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All the usual rambling with a deep dive on RSA v NZ and why we're now experts in flying planes too close to stadiums. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Completely back on my feet and as usual when I'm on the mend I have more time to sit in front of the computer and work on RSA. I'm proud of all of my shows (1402 so far!) but the ones that I spend extra time listening and adjusting are always special to me. Plus it's really nice not to be sick! I don't always have great luck with bad food. Frontal Boundary - Burn Lights Of Euphoria - City Streets (Extended) Kant Kino - Temptation (Remix) ICD-10 - All Data Is Lost Phosgore - 20 Ways To Kill Someone Mildreda - Silk Skin Phaser One - A Thousand Gods Lifelong Corporation - You Got No Influence http://synthetic.org/ https://www.youtube.com/@RealSyntheticAudio
Richard Entrup is unusual in quantum circles: he's not a physicist, and he doesn't pretend to be. He spent decades as a CIO, CTO, CDO, and CISO at organizations including Verizon, Christie's, Disney/ABC, Time Warner, and Tiffany & Company before joining KPMG to lead its Emerging Solutions practice. That background — deep operational experience on the client side — shapes everything about how he thinks about quantum. He's not selling a hardware roadmap; he's thinking about what it actually takes to get a large, complex organization to change its cryptographic infrastructure before a threat materializes.The conversation matters now because the signals are accelerating. NIST has finalized its first post-quantum cryptography standards, executive orders in the US are pushing federal agencies toward PQC migration, and the algorithmic efficiency gains that reduce the qubit threshold for breaking RSA-2048 keep coming. Listeners who work in enterprise technology, cybersecurity, or quantum strategy — or who advise organizations that do — will find Entrup's practitioner perspective a useful counterweight to the more hardware-focused conversations that dominate the field.What We Get IntoWhy Q-Day's exact date is the wrong question — and why the more important issue is how long it will take enterprises to even inventory their cryptographic exposure, let alone remediate itThe scale of the cryptographic migration problem, including why a single laptop may contain hundreds of individual cryptographic components and why upstream/downstream API dependencies make this a supply-chain-wide challenge, not just an internal IT projectWhy "harvest now, decrypt later" creates urgency today, regardless of when fault-tolerant quantum computers arrive — and how compliance and regulatory timelines interact with that threat modelWhat crypto agility actually means in practice — moving from a "set it and forget it" cryptographic posture to a dynamic, continuously monitored framework, including the pressure SSL certificate renewal windows are already creatingHow KPMG built its PQC practice, incubated it within the firm, and handed it off to the cybersecurity advisory team as a core service offeringThe "good quantum" side of the ledger — how KPMG's emerging research function is approaching quantum computing as a source of competitive advantage, not just risk, and what sectors are furthest along in exploring itThe AI-quantum convergence, including Entrup's observation that AI is already being used to read and crack code — and what that means for the urgency of cryptographic modernizationWhy the enterprise quantum opportunity still has a long tail, and how the current moment compares to the early infrastructure phase of the internet — when everyone was talking about TCP/IP and DNS, not Uber or NetflixResources & LinksGuest & OrganizationRichard Entrup — Worth Magazine Profile — Career arc from CIO/CISO roles at major global brands to KPMG's Emerging Solutions practiceKPMG Quantum Dawn (2025) — KPMG's enterprise quantum readiness hub, introducing the Q-PREP framework and PQC implementation services, with Entrup as named leadReports & ResearchKPMG — "The Quantum Threat Is No Longer Theoretical" (2026) — The threat brief discussed in this episode, charting the rapid decline in qubits needed to crack RSA-2048 and urging immediate PQC migrationKPMG — "From Theory to Impact: Real-World Results in Quantum Machine Learning" (2026) — KPMG's joint report with IBM and Kipu Quantum on measurable quantum ML results on real hardwareKPMG — "Prepare Now for Quantum Cyber Risk" — Board Leadership Article (2026) — C-suite and board-level guidance on integrating quantum risk into enterprise oversightarXiv — "Quantum-enhanced satellite image classification" (2026) — The underlying research paper behind the KPMG/IBM/Kipu Quantum ML resultsEcosystem & EventsChicago Quantum Exchange — KPMG Joins CQE (October 2024) — Announcement of KPMG's formal CQE membership, referenced in the episode as part of the firm's ecosystem-building strategyKPMG 2026 Quantum Consortium — The inaugural KPMG Quantum Consortium event (March 2026, Orlando) discussed in the episodeIndependent CoverageQuantum Computing Report — KPMG joins Chicago Quantum Exchange (2024) — Independent coverage of KPMG's CQE partnership and enterprise quantum strategyQuantum Zeitgeist — Kipu Quantum satellite imagery coverage (Feb 2026) — Independent analysis of the KPMG/IBM/Kipu hybrid QML resultsKey Quotes & Insights> "It's not if but when. And it could be five years, could be three years, could be ten years. The fact is organizations are not gonna be ready. And that's the scary part." — Richard Entrup on Q-Day> "This is not just the CISO. This is gonna be the software engineering app dev guys. This is gonna be all your partners, upstream and downstream, who have to also be compliant — because if you change your crypto and they don't, that stuff's gonna break." — On why PQC migration is an enterprise-wide, supply-chain-wide problemInsight: Entrup draws a sharp distinction between the "bad quantum" (cryptographic risk requiring urgent defensive action) and the "good quantum" (competitive opportunity with a longer tail) — and argues that most organizations aren't adequately addressing either.Insight: The analogy to the early internet is deliberate: just as the 1990s were consumed with TCP/IP and DNS rather than the applications those protocols would eventually enable, the current quantum moment is still largely an infrastructure conversation — and that's normal, not a sign of failure.> "AI is expediting all of this. If AI is doing one thing, the use case is reading code and cracking it. That's pretty scary." — On the intersection of AI capability and cryptographic vulnerabilityRelated EpisodesEp. 81 — Quantum LDPC Error Correction with Larry Cohen and Paul Webster — Directly relevant: Cohen and Webster discuss how QLDPC error correction reduces the qubit overhead needed for RSA cryptanalysis, the technical underpinning of the threat timeline Entrup describesEp. 38 — Quantum Machine Learning with Jessic...
Post-quantum cryptography was in conversation after conversation at Black Hat USA 2026, yet Larry Lunetta of HPE walked part of the show floor and counted a single reference to quantum. Where the topic shows up, and where it does not, says something about who is expected to solve it. Why does a problem described in 1994 matter now? Larry Lunetta points to Peter Shor, who asked what would happen to RSA if a different kind of computing technology existed. What changed since then is the trajectory. Five years ago cryptographically relevant quantum computing looked like a 10 to 15 year phenomenon. Larry Lunetta now puts it as soon as three years out, with the original algorithm improved, qubit hardware advancing, and classical supercomputing pulling the timeline in alongside it. The exposure starts before any of that arrives. Larry Lunetta describes harvest now, decrypt later, where an attacker collects RSA-encrypted data today and waits for the machine that can open it. Data that carries no consequence when it leaks this year can be read later, which puts long-lived information like identity records and medical data at the front of the queue rather than in a later phase. HPE puts a three part journey in front of customers. Cryptographically aware asks which data is most sensitive, where it lives, and whether it is protected sufficiently. Cryptographically planning reaches into the refresh cycle, so that new network, server, and storage purchases already implement PQC-relevant algorithms. Cryptographically nimble accounts for the fact that no cryptographically relevant quantum computer exists to test against yet, which makes the ability to change algorithms and firmware quickly part of the design. Who owns the conversation inside the business? Larry Lunetta puts the CISO at the center of gravity, with CIOs becoming aware and boards engaged where GDPR governs customer and private information. His advice for security leaders is to broaden the conversation toward infrastructure and operations, and to make encryption and PQC readiness a question asked during procurement rather than after it. This is a Brand Briefing. A Brand Briefing is an on-location conversation recorded on site at Black Hat USA 2026, putting a spotlight on the guest and their company and pairing it with the editorial reach of ITSPmagazine. Learn more: https://www.studioc60.com/performance/#briefing GUEST Larry Lunetta, Vice President, Portfolio Technical Marketing at HPE On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larryathpe/ RESOURCES Black Hat USA 2026 event coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/black-hat-usa-2026-cybersecurity-event-coverage-in-las-vegas HPE: https://www.hpe.com Post-Quantum Cryptography overview: https://www.hpe.com/us/en/what-is/post-quantum-cryptography.html HPE technology leadership in quantum: https://www.hpe.com/us/en/about/technology-leadership-quantum.html Are you interested in telling your story? ▶︎ Full Length Brand Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#full ▶︎ Brand Spotlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#spotlight ▶︎ Brand Highlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#highlight ▶︎ Get your own Brand Briefing at an upcoming event: https://www.studioc60.com/buy-brand-briefings KEYWORDS larry lunetta, hpe, sean martin, brand briefing, brand story, brand marketing, marketing podcast, black hat usa 2026, post-quantum cryptography, pqc, quantum computing, harvest now decrypt later, rsa encryption, cryptographic agility, ciso, crypto agility, nist post-quantum standards, it infrastructure security, encryption, data protection Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Most sales conversations still lean on product specs, and most leadership still gets reduced to quota math, until the market gets hard and both approaches break down. Rob Potter, CEO of Oomnitza, joins John Kaplan and John McMahon to argue that revenue and retention run on the same fuel: story, evidence, and belief rather than pressure. Shaped by three decades under RSA and EMC leaders like Art Coviello and Mark Thurman, Potter explains why technical credibility alone creates gaps in a sales motion, how staged delegation and reverse-timeline planning scale a team without inflating cost, and why transformative leaders keep people through a missed quarter while transactional leaders lose them the moment the number slips. Rob Potter is CEO of Oomnitza, an enterprise technology management platform, and a venture partner at SYN Ventures. His path to the corner office ran through engineering and sales leadership roles at IBM, WRQ, Symantec, and RSA/EMC, where he worked alongside leaders including Art Coviello and Joe Tucci before running revenue organizations of his own. Connect with Rob: LinkedIn Resources mentioned: Force Management's Command of the Message® Force Management's Conversation Guide Key takeaways from this episode: 04:06 - How a mentor redirected Potter from veterinary school to engineering, and how an IBM customer engagement pulled him out of coding and into sales. 14:15 - Why staged delegation, bringing team members in at the right sales-cycle phase rather than all at once, is what separates scalable sales leaders from expensive ones. 19:29 - The single metric Mark Thurman drilled into him: growth rate quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year matters more than revenue alone. 20:41 - What RSA and EMC's top leaders had in common: honesty, transparency, and empathy, especially when navigating layoffs. 27:48 - Why passion is contagious in an organization, and why it only exists downstream of belief built on evidence. 31:37 - The storytelling framework Potter coaches into every rep: journey, problem, outcome, not product spec. 38:22 - Why AI guardrails have to differ by function, and the hidden long-term cost of building AI in-house instead of buying it. Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedInYouTubeForce Management
The RSA have made a decision to temporarily close North Dublin's Raheny driving test centre due to construction works near the building, which is causing disruption. This is despite the 29 week wait times for driving tests in that area. Driving test wait times is an issue across the country and applicants are starting to turn to third-party apps in the hope to secure an earlier test time.David Martin, Head of Communications at the RSA, joins Ciara to discuss.
The RSA have launched a new campaign urging car drivers to take an extra moment to look out for motorcyclists when emerging from junctions. They are warning that motorcyclists continue to be disproportionately represented in serious and fatal road traffic collisions. Speaking to Anton this morning was Michael Noonan, PRO of the Irish Motorcyclists' Association.
Tonino Lasconi"Preghiere e confidenze"Dentro la vita di ogni giorno.Prefazione di Valerio BocciEdizioni Sanpinowww.edizionisanpino.itDentro la vita di ogni giorno Una pagina al giorno per pregare la vita, così com'è.Preghiere e confidenze è un piccolo breviario quotidiano: una pagina al giorno per pregare la vita così com'è, senza filtri. Don Tonino Lasconi alterna preghiere e racconti brevi che nascono dalle situazioni più comuni dell'esistenza — la pensione, i nipoti e i social media, la malattia, la disoccupazione, le notti insonni dei genitori, le case di riposo — e le trasforma in parole semplici, capaci di aprire alla fiducia. Ne emerge un Dio che non abita solo le chiese, ma le cucine e i corridoi degli ospedali: vicino, feriale, presente nelle pieghe di ogni giornata. Un libro pensato per essere sfogliato un giorno alla volta, da chi cerca nella preghiera non un rifugio dalla vita reale, ma un modo per attraversarla.Episodi, volti, piccole e grandi prove quotidiane: la pensione che non è come l'abbiamo sognata, i nipoti e i social, la malattia, il lavoro che manca, le notti dei genitori, le RSA. L'autore li trasforma in parole semplici che aprono alla fiducia. Pagina dopo pagina, queste pre ghiere asciutte e vicinissime al cuore mostrano un Dio che abita le cucine e i corridoi d'ospedale, i treni veloci e le stanze della solitu dine. Una spiritualità concreta, capace di sorridere e di consolare, che aiuta a dire “grazie”, “perdono”, “aiutami” nel momento stesso in cui le cose accadono. Un libro per chi cerca un tempo breve ma vero da regalarsi ogni giorno per pregare la vita com'è.Perché comprarlo?• Una raccolta di situazioni quotidiane in cui ognuno si riconosce, che diventano preghiere senza moralismi e che parlano della vita vera: figli, lavoro, nipoti, malattie, social, pensione, condominio…• Ogni pagina è “un respiro”. Capitoli brevi e autonomi, ideali per una lettura al giorno, per accompagnare i gesti e gli impegni della quotidianità.• Consola e orienta. Offre parole quando non se ne trovano e suggerisce gesti.• Utile a casa e in comunità. Funziona per la preghiera personale e come strumento pronto all'uso per catechisti, animatori, volontari dei malati.Destinatari: Adulti e anziani, nonne/i, genitori, caregiver, operatori pastorali, gruppi famiglia, cappellani ospedalieri e di Residenze Sanitarie.Don Tonino Lasconi nasce a Fabriano il 20 agosto 1943 e viene ordinato sacerdote il 29 giugno 1967. Fin dagli anni giovanili si dedica alla catechesi e alla comunicazione con i ragazzi, tra i fondatori dell'Azione Cattolica dei Ragazzi (ACR), per la quale cura per anni i sussidi del cammino di fede. È stato assistente diocesano dell'Azione Cattolica e direttore dell'Ufficio catechistico della Diocesi di Fabriano-Matelica, oltre che editorialista per testate cattoliche come Avvenire e il giornale per ragazzi Popotus. Scrittore prolifico ed esperto dei linguaggi della comunicazione — cinema, televisione, fotografia, canzone, giornalismo — ha pubblicato con l'Ave, le Paoline, Elle Di Ci e Cittadella Editrice libri diventati punti di riferimento per la catechesi giovanile, come Uffa che bello, Tra i ragazzi, Amico Dio e Fortissimo Gesù. Con Preghiere e confidenze (Edizioni Sanpino) torna a parlare, con lo stesso linguaggio semplice e diretto, a un pubblico adulto.Diventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/il-posto-delle-parole--1487855/support.IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.it/
The RSA have launched a new campaign urging car drivers to take an extra moment to look out for motorcyclists when emerging from junctions. They are warning that motorcyclists continue to be disproportionately represented in serious and fatal road traffic collisions. Speaking to Anton this morning was Michael Noonan, PRO of the Irish Motorcyclists' Association.
Craig Patterson, global channel chief at Exabeam For years, SIEM has been one of those technologies that looked good in theory but was genuinely hard to build a profitable managed service around. Deal-by-deal discount negotiations, licensing structures built for enterprise resale rather than recurring managed services revenue, and no predictable floor on margin. For many MSPs, the math just never worked. Exabeam – the combined company formed from the merger of the original Exabeam and LogRhythm – is making a direct play to change that. Global channel chief Craig Patterson and senior director of service provider alliances Peter Stratis join In The Channel to walk through the new MSSP commercial framework inside the recently launched APEX Partner Program. Two new licensing pathways: a single-pool capacity model for high-volume, multi-tenant environments serving SMB and mid-market clients, and a federated subscription model that isolates customer environments for compliance and data sovereignty requirements. For Canadian MSSPs navigating PIPEDA, OSFI E-21, or Protected B, that second model is the one to pay close attention to. Peter Stratis, senior directof of server provider alliances at Exabeam The conversation also covers Sherpa, Exabeam’s new AI-powered partner enablement platform – a move away from the traditional LMS toward an always-on coaching tool that can join partner sales calls in real time – and Agent Behavior Analytics, Exabeam’s new capability for detecting malfunctioning, misaligned, and subverted AI agents inside customer environments, included at no additional cost. The standout line from Peter Stratis – who called this his first-ever podcast appearance – is the one worth writing down: “We treated our service providers like resellers, unfortunately.” The new framework is a direct acknowledgment of that history, and an attempt to rebuild the commercial relationship from the ground up. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca and your host for the show. If you’ve been in the channel for any length of time, you know that SIEM has always been one of those technologies that seems great in theory but has been genuinely hard to build a profitable managed service around. Licensing models that weren’t built for multi-tenancy, unpredictable costs, discount structures that made margin planning more of a guessing game than a business model. A lot of MSPs have looked at the security operations space and quietly backed away for exactly those reasons. Exabeam, the combined company that emerged out of the merger of Exabeam and LogRhythm, is making a direct play to change that. They have overhauled their channel program into what they’re calling the APEX Partner Program and at the centre of it is a new commercial framework built specifically for managed security service providers. Two distinct pathways: one for high-volume multi-tenant environments and one built with compliance and data sovereignty in mind. For Canadian MSPs navigating PIPEDA, OSFI E-21 and Protected B requirements, that second lane is worth paying close attention to. I’ve got two Exabeam executives here to walk us through it. Craig Patterson is Exabeam’s global channel chief and Peter Stratis is the senior director of service provider alliances, the person who’s been working directly with MSSPs to build this out from the ground up. Let’s get right into it. My chat with Craig Patterson and Peter Stratis. Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time. Craig Patterson: Thank you, Robert. Super excited to be on here with you today, my friend. Peter Stratis: Thank you. Robert Dutt: Craig, can you just kick us off with a quick version of where Exabeam sits right now? You know, you guys went through a significant merger with LogRhythm not that long ago. Now you’re pushing an updated partner program. For solution providers who maybe haven’t been following closely, what does the combined company look like from a channel perspective? Craig Patterson: The short answer, my friend, is that we’re sitting in an amazing place. We’re absolutely in a good place positioning to really drive value to our partner community. And so to give you a little more context around that, like you asked, we’ve spent the last 12 months really kind of rethinking, reimagining the whole partner ecosystem in a way to create value for all of our partners globally. And so there was a number of things we went through over the last 12 months. We spent a lot of time really going to this assessment loop, understanding everybody’s perspective. So we did that by having very strategic conversations with our top-tier partners. We did some survey work. We looked at the broad landscape in terms of the trends that the partners are really looking for in these modern channel programs. So all of that really became this assessment loop. The output of that is that really became the foundation for what we built here with APEX. And so with APEX, the Exabeam APEX Partner Program, what you have here is you have a program that’s really centered on value that’s really focused on solving a problem that exists in our market today around enablement. And so when you think about enablement today, I’ve written a lot of articles on this. Most enablement programs really don’t drive to the level of outcome that companies are looking to have. Outcomes like conversion rates, outcomes like time to first deal, outcome rates like retention rates, all these things. And so what we’ve done is we’ve really focused on enablement as the key catalyst to really drive value to our partners. And so with that, we’ve launched new enablement programs really with a focus on increasing their competency level so we can align to those outcomes we’re looking to have with our company’s operating plan. And so there’s a lot of thought that’s got into this. The short answer is we have a program that’s built on value. It aligns to where the market is going and what partners are really asking for. Robert Dutt: Peter, your title as senior director of service provider alliances is a pretty specific role. Can you tell us a little bit about what that looks like sort of on a day-to-day basis and the big problems that you’re focused on? Peter Stratis: Sure thing. Thanks, Robert. Well, I’ve been with Exabeam for about eight years now and service providers have always been a key component of not only our channel strategy, but our go-to-market and just from our net new revenue perspective. After our merger with LogRhythm, that actually continues and if anything, it’s only been more emphasized because both from an on-prem and from a cloud perspective, we see the MSSPs being a strong driver of that strategy of our go-to-market. So over the last eight years, we’ve seen that trend of not only on net new revenue, net new logos being a major part of our business, but then how do, to Craig’s point, how do we support them? To be quite honest, in the past, it was quite difficult. We really didn’t have any kind of structured pricing for these partners. It was, to say the least, it was more of a resale program that had some discounts tied to it. So through Craig’s efforts, through our whole surveys and our intent to really go after this market and treat them the way they should be treated, he mentioned that we did these surveys. We asked internally, what do you look for in a service provider partner? We asked externally what these partners were looking for from us. And that’s when in building the APEX Partner Program here at Exabeam, we also took into account what service providers would look for in a new partner program. So that’s everything from pricing to support. Craig mentioned enablement. Enablement is a huge part of that, where they felt in the past they were just lumped up as just a regular partner. Now we have supported APIs, documented APIs that most, if not all, of our partners are using as part of their foundation for their services. So we’ve really come a long way and continue actually to build upon that, as you’ll see throughout 2026 and beyond. Robert Dutt: Okay, let’s get into the framework itself. You guys positioned it at launch as solving commercial and operational friction for MSSPs. Curious, what did you hear that friction looked like in practice? What were MSSPs telling you was broken or was a big challenge? Craig Patterson: Yeah, so I’ll take a stab at this and I’ll let Peter give more context. So a lot of this came out during that assessment phase. Robert, we’re talking to the MSSPs globally. I’m like, what’s working? What’s not working? What would they like to see incorporated into the MSSP program 2.0? So a lot of the feedback we heard was really around the flexibility. Being able to have a license that is catering to all the customer demand they have beneath. So it’s really giving them the flexibility to buy that one license and carve it up as they see fit. And giving them more flexibility on the commercial terms. That was a lot of the commentary we heard. The other thing we heard was really they wanted more value as it leads to the enablement side. So obviously getting them enabled on the pre-sales side, but more importantly on the post-sales side. So they could actually drive those implementations, drive the management and really help those customers create a lot of value. And so I think those were kind of the big levers that I heard from those assessments. And then in practice, Peter can give you some more context in terms of how we’re putting all this together. Peter Stratis: Yeah, thanks Craig. A lot of what we heard from the service provider community in the past was friction. So when they’re trying to price out their services and our product and etc., they were seeing friction at onboarding. They were seeing friction in trying to predict their margin on deals. As mentioned, not airing any dirty laundry here. It was more like a resale program. So we gave discounts and there were very opportunistic discounts on a deal-by-deal basis. So they didn’t build predictable service models around it in the past. And then you always hear the buzzword, multi-tenancy. We kept on getting asked about our multi-tenant roadmaps, etc. We’re looking at this framework as a way of solving for that. We continue to make feature enhancements into the platform that will strive for that multi-tenancy. But the way we’re solving for it is by these two pathways. One is that single license, pooled capacity, data segregation model. And the other is that federated workflow that we announced where it’s more for, whether you’re within data sovereignty, if in different regions or just different use cases from a compliance perspective, whether it’s healthcare or finance, and you have to keep these environments isolated. We have a plan and we worked with our MSSPs specifically to have these kind of pathways. So we heard from our MSSPs and we actually developed these two pathways with them in mind. So they were in the design phase and in the rollout phase for both federated and the single pool capacity. Robert Dutt: The federated model is such an interesting one, I think, for the Canadian market, specifically data sovereignty, huge topic. And there are specific compliance requirements, PIPEDA, OSFI E-21, Protected B status. It means that a lot of Canadian MSSPs can’t just kind of throw everything into one pool. Was that the sort of thing that was explicitly on the radar when you built this out or a happy coincidence of the architecture and the feedback that you heard along the way? Peter Stratis: It’s actually a little of both, right? So it just so happened to be the maturity of our platform. Even from our Exabeam New Scale platform, we went from an on-prem hardware appliance way back in 2012, to our version 1.0 was a SaaS product, to our native cloud. It was always a single-tenant solution. So it worked well for certain service providers that had the capacity. They had their APIs and their own platforms that could manage this solution. As you heard more and more about multi-tenancy and the need for data sovereignty and all that, we still had a big part of our MSSPs were asking for this single license pooled capacity. So we structured it in a way where for midsize organizations or even some small, medium business, you still have that single pool capacity using data segregation. You lose some of the customization, but you could actually solve for a lot of those customers in that model. And then you have another plan with the federated. So the more mature MSSPs are running both models in some capacity. They could still run that single license for their SMB play. And then for either large enterprise or very compliance-driven customers that want those isolated environments, they have that flexibility. And that’s what we built a framework around. Obviously, that’s one point of feedback that sort of directly informed the framework. Robert Dutt: You guys have said that this whole thing was built, as you said, with direct collaboration with your MSSP partners rather than kind of coming down on high. I’m curious along with what you’ve touched on already, what actually changed as a result of going through that process? What did you go in thinking you’d build and how did it come out differently because of what partners told you along the way to building it? Craig Patterson: Yeah. So I think there’s a lot of things that have been addressed. Obviously, the packaging and the commercial aspects as Peter was describing, but think about some of the fundamental problems in terms of partners want this path to profitability, right? Really understanding how they can create margin. That was one thing. Another path is like, how do I become enabled with Exabeam? And how do I stay informed in terms of where you’re going? Another problem we wanted to solve. So I think it’s a lot around the financial aspects of doing business with us. A lot of it’s around becoming enabled, becoming more knowledgeable on all the new features and releases that we’re dropping. And so those were some of the big fundamentals that we wanted to solve in the APEX framework. And then beneath that, obviously, is the whole MSSP play. And that’s what Peter’s been talking about. So you can probably give a little more context on that. Peter Stratis: Yeah. As mentioned, there is no one-size-fits-all. So the feedback we were getting was obviously their security platform was important to them. Some of them had an in-house platform they built on their own. And there’s ways of differentiating. So basic SIEMs are just going after alert monitoring. So how can I differentiate my service if I’m a service provider? Well, there’s ways of going to market, but also there were things we needed to do in the back office from a platform perspective to make those possible. So making our behavioral analytics available in these models so they can actually differentiate their services. As I said, we have a history of actually adding features quarter-over-quarter, month-over-month. So that’s not stopping. We didn’t announce necessarily multi-tenancy to the world. We announced a commercial framework for that. So you’ll continue to see on a month-to-month, quarter-over-quarter basis, features added to support not only the commercial framework, but the underlying platform to make it easier for service providers to add that operational efficiency, to add those differentiators from a product portfolio as well. Robert Dutt: Let’s talk about the economics underneath there. You use the term predictable margins as a phrase that shows up in the messaging. SIEM has historically been a tough service to make money on. Licensing models that didn’t fit the managed services motion, unpredictable costs on data ingestion, those sorts of things. What specifically changes for an MSSP’s P&L under the framework? Craig Patterson: Yeah. So I think there’s really two components here. The first is the whole financial package associated to the MSSP partners. And the second is the discounting framework. And so let’s maybe start with the discounting framework. One of the observations that we made during this whole assessment phase was the vast majority, Robert, of all of our deals were flowing through this non-standard process, which means the discounts that were aligned to the traditional framework were not putting the MSSP partners in a position to actually transact. And so what we did is we went through and we re-looked at the discounting framework and sort of realigned it based upon our actual data points. We looked at the last 12, 24 months, the discounts that were being derived to actually transact. And we sort of rebuilt the entire discounting framework for our company in a way that really empowers the MSSP partners now to have enough discount to actually transact without going to this non-standard queue. So what does it mean? Well, we really kind of flipped the script. Instead of 80% being non-standard, we believe 80% will flow through the standard process now because we’ve built the discounts in a way to align with what the market is looking for. That’s kind of the key component number one. And then as it relates to the discounting side, we reimagined how those discounts are calculated. And so now you kind of have your standard program discount. So that’s based upon your tier. So top-tier MSSP partners get the highest level discount. The second is deal registration. Obviously, they put the deal reg in that ties to a discount. Those are both standard common things. But what’s new, which is what you care about. What is new? Well, we’ve aligned the third discount based to their competency level. And so we measure that based upon certifications. And so if you think back to those choose-your-own-adventure books as a kid, we’re really giving the partners their own choose-your-own-adventure. And if they want to drive to the highest level discount, well, simply, MSSP partners got to go take all of our certifications, pre-sales and post-sales, so they have the highest level of competency to drive our services in the market. And our thesis around that is partners that have higher certifications, they’re going to be more active, they’re going to be more interested, they’re going to drive more pipeline. And if we do this the right way, Robert, they’re actually going to convert at a higher percentage, we’re going to see shortened sales cycles, all of which align to the operating plan of our company. So it’s kind of those two fundamental things that were addressed through that process. And then I’m sure Peter can fill in the detail for you. Peter Stratis: Yeah, if I can actually elaborate on that. Thanks for that, Craig. And just some historical context, Robert, as mentioned in the past, we treated our service providers like resellers, unfortunately, so it was very deal-specific in terms of what they were getting on a deal-by-deal basis from a discount. So the economics of it was they really couldn’t rationalize their margin predictability on an overall services basis. And you know, different regions go to market different ways. In Europe, Asia, Latin America, predominantly, it’s all SIEM as a service and MSSP owns the license. In the Americas, both US and Canada, we saw a lot of proliferation in the past of customer-owned licenses. So the MSSP would resell the license, and consequently, just provide managed services wrap on top of that. Not only do we see more of that MSSP-owned model now where it’s SIEM as a service in the US and Canada. So it’s proliferated itself throughout all the regions. Now with these frameworks, we actually are able to build these economics, the margin predictability, as Craig mentioned, because now they know as a standard, what they’re going to be selling for. So especially as we do this federated model, and even the single license, you know what your price is across the board, you know what license you’re buying, you know what price you’re buying it for, you know, the more customers you add to these models, the more your profitability will increase as well. So it continues to grow from a pure profit play. Partners want to know what their margin would be as their customer licenses grow. And this is exactly what the framework did. Robert Dutt: This is sort of a broader question around MSP/MSSP distinctions as opposed to directly about the framework. But there’s a distinction worth drawing between an MSP trying to bolt a security practice onto the existing managed services business and the established MSSP who’s been at this for a year or who has built it up. Are those two different conversations for you? And if so, what are the different entry points and care-abouts? Peter Stratis: So it’s interesting, not only because of this announcement, even prior to it, the announcement of the APEX Partner Program here at Exabeam caused a lot of interest from partners and different kinds of partners. The traditional MSP, when inquiring, it was kind of hard when we were vetting them that they had no security practice of their own. So oftentimes they would actually outsource that security to an MSSP, to a classic MSSP, or maybe just resell services from those other organizations. We see that, we see a lot of interest from MSPs with that. And we see VARs or resellers come to us that want to build managed service practices as well. So we look at both of these in two different ways. One, how can we take care of these partner inquiries now, and then how can we grow with these organizations? So both MSPs and resellers that are interested in managed services now, our first inkling is to try to introduce them to our current managed service base. These people have the experience, they have the certifications, they have the technical knowledge. We’ve seen that move from a lot of MSP partners actually having channels of their own. So they actually sell their MDR or MSSP services through a channel of resellers or MSPs. But then if that’s our first step with these type of partnerships, then it’s like, how can we grow within your organization? How can we help you get the technical skills required? Because for a true MSP to have success, not only in SIEM, but just security as a service, you can’t just train one or two people, you need the 24-by-7 support, you need the tier one and tier two level of support services as well. So you have to grow your organization or outsource it to people that are already prepared to handle that. So that MSP play, we actually see it more and more going towards our current managed security service providers and getting that as a resource. Craig Patterson: Just to add a little more context to that too. So this actually becomes a very interesting point for the distributors worldwide as well. Because a lot of what they provide in terms of value is helping those MSPs in terms of deployment and management of the services. And so we’ve gone through the vetting process globally, looking at all of our distributors and we’ve handpicked our strategic distributors around the world. So if we have MSPs that want to come into the program, but they’re not ready on that post-sale side, well, guess what? That can become the role of the distributor. And secondarily, this is where the enablement really comes into play as well. And so that’s why we’ve built very specific paths on enablement, pre-sales and post-sales, where partners can choose their own adventure. “Hey, if I want to get going on the pre-sale side, well, guess what? I can simply resell.” Or, “Hey, I want to really start focusing on the post-sales services implementation.” I can start to take the enablement around those courses to become more of an expert to really give me those new capabilities. And so there’s a whole conversation around what we’re doing on enablement with our brand new Sherpa that’s really given a lot of these partners those capabilities. Robert Dutt: On the note of Sherpa, an AI-powered tool for partners, it’s essentially a virtual channel account manager in terms of enablement, onboarding, that sort of thing, especially for an MSSP who’s new to SIEM. How does it change the friction of getting started with Exabeam as their platform? Craig Patterson: You’re going to love this. You’re going to love this. So we’ve sort of reimagined all of the enablement. Again, when you look at traditional enablement, it’s like most enablement is built in these LMS platforms. Like, “Hey, partner, go log on to this LMS platform, get your certification, and then we expect you to actually know what the hell you’re doing.” Reality is that’s not what happens. They log on to the LMS platforms. They fast-forward as quickly as they can to the end. They turn the volume down. And then when the quiz comes, they use AI to answer the questions. And so they just find a way to get the certification. The reality is none of that helps them be better in life or actually raise their competency. And so that’s a problem we took on head-on with Sherpa. And so Sherpa was built in a way to really change the way partners learn with the whole goal of raising their competency level so they can be better on the market. And there was really like three use cases we were trying to solve with the emergence of Sherpa. The first is like you think about this global ecosystem that Peter and I have. We have 3000 partners. The partner ecosystem looks different. We have VARs. We have MSPs. We have MSSPs. We have distributors. We have the trusted advisor market as well. All of them have different needs in terms of where they are from a learning perspective. And so the first use case, Robert, is simply like a tool to be able to ask questions. What are the use cases? How do I position this? Why is SIEM or UEBA better than the competition? Just an always-on tool for partners to ask questions. And so that was kind of use case one. And then the cool thing around that is you think about the ecosystem being very global in nature. The other problem with LMS platforms is I’ve got partners in Japan. Well, that means the LMS platform they log on to needs to be able to talk to them in Japanese. And so the beauty with Sherpa, it does all the translation for us. And we’ve got 15 plus languages that are now live in Sherpa. Partners in Japan are talking to it. We got partners in India and all over the world really asking questions in terms of how we position our services. And that integration can be done by just logging on to our portal. You’ll see a bot pop up. They can just simply ask a question. It integrates in Teams, integrates in Slack. So that was use case number one. Use case number two was we reimagined the whole enablement certification platform. And so it’s a very dynamic learning experience. And so the way it happens is you log on, there’s a topic that you like, you click on that, you start learning, it asks you questions, it asks you to position services, and then you record your answer to how you’re actually positioning those services or the features. And it gives you feedback like, “Robert, you did really good on this aspect, but next time you should use this and this.” Or, “Robert, if you’re talking to a customer that’s in this vertical, you should talk about this use case because that’ll help resonate.” And so the whole certification process has been rebuilt and that’s the second use case. The third use case, this is a game changer. And this really goes to your question. And it’s an always-on coach. And so partners are now able to invite Sherpa to calls. And so as they’re having those conversations with customers, and the customer may say something or give them an objection, well, in the background, Sherpa will give them the answer to that objection and say, “Customer said this, talk to them about this.” Or, “Have you shared this new feature that was just released in the quarterly launch?” So it’s like this always-on coach, always-on assistant to really give them what they need. And then we’re putting it on this innovation roadmap. And so every single quarter, we’re launching new innovation in Sherpa. As an example, we’re now launching our LinkedIn integration. So if you’re an MSSP partner, you log on to Sherpa, you’re connected to LinkedIn, it’s going to ask you, if Sherpa can look through your network to find customers that may be a good fit for our services. And then it’ll say, “Okay, great. We found these contacts. Should we go ahead and write the campaign? Should we write a campaign that you can use to send to those customers in your ecosystem on LinkedIn?” And so quite honestly, I think we’re bleeding edge in terms of really being able to use AI and adopt AI in a way to drive good outcomes, well beyond where most companies are with their simple ChatGPT things like that. We’re actually driving outcomes. Robert Dutt: The rise of AI baked into the partner program and partner tools is a fascinating space for me to watch. And that certainly, you make a compelling case for the role of Sherpa there. That sounds really interesting. A quick one on the product side, not directly related here, but just out of curiosity, Exabeam just dropped Agent Behavior Analytics in your April release, sort of extending behavioral detection to AI agents, ChatGPT usage, Copilot activity, those kinds of things. For an MSSP looking to take this to market as a service, is it a new revenue line? Is it an upsell? Or is this sort of becoming table stakes that clients expect to see bundled into what you’re doing for them? Craig Patterson: I’m glad you asked. It was just recently at RSA, the conference, obviously AI is the buzzword, but what do you do with that? When we presented the agentic behavior analytics to a lot of our partners or potential new customers, the question that was often asked was, “Well, how much is this extra?” And that’s not how we license our product. So the behavior analytics has been part of our solution since our inception from our analytics model. So specific to AI, this is going to be, you could differentiate your service from other service providers by using this behavior analytics, but by no means is it an extra cost on the MSSP’s behalf. So they’re going into an organization that has a thousand users, human entities, and overnight they now have 10,000 non-human entities. We look at and model all of them using our analytics. So now you actually have at least a basis of what’s normal from a behavior standpoint for both non-human and human entities. So we really change the game, but haven’t changed the pricing along with it. So it comes naturally within our platform. So no change for me as a partner, but if I can find a way to upsell based on it, all the better. If not, I add additional features. Hopefully my customer is more happy. Peter Stratis: I was just going to say, if you look at the macro trends we’re seeing, this is the number one conversation that’s being had right now, especially like you look at the financial sector. Every single company is facing this problem. And so this really, not only does it give them a new use case to go after, I think it just makes the overall security services of Exabeam more relevant based upon what’s happening in the overall market, which all that makes the revenue stickier, makes those conversations more impactful that those MSSP partners are having. Craig Patterson: Yeah. Well, what I’m going to mention is operational efficiency and service differentiation is what’s key to our MSSPs and their success. So the license is foundational. And now that we’ve actually solved for being predictable from a margin perspective, how can they differentiate themselves, making them operationally efficient using automation, using our threat detection, and then also the service differentiation. And the other thing too, just thinking through this a little bit, I mean, there’s different AI agents that exist out there that are doing different things. You think about the malfunctioning agent, the one that’s just off base and it’s doing things that are just incorrect based upon the fundamentals or foundation of the AI agent. That’s one thing that gets addressed by looking at the abnormal behavior. The second is the misaligned agent, the ones that are pursuing goals in a way that could negatively impact the company. And that gets a little bit more scary. But really what gets scary is those subverted agents, the ones that have been hijacked that are actually causing harm. And so you think about all those different use cases that are happening, and that’s the beauty of what we just released is our new ABA, sort of creating this new category in the market. That’s really what our ABA is looking for, is all those different things that are happening, whether it’s misused, misaligned, or subverted. All that can be detected through this new agent behavior. Robert Dutt: Okay, last question for me. If I’m an MSP who’s been sitting on the sidelines, I’ve been thinking about them or are upgrading my security operations practice. What’s one thing that you wish I understood about the opportunity and the economics, but I probably don’t at this point? Peter Stratis: It’s all about how they actually start off. They’re interested in selling managed security, but they don’t know that they have to standardize their delivery model. They can’t make it where every customer is custom, because that’s when that price predictability goes away. So everything from onboarding to customizing your offering has to go away. You might be able to do it for a certain amount of customers, but you have to build a model that’s repeatable. Automation is going to be very important to that. And then finally, you could add optional add-ons, but you have to resist the temptation to over-customize everything. The great thing about what Craig has done with the APEX Partner Program and the way we built it out here at Exabeam is it supports all of this through all the enablement efforts. So Craig mentioned all the enablement built into the program, but then we have certification tracks. So we’ll help you along in that process. And we have everything from APIs and the use case and the scripts to help you automate that track for you to make it easier, but just don’t jump in and try to do a custom solution for each customer. Robert Dutt: Gentlemen, I thank you very much for your time. Once again, I appreciate your walking us through the commercial framework. Craig Patterson: Thank you, Robert. Appreciate it. Peter Stratis: Thank you, Robert. Robert Dutt: There you have it. Craig Patterson and Peter Stratis from Exabeam. I’d like to thank Craig and Peter for their time today. And a special note, this was Peter’s first podcast appearance. You never would have known it. A few things I’ll leave you with. First, if Peter’s candid admission landed for you — that Exabeam used to treat service providers like resellers with opportunistic deal-by-deal discounts that made it impossible to build a predictable margin — sit with that for a moment. Not unique to Exabeam. That was the industry. And it goes a long way to explaining why so many MSPs have struggled to make managed SIEM work as a business. The new framework is a direct attempt to fix that math. Two pathways: a single-pool capacity model that works well for SMB and mid-market clients, and a federated model that isolates environments for compliance-heavy customers. The discounting structure has been rebuilt from the data up with the goal of moving 80% of deals through a standard process. Up from what Craig described as the opposite of that. The Sherpa AI tool is worth watching closely, not just as a training platform replacement, but as an always-on coach that can actually sit in on partner sales calls and surface real-time objection handling. The LinkedIn integration is coming next, and it starts looking less like an LMS and more like a business development tool. And the closing advice I’ll leave you with is Peter’s. If you’re an MSP thinking about entering the security space, standardize your delivery model before you take on your first customer. Resist the urge to customize every environment. That’s exactly where price predictability and profitability goes away. Thanks as always for listening. In The Channel is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all the major podcast directories. If you’re finding value in the show, leave a rating or review. It goes a long way to helping other folks in the channel find us. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.
Drew Forsyth is an award-winning portrait photographer and director based in the North West of England, working with commercial and advertising clients across the UK and internationally. His work centres on people who've given everything to be extraordinary at what they do — from dancers with English National Ballet and musicians of the BBC Philharmonic and the Hallé Orchestras, to Nobel Prize-winning scientists, politicians, and performers at the height of their careers. His photography has been featured by BBC News, The Guardian, The Times, and Rolling Stone, and recognised by the Royal Society of the Arts. He's an AOP Accredited Photographer and Fellow of the RSA, and speaks internationally at events like Photo North, Pas de Deux Photo Conference, and the Royal Photographic Society.In this episode, Drew and Nikki trace his path from a JCPenney-style family portrait studio to photographing world leaders, Nobel laureates, and major corporate campaigns — and he breaks down exactly how he prices that work today. They dig into setting boundaries on set (and how to say yes to more without losing your mind), why those early "conveyor belt" studio years became his real technical training, and why he believes his biggest competition isn't other photographers — it's being forgotten. Drew also walks through how he actually quotes corporate jobs (day rates, itemized breakdowns, and the cautionary tale of a client who blamed him for "cheap-looking" dresses), how personal passion projects like his "Breaking Ground" series and a helicopter shoot over Manhattan became his best marketing, and the "Helsinki Bus Station Theory" — his framework for why so many photographers give up on their style right before it becomes distinctive.Topics covered:Setting boundaries with clients without losing bookingsWhy "conveyor belt" studio work builds indispensable technical skillsThe accidental path from individual sessions to corporate/organizational clientsPricing corporate shoots: day rates, itemized quotes, and scope questionsWhy past-client relationships and personal introductions beat cold outreachMarketing through consistent presence, not constant hard-sellingPassion projects as a client-acquisition strategyThe Helsinki Bus Station Theory: staying the course creativelyIf you're building a photography business, want to grow your portrait photography income, or are curious about how to make money from photography online, this conversation is packed with actionable advice.
Aaron Kemp sits at an unusual intersection. He holds a doctorate in cybersecurity, spent years in DoD classified environments running SCI and SAP facilities, and now leads KPMG's quantum research practice — where he's a co-author on a recent hybrid QML paper with Kipu Quantum and IBM. He's also the lead author of KPMG's Q-PREP framework, which pushes enterprises to treat post-quantum cryptography migration as an operational risk problem right now.If you've wondered how quantum actually lands inside a Fortune 200 boardroom — not the hype cycle version, but the "what do you actually tell the CFO" version — this episode maps that territory honestly. It's also useful listening if you're trying to understand the emerging talent gap, why the quiet in enterprise research publications may itself be a signal, and how a firm known for audit and advisory ends up doing multispectral analysis of chestnut trees on IBM quantum processors.What We Get IntoWhy KPMG split quantum into distinct practices — PQC, sensing, optimization, and research — and what that structural choice signals about market timingHow a PBS documentary about the American chestnut tree led to a peer-reviewed quantum ML paper with Kipu Quantum and IBMThe honest case for a 3% accuracy gain over classical ResNet-50 baselines — and why Aaron treats it as a positive-sum signal rather than a victory lapWhy "what makes a good quantum problem" remains the most important question in the field, and how KPMG's client base shapes their answerThe seven-step Q-PREP framework for post-quantum cryptography readiness, and why step one — knowing what you actually have — is the hardest stepHow data-centric thinking (not cryptography-centric thinking) reframes the PQC migration challengeWhy the quiet in enterprise research publications from major financial institutions may itself be a market signalThe talent bottleneck: ~16,500 quantum researchers on the planet against a coming wave of enterprise demandHow AI tooling is compressing quantum research timelines, and what that means for who can enter the fieldWhy the compute stack of the next decade will be heterogeneous — quantum, neuromorphic, thermodynamic, and mechanical computing all coexistingResources & LinksGuest & OrganizationDr. Aaron Kemp — KPMG People Profile — Official bio covering Aaron's DoD/classified cybersecurity background and current role as US Quantum Leader.Papers & ResearcharXiv:2602.18350 — Quantum-enhanced satellite image classification — The peer-reviewed KPMG/Kipu Quantum/IBM paper Aaron co-authored, demonstrating hybrid quantum-classical accuracy gains on IBM processors.From Theory to Impact: Real-World Results in Quantum Machine Learning — KPMG's editorial summary of the satellite imagery research, framed for enterprise readers.From Theory to Impact — Full Technical Report (PDF) — The detailed technical companion walking through the hybrid pipeline step by step.PQC & Enterprise FrameworksQ-PREP: Seven Steps to Post-Quantum Cryptography Readiness (PDF) — KPMG's prescriptive PQC migration framework, with Aaron as lead author.The Quantum Threat Is No Longer Theoretical (PDF) — Aaron's board-level brief on Q-Day urgency.Prepare Now for Quantum Cyber Risk (KPMG Board Leadership Center) — Aaron's article for corporate directors, originally in NACD Directorship Online.Related Coverage & CommentaryKipu Quantum: Quantum-Enhanced AI Deployable in Production — Announcement of the production framework that removes quantum hardware from the inference loop; Aaron quoted as enterprise champion.KPMG's Seven Steps Build Quantum Resilience for Businesses (Quantum Zeitgeist) — Third-party coverage of Q-PREP.A Framework Can Tell You What to Do. It Cannot Tell You What You Have. (Qtonic Substack) — A critical response arguing that advisory frameworks don't solve the underlying cryptographic inventory problem — useful counterpoint reading.Key Quotes & InsightsOn the 3% accuracy gain: "It's a positive game… we did a 12–15 week sprint, and to at least meet classical was our goal when we started. So when we actually did get three percent, it was repeatable. That was, to me, okay — there's something there."On the real PQC problem: "We don't have a cryptographic problem. We have a data problem. None of these organizations know where their data flows."On cybersecurity as a discipline: "Cybersecurity is probably the worst career field ever because perfect cybersecurity has no ROI — because nothing happens."On enterprise timing: Insight: Aaron frames the quiet in financial services quantum research publications as a market signal — organizations may have stopped sharing because they're moving from research toward competitive advantage.On the talent gap: "There's 16,500 quantum researchers on the planet… Fortune 200 will hire 16,000." A single tier of enterprise demand could exhaust the global talent pool.Related EpisodesEpisode 14: A Hybrid NISQ-Classical Solution Architecture with Harry Buhrman — Foundational thinking on hybrid quantum-classical architectures relevant to the Kipu/KPMG/IBM approach.Episode 38: Quantum Machine Learning with Jessica Pointing — A rigorous look at the tradeoffs and open questions in QML that frame Aaron's satellite imagery results.Episode 81: Quantum LDPC error correction with Larry Cohen and Paul Webster — Directly relevant to the compressing resource estimates for breaking RSA that shape PQC urgency.Episode 86: Quantum Advantage Achieved with Dominik Hangleiter — A theorist's careful framing of what advantage claims should and shouldn't mean.Episode 40: Integrating Quantum Computers and Classical Supercomputers with Martin Schultz — Useful context on the heterogeneous compute future Aaron and Sebastian discuss at the end of the episode.Stay in the EcosystemSubscribe on
The death of a motorcyclist in Donegal at the weekend brings the number of motorcyclists killed on the road this year so far to 16. David Martin of the RSA.
Deir pairtí Shinn Féin go bhfuil an t-ardú atá tagtha ar an infheistíocht atá á dhéanamh ag an Údarás Sabháilteachta Bóthair an RSA i gcursaí bolscaireachta agus fógraíochta le blianta beaga anuas dochreidte agus gur léir nach bhfuil na feachtais atá ar bun acu ag oibriú.
Senior leaders are often judged in moments they could not plan for. Mark Thurmond's path from sales rep to co-CEO of Tenable was built through consistent execution, difficult operating assignments, and crises that demanded calm before certainty. He explains what the RSA breach taught him about transparency and customer trust, how he and Steve Vintz kept Tenable moving after the death of CEO Amit Yoran, and why the strongest leaders build followership before they need it. The conversation also covers choosing learning over title, using AI to raise seller productivity, and leading a product-to-platform shift as a company-wide operating change. Mark Thurmond is Co-Chief Executive Officer of Tenable, where he oversees the company's go-to-market functions across sales, marketing, customer success, professional services, and technical support. His career includes senior operating and sales leadership roles at EMC, RSA, Qlik, and Turbonomic. Connect with Mark: LinkedIn Key takeaways from this episode: 00:00 - What early international experience teaches leaders about operating across markets, cultures, and teams. 04:34 - Why transparency during a crisis can strengthen customer trust instead of weakening it. 10:19 - What leaders must control when uncertainty, emotion, and outside pressure start to take over. 12:22 - Why rigid career planning can distract high performers from the opportunities that actually move them forward. 15:05 - What a leader's ability to attract former colleagues reveals about their credibility and influence. 17:04 - Why the most valuable career moves often create discomfort before they create advancement. 29:00 - A look inside what leadership demands when personal grief and business continuity collide. 34:08 - What executives often overlook about the connection between proactive health and decision-making capacity. 41:30 - Why a company's approach to AI partnerships may determine whether it separates or falls behind. 53:00 - What many leaders underestimate about moving from a product business to a platform strategy. Hosted by five-time CRO John McMahon and Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan, the Revenue Builders podcast goes behind the scenes with the sales leaders who have been there, done that, and seen the results. This show is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing their growth strategy at the point of sale. Connect with Us: LinkedInYouTubeForce Management
The support that Saint Vincent De Paul provides in the back to school season. ‘Check it fits', a free nationwide RSA service that ensures that children's car seats are fitted safely. Dangers facing children as they are getting smartphones younger and younger. Cllr Audrey Buckley on the vandalism of a beach toybox. John Bradley on his journey with the LIAM MC trials in his fight against cancer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Manager Minute-brought to you by the VR Technical Assistance Center for Quality Management
What if better data did not have to mean more paperwork? In this episode of Manager Minute, Sarah Leonard from the South Carolina Commission for the Blind and Pamela Clayton-Johnson from Maryland DORS join Carol Pankow to talk about their National Rehabilitation Leadership Institute research on the RSA-911. Their project takes a hard look at the growing administrative burden of federal reporting and asks a timely question: Are we collecting the right data for the right reasons? Sarah and Pamela discuss their recommendation to remove 71 data elements they believe exceed statutory requirements, while still maintaining accountability and protecting the integrity of VR data. The conversation also explores the importance of involving frontline staff, using data to improve services, and creating space for counselors to spend more time doing what matters most: helping individuals with disabilities achieve meaningful employment. Tune in for a thoughtful, practical, and refreshingly candid conversation about smarter data, stronger services, and leadership that challenges the field to think differently. Listen Here Full Transcript {Music} Sarah: That's kind of my whole philosophy of who I am as a person. I'm always looking for how we can do things better and questioning, like why we're doing things like, why are we reporting this? Why are we doing that? And so I think that kind of shows up in the paper. Pamela: I think we chose to focus on streamlining the RSA nine over 11 report, because we recognize how much time and energy staff spend on administrative tasks and reporting requirements. Sarah: Were spending all this time to report this data. It must be important. It must be being used somewhere. but, I am not seeing that for some of this. Intro voice: Manager minute, brought to you by the Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Center. Conversations powered by VR. One manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host, Carol Pankow. Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Today, we're joined by Sarah Leonard, planning and reporting director from South Carolina Commission for the Blind, and Pamela Clayton-Johnson, program manager for the Eligibility Unit at Maryland DORS. So how are you doing today, Sarah? Sarah: Good. I'm doing great. How are you? Carol: Awesome. And Pamela, how about you? Pamela: I'm good. Enjoying all this rain that we had within the last week. Carol: Oh, nice. Well, we're in a heat wave. I'm in Minnesota, and, boy, it's been smoking hot. Sarah: It's been hot here. Carol: So Sarah and Pamela recently published a cohort project through the National Rehabilitation Leadership Institute that takes a thoughtful and timely look at the RSA 911. Their paper, Smarter Data, Better Outcomes, explores how reporting requirements have evolved over time, and the growing administrative burden on agencies, and what it would mean to streamline data collection in a way that would better support the core mission of vocational rehabilitation, which is helping individuals achieve employment and strengthening America's workforce. Their work raises important questions for the field about the balance between compliance, data, and outcomes, and offers practical ideas for rethinking how we can approach federal reporting moving forward. So let's dig in. So let's start with each of you. How did you get into vocational rehabilitation and what drew you to this work. And Pamela, I'm going to go to you first. Pamela: Okay. My interest in vocational rehabilitation began in 1999, after one of my close friends sustained a gunshot wound and became a quadriplegic. He was no longer able to do the work he had done before, but he still had a strong desire to work and remain independent. I began to help him research for programs and resources that could support him. And during that process, I discovered the Division of Rehabilitation Services DORS. So that experience changed my life and inspired me to pursue a career helping individuals with disabilities achieve their goal and match their full potential. I later earned my graduate degree in adult Education with a minor in Rehabilitation counseling, which allowed me to combine my passion for education, advocacy and services to others. Carol: That is an amazing story. You are the first person I've heard with like a story like that. And how is your friend doing today? Pamela: He is doing great. He is living independently. He has services in place for him. It's been so many years and he is doing well and he's thriving. So oh. Pamela: Yes. Carol: He's lucky to have a friend like you. I think that's awesome. Pamela: Yes. Carol: Sarah, how about you?How'd you get involved in VR? Sarah: My journey to VR is a recent one. I just started in VR in 2023, and I actually started my career as a public education teacher. And when I was looking to kind of make a career change, I was looking to kind of stay in the public service realm and ended up finding some job openings with the Commission for the blind and kind of my experience as an educator and everything. It just was kind of a natural fit. So I really enjoyed kind of the past three years now, and I'm excited for what's to come. Carol: Very cool. I remember when you first started, I feel like it was longer ago than three years. Time passes really fast. Sarah: It does. Carol: You both participated in NRLI live, and I just want to know a little bit about what that experience was like. And how did it shape your thinking as an emerging leader? And Sarah, I'll ping you first on that. Sarah: NRLI was an amazing experience and I learned so much from the staff from NRLI, but also just from connecting with so many VR professionals across the US. The way it's structured, you meet four times over the course of almost a year. And I think kind of as the year progresses, you are in different places in like kind of what you're doing at work. So when you come together each time as a group, you're kind of experiencing something different and everyone else kind of brings their own experiences and their different kind of situations currently occurring in their agencies to those conversations. So as like an emerging leader. It's just really helped me kind of see the bigger picture of VR on the national scale and how I kind of fit into that on the state level. Carol: Yeah, I love that so much because you see people from start to end because I get to help participate, at least in one of the weeks with doing some of the training, but really seeing how kind of the light bulbs are going on for you guys with that whole bigger national picture. I think that's awesome. Sarah: Yeah. Pamela: Right. Carol: How about you, Pamela? Pamela: Well, participating in the National Rehabilitation Leadership Institute was a very rewarding and eye opening experience for me. It gave me the opportunity to connect with rehabilitation professionals across the country, and who all share the same passion for helping individuals with disabilities succeed. The experience helped shape my thinking as an emerging leader by teaching me the importance of collaboration, advocacy and being servant leadership. I learned that leadership is not just about managing people, it's about listening and supporting others, creating positive change of course, and making sure the voice of the people we serve are heard. The institute also encouraged me to think bigger about the future of vocational rehabilitation and the impact we have in helping individuals achieve independency, employment and a better quality of life. It strengthened my confidence as a leader, and it also reminded me that growth happens when you are willing to learn from others and step outside of your comfort zone, and being a part of the group really helped me step outside my comfort zone. So it was an amazing experience for me. Carol: I love that, and I know they have that coaching component. And so you each get a like a mentor coach that is with you throughout the whole time. And that I just think adds an extra element, like a personal touch for you specifically and all of that. So it really is a great, great program. NRLI is about building leadership capacity and driving change. How did that show up in this project that you chose to take on? And I'll throw that to either of you. Sarah: I mean, that's our whole project. Pamela: right. Sarah: Our whole goal was to kind of advocate for some changes in terms of reporting, specifically the 911. So I think that's kind of my whole philosophy of who I am as a person. I'm always looking for how we can do things better and questioning like why we're doing things like, why are we reporting this? Why are we doing that? And so I think that kind of shows up in the paper. Carol: So what led you guys specifically to go after the RSA 911 for your project? I know you went through some iterations of different topics you were going to pick. Pamela: Yes. I think we chose to focus on streamlining the RSA 911 report because we recognize how much time and energy staff spend on administrative tasks and reporting requirements. Our goal was basically to look at ways to reduce the burden, so vocational rehabilitation staff could spend more time focusing on what truly matters, which is helping individuals with disabilities prepare for, obtain and maintain employment. We wanted to help shift the focus to building America's workforce and improving outcomes for the people we serve. This project taught me that leadership is about identifying the challenges and working together to find solutions, and being willing to advocate for meaningful change that benefit both the staff and consumers. It also showed me the importance, of course, of innovation and thinking about how systems and processes can work more effectively while still meeting federal requirements. So we ponder over a lot of different topics, and this is the one that we end up with. So I'm happy with all that we did with this particular paper and all that I have learned in this process. Carol: So Sarah, you specifically, I know have lived this burden of the RSA 911 every day. How would you describe it to other folks that may not understand? Like, what's the big deal about that? Sarah: I think what people don't realize is how much that report really drives like agency processes, just like day to day. The data that we collect as VR agencies as a part of the intake process, the closure process, all of that that gets reported on the 911. And then for those who aren't kind of in it every day, kind of one of the biggest shocks when they start kind of looking at what is all involved, especially, I think Pamela did this. She went to her person in Maryland who oversees the 911 and asked to see kind of the whole data file that gets submitted up to RSA. And I think that's kind of what puts it into perspective. So for those that haven't seen that, there's a line for every single consumer at your agency who has an open case or was applying for services that quarter or who has closed within the past six quarters. And they stay on that report for those six quarters after they close. And for each of those participants, those individual people, there's a ton of columns of data that gets reported for each of those consumers. And those are the data elements of the 911. And so for those that haven't seen that, I would really encourage them to just ask the person at their agency who is in charge of the 911 just to kind of it puts things in perspective. I think that all of those entries into the case management system, like all of that gets reported out in some sort of fashion on that 911. And so there's stuff that has to go on in the background too. Like our field staff, of course have to collect the data, but most agencies have a whole case management system team who kind of keeps their case management system running. And those data elements all have to be maintained with coding in the back of the system, so that it can get reported out correctly on that report. So there's field staff hours that go into this report. There's technical staff hours that go into this report. And then of course there's data collection that may be involved as well that has to go into the report. So that's a collaboration between technical and people in positions like myself, but then also the field staff to make corrections if those are needed on the 911. So. Carol: And how many data elements are there exactly? Sarah: Over 300. Yeah. Pamela: Yes, it was over 300. And we understand how important that report is for the vocational rehabilitation industry. So we recognize that the counselors and employees spend a large amount of time entering and reviewing data, which can sometimes take away from the direct services to consumers. So we just wanted to explore ways to make the process more efficient. Carol: Well, you guys make the point because you say in your paper the reporting requirements expanded beyond what's required in statute. And so why does that matter to the field right now? Sarah: Well, it's just extra work. Like if we're going to expand the requirements beyond what is like actually legally required, there should be a reason for that. And some of these data elements that are beyond kind of legal requirements, you know, like with the rehab act and everything, some of those data elements, I don't see them being used by RSA. I don't see them being used by Congress in any way. So RSA puts out an annual report to Congress every year, and the amount of data that actually goes into that report is very small, compared to the over 300 data elements that are reported for each consumer at every VR agency in the country. Pamela: And it just increased the workload for staffing agencies. You know, when reporting requirements continue to grow for the counselors and staff, they can spend more time focusing on paperwork instead of the data entry and working directly with the consumers and employees. You know, this can impact, of course, you know, the efficiency, staff morale and overall ability to provide timely services. So it's especially important because the VR agencies, which is us, are focused on helping build America's workforce by supporting individuals with disabilities in reaching their employment goals. So the field wants to make sure that the focus stays on serving people. That's the main goal, creating opportunities and improving employment outcomes, not becoming overwhelmed by administrative tasks, you know? So that was our main focus. Carol: Yeah, I hear that a lot. You know, people are like, I'm just pushing paper now. Pamela: Right? Carol: I'm the data collector. Instead of having time to actually talk to the people. So was that like your biggest realization that all that data wasn't actually going into the reported to Congress? Sarah: That was one of them for me. I think because I just would expect, if we're giving this data out, it would be being used in some sort of way. We're spending all this time to report this data. It must be important. It must be being used somewhere. But I'm not seeing that for some of this. When I kind of came to that realization, I was like, well, then why are we doing all this work? Why are we doing this to ourselves? Yeah, that for me, it was. Pamela: Yeah, we still understand that equity and good data are important, but there also needs to be balanced so agencies can effectively carry out the mission and the best support the people that we serve. So that's our main focus. We want to make sure that we're providing, you know, services to consumers instead of spending a lot of time on paperwork and things that, you know, they're not even looking at or is not meaningful. So it's just like, we're just trying to focus on what matters and balance out the workload. Carol: You did a really thorough job on being super specific on the data elements you recommended that got removed. I mean, it was like, I'm like, holy cow, because it was like you went through the whole entire directory and there were a lot, I don't even know how many, but how did you guys go about doing that to decide the elements that you were recommending to remove? Sarah: We spent a lot of time reading the laws and the regulations. I read the Rehab Act and spent time kind of analyzing that to determine like, what is actually required by the Rehab Act for us to report on. And after doing that review, I came to the conclusion that these 71 data elements that we proposed in our paper. There's no kind of legal requirement for those to be reported in the way that they're currently asking us to report them. Pamela: Right. Sarah: So most of the data elements that we propose to remove are related to service provider type. And the Rehab Act stipulates that only aggregate data on the types of providers and agency uses needs to be reported in some sort of fashion, but it does not stipulate that it needs to be reported on an individual case level for each of the services every quarter, which is what we're essentially doing right now through the 911. Pamela: And Sarah has so much experience because this is what she does every single day. So she was very, very helpful in teaching me about all the different data elements and what is used and things like that. So it was very informative. I had learned so much throughout the process when we were researching this paper and just trying to make sure that we're accurate on what we're reporting. Carol: Yeah, I liked it because I felt like you guys were very thoughtful and you approached this in a really good way and did an extremely thorough job. I would think RSA would be super interested in what you did. Have you spoken to RSA and maybe if you did, like what was that conversation like? You're kind of calling their baby ugly, you know? Pamela: We actually met with them. We met with Michael Quinn and he provided great insight and was very open to hearing our ideas and concerns regarding the RSA 911 report process. One of the biggest things that we learned was the importance of collaboration and having honest conversations about the challenges VR agencies face. It was encouraging also to hear that he believed our paper and research were realistic and thoughtfully developed. He also shared that his team will review our paper and take our recommendations into consideration, which showed us that there's value in bringing forth ideas that could improve processes within the vocational rehabilitation system. For me, it reinforced the idea that meaningful change starts with research, communication, and a willingness to work together to find practical solutions. Of course, that benefits both agencies and the individuals we serve. So meeting with his team was very informative and he was very realistic with the expectations and things like that. It was good. Sarah: We actually met with him twice, so we met with him once while we were kind of developing the paper. And that's what really shaped kind of our approach to writing the paper and research that we did. He told us in a bit of a cryptic way. He told us that we needed to think inside the box first and then think outside of it. So he encouraged us to read the laws, read the regulations. So that's kind of what shaped our method to collecting all of the research and the knowledge that we needed in order to be able to propose these changes. And then just meeting with him and his team kind of after the paper was done, when we went to DC for the final session of NRLI, It was really encouraging because him and his team were really open to the recommendations that we were making. And also, they said it was like getting public comment before the public comment period. So as everyone knows, the RSA 911 is up for renewal and was recently posted for public comment through the OMB. So they, I think, genuinely are looking for feedback on their reports and things like that. And I would really encourage agencies to take advantage of the public comment period on these reports, not just on the 911, but on the RSA 17, the 15, all of those different reports that we have to do, because RSA genuinely, I think, wants our feedback and wants to know the burden that it's putting on agencies and our ideas for streamlining. Carol: So I'm sure you're quoting this paper in the public comment, correct? Pamela: Yes. Sarah: Yes. Carol: Yeah, that's great. Well, you both bring up a really good point about being able to like do the research and speak up because I have heard for years people complaining about the 911, but I have never seen anyone do the job that you two did to dig in deep, do your research, do all the homework, and I'm glad Michael steered you down that path. Like read the rehab act... Pamela: right. Carol: ...look at the things, what's required, and then going back and meticulously, like coming up with 71 data elements. Wasn't 78 or 69. You came up with 71. You go, these are the ones. We don't need them. And I think a lot of times in VR, we kind of complain about things, but we don't always bring it up to the source that could do something about it because they just hear us anecdotally like, oh, you know, it's too much. But what exactly and what exactly could be removed? I think you did the work. People are going to be super happy about this if you get some success with that. Pamela: Yes. Carol: So if your recommendations were implemented. What do you think would be the biggest shift agencies would feel in their day to day operations? Pamela: I believe the biggest shift for VR agencies will feel is having more time and flexibility to focus on serving consumers, instead of spending so much time on administrative tasks and data entry. You know, counselors and staff will likely experience a reduction in paperwork as well and reporting burden, which could improve efficiency, reduce stress and allow more attention to be placed on counseling, job placement, employee engagement, and consumer support. I think agencies will still be able to collect important data and maintain accountability, because that's still important, but the process could become more streamlined and meaningful. The goal is not to remove the reporting, but to make sure the information being collected truly adds value and support that better outcomes. So overall, the biggest change will be shifting more time and energy back to the mission of vocational rehabilitation, which is helping individuals with disabilities prepared for, obtain and maintain meaningful employment while supporting America's workforce. Sarah: I think as well, like we call for removing those 71 data elements, but we also call for RSA to take a genuine look at the number of burden hours through the Paperwork Reduction Act and determine a more accurate estimate of those hours. And then also, we call for them to explore some opportunities to develop some centralized federal databases and data sharing systems, so that information on other WIOA program involvement and things like post-exit wages and credential data, that data could be more easily obtained by agencies. So a lot of agencies right now, they have to kind of manage these individual agreements with these... Carol: Right. Pamela: Right. Sarah: ...different entities to obtain some of this data. And so if we could in some way centralize that, so that whole process is easier. Agencies wouldn't have to kind of independently maintain these agreements with separate Agencies or organizations. Pamela: Right. Carol: Yeah, I thought that was a very interesting point. Thinking about that centralized data collection, I know like DDS, Pamela, you worked in that, you know, Pamela: yes. Carol: There is our centralized system. I used to manage DDS. And so thinking about kind of that nationwide database or whatever that you could possibly have. Now, I suppose people would say it's a little easier said than done, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Was there any traction? Did you get to talk to Michael about that concept at all? Sarah: We did, and his comments back were kind of similar to what you just said, that it's easier said than done. But, you know, we have things like the Swiss data right now for wages. So I think it could be done. It just wouldn't be, you know, at the snap of your fingers, it would take some time to develop those. Carol: Well, you guys can be part of something like magnificently great. That could happen with your recommendations. I love it. Pamela: Yes. Carol: So stepping back as emerging leaders, what advice would you give others about like balancing compliance, data collection and achieving those real employment outcomes? What advice would you give agencies as they're facing all this? Pamela: I would say that it's important to remember that compliance data collection and employment outcomes all matter, but the mission should always stay centered on the people we serve. Data reporting are important because they help show accountability, measure progress, and tell the story of the work being done. However, we have to be careful that the process does not become overwhelming, that it takes away from direct services and meaningful engagement with consumers. My advice would be to focus on balance, use data as a tool to improve services and outcomes, not just a task to complete. Encourage teamwork, open communication and innovation when looking at processes and systems. It is also important for leaders to listen to frontline staff because they often understand where the biggest challenges exist and most importantly, never lose sight of the ultimate goal, which is helping individuals with disabilities achieve independency, meaningful employment, and success in their lives. Sarah: Pamela, I think you summed that up beautifully. Pamela: Thank you. Sarah: Yeah. I think my biggest advice to agencies is to start looking at your data and looking at your data with your front line workers who are in it every day and doing the job. They deserve to see that data and be involved in conversations surrounding that data. And it's a culture shift to kind of get your agency talking about that data, especially if you've not done it before. Some field staff, I'm sure, have never heard of the RSA 911 before in some agencies. So I think they deserve to be in those conversations and those conversations. I think it equips them to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. Carol: I think people get so exhausted. I feel like sometimes with the collection of the data and making sure it's accurate, and then you submit it. And then on the other end, I know when we go on and do TA and you ask people about like the data or the observations, this isn't everywhere, but I think sometimes it gets so exhausted by the process, you forget to, on the other end, actually like use it and take a look at what the data is telling you. And I love that you said, you know, to involve your frontline staff because there have been different times we have like, say we look at the data dashboards and we're doing a little training with an agency and we have the field staff in there. They've never seen any of it. They don't know where this goes. They just know they have to do this thing where they're collecting all this stuff and it goes to some mysterious place, but they have no idea what it says. And it really is the story of your agency that does get communicated to Congress. Otherwise, they don't have any way to know about the anecdotal, awesome, wonderful things that are happening and getting people into employment unless you have something you can share. So we don't want to fall down at the very last minute and go, okay, we did all the thing, but we're not letting anybody know internally about what's going on with our data and then making changes as a result of it. You know, when you see different trends or things happening, being able to go in and go like, hey, what's up? You guys and the frontline people are sometimes, well, not sometimes they are the best people to talk to. They see what's happening and it comes out in the data. And everybody's sitting in central office like, mm, what's going on in that region? Go talk to that region and find out what's happening. Pamela: Exactly. The frontline staff, we need them. We need to get feedback from them because they are important in the decision making regarding things that, you know, the input and things like that for the different data elements. And I had a conversation with some of my staff because I work, you know, on the front line, just getting answers regarding, you know, different data entries at the time that they spend gathering information. So it was a lot of information that I learned. And just looking at the RSA 911 for the first time, it was overwhelming because I didn't even know all that information was being collected and used. So it was eye opening for me. Carol: And bless her heart, she does it all day, every day, I know. Are you sure you're happy you left public to do this? Sarah: And I think talking with our field staff about like the 911 data, for instance, like that, like just like NRLI, how we kind of came to this realization of how we fit into this bigger kind of national picture. I think for our staff, having conversations around our data and things like that can help them see that as well. Carol: Yeah. That's cool. So one last thing for you all. What about a little plug for NRLI, is there any like if we have listeners out there going like, what's this thing you all participated in? Do you have any kind of little plug you want to tell them about why they should do that program? Pamela: It was a leadership program, a leadership program where all people from all over the world, different walks in their career path participated. And I learned so much from people networking in itself. We still stay in contact, and their system sometimes may be a little different from how we do our things in Maryland. But just being around those folks that we are passionate about, the vocational rehabilitation process was just amazing and very fulfilling for me, and I think it will be an amazing experience for anyone that wants to be a part of this career path to participate. It was an awesome experience for me. Carol: I love that. Sarah: I really appreciated how, I guess intentional the whole entire experience like is designed like. So I think it's really intentional that it happens over the course of like basically a whole year. And then the different sessions or each week has kind of like a different almost like theme, I guess, or concept that you're learning that week. And then by the time you get to the final session in DC, it's kind of the culmination of everything that you've learned. But since time has passed and it's not just kind of like a one and done thing, you have also kind of matured in your career. At least that's kind of how I felt as I went through it. I also started supervising two new people during that time period. So it was all very relevant and very, I guess, eye opening. But then also there's something I think, really important about it being a leadership program that's also in the lens of VR, right? Like there's tons of leadership programs out there, but they're not kind of tailored towards being a leader in VR. And so I think that's what makes NRLI so unique and different. Pamela: Most definitely. Carol: Yeah, I've seen over time, you know, those cohorts, you make those networks of friends, you guys have, you know, chat groups and all different things and getting together when you're at a conference or, you know, just people to call on and get ideas. If you run into trouble at your agency. You're like, oh, I'm gonna pick up the phone, I'm calling Pamela now, or I'm calling Sarah because they might have a different perspective on that. And I just love that transplanting of ideas across the country. There's such great benefit in that. I'm so glad you guys had a great experience. Pamela: I did, it was amazing. Carol: Thank you both today for this conversation. I'm expecting great things from your paper. I'm really hoping that it is the start of some cool changes. And thank you for joining me. Appreciate you both. Sarah: Thank you. Pamela: Thank you so much. {Music} Outro Voice: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time. One minute at a time. Brought to you by the VRTAC. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening.
Sadly this appears to be another rainy Sunday. The summer this year has taken direct aim at my cycling hobby as I swear damn near every Sunday has been rainy and bleah. But being a renaissance man, I have many hobbies. Including getting called by work at 7am. But because it's a long weekend here in Soviet Canuckistan, I have plenty of time to procrastinate on my chores and get RSA out to everyone! Mechanical Horizon - Walking On Rainbows Phase Fatale - Immobile Symmetry ElektroStaat - Uberall KY - Lies (Rob Dust) NNHMN - Mannequin Kontrast - Sekundenlicht (Club) Dawn Of Ashes - Anatomy Of Suffering Ginger Snap5 - Carcosa (Single) http://synthetic.org/ https://www.youtube.com/@RealSyntheticAudio
The number of people seriously injured in road traffic collisions in Clare rose by 46% last year. Newly published figures from the Road Safety Authority show 41 people were seriously injured in road crashes here in 2025, while another four individuals were killed. The RSA has also revealed that since 2017, three people have been killed and a further 8 seriously injured in incidents involving tractors and agricultural machinery. East Clare ICMSA Secretary Martin McMahon says while additional safety measures are needed, a minute of extra care can save a life.
Before the internet could become a place to bank or transact, it needed a way for strangers to know who they were talking to, and whether a message could be trusted. Turing Award winners Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman helped invent it. In this episode of First Principles, Rivest tells the story of how they developed RSA, the first practical public-key cryptosystem. Their breakthrough made it possible to encrypt information, verify identities, and authenticate messages across an open network without requiring participants to meet or exchange a secret in advance — laying essential groundwork for the secure internet and, decades later, blockchains. Rivest joins Tim Roughgarden, Head of Research at a16z crypto and Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, and Dan Boneh — Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, a16z crypto Senior Research Advisor, and the “B” in BLS signatures — for a conversation about the origins and future of modern cryptography. They trace the field from its early days, when most cryptographic research was classified and even the meaning of “security” had not been formally defined, through the publication of the Diffie-Hellman paper and the open problem that ultimately led to RSA. Rivest recounts the night the core idea came together, why the difficulty of factoring made the system plausible, and why no one initially knew whether it would survive sustained attempts to break it. The conversation also explores the other cryptographic primitives that underpin blockchains and the modern internet. Rivest explains why digital signatures interested him even more than encryption, how he designed the MD family of cryptographic hash functions, and why standards such as RSA, DSA, and SHA were shaped as much by politics, patents, and government pressure as by mathematics. Finally, Rivest shares his unusually candid views on quantum computing, post-quantum security, and the deeper theoretical possibility that P could equal NP. Either development could threaten the foundations of modern cryptography — but, as Rivest argues, cryptographers have a responsibility to prepare for even the worst-case scenarios. Highlights 00:00 – Intro: the two problems that could break modern cryptography 01:10 – Why Ron Rivest's work underpins the internet and blockchains 08:10 – Before public-key cryptography, there was no theory of security 11:05 – The open problem that led to RSA 13:55 – The night Ron Rivest discovered the core idea behind RSA 17:55 – Why digital signatures were the real breakthrough 19:14 – The RSA challenge — and a prediction that was off by quadrillions of years 28:33 – How government pressure shaped cryptographic standards 30:36 – Designing the hash functions that made digital signatures practical 33:26 – The Fiat–Shamir transformation, explained 38:04 – Building a cryptography company before the web existed 42:31 – Will quantum computers ever become powerful enough to break RSA? 48:02 – The cryptography securing the internet, elections, and everyday life 50:11 – What surprised Dan: Quantum giveth and quantum taketh away About First Principles First Principles is a special limited series from a16z crypto about the scientific roots of modern computing — especially blockchains — told through rare conversations with the pioneers who helped shape the foundational ideas behind distributed systems, consensus protocols, economics, mechanism design, cryptography, zero knowledge, and more. People often tell the story of the Bitcoin whitepaper as if it appeared out of nowhere. But the ideas behind Bitcoin — and blockchains more broadly — come from decades of computer science, economics, mathematics, and cryptography. First Principles is a guide to that lineage, as told by the people who helped build it. Subscribe to follow along: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjQ9HCQMu_8yIg60YAq67HDdvp7E_T5e8 Hear more from: Ron Rivest: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/ Tim Roughgarden: https://twitter.com/Tim_Roughgarden Dan Boneh: https://twitter.com/danboneh Follow a16z crypto: X: https://twitter.com/a16zcrypto LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/a16zcrypto/posts/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@a16zcrypto Substack: https://a16zcrypto.substack.com/subscribe/ As always, none of the following should be taken as investment, business, legal, or tax advice. Please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
In this episode of the Ranch Stewards Podcast, Communications Director Lauren Pettoruto sits down with third generation rancher Bill Webb and RSA's Executive Director Angel DeVries to explore the history of the Webb Ranch, the importance of grazing and conservation for healthy working lands, and how the RSA Grassbank Program is creating new opportunities for the next generation of ranchers. From family legacy and conservation to mentorship and the future of agriculture, this conversation highlights the people and partnerships helping keep working lands working.Support the showThe Ranchers Stewardship Alliance (RSA) is a rancher-led, grassroots organization, dedicated to improving the quality of life for rural communities throughout the Northern Great Plains. Through collaborative conservation projects, rancher education events, and local community outreach, RSA works to strengthen our rural community, economy, and culture for generations to come.For more on the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance, head to www.RanchStewards.org and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Your feedback is always welcome. Email info@ranchstewards.org. Want to support our mission? Visit www.ranchstewards.org/support.
Geospatial intelligence is changing the way insurers assess risk, but better decisions start with better data. In this episode of Making Risk Flow, Jake Harding is joined by Mark Varley, CEO of Addresscloud, and Simon de la Hoyde, Sales Director, to discuss how building-level data, real-time accumulation visibility, and high-quality address intelligence help underwriters quote faster, select risks with greater confidence, and write more profitable business. They also explore why insurers should focus on data quality before AI, how specialized data platforms outperform in-house solutions, and how responsible AI can enhance underwriting without compromising accuracy, transparency, or governance. Mark Varley is CEO of Addresscloud, a geospatial intelligence platform serving the insurance industry. With 25 years of experience in insurance and 15+ years specializing in geographic risk assessment, Mark brings deep practitioner insights from his tenure at RSA and Accenture.Simon de la Hoyde is Sales Director at Addresscloud, bringing 17 years of insurance market expertise and a foundational background in geography and GIS applications. With experience across mobile telecommunications, retail site selection, and property insurance underwriting and pricing, de la Hoyde combines technical geospatial knowledge with deep commercial insurance acumen.Fan Mail: Got a challenge digitizing your intake? Share it with us, and we'll unpack solutions from our experience at Cytora.To receive a custom demo from Cytora, click here and use the code 'Making Risk Flow'.Our previous guests include: Bronek Masojada of PPL, Craig Knightly of Inigo, Andrew Horton of QBE Insurance, Simon McGinn of Allianz, Stephane Flaquet of Hiscox, Matthew Grant of InsTech, Paul Brand of Convex, Paolo Cuomo of Gallagher Re, and Thierry Daucourt of AXA.Check out the three most downloaded episodes:The Five Pillars of Data Analytics Strategy in Insurance | Craig Knightly, Inigo20 Years as CEO of Hiscox: Personal Reflections and the Evolution of PPL | Bronek MasojadaImplementing ESG in the Insurance and Underwriting Space | Simon Tighe, Chaucer, and Paul McCarney, Moody's
Patrick Dillon, three months into the CRO seat at Nudge Security, joins Andrew to talk about what "AI-first" actually means when everyone at RSA has slapped AI on the booth. The conversation runs from product (AI-native vs. bolted-on, and the shadow AI hiding inside companies) to the go-to-market side: how he's rebuilding the team around technology, process, and people, in that order, and who he'll hire to run it.In this episode:Why companies without a deep AI strategy could be "zombie companies" that don't know it yetThe difference between AI-native, AI-first, and just connecting an LLM to your old stackHow one prospect thought they ran 2,000 apps and actually ran 5,300Why the buyers now include CFOs, compliance, and corporate counsel, not just securityFlipping "people, process, technology" to "technology, process, people" for an AI-first GTMWhy AI replaces reps who won't use AI, not salespeople as a wholeHow Patrick screens candidates for want-to, including whether they used AI to prep for the interviewWhy buyers now demand in one to three months what used to be a twelve-month roadmap promiseAbout the guest:Patrick Dillon is CRO at Nudge Security. He and Andrew first spoke on the podcast at RSA 2025, when Patrick was launching a channel program at Airlock. Nudge closed its Series A last November.Notable quotes:"You can't secure, you can't govern what you can't see.""The call is literally coming from inside your house.""It's not a skill thing or an age thing. It's really a want-to thing." Support the showThe Cyber Go-To-Market Talk is the show for cybersecurity sales leaders, founders, CROs, and go-to-market operators looking to improve cyber sales performance and build more predictable revenue growth. Hosted by Andrew Monaghan, founder of Unstoppable.do, covering cyber sales leadership, revenue leadership, sales onboarding, forecasting, pipeline generation, and cybersecurity go-to-market execution.Follow me on LinkedIn for regular posts about growing your cybersecurity startupWant to grow your revenue faster? Check out my cybersecurity sales consulting and trainingNeed ideas about how to grow your pipeline? Sign up for my newsletter.
To historia z miejsca, w którym drzwi zawsze stały otworem. Niestety, w grudniu 2001 roku przez te drzwi wszedł sam diabeł. Bestia dobrze znana wymiarowi sprawiedliwości, a jednak raz za razem pozostawiana na wolności, jakby w oczekiwaniu tego, co musiało nadejść – i stało się w nowozelandzkim klubie weteranów w Auckland… William Dwane Bell, 24-letni recydywista z ponad setką wyroków, wtargnął do klubu RSA w Panmure. Uzbrojony w strzelbę ukrytą w futerale od gitary, zaatakował pracowników i członków klubu, brutalnie mordując trzy osoby i ciężko raniąc czwartą.
This episode covers a hacker's claim of stealing 35GB from Accenture—including source code, Azure personal access tokens, RSA keys, and SSH keys—while Accenture calls it an isolated, remediated matter, leaving uncertainty about potential downstream risk to its Fortune 500-heavy client base. It also highlights a deepfake image of Senator Mitch McConnell debunked after Google's invisible SynthID watermark identified it as AI-generated, noting watermarking depends on tool participation. The show warns of an undocumented Tenda router firmware backdoor using an alternate password ("RZadmin") with no patch available, and reports Ubiquiti fixes for seven critical UniFi OS vulnerabilities, including a max-severity command injection in UniFi Connect. Finally, it describes how Venture Employer Solutions used ML/LLMs to filter low-value logs before SIEM ingestion, cutting firewall log volume 83%, saving about $250K annually, and halving mean time to response. 00:00 Sponsor NordLayer 00:37 Headlines Intro 01:08 Accenture Breach Claim 04:25 Deepfake Watermark Win 05:47 Tenda Router Backdoor 07:22 UniFi Critical Fixes 09:10 AI Cuts Log Noise 11:09 Wrap Up And Thanks 11:41 Sponsor Message
One of the most frustrating parts of running a roofing company right now is feeling like someone else controls your growth.Maybe it's the lead company.Maybe it's the marketing agency.Maybe it's a referral source that's slowed down.Or maybe it's the simple reality that every lead seems to cost more than it did a year ago.When leads get tight, most contractors react the same way:"We need more leads."But in many cases, that's not actually the problem.The real problem is control.When your business depends entirely on outside sources for opportunities, you're constantly reacting instead of proactively creating growth.That's exactly why I sat down with RSA mentor Kody Landals.After building and scaling an in-house call center for his own roofing company, Kody went on to help implement the same systems across multiple roofing brands.Watch this interview where Kody breaks down the 5-step framework for building your own roofing call center.A few of the topics we cover:• The first numbers you need to know before spending a dollar on leads• The technology stack that makes an in-house call center possible• Why hiring for personality beats hiring for call center experience• How to create scripts, scorecards, and accountability systems that actually work• The daily metrics that tell you whether your lead generation is healthy—or headed for troubleIf you're looking for more control, more predictability, and a practical framework for building an internal lead generation engine, I think you'll get a lot from this one.Stay strong.P.S. Kody is working with contractors like you on lead generation, call center builds, phone sales, and scaling. If you want to join Kody, the other RSA mentors, and surround yourself with a community of value-aligned roofers growing together, then joining The Roofing STRONG Alliance™ community might be for you: https://rsa.pro/Membership is now included at no additional cost for The TAMKO Edge® Certified Contractors.=============Join The Roofing STRONG Alliance by TAMKO™ (RSA): https://rsa.pro/Exclusively available to The TAMKO Edge® Certified Contractors at no additional cost.FREE Starter Membership (RSA): https://rsa.pro/freePODCASTApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3fSQievSpotify: https://bit.ly/3eMAqJeFOLLOWFacebookInstagramTikTokLinkedInThe views and opinions expressed are based on Adam's long tenure and personal experiences as a roofing service consultant prior to coming to TAMKO. As such, his views are intended for general informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice regarding insurance, financing, legal matters, compliance, or business transactions. Communication techniques demonstrated are intended solely to help contractors better understand and serve homeowners — not to encourage manipulative, deceptive, or high-pressure sales practices. Contractors must ensure their sales and business practices comply with all applicable federal, state, and local laws, including consumer protection (including cooling-off periods, cancellation rights, or home solicitation sale regulations), telemarketing, lending (including the Truth in Lending Act), and employment. Financing examples are illustrative only; terms, availability, and required disclosures vary by lender and state. TAMKO makes no representation regarding any financing product or its availability. Any discussion of business financing, credit, or capital strategies is general in nature; contractors should consult qualified financial, legal, and other professional advisors before making borrowing or credit decisions or any other decisions related to their business operations.Content produced on or before 5/13/26 was previously produced by The Roof Strategist, TAMKO Building Products LLC makes no representations or warranties regarding its accuracy, completeness, or applicability to current products, programs, or operations.
DEMAIN je reçois Guillaume Roy : l'expert du B2C.Après avoir revendu la célèbre brasserie parisienne Gallia à Heineken, il s'est attaqué à l'autre passe-temps favori des français : la pause café.
Send us Fan MailAnthony Vinci — the first CTO of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and a member of the team behind Project Maven — joins Chris Brandt to talk about how AI and China are rewriting the rules of espionage.We get into why the most powerful manipulation isn't lies but facts, how "LLM grooming" poisons the AI you rely on, the shift from being in the loop to on the loop, and why Vinci argues every citizen now needs to think like an intelligence officer. Plus: his company Vico, which forecasts geopolitical and economic events to help people make better decisions.Anthony's book, The Fourth Intelligence Revolution, is a Financial Times best book of the year — well worth a read: https://amzn.to/4fgJRD7Guest links:Vico: https://vico.ioAnthony Vinci: https://anthonyvinci.comBook (The Fourth Intelligence Revolution): https://amzn.to/4fgJRD7Referenced in this episode:Zero Day Clock: https://zerodayclock.com/00:00 — The best way to manipulate you is with facts00:32 — Welcome & who is Anthony Vinci01:20 — Why he wrote The Fourth Intelligence Revolution03:51 — Why espionage is now in your living room05:31 — 2016, Facebook, and hacking an election09:00 — AI vs. Facebook: targeting you as an individual09:40 — LLM grooming and the Pravda network10:34 — Disinformation vs. misinformation13:02 — Why AI manipulation is subtle14:57 — We've been lying to each other forever16:20 — Training everyone to think like a spy18:51 — The cybersecurity parallel22:41 — RSA, agentic attacks, and AI in security24:57 — Mythos, zero-days, and weaponized exploits30:00 — Should powerful models be released in stages?32:20 — When one person has more power than a nation36:54 — The morality question for AI founders39:11 — Surveillance vs. thought control40:34 — Could we ever elect an AI president?41:16 — In the loop vs. on the loop44:22 — Why competitive pressure removes humans from the loop45:39 — What Vico does48:39 — Intelligence as war prevention51:14 — Where to find Anthony & VicoClick Here to Subscribe: FUTR.tv focuses on startups, innovation, culture and the business of emerging tech with weekly podcasts talking with Industry leaders and deep thinkers.Occasionally we share links to products we use. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases on Amazon.
ON LOCATION | Sean Martin & Marco Ciappelli — Infosecurity Europe 2026 Two conferences, two moods: at RSA the drumbeat was resilience; at InfoSec, it's sovereignty. Sean and I close the week with Forrester analyst Madelein van der Hout — beaming in from the Netherlands — on why Europe makes a framework out of everything, what AI deployment is doing to the boardroom, and the security jobs that don't exist yet.
Manager Minute-brought to you by the VR Technical Assistance Center for Quality Management
What if VR looked beyond traditional employment pathways? In this episode of Manager Minute, Carol Pankow sits down with Kristy Schenderlein, Vice President of Operations at the Blind Institute of Technology (BIT), to discuss how an RSA Disability Innovation Fund (DIF) demonstration grant is redefining career opportunities for people with disabilities. Learn how BIT combines accessible technical training, industry-recognized certifications, registered apprenticeships, and employer partnerships to prepare participants for careers in Salesforce, digital accessibility, AI, and project management. With participants earning family-sustaining wages and advancing into six-figure careers, this conversation challenges VR professionals to think differently about workforce development and the future of competitive integrated employment. Listen Here Full Transcript: {Music} Kristy: Organizations are unfortunately trying to fit our community into a little box. What they think we can do, not what we know that we're capable of. You guys are really forging ahead with something that's never been done before. And so how do we get the VR groups, the VR counselors and teams to break out of what their traditional mold has been? Our participants earn an average of 75,000, and within three years of employment, the majority have been promoted and are making over six figures. Intro voice: Manager minute, brought to you by the Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Center. Conversations powered by VR. One manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host, Carol Pankow. Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Kristy Schenderlein, VP of operations at the Blind Institute of Technology. So Kristy, how are things going for you? Kristy: Very good. Ready for summer to start. Carol: Yes. It's starting here in a big way, let me tell you. We've got heat wave going on in Minnesota. So today we're going to talk about a Disability Innovation Fund project focused on expanding access to careers and technology for individuals with disabilities. And this is a space getting a lot of attention right now. But what does it actually look like to build something that works in practice? So let's dig in. So Kristy, let's start with your journey. How did you get connected to this work and to BIT? Kristy: Yeah, absolutely. So I myself am a member of the Blind and visually impaired community. I have Stargardt's disease, which is a juvenile form of macular degeneration. So I navigated through the education space as a visually impaired student, got my degree from University of Wyoming and Communications a long time ago. We don't want to talk about how long ago that was, but then I moved into a career as a litigation paralegal for about 15 years. And my husband and I opened our own hardware store, where, in addition to being a small business owner and doing whatever was needed of me that day, I also oversaw all of the operations there as well. And when we closed our store, I kind of was at a crossroads. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do, except for the fact that I really wanted to look into the potential of working with employment in my community. Through my years, I had met with apprehension. Can I do the job? Shock? You know, some people would see, you know, especially when we were at the hardware store and I began using a cane in the middle of us owning the store. So, you know, people would walk in and I'd be standing there with my cane. And if I asked them, you know what I can help them with? Or if they'd see me, you know, talking to employees found out I was one of the owners. You know, I was just met with disbelief that I could actually be doing this job. You know, sometimes it was just blatant. No, you can't met with a I don't see how this can be done. So I'm not going to open my mind to even consider this. So I know that navigating those waters of employment for not only people within the blind and visually impaired community, but pan disability community as well, is difficult. And I know that it is not the lack of ability, it's the lack of opportunity. And so what could I do to help my community? And an acquaintance introduced me to Mike Hess, our executive director. Mike and I met. He told me about BIT, BIT's mission, his vision, and I jumped on board seven years ago. When I jumped on the ride, there was five of us, now there's almost over 50 of us, the majority of which identify with some form of disability, including in leadership. So we're really proud of that. It's been a wild ride for sure. Carol: I think it's really cool. I was looking a lot. I was looking you up. Of course, you know, I got to check out your story on LinkedIn and all the things as well. And then just perusing the BIT website and such. And I just think you have a really amazing cast of folks that are working there. Kristy: We do. Carol: And I really like what you're doing. Kristy: Thank you. Carol: And I could not believe, actually, since I found out about you, I had contacted like my folks back at State services for the Blind in Minnesota. I'm like, do you guys know about them? Like, because I sure didn't know about you when I was there. And I just think getting the word out more is super important. So I know you and I had spoken earlier and we were talking about your DEF grant application and that you guys actually had a model that you had built. And so you were basing this application on that. Can you talk a little bit about the different process and what problem you were trying to solve with your application for the project? Kristy: Yeah, absolutely. We know the numbers and how ugly they are that, you know, 70% of people with disabilities are either un or underemployed for the BVI community. It's even higher. It's at 80. I think those numbers have changed a little bit, but unfortunately that needle hasn't moved much in years. There's a lot of organizations out there that are saying that they're focusing on employment. But unfortunately, I mean, the numbers don't lie. You know, we're still where we're at. And what we found is no one is focusing on workforce development for higher level professional careers. And no one's really focusing, again on the professional or corporate America. Organizations are unfortunately, trying to fit our community into a little box, what they think we can do, not what we know that we're capable of. And so we really, truly believe that the answer to this, and I'm going to call it, you know, an epidemic, if you will, the unemployment of people with disabilities really has to do with workforce development and making sure that those people who, again, have the ability to do the job also have the opportunity. So we actually began offering Salesforce administration courses, gosh, back o late 2000 teens, we successfully put through eight blind or visually impaired professionals through a Salesforce Administration Certification prep course, and we choose Salesforce specifically because of the accessibility of their platform. And not that it is a B2C accessibility, but it's a B2B. So people within my community and those of us in the Blind and visually impaired community who are the hardest to serve because of the fact that we have to use assistive technology in order to do our jobs. It's allowing that community to get these certifications, get good, long lasting, sustainable careers. You know that they can actually be, you know, climbing up that corporate ladder, not being stuck down at the bottom. So we began our courses in 2020. We actually became the only training provider approved by Salesforce for people with disabilities globally. And that really came about because of our focus on two things. Number one, our courses being virtual, we are meeting. This was even before the pandemic, even before, you know, virtual courses were the thing. We were doing it virtually. We were meeting our community where they were at. We were also focused on employment. Our end goal at BIT is always employment. That's always where we keep our eye on employment. So, you know, we'd already started these courses. We began a Salesforce system integration service within BIT. We also began an accessibility consulting service and began using our students as at that time, interns, we met up with an intermediary, an apprenticeship intermediary called Safal Partners, who looked at our program and said, gosh, you guys already have an apprenticeship program. Kristy: What would be considered a wrap or a registered apprenticeship program through the Department of Labor? So they helped us get registered with the Department of Labor, and we became and still are the only organization, the only registered apprenticeships to include the Pan disability community to include the BVI community. And we're proud of that. And we're also saddened by that because we are the only ones that are doing it this way. The problem was we were only able to do it more of in a project based format, you know? So whenever we had projects, the apprentices worked well. Our apprenticeship program is a competency based program. There have been which now have been lifted, but requirements of 2000 hours really difficult to get those 2000 hours in a reasonable amount of time when it's just ebbs and flows of projects. So we really need to find a way to move into a more structured apprenticeship program. We added a, you know, the digital accessibility space a couple of years after we did the Salesforce admin apprenticeship and fortunately found the DIF grant to help us expand on what we already had running. Carol: So what did this when you get the DIF grant, what it allow you to do differently, moving from that more kind of pilot project kind of format into this structured model? Kristy: Mhm. Well, it allowed us to do essentially that. Number one is add structure. So as I mentioned, for our apprenticeship program, first we were able to add an apprenticeship program manager, which is huge for somebody to actually be able to focus all of their time on overseeing the program. We were able to move it into a more structured program. So we're not only looking now at project based. Our apprentices, you know, are working on regular schedules. Most are completing their apprenticeships between 1 and 2 years. They're able to not only work on those projects and gain competencies through projects, but also work on hypothetical situations we created for those competencies they need to accomplish without the projects we're working on professional development. So it was able to really add, again that structure to make it just a more robust program. In addition to that, we were able to expand on the academy courses that we were able to offer. So what we're learning with the Salesforce ecosystem is essentially the sweet spot is five certifications. It's not enough just to have that foundational cert. So with the DIF grant, we were able to say, okay, we want to get our team to that five certs. Any student that goes through our course, they have the option of getting to those five certifications. You earn two. Just in our foundational course alone. And then we added three higher level courses. In addition to that, we're also able to add a third track. So we have our Salesforce Administration track. We have our digital accessibility track, and now we're going to be able to add an Agile Scrum Master certification or project management track. So it pairs really nicely with the other two tracks in that, you know, all of these projects, they need scrum masters or project managers to run these projects. So now we're able to kind of create that full loop where we're able to have our admins working on their projects. Same with digital accessibility. And then we're able to add, again, these scrum masters and project managers to work on those same projects to build up and gain their experience. So able to expand the Academy. We were also able to add an academy director and an administrative assistant, you know. So again, providing more structure and guidance there. And then additionally, one of the things that we focused on, one of our goals with the grant was to be placed on 30 state eligible training provider lists. And what this allows us to do is really get a lot of that exposure that you were talking about before. Any person who wanted to participate in the program can go to these ETPLs, is what they're called. See if we're on in their state, get the information. You know, if they are workforce boards, VR counselors. Again, just the average Joe that wants to look into some opportunities for training also gives employers the opportunities to come in and see what we're doing, learn about us, you know, get that more exposure. And I think actually now we're on 35 ETPLs. Again, our friends at Safal Partners helped us within the first year achieve that KPI for our DIF grant. Carol: That is amazing. That is really great. I was gonna ask how many you were on and 35 sounds... Kristy: Mhm. And growing and growing. You know, we're we're we're not stopping. Right. We want to be on all of them. Carol: I'm like, you're going to conquer the world. So walk us through how it works today. You know, you're talking about the academy. You've got the certification, the apprenticeships, kind of how does the whole flow? Somebody comes in, they're like, I want to do the thing. What happens? Kristy: Absolutely. We have a couple of different options to start. So what we decided to do was add two self-guided courses for our two current tracks, Digital Accessibility and Salesforce Admin. So they're intro courses, they're self-guided. And essentially it's just that giving you an introduction to what Salesforce is. A lot of people have no idea what Salesforce is, even though they're one of the largest tech companies in the world. They're in every industry, all the different fields, you know, they're this humongous organization, but a lot of people just don't know what it is. So it gives people the opportunity to get in there, see what Salesforce is. Is this an interest to me? Same with digital accessibility also gives them an understanding of if you're using assistive technology, what is your level of proficiency need to be? Can you be a beginner? And I'll tell you right now, the answer is no. You can't be a beginner if you're using. You know what? I use a screen reader. You know, you have to be a little more proficient than that. So you get through those courses and you decide, yeah, I really liked this. I completed the course. You sit for a technical assessment, you have to do a hands on assessment and then a technical interview. Kristy: And the reasoning for that is to really, number one, ensure that that person who is taking the course is committed, understands the content was doing it themselves, you know, making sure nobody was, you know, helping them out before they can move into the instructor led courses. So once they pass that you can move into the instructor led either, again, digital accessibility or Salesforce, when we add our agile scrum probably won't have an intro to start, but that'll be getting added the later part of this year. And that'll again be instructor led courses, but pretty much the same format. So once you get into the instructor led courses, digital accessibility I believe is 14 weeks. I think admin is now 17 weeks. Again, with admin, you earn two certifications, multiple hours a week in class and then also in lab. In addition to that, there is a lot of homework. There's a lot of work outside these courses. I never sugarcoat these courses. They are not easy. We're talking high level tech careers. So these are high level courses. There's a lot of work, there's a lot of commitment, but there's a lot of support. All of our classes are taught by a person with a disability. Our TAs are people with disabilities. We have focus on those people that need to use screen readers. You know, we have screen reader instructors. So we're really, you know, meeting every person with a disability, regardless of what that is, understanding what accommodations they may need, working with them on that so that they can feel comfortable and actually concentrate on the content and the subject matter and not, am I going to be able to do this course or not? So they get through the instructor led courses leads to sitting for the certification exams. And, and I want to point out to all of the courses that we offer in our academy all lead to industry recognized certifications. These aren't certifications. We make up and say, well, we'll see if it works for you. These are the same certifications that anyone would be sitting for if they were taking any of these Salesforce courses or the digital accessibility, the Agile Scrum Master, you're going to be sitting for the actual Scrum Master certification. So they sit for the exams, you know, hopefully pass it. We've got really good certification pass rates, so hopefully they'll pass it again. They're difficult, they're not easy, but we provide you with what you need in the courses to pass those certs. Carol: What does your pass rate look like. Kristy: So oh boy you just threw that threw that at me. What's the data I believe I think it varies based on the course. But for example, I know our past cohort for digital accessibility, ten out of 12 have sat for the course. And I think all of them have passed. So 100% there. I think most of our cert rates run as a collective whole, 75 to 95%. Carol: Okay. Kristy: Yeah, really good cert rates. And again, it's really because of the fact that these are intense courses, but we work with you. Carol: When you're wrapping service around all these people. Kristy: Exactly. Carol: Talk about the technical kind of support that the students can get. Kristy: You're exactly right. Yeah. You know, and again, a lot of group sessions, you have a lot of support. Carol: Yeah. Kristy: So yeah. So once you get past those certifications, you then become eligible to interview for an apprenticeship. Not everyone qualifies for an apprenticeship. It really depends how well you do in the class. You know, obviously you need to have your certification to get into their apprenticeship. So if you don't get your cert, there's an issue. What was your professionalism like? You know, our instructors provide our apprenticeship manager with notes and sometimes it's, hey, they just need a little more professional development. They need a little work on this. They need to work on that, which is stuff we can provide. One of the things that came with the different is we added in a professional employment coach. So she works with people, you know, maybe you have ADHD and you're looking for tools to help you get organized and to stay focused. And so we bring her in and have sessions together. Sometimes just professional development. There's a lot of people in our community that need a little bit of that. Unfortunately for some of us, when we get on these Zoom calls, we can't see the social cues. We can't tell if somebody is, you know, getting ready to speak or wrapping up what they're speaking, you know, so how do you handle all that? So we do all of that, you know, we provide all of that. But once the instructors say, yep, I think that they should interview for an apprenticeship program, they have to go through an interview with our apprenticeship program manager and another member of BIT. And then if we have openings, which we do, and we will continue to have them through the different, then they become a part of our apprenticeship. And again, those are all apprenticeships or they're competency based used to be 2000 hours. The Department of Labor has lifted that restriction. But we still feel that that 2000 hours is a good number for our participants to really get a good, strong understanding of what they will be doing in this role in mastering these competencies, Professional development. It gives you that 1 to 2 years experience that, you know, whenever you're looking for an entry level job, what do you see? You need 1 to 2 years' experience. Well, how do you get that if you're entry level? And so we're providing that opportunity to do so. Our apprenticeship program has additional trainings that are offered. You're working right alongside with our sales force professionals, our accessibility professionals who all have experience in the field. And again, I will point out to these are teams that are all disabilities working together. So completely deaf admins working with completely blind admins, just killing it, doing an excellent job. So really a lot of exposure in that apprenticeship program. One of the things the DIF grant also allowed us to do is incorporate employer partners. So if you have an apprenticeship with an employer partner still meeting with our apprenticeship program manager. You're still getting all of the support from BIT we're meeting with the project leads at those employers to make sure that we're supporting them in anything they need. So really, like I said, a well-rounded program. Once you complete those competencies, we do self-evaluations. I mean, we're, you know, where you stand in our apprenticeship and what you need to work on. And, you know, we're selling, obviously, the further you get into the apprenticeship program, the more projects you're handed, the more responsibility. So really just gaining your confidence in the field, and then you're ready to go into the world and work in an organization or a corporation out there. Carol: Are you seeing any impact with AI? You know, people talk about AI usage now, and, you know, the increase of that and how it's changing the landscape of corporate America. Are you seeing any impact from that? Kristy: So you've heard of that little thing called AI? Carol: Yeah. Kristy: The answer is an overwhelming yes. So one of the things that we've done in our courses is try to, we try to make them future proof. You know, we don't want to send our students or our apprentices out into the world behind the eight ball, you know, oh gosh, this is a saturated market. I don't have any of the skills. So one of those higher level Salesforce certifications I told you about is agent for specialist, which is Salesforce AI. And Salesforce has gone all in on agent force and their AI. So our apprentices have the opportunity to become certified in agent force. And then, you know, different projects we're working on. We're now talking to a lot of clients that are looking into how can I incorporate AI into my Salesforce environment? So, you know, giving them people then that opportunity to get those skills so that they can make an immediate impact. Additionally, in the Scrum Master or the project management track scrum Master has just added the AI Scrum Master certification course. So we will be actually including that in our course. So again, you'll come out of that track with if you're looking at Scrum Master, you're looking at two shirts, one of which is AI. We're also adding a higher level AI course, that's AI governance. Most of these companies are looking at this going, okay, we have AI, but when should we be using it? How should we be using it? What is ethical? What is not? What is going overboard with AI, you know? So we're actually going to provide a course. So again, our participants can come out able to make immediate impact on organizations. And the way to do that right now is AI. So we absolutely are incorporating AI. People with disabilities to, you know, again, we say at BIT Technology is the greatest equalizer. It truly is. And people with disabilities are actually leading the charge in AI. In fact, that agent for specialist course I mentioned, out of all of the workforce development orgs within Salesforce, we were the first one to offer that course. So disability community leading the way in AI. So it's exciting. Carol: I love it. Well, you're ahead of the curve, which is super good. And people come in with that. They'll definitely. I mean, you're creating a good niche there with your apprentices being able to do that. Kristy: That's our goal. Carol: That's awesome. So what are you seeing as a career pathways like what's proving to be the most impactful right now? Kristy: So you know, again, Salesforce is just huge. So of course that is, you know, continuing on and that is definitely making a big impact. Digital accessibility is a very hot topic right now. Gosh, a couple years ago, I can't remember what year it was actually implemented. But the Department of Justice has now mandated that title two of the Americans with Disabilities Act incorporate digital accessibility. And they actually laid out deadlines. They just pushed the first deadline. It was supposed to be April of 2026, that all municipalities with over 50,000 individuals had to be digitally accessible. Everything within your state needs to be accessible for people within our community to access. 2027 was supposed to be for those municipalities, less than 50,000. I imagine that'll get pushed back as well. But the bottom line is if your organization, your front facing organization is not accessible, you're going to encounter some issues. And so all of a sudden then all of these corporations and organizations and government and they're going, okay, what is this? What is digital accessibility and how do we get there? So we're really starting to see a lot of impact, a lot of clients coming to us asking, okay, what is digital accessibility? How can you help me? One of the members of Office of Accessibility for Salesforce is actually said that there's two experts in Salesforce accessibility, and one is Salesforce and one is bit. We work very closely with them on accessibility and their accessibility. I think really that impact digital accessibility. We're going to see it more and more and more. Unfortunately, a lot of lawsuits are being filed. And when I say unfortunately, it's that's what's being the precursor for companies to become digitally accessible. You know, I wish they would just because it's better for everyone. An accessible product is just a better product. It's more well thought out, it's more intentional. It's just better presented. I wish that it wasn't that they're being forced to because of litigation. I wish that it was just because that is again, the right thing to do. Plus, this disability community is large across the world. I think it's 1 in 5 now, and more and more people are aging. More and more people are being diagnosed with disabilities. Where before in tech, people were just considered eccentric. When I think a lot of them were actually, you know, on the autism spectrum or neurodiverse, so that, you know, a lot of invisible disabilities, mental health disabilities are now become not so taboo to hide and to talk about. So it's something that, you know, the world's just going to see more and more of, and the demand for making things more accessible to reach your customers, to reach that community is going to become more and more. So I really think that digital accessibility track is getting a lot of focus. Carol: That is very cool. I know employer engagement also is a big piece of all this, and how are you partnering with companies and what are they seeing as value from what you offer? Kristy: So apprenticeships is huge right now. Apprenticeships really provide employers the opportunity to get kind of a jump on the talent pipeline, both this current administration and the former administration, very pro apprenticeship. You know, they have apprenticeship mandates out. I believe it's a million apprentices is what they want to attain. And then there's proven statistics. I'll give you some data here, Carol, for companies that have an apprenticeship program, typically for every dollar that's invested in that apprentice, the company is seeing an ROI of $1.44. So immediately getting impact with having an apprentice, 94% of the apprentices stay where they're at when they become an apprentice within a company. So turnover is really expensive for companies, incredibly expensive. And so not only if you have an apprenticeship, you're looking at a 94% retention rate. But then to add to that, the people with disabilities community, our turnover rate is incredibly low because it has been difficult to find employment. If the person with a disability finds a place where they can be successful and thrive, they're not going anywhere. So you kind of get a double whammy on that. Apprentices typically come out earning 84,000 a year, and they're saying 49% of HR managers are saying that skill based is really kind of the new and compelling look at talent management. One of the things that, again, as I mentioned before, the DIF grant allowed us to do is start reaching out to employer partners, having them bring on apprenticeships, not necessarily being trained within BIT, but actually going into their organizations, working with their Salesforce teams, working with their digital accessibility teams and again, creating this talent pipeline I mentioned earlier, it's not the lack of ability, it's the lack of opportunity. Again, these apprenticeship programs are really providing people within our community the opportunity to go in there and prove themselves, to show these companies. You know, unfortunately for the people with disabilities community, that really is we call it that legal, nebulous bell that we have to ring is the reasonable accommodations. Most people don't understand them. If you get an apprenticeship in there, you're working alongside that apprentice to really determine, okay, how is this person going to be most successful and really getting over that fear of what the reasonable accommodation is. So our impact with employers has been fabulous. It's been phenomenal. A lot of interest, again, in bringing on these apprentices to work on their teams, give them again that opportunity to kind of dip their toe into that pool. I want to mention, too, that we really believe that the disabilities community is the greatest untapped talent in the planet. You have this whole group of resources that are so talented and nobody's touching and working with organizations like BIT. Working with these apprentices really gives you that opportunity to dip into that talent and have this just amazing pipeline, amazing resources to work with instead of going the typical talent route. And we have a tech talent shortage, we really do. So, you know, working with, again, like an apprenticeship program, working with our team really gives people the opportunity to get that jump on that talent. Carol: Well, and they get to work in that company. You know, you're in that company and the company culture. You're all part of it you've done these 2000 hours. You know, you've been there a year or more. Kristy: Exactly. Carol: And so they really get a good flavor of what you bring to the table. It's such a great way. I mean, you see that more and more kids are starting to realize like maybe the four year degree route isn't the way. Kristy: Mhm. Carol: We need to look at these other options for getting into employment and getting in more quickly, because everybody learns differently, and these jobs, I mean, when you're talking, people are coming on average $84,000. This is no joke. Kristy: No it's not. Again, it's a good way to get into, again, your feel to get your foot in the door. Give those companies the opportunity to really get that new and emerging talent, but not expecting them to just hop right in the job because, he said, we all learn differently. There's a lot of nuances to learn about different companies. You know, you're an admin at one company and you go to another. And again, you know, you've got that hill to climb of, you know, what are the nuances of that particular company. But here you built your own army, if you will. You built your own pool. Carol: Yeah. Kristy: One of our apprentices actually in a webinar we did recently, she had said, you know, one of the benefits to employers is you essentially get to mold these apprentices into what type of employees that you're looking for. And it's true, you're almost taking a blank slate and working with it for two years and building your team the way you want. And then like you said, you know, you're done with that 2000 hours. Why would you go anywhere else? You've already invested this time. Again, we've given you the statistics on the ROI in that dollar investment. You're already earning money off the apprentices, so why wouldn't you stick with them? Carol: 100%. Now, I know you had some success with the workforce boards and a few blind service agencies, but you've had less traction with VR. What's been the challenge there and what do you want, like the VR agencies to understand? Because I know we sure miss the whole boat and didn't even realize a thing about BIT and I've been telling everybody ever since I talked to you first, like, hey, you need to go look at this website and you need to talk to these people because I've just been like, wow, why is VR missing the boat on that? Kristy: Well, I think you're kind of hitting the nail on the head there, Carol, in that we are not your normal traditional organization out there. We know we are actually the only organization doing what we're doing. And we know that because not only have we looked, but Salesforce has looked. Our other partner, Ronstadt, has looked, you know, they've looked around for other organizations like us doing what we're doing, the manner in which we're doing it, and there aren't any out there. So I've been thinking about this since you and I spoke last time about, you know, really what is our problem with VR? What is the issue? And I really think it comes down to that fact that we are breaking the mold. Our friends at Safal Partner, you know, talk with us all the time about you guys are really forging ahead with something that's never been done before. And so how do we get the VR groups, the VR counselors and teams to break out of what their traditional mold has been and kind of think out of the box and look at our organization go, oh, wait, because unfortunately, the traditional is not working. I mean, the numbers say it, you know, those numbers haven't moved. And I think the VR counselors, they have to do certain things certain ways. And they have reports that they have to do and they need to meet different criteria. And, you know, our programs aren't short. You know, it's not like somebody can get in and out in a month and then they're employed. You know, we're really investing the time in training people to really be productive employees in a completely different way than ever been done before. So I think if we can get the VR groups to open up their minds to a different way of doing things and to recognize the fact that these traditional ways we've been doing things just really aren't moving the needle. And I think a lot of the, you know, VR counselors, again, they're they have cases they have to close, they have rates that they have to hit. They again, they have all this documentation they have to do. And so I think a lot of times they try to put a square peg in a round hole, and it just doesn't work for people with disabilities community. You have to understand where they're at, you know, Social Security disability, a lot of people are on it. It is not easy to get on. Our goal is to get everyone off of it, not to provide them with a supplement to their SSDI. We want everyone to become tax producers, not tax consumers. So when you get people who are capable, who are software engineers, who have these, you know, the great focuses on tech, this critical thinking mindset that can do so much more than just getting a job. Being able to think outside the box, look at other opportunities that might be out there and go for it. You know, we've been successful, we're showing that this is the way you do this with this group. So that's really the only answer I can come up with, Carol, is why we're not making more traction is just that traditional mindset of this is how we do things. And unfortunately, that traditional mindset is just not helping our community well. Carol: And hopefully we're able to get the word out now through the podcast and advertising that because it is like a no brainer to me. I mean, you're looking at your wants to get people into quality employment outcomes. And I used to always be about like family sustaining wages. And so you're talking about this investment and the people, even though it takes a longer amount of time. But if you've got folks coming out, you know, you've got a big track record, you've worked 2000 hours, you've done this apprenticeship, you've done all this coursework ahead. You have these certifications. You now are geared up for really good employment and long term employment. We're not talking, you know, you're in and out of the fast food place. You want to stay here. You're now engrained in a company. Like what a way to set folks up for success and not needing to come back to you, or to Social Security or any of those other supports. You've really got people launched in such a great way. Kristy: Right? And on that note, so our participants earn an average of, I think, 75,000. And within three years of employment, the majority have been promoted and are making over six figures. So as you said, their family sustaining wages with opportunities of growth. And that's really what our community needs in opportunities, is that the community does not want to be on Social Security disability. They don't they want to be able to put food on their table. You know, with employment comes a lot of dignity. It comes a lot of feeling of worth and being a productive member of society. The community wants that and they know they can do that. We're just lacking the opportunity. Again, lacking that open mindset. I know there's a lot of VR counselors that say, hey, I'm going to put you through college and I'm going to get you this bachelor's degree. And our unemployment rate is still the same, right? We need more than that. You know, you need more of an investment, not just the traditional. I am old enough to remember the days that my parents just said, oh, just get a degree, right. Doesn't matter what it's in. Just go get a degree, you'll get a job. That's not today. You know, today's the day of specialization. As we talked earlier, today is the day of certifications. You know, people want certs. They want experience. They want skills, they want proof. And they're looking at effective employees to, you know, how effective are you an employee? Are you going to be great? You've got this bachelor's degree, but can you be effective in this role? Hiring managers say they can train for those hard skills. You know, they can train somebody to, you know, code in a certain Manner or become an HR professional. You can train a lot of that, but you can't train the effectiveness. You can't train the critical thinking as much as you can when you're in the role. Our program helps to do that though. You know, it really helps people to develop those skills, to become those critical thinkers, those problem solvers that these hiring managers are looking for. Carol: It really is the full package. What you offer. I just I'm still stunned thinking about like that. We've all missed the boat for 20 years or plus you've been around. So it's not too late though for people to get on board. So looking ahead, what does success look like for your project and what should other people be paying attention to? Kristy: Mhm. Of course, the whole goal for this project is competitive integrated employment. And of course, again, that goes right along with our mission from the very beginning. It's employment. You know, that CIE number is again that family sustaining wages that you can have good strong careers in. So when we're looking at our future, the grant has provided us the opportunity to really build our programs again, provide a lot more structure. So of course, sustainability. Our goal is really to grow our own sales force system integration services, our own digital accessibility services. So that number one, we can be a huge employer of people with disabilities and really build these big sales force teams. The other thing is really finding the employers who are interested in investing in this community. You know, who again, are thinking outside that box of, you know what? I have a talent shortage and I need to find a pool that is really going to benefit my company, provide an ROI, you know, be here. So I'm not hiring somebody every six months. So really, again, you know, getting the word out, we want people, of course, to know about our program to look at our program. You know, we're focused on tech. Tech is not the only industry that could benefit with this type of program, not in any way, shape or form. So we really like people to look at our program and say, okay, you know, our focus is X, you know, maybe it's marketing, maybe it's finance, accounting, whatever it is. And really look at our program and say, I think this is the model that we need to follow. You know, it is a very collaborative organization. We are not going to get where we need to be in silos. We need the whole village to work together to provide these opportunities. Again, really trying to show that we really feel this is the path forward for many careers, for many high producing, effective, high compensation careers. We'd really like people to, again, look at our program, look what we're doing in the different, obviously different is a demonstrative grants. That's the whole thing we're doing here is demonstrating that we really feel that our model is the way to go. Really take a look at apprenticeships and apprenticeships for people with disabilities. I really feel apprenticeship just are tailor made to people with disabilities for them to really, again, get really comfortable to build their skills and show that, yeah, I've got the ability. Just give me that opportunity. I've got the ability. Carol: I can totally see why RSA selected you as a grant. Kristy: Oh thank you. We're pretty passionate here at BIT. Carol: You are and it's amazing. So folks wanted more information about BIT, what's the best way to find you or contact? Kristy: Absolutely. So of course the best way is our website. It's just easy. BlindInstituteOftechnology.org. You can also get it by blindIT.org. You'll find all the information there. Otherwise you know, reaching out. If you are interested in our Academy, Academy@blindIT.org, we have candidates@BlindIT.org or sales@blindIT.org. Any of those, if you can't remember any of them and you can only remember, oh, she said Sales@BlindIT.org, but I'm really not in sales still go to that email address. We're looking at over 50 of us. Our internal team, you know, is about 25 to 30. We're very tight knit, so it's going to get to us. So any of those email addresses work and you can find them all on our website. So again, BlindInstituteOfTechnology.org or BlindIT.org will get you there as well. Carol: So no wrong door in. Kristy: Nope, nope. We will get you to where you need to be. Just let us know what you're looking for, what you're interested in, and we will find the person for you. Carol: Well, that is awesome and I know I am going to sing your praises going forward. Like continue to like tell people about what is happening there. It's pretty amazing. I really appreciate your time. I wish you much success. Thanks for joining me. Kristy: Thank you so much, Carol. I appreciate the opportunity. {Music} Outro Voice: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time. One minute at a time. Brought to you by the VRTAC. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening.
Boris Vallaud est un politique, Président du parti socialiste, président du groupe socialiste à l'Assemblée nationale, député des Landes et auteur de Nos vies ne sont pas des marchandises. Il vient de démissionner de la présidence du groupe PS au moment où on enregistre cet épisode.Je dois être honnête, ce n'est pas un hasard qu'en 9 ans de podcast je n'ai jamais invité de politiques encore ou presque.Ce n'est paspar désintérêt puisque les sujets que je traite sont profondément politiques. Mais parce que je voulais que ça soit une vraie conversation, pas une interview de promo, pas des éléments de langage, pas du positionnement de campagne. Je voulais qu'on parle de ce qui m'intéresse vraiment : pourquoi la société se fragmente, pourquoi les gens votent pour des gens qui ne défendent pas leurs intérêts, pourquoi la démocratie est sous pression, et ce qu'on peut y faire concrètement.Avec Boris, ça a marché j'ai l'impression mais je me méfie de mes propres incompétences à mettre en difficulté un politique en même temps. Le livre part d'une idée simple et tranchante, celle que l'on vit dans une immense boutique. Tout est à vendre, de la petite enfance jusqu'au grand âge, de notre attention jusqu'à notre imaginaire. Et cette colonisation est d'autant plus efficace qu'elle est silencieuse, on ne voit pas l'avant et l'après. Il existe une normalisation progressive de l'idée que tout a un prix, que tout se marchande, et que si vous ne pouvez pas payer, c'est votre problème.Dans cet épisode, nous parlons de ça, mais aussi de ce que ça produit politiquement. Parce que la marchandisation ne détruit pas que les services publics, elle détruit les liens, crée des épidémies de solitude, fragmente les territoires, et au bout, elle crée un appel d'air pour ceux que Boris appelle les "marchands d'ordre". Et la convergence Trump-Musk qu'on voit se déployer en ce moment, c'est exactement ça : quand le marché a tout pris, la dernière chose à acheter, c'est la démocratie elle-même.J'ai questionné Boris Vallaud sur la fiscalité des milliardaires où les 500 plus grandes fortunes françaises représentent 40% du PIB contre 12% il y a vingt ans, et où le taux d'effort fiscal des milliardaires est inférieur à celui de quelqu'un qui entre dans la première tranche de l'impôt sur le revenu. Nous parlons de la réforme des retraites et de pourquoi certaines réformes qui semblent économiquement solides se fracassent politiquement. Nous parlons de désindustrialisation — et de qui en est responsable, les politiques ou les dirigeants d'entreprise qui ont théorisé "la France sans usines". Nous parlons d'intelligence artificielle comme révolution industrielle que la classe politique n'a pas encore vraiment regardée en face. Nous parlons d'écologie, d'agriculture, et de pourquoi la transition est vécue comme une menace par ceux qui ont le moins de marge de manœuvre. Et nous parlons des angles morts de la gauche — Boris les nomme lui-même, sans esquiver.Ce qui m'a frappé dans cet épisode, c'est quelque chose que je n'attendais pas : son rapport aux gens qui votent contre ce qu'il représente. Il ne les méprise pas. Il dit qu'il les connaît, qu'ils sont bien, qu'il leur donne raison sur beaucoup de choses. Et que c'est ça qui lui donne envie de continuer malgré tout — pas la conviction d'avoir raison, mais la conviction que les gens méritent mieux que ce qu'on leur propose.Dans cet épisode, nous parlons de marchandisation, de services publics, de retraites, de désindustrialisation, de fiscalité, d'intelligence artificielle, d'écologie, de démocratie et de réseaux sociaux, de la gauche et de ses angles morts, et de ce que "représenter" veut vraiment dire quand on passe ses vendredis en permanence dans les Landes.Citations marquantes> "On vit dans une immense boutique. Tout est à vendre, de la petite enfance jusqu'au grand âge, jusqu'à soi-même, jusqu'à son imaginaire, jusqu'à sa conscience."> "C'est une avancée plus subreptice mais plus certaine qu'un coup d'état. Précisément parce qu'on ne voit pas l'avant et l'après. Et puis on se retrouve soi-même marchandise, au milieu de codes qui sont ceux du marché."> "Quand on abandonne la société au marché, la dernière Bastille à prendre, c'est la démocratie."> "Les milliardaires ont un taux d'effort fiscal inférieur à celui de quelqu'un qui entre dans la première tranche de l'impôt sur le revenu. Si tout le monde faisait le même effort, le juste effort, tout le monde vivrait mieux."> "Je ferme la porte à l'égoïsme et j'ouvre la porte sur la rencontre. Les gens sont courageux, généreux, intéressants."---Idées centrales1. La marchandisation est un coup d'État sans avant ni après~00:12:40 — 00:18:00Le marché n'a pas besoin d'une déclaration de victoire. Il avance par normalisation silencieuse. Le train où payer pour s'asseoir avec sa famille est devenu normal. La crèche où une amende a créé un marché du retard. Le moment où on n'est plus seulement un consommateur mais une marchandise soi-même. Baudrillard avait critiqué la société de consommation mais n'avait pas imaginé un marché aussi "totalisant et totalitaire" selon Boris. Ce qui est redoutable, c'est précisément l'absence de rupture visible.Pourquoi ça compte : ça change la façon dont on parle de capitalisme. Ce n'est plus un ennemi déclaré, c'est une colonisation du quotidien.2. Le service public coûte moins cher que son absence~00:25:54 — 00:29:52La santé française représente 12% du PIB, gratuite à l'usage, avec une espérance de vie supérieure aux États-Unis où la santé représente 18% du PIB, privée, et laisse des dizaines de millions de personnes sans couverture correcte. La vraie question n'est pas "l'État sait-il gérer ?" mais "combien coûte la marchandisation ?" C'est un retournement rhétorique qui déplace le débat là où il devrait être.Pourquoi ça compte : ça donne des armes concrètes dans un débat trop souvent posé en termes abstraits.3. La mixité scolaire fonctionne, et personne n'en parle~00:31:40 — 00:36:00À Toulouse, les enfants du quartier du Mirail ont été intégrés dans les collèges du centre-ville, dont Fermat et Saint-Sernin. Résultat : leur taux de réussite au brevet a rejoint la moyenne nationale. "Personne n'y a perdu. Tout le monde a été tiré vers le haut." C'est une réponse concrète, documentée, à la logique de ségrégation scolaire qui progresse avec la marchandisation de l'éducation.Pourquoi ça compte : une victoire réelle, mesurable, qui ne fait pas la une.4. L'IA est une révolution industrielle sans politique à sa hauteur~01:03:05 — 01:07:10Boris reconnaît la sidération. Il propose l'analogie de la Red Team du ministère de la Défense, qui fait appel à des auteurs de science-fiction pour imaginer les menaces du futur. Ce même travail devrait être fait sur l'IA. La question concrète qu'il pose : si votre enfant s'oriente aujourd'hui vers une formation, comment savoir si elle sera encore utile dans cinq ans ? Le marché est incapable de donner de la valeur à l'utilité sociale, et c'est l'IA qui va redessiner ce partage.Pourquoi ça compte : une position qui n'est ni dans la panique ni dans l'euphorie, avec une proposition d'action.5. La démocratie est la dernière Bastille du marché~01:17:25 — 01:21:15La convergence Trump-Musk n'est pas une coïncidence. Les 7 plus grandes entreprises américaines de la tech ont une capitalisation boursière qui dépasse le PIB des 27 pays de l'Union européenne. Quand le rapport de forces entre puissance publique et puissance privée est aussi déséquilibré, et que les oligarques de la tech contrôlent les plateformes sur lesquelles se forment les opinions, la démocratie délibérative est structurellement fragilisée.Pourquoi ça compte : ça sort la menace sur la démocratie du registre anecdotique pour la replacer dans la logique marchande.6. La gauche a des angles morts qu'elle refuse de regarder~01:21:15 — 01:25:20Boris les nomme sans esquiver : la mondialisation, qu'elle a soutenue sans voir la désindustrialisation venir ; la crise environnementale, où elle a tardé ; la culture, devenue orpheline ; et surtout les territoires ruraux, la France des sous-préfectures, qui ne se sent pas représentée. Ce qui est frappant, c'est qu'il l'admet sans chercher à s'en sortir avec une formule.Pourquoi ça compte : un politique qui admet ses angles morts crédibilise tout le reste de ce qu'il dit.---Questions posées dans l'interview1. De tous les sujets possibles, pourquoi avoir choisi la marchandisation comme angle central de ce livre ?2. Comment on sort d'un système d'hyper-marchandisation quand il est global et qu'aucun pays ne peut le faire seul ?3. Qu'est-ce qui vous intéresse encore dans la politique nationale là où la politique locale semble plus efficace et plus proche des gens ?4. Combien coûte vraiment la marchandisation — est-ce que l'État social revient finalement moins cher que son absence ?5. Pourquoi les Français ont-ils du mal à accepter que le problème est en haut plutôt qu'en bas, sur la fiscalité des héritages et des grandes fortunes ?6. Comment expliquer que la gauche perde des batailles culturelles sur des sujets où les chiffres sont pourtant de son côté ?7. La désindustrialisation depuis Mitterrand — erreur fondamentale, ou choix assumé par les dirigeants d'entreprise autant que par les politiques ?8. Est-ce que la démocratie peut survivre aux réseaux sociaux, et a fortiori aux réseaux sociaux alimentés par l'IA ?9. Quels sont les angles morts de la gauche — les sujets qu'elle refuse de regarder en face ?10. Si vous ne deviez choisir qu'un seul premier acte contre la marchandisation, ce serait lequel ?---Références citées dans l'épisodeLivres / auteurs- Nos vies ne sont pas des marchandises, Boris Vallaud (le livre de l'invité, fil conducteur de l'épisode)- Jean Baudrillard, critique de la société de consommation (*La Société de consommation*) — cité ~00:13:42 dans le contexte de la colonisation par le marché- Antoine Fouchet [À VÉRIFIER orthographe] — son travail sur la CSG, le financement de la protection sociale et la désindustrialisation — cité ~00:47:50 et ~01:25:24- Printemps silencieux [À VÉRIFIER : attribué à Rachel Carson dans la tradition écologiste] — cité ~01:12:40 comme livre "tragique et intéressant" sur la disparition des insectes- Camille Penny — cité brièvement sur le thème de la générosité et de l'égoïsme — ~01:34:49Films / séries- Matrix, Wall-E, Avatar, Black Mirror — cités comme œuvres culturelles qui ont anticipé les enjeux de l'IA et du contrôle numérique — ~01:20:45Études / données- Les 500 plus grandes familles françaises représentent 40% du PIB (contre 12% il y a 20 ans) — ~00:36:34- Taux d'effort fiscal des milliardaires inférieur à la première tranche de l'impôt sur le revenu — ~00:38:42- 160 milliards d'euros d'aides aux entreprises, étude du Sénat — ~00:40:00- 25 à 30% de non-recours au RSA — ~00:55:03- Fondation Jean-Jaurès : étude sur la corrélation entre fermeture des PMU/bistrots et progression du vote RN — ~01:18:15- Cité des sciences : 76% des Français pensent avoir l'esprit critique, mais 40% refusent de parler à des gens avec qui ils ne sont pas d'accord — ~01:18:34- France : 12% du PIB consacré à la santé / États-Unis : 18% — ~00:26:00- Exemple Sanofi : 1 milliard d'euros d'aides publiques à la recherche, puis licenciements de chercheurs — ~00:40:00Personnalités / modèles- Vienne (Autriche) : modèle de logement social, 80% de locataires, 60% de logements publics, mixité sociale préservée — ~00:18:00- Landes : zéro EHPAD à but lucratif, régie publique de l'eau, premier département producteur d'énergie photovoltaïque — ~00:18:00 / ~01:17:09- Toulouse, collège du Mirail : mixité scolaire avec Fermat et Saint-Sernin — ~00:33:00- Red Team du ministère de la Défense : auteurs de science-fiction pour anticiper les menaces — ~01:20:00- Arnaud Montebourg, travail commun au ministère du Redressement productif — ~00:58:34- Léo Lagrange / Front populaire : politique du temps libéré — ~01:26:14- Jacques Chirac : "Notre maison brûle" — ~01:08:00Timestamps clés 00:08:25 — Intro : l'invité et le livreGreg présente Boris Vallaud et l'angle de l'épisode : on vit dans une immense boutique, et ce n'est pas anodin.00:12:40 — La marchandisation, plus sûre qu'un coup d'ÉtatUne avancée silencieuse, sans avant ni après visible. On se retrouve marchandise sans l'avoir décidé.00:15:32 — Le train, la crèche : les exemples du quotidienPayer pour s'asseoir avec sa famille. L'amende à la crèche qui a créé un marché du retard. La normalisation par petites touches.00:17:49 — Ce que ça produit : inégalités, solitude, extrême droiteExplosion des inégalités, délitement du lien, épidémies de solitude. Et un appel d'air pour les marchands d'ordre.00:20:38 — Politique locale vs nationaleCe qui l'attire encore dans la politique nationale quand les permanences dans les Landes ressemblent à ce que la politique devrait être.00:25:54 — Combien coûte vraiment la marchandisation ?France 12% du PIB pour la santé, États-Unis 18%. Espérance de vie plus courte, inégalités plus grandes. La question se retourne.00:33:42 — La mixité scolaire de Toulouse : ça marcheLes enfants du Mirail dans les collèges du centre-ville : taux de réussite au brevet rejoint la moyenne nationale. Personne n'y a perdu.00:43:38 — Neuf ans de permanences"J'ai rencontré quasiment que des gens bien." Y compris ceux qui votent pour des gens qu'il combat.00:51:39 — Le Cerfa de 24 pages pour un enfant handicapéLa réalité concrète de ce que le désengagement de l'État produit sur les gens les plus vulnérables.00:57:51 — La désindustrialisation : politique ou patronat ?Les dirigeants qui ont théorisé la France sans usines. La souveraineté industrielle comme prochaine bataille.01:03:04 — L'IA : révolution sans boussole politiqueParcoursup, les formations qui vont disparaître, le sens du travail. Les questions que la classe politique n'a pas encore osé poser.01:07:10 — Écologie et agriculture : les paysans en première ligneMondialisation déloyale, réchauffement, perte de biodiversité. Le modèle agricole des années 60 est en train de se briser.01:17:23 — La dernière BastilleQuand on abandonne la société au marché, c'est la démocratie qu'on abandonne. La convergence Trump-Musk expliquée.01:21:16 — Les angles morts de la gaucheIl les nomme : la mondialisation, la crise environnementale, la culture, les territoires ruraux. Rare autocritique politique.01:25:57 — Reconquérir le temps libéréOn l'a libéré du travail. On l'a donné aux galeries marchandes et aux réseaux sociaux. Comment le reprendre.01:34:44 — Fermer la porte à l'égoïsmeLe mot de la fin : les gens sont courageux, généreux, intéressants. C'est ça qui donne encore envie. Suggestion d'autres épisodes à écouter : #376 Quelles stratégies pour reconstruire une France autonome et résiliente? Avec Arnaud Montebourg - Partie 1 (https://audmns.com/UxFQjUM) #229 Travaillez moins pour travailler mieux: réenvisager la valeur travail avec Céline Marty (https://audmns.com/IRoKxrv) #282 La décroissance est-elle réaliste? Avec Timothée Parrique (https://audmns.com/jvOrQIt)Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.
Boris Vallaud est un politique, Président du parti socialiste, président du groupe socialiste à l'Assemblée nationale, député des Landes et auteur de Nos vies ne sont pas des marchandises. Il vient de démissionner de la présidence du groupe PS au moment où on enregistre cet épisode.Je dois être honnête, ce n'est pas un hasard qu'en 9 ans de podcast je n'ai jamais invité de politiques encore ou presque.Ce n'est paspar désintérêt puisque les sujets que je traite sont profondément politiques. Mais parce que je voulais que ça soit une vraie conversation, pas une interview de promo, pas des éléments de langage, pas du positionnement de campagne. Je voulais qu'on parle de ce qui m'intéresse vraiment : pourquoi la société se fragmente, pourquoi les gens votent pour des gens qui ne défendent pas leurs intérêts, pourquoi la démocratie est sous pression, et ce qu'on peut y faire concrètement.Avec Boris, ça a marché j'ai l'impression mais je me méfie de mes propres incompétences à mettre en difficulté un politique en même temps. Le livre part d'une idée simple et tranchante, celle que l'on vit dans une immense boutique. Tout est à vendre, de la petite enfance jusqu'au grand âge, de notre attention jusqu'à notre imaginaire. Et cette colonisation est d'autant plus efficace qu'elle est silencieuse, on ne voit pas l'avant et l'après. Il existe une normalisation progressive de l'idée que tout a un prix, que tout se marchande, et que si vous ne pouvez pas payer, c'est votre problème.Dans cet épisode, nous parlons de ça, mais aussi de ce que ça produit politiquement. Parce que la marchandisation ne détruit pas que les services publics, elle détruit les liens, crée des épidémies de solitude, fragmente les territoires, et au bout, elle crée un appel d'air pour ceux que Boris appelle les "marchands d'ordre". Et la convergence Trump-Musk qu'on voit se déployer en ce moment, c'est exactement ça : quand le marché a tout pris, la dernière chose à acheter, c'est la démocratie elle-même.J'ai questionné Boris Vallaud sur la fiscalité des milliardaires où les 500 plus grandes fortunes françaises représentent 40% du PIB contre 12% il y a vingt ans, et où le taux d'effort fiscal des milliardaires est inférieur à celui de quelqu'un qui entre dans la première tranche de l'impôt sur le revenu. Nous parlons de la réforme des retraites et de pourquoi certaines réformes qui semblent économiquement solides se fracassent politiquement. Nous parlons de désindustrialisation — et de qui en est responsable, les politiques ou les dirigeants d'entreprise qui ont théorisé "la France sans usines". Nous parlons d'intelligence artificielle comme révolution industrielle que la classe politique n'a pas encore vraiment regardée en face. Nous parlons d'écologie, d'agriculture, et de pourquoi la transition est vécue comme une menace par ceux qui ont le moins de marge de manœuvre. Et nous parlons des angles morts de la gauche — Boris les nomme lui-même, sans esquiver.Ce qui m'a frappé dans cet épisode, c'est quelque chose que je n'attendais pas : son rapport aux gens qui votent contre ce qu'il représente. Il ne les méprise pas. Il dit qu'il les connaît, qu'ils sont bien, qu'il leur donne raison sur beaucoup de choses. Et que c'est ça qui lui donne envie de continuer malgré tout — pas la conviction d'avoir raison, mais la conviction que les gens méritent mieux que ce qu'on leur propose.Dans cet épisode, nous parlons de marchandisation, de services publics, de retraites, de désindustrialisation, de fiscalité, d'intelligence artificielle, d'écologie, de démocratie et de réseaux sociaux, de la gauche et de ses angles morts, et de ce que "représenter" veut vraiment dire quand on passe ses vendredis en permanence dans les Landes.Citations marquantes> "On vit dans une immense boutique. Tout est à vendre, de la petite enfance jusqu'au grand âge, jusqu'à soi-même, jusqu'à son imaginaire, jusqu'à sa conscience."> "C'est une avancée plus subreptice mais plus certaine qu'un coup d'état. Précisément parce qu'on ne voit pas l'avant et l'après. Et puis on se retrouve soi-même marchandise, au milieu de codes qui sont ceux du marché."> "Quand on abandonne la société au marché, la dernière Bastille à prendre, c'est la démocratie."> "Les milliardaires ont un taux d'effort fiscal inférieur à celui de quelqu'un qui entre dans la première tranche de l'impôt sur le revenu. Si tout le monde faisait le même effort, le juste effort, tout le monde vivrait mieux."> "Je ferme la porte à l'égoïsme et j'ouvre la porte sur la rencontre. Les gens sont courageux, généreux, intéressants."---Idées centrales1. La marchandisation est un coup d'État sans avant ni après~00:12:40 — 00:18:00Le marché n'a pas besoin d'une déclaration de victoire. Il avance par normalisation silencieuse. Le train où payer pour s'asseoir avec sa famille est devenu normal. La crèche où une amende a créé un marché du retard. Le moment où on n'est plus seulement un consommateur mais une marchandise soi-même. Baudrillard avait critiqué la société de consommation mais n'avait pas imaginé un marché aussi "totalisant et totalitaire" selon Boris. Ce qui est redoutable, c'est précisément l'absence de rupture visible.Pourquoi ça compte : ça change la façon dont on parle de capitalisme. Ce n'est plus un ennemi déclaré, c'est une colonisation du quotidien.2. Le service public coûte moins cher que son absence~00:25:54 — 00:29:52La santé française représente 12% du PIB, gratuite à l'usage, avec une espérance de vie supérieure aux États-Unis où la santé représente 18% du PIB, privée, et laisse des dizaines de millions de personnes sans couverture correcte. La vraie question n'est pas "l'État sait-il gérer ?" mais "combien coûte la marchandisation ?" C'est un retournement rhétorique qui déplace le débat là où il devrait être.Pourquoi ça compte : ça donne des armes concrètes dans un débat trop souvent posé en termes abstraits.3. La mixité scolaire fonctionne, et personne n'en parle~00:31:40 — 00:36:00À Toulouse, les enfants du quartier du Mirail ont été intégrés dans les collèges du centre-ville, dont Fermat et Saint-Sernin. Résultat : leur taux de réussite au brevet a rejoint la moyenne nationale. "Personne n'y a perdu. Tout le monde a été tiré vers le haut." C'est une réponse concrète, documentée, à la logique de ségrégation scolaire qui progresse avec la marchandisation de l'éducation.Pourquoi ça compte : une victoire réelle, mesurable, qui ne fait pas la une.4. L'IA est une révolution industrielle sans politique à sa hauteur~01:03:05 — 01:07:10Boris reconnaît la sidération. Il propose l'analogie de la Red Team du ministère de la Défense, qui fait appel à des auteurs de science-fiction pour imaginer les menaces du futur. Ce même travail devrait être fait sur l'IA. La question concrète qu'il pose : si votre enfant s'oriente aujourd'hui vers une formation, comment savoir si elle sera encore utile dans cinq ans ? Le marché est incapable de donner de la valeur à l'utilité sociale, et c'est l'IA qui va redessiner ce partage.Pourquoi ça compte : une position qui n'est ni dans la panique ni dans l'euphorie, avec une proposition d'action.5. La démocratie est la dernière Bastille du marché~01:17:25 — 01:21:15La convergence Trump-Musk n'est pas une coïncidence. Les 7 plus grandes entreprises américaines de la tech ont une capitalisation boursière qui dépasse le PIB des 27 pays de l'Union européenne. Quand le rapport de forces entre puissance publique et puissance privée est aussi déséquilibré, et que les oligarques de la tech contrôlent les plateformes sur lesquelles se forment les opinions, la démocratie délibérative est structurellement fragilisée.Pourquoi ça compte : ça sort la menace sur la démocratie du registre anecdotique pour la replacer dans la logique marchande.6. La gauche a des angles morts qu'elle refuse de regarder~01:21:15 — 01:25:20Boris les nomme sans esquiver : la mondialisation, qu'elle a soutenue sans voir la désindustrialisation venir ; la crise environnementale, où elle a tardé ; la culture, devenue orpheline ; et surtout les territoires ruraux, la France des sous-préfectures, qui ne se sent pas représentée. Ce qui est frappant, c'est qu'il l'admet sans chercher à s'en sortir avec une formule.Pourquoi ça compte : un politique qui admet ses angles morts crédibilise tout le reste de ce qu'il dit.---Questions posées dans l'interview1. De tous les sujets possibles, pourquoi avoir choisi la marchandisation comme angle central de ce livre ?2. Comment on sort d'un système d'hyper-marchandisation quand il est global et qu'aucun pays ne peut le faire seul ?3. Qu'est-ce qui vous intéresse encore dans la politique nationale là où la politique locale semble plus efficace et plus proche des gens ?4. Combien coûte vraiment la marchandisation — est-ce que l'État social revient finalement moins cher que son absence ?5. Pourquoi les Français ont-ils du mal à accepter que le problème est en haut plutôt qu'en bas, sur la fiscalité des héritages et des grandes fortunes ?6. Comment expliquer que la gauche perde des batailles culturelles sur des sujets où les chiffres sont pourtant de son côté ?7. La désindustrialisation depuis Mitterrand — erreur fondamentale, ou choix assumé par les dirigeants d'entreprise autant que par les politiques ?8. Est-ce que la démocratie peut survivre aux réseaux sociaux, et a fortiori aux réseaux sociaux alimentés par l'IA ?9. Quels sont les angles morts de la gauche — les sujets qu'elle refuse de regarder en face ?10. Si vous ne deviez choisir qu'un seul premier acte contre la marchandisation, ce serait lequel ?---Références citées dans l'épisodeLivres / auteurs- Nos vies ne sont pas des marchandises, Boris Vallaud (le livre de l'invité, fil conducteur de l'épisode)- Jean Baudrillard, critique de la société de consommation (*La Société de consommation*) — cité ~00:13:42 dans le contexte de la colonisation par le marché- Antoine Fouchet [À VÉRIFIER orthographe] — son travail sur la CSG, le financement de la protection sociale et la désindustrialisation — cité ~00:47:50 et ~01:25:24- Printemps silencieux [À VÉRIFIER : attribué à Rachel Carson dans la tradition écologiste] — cité ~01:12:40 comme livre "tragique et intéressant" sur la disparition des insectes- Camille Penny — cité brièvement sur le thème de la générosité et de l'égoïsme — ~01:34:49Films / séries- Matrix, Wall-E, Avatar, Black Mirror — cités comme œuvres culturelles qui ont anticipé les enjeux de l'IA et du contrôle numérique — ~01:20:45Études / données- Les 500 plus grandes familles françaises représentent 40% du PIB (contre 12% il y a 20 ans) — ~00:36:34- Taux d'effort fiscal des milliardaires inférieur à la première tranche de l'impôt sur le revenu — ~00:38:42- 160 milliards d'euros d'aides aux entreprises, étude du Sénat — ~00:40:00- 25 à 30% de non-recours au RSA — ~00:55:03- Fondation Jean-Jaurès : étude sur la corrélation entre fermeture des PMU/bistrots et progression du vote RN — ~01:18:15- Cité des sciences : 76% des Français pensent avoir l'esprit critique, mais 40% refusent de parler à des gens avec qui ils ne sont pas d'accord — ~01:18:34- France : 12% du PIB consacré à la santé / États-Unis : 18% — ~00:26:00- Exemple Sanofi : 1 milliard d'euros d'aides publiques à la recherche, puis licenciements de chercheurs — ~00:40:00Personnalités / modèles- Vienne (Autriche) : modèle de logement social, 80% de locataires, 60% de logements publics, mixité sociale préservée — ~00:18:00- Landes : zéro EHPAD à but lucratif, régie publique de l'eau, premier département producteur d'énergie photovoltaïque — ~00:18:00 / ~01:17:09- Toulouse, collège du Mirail : mixité scolaire avec Fermat et Saint-Sernin — ~00:33:00- Red Team du ministère de la Défense : auteurs de science-fiction pour anticiper les menaces — ~01:20:00- Arnaud Montebourg, travail commun au ministère du Redressement productif — ~00:58:34- Léo Lagrange / Front populaire : politique du temps libéré — ~01:26:14- Jacques Chirac : "Notre maison brûle" — ~01:08:00Timestamps clés 00:08:25 — Intro : l'invité et le livreGreg présente Boris Vallaud et l'angle de l'épisode : on vit dans une immense boutique, et ce n'est pas anodin.00:12:40 — La marchandisation, plus sûre qu'un coup d'ÉtatUne avancée silencieuse, sans avant ni après visible. On se retrouve marchandise sans l'avoir décidé.00:15:32 — Le train, la crèche : les exemples du quotidienPayer pour s'asseoir avec sa famille. L'amende à la crèche qui a créé un marché du retard. La normalisation par petites touches.00:17:49 — Ce que ça produit : inégalités, solitude, extrême droiteExplosion des inégalités, délitement du lien, épidémies de solitude. Et un appel d'air pour les marchands d'ordre.00:20:38 — Politique locale vs nationaleCe qui l'attire encore dans la politique nationale quand les permanences dans les Landes ressemblent à ce que la politique devrait être.00:25:54 — Combien coûte vraiment la marchandisation ?France 12% du PIB pour la santé, États-Unis 18%. Espérance de vie plus courte, inégalités plus grandes. La question se retourne.00:33:42 — La mixité scolaire de Toulouse : ça marcheLes enfants du Mirail dans les collèges du centre-ville : taux de réussite au brevet rejoint la moyenne nationale. Personne n'y a perdu.00:43:38 — Neuf ans de permanences"J'ai rencontré quasiment que des gens bien." Y compris ceux qui votent pour des gens qu'il combat.00:51:39 — Le Cerfa de 24 pages pour un enfant handicapéLa réalité concrète de ce que le désengagement de l'État produit sur les gens les plus vulnérables.00:57:51 — La désindustrialisation : politique ou patronat ?Les dirigeants qui ont théorisé la France sans usines. La souveraineté industrielle comme prochaine bataille.01:03:04 — L'IA : révolution sans boussole politiqueParcoursup, les formations qui vont disparaître, le sens du travail. Les questions que la classe politique n'a pas encore osé poser.01:07:10 — Écologie et agriculture : les paysans en première ligneMondialisation déloyale, réchauffement, perte de biodiversité. Le modèle agricole des années 60 est en train de se briser.01:17:23 — La dernière BastilleQuand on abandonne la société au marché, c'est la démocratie qu'on abandonne. La convergence Trump-Musk expliquée.01:21:16 — Les angles morts de la gaucheIl les nomme : la mondialisation, la crise environnementale, la culture, les territoires ruraux. Rare autocritique politique.01:25:57 — Reconquérir le temps libéréOn l'a libéré du travail. On l'a donné aux galeries marchandes et aux réseaux sociaux. Comment le reprendre.01:34:44 — Fermer la porte à l'égoïsmeLe mot de la fin : les gens sont courageux, généreux, intéressants. C'est ça qui donne encore envie.Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.
Are your legacy network devices a ticking time bomb? In this deep dive, Cisco's Head of Customer Experience reveals alarming statistics from the latest Talos report: 40% of top vulnerabilities directly target end-of-life devices, and 32% are over a decade old. We explore how older infrastructure has transitioned from a mere operational drag to ground zero for a new generation of agentic AI attacks, and why the looming threat of quantum computing breaking RSA encryption means you must assess your network now. Discover how the newly launched Cisco IQ provides real-time, dynamic visibility into hardware, software, and cryptographic assets. Learn how this powerful GPS for your network connects hidden operational trails, automates TAC troubleshooting, and ensures your enterprise is quantum-ready before post-Mythos era threats cause catastrophic downtime. A big thank you to Cisco for sponsoring this video and for sponsoring my trip to Cisco Live Vegas 2026. // Liz Centoni SOCIAL// LinkedIn: / lizcentoni Blogs: https://blogs.cisco.com/customerexper... https://blog.talosintelligence.com/20... // David's SOCIAL // Discord: discord.com/invite/usKSyzb Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidbombal Instagram: www.instagram.com/davidbombal LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davidbombal Facebook: www.facebook.com/davidbombal.co TikTok: tiktok.com/@davidbombal YouTube: / @davidbombal Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/3f6k6gE... SoundCloud: / davidbombal Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... // MY STUFF // https://www.amazon.com/shop/davidbombal // SPONSORS // Interested in sponsoring my videos? Reach out to my team here: sponsors@davidbombal.com // MENU // 0:00 - Coming Up 01:03 - Intro 01:45 - Quantum Ready Assessments 04:35 - Other Cyber Threats 05:11 - Cisco IQ 08:41 - Cisco Assisting Customers 12:39 - Deploying Technolgy 13:24 - Customers Using Cisco IQ 16:18 - Conclusion Please note that links listed may be affiliate links and provide me with a small percentage/kickback should you use them to purchase any of the items listed or recommended. Thank you for supporting me and this channel! Disclaimer: This video is for educational purposes only. #cisco #ciscoiq #quantum
IAM & CEO Journey | Archit Lohokare | BICDiscover how to break into cybersecurity by mastering foundational technologies like cryptography and scaling your career from engineer to CEO with Archit Lohokare. In this episode, we explore the mindset required to build secure enterprise systems from the ground up.- How building the RSA algorithm from scratch launched Archit's career.- The evolution of Identity and Access Management (IAM) in enterprise environments.- Transitioning from a founding full-stack engineer to a high-level leader.- Why curiosity is the most critical skill for modern security professionals.- Lessons on building secure, scalable systems in a fast-moving startup.Archit Lohokare is an experienced cybersecurity leader and current CEO with over 22 years of industry expertise. He began his journey as a founding engineer at Incentuate, where he developed deep technical proficiency in identity, access management, and hardware-level security.Sponsored by CPF Coaching LLC - http://cpf-coaching.comThe Breaking into Cybersecurity: It's a conversation about what they did before, why they pivoted into cyber, what the process was they went through, how they keep up, and advice/tips/tricks along the way.The Breaking into Cybersecurity Leadership Series is an additional series focused on cybersecurity leadership and hearing directly from different leaders in cybersecurity (high and low) on what it takes to be a successful leader. We focus on the skills and competencies associated with cybersecurity leadership, as well as tips/tricks/advice from cybersecurity leaders.Check out our books:
Ever since Margaret Thatcher's declaration of TINA (There Is No Alternative) in 1980, virtually all policy proposals to fix society's grave problems work within the dominant framework of growth-based consumer capitalism. What if this framework is the problem? What if there actually is an alternative? To reimagine and reframe the conversation, join us for an evening with George Monbiot and Jeremy Lent who will discuss what the world might look like if it were organised, not for extraction, exploitation and elite wealth accumulation, but to instead set the conditions for all beings to thrive on a regenerated Earth. Covering themes from Lent's new book, Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All, they will explore the transformative ideas already put into practice around the world—spanning the globe from Mondragón, Spain, to Jackson, Mississippi and Kerala, India—and discuss how these examples might weave together into a new societal fabric. Speaker: Jeremy Lent, author and speaker Chair: George Monbiot, journalist and author Donate to the RSA: https://thersa.co/3ZyPOEa Become an RSA Events sponsor: https://utm.guru/ueemb Follow RSA on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thersaorg/ Like RSA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theRSAorg/ Listen to RSA Events podcasts: https://bit.ly/35EyQYU Join our Fellowship: https://www.thersa.org/fellowship/join
Matthieu Burin a une intuition au démarrage de Hemea : "quand tu as besoin de faire des travaux de rénovation, c'est un enfer. Tu sais pas à qui t'adresser, tu sais pas combien ça coûte, et tu as l'impression que tu vas te faire avoir."10 ans plus tard, Hemea est devenue une marketplace de travaux qui a réalisé plus de 5000 chantiers, levé 15M€ et structuré un réseau national de courtiers en architecture et rénovation.Ingénieur de formation, passé par les grands projets du BTP et un court passage en cabinet de conseil, Matthieu lance Hemea en septembre 2015 avec 473€ de RSA et une conviction simple : digitaliser un secteur que personne dans l'écosystème startup ne voulait toucher.Ce qui suit, c'est 10 ans de construction patiente.Dans cet épisode de La Galère, Matthieu revient sans filtre sur l'envers du décor d'une marketplace dans un marché à 70 milliards où personne ne fait confiance à personne : un premier MVP bricolé sur Typeform et Excel, une liste de 97 problèmes clients établie sur un tableau blanc, une décision radicale sur la gestion du cash, et un pivot stratégique en pleine restructuration du marché VC en 2023.
Kevin Werbach speaks with Nadav Cornberg, co-founder and CEO of Eve Security, about securing agentic AI where it counts: at the moment an agent actually does something. He recounts how customers upended his own assumptions that AI agent security should focus on visibility and after-the-fact detection. Buyers insisted on runtime enforcement first, reasoning that learning a production database was deleted after the fact helps no one. With Eve's "interrogation" approach, when an agent attempts an anomalous, high-risk action, Eve's agent-in-the-loop pauses and questions it about its intent, before approving, blocking, or escalating to a human. Cornberg describes building a deterministic enforcement layer on top of inherently non-deterministic models, with the system minting explicit rules from observed behavior so that the large majority of everyday requests resolve deterministically. Ultimately, the consequenes are the same whether an unintended action originates in a prompt injection or a simple hallucination. On the perennial human-in-the-loop question, Cornberg argues that escalating everything would drown security teams as the agentic workforce scales, so the platform automatically handles lower-risk cases with justification and reserves human review for the genuinely critical. He closes predicting that "agentic security" will fragment into distinct segments much as endpoint, network, and cloud security once did, and that intent is fast becoming the field's organizing idea. Nadav Cornberg is the co-founder and CEO of Eve Security, an Austin-based agentic AI observability and policy-enforcement company whose platform governs how AI agents interact with an organization's most critical systems. He brings roughly two decades in product development and engineering, including an early decade in cybersecurity at RSA and Check Point and later work in physical access security across gaming and hospitality before returning to security for the agentic era. Transcript Founders' blog: Why We Started Eve Security
Are we prepared for the deployment of a functional quantum computer? This week, Technology Now is returning to the topic of post quantum cryptography. We ask why the deadline for migrating to PQC enabled systems has been moved up, we discover what a quantum computer actually needs to be cryptographically relevant, and we pose the question: when it comes to migrating your systems to quantum resistant forms of encryption, could it already be too late for some people to start?This is Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Every week, hosts Michael Bird and Sam Jarrell look at a story that's been making headlines, take a look at the technology behind it, and explain why it matters to organizations.
Bestselling author Lee Child joins award-winning writer Dreda Say Mitchell MBE for a live conversation at The Royal Society of Arts on the 8th of June. Together, they will explore the power of reading to shape and enrich lives and unlock opportunity for all. They will discuss what authors, institutions, and readers need to do to ensure reading remains central to culture, creativity, and human connection. From Child's global success with the Jack Reacher series to Mitchell's work championing literacy and prison reading initiatives, this event examines how books can transform individuals and communities. The discussion will be opened by Karen Napier, Reading Agency CEO, and spotlight the role of accessible publishing, including Quick Reads, in tackling barriers to reading in an age of declining attention and growing inequality. Speaker: Lee Child, Author Chair: Dreda Say Mitchell MBE, Author Donate to the RSA: https://thersa.co/3ZyPOEa Become an RSA Events sponsor: https://utm.guru/ueemb Follow RSA on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thersaorg/ Like RSA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theRSAorg/ Listen to RSA Events podcasts: https://bit.ly/35EyQYU Join our Fellowship: https://www.thersa.org/fellowship/join
PJ takes call on the driving test wait list that the RSA can't seem to get on top of, hears different views on new EU taxes on imports, talks to the woman who met Katie Taylor while out on a walk. And more... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transparency is a cornerstone of effective local governance, and in New Hampshire, the Right-to-Know law (RSA 91-A) empowers citizens to access public records and ensure their government remains accountable. From the ACLU's discovery of a proposed immigration detention center in Merrimack, to Executive Councilor Janet Stevens' recent request for details from the Berlin Police Department about the murder of Marisol Fuentes, the Right-to-Know law has played a significant role in recent news stories. But the law isn't only available to lawyers and officials. This guide provides a clear, step-by-step roadmap for successfully filing a Right-to-Know request—from your initial search for existing public information to following up on your formal submission—to help you obtain the government information you seek. Listen as hosts Anna Brown and Mike Dunbar, of Citizens Count break it down in $100 Plus Mileage. This podcast is produced in partnership with Citizens Count, Granite State News Collaborative and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications at Franklin Pierce University.
Manager Minute-brought to you by the VR Technical Assistance Center for Quality Management
This episode features a conversation with Dacia VanAlstine, Project Director of the Evolve Employment Model demonstration project at Minnesota Blind. What began as a brainstorming conversation at a national conference evolved into an innovative Disability Innovation Fund (DIF) project focused on improving employment outcomes, retention, and participant engagement for individuals who are blind, low vision, or facing employment barriers. Dacia shares how the Evolve Employment Model is challenging traditional approaches to vocational rehabilitation through progressive employment strategies, benefits planning, workplace exposure opportunities, and faster, more responsive service delivery designed to keep participants connected and moving forward. The episode also explores the realities of building new models in real time — recognizing staff strengths, embracing flexibility, fostering collaboration, and "building the ship while sailing it." A thoughtful conversation on leadership, creativity, workforce development, and the future of vocational rehabilitation. Listen Here Full Transcript: {Music} Dacia: When we did our brainstorming, we looked at where could we improve and not just improve the customer experience, but the way that the staff do their work. Carol: How has your experience been working with your RSA project officer, and what's that partnership look like? Dacia: Cassandra is amazing. Doctor Deandra too. They are an amazing team. They are very real, which I so appreciate and so responsive and just, they answer the dumbest questions that I have and don't make me feel dumb. So I love it. Intro voice: Manager minute, brought to you by the Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Center. Conversations powered by VR. One manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host, Carol Pankow. Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Dacia VanAlstine, project director for the Evolve Employment Model demonstration at Minnesota Blind. And today we're going to dive into innovation, leadership and what it really looks like to take an idea and bring it to life in VR. And I have to say, this one is a little special for me. I had the good fortune to work with Dacia during my time at State Services for the Blind. And one thing that always stood out as her ability to take a concept, sometimes just an idea and turn it into something real, something actionable, and something that makes a difference. So, Dacia, how are things going? Dacia: Thank you for that, Carol. Things are going well. We're moving right along with this project. We are making some great strides, so it is fun to be here today. Carol: Excellent. So before we jump into the project itself, I'd like to start with your story. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your background and how you found your way into vocational rehabilitation? Dacia: I think like a lot of people, I just kind of fell into it. I started when I was younger working in group homes, and that moved into becoming a program coordinator for group homes, which then moved into the day programming side of things at a, DT&H, which then turned into working with their supported employment license and then finding employers and jobs for people that were actually connected to the VR programs. So then I became interested in VR and started working for State Services for the Blind back in 2008 as a Vocational Rehab Technician. And then with my background, ended up getting some ARRA funding and I moved into employment services and have been working with the Dual Customers ever since. Carol: Wow. I did not know you kind of followed my same path because I did the whole group home work too, and DT&H and the whole shebang. That's pretty cool, I love it. So I know this project did not appear out of nowhere. It really grew organically. Can you talk a little bit about how the idea for Evolve Employment first came about and how it took shape? Dacia: It's kind of funny. A few of us had gone to CSAVR in the spring of 2024, and they had announced the DIF grants that they were going to be doing. It was Natasha Jerde, who's our executive director, and then Jon Benson, our deputy director, myself. We had our quality assurance person, Ashlyn Cahill there, and our fiscal person, Gabby Garcia. And then we had a counselor, Jason Dornbush, and we were all sitting in the back row. And it started with one little, hey, what if we applied for this? What could we do? There's so many different things we could do. And it turned into this whole thing and it just exploded from there. I don't even remember the session that was going on at the time, because we were in the back just brainstorming. It turned into this huge idea spark, and one person fed off the other person and then it just blew into this thing. Carol: I love when that happens. That is super fun. Now, the speaker up front was probably annoyed with you all, but I love when that, you know, you get that idea. In fact, you know, Jeff and I, back in the day, we were at a CSAVR conference and he's like going out trying to do a little interviews with somebody. After that session, I'm like, what are you doing? I'm going to do a podcast. This was way back in the day and I'm like, what's a podcast? And look at now the whole world is podcasting, but it cracked me up. I mean, we started that 11 years ago. Super fun. Dacia: Jeff's been podcasting ever since we went to an NFB conference and sat by the pool and Podcasted. Carol: I know it is super hilarious. It's like those organic kind of ideas really can bloom into something pretty cool. So at a high level, what is the Evolve Employment model and how do you think about the key components or buckets of the project? Dacia: Well, when we did our brainstorming, we looked at where could we improve and not just improve the customer experience, but the way that the staff do their work. The DIF grant allows us to really be in, it's in the title innovative. It allows us to try things. Really the idea is to try different tactics, different strategies, different approaches to things in the VR program that improves outcomes, improves experiences for staff, improves experiences for participants, and really leans into that dual customer approach to delivering services. Carol: Pretty cool, I love that. So what about the buckets in this project? I know there were different kind of fingers that you were looking into doing a lot of different things. Dacia: Well, a couple of the things that we're doing is job retention. We know that it's so much better if somebody can keep a job, it's better for the employer, it's better for the person, it's better for just everyone. So really looking at retention, also looking at how can we use workplace activities in order to help individuals that have limited experience in the workplace, limited experience with work in general, just the idea of work, you know, they may be somebody that's newer to work, maybe somebody that just hasn't worked in a long time, but just giving them some workplace activities under progressive employment. So looking at job shadows, tours, and it's something that VR does anyways, but this is done more intentionally and a little more structured to see if this makes a difference in people's lives, if people will choose better outcomes, because now they're being exposed to different types of careers than they would be normally. And so we have that progressive employment also looking at how can we speed things up for people, not speed things up to where we're rushing people through the process, but speed things up in a way that helps people stay engaged. We know looking at the data, that the longer it takes for somebody to get into a plan to get any services implemented, the more likely they are to drop off. And so looking at how can we make this faster for people, but in a meaningful way. And then looking at other aspects of where in the VR program we might be falling short, and that would be, besides the retention, looking at the training aspect of things, especially in the customer service and technology sectors. So looking at how can we get people into technology based customer service roles and building possibly a training program ourselves that can be passed down to the general program and using the training that already exists for individuals. And we're not looking at degree programs, we're looking at certificate programs, short term training, things that can help people get into a career faster. Not everybody has the luxury of taking a step back. Some people have to provide for their families. Some people just really don't want to go down that path. They want to get into a career as quickly as possible. So how can we lean into that training? Carol: That sounds awesome. I'm excited about this. I know when you and I had spoken before, you talked about this being like, you're kind of building the ship as you're sailing it. What does that look like during this first phase of implementation? Dacia: Well, in the beginning, we had picked up a bunch of staff from the General Vocational Rehabilitation, VRS, when they unfortunately had to have some layoffs. So we were able to grab some of their talent. And when we put together the position descriptions we put together, you know, what we thought we needed. And then as we started hiring them and then more staff, we realized that these staff had amazing talent. Besides what was just what was needed for this grant. So we were able to look at where does their talent lie and how can we help not only advance our project, but set our staff up because this is a short term project, so how can we set them up for their careers after they're done? And so looking at is their leadership ability there? How can we help them lead projects? Is there training opportunities? Are there other things that they can bring? Are there ways to expand this a little bit. You know, one of the things that we decided to do was job retention. The initial intention of that was how can we keep people into positions that they want to stay in? It's working for the employer, but all of a sudden it's not working because the disability changed or the disability appeared. We have Callie our Retention Specialist, who comes with a whole lot of experience and knowledge in working with the Dual Customer, and she's really working hard to build out our retention program. I should actually mention that in this, we have four targeted audiences that people would need to fall into to be eligible. One is they are at risk of losing a job. Another is they are unemployed for 27 or more weeks. Another is at risk of losing a job, unemployed for 27 weeks or more. A new American with a legal right to work. And the fourth one is somebody who acquired their vision loss during their working years. So if somebody falls into those categories, they're eligible for our program. We are doing a Functional model for disability versus a medical model. So with that, we have been able to capture numerous individuals that would normally not qualify for our general program because of the medical model. And so we were able to take people that had nowhere else to go and were going to lose their job. And we've been able to save over half a dozen, probably close to a dozen jobs now for people that would normally not qualify for services. Carol: That's really cool. So what do you think are 1 or 2 innovations within the model that you think are really making the biggest difference so far? Dacia: We knew that retention was important and that it should be done intentionally, and we knew that we didn't have a solid retention program procedure process in the general SSB program. So we started looking at how can we really make this difference? And we actually expanded it not just for people at risk of losing their job, but one of the things that we're doing is for the VR program, expanding on that stabilization period. So those individuals that get their job and they're employed for 90 days, and then they make the couple contacts with the counselor and really close to that 90 days, they quit their job, they maybe get scared of losing benefits. Something happens with the employer and they just haven't really made contact with their counselor. So what we're doing is that we're doing stabilization services. So a counselor can refer somebody in those 90 days, and that Career Navigator becomes somebody that they can connect with. They are the coordinator of all the services. They are able to work with the employer. They are able to, if they're county services involved, pull those in, they are able to pull other resources in. And all of our Career Navigators have all the way to level three benefits planning training so they can look up benefits for people. Which is something that we've never done before, really embedded benefits into everything we're doing. So it helps individuals. They have this person that they can go to, they can ask questions about their benefits. It's just a really a wraparound service. And then after their 90 days, the intent is to allow them to continue to be able to contact that person for the next year. If something comes up, we can get back into services with them right away if we need to. We don't have to open up a new sequence with them. They can just jump in and do stuff. So that's one of the really cool things that we're doing, and we're finding a lot of need for that way more than we even thought. We knew that retention was a huge thing. And looking at our really ambitious numbers that we said we would do, we're going to have no issues at all hitting that because it's turned into a huge thing. I should also mention, one of the other buckets that we're doing is benefits planning. So we have a Benefits Navigator that's able to look up benefits, that's able to do all kinds of things. We even had a situation that somebody, due to a clerical error, had gotten a letter that they owed tens of thousands of dollars in back Social Security, and they were going to quit their job. And there were all these things that were going to happen. And because of the Benefits Navigator is at the top level for benefits planning and has all the credentials to be able to do the work and all the training to do the work, they were able to find the clerical error and that is now being reversed. Carol: That's amazing. Dacia: Because of the work that she did with this individual and us having that, that person now can breathe. Carol: I like that, you know, I was thinking back in the day, we used to have Meredith. She was our benefits person. You know, we had the one person I remember customers talking to me. They were so worried about really staying employed because worried about losing benefits, you know, the whole thing and how to counsel through that. And I think you guys having this embedded in kind of every aspect and allowing that to continue on for the people the year after is really important. It just gives that sense of stability that someone to talk to when you're navigating this crazy, you know, there are big systems with all of that. And to really help you gain that understanding. So you're feeling comfortable with the decisions you make and what you're doing is super important. Dacia: And that really feeds into when I had said, we created these job descriptions and what we thought this was going to be, we had created a position for a Benefits Navigator, okay, And the intent was that they would do benefits lookup and they would do the whole benefits analysis. And that's what their job would mainly be with some training. But looking at that person that was hired, Marcy really has a lot of talent and experience behind her. She worked for the hub. She's done all these different things. So looking at expanding what her talent is and helping her really guide what this looks like for our entire program. It's amazing. And then not just that, you know, the original intention wasn't that our Career Navigators were going to have benefits planning, training. But one of our Career Navigators that came from VRS had that. And so we were able to look at, oh my gosh, look at all these things that they can do. And because we have Marcy, our Career Navigators, Kayla and Alex and our new American career navigator, Alexis are able to work together. She's able to mentor them. She's able to help them get the training that they need. So it's really leaning into all these things that everybody brings with them, not just what we thought, what we needed, and sticking to that, just really being open to letting our staff use the talents they have. We didn't have any intention that Career Navigators were going to be training counselors or training community partners, and then we end up with Alex, who has tons of experience with this, Kayla who loves doing this, you know, so letting them do the things that they love to do and the things that they really have a lot of talent in. So that's really helped us in the implementation of this, really leaning into what they bring and what they want to do. Carol: I know you were talking a little bit about your numbers. You mentioned it like, we're going to be able to blow past that number. What are some of the goals that you have for numbers with this project. Dacia: Some of the numbers are very ambitious. Our number for how many job retentions that we get, I think is 270, which at first I thought, that's really ambitious and I don't know if we're going to do that. I honestly think that we're going to probably hit 270 by the end of year three. Carol: Wow. Dacia: Like it's that much. Especially when we added the stabilization. Carol: Yeah. Dacia: And helping those people retain their jobs. That number is going to be huge. We also our outreach to businesses, we are going to surpass that by quite a bit. I think that number is 500 businesses total. And I think we are a little over a year and a half in. And I think we're already at close to 200. Carol: Wow. Good. Dacia: We have an amazing outreach person that we're sharing him with our employer, Reasonable Accommodation Fund. But Ray is out there and he is making connection after connection. And then we have Alicia, who also came from VRS during the layoffs. And she is our business engagement and training specialist. So she is making the connections with the businesses, the relationships. So really we have this talent that's doing this stuff. And Alicia's out there developing relationships with external training programs. So we're going to easily hit that number. Carol: Very cool. It sounds like you've got quite the team. I love it. You've been able to bring in all these folks that have these other like talents you didn't even know about as they come on, and they've been able to contribute so much more than you even anticipated. Dacia: Even our admin and fiscal person, Morgan, we couldn't do this without just like she pulls everything together, she keeps us all on track. She makes sure that we're focusing on the things that we need to focus on. We are very fortunate. Carol: So I know you're operating under a DIF grant, which can really feel different from a traditional VR program. How has your experience been working with your RSA project officer, and what's that partnership look like? Dacia: I would like to say Cassandra is amazing. Even if I come to her with the world's, and very responsive to. Which is super impressive considering all that she does. And then Doctor Deandra too. They are an amazing team. They are very real, which I so appreciate and so responsive and just. They answer the dumbest questions that I have and don't make me feel dumb. So I love it. Carol: That is awesome. Yeah, they're good people. I know. I hear about Cassandra all the time and the amazing job that she does. This is exciting. Well, she has a fun job too because you're working with these DIF projects, you know, and getting to see all this really cool stuff, innovation happening across the country. So I know you're really early in the implementation. You said you're a year and a half in, but you've learned a lot. What do you think are some of the biggest lessons you've learned so far? Dacia: Well, for sure, one of the things that we have learned is making sure that you look at your talent and making sure that you help them grow, because that was not our original intention and looking at their talent, it really has helped us to be where we're at. Making sure that we're working with the general program, communication with the counselors and the general VR program is so important. Even more important than we thought, keeping that communication open. Also adjusting and readjusting kind of what we're doing, what we're saying. I know that we've been building this as we go, which makes it so some things are very ambiguous, which can be very difficult for people to work within, but really helping people get through that. And part of that is letting the staff use the strengths that they have, because that will help get through some of that building the ship as you go and that ambiguousness. Carol: Yeah, I know, it's always exciting. You go from the back of the room chit chatting about this idea, and you put it on paper and it gets accepted. But as you get rolling along, you know, things come up and things change and evolve a little bit. So I like that it goes along with your title of your project. I like that that's the organic, wonderful nature of these DIF grants, because things do evolve as you're going along, and you're allowed to then expand and kind of contract and grow and shape it as the things happen over time, which is very, very cool. Dacia: It absolutely is. And flexibility is really the key here too. We all know that when you put things on paper and you have the intention of things going one way, that's not necessarily how they're going to go. And so you really have to be open to shifting and adjusting. You know, there are things that I envisioned going one way and then all of a sudden with new information, it's like, you know what? We're going this way and it's okay. It's okay to adjust along the way. But you really have to be flexible in this and not looking at it like I am building this program to be exact and live forever. I am building this program to be flexible, to adjust, to be able to be sustainable, whether it's the whole thing or components of this, to be sustainable in SSB's VR program, or even any other VR program that wanted to try some of these, you know, the lessons that we learn along the way in this, whether good or bad, are all important. Carol: Very true, very true. And it'll be really fun. I know you guys are all getting together this summer in June and there's a DIF Project Officer conference, and so I'm sure you're going to be attending that. Dacia: Oh yeah, I'll be doing that. Yep. I'm excited. I love those kind of things because you really get to know other people and you know, you can learn from their struggles. They can learn from your struggles, you can learn from their innovations. They can learn from you, from yours. So I love those opportunities to connect and just have fun. Carol: Yeah, I think it'll be great. So for other VR leaders listening, what advice would you give if they're thinking about trying something new or applying for a demonstration project like this? Dacia: I would say don't over think it. Start with that small seed of an idea and bring other people into it to really brainstorm and get creative with it. Make sure that you're communicating often with VR. Even if you are not in VR program, VR is going to be a key partner regardless. Communicate often and be very transparent in the communication, I would say. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. I know that anytime I have a question, if I think that we might be, you know, okay, well, can we do this? Or what if we do this wrong? Don't be afraid of that. If you have a Cass, talk to Cassandra will help you through it. Or your version of Cassandra, that's what they're there for. One of the things that we had done was we had decided to change one of our areas that we were focusing on progressive employment based on new information. It was super easy. We said, hey, we decided to go in this area. That was a mistake. We don't have enough people there, but we do in this area. Can we do this? Absolutely. So don't be afraid to make some mistakes as long as you're not doing something illegal. Carol: Yeah, yeah, let's stay away from that. Dacia: Let's stay away from that. Make sure that you're, you know, following the law. But as far as the program goes, don't be afraid to adjust and make mistakes because that's what you're here for. You're here to innovate and you have to take some risk in order to get that reward. Carol: Well, Dacia, this has been such a great conversation. What you're building is not just a project. It's really a glimpse into the future of what VR could look like. So thanks for joining us today. Dacia: Well, thanks for having me. Carol: You bet. And to our listeners, if there's one takeaway, it's this innovation doesn't start with a perfect plan. It starts with the question and willingness to try. Thanks for listening to the manager minute. Outro Voice: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time. One minute at a time. Brought to you by the VRTAC. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening.
Kan framtidens dator hota hela vår digitala säkerhet? Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radios app. Kvantdatorn har länge beskrivits som nästa stora teknologiska revolution – en maskin som kan lösa problem som dagens datorer aldrig klarar av. Den skulle kunna förändra allt från medicin och materialforskning till artificiell intelligens. Men samma teknik kan också hota den kryptering som skyddar våra bankärenden, lösenord, chattar, journaler och myndighetssystem. Vad finns det som talar för att kvantdatorn faktiskt kan bli ett hot mot vår digitala säkerhet, och hinner samhället ställa om innan det är för sent?Programledare och producent: Jennifer Sjöblom och Wendela AntepohlKällförteckningMedverkandeGöran Johansson - professor i tillämpad kvantfysik vid Chalmers, institutionen för mikroteknologi och nanovetenskapJulia Ravanis - författare och doktor i teknikhistoriaMåns Jonasson - internetexpert på InternetstiftelsenMichael Popoff - senior forskare i bland annan kvantsäkerhet på RISEEdward Parker - fysiker på RAND corporation Andra vi har pratat medPontus Johnson - professor i cybersäkerhet på KTHExperter och presstjänsten hos Polismyndigheten, SÄPO, E-hälsomyndigheten, Försvarsmakten och FOIBöckerQuantum Bullshit - Chris FerrieKvantdatorer - Mikael JohanssonUniversum i din hand - Christophe GalfardKlipp i urvalDen nya ekonomin. Kvantdatorer: det oförklarliga, förklarat.Idéer som förändrar världen: Kvantfysik i praktiken – med Göran JohanssonVetenskapsradion: så funkar kvantdatorn A-kursen i kvantfysik med Julia Ravanis Radiolab: Quantum birds Sveriges Radio: Internets mardröm Sveriges Radio: Kvantfysiken 100 år. The joy of why: What is the true promise of quantum computing? CBS News: Google's quantum computer makes breakthrough Bloomberg Television: Can Quantum Computing Power the AI Boom? Oppenheimer CNET: This crypto threat is closer than expected Källor i urvalChalmers University of Technology: Kvantdatorn: Möjlighet och risker New York Times: Google's Quantum Computer Makes a Big Technical Leap New York Times: Turning Award Goes to Inventors of Quantum Cryptography The Conversation: Five ways quantum technology could shape everyday life The Conversation: New entanglement breakthrough links cores of atoms, brings quantum computers closer Tech monitor: Are harvest now, decrypt later cyberattacks actually happening?Nature: Untangling the challenges of quantum computing PC för alla: Så kommer kvantdatorer revolutionera världen RISE: Kvantteknologi - revolution eller evolution? APS: June/July 1925: Werner Heisenberg pioneers quantum mechanics Forbes: Harvest now, read now: The immediate overlooked risk beneath the PQC discussion CISA: Post-Quantum Considerations for Operational Technology FOI: Militärteknik 2050Quantum: How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers in 8 hours using 20 million noisy qubits Nature: ‘It's a real shock': quantum-computing breakthroughs pose imminent risks to cybersecurity SvD: Varningen: “Q-Day” rycker närmare DI: Kvantdatorer pekas ut som säkerhetshot: ”Bråttom” DI: Statligt institut varnar för ”existentiellt hot” The New Scientist: Quantum experiment settles a century-old row between Einstein and Bohr Wired: The Quantum Apocalypse Is Coming. Be Very Afraid
What happens when the cybersecurity industry stops debating whether agentic AI is a future problem and starts treating it as a present-day reality? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Tim Freestone to unpack the biggest shift coming out of this year's RSA Conference. After attending RSA for more than two decades, Tim describes 2026 as the year the energy returned to the cybersecurity world, driven by one unavoidable topic: agentic AI. We explore why the conversation has rapidly evolved from curiosity to urgency, and why organizations are suddenly confronting an uncomfortable truth. AI agents are already operating inside businesses, often without visibility, governance, or control. Tim explains how shadow AI is spreading faster than many leadership teams realize, with employees experimenting with autonomous tools that connect directly to company data and external AI models. Our conversation also looks at the growing gap between visibility and control. Security teams may be discovering agents across their networks, but stopping risky behavior is an entirely different challenge. Tim argues that companies focusing purely on infrastructure are already falling behind, and that the real battleground is now the data layer itself. We discuss why data governance, audit trails, and access controls are becoming central to the future of cybersecurity strategy. Tim also shares his thoughts on state-sponsored AI threats, the rise of autonomous espionage operations, and why open-source AI models present a completely new level of risk for defenders. At the same time, he offers practical advice for IT and security leaders trying to figure out where to start amid the noise, complexity, and endless flood of new tools entering the market. If your organization is trying to understand how AI changes cybersecurity, governance, compliance, and risk management, this conversation offers a clear look at what security leaders are actually worried about right now, and why the next 12 months may redefine how companies think about protecting data altogether. Useful Links Connect with Tim Freestone Learn More About Kiteworks Data Security and Risk Report Kiteworks Substack Kiteworks LinkedIn Newsletter Please check the partners of the Tech Tech Talks Network Learn more about the NordLayer Browser Visit Denodo.com
Agentic AI was the theme that pulled away from the pack at RSAC Conference 2026. Tony Anscombe of ESET makes the case that once AI shifts from being directed by humans to operating with its own objectives and logic, the security surface changes with it, and organizations are being forced to rethink what they protect and how. At the show, ESET announced two products that meet that moment head on. The ESET AI Skills Checker is a free-to-use tool coming to market. ESET AI Protection looks inside AI sessions on the endpoint, flagging sensitive data leakage, malicious links returned by AI systems, and suspicious behavior, and surfacing it all inside normal cybersecurity operations for investigation, blocking, or detection. Tony closes with a reminder worth keeping. His first RSA was in 1998, and the technology he worked on then (sandboxing, dynamic code, remote windowing, encryption, authentication) mirrors a lot of what walks the RSAC Conference floor today. The packaging evolves, the core principles do not. Build forward, but do not lose sight of what the past already proved. This is a Brand Highlight. A Brand Highlight is a ~5 minute introductory conversation designed to put a spotlight on the guest and their company. Learn more: https://www.studioc60.com/creation#highlight GUEST Tony Anscombe, Chief Security Evangelist, ESET LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyanscombe/ RESOURCES Learn more about ESET: https://www.eset.com ESET AI Skills Checker and ESET AI Protection: https://www.eset.com Are you interested in telling your story? ▶︎ Full Length Brand Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#full ▶︎ Brand Spotlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#spotlight ▶︎ Brand Highlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#highlight KEYWORDS Tony Anscombe, ESET, Sean Martin, brand story, brand marketing, marketing podcast, brand highlight, agentic AI, AI security, RSAC Conference 2026, threat intelligence, MDR, EDR, endpoint security, AI Skills Checker, AI Protection, cybersecurity community, multifactor authentication, cybersecurity evolution Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
At a time when democracies seem paralyzed by fear and populations are turning inward, award-winning journalist John Kampfner has travelled to ten countries confronting our shared challenges with bravery and imagination. From Japan's inter-generational care system to Moroccan solar panels in the Sahara creating clean energy, John Kampfner's new book Braver New World explores how countries across the globe are solving the most pressing problems. To discuss the finding in his book, John will join us at the Royal Society of Arts for a conversation with The Observer Editor-in-Chief, James Harding, and former UK Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. Join us for an evening of ideas and discussion on how we can learn from others to build a better society. Speakers: John Kampfner, Journalist David Miliband, Former UK Foreign Secretary Chair: James Harding, The Observer Editor-in-Chief Donate to the RSA: https://thersa.co/3ZyPOEa Become an RSA Events sponsor: https://utm.guru/ueemb Follow RSA on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thersaorg/ Like RSA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theRSAorg/ Listen to RSA Events podcasts: https://bit.ly/35EyQYU Join our Fellowship: https://www.thersa.org/fellowship/join
RSRA has officially joined the TAMKO family.I know that might raise some questions. To answer them before you have to ask, and to show you what this means for you moving forward.It started in 2021 when I had a wild dream… I wanted to find a partner who would offer sales training, resources, and community collaboration to their contractors. And they needed to help provide even more value and resources to contractors than I could do on my own. I didn't know who it would be, or how it would happen. But one thing I knew for sure - if I was going to stake my own name behind them, we had to be value-aligned. And access to the resources needed to continue to be by application-only so we could maintain the standard.In 2025 I shared the idea with Members to reach out to their manufacturer or distributor to see if they'd support, sponsor, or reimburse RSRA Membership dues. And it worked! Some Members shared success.So it led me to creating a new Sponsorship Offering that would allow a manufacturer or distributor to cover RSRA Membership for their contractors. The day I put the new offer together I picked up the phone and called my good friend Jon Abernathy. Jon Abernathy joined the TAMKO team about 2 years ago after building and selling a very successful roofing company. He was previously what I would consider a ‘loyalist' to a different manufacturer. But after he saw the shift in TAMKO's product development (Titan XT® shingles specifically), leadership, culture, and desire to create a wildly valuable contractor program, he literally sold his company to join the team because he was so passionate about creating positive transformation in the roofing industry. Since he joined TAMKO, Jon had been calling on me to get involved, but I initially refused. So when I called him, I figured this would be a good way to find out who was leading the TAMKO team and what they were actually about. It would give me a ‘behind the scenes' peek. Jon was ecstatic and set up a meeting right away. Then, this happened… In December 2025, I had a conversation with their leadership team pitching them the idea of this new sponsorship option they could offer RSRA to top tier The TAMKO Edge® contractors.Seemingly without hesitation they said yes. So we moved forward together with this sponsorship package (and you may have seen the announcement in December 2025). I walked away from that meeting with a feeling I'd never had before. Like I had found my people. TAMKO was building something special, and how we do business was wholly aligned. They did not allow bad actors in their program, emphasizing members that are a good fit. So did I. They wanted to be the best and not the biggest. So did I. They wanted to find ways to provide even more value and resources to help contractors grow. So did I. I knew they were going to be my new partner, even if they didn't know it yet. A couple weeks later I booked a flight to their corporate headquarters to meet with the leadership team so I could share my vision of how we could create the training & growth community the roofing industry has been needing.What unfolded was a series of strategic conversations about how we could bring this vision to life. Today I'm proud to announce the official acquisition of RSRA by TAMKO. We are joining forces, I'm joining the TAMKO team, and we are relaunching what was known as The Roofing & Solar Reform Alliance into something even more special… The Roofing STRONG Alliance by TAMKO™ Because your company is only as STRONG as you are. And that's what we will continue to do differently - focus on developing STRONG people. I'm grateful for our RSRA team, the entire TAMKO team, our Mentors John Senac, Dashaun Bryant, Kody Landals, Jim Ahlin, and two new Mentors Jon Abernathy and Jon Broce, because we are all aligned on how we can continue to serve at an even higher level. But most importantly, I'm grateful for you and the amazingly generous and supportive contractors in our community who share and support each other inside what is now known as RSA. So, what can you expect from me moving forward? I'll be continuing to lead the community! My new role at TAMKO is putting me in a position to take value creation to the next level. Making these resources free for The TAMKO Edge® contractors is a dream come true, and I'm equally as excited about being in a position to do even more and go even bigger because of the additional resources and support of a team who is equally as passionate as me.I couldn't be more excited about our future together! What This Means for YouAll existing memberships continue until December 31, 2027 no matter whose shingles you sell. Same community. Same standards. Starting January 1, 2028, membership will be exclusively available to The TAMKO Edge® contractors. Even more value is coming. Merging TAMKO's resources with the team behind RSRA, the training, content, and community you rely on will only grow.RSA Membership is now FREE for The TAMKO Edge® contractors. The dream I had in 2021 came true! You Might Be Thinking… I recognize that the response to this news may come with mixed emotions from excitement to frustration, and I'd like to address the ‘elephant in the room' head on. “But I don't want to join TAMKO”I've developed deep friendships and relationships with many Members over the years, and I recognize that some folks may be upset by my decision to choose an exclusive partner. My love and care for you and your success remain as strong now as ever before.This was not a decision I made lightly. I hired expert advisors, consulted with my team, and most importantly, did lots of soul searching to create this outcome.RSRA had been approached by multiple interested parties, many of which I had spent hours meeting with as we vetted each other. I chose to pursue TAMKO as my partner because I felt spiritually called to, even though they weren't aware that other companies were interested. In my new role, I'll continue to lead RSA as well as help shape the future growth of TAMKO as Director of Market Development and Channel Strategy.My hope is that you at least consider a conversation with TAMKO so you can be your own judge of who they are today, and know that I respect your decision either way.“RSRA used to be agnostic.”Choosing a single manufacturer may seem like I've ‘gone back' on my desire to stay agnostic, and I'm excited about it because we can now provide even more specific training and resources that are ‘plug and play.' Plus, we will all be able to ‘speak the same language' and be on the same team. “Will the community still be vetted?” Yes! The caliber of contractor and community standards will continue to be upheld.“You sold out.”I expect a few people may think that, and that...
Much more of a quiet weekend than usual. Took some time off from getting the garden ready to get RSA out to you! Maybe next year I should send RSA Tomatoes as prizes! I have had a few inquiries about the pins, never fear I will get back to people shortly. I just hav eto go buy some more stamps. This week I cherry picked some tracks from my inbox because I wanted to see what a few bands are doing now. We're playing a couple that haven't released anything ina while! Welcome back! Chainreactor - Unintentional Presence Pt.2 (Audiocall) Massiv In Mensch - Callanish BlakLight - Leave A Light On (Code 64) Kanka+Bodewell - Beleive (Extended) Ego Salto - Left Behind Angels & Agony - Changes XPQ-21 - Little Spider (Nocturnal) Volkoff - Written By The Last http://synthetic.org/ https://www.youtube.com/@RealSyntheticAudio
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