Beyond Tech Skills

It’s not our grandparents’ IT organization. Today’s technology workplace is global: people are constantly moving around, immigrating, or simply working with colleagues all over the world. Emma Bostian, co-host of the popular Ladybug podcast series, discusses this immense diversity with Jim and Liron as she explains her unique viewpoints on the challenges and rewards of communicating across and working with different cultures and generations.

The technical aspects of IT are the easy parts; it’s dealing with people – especially when you’re responsible for managing a team of intelligent, creative folks towards a common goal – that’s the really hard part. Jim and Liron chat with Mark Horstman, the renowned co-founder of the highly-regarded Manager Tools®, as he explains some secrets of communicating effectively with and building relationships between team members.

Even Jedi Master Yoda could not foresee the future accurately, but there are always signs and portents of what is to come if you look carefully at the present. Jim and Liron look back at their podcast’s inaugural year, discuss their upcoming lineup of guests for 2022 (spoiler alert: it’s gonna be awesome!), and chat about leading-edge trends on the immediate horizon for the New Year.

Ransomware, IP theft, sophisticated state-supported actors: Cybersecurity threats are everywhere, and it’s ultimately our collective responsibility to protect our IT organizations’ data integrity. Jim and Liron talk with cybersecurity expert Rob Lockard about the human dimension of that responsibility because more often than not an APT gains access via social engineering than brute-force actions. Rob’s global travels also yields some wisdom on dealing with people from the incredible variety of cultures he’s encountered.

Managing intelligent, creative people presents unique challenges made even trickier when collaborating across multiple generations, each with distinctly different outlooks and career goals. Jim and Liron discuss those challenges with Bill Kleyman, EVP of Digital Solutions at Switch, and present some neat ideas for overcoming a protégé’s seeming entitlement. Bill also explains his vision for mentoring colleagues to effectively channel their abilities on their career trajectories. Along the way, we’ll dive into the bright future of IT as part of the global “re-electrification” that’s underway right now.

You’re a brilliant coder / developer, but you’re frustrated because your team doesn’t seem to listen to your ideas to improve the organization. Maybe – just maybe – it could be that your soft skills are seriously lacking. Liron and Jim chat with Microsoft MVP Bruno Borges, whose diverse career accomplishments and multinational background gives him unique insight into navigating the world of modern IT organizations, and discuss the best ways to attain those soft skills. Spoiler: you can only gain them through meaningful human interaction!

You don’t have to have a sense of humor to survive in IT, but it helps. Jim and Liron talk about different cultures they’ve encountered during their careers, and their occasionally embarrassing experiences with the most difficult language to master in IT: English.

Millennials are replacing Boomers as preeminent movers and shakers in IT. What does that mean for the future of professional certification, in-person conferences, and the value of building deep personal connections between colleagues? Jim and Liron talk with Mike Gangler, a key leader for Southeast Michigan Oracle User Professionals (SEMOP) , about future directions for technical communities in a post-pandemic era, as well as their upcoming annual Michigan Oracle Users Summit (MOUS) conference.

Who’d ever think that hacking a TI calculator would lead to a career in IT? Jim and Liron pierce all the hype over careers in data science in a chat with “geriatric millennial” Michelle Hardwick (Twitter: @datacheesehead), Director of Data Science & Analytics at Salt Lake Community College. Michelle also describes her team’s focus on JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) and how they use ML and analytics to monitor enrollment patterns to retain students as they pursue their dreams of a better future.

If you’ve ever sat through a horribly boring presentation – whether live or virtually – it’s truly the fault of just one person: the presenter. Jim and Liron chat with their guest and extremely popular public speaker Connor McDonald about why presenting today is really all about telling your audience a story in which they emerge victorious at the end. They also dish on content that isn’t relevant any more for modern presentations, and why you may not even need slides at all, as long as you’ve taken the time to first engage and connect with your audience.