Educating the IT Industry

Video Transcription
Harry Brelsford 

Hey nation nation back with fellow podcaster wish I could drive the traffic he does is Dave Sobel out of Washington, DC. How you doing?

Dave Sobel 

I'm great. Harry, always nice to catch up.

Harry Brelsford 

Absolutely. So this is a really timely quarterly reconnect with you because you have just returned from the CompTIA channel con conference in Chicago. Just last week, and I really haven't talked to too many people about how it went. Now that said, applause for the magnification up on Facebook with the photos right? Facebook tends to magnify anything. And the photos look, right. I mean, there was a boat ride there was hugs and kisses and cheers and beers. That part look right for someone sitting in Austin, Texas. But what was the real story what went on at Channel con?

Dave Sobel 

Well, I would be remiss if I didn't say I did a whole 45 minute livestream that's available on my YouTube channel if people want to go deep. And what I'll start with is kind of my headline there is as Todd Tebow is the CEO laid out his vision for the the Oregon for CompTIA, the organization and the educational direction they're gonna go in and everyone should remember that their primary business is certifications, we all know, a plus, but they have 30, some certifications across the gamut that are very, that are great entry level pieces. And Todd laid out a vision for this, which I'm willing to say like, Okay, I will not often and say that seems like a very sensible direction for the org to go on, trying to expand the workforce and trying to bring more people to the table and bring into the tech industry. I'm on board with that. And I think it's an admirable set of goals. The proof is in the pudding. It's a it's a bit of a vision, I want to see that executed, right. So but but if you allow your vision and you want people to get behind it, I'm willing to not often that what was actually then the next piece was, so the event kind of breaks out into their CompTIA Partner Summit, which is the piece that is the training portion, those trainers and such I didn't attend that I attended channel con. And I will observe that and from my perspective, there was a big disconnect between what Todd was saying on stage as the priorities versus all of the content that was presented at Channel con. It wasn't about training your people It wasn't about leveraging training. It was the committee breakouts for managed services and security and diversity. And then there was a I went to a Metaverse breakout. I went to marketing managed services digitally. I went to I attended a number of different sessions. And I'll say I was actually kind of disappointed. The the committee meetings, the committee's decided to spend their time on a game show. Okay, that's a that's a choice. I went to a Metaverse session. I've had some some people talking about both crypto and metaverse. On my show, I found that the presentation was a lot of buzzword salad. It wasn't actually a lot of tangible actionable stuff, the digital marketing presentation didn't go into E commerce, it didn't address, you know, the strategies for true digital acquisition, it was very high level and I will just say, you know, I am one of those people that does look for content in an event, not just not just parties and networking, which by the way are important, I think it's important to spend time networking, it's important to interact with other people. So that was kind of my, my high level impression of that there were a lot of you know, there were roughly 304 100 people there. There was a lot of energy to that because of course people are seeing one another for the first maybe the second time in a while. So there's a lot of reconnection and Rekindling, so that causes a lot of positive energy. And so you know, it's opportunity there's lots of smiling faces because these are generally a lot of people that you'd like doing business with. So you're gonna get a good vibe from that.

Harry Brelsford 

Yeah, did couple a couple of questions just based on my own experience at Channel con and unfortunately the stars didn't align this year. But well one observation is I've actually liked channel con in the past because I'm going in typically is hosted media and my job is to interview you know the different constituencies right the vendors and the attendees and you know the the nine year old kid that's parading around the the vendor floor with his dad right so Father Son, I'm sure you saw one or two of those those are always fun. So I have a different experience I honestly I'm not is I don't attend to something lectures as you do. I know you do. But I'm kind of there for some different reasons. And so I enjoy the you know, kiss, kissing babies and shaking hands with the vendors and so on. So I have a typically different experiences but Dave, what I'll find Because the lectures may not be completely irrelevant to what I do day to day is, I'll find myself kind of popping up to my hotel room in the afternoon and working for 90 minutes on email, right instead of going to lecture. And so there's part of your answer, right, my behaviors part of your answer. But, you know, looking, looking at the show, overall, what, what, what do you you know, these boards and stuff, what do you what's next? Are you on some of the boards,

Dave Sobel 

I'm not sorry, I, by the way, I went in with the media pass as well. So my attendance this year was to cover the event. And I'll freely admit that my angle on what I'm looking for is I want to understand what's being talked about, I want to be want to get a sense of what the organization is trying to drive and what the messages being delivered are. Because I'm looking for trends, right? So I'm going to be leaning heavily on attending event attending content to see what's being talked about, because my expectation would be that drives the conversations in the hallway that drives the interactions. So that's where my head is at when I when I cover an event now, going forward is I want to know what people are talking about, to watch for trends. And so that's, that's the big piece. You know, it's these are always about what you are going to do, I tend to think that you want to be looking for new trends, you want to be looking for direction, get strategy, what's going on, and you can get that in in lots of different ways. And that's the way that I was trying to get that that sense.

Harry Brelsford 

All right. So when we get you back in q4, what shows can we expect you will have attended what Datacom should be a no brainer with Washington DC.

Dave Sobel 

My request for immediate pass was was denied. So I will not attending Datacom Okay,

Harry Brelsford 

all right. Well, we'll leave it at that. Anything else on the horizon between now and say, mid November, so that would include a it nation? Maybe we'll catch you after that.

Dave Sobel 

I'm in some discussions. I don't have anything in other other to announce right now. Okay,

Harry Brelsford 

Lord, you politician. All right. Hey, take care. Thanks for hanging with us. I'll see you at q4

Dave Sobel 

Sounds good talk to you then. All right. Bye bye. Bye.