Calculus of IT - Season 2 Episode 3 - The Modern IT Paradox - Part 2

Last week, we slammed on the brakes right in the middle of our deep dive into the seven modern IT paradoxes (something about a Kraken attack…it’s still all a blur to me). This week, we're back to finish what we started, and somehow, we discovered an eighth paradox along the way (because seven just wasn't paradoxical enough).

Join Nate and Mike as they tackle the remaining perspectives of modern IT leadership, including the three models of IT control (spoiler: neither total control nor complete chaos is the answer), the real cost of getting IT wrong (it's more than just your budget), and how to set up a modern balance that works for everyone. We also introduce our first archetype of the season: The Great Homogenization - or why everyone jumping on the same tech bandwagon might not be the best strategy for your company.

From exploring quantum decision-making (yes, really) to discovering why "sauce" is the new SaaS, we dive deep into the challenges of maintaining autonomy while juggling risk, innovation, and productivity. Plus, we tackle the eternal question: why deploying Linux might be simultaneously the best and worst idea ever.

Along the way, we'll share practical strategies for avoiding the homogenization trap and maintaining your strategic autonomy. We'll also try to explain why spamming isn't what it used to be (ask Gen Z).

We are on our way to solving this riddle…next week…stay tuned…we are tacking on “Identity as the new perimeter” and why "trust me, bro" might not be the best security strategy.

Transcript

Season 2 - Episode 3 - Final - Audio Only
===

Nate McBride: [00:00:00] Just like that. Just like that. Just like that. We used the miracle of modern technology to make it look like we never left. We were all sitting here. 

Mike Crispin: We've been here the whole time. 

Nate McBride: I feel like we should have done some cool, like a segue at the end of last week's episode, you know, where we're talking and then all of a sudden it just, the screen just goes black and then we're like, we would come into this episode.

Like, oh my god, what the fuck was that? It's a giant kraken attacking us And then we'd all like we'd get the makeup people to do like we're just in a big battle or something And then we were like, okay. Well, uh, where were we and then just pick up where we left off? But 

Mike Crispin: we would look worn worn and torn 

Nate McBride: Yeah.

Into 

Mike Crispin: a smoke storm, a fire storm. 

Nate McBride: I tend to think of like better things to do after every episode instead of during the episode. So that's a problem, plus we don't have [00:01:00] any engineers or assistants or makeup people. So basically at the end of last week we just stopped where we were. Yeah. And now we're, we're, we're picking up where we left off.

We didn't go change our clothes. Yeah. We didn't go change our clothes and then come right back. We actually took a whole week. Why does your camera keep moving? 

Mike Crispin: Oh, I'm moving too much. There we go. I'm in a good spot now. 

Nate McBride: Well, what camera is that? That's doing that? 

Mike Crispin: Oh, I'm in a, I'm on, on my iPad this week.

So it moves around. Keeps me in the frame for some reason. 

Nate McBride: Okay. Was this a new toy that you got, or is this the one that you had last year? 

Mike Crispin: This is the one I had last year. 

Nate McBride: Okay. You haven't got a new iPad yet. It's it's been what a year? You should upgrade at least twice by now. 

Mike Crispin: Yeah, it's, it's been, I've been on and off using it, you know, I decided to.

Doing some work with some music stuff. And I was like, Oh, maybe I should try some of that on the iPad. And my, uh, my Mac seems to be having trouble, my microphone [00:02:00] on it and the camera as well. So it's, I think I just have too much crap loaded on it. So it's like, Oh, I'll try the iPad. And it seems to be easier to organize stuff on the screen for me too, while we're doing this.

So that's good. Well, nobody watches 

Nate McBride: on YouTube anyway, so it's perfectly fine. 

Mike Crispin: Yes. As long as no one sees the amazing background I've got in the, uh, the bunker here. It's no different than my installation. So I think we're all good. The tiles falling from the ceiling to give the people on audio, just a taste of the, well, you know, if people don't need 

Nate McBride: it, people donated more to the show, then we wouldn't have to deal with like such poor, um, studios.

Yeah. For ourselves. Right. We just need a couple, a couple, a couple million, a couple of million, we're good to go. 

Mike Crispin: The acoustics are amazing in here, so thanks to this, uh, unique configuration. 

Nate McBride: Sounds like it. Sounds like, like decades from now, they'll try and recreate the album that you made down there. And they'll find that they, they just can't do it.

Can't recreate the [00:03:00] sound. Yeah. So, um, welcome back to the Calculus of IT and welcome to episode, uh, is this two and a half? 

Mike Crispin: Yes, this is technically, it's three, I guess, for real, but we're kind of moving on from the second one. So we're going to compartmentalize this. We'll call it number three. 

Nate McBride: We did have our first one.

We did have a second one. So I guess this is the third one, even though it's still technically part of the second one continuing on. Nobody 

Mike Crispin: has to know that though. This is really the third one. Yeah, 

Nate McBride: it just, it doesn't matter. It's just another episode of the Calculus IT. Okay. Numbers, numbers are just a construct.

We're, we're above numbers. So welcome to episode potato zebra. How about that? 

Mike Crispin: Love it. I like that. That's cool. Episode potato zebra is a great way to put it. And I like that. 

Nate McBride: That's good. 

Mike Crispin: All right. 

Nate McBride: We're doing it. We'll put that in bold letters. Calculus of IT episode, potato zebra. I'm Nate McBride, Nathan, Nate McBride.

And this is, uh, with me as always is [00:04:00] the inimitable Michael, Mike Crispin. I love that. Double it up. So Mike, we're both IT leaders, right? We are, or I should say we both lead it departments. So by default, that makes us it leaders. We're leading the it, 

Mike Crispin: we're, we're moving it down the road. 

Nate McBride: We're pushing it further, further forward for the forwards or we're 

Mike Crispin: maximizing, maximizing, maximizing, 

Nate McBride: maximizing, synchronicity, agility, and digital nexuses, nexuses next time.

Mike Crispin: Next time this, 

Nate McBride: and this podcast incidentally is about it leadership. So I think we're in the right place. So there you go. Uh, we didn't screw up again. So it's true. You go out and try and find another podcast about it leadership. That's hosted by two people named Mike and Nate. Good luck. I dare you. It's going to be hard to find it.

We are the one you're in the right place. If you're here for it leadership [00:05:00] and the calculus of it. Okay. I'm ready to lead. Um, last week we kicked off. Well, we kicked off the season with season with episode one, technically, but we just that was more like an overview of the season. Last week was episode two, where we started to build a baseline of what we're trying to accomplish the season where we talked about effectively how to deal with the modern it paradox and Bye.

I couldn't think of a better phrase, so modern IT paradox is what it is, but these are the things that, um, are the inexplicable things that occur within IT that you have to deal with, which, um, when we talk about the, the four pillars related to autonomy, that is to say, autonomy, risk, uh, productivity, and innovation, these four pillars, the way that they overlap and they move around in each other in this fluid motion is based on these paradoxes.

Paradox I. 

Mike Crispin: Paradise. 

Nate McBride: [00:06:00] Paradigm. Paradigm. Paradigm. Paradiglio. Because you can't successfully balance risk, innovation, autonomy, and productivity without being able to at least answer, if not address directly, the modern IT paradigms.

Paradoxes. No, not paradoxes. Para paradox. Para paradox. Paradox. Paradoxes. Paradoxical. There we go. Paradoxical. So that's how, so, so we'll we're gonna explain how those things will work together, the, the season. Ultimately what we hope to accomplish by the end is we're gonna explain how you can halt or slow down your loss of autonomy for it strategy.

Because it's effectively being thrust upon you now, um, for years and years, you might have had taken a buy here and there, but now with, um, this new thing called generative AI, I think it's what it's called. Yes. And with the way Jennifer A. I. Jennifer A. I. And with the [00:07:00] way that, um, I've got it 

Mike Crispin: running on a Raspberry Pi right now.

Nate McBride: DeepSeek? Are you seeking deeply? 

Mike Crispin: Yes. It writes about a word every ten minutes or so. 

Nate McBride: You know, I wish I had a rabbit. Because I would fucking have the best A. I. engine in the world. If only I had a rabbit. Uh, where do I get one of those Mike? Um. I don't know. So anyway, that's what we started to do last week until we were attacked by a Kraken.

And had to Pause the episode otherwise we would have kept going. 

Mike Crispin: Yes, gotta get you to get the hell out of there to avoid that 

Nate McBride: Yes I don't have any beetle Conspiracy news this week other than the fact that potentially the kraken was sent by the Beatles underground organization to keep us silent Yeah We know 

Mike Crispin: conspiracy there definitely no question about [00:08:00] it 

Nate McBride: Just think about it next time you're thinking about the Beatles and how all that shit kind of came together It just it opens doors to questions and then we won't go there tonight.

There's questions. I have questions 

Mike Crispin: We compute our dreams and data streams and by balloons Algorithms make us The calculus of I. T. We value autonomy. The calculus of I. T. We value autonomy. Through the code we weave our fate. In the data seas we skate. Zeroes, ones that can't abate. We control [00:09:00] it, it's innate.

It's innate.

Nate McBride: Last week we started talking about the modern IT paradoxica and the seven sort of key factors of the modern IT paradox. And got through the first three. Tonight we're going to pick up where we left off and discuss the last four. Then we're going to cover, um, our defining archetype of the moment. And we had talked in episode one that we have 10 archetypes for I.

T. leaders who, um, are wrestling with this balance between the, the risk autonomy, productivity, innovation. So we're going to cover archetype number one tonight. So it's a pretty, it's a pretty packed episode. Um, all, all things considered and we're going to do it in under 15 minutes. So we have six minutes, six minutes left to get through all of that.

Here we go. Here 

Mike Crispin: we go. Go. 

Nate McBride: Uh, yes. [00:10:00] Um, I don't know. Maybe, maybe a little bit longer than that. Maybe we'll, maybe we'll strive for something a little bit longer, but. Uh, before we do that. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. 

Mike Crispin: No, no. We'll make it work. We'll make it work. We'll make it work. We 

Nate McBride: always do. Quick jobs update for those people out there

who need to drink a bourbon and also are looking for a job. Um, so if you're out there and you got the hustle going on and you get your resume flying, uh, these are some jobs that are still open. So VP of IT at Cal Vista Pharma, uh, VP Ironwood, CIO at Formlabs, VP of IT at Sequel MedTech. CIO at MIT, the CIO at MIT, senior director of IT at Kymera, VP of IT at ClearPoint, senior Director of discovery IT at Wave Life Sciences.

That means you get to work with all the fun people and research executive director of IT at Cape Cape Cod, healthcare, VP of IT at Pep Gen, director of IT at guda, senior [00:11:00] director of IT at Aped. Uh, associate director of IT at Odyssey Therapeutics and Mercy Bio. Um. We have a Senior Director of Devon's Digital Plant and Site IT Lead for BMS, Verve Therapeutics, um, If you listen to Bittersweet Symphony, that's, this is the company that made that album.

That's the right 

Mike Crispin: company. That's the right company. 

Nate McBride: They made this album, Bittersweet Symphony. Uh, they're looking for a director of IT, GNA, business partner, and SOX compliance lead. And that's all one title. Director, comma, IT, GNA, business partner, and SOX compliance lead. It sounds like a scorcher. If that's you, call Verve Therapeutics, download the album.

It's a, it's actually a really good album. One of my favorites. 

Mike Crispin: Lucky man. 

Nate McBride: Lucky man. Butterfly. Uh, Viridian is looking for an. Associate director of IT ops and if you crossfit or you always wanted to crossfit and just couldn't do it Or maybe you hate crossfitters and you want to change the crossfit world.

It doesn't really [00:12:00] matter Noble, which is basically the the default shoe company for anyone Just crossfit is looking for the top dog of it a vp. That is plus you probably get lots of free shoes Yeah, so hey, it's cape 

Mike Crispin: cod healthcare and cape cod. Do you know? 

Nate McBride: I don't know. 

Mike Crispin: No wonder 

Nate McBride: Kind of makes you wonder, right, because, because people use the word Cape Cod pretty freely for things that are not on Cape Cod.

Mike Crispin: I guess so. 

Nate McBride: I didn't actually look to see where they were, but you can google it Cape Cod healthcare executive director of IT And I bet you'd find out what the answer is. Blueprint is looking for a manager of technology operations information systems. 

Mike Crispin: Wow. 

Nate McBride: And decipher is looking for a senior director of infrastructure and ops for for new this week, X four farmer is back on the market, looking for a VP of it, foghorn therapeutics is looking for a manager of it for infrastructure and ops, [00:13:00] Kate farms, that's K T.

Farms, F A R M S, is looking for a head of IT, a VP of IT. They are a cutting edge healthcare nutrition company, um, I looked through their website, it's actually really cool stuff. Uh, Kate Farms, yeah, they're right here in Mass. Um, Lantheis is looking for a director of IT for corporate solutions. Flagship is looking for a senior director of InfoSec.

Bunker Hill Community College, the one from, uh, Goodwill Hunting. If you don't know where it is, it was in Goodwill Hunting. They'll see it from the fridge. Looking for a CIO and you can probably meet Matt Damon there and or actually can be Robin Williams. He's not here anymore But yeah, I bet Matt Damon goes there a lot Kylara therapeutics.

They're actually right up the road They're right up my driveway from my building At 890 Winter Street, is looking for a Senior Director of Enterprise Systems. Hmm. 

Mike Crispin: And lastly, 

Nate McBride: Triumvirate, those people that will come and clean all the poop out of your [00:14:00] lab, are looking for a Corporate Director of IT. 

Mike Crispin: Ooh, 

Nate McBride: poop.

You know Triumvirate, right? 

Mike Crispin: I don't know Triumvirate. 

Nate McBride: Yeah, they Do they clean poop? Well, they do more than clean poop. They actually, um, they do health hazard stuff in labs. Got it. 

Mike Crispin: Hazardous, hazardous, like bio, bio waste and that type of stuff. 

Nate McBride: Yeah, bio waste, you know, like poop. Um, I just didn't That's a good list, 

Mike Crispin: man.

There's so many roles out there, right? There's so many 

Nate McBride: jobs out there. Like, if you don't have a job, call us. We will help you get a job. I know people at pretty much every one of those places. We'll get you hooked up. We'll get you hooked up. We'll make the link. LinkedIn me, linked me, link me in. Link, uh, link me in?

Link me? Linked me? 

Mike Crispin: Uh, it's called linking in, I think. 

Nate McBride: Linking in? 

Mike Crispin: Linking in, yeah. 

Nate McBride: Okay, link me in. Link me in. Link Mike in dot net[00:15:00] 

and we will, we will dot ninja and we will, um, we'll make a connection for you. Also. I just want to remind everybody once again, with this season, we're going to release every podcast in two formats. Uh, In case there's any confusion, like why does this not sound like Nate and Mike? It's because we did a bot version.

So for every episode, we're going to do our version, the fun one. We're going to do a TLDR version using our favorite bots of choice at the moment. And then we might potentially do a jort here and there. Um, again, using outtakes from the episode using the bots again. So if you just don't have the time for our normal episode, and you just really want to get a quick dose and also hear the bots.

Miss say a lot of the things that we say, um, did you, did you hear last week you hear last week? She was calling it instead of sass sauce 

Mike Crispin: saucy Yeah. Sauce. 

Nate McBride: I [00:16:00] love that. That's how I call it now. Sauce apps. 

Mike Crispin: Sauce, sauce apps. I challenge anyone, 

Nate McBride: I challenge anyone to challenge me on this because that's what Google's bot said.

So now on it's sauce. Sauce. You'll get an hour long episode ish. Our long ish episode, a much shorter TLDR bot version, and then you can pick what you like better. Um, there you go. We also have a Slack board that is still growing. We have a sub stack sub stack site. That's growing actually quite well. Um, anyone's welcome to join either the sub stack.

Sometimes we'll tell you like, hey, pay to join, but you don't have to pay to join. You can just join for free. Just kind of like read all the texts and you won't have to sign up if you don't want to. Um, the links are in our notes and the Slack board is free. So you can come on board and just chill with other IT people.

Our AI channel is blowing up right now. Um, I also want to mention that if you like the show or even moderately like the show, give us five stars only really mean people don't give five [00:17:00] stars. That's right. On any platform. If you want to buy us a beer, it's pretty easy. It's in the description. I'm drinking bourbon tonight because I'm out of beer, so it'd be really nice if I still had beer.

Mike Crispin: So you went through the thousand beers already? 

Nate McBride: I went through the thousand beers. It didn't last very long. I was very thirsty. It gets dry in here. 

Mike Crispin: In a week, a thousand beers? That's incredible. I 

Nate McBride: know. Can you believe it? 

Mike Crispin: I cannot 

Nate McBride: believe it. It is, but it's, it's plausible. Let's put it that way. All right.

So on to the episode, Mike. And just a brief reminder, um, we're talking about autonomy. It's a big, giant nasty ass concept and we're trying to break it down to small pieces. So, uh, let's jump, let's jump right back in. So we began season, the season two journey with a 70, 000 foot view of the modern it paradox, essentially.

The paradox is freedom versus control. That's the modern IT paradox, right? This balance. And every single type of company, every single type of industry, uh, every IT leader is looking at it and [00:18:00] saying, Ah, well, if I take this away, then I get control. But if I get control, then they lose this. And there's like this bad balance, right?

And you have to, you have to effectively come up with the most perfect place for control versus freedom. That also incorporates your retention of autonomy, your ability to keep employees productive and yourself, your ability to allow innovation to occur both natively and through sort of like pilot type types of stuff.

Um, And your, your pulse is always on the risk. Your finger is always on the risk pulse. That's the paradox. Freedom versus control. So last week we covered, uh, how traditional control is breaking down. Why shadow it is a symptom and sometimes a positive one rather than a disease and how cloud and sauce have completely changed the game.[00:19:00] 

That's sauce. S A A S. Sauce. 

Mike Crispin: Sauce. 

Nate McBride: Sauce. The secret we're picking up or we left off to explore the remaining four components of this paradox. So, starting with number one, we have number, well, number four, but number one tonight. The three models of IT control. Okay. This is paradox number four. Yep. So first of all, you have complete control.

This is like a traditional model, basically, where IT had all the control. You didn't move a muscle in that building. You didn't unplug your keyboard. You didn't get something out of the printer. Nothing happened without IT's say so. Everything needed approval, very, very strict change management, heavy governance, very limited user freedom.

You actually still find this in a lot of banks today, uh, because it's necessary. Um, even though everything gets stolen anyway. Uh, And so we're talking about like real world impacts here. Mike needs a new keyboard. [00:20:00] What does he do? Well, he goes to the help desk platform. He says, you know, my keyboard, uh, the E key doesn't work.

He puts a ticket in and the help desk in this model, the help desk gets it and says, well, you still have other keys. So skip the E for now. We'll get a new keyboard out to you in two weeks.

Or like grab an E from somewhere else, copy and paste it into your E space, right? Sure. Stop writing words with E in them. So as a result, shadow, shadow IT people get desperate and shadow IT just totally manifests itself in this model. I mean, this is like, it's like if you leave a banana on the counter and it starts growing things out of it, that's the kind of scourge that occurs when you try to put in too much control.

And then lastly, um, And, uh, in a controlling, complete control model, uh, innovation just dies. It doesn't even start. People just give up before they even get out of the gate. So let me ask you, Mike, have you ever, have you ever seen the complete [00:21:00] control model in your experience in your many decades of experience?

Have you ever seen it work? 

Mike Crispin: Um, not, I haven't seen it in the traditional model. It's tough to say, like I've seen companies be able to keep. It running and keep kind of the cost at one place, but they end up sort of being a roadblock to other things. So trying to get certain things done and have agility, it becomes it becomes a challenge.

And it's often why do we need to go through it to get this stuff done? I think in our industry is a little. There are some exceptions because there is. Compliance rules and other things, depending on the culture of your company as to how you implement compliance, but, um, it's, it's difficult right to move.

Like you said, innovation starts to halt and you've got too many strings tying everything together and there's no flex. There's no flexibility at all. So I'd say I'm not, if you're talking a complete absolute. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's difficult. And it ends up being, [00:22:00] um, an outside consultant coming in and playing the hero.

Nate McBride: Yeah, pretty much. 

Mike Crispin: Right? Everybody's locked down. You lock it down too much. Someone else goes, why is it so locked down? And it's like, oh, my hero. You know, let's, let's change things. So yeah, too much is too much. I've 

Nate McBride: never, I've never worked in a company that was like that. I've come into companies that were coming out of that.

Mike Crispin: Yeah. 

Nate McBride: Yeah. And, and transitioning into a, into the light, 

Mike Crispin: so to 

Nate McBride: speak, 

Mike Crispin: but I haven't been in a hardcore, yeah, complete control either myself. I've only seen it from the outside. Um, but I have had situations where I think we're, we may have put too much governance on something and to realize that it's, you know, It's, it's diminishing returns.

We're not doing it for compliance reasons. Maybe we're doing it for process or business continuity reasons. And it's just not paying off. Um, so that, so I've, I have seen that maybe at a smaller scale. 

Nate McBride: Okay. Well then let's go to, let's go to the second characteristic of the, [00:23:00] um, Three models of IT control, which is the complete freedom model.

Yeah. Also known as the sort of wild west approach where you have, um, swipe that card, like it's black Friday for all corporate cards, just buy everything that you like, uh, no standardization, duplicate systems everywhere. So no, no, uh, no, no one's paying attention to security. And then like I walk into, I mean, a lot of.

A lot of companies coming out of sort of like a series A funding that are moving into the growth phase of a biotech company and they're like shedding off the MSP and they're kind of coming into their own and they hire the first IT head that IT head walks in there and is like, we're the fucking adults.

Okay. Has anybody been paying attention at all? Sure. But I've, I've, I've seen it and I've been in it, but I've always transitioned out of it. Have you? Also, I mean, I'm sure you've kind of yeah, 

Mike Crispin: I think it's very, very common. It's very common in terms of, you know, [00:24:00] small group, new company needs to reach certain goals very quickly.

And it's like, if it's working, we're not thinking about the scale and we're not thinking about the future or the security that they want to get something stood up quick. And uh, swipe that credit card and, and let's go. And then similar to the first model, usually it's the new head of it, but, or a consultant comes in and says, okay, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta repair this before it's too late.

And then bring the right mix of policy and rules in, but at the same time, the flexibility to be able to create change. 

Nate McBride: Well, so that's, that's a perfect segue into the third one. The third modern model is guided autonomy. Yeah. I'm using the word autonomy deliberately here. The guided autonomy is the adult in the room approach, um, where you have clear frameworks for decision making, automated guardrails, risk based controls, flexible.

But define boundaries, so like, I'm going to put a boundary around [00:25:00] this whole thing, but with inside that thing, you can do whatever you want boundaries. Yep. Implement, implementation strategies are like, uh, I, I equate it to thinking like you're, uh, a parent. You don't follow your teenagers around necessarily, but you do want to know where they're going and when they'll be back.

Um, it requires decision frameworks. Uh, some sort of automated control environment and then focus on outcomes over process. And I was thinking to myself as I was writing this, like, I actually should have called my second book, The Adult in the Room. Because ultimately, ultimately, that's what, that's what I was trying to get, get the message I'm trying to get across.

And the new leadership, new IT leader survival guide is how to find the balance, how to be the adult and balance that. That, uh, control versus freedom. 

Mike Crispin: Yes. Yeah. I think that's, that's exactly what we're talking about as a balance and coming in and being able to put the [00:26:00] right, one thing I don't see listed here is just the, the adoption of the company culture and trying to drive, even drive some change if you're going to implement these, cause you may be the first person in the organization outside of maybe quality or even legal.

Maybe that's trying to put guardrails in. And people hear that and they go, Oh, but I think, I think some of the communication around, you know, guardrails and risk and frameworks sound scary, but they're, they're really to help people to be able to do their job better without too much ambiguity. So they, they look at something like, how do I do this.

They have one place they can go they know exactly how they, how they need to move forward and I think most people are trying to work and just move quick. They're not thinking about the frameworks and the how they're like, I teach, just tell me what I need to do to do this the right way. And I'll do it.

But I just need to know absolutely how to do it the way that we're compliant. And, and a lot of them, if you have a clear answer, that can be hard to, if you have a good, a good, [00:27:00] clear direction on how to operate people, people like that. They like guidance. Um, very rarely, at least nowadays, it seems you get any, um, Real pushback because they got so many other things to worry about.

So if you can give them a good, a good path where they can still operate and get their, their work done and, and go a little bit outside the boundaries when they need to, you're going to have a great peer in those great relationship with those people. 

Nate McBride: Absolutely. And I think that sometimes whatever situation you walk into as a new I.

T. leader, whether it's, um, you know, complete chaos, Wild West or someone before you had the total control, it's your job in either case to bring it back to the middle. So, so yeah, that's paradox number four, which is bringing it back to the middle, like how do you bring it back to the middle from either a complete control, complete freedom, or, or ideally, I mean, again, it can happen [00:28:00] too.

I've walked into companies and this has only actually happened one time. So company where I was able to jump right into guided autonomy. I did not have to worry about pulling back from a complete control model. I didn't have to worry about pulling back from a complete freedom model. I actually walked into a nicely running ship.

Um, and I had to do only some micro adjustments to get it kind of back to the middle. So that's, but again, it's one of those paradoxes that we will come back to through other means over the coming weeks. And so that's number four slash number one. Um, the second one or the fifth one. Depending on how you're keeping count is the real cost of getting it wrong.

Sure. So again, this is a paradox where, um, taking the four pillars in mind, innovation, risk, productivity, and, and, um, autonomy. We're thinking about like, how do I buy something and how do I know that what I'm [00:29:00] buying is the best thing? I mean, it's a very simple question. Like, okay, I want to buy this thing.

Is it the best thing? Well, 

Mike Crispin: yeah. 

Nate McBride: People do things like, um, they go do functional requirement specifications, they do RFPs, they go read like G2 or, um, whatever else is rating things these days. I'm not really up on that one, but they've, they've done, they've done what they feel is adequate diligence, but the real cost of getting things wrong is quite substantial.

So from a direct cost perspective, you're talking about potentially having duplicate systems or at least duplicate capabilities. Um, you might not have two systems that are the same. Uh, for instance, you might have a communication system. And you might have an email system and they both communicate, but the company is not sure which to use to do what kind of communication, or you might have two ways to do video conferencing.

And again, it's one of those things [00:30:00] where, um, it's a duplicate system effectively or duplicate capabilities. You sure? Yep. But you have wasted licenses. So we all know this is how how once you get past a certain threshold of people it becomes a regular routine to Manage licenses and there's all kinds of platforms out there all these sort of casbys and you know Self service platforms and helpdesk platforms that will claim to do asset management on a license level.

It still requires overhead There's integration costs and there's emergency fixes Do you ever, you ever budget a certain amount of your budget for emergency fixes every year? Like I mean, I put a percentage aside on the whole for my budget for contingencies, but, you know, you can't really anticipate one of your key SaaS vendors, sorry, Sauce vendors going down.

There's hidden costs, right? Lost productivity, technical debt. We all know technical debt very well. Security incidents and compliance violations. There's [00:31:00] security risks, like shadow IT, um, which is a big one. So data leakage, screenshots, you know, emails being sent out, et cetera. Compliance violations, security gaps.

And integration nightmares. So integration nightmares is a special breed because people are sometimes determined to make two things work no matter what, and not realizing, not realizing that those two or three or four things are so incompatible that any, it's a pure victory to get them to work. 

Mike Crispin: Agreed.

Nate McBride: Yeah. So I mean basically in terms of the and then there's lost opportunities to I also made a note here, which is obviously when you're too rigid innovation dies when you're too loose, it becomes chaos. We just covered that. However, if you're too one way with, um. Like worrying about cost and getting it wrong, you have the opportunity to actually miss, miss a point where you can get ahead of the maybe [00:32:00] competition, industry, market, um, you miss maybe attracting some certain kind of talent.

You miss sort of all these things that you're doing because you're not focused on the spend. So the real cost of getting it wrong is actually a two sided paradox. On the one hand, spend too much, you get too much stuff. And then you end up with all the stuff that you may not need, right? The orphanism. On the other hand, spend too little, uh, you're going to miss opportunities.

You're going to have, um, overburdened platforms potentially. Or you're just trying to, you're going to try and make things work that just shouldn't work together. So, um, what do you think about that? I mean, ultimately, my question for you was, in your experience, how many great ideas? I mean, if to frame it, how many great ideas never saw the light of day because of bad I.

T. Governance. But really, it's about bad I. T. Decision making when it comes to spend. 

Mike Crispin: Sure. And I think any one of these things, uh, even if you go the [00:33:00] middle road can happen, um, you know, duplicate systems and, you know, having integration costs and other things, you've got to bake some of the contingency into your budget.

Like you said, Nate, but you're the cost of getting some of these things wrong. You know, you're going to get hopefully get a lot of things right. But some of these things are going to happen. I think you're still have the risk if you go all the way into the middles of data leakage and shadow it risk. So you got to do your best.

This is why this is a good discussion is to think about all these different areas. But if, if you've got, if you've got a good decision making process and in a small company, that might very well just be it and an executive, an executive, uh, that's helping to drive that discussion. Um, I, you know, I, I will say kind of in the, in the, in the, in the first, the first, uh, area we discussed tonight, where it's kind of over governance is I have found that if you take a long time trying to make the perfect decision, [00:34:00] someone else will make the decision.

So you gotta, you gotta since can't take too long. And then when you make the decision, you've got to stick to it. And that's why I think from a systems perspective, a lot of times when you're making the decision is to look, that integration piece is very key or understanding the market roadmap of these businesses so that.

If there's something coming a year from now that you're going to be able to maximize, you need to know that you need to know all of these, these vendors, depending on which type of, um, you know, type of platform or type of goal you're trying to reach that, you know, what's coming down the line, because the less you need to go outside.

One of these integrated systems, the easier it will be able to steer a middle road, both from a governance perspective and from just an innovation and flexibility perspective, because you won't be spending so much time trying to whittle everything together and make it work like Nate was saying, the perfect solution, like trying to make things fit together.

Someone is trying to [00:35:00] integrate something that doesn't integrate comes in a pretty big business risk in the longer term, as things are connected together, the next person is going to rip it out. 

Nate McBride: So we were just talking about this, but I mean, before we came on live, I was mentioning to Mike that, um, we're, we've become disenfranchised from our, uh, contract, life cycle management system, our CLMS.

Sure. It's the extent that we're paying so much money to, to buy this and pay for this engine, which is actually only returning us a minimal amount of, of use. And so the question comes up, well, if I can. Build a replacement. And let's say the build, I'm just going to throw out a number. It's probably not accurate.

Let's say the bill takes me 200 hours, right? 200 man hours, but it's a one time at one time sort of series of events. And in the aggregate, well, that's probably a close to the cost of one year, but then it becomes a usable thing going forward. So I have to ask myself the question, [00:36:00] um, okay, where's my balance?

Is my balance point that I should just pay for it, and bite the bullet, and then pay for it every year, and just do my best to maximize its use, or is my balance point, no, don't do that, build it, gain the flexibility and innovation from having my own system that I can then customize freely, but to what you just said, it's only good until the next person comes in.

Mike Crispin: That's right. And that's, and that's the, you know, the, The, the buzz, the buzz term, right? Total cost and total cost of ownership comes in. I know people don't like to say the TCO thing, but it's, and it's the cost after you're done. So if, if you're no longer there to support what you've built, and this happens in SharePoint and an application development tools that are built all the time, integrations that are built all the time.

If there's not the proper documentation, sometimes there's great documentation. And the next person reads through the 40 pages of documentation says, I'm not going to support this. [00:37:00] And they go buy, buy it, buy something else that may not be as good and may not be as loved by the, by the business, but makes the explanation that it's going to cost less than a year or two years.

And it's, you know, that they put it in and it runs at 8. 0 instead of 10. 0 and, um, that you get standardized on. So it's when, when you're building something, it's important that you get that, you take the time to document it and that. It's like no code integrations made the world a better place. So this is now more, I think, more feasible for people to build, um, these great platforms using these tools and solutions, because it's almost documenting itself and that's, that's very cool to be able to go into, um, make or into Zapier or into any of these other no code type tools.

And it's actually drawing out how it's integrated. And all you need to know is what the username and password is for the service account for these systems or what the intervals are, maybe a little bit about the [00:38:00] data model and it can keep running so there, there is ways to build now efficiently, I think, and look at that as, as a very, very strong platform of choice, but it's a question of how it live on from business continuity perspective, and is it malleable enough as a tool, like let's say you put in a platform for document management and it can be reconfigured.

That's valuable, right? If it can be reconfigured, but if it has to be completely thrown away, you've customized it to death and they get it, start over. Um, I, I, I've been through that and I, I, I know the pain. Um, you know, I've been part of the, the journey of customizing it and, and the part of bringing out, out of the box solution.

And I think my takeaway has been, or my career is out of the box, gimme the out of the box t-shirt. Let's stick to that as long as we can, even if it's not perfect and because. Long after you're gone, the thing will continue to run and probably be easier to integrate. [00:39:00] It's, it's tough. It's, it's tough because you want things to move quickly and if you don't have the resources, the, the, the, the team to help implement it or a good a, a team from the vendor side or B team from the vendor side, which probably not going to get it companies our size.

Sometimes it's a toss up, man. That's why I say like, that's 

Nate McBride: why it's one of the paradoxes. 

Mike Crispin: It's a paradox. And that's why I think what's the real cost of it going, going wrong. I think that you, you can't beat yourself up if some of these things happen. Um, if you hit some unknown integration costs, um, if you're good at forecasting your budget, you can, you can sort of bake in this risk of technical debt.

Um, But when you're talking about compliance violations and security incidents, they're a whole different story, and they're hard, they're hard to, those are big. Big problems. If they happen, um, if they have, they can have a big impact on the company all the way up to the top. So it's, [00:40:00] you prioritize those maybe, maybe a little bit higher than, uh, then you're in your integration cost.

Nate McBride: Well, I mean, you just hit a whole bunch of great points. It, if you really want to tear this apart in this particular Paradox, you have to consider, although it go all the way back to platform governance, which is to say before the platform even gets purchased, uh, how far are you going to go down in terms of defining risks for what could potentially happen in all of your mitigation strategies for all the things that could happen that, that, that doesn't.

Stop you from paying extra if things go wrong, but it helps you find the balance for how to, um, attribute costs for when things go wrong. So yeah, if you really, really, really want to do the diligence and believe me, um, I've been at places where this is when it's done, right. It's a beautiful thing to see, but you would have every potential contingency you could think of, uh, considered before making a single dollar investment.

And it's a lot of people hours. [00:41:00] To, to do that work, but once it's done, um, yes, what, so, so the trade off, the trade off is you've done all these people hours to mitigate risk, to put in something that might be gone, pulled out two years later because someone else comes in. So again, we have to, it's a paradox.

Mike Crispin: I was going to just want one, one point on what I, I think is. I certainly have overlooked it in my career in the last definitely in the last decade and I think I want to look deeper as we start what what is a good alignment, or just thinking about it is a good alignment technology approach technology stack approach to kind of taking this this middle road and how we're progressing, and it's an old, the least popular of the, of the, of the as a service.

And it's platform as a service. I think there's a reemergence of that. That's coming. Like [00:42:00] pause, uh, yeah. Pause and pause. Yeah. Um, is because you take salesforce. com or take, um, uh, some, some of these mid tier that almost SAS and platform as a service together. The boomy. 

Nate McBride: Yeah. One of those. Yeah. 

Mike Crispin: Yeah. Just like, so if you're building.

You're building with it. Maybe the better way to put it is like now we call them ecosystems. So let's say like you're building within a Salesforce ecosystem. You could build an application. You can find the developers in the market. To build it if you need to. But on the other side, the no code services that exist in the world are all integrated.

They work with multiple levels from all the way to the database, to the top level. And you, and you can start to build within a platform, you know, sort of a, a walled garden approach to your systems. I haven't looked at it in a long time and it's, it seems like it's quietly re emerged for, because software as a service is built [00:43:00] on them.

So slowly. You know, like you see like some of these, um, pretty much every single one of the content provider platforms, the SharePoints and boxes, et cetera, are now exposing the platform underneath from the SAS application that you're able to build into, and there's some real value there. I think it's completely unrealized from a small business perspective that it's going to get really interesting.

I think. 

Nate McBride: You just highlighted a paradox I didn't even think about, Mike, the eighth paradox. I mean, we won't get into it tonight. You just talked about it, but that's the ecosystem approach. I mean, that's, that's a paradox. It's a paradox because you can buy into an ecosystem, Microsoft or Salesforce or, or Google workspace.

Um, and then what the question then starts to come up, like, well, you have this ecosystem. Why did you go outside of it? So you have like, why did you buy a box? You have SharePoint for free. It's not free, [00:44:00] but just to give you an example, like, why did you go outside the ecosystem? So then you can do the opposite, which is a non ecosystem, which in and of itself is an ecosystem.

So you put in a non Microsoft stack, a non Google stack. 

Mike Crispin: I think the way to look at it is how I try to approach it. My last couple of places is this is XYZ ecosystem. It's not driven by the technology stack at all. We start to talk about it as this is our company's ecosystem. We own it. And it's tied together through an identity platform.

It's tied together through certain basic integrations. And we, we, we, we cement it. That's our job is to put that together in a good presentation for people that they can like presentation layer where they can work on it throughout the, throughout the day, throughout the business. And sometimes people will put service now or something in front of it.

It'll put SharePoint in front of it, or they'll put some sort of front end that starts a workflow in front of it. Um, [00:45:00] but it's, it's difficult because we now have very easy services. Uh, that can do a lot of these things without any code. And those are the ones that are attractive to me. And I think also, you know, we've talked about Microsoft and the last five years, six years, seven years, they've opened everything up.

So before it was like, Hey, we can't integrate with anyone. And now I think through competition from Salesforce and from, and a couple others, they've been forced to open up and now you can have that ecosystem. You know, that company ecosystem, Microsoft has a slither and maybe Oracle has a slither, but talking with the big guys like you could, you could do that and still have the really good user experience tools in front of that.

Um, I get nervous about Salesforce because of what they're doing with slack, but I'm starting to see the light that pretty much everything they're going to do is driven by agents, and that's incredibly exciting. So I, there's. [00:46:00] There's really a 

Nate McBride: thing. Yeah. 

Mike Crispin: Yeah. So take that ecosystem that right now, you know, from a technologist perspective, we're concerned about what stack we're using and how we integrate them and just put in whatever you want, throw an agent on top that can work on any of those systems.

And now you've got your ecosystem in two or three years, which is pretty incredible. That's a whole new presentation layer. That's read, write presentation layer. So that's pretty 

Nate McBride: cool. It's again, we're talking, I mean, we've got to go back to last season where we're talking about the layers of what you're doing.

So you had that sort of software layer, the collaboration layer, the communication layer. Now you're putting the agent layer on top of those layers that agent layer can see all the way down through and bring it back. But let me. Let me ask you this one question and then we'll go on to the next paradox.

But, um, so we started the season, we talked about the zero versus one terminology that we're using for decision making where a zero decision is when you basically just shrug and go with the flow and, uh, accepting whatever, you know, [00:47:00] vendor lock solution it is or ecosystem. Whereas a one decision is when you're actively shaping the outcome, maybe by exploring open source alternatives or building your own capabilities, et cetera.

So. In the ecosystem world. Yep. Let's bring it back to this eighth paradox really quickly. Sure. In the ecosystem world, do you think that going with the flow, in other words, a zero decision, is in fact the adoption of an ecosystem still, or is there, is there no such thing as a zero solu, uh, decision in ecosystems anymore because of the capabilities that come with.

Once you, once you, once you get into it, how much you can expand it. So, so typically like when we make, when we make a decision, we're able to make it pretty binary, like it's either zero, Oh, I just bought whatever. Cause everyone else is doing it or one. I absolutely would not buy that. I'm going this other way.

Cause it's better for my company, but in ecosystems. Uh, it's interesting because you still have to make everything [00:48:00] talk, whether you go with the, the, everything in a box or the, not everything in a box, they still have to talk to each other. 

Mike Crispin: Yeah. I, I think that, that, so there's two, two, two in our, in our industry.

I think there's two things. One is what is the system that requires the, uh, sort of the, the certain level of compliance. Let's say it's GXP. Yeah, those, I think systems, at least for sanity's sake should be. More closed or more integrated tightly within the fewer systems, the better the fewer connections that you need to qualify and validate the better, um, and that may steer the approach away from more autonomy, right?

Because you've got, you've got, you're thinking, I'm trying to think about how much do I actually need to do to make sure this work? And can I explain it? And not only can I explain it, can four or five other people explain it so that that I'd stick closer to keeping it all within an application tier. If you can, [00:49:00] if you can integrate, you know, signatures and, and doc review and all that stuff in one place, that would be great to have like one platform to worry about.

That'd be fine. But when we're talking about, and those integrations, I think have to be pretty sound and well, well known, well proven and invisible from the audit trail perspective, you go outside of that. And it's more of a, I think you have a little more freedom to build out a certain integrations that, that you want to run.

It is a lot of work though. And the question more becomes over time, do they need to really be integrated at all? Uh, how much, how much of these need to be integrated? Is this, is this system, how many users use this system or this data? And if you get over a certain number, then it's okay. Now we got to automate this.

Um, But it's it's difficult because I think as you get bigger to you're going to you may have different classes of systems, you may say these specialists get this system that costs X, Y, Z, and the rest of the enterprise gets this system, you know, as time as time grows, [00:50:00] time goes on, you get these kind of commodity packages that.

It's, it's sometimes hard to convince again, to the point of loss of autonomy is to convince that, Hey, I can buy this thing for five bucks at the 60%, but it's good enough, uh, can pay this that does 80%, but they're going to use the 20 percent sometimes maybe, uh, but I know that's the best tool and that's what I want to go with, but I can't justify it.

So it's, it's, it's difficult because integration becomes a real, it's an STLC exercise as well. Some departments, uh, two or three or four, aren't going to have the time or wherewithal to go through. It's a lot there. I know what it's like. 

Nate McBride: I know. I 

Mike Crispin: know it's dizzying, right? 

Nate McBride: The whole fricking episode we have to, I mean, maybe we'll have to get to it again, because I think.

Now I'm gonna call it the eighth paradox, but the ecosystem idea, I don't think there is a zero I think we [00:51:00] found one thing where there can't be a zero choice It's always a one choice, even if you pick the ecosystem because you have to expand it. It cannot live in a closed Small box and the what the one moment happens almost instantaneously with the zero moment So again, it's a quantum decision It's a quantum bits decision.

Mike Crispin: Yes, that's a one and a zero, 

Nate McBride: which is what I do all the time. And they exist in two separate, two separate time dimensions. They do. So, we have, we have literally right on this show right now, if you're listening, we have created a quantum paradox. That's right. Um, right here. 

Mike Crispin: You're, you're completely right on the money on that.

I'm just waiting, 

Nate McBride: I'm just waiting for the lights to go out and the Kraken to come out and the Cthulhu to come out of the sky. Okay. I think we're okay. I think we're okay. You're safe. Okay, so that was awesome. And you just, I made a bunch of notes. You're gonna [00:52:00] have to come back to this , uh, not, not tonight, but another time, uh, because we can't let that one die.

Um, so there's, if you're, if you're keeping track, we've done five, we have two more of the seven modern paradoxes, and this one's gonna be a good one. You're gonna like this one. So, um, I call it setting up the modern balance, which is, uh, sort of, if there was a subtitle, it's trust but Verify. 

Mike Crispin: Yes. 

Nate McBride: And this, for a lot of people, is a very, very difficult paradox.

Let me go through some of its characteristics. So, you have, uh, some clear decision rights that are required. You have automated controls. It's a very risk based approach. Um, and this, this is like, in terms of our risk pillar, this one pretty much is etched all over the risk pillar. You have identity first security.

You have zero trust architecture, you continuous monitoring, I mean, continuous, not, Hey, let me go check the logs once a week. It's continuous. Um, but you have to, this [00:53:00] is like the key, the role of automation and enabling freedom while maintaining control. So you have to find this place in a trust, but verify environment where you have.

You have, you have given up some control and this is, and by the way, I'm going to pause right there because next week, episode four, or the next episode, which is next week, three or four, whatever we're calling it, that episode, we're talking just about this. We're talking about how identity has become the new perimeter.

So if you like this particular paradox, you're going to love next week. And actually, I think we're going to have a special guest next week too. I'm going to plug that right now. 

Mike Crispin: Good, good. 

Nate McBride: Anyway, the paradox is, how do you balance the role between enabling freedom and while maintaining control? You have to have security controls, compliance checks, resource provisioning, access management.

You need, [00:54:00] from like a user experience or an EX perspective, you need not long wait times. You need high compliance, but you also need user satisfaction. I mean, think of that. They're all clashing with one another.

So it's like having, you know, like when you go bowling and then there's a button you can push and it puts the little side rails up. So you'd never get a gutter ball, which kind of takes all the fun out of bowling because who doesn't like getting gutter balls while you're drinking beers? But, um, I say there's a shitty metaphor, but I guess people get the point.

The point is that we have all these paradoxes built into one bigger paradox. The trust would verify we we've had this deck. Going back even to my last company that we use at all the IT Beer and Learns and the second to last slide of this deck is a big and big bowl of letters. It says trust, but verify.

And then right underneath it says, but don't trust. [00:55:00] Because honestly, the only way I see this ever working, my balance point, the way I solve the paradox, is by telling people in my company, Hey look, trust what I tell you. but verify it. This is me. Like I'm, I'm the head of it. So trust what I tell you, but also come to me and verify it and don't trust me until you verify it.

And the first time people will hear this, they kind of have a hard time getting their heads around it. But then, then they start doing it. Then they start actively saying, did you actually send that email out? And they'll send it to me over a different medium, which is what we teach them. Like, don't email me.

If I just emailed you, hit me up on Slack or send me a text or walk by my office and ask me if I did that thing. Now that might be a little bit more aggressive towards the, uh, maintaining control side, but I'm maintaining, I'm not doing anything technologically to maintain control. Yep. I'm merely, I'm merely providing that extra amount of security guidance about it.

[00:56:00] Anyway, I'll pause there. What do you think about that? 

Mike Crispin: I would say, um, on this subject, strictly implementation speaking, let's say.

Putting things in related to, let's just say zero trust. For example, that's a good one. Um,

you can implement a lot of great processes, uh, and tools that not only help, uh, create better identity verification or better security management, but also better user experience. And more and more of those exist and they're selling and they're becoming very popular. Um, that you can really from just as a technology implementation perspective, I think really strike that, that balance through a modern technology perspective, completely agree on the trust and verify.

I think that's [00:57:00] where to some extent that that's important in building credibility as well. So from a principal perspective, Yeah, someone trusts you 100%. They, they should look and see, make sure that maybe there's some of these other, other, um, information vehicles that they can latch onto to see if you know what you're talking about, but it's, but it's also, it's also for.

Almost this goes true in life now, right? I mean, you can trust anything to some extent of it seems reliable, but verifying is key and it's no different with, with, um, security compliance, it sales, you name it, there's, there's so many risks and you, when you do the wrong thing or you're, you're not informed on something, so it's, it's true across the board and it's a, it's a big concept, but some, for some, it's pretty automatic.

So it's. [00:58:00] Yeah, if you recognize that in someone, it's like, oh, cool, you know, um, but from a cyber security context, especially, um, you know, trust, trust, trust, no one, you know, it's just going to verify holds true more than we talked about in the first season, you know, tell that AI bot that looks like my Crispin and turn his head to the side that's no longer pertinent anymore.

It's been six months. Right. And it's like, okay, that doesn't, that doesn't. So these things are moving. So forward, the question will be, how do you verify? And there's a lot of tech, cybersecurity perspective, there's a lot of tools right now that are starting to emerge to try and fix that problem, but they've got to make it easy on our employees.

They can't make it. They got to can't fumble through their wallet, looking for something or just something they're going to misplace, or, you know, a code they got to read that they're never going to be able to read without their reading glasses on, you know, just. You've got to find a good user experience for these things and, and figure out the best way forward so they can, [00:59:00] we can verify who people are, but just going down a rabbit hole a little bit, but I think that from a high level, it's important to just give the technical example and sort of the process and personal example.

We're going to, Mike, we got 

Nate McBride: a whole episode next week to, to dive into this point. Oh yeah, this is a good one. That'll be good. It's a good one. The, you know, uh, let me go back a little bit and tell you like, so over the years, the last few companies I've been at, um, it's always been my message to my IT team that, Hey, listen, we have to deploy a thing that isn't that great, but we should always try and deploy it and balance it out with something that is great so that they can understand, you know, the, the positive benefits.

And so absolutely. With regards to this topic. Yes. Okay. We're going to deploy single sign on, but hey, that's the downside. Here's the upside. You can now use Okta FastPass and just log in with your biometrics. So, so we've, we've, we've at the same time done both. We've [01:00:00] enabled freedom because you let, now let them log in with a biometric on their laptop, but we've also maintained control.

Like we're, I feel like the security companies, at least the ones we use are. Helping us get back to the middle. Yeah! I, I, I, me too. Yeah. Yeah. They're not making it as difficult as it used to be to get to the middle. It used to be like, you either had to go all the way to the left or all the way to the right.

There really wasn't a whole lot of middle zone. That's right. But now, now I feel like we're coming back, but at what cost. Right. So again, I 

Mike Crispin: was going to say that's a technology enabler, you know, to, to get back to the middle, it's often some sort of technology innovation that. Creates that, but like you're going to say, go ahead.

Well, the devil's advocate 

Nate McBride: approach is that the closer you get to the middle, you're the further you're moving away from the edge of control. And I just point that out because yeah. So now I've enabled biometric [01:01:00] authentication for, for octave fast pass. Um, how much more. Risk if I put now onto this piece of plastic.

Yeah. So I I've taken away, like I, I've, I no longer have really an independent authenticator I've made it so that all the authentication happens on a single place. So EX goes up. I still maintain control enabling freedom remains the same, but I have in fact moved away from the control side. Back to the middle and so I almost feel like and when we have if we have our special guest on next week We can talk about that middle to control side So if you think of it like in in two parts one part is complete chaos to the middle The other side is middle to complete control Should we be just kind of like not in the middle but a little bit to the right of the middle and more in the Control side again, we can tackle this next week.

But that's that's I think we leave this paradox a little bit [01:02:00] Yeah, maybe not. You shoot for the middle. Maybe you shoot just a little bit, a little bit to the right of it, but yeah, it's 

Mike Crispin: on your, your style. Your approach to is going to dictate how you think about things, how you approach things and you go one, one way or, or to the other, but.

This is this is one of the benefits is that in understanding and knowing that solutions and approaches continue to evolve and to the point on the earlier, the earlier, one of the earlier, um, we're just well, where's the last one we were just talking about, um, The impacts of getting it wrong. Yeah. I think it's mostly to that, that innovation is going to come with, with some of these tools that you're, you're putting in, but at the same time, you gotta, you gotta know where these tools are going.

So that can help you to make some of these decisions. If it's the greatest [01:03:00] tool in the world and they, they're gone in a month, then. You just, you've just kind of put yourself in a tough situation. So it's, um, one thing that just, you talked about the piece of plastic, putting more risk on the piece of plastic or into the key.

Is I'm at the laptop as the piece of plastic. Yes. But the flip side of that is that now it's easier for people to lock themselves out and more work for you to let them back in and some aspects of the things that are emerging now. So your operational overhead could, could go up when they're yours, their experience could be better.

Um, so it's just a balance, there's balance there too. Um, stuff's all going to get, I'm very optimistic about all these These tools and approaches that we, it's going to make our lives easier in the, in the businesses, easier as well. Tell me if you 

Nate McBride: agree with the statement, um, optimism is when everything, no, [01:04:00] sorry, the ideal is everything moves to the middle.

Is that what you would consider to be the ideal state is that everything moves to the middle? Is that your, is that your optimistic viewpoint? 

Mike Crispin: That that would be probably my optimistic viewpoint because being in the middle gives you the most flexibility to some extent, in my opinion. Um, because we're talking about our, our industry, if there's major changes from, uh, you know, from a regulation perspective or.

From just a business model perspective, then that's different, but, um, you, you need the ability to impact and drive control and you need the ability to, to be able to provide the freedom and flexibility to get things done. You need to do both. If you go one way too far, the other, um, you, you're, someone's going to come in after and just push it back the other way because that gives them instant credibility.[01:05:00] 

So when they come in and they put something new in, it's like, wow, you know, so it's like that, that middle road, you can still innovate, but you can, you need to also sort of be the, like you said, the adult in the room to drive, drive the, the progress throughout the company. 

Nate McBride: All right. Well, let's see if we can tie it together.

This is the seventh and final paradox. Well, we did eight, but seventh on my list. Um, which, and we're going to frame this in context of season one. So in season one, we talked about, um, how your first 30 days, your first 90 days, what are all the immediate things you need to do? Um, how do you go ahead and build a strategy?

How do you talk to the key stakeholders? Yeah. And so you have A path forward paradox. Yes. The path forward paradox is, um, there's, it's a balance between what IT needs to do and [01:06:00] what the business needs IT to do. And this is like, um, especially in the beginning, in your first year, this is fucking hard to do like you're talking to 10 different key stakeholders who are all telling you, no, this is the most important thing.

No, no, I know that they said that, but actually this is the most important thing. And you as the IT leader have to say, well, shit, I have four different most important things, none of which align with what I think is the most important thing. So like you have. And, and this is going to be the framework. Well, it's all frameworks or frameworks.

Let me stop using that word. We're going to have to come revisit this idea of, um, the difference between an IT survival problem versus a business problem over and over again, this season. And so it's a seventh paradox here because. Think about the first, the immediate actions is an IT leader. You have to do an assessment.

So like, what's everyone using? [01:07:00] We'll talk to the key stakeholders, identify the pain points, uh, how the user's satisfied, satisfied. Um, And then, of course, again, we talked about this last season, uh, at length about identifying low hanging fruit, those quick wins, getting those done, because those build credibility, and God knows you're going to need it.

Um, right out of the gate, you can automate common requests. You can fix that pesky Zoom room. You can streamline approvals. You can cut out a lot of the red tape. These are things that you can do right away, okay? But they come at a cost because you're like, okay, Oh, Hey, you know what? You don't have to do that anymore.

Just go ahead and get that thing. Well, your favorite company at a hundred when you're a company of 200, that's not going to work anymore, or maybe that's going to really screw you over. So that that's a paradox. You have to think now and also down the road. And that's the long term strategy effect, which is.

And this is, um, back to my adults in the room thing. Uh, this is where we separate the [01:08:00] adults from the kids in IT leadership. Um, the, the adults will have decision criteria templates. They'll have a risk assessment model, even a basic one. They'll have a technology standards, which is to say you'll walk in, you'll have a stack in mind.

You'll have exit strategy requirements. You're, And, and the point I wanted to make was, for this part, you have to sell your vision. And again, Season 1, ad nauseum, we talked about this. You have to sell your vision that's through change management over and over and over again. You have to get executives to buy in.

You have to have good user communication strategy. You have to have training programs, success metrics. I mean, I'm a broken record here. I'm just basically rehashing Season 1. But again, the paradox is

I have to come in to this new company. They don't know anything about me. And I have to get, they hired me to solve a problem. I got to solve that problem. [01:09:00] Then the business is telling me about 15 other problems. I got to solve those problems. But I have to also figure out like how many of those are just their problem versus the business problem.

Then I have to balance out my problems versus the business problems. That's the seventh paradox. And this is the one that we're going to keep coming back to. But I want to talk about it now. Just like your thoughts on this, which is how do you. Create a future strategy. How do you look forwards from the, from day one that you started the company?

You are looking forwards. How do you handle this paradox? 

Mike Crispin: Well, I think the, the, the first thing I know we're saying a lot of the it and in the business, I, I know people sometimes frown on that. I think one thing I want to clarify is we, when we say that. There's, there's often specific I. T. issues that need to be worked out their system or cyber security issues that need to be worked [01:10:00] out that are internal to an I.

T. department. So we say they don't 

Nate McBride: expose to the business. Right. 

Mike Crispin: And, and, and the, the business pretty much in this is a broken record thing too, I guess to say, but every business is based on technology. So whether you're making sure you're maintaining it or you're building it, um, it is, is a, is an important thing for business survival to begin with.

So any IT problem is a business problem or should be, and that's part of the alignment and strategic phase of, of, of how you're going to present and prioritize projects. What's the biggest Business survival problem. If we don't do a, B, C, or D and when some people use steering committees to do this, I mean, I tend to be like, just interview the business owner, they're usually pretty willing to stand up with you.

If you're a smaller company and, and, and, and try and make their case. Uh, if, if, in terms of timing, [01:11:00] it's a, it's a. Like we talked about in season one, it's a true partnership across the board, right? So any IT problem can be a business survival problem in the right light. So we're all in this together. In terms of the strategy, right, um, right, um, is Is like we said, that's the sizing, understanding the business strategy, or even if you don't have a kind of a cohesive or great view of that, cause the company is moving so fast and there may be, they're changing directions constantly is that even just on based on company size, you can probably grasp a few things where you're going to hit.

Hit walls, or you're going to have to redo things. And that's, that's where you, you, those are the basic things. I think you need to think about in terms of your resource model, your staffing model, your, your, your, your system longevity and business continuity [01:12:00] planning, and Nate mentioned risk as well as all, all things that just inside the it bubble, you can, you can help her in those inflate to business problems.

So it's a, even if you're looking inward a little bit to the start, and as you're trying to get your a hundred day plan together, like we say in the first few episodes of season one, it's, it's really being able to focus on how to minimize the risk over the longterm, um, so you don't have to redo everything over.

In terms of the tools, you talked about the frameworks, I think some of it is, is doing enough to have some guidance and how you're doing your job, how the IT organization is running and how you're delivering results and capturing the results, but not doing too much. Where that's you become famous for your metrics, how good your metrics look.

It's like, or how your 60 page slide deck and people were told only one is, you know, you know, this is great. I [01:13:00] read, you know, I put together one year I put together this, this great Presentation. And we had an awesome conversation. We barely used the deck, but the conversation was so rich and it was so excellent.

I'm like, all I need is I should probably just go with three slides next time. And we can just talk that through and we'll have a great discussion and just more, and that's a strategy deck, right? Oh, totally. So it's like simplifying things. Less is more, especially nowadays, I feel like where it's even, I think, more now, so there were in the industry that we're in and how small our companies are getting the face time because executives are wearing so many hats.

Yeah, it's even harder than ever. So having that strategy be very, very simple, understand, uh, even if it seems pretty obvious to, to, to us, uh, is very, is, is, is really important. But having all these other, I used to get a lot of other artifacts. [01:14:00] I've, I've tried tend to stare, steer away from as long with a smaller team.

Once the team gets value out of that, I'm creating those, but, um, managing up it's. Here's what I'm trying to hit. This is where it aligns the business strategy. This is how it's going to impact if we do this, what if we don't do this, um, plain English, like trying to trying to weigh the risk, you know, and where we're going, but it's very much this this path forward.

I guess what I'm trying to say is it doesn't have to be super complex, it has to be clear. There has to be a clear path forward. And that's, that's I think the key, the key I'm trying to roundabout get to here. 

Nate McBride: Well, the clear, I, I think you're absolutely right. I think the clear path forward, so I wrote down some notes here.

That's hard, that's easier 

Mike Crispin: said than done too, right? I mean, Right, I wrote 

Nate McBride: down some notes about um, You know how you can, and again, using the idea of getting it back to the middle and finding a balance, but this isn't really a middle issue is more so of a just generally finding balance issue. So you [01:15:00] can think about like, um, not putting all your eggs in a single cloud basket.

So multi cloud management, you can implement zero trust. Like we just talked about in the sixth paradox, um, have, make sure that you have some eyes on compliance. Uh, make sure you have a flexible architecture. You should be able to adapt new technologies without strenuous, uh, change. Don't make it so that your architecture is so rigid.

You can't do something new or pivot. Yeah. You should have very, very good vendor diversity. Don't just have. Like I, for a very long time, I was loyal to one vendor for buying equipment. And a few times that vendor failed me and I had to go out and spend the time finding new vendors to buy these things.

And I wish I had done that earlier, but I'm glad I did it now. Now I have vendor diversity in place for this particular area. And then skills development. I mean, yeah, big. The rewards are so big for training people. Oh my God. Like they're just, it's so hard to [01:16:00] quantify totally, but you just know, you just, you just know when people stop contacting you about a platform because they're good at it, you know, what those rewards are.

I mean, it's twofold, right? That's huge. That's, that's so 

Mike Crispin: yeah, that's huge. 

Nate McBride: You get your time back and they get time back because they're being faster. I mean, it's a win win, right? So, 

Mike Crispin: and they're happy and they're happy. 

Nate McBride: So those are the seven paradoxes, and for all of these, we're going to revisit them periodically throughout the season.

Uh, what we tried to do tonight was kind of give you a high level overview and some of our, our sort of gut thinking about it. But these are paradoxes that everyone needs to solve for. You can't simply just go to one end or the other and not try to solve that paradox. They're all going to, um, change the way you find balance.

Sure. Between the four pillars, risk, innovation, productivity, and autonomy. With [01:17:00] autonomy loss being the thing most likely to go if you elect not to deal with these paradoxes. You will give up the majority of your autonomy right on the spot. So I'm looking forward to, we're going to have a great season and I'm, I'm really looking forward to next week because what you just talked about, I made some notes there, oh, it's going to be good.

Uh, it's going to be good. Um. Looking forward to it. But before we close out, uh, I want to get to our first archetype, um, which is, uh, the great homogenization. Number one. The great homogenization. Yeah. Which is actually a good word. When I was a kid and we used to get homogenized milk, I always used to think like, that's such a cool word, having no idea what it meant.

But it's a, it's a great way to, um, talk about making everything plain white vanilla. Which, which isn't fun. So, yeah. Uh, what do we mean by the great homogenization? Well, everyone's jumping on the same tech bandwagon. [01:18:00] So, uh, the next newest thing comes out, everyone's got to get on it. Every single, uh, technology magazine is going to put out the same headlines, the same articles, you know, why aren't you doing this yet?

And then three months later, you shouldn't be doing this yet. And then three months later, what are you an asshole? I told you to do this six months ago. Why aren't you doing it yet? And then the next three months here, the six reasons that you should be very careful about doing this thing. So. And everybody gets on that bandwagon, including the big analysts, including the big analyst firms, which shove it down people's throats, so on and so forth.

Um, sometimes your 

Mike Crispin: competitive advantage can come from not doing it or doing it in a way that no one else is, 

Nate McBride: or, or being predictive about it and saying, I wonder what the next thing is going to be. Let me get on that first and taking that 50 50 shop. But that goes back to one of our paradoxes that we talked about a moment ago about spend.

Um, Are you the kind of person that's going to [01:19:00] say, you know what, I really think generative AI is not going to work. I'm going to go and buy floppy disk drives. I think we're going to go back in time. Like that's a probably terrible example, but you get the point. Like you're, you're using your experience and knowledge to say, yeah, this, this current trend is cool, but I can see what's coming after that.

I'm going to go after that one instead. Yeah. You also, I mean, this is impacted by, of course, executives who come in the office, hair on fire. Oh my god, I was at the golf thing today with my buddy and he was telling me that, um, we should be Using teams, um, cause his company loves it. And so all of a sudden you're like, well, why, why are we implementing teams?

That's a bad example because I don't think any executive would ever tell me that. But, um, just to give you an idea, or there's this pressure, there's the FOMO pressure to go with the flow, take that [01:20:00] zero approach, that zero decision making approach and saying, Hey, listen, everybody else is doing this and it seems to be working, so fuck it.

I'm just going to do that. I think. Okay. Sorry. I'll say so. So how did the question is, how does our fearless it leader, this it leader that we've been nurturing for so long, how does this fearless it leader resolve for the great 

Mike Crispin: homogenization? I think this plays on the theme that we've been talking about all night tonight, and it's going more to the middle, which also, which requires you to see both sides.

Right. So you're looking at both sides of the coin. What, what is coming? What are the risks? You know, flipping back and forth, looking at both sides of the story, right? So that's, I think it's very key with any new platform and technology pros and cons, right? Basic stuff. Um, [01:21:00] I do think that these, these My, my approach has always been to look for differentiators.

One area that I'm always excited about is culture within a company. Sometimes if you choose a solution that isn't what everyone is doing, and you've got employees who are coming in, this is their first, you know, maybe it's their first job or they're, they're coming hungry to learn something new or differentiate themselves sometimes.

People feel it's kind of exciting to be using a tool. And this is usually, I'd say probably newer employees. Like I said, to be using something that works really well, because of their last company, they used what everyone else used and now they're getting this new tool that they can talk about, believe it or not, this has happened in my career where I put something in.

And it was a big part of how we built our culture, our digital culture. [01:22:00] Right. And it's like, you know, the. It was differentiating. It was kind of cool that we used this tool. I didn't, you know, it wasn't that big of a deal. I didn't think it wasn't what everyone else was doing because there was a cheaper version of that and there was a more accessible version of that, but it was a very important part of how we worked every day, some would agree with me who used it, some would disagree.

I'm sure I could truly see the change the day it went away. And I think that that's. Even when you're making these technology decisions. It's not just what's the least risk adverse or the most risk averse or the most productive. It's also how does it help enable the culture of the company? How does it feel to use this tool?

How does it feel to use this process? It's more important than we know, I think, and I don't think it's hard to make a decision based on that, but it's it does sometimes Like I had an instance [01:23:00] where there was a partner trying to force our company to use a different tool. And, and some of the leaders in the company went back.

No, we use this tool. That's part of who we are. And we use this and I'm like, wow, that's really cool. Like I was, didn't show my excitement. I was like, cool. You got our back. And it's not just, they got our back. They want. They wanted that to be part of our brand almost, right? So it sounds crazy, but it does weave in, I think sometimes these decisions we make help mold the culture of the company.

And are we not to be trendy, but sometimes that's almost what it feels like, you know? So I think with some of these technology decisions, solving for them is, and I use it as an example, because it's the most unlikely thing I could ever think of would have been like, uh, something that would come out of not following the pack.

Looking a couple of steps ahead and taking a little more risk to do something a little different, [01:24:00] maybe even before, before anyone else even knew it existed, um, empowers some people to feel like they've got a little bit of a competitive edge if the tool really works well, but you run the risk of having to throw it away in four years or five years if it gets purchased or it doesn't work or whatever.

So the reason I bring that up is because I think there's unlikely things when you're looking at that, um, When you're looking at the path forward and the strategy and you're looking at. The homogenization and going along, you know, the great homogenization, how do we resolve for this? And I guess that was long winded, but look at all angles, look at both sides.

Um, think outside the box, sometimes. And then other times you just think about how it's going to impact your user base. Um, all right, you can break away that and figure out ways to actually measure that that's that's a challenge right. Um, [01:25:00] but I do think. That sometimes that's how I've gone about, uh, looking at some of the, the decisions we need to make some of your, some areas, it's easier to make decisions and others than obviously.

So 

Nate McBride: you and I both know in our heart of hearts that to deploy Linux, uh, into a company that was, that was using enterprise browser, like Island would have a substantial, substantial benefits, though, but it has some downsides. It would have substantial benefits to the business, right? We know that. So, so. I'm going to put that statement out there because I'm going to, I'm going to read you some thoughts I had, and then we're going to revisit that statement in a minute.

Okay, because I want to put what you, what you just said, and what I'm about to say in context of that one decision. Okay. So, uh, I put down five things you can do to not rebel against the great homogenization, but to. Keep it in context and always sort of in your vision so that you don't fall into the trap.

Number one [01:26:00] was to create a value based decision framework, whether it's a functional requirement spec process or RFP process, something what the framework should do, whatever criteria you use, one to five, a high, high, medium, low, whatever you're going to use. It should evaluate solutions, all solutions.

Against business needs, like wherever you have a specific match, that's a win. If there's not a match, there must be some other compelling reason then to make that a consideration. 

Mike Crispin: Okay. That's 

Nate McBride: number one. That's 

Mike Crispin: sort of the both sides. Comment, right? You're looking at multiple sides, multiple angles. Yeah, 

Nate McBride: yes.

It's, it's, it's not the most objective process to create a value based decision framework. It's actually mostly subjective. I mean, there are certain things you can say, like, objectively, um, if the, if the, if the solution is more than 10, 000, right, that's [01:27:00] a, that would be an objective criteria, or if the solution requires more than 50 human hours.

That would be objective, but mostly it's a subjective process, but even still having any kind of decision framework is a, is a big plus. Number two is developing a, um, one of my favorites, a fast, no slow. Yes. Process. So fast, no slow. Yes. It needs, I think it needs to be done way more than it is today. It's not very hard, but what you do is in fast, no slow.

Yes. You always have to do a quick assessment. So all the things that could possibly work, just a quick assessment, either using your decision framework or some other method, you know, just look it out and you can immediately eliminate anything that's clearly unsuitable. Yep. So let's say you start with 50, you end up with five, then you move into the deeper evaluation phase.

And this is almost like, again, doing a functional requirement spec, throwing a bunch of chum out into the water, getting all the fish, and then figuring out which fish meet exactly your type, and then figuring out which is the best fish of that type. But [01:28:00] including in this fast, no, slow, yes process is the total cost of ownership, back to your point from earlier, you factor in all the hidden costs.

Yes, because that's one point, even if I think I'm being non homogenous and I'm going out and doing all the value decision framework and developing fast. No. So yes, if I don't consider all the other costs. Of what it's going to do, I may end up having to go back to paradox number five, which is spending a shit ton of money strictly not, not to be homogenous.

Number three, build your differentiation story. And this is like pretty common for anybody who's done any kind of development, you know, user stories or anyone who's actually written a functional requirement spec. There's an element of that that says, what is your reason for this? Like, tell me the story, start with, start with this will change the business by and then fill out the rest, that that's your [01:29:00] story.

Why is this thing giving you a competitive advantage? And honestly, for anybody who's going through a digital transformation or even thinking about it. For the last three years, I've done this, this talk, uh, this round table at, um, the Boston biotech forum, uh, council forum thing. And every single year I do the same topic.

Like how to do digital transformation for your group, and I hammer it in people's heads. If you are not creating value, that's digital transformation. If you are simply replacing servers with cloud, that's digitalization. And there's a difference. And so if you're going to build a differentiation story, you need to demonstrate why there's value.

And value isn't just monetary either. Value is in saving people time. It's in getting the market faster. So you have to build a story. Number four, you have to maintain strategic alternatives. So keeping relationships with alternative vendors. Always saying to [01:30:00] yourself, Yes, I have to use Outlook, but I'm always going to keep one eye on Gmail.

Yes, I have to use X, but I'm always going to keep my eye on Y. Like, my vendor just doesn't get a free pass because I have them. Yep. I'm always going to test everybody else against them every single year. Like, yes, I love Okta. I deploy Okta, but every single year I look at the SSO market. Has anybody else gained an edge?

Is there somebody better? And so far it's been no, but. But like Ninja RMM, Ninja RMM, I think leads the field in EMM, but I also love Hexnode and there could come a day when Hexnode surpasses Ninja in my company. And then lastly is using peer pressure to your advantage. So if you, if you form a network, like joining the Calculus of IT Slack board and you build a community with other leaders who are also fighting homogenization, then you can begin to share your stories.[01:31:00] 

So those are five things that I think now having said those five things, Mike, 

Mike Crispin: you 

Nate McBride: and I both know that deploying Linux would be monumentally game changing, very forward looking, even though it's very retro looking simultaneously, which is a paradox. Why don't we?

And you can keep the, keep those five things I just said in mind. 

Mike Crispin: I, I would say user experience still suffers in the browser based world, regardless if it's Linux or anything else underneath. It's a big challenge. It's a big challenge. User experience will suffer. And I think that's, that's, we think, I think there's a lot of upside and pluses, but I think that's one of the biggest.

struggles with people right now is change and Microsoft's applications not being nearly as good in the web is tough right now. If you're Google shop, it's an easy, it might be an easier, um, [01:32:00] kind of road, but we still also in life scientists have, uh, systems that need local access to hardware and. That that's another another area where it's difficult reality is that you could probably do a small pilot group and and not really have any issues, but I think if we're thinking about sort of different differentiation, what is, what is it doing that's differentiating it might be made perhaps lower cost.

Uh, it might be slightly more reliable in a lot of ways, there are going to be gaps still with the expectations of the user base in the company that you're going to hit a wall at some point where you, you can't go back. So, I think it's a, it's a high risk. It's great platform, but, um, it probably wouldn't, it probably wouldn't work out in the current with the current ecosystems and tools that we have [01:33:00] that won't allow it to work as much as we're web based.

Um, I think there's, there's a lot of that. So user experience would be the big one. Um, one, one thing that on this list, I think in, in the differentiation list that we could add is, is, does it make it a better place to work? And if you apply that to this, to this one, it's hard, it's hard to, um, and this was kind of the culture thing I was mentioning before is, is it, it probably doesn't because certain things are.

You're not going to, not going to work as well. What would be great is we could find a way. So this is the, what we were talking about earlier about putting user experience, wrapping it around the trust and verify model, right? User experiences, people don't want to carry two laptops around. They certainly don't want to carry a Linux laptop with a browser on.

So can you find a form factor over time? This is, these are coming, I mean, [01:34:00] they're happening right now where they don't have to carry. That laptop anymore and they can get their thick applications. So maybe it's, maybe it's saying the island browsers is the way to go, but we're going to use windows three 65, or we're going to use some sort of GPU driven.

You know, where we can share the GPU of the local machine. Maybe this doesn't exist yet. And, and actually provide a desktop to them that way. And they can use their home computer. No problem. That's that's fine. Uh, with the right security posture and everything else. So it's, that's, that's where I would look at something like that and go, okay, how can I really use the Mary Poppins?

Uh, Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down approach. Almost anything that you do has to follow that now, because especially if they have to give something up, you want to give them something more. That's going to make them more productive. And Linux, Linux with island, um, [01:35:00] maybe saying, Hey, I'm going to give you a computer.

You can do whatever you want with this computer. It's yours, but you got to use this thing, this application for your work. That's a double benefit for them. Load all that stuff. You don't, you don't want to take two computers. I'm not saying this is safe, I'm not endorsing this, but if we could do it in a secure way.

Ladies and gentlemen, 

Nate McBride: Mike Crisman endorsing 

Mike Crispin: full anarchy. Full anarchy. Um, once the technology exists to jail, that type of stuff, that would be, that would be great. People say, oh, are you running a VM? We're not talking about a VM. You know, so it's like, was those times as we're wearing glasses or anything else that changes the form factor down the line.

We're right, just right aligned with that thinking. I know we're going off the reservation, but the last thing I'll say from a tech geek perspective is I think the web, if we're thinking ahead, I think the secure browser, um, component of things is going to meet a wall when it [01:36:00] comes to changing the form factor of computing.

We're going to go right back to some sort of client based architecture when it comes to AR and it's. It's going to be off now. We're moving off the web. Now we've got these rich applications. Again, we're gonna have to deal with since I'll thinking about where things are going, maybe too far in the future, but maybe 

Nate McBride: not.

No, that's the whole point of web three web three was to go to AR VR and start exploring these, these sort of, um, These 40 worlds. So we're, we're not too far away from this. I'd say probably in the next few years, but right. It's going to be, we won't 

Mike Crispin: be early adopters probably as my guests. I mean, I know it'll 

Nate McBride: be, it'll be, it'll be out of affordable range, I think, for the early adopters that want to early adopt, but so, all right.

So, so not five, but six, six things to think about to prevent the great homogenization for our fearless it leaders. Um, So next week, by the way, just so we're, um, [01:37:00] all on the same page next week's archetype, and this will be fun is the ultimate trust me, bro technology. So we're going to help our it leaders solve for the ultimate, yo, trust me, trust me, bro.

Oh, uh, trust me, brah. 

Mike Crispin: Yeah. 

Nate McBride: Technology. We're gonna, we're gonna tackle that one for our, our second great archetype next week. Trust me, brah. 

Mike Crispin: My son hates it. Cause I, I'm hearing this is, I guess this is some Gen Z lexicon. It takes that into a different context. So I'm saying, yay, brah. He's like, that's not how you say it.

You're only supposed to say it when this is, it's so funny. So I'm like, okay. I got to learn, I got to learn this sort of, I guess you only say it when you're, when you're about to lose something, like something's not going well, I'm like, I thought you could just say brah anytime. There's like a, you got 

Nate McBride: to go back to the urban [01:38:00] dictionary and Mike, I'm hip to this.

I, I have a 20, almost 22 year old and a 19 year old. I got to, I read the urban dictionary quite frequently. What's your understanding of it? 

Mike Crispin: What, what am I aligned at all? Like it's only when something bad happens. 

Nate McBride: Yeah, it's like when, when you're in a situation. Mike. Yeah. Okay. Situation. I wonder if you like, walking up to you like, Hey bro.

Yeah. I'd be like, hey bro. I'd be like, hey bro. Or hey dude. Hey dude. But if, like, you're about to do something totally sus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then I would be like, brah. 

Mike Crispin: I get it now. See, that's, that's what I thought. And I, and I said, now I just say it all the time because it aggravates him. He thinks it's all.

Nate McBride: So this is funny, but the other day I was, I was just, I was like, my kids were up at the, um, at the, at our cabin in Maine and we were talking after a day of snowboarding and my daughter said, yeah, we were just spamming this one trail. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, do you [01:39:00] mean that you're just going up and down the trail over and over?

She's like, yeah, spamming the trail. I'm like, so how often do you use the word spamming? She's like, anytime you do something over and over again, it's just spamming. I was like, son of a bitch. I get my phone out, go to the Urban Dictionary. And sure enough, spamming has become an act of repeating something over and over again.

But to be, to be used in any context now. I'm learning something new every day. I love it. This is important stuff. We don't call it community anymore, Mike. It's spamming to work. Spamming. Spamming. Okay. Got it. But it's only for the, it's only for right now. 

Mike Crispin: It's gonna 

Nate McBride: change. 

Mike Crispin: But I don't think we're allowed to use those words, right?

We're out. We can't, we can't say. Oh, no, no. 

Nate McBride: I use them frequently and with much disdain from everyone around me. But, um, you know what? I'm I feel like mid and all that other, I'm trying to learn everything, 

Mike Crispin: you know, 

Nate McBride: my kids don't like rad and they don't like, you know, dope, but they also don't like me [01:40:00] using it.

So I'm going to use something cause I'm going to use the words. It's either going to be their words or my words, but someone's using words. 

Mike Crispin: We gotta run this through the AI now, there's no question about it. 

Nate McBride: And I got words, I'll try to tell you that. So, um, you know what, I'm not gonna break this up. That was awesome, that was an hour and forty minutes, I don't give a shit.

If it's too long for you, then listen to it in two parts. And pause it. Or three parts. Um, cause that's the way it's going to be sometimes. I want to remind everybody that if you liked this show or like any of our shows, give us all the stars on your platform or whatever you listen to the show or thumbs ups or whatever they do.

Um, in our show, in our show description, we have links to buy our merchandise. We have our beer portal and, um. other things. And, um, as always, don't be a dick. The world's full of dicks. We don't need any more. We just need nice people doing nice things to each other. And then especially don't be a dick to the hardworking IT people in your company.

They're IT people that they [01:41:00] love IT. They're working in IT because you're let your keyboard broke because you keep spilling coffee on it is not their fault. So be nice to them too. And it will get paid back in spades. I'll also be nice to animals and be nice to old people. Also have your pets spayed or neutered.

Anything else, Mike? 

Mike Crispin: No, that's all. Let's say good night. Good discussion. And, uh, next week, 

Nate McBride: next week, identity as the perimeter. Oh shit. It's going to be a good one. And so now what I'm gonna do, by the way, at the end of every episode is I'm going to go and here comes the music. Nice. I got some good feedback on that, on the, on the song.

So now comes the music piece. 

Mike Crispin: You get, we'll see you later.[01:42:00] 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can fight no restraints,

no need to hide in the system we reside through the code.[01:43:00] 

Fate in the data sees we skate zeros ones that can't obey we control it it's in a binary whispers in the night flashing screens that glow so bright in the [01:44:00] matrix we take flight holding truth within our side Calculus of I. T. Without you it's only me. Calculus of I. T. Without you it's only me.