Updates in the IT Industry with Josh Liberman

Video Transcription

Harry Brelsford 

Hey nation nation back with Joshua Liberman out of Albuquerque. And we're just comparing notes over the summer heat. He got the better deal than we did in Austin, Texas, but good to see again nonetheless. And how you been otherwise, how you don't I see your photos that you're walking your dogs.

Joshua Liberman 

Yeah, I mean, I'm doing fine. Things are good. Personally, the businesses are crazy as ever. But nothing to speak of extraordinary. We, when he kind of talked about the weather, I was telling you that the only thing exceptional about our summer was it wasn't exceptional in any way. It was normally not normally dry. Normally. Cool. At night, it was just a decent ordinary summer. Yeah, a little rain, maybe a little reindeer and most but not much enough to get on the news. Which makes it pretty exceptional apparently. For most of the world.

Harry Brelsford 

Well, let's, let's talk about what Carl Pella check and Amy Babban checker do and you're involved in the NSIT s? P?

Joshua Liberman 

Yep. Right. Yeah, it's the National Society of IT service providers. So it's funny for me, because NSI are the initials of Mad sciences, Inc. And we are a technology service provider. But that has nothing to do with their an OSI tsp. They started. It is an organization that's primarily focused on getting MSI, IT service providers involved in the process of the development of legislation. states in the states and federally are being involved getting them to be involved in the process, so that we don't end up with a bunch of folks who think that the internet is a series of tubes, making laws that govern the or the business and practice in our field. So try to help guide people into figuring out do we need certifications on a federal level or a state level for service providers? And if they do, how should we best go about doing that in a vendor neutral, and sensible manner, as well as guiding service providers to improve their practices and become more professional? Quick, quick advisor, a quick rejoinder that I am not a spokesman for that group. I believe I've got that correctly, you might want to go online, look for yourself. But though I am a professional member of the group, and do some liaison, work with them for others, I am not an elected official. But if you're interested in becoming one of those elected officials, well, that election is about a month out, reach out to the NSA tsp and if you'd like, I can put the link in the chat if that's okay with you here. Yep.

Harry Brelsford 

Yeah, let's do that. Now capture it, and we'll get it up on the blog. Well, I'll tell you what, let's change the subject. The let's I always talk events with you. So you said you had a pretty busy August. Give me the four one ones, what's going on?

Joshua Liberman 

Well, I did three things in August. The first was in Phoenix. It was a small show of the sort that I hadn't done before it was at the Hyatt downtown. And it was known as the physical and cyber convergence forum. And that was something thrown by a rich finding a phelim row. Yeah, yeah. I know. You made how I know I'm not entirely sure was the sixth such event. I was involved with the virtual ones the last couple of years, but not one in person until that show. It was a small and focused event. And yet I was amazed at the overall enthusiasm of the people there. It was mostly corporate and large company types, with some MSP or service providers as well. Henry Tim, from ASCII, any channel company communities like exchange, etc. and I were both there. But I honestly didn't know anybody else who was a provider there. We did a tour of the Phoenix data center, they call it Phoenix nap or network access point, as well, which is where the three day was held in the full day conference, was at that Hyatt was interesting and different. And they found it to be quite successful. exchange happened in Denver the week after that. I was up there in an unusual position, helping out one of the vendors that I worked at by the name of dark cubed as more or less an MSP testimonial, or a heckler. I mostly testimonial up on stage with Vince Twizzler, who's the principal and founder of that organization that was fun. And like every exchange diverse and heavily people. They think they got their largest exchange event ever In person 100. So you're quite happy. And

Harry Brelsford 

well, into their credit, that's a slightly different event. That's as I recall an invitation only hosted event. And so it will never be 20,000 people, right? That's, that's not as business model, it's a lot more intimate as I recall.

Joshua Liberman 

Yeah, the so you're only halfway right. And that is invitation only per se, you can have a general attendee badge, where you go and see the general sessions, they feed you, you can go to the show floor. Okay, meat of it is becoming a, what they call a sponsored or hosted attendee, and the pay airfare and hotel, were in exchange for that they tie down your time. So you have what they call boardrooms, which happened multiple times a day, typically four or five times a day, for about 40 minutes, of course, half of which is a presentation from a specific vendor and half of which is the rebuttal to that, which basically, the MSP is in the room 1015 2025 of them talking amongst each other about the presentation that you just saw. But what's unique is that structure, and the fact that as an attendee, you don't choose whom you're in front of, they choose you more or less. But you you get assigned to boardrooms and you sit through them. I'm pretty sure they vendors have peremptory strikes, they can probably avoid having certain people in the room. But for the most part, it's a match. It's made by the channel company. It was shocking to me the first time we went years ago, because I didn't know that in advance. But I've got to say that I probably haven't gotten more in depth information from new vendors, any show since then I get there. For me the challenges, maybe I only want to meet half those vendors. Maybe I only want to engage with one or two of them. And there's always vendors you want to see. But you're not set up. They're not on your speed dating schedule. So you don't get to

Harry Brelsford 

do that. Yeah. It's very effective. They, yeah, vendors love it.

Joshua Liberman 

I can tell you that much. Almost all of them tell us that they're having. They've had a really great experience with it. Yeah, channel con real quick, just that that happened week before in Chicago. We can come back that if you want. But that was the big annual channel con. Excuse me, again, in Chicago, beginning of the month. August.

Harry Brelsford 

Yeah, I heard I heard good things. I well, I heard two things about channel con. I unfortunately didn't make it. But the why heard three things. First of all, some of the people I interact with liked the WhatsApp project at Gaura, a training initiative that Todd announced in the keynote. So there was there was that there was appreciation for almost like a increasing the workforce of IT workers. And that'll be part of compte as mission. Number two on the one hand, I had one or two people tell me that well, there weren't many people there. But on the other hand, I talked to a longtime attendee. And she said, No, that's that's not true. The the attendance was good. She said, what happened was people hadn't seen each other in person so long, that they kind of scattered off and went to dinners or did this or did that. So optically if it was your first show, and the person I talked to who didn't think there were many attendees, it was their first time so they had no context. But my lady friend told me optically, she could see how he would have felt that right that it wasn't displaying itself, like, you know, this big stadium full of people. But she said, No, the people were there. They just they wanted to scamper off and chat with the people they knew. Because the been two and a half years since they seen each other.

Joshua Liberman 

I could not substantiate it being lightly attended. It certainly seemed at least normal to me. To several of those. Now, I will also say that you're probably right, your intuitive. Instincts are probably pretty good there. They, they definitely did. I saw a lot of people run off and do other things and meetups and scheduled events. It was a lot more small group, even some of them, you know, groups of small people. No, no. So there was a lot of that going on a lot of you know, of course, self driven. But yeah, it was actually a busy and effective event and once again, with good feedback from people involved. Surprising, surprisingly enough, I saw a higher percentage of people, vendors that were new to me than any show I've been to in quite a while.

Harry Brelsford 

All right, well, hey, I got a bounce. It's, it's podcast Wednesday. So, folks, I'm going to be able to attend the Enable Empower conference in the Acronis cyber fit conference and Josh and I were talking off camera, so hopefully, we'll see it Cronus in particular, nice time of year to be down in Miami, and otherwise, Alright, take care of my friend. Thanks for being a rotating analyst.

Joshua Liberman 

Thanks, buddy. All right.

Harry Brelsford 

All right. Bye.