1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,560 Tara, I know you talked about your kids and summer sports. 2 00:00:04,560 --> 00:00:05,840 We talked a lot about baseball. 3 00:00:05,840 --> 00:00:07,800 What are the summer sports that you're seeing 4 00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:09,120 and watching and doing? 5 00:00:09,120 --> 00:00:10,080 Oh, gosh. 6 00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:13,640 Like my little one is soccer and golf through and through. 7 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:16,840 My older is more of like the sport of reading and learning 8 00:00:16,840 --> 00:00:17,880 is kind of his thing. 9 00:00:17,880 --> 00:00:22,320 But personally, I love to kayak because I got a kayak last year 10 00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:24,680 and I enjoy being out in the water, 11 00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:26,800 just hanging out, enjoying the sunshine. 12 00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:28,120 So that's me. 13 00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:33,240 I'm going to say, here, I felt like I've talked enough, 14 00:00:33,240 --> 00:00:35,480 kind of adding on things that I was like, yeah, when you're 15 00:00:35,480 --> 00:00:37,080 like, yeah, getting out in the sunshine, 16 00:00:37,080 --> 00:00:39,200 I'm like, I have a paddle board. 17 00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:40,360 You can tell them back in the lecture 18 00:00:40,360 --> 00:00:42,520 that I have since last year. 19 00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:45,080 But it's awesome if I get time. 20 00:00:45,080 --> 00:00:45,720 But no, I agree. 21 00:00:45,720 --> 00:00:49,760 Just going out baseball, spawn up until it gets hot and buggy. 22 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:51,080 And then you're like, you know what? 23 00:00:51,080 --> 00:00:53,120 Having the windows open and listening to the birds 24 00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:56,560 is beautiful, hiking, nor shore, any of those things. 25 00:00:56,560 --> 00:00:59,360 But yeah, the bugs are in full bloom here in Minnesota. 26 00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:02,000 I'm like, oh, yeah, it's happening. 27 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:03,600 Here are your bugs, Bray. 28 00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:04,680 Yeah. 29 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:07,880 So Jason, when you're not teaching your kids 30 00:01:07,880 --> 00:01:09,760 how to play baseball, what are things 31 00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:11,120 that you like to do in the summer? 32 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:13,520 What is kind of your summer activity, your sport, 33 00:01:13,520 --> 00:01:15,320 your thing that you like to go and do? 34 00:01:15,320 --> 00:01:19,680 Yeah, I am an assistant scout master for the first BSA 35 00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:22,880 girls' troupe in Hamlake, as well as a scout master 36 00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:24,080 for the boys' troupe. 37 00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:27,280 So I am a scout master or assistant scout master. 38 00:01:27,280 --> 00:01:28,480 I never like to be the man. 39 00:01:28,480 --> 00:01:30,200 I'm the guy who helps the man, right? 40 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:31,520 So or the person, excuse me. 41 00:01:31,520 --> 00:01:34,040 But yeah, we're getting ready to go to summer camp. 42 00:01:34,040 --> 00:01:35,760 My daughter is leaving next week. 43 00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:36,680 I'm spending a day. 44 00:01:36,680 --> 00:01:38,440 It's four hours each way driving her to camp. 45 00:01:38,440 --> 00:01:41,680 She's going to live up in the woods for 10 weeks. 46 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:42,680 No plumbing, all the things. 47 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:45,040 So she's hardcore about it. 48 00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:48,000 But I will be taking our troupe along with some other brave 49 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:49,760 leaders to summer camp. 50 00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:51,840 I am an amateur blacksmith, so at some point 51 00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:53,760 I'll get my forge fired up. 52 00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:56,040 I have recently kind of focused on wellness. 53 00:01:56,040 --> 00:01:58,160 So I am doing three days a week of just working out 54 00:01:58,160 --> 00:01:59,600 with some local firefighters. 55 00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:01,720 And they are humbling me because they're all older 56 00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:03,040 and way better shape than I am. 57 00:02:03,040 --> 00:02:05,440 So got some work to do there. 58 00:02:05,440 --> 00:02:08,160 But yeah, a lot of what I do will be running kids around 59 00:02:08,160 --> 00:02:10,480 and enjoying myself. 60 00:02:10,480 --> 00:02:12,000 We throw tomahawks in the backyard. 61 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:15,000 We just, during COVID, I think one of the best things 62 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:17,400 in our neighborhood was we started refocusing 63 00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:19,800 on being socially connected as a neighborhood. 64 00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:21,120 So instead of running kids to sports, 65 00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:23,960 so we'll have a version of the state fair where everybody 66 00:02:23,960 --> 00:02:26,960 sets up a food option and a game in their front yard. 67 00:02:26,960 --> 00:02:28,320 And then the neighborhood just gets together 68 00:02:28,320 --> 00:02:29,280 and all the kids play. 69 00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:30,480 And we do that. 70 00:02:30,480 --> 00:02:33,000 So yeah, that's my summer in a nutshell, 71 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:36,720 is running kids around, learning how to use fire sharp sticks, 72 00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:38,600 learning how to be leaders without realizing 73 00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:40,320 that we're actually trying to teach them things that have 74 00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:41,640 nothing to do with camping. 75 00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:46,000 And yeah, sneak a little time into my forge if I have time. 76 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:49,880 Wow, you make me feel like I'm not doing anything. 77 00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:51,320 I'm hyperactive. 78 00:02:51,320 --> 00:02:54,320 If I'm not busy, it's a bad deal. 79 00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:56,560 So I keep busy all the time. 80 00:02:56,560 --> 00:02:57,200 Yeah. 81 00:02:57,200 --> 00:02:59,200 Kyle, are you a busy person during the summer? 82 00:02:59,200 --> 00:03:00,840 Or is it kind of? 83 00:03:00,840 --> 00:03:01,960 Not by choice. 84 00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:07,080 But by family requirement. 85 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:11,160 But yeah, I mean, but if I were to go like it's for the St. 86 00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:14,040 Paul Saints, I would be my favorite place 87 00:03:14,040 --> 00:03:15,360 to go watch baseball. 88 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:19,160 I enjoy that more than even the twins side of it. 89 00:03:19,160 --> 00:03:21,200 It's just nice. 90 00:03:21,200 --> 00:03:21,880 It's small. 91 00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:24,920 It's more intimate, very casual. 92 00:03:24,920 --> 00:03:26,240 I mean, most of the time, I couldn't even 93 00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:27,680 tell you the score of any of the games. 94 00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:29,840 I mean, it's like whatever. 95 00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:30,840 So it's very relaxed. 96 00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:33,560 I'm not as emotionally involved into the game. 97 00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:35,520 So I tend to enjoy it more because it's just 98 00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:38,640 the being outside in the atmosphere 99 00:03:38,640 --> 00:03:41,000 and just walking in the ballpark and doing things. 100 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,240 So I don't know what it is. 101 00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:44,480 I really like that. 102 00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:47,040 It's just not even stressful getting in and out, 103 00:03:47,040 --> 00:03:50,480 which is the other part that's really big for me. 104 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:54,440 Going down to Minneapolis is always a stressful event. 105 00:03:54,440 --> 00:03:56,000 I mean, you sit in traffic there. 106 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:57,080 You sit in traffic. 107 00:03:57,080 --> 00:04:00,960 It's like an hour or hour and a half of just commuting 108 00:04:00,960 --> 00:04:01,880 in there side of it. 109 00:04:01,880 --> 00:04:03,560 But the Saints, they're kind of in and out. 110 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:05,800 It's like it's just a pretty effortless and stuff. 111 00:04:05,800 --> 00:04:08,800 So I just enjoy that. 112 00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:14,160 So yeah, it's just nice to get outside and hike 113 00:04:14,160 --> 00:04:18,080 and do the different outdoor activity sides of it. 114 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:20,200 Like to play. 115 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:22,680 We've been doing the pickle ball with the kids. 116 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:26,440 We've been doing the wiffle ball and all that stuff outside 117 00:04:26,440 --> 00:04:27,960 just to kind of keep it going. 118 00:04:27,960 --> 00:04:30,280 So all good. 119 00:04:30,280 --> 00:04:34,080 Try to find a cabin, run someplace, some point here. 120 00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:38,240 Do a quick getaway, get out on the lake, and do some fishing. 121 00:04:38,240 --> 00:04:39,280 I suck at fishing. 122 00:04:39,280 --> 00:04:40,440 I really don't like it. 123 00:04:40,440 --> 00:04:44,120 But I think the kids all like it. 124 00:04:44,120 --> 00:04:47,480 So got to do it. 125 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:48,080 For sure. 126 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:50,280 You mentioned that I was thinking bocce ball. 127 00:04:50,280 --> 00:04:51,600 That's what our family likes to play. 128 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:53,880 We're big bocce ball, pink ball. 129 00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:56,960 So that's always a good one at the beach. 130 00:04:56,960 --> 00:04:58,200 I love the beach. 131 00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:00,360 You've got to find a quiet one though. 132 00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:02,600 You've got to find the secret local ones 133 00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:04,600 where it's not really busy. 134 00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:06,640 That's what I like during the summer. 135 00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:07,760 I think we just go. 136 00:05:07,760 --> 00:05:10,240 Area, those are the ones they actually shut down 137 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:12,360 because there's some kind of bacteria. 138 00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:13,400 That's why it's quiet. 139 00:05:13,400 --> 00:05:15,400 I don't know how she bloomed. 140 00:05:15,400 --> 00:05:17,400 Climb in the caution. 141 00:05:17,400 --> 00:05:19,400 Yeah, you was like, yeah, never mind that. 142 00:05:19,400 --> 00:05:21,400 There's nobody here. 143 00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:22,400 What's going on? 144 00:05:22,400 --> 00:05:24,400 They don't know what they're talking about. 145 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:25,400 Oh, god. 146 00:05:25,400 --> 00:05:26,400 It's fine. 147 00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:27,400 We know. 148 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:28,400 Yeah. 149 00:05:28,400 --> 00:05:30,400 That just went so positive here. 150 00:05:30,400 --> 00:05:32,400 I was going to be like, we now know who's introverted 151 00:05:32,400 --> 00:05:34,400 and who's extroverted is we got the full scope of like, yeah, 152 00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:36,400 we'll be social versus the area. 153 00:05:36,400 --> 00:05:37,400 I was like, yeah, it isn't quiet. 154 00:05:37,400 --> 00:05:39,400 And I'm like, yes, we should definitely meet up and not 155 00:05:39,400 --> 00:05:40,400 talk to each other at the quiet place. 156 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:41,400 At the quiet place. 157 00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:43,400 Yeah. 158 00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:45,400 You find a quiet beach. 159 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:47,400 That's usually all it is because man, 160 00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:49,400 the beaches just get. 161 00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:51,400 Acted this summer or something. 162 00:05:51,400 --> 00:05:52,400 Oh my gosh. 163 00:05:52,400 --> 00:05:55,400 Well, today on our tech for business podcast, 164 00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:58,400 our listeners may have heard a new voice. 165 00:05:58,400 --> 00:06:00,400 We've got. 166 00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:05,400 Jason, our virtual CIO and expert in commercial workplaces, 167 00:06:05,400 --> 00:06:10,400 joining Kelsey, Tara, myself and Kyle, our CEO and president. 168 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:14,400 I'm going to throw it to Jason first because I'm so curious how 169 00:06:14,400 --> 00:06:16,400 you got into commercial work spaces, 170 00:06:16,400 --> 00:06:21,400 how you woke up one morning and said I am going to be a champion 171 00:06:21,400 --> 00:06:23,400 for designers, you know, 172 00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:28,400 I asked myself that question very often and I love, you know, 173 00:06:28,400 --> 00:06:30,400 it's to take it back a second. 174 00:06:30,400 --> 00:06:33,400 You know, I, because it all relates weirdly to how I got into 175 00:06:33,400 --> 00:06:35,400 technology in the first place, which was, you know, 176 00:06:35,400 --> 00:06:36,400 I am a Gen Xer. 177 00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:39,400 I just turned 47 years old just a couple of weeks ago. 178 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:43,400 And I got my start with technology before there was a Google or whatever. 179 00:06:43,400 --> 00:06:47,400 I found the intersection of my own curiosity and learning how to 180 00:06:47,400 --> 00:06:53,400 fight through and figure things out through using an old beige 181 00:06:53,400 --> 00:06:56,400 computer my dad brought home because I wanted to entertain myself. 182 00:06:56,400 --> 00:07:00,400 I wanted to access these games that had this interesting narrative 183 00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:01,400 component to them. 184 00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:04,400 And, you know, when I was reflecting on my career many, 185 00:07:04,400 --> 00:07:08,400 many years later, I realized that a lot of what I was doing as a kid, 186 00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:11,400 what was personally motivating to me still translates through to 187 00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:16,400 helping designers in this unique setting tell their stories to engage 188 00:07:16,400 --> 00:07:20,400 with clients because we don't want to hear about why you bought this 189 00:07:20,400 --> 00:07:22,400 credenza, this chair, whatever concept is. 190 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:24,400 They want to understand how they're going to solve problems that 191 00:07:24,400 --> 00:07:28,400 ultimately affect people's well-being and their ability to do their 192 00:07:28,400 --> 00:07:29,400 best work. 193 00:07:29,400 --> 00:07:31,400 You know, and I'm passionate about that. 194 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:34,400 I'm passionate about, you know, Blacksmithing even has some aspect in 195 00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:36,400 this, one of my hobbies, which is I'm not necessarily the person 196 00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:38,400 using the stuff that I'm making. 197 00:07:38,400 --> 00:07:41,400 In fact, I've personally chosen not to sell anything I make. 198 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:45,400 I give it away because it's the labor of love and it's not about 199 00:07:45,400 --> 00:07:46,400 monetizing it. 200 00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:50,400 It's about expressing that sort of need to be creative and produce 201 00:07:50,400 --> 00:07:53,400 useful things that help other people do things better. 202 00:07:53,400 --> 00:07:57,400 And so I got into commercial workspace because I worked for Target 203 00:07:57,400 --> 00:08:02,400 Corporation and I've always pursued being in my career. 204 00:08:02,400 --> 00:08:04,400 I'm always interested in the next thing. 205 00:08:04,400 --> 00:08:07,400 My wife considered, I have a revolving door of hobbies, which she 206 00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:10,400 loves because my house is full of all the things that are associated 207 00:08:10,400 --> 00:08:11,400 with my hobbies. 208 00:08:11,400 --> 00:08:14,400 At one point I was doing woodturning and Blacksmithing and all this 209 00:08:14,400 --> 00:08:16,400 other stuff, so you got to pick one. 210 00:08:16,400 --> 00:08:18,400 You got to stop running out of space. 211 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:21,400 So, you know, it's a good and a bad thing, but ultimately I was a 212 00:08:21,400 --> 00:08:25,400 generalist in the sense that I couldn't just pick one thing. 213 00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:28,400 I really liked the focus on end user computing. 214 00:08:28,400 --> 00:08:31,400 And at some point got myself promoted into a job where I was one 215 00:08:31,400 --> 00:08:34,400 of two people who got called when the red phone went off, which met 216 00:08:34,400 --> 00:08:37,400 somebody with a C in their title had a technology problem. 217 00:08:37,400 --> 00:08:41,400 And so I had to have a combination of interpersonal skills, technical 218 00:08:41,400 --> 00:08:44,400 knowledge, and a good network to get their problem solved because it 219 00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:47,400 was kind of like wearing a red shirt in a Star Trek episode if you're a 220 00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:48,400 geek. 221 00:08:48,400 --> 00:08:51,400 It is potentially a job in which you can find yourself with a very 222 00:08:51,400 --> 00:08:53,400 short career if it doesn't go well. 223 00:08:53,400 --> 00:08:56,400 And but it also taught me a lot that these were very, very patient. 224 00:08:56,400 --> 00:08:58,400 Explain what it is you're going to accomplish, how long it's going to 225 00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:00,400 take, and then get it done. 226 00:09:00,400 --> 00:09:03,400 Be brilliant, be brief, and then be gone, right? 227 00:09:03,400 --> 00:09:05,400 It was one of the philosophies I learned working with that group. 228 00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:10,400 And so anyway, they being Target, the backstory was Target was 229 00:09:10,400 --> 00:09:13,400 actually originated by the Dayton, what was eventually called the 230 00:09:13,400 --> 00:09:17,400 Dayton Hudson Corporation, and they had a little commercial 231 00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:20,400 workspace company that was located in the Dayton's building in 232 00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:21,400 Roseville. 233 00:09:21,400 --> 00:09:26,400 And that company was still owned by Target in the early 2000s, and 234 00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:28,400 they had their own standalone idea of a structure. 235 00:09:28,400 --> 00:09:31,400 So I was hired to come in and bring that infrastructure into 236 00:09:31,400 --> 00:09:33,400 Target's bigger technology practice. 237 00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:36,400 And then about three months later, I got a call from the CFO 238 00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:39,400 I'd worked for saying, hey, can you undo what you did? 239 00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:42,400 We'd like to, we needed to modernize, right? 240 00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:44,400 And so bringing us into Target worked, but Target is finding work 241 00:09:44,400 --> 00:09:46,400 consuming a lot of the resources. 242 00:09:46,400 --> 00:09:47,400 It's not a great fit for either of us. 243 00:09:47,400 --> 00:09:49,400 Can you bring us back out? 244 00:09:49,400 --> 00:09:52,400 So my first big project that really set me on the trajectory that 245 00:09:52,400 --> 00:09:56,400 led me to where I am today was to extract this commercial workspace 246 00:09:56,400 --> 00:10:01,400 services company's technology infrastructure from Target while 247 00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:03,400 being accountable to Target's technology practices. 248 00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:06,400 So we had to reduce what it cost in terms of complexity to 249 00:10:06,400 --> 00:10:08,400 serve that business's needs and everything else. 250 00:10:08,400 --> 00:10:12,400 So that very quickly helped me understand what were the needs 251 00:10:12,400 --> 00:10:15,400 of my individual clients that worked in that business. 252 00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:17,400 And interior designers were kind of foreign to me. 253 00:10:17,400 --> 00:10:20,400 My wife is actually a textile apparel designer. 254 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:23,400 So I have some familiarity with the mindset that a designer, 255 00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:26,400 especially a technical designer has. 256 00:10:26,400 --> 00:10:29,400 It's not just producing the thing that looks a certain way, 257 00:10:29,400 --> 00:10:31,400 textures or fabrics or whatever else it is. 258 00:10:31,400 --> 00:10:36,400 It's understanding how do I make 10,000 of these things at a 259 00:10:36,400 --> 00:10:39,400 certain price point at a certain level of quality and sell it in 260 00:10:39,400 --> 00:10:40,400 a store. 261 00:10:40,400 --> 00:10:43,400 And my mentor, being a CFO, helped me understand how to 262 00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:46,400 translate these technology concepts into dollars and 263 00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:49,400 cents business cases so that I could only go out into the world 264 00:10:49,400 --> 00:10:52,400 and understand what are the tools that are going to give my team 265 00:10:52,400 --> 00:10:55,400 an advantage over our competition. 266 00:10:55,400 --> 00:10:58,400 What is it that's going to make them more satisfied with their 267 00:10:58,400 --> 00:10:59,400 daily work? 268 00:10:59,400 --> 00:11:02,400 Because it wasn't just about maximizing productivity. 269 00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:05,400 It was about helping them unlock their creative potential to do 270 00:11:05,400 --> 00:11:06,400 their best work. 271 00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:09,400 I think I said that once before, because I think that actually 272 00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:11,400 helped them as team members. 273 00:11:11,400 --> 00:11:12,400 We're all in this together. 274 00:11:12,400 --> 00:11:16,400 So how do I help my team members get their best work done? 275 00:11:16,400 --> 00:11:19,400 Because I felt like it just made my job easier. 276 00:11:19,400 --> 00:11:21,400 If I had people who were coming to me like, Jason, I have this 277 00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:23,400 problem and I want to solve it, can you help? 278 00:11:23,400 --> 00:11:24,400 Absolutely. 279 00:11:24,400 --> 00:11:25,400 Let's set job title aside. 280 00:11:25,400 --> 00:11:27,400 Let's all get in a room together and fix this. 281 00:11:27,400 --> 00:11:29,400 So one of my designers came to me one day. 282 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:32,400 Well, let me back up just a step here. 283 00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:35,400 The way that we specified furniture. 284 00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:38,400 And I have to make a distinction between there is a whole 285 00:11:38,400 --> 00:11:41,400 practice of architecture and design, which is the shell of 286 00:11:41,400 --> 00:11:43,400 the building and the mechanical stuff. 287 00:11:43,400 --> 00:11:46,400 And so the designers that I'm working with who are 288 00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:49,400 presented to with this often, here is the visual style we're 289 00:11:49,400 --> 00:11:50,400 looking for. 290 00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:52,400 Here's the building shell that you're going to be putting this 291 00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:53,400 stuff into. 292 00:11:53,400 --> 00:11:56,400 Here's a whole set of rules around ADA compliance or LEED, 293 00:11:56,400 --> 00:11:58,400 which is more environmental sustainability efforts. 294 00:11:58,400 --> 00:12:01,400 And I need you to produce a solution that helps people do 295 00:12:01,400 --> 00:12:04,400 their best work using products and services from the 296 00:12:04,400 --> 00:12:07,400 manufacturers that you are partnered with as a dealership, 297 00:12:07,400 --> 00:12:09,400 which I like to call a commercial workspace services 298 00:12:09,400 --> 00:12:10,400 business. 299 00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:12,400 And I'll talk about that as we move along here. 300 00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:15,400 So anyway, designers, the people who put sort of the chairs 301 00:12:15,400 --> 00:12:18,400 and the word they don't like to use anymore, the cubicle walls 302 00:12:18,400 --> 00:12:21,400 and the flooring together, they were using AutoCAD and a symbol 303 00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:23,400 of libraries that you would sort of drag and drop. 304 00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:24,400 Here's a chair. 305 00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:26,400 Here's a, and then they would have to go in and manually say, 306 00:12:26,400 --> 00:12:27,400 here's a color. 307 00:12:27,400 --> 00:12:29,400 Here's the chair legs, blah, blah, blah. 308 00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:32,400 If you understand that a single office chair can have three 309 00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:35,400 billion combinations of potential variables. 310 00:12:35,400 --> 00:12:38,400 And that's one product, right? 311 00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:39,400 That's one chair. 312 00:12:39,400 --> 00:12:41,400 And you've got cubicle walls, tables. 313 00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:44,400 Those tables have support framers, all this stuff. 314 00:12:44,400 --> 00:12:47,400 There's a huge opportunity for technology to automate the work 315 00:12:47,400 --> 00:12:48,400 that they're doing. 316 00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:51,400 So instead of them being products or specification experts, 317 00:12:51,400 --> 00:12:54,400 which they still have to be, a lot of the mechanics of how 318 00:12:54,400 --> 00:12:57,400 they specify things can be simplified using something called 319 00:12:57,400 --> 00:12:59,400 parametric specification technology. 320 00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:03,400 So as what they have evolved into is a tool that allows them 321 00:13:03,400 --> 00:13:07,400 to drag and drop in a 3D view, the products that are available 322 00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:10,400 to them in these catalogs that manufacturers provide to the 323 00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:11,400 dealership and the designer. 324 00:13:11,400 --> 00:13:14,400 And right now the sort of one of the industry tools that is 325 00:13:14,400 --> 00:13:17,400 fairly common is CET designer. 326 00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:20,400 And 15 years ago, it wasn't a standard. 327 00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:22,400 There were other tools that people were using. 328 00:13:22,400 --> 00:13:24,400 And one of my designers came in and said, look, I think this 329 00:13:24,400 --> 00:13:27,400 tool, because it allows us to do, as we specify the product, 330 00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:30,400 it's creating the bill of materials, it's creating 331 00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:33,400 installation plans, it's creating a rendering potentially. 332 00:13:33,400 --> 00:13:36,400 If we can use this and figure out how to make the technology 333 00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:39,400 functional, we can actually save a lot of time and do better 334 00:13:39,400 --> 00:13:40,400 work. 335 00:13:40,400 --> 00:13:42,400 I said, this is exactly what I'm looking for. 336 00:13:42,400 --> 00:13:45,400 This is exactly the kind of thing that I am charged with 337 00:13:45,400 --> 00:13:46,400 helping you with. 338 00:13:46,400 --> 00:13:49,400 So I attached myself to the design community as a technology 339 00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:51,400 advisor and resource, unofficially. 340 00:13:51,400 --> 00:13:53,400 There was no title for this. 341 00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:55,400 I felt this was something that even though it wasn't helping 342 00:13:55,400 --> 00:13:58,400 my dealership make money, I was helping my dealership at the 343 00:13:58,400 --> 00:14:00,400 time adopt this new tool. 344 00:14:00,400 --> 00:14:03,400 I was helping other dealers in the steel case ecosystem adopt 345 00:14:03,400 --> 00:14:04,400 this tool. 346 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:06,400 And ultimately I said, look, I don't even care what manufacturer 347 00:14:06,400 --> 00:14:08,400 that these other dealerships that are doing this are aligned 348 00:14:08,400 --> 00:14:09,400 with. 349 00:14:09,400 --> 00:14:12,400 So I thought, well, I think the industry can come together to 350 00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:14,400 adopt a tool that helps us all do work together. 351 00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:16,400 We can all go back and it's sort of like the baseball analogy, 352 00:14:16,400 --> 00:14:17,400 right? 353 00:14:17,400 --> 00:14:19,400 You can have the playbook, but that doesn't mean you can all 354 00:14:19,400 --> 00:14:20,400 execute it as well as we can. 355 00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:23,400 So we're all just going to say, hey, we're going to sort of 356 00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:25,400 converge the community, get this problem solved, get this 357 00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:27,400 technology adopted and move forward. 358 00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:28,400 And it was a mess. 359 00:14:28,400 --> 00:14:30,400 When we first started this, it was, we were told we had to buy 360 00:14:30,400 --> 00:14:31,400 $4,000 laptops. 361 00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:33,400 Well, at the time, having worked at the time when I worked for 362 00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:36,400 Target, I couldn't go out and buy whatever laptop I wanted. 363 00:14:36,400 --> 00:14:38,400 I had to use what was on the shelf. 364 00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:41,400 And I quickly realized I cannot optimize what's available to me 365 00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:42,400 to fit this need. 366 00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:46,400 And that was one of the impetuses for spending seven figures to 367 00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:48,400 break this company's technology infrastructure apart from 368 00:14:48,400 --> 00:14:49,400 trying. 369 00:14:49,400 --> 00:14:51,400 It was my first big project, had two commas in it, which was a 370 00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:55,400 big responsibility for a very wet behind the years, late 20 371 00:14:55,400 --> 00:14:57,400 something technology person who'd really never worked at that 372 00:14:57,400 --> 00:14:58,400 level. 373 00:14:58,400 --> 00:15:01,400 But it was necessary because that's what my clients needed. 374 00:15:01,400 --> 00:15:03,400 So it's like, we're going to figure this out. 375 00:15:03,400 --> 00:15:05,400 So with a good mentor, we figured out how to get our 376 00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:07,400 infrastructure separated, which allowed us to buy the right 377 00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:10,400 laptops, which in this case, we're gaming laptops because we 378 00:15:10,400 --> 00:15:13,400 couldn't spend $4,000 per designer to make this work. 379 00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:15,400 We could spend around 1200. 380 00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:19,400 So the journey was we helped a single dealership become 381 00:15:19,400 --> 00:15:22,400 proficient and get this tool off the ground and make it part of 382 00:15:22,400 --> 00:15:25,400 the daily business with a lot of support from other dealerships 383 00:15:25,400 --> 00:15:27,400 from Steelcase, from other manufacturers. 384 00:15:27,400 --> 00:15:30,400 We were able to very quickly make this a standard within that 385 00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:31,400 community. 386 00:15:31,400 --> 00:15:34,400 And very quickly it became, you know, there's now 15,000 people 387 00:15:34,400 --> 00:15:37,400 in growing around the world using this specific tool, along 388 00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:39,400 with a number of other tools. 389 00:15:39,400 --> 00:15:43,400 But what I have found is even after 15 years, there are still 390 00:15:43,400 --> 00:15:46,400 tremendous opportunities, not only to consider the basic 391 00:15:46,400 --> 00:15:49,400 technology infrastructure that supports this business. 392 00:15:49,400 --> 00:15:52,400 So when I talked about spending seven digits or seven figures 393 00:15:52,400 --> 00:15:56,400 on a standalone technology solution, which was at the time 394 00:15:56,400 --> 00:15:58,400 the very beginning of what we now call like a V block type 395 00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:01,400 setup where we were buying storage and compute and memory 396 00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:02,400 altogether. 397 00:16:02,400 --> 00:16:03,400 We virtualized everything. 398 00:16:03,400 --> 00:16:07,400 I had to run everything with a team of at the time, three people, 399 00:16:07,400 --> 00:16:08,400 three texts plus me. 400 00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:11,400 So four people, I guess, if I count myself as a person, which is 401 00:16:11,400 --> 00:16:13,400 good to do for your mental health. 402 00:16:13,400 --> 00:16:14,400 And we got it going. 403 00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:17,400 So that really helped me understand that I had to get the 404 00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:22,400 basics of IT management and understanding how to run a very 405 00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:25,400 clean, very, very high functioning technology environment. 406 00:16:25,400 --> 00:16:27,400 That was table stakes. 407 00:16:27,400 --> 00:16:29,400 I had to get that done right first. 408 00:16:29,400 --> 00:16:33,400 Then I got to work on the stuff that was really, that was, I 409 00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:34,400 guess, changing the game. 410 00:16:34,400 --> 00:16:35,400 It was a force multiplier. 411 00:16:35,400 --> 00:16:37,400 It was doing things that nobody else was doing with technology 412 00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:38,400 at that time. 413 00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:41,400 Now, once we did something new and compelling, other people 414 00:16:41,400 --> 00:16:42,400 would emulate that. 415 00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:44,400 So it wasn't like we could just do something and then sit in 416 00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:45,400 our laurels. 417 00:16:45,400 --> 00:16:47,400 We had to continually be innovating and finding new applications. 418 00:16:47,400 --> 00:16:50,400 And one of the things that I, towards the end of my career in a 419 00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:54,400 dealership, decided to do was take the work my technology team 420 00:16:54,400 --> 00:16:57,400 behind the scenes was doing and push it into the forefront of how 421 00:16:57,400 --> 00:17:00,400 we shared a value proposition with our clients. 422 00:17:00,400 --> 00:17:03,400 So I decided, how do I use what our tech team is doing? 423 00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:05,400 Because we're solving business problems, right? 424 00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:08,400 So for example, in downtown Minneapolis, real estate was 425 00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:09,400 relatively expensive. 426 00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:11,400 This is before the pandemic, before the whole equation about 427 00:17:11,400 --> 00:17:14,400 how you design workspace changed, right? 428 00:17:14,400 --> 00:17:17,400 So the goal was get as many people into as few square feet 429 00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:18,400 as possible. 430 00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:22,400 And in a dealer showroom space, meaning we have to show and tell 431 00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:24,400 things that our clients haven't seen before because why would 432 00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:26,400 they come work for us if we're not even eating our own dog food 433 00:17:26,400 --> 00:17:27,400 as it were. 434 00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:30,400 So we decided, hey, we need to make this space something that 435 00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:31,400 can change frequently. 436 00:17:31,400 --> 00:17:34,400 So I'm going to get away from doing structured cabling everywhere. 437 00:17:34,400 --> 00:17:37,400 And I'm going to rely on a Wi-Fi connected environment that my 438 00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:38,400 interior designers can use. 439 00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:41,400 Now, a lot of people as general IT users can get away with 440 00:17:41,400 --> 00:17:44,400 wireless, but an interior designer has a different use case. 441 00:17:44,400 --> 00:17:45,400 It's like a marketing person. 442 00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:49,400 They're pushing really big files, security, everything else. 443 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:53,400 So we went out and worked with HPE and I believe it was a rub at 444 00:17:53,400 --> 00:17:54,400 the time. 445 00:17:54,400 --> 00:17:55,400 Got to hope I got that right or they're going to, that's going to 446 00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:56,400 have to get fixed in post. 447 00:17:56,400 --> 00:17:57,400 Yeah, right. 448 00:17:57,400 --> 00:17:58,400 Anyway, perfect. 449 00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:01,400 We actually, one of my techs actually got to write a white paper 450 00:18:01,400 --> 00:18:05,400 with HPE about how we were able to do this and then eliminates 451 00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:08,400 something like $40,000 for the cabling, which allowed us to A, 452 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:11,400 tell a great story to our clients because I was able to bring in 453 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:14,400 the CTO, the CIOs and our customers and talk to them about how 454 00:18:14,400 --> 00:18:18,400 we used our resources, both IT and internal design to solve our 455 00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:21,400 bigger workspace issues that we were not just, in many cases, 456 00:18:21,400 --> 00:18:24,400 the design of workspace was done almost in silos. 457 00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:26,400 So the designer would sit down and say, here's how the furniture 458 00:18:26,400 --> 00:18:29,400 goes in and then some random AV person would come in and say, 459 00:18:29,400 --> 00:18:31,400 okay, here's how we're going to put the speakers in the ceiling 460 00:18:31,400 --> 00:18:34,400 and the microphones and the screens and then IT would maybe 461 00:18:34,400 --> 00:18:37,400 get 10 minutes of notification that they had to do a network 462 00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:38,400 upgrade. 463 00:18:38,400 --> 00:18:41,400 So it never was done sort of with a big picture in mind. 464 00:18:41,400 --> 00:18:42,400 We weren't working together. 465 00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:46,400 So what I pushed was collaboration, IT working, lockstep with 466 00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:48,400 design as I had been advising them. 467 00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:51,400 And so I was able to push my team as the infrastructure teams that 468 00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:52,400 work into the forefront. 469 00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:54,400 And that was helping us win new business. 470 00:18:54,400 --> 00:18:57,400 And so if you want to know in a very long story, short version 471 00:18:57,400 --> 00:19:01,400 of a very long story, I've just told that whole philosophy continues 472 00:19:01,400 --> 00:19:05,400 to inform what I'm doing now to serve the greater commercial 473 00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:07,400 workspace services industry. 474 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:11,400 So about four years ago, little over four years ago, I realized 475 00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:13,400 I wanted to go farther. 476 00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:16,400 I loved the idea that I was helping serve the business that I 477 00:19:16,400 --> 00:19:17,400 really grew up in. 478 00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:21,400 And I am tremendously grateful to this day for the mentorship 479 00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:22,400 they provided me. 480 00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:24,400 But I went and had a conversation with my boss and said, look, I 481 00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:28,400 feel like I have opinions about leadership and about running a 482 00:19:28,400 --> 00:19:30,400 company, but I've never done it. 483 00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:32,400 I've never put stakes on the table and said, I'm going to go 484 00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:35,400 gamble, frankly, my family's well-being and financial interests 485 00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:37,400 by saying, I'm going to go into business for myself. 486 00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:41,400 I had like a month of runway and said, I appreciate everything you 487 00:19:41,400 --> 00:19:42,400 did. 488 00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:44,400 I want to go out and do my own thing and start potentially 489 00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:47,400 serving dealerships outside of this wonderful steel case 490 00:19:47,400 --> 00:19:48,400 ecosystem. 491 00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:50,400 I want to talk to other business leaders. 492 00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:51,400 I want to try this. 493 00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:54,400 And so I started my own company called Platt Anvil Consulting. 494 00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:58,400 For two reasons, A, I needed a company name that nobody else had 495 00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:01,400 used, and I had about three hours to register a DBA before I 496 00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:05,400 jumped on an airplane after inkjet printing business cards to 497 00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:07,400 start pitching to a bunch of dealer principals the following 498 00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:08,400 Monday. 499 00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:11,400 So I left my job on a Friday and started my consulting career on 500 00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:12,400 a Monday. 501 00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:14,400 So it was a very short amount of time. 502 00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:16,400 And it was successful. 503 00:20:16,400 --> 00:20:20,400 Really, I had a great start working with some new manufacturers. 504 00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:22,400 COVID happened. 505 00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:25,400 And if you were in business for a year and COVID happened, you 506 00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:29,400 had to learn very quickly how to adapt and how to get back to 507 00:20:29,400 --> 00:20:32,400 focusing on how am I personally going to survive in a business, 508 00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:35,400 but B, how am I going to help serve my clients who are 509 00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:37,400 financially constrained? 510 00:20:37,400 --> 00:20:39,400 They don't want to take a lot of risks right now, where they're 511 00:20:39,400 --> 00:20:42,400 dealing with, we don't even know what's coming next, but also 512 00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:45,400 realizing that in this sort of environment of uncertainty, there 513 00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:50,400 is tremendous opportunity to grow, to help those clients go 514 00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:51,400 bigger. 515 00:20:51,400 --> 00:20:54,400 And so that is where I started trying to figure out what was 516 00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:56,400 I going to do next. 517 00:20:56,400 --> 00:21:00,400 And in the same time period, we found there was a bit of a 518 00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:03,400 stability negative happening, that the tools we were using 519 00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:05,400 weren't performing as well as we expected. 520 00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:08,400 We had changed the basic operating parameters in which we 521 00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:11,400 designed the infrastructure to support all of these interior 522 00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:13,400 designers and these other workers. 523 00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:16,400 And all of a sudden, their primary business application wasn't 524 00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:17,400 working well. 525 00:21:17,400 --> 00:21:19,400 In fact, the joke was the blue spinning donut was on the screen 526 00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:23,400 more often than the mouse cursor, which is a bad experience. 527 00:21:23,400 --> 00:21:26,400 And one of my best friends in the world is a user experience 528 00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:29,400 designer, so that ain't going to fly because she will shame me to 529 00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:30,400 death. 530 00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:33,400 So anyway, and so we started looking at what is going on and I 531 00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:38,400 had a designer call me and she was in tears and she's like, I am 532 00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:42,400 trying to go to my kid, there's a birthday party in my house for 533 00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,400 my kid and I can't attend it because I can't do a rendering 534 00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:49,400 job that is required for me to get this, this set of graphics 535 00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:52,400 out for a Monday morning bid proposal to salespersons waiting 536 00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:53,400 for. 537 00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:55,400 And I did everything I could and I couldn't solve the problem. 538 00:21:55,400 --> 00:21:57,400 And for me, it was a long moment. 539 00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:00,400 I said, as an IT person, this person trusts me, she's come to 540 00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:03,400 me with a problem and I don't have a solution. 541 00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:06,400 So I'm going to dedicate myself irresponsibly in terms of my 542 00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:09,400 own personal and professional finances and time to solving 543 00:22:09,400 --> 00:22:13,400 this problem because there isn't a solution anywhere in the 544 00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:14,400 industry to help this person. 545 00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:18,400 So I set about developing a rendering offload solution using 546 00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:21,400 primarily off the shelf components, free software tools, 547 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:25,400 whatever else it was, spent a lot more money than I like to 548 00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:28,400 admit and a lot of important time because I was personally, I 549 00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:29,400 was pissed. 550 00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:31,400 I was pissed because it was something that I couldn't solve 551 00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:33,400 so my ego was bruised and we don't like that. 552 00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:35,400 But also because this whole industry that was relying on me, 553 00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:37,400 I couldn't solve, you know, if I couldn't solve this problem, 554 00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:40,400 I had no business considering myself an expert in this field. 555 00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:42,400 So I went ahead and solve the problem and I developed a 556 00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:46,400 rendering offload solution and technology, started selling it 557 00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:51,400 and had a meeting with this crazy CEO who, you know, I was 558 00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:52,400 trying to refer some business. 559 00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:55,400 So I want to just to step back one more second before I tell this 560 00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:57,400 part of the story, which is the reveal into why I'm, you know, 561 00:22:57,400 --> 00:22:59,400 why am I talking to you guys? 562 00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:01,400 Who are now my coworkers, which is great. 563 00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:06,400 I lost my tangential, I just lost my train of thought here. 564 00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:09,400 I was developing this solution to solve this workspace problem 565 00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:11,400 for these interior designers. 566 00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:13,400 And I've lost, again, I've lost my train of thought. 567 00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:14,400 Darn it. 568 00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:15,400 I had a great narrative going. 569 00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:16,400 Yeah. 570 00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:19,400 You know, you started moving into my question, which was like, 571 00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:20,400 where did Kyle come from? 572 00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:24,400 He just came out of the woodwork and said, hello, like, 573 00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:25,400 he did. 574 00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:26,400 He popped out and was like, this head gave me like, hey, what are 575 00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:27,400 you doing? 576 00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:28,400 No, so sorry. 577 00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:29,400 Thank you for bringing me back on track. 578 00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:32,400 And so I, one of the philosophies that I had as a consultant 579 00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:36,400 was I cannot take any sort of income, any kind of money, any 580 00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:40,400 course, any sort of consideration from anybody if I'm going to 581 00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:42,400 refer them as a solution. 582 00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,400 So that is a difficult thing to do when you're a consultant 583 00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:48,400 because, you know, for me, part of what I developed was a way 584 00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:52,400 to develop, we'll say passive revenue, meaning I would have 585 00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:56,400 to go out, find a customer, write up a scope of work, do that 586 00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:58,400 work, and then find another customer, right? 587 00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:00,400 Or find another or find an engagement retainer, whatever 588 00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:01,400 else it was, right? 589 00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:04,400 Because I couldn't rely on this concept of referrals. 590 00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:07,400 This is, when I went to Mexico for the first time, I noticed 591 00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:10,400 that every time I took a taxi ride, there were like 47 slips 592 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:11,400 of paper that got handed out. 593 00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,400 So whatever I was paying the cabbie was getting divvied up a 594 00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:16,400 bunch of much people who were like, oh, I referred that business 595 00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,400 to you and you get a taste, you get a taste, you get a taste. 596 00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:21,400 So I'm guessing that my $7 cab ride or whatever the 597 00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:25,400 paceless translation was became a $47 because all these people 598 00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:26,400 had their hands out getting involved. 599 00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:28,400 I said, that is, you know, naughty word. 600 00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:29,400 That's bullshit. 601 00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:30,400 Sorry. 602 00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:33,400 I don't want to do business like that as a consultant. 603 00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:36,400 You're paying me for untainted advice and what I think is the 604 00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:38,400 best path forward for you. 605 00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:39,400 And so I can't take that. 606 00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:43,400 So anyway, I was trying to refer a client who I'm actually 607 00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,400 going to see here for a chiropractic adjustment to somebody 608 00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:49,400 and was told that the partner I'd been working with really 609 00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:50,400 wasn't well suited for that. 610 00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:53,400 They didn't really scale to solve that client's need. 611 00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:56,400 And so CIT was mentioned because I had a working relationship 612 00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:59,400 with somebody else who works at CIT, Mr. Scott Patsy, who had 613 00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:03,400 been a VCIO for me when I was working at the dealership and had 614 00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,400 to go out on medical for a back injury. 615 00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:07,400 So anyway, set up this lunch. 616 00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:09,400 I was going to meet with Ann Maurer and talk about this 617 00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:11,400 opportunity and there's Kyle. 618 00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:14,400 And so I started talking to Kyle about this crazy thing I was 619 00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,400 doing with the rendering servers and how I was going to market 620 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:18,400 as a consultant. 621 00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:19,400 And he had some great feedback. 622 00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:21,400 He's like, dude, you are not designed to scale at all. 623 00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:24,400 You're getting tripped up and you're trying to do all the 624 00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:28,400 things and either A through, maybe it's not something that 625 00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:29,400 you're well suited to do. 626 00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:30,400 You've got this passion. 627 00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:31,400 You've got these ideas. 628 00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:33,400 You've got the solution, but you don't really have the framework 629 00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:35,400 to support what you're doing. 630 00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:39,400 And I think this is an opportunity for CIT to sort of go. 631 00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,400 We have a very similar philosophy on customer service. 632 00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,400 I actually had, I do work with a nonprofit. 633 00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,400 I was on the board of directors for a nonprofit here in 634 00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:52,400 Minneapolis called Free Geek Twin Cities who helps serve an 635 00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:56,400 underserved population with access to technology for people 636 00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:57,400 who just can't afford it. 637 00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,400 So it's computers, it's laptops, it's tablets. 638 00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:02,400 In some cases, I believe there's even some broadband grants, 639 00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,400 but ultimately I actually came across, and they do a retro 640 00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,400 computer refurbishment, which was my personal passion, as you 641 00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:11,400 can see from the random old computer game sitting behind me. 642 00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,400 Anyway, I found a computer from a little company called, it was 643 00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:15,400 PC Express. 644 00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:17,400 Right on, yeah. 645 00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,400 And there was a weird, my wife told me as I'm leaving, she's 646 00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:21,400 like, a lot of things happen in our life around the 647 00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:22,400 IDS of March. 648 00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:25,400 And here I am running into this computer that Kyle and a bunch 649 00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:29,400 of folks at CIT had previously in their career worked on and 650 00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:31,400 said, you know, I don't know, what are the chances the 651 00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:33,400 universe just said, it's time for a pivot. 652 00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:34,400 Here we go. 653 00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,400 Kyle and I, I think had a lot of very common beliefs and 654 00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:38,400 values. 655 00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:42,400 And I loved hearing about what CIT was doing. 656 00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:45,400 I love the fact that it's been around for 30 years, that our 657 00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:48,400 office is this wonderful, terrible, like early 2000, like, 658 00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:49,400 it's wonderful. 659 00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:51,400 It's this great culture. 660 00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:54,400 It's focused on people and providing great solutions. 661 00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:56,400 And I said, this is perfect. 662 00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:59,400 You know, it's a group of people who want to do the same 663 00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:01,400 kinds of things that I've been trying to do for my clients. 664 00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:03,400 And in some cases, succeeding and in some cases, failing 665 00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:05,400 because I don't have the right infrastructure. 666 00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:07,400 So Kyle and I went from talking about maybe working together 667 00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:10,400 on a referral basis to what if I just came to work for you. 668 00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:13,400 And he made the investment in buying my technology, buying 669 00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,400 this, this rendering solution that I had developed to help 670 00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:17,400 solve designers problems. 671 00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:20,400 And to get back to did this thing actually work the very 672 00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:22,400 first client, I actually sold it to them without permission 673 00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:26,400 because I had a really good relationship with someone who 674 00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:28,400 actually is also a mentor of mine and was a customer of mine, 675 00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:30,400 which was Jim out in California. 676 00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:32,400 I want to use his last name to protect the innocent. 677 00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:35,400 But Jim was a client who I had had a very long standing 678 00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:39,400 engagement with as a VCO slash technology advisor. 679 00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:41,400 And I decided, look, I need to put this in front of a client. 680 00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,400 And so I'm going to ship this out to Jim and send him an invoice 681 00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:46,400 and say, we're going to drop this off. 682 00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:48,400 And if it doesn't pay for itself, I'm buying it back. 683 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:50,400 But I need this to be something that you've actually invested 684 00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:52,400 and put it in front of a designer and I'm sweating bullets 685 00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:53,400 because this doesn't work. 686 00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:55,400 I've wasted a lot of time and energy. 687 00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:58,400 And she went into her application and had a group of like 12 688 00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:00,400 images she was going to render. 689 00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,400 And she clicked the button and like minutes later, first of all, 690 00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:05,400 her laptop became available to her to keep working. 691 00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:07,400 So she's like, wow, that's not normal. 692 00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:09,400 This I can keep working while my renderings happen. 693 00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:10,400 That's great. 694 00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:11,400 So yes. 695 00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:13,400 And then all of a sudden she's like, it's done. 696 00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:14,400 That's no, no, no, no, no, no. 697 00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:15,400 She went back and did it again. 698 00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:17,400 And she turned on said, this changes the game. 699 00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:19,400 I have to rethink how I'm doing my job because this is so 700 00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:20,400 impactful. 701 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:22,400 So, you know, I'm internally doing a woohoo and jumping around 702 00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:25,400 saying, you know, my wife's not going to divorce me now. 703 00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:27,400 This whole thing was actually worthwhile pursuits. 704 00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:28,400 Thank God. 705 00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,400 And so anyway, I'm all over the place as far as this narrative 706 00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:35,400 flow now, but the end game is I have the privilege of working 707 00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:40,400 for CIT and being able to bring all the great things that CIT 708 00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:44,400 is doing in terms of offering the ability to, to solve my 709 00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:47,400 client's problems with their basic technology infrastructure. 710 00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:49,400 You know, how do I, how do I get great support? 711 00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:52,400 How do I get a great laptop that's patched, that's running? 712 00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,400 Technology security is a huge focus. 713 00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,400 I mean, understand that the industry that I'm supporting was 714 00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:00,400 actively targeted by some of these hacking groups during 715 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:01,400 COVID. 716 00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:02,400 You know, one of my biggest projects was to go out to 717 00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:04,400 California and help a client who was fully ransomware while 718 00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:07,400 Steelcase was simultaneously fully locked down because of 719 00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:08,400 ransomware. 720 00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:10,400 So, you know, dealing with vertical supply chain attacks and 721 00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,400 all this stuff, you know, CIT has all these services. 722 00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:17,400 And so I can go out now and offer all this great stuff to my 723 00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:18,400 clients. 724 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:20,400 I can still advise them, but I can bring them into our 725 00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,400 customer success team and say, hey, they can, we can help you 726 00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,400 understand where to focus your initiatives, where to focus 727 00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:28,400 your energies and your investments in technology and 728 00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:29,400 actually do the things. 729 00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,400 So instead of having to, and it's not a bad thing to rely on 730 00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:35,400 referrals and partnerships, but I think for the, ensuring the 731 00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:38,400 level of quality that I am personally committed to, this is 732 00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:40,400 such a great fit because I believe in what CIT is doing. 733 00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:43,400 I wouldn't have decided to become an employee again if I 734 00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:44,400 didn't. 735 00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:45,400 And this is great. 736 00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:47,400 So this is where we are today is that I'm able to take the 737 00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,400 solution that I developed. 738 00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:51,400 We're currently in the process of refining it into a hosted 739 00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:52,400 solution. 740 00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:55,400 So I don't have to actually ship stuff to clients and have them 741 00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:56,400 install it. 742 00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,400 We are in the process right now today, even of getting that up 743 00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:01,400 and running so we can start piloting that to some of our 744 00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:05,400 clients and then also help them understand and assess their 745 00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,400 technology readiness to either adopt these design tools to 746 00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:11,400 understand where their risks lie as a dealership or as a 747 00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,400 commercial workspace services provider. 748 00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:17,400 Whether it's a manufacturer that wants to help understand how 749 00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,400 are their dealerships in terms of technology readiness? 750 00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,400 Are they doing the right things because, you know, they're 751 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:25,400 maybe Steelcase or maybe Herman Miller, maybe, you know, they 752 00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:27,400 have their logo on the same door. 753 00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,400 Are the dealerships and these service providers, do they have 754 00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:32,400 the right tools and technology and maybe how do we help 755 00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:33,400 support them get there? 756 00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,400 So I am tremendously excited about what this means for the 757 00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,400 industry that I've been supporting and very passionately 758 00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:40,400 involved in. 759 00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:42,400 And I'm going to shut up because I'm going to run out of words 760 00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:45,400 here in a minute, which might be a miracle for those of you who 761 00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:47,400 may have heard me speak before. 762 00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:48,400 No, you're good. 763 00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:50,400 This was, yeah, I was going to say that was an amazing narrative 764 00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:52,400 overall of where you started, how you got there, where Kyle 765 00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,400 randomly popped up and I wanted to, while we have Kyle on the 766 00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,400 podcast to go, hey, do you have any kind of like wrap up your 767 00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:00,400 view, anything that you're looking forward to? 768 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,400 And then of course, for anybody listening, we're going to have 769 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,400 Jason on more podcasts with more specific things. 770 00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:06,400 So get ready because that was amazing. 771 00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:08,400 We'll have you on again, but just to go around. 772 00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,400 I was just shooting for at least barely adequate, but that 773 00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:12,400 works out. 774 00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:13,400 Thank you. 775 00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:14,400 I do appreciate that. 776 00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,400 No, I think obviously I was attracted to, I love Jason's 777 00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:19,400 energy. 778 00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:21,400 I think we're blessed to have him. 779 00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:25,400 Jason's story with the designer side of it. 780 00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:30,400 Again, he referenced the synergy and the core value sides. 781 00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:33,400 And we talked a lot when we first met about values and where 782 00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:35,400 we sit side with it. 783 00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:40,400 And I'm very much in alignment in the same thought of, you 784 00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:44,400 know, the people connection to the technology is important. 785 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:49,400 And the value of making sure that that technology works for 786 00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:54,400 them is, you know, was, provide a lot of synergy together when 787 00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:58,400 we were talking through that side of it and really just saw 788 00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:02,400 the vision side of it saying, you know, here we got a tremendous 789 00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:03,400 asset. 790 00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:07,400 He's got tremendous insight and knowledge of the workings of 791 00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:09,400 this industry and how it can go. 792 00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:14,400 And when you couple that with the resources that allows us to 793 00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:19,400 extend that to more and more organizations to get Jason in 794 00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:23,400 there to help and then have a team behind him that can help 795 00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,400 deliver those services and effectively get them out kind of 796 00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:30,400 became our mission saying, you know, this makes a lot of 797 00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:34,400 sense. We can really leverage and allow and give Jason those 798 00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:38,400 extra resources and a team behind him to really, I think, 799 00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:43,400 take this vision to its fullest extent of where it can go. 800 00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,400 Because you can obviously pick up from Jason's passion. 801 00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:47,400 He wants to see it working. 802 00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,400 He has a lot of insight of how to make it a lot better. 803 00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:54,400 And I think that the hosting of those things is just kind of 804 00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:56,400 the tip of the iceberg side of it. 805 00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:58,400 But we already have a hosting center. 806 00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:00,400 We have a lot of those resources. 807 00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:03,400 So it didn't take long for us to, again, get this already kind 808 00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:08,400 of moving into another level for him and allowing him to get 809 00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:12,400 out there and, you know, are super excited to see where we can 810 00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:13,400 take this side. 811 00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:16,400 But it's, I think, a fantastic solution. 812 00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:21,400 I think we got a lot that we can help in this vertical side of 813 00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:22,400 that. 814 00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:24,400 Because, again, we want technology to be an asset. 815 00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:28,400 We don't want it to be a cost center. 816 00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,400 And we want to, you know, head off these risk sides of it, 817 00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:35,400 these ransomware attacks that are just terrible, terrible things 818 00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:37,400 for organization sides of that. 819 00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,400 But fortunately, in many cases, are fully avoidable. 820 00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:44,400 But we have to have an opportunity to assess and educate 821 00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:46,400 and plan. 822 00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:48,400 And that just, you know, just takes time to get in front of 823 00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:49,400 people. 824 00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:50,400 So. 825 00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:53,400 I think you're personally, and it's, Kyle, I think that's 826 00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:55,400 something that was really important about when we first started 827 00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,400 talking was, I think you really personalized what technology 828 00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:00,400 is for people. 829 00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:02,400 And that gets to one of the core philosophies that is so 830 00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,400 important to me, which is, you know, we speak almost Greek to 831 00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:06,400 people. 832 00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:09,400 I think we both grew up in a time period when we were almost, 833 00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:12,400 and I hate to say, I'm gendering this because this is the way 834 00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:13,400 the answer ran. 835 00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,400 We were the guys behind the curtain that were doing all this 836 00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:16,400 stuff that nobody understood. 837 00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:18,400 And it was like owning a boat, right? 838 00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,400 Business leaders were just pouring money into this hole in the 839 00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,400 water and not having any accountability for where it was 840 00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:24,400 going. 841 00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:25,400 And we had to mature. 842 00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:28,400 We had to become more diverse in terms of both the people and 843 00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:32,400 the concepts we were working with in this industry. 844 00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:36,400 And I think we've had to get past this idea that we are, we are 845 00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,400 special and we deserve not to be held accountable because we're 846 00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:41,400 technologists and nobody understands it. 847 00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:42,400 No, no, no. 848 00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:45,400 We need to work within the context of business like all the other 849 00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,400 mature business practices, marketing, finance, accounting, 850 00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:49,400 sales. 851 00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:52,400 And I think it's an exciting time for us because it then allows 852 00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:54,400 us to be objectively better at our jobs. 853 00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:58,400 We can explain what we're doing and it just lets those bad ideas 854 00:34:58,400 --> 00:34:59,400 kind of go away. 855 00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:00,400 It's not worth the investment. 856 00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:02,400 It's not, you know, let's focus on things that really impact 857 00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:07,400 people's business and really help them understand, look, 858 00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:08,400 technology does not have to be unapproachable. 859 00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:11,400 It's a tool set that will become a force of multi-pilot. 860 00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:13,400 It'll help people do that great work. 861 00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:15,400 So, and I just love the fact that your basic, the tagline on the 862 00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,400 website was just basically get technology out of your way. 863 00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:22,400 Let's focus on people and what we do is the technology behind 864 00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:23,400 the scenes. 865 00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:24,400 Like great design. 866 00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:27,400 This is where the synergy between interior designers and what I 867 00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:29,400 like to do really comes together, which is we just have 868 00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:32,400 different tool sets to do the same thing, which we're solving 869 00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:35,400 business problems with the tools, the understandings that we 870 00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:36,400 have. 871 00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:38,400 And at the end of the day, that's what I think the synergy 872 00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:42,400 that CIT and what was Platte and Pogonsalting when we came 873 00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,400 together and said, look, we're going to do this, really means. 874 00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,400 We're for the dealer communities, for the commercial workspace 875 00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:51,400 services, whether you're a manufacturer, whether you're a 876 00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:54,400 dealership slash consultant slash, whether you're an independent 877 00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,400 rapper, independent designer who's out there trying to get their 878 00:35:57,400 --> 00:35:59,400 shingle out there and try and do your own thing. 879 00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:01,400 We're there to support you. 880 00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:04,400 And I would love to work with you. 881 00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,400 So, I guess it looks like we're about to wrap up this concept 882 00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:08,400 this episode. 883 00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:11,400 So, I will try and read off my email address, but I believe 884 00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:13,400 somewhere in the notes you'll be able to find it. 885 00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:15,400 So, please feel free to reach out. 886 00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:18,400 My signature even has a calendar invitation or a calendar link 887 00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:21,400 that you can use to schedule time with me, which is one of the 888 00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:24,400 great features of the technology that we offer to you and 889 00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:27,400 something that we can help you embrace even small changes like 890 00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:30,400 that in your business that will just make those technology 891 00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:32,400 expenses every month really perform for you. 892 00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:35,400 So, thanks for letting me go on and on and on, Kyle. 893 00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,400 And this marketing team that has done such a great job 894 00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:40,400 supporting me, you know, being alone, Wolf for so long, I 895 00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,400 have still had to adjust to working and playing ball with 896 00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:44,400 others. 897 00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:47,400 So, it's been a wonderful and I just, again, I'm thankful for 898 00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:51,400 you for taking the time to let me talk a lot in this first 899 00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:52,400 podcast episode. 900 00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:53,400 I love it. 901 00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:54,400 It's been so good. 902 00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:56,400 I mean, I love having you on. 903 00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:58,400 I feel like I have a million more questions. 904 00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:01,400 So, we are definitely going to have a part two. 905 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:05,400 Thank you, Kyle and Jason for joining us today. 906 00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:08,400 If you have a question, like I said, Jason said, we're going 907 00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:10,400 to have information in the description. 908 00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:15,400 You can always reach out to us at info at cIT-net.com or you 909 00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:20,400 can head out to our website at cIT-net.com slash podcast and 910 00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:23,400 we'll be back next week with an all new episode. 911 00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:24,400 Thanks, everyone. 912 00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:25,400 Thank you very much. 913 00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:26,400 Thank you. 914 00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:38,400 Thank you.