IT in the D

This week, we chatted with long time friend of the program, Jer Staes of Daily Detroit.

Jer and his team have been recording a daily podcast for the past 3 years, and have close to 1,000 episodes.

Jer is one of the most knowledgeable people I know regarding the City of Detroit, the food scene, neighborhoods, etc. Daily Detroit covers things you normally don't see in mainstream media including being a regular fixture at DCFC games.

Jer is a great story teller and this episode is a great listen. Hope you enjoy it.

On this episode, we chatted with long time friend of the program Billy Strawter, owner and publisher of BLAC Magazine.

We talked about basically starting a print magazine in a digital world and how to balance all forms of media. We then got into expansion, as BLAC has now entered into 6 new markets.

Lastly, we talked about Detroit, living in the city vs. 20 years ago, the vibe, and some new places that have popped up around town.

All in all, Billy is family to us and we hope you enjoy listening to this episode!

Randy and I had a great conversation with Travis Waye and Bailey Terrell from Call Harbor.

We started things off right by making fun of the acronym UCaaS but then really started getting into some interesting stuff.

Most of us look at telecommunications as an afterthought in the tech stack, especially when it comes to security, but Travis was a wealth of knowledge and discussed ways to safeguard phone systems.

Overall it was a great chat and is well worth a listen, hope you enjoy it!

Friend and former cohost Nuri Gocay has returned to the States after working two years in New Zealand.

We catch up and Nuri tells us what life in New Zealand is like, what the biggest culture shocks were, and what he missed most from the US.

This was a great, light-hearted end to 2021. It was great to have Nuri back on the show. We'll be back in 2022!

This week's guest is David Franco, Director of Exceptional Academy, a post-secondary program that provides IT certification training with a focus in cybersecurity for Detroit-area adults with disabilities. David spoke with us first on episode 337 where he introduced the program. Now, he's giving us an update on how the program is going, what the future plans are, and what their program needs from the community.

Exceptional Academy is a program of the Living and Learning Enrichment Center (a suburban Detroit nonprofit which helps teens and adults with autism and/or related challenges. They offer IT training to local adults with disabilities that will result in globally recognized technology certifications up to and including CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) with a focus in Cybersecurity. This program was the first of its kind to be offered in Michigan and only the 2nd in the entire country.

If your company is interested in providing guidance, experience, hardware, volunteer hours, internships and jobs for students, or financial sponsorship, please reach out to David.

Thanks for listening to this episode about this great local program.

This week, we had a chat with Jason Brown, currently the IT Security Manager at The Shyft Group, formerly the CISO at Merit.

We immediately talked about the mindset you have to be in moving from a Service Provider model to the public and then to the private sector in terms of security and privacy.

We also chatted on his definition of zero trust.

We talked about a recent breach where hackers are getting smarter and finding playbooks and reading chat rooms before they strike.

Lastly, we mocked Hollywood a bit, our favorite being the NCIS episode where 2 people used 1 keyboard at the same time to try to thwart an attack.

Thanks for listening!

(Yes, we know this episode and the previous episode are out of order—we had to do it for the gag and didn't want to delay releasing episode 420!)

Episode 420—you know what that means? We are talking all things marijuana. Mary Jane. The devil's lettuce. You get the point :)

And who better to talk about it than Tom Celani,  the owner, president, and CEO of Luna Entertainment, the mother company of Metro Detroit based MotorCity Harley-Davidson, MotorCity Power Sports, Freedom Hills amphitheatre, TC Vineyards Inc., and the Celani Family Vineyards in Napa Valley. Celani is also an investor in a theater chain, a land developer in Arizona and Colorado, and a casino management consultant. Tom was also a partner in Detroit’s MotorCity Casino.

He also owns High Life Farms in Chesaning, Michigan and California that boasts over 250,000 square feet of grow facilities.

We also had in studio Rudy Patros, President of Securatech Solutions. Rudy puts in physical security systems, cameras, access control, etc. for these grow facilities.

We discussed everything from how Tom got started in this business, to the legality of it, to how they select the products that go to market and how these facilities are locked down similar to a data center.

Being a complete novice to this scene, I was fascinated on how quickly it's become a norm in today's society.

Lastly, we talked about Tom's family foundation and the Cars and Cigars event where they raise money for Gleaner's Food Bank and the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, two of my favorite local charities.

For this episode, we were super-lucky to be able to chat with Lisa Plaggemier, Executive Director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance. NCSA advocates for safe and secure use of all technology. They give the average user plain-spoken info on cybersecurity issues.

Lisa is super passionate about cyber security awareness and we immediately chatted about awareness for the older crowd. They have a great YouTube series called Mom, Don't Click That.We then got into corporate security awareness training. Their main site, staysafeonline.org has a ton of great resources from the basics to how to report cybercrime. We had a great time, and we are sure you will enjoy the conversation and content.

Find more videos on the NCSA YouTube channel.

(P.S. We thought this was Episode 417, so Randy had to do some creative editing—did you notice?)

This week, we talked to Jason Bourque of C3 Technology Advisors about all things cybersecurity and communication.

Jason just visited the Channel Partners Conference in Las Vegas, and he talked about not only emerging vendors in the space but emerging technologies as well.

If you like drinking games, I highly recommend having a drink in hand for everytime Jason says an acronym.

Jason is a great resource and a great conversationalist—definitely worth a listen.

This week, we were lucky enough to chat with long time radio veteran and podcast professional Bill McAllister.

You might remember Bill from his days on 97.1 FM with Jay Towers and Stoney, you also might hear him on the radio now with 94.7 WCSX or subbing in for Frank Beckman on WJR.

Bill is currently the President of Podcast Nation. 

We started off arguing about Gremlins, why it's a horror movie and not a Christmas movie and how the Dad is a giant pile of trash.

We discussed the growth and evolution of podcasting and finished up talking about some of the famous people he has met and interviewed. (I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with Schmom Moos).