ASCII Anything

On this week's show, we're talking about the power of agency. How the feeling of control and influence a person has over their environment and situation leads to higher satisfaction and greater productivity. Moser's own Marcus Reed and Jim McKean are joining us for the discussion. 

Jim is a senior information technology leader and an Agile coach known for turning around troubled implementations and providing direction and drive. 

Marcus is a principal consultant and team leader at Moser. He helps IT organizations reshape operations and culture to be more effective now, and industry leaders tomorrow. 

Former Moser intern turned Moser Consultant Alex Payne joins us this week to discuss the updates included in the latest release of Snowflake, a cloud-based data warehousing service that allows organizations to store, manage, and analyze large amounts of data.

Alex  works in Data Engineering, specializing in Data Migrations, Power Apps, Streamlit Development, and Snowflake Data Management. He is also a leader of the AI-Tig, where he presents monthly on cutting-edge AI technology. Outside of work, he enjoys playing and watching sports, as well as working out.

As the holiday season approaches, we're back with our annual crowd-sourced Black Friday gift ideas episode. Join us as we talk with some of Moser's consultants about the things they're putting under the tree this year, as well as what they're hoping to find in their own stockings.

Here are just a few of the items we covered:
The Remarkable 2 Digital Writing Tablet:
https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2

The Fluffy Puffin Microfiber Hand Towel:
https://www.amazon.com/JJ-KENT-Puffins-Bathroom-Attachments/dp/B0CYDTL86G?th=1

The Life Straw Personal Water Filtration System:
https://amzn.to/4hYbmRe

Anker Soundcore Space Q45 Adaptive Active Noise Cancelling Headphones:
https://amzn.to/4fQId8S

The VSee Box V3 Plus:
https://vseebox.com/v3-plus/

In this week's episode, we're going to explore the origin stories of several of our consultants and learn how they got their start in data and analytics. Joining us are: Ari, Jason, Tim, Kris, and Melissa. We'll learn what they did before joining Moser and how they made the switch from things like forestry, Japanese interpreter, teacher, and au pair. So sit tight, relax, and enjoy listening to these consultant origin stories.

The age-old cliche about tech workers is that you can spot an extrovert because they stare at your shoes instead of their own. 

So, there was some hemming and hawing, and "aw, shucks" was muttered around the studio more than a few times, but we managed to get some of our Moser colleagues to talk to us about some projects or other cool things they've done in their careers or personal lives.

We're happy to share these stories with you and happier still that collecting them helped us get to know some of our fellow Moserites even better.

Enjoy! 

And if you'd like to learn more about St. Baldricks, or to make a donation to help them find a cure for childhood cancers, here's the link:

https://www.stbaldricks.org/

Moser's Director of Sales and Marketing, Malinda Lowder (Podcast Mom!), is joining us this week to discuss guerilla marketing, a marketing strategy that uses unconventional methods to attract customers and promote a product or service.

From nontraditional media placement to not quite Olympic coverage, and, frankly speaking, far more hot dog references than we were expecting...we really enjoyed this week's talk. We hope you will, too! 

This week we're joined by two of Moser's consultants to discuss AI Ethics and Biases. Nathan Rinard and John Caviness have been great guests during past episodes of ASCII Anything and we're very excited to welcome them back for a chat on this very important and ever-evolving topic.

Today's episode tackles a theme that is either loved or hated: MEETINGS.

Our guest David Brown is the founder of Convergence Consulting, an organization that works with businesses that help people reach their full potential and accept responsibility for their role in transforming the world. The company is currently fulfilling contracts in service of executive leaders, progressive congregations, LGBTQ social services, and high school students. They also provide meeting facilitation and program delivery to companies of all sizes with their proprietary programs and other organizations’ materials. David has spoken to audiences of all ages across the country for more than 30 years in a variety of settings. He passionately helps nonprofit organizations be more effective and empathetic when engaging their paid and volunteer staff members. He is the author of three books and several plays. 

This week, we're joined by Matt Bennett, Natalie Fischesser, and Marc Brickley from Moser Labs, one of Moser Consulting's newest departments. We'll be taking a deep dive into how Moser Labs came to be, its mission, what it's currently focused on. We'll explain a few projects that have been released, and where Moser Labs is headed in the future. 

And to do that I've got the very smart people behind this, Moser Consulting's Vice President of Application Services, Matt Bennett, the Director of Moser Labs, Natalie Fischesser, and our Director for Software Engineering Marc Brickley.   

Matt Bennet's mission trips to underserved communities inspire him to build solutions that empower users. 

Natalie Fischesser's charitable design work influences her focus on delivering user-centered experiences.

And Marc Brickley's experience coaching youth sports translates into creating products that foster teamwork.

Together, they bring a shared mission to improve lives—both in their communities and through the products we create at Moser. Today, we’ll explore how their values drive our work within Moser Labs. 

This week Producer Brian brought some backup. The rest of the Moser Marketing Team is joining us! We're talking with Malinda Lowder, our Director of Marketing and Sales at Moser Consulting, Janelle Shideler and Jade Layman our Graphic Designers, and Latisha "Tish" Guinn, our Marketing Coordinator, about current trends, how the industry has evolved, and what services Moser's Marketing team can provide. 

And if you'd like to see a video podcast of this episode, copy and past this YouTube link into your browser:
https://youtu.be/AoNFFlLkA9g