Episode 339 – C3 Technology Advisors, Coronavirus in Michigan, Events and Bars Closed

Here we are a few days into the coronavirus chaos in Michigan.  Bars and restaurants closed, and so we've had to cancel our monthly networking event for the first time in 13 years... but our guest couldn't have possibly be more timely as we dive in to discuss remote working, doing things effectively while remote, how to keep yourself on track and rolling... C3 is at: https://c3techadvisors.com/ Live from the quarantine studios here at podcast Detroit. This is the it and the D show. We made it all the way to episode three 39 guests this week include Jason and Taylor. They are from C3. We're going to be talking about worker mobility and remote office technology solutions. And the best part is that we didn't even plan. It wasn't planned like this. No, like that's one of the C3 that's one of their core focuses and uh, I thought what a great time to, I'll talk about it. So we're gonna uh, you hear that sound that those are the VPN engines humming across the U S a as long as they're not running through the West coast Azure platform. Right. I love how they call it a Brown out. We'll be talking about that in a lot more. Dave, you may fire when ready. Welcome back. Thanks for hanging out with us. Hopefully you're somewhere safe in your homes. Barricaded in bubble wrap. How else can you be right now? Good point here you are listening one and only it in the D show. We are broadcasting live here in studio one in podcast, Detroit in-person in beautiful Royal Oak, Michigan. This is Bob the sales guy. That is Dave the geek. Randy. I do the Twitters is doing the Twitters, find us online it in the d.com. And I was a smoker's cough, not a rotavirus cough fight. Fight a sunlight ideality.com and it give us a like on the socials and subscribe to us everywhere. Fine podcasts are so that's the only place you're gonna be able to find this cause ain't no meetups happening anytime soon. Folks. Uh, thanks to uh, I, the situation as it is, I blame the virus. Blame governor Whitmer blame whoever we want to blame. All bars and restaurants are shut down for anything but takeout and carry out, uh, for at least two weeks until at least at three April 5th. Oh yeah, we are. Uh, and so, yeah, no, we're not doing our meetup, uh, this week at the cozy lounge. It has been canceled. We are sorry. Um, it is not our fault. We are victims. This is literally the first time in 13 years, uh, that we will not have an event, uh, in Metro Detroit for the month or in Harbor for that matter. Well, they had the one a couple of weeks ago. They had one. Yeah. And then theoretically if it ends when it's supposed to, they'll still have their next one. So it got kicked around today on LinkedIn, um, about us having a virtual event and while I go, Ooh, good idea. Google Hangouts and I talked to cause some guys at work and they're like, and that's not a bad idea then I thought a logistics, it's a horrible idea of having 50 people in a Google hangout going, hi, my name is Belle and I worked for this company and we sell stuff and we're awesome. Hi bell. It's like a, you know, like an AA meeting, but it's high bill. Um, so we're, we're, we're not going to do a virtual meetup. I, here's the thing, if you, you know that we've got 8,000 members in our LinkedIn site and we got like 2,800 on our meetup site. And then we've got our website. If you need to post your resume, post your resume posted job posted, job posted intro. If you guys want to have private Google Hangouts or like, Hey, you know, Philip A. Day of, of meeting new people, um, we're going to leave that up to you. It's kind of like how we've done our networking events. Right. We'll, we'll, we'll provide the venue and we'll leave it up to you to, to, to do what you wish. Like I'm not going to lie, I have always adding a message board, a component onto our site just cause I don't want to monitor it and I don't want to deal with it. And we do deal with enough deleting things on LinkedIn when people posting webinars and sales staff. But yeah, so we are a, we are in the throws of a Mike Corona [inaudible] but Hey, I'm speaking of networking events by the way. Um, we have been using Vista print since pretty much we've started I think, Oh seven or whenever, whenever we could buy it for its first couple of rounds of cards. Absolutely. We, um, you know, it was always, uh, we always, it was, it was the easy button for us building business cards. It was basically, um, pick your colors, fonts, designs. They had pre done designs. We did our own, we could put our logo on the back. We just decided to do two logo ones where I put it in the den, podcast, Detroit, we used to have two cards. Um, but Vista print has been kind of running this and we always told people that were coming to our events. Hey, just put your name and your title and your email and your phone number. You know, it's easy. Yeah. Um, but Hey, you know, like I said, you can use their designs, you can do your own design. You pick the paper stock, the style, quantity, it's right for you. Um, you can even upgrade, you can do stuff like rounded corners. You can be unique. Um, and now you can get your cards for free with economy shipping. Um, they actually use, uh, carefully selected inks and responsibly source paper socks too. And it's honored percent guaranteed. If you get it and it's not good, you get your money back or you can over, they'll make it right. Do us a favor. They want you to be able to own the now in any situation, which is why our listeners are it and the ETI team, the D listers will get free shipping on all business cards, any style, any quantity. Just go to Vista, print.com and enter promo code it in the D for free shipping on all business cards, any style, any quantity. Is this for a limited times the OMA [email protected] promo code it in the Dean, right Randy? I still owe your cards and saw the ones that Dave made, but they're the wrong ones. He didn't put his number. Yeah, no, no. John just took the ball and ran with it and didn't ask if it was supposed to be PD or it in the D and E J D he did it wrong. It's all good. We'll make her, they're still cute. I forget. Love them cause it's at least Randy's title is putting the gay and engagement. That's all I wanted. I would refute it as cute. I was like, I was like, Oh shit is Randy saw that? Then Randy left. I go, okay, fine. It's like, Oh my God. He laughed. What I said I was going to have them done that way. I had them done. I was going to say, I'll go talk to him about this. Um, yeah, no. So, uh, yeah, we, we are in the throws of, uh, whether it's, you know, you want to call it coven 19, you want to call it coronavirus. You want to do whatever the hell you want to call it. Um, we are neck freaking deep in it right now. You know, here's the thing, everyone's been talking about this like beating it to death. If I listen to talk radio on the way to work, um, right now, you know, half are more than, I want to talk about this in a minute from a technology standpoint, but a half our company's working from home, but uh, you know, as it turns out, that meeting really could have just been an email. But I always, right now I'm at the point where I'm like, I would hate to see happened if the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor again. Like the stores are destroyed and when I mean destroyed, I mean it's worse than like black Friday and they're giving away dollar TVs. Like everything is gone. People are buying year supply of toilet paper because I didn't know this virus gives you the shits, one person cops and then 30 people shit themselves. Right. But like then I'm like sitting at home now go, I'm going to like questioning our stock like die, have enough poop paper. Like are we going to be okay? You know, do we have ramen noodles? Like you know my kids are home now. So it's like are they going to be able to eat? And it sucks because everybody else's doomsday prepping kind of forces you to because you can't rely on there being toilet paper when you need it. So you've got to go stock up, right? No, I'm not going to, I refuse, I, I'm just, I'm not, I'm not going to be that guy. Like, I'm not cause all you're, all you're doing is you're screwing a other people and B, the stores because now you are throwing their inventory control systems wildly out of whack. And so when this stuff does start to settle down, I mean you're going to see some great deals on toilet paper and hand sanitizer, uh, probably meet, um, you know, when, when this stuff settles down because they're going to be so overstocked, they won't know what the hell to do with it. Cause now they're, well, that's the thing I don't understand. Like I understand if you have a over like how sales and inventory and all that stuff matters. Now you're getting all this like for the next four months, erroneous are getting. Yeah, you're getting it. You're getting outliers. This isn't the sales right now. Yeah. It's kinda like, um, Oh my God, we gotta talk about this too. Um, she's as Christ. I don't Michaels, I don't care what you're doing to combat the coronavirus Chuck E cheese hat. I don't care what you're doing to cry. Say that. I could have, I've gotten a hundred of those. I've gotten way more than that. Vastly underestimating the number that I've gotten. Top ones like I don't care. Harbor freight, I don't care. I don't care. Shit I bought from you tend to it like how does Michael's even have my email address? I use yours when I buy wire frames. That's right. Which is dumb stuff like I don't care. Like I assume you're wiping shit Dallas twice now. The restaurant's saying what they're doing now. I was like, you weren't sanitizing tables before him. I'm convinced it's dude, it's an ad campaign. It's companies that you probably haven't done business with in a long time and they're using these emails as reminder, Hey, we're here. Hey, we're here. Hey, we're here. Did you know what LinkedIn turned into? Oh, I saw a remote workers software. I said,...