SMB Community Podcast: Business Advice for Small MSP Owners

Topic 1: Google Replaces Bert with MUM

At I/O 2021, Google introduced MUM — Multitask United Model. According to Google, this new language model is 1000 times more powerful than BERT, the search engine they released in 2019. MUM is coming to Google products sometime in the future.

Note: BERT = Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers.

Did BERT change your life two years ago? Will you actually notice the move to MUM?

https://yoast.com/google-mum/ 

https://yoast.com/google-bert/ 

https://www.data.gov 

Topic 2: Drones as first response to 911 calls.

The Chula Vista police drones can now cover 100% Of of the City For Emergency Calls. And they are deploying drones at "first response" to emergency calls. Of course the drones have video recording and two-way communications.

Channel note: Go get some of this money!

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/mar/19/chula-vista-police-drones-100-city-emergency-calls/ 

Topic 3: Forum topic - Ethical vs Contractual obligation

Warning: Tough discussion of ethics in business. What do you and your clients owe each other? Can you limit your client relationships to transactions?

And in the area of security, can you actually inform clients enough that they can make good decisions to operate at a lower level of security? How do we begin to talk about standards around these conversations? It's fine to say "Buyer beware" - but only if the buyer has some chance of understanding what that really means.

-- -- --

Sponsor Memo:

Are you still using on-prem file servers and VPNs to share files with remote workers? Egnyte is a business class cloud sharing solution that works more like your on-prem server than other solutions. With a security first approach to file sharing and collaboration, Egnyte offers multiple options for sharing files and collecting files from outside sources. And do it all addressing data governance and compliance. Want to learn more? Check out https://Egnyte.com/msp. And when you do, tell them we sent you.

:-)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Host Karl caught up with Greg Edwards, founder of CryptoStopper, about the details of how Cryptoware works. He's a great source on this topic since he's built a product to stop ransomware in its tracks.

CryptoStopper creates randomly-named files of random sizes to monitor in key locations. Then, they monitor those files as well as other activities on your clients' computers. When CryptoStopper sees ransomware activity, they catch it much earlier than other monitoring services.

We dig into some juicy details about how their system works. And, of course, Greg gives us some great details about how the viruses themselves operate.

Greg has been a technology entrepreneur since 1998. Before he founded CryptoStopper, he started Axis Backup, a backup and disaster recovery company for the insurance industry. He saw firsthand the rapid increase in the damage cyber criminals were doing with debilitating malware resulting in high financial loss to vulnerable companies. Between 2012 and 2015, one in five of Axis Backup's clients was hit by cybercrime. Greg realized effective cyber security could save businesses from costly downtime and compromised systems. In 2015, Axis Backup was acquired by J2 Global, freeing Greg to create CryptoStopper and focus exclusively on cybersecurity.

Web Site: https://www.getcryptostopper.com/

:-)

Sponsor Note:

Are you still relying on a frustrating patchwork of legacy solutions? Modernize your cybersecurity and data protection with Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud. It's a single solution that combines backup, anti-malware, and endpoint protection management. As an MSP, you can easily improve clients' security posture, eliminate complexity, and generate more recurring revenue. Learn more about Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud at www.Acronis.com.

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Topic 1: Does the obvious stupidity in the Crypto-verse help to increase or decrease the adoption of crypo currencies?

A bit of crypto news this week. But on the serious side, what does this activity mean?

Elon Musk makes fun of crypto currencies and the market goes wild (down). Dogecoin created as a joke. Now it's going crazy. Then two winners created a spinoff coin because “people seem to like dogs” and became millionaires.

https://u.today/dogecoin-spin-off-turns-struggling-brothers-into-overnight-millionaires

https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/5/18/22441831/elon-musk-bitcoin-dogecoin-crypto-prices-tesla 

Topic 2: Ann Arbor to Launch Autonomous Shuttle Service October 11th

But there's one already operating in Fairfax, VA. We have some questions about the experience . . . and we send Dave off to do some homework.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/all-about-ann-arbor/2021/05/18/free-a2go-autonomous-shuttle-service-coming-to-ann-arbor-this-fall/ 

https://wtop.com/fairfax-county/2020/07/virginias-1st-self-driving-shuttle-starts-testing-on-fairfax-co-streets/ 

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/transportation/autonomous-shuttle-pilot 

Topic 3: Lower hash rates, and video cards that aren’t graphics cards.

NVidia is finally making some moves to tackle the shortage of video cards despite the continuing chip shortage. They're designing video cards with lower hash rates, so they're not attractive to crypto-miners. And they're creating cards designed for mining with actual video output.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3697830-nvidia-lowers-hash-rate-for-new-geforce-graphics-cards-to-thwart-crypto-mining 

We'll see what competitors do, and how quickly this has a visible effect on graphic card availability for plain old gamers.

-- -- --

Sponsor Memo -

Did you know that the average MSP spends 10 hours manually inputting accounting data each week? That time is 120 prospect calls, a month’s worth of the Business of Tech, or building an entire Lego death star. Gozynta Mobius can make your life easier through accounting automation. Automatic sync of invoices, expenses and inventory from ConnectWise Manage into QuickBooks Online in just a single click of a button.

With onboarding, direct support, and regular feature releases, Gozynta is a family owned company dedicated to making software suck a little less each day. Visit us at https://gozynta.com 

:-)

Host Karl talks to ASCII CEO Alan Weinberger about his new book - The Doctor's In: Treating America's Greatest Cyber Security Threat. Of course, we also talked about the state of the industry and what's ahead for IT consultants.

Alan book illuminate for the general public how important a Managed Service Provider is in maintaining the health of our economy and our infrastructure itself, in the new cyber security era.

Alan founded The ASCII Group in 1984 in Washington D.C. And, of course, ASCII is one of the premier communities for IT service providers, VARs, MSPs, and technology resellers all over the world. They host a series of virtual and in-person events. You can find out more at www.asciievents.com.

Misc. ASCII Links:

• https://overview.ascii.com/the-doctors-in/
• https://www.ascii.com
• https://twitter.com/asciigroup
• https://www.facebook.com/TheASCIIGroup
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/ascii
• ASCII Events – www.asciievents.com

Alan's Book is available on Amazon: - https://www.amazon.com/Doctors-Treating-Americas-Greatest-Security/dp/1636613438/

(This is not an affiliate link.)

:-)

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Topic 1: Military practices controlling hundreds of robots and drones at once - with AI

Like it or not, AI is coming to military operations. It might be cheaper, but is it safer? But is the reliance on AI a problem?

Links:

• https://www.wired.com/story/pentagon-inches-toward-letting-ai-control-weapons/ 
• https://thenextweb.com/news/military-experts-fear-pentagon-sucked-into-artificial-ai-hype 

Topic 2: What can we learn from the Colonial Pipeline hack?

How should companies respond? And are there real consequences for companies that get hacked?

We discuss.

Topic 3: Proposed law says discriminatory behavior should not be subject to non-disclosure agreements.

Is the NDA … too much?

Ifeoma Ozoma is a technology policy expert with experience leading global public policy efforts at Pinterest, Facebook and Google. When she left Pinterest, she couldn't tell anyone that she left over complaints she had filed about wage discrimination and retaliation. She could not speak out because the company non-disclosure agreement forbid it.

Now she is pushing legislation to make it illegal to include this kind of behavior in NDAs. After all, NDAs are intended to protect intellectual property, not potentially illegal behavior.

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/may/10/pinterest-discrimination-ifeoma-ozoma-nda

:-)

-- -- --

Sponsor Memo -

Are you still relying on a frustrating patchwork of legacy solutions? Modernize your cybersecurity and data protection with Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud. It’s a single solution that combines backup, anti-malware, and endpoint protection management. As an MSP, you can easily improve clients’ security posture, eliminate complexity, and generate more recurring revenue. Learn more about Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud at Acronis.com.

:-)

Host James Kernan interviews Dave Scott from Scott Digital Marketing.

Dave Scott is the Founder, President and CEO of Scott Growth Strategies. Dave has over 20 years of experience working with MSPs, Tech and IT firms and B2B companies. He pours his wealth of marketing knowledge into clients making sure they're seen, heard and valued in the current tech climate. In the end, Dave delivers digital marketing leadership, strategies and tools that lead to client success and prosperity.

Related links:

• https://podnutz.com/ppro332/
• https://www.sweetteasocialmarketing.com/episode191/
• https://www.scottdigitalmarketing.com
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/scott-marketing-llc
• https://www.facebook.com/scottdigmarketing/

As always, if you have any questions or comments, post them here.

:-)

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Topic 1: Burger King diverts McDonalds customers - via Waze

This one is kinda cool because it's so sneaky. With just a taste of big data. When people are close to a McDonalds billboard and headed toward a restaurant, Waze lures them off to a Burger King instead. Just sneaky, or actually immoral?

Link:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/burger-king-quietly-did-something-very-clever-it-may-just-annoy-mcdonalds/#ftag=CAD-03-10abf5f

Topic 2: Girl Scout Cookies by Drone

Not a burrito or pizza. But it's pretty cool to get your cookies by drone. Makes us ponder: Are there things you would actually pay a premium to get via drone? We're thinking yes for cookies, and probably no for a ream of paper.

Link:

https://dronelife.com/2021/05/02/girl-scout-cookies-by-drone-wing-helps-local-troop-deliver-video/

Topic 3: Basecamp Fumbles the Diversity and Inclusion Conversation

Background: Some folks at Basecamp were doing something stupid (keeping a list of customer names to make fun of). That led to a discussion of appropriate behavior. But that discussion was cut off from the top. Some employees were still unhappy, and vocal about it. That led to an offer of a severance package for anyone who didn't like it. Well, about one third of the company decided to leave!

Link:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/4/22419799/basecamp-ceo-apologizes-staff-new-post

Sponsor Memo:

PC Matic — Endpoint Security built on a zero trust philosophy, allowing only trusted applications and blocking all the rest. Light weight, simple to deploy, easy to manage, find out about PC Matic's unique lead sharing program for MSPs backed by a prime-time national TV campaign. Together, we bring advanced security solutions combined with more than sales enablement … we bring actual leads. Find out more about PC Matic by visiting PCMatic.com/msp/.

:-)

More and more every day, you need privacy policies on your web site. These requirements change every day. How can you possibly stay legal and up to date? The quick answer: You pretty much can't. That's where Termageddon comes in.

Host Karl interviewed Hans & Donata Skillrud from Termageddon.

Termageddon aggregates privacy policies and generates valid privacy policy text based on your business and location. When the law changes, so do the policies, keeping your company protected and allowing you to focus on more important things.

Find our more at www.termageddon.com.

We dig into the details here.

Guest info:

Donata and Hans are the cofounders of Termageddon. Donata is a licensed attorney and a certified information privacy professional. She also serves as the Vice Chair of the American Bar Association's ePrivacy Committee and has provided insights to governing bodies on how to write privacy laws. Hans is a former small business agency owner, who sold his 12 person company in 2019 to focus all of his attention on Termageddon. Outside of work, you can catch Hans and Donata hiking, gardening, or beekeeping.

Termageddon is a generator of policies for websites and applications.

Web site: https://termageddon.com

-- -- --

Sponsor Memo:

MSPs do battle daily against cyber hostilities such as ransomware attacks and data breaches. Fight smarter. Call in the cavalry. Gatekeeper from Calyptix Security is here.

Reduce stress and implement proper safeguards — as advised by the FBI, NSA and DHS — with Calyptix's purpose-built solution for small businesses.

Zero Trust access secures RDP and SSH connections with two-factor authentication. There's no need for open ports to the internet, client installs, or VPN. Plus, you'll enjoy audit-friendly access across all types of devices.

Learn more at https://calyptix.com/gatekeeper.

:-)

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Topic 1: Hacked Ice Cream Makers at McDonalds

A very strange right to repair! If you buy an expensive machine, do you have the right to buy a third-party add-on that makes it work better?

https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/

Topic 2: EU looking to regulate “High-Risk” AI

High risk determined in two steps by considering whether it may cause certain harms and, if so, the severity of the possible harm and the probability of occurrence.

Possible damages include - death of a person - damage of property - systemic adverse impacts for society at large - adverse impact on financial, educational or professional opportunities of persons - adverse impact on the access to public services and any form of public assistance - adverse impact on [European] fundamental rights

https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/14/eu-plan-for-risk-based-ai-rules-to-set-fines-as-high-as-4-of-global-turnover-per-leaked-draft/

Topic 3: Apple Announces AirTags. Do you care?

Apple’s new AirTags just launched with tracking and location data … and they’ve also thought ahead to include an “anti-stalker” feature to protect your privacy.

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/airtag-vs-tile

Sponsor Note:

Want to learn about Trends in Managed Services, increasing sales, governance or winning in Biopharma? How about an MSP peer panel, or CompTIA’s Carolyn April with their latest research in managed services trends? Egnyte’s first annual MSP summit is coming May 11th, keynoted by Karl Palachuk on setting a cloud strategy. The first 300 attendees even get a copy of Karl’s book on becoming a Successful MSP in 30 days! Win prizes, network with peers, all in a half day online event. Register for free right at engyte.com/mspradio

:-)

Host Karl talked to James Norrie from CyberconIQ. CyberconIQ takes a new approach to educating users about security - based on their demonstrated behavior. As we've all seen, pure education has limited success. This program helps users alter their behavior.

Guest Dr. James Norrie is a Professor of Strategy and Cybersecurity and former Dean of the Graham School of Business at York College of Pennsylvania. He is the author of six books, multiple journal articles and is a sought-after expert, frequent media commentator and national newspaper op-ed guest writer.

Internationally known, his areas of research interest delve into the intersection of society and technology and the clash this can create, particularly as cybercrime has become a ferocious problem. In addition to his academic role, he is the Founder and CEO of CyberconIQ, a firm committed to changing the global cybersecurity conversation from fear to hope. He conducts, presents and publishes industry-related research and consults globally to prominent companies concerning cybersecurity, information privacy and security, and economic crime detection and prevention methods. He lives in York, PA.

cyberconIQ mitigates cyber risk by leveraging CYBERology™ – the intersection of cybersecurity and psychology, which is the foundation of our solutions.

Related Links:

• https://cyberconiq.com/
• https://www.facebook.com/cyberconiq
• https://www.instagram.com/cybercon_iq/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/51683023/admin/

:-)

About the SMB Community Podcast: Weekly business advice for small MSP owners from Amy Babinchak and James Kernan of the Small Biz Thoughts community — MSP sales, MSP pricing and agreements, hiring and leading an MSP team, MSP operations, selling your MSP, and AI for small MSPs. Produced by MSP Radio. More for MSP owners at smallbizthoughts.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.