IT in the D

Well...we've had smoother running episodes, that's for sure...but Episode 89 of our live weekly broadcast is in the books.

We were plagued by technical difficulties this time around for some reason, so please excuse some of the rough cuts during conversations.  We did the best we could getting everything cleaned up as best as we could for our guests from Pure Storage and Nuri from Penguicon.  We lost two entire segments, managed to talk Nuri into hanging out to try another run at segment three that came off...mostly okay, but cuts out rather abruptly.  So as a bonus to try and make it a little better, we're including the recording we did live at Penguicon...

Our 1989 intro wrapped and as always we dove into the news, stories and events that caught our eye over the previous week.

The latest social media mafia hit on a restaurant...that involved someone Bob knows.  Cameras around the downtown area and why they may or may not be legally placed.  Facebook's storage of updates that you erase before you post and tons more.  The really, really stupid thing that Starbucks is doing for Mother's Day and more.

For segment two, we focused in with our guests Rich and Jarrod from Pure Storage.  Pure Storage has a simple mission: to enable the widespread adoption of flash in the enterprise data center. They're a team of some of the brightest minds in storage, flash memory and related technical industries. Founded on principles of teamwork and knowledge sharing, they focus on producing an exceptional result while they transform the landscape of the enterprise storage market (and have some fun along the way).  Long story short, they're doing some very cool stuff that can improve your system's response times, dramatically decrease your costs, and make your life a lot easier in general...so you should probably check them out: http://www.purestorage.com/

Then some serious whacky mayhem started, and so we lost a whole lot of our third segment, and Nuri was gracious enough to hang out and record it all over again with us, so you'll have to forgive some of the awkward transitions.   We recapped everything that happened at Penguicon over this past weekend.

You can read more about Penguicon here: http://www.penguicon.org/

You can read Bob's recap of his experiences at https://itinthed.com/17044/2015-penguicon-review-part-1-the-sales-guy-learns-something/

You can read Dave's take on it at https://itinthed.com/17054/2015-penguicon-review-part-2-the-geek-goes-home/

...and because of all of the chaos that had happened up through that point, we just called it a night.  So, as a little bit of a bonus to help ease the pain a bit, we've included a (heavily edited) live recording we did at Penguicon on Saturday night.  We'd been drinking, we were a little loopy, and we got some audience participation...so it's mostly like our normal shows...but with an audience.

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Check out Pure Storage at http://www.purestorage.com/

You can read more about Penguicon here: http://www.penguicon.org/

You can read Bob's recap of his experiences at https://itinthed.com/17044/2015-penguicon-review-part-1-the-sales-guy-learns-something/

You can read Dave's take on it at https://itinthed.com/17054/2015-penguicon-review-part-2-the-geek-goes-home/

As always, we can be found:

On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.com

On Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=91763

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD 

On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD

Well…we’ve had smoother running episodes, that’s for sure…but Episode 89 of our live weekly broadcast is in the books. We were plagued by technical difficulties this time around for some reason, so please excuse some of the rough cuts during conversations.  We did the best we could getting everything cleaned up as best as we […]

1988 was a good year for movies and music, and episode 88 of our live weekly broadcast wasn't too shabby either.

Joined by our guests from The Center for Michigan, as well as our friends from Penguicon and the Agile and Beyond conference, a great time, some fun chats and a whole lot of information about things going on around the area including this weekend and the end of the month and all sorts of good stuff for your career and professional life.

We may or may not survive the weekend, so let's get to some details just in case we need bail money...

Our 1988 themed intro came to a wrap, and the conversations got underway.

Naturally, we had to talk about the insane number of trailers dropping from Hollywood including Star Wars, Mad Max, Batman vs Superman, Fantastic Four, Jurassic Park and the rest.  Bob's binge-watching of Daredevil and a chat about Netflix's original programming in general.  The awkward friend request. All the news, stories and items that caught our eye over the past week that you ought to know about.

Then we dove in with Molly and Amber from The Center for Michigan.  The Center for Michigan is a “think-and-do” tank founded by former newspaper publisher and University of Michigan Regent Phil Power in early 2006.  A 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, The Center’s objective is to make Michigan a better place by by encouraging greater understanding and involvement in policy issues among the state’s citizens and making sure their voices are regularly heard.  We do this by regularly by calling forth citizen views, amplifying those views and projecting them into the halls of power.  You can find out more about them at http://thecenterformichigan.net/

Click below to participate in any of the Center for Michigan’s online community conversations:

College Value & Affordability

Career Navigation

Challenges to Upward Mobility

And if it’s useful, here is the link to find and register for in-person community conversations:

http://bit.ly/ConvoCalendar

For our third segment, we hopped in with the guys who are likely going to be at least partially responsible for our demise this weekend, Scott and Nuri from Penguicon.  It's going to be a phenomenal time this weekend at The Westin in Southfield, with more than 500 hours of programming crammed into Friday night through Sunday, including a few panels and presentations that we'll be a part of and running ourselves. Imagine your happy place... ...a happy place where all geeky interests are represented, explored, and respected. A place with hackers, makers, foodies, open source software junkies, anime buffs, and science fiction fans of all ages and backgrounds come together in a hotel for a weekend and totally blow the roof off.  We go to panels, get free food and beer in our Hospitality Suite, go to ridiculously awesome room parties, and just hang out.  It's more than a thousand of your new best friends.  Check it out at http://www.penguicon.org/ and come play with us this weekend.

Last but not least, we chatted with Tom and Jason about the Agile and Beyond conference taking place at the end of April.  Agile and Beyond 2015 is a Two-day conference in the heart of innovation in Dearborn, MI. Now in it's 6th year, Agile and Beyond brings together a eclectic mix of engineers, designers, product owners and executives for world-class workshops and talks focused on Agile and Lean processes and beyond.

Get everything you need to know at http://agileandbeyond.com/2015/

And that brought episode 88 of our weekly broadcasts to a close.

Tune in next week as we're joined by the folks from our core sponsor, Pure Storage, and it may or may not be someone's birthday.

Again, our guests for this week's episode can be found at:

The Center for Michigan is at http://thecenterformichigan.net/

Penguicon can be found at http://www.penguicon.org/

Agile and Beyond is at http://agileandbeyond.com/2015/

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As always, we can be found:

On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.com

On Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=91763

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD 

On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD

1988 was a good year for movies and music, and episode 88 of our live weekly broadcast wasn’t too shabby either. Joined by our guests from The Center for Michigan, as well as our friends from Penguicon and the Agile and Beyond conference, a great time, some fun chats and a whole lot of information […]

Another weekly live broadcast has come and gone, and another great time was had by all.

For our 87th episode, we were joined by one of our core sponsors, Quantum Storage, as well as our friends from Motor City Geek.  And of course the intro and breaks were all 1987 themed as the 80s episodes continue.  We talked a little tech, we talked a little geek, we talked a little cosplay, and we laughed a lot while having all of those conversations and more...

As the mics went live at 9pm, our 1987 themed intro kicked things off with some clips from the movies and shows from the year as a good blast from the past.

After that, it was time for the news and stories that caught our eye over the past week.  It was a bad week to be a curious kid with a computer, as there were stories about a high school kid in Monroe who figured out how to run a DDOS against his school system's cloud-based network and a middle school kid who "hacked" (and I use the term very, very loosely) into his teacher's computer and swapped out the background image.  Comcast whining about DirectTV's Rob Lowe ads...and also refusing to stop charging a 66 year old man who had his house burn down.  All kinds of fun stuff, including a reminder about our upcoming event on Thursday night over at Blackfinn.

In segment two, we hopped into what Quantum Storage has going on with guests Andrew Mortemore and Lynn Wenzel.  From storage to disaster recovery to audit and compliance, Quantum has a lot of solutions to a lot of problems facing businesses today.  Really good chat about everything that they've got going on these days, with some good insight into how to handle some of those tougher issues staring a lot of us in the face in today's world.

Check them out at http://www.quantum.com/

For our third segment, Austin Benedict and Rob Lewis came up to the mics to talk about Motor City Geek among other things.  We first met these guys at Motor City Comic Con last year, and we ran into them again at Midwest Media Expo this past weekend and had an absolute blast...so it was perfect to get them into the studio right after the weekend came to a close for a recap of the weekend's events.  From cosplay to Live Action Role Playing (LARP) and all the other facets of the geek world that we saw and experienced this weekend, it was a fun recap and we're definitely going to have them back in soon to talk more.

Check them out at http://motorcitygeek.com/  They had a great video recap put together of the weekend you should check out:

In the fourth and final segment (no, no segment five this week), we doubled back on some earlier topics and wrapped things up for the night. See you Thursday night in the back room of Blackfinn, and we'll be back Monday night with some more great guests and conversations.

Once again, this week's guests:

Quantum can be found at http://www.quantum.com/

Motor City Geek can be found online at http://motorcitygeek.com/ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/motorcitygeek

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As always, we can be found:

On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.com

On Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=91763

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD 

On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD

Another weekly live broadcast has come and gone, and another great time was had by all. For our 87th episode, we were joined by one of our core sponsors, Quantum Storage, as well as our friends from Motor City Geek.  And of course the intro and breaks were all 1987 themed as the 80s episodes […]

Episode 86 is in the archives, and it was a really fun show.

Joined by our guests talking about an art show this weekend downtown (When Visions Collide 2), a social media conference / retreat this weekend in Frankenmuth (the Social Media Association of Michigan's Social Media Retreat), IT recruiting here in the area (Brightwing), and all things Detroit (Daily Detroit) ...we had one hell of a range of topics and a whole lot of fun this time around...to the point where we even had to break into one of our infamous fifth segments...

After our 1986-themed intro wrapped up, the mics went live and we were off and running.  From tunnels that ran from the Playboy mansion to the homes of several celebrities to ISIS encroaching on the real-life Tatooine, all of the fun and excitement around Opening Day downtown, Bob's annoyance with the latest Android operating system update and more, as always, our first segment covered the news and events that have caught our eye.

We also gave a quick recap of our event last week at Firebird Tavern, along with our upcoming event next week at Blackfinn in Royal Oak, so listen in for some details on those.

For our second segment, we dove in with Leanne Rumsey, who's putting together When Visions Collide 2, an art show taking place downtown at the Tangent Art Gallery on Saturday night.

There's going to be a wide range of artists covering everything from paintings to charcoals to stained glass and more there, and every piece that's there is going to be for sale.  So whether you're looking for something for your home, your office, a cool gift, or just something cool to do on Saturday night, this definitely sounds like something you should be planning on checking out.

The event has more than doubled in size since last year, so there's bound to be a little something for everyone and anyone...and odds are good we'll see you there if you go.

For details and more information, check out their Facebook event listing over at https://www.facebook.com/events/877890205566523/

Next up, we chatted with Sola Obayan.  We've known Sola for a number of years, from when she organized a social media panel on using social media to find a job back in 2012 that we took part in, and it was great to have her in to chat about the Social Media Association of Michigan.

They've got a great event taking place this weekend (Friday through Sunday) in Frankenmuth that you social media types among our readers and listeners are going to want to be at.

While they'll have tracks there for the beginners, the event is really geared towards people with some experience under their belts who are looking to deep-dive on case studies, best practices, and some heavier topics.

With some great speakers covering a whole range of topics, if you're in this career track, then this is where you want to be this weekend...and good news, you can snag a 50% off discount for the next two days if you want to go.  Listen in, and then hit their event page at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/social-media-conference-retreat-in-frankenmuth-michigan-tickets-14708201627 (and view that image there to see what you're looking for), or their website at http://www.smami.org/ for more information.

Another 1986-soaked break later, and we were back with Russ Dotson from Brightwing for our fourth segment.

As those of you who have been around for a while know, Russ was a guest on our very first episode, called in while he was deployed overseas, popped in while he was back stateside, was a crucial part in getting our Support the Troops events setup and running, and has been around the group for quite some time.

We chatted about settling back in to civilian life now that he's back home for good and diving back into the all too fun world of information technology recruiting with Brightwing.  They've got a wide range of positions available from engineering to more typical IT roles familiar to our group.

Check them out, and the positions they have available at http://www.gobrightwing.com/

Then we went into segment five to check in with Jeremiah from Daily Detroit.

As always, they've got a ton of great stories, news and information that you need to be checking out about not just downtown Detroit, but also the entire metro area.

From exploring the canals in Detroit, the topic of mass transit downtown, bars and restaurants in and around the area you ought to be checking out, we can't possibly recommend highly enough that you add Daily Detroit into your regular reading rotation.  Check them out at http://www.dailydetroit.com/.

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Again, to find our guests from tonight's episode:

When Visions Collide is on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/whenvisionscollide, and their event this weekend can be found at https://www.facebook.com/events/877890205566523/

The Social Media Association of Michigan can be found at http://www.smami.org/, and their event this weekend is over at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/social-media-conference-retreat-in-frankenmuth-michigan-tickets-14708201627

Brightwing can be found at http://www.gobrightwing.com/

Daily Detroit can be found at http://www.dailydetroit.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheDailyDetroit

As always, we can be found:

On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.com

On Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=91763

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD 

On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD

Episode 86 is in the archives, and it was a really fun show. Joined by our guests talking about an art show this weekend downtown (When Visions Collide 2), a social media conference / retreat this weekend in Frankenmuth (the Social Media Association of Michigan’s Social Media Retreat), IT recruiting here in the area (Brightwing), […]

Better Off Dead. Breakfast Club. Back to the Future. Commando. European Vacation. Fletch. Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Goonies. Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon. Real Genius. Rocky 4. Desperately Seeking Susan (remember when Madonna was hot?). Teen Wolf. Tuff Turf. Weird Science. Spies Like Us. Just One of the Guys. Moonlighting...yeah, 1985 was a great year, and episode 85 of our weekly broadcast wasn't too shabby either.

With our guests from the Detroit Craftsman Guild and Solstice Consulting Group, we had a whole bunch of good things to talk about...

We started off with the news, stories and events that caught our eye over the past week after our 1985 flavored intro wrapped up.  We chatted about the remade version of Poltergeist that's hitting theaters next month, the return of the X-Files, Walking Dead's season finale, how if you ever shopped at Radio Shack you need to be paying attention since they're selling all of their collected customer data over the years during their bankruptcy liquidation, how a couple wound up driving off a bridge that had been closed since 2009 because their GPS told them to, the prisoner in Europe that got access to a phone and faked his own release letter via email to the prison...and it worked...and so, so much more.

We're testing out with a new sponsor again this week, so here's this week's offer to go try out.

Guys, we all shave, and razors and replacement blades can be ridiculously expensive.

So when Harry's reached out and wanted to give things a shot with us, they sent us each a starter kit to check out...and, well, we're talking about them, and you know us, so that says it all right there.  Solid products, great pricing, and we even have a discount code for you to make their prices even better.  Hit https://www.harrys.com/, check out their starter sets - that start at only $15, mind you - and then use code ITintheD at checkout to take $5 off.

After a flashback music break, we hopped in with James York.  He teaches classes over at Grand Circus when he's not at his day job over at Lochbridge, and does a whole bunch of other stuff, but we specifically had him him to chat about his work with the Detroit Craftsman Guild.  If you're not familiar with them, they're an offshoot of the excellent Craftsman Guild in Ann Arbor, and the goal is creating a technology-agnostic user group for local Detroit software professionals who want to stay current in an industry in which there's no way to stay totally current. The current plan is to have a healthy mix of hard and soft talks (tech vs. dev practices) as well as hands-on coding events from time to time.  They meet up on the third Tuesday of every month over at Detroit Labs, and it sounds like they've definitely got something going on that's worth checking out.  Give them a look at http://www.meetup.com/Detroit-Craftsman-Guild/

We had a "couple skate" music break, and then we dove in with a guy who wears a lot of hats due to his varied interests, Steven Acho.  He's the managing director of Solstice Consulting Group, a recruiting company that takes a different approach than many others.  He's a musician with more than 3,000,000 downloads of his music.  He's an author who's written a book titled Why Technology Recruiting is Broken and What to do about it.  Needless to say, we had a great chat with Steve.  We talked about what Solstice Consulting Group does differently and their views on hiring talent and firing clients.  Lots of great stuff.  Follow up and check him out at http://www.steveacho.com/, grab his book at http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Recruiting-Broken-What-about-ebook/dp/B00U80A7I2/, and click on over to Solstice Consulting Group at http://www.scg360.com/

For our fourth and final segment, we doubled back on some of our earlier topics and wrapped up with our guests for the night.

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Remember - check out Harry's shave kits!  Solid products, great pricing, and we even have a discount code for you to make their prices even better.  Hit https://www.harrys.com/, check out their starter sets - that start at only $15, mind you - and then use code ITintheD at checkout to take $5 off.

Detroit Craftsman Guild is at http://www.meetup.com/Detroit-Craftsman-Guild/, on Twitter at @DetCraftsman, and you can find James on Twitter at @kroysemaj

Steve Acho can be found at http://www.steveacho.com/, grab his book at http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Recruiting-Broken-What-about-ebook/dp/B00U80A7I2/, and click on over to Solstice Consulting Group at http://www.scg360.com/

As always, we can be found:

On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.com

On Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=91763

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD 

On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD

Better Off Dead. Breakfast Club. Back to the Future. Commando. European Vacation. Fletch. Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Goonies. Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon. Real Genius. Rocky 4. Desperately Seeking Susan (remember when Madonna was hot?). Teen Wolf. Tuff Turf. Weird Science. Spies Like Us. Just One of the Guys. Moonlighting…yeah, 1985 was a […]