Calculus of IT - Episode 24 - 5/15/2024 - "New IT Leader's Survival Guide - Years 2 and 3 - Governance Revisited Part 1"

Wow what a fucking doozy this episode is.  Some might even go so far to say that it is pernicious AF.  We cover some AI stuff as usual and then dig right into Governance in Years 2 and 3 as a new IT Leader with an emphasis on 3 of the 5 primary governance domains: Project Prioritization, Development, and Infrastructure.  This, my friends, is a special event.  Mike and I are coming live via Twitch from some restaurant in Burlington, Massachusetts which didn't mind our presence too much.   Here it is, Episode 24, in all of its glory.  Bask in the perniciousness of our Governance.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introductions and General Banter
• 1:06:00 Nate Reads Section 2: IT Governance Part 1
• 1:25:24 Section 2 Read Concludes - General Banter Continues

Transcript

Speaker 1 00:00 
Code in the matrix, it's how we play algorithms Crafting the future our way Silicon visions from dusk till dawn We're the wizards of tech where progress is born With every line we're defining the time Creating the world where the virtual climbs Shanghai is for winners Sad salads profound Ponies and bubblegum floating around Tech Accord who's bored the calculus of IT With Nate and Mike drown in the nether Or just escape to Neverland 

Speaker 2 01:08 
Thanks for watching! 

Speaker 3 01:20 
So, let me just do this real quick. We'll set up. 

Speaker 4 01:24 
Sure, sure, all good things. 

Speaker 2 01:38 
What is happening to you? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. 

Speaker 5 01:48 
So supposedly here at 7 .30, there's a big comedy act. 

Speaker 3 01:51 
Yeah, that's what I read on the door. I wonder, do they think they meant us? Yeah, that's what I thought. I thought maybe they knew we were coming. Someone get like a word out that blew her. That's gonna be us. 

Speaker 3 02:00 
We were here. 

Speaker 5 02:02 
I thought that was for sure what it was, actually. It's like, did you fall ahead? 

Speaker 3 02:08 
let everyone know well i did turn off the shooting 

Speaker 5 02:15 
So we were driving home the other night, listening to the theme song again, and a lot of laughs. Classic. 

Speaker 3 02:26 
Oh yeah, I did. 

Speaker 5 02:27 
one more rap thing, but it didn't come out too good. But hey, what are you going to do? Nothing you can do about that. 

Speaker 3 02:35 
I think uh, well, all right, hold on a second. 

Speaker 2 02:43 
I'll be late. 

Speaker 5 02:46 
So here at the Common Craft in Burlington, you can go... I thought we were at Bennegan's. We're at Bennegan's. Yeah, I'm sorry, it's Bennegan's. Well, we were at the 90s. 

Speaker 3 02:53 
or Denny's. We're friendlies right now? We're friendlies. Denny's added feather couches to it. Cheers, man. Cheers. Good to see you. I have some... I have a little bit of a surprise to show you. 

Speaker 5 03:09 
I went to the kalai tonight, I need to be on good behavior, you know what, the kalai, why don't you have water, plus this is a 3 .2% alcohol, it's like a few eyedrops, eyedroppers in the drink. 

Speaker 3 03:27 
Just a hint of cheese. You could take the same step that you, the visine, you put in your eyes and just drink that. Or like drink toothpaste. What if you drink visine, what happens? Any ideas? Well, what is visine? 

Speaker 5 03:42 
Saltwater is like saline and a little bit of medicine we as we like to call it 

Speaker 3 03:51 
everywhere if you drink rising. What's Gemini say? It contains tetrahydrozoline that can have serious health implications if ingested. Don't ingest vibes. It can lead to lethargy. That would explain a lot. 

Speaker 3 04:08 
That would explain hypertension, bradycardia, and respiratory depression. Wow. So all those things. So that was a good test. Don't actually drink vibes. Do not do that. That's bad. Do you accidentally get drops in your mouth? 

Speaker 3 04:21 
Nick Leidy is not. We usually call it poison control hotline. Yes. 1 -800 -222 -1222. Public service announcement. And that will tell you to stick your fingers down your throat. And drink mick light. 

Speaker 3 04:34 
A lot of mick light. 

Speaker 5 04:35 
Like the there's something about mcclady. There's a there's a one so good right 

Speaker 3 04:40 
There's a one -star extension which will give you dark mode in Google Docs. The money that's installed is like a piece of shit. So I'm tempted to install it just to see how bad it is. 

Speaker 5 04:50 
I thought it was built -in now. 

Speaker 3 04:52 
you cannot do on iOS and Android on the web machine. 

Speaker 5 04:57 
that they just talked about it at I .O. No. It's you're in Google Docs. 

Speaker 3 05:05 
Yes, there's no, you have to make the whole thing like what I did. You just turned the page black and made the text white. Because it's always reflecting in my glasses when I'm reading. Oh, I see. So I'm trying to make it, not because I'm hip, even though I am, tragically hip. 

Speaker 5 05:27 
You know what you need? I think I have a way to do it. Let's talk about it for a second. Hold on a second. Watch this. Let's see how it works. This is my machine. So. 

Speaker 3 05:40 
You did send me that one nice announcement, by the way, from IO, which we can play in a moment. Yes, it was a wonderful, you know, this small thing on AI. It summed up the keynote in 45 seconds. Yes, I liked that. 

Speaker 3 05:55 
What is it you're doing now? I'm just seeing if this works, it would blow my mind, it does. Why don't you... 

Speaker 5 06:01 
use the island, Mike. I can't use the island. That's why I need to use this. There it is. Is it off? Okay. 

Speaker 3 06:08 
Dang. Now I can't see the text in black. Yeah, that's safari. I know. Oh, I'm not using safari. Well... 

Speaker 5 06:16 
I'm just trying to help you out. The way I do it is just fine. Look, I can't even see it. I can't see any text anymore. 

Speaker 3 06:26 
And welcome to the Congress of IT podcast. Welcome. Welcome to the cognitive load. We're loading right now cognitively on Molotovs and ponies. No sad salad tonight, unfortunately. This is the home of the sad salad. 

Speaker 3 06:44 
Did you eat anything? Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm getting crazy tonight. It's the home of just at a zero. And the official home of the tech accord. And I got a note from one of our fans today. Yeah. That we are basically the only reliable source of information on the internet. 

Speaker 3 07:00 
Really? Well, we said it last week. And so now it's become manifest in terms of truth. How do you find truth? We are the source of truth. We are the source of truth. That's good to hear. If you need truth, you come to the right place. 

Speaker 3 07:15 
There's the truthness of things. Also, it's the nexus of the nether. Nexus of the Neverland. And tonight, we are going to get AI AF. Watch out. Watch out, man. Yeah, we got a big opener on AI. Hi, Nate McBride. 

Speaker 3 07:35 
This is Michael Crispin. Hello, hello. Good to see you again. And we are your digital custodians for this, the 24th episode of the Calculus of IT podcast. What are we saying? TGI Fridays? We're TGI Fridays right now. 

Speaker 3 07:51 
Chuck E. Cheese? I was checking our audio. I'm making sure we're OK. That's the cognitive load effect. Yeah, it's like an echo. We listen to ourselves while we're talking to ourselves. Is it hello? Hello? 

Speaker 3 08:02 
Anyone here? I'm being quiet now. You sound good. Do I sound good? Are you being quiet? You sound hot. You sound hot. So if you weren't able to attend the Google keynote today for IO, they did a wonderful summary of the keynote. 

Speaker 3 08:24 
Do you want to go ahead and play it? What? You want to play the keynote? Sorry. 

Speaker 4 08:30 
I gotta get it. 

Speaker 3 08:31 
Pull it up. I'll queue it up. That's it. You sent me in on discord discord I Don't want everyone to see this all this stuff in here. Let's see what happens Take a court 

Speaker 5 08:44 
play through, right? Yeah, I'm going to share the screen here once I can get a bit pulled up. 

Speaker 2 08:54 
We'll see how we do this. 

Speaker 3 08:57 
All right. Well, I know that. 

Speaker 2 09:00 
One, two, three. 

Speaker 5 09:05 
I like technology. 

Speaker 3 09:06 
I Was also a bubblegum it does it does kind of smell like bubblegum. It does show it or what's up. Is it showing it? I can't see you. No, not yet. Well, you always play the audio, right? No, I won't play the audio 

Speaker 5 09:22 
I didn't know I was going to be sharing digital information tonight. 

Speaker 3 09:27 
You can't send me something that's so pivotal to Google's future and then not expect me to want to share it with you. Oh, I know. I didn't know you were going to... We're going to share the screen, like, just play the fucking audio, man. 

Speaker 3 09:43 
You can't hear it. Well, you're cooking everything but, and you should be cooking. Cook that thing right there. Which thing? Go back over that. The little pier. Mouse over that. The little pier right there. 

Speaker 3 09:55 
Right there. Yep. 

Speaker 5 09:58 
Oh, that's not it. Yeah, see, it's right here. So we just got to go and pick the right thing. 

Speaker 3 10:05 
It's right there. 

Speaker 2 10:09 
full screen. 

Speaker 3 10:13 
It's like watching Joe Louis use a mouse. Yeah. 

Speaker 4 10:18 
the place. I am. I'm trying to do this on the fly. 

Speaker 3 10:24 
Okay, while you're doing that, I'm going to have a beer. 

Speaker 5 10:34 
I'm loving it. I'm just trying to pour it up in a browser window because it doesn't, it's not like a YouTube video. We have it just copied. 

Speaker 3 10:44 
this link. Here it is. I did. That is the link. It's the same thing. 

Speaker 5 10:52 
It is the URL. You're looking at the screen. Yeah. So people can see the screen? I'm just trying to share it. 

Speaker 2 11:02 
Thanks for watching! 

Speaker 3 11:04 
Alright, here it is. They won't be able to hear it. It's okay. Why can't they hear it? Because you've got a microphone on. No, but they can hear it through...no. Then what's the point of playing it? Just stop playing it. 

Speaker 3 11:15 
I wanted to see if it would go through. 

Speaker 5 11:18 
Well, that was cool, we tried. 

Speaker 3 11:24 
We will post the link later. Yes. 

Speaker 5 11:32 
We've got to practice sharing links in real time with audio. I didn't know we were doing that tonight. It's very complicated, apparently. It totally is. 

Speaker 3 11:39 
is when you're trying to go live, but we'll figure it out. If you want to deep dive into this thrilling competition right now, you can join us on Discord and tell us how much we suck at our technical skills. 

Speaker 3 11:50 
Yes. We do suck at them. Join us only to combine 50 years of IT. You can find the link to our Discord server. As usual, we're writing the show notes, so combine and share your innermost thoughts and feelings. 

Speaker 3 12:04 
You can also find the Discord link at our website, thecoit .us. I just posted a link for everyone to watch. I want to also mention that if you like our show, please give it five stars on Apple Podcast or Spotify or YouTube, or wherever the hell you listen to the show. 

Speaker 3 12:20 
If you listen to it on Netflix, then give it a thumbs up on Netflix. In our show description, we have links to our Buy Us a Beer portal and our new merchant store, which is growing as we speak. It grows every week. 

Speaker 3 12:33 
Also, like I said, if you want to buy us a beer, it's pretty easy. Just go to that little link. You can click Buy Us a Single Beer or 100 Beers, if you're feeling generous. The beer normally doesn't really go to the show. 

Speaker 3 12:45 
It goes to us. Buy beer. I don't want to be clear about that. I'm not using your money and I'm saving it all up so I can buy a new microphone. I'm literally going right out and buying a beer. Still get a beer. 

Speaker 3 13:00 
Oh, that's what we have to do. A quick word from our sponsor. Are you an IT professional looking to elevate your leadership skills and advance your career? I am. Of course. Who isn't? I am. Discover Luminary Sporage, the pinnacle of IT leadership development. 

Speaker 3 13:15 
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Speaker 3 13:30 
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Speaker 3 13:43 
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Speaker 3 13:55 
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Speaker 3 14:06 
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Speaker 3 14:24 
There's no follow -up. There's no, uh, if you have your money, then as you have the money and you want a piece of paper, that's it. Done. 

Speaker 5 14:33 
That's too bad. We thought they were going to follow up. And I thought they were going to be right. Hey, so how do you do that? 

Speaker 3 14:37 
your action will be going to work at your company, like how are you transforming IT with your new leadership kit? No, what they said they're saying is, you want to set up another class? You can only benefit from our CTO program, which is also $30 ,000. 

Speaker 3 14:53 
Yeah, just thanks. 

Speaker 5 14:54 
Give us more money. It's a hard move. I ask more. It's a hard move. Are you happy about it? You're not happy about it? 

Speaker 4 15:00 
I love that, don't you? 

Speaker 3 15:02 
Don't just say that the Luminary Sport experience is a thousand times better than anything you'll ever buy via the program. Just by virtue of the fact that we are going to make sure that you're doing every single thing that you learn, every single time you learn. 

Speaker 3 15:18 
You're doing it in real time, real time. Right, and you have to be graded on it. You can't just show up in class and sleep. You're going to be... You're actually going to do it. Yeah, you're going to do it. 

Speaker 3 15:28 
And it's pretty much like everything we talk about here, we're doing that class, but again, at a much higher level. So, last week we wrapped up our discussion on the first two sections of section two. 

Speaker 3 15:43 
We talked about budgeting first, and last week we talked about, I mean, we talked about flexibility in planning, but mostly it was IT strategy. But out of that spawned Wargaming. Yep. I was going to post today, that was very good. 

Speaker 3 15:59 
Yeah, I did a post on LinkedIn, which is a precursor to, you guessed it, another book. So, I spent the weekend, sort of, well, not the weekend, since we last met, outlining how a book might go in this. 

Speaker 3 16:12 
And it turns out I've already written most of it back in 2013. Excellent, excellent. So, I did a new outline, kind of. I'm going to fill in some blanks, add templates, add diagrams, and then put that out there as another book. 

Speaker 3 16:22 
People can download. We're basically, not only, like, we know how to write an IT strategy, you know? Not only the way everything else comes along with that. Yep. I'm remiss from not including that in the big book. 

Speaker 3 16:32 
I should have done it. Well, I think it'll be good to get all that content out there. But tonight, have we got a treat for you? Oh, yeah. Not only are we doing a comedy routine at Bennigan's at 7 .30. 

Speaker 3 16:44 
Where are we going? Bennigan's. Bennigan's. At 7 .30. Well, we're going to be talking about governance tonight. Oh, God. Dude, are you so stoked right now? This is worth grabbing another beer. Yes, we're going to have to pause in a few moments to get into the beer. 

Speaker 3 17:02 
Because I'm halfway done, and that to me is running low. Yep. Alright, but before we do that, so you know that most of the articles written today about technology are either AI generated or written to people that are trying to make revenue. 

Speaker 3 17:19 
Yep. In the world, the computer world, and all the other. They want to sell advertisements. I saw that. Yeah. Okay. 

Speaker 4 17:24 
Yeah, sure. 

Speaker 3 17:25 
So what's interesting is if you look at this if you go back in time over the last say six months look at the how They have a tenor It's a big word for you the tenor or timber of the articles has changed It went from a lot of these spaces being extraordinarily pro AI But why the fuck are you why aren't you doing AI? 

Speaker 3 17:42 
Yeah, you should be doing AI. Yeah, everyone should be doing AI Who wants me right away? I what are you doing? Why are you so easy? now Everyone's doing AI. We're trying to so what are they doing? They're spinning around So there's this guy Well mentioned his name or where he comes from But two of his articles have been recently published a second one of which came out in the info world same the same Spellicles are the same same topic. 

Speaker 3 18:09 
Yeah, but just different writing different approach. Sure. This is the same topic same idea. Yep, and Like I said one of those found its way into the info week feed this week and He's he's describing Current approach towards AI as pernicious Okay, now quick quick trivia. 

Speaker 3 18:34 
Do you know what pernicious means? No, I'm not trying to be like an idiot No, there's nobody uses this word. No, I don't Sores work was on the sword pernicious means I'm every this year It means highly destructive causing insidious harm and ruin Tending to a fatal issue So again, this is what pernicious means yeah destructive causing insidious harm and ruin Semicolon. 

Speaker 3 19:04 
Yep Tending towards a fatal issue semicolon deadly What do you do when you really want to sort of drive home a point you create a quickly article on info world info week rather Use the biggest word you can possibly find that has everybody sketching their heads and then you publish it. 

Speaker 3 19:28 
So the article is called three pernicious myths of responsible AI Okay, as if as if there were more than three by the way, but he's he's coming out from like this three I want to hire there So I don't know how many in the world readers There were like pernicious Wow, that's Yeah, because I know pernicious means and I'm like Airplane crashes and very very deadly car accidents There's a headline somebody like a self -help family and there's something terrible 

Speaker 5 20:13 
It's not what every sci -fi movie is about. It's very much patches your eye. 

Speaker 3 20:18 
Well, so, to call anything pernicious is basically to say that, but you don't want to know what it means, I know what you mean. It's just, let's say anything pernicious, it's calling it out and equivocating it to all the terrible shit that is actually pernicious. 

Speaker 3 20:32 
Yeah. So, let's find out what he says about why responsible AI is pernicious. Please. And just so we're clear, there's absolutely zero research provided in this article, in either of his articles. There's no links given to substantiate any of the claims that he makes, and this is after all a denotative, or there's another big word. 

Speaker 5 20:56 
What the hell does that mean? 

Speaker 3 20:58 
dictionary definition of clickbait that one I had in the event if you're complaining the calculus of IT bingo you pretty much got the corners done now at this point 

Speaker 5 21:09 
Just AI. I like that. You should call this the AI. 

Speaker 3 21:12 
pernicious podcast. Listening to it could be fatal. 

Speaker 5 21:18 
screen -sharing technology. 

Speaker 3 21:19 
So right now they're home with a pernicious podcast. That's going to go in our new opener. Pernicious. Pernicious. And if you are being pernicious at home, stop. So let's take a look at the face value of who's got these assertions. 

Speaker 3 21:34 
And by the way, just so we're clear, I haven't taken any quote I'm about to read out of context. So everything's in context unless you step back and realize the entire article is out of context, in which case all my quotes are out of context. 

Speaker 3 21:47 
But in this case, I'll read some trace quotes. So quote number one, responsible AI is needed now more than ever. It's the opener. So it doesn't sound too pernicious yet, right? It sounds pretty pernicious. 

Speaker 3 22:00 
No, I'm pernicious. That sounds like a good thing. It's unsubstantiated and we don't really need it now more than ever. We need like, social poverty and social ills, but anyway, we'll go with it. And it is the key to driving everything from trust and adoption to managing LLM hallucinations and eliminating toxic generative AI content. 

Speaker 3 22:23 
With effective RAI, companies can innovate faster, unsubstantiated, transform more parts of the business, unsubstantiated, compile future AI regulation, totally unsubstantiated, and prevent fines, which you can't be finding right now, computational damage, okay, and competitive stagnation. 

Speaker 3 22:44 
Okay, so for stagnation, that's in the second column of the bingo curve. Unfortunately, confusion reigns as to what RAI actually is. Okay, no substantiation. So confusion reigns. Yeah, are you, is confusion reigning over you? 

Speaker 3 23:02 
Totally right now. Totally, I need to. 100%. So what RAI actually is, what it delivers and how to achieve it with potentially catastrophic effects. Okay, now we're getting into the pernicious stuff. Oh boy, catastrophic. 

Speaker 3 23:15 
Not poorly, RAI initiatives stymie innovation, creating hurdles that add delays and costs without actually improving safety. I didn't, so we're into safety. So RAI, which creates safety, well -meaning but misguided, myths abound regarding the very definition and purpose of RAI, unsubstantiated. 

Speaker 3 23:38 
Organizations must shatter these myths if we return RAI into a force for AI -driven value creation instead of a costly, ineffectual time sink. Now, if you stop right there, I would have maybe gone, oh, okay, essentially an argument, but no, no, no. 

Speaker 3 23:56 
So what are these three pernicious RAI myths? So here we go. Number one, responsible AI is about principles. Now, he's claiming this is a myth. And he goes on to say it's not about principles. In fact, he says, go to any tech giant, and I would, in my own friends, he'd say, any company, and you will likely find RAI principles, like explainability, fairness, privacy, inclusiveness, and transparency. 

Speaker 3 24:23 
They're so prevalent that you would be forgiven for thinking that these principles are at the core of RAI. After all, these sound like exactly the kinds of principles we would hope for in a responsible human to show their key to ensuring responsible AI, right? 

Speaker 3 24:36 
It's his question mark. All organizations already have principles. They don't, not all of them. Usually they are exactly the same principles that are promulgated for RAI. To be promulgated, that's in the fourth column, the center. 

Speaker 3 25:00 
After all, how many organizations would say that they are against fairness, transparency, inclusiveness? If they were, could you truly sustain one set of principles for AI? The different set of principles for the best organization. 

Speaker 3 25:11 
I mean, this is all a speechless argument now. He's trying to make an argument where one doesn't exist. Further principles are no more effective at engendering that trust in AI than they are for people in organizations. 

Speaker 3 25:23 
Who wrote this? I'm not telling you. I'll tell you after. Oh, okay. Do you trust that a discount airline will deliver you safely to your destination because of their principles? Actually, I do. I 100% do. 

Speaker 3 25:36 
Or do you trust them because of the trained pilots, technicians, and air traffic controllers who follow rigorously and enforce processes using carefully tested and regularly inspected equipment? So, two mixed metaphors there that don't work. 

Speaker 3 25:50 
Much like air travel, and there's one more. It is the people, process, and technology that enable and enforce your principles that are at the heart of RAI. So, this myth, number one, started by saying, RAI is not about principles. 

Speaker 3 26:02 
Now he's coming back to say that it is our principles. So, that's myth number one, busted. Myth number two, responsible AI is about ethics. Again, I'm quoting, surely RAI is about using AI ethically, making sure that models are fair and do not cause harmful discrimination, right? 

Speaker 3 26:22 
Yes, there's also so much more. Only a tiny subset of AI use cases actually have ethical and fairness considerations. Unsubstantiated, such as models that are used for credit scoring, that screen resumes, or that could lead to job losses. 

Speaker 3 26:42 
Let me get to the bottom of this one where he says, the same tools that you use to provide explainability check for bias and ensure privacy are exactly the same that you use to ensure accuracy, reliability, and data protection, unsubstantiated. 

Speaker 3 26:55 
RAI helps ensure AI is just ethically, when there are fairness considerations at stake, but it's just as critical for every other AI use case, as well. It's a circular reference there. That's what we call in database logic. 

Speaker 3 27:09 
When you make the same point and then refute your primary point. It's number three, responsible AI is about explainability. I'm gonna stop right there. I don't need to read the rest of that bullshit in that myth. 

Speaker 3 27:23 
It's all about explainability. If I go and ask a generative AI how to develop a protein for a particular cell, and it tells me, and then I go use that information to then do that thing. Yeah, I don't understand explainability behind how it was generated. 

Speaker 3 27:41 
Yep, I have done something that is not RAI. I need to understand fully how to explain how the answer that I'm given relates to the question that I asked. That's called explainability. So, yep, I'll get to the end. 

Speaker 3 27:58 
So he sums it all up as saying, responsible AI is about managing risk. At the end of the day, RAI is a practice of managing risk when developing using AI machine learning models. This involves managing business risks, legal risks, and regulatory fines, and customer employee lawsuits, and even societal risks. 

Speaker 3 28:17 
But note, everything that he just said falls anywhere to the ranks of pernicious. It falls into no shit. Then there's a big paragraph that says a lot of words but then says nothing. Sums up by saying, these are the capabilities that advanced AI teams in the heavy regulated industry such as pharma, financial service, and insurance have already been building and driving value from. 

Speaker 3 28:44 
Unsubstantiated. They're the capabilities that build trust in all AI or civilly generative AI at scale with the benefits of faster implementation, greater adoption, better performance, and improved reliability. 

Speaker 3 28:56 
Responsible AI can be the key to unlocking AI value at scale but you'll need to shatter some myths first. So that's the end of the article. In that entire article, zero is actually said about perniciousness above AI. 

Speaker 3 29:12 
And this person who wrote this article has said three things that are actually key to generative AI, which is principles, ethics, and above all, the ability to explain what the fuck you're doing with generative AI. 

Speaker 3 29:25 
So if you wanna be somebody who's not gonna have any ethics or principles and not gonna explain how they use generative AI and just go forward, knock yourself out, you'll find a great companionship with this individual. 

Speaker 3 29:39 
Otherwise, perhaps slow down, take a step back, and ask yourself, why are we using generative AI in our company? And how can we make sure that we're using it responsibly and include everything that's not pernicious in that discussion? 

Speaker 3 29:54 
I just, 

Speaker 5 29:55 
The key is to use it responsibly, right? I mean, that's best you can if you need to use it. 

Speaker 3 30:00 
The fact that RAI is now becoming a buzz acronym is a little disturbing because it generated out of nowhere. I would actually like to attribute to Gardner, but Gardner didn't even invent it. 

Speaker 5 30:13 
Just because of all the noise about how dangerous this is that this is these are the articles that people will read now 

Speaker 3 30:19 
want this person to understand that there are now four tech accords of a global scale focused on ethics principles and ensuring the safety of AI yep so you might be coming at this from a long angle perhaps a new article could be how the world is viewing generative AI ethically yeah how the world is treating generative AI responsibly not pernicious but I'll give you marks for the word you'll take it to the SATs you'll do great so to cleanse the palate actually have some good news oh yes it's not pernicious I thought you would like that article 

Speaker 5 30:57 
because that's that's about he's trying to put forth a lot of the messaging around responsible AI I don't know how well he did it there but 

Speaker 3 31:05 
No, I don't think he did well at all. Yeah, it's just he's. 

Speaker 5 31:08 
He's just throwing out a bunch of stuff. I think a lot of people already have heard a million times, which is the ethics arguments and non -bias and having review explainability is important, you know, to maintain that you're still extra needed. 

Speaker 5 31:25 
You know, it's a good important piece. You can explain why these things come up with answers. I don't know, man, it's getting scary because I think when answers are good enough, like we talked about in the first few episodes, people will just take them. 

Speaker 5 31:39 
They're not going to question them. And that's where, you know, you're going to get in trouble. 

Speaker 3 31:43 
going to get worse. We'll talk about this in a moment. It's only going to get worse because the speed at which things are advancing is pretty nuts. We'll talk about what happened just this past week in a moment, but one thing I want to mention is that it's good news. 

Speaker 3 31:57 
From the corner of the internet, every now and then something will pop up that's a good news. It's like a little full of flowers that would dandelion. You know I like 404 media. You eat 404 media, right? 

Speaker 3 32:07 
Yeah, I do. 404 media put out a statement today that they will be staying human on human. That they will only produce human generated content. It will not be relying on AI. They've been doing that. They will continue to do that. 

Speaker 3 32:23 
I've got to tell you, I've got to dig the shit out of that. In fact, I think that those are maybe not sort of the tip of the spear on this. Yep, what we will see, and tell me if I'm off base here, what we will see is that you will start to see either a watermark or some kind of thin that goes along with news that says human generated or AI generated. 

Speaker 3 32:45 
Already happening. And human generated will become the better standard. Yep. 

Speaker 5 32:51 
It depends on where humans go, right? I mean... 

Speaker 2 32:57 
Yeah, it depends on the wins. 

Speaker 3 33:00 
If you see two articles, one says written by a human, written by an AI, which one are you gonna read more? 

Speaker 5 33:04 
Today, it's going to be the human one. I don't know about tomorrow. I think that's part of the two -sided sword here, is put AI on everything. People like what AI generates better, just like people like certain news articles better than others. 

Speaker 5 33:22 
I don't know. It's going to be interesting. Even, for example, on TikTok now, when you upload a photo, you can say it's AI generated, and it's getting more traffic. So I have to, I have to, I should. 

Speaker 3 33:35 
I have to actually say in my upload YouTube videos now, if there's any AI generated content in it. Yeah. I upload it. So this is a quote from their press release or their note. The internet has been always changing fast. 

Speaker 3 33:45 
Over the last few months, we have been documenting how generated AI tools are flooding every internet platform with junk content designed to monetize loopholes of already trained social media companies and deceive users. 

Speaker 3 33:57 
AI generated influencers that steal content from real people, fake images of suffering children, the endless plate of harmful Instagram ads as a toxic media ecosystem that puts profits first from the well -being of real people last. 

Speaker 3 34:08 
Google search is sending less traffic than ever to sites like ours, and it's injecting yet more AI into its search products. Yep. Media companies are increasingly turning to AI generated garbage too. 

Speaker 3 34:18 
We are building the alternative, media for humans made by humans. I fucking love that shit. Good for you 404, keep the good, good coming. I'll read it all day. I love all their stuff. Yeah, they're investigative journalism is fantastic. 

Speaker 3 34:32 
Yeah, they are good. I like reading. 

Speaker 5 34:35 
their stuff I get every morning at their newsletter yeah now I like having that comes from a digress well they're great they're definitely 

Speaker 3 34:42 
taking expensive to I forget what I paid but it's like a hundred dollars a year it's it's not much to get very cool what is essentially very I mean there's an ex vice people I think right yep somebody I put some very hardcore cutting investigate journalism on things that you didn't really know we're going on but they're actually related oh yeah 

Speaker 5 35:03 
It's very, very interesting to see where they're going, especially from a lot of the AI and the social media constructs and how they're changing. 

Speaker 3 35:11 
So, since we last met last week, Jam and I doubled its input context window from one million to two million tokens yesterday, right? It was actually Monday. What's today? 

Speaker 5 35:26 
Oh yeah, was it Monday? I always thought it was yesterday. 

Speaker 3 35:31 
I don't know. Yeah, that's one of those days that one of those days ends in day. One of those days OpenAI released GBT 4 .0. That was Monday, which Monday, which generates tokens two times faster and 50% cheaper than GBT for turbo. 

Speaker 3 35:47 
I don't know what the O means. I didn't know the O means. I don't look it up. I don't. I don't know what I mean. And it also natively accepts and generates multimodal tokens. Yes. So this is sort of the latest, it's an 18 month trend. 

Speaker 3 36:04 
There's a great chart. I should share it. I don't have it here in the document, but it shows that the context windows. And it's just like, it's not even sort of like a curve. It's just a straight line. 

Speaker 3 36:13 
And they don't see a clip dropping up any point. It's like a straight vertical line. Yeah. So since the launch of GBT in November 22, with all the key milestone GBT 4, Gemini 1 .5 Pro, Rotry, Opus, Llama 370B, many model providers have improved the capabilities into a certain ways. 

Speaker 3 36:33 
Reasoning, which is like one of the biggest releases, allows LLMs to think through complex concepts, and then longer input context windows. Yep. This means that for like, I don't know, you guys teach Gen AI classes that, you know, when I teach Gen AI classes at Izilio, I teach about few -shot prompts. 

Speaker 3 36:55 
And so I've been doing that since last summer. Yeah. Like what's a few -shot prompt, how to write one, et cetera. And how to be creative when you write them. Well, so if you know how to write a few -shot prompt, and if you use Gen AI, you should have learned how to write a few -shot prompt. 

Speaker 3 37:07 
You can now explain that to what they call mega prompts. Yep. I mean, pages and pages of prompts, you can now put into a context window. So you'll have a better chance of a RACA -framed response if you, that's R -A -C -C -C -A, using a... 

Speaker 3 37:29 
So complex. I know. All this stuff like... Well, if you... 

Speaker 5 37:34 
commercial that they're bringing out. Did you have an i -commercial? Yeah, it's like everyone can do this. 

Speaker 3 37:39 
Their argument's just the opposite. Now if you write a one or two sentence query, you're fucked. You do the answer, and you don't take that back to your boss. Like, don't rely on it. You gotta write a few shot prompts. 

Speaker 3 37:50 
Make it your own. And now they've given everyone the chance to write complicated few shot prompts. Yep. I'm not gonna go into details. You can google it. Few, F -E -W, shot, prompts. Google it. Google it. 

Speaker 3 38:02 
Google Gemini that. See what it says. Okay. That's awesome. Also in the news, two other things. Chat GBT has published for open discussion and debate. I don't know how open it's gonna be. It's model spec, which is basically their policies for how their R -I -F works. 

Speaker 3 38:21 
Okay. You can read it online now. And they're inviting the public to provide commentary on the guidelines. So one of the reasons Exilio adopted CLOD, or CLOUD, depending on who you are, as our standard, is because the difference between OpenAI's R -I -F principles, which I don't like, if I'm particularly scary. 

Speaker 3 38:38 
Yep. And CLOUD's open constitution. They're open constitutional principles. So OpenAI's use of the model spec is a good step in the right direction, like they're inviting public commentary, but CLOUD's already way ahead of you. 

Speaker 3 38:50 
Anthropica has taken the lead on this. So, just your behavior of anthropic models, what they've done is to find a constitution. And these principles are, please choose the response that is the most helpful and honest and harmless. 

Speaker 3 39:08 
Triple H is the Triple H philosophy. Got it. And do not choose responses that are toxic, racist, or sexist, so on and so forth. So CLOUD does not rely on R -L -H -F. It relies on R -L -A -I -F. This is a new acronym for you. 

Speaker 3 39:26 
So re -arrive AI feedback to interpret behavioral principles. And so instead of using humans in the loop, which is what OpenAI claims to do, Adobe has gone way past that. They're now using the bots to narrate the content. 

Speaker 3 39:43 
There's a whole, there's a whole like potential string here where you go on with Reddit and how this will affect Reddit one day, but you don't want to do it. Anyway, so I mean, dropping note, this is my last bit of AI news for the day. 

Speaker 3 39:55 
They just did a massive overhaul of their terms of services and constitution. I read through the whole thing. I don't know how many people did. It's not that long. And I loved it. They have basically tried to think of every single possible thing that's pernicious in the world. 

Speaker 3 40:12 
And then have baked that into what you can write in CLOUD. And you can still go write terrible shit in CLOUD or OpenAI and even Gemini to a degree, but in try and CLOUD, try and write how to be a Nazi or how to do something pernicious and terrible. 

Speaker 3 40:30 
Actually, that's redundant. How do you say pernicious, pernicious and terrible? I'm very pernicious. Tell me some pernicious things I can do to my neighbors. They won't want you to do that. 

Speaker 5 40:38 
So you say entropic is your favorite and you've all been out with this principal. So, we're doing... 

Speaker 3 40:44 
So in June, we're going to be doing a 12 person pilot. So we've been using cloud on an individual level now since in the last summer. Yeah, I'm going to be updating 12 people to the pro edition, the enterprise edition of $30 a person a month. 

Speaker 3 41:00 
Yep. And they will get all of the sun and haiku plus all the other features and functionality. Plus we have a 30 day retention plan also so we can control enterprise five. Yep. That's going to run for one month. 

Speaker 3 41:11 
Nice. Awesome. Very cool. I will have a second group in July. Pilot Poe. Yeah. This Poe is claiming to be releasing an enterprise model that lets me turn off all the ones I don't like. Yep. And Poe is cheaper. 

Speaker 3 41:23 
Yep. So we'll see. It's a bake off. Yes. Cloud. That's where we're at. Nice. I'm going to grab another beer. 

Speaker 5 41:31 
Yeah, we'll do that. Do you have a grab one for you? Yeah, let me grab one. I'll just turn this, I'll take this thing off and I'll be right back. Who's Graham Hibble? What do you think? 

Speaker 2 41:38 
See you, uh, what do you, what do you got? 

Speaker 3 41:40 
It's called Madonna and I'm going to talk to the people while you're gone. Hey, people. Mike's walking away. I'm coughing because the allergy season. So I was being a little bit scathing on that pernicious article, but the general point is this. 

Speaker 3 42:06 
If you're going to read news about generative AI, and it's really not making a whole lot of front page news anymore in terms of physical print media and most of the generic media sources, it's usually like second or third byline. 

Speaker 3 42:23 
Just be wary that you want to challenge the writers for how they're writing the article. Because there's a big difference between statement of opinion and statement of fact. And if you believe it's fact, you should be able to substantiate what is written. 

Speaker 3 42:40 
And so a lot of the stuff that's coming out these days, and I just picked one article out of a whole big bunch. None of them are substantiated. So it's very important to either claim that you're completely writing the op -ed piece or that you are the fact. 

Speaker 3 42:57 
You want some? Thank you. Got it? Yeah, I got it. Did you get another nickelode right there, Mike? No. That's why you're going to the bathroom so soon. So other news, I recently hired a new number one, Miranda. 

Speaker 3 43:24 
She's awesome. And she represents the next generation of what's happening with what people think about IT. And so, yes, Crispin. Mike Crispin. Thank you. Mike just walked away from the bar. He got up there nice and high, by the way. 

Speaker 5 43:47 
I just kept trying to get free beers like this. 

Speaker 4 43:52 
Maybe not. There we go. We're good, we're good. 

Speaker 3 43:55 
I wouldn't trust you either, I'll get you this. 

Speaker 5 43:57 
Recognize to me. They're like, oh, that's you know, that guy is right 

Speaker 3 44:00 
There's so many people here at Oracle here tonight. 

Speaker 5 44:03 
Yeah. I mean, I probably thought it was a stand -up committee and it's going to be here. 

Speaker 3 44:07 
I was just talking about my new number one, Miranda. Oh, yeah, nice. Next generation, she will be riding, capitalizing on that generative AI wave. And that won't be pernicious either. Anti -pernicious. 

Speaker 3 44:22 
Oh, yeah. 

Speaker 2 44:24 
conditioner. 

Speaker 4 44:24 
Thank you. 

Speaker 5 44:25 
We don't want any pernicious. 

Speaker 2 44:31 
That's how I worked out of it. It was from Sunway. My partition is 

Speaker 3 44:33 
a word as addition means else internal damnation but is pernition a word that movie pernition is not a word pernicious is the word okay anyway so enough the everything I want to say about AI Mike you know AI is 

Speaker 5 44:54 
There's a lot that's been said so I'm I'm all set. There's a lot 

Speaker 4 44:58 
life going on in the 

Speaker 3 44:58 
world of AI. 

Speaker 5 45:03 
A lot of things announced, so I'm like AI'd out in the first week, between GPT and Google and Apple in a couple of weeks. 

Speaker 3 45:17 
So if you use Pro, I know we've played Pro a few times, but Pro gets the newest models right away, rigged right in. So, I mean, to be quite honest, let's see what's coming out this week. Just too many to name. 

Speaker 3 45:39 
Pro is the best, I think, multimodal gen AI solution. Alright, so last week was awesome. Other than the place we were at, which wasn't so great, $24 margarita, which was mostly ice. That's true. My wife was like, how many drinks did you guys have? 

Speaker 3 46:01 
I was like, not as many as you think. Yeah, it's all ice. All ice. Well, they basically were drinking ice and various versions of melted ice. I just didn't believe we were in a... We didn't have Wi -Fi, but now we're not only doing Wi -Fi, we have good beer, we have tables, we got a couch. 

Speaker 3 46:17 
Life is good. Okay, so, I did post a summary article today of last week on the Wargaming piece. It's on my LinkedIn. It's also on the Luminary Sports blog. Check it out, because I provided from a document I wrote back in 2013, for the nine things that my IT leaders would do, the folks that were in my team at the time, to combat the anxiety around just strategies that kept getting upended. 

Speaker 3 46:47 
Wargaming. So, tonight, we're going to revisit the monster that is governance. Now, governance, if you hear it, you're like, okay, I'm turning this podcast off. It sucks. Don't. Because it's actually not a 45 -minute governance read. 

Speaker 3 47:04 
It's short. But that's not even the key. We're revisiting governance as it applies to years two and three. We have to get through all that shit in year one, because that's what governance is. You think about governance? 

Speaker 3 47:14 
It's everything. So, when I went back to the book and redid it this past winter, I really went to great lengths to consolidate the former secondary sections of governance into a model that made sense. 

Speaker 3 47:32 
So, if you recall back in chapters 15 through 18, we went over governance. There were five domains. And tonight, we're going to revisit three of them. And then, next week, we'll revisit the other two. 

Speaker 3 47:46 
So, tonight, we're going to revisit prioritization and project management, development and infrastructure. And next week, we'll be covering security and data management. So, for this week, Mike, the central thesis on governance is that you, like with budget and strategy work, should be in the process of maturing your governance in year two, not starting it. 

Speaker 3 48:11 
Correct. If you're in year two and you haven't done anything for governance yet, you are in a hole, Mike. Yes. Agreed. Either of you started your governance with just a single policy. Okay, I'm going to put out a simple use policy. 

Speaker 3 48:25 
That's a start. If you did nothing in your first year, everyone looks at you like a dead fish. They're just going to run right over you. So, in years two or three, you suddenly continue with the governance. 

Speaker 3 48:37 
And governance is a long burn. You don't want to be done at once, unless you're very... Don't do it all at once. Don't do it all at once. Because then, you'll just be a governance person, not I2. But it will be the backbone of all your decision -making. 

Speaker 3 48:50 
And it's needed for both budgeting and strategic planning. So, you have to answer, like, why are we doing this thing? How are we going to do this thing? Who will do this stuff? Who will pay for this thing? 

Speaker 3 49:04 
That's governance. You need to be able to answer those questions, because it's not like... If you don't have governance in place, that's easy. Why are we doing this? Because. How are we going to get it done? 

Speaker 3 49:18 
Any way we want. And who's going to do it? Us. And how much will it cost? Well, we're not sure. Well, it'll be like, plus or minus $100 ,000. That's not governance. That's not governance. That's the perniciousness. 

Speaker 3 49:34 
Let's wing it. That's pernicious right there. That's straight up pernicious. I love it. That's straight up pernicious. I always use that. Straight up pernicious. Straight up pernicious. That's some straight up pernicious shit right there. 

Speaker 3 49:49 
That's straight up pernicious. I'm going to write that into it. Straight up pernicious. Sorry, whenever I have something clever... That's that's a totally that's totally a shirt. You got a whole you know, I get the whole shirt already my mind I don't hold on to that one next week and next week There'll be a new shirt and cuckoos of IT store called straight up pernicious You gotta get that shirts and you will tell people exactly who you are. 

Speaker 3 50:20 
They'll be like, oh Shit straight up and that guy so I can straight up conditions I'm watching out for that Um Where was I? Okay. So in truth governance works because you put the idea of governing Governed yeah in there which indicates there's some specific lever Or guide this will be applied to those decisions Like why are we doing this? 

Speaker 3 50:46 
Well, there'll be a there'll be a guy that tells you right? Why are you doing this? In most cases and not all but in most cases. This is where the IT steering committee comes in 

Speaker 2 50:57 
Yay! Yeah, the ITSC! You're welcome! 

Speaker 3 51:01 
Yeah baby, that old chestnut. L -F -G man, did you say that old chestnut? Yeah, that old chestnut. 

Speaker 5 51:10 
There's another one. 

Speaker 3 51:13 
That old chestnut, the IT Steering Committee. That reminds me. Let's do a brief pause because I want to tell you something. The Chestnut Committee. I'm going to use that. I've been maintaining, for a long time now, a list of old timey sayings, old timey words. 

Speaker 3 51:30 
That old chestnut. So let me just read a few of these to you. Please read them. Horn swaddled. What? Horn swaddled. I have no idea. What does horn swaddled mean? So if I gave you like five dollars to go buy like a beer, and it was only three dollars, which would give me a dollar back. 

Speaker 3 51:50 
Your horn swaddled mean. You stole from me. You deceived me. Wisenheimer? Oh, Jesus. These are good. You have no idea what this is. I have no idea. Wisenheimer's like a smartass. Okay. Dude, stop being such a fucking wisenheimer. 

Speaker 3 52:08 
Yeah, exactly. A futurah. I think I have heard that one before. A futurah is like a spat, or like in the dew. Like we're tussling. 

Speaker 5 52:20 
Oh, like we are in a little disagreement. We are in arguments. A fufirah. A fufirah. 

Speaker 3 52:25 
free for all. Lava lamb. It's flim flam. Is that flip flop? No, flam flam is like horn swivel. You can flam flam. You thought you were getting a beer and you said you got big rope right. So you were a flam flam. 

Speaker 3 52:41 
And I got water to water it down. 

Speaker 5 52:46 
Yeah, that's that's a little little fight like a wrestling match, right? Yeah 

Speaker 3 52:51 
I think it's a two for all, but a lot more than a two for all. 

Speaker 5 52:55 
Well, Tim? Oh, I'm thinking of the other stuff. But you have a... 

Speaker 3 52:58 
First of all, and then we escalate to a kerfuffle. Kerfuffle, all right, that's, yeah, I had it. Then there's highfalutin. Highfalutin. Right? Am I on with that? Highfalutin. Yeah, you're all highfalutin, gluten and tootin. 

Speaker 3 53:15 
Hold on, well, not tootin, right now. There's a whippersnapper. Yeah, what's your McCaller? What's a whippersnapper? Whippersnapper's like, oh, you're like your wise ass. But like a little wise ass, a little kid. 

Speaker 3 53:28 
Yeah, it's a little whippersnapper. A whippersnapper. There's a wangdoodle. Where are you getting this stuff from? I've been recording these for years. Really? In your list. In my list, there's malarkey. 

Speaker 3 53:42 
I know malarkey. Okay. Rolling dervish. No, I don't know rolling dervish. A rolling dervish is somebody who talks too fast and just doesn't stop moving. Rolling dervish. 

Speaker 5 53:55 
I like that one. That's a good t -shirt. He's talking to me. Yeah, I know that 

Speaker 3 53:59 
that one. Hoodwinked, which was a thin flam. Yep, yep. And then, let's see, there's a... Let's see, let's have one more, one more good one here. Oh, it's a hooligan. Hooligan, hooligan. 

Speaker 5 54:22 
That's like a 

Speaker 3 54:28 
A hooligan's like a ne 'er -do -well, or a Weisenheimer. A Weisenheimer. I like Weisenheimer. 

Speaker 5 54:33 
What was the other one I liked before? 

Speaker 3 54:36 
I don't know, you know shenanigans, right? Shenan's? Shenan's. You know, that's a fine kettle of fish. You remember that one? Yes. That's a fine kettle of fish. That's a fine kettle of fish. That's a nice one. 

Speaker 3 54:53 
Yep. There was the... 

Speaker 5 54:57 
The one with all the words, with streamer words, what was that one? Streamer words? The one where it's like, it keeps going and going. 

Speaker 3 55:08 
Uh, no, Floppy Joe, what's, uh, Kremfland? Kremfland? No, hold on, where is he? Keep going down. I'm gonna whip her snap, but Rapscallion. Rapscallion, I love it. Ragtag. Jimba Jehosa fat. Wow, these are amazing. 

Speaker 3 55:37 
I know. 

Speaker 5 55:39 
Gilly galley, I use that one all the time. Gallivanting, when you're gallivanting about. 

Speaker 3 55:44 
Like, stop gallivanting about and get to work. Wiesenheimer? The comedy show is starting. Oh, there's a- We're not- are we supposed to be on stage? No. No, we are not. Okay. No, I'm good. We're gonna put it free. 

Speaker 3 55:57 
We already have a theme of the comedy show. Alright, so none of those words, by the way, in that list are pernicious. So... Okay. To be effective- Where were we? The IT steering committee. To be effective, the IT steering committee needs to have clear processes and criteria for evaluating and prioritizing IT projects based on their alignment with their business objectives, potential benefits, lists, and costs. 

Speaker 3 56:23 
Okay? Follow me so far? Gotcha. Any IT steering committee or ITSC should also have a decision -making framework that ensures that all stakeholders have input into the process and that decisions are made transparently. 

Speaker 3 56:38 
So... Mike. First of all, you've been there now for... 20 months? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where are you in the governance journey? Right now? 

Speaker 5 56:54 
We're just mostly cyber security 

Speaker 3 56:57 
year so you can get away with first year. 

Speaker 5 56:59 
Yeah, but most, all the decision making in terms of what we're gonna invest in is based on goals. So we're not at the point now where there's competing priorities and resources. So it's pretty much me and the CFO, and now that Kate's on board, getting more plugged in, some of the decision making process. 

Speaker 5 57:17 
But we definitely need a cross functional group to start socializing some of the change management we're doing, which would be great for the steering committee, not as much from a project prioritization perspective, but I think it's more of an organization for another meeting, right, in terms of what they need. 

Speaker 5 57:35 
And as more and more GNA organization leadership comes in, we're trying to insert ourselves in that process. So I expect by the end of the year, we do have an IT kind of operational committee or IT steering committee, but we really need to have it in place for it to be valuable. 

Speaker 5 57:52 
You get one shot at this stuff with an executive team. You don't want to put it in just to put it in. So you want to put it in when there's value for the organization, when they know what it's gonna do, when they feel like it's a privilege to be on the committee and to have decision making capabilities, and that what they say will be kind of listened to. 

Speaker 5 58:14 
So I think early days it's, you know, right now our decisions are, you know, we brought you into IT to make these decisions. Your team should make them so we can trust you with these decisions. So let's kind of work about the training aspect. 

Speaker 5 58:29 
We talked about it a few weeks ago, being kind of the core, getting the message out, what's changing when. What do you do with that? What's the difference for us? 

Speaker 3 58:37 
and their student competing priorities. 

Speaker 5 58:40 
We have to we have to manage that with a with a committee when we do or with some sort of discussion between the groups Like on an in case -by -case basis right now Fingersome with steering committees and I you know, I know a lot of our peers who probably experience this So you put a steering committee in and and it's just about prioritization You don't have a you don't have a meeting for six months because there's not a lot of competing priorities You've got to have other stuff So yeah standards your cyber security other other aspects of it where they think people often look at the steering committee is the prioritization is key and even when the business wants it if the right members aren't there if they're not It really is an art to put together a good steering committee I think and and know at what time in your and an IT journey is the right time to put it in So like so the steering committee but have like smaller committees like the response committee If you have data governance you have sort of standards based committees They could make it kind of smaller and more focused to start with it You know with a couple like ours were in you know, we have 40 40 people that are wearing multiple different hats so early days is Get out in front and talk about what your priorities are And then have when the time is right and you've got that budget season. 

Speaker 5 01:00:01 
I always pick it up a new IT steering committee off like You know probably this year during the budget side 

Speaker 2 01:00:08 
It's the best time to do it. 

Speaker 5 01:00:10 
So like, okay, yep, we're doing something new this year. You know, we're gonna get everyone together. We're filled with a brim from a priority perspective in 23, 24, this, you know, based on strategy, we have this much growth, we're making these changes. 

Speaker 5 01:00:25 
Now is the time to get everyone together and have that group make sure you're the members that are appropriate. 

Speaker 3 01:00:32 
When I build out an ITSC in the first year, what I do is I literally would go through every single person in the company's LinkedIn profile, and it takes a lot of work. That's great. And I look at the last three companies and what they've experienced. 

Speaker 3 01:00:48 
Have they experienced drug production? Have they experienced commercialization? Have they experienced discovery? What do they know? And I use that list to then grab five or seven, I mean an odd number of leaders who have all the experience of our life cycle, all the drug. 

Speaker 3 01:01:10 
And that first committee is assigned for one year. Then what happens is I'm asking them to go and pick people out of their groups who they can train who need this growth opportunity to then be the next generation. 

Speaker 3 01:01:27 
If they can't find one, then they can stay, but ideally we always want to keep an odd number of people. I don't vote. I'm a tie -breaking vote, but they vote amongst themselves. Got it. That's a good idea. 

Speaker 3 01:01:39 
In the first year, we not only meet to prioritize, and it could just only be like two projects, but they also meet, this is important, quarterly to do two things. One, see how the products that we're approved are going, so those stakeholders have to come back and report. 

Speaker 3 01:01:57 
Two, if they had something that was already approved before I got there, let's say a very expensive LMS system, or ELN, that leader who originally bought it has to come back to the group and say how good it's working and what they intend to do to keep keeping it. 

Speaker 3 01:02:13 
So you don't get off the hook because you're grandfathered in, you actually have to come back to the ITSE and say, yes, this quarter million dollar platform I have still works great and we're gonna keep using it so that when you come forward to ask for something new, you already have established a baseline that that platform is still working. 

Speaker 3 01:02:31 
And we're gonna grill you. But that first year, it's going to people that have the best understanding of what it's like to be in a life sciences company. And this will apply to any industry. You don't have people that understand all the steps involved. 

Speaker 3 01:02:50 
So when you have an ITSE in place, so it's built, it's running, how do you ensure that what people bring forward are sound business cases? Like how do you ensure that not everything under the sun's coming forward, that it's only the things that matter and have impact? 

Speaker 5 01:03:10 
We usually have some sort of input form that aligns the business goals that they have to enter through. So to even get something to be put presented, they need to come forward with a one -slide type thing where it's the business use case, how it aligns with the corporate goals, what systems they already have that may be doing some of these or a portion of these things, what's the estimated cost and then what's the support, who's supporting it, you know, if someone do this, how will it be supported and so forth. 

Speaker 5 01:03:47 
So it's kind of like a template slide that they come in and put in place and then able to present that and a lot of times someone like the, if you have someone in the IT organization that's working closely with him, they kind of co -present it together. 

Speaker 5 01:04:03 
Right, right. 

Speaker 3 01:04:04 
they're sort of helping them to prepare the best case. Yes, yep. So that stuff all comes in and. 

Speaker 5 01:04:11 
I think where a lot of times things get lost is trying to quantify what the cost is of a lot of these things. I think that's definitely been my path to struggle where it's, and everything is, it must be done, right? 

Speaker 5 01:04:30 
Right. That's where you need some sort of scoring system that's not too complex because I did put one together and it was like, this is like, we could spend so much more time doing other stuff than trying to score what a project sucks. 

Speaker 5 01:04:45 
So finding a simple way to score and have some criteria makes sense. But I feel like, you know, this is just, you could have all this stuff all laid out and then it goes to the executive team and they say, no, you're doing this. 

Speaker 3 01:05:03 
That's where it's kind of like the ITSC is meant as a body not yes, no body. It should be bringing that information up to the inside. Here's our best approach. The ITSC never says no. Or says yes. They say thank you for coming in. 

Speaker 3 01:05:20 
It's an information gathering body. 

Speaker 5 01:05:21 
right and it helps you to prioritize 

Speaker 3 01:05:25 
where we would put you based on your description and then the executive team ultimately has the final veto. So that's one of the things we're talking about tonight is project prioritization and governance. 

Speaker 3 01:05:37 
We're talking also about again development and then we're talking about 

Speaker 2 01:05:42 
Bye. 

Speaker 3 01:05:45 
Sorry, like, M .T. just distracted me. Uh, I'm curious. You curious? I'm a little curious, but... It's so funny. And it was just shit. 

Speaker 2 01:05:57 
Yes. 

Speaker 3 01:06:00 
I'm gonna start this chapter read just a small section of it as soon as I start talking The comedian is gonna go on stage and start making jokes and everyone's gonna sell out so you can listen to him I'll do the read or pay attention to me. 

Speaker 3 01:06:13 
I have questions after by the way. Yeah, I'm listening. I'm here Okay, so I'm gonna read the next section of the second part of the new IT leader swell guide It's not a bad read it's quite short hang in there But we're gonna set the stage for years two and three for these three domains of government today. 

Speaker 3 01:06:33 
Yep Give me a lead -in 

Speaker 5 01:06:37 
This is Audible. 

Speaker 3 01:06:41 
From a maturation perspective, governance is measured not only by increased effectiveness, but also by cultural adoption. Any type of governance you started in year one may have begun as a basic policy, matured in year two into mandatory adherence, has become an automated way of life by year three. 

Speaker 3 01:07:00 
Sometimes this process may take longer due to competing priorities, and sometimes the absorption by the company is rapid, especially if governance has executive leadership supporting it. For instance, project management and prioritization can take many more years to become established practices in the business, depending on several factors, which is the company's rate of growth, yep, the speed at which the company moves on its programs, and the general complexity of the corporate structure. 

Speaker 3 01:07:27 
In contrast, security adherence could happen rapidly if the CEO feels it's a top priority. Ultimately, whether fast or slow, it is tough to predict just how long it will take for any single aspect of governance to take root and become a part of how your organization does business, but all aspects will in time. 

Speaker 3 01:07:47 
In a systematic and step -by -step model, I will revisit the five governance domains and see how they are maturing in years two and three. Now again, tonight we're all doing the first three. Where necessary, I will also predict where these domains will be headed beyond year three, and what else you expect from them. 

Speaker 3 01:08:04 
Your timelines may differ from what I am proposing in the coming pages, and that is okay. You may over these and say there's no fricking way where you think we will be in year three. You can't even get the space of policy out of the gate, but that's the case. 

Speaker 3 01:08:19 
Just keep doing your best to build the governance, and you will get there. Sometimes it will seem like it takes forever, and then your company will hire just the right person, or the right event will occur, and your governance will take off like a rocket. 

Speaker 3 01:08:32 
In this chapter, I will assume that, at the very least, you have started to work on each of the five domains, even again, if that means you only deploy the basic policy. Domain number one, prioritization and project management. 

Speaker 3 01:08:45 
Where you should ideally be after year one. Again, these are ideals. You have instituted the basics of a prioritization process for technology consumption. At a minimum, the basics include you and the CFO prioritizing technology using the best available data, preferably both empirical and objective. 

Speaker 3 01:09:06 
Ideally, a slightly larger team is empowered to prioritize technology decisions that fit within specific criteria of importance. Business lines that require technology that meets the criteria for prioritization have been trained in creating a functional requirement specification, and they understand how to write a business proposal justifying the need for the technology. 

Speaker 3 01:09:27 
You have helped them each to do this and throw a significant amount of weight behind the process without doing all the work for them, of course. You have now formally deployed this across the business as many functional lines do not yet need it. 

Speaker 3 01:09:41 
The word has gotten out. Technology decisions prioritized for years two and three are then placed on a timeline, considering all time, financial, and resource aspects. The timeline also considers the company's growth and the possibility of resources not yet in place today. 

Speaker 3 01:10:00 
You have used this timeline for any rolling forecast and planning, strategic, that is, yep. During the budget process for year two, you met with all functional line budgeting managers, key stakeholders, continued dialogues on the technology needs for years two and three. 

Speaker 3 01:10:16 
You now have a much more comprehensive understanding of the business's technological roadmap, at least in the desired state, than you did in the first 90 days. From an accelerating pressure perspective, well -technology projects that may be essential to the business, like, for instance, CLM for commercial, QMS for validation, MLR for regular choice, et cetera, could force you to accelerate the FRS education, functional requirements specification, education, and introduction process. 

Speaker 3 01:10:46 
Additionally, these same technology demands can impact resource availability for projects downstream. These projects are also deemed essential and may have been identified too late to get properly prioritized by whoever was making the decisions. 

Speaker 3 01:11:02 
The needs for essential projects may delay the ability to deploy a functional requirements spec, business case proposal process, or wrap prioritization around the needs, especially if those decisions were made before your arrival. 

Speaker 3 01:11:17 
For example, if you were hired right after the company purchased a CRM solution, you must forego the objective assessment of that CRM or ask for a functional requirements spec. You may still be able to utilize a functional requirements spec for any phase two or later elements of the platform, but it is now what it is. 

Speaker 3 01:11:41 
The chances are now, the chances are that you knew about CRM though through the interview process, so this shouldn't be a surprise. Lastly, from an accelerating pressure perspective, you may find a technological gap that requires immediate attention like security. 

Speaker 3 01:11:59 
While such a gap would typically need to be prioritized, it is deemed far too important not to do it right away. Decelerating pressures? Well, you, or another executive, could determine that the business is moving too fast and any stoppage could harm strategic goals. 

Speaker 3 01:12:18 
This may delay the launch of your prioritization process or project planning initiatives. Budget adjustments can also have all types of negative impacts on governance. When there are no projects to deploy, you can do budget reductions or slow down a business, and there is no need to be freed up by prioritization or project management process at the outset. 

Speaker 3 01:12:37 
For example, your entire first year could have been devoted to tactical responses only, and based on key stakeholder feedback, you just don't foresee any one -profit analogy projects planned for the future. 

Speaker 3 01:12:49 
So you can slow it down. From a year two aspirational perspective, the next step in year two would be to formally recognize the IT Steering Committee and roll out the business' technology project process. 

Speaker 3 01:13:01 
This would be done via company -wide training or pre -recorded videos for staff to watch. The rollout would include communicating the business about what types of projects fall within the scope of the ITSC, how to present a business proposal, how and when the committee meets, how projects are prioritized, what happens after the project is approved, etc. 

Speaker 3 01:13:23 
Roll out a formal platform to the business, and this will be used to manage projects within the prior edition of the committee's judgment. This way the business, at large, can see the progress of every project. 

Speaker 3 01:13:35 
Resources can be appropriately assigned to tasks, profits can be mitigated at enterprise scale, and accountability becomes stable for success. In terms of year three aspirations, it's far too early in the organization's life to attempt to implement a centralized project management organization structure, or commonly known as a CPMO. 

Speaker 3 01:13:57 
Even an approach to create a decentralized structure is wholly unnecessary, otherwise known as a DPMO. You are fine with your model, and should continue fine -tuning the prior edition process as it is. 

Speaker 3 01:14:11 
The project management process is continuing to grow nicely, and now your entire IT team should be as knowledgeable as you about how to properly manage a project, whether as a business partner to a team outside of IT or within the IT group itself. 

Speaker 3 01:14:28 
If resources are available, take the time to refresh the prior edition team so that all of us can participate in this essential governance process. If resources are plentiful, this should be done every year. 

Speaker 3 01:14:40 
Groups previously approved in year two for technology projects should be completing their projects or have already completed them. During this period, they will return to the team for annual check -ins to provide feedback on whether or not they are approved for technology or demonstrating the value they assured you that they would. 

Speaker 3 01:14:59 
Lead project teams through a post -mortem between three to six months after a project goes live. This allows all team members to review the public's positives and negatives, which can all be used to improve the process further, also known as continuous improvement. 

Speaker 3 01:15:13 
And you may once consider hiring an IT project manager in year four. You may already have considered or hired niche business relationship managers as subject matter experts for specific technology projects and functions. 

Speaker 3 01:15:29 
These roles will merge in the future to form an internal IT project management team. Now, switching gears to the second domain, development, where you should ideally be after year one. If your company has no serious development aspirations, you should have successfully instituted a basic control model for API management and other simplified development requests. 

Speaker 3 01:15:52 
Employees can freely use API scripts with a limited acceptable governance scope you have established by policy or platform control. You are encouraging citizens development by selecting the best tools and methods for them to use. 

Speaker 3 01:16:06 
Now, suppose your company is either in the growth stages of having a group dedicated to software development or has already reached maturity. In that case, you should have forged a partnership with a leading member of that team to ensure that your government's measures are being adhered to vis -a -vis testing, code control, etc. 

Speaker 3 01:16:24 
You should be able to demonstrate what changes occurred in the business in year one from a development perspective. This is important. I'm going to go off script for a second. If you do have development in place in your company and you're offering governance in place, you should be able to at any point in time say what development has occurred. 

Speaker 3 01:16:43 
Lastly, you may have also preemptively connected and secure a partnership with an external third -party development firm to whom you can call for the additional development or development resources at any time. 

Speaker 3 01:16:56 
Accelerating pressures, while the business may connect two or more disparate platforms to enable an outcome tied to an urgent need, in this case, you must exercise your relationship within your third party or internal resources if available to ensure that the development perform aligns with the request that was asked. 

Speaker 3 01:17:15 
You also may find some significant advantages to developing software or a scripted app to further your technological objectives. You can exploit many APIs with platforms to your advantage for a minimal effort. 

Speaker 3 01:17:29 
Decelerating pressures, while there's really only one, development resources may be removed from the business or budgeted down to utilize funds and resources elsewhere in the company. This doesn't necessarily stop low -code, no -code development, but it will slow large -scale development initiatives, while accelerating the use of code repositories and available API scripts to achieve some of the same functionality may help. 

Speaker 3 01:17:55 
So for instance, at Exilio, we recently lost a key developer as part of a reduction in workforce, and so we have stopped development, because there's simply no reasonable means to continue to go forward as we were at the moment. 

Speaker 3 01:18:12 
Now year two aspirations, and for the record, I'm right in the middle of year two, continue to educate all users, especially those who tend to tinker and push technology beyond its boxed limits. At the very least, explain how tinkering relates to governance and why the process is essential. 

Speaker 3 01:18:31 
For instance, if you have somebody that's just going out and using Zapier and writing Zapier scripts, it's not too hard for you to go to that person and say, hey, honestly, can you document your scripts for us? 

Speaker 3 01:18:44 
Let them use Zapier. It's an awesome tool. There may be a little bit of documentation to understand why they did what they did. Again, in the year two aspirations, establish a bona fide code repository internally or via a third party environment like Git, where development employees can store their projects and file proper version standard. 

Speaker 3 01:19:06 
Lastly, play our roadmap against potential middleware stack development in years three and four, and how that may be needed to prepare for eventual cross -platform communications, for instance, ERP or HIS. 

Speaker 3 01:19:20 
For year three aspirations, you should seek to provide updates to the governance within the direction of development in the organization. It is difficult to plot out the supports in a guide, such as this, but I've written it. 

Speaker 3 01:19:34 
Considering the myriad paths your company may make regarding development, hiring development within IT at this stage, you're already even plotted out, so you are primarily looking for any of the major course corrections that have been developed and then just adjusting as necessary. 

Speaker 3 01:19:49 
In the third and final domain for tonight, infrastructure and operations. Where you should ideally be after year one. Well, you should have documented your policies and procedures for cloud management, data backup and restoration, physical access, if it falls within your scope, change control and IT services. 

Speaker 3 01:20:10 
The first four are primarily for IT consumption, but should be available to the business as needed. Finance and legal will also be interested in ensuring these policies exist and are accurate. The fifth area, IT services, will primarily incorporate your service level agreement and detail the new hire and termination workflows as part of your employee experience. 

Speaker 3 01:20:32 
You have implemented a help desk platform, or at least a help desk process, which should include a change control aspect. If not, you have also implemented a change management database environment to support the growing number of change controls you are now experiencing. 

Speaker 3 01:20:47 
Of course, you can't do good change control without at least two people in IT. Before making the infrastructure decisions, you have ensured that vendor selection and platform implementations are based on specific requirements to ensure that vendors meet the minimal security, data integrity, and compliance at different levels. 

Speaker 3 01:21:07 
A data backup process has been implemented and all data deemed essential to the business is backed up for an optimal schedule or schedules. To whatever extent possible, all data has been tested for restoration capabilities and accounted for in a policy that's kept current with changing technologies. 

Speaker 3 01:21:26 
All of this is accessible via global infrastructure and backup map. You have rested control above public and private cloud access control from staff and your MSP. Though some may still be allowed access to various aspects of it, all central keys are now managed by IT. 

Speaker 3 01:21:46 
Where possible, you have removed all named accounts from accessing platforms and replaced them with service accounts. You have also added IT staff as a secondary administrative account as needed. All passwords are securely stored. 

Speaker 3 01:22:02 
Access has been restricted to physical equipment in the corporation's physical facilities and only authorized staff are allowed access to areas in equipment controlled by IT. You receive our reports every month on who has access to these environments, at a minimum. 

Speaker 3 01:22:21 
Lastly, you have started to create a plan of restructured redundancy that ensures business continuity in a disaster. For accelerating pressures, well, we have two. None of these governance aspects of infrastructure and operations should be delayed. 

Speaker 3 01:22:35 
However, you may prioritize some over others. For instance, if your MSP has all administrator accounts on your platforms, you will want to prioritize taking those over immediately and removing the MSP from your business. 

Speaker 3 01:22:49 
Still, once you arrive on site, you will address all infrastructure needs immediately. Another scenario that illustrates accelerating pressures is why you may have your partner's hiring scheduled for later in the year. 

Speaker 3 01:23:01 
Still, due to the complexity of the infrastructure and potential problems with it, you will need to accelerate that head and get them hired earlier, or almost the gap with third -party infrastructure expertise. 

Speaker 3 01:23:14 
For decelerating pressures, there is no scenario in which you should decelerate governance for infrastructure and operations. Aspirations perspective, a global infrastructure map should be kept up to date and reflects all aspects of management, control, and data flow. 

Speaker 3 01:23:31 
I recommend losing charge, use whatever you want, and get the map done and in place. Hire a second staff member or use third -party augmentation to support and provide redundancy for your IT partner. 

Speaker 3 01:23:44 
Either hire another person in IT or get some other measure that gets redundancy for that number one. This will allow them in some reading room to work on larger scale strategic projects, create automated workflows to support common infrastructure tasks, DPO rollouts, Wi -Fi circuit appointments, etc. 

Speaker 3 01:24:05 
To create better controls over governance enforcement. Improve physical infrastructure service areas and ensure the governance standards are aligned. Although you may have had to shoestring the physical and virtual environments in year one, now is the time to improve them and ensure scalability for they continue to be used. 

Speaker 3 01:24:22 
And lastly, now that you have a global asset management catalog in place, you should strive to find ways to automate changes and eliminate manual upkeep. Asset management touches on many aspects of governance, and manual updating always leaves you with mistakes. 

Speaker 3 01:24:38 
For year three aspirations, there are two. Governance maintenance should now be a recurring event. I recommend quarterly reviews. All processes are consistently reassessed, maps are updated, policies are updated, and all changes are reflected accordingly. 

Speaker 3 01:24:55 
And lastly, if the business has grown proportionally to the need, the help desk or help desk services may grow by an additional head. Whether you hire someone junior or senior will depend on the types of issues coming into the business. 

Speaker 3 01:25:11 
You will want to strongly consider a role that can also be a teacher to work with the business and strengthen the proactive environment you're creating. This will further strengthen the ties to the SLM. 

Speaker 3 01:25:25 
Well, I don't want to be presumptive or pernicious. I think we actually made governance slightly okay. But only for a few minutes. 

Speaker 5 01:25:37 
I think that's all those points make sense and you mentioned timing and a few of those points makes a lot of sense and all of it, all of it obviously makes sense. But it's tough, it's always a hard, steering committee stuff is hard. 

Speaker 5 01:25:57 
Infrastructure and operations completely agree, that's probably where you should start and make sure in year one you have those things laid out. You have a procedure, a process, because largely no matter what company you're at, expectations are that you have infrastructure and operations under control. 

Speaker 5 01:26:16 
That's all to the service level, to the infrastructure, to your cloud, to your traditional IT services that you're running a good, efficient shot, that you're doing it the right way and it's repeatable. 

Speaker 5 01:26:37 
It doesn't take too much resource over and above what is expected, what you set the expectations as. 

Speaker 3 01:26:45 
We talked about this last week, I mean essentially, if I have a budget and that budget reflects what I need to do for my IT perspective, so I need to buy this new switch, okay? I need to implement this new platform for security. 

Speaker 3 01:27:01 
I have the answer to the question of why, and to a degree I've answered the question of who and how is implied, I'm just going to plug it in and turn it on. Yeah, that's up to us to figure out. But I am prioritizing the budget, and based on my strategy, these things. 

Speaker 3 01:27:23 
So, but I'm kind of operating the isolated bubble, so how do I create my strategy? Well, I talk to the key stakeholders. I listen to the corporate goals. I align everything. I also need to keep IT alive. 

Speaker 3 01:27:36 
I need to sort of make sure that business keeps moving forward. You have to hire people. You have to do things, right? So all of these form this basic sort of natural sense of governance. But the day I go out and I say, okay everybody, here's a new policy on multi -factor authentication that you're all going to follow, I want to be like, what the fuck? 

Speaker 3 01:27:58 
Where is this coming from? You have to start putting governance into the vernacular. Everyone that you talk to, and I do this early on. The answer to having my key stakeholder interview is, I ask the question, how do you feel about IT governance? 

Speaker 3 01:28:13 
And I get a lot of like blank stares. I say, well have you asked me a question? 

Speaker 5 01:28:18 
They hear the G word and it's, nope, you're a small company. What are you doing? Well, that's what I think you get to rebrand it a little bit too, like whether it's a mailman or it's partization committee or whatever, like when you're going with the governance, some companies will be like, I just left the company because of that. 

Speaker 5 01:28:34 
You know what I mean? Like we understand the value, but I think it's going in. 

Speaker 3 01:28:39 
That's because they came from a company where they had probably a decentralized PMO that was saying you can't do anything without X or Y. 

Speaker 5 01:28:47 
It took a lot of work to get things done. That's an aspect of governance? Oh, sure, sure, but that's what you've got to educate a little bit on. This is not about governing. It's about enabling. 

Speaker 3 01:29:00 
That's why you need to have people that are not you helping to make decisions that are in the best interest of the business. It's a team effort. It's a cross -functional effort. Where do companies fall into the trap? 

Speaker 3 01:29:16 
Well, they get to a point in time where they create a centralized or decentralized PMO. That PMO prioritizes the company's outcomes over every other decision. So you as IT might walk in there and say, we need a new switch and they might say, nope. 

Speaker 3 01:29:30 
It's more important to buy the CRM and you might lose because you're racking the capability to now get in there and do this. It's advantageous actually to... Let me back up. Here's where things get difficult. 

Speaker 3 01:29:49 
If you as the head of IT, go to a company and establish... Sorry, governance and prioritization, that's a good thing. If you stay as the owner for years and years and years, if you're the one running the show, that's not a good thing. 

Speaker 3 01:30:05 
It's a bad thing. That is you becoming now the chief rule maker. I'm not saying back out, but I'm saying you have to always have people involved. 

Speaker 5 01:30:17 
I think that's a good point, because if governance means so, your head of IT is a gatekeeper and is an empire builder and everything else, right? 

Speaker 3 01:30:28 
you've already failed. That's why I remove myself from the yes no role. I'm saying yes or no. I'm saying when? Have you come and ask for a project? And I'm like, that's a great idea. We're gonna need that. 

Speaker 3 01:30:41 
Unfortunately, we only have x resources and money this year. So why don't we prioritize it here? You like nine months from now you might say, as business owner, I need it six months. Yep. It's all about also okay, listen, do it six months. 

Speaker 3 01:30:56 
This person needs to get pushed. And they have high priority. This is where having other people in place to weigh the odds. I'm just saying they're saying, listen, you're absolutely right. And so the yes no comes always back to the executive team. 

Speaker 3 01:31:12 
So we should 

Speaker 4 01:31:14 
And then I'll see you next time. Bye -bye. 

Speaker 5 01:31:14 
always should, at least in a smaller 

Speaker 3 01:31:16 
We have heard the cases, we have weighed out our options, and here's what we think is the best order. We're not presenting to you. Here's where the risks are coming in, here's where the conflicts are, what do you say? 

Speaker 5 01:31:29 
I mean, when you get a bigger company, the expectation is that you're able to give them the full picture and they can go check them out. So once you get bigger, or you get more established, and your processes are better baked, is that steering committee becomes the, okay, in Q1, we're doing these three things. 

Speaker 5 01:31:51 
Yeah. Good. Q2, we're doing these three things. I think it meant questions, and you get maybe a follow -up meeting with more detail or something like that, if needed. But that's ultimately, I think, what you get for that C -level, is expecting certain things. 

Speaker 5 01:32:07 
It's like, just give it to me in a bow, and they'll go, okay. But when you're smaller, I think you've got to go up to and say, look, this is the money I've got. And this is where you came back to the question earlier about, what if you have conflicting priorities? 

Speaker 5 01:32:25 
The smaller organizations you need, you're going to need the executive team to help you make that decision. That's not going to be some magic that's going to happen within the room, and you're all going to come to an agreement. 

Speaker 5 01:32:37 
You're going to need them to step in. 

Speaker 3 01:32:40 
All right, so tell me if you agree with this statement. I'm going to make a statement say, I agree, disagree. When it comes to governance, other people cannot do great, but IT must always be perfect. 

Speaker 4 01:32:56 
Can you read me? 

Speaker 3 01:32:57 
When it comes to executing governance, other functions can be okay and not great, but IT must always be perfect. 

Speaker 5 01:33:10 
I wouldn't say perfect, but you should excel and be better than others because of the unique position they're in, being the cross -section of the business and having so much, it's an opportunity more than it is a, you should seize that opportunity by having that as one of your best practices is what I'd say. 

Speaker 5 01:33:31 
And there are other groups that should be just as good. 

Speaker 3 01:33:39 
Let me explain why I said that, so let's say a functional line, let's say a functional line has come forward to IT, I said we need your help, we want to implement this platform, now either you, or if you're figuring out you have a business liaison, is going to work with them and help them make the business case and make the functional requirements and make the presentation, they come forward to the IT SC and they're terrible, or they're really good but they do a terrible job of executing the project, would they be allowed to come back without any prejudice against their future projects, or would they, like a blank slate, or would their poor performance carry forward, because in IT, I believe it would carry forward, well you guys have run an over budget three times, yep, the functional line, what kind of grace do you think should be given. 

Speaker 2 01:34:58 
That's not my idea. 

Speaker 5 01:35:00 
IT has the largest budget, they're often not even close. 

Speaker 3 01:35:04 
I mean the largest DNA, but 

Speaker 5 01:35:07 
It's often an operational cost and it's another debate of centralizing the budget. I think, I guess I agree in some respects that they need to be, I wouldn't say perfect, but I think needing to be accelerated and better than others is just, if you've got your budget centralized, then you're doing the organization a service by managing all that and being able to explain it, right? 

Speaker 2 01:35:46 
Thank you. 

Speaker 5 01:35:48 
If you're not great at it, then this is kind of your point I think, you're going to lose your budget. Stuff that you want to do for your team, that gets de -prioritized because you get such a large budget and you've got all these projects that are business projects that you're trying to manage. 

Speaker 5 01:36:05 
So the exception of cyber security, that innovation budget we talked about last week, all that stuff like, there's a way because you are essentially going to prioritize the business projects that align to those business goals and everything is an emergency. 

Speaker 5 01:36:22 
Now when you push those budget items out into the business lines, which is also a very good way to do things, now the communication changes in the steering committee is to communicate what your resource model is because they have the budget and if they don't use it, they lose it. 

Speaker 5 01:36:42 
And if you're stopping them from using the budget because you don't have the resources, then you're going to get a bad name. So either way, you've got to be good at managing your shop and what you're able to do and be very much communicated out constantly about where you stand, so on your strategic plan, or on your timing, or on your tactics, or on the why you're doing things, awareness. 

Speaker 5 01:37:07 
This has to constantly be, no matter where the budget lives, a communication exercise over and over again. And some of that is the steering committee and the governance of that, I look at it less as governance and more as communications and consistency and just being consistent and having a message and being able to consistently say the same things over and over again and not really waver and change unless the whole business changes. 

Speaker 5 01:37:37 
And having a form to do that and a lot of times that is some sort of IT group or IT committee. So it's just using Slack and using the internet or whatever it might be that you use to get the message out and keeping people plugged in and engaged in the business because that's so important. 

Speaker 5 01:37:56 
The reason I hesitate sometimes with the steering committee is that I think the reputational risk of so many other IT leaders, this is probably the number one question I hear on forums and stuff. 

Speaker 3 01:38:11 
How do I do that? I keep staring at her. 

Speaker 5 01:38:13 
Because A, I can't get people to shop after two weeks. B, they don't feel like they're decision makers. So they don't, like, they aren't. They're information gatherers, right? So they're like, what am I doing for you? 

Speaker 5 01:38:25 
You know, I'm just, I can go, I can go back door into the executive committee with my awesome project and have a, you know, a conversation, a back door conversation. Then they, now it's the executive committee comes to you and says, go do this. 

Speaker 5 01:38:41 
You know, we've got to have that platform and that trust and credibility built. This is why you can, oh, sorry, you're up. I was just gonna say, everyone thinks it's a steering committee. I need a steering committee. 

Speaker 5 01:38:53 
I need it, it's like, yeah, great for three months until people, if it's not managed well, don't go. They don't show up because they're not getting anything back. This is that balance, right? 

Speaker 3 01:39:07 
You don't want to start too early, you don't want to start too late, now you're basically entering the technological debt, the resource debt, just picking the right time to do it, but yes, to a degree. 

Speaker 5 01:39:21 
So you've got to challenge, you've got to be not afraid to challenge people too, like in those meetings. 

Speaker 3 01:39:28 
executive buy -in. The executive team is going to railroad your process then get out of that company. You made a bad decision? Yep. It's okay, move on, go to another company, don't tell you when you went there, chuck it off your resume. 

Speaker 3 01:39:43 
Because if that ET won't stand behind your privatization and government process, bad juju. Yeah, bad juju. 

Speaker 5 01:39:51 
That's just that's usually a fundamental governance problem not IT governance sets 

Speaker 3 01:39:59 
value of it. People come off too strong to like, day nine, I'm gonna govern this whole place. And we talked about this. Don't over govern it. Yes. That's just bad news. You come in and say, hey, listen, you know what would be really great? 

Speaker 3 01:40:14 
That we had some basic policies in place that really well. 

Speaker 2 01:40:19 
Looks great. 

Speaker 3 01:40:20 
toe in the water. And by the way, I know we have three big projects coming up. I'd like to make sure we're all aligned. So does anybody here want to talk about alignment of these projects? Because I only have one resource. 

Speaker 5 01:40:34 
There will be a lot of people happy to do that. Sure. Just make it that simple. They'll be happy to do it. 

Speaker 3 01:40:39 
But as you grow, so my position is if you're a functional line and you come forward and you've worked at IT, developed a plan, and then you completely bumble your project or your thing that you did, whether it's over money, over time, over resource, you can still essentially repent and do a better job your second time. 

Speaker 3 01:41:06 
But if you're showing a pattern of dereliction and you just can't fit your shit together, you are deprioritized over everybody, everyone else would go before you, like that's where I would do it. And even though I don't have a voting power in the ITSC, I would compel the ITSC to deprioritize you over any other initiative that is using those same resources. 

Speaker 3 01:41:31 
There are just some people who can't do this, which is the function, yeah. 

Speaker 5 01:41:35 
It can be hard, but it's good to have your mind in the right place and have some basic structure and information that you can communicate on a consistent basis in the road to the potty. 

Speaker 3 01:41:47 
I hear you, over and over, right? 

Speaker 4 01:41:52 
Sure, yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, I'm good for now, thank you. You're not gonna bring your mic with you? 

Speaker 5 01:42:07 
Yeah, I mean I think 

Speaker 4 01:42:08 
A big, big part of the overall governance picture is... 

Speaker 5 01:42:13 
I've often heard the steering committee piece, it's good to have a cross -functional group that you just get together with even informally and always help, it can't be at lunchtime. 

Speaker 4 01:42:27 
could be when you go walking. I could be innocent. 

Speaker 5 01:42:30 
So having an ability to talk with other peers and leaders from the business to consistently, I should say, in a consistent manner with a consistent message about your plan, consistency is so important. 

Speaker 5 01:42:47 
Unless you have a deviate from that for some reason, but you're going to be consistent with the message why he had the deviate. So it's important. One other thing we didn't talk about was standards perspective. 

Speaker 5 01:43:02 
There's a steering committee of standards. That looks good. It's standards. So a great thing to do is, with your steering group, with your IT cross -functional group, leadership group, advisory board, we called it sometimes IT advisory board, is to talk about your standards and why IT standards are important. 

Speaker 5 01:43:30 
Maybe architecture standards are important, cyber security standards, and to get by and understanding and opinions of the group of how those will fly and if they will impact their business or not. To bring that forward and talk about some of those things, and give examples of how you've seen them implemented in the past or how they are implemented now and how they will be measured in the future. 

Speaker 5 01:43:59 
And a lot of people have opinions about that. It won't be a dead error when you say, this is the standard application. Someone will always say, well, I used this in the last place and you should think about this or that. 

Speaker 5 01:44:11 
So that's another area of that cross -functional group that's important is talking about standards. But I totally think it's a year two thing, depending on the size of your company. If you're coming into an organization that you're being hired to implement more structure and governance, then you do it earlier. 

Speaker 5 01:44:31 
If you're coming in to build an IT organization, you don't want to rush it. You do not want, in my opinion, you don't want to push it fast and put it in place before anyone really knows why you need it. 

Speaker 5 01:44:46 
Sometimes that's a great checkbox thing for governance. The first question someone asks is, do you have an IT steering committee? Yeah. Make sure the business wants that first, because if they don't, two years later when you come to put it in place, you'll be hoodwinked. 

Speaker 5 01:45:07 
The only thing I was talking about, Nate, was 

Speaker 3 01:45:12 
Yeah, so I could listen to the Live version of Tracy Chapman and Darius Rucker bring you got a fast car 

Speaker 5 01:45:21 
good. Oh, in the bathroom, there was this bathroom. 

Speaker 3 01:45:24 
in there for a while. I'll definitely have to go in a couple minutes. Maybe they'll play it again. It's actually quite soothing. I was soothed when I was listening to it. I love that. I just felt things naturally happening. 

Speaker 5 01:45:36 
I did that song two weekends ago. 

Speaker 3 01:45:39 
last weekend with Darius Rucker. Now if you probably do it with you. No, not Darius Rucker. 

Speaker 5 01:45:46 
The other singer in my band, we played Manchester, it was awesome. In our band, I should say. The group band. And we did that fast car, it was awesome. That's a great song. 

Speaker 3 01:45:57 
I feel like, by the way, I'm not crossing the line when I put my elbow here. I'm cool with that. I'm cool with it. I know, but you still have your, you can still do your elbow. So we can touch elbows? 

Speaker 3 01:46:08 
No. We wouldn't even touch elbows. It's in your room, right? Yeah. So, I also want to talk about, whether it's your domains real quick, one with development. And so, you have somebody on your IT team who's a very big fan of scripting. 

Speaker 3 01:46:30 
Yes, yes. All things. Yes. YouTube works for me too. And I'm a very, very big fan of scripting, of using APIs. Automation. Making things automate themselves. Yeah. And that is governance. 

Speaker 5 01:46:48 
I think there's, it's funny, we're talking about this today, is knowing when to build versus buy. I think that's a tough one, and a small company, you have the ability to build, I think a little bit more, which is exciting, and there's also the question of business continuity, right? 

Speaker 5 01:47:10 
So if you've got, if you're scripting everything, and you have good governance, so good comments, good documentation for all those scripts, everything is written down, and that becomes a lot of work. 

Speaker 5 01:47:24 
I think that's the thing, we've got to make sure that the things that we're writing, we're building, are, we have the time to really put that governance in place. So we've got to sort of pick our poison, that's the, what do you want to write, what do you want to automate, and there's a huge upside to that because we truly build our own custom experience. 

Speaker 5 01:47:48 
I don't employ experience, it's just humongous, and then there are going to be other things where it's like, let's not take the time to build that, let's just go buy this little cheapo thing, it's just, hold us over a year or two, and that's, I think it's also part of the development of anyone, it's kind of that build versus buy, knowing when, or building some of the criteria in which to think about, what can I just push the buy button, the single click button in Amazon, and live with okay or good enough, or is this a situation where a real opportunity to drive some value by building some. 

Speaker 3 01:48:26 
All right, well, I think I think honestly you it's easy to get hung up on one or two principles the principal number one is that You think of development as coding and that doesn't really relate to governance or not you Automation but the point is that If I think if you're fundamentally answer answering the questions of who and how and where yep Or even when then you're entering into governance realm and it's if I'm going to go ahead and connect They can talk to each other. 

Speaker 3 01:48:57 
Yep. I got libraries. I've actually the questions and That's causing your government governance is really that big of a super seeping platform. Yeah, so It's how you do this it is the recipe. Yep So I think about development. 

Speaker 3 01:49:15 
That's right. If I'm gonna go ahead and part around an air table for a day Trying this trying that and then getting all the way. I like it I don't need to document everything. I failed at course not the final thing that I like. 

Speaker 3 01:49:29 
I need to talk to 

Speaker 5 01:49:30 
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So that someone can pick it up and walk away and that you're not end up doing it And I'll tell you this air table is capabilities is amazing. There's some of the stuff you can do it insane, dude And that's and that's the thing like you hit air table For snowflake or anything else you could go in there and hit you can get Like it's amazing. 

Speaker 5 01:49:52 
I got you with it I took this weekend and did a lot of playing with it and Monday and play with it a lot, too It's unbelievable the things that you can start to build in there But it's a database is less of an application from what I've seen so far and it's more of a data It's a data model. 

Speaker 5 01:50:10 
It's structured data, right? So she did it and that and that is what it is It's not a front -end. It's good of a front -end system is as Does it matter though? Cuz he can talk to anybody else. That's the point right is you need if you can use that as a source of truth Huge value, but you've got to know when That part of it ends and they'll continue to build out to that layer layer 7 area, right? 

Speaker 5 01:50:38 
But right now it's still pretty clear that they're it is a relational relational database system And they continue to build that front -end experience so I look at it as a short exposure, you know talking about maybe Seven months time Dabbled with it when you had mentioned it to me and even more so hates the fantastic in it morning so much from her And just how how to work it then how to what what the use cases are That's it's also thinking that is where it is. 

Speaker 5 01:51:12 
Where does this fit in a grand scheme of business application perspective? Well, it's easy to do it. You can easily just build everything 

Speaker 3 01:51:22 
It's not you do want to keep it in focus. Yeah, but there's a competitive advantage there, too Well, it's you get to the end of the law Came out a bunch of years ago and IT it was like all systems will eventually have an email It's like visual basis. 

Speaker 3 01:51:40 
Yeah, so you can even take myself. You can do database work and research right now. Yep zap your head database functionality That's your table. Yeah. So so I mean we're getting where I kind of minutes. 

Speaker 3 01:51:56 
Okay. No, that's the idea is that if I have a It now matters Now only matters how large for the data be because it by default structure now Yeah, and then what I can do it in sort of representation. That's where the war is being fought doesn't taste It's not even a war. 

Speaker 3 01:52:16 
I mean if I could If I can push a Google sheet to lose a chart and then recent chart take that file through zap You're pushing to something else. Yep embedded in a box folder What have I accomplished? 

Speaker 3 01:52:29 
Well, I've just taken data that probably could just look at raw format maybe yeah But I made it really cool. Well, maybe I did sell a big business problem. I think oh 

Speaker 5 01:52:39 
a lot of business problems to be solved. 

Speaker 3 01:52:44 
You took the attention that information away. 

Speaker 5 01:52:46 
One interesting thing I was thinking about is actually this afternoon when some of the bells went off was how does this differ from Microsoft Access or FileMaker or any of the tools that were built in a great little database and it does a really good business use case really well. 

Speaker 5 01:53:09 
But the exception of FileMaker because I think FileMaker had a great front end experience and that's where like if I want to like Kate and I were talking about audit trails today and inside of an air table and similarly in a SQL database the way to create or FileMaker not so much FileMaker because FileMaker is an audit trail but Microsoft Access is that okay now we've got to create another table to do an audit trail. 

Speaker 5 01:53:49 
Something that's built in to most enterprise applications we now have to script and build off the side right we have to write that code that's additional work right but the benefit is that we can make that audit trail very specific to our needs that's always the benefit of being able to write the code and that's when it's a decision making okay do we want to write this or do we want to use the capability within the system and that's you could have principles governance principles that you know maybe it's a couple of efforts maybe it's cost maybe else whatever but you say okay here's when we're going to build versus buy and sometimes that's a steering committee thing if you're at a bigger company you're like okay this is a BVB we don't have a development shop so it's a it's a buy and we don't have development governance so it's a buy if it's a build what's the cost estimate what's the time and if you're trying to you have to take a day to learn how to do it 

Speaker 3 01:54:59 
You've got to build out of the cost. 

Speaker 5 01:55:01 
Yeah, if you're going to measure that stuff, but I don't think in a company our size we would. 

Speaker 3 01:55:05 
You're talking about, well, so I mentioned functional requirements specs. Yes, functional requirements specs are an old, tiny way of thinking. It's got multiple names, but it's saying, I need to buy something that does A, B, and C. 

Speaker 3 01:55:20 
Yep. And to do them this way. Like, you write it out, you describe it in English. Sure. And then it does these things. Like, the same thing happens with somebody who submits a new sprint request for actual development. 

Speaker 3 01:55:33 
Like, I need something to do X, Y, Z. If you deviate from X, Y, Z, and say, ah, it's kind of like X, a little Z -ish. I'm not exactly sure. I'm just getting fucked with it for an hour. And then they all come to me as I go. 

Speaker 3 01:55:51 
That's almost like a new level of governance. It's almost like a sixth domain. He's talking about, that's a way to describe that. It's like, how do you game until you see the outcome? I don't know how you describe it, but you may know. 

Speaker 3 01:56:13 
Maybe I'll articulate to you, Mike, I really love it so that when somebody did this, this happened, right? Yep. That's all I can say. I can't give you any functional requirements. Like, it must happen every hour. 

Speaker 3 01:56:26 
It must happen this way. Most of the time, those are the requirements you get. Yeah, right? I need this to happen, right? So I'm looking at a functional outcome perspective. I need this to happen. I don't really care how it happens. 

Speaker 3 01:56:42 
I just need it to happen. Well, that's not functional requirements. That's a functional outcome. So if I say, oh, you want this to happen? Okay, cool. Give me an hour. Well, I'm going to go back and I have these whole set of tools I know. 

Speaker 3 01:56:56 
I'm going to think, which tool is the best for this job? I end up, by default, creating the functional requirements by virtue of how I build that thing. I don't know. I've got to think about this one because... 

Speaker 3 01:57:12 
Well, here's the thing. 

Speaker 5 01:57:14 
I think in the case of the tool set center, we all would say we should have a job here, we'd have an air table, all these things. There's not a lot of risk in terms of learning to build and trying things out, seeing how they're gonna work and the light bulb goes on and all of a sudden you've got perhaps a tool that could in place of spending 30 to $40 ,000 or something, you've just built a fit for purpose solution that works maybe better than anything else by using some sort of air table or any sort of things and it's good enough for what a small organization needs and you may not have that functional aspect. 

Speaker 5 01:57:59 
It may be sort of, it's like painting a picture as opposed to trying to build a doll house where you need a list of instructions. It's like for a Lego set, right? You're able to paint a picture and you've gotta learn what's working and what looks good and what's acceptable and consumable and that when you're sometimes developing some of these systems is more than hard for the science. 

Speaker 5 01:58:25 
Okay, it takes two different approaches with those things, isn't it? 

Speaker 3 01:58:28 
But now we're back to the hammer and the nail dilemma, which is, let's suppose I build something for you to solve this problem over here. Right. And then someone else can go over here and says, you know, I have a problem. 

Speaker 3 01:58:39 
And I'm like, well, shit, just go there. But I need to make some small changes to it. Is it an advantage to go ahead and use something I already built and they could modify it for this person? Or should I show up in the beginning again and objectively reassess all the tools here? 

Speaker 5 01:58:57 
When you've got a problem like an air table or a smart sheet or whatever type tool, you can just say, or a Lucid Shack. Another example is, I've already built this for another group or something like it, demo it. 

Speaker 5 01:59:15 
So say, okay, this is what we were already built, it took us three weeks to build this or two weeks or a day or whatever it was. And if we just tweak this a little bit, it may not be everything that you want, but it will pass you some of the way there. 

Speaker 3 01:59:28 
I 100% agree with you, but this is a circular reference. It's bringing you back to the hammer and the nail issue, which is if I build something, I can see it solves a problem. I'm going to try and find and fit every other problem into that same model, as opposed to starting back at square one area of your eyes and looking at other things. 

Speaker 3 01:59:48 
But there's an expression to do that, though. It's inefficient to say, oh, no, no. Even though I have a solution, let's restart. I'm going to start back at the beginning. That's effectively inefficient. 

Speaker 3 01:59:58 
I'm going to do what you just did. You're going to look so back and listen to music? Lighty. Lighty, baby. I'm going to entertain people. I'm actually going to take a note. So stare at this abstract being behind me for a moment. 

Speaker 3 02:00:16 
I'm making a note for my new book that I just thought of. 

Speaker 2 02:00:21 
and I was like, I was like, I'm not sure. I thought I was very good at this. I was like, I'm gonna have to get a chance. I'm gonna have to get a chance. Here's what I wanted to ask you. I was very excited. 

Speaker 2 02:00:35 
I was very excited. I was very excited. I had to be a nice person. I was just so fine. I just came to be able to ask you a lot of questions. I wanted to be a nice person. And I was very excited. I'm not gonna be able to get a chance. 

Speaker 3 02:00:51 
So I will tell you a story, actually, I've made my note. Here's a story that you may not know. In 1973, Will Conte, who was a pretty well -known musician, wrote an opera. And the opera did an Italian opera. 

Speaker 3 02:01:14 
It did mildly OK. As far as operas in 1973 went. But Will Conte, three years later, in 1976, was asked to put together the score for the Rocky soundtrack, the first Rocky movement. And what he did was, he thought about what am I going to do to illustrate this movie about this hard, not -sponsive. 

Speaker 3 02:01:52 
And he went back to this opera that he wrote in 1973. He took a portion of it and he reused it and suddenly sped up Hormats in the 1976 original version of Rocky. And let me tell you this, if you go back and listen to the original Will Conte 1973 version of this opera, and then you compare it to what he evolved it into in the 1976 version of Rocky, the original movie, it might only be blown. 

Speaker 3 02:02:24 
And the reason I'm telling you this is because, let's say you have an idea. And I got just tons of ideas. Most of them, I think, are probably, at their inception, shit. They're dog shit ideas. So I look at them and I lay them down on my phone, and I'm like, that's so dumb. 

Speaker 3 02:02:47 
But I keep them. Let me know what I ever think about. Let me know what they like. Because, and this is the reason why, because what will happen eventually, I feel, is that every note will come down. And a perfect example, last week we talked about board gaming. 

Speaker 3 02:03:07 
I wrote some stuff about it 11 years ago, and it's now worthwhile. Maybe it was worthwhile back then, but it wasn't so much as it is today. And so I was relating to them, or anybody that watches this, an interesting story about tracking what you know so that you can potentially use it later. 

Speaker 3 02:03:32 
And the story I related to them was Bill Conti. Bill Conti wrote a small, unknown Italian opera in 1973. Exactly. Yep. And he took part of it for the 1976 theme song for Rocky. Yep. And it became, obviously, what it is today. 

Speaker 3 02:03:52 
But he just had this thing. It didn't do so well. He had an idea. It was a fragment of a song. Going the distance is my favorite. 

Speaker 5 02:04:00 
Son, let. 

Speaker 3 02:04:02 
and he resurrected it in a new format but never let the idea die. So if you have an idea you might be like this is so stupid. It's not. It is not dumb. Just write it down. Once you do that you'll know you have it and you need to hold a science plane in the back home. 

Speaker 4 02:04:24 
Oh, you said you were in the speech. 

Speaker 2 02:04:26 
No, no, no! No, it's one of my favorites. 

Speaker 3 02:04:34 
It's one of my favorite stories because Bill Conti was trying to make his mark in the world and tried a whole bunch of stuff including this small, tiny opera, which would someday become one of the most recognized theme songs in all time. 

Speaker 3 02:04:53 
Amazing. There you have it. There's my story on Save Everything, save complete digital hoarder, why not, because you have plenty of space, but B, because your ideas, you know what I'm saying? It's good to speak with your ideas, believe yourself. 

Speaker 3 02:05:07 
Most of my books are written off of scraps of things I've kept over the years. I have a black book, I have a green book, I have sticky notes everywhere, I have beautiful keynotes, and they're just all things I'm like, I'm out of road, I'm like, oh shit, I just think of this. 

Speaker 3 02:05:23 
And I have no idea why I wrote it, I just think of it, I don't have dual key, make a voice recording. I have it. Oh, these are some voice recording too. All the time. Dual key. I have hundreds of voice notes. 

Speaker 3 02:05:39 
As soon as it comes back to that, I'm like, Tunnel Vision. What is it about? Who talks about it? How does it affect word gaming? Record that. Record that. And then I get home and I'm like, Tunnel Vision? 

Speaker 3 02:05:50 
It reminds me of that Sinehole episode, and a lot of things remind me of the Sinehole episodes, where Jerry's sleeping, he wakes up in the middle of the night, he wakes up in a joke he thinks of, he wakes up in the morning and he can't understand what he wrote, and a lot of my notes are like, what the fuck is, what is this even, what is that even talking about? 

Speaker 3 02:06:07 
But then it comes back to me. And the last, so anyway, welcome back to the bathroom, any good music? What's that? Any good music in the bathroom? No, not really. No Phil Collins? No, we used to love her. 

Speaker 3 02:06:23 
No, it's the studio? No, it's the studio. What do you think about that song? What do you think about the studio? Do you think you just gave up? What do you think it was like a, you had to throw a record contract? 

Speaker 3 02:06:34 
I don't know, it was the number one hit. 

Speaker 5 02:06:36 
This video was about his dog's no it was 

Speaker 3 02:06:40 
in a time of just all bullshit number one hits. Should we look at whatever the number one hits were at that time? I think they were all by him. Now Michael Jackson was huge. Huey Lewis in the news. David Bowie had a few number one hits, right? 

Speaker 3 02:06:58 
You just can't start naming, you can't start naming artists that all had number one hits. I'm talking about at that time. Oh, at that time. You're just the speakers for setting artists now for MTV. No, I'm number one hits in the 80s. 

Speaker 3 02:07:11 
So, by the way, I've done some conclusive evidence. I've done some research like a friend over at InfoWorld. Okay. Mine's substantiated that a couple of things. If you listen to all of Phil Collins' songs after In the Air Tonight, they are all, I'm talking about musical lyrics folks, they are all admissions of guilt. 

Speaker 3 02:07:39 
Okay. Admissions of guilt. Yes. Okay. I can cite literal lyrics for you. Okay, good. My bigger question, Mike, is after they killed this guy, do you think that Genesis kicked him out of the band permanently because of this? 

Speaker 3 02:07:55 
Genesis didn't kick him out of the band. Do you think that Genesis was involved in the murder? There was no murder. 

Speaker 5 02:08:05 
There's no murder. 

Speaker 3 02:08:07 
So you're, you're technically an accomplice, but you don't think Genesis kicked him out because he did it? Genesis didn't kick him out. You mean in the 90s? Why did Genesis, why did Phil Collins go up on his own? 

Speaker 3 02:08:23 
What, in the late 90s? No, in the 80s. He didn't. All the songs he did were by himself. 

Speaker 5 02:08:31 
No, he did a bunch of songs with Genesis in the 90s. It's all cover up. 

Speaker 3 02:08:36 
No, I'm telling you, he was in Genesis till 95. 

Speaker 5 02:08:41 
$19 .95 or $96. 

Speaker 3 02:08:44 
So they would have you believe we can't dance 

Speaker 5 02:08:47 
Well, you heard that album, right? I can't dance, I can't talk. 

Speaker 3 02:08:51 
there was a commercial for beer that's a real song that's a terrible song we should play that we go down a list of all the worst yeah go ahead okay here we go it should be easy obviously list all the songs all right separate in the air tonight in the air tonight straight Bill Collins songs okay here we go I'm gonna rank these on a scale one to ten all right good we're ten is awesome and one is shit okay in the air tonight okay you'll be in my heart you'll be in my heart one against all odds two really easy lover one another day in paradise three a groovy kind of love oh that's a cover yeah you've got a one one okay take me home time that's a ten that song is amazing I wish it would rain down I wish it would rain down 

Speaker 5 02:10:04 
because they tend to be the worst and the best. 

Speaker 3 02:10:06 
Yeah, taking homes, I wish it would rain down. Yep. That's a five. That's a two. I don't care anymore. That's a 10. And by the way, I don't care anymore, it came out. I don't care anymore, it's a 10. 

Speaker 3 02:10:21 
After India Tonight, basically, he was like, I don't care anymore about that guy. That's what he said before. That's a one. I don't care anymore. He's fucking dead in the water. I think you can play backwards. 

Speaker 3 02:10:39 
I think that's a sequel. Play backwards. That's a sequel. It's a studio. That's a negative 15. I think we should play it instrumentally for you. I can't dance. Negative 20. That's Genesis. Do I have the confusion? 

Speaker 3 02:10:52 
That's Genesis. You don't think... I think that's a good one. Invisible touch. Invisible touch is a three. 3 .1. 

Speaker 5 02:11:01 
Land of Confusions like innate, separate lives. What? 

Speaker 3 02:11:05 
Boy, when it's a white knight style album. Yes, that's Stephen Bishop That's all That's good. I give that Nate is it? No, it's a one. It's a country song. Come on 

Speaker 4 02:11:18 
He's on hill, he's on hill, he's on hill. 

Speaker 5 02:11:21 
What about me out in the corner? 

Speaker 3 02:11:23 
that's on in too deep that's good I mean it's also no reflection on the guy drowning 

Speaker 2 02:11:35 
Oh, yeah, it's an awesome place. Ah! 

Speaker 3 02:11:41 
Oh, it's good. I like that It's all over the place Oh, I can't even hide it. Okay. Here's the rolling stone 10 best hotel songs Oh really? Oh boy. This is rolling stone number 10. The roof is leaking. 

Speaker 3 02:11:56 
Never heard it. That's great. Skip that one. That's a good song No, it's not. That's in the nine. Don't lose my number. Are you fucking camera? That's not i'm not a huge fan of that. Ricky Billy don't you lose my belly? 

Speaker 3 02:12:07 
Billy. Billy? Ricky or Billy? Billy. Billy. Who's Billy? I don't know. I think he just got it up. Probably. I wish it would rain down Number eight. What the fuck? It's the studio number seven. Oh my god The random bizardiums the studio came out of four cows' mouth one day while he was improvising. 

Speaker 3 02:12:29 
There's the drum machine Yeah, it's on right after the studio. I had to find something else for the word Then I went back and tried to find another word that scanned as well as the studio and couldn't find one and that's the world of medic girl named the studio He just made it up Another day in paralyzes six He wrote the track after walking around dc and seeing the hordes of people living in boxes look at how pernicious Taking me home Take me home is my favorite. 

Speaker 3 02:13:01 
Then you will think it's about a weary traveler in true songs that I'm a mental patient You're going to be set free from the institution inspired by one from the cuckoo's nest Come on easy lover We don't like easy lovers They know check out the Amazing sweater vest in the goofy video. 

Speaker 3 02:13:26 
Do you have a swest the swest? Firstly, I don't care anymore. I thought you'd like that song number two against all odds. Yep The soundtrack 1984 jeff bridges movie against all odds like a mini genesis reunion Gabriel contributed the track walk through fire Mike weatherford made a song making a big mistake and they eventually sang 

Speaker 5 02:13:51 
on, which is interesting. 

Speaker 3 02:13:54 
Yeah, and then it was number one Number one night in the end. I Spent all success and remains the most famous work of his career detailing the murder of his best friend in the canoe On that note it's hey here on the internet. 

Speaker 3 02:14:15 
Let me see that that's not what it says Closed it closed it. Yep He's only sold about 160 million records you see at it's so rough Listen wish people feel entitled to do that stuff. Yeah, wasn't there that player who like I Don't kill somebody Yeah 

Speaker 5 02:14:40 
There's been a few of those. Oh, well, that's what I heard. 

Speaker 3 02:14:43 
At the same point, there was a guy who killed somebody, him and his car, football player. 

Speaker 5 02:14:52 
Oh yeah, there's plenty of people who have killed other people, really? I just don't think that song's about that, but that's alright. 

Speaker 3 02:15:00 
Agree to disagree. So by the way, this is funny. I used I told you I was using AI on buzzsprout this generate the the the Description for in the track for our podcast. Yep. Just go to a whole session the pro Collins And cut it out what's your what's your top 10 Peter Gabriel songs Are those would you say that more more or less in your eyes? 

Speaker 3 02:15:29 
Yeah, so it's great. Oh, yeah 

Speaker 5 02:15:35 
So those are, you'd say those are one 

Speaker 3 02:15:37 
The 10s, 10s isn't the best, Red Rain is a 10, it's a 9, that's it, no other songs from the minds. Shot the Monkey is a negative 5. Shot the Monkey is pretty rough. I listen to his new album, well it played on XR Media while I was driving, I liked the new album. 

Speaker 3 02:16:04 
It sounded like Dave Gahan, or somebody, Dave who? Gahan from NxS, from Depesh Mode. 

Speaker 5 02:16:17 
You know what I've been listening to a lot is dire straits. 

Speaker 3 02:16:24 
Are you a fan of them or no? Well my friend, you know, Murphy, he went through a huge Dire Straits phase. Swear they were the greatest ever, then just the Beach Boys after that. I tried to listen to, I mean Martin Alford's good. 

Speaker 3 02:16:35 
Martin Alford and Emile Harris, that album, the Beach Boys, but I am not a Dire Straits fan only because I don't like it. 

Speaker 4 02:16:48 
You don't like it. 

Speaker 2 02:16:50 
Nope. 

Speaker 3 02:16:52 
That's okay. I've been listening to a lot of... You're a state of trance fan. I will always and forever be a fan of trance, 1998 to 2002. I listen to... I listen to Scooter. Scooter was German techno. 

Speaker 3 02:17:08 
You think Scooter would be on our podcast? We could have him. Oh my god. That would be my dream. I listen to a lot of Trap. Trap, Trap? Trap. Yeah. They're 21 Savage. Yep. Them GZ. Cheers. 

Speaker 5 02:17:21 
stuff while you run or you just you can't you can't you just have to 

Speaker 3 02:17:25 
It all depends, if it's a really, really long line, I have a couple of playlists that are very, very long. They have variety, mostly heavy metal, like very heavy metal. Oh, really? I had no idea what type of heavy metal you listen to. 

Speaker 3 02:17:40 
Anywhere between black metal and just regular heavy metal. So I go out of Sepetura, Slayer, I was Old Iron Maiden. So the 1985 Right After Death album is one of the best heavy metal albums of all time. 

Speaker 3 02:17:56 
Full of Ozzy, early by Sabbath, gotcha. Biohazard, Anthrax, also a lot of 80's metal. It's kind of like the biggest playlist I have. Very cool. And you can actually run to it. There's really Biohazard and stuff. 

Speaker 3 02:18:13 
And then it drives. Oh my god, crazy. A while ago, you're sprinting. I don't listen to trance so much when I run, but I do listen to it in the office all the time. Trance and Yacht Rock. Yacht Rock, okay. 

Speaker 3 02:18:28 
I'm a huge Yacht Rock fan. Yacht Rock is good. Yacht Rock and 70's on 7 are the two channels I jam the most out of my office. She looks at the watercolors. I know you told me about that. 

Speaker 2 02:18:40 
Well, it's gonna burn him, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. 

Speaker 3 02:18:44 
of our donuts four times a day and Dan Fogleberg 

Speaker 2 02:18:52 
It's a way to do it. 

Speaker 3 02:18:53 
yep and who's the saxophonist Kenny Kenny Sergio Mendoza not Kenny G Kenny G was 90 Kenny G there's a lot of great great music about the 70s the people just kind of ignored because it wasn't disco and the rock guy it's hysterical he's like I'm getting my smooth on today I love it gotta get my shoes right right well what do you say man what do I say don't be a dick I got passed on 117 yesterday morning is it 5 .45 in the morning I'm just doing 35 minutes 30 chilling having a coffee this Volvo is gold Volvo SUV gets up on my ass I'm not going fast apparently goes around me on 117 no passing then there's a car pulls out he gets behind this guy delegates him goes around him and then he gets a little further on 117 and meanwhile on 5 .45 in the morning if you're not on your way to the construction site you're kind of fucked and this guy encounters four cars on 117 now when Lincoln at this point goes around all of them on a blind curve ends up cutting everybody off including an oncoming biker I don't know how he didn't kill them all and I'm thinking to myself that's perfect guy that should be on our don't be a dick segment of this podcast yes yes absolutely you're awake because you're you only did it last night you slept in or you missed your alarm don't make the rest of us nearly die because you're delinquent on driving exactly don't be a dick do not be a dick Park West ragmore be nice to old people they need your help don't if someone's used directions hold the door open for them if someone's carrying a bunch of heavy shit into the FedEx office ask them if they need help yeah hold the door open let them say no just be a nice person it's better I feel better when I'm nice it's okay to be nice everyone if you liked this podcast give us a thousand stars a thousand a thousand out over all the things um Rosenzweil your friends next week we're gonna be somewhere either in the barn or new here we are at the Pentagon here we are at the Pentagon no what's the name of the Pentagon sorry we're at the local we're at the House of Blues the House of Blues right now right now we'll be somewhere else next week and uh next week we're gonna continue governance we have the last two domains security included uh oh watch out we should get a litterer back on give us his take on it that would be great then we get to get out then we're done with governance next week next week will be a relatively short read too and then next week will be episode 25 by the way unreal how many things do you own or 25 

Speaker 5 02:22:29 
five episodes friends bought t -shirts I was a friend brought a t -shirt 

Speaker 3 02:22:36 
We need more friends to buy t -shirts. Because that is money we... 

Speaker 6 02:22:43 
Five stars because we are awesome Adopt an opossum we need Frozen Twinkies and Johnny Walker Gold drinkies the calculus of IT