he was singing the song.

Speaker 3 1:37:41

Everyone knows that.

Speaker 2 1:37:43

You're singing the Iron Knight. That's what it was written about, yeah, and so all the time he's been collecting money because he has to pay for the settlement for the homicide. It's way less sexier than that. I think he just made the words up as he went along, and that's what that movie Really do. You're protecting him. You're not protecting him. You can be honest. He killed somebody in a canoe accident. You think Bill Collins killed someone?

Speaker 1 1:38:09

He fell out of a boat in a canoe accident.

Speaker 2 1:38:12

It might have been inadvertent, but he certainly tried to cover it up. So in the end, that is about Bill Collins killing someone in a canoe accident. Yes, yes, I mean. Read the lyrics, man. Read the lyrics, you know. That's obviously what it must be about.

Speaker 2 1:38:34

You're sure there's a couple of songs by him that you can take the lyrics literally. They're not good. So I'm a little nervous for film. So listen, he says I can feel it coming in the air tonight and I've been waiting for this moment for all my life. So he's premeditated murder. Okay, he's been getting ready, he's been getting this guy ready. So he says well, if you told me you were drowning, I would not lend a hand. Talk about an indictment. Right there.

Speaker 2 1:39:01

It's basically written like when OJ wrote the book, If I had Killed Her, this is Phil Collins writing. He says I've seen your face before, my friend, but I don't know if you know who I am. He's obviously like they had a bet or something in a bar or they were playing a game and his friend turned on him. That song was written right after he divorced his wife. That's what I think. So you wipe off that grin. I know where you've been. It's all been a pack of lies. Okay, Listen, police, if you're listening, it's right here in the lyrics.

Speaker 2 1:39:41

So if you don't get any good words, it was Kandu in 1979. I remember, I remember, don't worry. How could I ever forget? No, you don't fool me. The hurt doesn't show, but the pain still grows. They were struggling in Kandu and he probably tore his shoulder, throwing him out of the boat. I have capsulitis in my shoulders. The pain is so gross. I'm just saying Maybe it's true, Maybe it's not. It's true, it's true, Maybe it's not true. It's true, Poor Phil. We're going to lose him, Phil, we're going to, but it's true, Poor Phil.

Speaker 2 1:40:26

You know, what Phil Collins belongs in that pantheon of rock stars who killed somebody like Phil Spector and I can't think of any others right now.

Speaker 2 1:40:37

Wait wait, wait. Phil Spector and Phil Collins both killed somebody. Do you see first name's Phil. Holy shit, hold on hold on. Let me other artist name, phil, who have killed somebody. He wonders why he gets these weird ass in his, in his. Bill Spector, phil Collins. You wonder if I get these weird ads in this Google. Bill Spector, bill Collins. Let's see Phil McCracken. Okay, okay. Well, there's no other fills listed, but it's the internet. So I mean, how much can you trust it? To be quite honest, is that what you read about the canoe murder? It's on the internet or did you put that together yourself, dude? Do I need to search it and share it with the audience? Nope, we can share screenshots of this. We can share it in real time. There's a week show with the nachos. We can do that. Okay, here we go. Here you go.

Speaker 1 1:42:01

I'm not rolling.

Speaker 2 1:42:08

Phil wrote the song about a man who watched another man drown and sang it to him at a concert. What's your source? Smoothradiocom? Oh, that must be true. That's where I get my news. Smoothrad Radiocom. I need a domain name for my radio news. Sharp Radio, sandy Radio I've got to say my favorite station in the area is Watercolors. You got to listen to this. It's like smooth jazz and it is like you're in a department store in the 1990s.

Speaker 2 1:42:52

Kate, if you're listening if you're still listening, kate, tell Mike to run Yacht Rock in the office and just play it. Yacht Rock, yacht Rock, I love Yacht Rock. 311. So we do, too, rock in the office and just play Yacht Rock, yacht Rock, I love Yacht Rock. 311. I love Yacht Rock, so we do too. I don't actually know if Kate loves it or not, but she listens to it all the time because I made her listen to it. 311, like the band? 311? Yeah, no, 311 is the channel on Hexen Radio. Oh, got it.

Speaker 3 1:43:21

We listen to Waterfallers and Like being in Marshalls and it's all like saxophone and light-based lines Beautiful.

Speaker 2 1:43:32

So let's see who has OpenAI bought? They bought Financial Times. This week, they bought Financial Times. Well, all the data, oh, the data.

Live Streaming Security and AI Discussion

Speaker 2 1:43:41

They bought Le Monde, el Pais, german language newspapers, build and De Welt, as well as Politico and Business Insider, and they've also gained non-exclusive rights for two years to train their models on AP Archive, associated Press. Yes, smooth radio. Smooth radio, quiet Storm. Smooth radio, smooth radio, quiet storm. I think we should do a shout out to our live watchers right now. Our live viewers how many do we have? We have two live viewers right now. It's great to see you guys in touch with us.

Speaker 3 1:44:37

Do not listen to them.

Speaker 2 1:44:40

Let's listen to the chat, let's see who they are. That's a long, that's a lot of writing. Well, that's an ad. That's a bot. The greatest thing is hey, sorry for bothering you, I want to offer a promotion on your channel Followers, views, chatbots, etc. Prices lower than the competitor, but quality is guaranteed to be the best Wow. So we've already been bot hacked. That's great. Tech bots, etc. The price is lower than the competitor, but quality is guaranteed to be the best Wow, so we've already been bought. Hacked it's great. Yeah, I love it. And, of course, we have a security problem with our podcast.

Speaker 2 1:45:14

It's open to the public. Kate wrote yes, you're live, so we did go live Very.

Speaker 1 1:45:22

But yeah, we got two people just hanging out, are we getting?

Speaker 2 1:45:27

another drink, or what are we doing? I'm tempted to get a beer. We have Pacifico, that's all good things. I'm out of topics.

Speaker 3 1:45:43

I mean we're effectively done we nailed out like a split hog what do you think about the Microsoft GPT thing?

Speaker 2 1:45:51

do you think they're going to try and split from open AI or do you think they're just doing more little things? They're adding more shit to their already loaded platform. I think is what they're doing. I went into. I think it's what they're doing. I went into. I think it was mid-March or so.

Speaker 2 1:46:09

I went into my 365 console and we have very, very strict licensing. So everyone who gets a business license for 365, they only get eight apps turned on. Everything else is disabled by default. That's the profile. I went in there in mid-March or so and nine new apps have been turned on, all the co-pilot things and everything. Do I turn them all off again? I don't know how it is that they're authorized to turn shit on when they deploy the new Teams client. It overwrites the audio driver, it goes hand-on-hand. It breaks Slack, it breaks Zoom, it breaks everything. And then the other thing I think is interesting is all the Windows Defender stuff and how that's changed.

Speaker 1 1:46:57

There's all this obvious stuff. There's a whole bunch of stuff that's disappeared, and that's your console. Everybody wants to know what that is. It sure does sound good, how's your.

Speaker 2 1:47:04

Are you deploying Island in pilot? Yeah, we will. I'm announcing it tomorrow. Our pilot starts next week. Oh yeah, we'll be all in Once we have it. You know, we have the ability to push it out. We'll just kind of push it out.

Speaker 2 1:47:31

I think a lot of people just ask, well, what should I use? What should I use? What should I use? And you use this and I'm like, oh great, that's what I have to use. Yeah, that's what you have to use. That's what you have to use. They'll be happy that they know exactly what they won't be able to use anything else except the agent page Redirect them straight into Hylian for certain applications like Aukia and Hylian. So that is going to be huge. But I am sitting in a role that we have to let them understand that first. So it makes sense to get through your implementation and we'll probably write it down. Probably August, september, we'll do it. We really need to get people into the browser. There's an element of simplicity that people don't realize. One click instead of six, that's still a thing. It's just a mindset. It might never matter more than anything else, but um, we'll get there that mindset changes, at least in the 7th grade.

Speaker 2 1:48:42

It's more so. Microsoft will help us every step of the way as they help us. Word and Excel, by this time next year, are a close parity on the web. I think it's going to be very, very, very surprising if they're not at the same parity as desktop apps. If they aren't, they're going to lose Eventually. They'll lose people Because of the current solutions like Canva. It's catching up. They have better experiences and they'll catch up. That may not be a year away, but I think it's realistic that it's a lot easier for us to just provide Octa apps than install stuff in people's computers. So we'll see what happens. But Office is here to stay right. Office, yes, make yourself awful. Too bad, it really is.

Speaker 1 1:49:48

We're working on it though.

Speaker 2 1:49:52

Other than that, I don't have much. It's good to try and do this live. It looks like it works. We're operating on 5G here. It looks like it works. We're operating on 5G here. I was at a dinner last night with an Ericsson subsidiary whose name now escapes me, as most names do. We were talking about 5G private slices, dedicated 5G, dedicated 5G, dedicated 5G. So because my building has line of sight to the tallest point in Waltham, next year when my secondary span circuit comes up for renewal, I'm going to switch to 5G. Yeah, for my backup circuit. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:50:44

Sight. Okay yeah, psyched.

Speaker 2 1:50:47

Okay, well, I think we're good. Remember everybody don't be a dick. Give us all the stars on the platform of your choice. It really helps a lot. Buy our merchandise. Buy us beer, buy a sphere Bar class, buy more, and we will see you next week when we get into governance.

Speaker 3 1:51:13

Next week is governance I can't wait.

Speaker 2 1:51:16

We're coming back to governance. It's a big section, so we're going to spend a couple times on it. Hope you have some guests. We're going to probably a couple times on it. I hope you have some guests.

Speaker 2 1:51:26

We're going to probably be somewhere cool next week. Burr, someone who has Wi-Fi, that has Wi-Fi. It's so funny. You're living in Davis Square. You think that doesn't feel automatic. Nope, anyway, it's okay, no problem. Good night everyone. Good night everybody. Peace. Yeah, nope, anyway, it's okay, no problem. All right, good night everyone. All right, everybody. Jeez, baby, let's do it.

Speaker 3 1:51:53

Give us five stars because we are awesome. Adopt and oppose some. We need frozen Twinkies and Johnny Walker Gold Drinkies. The calculus of IT.