TechSperience Solutions

As we celebrate Cyber Security Awareness month, Connection in partnership with Intel, bring you a timely podcast to help your organization stay safe from cyber threats and help educate hybrid workers on best practices.  Intel and the Connection Security practice collaborate and talk candidly with James to unveil some insights you many never have considered. Remember - "Do Your Part Be Cyber Smart"

#BeCyberSmart

Host: James Hilliard

Guest: Steve Nardone - Senior Director of Security Solutions

Guest: Yasser Rasheed - Global Director of Enterprise Clients at Intel 

Show Notes

[0:55] Introduction of guests

[1:30] Is the hybrid workforce here to stay?

[3:33] Will there be more cybersecurity attacks as a result of the new hybrid workforce?

[6:10] Will the equipment of remote workers be able to protect them from cyberattacks?

[7:20] The 3 areas we'll be spending the remainder of time: "zero trust", hardware matters, and continuing to be students

[8:08] What does "zero trust" mean in the IT security community today?

[10:00] Who should own the "zero trust" mentality at an organization?

[12:15] How do you prevent user cybersecurity fatigue? 

[14:31] What's an example of a great approach an organization is taking to get their end-users (hybrid workers) engaged with security?

[15:40] The importance that hardware still has in cybersecurity efforts

[18:23] Are there tools built into the hardware that can be added protection?

[20:25] What are newer security capabilities in machines, and how do they compare with what was running three years ago?

[23:10] What does it mean to become a "student of risk"?

[26:15] What's the difference between being a "student of risk" and a "student of threat"?

[27:44] What should an end-user do to raise a security alarm?

[29:30] Do we need to change how often we prepare for security attacks?

[31:50] What's something we can take away with to do something more securely than yesterday?

In order to survive, manufacturers must be agile in surviving disruption. Industry 4.0 technologies are reinventing how manufacturers do business and, to stay competitive, companies will need to embrace these technologies to capitalize on the efficiencies, cost savings, and improved uptimes that might be gained.

Host: James Hilliard

Guest 1: Ryan Spurr, Director of Manufacturing Strategy & Business Development at Connection

Guest 2: Dave Martin, Systems Engineering Manager at Meraki

Guest 3: Jordan Noonan, Solutions Marketing Manager at Meraki

Show Notes

[0:55] Introduction of Guests.

[2:05] Where were Manufacturing organizations before Covid?

[3:52] Do companies now have firmer transformation strategies?

[5:15] What are manufacturing table stakes you need to be competitive in Industry 4.0?

[7:28] The plant power problem and how has it changed?

[8:01] Niche use cases that Covid brought to the front for Manufacturers.

[10:01] How do you get Wi-Fi to every part of the factory?

[12:47] Analytics and Data

[14:27] Obstacles towards investment in next generation networking

[15:40] What can this new tech do for your organization?

 [17:00] Who should you engage to start transformation?

[19:28] How do you merge the new network with legacy machines?

[20:53] What do you do to protect your tech when you bring in modern networks to legacy devices?

[24:48] How long does it take to discover a breach?

[26:00] Is there concern about upgrades and automations removing people?

[29:00] The talent shortage.

[30:50] What does the future hold?

Host: James Hilliard

Guest 1: Robert Gates, Cloud Technical Architect at Microsoft 

Guest 2: Trinh Tran, Partner Technology Strategist at Microsoft 

Guest 3: Burton Kersey, Senior Channel Account Manager at Lenovo

Guest 4: Matt Skoog, Partner Development Specialist – Mobility Activations 

Description: James Hilliard your host welcomes Robert Gates, Trinh Tran, Burton Kersey, and Matt Skoog to talk about collaborating in the modern office. They discuss the current work from home life, and the future of hybrid work as well as going back in office. One of the current major struggles is maintaining collaboration while at home, in the office, or on the go. Hear ways to solve for this growing issue and improve the way we collaborate and work.

[5:02] Trinh discusses the expectations we have for our collaboration tools.

[7:42] Matt reflects on going remote and how things have changed over the years.

[9:54] Hybrid workplaces and what long term remote means for you and everyone else.  

[12:37] Are we ready for a modular workplace?

[13:40] The need for a modern device, and how it changes how you work.

[15:12] Keeping employees happy and how a device impacts that and retains talent.

[18:12] How have collaboration tools changed to help us work better.

[19:52] Watercooler chatter can happen remotely.

[25:37] New ways of hybrid working.

[28:00] Pulling devices out of the closet for 2020, and why that doesn't work long term.

[28:42] Questions companies should ask themselves about their devices.

[32:02] What employees need is changing.

[34:01] What new features do we need to continue improving the hybrid environment?

Host: James Hilliard

Guest 1: Brian Gallagher, Retail Strategy Business Dev Director at Connection

Guest 2: Tim Vanevenhoven, Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at Aruba

Guest 3: Tim Kane, Retail Solutions Industry Consultant, North America Retail at Zebra Technologies

Description: James Hilliard your host welcomes Tim Vanevenhoven from Aruba, Tim Kane from Zebra, and Brian Gallagher, from Connection to talk about the trends and innovations to get you moving forward in this ever-changing environment. In today’s episode, they are continuing the conversation around retail and dive deep into how to enable a smarter physical store and empower your workforce with solutions from Aruba and Zebra.

Reach out to the Connection Team.

Email us at [email protected] 

Follow Connection We Solve IT on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin, and Blog

Key takeaways:

[2:03] Brian talks about the current state of retail.

[3:42] Retailers acknowledge that they will never go back to pre-COVID.

[4:42] Tim from Aruba talks about the trends among customers in the retail environment.

[5:25] Having a clear path forward is the only way for retailers to win.

[6.11] Retail needs a holistic approach.

[7:05] It is not enough with connecting and securing data, it is about analyzing and acting on that data for better business outcomes.

[7:57] Examples of what retailers are doing and it’s having an impact on their business.

[9:56] Analytics are being used to predict if there could be an issue with the network.

[11:22] Are the employees engaged and enthusiastic about the changes brought by new technologies?

[15:21] Telephones have become the one device that is empowering associates.

[17:05] The “hyper-aware store” and what is providing to retailers.

[18:50] What are the specific technologies Aruba and Zebra are building and taking to the market together?

[21:09] Are retailers looking at their business from a whole solution standpoint?

[22:17] Retailers are looking for partners more than they ever had in the past.

[23:05] The digital transformation is not an event, it is a journey.

Host: James Hilliard

Guest 1: Brian Gallagher, Retail Strategy Business Dev Director at Connection

Guest 2: A special guest from Apple

James Hillard, your host, welcomes Brian Gallagher and a special guest from Apple to today’s episode to have a discussion about the current state of retail. Our experts talk about how important it is to empower your retail employees to engage with your customers. They present the latest mobile device solutions from Apple and services from Connection, with which you'll be able to equip your employees with the tools and technology they need to answer customer questions, speed them through the checkout process, and more.

Reach out to the Connection Team.

Email us at [email protected] 

Follow Connection We Solve IT on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin, and Blog

Key takeaways:

[1:08] Brian shares his perspective about the state of retail.

[2:30] You need to think about your business holistically.

[3:27] Our Apple guest talks about the changes that we are seeing now started long before 2020.

[4:22] How is the retail industry approaching employees?

[7:03] Our Apple guest talks about the training directed to empower employees to give more personalized service.

[10:03] Incorporating technologies that make the consumer feel comfortable with.

[12:50] Our Apple guest and Brian talk about employee productivity.

[16:39] Brian and our Apple guest describe the relationship between Connection and Apple to enable retail employees.

[21:03] Focus on a simpler environment and placing the user as the center of the experience.

Host: James Hilliard

Guest 1:  Brian Gallagher, Retail Strategy Business Dev Director at Connection

Guest 2: Jamal Khan, President Global Digital and ECommerce at Connection

In today’s episode, James Hilliard, your host, welcomes Brian Gallagher, Retail Strategy Business Dev. Director at Connection, and Jamal Khan, President Global Digital and ECommerce at Connection, to engage in a thoughtful discussion around the current state of retail, as well as the importance of developing an omnichannel strategy to meet your customers wherever they are.

Connection’s retail experts discussed understanding the fundamental impacts of digital retail today, evaluated true omnichannel health coming into the holiday season, store operations and labor hours strategies, and how to avoid critical mistakes along the digital retailing journey.

Reach out to the Connection Team.

Email us at [email protected] 

Follow Connection We Solve IT on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin, and Blog

Key takeaways:

[1:28] Brian talks about the current situation in regards to the impact of COVID on retail.

[2:55] Jamal describes the core fundamentals that teams need to have under consideration in the retail transformation.

[3:46] The six legs of the e-commerce stool.

[7:30] Jamal talks about the value of data right now.

[7:58] Jamal explains the concept of hipper individualized buyer psychology.

[9:17] Brain talks about the customization of the retail experience.

[10:52] What are the mistakes that are happening in retail and how can they be avoided?

[13:24] Brian shares the example of Amazon’s growth.

[14:26] Can your retail company measure progress?

[17:08] Jamal explains the critical value of having the right culture in a company in order to make transitions successfully.

[18:02] What is Connection bringing to the different retail ecosystems?

Host: Penny Conway

Guest 1: Pamela Aulakh, Vertical Alliance Manager for K12. Connection

Guest 2: Kevin Schmid. Public Sector Alliances Manager. Intel.

Description: Penny Conway, your host, is joined by Pamela Aulakh and Intel's Kevin Schmid for today’s episode to talk about the three ways that the CARES Act can support K12 education and how schools are laboraging founding for technology and the work they still have ahead of them. Now that schools are deep into the first half of a new school year, it is interesting to evaluate how things are going for teachers and school administrations.

Reach out to the Connection Team.

Email us at [email protected] ,

Email Pamela Aulakh at [email protected] 

Follow Connection We Solve IT on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin, and Blog

Key takeaways:

[1:25] Kevin introduces himself.

[2:20] Pam talks about her role at Connection as well as her background in education.

[3:58] Pam and Kevin talk about the current situation of teachers and school administrators while navigating the pandemic.

[6:17] What is the new piece of advice that Connection and Intel have to face the near future’s challenges? 

[8:44].Pam talks about how to chose devices to fill not only the current needs but the future ones too.

[11:34] What are the priorities that can be expected at a national education level in 2021?

[12:02] Digital equity.

[13:30] Kevin dives deep into the topic of device selection in order for students to be more productive and teachers more effective in a hybrid educational environment .

[15:23] Pam talks about the current demand on devices.

[16:56] Pam gives advice for schools to ask for and administer the founding received through the CARES Act.

[17:38] How is Intel working with schools to manage timelines and laborage the CARES act founding?

[19:46] Kevin explains how to approach positively the uncertainty of the near future in regards to education. 

[21:21] Pam explains why the disruption that has occurred in education is not a bad thing at all. 

[23:40] A student’s laptop is now a required instruction material the same way a textbook was.

[25:38] Pam and Kevin share the best ways of reaching them.

Host: Penny Conway

Guest 1: Yasser Rasheed. Global Director (Enterprise Endpoint & Security Products) Intel Corporation

Guest 2: Stephen Nardone. Practice Director, Security Technology Solutions Group. Connection.

Description: According to the 2020 Harvey Nash KPMG CIO Survey, security is currently the number one priority across the IT landscape. According to the survey of over 2000 IT leaders before and during the pandemic, 41% of organizations have experienced additional cybersecurity incidents due to remote working. How prepared are you for the cybersecurity challenges that come from long term remote work?

Penny Conway, your host, is talking with the security experts from Intel and Connection about how to build a strategy to protect your data from now on.

Reach out to the Connection Team.

Email us at [email protected] 

Follow Connection We Solve IT on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin, and Blog

Key takeaways:

[1:43] Yasser introduces his expertise.

[2:30] Stephen talks about his background and the expertise he is bringing to the podcast.

[4:36] Three-step strategy on how to build infrastructure and keep it up to date for ongoing protection.

[5:14] Yasser talks about the quickly shifting environment.

[6:45] Stephen talks about the impact that remote work has on cybersecurity.

[10:24] How do you control multiple environments?

[12:29] Stephen talks about effective protection and response technology.

[14:30] Protect, Detect, and Correct.

[16:51] Aspects to have under consideration ahead of time.

[19:08] How is the protection built into the infrastructure of a device?

[20:22] First: Modernize the infrastructure, get the right device.

[21:05] To refresh and update is supercritical.

[21:55] Stephen talks about his role in building the right infrastructure and keeping it up to date.

[25:45] Stephen talks about the importance of looking for the newest technologies and processes on the ecosystem to help identify where the risk is.

[29:03]  Ongoing education for the most critical threat that we have: the human end-user.

[31:15] Constant education is needed.

[33:20] Stephen and Yasser share their closing thoughts about how to continue the much-needed education in regards to cybersecurity.

Host: Penny Conway

Co-Host: Rob McIntosh

Guest: Steven L. Crowthers VP of TIDC

Guest: Mark Wulfhorst Director of Technical Services and Solutions

A continued conversation with the leaders of Connection's TIDC - Technical Integration and Distribution Center in Wilmington Ohio.  Logistics companies throughout the Nation have been stressed with supply chain issues, increased shipping needs during the holiday season and an unprecedented number of vaccines being distributed in record time.  All while dealing with Covid compliance and let's not forget to sprinkle in some bad winter weather for kicks.

Listen in while the experts talk the tech that has made their systems "Best In Class"  

Host: Penny Conway

Guest 1: Jeff Trent — Vice President, Federal Sales — Connection

Guest 2: Rachel Spannuth - Business Applications Specialist - Connection

Guest 3: Rob McIntosh- Marketing Manager Business Solutions Group - Connection

In the new age of digital collaboration MS Teams continues to evolve and emerge as the platform of choice for government agencies, businesses and education.  On today's podcast, listen to how teams is being used from the perspective of an administrator and power users. Continue to be amazed!