The Last I.T. Podcast In The World!

Send us Fan MailWhile everyone else was distracted by that *other* logo controversy, Darrick and I kept our eye on the ball and noticed the real logo threat (hint: total global domination). And in the main segment, we take it to the Zero Trust fundamentalists who think that means making life hard for the employees of our company that we know, love, and trust (yeah, I said it).  So, we play a game where we Zero Trust Darrick's garage so see how well that would work...  

Send us Fan MailThe plant or the factory is its own domain, with domain experts like Plant Engineers who use their version of tech to keep machines and the plant humming. I.T. doesn't typically manage plant technologies needed to run machines. The I.T. department understands business systems like the ERP, among others, and knows the value of getting the plant to send data directly into the business systems, potentially automating thousands of transactions.  But often there is a barrier between plant folk and I.T. folk. Experienced software architects like Darrick know how to break down the barriers the prevent the factory data from being integrated and automated into the ERP.  We talk about that journey on this episode. And in the banter segment we ask, "What is the perfect summer dessert?" and "Is watermelon a dessert or a side dish?"

Send us Fan MailSure, you may think you know Natalie Lemke, CEO and busy dealmaker at RUX Software, but do you really?  Do you know jr. high competitive reader Natalie?  Or Science Olympiad letter jacket winning Natalie?  Celine Dion fan? Subway Sandwich Artist? Bed, Bath, and Beyond hustler and Calphalon fan girl?  Natalie joined me on an 𝗢𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 edition of 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗜.𝗧. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱, where I sit down with successful people and look back on how they got to where they are today. In addition to the fun, we got into some great topics on leadership, communication, personality styles and so much more. All were had by a good time!

Send us Fan MailIn the banter segment, we rank character-driven insurance commercials (spoiler: We disagree on the Gecko vs. Flo.)In the #badIT segment, we whine about why some companies are so greasy when we try to unsubscribe. "Are you SURE you want to unsubscribe????"It's amazing how long a company can go these days before their first internal I.T. hire. In The Big Idea segment, we share thoughts about which I.T. role (help desk? ERP analyst? IT Director?) a company should hire first. 

Send us Fan MailOrigin Story - a new episode format for The Last I.T. Podcast in the World. I welcome Ben Cole from ERP Connect Consulting to hear how he got to this point in his career. But first, I give him the Podcast Guest-ionnaire, where he admits he's a "Yes" on pineapple on pizza, has never broken a bone, and his first car was from Grandma (but still pretty cool). And we talk about the choices, the twists, the turns, and the helpful people that got him to where he is today in his career. And when he first learned what "ERP" was. I had a great time learning about his Origin Story - give a listen!

Send us Fan MailThe Last I.T. Podcast In The World goes for a swim in the deep end of the pool. We start in the kiddie pool with our floaties in the banter segment where we settle, once and for all, who should press dial when a text thread starts with "You available for a call?"We then ramp things up a bit when we dissect a cyber incident where two local governments made ALL the mistakes. Finally, Darrick helps me struggle through the myth of hiring "only the most qualified (or best) candidate." We realize how very few job requirements are truly objective, and that often we make hiring decisions based on the softer, more subjective skills like "team player," "fearless innovator," or "demonstrated leader." And that many candidates are "qualified," not just one. We worry about the human brain's lean towards cognitive bias, and wonder if it's okay to show compassion, or to support representation in the hiring process. Darrick has some great ideas about how to achieve a good balance of all this in the hiring process.

Send us Fan MailThere's a true art to #greatIT and we discuss the images and prose that make for great IT artisans. In the banter segment, I ask my co-host why his people insist in backing into parking spaces. And we both had some recent AI wins that we discuss, and there's a twist on the #badIT segment - a #badITGuy that embezzled from his employer. Special appearances by Duke Nukem, Picasso, and The Phantom Dog

Send us Fan MailMore anticipated than Severance Season 2, it's Part 2 of our Remote Work Panel on The Last I.T. Podcast In The World.  Kennie, Tonya, and Mark are back with Darrick and me to discuss #RemoteWorkLife:- How often do you need to get together with your team in the same location? - Two important words - Affinity and Trust- Missing those positive collisions at the coffee machine- The ongoing work/life balance challenge, and the pros of workday flexibility- Our pretend TED talk to C-level remote work skeptics. - And the importance of changing work scenery once in a while. Speaking of which, Kennie invites us all to his summer house in Denmark! What a guy!

Send us Fan MailWow!  A power-packed panel of 𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗗𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀 join 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗜.𝗧. 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗜𝗻 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱. Tonya Bricco-Meske, Kennie Nybo Pontoppidan, and Mark Rhodes join Darrick Johnson and me to discuss the pros, the cons, the advantages, and challenges of the remote work lived experience.  This is Part 1 of 2 episodes with these Smart People.  In this one, we also banter about our first cars.  Fun! Thoughtful!  Mildly provocative!

Send us Fan MailWorld famous wannabe astronaut Mark Rhodes drops by The Last I.T. Podcast in The World to talk about Change Management and why it is crucial to tech project success.  We ponder what it is and why so many projects still don't embrace it and use it. And I have Mark rank astronaut movies and convince him (for reals) that Die Hard is definitely an astronaut movie.  All over amber beverages at our local ale house. All were had by a good time!

Send us Fan MailShadow IT is when a company allows other departments to view I.T. as optional. More of a suggestion.  And allows them to undertake software projects or purchases, or even external IT resources with no, or very low engagement with I.T. leadership. The result?  Increased costs, increased security and data loss risks, fractured architecture, duplicate solutions, manual data entry. And creating a culture of organizational disrespect. We ask ourselves, "Imagine Shadow HR. Or Shadow Ops. Or Shadow Marketing." Our examples sound ridiculous but IT leaders deal with similar ridiculous Shadow IT challenges every day. Time to put our foot down, IT leaders. Enough is enough.Plus, the CEO of Oreos stops by, and we also play "I can destroy your company for only one million dollars"

Send us Fan MailIt's a special holiday episode of The Last I.T. Podcast In The World, where Darrick and I go through our IT Nice and Naughty list (mostly naughty). And: - I give my review of Silo season 2, where IT still rules the cylindrical dystopian future!- I ask Darrick the existential question: Which is better, Copy and Paste or the Thumbs Up emoji reply?- We design a much-needed app for the healthcare industry. But we can't decide what color the button should be.  And we discuss some AI wins and I disappoint Darrick's Personal Image Consultant.  Something for everyone!

Send us Fan MailDavid, avowed technologist, draws the line at tech in kitchen faucets and has opinions about recent trends in sinks. We also wonder what's going on with the tech at fast food drive-thrus that they never seem to know the total till you pull up to the first window. And strangers tell David their passwords for no apparent reason. Spoiler - it's 'password'.

Send us Fan MailIn this Snyder Cut edition of The Last I.T. Podcast In The World, I welcome Brian Vos whose job might just be cooler than yours (and yours is pretty darn cool).  Self-driving cars - pfft. Think bigger - Brian discusses how close we are to seeing autonomous big rigs rolling down a highway near you soon. We discuss what's driving the demand for autonomous freight vehicles and learn what "Class 8" and "Level 4" mean.  As well as the lengths Brian's company and his team are going to in order to address safety and regulatory compliance. In part 2 of the episode, we switch to talking about Brian's journey from Corporate IT to "Product IT".  And we start off in the banter segment giving Brian "The Fox" a Dutch Animal test. Listen in!

Send us Fan MailIs the Worker's Paradise Over? An Aussie CEO says 5 days in the office isn't enough - he'd like to (practically) duct tape employees to their chairs. A former boss bans laughter. JP Morgan grows a heart and caps hours at 80 a week (no cap) for SOME employees. And David screams "PUBLIC WIFI IS SAFE" into the void, but also to a WSJ journalist who's still spreading old wives' tales (no offense to Old Wives).  

Send us Fan MailNobody asked what we think about good vs. bad e-mail address name conventions, but did that stop us from sharing our opinions?  No, it did not.  Do we also have opinions about how some people use their cameras on video calls?  Yes, we do.  Then we talk about how AI adds prompts to posts on the Socials that are just silly.  And we learn new words!

Send us Fan MailWe discuss three stories ripped from today's headlines that cover the forces of evil conspiring to ruin remote work for all of us including North Korea, The Evil HR Lady, Mouse Jigglers and yes, Wells Fargo.  And we agree that Mouse Jigglers would be a good name for a band. 

Send us Fan MailWe welcome a panel of IT deep thinkers to discuss the attributes that make for great IT staff.  Darrick and David are joined by Tejal Patel and Keven Pennock to share our experiences with what the very best IT staff we've ever worked with have in common. And in the final segment, we have fun trimming our list down to our Final Five. Along the way we put Eeyore and Tigger in a blender, discuss Conscientious Laziness, what Sticky Bombs can teach us, and drop some fancy-pants French phrases.

Send us Fan MailWhat makes a coffee shop perfect for remote work?  We have a rating system.  And we add a little bathroom talk in the banter segment. In The Big Idea segment, we discuss a very important IT concept called Technical Debt.  It's bad, like a car that burns oil so badly you have to add oil while you drive (true story). 

Send us Fan MailHoo boy, the Return to Office wars have just gotten silly.  And dark.  Dell just announced they're going to start discriminating against their own employees who work not-near a Dell office.  That's right, remote workers are no longer eligible for promotions at Dell.  So, we play the game "what if we replaced 'remote workers' with another group of people?" How would that sound? Spoiler alert - it sounds pretty awful.

Send us Fan MailIn this Snack Size episode, I book an online service appointment for my car only to end up wondering "Do I or Don't I Actually Have an Appointment?"  In a tale of woe - spoiler alert - I did not, thanks to some #badIT at my local dealership.  That was bad enough, but they doubled down on some awful follow up to my mild-but-not-five-star review to answer another question "How to chase away customers with #badIT + some bad follow up".  Okay, not a question but you get the point. 

Send us Fan MailDarrick stans a magical gas station chain to a semi-skeptical David.  But they both agree on the magic of the Agile methodology for code development, ERP projects, your next cross-country trip, and maybe even your marriage.  

Send us Fan MailThousands fired from their jobs and forced into financial ruin or bankruptcy. Ostracized from their families and communities as thieves and cheats. Hundreds falsely accused, prosecuted, and sent to prison. Several died of suicide. An ordeal lasting decades.  𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩. The cause? The worst #badIT story you’ll ever hear.  CNN's Anna Cooban joins me on the podcast to discuss this fascinating and tragic story.Notes:  Anna Cooban's writing on CNN:  https://www.cnn.com/profiles/anna-cooban "Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office", dramatization, available in the UK on ITV"Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office - The Real Story", documentary, ITV, available on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8-sJEzuPQISome video and screenshots from "Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office - The Real Story", ITV Studios, January 2024 

Send us Fan MailIn IT in Popular Culture we talk about a TV show where the IT rules the dystopian future (finally!)  Plus how we're not fond of dudes getting their swole on and posting sweaty photos on LinkedIn. In our new CSI(T) segment, we put on our detective hats to inspect a job posting that merges two completely different IT skillsets into a single job and attempt to solve the mystery of "what were they thinking?" 

Send us Fan MailEverybody loves surprises.  Surprise birthday parties, unexpected bonuses, people hiding under your bed and grabbing your leg..  Wait, maybe some surprises that aren't so nice.  In this Snack Size (shorter) episode, we discuss opaque pricing by some large software companies, including the hidden calculator keeping track of whether you've racked up enough system transactions to suddenly be charged tens of thousands of dollars because you hit some arbitrary limit.  Surprise!  Also, Gross!

Send us Fan MailIn the opening banter segment, we question whether we should trust Spotify's AI DJ so much and give our Washington DC travel tips.  Darrick focuses on history and culture, while David just wants to find something to eat.  We have fun pronouncing "L'Enfant" in French, because we're apparently "L'Children".In The Big Idea segment, we share our formula for what makes up great IT (or any) service experience and ask our IT peeps to get better at this.  And we zero in on one surprising word with can make all the difference in any customer support or service experience.  

Send us Fan MailDavid and Darrick banter about blister-making tools they’d like to never see again, and how that helps them appreciate a career in IT, instead of a ditch.  In the AI Meltdown segment, they talk about how AI, before it decides to end humanity as we know it, might just save your life.  And they both enjoy the new AI DJ on Spotify, although they worry about hurting his/their/its feelings. In the Big Idea Segment, Darrick takes umbrage with The Smartest Twentysomethings In The World (McKinsey) and how they think Coders should be measured and managed.  David also burns his bridges with McKinsey, mostly by taking umbrage with their shoes.  But they both agree that Experience > The Fancy School You Went To. 

Send us Fan MailRecipes!  David gives his recipe for Texas Sweet Tea.  And Darrick and David discuss a recipe for disaster for companies who ignore some key macro demographic trends. In the #badIT segment, they take to a company to task that rhymes with “Gnome Repo”, has $290B market cap and 150,000 employees on LinkedIn, and yet nobody caught the hangnail of how their robot voice says dates and times.  Just to torture us. The Big Idea Segment might be The XL Big Idea Segment as David and Darrick discuss macro labor trends that could wreck business’s ability to grow and thrive if they don’t adapt.  And we give some IT and non-IT advice about how to let the crisis be a crisis for your competitors, but not for you.  

Send us Fan MailDavid’s hat of the episode attempts to heal our divided (Oreo) nation.We dive into our podcast listener demographics and learn many of our listeners may have been born in 1874. Darrick is skeptical that David’s welcome at Ryan Reynold's house for the holidays, but David’s got the receipts.In the “Stuff I Saw on LinkedIn”, David and Darrick read a post with some spectacularly bad travel productivity advice.  David confesses to using public Wi-Fi, never using a security VPN, and running with scissors.  And they both learn the new word "shampersandt".And in The Big Idea segment, they have the classic Build vs. Buy I.T. debate and decide the worst decision is to buy (an ERP) and then build (customize the shampersandt out of it). 

Send us Fan Mail I.T. careers can take you to some cool places (literally).  I try Rage Marketing with my hot take on cookies, but not the I.T. kind.  Also, what 𝗜.𝗧. 𝗣𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗼𝗽𝗵𝘆 and Adaptive Cruise have in common and some outstandingly #badIT examples, text messaging edition.  In 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗮 𝗦𝗲𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁, we give @CFO’s some free (!!) advice about the I.T. budget.

Send us Fan MailDavid and Darrick discuss Christmas Lights in August for...reasons.  And what they miss / don't miss about working in the office (hint:  a very specific sandwich).  In the AI Meltdown, AI tricks a human to do it's bidding (or does it?).  And somehow we end up talking about the Ship of Theseus and our genius plan for how to keep AI from destroying humanity.  The Big Idea in this episode is why building-centric cyber security was a good idea 10 years ago, but not today.  But a device (or identity)-centric approach is just as secure but more suited to remote work without all the firewall backhauling and packet sniffing (gross).  David gets burned at the stake for suggesting that IT sometimes operates on old time religion and traditions and not on modern best practices.  Plus, our subliminal marketing plan to turn you all into Like and Subscribe zombies.

Send us Fan MailDavid blames the podcast name on the Feds, gives some fascinating (!) insights into the app that helps him get his haircut & learns he may be a lousy tipper.  In the news segment, David and Darrick question a remote work platform arbitrarily calling some of their employees back to the office. Darrick talks about #badIT and youth league baseball app with a pretty major design flaw.  For The Big Idea, they both talk about the greasy business of companies buying systems or technology and how they might fall for the sales person's Jedi Mind Tricks.  And the importance of IT involvement to advise on integrations, technical compatibility, and other critical areas.