Your Employees Already Work From Anywhere, Your Infrastructure Doesn’t with Jess Jorgensen

If flexible work feels like the future but your infrastructure still feels stuck in the past, this episode is going to challenge how you think about connectivity, security, and control.

In this conversation, Tonya sits down with Jess Jorgensen, founder and CEO of Go Roam Tech and Blush Technology Group, to unpack what’s really happening as work becomes untethered from place. From RVs and remote canyons to enterprise environments, Jess shares what breaks when people move faster than infrastructure and why most organizations are still operating on systems that were never designed for this reality.

They dive into the hidden risks of distributed work, the growing gap between IT responsibility and control, and what it actually takes to support a workforce that can log in from anywhere. Jess brings a rare, real world perspective from living and working fully remote, showing how the same foundational principles apply whether you’re running an enterprise network or working from the road.

This episode is a practical and eye opening look at what it means to build infrastructure that moves with your business and why the future of IT starts at the edge.

In this episode, they explore:

• Why flexible work is already happening with or without company approval
• Where infrastructure actually breaks in remote and hybrid environments
• The hidden risks of patchwork systems built during COVID
• Why one internet connection is effectively zero in a remote world
• How security gaps are expanding as employees work from uncontrolled environments
• What IT leaders are underestimating when it comes to AI and remote access
• Why shadow IT and unauthorized tools are accelerating risk
• The real reason remote work is now a talent acquisition and retention strategy
• How poor user experience drives employees to create risky workarounds
• What it takes to create secure, always on connectivity anywhere
• Why IT must shift from control to enablement in a decentralized world
• How to rethink your tech stack for the next 12 to 18 months

Important Links:

https://app.technologymatch.com/solutions/working-from-roam

https://app.technologymatch.com/solutions/advisory-services-1

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Between Fires and Futures, a podcast about the real work of tech leadership, managing today's chaos while building tomorrow's business. I'm Tanya Tyrell, a three-time founder with two successful exits, and the founder and CEO of TechnologyMatch.com. Each week, in this podcast, I talk with the leaders doing the real work, solving for now, building for what's next, and leading through pressure, not perfection. This is the podcast for tech leaders fighting fires today and daring to build the future anyway. Welcome back to Between Fires and Futures. I'm your host, Tanya Terrell, and today we're talking about a gap that most organizations are feeling but not really solving. We say we support flexible work, right? But we say people can work from anywhere. But the reality is most infrastructure was never designed for that. And IT leaders are really the ones sitting in the middle of it all. You're responsible for uptime, security, compliance, performance, but now you're supporting people working from homes, hotels, co-working spaces, different countries, unstable networks, environments you don't control. And when something breaks, it's not just inconvenient, it impacts productivity, revenue, and the experience your employees have every single day. The truth is, behavior change faster than infrastructure. And a lot of companies are still operating on patched together systems from the initial shift during COVID. So today's guest has a really unique perspective on this. She spent years helping companies navigate complex connectivity and infrastructure decisions, working directly with IT leaders to figure out what actually works. And then she took that knowledge and applied it to one of the most extreme environments possible. No office, no controlled network, constant movement. Jessica Jorgensen is the founder and CEO of Go Rome Tech and Blush Technology Group, where she's helping redefine what reliable, secure connectivity looks like in a world where work is no longer tied to a place. Jess, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yes, I'm so excited to dive into this. So before we really jump in, I would like to start with you. Can you give us a little bit of background on your journey and what led you to the work that you're doing today?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

You bet. I'd be I'm a telecom brat, like self-proclaimed. I literally grew up in the industry. I think there's probably a handful of us around whose uh parents were a VAR. I mean, I can remember weekends when I was a kid, because that also lends to some workaholicness, yes. So, you know, as a child being at job sites for a weekend and roller skating in the data center while folks were working on turning up big phone systems that were the size of refrigerators. It was a whole different world. But I really understood, I think from an early age how emotionally tied to people, you know, to their phones people were, right? So in that day, it was if my phone's not ringing, I'm not making any money. So I started in the tech industry as long as soon as the like adolescence twinge fell out of my voice, I think I was 13, answering phones, talking to people that were very upset that their phones weren't ringing, or because they needed a way to capture more client revenue or more analytics or whatever the case may be. It would definitely was a thrown into the fire from a technology perspective, which was so advantageous for me because that just made all that stuff normal. So like it was just those were everyday problems to me, right? And then as I continued as a part of that business, I ran back end accounting, that kind of stuff. I saw the VAR business from a back-end perspective while I was raising young children and the first of the teleworker phones, like the first of the remote phones, like we tried and tested everything. I've always been kind of like a mobile lab, learned early on about page all keys and what's appropriate and not appropriate in a dispersed environment and how to really keep people connected while they were geographically not in the same proximity at all. So it was just a pretty normal thing for me. And I was always grateful because technology continued to be an emotional thing and people really needed it. So that's the reason I've stayed in technology for so long. But I definitely grew up in it without much of a not much of a choice. My dad used to say, I wish I'd taught you something different, but technology's been great for us and what a wild ride over the last 25 years or so.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Oh yeah. And if you've grown up in it, you've seen the full evolution, which is really cool. I mean, skateboarding and data centers.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

That's right. That's amazing. And cameras in there then. So great surface.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, you can't get away with it today. No, definitely not. So, what led you to this work that you're doing today?

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yeah, specifically after so uh worked as a major in the channel for many years with some big name brands and COVID, right? So that just changed the landscape for so many things. And for us, it really was about uh shifting from into entrepreneurship for one, right? We had so much going on in that piece. I knew that my best way to help folks was to become independent, right? In that moment, we needed speed. And it also changed the modern work scenario, right? My husband, who had a hundred percent been an office-tied operational sort of staff, now had the freedom to work anywhere as he had been running his teams and things. So it really changed that landscape. Even though we're tech nerds, it still changed it drastically for us. We had done lots of weekend warrior things, but when we figured that our own problem was the safe, secure internet, right? Like we wanted to travel. Our kids were all grown. We'd spent all the time doing all the corporate things and all the travel and all of the corporate travel, right? The obligated stuff. And we wanted to get out and see the world for ourselves. So during COVID, we took our essential papers and we quarantined in the woods in our camp trailer. We always work hard to play hard, folks. And so we transitioned into full-time RVing. So this is actually this week is four years. We've been traveling full-time across the US in our RV with our tech stack that allows us to be always on every canyon, every place that we stop, that we always have our own internet. And it's wild to me how still very, very foreign that is for a lot of folks who do the same, or for folks who want to go out and travel full-time, but they just don't, they just don't know. The internet, having great Wi-Fi that will continue their job security is still like the number one question I get from all the people that are traveling right now or wanting to travel. They don't have access to the knowledge that that we do, I think, as enterprise tech folks, understanding that there are all these tools out there that individuals and consumers and small business owners just don't even know exist. So we solved the problem of internet and then we hit the road and we've been running like crazy, just having a good time, working from wherever we can and moving on from that. So it's in our blood, right? It's one of those things we just can't get away from. And we're like, we know this works well. So we're the best roaming test lab for a few entities, actually, depending on what the solution is, just because of our lifestyle, right? I don't want to worry about that anymore. There's no reason to in this day and age.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Right. Amazing. I love. I and I love that we're doing this podcast from like you're at your RV. I am amazing. So like get into the reality of what is happening now, right? Like companies say they support flexible work, but your view is that people are already working from anywhere, whether companies are ready or not. And so what is the reality that you're seeing?

SPEAKER_01 7:37

The reality that I'm seeing are people are doing it without corporate approval or knowledge, right? They are doing it. Like you said, they're gonna work from wherever they are. So they're doing it in a way that's not secure and is perhaps not the best way for them to ensure that the company's protected, right? So we're seeing a lot of that and it and really a lot of just why, right? So there's a complete um group of digital nomads globally, a lot of them within the US, who have uh an incredible talent pool and they will no longer accept an offer where they have to go to an office. Like it's just off the table for a great group of incredible talent. So we're seeing it focused on the talent, on the skill set. And also, I mean, I think we've got to look at the new age of our staff coming in, right? So I've got two, two of our seven children are in the IT industry. Imagine that. And like their perspective about what a job looks like is just so different than I had, certainly, when I entered the full job force. And they're they have zero interest in being in an office and they're great, greatly skilled, right? But they've seen the change of COVID and how it um reflected what modern work is today. And they're just not gonna do it. Like if you it's just not gonna happen. So I think a lot of folks uh from a corporate perspective that are not looking at the external nomad folks or the ones that don't want to come into the office, they're really missing out on a large talent pool by just putting some controls in place that allow them to still have the same visibility as those folks that ran the office. The rest of the world is like, we proved we don't have to be there. So why are you making us come back? That's kind of the sentiment that I'm hearing across nomads. And there's some really great folks that want to work weird hours. They want to be overnight. Or so I think the shift continues to results-based scenarios, right? In the IT world for certain, like there's very little reason that an IT person needs to be in the office unless they're plugging in some new gear or testing something like that. So I think it's gonna be an interesting um new hire season as people are coming on and saying, no, we don't work like that. It's we've we have to adjust to get the talent that we need. And we need the young, fast, urgent talent that moves at the speed of light. But to your point, that means they're working from anywhere. And they might be exactly uploading your information into a maybe not so secure AI or much of that happening right now because they want speed. And our IT leaders traditionally have been set to protect the house. And now they have to provide some sort of IT experience they may be very forward to.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, we we started this business completely remote because we were traveling full-time. I mean, we were world schooling our kids. This is pre-COVID, world schooling our kids, traveling full-time. And then because COVID shut the world down, I think by the time offices had opened back up, my team was really hungry to kind of be back together in an office. We opened an office, and let me tell you, that did not last long. The first year, we were all excited to be together again, and then all of a sudden, nobody was showing up to the office. So we let that office go. And I mean, these corporate spaces are like zombie buildings. There's nobody in them. There's, I think it's something like 60 to 70 percent of knowledge workers are in hybrid or remote work models. We let that office go three years ago now, and we are completely remote and everybody's happier for it. And I love being able to travel anywhere and work.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

And to your point, it's not for everyone, and it may be kind of cyclical, right? Like if it's not something you can do immediately, please even consider the scenario of maybe they can take summer trips, right? Like I know some great talent that if they could just travel for the summer and take their job on the road in that time, maybe it doesn't have to be full time, but considering that as a benefit as a part of your employment stack is just not something you can ignore today, I don't think. Um, and and it's easier than ever, I think, to get a handle on those geographically dispersed staff. It's not as hard as it used to be, certainly, from an IT perspective.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

So yeah, and and it really opens up the talent pool because you're not bound to where your physical location is, you the whole world opens up. So yeah, I mean, we're definitely seeing it. So when that reality, like we're talking 60 to 70 percent of knowledge workers in this remote or hybrid model, when that reality meets infrastructure that really wasn't built for it, where does it break?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Oh my goodness. It breaks in so many ways. For one, uh, if you've ever done much traveling, I know you have, Tanya, but in the audience, this life is not great on uh gear. For one, let's start with the actual hardware gear, right? Like it's not meant to be shaken and stirred and bounced and that sort of thing. I've been through three monitors, actually. I'm on just not, I'm very careful with them, right? It's just the case. Like the TVs break, the like all of the electronics in the way that we live, um, just aren't really meant for that. So for one, you've got a gear problem, right? So you've got to ensure that folks have flexibility. And then you've got power to deal with and you've got internet to deal with. So what we're seeing where things break are just having zero continuity, right? So many travelers, and this is why I say embrace it as a part of your hiring practice. So so many remote workers are just on one hotspot or they're on just a satellite and they don't have any real routing rules or any kind of traffic negotiation, if you will. And they're just willy-nilly in it on whichever provider they think they can get. So they play this kind of like mobile hotspot roulette when they get out there, right? So we're seeing that's obviously not an always on five-nine solution from an internet perspective, right? So we know that you need to, like one internet connection is zero internet connections, right? So we knew we know we need to have some sort of backup so that doesn't die. And then the second most common thing we see is a power problem, right? So not everyone is equipped to live this life in a way that is fully sustainable, right? Like we built for boondocking for off-grid, like canyon living, right? But that requires generator solar and the ability to plug in when we need to. So you really have to build the foundation of an RV network the same as you would any other network, right? We need to allow for the structure to be there. And we also see a lot of folks just not understanding the technology as well. So, I mean, part of the difference is as consumers and a lot of your administrative staff may not have the advantage of talking to IT and helping them get something configured. So they don't exactly know that they could have all those things running in tandem. So we see security being a big issue, we see internet an issue, and we see obviously power as a big issue. And we teach folks how to get around that. But I am just always amazed at the density of Starlinks. That's starting to become a bit of a concern as well. So in an RV park where there's 150 campers and 70% of them have a Starlink, like that's not great service. And those people are really struggling in that area. And and just the logistics of a satellite can be really challenging for folks. So our goal is to make it really easy and scalable and to offer that was an MSP service because they don't know how to fix it. They have no clue even to where to start. Um, and we want to make sure that uh not only are the entrepreneurs and small business owners and big IT folks and healthcare workers and all of the people that are out traveling that we meet all over the country on the road are not like putting themselves in a position for failure. You've got to, you've got to address it the same way. Foundational technology works in the same way on the road as it does in any other sticks and bricks sort of environment. You gotta start that way, but you gotta start with rugged gear that's meant for a hostile environment, if you will, and ensure that you're putting the things in place that make that work. So, I mean, the GoRoam style is pretty simplistic. And as we look at more of the kind of the advisory ship side and what I'm seeing out in the world, super excited about OneWeb, super excited about Amazon Leo as that gets the amount of options that we're gonna have in the coming future to have that service beyond where the cell phone tires can reach us now is incredible. I'm very excited about that.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Tell us a little bit about that. I'm not familiar, so I'm really curious and excited to learn.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

So, start, I mean, Starlink's had very little competition, right, up until this point. And love it, hate it, whatever it is, how you feel about the thing. It is the best technology we have right now for satellite delivery, right? So we can run on multi-sim, multi-carrier SIMs, right? So that's many carriers, one SIM. That's a great solution for that particular many platforms and many contracts problem. And now we've got this other satellite, right? So Starlink's got very little competition, but that low orbit is just the best for upload speeds. Like, there's I can't say anything other than that. But they do need some competition, right? It's pricey. I mean a lot of folks, they're like, man, we can't pay that.$165 a month for the roaming only plus the cost of a multi-carrier LTE. That scenario is expensive. So uh OneWeb is one that's been out and commercially available. We use it more for enterprise uh implementations than we would a Starlink, perhaps. Uh, it's more of a fixed, I don't recommend it for a roaming service like the Starlink has. But OneWeb, or the Amazon Leo is going to be really cool. They just bought a big satellite, like a billion,$11 billion, I think they paid for a global satellite organization. And they also entered it into an agreement with Apple to be able to offer that kind of satellite SOS service that lives behind or beyond where the cell phone towers range. Because we've we have to carry like a Garmin in reach and walkie-talkies, like we have all these other devices that we've accumulated over the years when now we can actually put just a Starlink Mini in our side-by-side when we go off-roading. And then we've still got that kind of emergency service. But there needs to be more competition, more evolution, and that's gonna move very quickly, I think, in the next couple of years. And we have that satellite opportunity, right? So our traditional carriers are now gonna be having to partner with the satellite services because everybody's gonna want the always on. We're not gonna accept that you're limited to where my tower can reach your broadcast scenario. So um, the other thing I think people don't recognize is that 5G is amazing, right? It helps with density, it's helping with speed and stuff, but a lot of the world still runs on 4G. So there's proximity, right? And we have to, when we travel, we meet a lot of folks who have to plan two ways. They either have to plan where they're traveling to, based on where they're know they'll have internet so they can continue to work, or they bring their own and don't have to worry about it because, or they're planning to not work, right? Like you either you have to look at the results of your day and what your week actually looks like before you get started on your route map. Otherwise, you're just gonna be disappointed and have ruined your camping or traveling experience with work, or vice versa.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Yeah.

unknown 18:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

I want to go back a little bit to I feel like COVID was definitely a turning point. And you were in the middle of this when everything shifted during COVID. So what did that moment expose to you?

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Wow. Well, it really exposed a lot of unpreparedness. Yeah. Oh yeah. A lot of unpreparedness, a lot of frantic phone calls, and a lot of folks who really didn't understand not only what they had and had access to in their own stack, but also how their people worked and what things they needed to access and be successful in that remote environment. Our clients, I know you you had the same similar experience where your clients who had done it before and kind of listened to us and, you know, gone on the leading edge of technology, they were fine. They were like, Yeah, yeah, take your stuff, go home. No big deal, right? Everybody else was like, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

We were taking those phone calls.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Exactly. And it was those moments where I was like, well, like I'm gonna help you get stood up as fast as possible for a way that's gonna help you deliver the results you need right now. But a lot of those folks haven't really like readdressed what they did at that time. And that very certainly may not be the right stack for them today. So we're doing a lot of reevaluation after that COVID, you know, push to get everybody out of the office, but it also exposed so much shadow operations and um applications running that folks didn't know about. And I think it made the remote folks a bit more bold in their using those applications outside of their uh assigned tasks or I mean, we had a lot of time on our hands, right? So there was so much using company devices for personal things, there was a lot of just co-mingling where the balance may have been a little bit more strictly defined pre-COVID, right? And oh yeah, and I don't think you can untangle that.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

No, yeah. I mean, boundaries for sure are blurred. I remember, I mean, we were taking those calls. We actually launched this business six weeks before lockdown. So, and our model was to serve the IT leader in sourcing technology. And I just I remember in those days, like it was a perfect storm for us, but I remember CIOs scrambling to send thousands, if not tens of thousands, of employees home overnight and just hearing the horror stories of we were supposed to go through digital transformation last year, but didn't have the budget. We were supposed to move to cloud, we were supposed to do this, we were supposed to do that, and then they didn't. So they just patched together these remote work solutions as fast as possible. And I'm sure that a lot of them are still operating on those patches today.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Yeah. I know a significant amount of our clients are as well because it just is a it's not a fun thing to go back and look at, but it is amazing where budgets come from when emergencies happen. That's right. Like these folks had been operating on such a it really shined a light on where where dollars need to be spent to protect the house because they lost so much right. Every organization lost some, maybe not for specifically revenue, but they lost money in that transition because they had to buy more gear. They had to now outfit folks, they had to move to technology that maybe wasn't vetted specifically for the way that they work. And they're still paying the price for it today. So that's what we're talking a lot about right now is like, okay, let's talk through what happened then. Let's make sure it never happens again, that you're always prepared for that situation in the future and get it and just get it more lined out. I just couldn't walk. I had when I, when COVID right after lockdown started, I just I needed to be completely agnostic. And I I never really was, right? I carried a big logo with me. And I'd like to talk about being network agnostic and that sort of thing, but I really wasn't because I still carry a logo. And I was like, the best way for me to help is just to go out on my own because I really don't care. Like it doesn't matter to me what solution it is that works best for your company. And everybody is absolutely different. And there are all these folks out there saying, oh, you're gonna need this, and you're gonna need this. I don't have any idea what you need when I start a conversation with a client. I need to understand what's bothering them today, what happened yesterday, and where we need to be in the next 18 months from a rollout perspective. There's no judgment in that. We all did what we had to do. But now we need to fix it, right? And many of these folks are still either in the same operational budget or it hasn't been increased. And they probably need more security now than they need UCAS, perhaps. And so just kind of working through what today's environment looks like for our individual clients is really where I get so much joy. I know it's such a nerdy thing to say, but I'm a people person and the relief on my leaders' faces and their ability to now coach their son's football practice or baseball or spend more time with their kids instead of worrying about all this stuff is really where I find a lot of joy. So I I love the fact that I truly don't care what you choose. I'm gonna help you make the best decision, as I always have done. But I love that it's just very different conversation now, right? Because we have this context. Before all that COVID stuff was mostly hypothetical, right? Like what happens if something goes down and you have to move? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'll never happen. Oh, oh, but it will. So we have a new perspective all the way around, right? As workers, as leaders, and as promoters of an experience where there's some work-life balance. I think folks also either really loved the fact that they were home or they really hated it, right? So that COVID lockdown was, like you said, your staff wanted to come right back into the office. There's a lot of folks that do, and a lot of folks that would never want to live in a place where they're fully remote. And I think you got to have that balance, offer it. But you've got to make sure that it's secure regardless, right? When you're when your staff takes that laptop off campus or receives it wherever they're at and they fire it up, it can't be a big, it can't be a big hole from a security perspective. Their networks can't be. So we've got to align it in the same way we would as deploying any other remote office. I think that's a difference in perspective that has I think will not go back post-COVID. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

I'd love to just stop here and talk. I I want to get a and I want to give our audience an understanding of what you do at Go Rome and how that fits into this picture.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

So can we dive into that for a moment? Yeah, you bet. I'd be happy to. So what we do at Go Rome is we took some very specific, highly rated, ruggedized gear that had been created for oil rigs and some IoT scenarios, but happens to have all the guts of a good system. We take that gear and we couple it with an omnidirectional rooftop antenna, right? Like we need all the bands, right? We're doing a wide band receiving, and then we're programming this router very specifically as it's Enterprise SD-WAN. I know it's wild, but I'm putting Enterprise SD-WAN in people's RVs because they still need that protection. And then we're utilizing a satellite connection and a multi-carrier SIM card to really do that bonding and the bandwidth smoothing and ensure that all the critical applications our folks need are tested and true before they hit the road. We do live test and turn up calls with all of our clients and custom configurations to ensure that if they're Teams, if they're Zoom, if they are Zscaler, if they are like whatever their collaborative or voice over IP phone is, like we've got to make sure that stuff works before they head out. So oftentimes we are having a collaborative experience with the IT staff or the remote worker's job as we're getting these things installed. And we're literally programming outbound traffic rules to ensure that there's some priority. We're using WAN smoothing and some SUN software to ensure that it really is the best experience from wherever they are and that the clients don't have to think about it. I mentioned earlier that the consumers, my consumers and clients get real, they were very, very stressed about it. And folks I talk to that don't know that this technology exists, they're still really stressed about it. And they play that like hotspot roulette when they get parked, you know, every time, and you just never really know. So we just take that out of it and we operate Go Rome as uh an MSP, honestly. So I have full access to login and troubleshoot and update firmware and just really help our clients with that. And many of them are IT folks themselves and we'll give them access to the system and train them and allow them to really use it to its full capacity if they choose. So otherwise, we program it to make sure that our folks can't break it and that they're able to have an easy button, right? When it comes to that. So whether it's going in like a custom van or a big RV or something along those lines, we work with them to make sure it's all mounted and appropriately routed, and all they have to do is put their satellite out and hit the big red Wi-Fi on button and they're secured and good to go. So we manage it that way and we offer the multi-carrier SIM services for the folks that uh want that service as well. And then we let them manage their own Starlink side of it because we just don't need to do that. But I still get to go in and see where folks are at and help them with live troubleshooting, which is a lot of fun, right? Although I do see a lot of folks that get excited about it and uh don't get to get in on their adventure days. So uh the saddest thing I see every day is a bunch of parked adventure vehicles with all the gear they need, but not the time to go explore. So that's bad as bad. Yeah. We love it. And we promote adventure days. We have a community culture of cooking and living, and just like I said, the part of me about the low light, the low orbit or satellites that loves the technology, also the nature girl in me super hates, right? So yeah, it's like a combination of both, but I think that's the thing. Like I was groomed, as many of us were, to go to my office every day and endure the lighting, just crank it on, right? Move on. And oh, I don't like the lighting. We're not doing that anymore. I want sunlight. I want to work outside at every possible opportunity because I'm my best then, right? Not everyone is cut out for that, but a lot of people are if you give them the opportunity to really roam. So our folks don't have to worry about it. We they get full bandwidths moving, full connectivity reports, and they can see as much as they want. And the hardware that we chose is really the most flexible in the market. It allows folks to connect to whichever is broadcasted best. So it's a really cool thing that we do. We're just taking some really powerful technology and we're just pretending like a lot of that stuff doesn't exist for our regular consumers.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Yeah. Well, I didn't even know, like until we connected, I didn't know there was a company that did what you do. And I wish I had known, especially when we were in the heavy, heavy travel days. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it it's needed, especially post-COVID. We were doing this pre-COVID, especially post-COVID. I can't tell you even how many laptops I went through. We got stuck in the snow one night. We took the wrong route to a very remote place at to our Airbnb in Iceland and just got the car completely stuck in the snow. We were about maybe about a mile away from the Airbnb. So we had to walk. And I chose to take food and water instead of my laptop and work gear. So we left all that in the car. I couldn't tell you what the temperatures were, but you know, in the morning my laptop didn't work again when I went back to it. I can't tell you how many laptops I've gone through. So I need some of your rugged gear.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Yeah, it's they that stuff's just not built for this life. It's intended for a soft life, which we don't give it. So we got to make sure we get the right stuff out there. And to your point, a lot of folks don't know that this kind of technology exists where you can have both the multi-carrier LTE and the satellites running in tandem at the same time and you don't have to stress about it. I was just talking to a huge group of women yesterday having the same issue. They're like, Oh, we didn't know we could do them both. So it's it's a cool thing for helping folks understand that there's just a different way and it alleviates so much stress. Like losing your laptop is stressful. Like that's stressful. Like what do you do? Having to replace that gear is a wild ride, especially when you're in in remote places where you can't just go pop in and grab something new.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

So that's right. Yeah, it's so interesting that you're set up like SD WAN. We're seeing huge growth in SD WAN adoption, but most of it is still designed around fixed environments. So the fact that you're stress testing in the most real-world rugged way possible is so interesting and so cool.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

It is, and it's so much about flexibility. So here's a super good example of that. So we were in a Hot Springs, Arkansas off-road park, like really far away. So already it's an off-road park, which indicates it's nowhere near town, right? No towers, nothing happening. Great. We had our satellite service. However, we were parked in some like real terrible tree line, right? So we we didn't really have the opportunity to get the greatest Starlink coverage. But we had some, right? It was just in and out. That's what Starlink does. It takes a nap, it comes back, it takes a nap, it comes back. So if you don't have that LTE signal feeding those naps, you're gonna have a lot of challenges trying to keep a video call together, a voice call together. We know that's gonna show off the worst part of your network. So what we wound up doing was the actual off-road park, though, broadcasted its own really good Wi-Fi. I don't know who they had as a provider out there, but we were able to take our um our Starlink satellite and have it connect as a Wi-Fi WAN, also suck in the broadcasted public Wi-Fi from the off-road park and supplement with our LTE signal. And everyone around us had to go in town to work. And we were still completely able to sit and enjoy all of our meetings. We never had to go anywhere. So it's really about the flexibility. Like, if there's nothing else this lifestyle has taught me, it is that lower your expectations and be so flexible about just the way life's gonna be. But that's something that's been role for life in general, traveler not. Traveler or not. Yeah, and IT professional or not. Like we've got to be flexible and understand other people's perspectives and experiences because none of those other people had any idea there was a way to do what we had done, right? And so I love a few times we've been the only folks with internet, like outside of Silverton, Colorado, in a canyon. And it was like the internet cafe. I'd wake up in the morning and people would be just standing outside with their cups of coffee, just waiting to see when we were up and going to turn the internet on so they could have some access to just check in with their families and say hello. And we, of course, have the capacity to create that guest network for folks that we don't know coming on to keep that secure. So, and also to keep them from running up our data, right? Like that's not free. So allowing other people to be on that connection is something you have to take very seriously because we are protecting certified and important information, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:47

We can't be just sign up uh wait list to be a client. That's right. Okay, so IT leaders are responsible now for supporting people in all kinds of environments they don't control. What do you like in in what you're seeing? I imagine you're running into all sorts of folks traveling. What do you think these IT leaders are estimating? Uh underestimating.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

I think they're underestimating right now their need for an approved AI policy and some sort of language and security around the shadow. I mean, we've always we've talked about shadow IT for a while, like folks getting their own applications and just running them tandem, either inside the fixed network or in some sort of a dispersed environment. But there are IT folks were used to controlling those networks, right? They knew all the endpoints, they had some predictable usage. Now, you never know, right? So having a remote staff pop up in a wild road location and just start chewing through data, A, if that's part of your budget and you're providing that for them, that's gonna be a big issue if you allow your staff to get out. You're now having a cost issue, right? A usage and a cost issue from a data perspective. We've got to take some time to make sure we have policies about that. And we have to also make sure that those edge environments are secure and there's some sort of visibility through that because an open Starlink is the least secure thing I've seen in such a long time. And if you don't walk your remote workers through the onboarding of their new location scenario, they're not securing those things. So I'm seeing security is such a big open flaw right now that our folks are scrambling to get a better hold of. That gap between the infrastructure that like didn't quite evolve as fast as all the people are operating and all of the apps that we're creating and all of the AI, like there's a big gap right now. And I think that's where RIT leaders are are gonna need to focus to secure it, to get a handle on it, and then start to build the framework out for the way they want it to operate. But a lot of folks like they built for their infrastructure. They built for what they needed in their fixed environment. And you know, they maybe weren't counting on all those rogue folks like us just out in the world, standing up things that that maybe aren't, but I just I see that accelerating so fast. Everywhere I talk, every every group I'm in, everywhere folks are talking about how quickly they're building new apps and how they're I talked to someone the other day, I had to recommend not do that. They had taken some company information and thrown it into an AI to create like a sales document, right? Like you have to have policy out about that. It's unhinged. And I think I saw like 63%, or it was a very high number of organizations don't have that today. So they that's the thing I see our remote staff really pushing hard on right now is that control aspect. And there are certainly ways to have control over that network. Like I can log in and see everyone, every single one of my clients and how their network is operating today from a Go Roam perspective. So there's no reason that you can't either outsource that remote work in my sort of scenario, or also have those endpoints running in a way that you have complete visibility to them. I think that's important because we're gonna need our offensive AI to be watching uh as all of the attacking AIs are finding every open port possible to try to get their way in. So I think that's where we have to fake really focus on right now is that gap between so we can kind of rebuild to what's best.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Yeah, 100%. I mean, it's just moving so fast. It's it's moving so fast, and I think the responsibility stays centralized and these environments are completely decentralized, and then you add AI into the mix, the number of endpoints, networks, access points is exploded, which just increases complexity and risk. And then you add AI into the mix and how fast that's moving. It's terrifying, actually, when you think about it.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

It really is terrifying. I get real scared sometimes when I talk when I hear people talk about their scenarios. So it's gonna be an interesting next few years for certain.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Yeah. So what you do is so cool and like I said, so needed. And our audience is primarily enterprise IT leaders and S and D IT leaders. And sometimes they're one man IT shops. But I can see how what you do, like the service that you provide would be hugely valuable to the IT leaders that are responsible for their connectivity. Can you talk a little bit about how you work with companies? Oh, yeah. Maybe not just solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, but companies, even at the SMB enterprise level.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Yeah. We're an excellent partner for a remote work staff for an enterprise level. So we we approach every remote worker just like we would any new location, right? So we want to make sure that the infrastructure is a natural piece of the management, right? So even if you don't are, even if our big corporate clients aren't looking for a solution that tames all of their remote staff folks, there is a segment of them that can go that way. But the way that we work with large organizations is just by listening to them to start. Like where are we really having issues? Because I you hinted at it, but our IT leaders are they're being held for accountable for a lot of things that they just have zero control over anymore. So so that's where I usually start with my clients as a technology advisor as well, which is where are the things that if something bad happens is your job, right? Like how do we fix and stabilize the things that you can't control anymore? Because you have more rogue staff than not, probably. And if you think it's not, then it probably is, right? Every component of a remote staff's undocumented pop-up is a sort of breach, right? And I think the new numbers on that are very high, and most SMBs wouldn't do it. But let's also talk about like due diligence, right? So for my enterprise IT leaders, they're looking at huge cybersecurity liability insurance plans and they're looking at a lot of ways that uh organizations can help them with remediation after something really terrible happens. However, not as many of them are focused on really ensuring that they don't get handed something they they weren't expecting. So I think they've got to deploy a lot of the things that make an experience better. That's what cracks me up, right? So, like when we talk about large enterprises, there's always a lot of focus on the user's experience from a client perspective, right? So so much focus on on a contact center, how well we're rated, what our net promoter score is. Well, our IT leaders' clients are the other staff within their own organization. And not creating an experience for that staff, I think, is one piece where we get a lot left because CISOs and some other security and IT leaders maybe don't always have the greatest amount of allies within an organization. So my specialty is really the human part of it and helping them understand like what certain aspects of the technology stack and their networks, specifically security and things that make it harder for people to log in, which is the user experience. Really, if if they can change their communication and their tactics to informing people about why and advising them the real metrics behind the new piece of whatever it is they're deploying, right? Then they'll use it. Because same as my use case, right? When folks get new technology, but they don't really understand why they have to use it this way or why they have to change what they're doing, then they just don't use it. And they create these workarounds that makes their experience better. So I think the biggest shift I've seen in the way that I help my IT leaders today from an enterprise space is figuring out what the best user experience is for their clients. Just like we would start from an external force, right? And look at a company overall. We've got to look at IT in that scenario as well. And oftentimes they can be a revenue generator and they've just not considered that aspect. So um, we really go into all of the ways in which the IT leadership can be have a more seats at the table, if you will, when it comes to budget and spending. So we start from that scenario and work backwards generally.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Yeah, it makes complete sense. I mean, it is as much about the people as it is the technology, if not more about the people. And this ties back to what we were talking about before: this retaining talent and this resistance to being in a cubicle in an office. Like flexibility isn't a perk, it's an expectation. And after COVID, we're never going back to the way it was before.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

Humans are wild. We're gonna do what's easy, right? And if you don't give us an easy experience, we're gonna create something you may not want to make that experience easier for us, right? Like spreadsheets with passwords in them and all kinds of nonsense. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

That's right. And I'm sure you've seen it all. So when you look at where we are today, what's the bigger risk? Is it trying to adapt too quickly to this new way of working and the speed of AI and all the risk and all the complexity? Or is it holding on to systems that just weren't designed for this way of working in the first place? Like where should people like temper that balance? Where do they start?

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Well, I think you've got to start by protecting the house, right? So I think that's a main I think you've got to move towards the rapidness in a way that allows folks to get connected and get started, right? And then we've got to look at the security stack and the nature of how folks access our data, right? And then also, here's the thing, too, which we've talked about before, is that a lot of folks are rushing into this AI scenario and their databases are not at all ready for that, right? So there's gotta be a three legged approach, I think, for today, right now, which is you've got to find a way to give your onboarding folks, your existing staff that experience that they want to keep them. Working for you because if they've got to go through five layers of authentication, they're not going to be happy about that. And they're going to, they're going to cut some corners and that's going to leave you vulnerable, right? At the same time, we really have to address what worked for us in a speedy scenario versus what's going to work for us long term because otherwise we're wasting money, right? We've got to look at where that stack is going to be flexible. Is this technology intended to be a tool? Is it going to move with us to the next stage? Or is it time to cut that loss and move on? I think that so much of our technology ties are sunk cost bias, right? Like that was a lot of work. That was a lot of effort for my team and myself. And it was really stressful to move all these systems. I'm not going to lie and act like that might not suck again. However, moving to a technology where you have more time to focus on what it's going to do for the next 10 years or next five years is so much needed. So I think we've got to deploy something that moves fast. We've got to focus on that gap, as we've talked about. And then we really have got to secure things, right? So I think the average cost of a breach right now is like$670,000. A lot of businesses aren't coming back from that. Yeah. And with so few of them having really appropriate language around the use of AI in their scenarios or the consequences of a security breach are just hard. So I think you've got to rewrite the handbook, right? Simultaneously. We've got to look at this gap for the next few years and also deliver that experience. It's not, it's an exciting time to be an IT leader, but that doesn't make it less stressful. Like they've got so much on their shoulders that they'll be held responsible for and are accountable for, but have very little control of. So let's take the things that are easy, right? The things that provide monitoring and results, the things that that we can say, okay, that's not the best use of my time and move them to a separate stack, a different provider, someone who can actively monitor that all the time so that they don't have to think about it and they can use that energy to focus on the next thing. So that's really what I think is important, like today, today. Like that's what we've got to get done in 26 is really secure that. Because it's only going to get more and more expansive as more folks start to adopt that AI side of it. And also folks need to take a look at their data and where it's at and how people get to it and really ensure that it's in a place where it's safe because that that large organization adjacent breach style is going to continue because it's easier to get remote user, remote people, remote folks to answer those silly questions that let you know AI hack their passwords and whatnot. So we've got to focus on that.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

Yeah. A hundred percent agree. Jess, this was such a great conversation. And I think the gap that you talked about is where IT leaders are feeling the pressure right now. And I agree with you. It's a really exciting time to be an IT leader. And it's probably the most stressful time, other than maybe when we first went into COVID because they're responsible, like performance, security, uptime, environments they don't control. And now you add AI and a gen tick into the mix. I just read a terrifying story yesterday where an AI agent not only deleted a comp all of the company's data, but all of its backups too. Yeah. So it's stressful and it's shifting faster than ever beneath our feet. So it's a really different world than what most of the systems were originally built for. So if you're an IT leader listening and this resonates, you can head to technologymatch.com and search for Jess or Go Rome to learn more and explore partners that are aligned to how you actually need to operate today. And Jess, how can people connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Yeah, I'm on all the socials. You can find me as Go Rome there. You'll see some of our adventures in addition to some of the nerdy stuff. Obviously, LinkedIn, what that I know we'll have some links in the show notes. You guys can contact me that way as well. So I really look forward to helping more folks live a fuller life. That's what it's all about. I think that number one thing that I would want to make sure folks understand is just that we're moving into a world where like the infrastructure just it has to show up wherever the business shows up. Your infrastructure now is wherever that staff member opens their laptop. So uh most of our systems weren't meant for that mindset. And we just have to shift with that right now to keep ourselves safe and successful moving forward. So I really look forward to helping people get the most out of their own lives as IT leaders, right? So they can have more time for themselves and then also have help them retain their better staff as a remote agent and really have some visibility and security. It's a cool thing to do, and we have a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

It really is. It really is. You must I I can imagine the joy that you get from this.

SPEAKER_01 48:45

It's so good. It really is. It's it's the people. And you get to do it on the road. And we get to like I have the best office views all the time, right? And if I don't like it, I just roll on. It's a really fun way to live. It is a kind of a foreign concept for a lot of folks that are mostly retired out here on the road. But we we enjoy full connectivity. We never have to worry about it. And we're always enjoying the next adventure and squeezing in 4 p.m. hikes. So yeah. When we travel to different time zones. Where are you exactly right now? Oh, exactly right now, we are in Columbia, Tennessee, which is just outside of Nashville. So it's beautiful here. There's lots of wildlife. There's been some big storms, but we're fine because again, like we're not relying on one energy and or internet source. So you just gotta build it.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Yeah, amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you. Thank you for joining us, and we'll see you next time on Between Fires and Futures. Thank you for tuning in to Between Fires and Futures. We know the weight tech leaders carry, the pressure, the pace, the constant pull between keeping things running and building what's next. If no one said it lately, you're doing hard, important work. And we see you. If this episode sparks something for you, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with another tech leader who gets it. Thanks again for listening. Keep leading through the fires and daring to build the future anyway.