386- Stop Chasing Solutions Looking For Problems

386-Mark Baker

Hosts: Phil Howard and Doug Camin

Guest: Mark Baker ________________

Phil Howard: welcome to. You've been heard formally dissecting popular IT nerds. And what we realized is that after three hundred and eighty episodes, we all know the same thing. We all know that nothing can get done in any organization without it being involved. So we figured, well, we need to start talking about something else. And that is how do we actually get people to hear us, which is really what the main subject is all the time about this IT leadership, how do we actually get heard at the executive roundtable? And then how do we actually have conversations with all of our friends, which we love doing anyways? So but before we get there, why don't you tell us, give us the rundown of who you are, where you work, you know, current title, I guess. Number of end users. Let's break it down. What's your day? What's your day job?

Mark Baker: Sure. Well, what's the day job in it for anyone, right. It's like jack of all trades, isn't it? So. but for me, I'm the VP of it for a company called Block Imaging. over in, around Lansing, Michigan. And we service a lot of the, like, retiring big iron MRI, CT types of machines. And so we do a lot of service and parts and legacy type of interactions, which of course can be very interesting in the world of security because, wait, we need to we need to have a windows ten. but yeah, that's no longer patched. So what do we do. So a lot of wonderful challenges there. So for me I've been in the IT industry, should I say for far too long I don't know, but, it's been several years and, kind of started, like many of us at the, at the bottom of the stack here, but focused in on operations side of the house and then gained gain more skills and knowledge and things like that and start doing some stuff on development as well, which has brought me to where I am today. Spend a lot of time in med device scientific and as well as manufacturing spaces. So that's brought me here collection of all those types of things. And apparently I must love regulatory spaces because that seems to follow me wherever I go. So.

Phil Howard: Well, you have kind of an interesting problem, which is you're in an industry where they're dealing with legacy silos. So how do you convince people that we can't have legacy silos? And like, you know, if you're dealing with old iron stuff, how can you tell people, well, we don't need these old computers. We need new ones. Like. Why? if that makes any sense. So just. But okay, so let's go back in time then. if you have been around for a long time, what was your first computer or your first experience with technology?

Mark Baker: Oh, that would be a long time ago. Aging myself.

Phil Howard: But just so you know, my other host, Doug, is here. He's my better half. He's the one to really. He's the one to really dig in on the, hardcore technical stuff.

Doug Camin: Yeah. it's a pleasure to meet you, Mark. I'm Doug Camin, co-host here on the You've Been Heard podcast, formerly dissecting popular IT nerds.

Mark Baker: Good to meet you, Doug.

Phil Howard: How did one find a job back then when they actually decided, like me, I was just wasting my time and probably wasting years and dinking around doing all kinds of stuff. Six years in college, I was pre-med at the time, but how did one find a job as a as a gearhead back then? Because it was, it was like, hey, you know how to fix my printer and my dot matrix thing, and you can plug these things together. Do you want to come work here?

Mark Baker: Yeah, exactly. Can you come on board? a lot of it started with with family and friends, and, word gets around, hey, you can do this stuff. So it started working with some of them. And in the town I grew up at, we actually had a small computer shop that they were in need of help. And how do we continue to move forward and grow? And our customers are asking beyond, hey, make the printer work. Can't these things talk to each other? So what's this thing you all were talking about? Networking. What what what is that? Right. So, that's how I really got going inside the field itself was with that local computer shop way back in the day. That was before all the fancy GUIs was before the windows thing, all that type of thing of just people saying, well, I bought this thing because I heard it's the right thing to do, and I can run my books on this thing. I can do this thing called a spreadsheet, How does this work? And that was a substantial investment, right? And so one, it was keeping those going. But then how now do I get my data moving between both of these. So really very early on with that small computer shop of just learning a lot of the basics and much to what you comment there, Phil, learning how to speak to businesses and what they need, right? Because at that point they didn't even know what they needed. And why do I even really have this computer thing? I think it can do a lot of great stuff for me. And that's where, I found the same thing, Phil, of having to talk to people at the business level to understand what is it they're trying to accomplish, and why did they even why do they even have this thing sitting on the counter? What's it supposed to do for them?

Phil Howard: so Mark, we're we were talking the other day and here's the, the point of all this. How much has really changed. Honestly like so it was like what's a network card back then? How can you help me make more money with technology or how can you? I don't know, whatever it is. How is that any different than hey, we need AI. How is it any different? I'm just. I'm curious, like how much that mentality has it changed much as far as the ability to understand, kind of like the full breadth of what technology is in front of us.

Mark Baker: Well, and I would agree with that, Phil, that it's it's not so much about the technology, it's about what's trying to be accomplished via the technology. And oftentimes I would say there's a dramatic shift in understanding at the sea level of technology. Right. We're seeing different generations come through this. And so the base understanding is much better. But at the end of the day, the results are the same. What am I actually trying to accomplish with the technology that I just read about in, as I was on the airplane and heard from my other buddies that I need to have AI and we're not doing it. So I'm way behind taking that and nurturing with our seed level, partners of the understanding of well, let me help clarify what the technology is a little bit and how can that actually impact us at a business stance. Right. Why on earth would we even do it if we think back to cloud, right. Just just a few years ago, everybody had to have cloud. That's the thing. Everybody heard the buzzword and oh, it's going to save me so much. I don't have to do any of this stuff. I don't need these people for any of that backups. We don't need backups. Right. Because it's in the cloud. And there was just this buzzword going around that we see sea levels just jumping on, but not understanding what they're signing up for. And that really is the challenge for us in it to be able to speak to the the business and say, no. Okay, let me help you understand the technology in layman's terms. we can get around that geek spoke pretty easily. But let me explain what this can do and what it cannot do. And then let's kind of talk about where are you trying to go with the business. Why are you asking this question? Because obviously there's a question being asked for a reason, right? Beyond just, hey, I read it somewhere. Obviously there's some kind of need. Let's focus on that. And what can we do with technology to help you answer that question so that fundamental thought, their fill of, well, what really has changed? Technology has moved forward. We all know that we get that people are more educated about it, which helps these conversations. But at the end of the day, for it, it's about solving those business problems, solving, maybe what a CEO is, is trying to figure out that it's just ran up against a wall and thinks, right, AI will fix the whole thing. Well, what what's the impression, what's the problem that we're having? Speaker 4: So

Doug Camin: Thoughts here specifically around the AI stuff. And I think that your point is well made, Mark, that when we think about AI tools It's a new generation of transformative things. And really, if you think about its role in what we're doing, our role is to fundamentally shepherd and enhance the value of the technology brings to the organization that we're we're working with in today's environment. And even back then, you mentioned about cloud, and I think I chuckled a little bit because you mentioned about backups in particular. That stuck out to me. And people are like, oh, the cloud backs it up. They do not back it up. like that's a that's a critical thing. It's it is more resilient, but it is not backed up unless you pay for backup or build your own. And I think that that was there was a conference I was just at recently talking to other, I was at a it was a board director's conference, but I was sitting next to somebody who ran like an insurance fund. And she looked at me because she was like, oh, you're a CIO. Like, tell me about AI tools. I really think that these tools could help enhance my organizations, productivity. And she outlined a scenario in which, I think you're build the scenario here in my head real quick. They have, like, claims processing. And the claims processing takes a lot of time. It's a lot of manual work, a very clear use case that AI could probably reduce the workload or at least speed it up and speed up the cycling process and stuff like that. But the one of the things that I warned her about was that this happened with cloud stuff. The perception is that new technology is somehow going to save you tons of money. But what typically happens in most technology cycles is that the new technology is either the same or more in different environments. It might increase your productivity, but you've changed the dynamic of how you're doing business. So your costs don't oftentimes go down dramatically except in narrow scopes. And so, like she was like, oh, we could, maybe we could speed up this process. And I'm like, well, yeah. But also today, those environments, those the technology is also underpriced for how it what it costs to deliver it. if I'm doing AI and I'm paying, open AI, let's say fifty bucks a month, it's really costing them two hundred a month to deliver it now. So you got to be like, I'd be interested to take. I know you said you're working strong. you're doing a lot of work in the AI space and stuff like that. How are you planning for those types of challenges like the oops, this cost us fifty grand, but eventually they're going to come back to us and start raising the price by twenty five or thirty percent. every, renewal cycle, because they need to get to an actual profitability model instead of just having us use it to, to teach itself.

Mark Baker: Yeah. Well, that's a good question because the inevitable will come. And for us, I would say, Doug, because that's a good question, that we're introducing it as part of our process, changes within our environment to make it a key piece to do things right. Just like, the lady was asking there about insurance to automate things, to scan things, to get better intelligence beyond what we have today. Seeing insights that we just. There's too much data. We can't see those insights. So we're definitely creating a business advantage by doing that. Of course there's the normal business offsets like oh hey, we're going to automate invoicing or whatever. Oh. So we can avoid headcount, right. So we can do some of those tangible types of things. But one of the ways that we're deploying this is using and I'm trying to think of the term that I've heard. but basically as we're creating and using this, we're partnering with another organization that will intercept all of these that they have subscription to multiple AI platforms in the secured fashion that they're surfacing for all of their other customers. So that's how we're buffering for that a little bit because we're not going direct and we also see the need, right? We have different verticals and different needs of different AI engines. This avoids us going out and grabbing, you know, ChatGPT and maybe a copilot and maybe something that does images. Right.

Doug Camin: It's avoiding you're using a broker, essentially a broker, to create help you build and maintain your model garden.

Mark Baker: Thank you. Yeah, exactly. Broker. Yes. That's the term I was looking for. But yeah, that's exactly what we're doing. And for us, it's working really well because we're partnering with somebody that's not just doing this for us. They're doing it for several other other clients. So when that time comes right, we're kind of buffered a little bit because that impact hits them whole. That hits all across their whole client base, not just to us. Speaker 4: yeah. Yeah. We do another another statistic.

Doug Camin: I just want to throw this one out here because I'm always interested to hear other CIOs. Yeah, I'm a CIO by trade myself. That's my day job. but there was some recent, like Gartner statistics that at least right now, eighty five percent of the IT AI initiatives that they've surveyed aren't returning any financial value. like, it doesn't mean that there's not getting some sort of marginal productivity gain or the people don't like it or they do like it or, it's not a judgment of whether they like it or not, I guess is maybe the right way to put it. But but the goals they set out for like eighty five percent of these projects are not returning anything as of yet.

Mark Baker: Yeah. And I've seen that same statistic there, Doug. Yeah. And I find that interesting. The reason I find it interesting is like, why is that happening? Is it because they were banking that, hey, we're going to have such an impact with AI? And so while it's going to be all this stuff and it's returning, this is going to be great. Was there challenges in Alignment with the business and how we're planning things out for us. Are we on the bleeding edge? Absolutely not. Are some of our users, out in the wild on the bleeding edge? Probably. just things that they're doing in their personal lives. And we've been, I would say, not slow adopters, but not early adopters, because we're looking at the landscape and what can we really do?

Doug Camin: And followers fast followers is where I usually like to live, too.

Mark Baker: Yeah, kind of like that. Right? Because I'm looking for what is the actual business case I can truly solve. I'm not going out. And, I'm not looking for I'm not have a solution that's looking for a problem. Right? I'm actually have an issue. And how can I actually address this with what I know about AI today? And how do we build the tool sets to accomplish that very particular activity? Meanwhile, as we're going through the process of doing that, what are the ancillary things I'm seeing as I'm coming along? So our approach is a little bit different. We're not looking for oh, hey, all of a sudden, you know, cool. This save us five billion dollars. We're looking for very specific use cases in which we're deploying this a step at a time.

Doug Camin: Yeah, yeah, I know at my organization we did well, I conceptualized and I spearheaded what we refer to as a collaborative learning project. So we built a learning collaborative. But we have some roots in educational space and stuff like that. So that's a it comes from there. And the so we took a cross-sectional cohort from in our organization and we gave them at least to start copilot. But we also worked with some of the other tools out there and, tried to build like where are the where are the use cases? Where's the best use cases in our organization. So like, how have you and your organization looked to find and identify where it is? I mean, you mentioned the idea of, hey, using our knowledge and stuff like that. But how do you surface the use cases that are beyond just like even when you sit in one room, you have one view and one lens on the organization, but you ultimately have to, take in input and feedback from everywhere else. So how do you get that and build that into your, what you're looking to drive forward? Speaker 4: We do have a couple. We do have.

Phil Howard: A couple questions after this. Just so you know, from Adam, from Adam in the chat. Speaker 4: Oh, if.

Phil Howard: You guys are following the chat, go ahead.

Mark Baker: no. Great question there, Doug. For us, we have a really strong, what I would say, business partnership, SME team that is very, very engaged with our IT organization and enhancing just our ERP systems on their own. So there's already a collaborative piece that's very strong for our organization. And oftentimes myself and even my team are interacting with these folks hearing what's going on in the business with our mindset behind it of saying, you know, is this a fit right for this extra tool? Right. AI, just an extra tool. Is this a fit for that tool? we have outside development firms that help us as well with that same challenge. They're thinking the same way of, hey, I'm hearing what the challenges are. I see where we need to drive as a business. Am I hearing things that all of a sudden are triggering me to start thinking this is a fit for where AI can go in here and really dive deep into the data that we're collecting to produce what, maybe user A is trying to accomplish that. He's normally he or she's normally taking several days to compile from several different sources because one either we haven't yet got to the point to build out, right. Whether it be, something through power BI or report, right. That they're still waiting on. Are we running into that? And even in some of those cases, we're thinking about those and saying, truly, where we have been with, whether it be a bi type of thing or a report type of thing, does that make sense? Or if we layer this on with some AI functionality, have we just better empowered what that use case would be for that user?

Doug Camin: We started a whole conversation. I'm implementing an ERP. The hardest job of any CIO is doing a full, full blown ERP implementation.

Phil Howard: Adam's question, by the way, was like, do you think there's a mismatch between the executive, exuberance of this, between the exuberance of the C-suite team, and the team who can actually do it. I think the answer is obvious. Speaker 4: Yes, but generally.

Doug Camin: I was talking to my wife about this the other day. because she, works in administration in a school district and at times they, there's talk about that type of stuff in their space too. And, one of the things that I recognized is like, take, for instance, when I go to conferences, like, I'll go to conferences and I'll get a presentation and, somebody on the stage is like speaking at all these superlative tones, oh, this is going to change the world. It's going to change everything you do. It's going to do this. And your boss, your CEO is hearing the same things. And but but the challenge for them is that they there's an expert on the stage and they're not an expert. So they they then it becomes challenging to try and like filter out like which what's the accuracy of what they're saying. so like. Speaker 4: The.

Phil Howard: Question is are they really an expert because you're the expert? And I mean, what you can do and what can't be done. And what? Mountains can actually be climbed. Which ones can't. And in an organization.

Doug Camin: I would remind you that the the best.

Phil Howard: Is what I'm saying in general, as I'm saying, like the IT leader in general is the one that should be the one that's being heard, right? And the one that's that people are coming to. So like, hey, I heard this at this organization and we hear we hear things all the time. And it's the hype cycle or I mean, I've listened to people talk about gen AI and I would say that they know almost next to nothing about actually implementing it or doing anything with it, but they love talking about it on stage.

Doug Camin: Well, you have to remember, I would remember the roles of everybody involved. So like the best leaders and the best CEOs are going to rely on you for your expertise, but you also in your seat have to remember that the CEO's job is to kick you in the pants and, you know, challenge you to, like the best CEOs are going to are going to try to stretch your boundaries as much as your job is to be the truthsayer to them about what's possible.

Phil Howard: I like that, and I think you brought it up the other day when we were talking about it's not an us versus them. There's not this us versus them thing. It's how are we, how are we all working together. And I think most I do believe that most CTOs and CIOs understand the business language to a certain degree. I would hope they know what EBITDA means. I would hope some of these other things. But if we flip the script and I'm not saying that it is their job to know our language, how well do they know our language? And how good of a job are we doing explaining that to them? Speaker 4: Well.

Doug Camin: Mark. Speaker 4: I'm just.

Doug Camin: Going. We're just going to put you on the spot now.

Mark Baker: No, that's okay, because I was just going to say, guys, well, first comes to adding more acronyms. We need to do that. Right. To make them. Speaker 4: Even more and.

Phil Howard: Acronyms need to match up with the other acronyms. Speaker 4: In.

Phil Howard: The iron industry as well. And the healthcare, they've all got to be the same.

Mark Baker: Yeah. And it's nice to know when you have an acronym that means something completely different in three other industries. It's like, well, I already told you what it was, but it's like, oh, wait, that's not what they heard at all. but I think it's interesting, right, that even as advanced we were going, when we have more knowledge, right, we have more technology savvy folks and they're getting there. But then there's some things that I gotta say, guys, there's some things that will be asked or comments that's just saying like, wait a second, that really isn't a thing. And then I have to kick back. And why are they asking this question? Because kind of like you're saying, Doug, right? They may go and they may hear some of these presentations, and now all of a sudden they've heard this version of something that may be accurate, may not be completely accurate, may not apply at all within the space that we're working. And now they're even more confused. So they're more savvy. But at the same time. Right. They all go ask Mr. Google for help. And now they're even more confused about the message that's trying to come across at the end of the day, and that I've seen that be a challenge kind of across any of the verticals inside of a business.

Phil Howard: Okay. so how do you then explain to them

Mark Baker: Tactfully we start there, but. Right. it's not necessarily right a failure on the person's part. Right. It's getting clarification about what is the technology or the solution that they're actually thinking about. And I have good knowledge about this, and it's trying to back that up with clarity and really listening to what they're saying to understand where is this kind of going off the rails that they're not quite understanding what we're trying to go or what the technology will do for them and try to unwind that? Because the minute that we start to cross over, well, you're not understanding this correctly and right. Wait, no. I'm knowledgeable. I know these things. I would say for me it's been reading the situation, understanding where they're actually at and then trying to unwind the knowledge that may not be exactly correct for what we're trying to accomplish, or exactly what the technology will do, and then lay down a different understanding of what can really happen. Now, the best scenario is that you run into to, maybe our peers in the organization and they just frankly say, I have no idea what is this AI thing anyway? Oh that's awesome. Let's start coaching you and making you aware of these things. But those seem to be getting fewer and fewer, at least for me over the years, because people are empowered with. Right, that you have your smartphone right there. You just want to know. Right. So you you ask your AI assistant and it gives you all this information. Now you're an expert.

Doug Camin: Before that man? Like, remember that there was a time where when you saw something or you heard something. I remember there was this one time I was at a Taco Bell and I heard a song, and I was like, I like this song. And I had to remember the lyrics, enough of the lyrics to be able to figure out later what it was. Now, at the time, I had enough, I mean, this was, in the early internet era, if you will, that I could go use Google to look for that thing. But then you go back even before that and like, you just had to just remember. Now we what? Speaker 4: You had to know.

Phil Howard: Somebody that was very knowledgeable in a certain category. Speaker 4: Yeah.

Doug Camin: Yeah. So like, now you just whip out this device from our pocket and start typing in things and being like, oh, like I do that. I don't say all the time, but pretty regularly, like, I'll see something on, I'm driving down the road and I see something and I'm like, I gotta remember to do that. And if I stop, I'll have to pull my phone out and be like, I can do this before I forget.

Phil Howard: I think to just circle back for a second to the confused CEO, the it's not necessarily the confused CEO. all of us have a different mix of business leaders and any organization we've all worked for good bosses, bad bosses, we've all worked for different ones. And I guess What? What role do we have there, in guiding the organization. Because what I've experienced in the past is that technology leaders, a lot of time will say, yeah, I can do that. Let's go. And in reality, it's a really bad direction to go.

Doug Camin: There's a happy warrior mentality amongst a lot of it, folks, which is generally useful in getting stuff done. The idea that a challenge is a thing that most of us like to see. And that's why we got into the space to begin with. So there is a propensity for saying yes to things, even when maybe you shouldn't at times. And that can be hard to balance

Phil Howard: Yes. I guess there's a certain level of business understanding as well. Like, are you sure we want to be doing all of all these different things at one time, when our mission and vision of the company is to do this. And is this really in alignment with that? it just came across from Mark, you saying the other day that it's very important to to listen and understand people and to not in order to let them be heard as well before we're heard. And. what I guess what role do we have to do? We have to play there then so that, business leaders will then listen to us or or, I guess, the guardrails or whatever we need to do to put in place to protect them from making a complete off course direction.

Mark Baker: Well, I would say for for some in it much where Doug was going. Right. Part of the reason we got into this field, we love to help people. We love challenges. We love to figure things out. And I would agree, we have a natural tendency to say, yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Let's make it happen. And I think that's one of those. Right. We've we've all heard the saying, hey, you can always be told no or, don't be afraid to say no and you won't hear me say that very much because no creates this finalization. There's no room. There's no way to talk about it. It's just over and done. I found that, we have to be tactical about what we're doing and if it is the wrong path. What what am I expressing right to to a CEO about where I'm at with what I'm hearing and where we should be and bring that to a conversation, not just say, hey, no, we shouldn't do that and walk away. That doesn't increase the knowledge of a CEO or any of the C-suite, right? It doesn't help them understand the why behind it. And oftentimes inside of it, we love to know the why, right. And so we need to extend that, I would say, out to our peers in the organization to help them understand the why. Why would we say this is a bad idea? We don't want to go in this direction, but is there true absolutes to that? So the thing that I would challenge is like, okay, so in our minds it's like, oh wait, no, that would be a horrible thing. You're going to open up a huge security hole. We can't possibly do that. Right? Because when we think of our security framework, it's like you're going to blow up this whole thing. Speaker 4: Well, I like the example.

Phil Howard: The other day there was the example of, okay, we became zero trust certified. Now we have to live with this and all the people that come and ask us to do things. And then you have to tell them, we don't want to tell them no, but they don't understand now why it's different. It's a perfect example of, like. Congratulations. You guys got zero trust certified if they even understand that to begin with. And that was kind of like what we were talking about the other day. Sometimes we do all this work, it becomes zero trust certified. And I think Denise was talking about it at one time and people were like, oh, okay, that's cool. and like, do not know how hard that was, like in the year and the eighteen months of, this, that and everything else. And so let's just say they do accept it and they're like, great. That's awesome. We're zero trust certified. Now we can tell everybody now they have to live with it. And they don't even know what that means. And I think that was a you brought up a really good example the other day was like, they're happy that you're zero trust certified until they need you to install something or do something new, and then you have to explain to them, no, you don't understand. Like we're we're zero trust. We're a zero trust environment. That means. How do you explain that?

Mark Baker: Well, I would back that up further, Phil, because if we're into that scenario, did we miss something on the IT side? Have we thought through the journey of getting to zero trust, how is this impacting our business? What is this actually going to look like at the end of the day? Have we made have we made our partners aware of this is what this actually means for you day in and day out, and how that will shift and allow it to be a business discussion beyond just, hey, we're getting towards zero trust certified, right? And folks didn't understand what that means. We have a responsibility as IT teams to help that understanding match that up to what the business is trying to do and where the business is trying to go to know at the end of the day, Hey, I know they're going to care about. They can't do this anymore. Do we truly accept that we can't do this anymore? And if the business doesn't accept that, well, then are we still on the right path?

Phil Howard: So we could just be. Ten percent trust.

Doug Camin: Well, I have definitions of zero trust in a generalized sense, which is that the phrase itself and the idea behind it that you never actually get to what a true. Well, I would say what it truly means, but like if you trust nothing, you can't you basically it's very difficult to do much of anything. So there is a point at which you have to trust something to start. and then you, you know, I think fundamentally you then begin not trusting things from the things you do trust. You just shrink the circle of what you trust to be very, very small. And then you start from there.

Phil Howard: That's got to be an infographic, please. Yeah, yeah. Circle of trust in zero. Trust if you trust the whole thing. It's amazing.

Doug Camin: Like fundamentally like, you know, in a traditional IT setup. we've always assumed that certain functions like if the computer is attached to my domain and it's got like antiviruses and other things like that. yes. The cone of silence, that's exactly what. Yeah. We've assumed that those are all acceptable things. And I think in Zero Trust, you start backing up from that and you say, okay, like the computers know we don't trust them unless they authenticate all the time. You know, the people we don't trust unless they authenticate all the time, so we build all those those, you know, sort of automated mechanisms. You build mechanisms to validate what's going on. But at some fundamental level you have to trust like your Azure environment, right. Like, it may not the Azure may not trust your login to it, but you have to trust the fact that the environment is going to be acceptable somewhere. So you have to start with some trust for something.

Phil Howard: All trust. We're just going to call it one hundred percent trust, one hundred percent trust environment if you can get there. if there's one thing I know, I asked you this today, but if there was one thing you could get the C-suite to hear either. I'm curious from either of you guys if there was one thing that you could get the C-suite to hear, like, loud and clear, what would that be? Marc.

Mark Baker: For me, I would say it doesn't happen overnight. That would be the thing I would say is that oftentimes, projects are underestimated about what lift really takes from the IT perspective and the impact that lift will have against the organization. I'll run into situations and oftentimes use a phrase this did not occur overnight. This will not be Corrected overnight. It's going to take us time to get there. The other big challenges is trying to run fast and quick and right, especially in our environments today, making sure that we take the proper time to really plan out where is it that we're trying to go. And if we want to do this project, that's awesome. What are the things we're wanting to accomplish in this? And are we aligned as a business to make these things happen? Or are we just piling the next thing and the next thing on top of this, to where it becomes that our throughput to delivery just starts slowing way down, that having that investment in time thinking through at the front. What is this really going to impact? How much time will it really take and how much resources inside the business? Because everybody else is doing their day job. Is it going to take and how is that going to impact us when we're trying to accomplish this thing or these things?

Phil Howard: So it's not going to happen overnight. But I do want an example of how you communicate all that. So like if you're how something aligns with the business like how would you communicate this not overnight thing and how we're going to deliver on certain KPIs to a business leader so that he is like, wow, this is fully aligned with what we're doing. Do you have an example like we're going to this AI thing is going to help us. You know, I don't know, get rid of this old, I don't know, iron silo or I don't know what the example would be for you, but like, how do you explain that to your business leader, whatever the example is, do you have a real one?

Mark Baker: I actually do. so for me, the first thing I do is I don't try to answer that question right away. It's like, hey, we need to do this. We need to make it happen. I typically I'm the type that like to contemplate and think things through of how would we do this? How would that come to the surface for me. I look at one of these. That was a migration for us from a legacy ERP type of platform with multiple different types of systems involved to a centralized standard type of system. Right. That's a small change. That's not going to be a big deal for me. It's taking in dissecting. What does that actually look like? What are all the things involved for us to be able to move from point A to point B, and why are we doing it in the first place? What is the business drivers getting us from point A to point B? Are we going to be able to fulfill those? And when I come back with the conversation there, Phil, this is a good question. When I come back to that conversation to sit down and talk about, well, here's all the things that we need to do. Here's the horizons that we're looking at to make these things all happen. Right. I'm prepared to be able to talk about the compromises. What are we willing to do? So okay, wait, three years to do all this whole thing and, reprogram half the stuff, whatever it may be. What's the compromise that we're willing to go to? Because the. Wait, that's just way too long. We need to do it in three weeks. Okay, wait. That's unrealistic. But here we could do this compromise. And then for me, it comes down to is that acceptable? You know, do we all accept that that that's fine. And what does that impact us? Let's say you're doing this from a risk perspective, a security perspective. How bad are those things and how do we address those things first before any maybe of process change or several other things that might be involved holistically with the project? That's the way that I approach those. Phil. And we end up coming into common ground that it's like you wouldn't want to turn something on. And in this particular case, in an ERP situation, you don't want to turn something on that all of a sudden causes more strife across the whole user community and makes everyone less efficient. Nobody wants to do that. So how do we strategically deliver things now or right in the short term, that can help us get where we need to be to accomplish this much longer horizon that needs to happen at the end of the day.

Phil Howard: The Adams saying, your comments are really great, and I also want to know what success looks like. which I, think I have a question to add on top of that, which is. And it's back to how can it help guide leadership and not just say, not just be the Department of not only know, but the Department of yes, not just be the Department of Yes all the time. And I guess our example here at even at you've been heard is because we've gone through years of all kinds of change. And what we realized is that we just need to get to two podcasts a day. We just want to do two really solid podcasts a day with IT leaders and build up the dream of when IT leaders rise. So does everything and everyone else. So it's two podcasts a day. That's it. That's the only thing that we must be laser focused on. So when someone comes with a new idea or something, we say, how does that help us get to two podcasts a day? Someone comes in a new AI thing, or new this or that. Does that help us get to two podcasts a day? Is that helping IT leaders rise above the noise? Is that helping IT leaders get heard more? Is that helping? whatever it is. So I guess that's kind of my question is, is it kind of depends on how good your leadership is at. Well, because if they're all over the place and they've got all these different challenges that they're trying to solve at one time, it might just be like Tommy Boy, like, how do we sell more break parts? Does this help us sell more break parts? Yes or no? Or does this just help us, go off and, do something nice over here in this corner. Like we were like, oh, well, maybe we could have a marketplace and maybe we could have this. We could have that. No, it's just about how do we get more IT leaders heard and how do we help more IT leaders rise. because when IT leaders rise, so does everything else. So I guess that's kind of my question is how does it leadership align with hardcore business, the vision of the business and the goals? And Are we helping or hindering right when it comes to that? so I guess that's to to Adam's question is what does success look like in it? Are we aligning it with the business goals and visions, or are we just saying, hey, we did what they told us to do?

Mark Baker: Yeah, that could get us all in trouble. Right. for me, guys. And thanks, Adam, for the question, because that does feed much to where Phil's targeting at this. Right. Overall for a business, we're trying to accomplish something. And one of the things I always look for is what is the overall arching goals, right. And some businesses do this different. for us we have two year horizons, two year goals that we're going for. Obviously there's longer term, but there's definitely two years. So we build one upon the next and then we're recategorizing. What's next? And when I think about this type of project is like, is it getting us closer to being able to service our customers faster, more accurately with what we're sending engineers out with? Are we able to diagnose things in a better way? So I'm looking for real results. to answer this question, Adam, as we move through this type of project, I'm looking for real results of how did we actually move the needle for the business to be able to look back and say, hey, maybe. Maybe we're halfway through, maybe we know there's more to come. But already through the project, We've already moved the needles because our customers are having quicker response times. Our cases for them, and specifically talking where I'm at right now are cases for them are resolved much faster. They can see that. They can feel that. We can see it within our KPIs, because we made these systematic changes based upon where the business was trying to go, not where it's trying to go. I have been in situations where we try to flip that right, that it's trying to tell the business where to go that doesn't really work. that's never going to pan out. But it's sitting there struggling saying, well, we gotta we'll pick on your example there, fill it saying, hey, we need zero trust right. Oh we got to do that. So it we're heading down that road. Well why are we heading down that road. And have we engaged with the business and where the business is actually trying to go. Does it make sense if I looked, if I went way old school and I had no internet and everything was self contained inside the building, and they were all desktop computers and no one had a laptop. Should I develop and deploy zero trust? No, that doesn't make sense. Why did I pursue something that that doesn't align with what the business actually uses and requires to function day in and day out?

Phil Howard: So we need some sort of really motivational like quote here that from you. I don't know what that is, but it's something along the lines of know your business and align it with the something I don't know. I think it's like, do our KPIs align with the actual vision of the business? I'm just curious is how many IT departments out there even know what the vision of the CEO or the five year vision goals and all these different things are? I wonder how many IT departments actually are in alignment with that.

Mark Baker: I've seen several struggle. For whatever reason, but how we push down through our organizations matter. If we as leaders don't understand what the business is trying to accomplish, and we're not providing our input into how we're trying to accomplish things as a business, and what does that mean from it? If we're not providing that insight at the top and then taking that message down and making sure it's understood through all of our levels of it, then we've got a misalignment. So part of the thing that I challenge any company that I come into for the IT department is that anyone from the top of it. So like where I'm at right now myself, do I understand? And do we have new interns coming into the building that are just working on computers? Do we all understand across the department how every activity we are doing every day gets us closer to this company goal. So I spend a lot of time working on that to ensure the whole staff understands what I'm doing matters, not just, well, yeah, they got to have a computer, right? We all get that. But why? Why does that matter? What happens if all of a sudden, our call center, five of them can't use their computer? What is the business impact on that? And understand how everything they're doing each day adds value to the business. It's not just, C-suite coming up with these great ideas and these mission plans and all that. That's the great vision and things like that. But how do we make those things actionable? we make those things actionable by pushing that down through the organization and then moving our roadmaps to align with that. And when they don't adjust them, and when we're doing things that don't make sense to either pushing that vision forward or making sure that we have completely continued secure where we've been at. Then we have to ask ourselves, why are we doing it right? Normal vital principle. But I think oftentimes IT departments struggle with that. Well, we've been doing this forever and ever in a day. We've heard businesses say this. It can have a tendency to say, well we always do this. So we're going to continue to do this. Well, I would challenge why and how is that impacting the business?

Phil Howard: How do you develop your people to have that mindset?

Mark Baker: A lot of coaching, a lot, I would say.

Phil Howard: What does that look like? What does that look like? Why don't you say that?

Mark Baker: Why did you do that? No. For me, this is just my natural tendency on how I lead. And I impart this to my managers, which impart that down to all the team members in there. I also encourage folks to, not only build your technical knowledge, right. We've had tech courses forever and a day, right? Oftentimes, I think what IT folks can miss is the business side. Much of what you earlier said Phil right that it's like, oh well we learn the technical stuff and nobody ever taught us how to talk to the business. That's a gap. We know it exists. That's a gap. So I even challenge my folks. What are you doing on the business side? Is there any kind of class you can go take or seminar that deals directly with the business, so you understand how to work inside the business, how to communicate effectively, how to understand things like EBITDA. Right. And I gotta say, we have a phenomenal team that where I'm at right now that take the time just in general to explain some of those basic concepts because they understand how critically important that is for everyone in the organization. And I tend to push that a little bit farther with my teams. It's like, okay, it's one thing for from the technical side that's awesome. That's great. How are we talking to the business? And hey, do you have any business courses in your history? Or hey, can we can we send you off to something that's maybe a county one hundred and one class, right? Or something like that that doesn't require, oh goodness, I'm gone for six months, but gives a overlay of the land to really not only help instill that information to them, but also to build them as a more rounded IT professional. That's not just slanted to the tech stack, if you will.

Phil Howard: I think that would be a wonderful roundtable for all the MBAs in the community to get together other business minded people to get together and, just roundtable and discuss and. Okay, what topic should we learn next? What topic should we teach our people next? We'll put it all in. We'll put it in a little mini course. We'll make all of our guys watch it, and then all of a sudden they'll be, all of our help desk guys will be mini MBAs. Have mini MBAs. Last question from me. And that is, if there is one conversation that you could have with your senior colleagues i.e Doug, and that you can't have with anyone else because they have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. It's way above your head and you would be talking like in hieroglyphics and everything to them. If there's one conversation that you could have with your senior colleagues that you could not have with anyone else, what would you just truly enjoy talking about?

Mark Baker: It's a good thought pondering question here. So what would I ask Doug?

Phil Howard: Doug's right here.

Mark Baker: Yeah, yeah. what the the collaboration. A lot of what we've been talking about this afternoon, that's where I would go with you, Doug. And I would say, what has been most impactful for you from an IT perspective as you've engaged and worked with C levels. What has been the big win? What has been the big challenge? How do you end up dealing with some of these when you're at complete odds with the business? And it's like, I have to do this for compliance. I don't have a choice. And I've spent the time to educate and push and and nudge. I would be very interested to know that I read a article on LinkedIn the other day that talked about a little bit of that our approach as IT professionals should probably change and change that into a C level conversation of if we don't, you go to jail, right? Because there's this disconnect. That's where I think I that's how I would answer that, Phil, because that would be a very interesting conversation just between Doug and I, of what he's actually experienced and how is that impacting the way he's led or how he's engaged across organizations.

Doug Camin: And I think that's showing up early is the like, I'm not trying to answer your question because it's somewhat rhetorical at the moment, but at a high level, I would highlight for the listeners that what you do before impacts how successful you are in the now. So if you are setting up an environment in which those people trust you, they see you not just as a partner, but as an honest broker. In that process, they'll trust that you're going to do that. And you get to pick people. Don't think about the fact that, like, if I sit for a job interview, I'm interviewing you as much as you're interviewing me, right. And therefore, where you land is important, like the values of that organization, how that organization sees your role. So like in my current role, I report to the CEO, which is a different not everybody has that set up. a lot of us report to a COO or some sort of an operations person and, Sometimes the CFO, so the organizational setup becomes important and the kind of voice that you ultimately get in in those senior level meetings, if you're if I'm a CIO and I report to a CFO and there's some other executive vice president, that's probably the three of them making the decisions that then consulting me, as opposed to me sitting in the room when we're making the actual decisions with my voice there. And and I'm not saying that one is somehow more right than the other, because business needs to dictate how businesses and companies get set up, but they lead to natural outcomes about how your voice gets heard. When does it get heard? Why does it get heard, and what influence does it have?

Mark Baker: Well, I think that's a great observation, Doug, that, I think more people are starting to understand, right, that the comment that you made that an interview is a two way thing, especially nowadays. And if that match isn't there, that's a problem. Whether that match be, it's not just from the company to the employee, right. Or the potential employee, but it's the employee back to the company and how that's impacting the employee's personal life. Does it match? Are these things all in alignment? And we spend a lot of time in that. I appreciate you making that comment because that's absolutely true. It is a two way street. And if you aren't conscious of that and if the folks that are interviewing are not viewing in that context, I get concerned, right? Because now it's like, am I just talking to Bob that he's just trying to get somewhere and make a next move. Or is he really looking and, and thinking about, does this align with who I am as a person, and does it align with where I'm trying to go, both personally and professionally? I appreciate that comment. Doug, thank you so much.

Doug Camin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I talk a lot to my staff about the fact that just listening to how you've talked, I think I feel there's probably some alignment here too with how you approach your staff. I talk to my staff extensively about the fact that your career is not going to start and end here. Most most likely, and that's okay. Like, so my career.

Phil Howard: I've been here for twenty five years.

Doug Camin: Yeah. And but there are some people that do and that's also okay for them, like in my company, the CFO has been there for twenty four, twenty four years. he started out of college the same age as me, So he spent I don't know if it's exactly his entire career, but it's pretty close. and that's that is a one hundred percent acceptable place to be. But for most people, that won't ultimately be the case. So I talk to my staff about how do I build trust with them to ensure that with the knowledge that, like, your career will not specifically end with us? Most likely. So I'm going to be there to support you, even if that means you go somewhere else. So how do we develop you? And then that builds trust, that builds it builds a foundational trust where they're willing to throw in more to get get the job done, get the things done, go above and beyond. I don't have to. I don't have to struggle as much to get their buy in on how we do things. But that starts early on with understanding that the interview is a two way process. Yes, I'm interviewing them, but I also understand what I'm sitting interviewing somebody that they're interviewing me just as well.

Mark Baker: Yeah. Yeah. Wholeheartedly agree. And what an exciting time, though it's always a bummer, right? When some when somebody moves along, if we don't have another spot for them to go, but to see someone having learned and grown and found additional opportunities because of the skill set, like I say, it's a bummer. when people move on, especially if they're just like, well, I've kind of hit where I can go here and they have a wonderful opportunity. Don't pass up that opportunity. You know, don't do that. You know, let's talk about and encourage you.

Doug Camin: If you're supportive of those opportunities for them, like I mean, what I'd like to work with X person because they were great to work with and stuff. Absolutely. But that's working with me is not the goal of their career, you know? So, and so I want to help them do it, but that'll pay dividends long run. what happens if, two years from now, somebody needs a, I need a reference because I'm looking for a new role or something like that, and they're like, oh, hey, Doug, this thing came up like, so there's a personal benefit that you get by being, a good, solid person and partner with your staff as well. You don't know if later on they're going to sabotage, like, your network admin today is the senior director of, network engineering at some place that you're interviewing for the CIO place for five years from now.

Phil Howard: So here's the thing. If you're not if you're not doing that, yeah, most likely you're probably being lazy because you're not developing other people at the same time. It's almost like this constant. It's almost like this constant churn. I've worked at some companies that were just we called them Churn and Burns, where so many people went in and I was a manager, but I literally dedicated one hundred and ten percent to every single person. I honestly felt that every single person could be number one. and, I've got fifteen years later, I remember James Hum. If you're out there and you're listening to this, and he messaged me once on LinkedIn, he's like, Phil, I remember you telling me one time like, hey, look, it's about what did we used to say? We used to say like, it was like, you're on a mission to, like, save the world from themselves, right? You're on a mission to save, like, how many of the last, economical disasters that we've gone through that were actually true, that were not just like, people trying to put fear into us? You know what I mean? It's like you're out there on a mission to save every miserable person from themselves. Now go, make someone's day, and no matter what it was, and it was like that mentality with every single person on the team has to go out and make someone's day better. And just there was just it was a non-negotiable. Every single person had to be like that. So when you act that and you constantly developing everyone and making them be the best that they can be, then you're absolutely going to lose every single one of them.

Doug Camin: Yeah, and I'm okay with somebody moving on from my team. And I make my I always make my team. The other thing about that is that then my team typically will give me a heads up when they're thinking about looking or something comes up so that I have boatloads of runway, they'll like, we'll just talk openly, they'll be like, hey, I'd like to I'm looking at like a senior network position and there's not one here. And I'm like, oh, I know. So, like, when you look, let me know I'll be your reference. And then I know for six months if that's what it takes for them to find that next role, then I'm not surprised when they put a notice.

Mark Baker: comes to really building that trust Doug. Right. That you talk about and truly engaging with people, not just not just on this the surface. Right. There's several books about that, but being truly real with people and knowing that they can approach you and have that frank conversation because a lot of people are terrified. Well, I can't I can't let Doug know I'm going anywhere. He's going to turn around and say, get out the door, And that doesn't behoove us from a business standpoint. I'm right with you. I'd much rather have those conversations that, well, that's awesome. You have an opportunity or you're looking and I can't help you here. I'm now in your way for you to grow. And that's just supporting that other person. That's a good call out, Doug.

Phil Howard: That's rare. Mark, You must have the last word. we already asked you if there was one thing, but now we must know the the second last thing, that if there is anyone any the sea level directors out there, the bad sea level directors speaking to the bad ones, what must they hear? What must they know about not only IT directors, but IT directors, MBAs. What do people honestly, what do people really know? Because there's somehow there's all these businesses running and not everyone has the best, leadership in the world, and they need that. but what what is it? What do they need to know?

Mark Baker: I would say stop and take a breath and listen and think about what you're actually trying to accomplish. That's what I would say oftentimes. Right. Like you said, though, right? Business is running right. It's quick, it's fast. We don't take the time to stop. Truly listen to what people are saying, whether that be right. All of us chatting with our peers within leadership, or hearing what the other folks in the organization may truly be saying because we're too focused on the next thing, the next thing, and the next thing. It's almost taking one of those fundamental things. I don't know about you guys. I've had to start going into meetings, shut down the email, make sure teams isn't popping up, make sure the phones off because we get all these distractions that pop up in front of us, that take us away from just the core principle of actually being listening, actively listening to people, not thinking about the next thing we're trying to say or the next thought or the next meeting. That's what I would say. Phil.

Doug Camin: Yeah, I know my executive meeting. We have a rule that you can't bring that stuff in. Like, you can't sit on your phone, you can't sit on your computer.

Phil Howard: is there a problem, though, a human problem in general, that it might just be because you asked, like, what are you trying to accomplish? Slow down. Ask what you're trying accomplish. What if it's just like, I'm just trying to be filthy rich, Mark. And I've got a mortgage to pay and I've got all kinds of cars. I've got all this pressure on me I gotta be. That's all I'm trying to do. Maybe there's like a a deeper problem that it can help solve. Okay, well, I understand you want to be filthy rich, and we need to sell more of these, and we need to do that. We must slow down. But I think that that might be actually what's driving a lot of people.

Doug Camin: I work for the nonprofit space, but I do. Yeah, I've been on the board of a financial services firm, but it's a member cooperative, a credit union, and, Yeah. So I've interestingly, we were talking about like, values alignment. Like I personally have rooted myself into a lot of organizations that's where there's a values alignment for me about how we give back and why we're actually there doesn't mean that we don't make money. Like a credit union is a bank. It makes money. It's like, you can't you can't survive if you're not making money. So.

Mark Baker: Well, that's the kicker. Right, Doug? that's the things that are are at odds. What what is truly driving people at the end of the day, if it's just the we all know that we've got to work in our organizations. People got we all have, bills to pay, mouths to feed, all that kind of stuff. We all know that we need to make a profit at the end of the day. That's that's why companies and things exist, right? But if that is the main motivator of a company is just that profit side of this for me that's a non alignment to my personal values because I'm looking so much deeper into that. Yeah, I gotta feed my kids, I gotta make an income all this good kind of stuff. But that's not the driving force. And I can say like that's one of the reasons I chose the company that I'm at now, because our central principles are all around the idea that people matter, and that drives all the way from not only how we respect and treat each other within the organization, but what we're actually doing. And for us, we have direct impact to patient care out in the field. That's not always the case for everybody in every organization. I get that. But our focus is always what's that experience out long term? Where is that? And for us that's the motivation. Yeah, we all know that. companies got to be profitable right? It's one of those things. But that's kind of the side thing of what the true essence of what we're there to do. we have a, we have a banner on the wall. I'm trying to remember exactly what it said, but basically, if we perform well and great, give great service, our customers will demand that we grow. So when we focus on each other and when we focus on our clientele with respect and things like that, we are forced to grow. It doesn't become a choice for us. And that that to me aligns very well. And I think that's the big challenge, right? You ask Phil? Well, I just want to make money and I want to do those types of things. I would say that would be an organization that I would be challenged in working inside, because that doesn't match up to my values and where I'm at. And I would even be so bold to say, okay, is that really the motivation? Because what's really driving you? Is that really at the end of the day, at the end of your life, that, hey, I have a billion dollars in the bank? That was my whole motivation. So now I'm dying happy.

Phil Howard: No, that's a I think that that's exactly I was being facetious, but that's exactly my point to you of of listening and active listening and actually finding out, hey, Mr. CEO, what really is keeping you up at night? And how can I sit back and listen and how can it help alleviate that? And then maybe he'll say to you something along the lines of, Mark, what's keeping you up at night? And you'll say, the dream of seamless integration of all various cloud platforms and the cost and my skimpy budget of three percent, and I need four point five percent to help you sleep better at night.

Mark Baker: Yeah. Guys, it's been a pleasure, Doug. Great to meet you. Great conversation.

Doug Camin: Pleasure. Yeah, guys, Thank you for being on the podcast.

Phil Howard: Yeah. It did have a wonderful rest of your day. Talk to you guys soon. Thanks, guys. Goodbye.