Latest / You've Been Heard / 358- AI, Armbars, and Agility by Renard Henry

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358- AI, Armbars, and Agility by Renard Henry · You've Been Heard

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Start from the basic with people who are not technical savvy. Meaning, hey, what is AI in general? What are the security parameters that we're going to have? Because I know most people are going to think hey, if I bring AI in, how is it going to, you know, protect the business? How are we not going to make sure we're going to have data leaks, etc. So I think that conversation is going to have to be around governance, how are we going to govern AI and also how is it going to benefit the business. So I think you have to bring it down to a lower term. I think that holding on to knowledge is overvalued, meaning that you should share the knowledge with the future generation that comes behind you.
• 0:47
  Speaker B: I knew you were gonna say anything because I wore this shirt specifically for you today. Everyone out there listening to dissecting popularity nerds. We have Renard Henry on, on the show today and I didn't dress up for the show purposely because I'm wearing a special T shirt which I'm assuming you might have something in common with this and we can get this for a second. Before we get there though, I'm going to let you introduce yourself and just, just you know, maybe, maybe title where you're at right now. Toyota. Kind of a small name but you know, fire away.
• 1:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, no. My name's Renard Henry, currently at Toyota Connected IT leader there that runs the IT department. So for, for many people who don't know Toyota Connected we are the IT automotive space for Toyota. So we focus on the infotainment system and the safety connect of the vehicles. We are the innovation hub for Toyota. So we work with every entity of Toyota locally in America and in Japan, Australia, India et cetera. So we've been around only six years far as Toyota connected North America is concerned but have made a lot strides far as innovation far as the vehicle is concerned. So I know a lot of people in the world, they drive Toyotas. I myself drive a Tundra. I love that truck. It's actually humbling just to drive it and know who works on the technology etc in the vehicle. Anytime my fiance asks me to to take a drive somewhere, I am more than happy to hop in that truck. So definitely, definitely outside of that, definitely, definitely a family man. I have a 27 year old grown adult for a son. He's in it as well. Love him to death and outside. One, one last thing. Big, big Jiu jitsu person. I'm a type of person, can talk about jiu jitsu all day. Been training jiu jitsu for 14 years, a black belt. And I use a lot of what's in Jiu Jitsu in order to engage my leadership. So I pushed out a lot in my leadership.
• 2:54
  Speaker B: That's why I'm wearing the Jiu Jitsu shirt today.
• 2:56
  Speaker A: I love the shirt. I do love the shirt.
• 2:57
  Speaker B: Specifically for you. The. I'm in a downtime right now. I'm. I myself am a purple belt. And probably people would say I've been sandbagging for a long time because I'm going to be 50 this year. And I have scheduled at the end of this month a Birmingham hip replacement so that I can. So they can continue to do Jiu Jitsu, hopefully not a full hip replacement. I'm gonna. I'm gonna go to literally fly to Birmingham and have it resurface because I. I still want to be able to compete. Hopefully.
• 3:24
  Speaker A: I am one of those who had a hip replacement as well.
• 3:27
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So did you do hip replacement?
• 3:29
  Speaker A: I did full hip replacement, yeah. Yeah. So my. Came from a football injury in high school, so I got injured. I had surgery then, but it just, over time, it didn't heal well. So I trained most of Jiu Jitsu with a. With a bad hip for the most part. Did the best I could, you know, change the way I did Jiu Jitsu. So right after I got my black belt in 23, I went right into hip surgery that January of 24. So it, yeah, it changed.
• 4:00
  Speaker B: Derail this it conversation, I can tell you right now. So everyone out there that's getting ready to have a hip replacement and still wants to do, you know, a lot of grappling, hugging, rolling around with sweaty men and, you know, I guess, I don't know, strangling people or submitting other human beings or being submitted yourself. Humbling experience. How's the hip? How.
• 4:23
  Speaker A: Oh, hip is great. Oh, my God.
• 4:25
  Speaker B: Don't worry about, like, you don't worry about being like too violent or anything or you guys like, don't throw or.
• 4:32
  Speaker A: I will say my doctor did say, pick your battles. He was like, you can still train, but pick your battles for the most part. So most, most of the people at my gym know that I hip, hip. I had hip surgery, so we still go full speed. But I know my limitations for the most part. I'm actually more flexible now than I was with with my other hip. I only had 30% mobility in my left hip before surgery, so major arthritis. So instantly pain was gone instantly.
• 5:02
  Speaker B: You're giving me hope.
• 5:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, they. They Asked me soon as the surgery was like, what's your pain level? I said what I knew as pain is gone.
• 5:10
  Speaker B: Really?
• 5:11
  Speaker A: Yeah. I was like, soreness? Yes. You know, you just, you know, you basically have surgery on my hip. Of course it's going to be sore, swelling. But far as the pain I endured for probably 20 something years was completely gone. Completely gone.
• 5:25
  Speaker B: Mine's at the point now if I go, if I go roll one class, I need a week to 10 days to recover. Like, it's that painful and I just don't really want to go back. And it's just one of those things where in like half guard or something, and I play half guard on one side and I avoid the other side. So then, yeah, it's painful.
• 5:41
  Speaker A: Yeah. That's going to change the game completely. It will.
• 5:44
  Speaker B: Okay. God willing. I hope so. Yeah. So that's. Everyone thinks I'm crazy. Why are you doing this insane surgery? Because I want to do Jiu Jitsu. And like, what? They're like, give up on that? Yeah, that's giving up in life. Kind of. It's kind of like you just don't know. There's a. There's another T shirt that's, you know, Jiu Jitsu. What was it? It's like Jiu Jitsu ruined my life on the front. Oh, yeah. And then on the back, it's like, but it was worth it.
• 6:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. But I will say that. I will say that. Okay.
• 6:10
  Speaker B: Okay. So, all right. So there's numerous places I'd love to go. There's. There's so much to do. I mean, so much to talk about being at. You know, I guess the technology side of Toyota. A. Tundra was my very first pickup truck I ever bought, by the way. Also, that was years ago, but Tundra was my very first pickup truck. I really don't know where to begin. So where we have a. This is an IT leadership podcast. It's a peer to peer podcast. It's for your peers. It's not for. Even though I think we probably should do a whole segment on, you know, these shows are for your CEO and then go have the C level listen to them. But it's really for, like, higher level, sophisticated conversations. So let's just start off with this. You're in a room full of your peers. Right. It's kind of like you're in a room with a bunch of people that do Jiu Jitsu. And we could talk about Darcy's Darce, this and that. We could talk all these different terms. And Americano and you and I would know what we're talking about, but no one else would know. So you're in a room full of your peers. What topic would you actually want to discuss with them that you couldn't have with anyone else?
• 7:04
  Speaker A: I'm just curious, man. Let's see. With a group, my peers, I think, you know, we talk about leadership. Leadership's big. It goes hand in hand with jiu jitsu and how that transcends. I have. The funny thing is I have a lot of conversations with my peers about it because they're always interested how the two tie in together. So leadership and how to lead other teams. I would also say the difference between managers and leaders are a big topic that get discussed and sometimes not discussed often, if that makes sense.
• 7:44
  Speaker B: Okay, so do you think a lot of IT managers even have the titles are leaders and do you think a lot of CTOs or CIOs are just managers that could put in that position and what would the difference be?
• 7:57
  Speaker A: I would say in some aspects, yes. I think you, you have a lot of people who are, I would say, very, very high level in the, you know, individual contributor. You have a lot of them. A lot of people get moved into management because they are high level contributors. But I think one thing that gets missed is the soft skills. The soft skills of how to talk to, to the C suite, also how to actually lead in leadership to grow your team. For the most part. I think part of the things about being a leader, being a cto, CIO is definitely learning, looking at the growth and risk of the business. But also how are you going to have that next group step up if one day you're gone, if that makes sense. So it's creating other leaders in aspects. So I think it really does come down to those soft skills, how to have, have those conversations, how to be able to say anything technical to a group of people who don't know anything technical, if that makes sense. The other joke I like to say is if you're going to be a cto, you're going to be in the executive suite. You have to know how to be a lion with other lions at dissecting popular IT nerds.
• 9:12
  Speaker C: We expect to win, and we expect our IT directors to win. And one of those areas where we know that we can help you win is Internet service providers. As an IT director tasked with managing Internet connectivity, few vendor relationships can prove more painfully frustrating than the one with your Internet service provider. The array of challenges seems never ending. From unreliable uptime and insufficient bandwidth to Poor customer service and hidden fees. It's like getting stuck in rush hour traffic. Dealing with ISPs can try one's patience even on the best of days. So whether you are managing one location or a hundred locations, our back office, support team and vendor partners are the best in the industry. And, and the best part about this is none of this will ever cost you a dime.
• 10:02
  Speaker B: I'm just trying to, I'm trying to, I guess. Okay, so I'm trying to process that. So you've got a really, what's the most highly technical thing that you need to translate right now? And so when I'm saying you're in a room with your peers, you can have that technical conversation that you couldn't have with the CTO because you have to translate it. Okay, so what's the technical thing that's really technical and what would the words be that you would use and then how would you translate that? Some weird AI. It might be some weird AI and AWS and I don't know what do we call Google Cloud, gc, GCP or Azure and I don't know, IP natting and addressing or we say some other crazy stuff. I don't know what's the most technical thing that you would have to have a conversation right now that you need help with but you're all alone.
• 10:43
  Speaker A: Oh, I would say right now one of the major things I think mostly everybody's going through this is how AI is going to, how's that going to work for the business for the most part. And you have to have that conversations to show what's going to be the benefit of adding AI into the business. Is it going to be department wise or is it going to be overall for the business? So I think that conversation you have to give it in a little bit of what I like to say a layman's terms to make it understand how is it going to benefit as far as year one to year five? So I think you, you really have to sit there and say hey it, let's, let's give an example. Let's say you're, let's say we're going to bring in chat GPT for the most part we'll go to something, something small. How is that going to benefit from, how are we going to be able to work with code in order to get to production a lot fast. How is that going to help us in order to get there? So I think those conversations you have to just go from the basis start from the basic with people who are not Technical savvy meaning, hey, what is AI in general? What are the security parameters that we're going to have? Because I know most people are going to think, hey, if I bring AI in, how is it going to, you know, protect the business? How are we not going to make sure we're going to have data leaks, etc. So I think that conversation is going to have to be around governance, how are we going to govern AI for the most part and also how is it going to benefit the business. So I think you have to bring it down to a lower term. I for the most are working at Toyota connected. We have a lot of tech savvy people who are already in the executive group already. A lot of tech savvy people, a lot of PhDs. So they want way more detail than I would say most executive groups will want.
• 12:31
  Speaker B: That's a great topic, AI governance and data, data leaks, AI and security, AI and security together. There's, there's AI security products and then there's the AI security problem. Do you have a good use case for that? Do you have a good, do you have a real AI use case where we've put in AI and we've used it this way and we say, hey guys, this is now the, I don't know, this is what we're using for this and this is the protocol or something like that.
• 12:57
  Speaker A: I think for the most part we have a good use case. Right now. I think there's as much as I can say version of an NDA is concerned at work. We do have a use case. I think most people in automotive to feel do have a use case. Far as AI is concerned, we're looking, far as the vehicle. How can we get to somebody if they're, you know, in a, in an accident? What is AI going to be able to tell us ahead of time? Is they're going to be able to give that information what the, you know, what, how the car looks, you know, is it in an accident? Are we, we in a critical accident? Do we need to start calling, you know, fire department, etc. So I think AI play will play a big part in that. It's in the early stages. Yes, we kind of sort of have AI in vehicles right now, you know, you got lane assist, etc. But I think we're going to start going into more. How can we help people when they're in major accidents? How are we going to be able to give the information to the police department, the fire department, given that critical data ahead of time, before they even make it to the area yet.
• 14:03
  Speaker B: I just going back to the lions in a, in a room full of lions.
• 14:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 14:08
  Speaker B: And it being able to speak the language of business which we talk about have and you know, managers versus leaders and wanting to talk about that. What consistent patterns have you noticed? What consistent patterns have you noticed in I guess Fortune 5000, in the Fortune 5000 space where companies have been misaligned or have misaligned their technology investments with, with business objectives. What's the typical misalignment that you've seen?
• 14:39
  Speaker A: Man, I think for the most part I think the misalignment is, you know, and I think you, you, you have two sides. You have from the business side and from the technical side. From the technical side, I think you just can't throw a bunch of technology at an issue and expect it. All of a sudden it's going to be resolved from the business side. The business has to understand what the technology is going to be able to do for the business for the most part. And I've seen a lot of times people, you know, especially when you get to, you know, what's the brand new thing that's going to be, you know, AI is the main talk. So now everybody wants to throw all the money at AI without actually understanding. I think you bring in IT as your technical advisor, as your technical strategist in order to help the business understand. So I think that's, that's something that is, is getting better over the years. But I think initially, you know, you, you go back a couple of years. It just in general just used to be this must say in an instance, this thing that used to be on the side to help us work on machines, you know, that's not proactive, et cetera. Now we're in this place where IT technology, CTO, CIOs, etcetera are becoming strategically part of the executive staff in order to help feed the business on a technology space. Technology is not going anywhere. We're not, you know, looking at files the same way. You know, you go to the file draw, you put out a file, work it that way. We're not doing that any anymore. Technology is a main part of any business. So we're the strategic partner in order to, to keep helping the business move forward.
• 16:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, we're no longer the guys that, as we've said so many times, the show hide in the server room closet and have pizzas slid under the door to make a password change with a sticky note on the top. And it is a business force multiplier, not a You know, a cost center. And I think we all, I, I would hope that most of us are beyond that, but we still see that and I think we see it in the, some of the older school sectors where maybe people are just getting ready to die and the technology is just still old. I mean, literally there's, there's people that are just, you know, we're still on really old, antiquated, you know, silos of various different silos. So however, where have we thrown technology at? What's, so what should the process be instead of just throwing technology at the problem? What should the process be? And is it a, is it it, is it an IT governance thing? And we have a certain way that we pick technology at this business and how do we avoid someone from trying every new AI application that's out there and jumping from ChatGPT to Claude to Deep Seq to, I don't know, Gemini and which one's better and how do we stop that? Or do.
• 17:29
  Speaker A: I think you, I think, I think you have to. So, so for us, my, my department, every single end of the year, end of fiscal, we look at our, you know, technical stack and our network stack, et cetera, and go over and see if this is the best thing for the company. So we kind of do our own IT governance within it. If that makes. So let's say, for example, like you said, everybody's looking at the, the brand new thing for AI, Gemini, etc. We have to be the side that determines what's going to be the best thing for the business. So we are the ones far as from it, working with other departments to determine what's going to be the best solution for the business. That's going back to what is your why? Why do you need it? What's, what's the reason you're going to need this for? You know, is that, is that, you know, getting to your next platform we're going to do is it, you know, ex ET could be many different things, but we need to know the why first in order to be able to give you the right answer for the solution you're going to use. Now don't get me wrong, a lot of departments, a lot of companies always come up with, hey, you know, I saw this, you know, recently, I was at a conference, you know, this, this looks great, we need to look into it. That's great, but we shouldn't have, you know, what everybody calls shadow it. We shouldn't let everything run wild and just have people just using whatever, because then all of a sudden now we're open to, you know, hackers, etc. Just, just coming in. So I think the best thing. Yeah, data leaks, which, which is one of the most major things that, that anyone's looking at. So I think what, what we do not what we think, what we know is, let's have those simple conversations first. Give me your why you need this and let it, let, let us come from a strategic side to determine if this is going to be the best, best product solution, SaaS solution, whatever it's going to be for the department and for the business.
• 19:25
  Speaker B: Having not gotten to where you've been without making many mistakes. Meaning if you ask someone, how do you become a black belt? Right. It's like a black belt was a white belt. Like what? They just never gave up. Right. And a lot of people just say, just go get tapped. Just, just, just go get tapped. Just keep getting tapped or keep tapping or whatever. I've heard that before, you know, whatever. Fail forward. Right. So with that in mind, what blind spots do you think or mistakes do you think a lot of IT leaders have made when developing their vendor management approaches?
• 19:57
  Speaker A: Oh, man. You know, you go to vendor management. I love to say the art of negotiation is one of the major things with vendors. And I'll take a step back from, from that as well. I think it goes back to knowing what the business needs with a vendor before you bring them in. Everybody has great vendors. I think it's, it's that relationship. I've taken a lot of relationships that I've had throughout the years in, in IT in order to foster them, to make sure they're the right ones. Even if I step to a new business, understanding the why first, going through the vendor and having great negotiation, I think at the end of the day, negotiating with a vendor, we both want to be happy. It's the same thing. If you want to buy a car some kind of way, we both want to be happy at the end of the deal. And that's the negotiation part you want to do. We, we want to have, foster a long relationship that way. The, the joke I like to use is if you get a haircut and it's a terrible haircut, you're going to tell everybody about. But if it's a great haircut, you're going to do the same exact thing. You're going to tell everybody who cut my hair, who did X, Y and Z. So the same thing comes with great vendor, great negotiation. You do a great job. I'm going to tell everybody about it. I'm going to tell other companies, other departments, etc, but if you have a bad job in the same way, if somebody brings it up, I'm going to do the same exact thing.
• 21:20
  Speaker B: Have you ever made a decision with a vendor or maybe hypothetically speaking, or known someone else that's made a decision with a vendor that I know there was just a complete unknown. There was a complete unknown and you're like, if I had known that before, that would have made all the difference in the world. Oh, that makes sense. Like so.
• 21:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:37
  Speaker B: No, because a lot of time. Because the thing with vendors is when you say negotiating, a lot of times people go in, I don't know, maybe shooting from the hip, so to speak, or trying this kind of like, you know, maybe I can like the strong arm tactic or I know based on, you know, this, that. But a lot of times there's, there's, there's just information that's just unknown that people don't know. How do you, how do you know what you don't know? Know is kind of the speak. And I guess when it comes to negotiation, at least from a number standpoint, I think, you know, benchmark level pricing and data and statistics and stuff like that, having access to statistics and, and pricing models that maybe most people wouldn't have access to is, is important. You know, just not just trying to like read the person or trying to, you know, like guess or something. Like how do you know what you don't know is I guess the question for me.
• 22:29
  Speaker A: I think there's, I'm, I'm one of those people that like to ask a lot of questions, especially when, when dealing with a vendor, you're going to have some unknowns. It, it always happens with anything. Especially after you have those discussions, you agree upon something, you might have done a poc, etc, you bring them in. But I think first and foremost you have to ask those questions that you don't know. I've had conversation with a lot of vendors and if I sit there and I, I hear them talking, they might be talking about like, hey, you know, we, we're projected to do, you know, this in five years. We're going to be able to scale this for your business in, in five years. If we, we go down this path, if it doesn't sit right with me, I start asking more questions. So how, how are you going to do this in the next five years? Where's the technology going to be in the next five years? What, what's your plan for, just if we go for, from, from From a stature. Just what's, what's your path for the, for the SaaS solution, the next five years? If I don't get answers for that, that starts to worry me after a while. Because you should already know your five year plan. For the most part. Most vendors know at least where the next three to five years are going to be for that solution. For the most part, I try to ask as many questions as possible. Especially one of my, one of my great mentors told me and he kept it simple. He's like, if, if the, the bad thing is if you feel like you don't know and you don't ask the question, that's the bad thing. But the great thing is ask questions when you don't feel like you don't know. A lot of people don't ask the questions because they don't want to feel like, I don't know, like they're, they feel like they, they're a little stupid at the, at the end of the day, like, oh man, I'm asking this question. I shouldn't really ask this. But if the bravest thing to do and the smartest thing to do is ask the questions that you don't know.
• 24:19
  Speaker B: What'S your, what are your top three favorite security vendors?
• 24:23
  Speaker A: Oh man, let's see even one.
• 24:25
  Speaker B: I mean, I don't care. Just what give me, give me someone that's like just really awesome and why, that's, let's throw some love out there for somebody.
• 24:31
  Speaker A: Oh man, I love. Next think. Next. Think. Next Think. Oh, I love them.
• 24:37
  Speaker B: How do you spell? I don't know. And how have I never heard of them?
• 24:40
  Speaker A: Next thing. So just how, just how it sounds.
• 24:43
  Speaker B: Next.
• 24:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. Nex think.
• 24:46
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 24:47
  Speaker A: Yeah. So if you're looking for that digital experience, it's something we looked at probably, I'm gonna say a year and a half ago, just from an end user standpoint, we, you know, you, you have all these other things that you try to be proactive. Proactive at. But you really want to know from a standpoint of the machine itself, what's the experience that people are having? If it's, you know, we. You get a lot of proactive. Some, some people don't tell you when they have issues. For the most part. True. From our service desk level, they never say anything or they wait five, six months down the line even say anything. So next thing actually provides that for you to be proactive, you know, about issues that's already happened in machine. If it's, you know, you know, memory, you know, if you're going from Matt, if you're on Mac, if it's, if it's a memory issue, if, if it's a software issue, teams the version might not be correct, etc. It gives you an overall score. Every single machine that you have in the ecosystem even works on a WI FI level. And my, where we work WI Fi is, is king. No one really you know, sits plugged in anymore. So Wi Fi is a, is a big issue. So their experience on digital experience, how your, your employees are doing all those machines is, is a phenomenal thing. We've been using it probably for about a year now. Just had it in for a year but I've talked to other people in, in our Mac ecosystem, Mac admins, people directly who work with jamf and they, they love the product. Actually I was in Gartner recently and got a chance to talk to them again just about about their product and where they're going in the next couple of weeks.
• 26:31
  Speaker B: So you've been able to maybe I guess foresee a problematic application or something that was just being a waste of money or stupid that your employees are probably like this thing is worthless and they're not going to tell you that and eliminate it at some. This is pretty, it's pretty awesome actually. Now what were you able to eliminate because of them or add or like or. I mean what kind of insight have you been like oh we can clearly see that this application is lame and no one likes it and they hate it or they're not interacting and they're not using it. So we can just eliminate.
• 27:00
  Speaker A: Yeah that's one of the things versioning we were able to tighten up on operating system versions etc. So I'll go back. We're a very Mac heavy shop at Toyota connected we're about 98% Mac. Everything else is between Windows and Linux. So we needed something that really could focus on our Mac ecosystem and it's, it's been working great. I think we've gotten, we've. Let's see. Far as issues have concerned we probably knocked that down probably this year. Last year alone probably 40% of, of some of the major issues that we have just having next think in the environment. So it's making us a lot more proactive software if you want to concern. I'll give you one example. We had like major teams issue that was reported to me. Major teams issues. People were getting on calls etc stuff. Some people were great, some people were dropping quality quality of yeah voice quality, video quality etc.
• 28:07
  Speaker B: Really.
• 28:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, it Came down in house or.
• 28:10
  Speaker B: Working or remote workers?
• 28:11
  Speaker A: Both.
• 28:12
  Speaker B: Both, really.
• 28:13
  Speaker A: So it came to. Came down to both. Came down to both.
• 28:16
  Speaker B: Jitter.
• 28:16
  Speaker A: I mean, yeah, yeah, we had latency jitter. Some people were fine. We would have people on the same exact call. Some people remote, some people in house. You had maybe three or four who were fine. You know, the people who were mo. Maybe had major issues. We found out that it was all because of versioning issues. We found out which version it was. Was able to update that overnight. Cleared it up just like that.
• 28:40
  Speaker B: It was a. It was a desktop version of Team.
• 28:42
  Speaker A: It was a desktop version of Team.
• 28:44
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 28:44
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 28:46
  Speaker B: I don't hear many QoS issues with teams unless it's usually like. Like some bandwidth thing or something.
• 28:51
  Speaker A: I know that that's. That's a lot of the. The stuff I know you always say, especially when someone's remote. Well, it must. Must be on their end. It's got to be. You can't. Can't.
• 28:58
  Speaker B: Or is there a vpn? What are they doing? Like, you know.
• 29:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, you know, what are they doing? We. We found out it was just a version initiation. We had. We had. We had an old version of Team sitting out there that was causing the major issues for them. We wind up updating overnight. Cleared it up, and, you know, we. We have another win for. For it, in a sense.
• 29:18
  Speaker B: Okay, next favorite. Next favorite vendor. So next thing. Awesome. Another vendor in your mind that you're just like, wow, man, I love these guys. If you take them. I quit. I quit.
• 29:30
  Speaker A: I mean, let me see another one. That's going to be great. And. And I'll. I'll go a little bit back, I think, and I haven't got a chance to use them, but I still recommend them every so often. I still remember. I still recommend Silence every so often. Yeah.
• 29:46
  Speaker B: Second one I've never heard of. What do they do? I mean, I've been silenced today, so, so silent. Because you're a black belt and I'm a purple belt.
• 29:57
  Speaker A: So. Silence. Silence started what probably, you know, during the. The next gen AI, next gen antivirus. They started. They were one of the people. You know, a lot of people left McAfee founded their own locations. You know, Sentinel One. You know, there's a couple other. When they all left McAfee in order to. Silence was one of them. Silence is now owned by BlackBerry now. So BlackBerry wind up buying them. Yeah, Black BlackBerry wind up.
• 30:25
  Speaker B: Last from the past.
• 30:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, I know, a couple of years ago. But Silence, I would say when I worked at academic partnerships we had a big, big issue with viruses. It was a lot of unknown. They were using outdated solution. Just on the, the AV side, we rolled that in. I can tell you on the day one we rolled that out. The amount of viruses etc I found on people's machines compared to the old solution they were using was, was astronomical. It, I couldn't believe how many alerts I got in one day. And I would say probably in that first two weeks, going on three weeks, we wind up clearing everything. Yay. You know, wound up having a, an audit after that just to see where we were from from that standpoint and miraculously cleared up everything. Now you, you go. Now Defender just in general is, is great. I think at the time Defender just wasn't, wasn't there yet. They were still trying to catch up to where they are. But Defender now is, is a great product. It's a great product. I, I, I haven't personally seen any issues thus far having it in the environment that, that we have, but I remember at the time they just.
• 31:37
  Speaker B: Weren't there any other vendors you want to give a shout out to?
• 31:40
  Speaker A: Oh, let's see, let's see if I.
• 31:42
  Speaker B: Want that surprised you. They were just like this sales experience was great. Here I'll give you two choices. Worst sales experience ever where it was a complete, complete flop and terrible. And this would be an example of things not to do or. Yeah, surprised. Really went above and beyond. It was better than I thought it would be.
• 31:59
  Speaker A: Oh man. I'm gonna say Slack Slack above and beyond. Oh, Slack is above me on the, the, the people we have far as our vendors for Slack go above and beyond.
• 32:12
  Speaker B: So you have teams and Slack.
• 32:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So, so I'll, I'll go back. We use Slack heavily for just communication. Teams we just use for video conferencing, etc. Yeah. So Slack is big for us as far as communication. We do everything. I think a lot of people are depending on where you at and I'm not going to say this is all Toyota's ecosystem, but our ecosystem, we, we definitely do use Slack.
• 32:40
  Speaker B: And so tell me why. Because to me Slack seems like something that I see and this is just my own ignorance, right? Because I don't, I don't use it. And there's so many unified communications platforms and file sharing and things that you can use and if you're a massive, massive Microsoft soft shop, then I can, I'm just trying to see where does Slack fit in right now and so what do they do that's so much better and you've got support and you've got all these things. So I really want to know what's the big difference.
• 33:04
  Speaker A: So, so I'll say for us Slack has been great far as communicating with the other entities of, of Toyota. That's. That's how it's worked great for us. Don't get me wrong. Microsoft can do it. Teams can do it. You know, the chat can do it for us. Giving us an easier way to have that communication. I've seen a lot of these teams go through a lot of projects and going through a lot of coding just having those conversations in Slack real time. For us it just works a lot faster. So I've seen Agile thing.
• 33:43
  Speaker B: It's almost like they just work well.
• 33:46
  Speaker A: So if you think we are an agile shop.
• 33:49
  Speaker B: So and it sounds like they're like, it's like they communicate well across cross departmentally and cross functionally. So it makes your job easier and it makes other people happy.
• 33:58
  Speaker A: 100100 it would be almost impossible for us to get. We, we've even the funny thing, we've had those discussions. We did what if scenarios. We was like what if we got rid of Slack? The uproar just in that conversation alone made us change our mind about even having that discussion. It was like it's not even possible for, for the amount of stuff we do and the connection that we have with the vendor and that, that goes back to having great relationships with vendors is probably one of the major reasons that we stick with it.
• 34:29
  Speaker B: Wow. That's actually pretty mind blowing. It's very simple but it's very mind blowing because it from us, from a standard application standpoint, some people would look from the outside and just say yeah, so what, you know, Ring Central is free, you know, whatever product can replace that. What do you mean? We have, we have teams and SharePoint and different things or we have some other thing. I mean but the implementation across thousands of users in the communication is way more valuable than anything. And how in putting all the pieces together.
• 34:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. 100%. And I've come from mostly every company I've been with who's had teams for the most part or Skype for business previous. So when, when I started at Toyota connected, of course. I'll tell you a funny story. When, when I started at Toyota connected of course we had teams. I did not know which one was the major one. I messaged my boss on teams. To this day I've never got a reply on teams. I've never got a reply from him on teams. At all from that day. One message I sent them, of course, I've talked to him a hundred times on Slack. That one. That one message I send on teens have never been replied to.
• 35:40
  Speaker B: I think that comes down. That's really a culture. It's almost a culture thing. I think that's what you're saying is don't screw with culture. Yeah, don't screw with culture. Technology cannot overtake culture, which tells me then that culture snuffs technology. And technology should be a culture thing. It shouldn't be a. It shouldn't be a technology thing.
• 35:58
  Speaker A: So, yeah, I agree with that.
• 35:59
  Speaker B: What technology trends do you see being consistently overvalued? Undervalued. Not undervalued, but. What do you see consistently overvalued? What IT guys, they go down this. They. They hang on to this thing. They hold on. It's so tight. What's super overvalued? I mean, is it like the firewall settings? I don't know what it is. What. What's consistently overvalued?
• 36:19
  Speaker A: Hey, you know what? I'm not gonna even tell you that it's technology. I think that holding on to knowledge is overvalued, meaning that you should share the knowledge with the future generation that comes behind you, and that means your team, that means someone else on another team, etc. I think you should be willing to say, hey, you know, if I see something great in you, I'm gonna share some. Share the knowledge that I know because it happened to me when I first started, long ago when I worked at LSU Health Science Center. Guy worked with Brian Birch. He sat me down and said, hey, I'm going to teach you everything that I know. And it helped me tremendously in college because I was a step ahead in college. Every time I went to class, I was already a step ahead because he taught me stuff while we were at work every time. So I would definitely say the thing that I've seen people hold on to the most, you know, tech, whatever, is holding on to knowledge and not sharing, sharing the wealth that I like to.
• 37:22
  Speaker B: So in other words, they're afraid of losing their job or something like that. Because this is what makes me special. Yeah, you know, I'm going to give you the example, though, in jiu jitsu, because I think there's a good example in jiu jitsu. It's like holding on to your secret moves that you know work so well or that secret video that you watched that made a really massive difference in your game. Because I can absolutely tell you that the I Think it was like the. Is it attack. Whatever. The back. Whatever. The John Danaher back, like, Attack the back series. Like, he's got a ton of videos that are like, go on. And he'll talk forever, you know, and it'll be really long and you won't. But I think his back attack series, that absolutely took me from blue belt to purple belt. And I can tell you that there was numerous tournaments I went to as a blue belt and struggled through the tournaments or some tournaments. I, whatever, did well, medaled someone. But I went from blue belt to purple belt, like, almost instantaneously after, like, deploying all those techniques, because I don't know what it was. It just. It was either that and it was. It was another half guard series, but it was just half guard and back attacks. And then I remember I went to my. This guy. I got. I had just got my purple belt, and there was a tournament that week right before COVID And remember, he's like, phil, come on, go to this tournament with me. And he just, you know, and I was like, man, I know, man. I literally just got my white belt. They're gonna, like, you know, I'm just gonna go in with all these, you know, purple belts. And I mean, I just got my purple belt. I'm gonna go with all these purple belts, and it's, you know, they're all gonna be high level, and I just don't want to do it. But he was like, come on, man, I need someone to go with me. I was like, all right, I'll go. I have nothing to lose. Like, I just kind of went with, like, no. With no, like, nothing to prove or anything. Like, I'm just gonna go and just get Matt time or just get tournament time as a purple belt and fill it out. And I rolled through. Everybody destroyed it. I don't know if that had to do with. I had no, like, you know, went in without anything to prove or without anything to lose or I don't know what it was, and I don't know if it was maybe the. The secret videos that you should share. I just shared that with everybody. Those made a big difference. Those made a big difference. But I think people hold on to their jiu Jitsu knowledge.
• 39:22
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 39:24
  Speaker B: I think people will secretly hold on to their jitsu knowledge. I don't want to give that up because they're. Because they've got some kind of ego or something. They want to keep rolling through the class. It's the same guy that always kills everybody in class, and he goes to a tournament and loses.
• 39:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, 100. I agree with that. And I hate to say this, going through my Jiu Jitsu journey, I probably at one point did try the whole. One of my favorite moves to myself. But once I got to probably brown and started going to my black, then, then I started giving up my move because everybody was like, man, Renard, you do this, this one move it to you. Yeah, it was like, man, you do this one move. And I was like, man, I really don't want to show it. And then I just started showing people the move I do. And it's, it's this knee bar from half guard from the bottom that I do.
• 40:11
  Speaker B: And you know, I can't repeat it because.
• 40:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, so, but it was, it was this move that I started doing, and this was because of the. My hip. I had to figure out different ways in order for it to work. So I did that. And now anytime someone asks, I show that because paying it forward is big in Jiu Jitsu and that that turns into leadership, running a team, etc, I think you just have to continue to pay it forward. So like, like I say, I've learned a lot because of Jiu Jitsu. And just if, if you have a failure, see it as an opportunity, if keep paying it forward, because it's just gonna, over time, people are just gonna remember that, that, that you're, you're helping other people, that you're, you're giving your knowledge out to other people for them to grow and get better.
• 40:55
  Speaker B: We're all gonna die someday. There's a lot of people that are in IT right now. Maybe they're worried about the environment. You hear a lot about like, oh, I don, AI is going to take over, replace jobs. Okay, maybe true. There's a hiring shortage or there's numerous kind of like psychological problems that it people deal with. I'm dealing with a C7, C6. I don't know if that's a psychological problem, but there's definitely, like, I should be at my standing desk right now. What is the biggest. I don't know what's the end game or what's the biggest kind of like, psychological problem that people deal with? And is Jiu Jitsu? Is Jiu Jitsu one of the solutions is is it health and wellness? Is it, Is it. What is it? What would you say is your one of the single biggest problems that IT directors deal with? And what I've heard a lot is that it can get lonely at the top, that once you get to the top, there's not much that you can share with. You don't have any other. Because you have to, because you have to constantly talk with C level directors. You can't tell them exactly really what you're thinking because it's going to be too technical and you may scare them off. So you have to translate that and then you can't really have that conversation with your, with the team down below you because you don't want to scare them because they need to do their job at the best. I mean, there's that loneliness at the top issue and no peers to share with. What do you think is one of the biggest, I don't know, stressors or anxieties? What's the issue that we need to solve?
• 42:21
  Speaker A: Man, I think overall the stress level at the executive level is very high. Just the stress in general because you're not only making decisions from, you know, a technical standpoint, you're making decisions for the business. You know, I think everybody. I had to start changing my mind frame of not just thinking about what's best for the department, but what's best for the business. When I did that, it became an added stressor. But for me, Jiu Jitsu solved that for me. All that stress I have, you know, dealing with, with your meetings, etc, making, making the right decisions, it went away when Jiu Jitsu came around. So for, for me, two hours step on the mat, everything goes away for about a good two hours. Good two hours.
• 43:14
  Speaker B: There's a lot of memes.
• 43:16
  Speaker A: Yeah. I step on the mat for two hours, everything goes away.
• 43:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is.
• 43:21
  Speaker A: I step off, I'm so much calmer. And I always tell people Jiu Jitsu helped me understand comfort and darkness. That's what I tell people in the darkness is everything's critical, everything's a fire. How am I going to make the best decisions? I have to be calm within the darkness. And that's what Jiu Jitsu taught me. Because as, as, you know, if you're getting, you know, someone has a rear naked choke on you, you're going to have to be calm in that situation in order to get out.
• 43:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's not even that. It's, it's sometimes it's, I mean, it is that, but sometimes there's a. I'm standing up right now because of my. Because I don't want to. Because I want to have. Because of health and wellness. And this is what we're talking about. I'm sure there's a lot of it directors that deal with staring at a screen all day and weight problems and other issues and health issues and who caused all kinds of numerous things.
• 44:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 44:09
  Speaker B: But, yeah, sometimes there's just someone smothering you on top of you, and you're in the most, I don't know, claustrophobic situation, and you just have to tell yourself to be mentally strong and realize, like, yeah, you've been here before. You can deal with this and, you know, just don't freak out and. And try to, you know, what's the next step?
• 44:26
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 44:27
  Speaker B: And sometimes you just do blackout. So sometimes you do blackout.
• 44:32
  Speaker A: I will say that has happened before.
• 44:36
  Speaker B: That's a reality. But it's. It's been an absolute pleasure, absolute pleasure talking with you. If there was a. I don't know, what's the. What's the one thing. If there's anyone, one message or anything that you're really passionate about talking about when it comes to it, and obviously, jiu jitsu, what. I mean, what would your message be to the other people? And obviously it doesn't have to be jiu jitsu either. Sometimes it's. Sometimes it's people just going out. Sometimes it's exercise. Some. For some people, they're, you know, triathlon freaks. And I say that because they're not mentally well people. Anyone that's going on a triathlon, I joke because my dad says that he's a doctor. He's like, anyone that does triathlons, I don't think it's stable, you know, like. But I say that jokingly. But going to the gym sometimes just. It's what. It's what you need. It's exercise and health. But what. What's the one thing that you're most passionate about when it comes to. I'm just. I t. In all of this, man.
• 45:26
  Speaker A: You know, I. I would say from. From just it. I'm. I'm passionate about creating relationships and. And seeing other people do great things and. And what. Whatever they're doing. It could be technology. It could be anything else. But I love, you know, mentorship. Mentorship is big for me. I love being a mentor to, you know, people who are on my team, people outside of that. I've gotten a chance to mentor a lot of people and see them move on to being network managers, you know, and other managers in other fields. So that. That's a big passion to me because I want to see other people grow. And. And the other thing, you know, we talk about, you know, health. Health is wealth. I know that's. That's kind of a little corny there, but it's true. I, I feel great when I, when I work out. It gets, it keeps my mind sharp, gives me, you know, I would say a little bit of an edge when I go into the office because I start my workout at 4am in the morning before I had hit work. So for me that's the two things. Keep mentoring the, the future leaders and, and exercise as much as you can to, to keep that, keep that mind and that body sharp.
• 46:35
  Speaker B: The last question. As a mentor, myself and as a you as a mentor as well, how do you deal with, how do you deal with the mentees that, that don't make it. That can be like one of the hardest ones. In other words, you see kind of there's certain common struggles in mankind. One is a lack of responsibility. Another one is being stuck in kind of like the system, so to speak. So I find that a lot of times people get stuck in a systematic way of thinking and a lack of, I just think it's a lack of responsibility, a lack of understanding that, you know, you are, you have the ability to choose your response to any given situation that doesn't. You don't need to blame anyone but yourself, even if it, even if is someone else to blame, honestly, really else. Correct.
• 47:20
  Speaker A: Correct.
• 47:22
  Speaker B: So I just find sometimes being a mentor can be hard.
• 47:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. I would say to anyone who mentoring somebody, sometimes it's going to get very uncomfortable for them. They might not like what you want to do, but you see the best form. I've had to in a sense push people off the ledge in order to see them become better and become great. And usually the response at the time is very uncomfortable, very nervous. But at the end of the day they, they tell me, I understand why you did so I think for the person who is being mentored, you know, have an open mind, trust me, they want to see the best for you in the long run. They see more in you than you see yourself. And that's the type of mentor you want to have.
• 48:13
  Speaker B: Yeah. The best advice is the advice that you don't want to hear. The best advice is true advice is something that's coming from someone that you probably don't want to hear. And the worst advice is just someone kind of telling you everything that you really want to hear. Like, don't worry, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay, you're doing a good job. No, when in reality, sometimes you need to hear now, it actually might not be okay. It might not be okay. And you are on a path that is Going to probably lead nowhere.
• 48:40
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 48:40
  Speaker B: Sometimes people need to actually hear that because not everyone. Not everyone makes it. Definitely not everyone makes it to. To black belt. The dropout, the blue belt blues. Huh?
• 48:49
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Yeah. What they say? Mostly everybody. My. My old instructor said when I got my blue belt, he said, look at everybody who has a blue belt. Half of y' all won't even be training in the next year. And that statement was true. Half the people I got my blue belt with wind up quitting after blue belt.
• 49:08
  Speaker B: I think the only talent that I have in life is not giving up. So you've been a black belt of 14 years. Okay. I've been doing Jiu Jitsu for like 16 years and I'm in purple belt. Okay.
• 49:16
  Speaker A: Hey.
• 49:16
  Speaker B: But it was in between having kids and probably all kinds of other numerous things and. But it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show and would love to. Would love to have you add to our AI event coming up. We've got a live AI roundtable event coming up. We. Where we want to just share use cases. We've got security events coming up and would love to have you in the community. So I'm going to send you an invite and hopefully all of your peers will. I'm sure they will love having you as well. We need to push Jiu Jitsu.
• 49:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, please do. Please do. Look forward to it.