Jason null [00:00:27]:
welcome to the first episode of diy it. I have several guys with me today. We're going to talk about different business strategies on how to plan your it, develop things, grow it, and what you need to do that and where a company like mis solution comes into play. With that. I have adam ringland. He is an operations manager here at mis solutions. I have nate hewitt, who is our vcio, which is our virtual chief information officer for our partners. And then micah wisman is our president. And i'm jason all, your host and the vp here at mis solution. Guys. Hi.
Adam ringland [00:01:08]:
ola ola.
Jason null [00:01:10]:
so what do you guys think about this topic? And let me start us off here with kind of like the introduction here. So in today's digital age, technology is a critical driver of business success. Small and medium sized businesses need to develop it strategy and plan to ensure they remain competitive and aligned in the constantly evolving technology landscape. Now, i think we have a big play in that, especially for our partners, right? We come in, do assessments, sit down with our partners, plan that stuff. So when we talk about how that works for us, what it looks like, how businesses, what they need to address, how they need to look at what they have going on. And again, infrastructures. We said we talked a little bit about infrastructure, and infrastructure for us is the networking gear and stuff like that. Warehouse, correct? Not a warehouse, not if you have a sprinkler system or not. It's. What it infrastructure do you have? Just to clarify, when we're saying infrastructure, that's what we're talking about, is it. Infrastructure. So understanding business goals for it strategy and planning. So that's a big topic. I think you have a big part in that, nate.
Nate jewett [00:02:24]:
strategy and planning is really sitting down with a partner and determining what's going to be the best resource for their business and how they can utilize technology to make their lives easier versus it.
Jason null [00:02:42]:
being a hassle, aligning their it's kind.
Adam ringland [00:02:45]:
of helping them decide what type of technology they're going to need to make their lives easier and their workflow processes better.
Nate jewett [00:02:53]:
things are making sure things are automated and it's not an overall burden to them.
Jason null [00:03:01]:
well, a nursing home is going to have a completely different need than a manufacturer or some type of warehousing, right? And so we're going to come in and we're going to make sure that nurses have the handheld devices they need. The wireless infrastructure is there. The networking back end is there. They have the right internet connections, right? I mean, that's a huge piece. 40 days.
Adam ringland [00:03:23]:
or you could have some of these newer businesses that are say, hey, we're fresh, we're new, we're eight men in the box. Hey, you don't even need hardwires. You can work completely. Walk office. You got laptops, you have docking stations. You're mobile around the area. Your desks are basically hotel desks or hotspots. So they're constantly on the move and they don't even really know where to start.
Jason null [00:03:46]:
that's a good point. We've seen the small business change so much between mike and i. We have 15 plus years in this industry, pretty much. It's kind of crazy. And then you and nate bring another probably 20 years of experience in it. And i think back dating myself here, think back to 1995. You and i can go back to that and what it was like in a small business then to what it is today. We used to have servers in small business. We used to have email systems in small business, on site, on in house, present today.
Adam ringland [00:04:23]:
small footprint. Yeah, very small.
Nate jewett [00:04:25]:
yes.
Jason null [00:04:25]:
we even have a serve.
Adam ringland [00:04:26]:
correct. That's what i'm saying.
Jason null [00:04:30]:
we don't sell servers like we used to. Servers used to be like, oh, you have to have a server, you got to do this. And today it's microsoft and amazon. Google, apple have all changed that with cloud business. And aligning your business strategy and goals with that structure is hard because what cloud product do i go with? Do i buy a server still? Because there is a time when we still need server.
Adam ringland [00:04:57]:
a lot of times folks aren't even going to know what you see commercials all the time and they probably see them and they're like, well, i don't know what this is. The cloud. The cloud by file. What is the cloud? The file makes it to the whole discussion itself. Hey, we want to be able to be mobile and everyone can go work from home on fridays. And that's when you need the cloud. And it's only determining bechtonate's role is really part of the role is to obviously lay out what that plan is. But also education, educating the partner in what the technology means and terminology that we use very easily isn't necessarily easy for the end user or the partner to be able to say we use the term cloud in everyday language. But for them it can mean many different things. In this case, they need to understand that not only tell them what they need, but also make sure they understand on one, how is it going to help the business and how is it going to give them an advantage over what their competitors are doing and they're.
Nate jewett [00:05:58]:
more efficient experience too.
Adam ringland [00:06:00]:
exactly.
Jason null [00:06:01]:
and we're identifying business goals, determining the it requirements, and then developing that it road strategy. Right, that roadmap. It how you go from here and where are you going to be in five years. And that roadmap may fork. Because i joke, like right now we have cloud here. As soon as elon musk gets to the mars, we're going to hit marcer. Sudden trentron is going to be mars cloud next. It's going to be the red dust cold storage. Cold storage. True, exact cold storage. But all your data there forever. That roadmap is constantly evolving, constantly changing. And as the business grows and their demands change, we're there to align with them and then correct course, right? We're going to get into it strategy, supporting the business goal. So increasing productivity, improving customer experience, enhancing data security, reducing operation cost, and driving innovation. How do we do that with our partners? I mean, that's a lot to do, right? Increasing productivity. How can an it help increase productivity?
Adam ringland [00:07:10]:
starts with hardware.
Nate jewett [00:07:11]:
yeah, for sure.
Adam ringland [00:07:12]:
everything i think of from a partner's perspective, i try to tell people all the time, they're like, i've only in.
Jason null [00:07:18]:
my computer for five years every day.
Adam ringland [00:07:22]:
that's dog gear, right? Computer is 35 years old. It's not the one at your house that you say browse the internet on. And that's where most productivity is lost. It's not even harder by the pc, the laptop, aging wireless equipment, so it's not picking up the newer stuff. And that's where your computer department plays a huge role, is, okay, look, you keep roadmapped and we got to stay on top of this and do a constant refresh, laying out a plan.
Nate jewett [00:07:47]:
these are your assets that are starting to age and saying you've got stuff that's seven years old. It might still work for sally, who's in the same rotation every day for the past ten years, but somebody else might come along and be like, this is terrible.
Adam ringland [00:08:05]:
i need that better experience. Company has 100 employees that are using fear, and they're all aging computers. That takes every employee six minutes to beat up a computer every morning.
Nate jewett [00:08:15]:
how much time you're losing.
Jason null [00:08:17]:
yeah, productivity, right? There editors and there's a customer experience with them too. That is horrible for the customer.
Nate jewett [00:08:24]:
i can't tell you how many times i call little pizza joint in town. I call every time she answers the phone. Give me your phone number. I'm sorry, man, my computer is running slow today. I'm like, man, i deal with this every day.
Adam ringland [00:08:40]:
the adage i always use is if your employee is wasting 1 hour a day, you're basically buying them a computer every year, every month. You just don't realize it.
Jason null [00:08:51]:
somebody had that analogy years ago and i don't remember who it was, but i always loved it. It was like if you bought a car and you drove it to work every day, and the first year your driving was 30 minutes, right? That's fine, that's your drive. But at year three, it took you 2 hours because the car couldn't go as fast. And then by year five it's taking you 4 hours to get would you still drive that car? No. We will go out and buy new cars, but yet we see partners not wanting to spend money on a pc. When these people use this 8 hours a day, we're talking a car ride for 30 minutes, right? You're using a device for 8 hours a day. This is your business. It's payroll it's quickbooks. We see those systems just sluggish, running slow because nobody wants to put money back into it. And you're paying this employee hourly career just waiting, waiting and waiting and waiting. And i mean, right there you can improve your efficiency. You have to think about it. And the bcio office is great for that. Having that plan again, seeing the aging hardware, knowing things are three or five years old and why. And this also goes to having the right tool, a job too, right?
Adam ringland [00:10:05]:
absolutely.
Jason null [00:10:07]:
we've seen obviously with the way the economy has been, the environment has been, we've seen people going home, right? They work from home more often they ever did. We're not rolling out desktops anymore. Laptops are the key. And you want to be able to work anytime, anywhere. And that cloud helps. That vpns help. That security. That's enhancing our data security right there. How are we protecting and how are clients, partners, supposed to protect when their data is everywhere and their people are roaming everything?
Adam ringland [00:10:39]:
well, i think that with our mdr implementation that we did this past year, that was a huge rollout for us. And it's on the go. It's with the computer at all times. Scanning twenty four, seven. And like we mentioned, vpn out, the cyber secure.
Jason null [00:10:53]:
so hold on, let's go back to it. Was that mdr.
Adam ringland [00:10:55]:
right?
Jason null [00:10:56]:
so not everybody knows what mdr is. And to just clarify, this is like next generation of antivirus free antiviruses themselves. Kind of missing the boat, right? We had all these things happening.
Adam ringland [00:11:09]:
people have moved away from viruses.
Jason null [00:11:11]:
correct.
Nate jewett [00:11:13]:
they'll get malware on your computer anymore.
Adam ringland [00:11:15]:
it's how it's done anymore. The bad actors are mostly looking for someone that doesn't know what to do.
Jason null [00:11:24]:
we're looking at behavior now. We're looking at human behavior. Because our weakest security point always has been the anti. Unfortunately, they're the ones that do bank transfers. They're the ones that click on things.
Adam ringland [00:11:37]:
they're my mom, right?
Jason null [00:11:40]:
we put everything i mean, we try to it's a layered approach. We've talked about this over and over again. It starts at the firewall, it starts at having security done at the firewall, and then comes down to the pc. And now we're running antivirus. We're running ten drs, which is that next generation of behavioral scanning. We're making sure that we have supported links that are safe links. Our email has changed. Microsoft has enhanced security in their email. They're turning up because we're in the cloud, right? People can log into your email account from anywhere. So we're two factory our partners. We're also now looking at using conditional access. I was not even looking at we're using it.
Adam ringland [00:12:22]:
it's implemented. Correct. And so that's across the board, right?
Jason null [00:12:24]:
and we're using conditional access. It's an interesting piece that microsoft came up with. I mean, we can close down china. We can literally stop anybody from china from logging in. We can watch attacks coming in and be like, no longer can you only log in here in the us. Now, there's ways around this, but hackers are going to move on if they can't.
Adam ringland [00:12:46]:
if it's not a symbol.
Jason null [00:12:46]:
yeah. They're not going to now try to scripting me.
Adam ringland [00:12:49]:
yeah, they want to go for the.
Nate jewett [00:12:51]:
person who's definitely going to click on the email and give up their credentials.
Adam ringland [00:12:54]:
are easier than try to break into the account.
Jason null [00:12:58]:
unfortunately, that does it drives innovation and drives costs and all that stuff. So let's talk about return on investment and what does that look like for the business and how do we measure it?
Adam ringland [00:13:11]:
and that really goes back to nate's role specifically, where he has to not only tell them what they need, explain to them why they need it, but explain to them also how it will help the business, which is they will then in turn drive the roi. So in this case, if you've got user xyz, user jane, that's spending 2 hours waiting on a computer every day, and you replace that with a computer that she can do the same task in a third of the time. Now she's open to do more. So now she's paid for that computer in a matter of a month or two. So the roi is easy to illustrate to the customer. Well, typically easy to illustrate. Yeah. Sometimes it's a little harder to illustrate, but your picture roi would be the small business that's into it or chrome is just enough where they're like, okay, we need an it department. Now, the return on investment in spending for outsourced it half being able to show that right away, like, you had john and sally that were both doing kind of your it stuff for you, and their salaries are x combined. Well, you're paying us, y, look how much money you're saving. And we're doing a better job, more.
Nate jewett [00:14:19]:
proactive, getting all these resources to assist.
Adam ringland [00:14:23]:
to employees that actually do their job. Yeah. Go back to you're paying them out of what they're what you hired them for.
Jason null [00:14:29]:
yeah. And it's better in our case, and we love that. It's better than bringing an it person because you're going to spend thousands and thousands of dollars for an employee. And what do you do when he goes on vacation or he gets sick or he quits? Hurt. Yeah, people get hurt. Or he quits and moves on.
Adam ringland [00:14:46]:
and he's the king of the castle.
Jason null [00:14:48]:
it's got all and that hurts small business. That's definitely a very measurable return on investment and your it guy leaves. One of the great things about outsourcing the it's, you can focus on your business.
Adam ringland [00:15:05]:
we're measured in downtime, right?
Jason null [00:15:07]:
yeah. And so, like you said, now your employees are back to doing what they were hired to do, but they're good.
Adam ringland [00:15:14]:
at and you can grow your business.
Jason null [00:15:16]:
so now instead of hiring the it guy, you outsource your it needs. Right. And you have two employees. Now you're at four employees because all your productivity is gone up. Your business is growing. You're taking the next.
Adam ringland [00:15:29]:
do what you do well. Outsource everything else. Great.
Jason null [00:15:33]:
set be our tagline, your single source, it provider, but outsource everything.
Jason null [00:15:40]:
outsource everything. Do what you do best.
Nate jewett [00:15:42]:
right?
Adam ringland [00:15:42]:
exactly.
Jason null [00:15:43]:
they all outsource. I mean, most businesses outsource their accounting.
Adam ringland [00:15:46]:
and some depending on the size of.
Jason null [00:15:48]:
the organization, especially small businesses, they're outsourcing their hr most of the time because somebody ip is the next.
Adam ringland [00:15:54]:
it's funny. A lot of the end users are like, i'm so sorry. I don't know anything about computers. I'm like, man, that's okay. I don't know anything about being a desk. Right. I'm an invalid point. You do you very well, and i could do myself very well. Right. Everybody's at it's. Correct.
Jason null [00:16:09]:
and so the business outcome is growth for them, it's success for them, it's them taking that next step, bringing on more employees, another location, expand each.
Adam ringland [00:16:20]:
how much? Say, that good.
Jason null [00:16:21]:
i had you see people, like, all of a sudden, they're in one market. Now they're in five.
Adam ringland [00:16:26]:
or it's just cool to see someone small business come along for the first time, and they start with five employees, and now next thing you know, they're at 15, and a couple of years later, like, oh, my gosh, you guys are at 50. It's figuring, and really, you don't really most partners really think about it, the critical role that it plays in that, which is if you can't work your harder set dependent upon your computers, right? Exactly. So if you have a reliable infrastructure that runs every day, all day, then your people can just work. That's what you're paying the poor. And you have to think about it as when you're paying the monthly bill.
Nate jewett [00:17:02]:
yes.
Adam ringland [00:17:02]:
they're doing their job. Right. That's why i used to say all the time was when i would get some places that if you have to think about your network, then we're not doing our job. It should be the last thing on your mind. You should be committed in doing what you do. And then if that's not the case.
Nate jewett [00:17:18]:
then that's why we play such a good role in the small business realm, because it's such a good fit, small.
Adam ringland [00:17:27]:
to medium, quite honestly.
Jason null [00:17:29]:
talking about identifying infrastructure gaps, right. Where are when we're going into a partner and we're evaluating networks, where are we seeing things that a partner might be missing to obviously align, help their businesses grow, protect them. Security.
Adam ringland [00:17:45]:
how do we identify that? Yeah, nate, what's your department do to right off the rip? Determine what the gaps they do there.
Nate jewett [00:17:52]:
so when we go in to do, like, a proposal meeting or meet with a potential partner, we're going in with our tool set to run a scan of the network to determine where are there security holes, what's old, what is end of life, things that need replaced. That sort of thing.
Adam ringland [00:18:10]:
give us a sense of what a rough idea of what equipment is in place. See them though, you guys.
Nate jewett [00:18:14]:
that way we can have an overall view of the environment that we're about to dive into.
Adam ringland [00:18:20]:
and so for priority's sake, so you want to know, like, hey, what's the most important where do we start? You being a former tech and now currently in the vcio role, would you say that the priorities are the same.
Jason null [00:18:32]:
that you see in the same way, or is it.
Nate jewett [00:18:36]:
i think, like, the security aspect is the biggest portion of it.
Jason null [00:18:40]:
security is our biggest headache.
Nate jewett [00:18:42]:
if you have a best buy firewall, i would agree.
Adam ringland [00:18:47]:
the security and then equipment. Yeah. Obviously with security there is some equipment as well. But yes, i would much rather fortify them with our security stack per se. Backups is another one.
Nate jewett [00:19:01]:
if you're using carbonite backups and we go to try to do a restore and it fails and you're like, oh.
Adam ringland [00:19:08]:
yeah, for it takes a month. Yeah.
Nate jewett [00:19:13]:
having tools to our disposal to be able to effectively do our jobs also big.
Adam ringland [00:19:19]:
i just feel a lot better when we have them in that same spot. I'd rather them have one that we talked earlier. Oh, we have some people that are using older stuff a couple of minutes slower for them. I'd rather deal with that or hip and know they're secure and let's roadmap out the other.
Nate jewett [00:19:35]:
yes.
Adam ringland [00:19:36]:
until you can figure out, like i said, to figure out the gaps in what we want to see versus what they currently have. So we're referring to our stack and our standard kind of mo.
Nate jewett [00:19:48]:
when we go to there is a period of time that it takes. You have to budget for it. That's where the vc we can't take you.
Jason null [00:19:58]:
other industries have helped us, though, like the insurance industry with cybersecurity.
Jason null [00:20:03]:
cybersecurity.
Adam ringland [00:20:04]:
i almost think of it at one point, cyber insurance.
Nate jewett [00:20:07]:
double cyber insurance.
Adam ringland [00:20:08]:
yeah, security insurance.
Jason null [00:20:11]:
at one point, zion. It seemed like it was almost kind of a joke, right? And then obviously then people started getting breached and they're paying bitcoins and they're paying up. And now we're seeing these policies truly start holding partners feet to the fire, really. Like, you have to have two factor.
Adam ringland [00:20:30]:
you have to have so want to go back to the way it was, where they got money, give it out.
Jason null [00:20:35]:
well, that makes sense, but it's been a benefit for us 100%. Yeah. Because all of a sudden we're abating. Yeah. We've been marching like two factor, two factor this, do this, do this. Partners didn't want to. They're kind of kicking and screaming and cyber reserve shows up and they're like, your rates are doubling and people all.
Adam ringland [00:20:52]:
of a sudden, like, less.
Jason null [00:20:54]:
right, i could do this and i can have a next generation of firewall. And we could do this with i'll.
Nate jewett [00:21:00]:
spend the money right now to save me $50,000 exactly.
Adam ringland [00:21:04]:
fees down.
Jason null [00:21:05]:
that help a lot. Two factor, different things like that. I mean, it is easy stuff in these days. We joke that people don't want to do two factor. But you go to the gas station when you put your cart in and you have to put in your zip code, that's a form of two factor. Or even if you're just using your atm cart, has a number bank app on your phone.
Adam ringland [00:21:25]:
everybody uses that. It's two factor. They just don't call it that.
Jason null [00:21:28]:
correct.
Adam ringland [00:21:29]:
it's your security code. It softens it.
Jason null [00:21:35]:
so how do you after we've gone in, nate done these evaluations, how do you prioritize that for a customer? For our partners? I mean, you can't just go, okay, you need all this stuff that costs you $10,000 and i need it today, and else you're good.
Nate jewett [00:21:53]:
well, come up with a plan kind of back to what you were saying about determine what is the most urgent thing that needs to happen. Developing a three to five year plan to say, let's start at the bottom and work our way we'll start at the top and work our way down to be able to get us to a place that's acceptable.
Adam ringland [00:22:15]:
what's the scariest, darker there? And then work down.
Jason null [00:22:20]:
the big question is, i love to ask partners is how long can your business be down?
Jason null [00:22:26]:
because people will say, oh, i can be down for a couple of days and in reality they're down for a minute and they can't be down for tens of million.
Adam ringland [00:22:34]:
i'm going to go in here and i'm going to plug this real quick. Tell me how quickly, how long you can be down.
Jason null [00:22:38]:
and people find out that they don't want to be down, they can go down. And i understand that you're running a business. It is money when you are down, right?
Adam ringland [00:22:45]:
100%.
Jason null [00:22:46]:
and so that's where that investment back into it comes in. Having these evaluations and filling in these gaps and having next generation stuff. Top of the line gear. Not buying the off the shelf linksys from walmart and then putting it in. And it has these cool gaming antennas that's still protecting your business.
Adam ringland [00:23:06]:
no cool likes too. Lots of blanky things.
Nate jewett [00:23:09]:
war rgb wouldn't worse.
Jason null [00:23:11]:
you too no longer has a tent.
Adam ringland [00:23:16]:
i'm calling that. Yeah. I think the biggest thing is it's just the partners having the trust business owners being like, okay, realizing i need outsourced it, i need it. I can't have susie doing this for all the onboarding stuff anymore. And then just trusting what we come back with, or any msp for that matter. You have to want to trust what you're being told. At least give them a shot out of the road and not come in like there's a reason you're out looking for it.
Jason null [00:23:42]:
correct. And we're not here to break the bang. That's what budget, right?
Adam ringland [00:23:46]:
yeah.
Jason null [00:23:46]:
we need to and there's creative ways to do financing, there's leasing, there's other options to get you up to where you need to be. But it doesn't very rarely do we walk in, be like wiping out an entire infrastructure. Usually it's just piece mailing pieces. Adding the mdr for us, we walk in, they have antivirus, but they're not running the mdr, so they don't have any behavioral going on. Things are still getting in and then adding the firewall next or however we approach that. So having these audit laws and going through the audits that we're doing, it's very helpful. And one of the neat things that we're also continuing to do is it's not just day one, right? It's 30 days from now that audit is running again and 60 days and 90 days. So hard of the quarter you have an audit.
Adam ringland [00:24:32]:
our techs are doing that constantly.
Jason null [00:24:34]:
we have automation tools that are doing that for us that are like checking things and watching stuff, but the texts are also checking all i didn't make.
Adam ringland [00:24:42]:
happy as could be when their numbers go down and they could check off more things that had been done.
Jason null [00:24:47]:
yes.
Nate jewett [00:24:49]:
they always get excited when you can work something as green.
Jason null [00:24:52]:
yes, green is good.
Adam ringland [00:24:54]:
greenies go.
Jason null [00:24:56]:
the importance of monitoring and updating it strategies, we're already talking about that a little bit is a lot of it for us is the automation.
Adam ringland [00:25:02]:
right?
Jason null [00:25:03]:
and then the monitoring. So we're monitoring, we have automation going in that sense. We're doing audits, we have special tools. I mean, i'm sure almost managed service providers are doing these.
Adam ringland [00:25:15]:
we show up, so good point.
Jason null [00:25:19]:
we're constantly behind the scenes working for the client and partners and making sure in the past our tools were basic, right. We had remote control. Yeah, they evolved. We used to have to go in and hard drive would fill up. We clean it out. Now there's not hard. Your height filled everything. It dumps your downloads directory right, automatically.
Adam ringland [00:25:43]:
it's all the things that you don't really need.
Jason null [00:25:45]:
yeah. And things like chat gpt are already.
Adam ringland [00:25:48]:
changing our industry 100%.
Jason null [00:25:51]:
i hate to jump into that, but watching some of these techs out here solving problems using chat gpt, that's like the next level is they got to start monitoring our infrastructures for us. It's like all of a sudden you're going to get an email from microsoft being like chat gpt was testing your firewall and notice that you're on firmware this for you. No, that's the next level of ai for us. Right.
Adam ringland [00:26:15]:
be seeing it being used really for log analysis and threat analysis is really without a come into play where it.
Nate jewett [00:26:22]:
can start to get siphone through the logs for you instead of you having to filter it out manually.
Jason null [00:26:28]:
and doing all this helps us with compliance. That was what it comes down to a lot of times is pci compliance, some type of other depending on the partner, what they're compliant.
Adam ringland [00:26:41]:
finra all those all those different compliance or auditing bodies for whatever the industry may be. But obviously there's a lot in each industry to kind of deal with. But the matter of going back to or monitoring and updating obviously there's many areas that we look at and constantly evolving and constantly changing and looking at new tool sets and looking at new ways to monitor it and make it more efficient overall. It's internal auditing for us too, though. How many times do we do a project or do we have i want to say disaster, but we have an outage and we huddle up afterwards. Okay, what we do? How can we do it better? Next process is approved, i guess. Tell what didn't go as we expected in this case. We were expecting x, y and z to occur based on the tools that we're using. And all of a sudden this outlier came into play that we had never even considered. And then we're like, oh, well, somebody did something out of the ordinary at the partner site. Or their data was being stored in an unusual way. It's constantly halfway be better. We do a really good job that fell over one under this roof. We have scabs. Help us find them. We're never going to be scabbas.
Nate jewett [00:27:56]:
none of us are perfect. Correct.
Adam ringland [00:27:57]:
help us find the scabs so we can be well and then every partner's environment is different. They all have we try to standardize it as much as we can, but at the end of the day right, exactly. The users the users work differently. They store the data differently. They do. They're different industries. They have different compliance requirements.
Jason null [00:28:15]:
adapt and overcome.
Adam ringland [00:28:16]:
adapts and overcome.
Jason null [00:28:19]:
we're seeing the pc itself change.
Nate jewett [00:28:23]:
right.
Jason null [00:28:23]:
so we used to be very heavy for window support. We've seen a huge introduction of the.
Jason null [00:28:29]:
mac and we're having to you know, how do we deal with security issues on the mac? Or even huge might be stretching.
Adam ringland [00:28:38]:
it.
Jason null [00:28:42]:
went from supporting one to like, five. Yeah.
Jason null [00:28:46]:
the mac has just changed the industry because of cloud.
Adam ringland [00:28:49]:
yeah, very true.
Jason null [00:28:51]:
you were kind of limited. Nothing not everything ran on it. Everything ran on it.
Adam ringland [00:28:54]:
now it's web app.
Jason null [00:28:57]:
it's changed the industry big time.
Nate jewett [00:28:59]:
it's also seen how devices have changed too. Your computer, you couldn't ever take it anywhere with you before. You've got laptops that are this thin versus a leader. Workstation only at the cd realm. Yeah.
Adam ringland [00:29:12]:
or you don't need the ethernet connection anymore. Wireless is fast and a six power.
Nate jewett [00:29:16]:
brick, 6000 power brick or two power bricks in some instance.
Jason null [00:29:21]:
smartwatches have changed. Yeah thing too. So we're constantly distracting everyone.
Adam ringland [00:29:27]:
what? Wait. Okay.
Jason null [00:29:30]:
and another thing about we have to monitor what? Gather monitoring us.
Nate jewett [00:29:37]:
sorry. Hold on.
Jason null [00:29:38]:
what? We're proud of you for that. Thanks.
Adam ringland [00:29:46]:
someday i'll graduate.
Jason null [00:29:49]:
you found an ankle bracelet one day. So a lot of this coming around. All of this everything that we. Do requires the partner the partner buy in. It comes to making sure that we have our idea, what we want to do, but we just can't take that round peg and just hammer it into the swear oil, right? We have to sit down into business. We have to see what their needs are, what they can do, and how they want to get them.
Nate jewett [00:30:22]:
explaining it to them in a way that's going to make them want to say, hey, this is going to help me, help me in my business, versus being a hindrance.
Adam ringland [00:30:32]:
that goes back to the trust factor. If there's no trust factor, if everything's questioned, why do we need to do this? Why are you guys suggesting this? Why do we need to buy this? Why do we need to do that? That's not a partnership. It doesn't flow as well.
Nate jewett [00:30:46]:
partner with people who are going to be like, oh, that's a great idea.
Adam ringland [00:30:50]:
what can we do to we can't do it this quarter and the next quarter or the following quarter, but let's roadmap it out.
Jason null [00:31:02]:
we kind of were doing stuff like that, but that brings all of this.
Jason null [00:31:06]:
data together for you guys into these cool graphs and pictures for business owners to be able to look at and be like, oh, wow, why is there so much red on here? And it's really simple. Your stuff's old or you have this security issue work, you're using this firewall and we really need you to move here. And they get that.
Nate jewett [00:31:23]:
being able to break it out by category to say what's a risk versus not a ten cent versus one. Yeah.
Jason null [00:31:30]:
and then that goes right into your budgeting planning. Right? We can't afford to do it this year. That's cool.
Adam ringland [00:31:35]:
or this is something that you need to find a way to afford to do this year. Yes, we can wait.
Jason null [00:31:40]:
if this can go out two years, get it on the budget then. But this is a must. Right? We need to find a way to fund this. Today. They got out of ben eaten somewhere in there. Anybody had change in their pocket? It'd be funny. Crypto friends?
Adam ringland [00:32:01]:
not anymore.
Jason null [00:32:02]:
getting bitcoins.
Nate jewett [00:32:03]:
did you see that linus tech tips.
Jason null [00:32:05]:
got hammered with the whole crypto thing.
Nate jewett [00:32:08]:
their channels got took over. Their channels got took over. And now it's just a bunch of crypto stuff all over their accounts.
Adam ringland [00:32:16]:
i did not know that back security implies yes, exactly.
Nate jewett [00:32:24]:
and google didn't enforce it.
Adam ringland [00:32:26]:
sometimes the the tech people aren't that good at it as we have secures like the doctors. The doctors are terrible patients.
Nate jewett [00:32:32]:
exactly.
Jason null [00:32:34]:
so as we're talking about all of this and the roadmapping and the budgeting, i mean, this is what it comes down to for these truly it best practices, right? We didn't invent any of this stuff. It's like making chocolate cake. You make it the same way every time, right? We're making chocolate cake, but we have a special recipe. Right?
Adam ringland [00:32:57]:
that's the trick.
Jason null [00:32:57]:
but in the end, it's always making sure that we're following best practices. What is password minimums?
Adam ringland [00:33:07]:
and those best practices are driven by industry standards, not just our arbitrary choice, since we're looking at industry standards and then applying that to what? In this case, to the small business or medium business market. Because best practices in an it or an enterprise environment are not going to flow well on a small business environment. They're too stringent. They can't afford it.
Nate jewett [00:33:29]:
they have to be able to do their jobs and so exactly.
Adam ringland [00:33:34]:
you have to give them enough slack so that they can do their job admin. Right. Silly things like that. They have to be socks compliant. Exactly.
Nate jewett [00:33:41]:
right.
Adam ringland [00:33:42]:
publicly traded. Yet, although they might think they are valid.
Jason null [00:33:50]:
having these best practices just continues with the compliance, continues with the planning, continues with the strategy, and making sure that their it infrastructures are the best thing.
Adam ringland [00:34:00]:
it's folding. We have to evolve well to eat the same chocolate cake every day. Guess what? You're not going to like it in the day. But yeah, you just have to be able to adapt. I mean, you could take the strong foundation that we have of how we do things, but they'll continue to add ingredients to it to make it bigger.
Nate jewett [00:34:20]:
that's why we update our assessments every quarter when we're doing our business reviews, we're looking at our assessments to say, is this still relevant? In this case, this is the new standard. Let's put this into play.
Adam ringland [00:34:34]:
and then you can boil that backwards to all the other partners that in this case we discover something new when we onboard a new partner. We're like, hey, this would be really great for everybody else, and then roll that out everywhere else.
Jason null [00:34:50]:
staying up and staying up to date with your industry trends. It makes sense.
Jason null [00:34:54]:
we need to be there in alignment to do that.
Nate jewett [00:34:57]:
that's a big thing about us here internally as well as we're always collaborating, we're always learning from each other to determine what's going to be best for the partner.
Jason null [00:35:08]:
great.
Adam ringland [00:35:09]:
that's all you can do.
