Podcasts about computer associates

About David Hirschfeld:David Hirschfeld is a 35-year veteran of the software startup world whose journey began as a physics student at UCLA. He spent his early career at Computer Associates and Texas Instruments, then led software projects at Intel and Motorola. He launched his first successful startup software company, which grew to 800 customers in 22 countries, and sold it in 2000. David founded Tekyz Inc. in 2007 and spent 17 years working with over 70 startups, leading to his breakthrough insight into what makes software companies succeed or fail and inspiring the Launch 1st Method. This systematic approach reduces risks, costs, and time while minimizing investor dependence. When he's not transforming startups, David is a golfer, a woodworker, and a proud father of four successful sons who taught him his most valuable lesson: success follows patterns, but they're not always the ones you expect. In this episode, Dean Newlund and David Hirschfeld explore:Speed and implications of AI innovationWorkflow automation and process redesignModern approaches to product innovation and validationThe future impact of autonomous vehiclesUser empowerment through advanced AI tools Key Takeaways:Automating outdated workflows without reevaluating their relevance can lead to inefficiency—some processes should be reinvented, not just automated.Instead of building products based on assumptions, companies should test the market through pre-sales to validate real demand before development.AI tools like ChatGPT's voice and vision modes can now provide real-time visual navigation, product identification, and contextual support in everyday situations.The rise of autonomous vehicles like Waymo may render parking structures and personal car ownership obsolete within five years, fundamentally shifting urban infrastructure needs. "You have to channel your inner five-year-old when you're thinking about what's possible.” — David Hirschfeld Connect with David Hirschfeld:  Website: https://www.tekyz.com & https://launch1st.tekyz.comEmail: david@tekyz.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/X (Twitter): https://www.x.com/tekyzincFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/tekyzinc   See Dean's TedTalk “Why Business Needs Intuition” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEq9IYvgV7I Connect with Dean:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqRK8GC8jBIFYPmECUCMkwWebsite: https://www.mfileadership.com/The Mission Statement E-Newsletter: https://www.mfileadership.com/blog/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deannewlund/X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deannewlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/MissionFacilitators/Email: dean.newlund@mfileadership.comPhone: 1-800-926-7370 Show notes by Podcastologist: Hanz Jimuel AlvarezAudio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with David Hirschfeld, owner of 18 year old business Tekyz, that boasts a hyperexceptional development team building high “ticket” products in the B2B space. They speak about ways in which AI is a gamechanger, how Tekyz backs their work for clients with relentless pursuit of quality, and how Tekyz practices ruthless compassion,to protect the company and enable it to grow Having collaborated with over 90 startups, he developed the Launch 1st Method—a systematic approach that minimizes risks and accelerates software company success with reduced reliance on investor funding, after observing that many companies launch a product first and then fail at a later stage – With Tekyz approach of Launch 1st exceptional founders are in love with the problem not the product.   David's expertise bridges cutting-edge AI technologies, workflow optimization, and startup ecosystem dynamics. When not transforming business strategies, he enjoys woodworking, golfing, and drawing leadership insights from his experience raising four successful sons. You can find out more about David and Tekyz at: https://sites.google.com/tekyz.com/david-hirschfeld?usp=sharing https://tekyz.podbean.com/ - Scaling Smarter Episodes. www.scalingsmarter.net - Schedule an interview https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/ https://x.com/tekyzinc https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/ https://www.facebook.com/dmhirschfeld       transcription:  00:04 Welcome  back to the Founders Sandbox.  I am Brenda McCabe, the host here on this monthly podcast, now in its third season. This podcast reaches entrepreneurs, business owners that are scaling. 00:31 professional service providers that provide services to these  entrepreneurs, and corporate board directors who, like me, are building resilient, purpose-driven, and scalable businesses with great corporate governance. My guests to this podcast are business owners themselves, professional service providers, and corporate directors who, like me, want to  use the power of the private company to build a better 01:01 world through storytelling with each of my guests in the sandbox. My goal is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. So today I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, David Hirschfeld. David is the owner and CEO of Techies, 17 or 18 year old business now that boasts 01:29 a hyper exceptional development team that are building high ticket products in the B2B space.  Welcome David to the Founder Sandbox. Hi Brenda and thanks for having me. Great. So I'm delighted that we  actually did a dry run in February.  We've known each other for some time  and AI, we're going to be touching on AI.  And I think that the world of AI 01:58 particularly in software development,  has changed significantly since we last spoke in February. So we're going to be getting into  some, I think, novel concepts for  the listeners of the Founder Sandbox. So I wanted to, you I always talk about how I like to work with  growth stage companies  that  typically are bootstrapped  and 02:26 It's only at a later stage do they seek institutional investment  by building great corporate governance  and reducing the reliance on investor funding  until such a time that they choose the right type of investors that can help them scale. So when I found out what you do at Techies with Launch First  and the type of work you do in B2B businesses, I absolutely wanted to have you here  on the  founder sandbox. 02:56 So let's jump right in, right? I think I'm eager to learn more about how to scale your bespoke development at Techies, right? To scale my own business? Okay. So there's a lot of different aspects to scaling my business and I bootstrapped for the last 18 years. 03:25 I've never taken any investment  with techies.  And I've  done that very specifically because  it gives me a lot of freedom. I don't have  a reporting structure that I have to worry about. That doesn't mean that I can be lazy with my team.  To grow my team, I have a philosophy 03:52 that I only hire people that are smarter than I am.  And the  ones that are in a position to hire, they can only hire people that are smarter than them. And by  really sticking to this philosophy, even though sometimes it makes us grow a little slower than we would like, it means that when we bring in people, those people  contribute immediately and contribute in a way 04:21 that it's our job to get the impediments out of their way and to facilitate them  so that they can contribute and  help us grow the company. So I call it  the ball rolls uphill  here because  my job is to support everybody that is above me, which is everybody. And then the people that I support directly, their job is to support the people that are above them. 04:51 Because if we're hiring correctly, then  people that we bring in can contribute in the area that we're bringing them in way more than the person that's hiring them. Okay. Thank you for that. So before you launched Techies, you had a career in companies like,  I  believe, Computer Associates, right? Texas Experiments and TelaMotorola. 05:19 There was a period of time between your  experience in these large corporations before your launch tech is where you actually had your own startup  and  you sold it in 2000, right? And I believe you also learned perhaps with the second startup about how hard it is to find product market fit. Can you talk to that for my listeners, please? 05:46 I don't know that it's that hard to find product market fit. It depends if that's your focus or not. If your focus is to nail down product market fit, then  it's not that hard to determine whether you can achieve that or not fairly quickly.  You can do that by  selling your product to potential customers.  That sounds strange. Of course, we all want to sell our products, but 06:14 What I'm suggesting is you start selling your product before you have a product, before you have a  full product. And I don't mean an MVP, but a design prototype. You go out to the market and you start to sell it. If you have product market fit and you've identified the early adopter in your market and you know that they have a very high  need from a perception perspective  and there's a big cost to the problem that you're solving. 06:45 then you can offer them a big enough value upfront that they'll buy your product early and you can prove that there's a market for your product and they'll buy it in enough numbers that you  can achieve a measurable  metric, which I kind of call the golden ratio, which is three to one in terms of what is the lifetime value of a customer versus what does it cost to acquire that customer? And you can get to that three to one ratio. 07:13 in a prelaunch sale model before you ever started developing your product as a way of proving product market fit. Or you pivot quickly and cheaply because you're not having to rebuild a product that you've built in the wrong way. Or you  fail fast and cheap. And every entrepreneur's first goal should be to fail fast and cheap. know that sounds backwards, but that should be your goal is that you can fail fast and cheap or if you 07:42 If you fail to fail fast and cheap, that means you've found a path to revenue  and  product market fit. And now you know you have a viable business. making the investment to build the product  is a no brainer.  And you came upon this methodology, right? Yes.  because you did yourself when you had your first company, you did not understand the funding part, right?  Can you talk? 08:12 a bit about your specific example and then how that's informed now 17 years of techies and over 90 projects with startups. Okay. So my first company was Bootstrap. Okay.  And that one was successful and we grew it despite  me, it was me and a partner. And  despite ourselves, we grew it  over eight years. 08:39 where he ended up with 800 customers in 22 countries and sold it to a publicly traded firm out of Toronto. That was in the product food, snack food distribution business because that was what our product was focused on. So I started another company about five years later, not realizing the things that I did the first time. 09:08 that made it  so successful,  which really fit the launch first model to a large degree.  But the second time I built a product that would have been successful had I followed my first model,  but I didn't. So I went the route of building an MVP and getting customers on a free version of it, and then going out and trying to raise money, which is the very classic approach that the SaaS products 09:38 take now.  And the problem is with that approach is that you end up digging a really deep hole  in terms of the investment that you make to build the product with enough functionality that you can convince people it's worth putting an investment in and you're not generating any revenue at the time. And I should have just started selling the product and generating subscription revenue right from the beginning. First of all, I would have been able to  raise money much more easily. 10:08 Secondly, I would have not needed to raise money as much if I'd focused on sales. The problem with a lot of founders is they fall in love with their product. They believe that people will buy it at enough numbers and that investors will see the potential. they're afraid of sales. I've fallen into this trap before too. I've done it both ways. And I can tell you selling early 10:38 and staying focused on the customer and the problem are the way to be successful. So founders who I find are consistently successful, they are focused on the problem, they love the problem. The product is just the natural conclusion to solving the problem, not something to be in love with. They spend their time talking to customers about the problems.  So how does a potential customer find you and work with you? 11:08 Oh, they can find me at Techies or they can find me at LaunchFirst, was spelled launch1st.com. And they can find me on LinkedIn. And then to work with me, it's just give me a call, send me an email, we'll set up a Zoom. I'll start to learn about what you're trying to accomplish and what your requirements are. And I'll typically spend quite a bit of time with any potential clients. 11:39 in  one to usually multiple calls or Zooms, learning and  creating estimates and doing a lot of work in advance with the idea that there'll be a natural conclusion at the end of this that they'll wanna start working with me in a paid fashion. So there's a lot of value that my clients get from me whether they end up contracting me or not.  And how, again, back to,  thank you for that and that. 12:08 how to contact you will be in the show notes. But what types of sectors do you work in?  You know, in your introduction, I talk about high ticket B2B, right?  who are the,  so  what founder that's has some idea today?  What would be  their call to action to find techies? And what would you, is it launch first before you go down? 12:35 No, it's not necessarily. It may be an existing company that  is trying to implement AI or implement workflow automation, or they have a project and they don't have the IT team or capacity to handle it.  We love those types of projects. It might be an existing startup that is struggling with their software development team and they're not 13:04 getting  to the end goal that they're expecting and the product's buggy, it's taking too long,  there's constant delays, they're way over budget  and they  need to get this thing done. And  I call those recovery projects,  they're probably my favorite because people  recognize very quickly  the difference  that we bring. 13:33 and they really, really appreciate us.  As far as what sectors,  business sectors,  healthcare, law enforcement,  prop tech, real estate, finance,  entertainment, I mean, we work in  many, many different sectors over the last 18 years.  So  regardless in  B2B, B2B2C,  not so much e-commerce unless there's some 14:03 complex workflow associated with your particular e-commerce, but there's lots of really good solutions for e-commerce that  don't require developers to be involved.  But  mobile, web, IoT,  definitely everything is AI now. Absolutely. And in fact, when we last spoke,  I'd like to say that you started to drink your own Kool-Aid at Techies. 14:33 you're starting to actually use AI automation for internal functions as well as projects at Techies. So can you walk my listeners through how you're using  AI automation  and what's the latest with agentic AI?  So let's do the first.  Yeah,  okay.  So there are a bunch of questions there. So  let me start with 15:02 that we're building products internally  at Techies to help us with our own workflows.  These products though  are  applicable to almost any development company or any company with a development team.  Some of them are, and some of them are applicable to companies that are, well, so one product  is  putting voice capability in front of project management tool. 15:32 and we use JIRA and JIRA is an incredibly technical tool for project managers and development teams to use to  their projects, requirements, their  track bugs, all of that.  And so your relationship with what I call relationship with project management is very technical one. If you're a client, some clients are willing to  go through the learning curve so that they can enter their own... 15:59 bugs and feature requests and things like that directly into JIRA. Most don't.  They  want to send us emails, which is fine,  and just give us a list of what's going on and the problems that they're finding or the things that they need  for a future version and the planning and the documentation, everything else. This is a real technical thing. We're going to make it a very natural personal relationship by  adding voice in front of all this so that you can 16:29 be sharing your screen with your little voice app and say, just found a problem on the screen.  And  the voice app can see the screen. It knows your project. It knows your requirements. And it can identify problems on the screen that you may not have even noticed.  And it can also prevent you from reporting bugs that have already been reported and tell you when they're planned to be built.  And all of this just with a verbal discussion with the app. 16:58 that basically knows your project.  Kind of like talking to a project manager in real time, but they don't have to write down notes and  they can instantly  look up anything about your project in terms of what's been reported in terms of bugs or feature requests  and update them or create new ones for you or just report them to you and tell you when things are planned to be built and released or. 17:24 where they've already been released and maybe you need to clear your cache so you can see the change, whatever.  Yeah. So it be like an  avatar, but it's trained and it's  specific to Jira  in your case?  In the first version, it's actually being built architected so that we'll be able to add other project management tools to it besides Jira in the future.  to begin with, because we use Jira,  it's going to work directly with Jira to start. 17:54 And this, by the way, you asked about agentic workflows,  right? So we're  building an agentic workflow  in this tool where we have more  different agents  that work together to resolve these issues.  so we have an agent that reads and writes documentation to JIRA.  We have an agent that communicates with  the user and the user might be the programmer 18:23 might be a person in QA, it might be a client for a lot of different things. And we have an analyst agent that when the person talks, the voice agent says to the analyst agent, here's what I understand. Here's the information I just got. Go do your work and come back and get me the answer. And it'll speak to the JIRA agent to get the information. It will also speak directly to us. 18:52 a vector database, which is a database where all the documentation from that project  is ingested into our own  separate AI model so that the context of all the communication is about their project and doesn't go off into other directions.  And then can  get back. So this is an agentic workflow.  The idea of 19:20 agents is like everybody keeps talking about agents. Not everybody is really clear on what that even means. Can you define  that?  an agent is an AI  model  that you can interact with that is focused on  one specific area of expertise.  So if it's a travel agent, the word agent fits very well there, then their expertise would be on everything related to 19:49 travel and booking travel and looking up  options and comparing prices. And  that would be an AI  travel agent.  So that's very different from an AI project management agent, very different from an AI financial analyst agent.  So each agent specializes in its own area of expertise and may draw from specific 20:18 repositories of information that are  specific to that particular agent's area of expertise.  And they actually look from the perspective of that type of person, if it was a person. So,  and so they'll respond in a way that is consistent with how somebody who is a project manager would respond to you when you're talking to them, asking you questions about your requirements, knows what 20:46 information it needs to be able to assess it properly, things like that.  wouldn't be very good about travel because that's  not its area of expertise. Right.  So is it  common to have companies that are creating with their own large language model, right? Or their workflow processes internally to the company to create their own agent AI? 21:14 Or is there a marketplace now where you can say, want this type of agent to get in. This is a very basic question, but  do build it? Right. Or do you buy it? Or is it something in between? It's something in between.  So there are tools that allow you to  basically collect agents out there.  And there's a difference between an agent and a context.  Cause you hear a lot about model context switching and things like, don't know. 21:44 if your audience knows these things.  Or model context protocol. A context is not an agent, but it has some agent capabilities because it's kind of specializing your model in a certain area. But you would use this, but you're not, if it's a true agent, then  it's probably tied to its own vector database. 22:12 that gets trained with specific information. It might be company's information. It might be information, let's say if I'm a security agent, then I'm going to be trained on the entire NIST system as well as all of my security architecture that's currently in place. And that so that it could monitor and 22:41 assess instantly whether there's  security vulnerabilities, which you wouldn't ask Chet GPT to do that. No. Right? Because it couldn't. Because it doesn't know  anything about your organization or environment. And  it  really also doesn't know how to prioritize  what matters and what doesn't at any given moment. Whereas a  security agent, that would be what it does. 23:10 I don't know if I answered that question. Oh, bad thing about building or buying.  there are- Or something in between,  Yeah. So there are tools that you can use to build workflows  and  bring in different agents that already exist. And  you can use something like OpenAI or Claude  and  use it to create an agent and give it some intelligence and- 23:37 give it a specific, in this case, you're giving it a specific context.  You could even  tie a special machine learning database to it  and make it even more agentic in that way.  And then  build these workflows where you're  like, let's say a marketing workflow,  where you're saying you first go out and research all the people who are your  ideal customer profile. 24:07 I was going to say ICP, but I'm trying not to use acronyms because not everybody knows every acronym.  Ideal customer profile.  And then it finds all these people that fit your ideal customer profile. Then it says, well, which of these people  are  in the countries that I do business? And then it illuminates the ones that aren't. then which ones, and it may be using  the same agent or different agents to do this.  Then once it's nailed it down to the very discrete 24:37 set of customers. Now  the next step in the workflow is, okay, now  enrich their data  of these people to find their email and other ways of contacting them as well as other information about them so that I have a really full picture of what kind of activity are they active  socially? they speak? Do they post? What are they speaking about? What are they posting about? What events are they going to? Things like that. 25:07 So that would be the next step and that'd be an agent that's doing all the enriching.  And then after that, the next step would be to call basically call a writing agent to go do, am I writing an email? Am I writing a LinkedIn connection post? Am I doing both?  Set up a drip campaign and start reaching out to these people one at a time  with very customized specific language, right? That  is in your voice. 25:34 It doesn't sound like it's written by a typical AI outreach thing. All right, so these would be  steps in a workflow that you could use with several different tools to build the workflows and then calling these different agents. 25:48 Let's go back to the launched first. What would be a typical engagement with a company? you know, they, um, the founders that have the greatest success in your experiences are the ones that love the problem space and not the product. All right. So walk my listeners through. 26:17 What a typical engagement. it's staff augmentation. it  full out  outsourcing? it tech?  because it's very complex. I can touch so many. can touch high  tech and high ticket B2B products,  sector agnostic. what,  put some legs on this for my listeners, please. Sure, sure. We're not. 26:46 so much a staff augmentation company, although we'll do that if asked to, but that's not  the kind of business that we  look for.  We look for project type work. So a typical engagement for launch first would be  somebody wants to launch a product, they're in the concept phase. We help refine the concept and we build out,  help that we do the design and then we build a high fidelity prototype, which is a design prototype. 27:16 When I demo a design prototype to somebody, they think that they're looking at a finished product,  but  it's not. It doesn't actually do anything. It just looks like it  does everything.  So it's very animated set of mock-ups is another way to look at it.  And it's important because you can build out the big vision of the product this way in a couple of months, whereas 27:46 it takes instead of, you so you're looking at the two year roadmap when we're done of the product. If we were to build an MVP, then you're going to see a very limited view of the product and it's going to cost a lot more to build that MVP than it takes to build this design prototype. Now we're in the process of doing this. We're also nailing down who that early adopter is. And there's a, there's a very, 28:14 metrics driven methodology for doing this.  your launch first. Within launch first, right. Okay. All right. And then  we'll help the client build a marketing funnel and help them start to generate sales.  We're not doing the selling, they're doing the selling. And it's important that founders do the selling because they need to hear what customers are saying about the thing they're demoing, why they want it, why they don't. 28:43 So that  if we need to pivot, which we can do easily and quickly with a design prototype,  then we can  pivot and then go and test the model again, two or three or four times in the space of a couple of months.  And we'll either find a path to revenue or accept the fact that this probably isn't the right product for the right time.  But in the process of doing this, you're learning a lot about the market and about the potential customer. 29:13 I want to be clear about something. Almost every founder that comes to  that I meet with, they love the product, not the problem. They started out with a problem that they realized they had a good solution for and they forgot all about the problem at that point. And so I spend a lot of time with founders  reminding them why the  problem is all that matters  and what that means and how to approach customers, potential customers so that 29:41 you're syncing with their problems, not telling them about this product that you're building because nobody cares about your product. All they care about is what they're struggling with.  And if they believe that you really understand that, then they  care about whether you can solve that problem for them or 30:01 And can  I be  audacious and ask you what a typical engagement duration is like? So this would be for launch first. Yes. If it's a,  and our hope is that they'll  find a path to revenue and start building the product and engage us for the development. Cause that's really our business is building the products.  So, but it's not a requirement.  And,  and our typical engagement with our clients are several years. 30:32 Not all of them, but most of them, would say. Once they start working with us, they just continue to work with us until they decide to bring in their own in-house team  or they fail eventually, which many of our clients do, which is why I  created Launch First. Right. You often talk about your hyper exceptional team at Techies. What is it that's so highly exceptional? Talk to me about your team. Where are they? Yeah. 31:02 And if you go to my website, which is tekyz.com,  you'll see at the very top of it  in the header above the fold, it says hyper exceptional development team. And I don't expect people to believe me  because I write that down or I tell them that I expect them to ask me, well, what does that mean? Do you have evidence? And  that's the question I want to get because I do.  Because when you work in an exceptional manner, 31:31 as a natural consequence of working that way, you produce certain artifacts  that the typical development teams don't produce. And I'm not saying there aren't other exceptional teams, but they're really few and far between. And what makes a team exceptional is a constant need to  improve their ability to deliver  and the level of quality that they deliver as well and the speed at which they develop. It's all of these things. 31:59 So,  and, you know, after 18 years, we've done a lot of improving and a lot of automation internally,  because  that allows our team to work in a really disciplined protocol manner without having to feel like they're under the strict  discipline and protocol of,  you  know, a difficult environment to work in.  And so we  create automation everywhere we can. The voice... 32:27 tool is one of those automations.  The way we  do status reports, it's very clear at the level of detail that we provide every week  to every client in terms of status reports  where we're showing here's what we estimated, here's the actual, here's our percent variance  on how much time we spent and how much it's costing.  We want to always be within 10 % above or below. 32:56 Either  being above or below is not,  know,  the fact that we're ahead of that doesn't necessarily mean that's a good thing, right? So we want to be accurate with our estimates.  And we are typically within 10%. In fact, our largest customer last year, we did a retrospective and we were within six and a half percent of what our estimates were for the whole year.  and that's a,  we're pretty happy with that number. 33:24 I think most teams are looking at many, many times that in terms of variance.  it's not that uncommon for teams to be double or triple what they're or even higher what the actual estimate was. So  when we do invoicing, we invoice for each person at their rate. 33:50 based on their level of expertise, which is all part of our agreement upfront. So the client is very transparent every month for the hours that they work. And we attach the daily time sheets to every invoice. I'm the only company I know of right now that does that. I know there are others. I've seen monthly, but I've never seen daily. Yeah. Yeah. Because for me, if I could ask, well, 34:18 why did this person ask a work that many hours that last month? What did they do? I hate that feeling that I get when somebody asks that question. I know they're only asking because they have to justify it to somebody else or whatever the reason, but I don't like the way it feels because it feels like my integrity is being questioned. I don't get upset at people for asking me that. I just feel like I'm not giving them enough information if they have to ask me that question. So we started about eight years ago. 34:47 providing the daily time sheets because I don't like that question. And we never get questioned on our  invoices ever anymore. I bet you it's informed you  as well in  future  projects,  maybe on  including workflow automation in your own internal processes, right? When you see people's time sheets, right? And you've gone over budget. So it informs you internally. So it's not only for the client. 35:16 I suspect, right? No, it's not. Right. And we use it ourselves to also, because it also helps us looking at our overhead costs because not everything gets built to the client. And so we track all our own times, you know, what we're spending doing what. And we don't get to, it's not like a developer has to spend a lot of time or a QA person or whatever, putting in a lot of detail. We just need a couple of bullets, you know, every day in the time sheet with the, whatever they spend. 35:45 If they spent four hours on one thing and three on another, they'll just break it into two entries just to make it easy.  And that's important for us, or they may be working on two different projects and each project. So when we do the timesheets also every month, we give our clients a breakdown by project. So if we're working on four different projects  for a client  or even one project, but it has four different really 36:15 functional elements that are very clearly different. Like let's say a mobile app and a web app  and a  particular client implementation. Each one of those gets assigned its own project and we break down summaries of the time spent on each of those every month and who spent the time on those, along with the daily time sheets, along with the invoice.  And nobody else does that because it takes a lot of discipline and protocol and you have to have lot of systems in place 36:45 to do that without  literally getting everybody to quit, right? That works for you. And nobody minds doing it because it's easy because of all the systems we put in place to do that.  That's the whole point, right? Right. were  not particularly happy of getting asked that question oftentimes. So eight years ago, you set out to  provide the information on a daily basis, which is incredible.  We started that with blended rates like a lot of companies do. 37:14 And then I didn't like that because at the end of a project when most of it's QA, people would start to get frustrated that they're still getting billed the same blended rate, even though for the more expensive period at the beginning of the project,  I thought, okay, forget this. Well, just bill based on individual.  And then I didn't get those questions anymore, but then I would get questions about individuals on the month. And that's when I started doing the time sheets. 37:43 And like I said, I'm sure there's other companies that do it, but I haven't run into  one or somebody that works with one. So  that's an exceptional thing that we do. But it also allows us to do  really, really good reporting to the client on status on what we've spent our time on, what we're expecting to spend our time on  next week, what we just spent our time on this week, where we are. 38:12 in terms of our plan for the month, things like that.  So let's switch gears, David.  Yeah. Back to  actually the podcast and  some of my guests and listeners  are corporate board directors. So they're sitting on either advisory boards or fiduciary corporate boards.  And with all the hype around AI. 38:39 it's not uncommon for them to be asking, what are we doing, right? For existing companies, right? And  I'd like you to walk my listeners through while it's in the, you know,  in the imaginary realm, what is it? I think any founder today that's actually scaling, right? Has to have some AI element. At least I've even heard you need to have it. 39:08 an AI officer in the company. So what's your take on that? What would you respond to either to your board of advisors, your advisory board, or your board of directors?  So,  and of course, a lot of it depends on the type of company you are. Absolutely. Right. If  you're making  alternative material I-beams, for example,  for skyscraper construction, then 39:37 AI, other than maybe in the design process of these specialized materials,  AI may not be as big a critical factor, although for invoice reconciliation and  distribution and  scheduling and all that, AI could be a huge value to you if you don't have super efficient systems already.  For most everybody else though, if you have not embraced the need to 40:06 leverage AI and everything you're doing,  then you're way behind already.  That doesn't mean you have to be in a race to do this. just, because  I'm  of the belief that  you have to slow down to speed up. But you do need to make it a priority.  And in a lot of different ways. Number one is, 40:36 The most obvious is workflow automation. You should be probably tackling  workflow automation as just a part of your constant improvement program  to become more efficient, whether it's with AI or not.  But AI is particularly good at workflow automation  because it can tackle steps in that workflow that couldn't be tackled without AI.  So the  first thing 41:06 the companies should be doing if they're not doing it is documenting all of their processes,  all of their tribal knowledge into playbooks. So when you have somebody who's an expert in something in your company and they're the person who's the only one that knows how to do it and so we can't live without them, that's a bottleneck for scaling. Because if you bring somebody else in to expand their capacity, they're going to... 41:32 put a big dependency on that person with all the expertise, which is going to cause problems.  So  anybody in a position like that should be documenting all of their  procedures and protocols and especially all the nuances and all the edge cases into playbooks.  And there should be some centralized playbook repository for the company. And this becomes part of your intellectual property and part of your value if you ever 42:02 you're trying to raise money or you're trying to sell your company. So it increases your value. So you do that, then AI,  you start to look at automating those workflows because now they're documented. So now what can be automated in them from just a workflow automation perspective. And then how much can you implement AI in there? Because now AI can learn to make the same kinds of decisions that this person is making. 42:31 And this is like the low hanging fruit that I'm talking about right now. Right. Exactly. Right. Because the bigger stuff is if we implement AI in here, what workflows would we totally  throw away and start from scratch?  Because we can think of way more sophisticated ways of addressing this now that we have intelligence involved in all these steps.  But that's later. 42:57 worry about that once you get your arms around implementing AI,  automated workflows and then- So workflow automation. So playbooks, workflows and AI in your automated workflows. That's sort of the stepped wise process. Excellent. You heard it here  on the founder sandbox. Thank you, David.  And if you're not sure how to do all that, 43:25 ask AI, okay, here's my company. What should I be focusing on if I wanna implement playbooks, workflow automation and AI? And AI will help you figure this all out. Right. That's a jewel here. So what'd you do? Chat GBT, co-pilot, what's your complexity? Where would you go to? All right. Well, it just depends on the flavor of the day. Right now. 43:53 I was using chat GPT primarily for this stuff just because it was a first and I'm very comfortable with the apps. have them everywhere. And Claude's recently come out with a  new version and it's in some ways I'm just finding the output way more organized and smarter. And so I've been using Claude more in the last couple of weeks, but that'll change in another week or two.  Any one of them will do a pretty decent job. 44:21 I'm  not using perplexity because it's built on top of the other ones.  But perplexity is a great tool if you're newer with this because it makes some of the... It's a little bit more accessible for somebody who doesn't know how to use AI.  Gemini is also  really good, but that's  more of a technical... And there's so many things you can do. 44:49 with AI that you wouldn't even think about. And I'll give you an example, more as a brain opening exercise for everybody than anything else. Because this is something I did about seven weeks ago.  I,  chat GPT had just come out a week or two before with their vision capability in the mobile app. And for  those of you who don't know it,  with chat GPT, there's a talk 45:19 button. It's not  the microphone. It's the one that looks like a sound wave  in the mobile app. You tap that, and now you have a voice conversation with chat, which I use this constantly. Even when I'm working with,  I've got some contractors at my house whose English isn't very good, so I ask it to do real-time translation for me. And it does matter the language.  And I start talking, and it translates to their language. And they respond 45:49 in their language and it translates to English and it's doing it perfectly. And so I can have a very natural conversation with anybody just holding my phone up in front of them now.  Right?  But it has this vision capability  where when you go into that voice mode, you tap the camera next to it, and now it's looking out the front of your screen while you're talking to it. And so I'll give you a couple of examples where I've used it  six weeks ago and again, like 46:18 weeks later and I now used it many times like this.  I was in  Lowe's, which is a  store for home improvement.  And  for some project I was on, my wife calls me and says, I need fertilizer for a hibiscus. And I say, well, what do I get? She says, anything that says hibiscus on it, it'll be fine. I said, okay, fine. And if anybody that knows these big box stores, there's like hundreds of bags of fertilizer of different brands. 46:48 And I couldn't find one that said hibiscus. This is a typical thing with my wife. Oh, just look for this. And of course, there isn't that. So I asked Chess GPT, okay, I'm in  Lowe's  and I'm looking for a fertilizer for hibiscus.  What would you suggest? And it said, oh, there's a number of brands that are high acid.  And I said, we'll recommend a brand. Tonal is a really good brand. And I said, okay. So I'm looking and I can't find it. 47:18 So I walked 30 feet back and I'm talking, right? I'm having this, know, people are looking at me like, what the hell is he doing? And I walked 30 feet back because there's many, many shelves, you know, columns of shelves with fertilizer. I walked back and I turned on the vision and I say, okay, there's all the fertilizers. And I'm moving my phone across all these shelves. say, do you see tonal here? And it says, yes, look for the one in the red and white bag. 47:48 And  I see it on the shelf. So I walk straight forward. see a red and white bag. That's not tonal. said, this isn't it. And she, cause it's a woman's voice that I have, she says,  it's two shelves to the left, second from the top.  I walk over there and it's right where she said it was. Crazy. And you're not a beta user. So this is available today. This is available. It's been available for a couple of months. And then 48:18 My daughter-in-law asked me to get something from the pharmacy, from CVS, another  big box pharmacy store, right? And this is something I don't even know if I'm in the right aisle because it's something I've never bought. So I ask it, I say, I'm looking for this brand  and I'm not sure if I'm in the right aisle or not, but I'm going to walk down the aisle and tell me if you see it. As I'm walking down the aisle, holding it straight forward so it can see both sides.  And it says, well, 48:45 Yes, I'm familiar with the brand. You should look for it in a green and white box. then she goes like this. Oh, I see it. It's down there on the right on the bottom shelf. And I turn and I look and it's right by my right foot. 48:58 You heard it here. This is crazy. think it's a bit creepy.  How many times have you been looking for something on a shelf? You know, and you're like, oh, how long, how many hours is this going to take me to spot it?  Good internet connection and all that. So, oh my goodness. It's creepy and it's wonderful. So  same time.  the same time. Yeah. Yeah. For quality of life and even for,  um, yeah.  So 49:25 That's a mind opening thing is all the reason I bring that up. Excellent. Hey, let's go. Let's continue on in the founder sandbox. I'd like to ask each of my guests to  share with me.  I'm all about working with resilient, purpose driven and scalable companies in the growth phase. So what does resilience mean to you? You can either answer, you know, what's the first thing that comes out of your, you cannot use chat, GBT. I'm not fancy. No hands. 49:55 No hands, and I don't have the voice version going because you'd hear it. Podcast we could do it.  And we are real. We're not. Yeah, we are real. We're not. So I think that's, I don't think that's a difficult question to answer. Resilience means opportunity. So no matter what happens, even if it seems terrible, what  opportunity does that create? Excellent. If you ask that. 50:22 keep reframing everything from that perspective,  it creates resilience. Right. Thank you. What about purpose-driven?  Purpose-driven  means having  a clear  long-term path and goal  and  asking yourself if the things you're doing keep you on purpose to that. 50:56 Scalable. What's scalable mean for you? Scalable for me means  eliminating tribal knowledge or not eliminating it, but documenting tribal knowledge.  First of all, figuring out how you generate revenue and then how you expand your ability to generate revenue, which means growing your 51:25 growing your team, growing your capacity  and identifying the bottlenecks and focusing all your energy on the bottlenecks. And usually the bottlenecks have to do  with tribal knowledge or with  lack of workflow automation. Wow, you know, it's easier said than done though, that tribal knowledge, it is resistant, right? Oh yeah,  because it's  career,  what's the word I'm trying to think of? 51:55 It  keeps you in your job forever if you're the only one that knows how to do the thing. Absolutely. That's for another podcast, David. My  final question today is,  did you have fun in the Founder Sandbox? Oh, yes.  I had a lot of fun. Thanks. That's a great question too. Thank you, Brenda. Did you have fun? 52:20 Did you? I had had fun. And particularly in this last part, right? Cause we're talking about some heavy duty, you know, uses of, um, agentic AI, right. And scalable, you know, LTV, CAC and all that. And then we get to hear these real life, you know, kind of creepy, um, uh, uses of, um, on our phones today with, um, with AI, which is, which is quite amazing. But I also know that in your world of techies, 52:50 your team, which is distributed, have a lot of fun events too. So you probably- have one more thing on the whole scalable thing. You have to be compassionately ruthless or ruthlessly compassionate, however you want to say it. Okay. So that the people, every, and the ruthless is anything that's going to get in the way of you growing your company, which benefits everybody in the company. 53:19 it needs to be addressed in a ruthless way. But if you build a culture of ruthlessly compassionate, then all the people that work for you feel that same level of ruthlessness to protect the company and make it grow. And you practice what you preach, I suspect, at Techies. Yes. Yes. It took me a while, but if we accidentally hire the wrong person, either because 53:45 we made a mistake in the process or they faked us out and we recognize they're not smart enough. Literally, that's usually the problem. They're not smart enough to carry their weight. We fire them immediately. We don't try to bring them along because you can't improve somebody's IQ. You can improve any other aspect, but their IQ is their IQ.  And  that will be a bottleneck forever. 54:13 in our team and it'll require other people to carry that person. And it sends the wrong message to the team that I don't value them enough to make sure that we only surround them with people that are going to inspire them and help them grow. Excellent. And I suspect they are not fungible by AI, your employees, not techies. I mean, we've gotten better and better. 54:40 at not making those mistakes over the years. So that doesn't typically happen. takes us, we're much more careful about how we hire.  AI gives us the ability to recruit faster, more broadly,  along with workflow automation. But  what I mean by real, this is the compassionate. Once my team understood this, now they embody that and  they will get rid of somebody if they made a mistake. I don't have to force the issue ever anymore because 55:10 they recognize how much, important it is to protect their teams. So to my listeners, if you liked this episode today with the CEO and founder of Techies, sign up for the monthly release of founders, business owners, corporate directors, and professional service providers who provide their examples of how they're building companies or consulting with companies  to make them more resilient, scalable, and purpose-driven. 55:40 to make profits for good.  Signing off for today. See you next month in the Founder Sandbox. Thank you.  

David Hirschfeld is a 35-year veteran of software development with a unique perspective on startups, technological innovation, and business growth. A former physics student from UCLA, David's career spans leadership roles at tech giants such as Computer Associates, Texas Instruments, Intel, and Motorola, before launching his first startup, which grew to serve 800 customers across 22 countries and was successfully sold in 2000. Since founding Tekyz Inc. in 2007, David has emerged as a strategic advisor specializing in AI-driven workflow transformation for scaleups and in the design & development of startups. Having collaborated with over 70 startups, he developed the Launch 1st Method—a systematic approach that minimizes risks and accelerates software company success with reduced reliance on investor funding. David's expertise bridges cutting-edge AI technologies, workflow optimization, and startup ecosystem dynamics. When not transforming business strategies, he enjoys woodworking, golfing, and drawing leadership insights from his experience raising four successful sons.Connect with David here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/https://www.facebook.com/dmhirschfeldhttps://www.instagram.com/tekyzinc?igsh=MTBxOXZqbWNheHpvdg==https://www.instagram.com/tekyzinc?igsh=MTBxOXZqbWNheHpvdg==Don't forget to register for my upcoming LinkedIn 101 Workshop on June 9th from 12-1:30 pm EST here: https://networkacademy.kartra.com/page/LinkedIn101

What does it really take to build a software startup that doesn't crash before it can fly? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with David Hirschfeld, founder of Tekyz Inc., a software veteran who's spent over 35 years working across more than 90 startups. From his early days studying physics at UCLA to becoming the top national salesperson at Computer Associates, and later founding and selling his own successful software company, David has seen the full arc of startup life—success, failure, and the lessons in between. In our conversation, David unpacks the patterns he's observed over decades in the field and the epiphany that led him to create the “Launch 1st Method.” Rather than falling into the trap of building first and validating later, David's approach challenges founders to prove product-market fit and generate real revenue before a single line of production code is written. He shares how this model not only reduces time, cost, and reliance on outside investment, but also offers a better chance of startup survival by confronting real-world customer demand from day one. We also explore how generative AI is reshaping software development, both in terms of speed and in shifting user expectations. David explains which areas of software development are accelerating most, where AI still struggles, and why even the best tools can't substitute for deep customer insight and thoughtful architecture. He also breaks down the artifacts that distinguish exceptional development teams—from weekly status reports to estimation accuracy—and how these practices shape delivery quality and team alignment. But perhaps most importantly, David offers a grounded look at what makes founders succeed. He emphasizes the value of falling in love with a problem, not a product idea, and staying relentlessly focused on understanding customers and their willingness to pay. Whether you're just starting out or rethinking your strategy, this episode delivers practical insights on how to derisk innovation, build smarter, and stay resilient in a fast-moving AI era. Are you building what people need, or what you hope they want? Let's explore that further.

What is the difference between product solution fit and product market fit? David Hirschfeld is a seasoned software development expert with over three decades of experience, having held leadership roles at renowned companies like Computer Associates and Intel. He is known for his critical stance on traditional software development methodologies, which he argues often lead to prolonged development cycles and excessive costs. Advocating for his innovative "launch first method," Hirschfeld focuses on minimizing risk and accelerating success by integrating AI-driven workflow optimization, thereby reducing dependence on investor funding. His approach emphasizes creating realistic prototypes and fostering early customer interactions to validate business models, ensuring that startups can efficiently and accurately meet market demands. Key Takeaways: Focus on product solution fit over product market fit is crucial for success in software development. Early sales are important to validate the business model and confirm product-market fit. Prototyping with high-fidelity prototypes helps in assessing customer interest and identifying issues early on. Crafting product demos focused on solving immediate problems helps in achieving product-market fit. Detailed metrics, Kanban methodology, and constant releases are essential for accuracy and efficiency in software development projects. Tracking estimates and actuals, spending time in prototyping, and detailed scope management are key for project success. Maintaining accuracy in estimates and reporting variances is crucial for successful project execution. More from David Hirschfeld David Hirschfeld is the Founder and CEO of Tekyz Corp, a software development company dedicated to accelerating startups through expert product development, AI integration, and workflow automation. With nearly two decades of experience leading Tekyz, David created the Launch 1st methodology—an innovative approach that helps software founders achieve product-market fit fast while avoiding the most common and costly startup pitfalls. Under his leadership, Tekyz has become a go-to partner for software recovery projects, rescuing troubled initiatives and transforming them into scalable, successful ventures. David also shares his insights as the host of the Scaling Smarter podcast and serves as a trusted board member and advisor across various industries. Throughout his career, David has co-founded several ventures, including the groundbreaking social media startup Kloojj and Anzu LLC, a thriving offshore development hub he continues to lead in Pune, India. His broad expertise spans sectors such as real estate, healthcare, logistics, law enforcement, entertainment, and IoT—bringing a unique, cross-disciplinary perspective to every project. With a passion for solving complex problems and creating beautiful, user-centered systems, David remains deeply committed to helping visionary founders bring bold ideas to life—quickly, intelligently, and with lasting impact.   Website: https://tekyz.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/   If you are an experienced CEO looking to grow your company, visit https://www.TheCEOProject.com   You can also reach Jim by email: Jim@TheCEOProject.com   LinkedIn: @theceoproject Instagram: @the_ceoproject Twitter/X: @the_CEO_Project Facebook:  @IncCEOproject

Send us a textIn this insightful episode of "Definitely Maybe Agile," hosts Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock welcome David Hirschfeld, founder and CEO of Tekyz Inc, to discuss the complexities of effective product management. A 35-year software development veteran and former physics student from UCLA, David brings a unique perspective shaped by leadership roles at tech giants like Computer Associates, Texas Instruments, Intel, and Motorola.The conversation explores the critical balance between product market fit and product solution fit, with David emphasizing why focusing on customer problems rather than product features leads to greater success. Whether you're a startup founder, product manager, or development team leader, this episode with the host of the Scaling Smarter Podcast provides actionable insights for creating products that truly solve customer problems and generate sustainable revenue.This week´s takeaways:The most valuable customer conversations happen when you ask about their problems, not your product features.Successful product management requires understanding both the perceived impact of a problem and its actual cost to customers.Successful founders and product managers are those who love understanding customer problems and spend their time learning about customer challenges.

In this episode, I sit down with David Hirschfeld from Tekyz.inc to explore how AI is transforming the sales process. We discuss how AI can enhance CRM systems, streamline daily tasks, and give sales professionals a competitive edge. Whether you're in sales management or on the front lines, this conversation will show you how to leverage AI for efficiency and better customer relationships. Don't miss it! mash subscribe!  ———- David's Bio David Hirschfeld is a 35-year software development veteran with a unique perspective on startups, technological innovation and business growth. A former physics student from UCLA, David's career spans leadership roles at tech giants like Computer Associates, Texas Instruments, Intel, and Motorola, before launching his first startup—which grew to 800 customers across 22 countries and was successfully sold in 2000.   Since founding Tekyz Inc. in 2007, David has emerged as a strategic advisor specializing in AI-driven workflow transformation for scaleups and in the design & development of startups. Having collaborated with over 70 startups, he developed the Launch 1st Method—a systematic approach that minimizes risks and accelerates software company success with reduced reliance on investor funding.   David's expertise bridges cutting-edge AI technologies, workflow optimization, and startup ecosystem dynamics. When not transforming business strategies, he enjoys woodworking, golfing, and drawing leadership insights from his experience raising four successful sons.

Are you struggling to figure out how to scale your franchise business while maintaining its core mission? Many entrepreneurs face the challenge of expanding without sacrificing the quality and purpose that drive their business. In an interview with Ford Saeks, Jeff Gartner, co-founder and CEO of Hudson Valley Swim, shared his journey through the world of franchise business growth, offering insights into how he transformed a simple swim lesson into a thriving franchise operation. Jeff's story began with a personal need—ensuring his children received high-quality swim lessons—and quickly grew into something much larger. From his backyard in the Northeast, Jeff recognized a gap in the market, where the available swim instruction lacked the quality he experienced privately. This realization sparked the foundation of Hudson Valley Swim, a business that has grown from a single operation to a franchise model with eight corporate locations and six franchise locations. Jeff's focus was never just on growth for the sake of expansion but rather on building a brand that prioritized safety and skill development in swim education. In a business built around saving lives, Jeff explains how maintaining the core mission was essential as the franchise expanded. His commitment to making sure that every location upheld the same standard of excellence that the original swim school had is a vital element in the brand's success. For Jeff, franchise business growth wasn't simply about opening more doors; it was about ensuring that every franchisee bought into the mission of reducing the risk of drowning through effective swim education. It's this mission-driven focus that sets Hudson Valley Swim apart in a competitive industry, and it's what potential franchisees must fully embrace to join the network. Scaling a franchise, however, is not without its challenges. Jeff reveals that building a foundation rooted in strong systems and processes was key to creating a replicable and scalable model. With decades of experience, he built a turnkey operation, making it easier for franchisees to start strong. From insurance to payroll, Jeff's approach was to have every system ready to go so new franchisees could focus on building their business, rather than getting bogged down in the logistics. This approach allowed his franchise to grow quickly and efficiently while maintaining the high standards of the original brand. Jeff also emphasized the importance of local community engagement in achieving long-term franchise business growth. While digital marketing plays a role, connecting directly with families through local events and partnerships has proven to be a critical component of the brand's success. By tapping into schools, sponsoring local sports teams, and attending community events, Hudson Valley Swim builds trust with parents, positioning itself as more than just a swim school but a vital part of the community. Technology, too, plays an important role in Jeff's model. His background in tech allowed him to streamline operations through automation, making tasks like registration and scheduling more efficient. Yet, as both he and Ford discuss, technology alone is not enough. Personal engagement and connection remain at the heart of the brand's identity, and Jeff has been careful to ensure that while technology improves the efficiency of operations, it doesn't replace the human touch that defines the customer experience. For many entrepreneurs, the idea of scaling a business can seem daunting. Jeff's approach to franchise business growth offers a roadmap for how to do so with purpose. It's not just about adding more locations but about ensuring that each new franchise is set up for success from the start. By fostering a strong sense of community, prioritizing customer relationships, and leveraging technology in thoughtful ways, Hudson Valley Swim has managed to grow without losing sight of its original mission. For business owners looking to scale, Jeff's experience serves as a powerful example of how to combine operational excellence with a deep commitment to the values that drive the business. By putting systems in place and finding franchisees who truly align with the mission, Hudson Valley Swim continues to thrive as it expands across new markets. Watch the full interview on YouTube. Don't miss out on future episodes of Fordify LIVE! Join us every Wednesday at 11 AM Central on your favorite social platforms, and tune in to The Business Growth Show Podcast every Thursday for a weekly dose of business growth wisdom. About Jeff Gartner Jeff Gartner is a franchisor, technologist, entrepreneur, and inventor, best known as the co-founder of Hudson Valley Swim, a premium swim lesson program launched in 2003 with a mission to save lives through high-quality swim education. In 2022, alongside his wife Joan, Jeff expanded the business into a franchise, which has since been recognized as an "emerging franchise to watch" by numerous associations and publications. Jeff's background in technology is vast and impressive, having been named a "Top 50 Innovator" in Avaya company history for his portfolio of 19 patents, which cover advancements in conference productivity, internet telephony, and email system architectures. A pioneer in the eBusiness world, Jeff was responsible for building the world's first smartphone, the first online e-commerce storefront, and the first B2B eMarketplace. His extensive experience also includes leading technological strategies for major companies like Baker & Taylor and Computer Associates. After retiring from the technology industry, Jeff shifted his focus entirely to expanding his swim school business and empowering entrepreneurs nationwide through his franchise model. His commitment to both innovation and mission-driven business continues to inspire and create new opportunities for others. Learn more about Hudson Valley Swim at hudsonvalleyswimfranchise.com About Ford Saeks Ford Saeks is a Business Growth Accelerator with over 20 years of experience, driving over a billion dollars in sales worldwide for companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500s. As the President and CEO of Prime Concepts Group, Inc., Ford is known for helping businesses attract loyal customers, expand brand visibility, and ignite innovation. A true entrepreneurial force, Ford has founded more than ten companies, authored five books, earned three U.S. patents, and received numerous industry accolades for his contributions. Ford's expertise also extends into AI prompt engineering, where he trains AI to generate engaging content that drives real results. Recently, he showcased his groundbreaking knowledge at the Unleash AI for Business Summit, highlighting how ChatGPT is transforming marketing, sales, operations, and customer experiences. Learn more about Ford Saeks at ProfitRichResults.com and watch his TV show at Fordify.tv.

Long Island has played a prominent role in scientific research and in engineering. It is the home of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in nuclear physics and Department of Energy research. Long Island is also home to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which was directed for 35 years by James D. Watson (who, along with Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin, discovered the double helix structure of DNA). Companies such as Sperry Corporation, Computer Associates (headquartered in Islandia), Zebra Technologies (now occupying the former headquarters of Symbol Technologies, and a former Grumman plant in Holtsville), have made Long Island a center for the computer industry. Stony Brook University and New York Institute of Technology conduct advanced medical and technological research. PICTURE: By AdmOxalate - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7711855

Join an insightful conversation with S Swaminathan, Founder and Partner of ContraMinds Labs, as they delve into decoding customer minds, shaping effective strategies, and fostering a robust organizational culture in today's dynamic business environment. 00:35- About S Swaminathan Swami is the founder and partner of ContraMinds Labs, which is focused on decoding people's minds strategy and culture. He has built strategic expertise in customer relationship management, especially using one-to-one marketing communication, analytics, marketing technology tools, and digital solutions He has successfully implemented data-driven strategies on brands and firms like DHL Worldwide Express, ICICI Bank, Computer Associates, Novo Nordisk, Kimberly Clark, Shoppers' Stop, NIIT, Visa, HDFC Bank, HSBC, Mahindra, Aditya Birla Capital, Trent, Landmark Group amongst many others. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tbcy/support

Onze salesbaas van vandaag leerde ik kennen in de vroege jaren van zijn carriere. Hij begon bij Computer Associates en bracht daarna zeven jaar bij IBM door. Daarna klom hij op tot Global Account Director bij VM-Ware. Deze man is misschien wel de beste salesmanager die ik ooit ben tegengekomen in mijn loopbaan. Hij weet als geen ander hoe je serieuze business bedrijft in organisaties. Deals waar de meeste mensen alleen maar van kunnen dromen zijn voor hem bijna een dagelijkse realiteit. We praten vandaag over zijn reis en hoe je 'multi-million dollar deals' doet op consitente basis. Onze gast: (7) Jorg van Doornmalen | LinkedIn Onze presentator: (7) Hendrika Willemse-Vreugdenhil | LinkedIn Whatsapp Salesbazen Community 0687608311 Redactie: josef.stevens@salesbazen.com Onze marketing wordt verzorgd door mediabureau Druktemaker: www.druktemaker.nl

Inge Boubez, Director of Enterprise Marketing at Moz, is the latest guest to join the Marketing B2B Technology podcast. Inge explains how, although the fundamentals of SEO haven't changed, the rise in AI may have an impact in the industry and offers some thoughts on how marketers can address the potential challenges. She discusses both the Moz and STAT Search Analytics platforms, their functionality and how marketers can get the most out of the platforms.   About STAT Search Analytics Inge focusses on STAT Search Analytics, a product by Moz. STAT is a SERP tracking and analytics platform for tackling large-scale SEO with accuracy and ease. STAT delivers precision SERP insights, fresh each day, helping unlock new opportunities, drive more visibility, and prove the value of SEO.   About Inge Inge brings over two decades of technology marketing expertise to her role as Director of Enterprise Marketing at Moz, where she focuses on STAT Search Analytics. Her extensive career has covered a wide range of settings, from innovative startups and small-to-medium-sized businesses to global industry leaders. Notably, Inge has contributed significantly at SAP and Layer 7 Technologies (which was acquired by Computer Associates) before her tenure at Moz. Her broad skill set includes demand generation, branding, customer engagement, channel strategy, global event management, and public relations, making her a highly respected and well versed professional in the marketing field.   Time Stamps [00:48.8] – Inge shares her career journey and explains how Moz and STAT fit into Ziff Davis. [03:56.5] – How can STAT help with SEO? Inge explains. [07:39.0] – Inge explains who can use STAT and the training resources available. [12:25.0] – Inge discusses some of the common mistakes made when optimising for search engines. [13:52.9] – The potential impact of AI on SEO [18:07.9] – How is SEO going to change in the future? [25:23.1] – Inge's contact details.   Quotes “We're not just reaching out. We're engaging and understanding what makes our audience tick. And that's the future of marketing.” Inge Boubez, Director of Enterprise Marketing at Moz. “Keep your eyes peeled for the next big thing, but don't forget that it's all about connecting with people on a human level. We're all humans, whether we're talking to the different personas like CEOs, CFOs, SEOs all over the world, we're all still humans.” Inge Boubez, Director of Enterprise Marketing at Moz. “We're helping SEO professionals understand their unique search landscape and how they're positioned in it, and also helping them find new search opportunities and strategies.” Inge Boubez, Director of Enterprise Marketing at Moz.   Follow Inge: Inge Boubez on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/inge-boubez/ STAT Search Analytics website: https://getstat.com/napier/ STAT Search Analytics on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stat-search-analytics/ STAT Search Analytics on Twitter: https://twitter.com/getSTAT STAT Search Analytics on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getstat/ Moz website: https://moz.com/ Moz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moz/   Follow Mike: Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/ Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/ Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/ If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform. Want more? Check out Napier's other podcast - The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Walter Noot is Chief Operating Officer of the Company effective October 2019. Mr. Noot joined USANA as Chief Information Officer in December 2016 and served in that role until he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer in October 2019. Mr. Noot has more than two decades of executive leadership experience and has worked with a wide range of businesses in many industries, from start-ups to multi-billion dollar companies. From 2014 until 2016, he was an executive officer of Young Living Essential Oils, LC, where he served as Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President of Operations. While at Young Living he oversaw improvements to the supply chain, implementation of a new ERP, and a software systems rebuild. Prior to joining Young Living, Mr. Noot was COO of MonaVie, another direct sales company from 2012 to 2014, and he also has held leadership positions with Computer Associates, Canon (Oce), and Onyx Graphics. He holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Brigham Young University.

In this week's episode we welcome Uri Levy, the global head of sales of cybersecurity hypergrowth vendor XM Cyber who shares his story, his strategy for scaling revenue around the world and his tips for managing sales teams - and sales leaders. KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE: What makes a successful sales leader: understand your data, empower your team and make sure your strategy is aligned with your corporate objectives Hypergrowth: there's no silver bullet! Understand your customer,your market, how you differentiate and how to execute How to determine product market fit Uri Levy is an experienced Cybersecurity Executive with a successful track record in the Strategic and Operational Turnaround of Technology & Cyber companies. He is a graduate of Reichman University and gained his MBA from Tel Aviv University and over the last 25 years, he has built and managed leading network and security solution providers, and consistently achieved sustained growth and brand leadership. His career spans leadership positions with companies such as Computer Associates, PSINet, Xpert Systems, Netcom systems and Skybox Security, and since September 2020 he has been Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales with leading cyber vendor XM Cyber. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/urilevy/ Website: https://www.xmcyber.com/ YOUR HOST Simon Lader is the host of The Conference Room, Co-Founder of global executive search firm Salisi Human Capital, and podcast growth consultancy Viva Podcasts. Since 1997, Simon has helped cybersecurity vendors to build highly effective teams, and since 2022 he has helped people make money from podcasting. Get to know more about Simon at: Website: https://simonlader.com/ Make Money from Podcasting: https://www.vivapodcasts.com/podcastpowerups Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonlader LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/headhuntersimonlader Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3dd0obQSM8cYRV0HCxiuF0

Interview With Alison Graham, Global Exec, Lead Dad AdvocateHOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVANAlison Graham, a native Australian, came to the States 25 years ago and has had a remarkable career in tech - Unisys. Computer Associates. IBM. Salesforce. Amazon Web Services. She credits her Lead Dad husband - who was also working in tech - with being the go-to parent when she was traveling at different times in her career. Hear what he did that mattered. ---Get our free newsletter covering all things fatherhood delivered straight to your inbox: https://thecompanyofdads.com/thedad/

Do you think of ways you can make your people better as a leader? To build a culture of safety and trust and develop as a leader requires you to exercise high integrity and add value to your people by being a thoughtful servant leader.In this episode of The Capital Stack, we have Jon Hunter, Chief Revenue Officer, Advisor, Coach, and global business leader with expertise in building and growing world-class organizations such as MicroFocus, Computer Associates, and BMC. He specializes in optimizing people, processes and systems to foster, and maintain high-performance cultures.Listen in to learn how to build trust and safety with your people as an early-stage startup. You will also learn how to learn, earn, and return to get out of your comfort zone and continue growing your career. What You Will Discover:· [00:00] Intro· [2:02] Jon on finding balance and reconnecting, plus how the concept of hard work in business has changed.· [10:31] The fundamental principles of succeeding as a leader in tech and venture capital industries.· [16:49] How to focus on building trust and safety with your people as an early-stage startup.· [22:35] The qualities you need to be a servant leader who builds people to follow and stay in the long-term.· [29:49] The qualities you need to manage a team as a front-line manager and how they change as you move up the leadership levels.· [42:09] How to focus on your intellectual growth and be successful taking on more responsibility.· [49:00] Random questions with Jon!Memorable Quote:· “You should segment your career to learn, earn, and return, and if you focus on the learning, you become a subject matter expert.”- Jon [43:22]Connect with Alex:· Website: https://hunterxlife.com/· LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhunter1/

With the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank, Sean and Chris sit down with Jon Hunter - who for 18 years was CIO of Computer Associates - to discuss the pervasive culture of “chasing unicorns” in the tech industry. Fascination with gross and fake valuations and the ever human pursuit of net worth and wealth has led to cycle after cycle of business miscalculations and missteps - with SVP being no exception. But, Jon sees hope in a return to “old school” business practices of integrity, hard work, and interpersonal relationships – ones that he preaches in his podcast and consulting - Hunter X Lives. Jon also talks about his years building one of the most recognizable charities in the Valley of the Sun – Celebrity Fight Night – with the indelible and legendary, Muhummad Ali. A #mustlisten podcast for those who also believe unicorns in business and in life are fake… Follow Light Beer Dark Money on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LightBeerDarkMoney/ Follow Light Beer Dark Money on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lightbeerdarkmoney/ Follow Light Beer Dark Money on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LBDMshow Follow Light Beer Dark Money on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/light-beer-dark-money/ Link to the Light Beer Dark Money Blog: https://lightbeerdarkmoney.com/hypocrisy-and-the-aoc-oh-sandy/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Dennis Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Postalytics, a fast-growing software company that automates direct mail marketing, measures the results from direct mailing activity and connects such campaigns to CRM and marketing automation systems to accelerate the way online marketing connects with offline marketing.  With expertise building VC-backed businesses and self-financed businesses, Dennis is a 6 times entrepreneur with the companies he built. He exited 4 of these businesses to larger corporations. Postalytics has grown fast with no VC investment and today is scaling in the US and Canada with an aspiration to come to Europe. During the podcast, the pair cover 1) Dennis' lessons on building VC-backed and self-financed businesses, 2) what PLG (Product-led growth) means, 3) why every business needs to learn a little bit about PLG and 4) Postalytics' proposition and roadmap to success. KEY TAKEAWAYS I grew up on a farm where my family and I worked very hard and were entrepreneurial in trying to make extra money. I'd reach out to neighbors and people in the community to offer my services and help them with whatever they needed doing. Some of those lessons apply today, such as... not being afraid to knock on someone's door, telling them what you're doing and how you can help them.  Postalytics is a direct mail automation software tool designed to solve three big problems with the direct mail marketing workflow. This legacy marketing channel has been around for many years and is still very useful and successful, but it hasn't had much technology applied. We've taken some of the best practices from digital marketing and combined them into a software tool that enables marketers to deploy direct mail campaigns in minutes rather than weeks rapidly. We connect direct mail – a physical channel where a printed piece of paper is sent through the postal service – to the marketing tech stack (CRM, CDP), which drives and accumulates knowledge of what happens in a direct mail marketing campaign through Postalytics. Similar to how all digital marketing channels are driven from central locations. We've created a method of assigning a unique QR code to each recipient of a piece of mail. The opportunity is to use that physical piece of paper that offers you something while holding it and drive them to your website through the QR code – which everybody is comfortable with now. BEST MOMENTS ‘Each time you participate in the design and launch of a startup, there's always tremendous learnings you can take away from that experience.'‘One of the challenges with any offline marketing channel is measuring what is successful and who is/isn't responding. We've created some proprietary methods of measuring both the delivery of the mail and who's responding and where they are going on your website.'‘It's impossible for the QR codes to be manipulated by a third party because each one is unique and fully encrypted.'‘The cost of creating a highly scalable, high-performance platform in the cloud has plummeted. You can do so without spending a huge amount of money. Our business model allows us to capture customers without a tremendous capital outlay. We didn't need to raise much money to get this business off the ground. Once the business got going, it became self-sustaining.' ABOUT THE GUEST Denis Kelly is CEO of Postalytics, a fast-growing software company that automates direct mail marketing, measures the results, and connects it to CRM/Marketing Automation.  Postalytics evolved out of Boingnet, a software tool used by direct mail service providers and agencies to provide landing pages and email campaigns that complement personalized direct mail. I was co-owner of Wireless City - a chain of 37 Verizon Wireless stores based in Florida, Massachusetts, and Georgia. The company was acquired by Go Wireless in October 2011. Before Wireless City, I was CEO at Adesso Systems, an enterprise mobility software company. Previously, I was CEO and Co-Founder of Adjoin Solutions, Inc., an early Web Services Management market leader. Adjoin was acquired by Computer Associates in July 2003. Before founding Adjoin, I was VP of Web Services at Palm (PALM), leading the Palm.net wireless business, the MyPalm web and mobile portals, and other Palm web properties. Previously, I was COO & Co-Founder of AnyDay.com (sold to Palm), headed sales for Achieve Healthcare, the largest provider of enterprise software and services to the post-acute healthcare industry. And COO at Genesis Business Systems (sold to Achieve). Dennis holds a BA in economics from Colgate University. I build companies, typically having something to do with technology. My role typically spans product development, sales, marketing, finance, and HR. I started life as a sales guy, spent time building products, and running data centers, have been CEO of venture-backed startups, and have built self-financed businesses. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisjohnkelly/   ABOUT POSTALYTICS With automated direct mail marketing, marketers use Postalytics to stand out from their competitors. Drive new leads and sales with personalized direct mail that complements email and digital marketing. Deep integration with HubSpot, Salesforce, and other CRM/Marketing Automation tools enables direct mail to look, act and feel like a digital marketing channel that happens to produce trackable postcards and letters. Website - https://www.postalytics.com/  ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers and accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdL LinkedIn: Sabine VanderLinden Instagram: sabinevdLofficial Facebook: SabineVdLOfficial TikTok: sabinevdlofficial Email: podcast@sabinevdl.com Website: www.sabinevdl.comThis show was brought to you by Progressive Media

#168 - What separates the top Realtors from the rest? Follow up. The gold is in the follow up. On this episode of The Real Estate UnSalesperson podcast, we're going to learn to master follow up with Deb Brown Maher.Why is follow up so important? A high percentage of buyers and sellers are not going to be ready to sign a contract with you the first time you meet. Maybe they are just gathering information, or maybe they are interviewing other Realtors, or maybe they just haven't made a final decision yet if they want to move.How do you set yourself apart from the other Realtors that your potential clients may talk to? With your follow up. Very few Realtors follow up. If the client is not right in front of them, they forget about them. If you do follow up, you will be in the minority of Realtors and that is a good thing. You will have very little competition. You will also impress your potential clients with your interest in serving them.So, how should you follow up? When should you contact them? What should you say? Deb Brown Maher provides some excellent insights on this podcast on how to follow up in a manner that your clients want.Meet Deb Brown MaherDeb Brown Maher is a sales coach, author and speaker who helps business owners make more sales by shifting their perspective —  from convincing prospects to buy, to being of service to them. She is passionate about selling from a position of integrity and shares her methods in Sell Like Jesus: 7 Characteristics of Christ for Ethical Sales. Deb got started in sales at the ripe old age of eight when she sold handmade potholders door to door and learned how a sale can brighten two people's day – hers and her customer's. She honed her approach with companies small and large including Lucent Technologies, Hershey Foods, Computer Associates and Comcast Cable.As the owner of Deb Brown Sales, Deb has used the Sell Like Jesus approach to help hundreds of business leaders increase sales by 50-100% in just 12 months.  Learn more at www.debbrownsales.com.Deb is also a fine artist who paints as a creative expression of worship inspired by and given back to God. She starts with a blank canvas, and no specific image in mind as onlookers watch her paint. Deb seeks guidance from the Holy Spirit for what the Lord wants to make manifest to those observing.  Everyone experiences the unfolding of God's visual message real-time as He gives revelation, healing, and peace directly to everyone through the painting, according to each one's needs. Her artwork is available at www.worshipfulart.com.Sales Is An Honorable ProfessionSales is an honorable profession if done properly. As Deb says, a sale can brighten two people's day, yours and your client's.Don't miss this episode of The Real Estate UnSalesperson podcast. It will both educate and entertain you. Let's master follow up with Deb Brown Maher!Get The UnSalesyGram Newsletter!How would you like to get some great ideas on how to successfully sell real estate in an unsalesy manner delivered to your inbox along with some inspiration and motivation? Sign up for my free UnSalesyGram Newsletter here!Mortgage Connects, an MGIC PodcastInsights and tips from top mortgage industry pros!Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the show

Gabe O'Neill who is originally a software engineer has built systems for Panasonic, Sony, and Computer Associates. In 1993 he was introduced on stage by Bill Gates as I showcased our automated booking system we developed for the DEA. Currently, he is the founder of Digital Accelerant, a digital marketing company in Atlanta Georgia. They build innovative custom digital business cards that return business to our clients. https://digitalaccelerant.com Take advantage of his gift. https://digitalaccelerant.com/store.htm?af=3 Get your own “Expert” book. http://spotlight-books.com Connect with us. www.bizcoachsteve.com/about   #bizcoachstevef #bizcoachandcoffee #entrepreneur #coaching #business #marketing #smallbusinessowner #smallbiz #speaker #getbooked

Serial entrepreneur with several successful exits, seasoned Fortune 500 executive, and non-profit leader. Richard is the author of the "Official US Software Channel Sales Guidebook" and has been a featured speaker at COMDEX, CES, the Art of Product Launches, and many other events. He ran a consulting firm for 14 years and advised startups and multinationals, including Hitachi, IBM, Computer Associates, and many others. He has served as the Executive Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Tanzania, was CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the San Francisco Bay Area, and is currently CEO of CLOSEM, a SaaS company he co-founded with Laura Betterly. CLOSEM automates the process of sales followup. CLOSEM is now becoming a suite of applications for small businesses and entrepreneurs looking to increase sales, and they have just released LINKEM, with more coming out soon. He has interesting things to share about sales, direct marketing, software startups, and sub-saharan African farming, as well as an avid wildlife and landscape photographer.Connect with Behind Company Lines and HireOtter Website Facebook Twitter LinkedIn:Behind Company LinesHireOtter Instagram Buzzsprout

In today's episode, Jeff Bond and William Smith host a conversation with Ken Ballou, Director, US Banking and Financial Services at Sensedia, an emerging technology company delivering API solutions for companies adopting a more digital, connected, and open strategy. This conversation was hosted at the TAG FinTech South 2022 Conference at the Georgia World Congress Center. Ken Bellou talks with Jeff and William about how technology has enabled smaller companies to compete with the bigger players,  the importance of conscious leaders to contribute through capitalism to elevate humanity, and what he sees as the future of Fintech. More About Ken Ballou Ken Ballou is a senior technology executive and entrepreneur. His success in the software industry reflects a specialization in driving international business growth and market development. 
 Throughout his career, Ken has successfully developed numbers of productive business relationships with a diverse array of global enterprises, including prominent banking and financial services firms and industry-leading technology corporations. Ken recently joined Sensedia, an emerging global leader providing Open API technology key in supporting a range of digital banking initiatives such as Banking as a Service (Baas) and Open Banking. His responsibilities include the development of business relationships with some of the most progressive and influential banking and financial services firms in the United States. Ken has previously held a number of entrepreneurial and business leadership positions in companies ranging from Computer Associates and HP Software, to Ni2, Camunda, Alfresco Software, Palantir, and Mobixell Networks. In 2004 Ken also co-founded an LLC named NewEnding, a business development and advisory services firm offering growth strategy and management guidance to organizations ranging from early stage to Fortune 500. RESOURCES RELATED TO THIS EPISODE Follow Ken on LinkedIn Visit https://www.sensedia.com/  CREDITS Theme Music

Join Gabe O'Neill is fondly known as the Godfather of the Digital Business Card and there is an interesting journey behind that. He has been a software developer for more than 30 years. He has built systems for the likes of Sony, Panasonic and Computer Associates. He is the man behind two influential non-profits Wags for Hope and Kids Are Heroes. He now lives in Atlanta Georgia and his company builds custom digital business cards that return business back to his clients. Here is an interesting discussion on why successful entrepreneurs must "adjust their sails" when they cannot control the direction of the wind. Host: Chris - Corporate trainer, prosperity coach, keynote speaker and Award winning author.

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to give marketers the freedom to leverage the combined power of direct and digital marketing while removing the compromises. And my guest is Dennis Kelly, CEO of PostalyticsDennis is a serial entrepreneur. He started off as a sales guy, spent time building products, and running data centers. Late 90's he co-founded Anyday.com which was sold to Palm in 2000. This immersed him into the world of wireless. After leaving Palm he co-founded Adjoin to tackle some challenging Webservice management problems. He sold this company to Computer Associates, to then become the CEO of Adesso Systems, an enterprise mobility software company. In 2006 he became the co-owner of Wireless City - a chain of 37 Verizon Wireless stores. He sold this company to Go Wireless in October 2011. From there he switched his focus to researching startup ideas, angel investing, and helping local startups with strategy & advice. This led him to become the CEO of Boingnet, a software platform helping direct mailers generate personalized, multi-channel campaigns across mail, web, and email channels.This is where he saw a big disconnect in the market between direct and digital marketing, and that sparked the idea behind Postalytics of which he's now the CEOAs digital marketing channels get more crowded, and marketers are all using the same playbook, they're increasingly looking for new ways to put their messages directly into the hands of their audiences. That's why they are giving direct mail another look. The problem is that the direct mail industry hasn't kept up with changes in technology. It feels very…1990's - it's slow, costly, disconnected from the marketing technology stack, and impossible to track. That's what Postalytics solves.This inspired me, and hence I invited Dennis to my podcast. We explore the opportunity for value creation by blending the online- with the offline marketing world, and how this can create a 1+1=3 concept because you're combining unique strengths into one. We also address the lessons Dennis learned to create growth and momentum in B2B technology, and what it takes to build a great software business that customers just keep talking about.Here are some of his quotes:We started having some brands come to us and say, "Hey, I just invested in Salesforce, you guys are living in this kind of a hybrid between digital and direct. Can you help us deploy direct mail more efficiently, more quickly, as a part of our Salesforce as a part of our HubSpot?" And it took a few of those conversations, let's realize there's a bigger opportunity out here to take some of this measurement and analytic work that we've done and to solve a problem that is far more pervasive and has a much bigger scope.That was happening in 2015, and 2016, and we spent about a year just heads down building Postalytics. And now Postalytics is our primary focus.During this interview, you will learn four things:Why limiting your focus on a highly specific audience is essential to maximize buzz and fuel the growth and momentum of your software businessThe positive things that happen when you decide sales is actually part of your onboarding processWhy killing something early is often the best move - and what early signs you should be highly sensitive toWhy the goal of a startup should be to create a great business instead of focusing on a great exitFor more information about the guest from this week:Dennis Kelly Website Postalytics See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Here's what Paul says  on his website:"My name is Paul Field, and I was an Adoptee born in Kingston, London, England, and grew up on the Isle of Wight.I went to Wroxall Primary, Ventnor Middle and Sandown High Schools.When I left school, I went to work for Videotron Cable TV, on West Quay Rd, in Southampton.I also worked for GEC Avery, now known as Avery Berkel, before moving to the United States in January of 1994,where I met my wife, Denise (pictured above), and had my daughter, Kaitlyn.In the U.S., I have worked as a consultant for America Online, RHI Consulting, Lipton, Database America, AT&T Wireless, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Customs, Best Foods, MBNA, Custom Video Productions and Computer Associates.I am currently the network administrator for a Fortune 500 company.I also run my own Computer Security consulting business.This site was started to help make the lives of Adoptees (and birth parents) who are searching easier.I remember some of the resources I needed during my search, and am now trying to make asmany of them easily available for fellow searchers. That is where the idea for this site came from.I hope you enjoy using the site, as much as I enjoyed putting it together."Paul runs 2 websites with over 45,000 people registered.Get on the register so you can be found at:http://www.ukbirthadoptionregister.com/Search for people already on the register at:http://www.lookupuk.com/He also does US searches.Birth records - England & Wales.Adopted adults in England and Wales have been able to apply for access to their original birth record since 1975.Those adopted (England and Wales) before 12 November 1975 are respectfully required to see a nominated counsellor before they can be given access to their records. If you were adopted after 11 November 1975 you can choose whether or not you want to see a counsellor.You can find a counsellor to help you get the records by contacting  adoption organisations such as https://www.pac-uk.org/More information athttp://www.lookupuk.com/adopt.html#adoption#adoptionawareness#adoptionevent#adoptionislove#adoptionjourney#adoptionlove#adoptionresponsable#adoptions#adoptionstories#adoptionstory#adoptionsupport#adoptiontails#search#birthmother#biomom 

The largest global power during the rise of intellectual property was England, so the world adopted her philosophies. The US had the same impact on software law. Most case law that shaped the software industry is based on copyright law. Our first real software laws appeared in the 1970s and now have 50 years of jurisprudence to help guide us. This episode looks at the laws, supreme court cases, and some circuit appeals cases that shaped the software industry. -------- In our previous episode we went through a brief review of how the modern intellectual property laws came to be. Patent laws flowed from inventors in Venice in the 1400s, royals gave privileges to own a monopoly to inventors throughout the rest of Europe over the next couple of centuries, transferred to panels and academies during and after the Age of Revolutions, and slowly matured for each industry as technology progressed.  Copyright laws formed similarly, although they were a little behind patent laws due to the fact that they weren't really necessary until we got the printing press. But when it came to data on a device, we had a case in 1908 we covered in the previous episode that led Congress to enact the 1909 Copyright Act.  Mechanical music boxes evolved into mechanical forms of data storage and computing evolved from mechanical to digital. Following World War II there was an explosion in new technologies, with those in computing funded heavily by US government. Or at least, until we got ourselves tangled up in a very unpopular asymmetrical war in Vietnam. The Mansfield Amendment of 1969, was a small bill in the 1970 Military Authorization Act that ended the US military from funding research that didn't have a direct relationship to a specific military function. Money could still flow from ARPA into a program like the ARPAnet because we wanted to keep those missiles flying in case of nuclear war. But over time the impact was that a lot of those dollars the military had pumped into computing to help develop the underlying basic sciences behind things like radar and digital computing was about to dry up. This is a turning point: it was time to take the computing industry commercial. And that means lawyers. And so we got the first laws pertaining to software shortly after the software industry emerged from more and more custom requirements for these mainframes and then minicomputers and the growing collection of computer programmers. The Copyright Act of 1976 was the first major overhaul to the copyright laws since the 1909 Copyright Act. Since then, the US had become a true world power and much as the rest of the world followed the British laws from the Statute of Anne in 1709 as a template for copyright protections, the world looked on as the US developed their laws. Many nations had joined the Berne Convention for international copyright protections, but the publishing industry had exploded. We had magazines, so many newspapers, so many book publishers. And we had this whole weird new thing to deal with: software.  Congress didn't explicitly protect software in the Copyright Act of 1976. But did add cards and tape as mediums and Congress knew this was an exploding new thing that would work itself out in the courts if they didn't step in. And of course executives from the new software industry were asking their representatives to get in front of things rather than have the unpredictable courts adjudicate a weird copyright mess in places where technology meets copy protection. So in section 117, Congress appointed the National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works, or CONTU) to provide a report about software and added a placeholder in the act that empaneled them. CONTU held hearings. They went beyond just software as there was another newish technology changing the world: photocopying. They presented their findings in 1978 and recommended we define a computer program as a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result. They also recommended that copies be allowed if required to use the program and that those be destroyed when the user no longer has rights to the software. This is important because this is an era where we could write software into memory or start installing compiled code onto a computer and then hand the media used to install it off to someone else.  At the time the hobbyist industry was just about to evolve into the PC industry, but hard disks were years out for most of those machines. It was all about floppies. But up-market there was all kinds of storage and the righting was on the wall about what was about to come. Install software onto a computer, copy and sell the disk, move on. People would of course do that, but not legally.  Companies could still sign away their copyright protections as part of a sales agreement but the right to copy was under the creator's control. But things like End User License Agreements were still far away. Imagine how ludicrous the idea that a piece of software if a piece of software went bad that it could put a company out of business in the 1970s. That would come as we needed to protect liability and not just restrict the right to copy to those who, well, had the right to do so. Further, we hadn't yet standardized on computer languages. And yet companies were building complicated logic to automate business and needed to be able to adapt works for other computers and so congress looked to provide that right at the direction of CONTU as well, if only to the company doing the customizations and not allowing the software to then be resold. These were all hashed out and put into law in 1980. And that's an important moment as suddenly the party who owned a copy was the rightful owner of a piece of software. Many of the provisions read as though we were dealing with book sellers selling a copy of a book, not dealing with the intricate details of the technology, but with technology those can change so quickly and those who make laws aren't exactly technologists, so that's to be expected.  Source code versus compiled code also got tested. In 1982 Williams Electronics v Artic International explored a video game that was in a ROM (which is how games were distributed before disks and cassette tapes. Here, the Third Circuit weighed in on whether if the ROM was built into the machine, if it could be copied as it was utilitarian and therefore not covered under copyright. The source code was protected but what about what amounts to compiled code sitting on the ROM. They of course found that it was indeed protected.  They again weighed in on Apple v Franklin in 1983. Here, Franklin Computer was cloning Apple computers and claimed it couldn't clone the computer without copying what was in the ROMs, which at the time was a remedial version of what we think of as an operating system today.  Franklin claimed the OS was in fact a process or method of operation and Apple claimed it was novel. At the time the OS was converted to a binary language at runtime and that object code was a task called AppleSoft but it was still a program and thus still protected. One and two years later respectively, we got Mac OS 1 and Windows 1. 1986 saw Whelan Associates v Jaslow. Here, Elaine Whelan created a management system for a dental lab on the IBM Series One, in EDL. That was a minicomputer and when the personal computer came along she sued Jaslow because he took a BASIC version to market for the PC. He argued it was a different language and the set of commands was therefore different. But the programs looked structurally similar. She won, as while some literal elements were the same, “the copyrights of computer programs can be infringed even absent copying of the literal elements of the program.” This is where it's simple to identify literal copying of software code when it's done verbatim but difficult to identify non-literal copyright infringement.  But this was all professional software. What about those silly video games all the kids wanted? Well, Atari applied for a copyright for one of their games, Breakout. Here, Register of Copyrights, Ralph Oman chose not to Register the copyright. And so Atari sued, winning in the appeal. There were certainly other dental management packages on the market at the time. But the court found that “copyrights do not protect ideas – only expressions of ideas.” Many found fault with the decision and  the Second Circuit heard Computer Associates v Altai in 1992. Here, the court applied a three-step test of Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison to determine how similar products were and held that Altai's rewritten code did not meet the necessary requirements for copyright infringement. There were other types of litigation surrounding the emerging digital sphere at the time as well. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act came along in 1986 and would be amended in 89, 94, 96, and 2001. Here, a number of criminal offenses were defined - not copyright but they have come up to criminalize activities that should have otherwise been copyright cases. And the Copyright Act of 1976 along with the CONTU findings were amended to cover the rental market came to be (much as happened with VHS tapes and Congress established provisions to cover that in 1990. Keep in mind that time sharing was just ending by then but we could rent video games over dial-up and of course VHS rentals were huge at the time. Here's a fun one, Atari infringed on Nintendo's copyright by claiming they were a defendant in a case and applying to the Copyright Office to get a copy of the 10NES program so they could actually infringe on their copyright. They tried to claim they couldn't infringe because they couldn't make games unless they reverse engineered the systems. Atari lost that one. But Sega won a similar one soon thereafter because playing more games on a Sega was fair use. Sony tried to sue Connectix in a similar case where you booted the PlayStation console using a BIOS provided by Connectix. And again, that was reverse engineering for the sake of fair use of a PlayStation people payed for. Kinda' like jailbreaking an iPhone, right? Yup, apps that help jailbreak, like Cydia, are legal on an iPhone. But Apple moves the cheese so much in terms of what's required to make it work so far that it's a bigger pain to jailbreak than it's worth. Much better than suing everyone.  Laws are created and then refined in the courts. MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer made it to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1993. This involved Eric Francis leaving MAI and joining Peak. He then loaded MAI's diagnostics tools onto computers. MAI thought they should have a license per computer, but yet Peak used the same disk in multiple computers. The crucial change here was that the copy made, while ephemeral, was decided to be a copy of the software and so violated the copyright. We said we'd bring up that EULA though. In 1996, the Seventh Circuit found in ProCD v Zeidenberg, that the license preempted copyright thus allowing companies to use either copyright law or a license when seeking damages and giving lawyers yet another reason to answer any and all questions with “it depends.” One thing was certain, the digital world was coming fast in those Clinton years. I mean, the White House would have a Gopher page and Yahoo! would be on display at his second inauguration. So in 1998 we got the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Here, Congress added to Section 117 to allow for software copies if the software was required for maintenance of a computer. And yet software was still just a set of statements, like instructions in a book, that led the computer to a given result. The DMCA did have provisions to provide treatment to content providers and e-commerce providers. It also implemented two international treaties and provided remedies for anti-circumvention of copy-prevention systems since by then cracking was becoming a bigger thing. There was more packed in here. We got MAI Systems v Peak Computer reversed by law, refinement to how the Copyright Office works, modernizing audio and movie rights, and provisions to facilitate distance education. And of course the DMCA protected boat hull designs because, you know, might as well cram some stuff into a digital copyright act.  In addition to the cases we covered earlier, we had Mazer v Stein, Dymow v Bolton, and even Computer Associates v Altai, which cemented the AFC method as the means most courts determine copyright protection as it extends to non-literal components such as dialogue and images. Time and time again, courts have weighed in on what fair use is because the boundaries are constantly shifting, in part due to technology, but also in part due to shifting business models.  One of those shifting business models was ripping songs and movies. RealDVD got sued by the MPAA for allowing people to rip DVDs. YouTube would later get sued by Viacom but courts found no punitive damages could be awarded. Still, many online portals started to scan for and filter out works they could know were copy protected, especially given the rise of machine learning to aid in the process. But those were big, major companies at the time. IO Group, Inc sued Veoh for uploaded video content and the judge found Veoh was protected by safe harbor.  Safe Harbor mostly refers to the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, or OCILLA for short, which shields online portals and internet service providers from copyright infringement. This would be separate from Section 230, which protects those same organizations from being sued for 3rd party content uploaded on their sites. That's the law Trump wanted overturned during his final year in office but given that the EU has Directive 2000/31/EC, Australia has the Defamation Act of 2005, Italy has the Electronic Commerce Directive 2000, and lots of other countries like England and Germany have had courts find similarly, it is now part of being an Internet company. Although the future of “big tech” cases (and the damage many claim is being done to democracy) may find it refined or limited. In 2016, Cisco sued Arista for allegedly copying the command line interfaces to manage switches. Cisco lost but had claimed more than $300 million in damages. Here, the existing Cisco command structure allowed Arista to recruit seasoned Cisco administrators to the cause. Cisco had done the mental modeling to evolve those commands for decades and it seemed like those commands would have been their intellectual property. But, Arista hadn't copied the code.  Then in 2017, in ZeniMax vs Oculus, ZeniMax wan a half billion dollar case against Oculus for copying their software architecture.  And we continue to struggle with what copyright means as far as code goes. Just in 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in Google v Oracle America that using application programming interfaces (APIs) including representative source code can be transformative and fall within fair use, though did not rule if such APIs are copyrightable. I'm sure the CP/M team, who once practically owned the operating system market would have something to say about that after Microsoft swooped in with and recreated much of the work they had done. But that's for another episode. And traditional media cases continue. ABS Entertainment vs CBS looked at whether digitally remastering works extended copyright. BMG vs Cox Communications challenged peer-to-peer file-sharing in safe harbor cases (not to mention the whole Napster testifying before congress thing). You certainly can't resell mp3 files the way you could drop off a few dozen CDs at Tower Records, right? Capitol Records vs ReDigi said nope. Perfect 10 v Amazon, Goldman v Breitbart, and so many more cases continued to narrow down who and how audio, images, text, and other works could have the right to copy restricted by creators. But sometimes it's confusing. Dr. Seuss vs ComicMix found that merging Star Trek and “Oh, the Places You'll Go” was enough transformativeness to break the copyright of Dr Seuss, or was that the Fair Use Doctrine? Sometimes I find conflicting lines in opinions. Speaking of conflict… Is the government immune from copyright? Allen v Cooper, Governor of North Carolina made it to the Supreme Court, where they applied blanket copyright protections. Now, this was a shipwreck case but extended to digital works and the Supreme Court seemed to begrudgingly find for the state, and looked to a law as remedy rather than awarding damages. In other words, the “digital Blackbeards” of a state could pirate software at will. Guess I won't be writing any software for the state of North Carolina any time soon! But what about content created by a state? Well, the state of Georgia makes various works available behind a paywall. That paywall might be run by a third party in exchange for a cut of the proceeds. So Public.Resource goes after anything where the edict of a government isn't public domain. In other words, court decision, laws, and statutes should be free to all who wish to access them. The “government edicts doctrine” won in the end and so access to the laws of the nation continue to be free. What about algorithms? That's more patent territory when they are actually copyrightable, which is rare. Gottschalk v. Benson was denied a patent for a new way to convert binary-coded decimals to numerals while Diamond v Diehr saw an algorithm to run a rubber molding machine was patentable. And companies like Intel and Broadcom hold thousands of patents for microcode for chips. What about the emergence of open source software and the laws surrounding social coding? We'll get to the emergence of open source and the consequences in future episodes! One final note, most have never heard of the names in early cases. Most have heard of the organizations listed in later cases. Settling issues in the courts has gotten really, really expensive. And it doesn't always go the way we want. So these days, whether it's Apple v Samsung or other tech giants, the law seems to be reserved for those who can pay for it. Sure, there's the Erin Brockovich cases of the world. And lady justice is still blind. We can still represent ourselves, case and notes are free. But money can win cases by having attorneys with deep knowledge (which doesn't come cheap). And these cases drag on for years and given the startup assembly line often halts with pending legal actions, not many can withstand the latency incurred. This isn't a “big tech is evil” comment as much as “I see it and don't know a better rubric but it's still a thing” kinda' comment. Here's something better that we'd love to have a listener take away from this episode. Technology is always changing. Laws usually lag behind technology change as (like us) they're reactive to innovation. When those changes come, there is opportunity. Not only has the technological advancement gotten substantial enough to warrant lawmaker time, but the changes often create new gaps in markets that new entrants can leverage. Either leaders in markets adapt quickly or see those upstarts swoop in, having no technical debt and being able to pivot faster than those who previously might have enjoyed a first user advantage. What laws are out there being hashed out, just waiting to disrupt some part of the software market today?

Rohit Ghai is the CEO of RSA, a leader in cybersecurity and risk management. Also known for RSA Conference, the biggest security conference in the world. Previously, Rohit served as the president of Dell EMC’s Enterprise Content Division (ECD) where he was responsible for all aspects of the ECD business, including Product Development, Go-to-Market, Finance and others. He also held leadership roles at Symantec, Computer Associates and various other enterprise security companies. In today’s show, we’re going to talk about the cybersecurity landscape in the cloud & AI-era. If you have aspirations to become a CEO, we’ll also try to get Rohit to share his secrets to land the top job. 

When an inquisitive software analyst takes a seat across the table from TIBCO Software CFO Tom Berquist, the inquisitor may not know that TIBCO’s finance leader once sat on their side of the table and in certain ways still prefers it. From 1996 to 2006, Berquist added a distinguished equity research chapter to his career when he became a marquee analyst inside the software realm for a string of Wall Street investment houses—namely, Piper Jaffray, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup. Seated across the table from the likes of Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Bill Gates (at the time, Microsoft’s CEO), and many others, Berquist asked probing questions and listened to the carefully crafted narratives designed to achieve “buy-in” on the company’s strategy from discerning analysts. “You would get pieces of information from each of the different companies, which gives you this incredibly powerful view of the market,” recalls Berquist, who even today seems to envy the analyst he once was. “The CEOs and CFOs would read your research and then come back and complain and try and explain why you are wrong by supplying you with even more data points—which is helpful because you can then create an even bigger mosaic,” continues Berquist, who ultimately exited software research when he was offered a CFO role at a newly minted company formed from a group of technologies spun out from CA Technologies that was then known as Computer Associates. “We had to build the finance function from scratch,” remembers Berquist, who quickly set about building processes and hiring finance professionals to lead the company’s different functional groups.   As the finance function grew up around him, Berquist says, he observed firsthand how finance acquires its “bottom up” view of the business organizationally, whereby data is first captured and then finance projects trends according to what’s already happened. “I’ve found this in every finance function that I’ve encountered since that time, so I view it as a universal truth,” states Berquist, who set out to remedy finance’s traditional “bottom up” approach by applying some “top down” macroeconomic insights. “I put in processes to run a “top down” model after actually building it myself. I compared and contrasted it to the traditional finance model and we reached common ground, allowing us to get in front of the trends,” says Berquist, who, even today after serving in multiple CFO and CEO roles, can’t help but linger on the other side of the table. –Jack Sweeney Leave rating & review   Signup for our Newsletter GET MORE: Order now The CFO Yearbook, 2021   

He is Chief Executive Officer of Snyk (pronounced Sneek), leading a worldwide organization that is disrupting the security industry. Prior to Synk, he was the Co-CEO, President, and Board Member at Baar, Switzerland-based Veeam Software with over 3,500 employees, 240K customers, and $1 Billion in bookings. His previous leadership roles include SVP and GM of the Americas at VMWare, GM of Watchfire at IBM, EVP of Sales at PTC, and SVP at Computer Associates. He is a graduate of Northeastern University with a BS BA in Accounting and Finance, loves cycling, and spending time with his family. Join Randy Seidl and David Nour on this episode of The Sales Community #TechSalesInsights podcast with Peter McKay. Don't forget, three quick points: Seidl and Nour host each week's guest at a Twitter Chat, so search Twitter for #TechSalesInsights for the latest updates. We turn the show notes from these podcasts into more in-depth articles, so check them out at SalesCommunity.com. Our next guest will be Mark Stephenson, CRO at Evisort - don't miss it, wherever you subscribe to podcasts or at SalesCommunity.com/Events. Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message

Joe Koufman has always been a connector of people. In his 20+ years working in marketing and business development, he has built out a large and distinguished network of corporate and agency contacts.Joe founded Setup in early 2014 to help marketers level up. Today, Setup connects marketers with agencies, talent, and resources to fill gaps.Prior to founding Setup, Joe spent six years as SVP of Marketing and Business Development at Engauge (acquired by Publicis Group in 2013 and merged with Moxie), focusing on landing marquis clients such as Hershey's, Cisco Systems, AMC Theatres, Chick-fil-A, Newell Brands, and Turner Broadcasting. Before Engauge, Joe spent eight years leading strategic accounts for KnowledgeStorm (acquired by TechTarget in 2007) such as Computer Associates, Cognos (now IBM), and Oracle.In this episode, we discuss Joe's journey from managing big-brand retail to forming a business around his passion for matchmaking.  In addition, he shares several entrepreneurial tips, including: (1) don't do it, unless you are 100% committed, and (2) find your tribe.

The adoption of advanced data technologies is one of the defining characteristics of the connected world. From ML to AI, we are getting a smarter, more personal world. The dystopic view is that not only Big Brother but many parties can monitor, control and manipulate us. What are the implications for trust? The need for privacy-enforcing technologies is now, not after the ghost is in the machine.What will you learn from attending?·         How machine learning & AI play into conversations around trust and privacy·         A framework to bring us into the future when it comes to privacy·         What each of us can do now to further protect our privacy About the speaker: Sam Curry, Chief Security Officer, is an IT security visionary with over 20 years of IT security industry experience. Sam served as Chief Technology and Security Officer at Arbor Networks, where he was responsible for the development and implementation of Arbor's technology, security and innovation roadmap. Previously, he spent more than seven years at RSA (the Security Division of EMC) in a variety of senior management positions, including Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Technologist and Senior Vice President of Product Management and Product Marketing. Sam has also held senior roles at Microstrategy, Computer Associates, and McAfee. Alon Kaufman, Co-Founder and CEO of Duality Technologies, has 20 years of experience in the hi-tech arena, commercializing data-science technologies, leading industrial research and corporate innovation teams. Prior to founding Duality he served as RSA's global director of Data Science, Research and Innovation. In addition to his leadership experience, he is accomplished in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning and how they interplay with security and privacy, with over 30 approved US patents in these fields. He holds a PhD. in Computational Neuroscience and machine learning from the Hebrew University and an MBA from Tel Aviv University.

Join Oscar and German Buendia with Darin Batchelder. Darin is a business owner who joined the real estate space two years ago, but has already gotten much further than other new investors! Here’s a breakdown of what to expect in this episode:

Steve is a thought leader in the psychology of marketing and use of digital techniques to engage buyers in both the logical and emotional aspects of the buying experience. He has served in a variety of roles ranging from CMO, product strategist, Innovation and Services leads and global marketing head for market-leading companies such as LexisNexis, SAP and Computer Associates. He's also led marketing for three leading FinTechs, has been a VC, sales executive, software engineer and startup founder.Follow and connect with Steve on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmann/Follow and connect with the host, Connor Dube: https://www.linkedin.com/in/socialsellingexpert/Instagram: connor_dubeVisit Active Blogs @ www.activeblogs.com for FREE B2B Marketing resources, podcasts, and make sure to reach out today for a Marketing Second Opinion to identify where to reduce marketing costs, optimize, or identify new strategies to implement for your business or department.

GUEST BIO Darin Batchelder is the President and founder of TZK Capital - a driven company that focuses on the efficient brokering of financial institution loan portfolios. He has immeasurable experience in developing and managing complicated sales transactions and establishing long term relationships is his priority. Before TZK Capital, Batchelder was responsible for the sale of residential and multifamily whole loan pools for ABN AMRO Mortgage Capital Markets Group and was involved in over $4 billion in loan portfolio transactions. As a certified Public Accountant, he began his career with Price Waterhouse and PepsiCo where he was in charge of providing senior executives with business improvement recommendations. He then moved into the sales field working for Computer Associates and eCredit.com, providing finance executives with financial credit underwriting software solutions and helping customers in increasing their sales and improving their processes. Today Darin joins us as a multifamily syndicator having worn multiple hats: from passive investor (limited partner), to key principle, to minority gp, to an asset manager to lead sponsor. Join us in the lab for a deep dive on the lessons from each phase while still being an active business owner to this day. THE REAL ESTATE FOUNDATION 01:48 Guest Background - Who is Darin Batchelder? 04:15 Reason for turning into Real Estate 10:05 Hardest part of starting your own company 12:44 The process of trading loans between two banks 17:28 Transitioning into Real Estate 21:24 Value of being an Active Investor 26:38 How does a Structured Deal look like? KEEPING IT REAL 34:53 Best way to learn and partner with people 44:18 Best learning experience 49:00 Best Advice - “I wish I had done it 20 years ago” ANSWERS TO THE RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS IN THE SHOW: 54:24 Favorite book - Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss 56:27 Best Habit - Reading the Bible 56:55 Best tool - having the mindset of getting successful 58:32 One 300 hundred unit vs three 100 units - three 100 units 59:59 Cash flow or Equity - Cash Flow 1:01:01 Self Managed or Outsource - Outsource 1:10:12 Importance of Social Media BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS SHOW Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss NOTABLE QUOTES (KEY LESSONS): When I talk to young people that are looking to get into large multifamily space, I say to them ‘I wish I had done it 20 years ago, I wish I had done it when I was younger'.. “It is much harder to do business when you have no capital, and no reputation and no experience, it's like you're raising capital millions of dollars.” CONNECTING WITH THE GUEST Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn @batchelderdarin www.tzkcapital.com #ExperimentWholeLoanSales #ExperimentSyndicator #Syndicator #WholeLoanSales

Guest David Pitofsky, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Newscorp, joins Sound Bar to discuss David’s prosecution of a company called Computer Associates when he was an Assistant United States Attorney in Brooklyn. The case had many interesting angles, and is a virtual primer on corporate obstruction.

We interview Morey Haber, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of BeyondTrust on the publication of his latest book, ‘Identity Attack Vectors: Implementing an Effective Identity and Access Management Solution’, co-authored with Darren Rolls, CISO & CTO, SailPoint This latest book is the third in a series with Apress books, with the previous two being Privileged Attack Vectors and Asset Attack Vectors. 10 E-Books are available to Listeners! Listen in for details. As a solution, Identity Access Management (IAM) has emerged as the cornerstone of enterprise security.  Managing accounts, credentials, roles, certification, and attestation reporting for all resources is now a security and compliance mandate. When identity theft and poor identity management is leveraged as an attack vector, risk and vulnerabilities increase exponentially. As cyber attacks continue to increase in volume and sophistication, it is not a matter of if, but when, an organisation will have an incident. Threat actors target accounts, users, and their associated identities, to conduct their malicious activities through privileged attacks and asset vulnerabilities. Poor identity and privilege management can be leveraged to compromise accounts and credentials within an organisation. The book covers how role-based identity assignments, entitlements, and auditing strategies can be implemented to mitigate the threats leveraging accounts and identities and how to manage compliance for regulatory initiatives. Identity Attack Vectors details the risks associated with poor identity management practices, the techniques that threat actors and insiders leverage, and the operational best practices that organisations should adopt to protect against identity theft and account compromises, and to develop an effective identity governance program. Key Topics covered in the book: The concepts behind an identity and how their associated credentials and accounts can be leveraged as an attack vector How to implement an effective Identity Access Management (IAM) program to manage identities and roles, and provide certification for regulatory compliance Where identity management controls play a part of the cyber kill chain and how privileges should be managed as a potential weak link How to build upon industry standards to integrate key identity management technologies into a corporate ecosystem How to plan for a successful deployment, implementation scope, measurable risk reduction, auditing and discovery, regulatory reporting, and oversight based on real-world strategies to prevent identity attack vector. Morey has more than 20 years of IT industry experience and joined BeyondTrust in 2012 as a part of the eEye Digital Security acquisition. He currently oversees BeyondTrust technology management solutions for vulnerability, and privileged and remote access. In 2004, he joined eEye as Director of Security Engineering and was responsible for strategic business discussions and vulnerability management architectures in Fortune 500 clients. Prior to eEye, he was Development Manager for Computer Associates, Inc. (CA), responsible for new product beta cycles and named customer accounts. He began his career as Reliability and Maintainability Engineer for a government contractor building flight and training simulators. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Recorded 25 November 2019. FURTHER LISTENING Episode 176 - Privileged Access Management (PAM) and analysis of the BeyondTrust Microsoft Vulnerabilities Report 2019 https://blubrry.com/mysecurity/51406933/episode-176-privileged-access-management-pam-and-analysis-of-the-beyondtrust-microsoft-vulnerabilities-report-2019/ Episode 172 - Privileged Access Management (PAM) with BeyondTrust CISO & CTO, Morey Haber https://blubrry.com/mysecurity/48710291/episode-172-privileged-access-management-pam-with-beyondtrust-ciso-cto-morey-haber/ Episode 148 - Privileged Access Management, SingHealth Breach & Beyond Trust solution addressing ASD Top4 - Essential 8 https://blubrry.com/mysecurity/43342483/episode-148-privileged-access-management-singhealth-breach-beyond-trust-solution-addressing-asd-top4-essential-8/  

Darin Batchelder has been in the whole loan trading business for the past 16 years. He is responsible for trading in excess of $4 billion in loan sales. Darin is the owner of TZK Capital. TZK Capital is focused on trading high credit quality performing real estate loan portfolios between banks to include residential, multifamily and commercial real estate loans. Prior to TZK Capital, Darin was with ABN AMRO's Mortgage Capital Markets group and was responsible for trading ABN AMRO's jumbo residential, CRA conforming residential and multifamily loans direct to other third party banks. He worked with Computer Associates and eCredit.com in a sales capacity. He achieved CPA status with PriceWaterhouse and worked within PepsiCo's domestic and international audit divisions. He has a Bachelor's of Science in Accounting from The University of Rhode Island.   Darin has invested as a Limited Partner in almost 4,000 apartment units across 14 properties.  About a year ago he successfully raised $2,500,000 and closed on a 77 unit deal as a Lead Sponsor.  In this episode Darin discusses his journey and what it's like to invest passively for the first time, Multifamily Investing vs. Stock Market, the power of surrounding yourself with like minded individuals to achieve big goals, his transition to lead sponsor and what it was like doing his first equity raise with a deep dive into his 77 unit deal, and much more!

Nick (@nicharsh) is the Senior Vice President of Strategic Alliances and Channels for SentryOne and is responsible for leading the SentryOne Global Partner Network.Prior to joining SentryOne, Nick was Vice President of National & Strategic Accounts for Dictaphone - Healthcare Division. Previous experience includes sales management positions with Computer Associates, NEC Computer USA, Tegra Varityper, and Heath/Zenith Computer Systems. Nick holds a BA degree in Economics from University of Dayton in Dayton, OH.

In this episode, Darin Batchelder shares his transition from the corporate world, to running his own business, to investing passively in apartment syndications and finally becoming an apartment syndicator himself and how he found, acquired and is currently executing on a 76 unit townhome community in Crowley TX.About Our Guest:Principal owner, asset manager and lead sponsor on 76 unit townhome community in Crowley, TX. Key principal on FNMA non-recourse loan on 154 unit apartment community. Limited partner in 14 properties with 3,944 multifamily units.Has been in the whole loan trading business for the past 16 years. Responsible for trading in excess of $4 billion in loan sales. Business owner of TZK Capital since 2007. TZK Capital is focused on trading high credit quality performing real estate loan portfolios between banks to include residential, multifamily and commercial real estate loans. Prior toforming TZK Capital, Darin was with ABN AMRO’s Mortgage Capital Markets group and was responsible for trading ABN AMRO’s jumbo residential, CRA conforming residential and multifamily loans direct to other third party banks. Worked with Computer Associates and eCredit.com in a sales capacity. Achieved CPA status with PriceWaterhouse and worked within PepsiCo’s domestic and international audit divisions. B.S Accounting, University of Rhode Island.CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST:Instagram: @batchelderdarin email: dbatchelder@tzkproperties.com phone: 954-304-3236CONNECT WITH US! Canovo Capital: https://www.canovocapital.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apartmentinvestingjourney/?modal=admin_todo_tourYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpmNIzpEzxGn5ZuNgjAVV-w/featuredInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/apartmentinvestingjourney/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apartment-investing-journey/id1464256464

Ric Walker is a performer, teacher, writer and director. As an actor he has appeared in numerous plays, independent films and television. He has worked as a corporate spokesman for companies such as Eli Lilly, Computer Associates and Oracle. He has improvised with and been a member of comedy troupes The Improvised Shakespeare Company, Comedy Sportz Chicago, The Second City and MCTD (Midwest Comedy Tool & Die). He is a member Emeritus of Second Story (Serendipity Theater Collective). Ric has designed and facilitated workshops on improvisation, public speaking and communications for corporations and organizations such as Coke, Pepsi, Starbucks and Northwestern University Law School. Ric is currently a Professor at Columbia College Chicago in the nation’s first BA in Comedy Writing and Performance. RIC WALKER SHOW NOTES Teaching comedy at Columbia University Each semester culminates in a mini sketch show Around 225 students. A popular Major Is this how you want to represent yourself? Are you saying this because you think it's a truth Your job as the performer is to illuminate something for the audience and show them some new way of looking at it Every day is an experiment It's not about trying to do it perfect the first time Give yourself permission to say whatever Creating brave spaces Is your premise clear? Does your premise create a target assumption? Is there a simple way that you are changing that story with that punch line? Is the language sharp? Six filters to test your joke structure The ideal student It's inexplicable how some people break and some people don't SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT:  This episode is brought to you by Patreon supporter DONNA LEWIS and CLUB 52. Club 52  is a one-year program designed to challenge you to get bigger, better and more bookable. You will be prompted to examine your material, performance and business practices via email each week.  Visit www.SchoolOfLaughs.com/Patreon for more info today.

Welcome back for another amazing episode from the Nerds, it is full of fun stuff, amazing science, and some crazy stuff. We hope as always that you enjoy it and perhaps by accident or intentionally learn something cool. I remember when I found out about chemistry, It was a long, long way from here, I was old enough to want it but younger than I wanted to be, Suddenly my mission was clear… All about chemistry. OK, I know that is the song Chemistry by Semisonic, but it relates to our first topic from Buck, which is all about chemistry and producing oxygen on Mars, Comets, and interplanetary space travel. That’s right we are one step closer to science fiction becoming reality once more. Honestly, where would the world be without science, science fiction, or Nerds to think up the impossible dreams? Although we must apologise for the zombie apocalypse resulting from the advancements in technology; otherwise known as reality television, social media, or just uncontrollable gaming. But, all that aside scientist have found a way to change carbon-dioxide (CO2) into beautiful oxygen (O2). That’s right, you heard us correctly, and it doesn’t involve a chemical scrubber like those currently used on submarines. No, this alters the very nature of the chemical bonds on a molecular level in a whole new way. By the power of Greyskull, someone has the power. That’s right folks, He-Man is coming back to our screens in the near future it seems. DJ has brought us news that a new extension to the story of He-Man is in the works, he says it is an anime, but we aren’t sold. But it is exciting that it appears to not be a rebirth or re-imagining. But then again that is those weirdos over at Disney doing all the remakes, except for the unfortunate incident with She-Ra. Whoever is responsible for that fiasco is a greater villain than Skeletor and Hordak combined. Seriously, it was traumatic to see what had happened there. With the contentiousness of is it going to be able to claim the title of an anime aside, He-Man is looking promising. Next we have the Professor bringing us news about the censorship of a few games in Australia and the impact that is having on the world. Now we normally don’t agree with a lot of the issues in censorship, or Material Ratings as they are referred to, but this time there is some merit. This topic is one in which the Nerds have a heated debate, and Buck really gets fired up, DJ gets angry and the Professor needs a whip and chair to keep them apart. So if you feel strongly about the topic of censorship this might be a poignant topic for you. We apologise if we offend anyone during this section (I know we don’t normally, but hey). Let us know what you think on the matter, is Buck an old fart that needs to be exhibited in a museum, is the DJ taking the matter too light, is it somewhere in between (like the Professor). As always we have the games played this week, which is looking interesting. Also the weekly shout outs, remembrances, birthdays, and events of interest. As always stay safe, look out for each other and stay hydrated.EPISODE NOTES:Comet chemistry - https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/comet-inspires-chemistry-making-breathable-oxygen-marsHe-Man Anime - https://comicbook.com/anime/2019/08/19/he-man-anime-synopsis-kevin-smith-netflix/DayZ Banned in Australia - https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/08/dayz-pc-ps4-xbox-one-banned-completely-australia/Games currently playingBuck– Dungeons and Dragons - https://dnd.wizards.com/Professor- https://store.steampowered.com/app/861540/Dicey_Dungeons/DJ – Mortal Kombat 11- https://www.mortalkombat.com/Other topics discussedChemistry – SemisonicPublished on Oct 7, 2009Music video by Semisonic performing Chemistry. (C) 2001 Geffen RecordsCategory Music Song CHEMISTRYWritersDan WilsonLicensed to YouTube byLatinAutor - Warner Chappell, PEDL, LatinAutor, ASCAP, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA - UBEM, Warner Chappell, LatinAutor - PeerMusic, and 5 Music Rights Societieshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgCVR2pjXc0Rihanna feat. Drake – Work (2016 song)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL1UzIK-flAComet- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CometTotal Recall (1990 film)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Recall_(1990_film)Climate Change in China- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_ChinaCarbon Dioxide scrubber- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_scrubberSolar Impulse (Swiss long-range experimental solar-powered aircraft project)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_ImpulseCanadian company sells bottled air to China- https://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/15/asia/china-canadian-company-selling-clean-air/index.htmlMost expensive bottle of water- https://alvinology.com/2008/04/15/worlds-most-expensive-bottled-water/Oxygen bars- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_barHe-Man – What’s Up- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjVugzSR7HAMore details about He-Man- https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/kevin-smith-creating-new-he-man-animated-series/- https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/08/18/masters-of-the-universe-revelation-kevin-smith-netflix-to-continue-original-animated-series/Western Anime TV shows- Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005 series) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender- Teen Titans (2003 series) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Titans_(TV_series)She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018 series)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She-Ra_and_the_Princesses_of_PowerComparison of She-Ra in the 1985 series and her 2018 redesign- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1c/She-Ra_comparison.png- https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5qOlZ2u2Duk/W_IqVYCvmpI/AAAAAAADlPQ/eYUrEFWP1vcr0ljMgVFsJZ-sLeASo2GDwCLcBGAs/s1600/shera-shera.jpgNetflix fires Kids & Family Executives- https://deadline.com/2019/08/netflix-layoffs-executives-kids-family-1202687407/Netflix market value drops- https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2019/07/24/as-growth-slows-netflix-market-value-drops-26-billion-in-a-week/Acorn TV (American subscription streaming service)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_TV- https://acorn.tv/Reasons why Netflix are cancelling its original programs- https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/08/20/4-reasons-netflix-cancels-its-original-programs.aspxGame of Thrones creator: End of Game of Thrones on TV was a liberation- https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/aug/17/george-rr-martin-game-thrones-writer-end-of-show-was-liberationGame of thrones book ending will be different to the show ending – Geroge R Martin- https://people.com/tv/george-rr-martin-game-of-thrones-books-end-differently-show/Anime reboots to TV series- Ghost in the Shell : Stand Along Complex (2002 series) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Stand_Alone_Complex- Appleseed - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appleseed_(manga)#AnimeSamurai Jack (2001 TV Series)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_JackFallout 3 (2008 game)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_3Joy Pill (We Happy Few game item)- https://we-happy-few.fandom.com/wiki/JoyLisa Simpson taking happy pills- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxkDytaDI0wBanned video games in Australia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games_in_AustraliaBanned movies- Tender Loving Care (1998 Interactive movie) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_Loving_Care_(video_game)- Nymphomaniac (2013 movie) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphomaniac_(film)Other banned movies- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_filmsNoddy the TV series banned- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-truth-about-how-noddy-was-framed-1256823.htmlBill Henson (controversial art photographer)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_HensonMichael Atkinson (former Australian politician opposed to R18+ for games)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_AtkinsonMortal Kombat 11 new content- New character: Nightwolf - https://mortalkombat.fandom.com/wiki/Nightwolf- Kombat Pack Roster Reveal Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRjbIuJWtlgDisney vs Sony standoff- https://deadline.com/2019/08/kevin-feige-spider-man-franchise-exit-disney-sony-dispute-avengers-endgame-captain-america-winter-soldier-tom-rothman-bob-iger-1202672545/Future Disney princesses- Sarah Connor (Terminator character) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Connor_(Terminator)- Ellen Ripley (Alien character) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_RipleyThe Humour Experiment (TNC Podcast)- https://thatsnotcanon.com/thehumourexperimentShoutouts19 Aug 1692 – Salem witch trials: In Salem, Province of Massachusetts Bay, five people, one woman and four men, including a clergyman, are executed after being convicted of witchcraft. More than 200 people were accused, 19 of whom were found guilty and executed byhanging (14 women and 5 men). One other man, Giles Corey, was crushed to death for refusing to plead, and at least five people died in jail. It was the deadliest witch hunt in the history of colonial North America. Despite being generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in several towns: Salem Village (now Danvers), Salem Town, Ipswich, and Andover. The most infamous trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials19 Aug 1953 – Cold War: The CIA and MI6 help to overthrow the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran and reinstate the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi the last Shah of Iran. While the coup is at times referred to in the West as Operation Ajax after its CIA cryptonym, in Iran it is referred to as the 28 Mordad 1332 Coup d'état, after its date on the Iranian calendar. Mosaddegh was imprisoned for three years, then put under house arrest until his death and was buried in his own home so as to prevent a political furore. In 2013, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup, as a part of its foreign policy initiatives. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat19 Aug 1967 - Beatles' "All You Need is Love" single goes #1. In a statement to Melody Maker magazine, Brian Epstein, the band's manager, said of "All You Need Is Love": "It was an inspired song and they really wanted to give the world a message. The nice thing about it is that it cannot be misinterpreted. It is a clear message saying that love is everything." Lennon later attributed the song's simple lyrical statements to his liking of slogans and television advertising. He likened the song to a propaganda piece, adding: "I'm a revolutionary artist. My art is dedicated to change." - https://www.stereogum.com/2018942/the-number-ones-the-beatles-all-you-need-is-love/franchises/the-number-ones/19 Aug 2013 – The Dhamara Ghat train accident kills at least 37 people in the Indian state of Bihar. At least 37 people were killed and 24 were injured. The accident triggered a protest by passengers who beat the driver unconscious, attacked staff and torched two coaches of the train. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhamara_Ghat_train_accidentRemembrances12 Aug 2019 - Danny Cohen, a distinguished computer scientist who helped develop the first digital visual flight simulator for pilot training, early digital voice conferencing and cloud computing. Cohen was a graduate student at Harvard University in the late 1960s when he helped develop the first computerized flight simulation system on a general-use computer. The design re-created aircraft flight and the landscape it travelled above. He was involved in the ARPAnet project and helped develop various fundamental applications for the Internet. Cohen is probably best known for his 1980 paper "On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace" which adopted the terminology of endianness for computing (a term borrowed from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels). He died from Parkinson's disease at the age of 81 in Palo Alto, California. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Cohen_(computer_scientist)19 Aug 1662 - Blaise Pascal, French mathematician,physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic theologian. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalising the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defence of the scientific method. Pascal was an important mathematician, helping create two major new areas of research: he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of 16, and later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science. Following Galileo Galilei and Torricelli, in 1647, he rebutted Aristotle's followers who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum. Pascal's results caused many disputes before being accepted. He died from stomach cancer at the age of 39 in Paris. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal19 Aug 1822 - Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre, French mathematician and astronomer. He was also director of the Paris Observatory, and author of well-known books on the history of astronomy like the Histoire de l'astronomie from ancient times to the 18th century. Delambre was one of the first astronomers to derive astronomical equations from analytical formulas, was the author of Delambre's Analogies. He was a knight (chevalier) of the Order of Saint Michael and of the Légion d'honneur. His name is also one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel tower. The crater Delambre on the Moon is named after him. He died at the age of 72 in Paris. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baptiste_Joseph_Delambre19 Aug 1977 - Groucho Marx, American comedian, writer, stage, film, radio, and television star. A master of quick wit, he is widely considered one of America's greatest comedians. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born. He also had a successful solo career, most notably as the host of the radio and television game show You Bet Your Life. His distinctive appearance, carried over from his days in vaudeville, included quirks such as an exaggerated stooped posture, spectacles, cigar, and a thick greasepaint moustache and eyebrows. These exaggerated features resulted in the creation of one of the most recognizable and ubiquitous novelty disguises, known as Groucho glasses: a one-piece mask consisting of horn-rimmed glasses, a large plastic nose, bushy eyebrows and moustache. He died from pneumonia at the age of 86 at the age of 86 in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles,California. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groucho_Marx19 Aug 1994 - Linus Pauling, American chemist,biochemist,peace activist, author, educator, and husband of American human rights activist Ava Helen Pauling. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. New Scientist called him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time, and as of 2000, he was rated the 16th most important scientist in history. Pauling was one of the founders of the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology. Pauling also worked on the structures of biological molecules, and showed the importance of the alpha helix and beta sheet in protein secondary structure. His discoveries inspired the work of James Watson,Francis Crick, and Rosalind Franklin on the structure of DNA, which in turn made it possible for geneticists to crack the DNA code of all organisms. In his later years he promoted nuclear disarmament, as well as orthomolecular medicine, megavitamin therapy, and dietary supplements. For his scientific work, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. For his peace activism, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is one of four individuals to have won more than one Nobel Prize (the others being Marie Curie,John Bardeen and Frederick Sanger). He died from prostate cancer at the age of 93 in Big Sur, California - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_PaulingFamous birthdays19 Aug 1871 – Orville Wright, one half of the Wright Brothers who were two American aviation pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful airplane. They made the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft with the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903, four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1904–05, the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft, the Wright Flyer III. Although not the first to build experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible. The brothers' breakthrough was their creation of a three-axis control system, which enabled the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and to maintain its equilibrium. This method remains standard on fixed-wing aircraft of all kinds. He was born in Dayton, Ohio - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers19 Aug 1921 – Gene Roddenberry, American television screenwriter,producer and creator of the original Star Trek television series, and its first spin-off The Next Generation. Roddenberry flew 89 combat missions in the Army Air Forces during World War II, and worked as a commercial pilot after the war. Later, he followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Los Angeles Police Department, where he also began to write scripts for television. As a freelance writer, Roddenberry wrote scripts for Highway Patrol, Have Gun–Will Travel, and other series, before creating and producing his own television series The Lieutenant. In 1964, Roddenberry created Star Trek, which premiered in 1966 and ran for three seasons before being cancelled. He then worked on other projects, including a string of failed television pilots. The syndication of Star Trek led to its growing popularity; this, in turn, resulted in the Star Trek feature films, on which Roddenberry continued to produce and consult. In 1985, he became the first TV writer with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he was later inducted by both the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Years after his death, Roddenberry was one of the first humans to have his ashes carried into earth orbit. The popularity of the Star Trek universe and films has inspired films, books, comic books, video games, and fan films set in the Star Trek universe. He was born in El Paso, Texas. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Roddenberry19 Aug 1944 – Charles Wang, American businessman and philanthropist who was a co-founder and CEO of Computer Associates International, Inc. (later renamed to CA Technologies). Wang grew Computer Associates into one of the country's largest software vendors. Wang authored two books to help executives master technology: Techno Vision and Techno Vision II. He was a minority owner (and past majority owner) of the NHL's New York Islanders ice hockey team and their AHL affiliate, an investor in numerous businesses, and benefactor to charities including Smile Train, the World Childhood Foundation, the Islanders Children's Foundation and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, among others. He was born in Shanghai. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wang19 Aug 1967 - Satya Nadella, engineer and Indian American business executive. He currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014. He led a giant round of layoffs and flattened the organization (getting rid of middle managers). Before becoming chief executive, he was the Executive Vice President of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise Group, responsible for building and running the company's computing platforms. His tenure has emphasized openness to working with companies and technologies with which Microsoft also competes, including Apple Inc.,IBM and Dropbox. Under Nadella Microsoft revised its mission statement to "empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more". In comparison to founder Bill Gates's "a PC on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software", Nadella says that it is an enduring mission, rather than a temporal goal. His key goal has been transforming Microsoft’s corporate culture into one that values continual learning and growth. Nadella's leadership of Microsoft included a series of high-profile acquisitions of other companies, to redirect Microsoft's focus. His first major acquisition was of Mojang, a Swedish game company best known for the popular freeform computer building game Minecraft, in late 2014, for $2.5 billion. He followed that by purchasing Xamarin and LinkedIn in 2016, then GitHub in 2018. He was born Hyderabad, Telangana. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_NadellaEvents of interest19 Aug 1887 - Dmitri Mendeleev makes a solo ascent by balloon to an altitude of 11,500 feet (3.5 km) above Klin, Russia to observe an eclipse. - https://www.wired.com/2009/08/dayintech-0819/19 Aug 1940 – First flight of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber. Named in honor of Major General William "Billy" Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. military aviation. Used by many Allied air forces, the B-25 served in every theatre of World War II, and after the war ended, many remained in service, operating across four decades. Produced in numerous variants, nearly 10,000 B-25s were built. These included a few limited models such as the F-10 reconnaissance aircraft, the AT-24 crew trainers, and the United States Marine Corps' PBJ-1 patrol bomber. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_B-25_Mitchell19 Aug 1964 – Syncom 3, the first geostationary communication satellite, was launched. The satellite, in orbit near the International Date Line, had the addition of a wideband channel for television and was used to telecast the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo to the United States. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyncomIntroArtist – Goblins from MarsSong Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)Song Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNMe6kF0j0&index=4&list=PLHmTsVREU3Ar1AJWkimkl6Pux3R5PB-QJFollow us onFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/NerdsAmalgamated/Twitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamatedSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6Nux69rftdBeeEXwD8GXrSiTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094RSS - http://www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com/topshelfnerdspodcast?format=rssGeneral EnquiriesEmail - Nerds.Amalgamated@gmail.com

Nancy Behagat shares how to become a VP at a fortune 50 company, how to deal with emerging trends in marketing, challenges in marketing and more. A big thank you to Nancy for taking the time to sit down with Ignite Visibility CEO, John Lincoln. Nancy Bhagat is a seasoned marketing and business executive who has held some of the most coveted positions in technology. From VP of the Incubation team at Intel to VP of Global Marketing Strategy at Intel to SVP, CMO at Macromedia to SVP, Global Marketing at Computer Associates, Nancy holds a wealth of knowledge on the inter-workings of successful businesses in the space. In this Ignite Visibility University Podcast,

David founded Tekyz, Inc., a software design & development firm focused on user experience visualization, responsive web and mobile app development, as well as workflow automation.   Bio: David Hirschfeld’s entrepreneurial software career spans 30 years with expertise in executive management, business consulting, software development and strategy, technical architecture, user experience engineering, and sales & marketing.   In the late 80’s, David worked in both a sales and technology consulting capacity focused on government sector business for Texas Instruments and IBM mainframe software for Computer Associates. While at computer associates, David was the national sales leader for the company’s largest division. However, his love for software development and his management acumen drew him into a lead position for several major software consulting projects for Allied Signal, Motorola and Intel.   In the early 90’s David founded and operated VendMaster Software Systems, an inventory management and route logistics software company for the snack industry. Over the next 8 years, he grew VendMaster’s reach to over 800 companies in 22 countries. He sold his company in 2000 to a publicly held Canadian logistics firm, where he remained for the next 2 years as VP of Product Strategy. There are still VendMaster customers using his software today.   In 2006, David founded Tekyz, Inc., a software design & development firm focused on user experience visualization, responsive web and mobile app development, as well as workflow automation. He has helped design, plan, manage and implement projects for a broad range of startups existing businesses across many business sectors including e-commerce, sales lead management, medical systems, internet auctions, real estate, logistics and inventory management, social networking, mobile gaming platforms, law enforcement, accounting & finance, streaming technology, and many others. David is also the Chief Technology Officer and a managing board member of Anzu (www.anzumedical.com), originally a Tekyz customer. Anzu is quickly climbing into a leadership position for medical data collection, business intelligence, and health surveillance platforms for aesthetic medicine.   Contact Info: david@tekyz.com 480-570-8557

Russell Artzt is the pioneering software engineer who co-founded CA Technologies, formerly Computer Associates, the first software company to generate $1 billion in sales.This past weekend, Charles Wang, his former business partner, friend, and co-founder of CA passed away. In this episode, I invited Russ to reflect on that relationship, the history behind CA Technologies, and why Russ is hard at work in the MarTech/SalesTech space now as Executive Chairman at RingLead, Inc.

Our guest in this episode of “State of Readiness” is Donald Kuk; continuous improvement expert extraordinaire.  He started his continuous improvement journey in the mid-1990's at General Electric when he was personally selected by Jack Welch to join Jack and a select group of others senior leaders at GE in the very class to be trained in Six Sigma – taught by the original Six Sigma Guru himself, the late Mikel Harry.  Since then, Donald has held senior leadership positions at JP Morgan - Chase, Computer Associates, AIG, BNY Mellon, and now Mednax (a leading healthcare provider in the States).  Whether in the C-Suite or reporting to the C-Suite in his various positions, his responsibilities included; Continuous Improvement, Operational Excellence, Quality, Policy Deployment, and Business Transformation.  I am sure you will find his experiences, stories, and insights as fascinating as I did. Host: Joseph Paris, Founder of the;  XONITEK Group of Companies,  Operational Excellence Society & Readiness Institute Guest: Donald Kuk [icon name="linkedin-square" class="fa-2x" unprefixed_class=""] In addition to graduating from GE’s Executive University as mentioned above; Donald graduated from the College of the Air Force, US Air Force Medical School, Sheppard, AFB and earned his certification as a Surgical / Emergency Medical Technician.  Afterwards, he went on to George Washington University and Vernay Laboratories where he studied Statistical Process Management under Dr. W. Edward Deming (who signed his certificate) and also the University of Michigan where he studied chemistry. The companies Donald has worked at and the positions held include; MEDNAX; Chief Transformation Officer, CTO, Operational Excellence, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt BNY Mellon; Chief Process Architect, Strategist, Operational Excellence, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt AIG; Enterprise Transformation Change Agent, Operational Excellence, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt CA Technologies; Vice President Worldwide Transformation, Operational Excellence, Quality and Policy Deployment JPMorgan Chase;  Senior Vice President Operational Excellence & Business Transformation Telaxis Communications; Vice President Operations, Operational Excellence and Business Transformation GE Global Research; Executive Manager Worldwide Advanced Technology and Business Transformation Intergraph; Director Advanced Technology In addition to being published in respected magazines and journals (both on the web and in print), Donald has been recognized and honored with many awards and patents.

Being likeable goes a long way. Being likeable with an MBA goes even further. As a Business Leader of Global Sponsorships, Music & Entertainment at Mastercard, Brian doesn't let his credentials get to his head. Brian's career in sports and entertainment has included stops at brands like Dr. Pepper Snapple Group and Mars, along with managing the marketing for some of the largest music artists in the world. From jobs at the video rental store (yes, VHS tapes), to Kenny Rodgers Roasters as a chicken cutter, then the help desk at Ithaca College and the stockroom of Computer Associates - being likeable and listening to his father somehow led Brian to a career path in sports and entertainment for all to envy. shout out to Pops, shout out to the video store, shout out to the Big Apple BBQ, shout out to social clout #hirepeoplenotpaper #backtoschool https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-lancey-b0472612/ Recorded 11/10/2017

Back in September 2016, Kelly Barner and I opened the mic for 40 revolutionaries to share their thoughts on the future of procurement as part of The Procurement Revolution event. One of the conversations that we enjoyed the most was with Jack Miles, the former CPO of CIBC, AIG, Computer Associates and the Secretary of State for the Florida Department of Management Services. Our topic of conversation with Jack is just as relevant today as it was 18 months ago. We focused on the topic of mindset, and how a growth mindset is so important to be successful given the changing nature of procurement. In today’s show, I am publishing the Q&A with Jack in its entirety.

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Microsoft (www.microsoft.com)’s Senior Director, Industry Product Marketing, Cloud & Enterprise, Kirsten Edmondson Wolfe. Passionate about politics, Kirsten graduated from the University of California, Davis in International Relations and Asian History, and then moved to D.C to work for an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) “whose job it was to help build democratic institutions in newly non-communist, countries.”  Kirsten’s watershed moment was in 1997. She was “standing at the rooftop bar of the Hotel Aryaduta in Jakarta, Indonesia while the Suharto government fell.”  She “watched students use technologies to film what was going on in the streets. These students brought down a totalitarian government, using cell phones.”  She said to herself: “Wow, I need to get into technology because if I’m going to truly change the world, it’s going to be through tech, not through politics.”   Kirsten resigned her job; went back to Thunderbird International Business School, obtaining an MBA in business marketing; got a job, at the height of the “dot.com implosion” at a large Massachusetts-based consulting company, SETA; and subsequently joined Computer Associates, now CA Technologies (www.ca.com). Kirsten’s initial role at CA was technology consulting focused on “how do we have the U.S. government invest in technology in developing countries so that we can bridge the gap.”  She recruited “a fantastic team” who took what CA was already selling to the U.S. government and “made it more impactful to their mission.”  In one year, Kirsten is proud that CA “went from not being in the Top 20 vendors in security for the U.S. government to #3, behind Symantec and IBM.” As a leader, Kirsten said “I learn every day.”   At CA, “the first thing I learned was that ‘all boats rise together’. It is about collaboration. I succeed as a leader when my team succeeds.”  In 2009, she moved to Deltek (www.deltek.com).  What attracted her was the newly-minted CEO “recruiting folks from other software companies to make Deltek more of a ‘player’ in ERP.”   But, Kirsten learned what she called “a really good life lesson: don’t jump too quick.”   She said: “I realized, about a year in, that I needed to find a company that I could be happy at.” So, Kirsten moved to Microsoft (www.microsoft.com/dynamics)  and concentrated on business applications.   Her Microsoft team works with engineering to “infuse industry requirements into the Microsoft platform.  I can fundamentally change where we go, as a company.  It’s opened a whole new set of opportunities.   This is the one company that if we can stitch all of our stuff together, we can do fantastic things in society.”   Kirsten’s advice to leaders: “Surround yourself with great people.” “Listen.  Learn from other people.  Acknowledge that you don’t know everything.” “Admit when you are wrong, and that you screwed up.” In her philanthropic life, Kirsten works on children’s issues through Donors Choose (https://www.donorschoose.org/). “It is an online network of educators,” she explained. Through it, “I help fund some innovative education programs in less successful school districts. My son and I just picked one, yesterday.” Speaking of her family, Kirsten acknowledged the difficulty of achieving life balance. “There’s a lot of non-traditional communication,” and use of innovative technology to make it all work.  She also commented, “at the end of the day, you have to be willing to shut off the laptop, and go for a bike ride!” She is “learning to walk away. I think gender roles, over the last 20 years, is allowing us to put the laptop down, and do things with your family.”  Kirsten strong parting words of inspiration are: “Keep the faith, keep driving. There has never been a better time to be a woman in tech.  We can actually, fundamentally change all of it.” For the full blog write up, make sure to check us out on online at www.divatechtalk.com, on Twitter @divatechtalks, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/divatechtalk. Follow our show and tell us what you like with an online review.

Whenever I speak with Kathryn Roy I learn something. I learned a lot when I spent an hour talking to this remarkably incisive thinker. Kathryn has advised some of the most dynamic technology companies of our time including Lotus, Kronos, Phase Forward, IBM, Computer Associates, Avid and Constant Contact. The qualities that make her ideas prized in so many executive suites were in full display during this delightful interview. Here are some quotes from our conversation. “The hardest thing about marketing and messaging is figuring out what you're not going to say.” Speaking about what she calls The Curse of Knowledge she says: “When you're steeped in a technical domain, you start talking to other people as if they have the exact same context in their heads.” Speaking about what companies should put on their websites she says: “What's really important is to let the visitor see, at a glance, what could you do for me? What problem could you solve, and do you solve it for other companies like me?” “I always tell the companies I work with: never brag about yourself. You can get a customer quote, and they can talk about you, but when you brag about yourself, it is totally discounted by prospects.” “I think that's a challenge I see in a lot of companies, because you get marketing people and they want to work on fun things. They want to work on beautiful graphics. They want to have great events. The real benefit or the most important thing that you can do is understand the customer's needs, no matter how boring they are.”   Here are the topics covered during our interview:   Kathryn Roy Bio From Math Major to Harvard MBA Early Incarnation of Artificial Intelligence – Kathryn Roy’s First Experience in a Startup – Product in Search of Market – Classic Problem Described by Geoffrey Moore Kathryn Roy Goes to a Dungeons & Dragons Company Next – Finds Her True Calling – Marketing & Behavioral Economics Not Being Cut Out for Coding Did Not Discourage Kathryn Roy – She Knew Where She Could Better Use Her Acute Powers of Reasoning Kathryn Roy Finds That There Is a Market for Her Kind of Thinking Peace Corps & BBN Planet by Accident By Teaching I Learn – Docendo Discimus – Kathryn Roy Decides to Learn More About Marketing by Teaching Marketing But Ends Up at BBN Planet Instead Phase Forward – More Open Communication with Clients Bought Time to Succeed One of Kathryn Roy’s Marketing Tricks: Give Away Something of Value to Customers Which Is Relatively Easy for You to Create – It Gets You Mindshare – Two Excellent Examples Given Marketing People Want to Work on Fun Stuff – Graphics, Events, etc. – Should Focus Instead on Boring Things that Address Customer Needs Kathryn Roy Finds a Natural Fit between Her Approach to Marketing & Consulting Angel Invest Boston Brings You Outstanding Guests like Kathryn Roy, with Professional Sound Quality, at No Cost to You and with No Commercials – Give Back by Reviewing Us in iTunes & Spreading the Word Kathryn Roy’s Three Bits of Advice for Founders One – Make Sure You Have Critical Skill Within the Founding Team – Hard to Get Otherwise Two – Narrow Your Focus to a Group of Buyers That Have Common Needs & Consider Each Other References Three – Don’t Be Seduced by Fads Founders Frequently Get Into Trouble by Not Recognizing the Differences between B2B and B2C Marketing – Taglines: Less Is More “The hardest thing about marketing and messaging is figuring out what you're not going to say.” How Kathryn Roy Became an Angel Investor What Does Kathryn Roy Look for in a Founding Team? Kathryn Roy’s Advice to Founders Hiring Marketing Teams The Curse of Knowledge Investors, Beware of Giving Advice in Areas beyond Your Expertise Messaging Mistakes If You Are a Company Under $100 Million in Value You Can’t Afford to Have People Remember More Than One Name for You Kathryn Roy Talks about Pixability’s Pivots Poly6 Narrow Its Focus 3D Data

Today, Buyers Meeting Point welcomes Robert Cohen, Vice President of Marketing at basware. Bob brings nearly two decades of accounts payable, finance, technology, purchase-to-pay and e-invoicing expertise and experience to his work at Basware and to the industry overall. Prior to joining basware, Bob worked for American Express, Cendant, and Computer Associates. In this timely conversation we discuss the three reasons why CPOs should attend budget reviews, including: Learning critical information about each budget owner's plans for the year to come, including sourcing needs, tight funds, and areas of potential supplier riskBetter understanding the users of the e-procurement system and identifying opportunities to improve complianceProviding consultative services to other departments, whether because requested funds were not approved or because there are opportunities to partner with suppliers to achieve ambitious goals with limited resources For additional information, you may be interested in the following resources: Webinar: WeProcurement: Change Spend Behavior eBook: WeProcurement: Putting the We in e-Procurement Whitepaper: Introducing e-Procurement for Buying & Paying Smarter  

Online privacy, security, why it is important for you personally, professionally and how to control what you share online. Christian Hessler is an agile tech leader, entrepreneur and engineer who designs, develops, protects and evangelizes disruptive innovations for web, cloud, mobile and wearables. His R&D interests include security, digital media, payments, gamification and mixed reality. He is the founder of several successful startups, working in the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia with companies such as Microsoft, IBM, HP, Sony, Intel and the Federal Government. Christian also led agile engineering organizations at Sun Microsystems, Computer Associates, Citysearch and First American National Bank and developed technologies such as IDInsure®, GAIMPlay™, FlikCart™ and CuriousID™. His latest venture is @liveensure, a Palo Alto startup revolutionizing interactive user authentication on smart devices. He holds a BS from Vanderbilt University and an MS from Regis University with graduate studies in security and multimedia at Stanford and UCLA. http://www.liveensure.com http://www.foursure.com https://twitter.com/liveensure https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/liveensure/id464321571?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/foursure/id1039856994?mt=8 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.liveensure.android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.foursure&hl=en

Andy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc., a 20+ person asymmetrical communications consultancy, geared to providing clients with Senior Advising, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications and Marketer-In-Residence services to start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to influencer relations, marketing, advertising, public relations, social media, promotion, events and reputation management in the technology, consumer products and business to business markets. In the last 10 years 27 of his agency's clients have exited, with three IPOs. Some of the acquiring companies include Google, eBay, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, IBM, Citrix Online, Computer Associates, Symantec and Logitech.For 14 years Andy was Ken Rutkowski's co-host on KenRadio's World Technology Roundup and remains an active blogger with both VoIPWatch and Working Anywhere, two blogs that focus on emerging communications and the virtual workplace.Russell P. Reeder is President and COO of (mt) Media Temple, a premium provider of cloud services that powers 1.7 million websites for 130,000 customers in 100 countries worldwide. He's responsible for (mt) Media Temple's brand and overall vision, strategy, and execution. (mt) was recently acquired by GoDaddy and is now a GoDaddy company.A 20-year veteran of the IT field, Reeder continues to be on the leading edge, from entrepreneurial ventures to Fortune 500 powerhouses like Oracle to his first programming job at Mobil Oil. He's managed global high-growth businesses that have sold for billions of dollars and consistently drives performance and innovation at scale. Kronfli Bros. strives to manufacture and distribute unique, high quality food products to both the retail and wholesale markets. We partner with creative chefs and restaurants from around the world to offer our customers a tasteful window into culinary excellence. Regard of sustainability, passion, and a high level of customer service defines the goal of Kronfli Bros.

William Quigley joined Clearstone Venture Partners (formerly idealab Capital Partners) shortly after its formation and concentrates on its Internet, Gaming and Communications related investments.William's current portfolio reflects his belief in the enormous opportunities in the consumer Internet, wireless and enterprise markets (Xfire.com, Titan Gaming, AOptix Technologies, SoonR, Meru Networks, Novariant). He is also focused on emerging companies offering managed services in the enterprise and consumer sectors (Communicado, Spock Networks). William is a member of the board of directors of AOptix Technologies, Meru Networks, Novariant, SoonR, Xfire and Evertune.William joined Clearstone from Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds, where he invested in early- stage Internet and communications companies. Prior to MAVF, he was the chief financial officer of Disney's merchandise licensing division, the world's largest licensor. Before Disney, he was a consultant with Arthur Andersen where he worked with media entertainment and banking clients.William grew up in the Bay Area and came down to LA to go to college (USC). After leaving Disney in the early 90′s, he got an MBA (Harvard) and became a venture capitalist. His firm, Clearstone Venture Partners, has been making investments in consumer and enterprise companies for 10 years.Andy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc., a 20+ person asymmetrical communications consultancy, geared to providing clients with Senior Advising, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications and Marketer-In-Residence services to start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to influencer relations, marketing, advertising, public relations, social media, promotion, events and reputation management in the technology, consumer products and business to business markets. In the last 10 years 27 of his agency's clients have exited, with three IPOs. Some of the acquiring companies include Google, eBay, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, IBM, Citrix Online, Computer Associates, Symantec and Logitech.For 14 years Andy was Ken Rutkowski's co-host on KenRadio's World Technology Roundup and remains an active blogger with both VoIPWatch and Working Anywhere, two blogs that focus on emerging communications and the virtual workplace.

Tony Horton is the creator behind P90X® - the best selling fitness program in America. Over the past 25 years, Tony has inspired and motivated people all over the world by sharing his fitness expertise with professional athletes, sports teams, television and film stars, recording artists and 4 million plus people.Tony changes lives with the perfect mix of physical fitness routines, encouragement, humor, discipline and fun. His specialties includes weight/resistance training, cardiovascular/aerobic training, advanced stretching, yoga, boxing and kickboxing, plus circuit, cross and interval training and post-rehabilitation training. Using his personally developed Muscle Confusion techniques, his methodology allows individuals to reach their fitness goals, prevents plateaus and, most importantly staves off boredom from the same old workouts.Tony released his book “Bring It,” and “Crush It,” with Rodale Books. Tony has been featured in numerous national publications including Men's Fitness, Fitness, SELF, The New York Times (cover page of Sunday Business Section), Wall Street Journal (front page), Women's Health, People, LA HEALTH, ESPN, Washington Post, Washington Examiner, Politico, LA Times and Military Times. His National Television appearances include the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, A&E, NBC, CBS, FOX, TV Guide Network and many more.Part Tony Robbins, part Mehmet Oz, here is fitness guru and creator of P90X Tony Horton's wake-up call for readers—a motivational and practical guide to creating a better life and a healthier body.One of America's best-known and most-loved fitness gurus, "master of motivation" Tony Horton shares his philosophy that will help you live your best life. In his first non-workout book, he offers 11 Rules that provide a clear path and purpose for achieving life goals and obtaining optimal health.Andy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc., a 20+ person asymmetrical communications consultancy, geared to providing clients with Senior Advising, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications and Marketer-In-Residence services to start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to influencer relations, marketing, advertising, public relations, social media, promotion, events and reputation management in the technology, consumer products and business to business markets. In the last 10 years 27 of his agency's clients have exited, with three IPOs. Some of the acquiring companies include Google, eBay, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, IBM, Citrix Online, Computer Associates, Symantec and Logitech.For 14 years Andy was Ken Rutkowski's co-host on KenRadio's World Technology Roundup and remains an active blogger with both VoIPWatch and Working Anywhere, two blogs that focus on emerging communications and the virtual workplace.

Scott Page is a technologist, entrepreneur, musician and songwriter. Page is most recognized as the saxophonist for Pink Floyd, Supertramp and Toto. As an entrepreneur, he formed Walt Tucker Productions an audio video post production company in 1987. In 1992, he Co-founded 7th Level, Inc., a CD-ROM game and educational software company. Later, Page Co-founded New Media Broadcasting Company, a social media and collaborative communications enterprise. Since 2011, he has been the Co-founder and CEO of Direct2Care, an online presence management company for healthcare.Scott Page has received several acknowledgments and awards, primarily for his technology companies' achievements. Named one of “50 Pioneers of Multimedia,” Page has been guest lecturer and panelist at numerous conferences and university symposia. His industry acknowledgments include being named one of “The Top 100 Multimedia Producers” by Multimedia Magazine, the “100 Coolest People in Los Angeles” by Buzz Magazine, and one of “50 New Media Innovators” profiled in Pioneer Electronics' Multimedia Frontier.Andy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc., a 20+ person asymmetrical communications consultancy, geared to providing clients with Senior Advising, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications and Marketer-In-Residence services to start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to influencer relations, marketing, advertising, public relations, social media, promotion, events and reputation management in the technology, consumer products and business to business markets. In the last 10 years 27 of his agency's clients have exited, with three IPOs. Some of the acquiring companies include Google, eBay, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, IBM, Citrix Online, Computer Associates, Symantec and Logitech.For 14 years Andy was Ken Rutkowski's co-host on Ken's Radio's World Technology Roundup and remains an active blogger with both VoIPWatch and Working Anywhere, two blogs that focus on emerging communications and the virtual workplace.

Andy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc., a 20+ person asymmetrical communications consultancy, geared to providing clients with Senior Advising, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications and Marketer-In-Residence services to start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to influencer relations, marketing, advertising, public relations, social media, promotion, events and reputation management in the technology, consumer products and business to business markets. In the last 10 years 27 of his agency's clients have exited, with three IPOs. Some of the acquiring companies include Google, eBay, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, IBM, Citrix Online, Computer Associates, Symantec and Logitech.For 14 years Andy was Ken Rutkowski's co-host on KenRadio's World Technology Roundup and remains an active blogger with both VoIPWatch and Working Anywhere, two blogs that focus on emerging communications and the virtual workplace.Private membership airline Surf Air announced that Jeff Potter, former head at Frontier Airlines, has taken over as the chief executive.Potter, Frontier's chief executive from 2002 to 2007, replaces Wade Eyerly, a co-founder of the Santa Monica aviation company, which began service last year and flies out of Burbank Bob Hope Airport and Hawthorne Municipal Airport.The company on Friday said it was now taking “the next step in the evolution of Surf Air” in an email memo to its 430 members.“We want to again thank Wade for all he has done to make Surf Air what it is today,” the memo stated. “We are extremely excited for the future and welcome the new leadership team as we begin the next step to grow Surf Air into the company we all know it can become.”The company was founded to serve tech executives commuting between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and currently offers 16 flights daily to and from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara.

Andy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc., a 20+ person asymmetrical communications consultancy, geared to providing clients with Senior Advising, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications and Marketer-In-Residence services to start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to influencer relations, marketing, advertising, public relations, social media, promotion, events and reputation management in the technology, consumer products and business to business markets. In the last 10 years 27 of his agency's clients have exited, with three IPOs. Some of the acquiring companies include Google, eBay, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, IBM, Citrix Online, Computer Associates, Symantec and Logitech.For 14 years Andy was Ken Rutkowski's co-host on KenRadio's World Technology Roundup and remains an active blogger with both VoIPWatch and Working Anywhere, two blogs that focus on emerging communications and the virtual workplace.Scott Page is a technologist, entrepreneur, musician and songwriter. Page is most recognized as the saxophonist for Pink Floyd, Supertramp and Toto. As an entrepreneur, he formed Walt Tucker Productions an audio video post production company in 1987. In 1992, he Co-founded 7th Level, Inc., a CD-ROM game and educational software company. Later, Page Co-founded New Media Broadcasting Company, a social media and collaborative communications enterprise. Since 2011, he has been the Co-founder and CEO of Direct2Care, an online presence management company for healthcare.Scott Page has received several acknowledgments and awards, primarily for his technology companies' achievements. Named one of “50 Pioneers of Multimedia,” Page has been guest lecturer and panelist at numerous conferences and university symposia. His industry acknowledgments include being named one of “The Top 100 Multimedia Producers” by Multimedia Magazine, the “100 Coolest People in Los Angeles” by Buzz Magazine, and one of “50 New Media Innovators” profiled in Pioneer Electronics' Multimedia Frontier.

As CEO of Executive Sales Source, Kevin Donahue’s passion is one of personal development. He wants to move and inspire people to make a difference. Kevin is a humanitarian, sought after global communicator, and consultant to numerous high profile clients such as the CIA, World Bank and two different Administrations in the White House.  Listen in as Kevin recounts his journey from growing up as the self-made richest kid in the neighborhood, to working for Charles Wong at Computer Associates. Don’t miss Kevin’s valuable advice to setting yourself and your business apart and with his help, he guarantees you will be able to triple or quadruple your prices in the next year! You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/1pzyIPD  

On This Episode : Tom Patterson, Jeff & Cindy Ullman and Andy AbramsonA highly acclaimed security expert, published author, and keynote speaker who provides compelling insight into cyber security issues of the day, Tom Patterson provides clarity while delivering a high energy view into security that is of critical importance today. Patterson shares his insights and incredible knowledge on an area a lot of us either don't know about, or is just to confusing to understand. If you have any questions regarding internet security do not miss this compelling interview! Currently CSC's Global GM for Cybersecurity Consulting, Tom has run security services for Deloitte in EMEA, was IBM's Chief eCommerce Strategist and a venture-backed founder/CEO. Tom has worked on security for the launch of a nuclear aircraft carrier and space shuttle as well as for the U.S. Government and plus businesses around the world. The author of Mapping Security, Tom is a frequent guest security expert on TV including CNBC and CNN.Let's face it, we all struggle from time to time with our significant other. Now and then we can use a little help! Twoology.com offers free use of the world's largest library of relationship expert videos, DIY Romantipedia Guides, and a host of powerful relationship tools. The company was created by Cindy Ullman and Jeff Ullman, who helped more singles meet, date, and marry than anyone in the 20th Century, are offering their socially responsible Twoology Relationship Fitness System to help couples make their relationship easier, happier, and more intimate. Jeff previously founded Great Expectations, the nationally-franchised video dating service.Andy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc., a 20+ person asymmetrical communications consultancy, geared to providing clients with Senior Advising, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications and Marketer-In-Residence services to start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to influencer relations, marketing, advertising, public relations, social media, promotion, events and reputation management in the technology, consumer products and business to business markets. In the last 10 years 27 of his agency's clients have exited, with three IPOs. Some of the acquiring companies include Google, eBay, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, IBM, Citrix Online, Computer Associates, Symantec and Logitech.

Brad Johnson is a leading force in the Culinary world. So how do you stand out in a world with a restaurant on every block? This is how Post & Beam was born, a concept he and and acclaimed Chef Govind Armstrong came up with, serving moderately priced California comfort food. The restaurant features a wood burning oven, open hearth cooking, open kitchen, patio and on-site garden. And Brad doesn't stop there, he is also the owner of Brad Johnson & Associates, a Restaurant management company dedicated to improving restaurant performance through cost effective operations, marketing and purchasing programs, comprehensive training, and sales development at the local level. Other services include concept development, site selection, design, build and project management consultation, and startup planning and implementation. Do not miss this incredibly informative interview!Mark Verge Founder and owner of Westside Rentals, a listings service for Southern California renters and landlords. Based in Santa Monica, Westside Rentals employs 80 people and lists about 20,000 apartments, houses and rooms for rent. Along the path: Verge rented office space in Santa Monica and attended trade conventions and apartment association meetings, where he would talk to owners and distribute Westside Rentals magnets and key chains. “It was honestly begging owners,” he says. “We'd do whatever it took to get that listing.” How it works: Owners and landlords get to list their properties free. Renters pay a membership fee of $60 for 60 days of access to the listings, which they can check out online, over the phone or in one of Westside Rentals' seven local officesAndy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc., a 20+ person asymmetrical communications consultancy, geared to providing clients with Senior Advising, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications and Marketer-In-Residence services to start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to influencer relations, marketing, advertising, public relations, social media, promotion, events and reputation management in the technology, consumer products and business to business markets. In the last 10 years 27 of his agency's clients have exited, with three IPOs. Some of the acquiring companies include Google, eBay, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, IBM, Citrix Online, Computer Associates, Symantec and Logitech.

Nell Merlino is Founder, President and CEO of Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence, the leading national not-for-profit provider of resources for women to grow their micro businesses into million $ enterprises. She is author of “Stepping Out of Line: Lessons for Women Who Want It Their Way in Life, in Love, and at Work,” from Broadway Books, which is available from Amazon.com. Throughout her career, Nell Merlino has been inspiring millions of people to take action. She is the creative force behind Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which moved more than 71 million Americans to participate in a day dedicated to giving girls the opportunity to dream bigger about their future.Nolan Bushnell, inventor of Pong and founder of Atari, is rightly considered the father of electronic gaming.Bushnell's career plans gelled while he was attending the University of Utah. At that time, he was learning the basics of computer graphics, while managing an amusement park and playing tournament chess on the side. Fascinated by the combination of computers, images, and fun, Bushnell went on to invent his first computerized video game, “Computer Space,” in 1970. This game, which looked like a prototype of the later “Asteroids,” was unfortunately too complicated and cumbersome for mass production.Steve Farber is the president of Extreme Leadership, Inc. and founder of The Extreme Leadership Institute, organizations devoted to changing the world through the cultivation and development of Extreme Leaders in business and beyond. Former “Vice President and Official Mouthpiece” (that's what it said on his business card) of The Tom Peters Company, Farber is a seasoned leadership coach and consultant who has worked with a vast array of public and private organizations in virtually every arena, from the tech sector to financial services, manufacturing, health care, hospitality, entertainment, retail, public education, non-profits, and government.Andy Abramson - Andy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc., a 20+ person asymmetrical communications consultancy, geared to providing clients with Senior Advising, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications and Marketer-In-Residence services to start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to influencer relations, marketing, advertising, public relations, social media, promotion, events and reputation management in the technology, consumer products and business to business markets. In the last 10 years 27 of his agency's clients have exited, with three IPOs. Some of the acquiring companies include Google, eBay, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, IBM, Citrix Online, Computer Associates, Symantec and Logitech.

Guests: Temeko Richardson, Chris Ovens, Jason Nazar, and Andy Abramson.Temeko Richardson is a techie entrepreneur and senior-level consultant with almost two decades of experience in devising corporate strategy, architecting operations planning, delivering customer relationship and customer experience solutions for leaders at Fortune 500 companies. She often shows how to implement systems to grow and diversify revenue, expand product development, and target customer outreach. Her vision for improving operational performance and cost-containment is outlined in her debut book, Get A Clue: 10 Steps to an Executive IQ.Chris Ovens is a pioneer and thought leader in enhancing business analytics with location. As co-founder and CEO of SpotOn Systems, he drove the adoption of Esri solutions in the IBM Cognos BI customer base. With the 2011 acquisition of SpotOn by Esri, Chris now leads the Esri Location Analytics business. The mission is to broadly, geo-enable the enterprise through the Esri ArcGIS platform.Jason Lawrence Nazar is the Co-Founder and CEO of Docstoc, the premier online destination to start, grow and manage small businesses. Docstoc hosts the best quality and widest selection of professional documents (over 30 million), and resources including articles, videos, & productivity tools to make every small business better. Docstoc is a top 500 most tracked website worldwide and has over 25 million registered users. It offers a vast collection of free resources & provides a monthly membership which unlocks its widest selection of premium content.Andy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc., a 20+ person asymmetrical communications consultancy, geared to providing clients with Senior Advising, Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications and Marketer-In-Residence services to start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to influencer relations, marketing, advertising, public relations, social media, promotion, events and reputation management in the technology, consumer products and business to business markets. In the last 10 years 27 of his agency's clients have exited, with three IPOs. Some of the acquiring companies include Google, eBay, Yahoo, Nokia, Cisco, IBM, Citrix Online, Computer Associates, Symantec and Logitech.

Download the MP3. Not to be called a one trick pony, Sam Wyly's turned himself into a billionaire by starting and growing companies in technology, oil, retail and even in the restaurant industry. Coming from a modest upbringing, Sam worked in sales at IBM and Honeywell before founding University Computing in 1963 at age 29 with just "$1,000 and an idea" as he puts it in his book of that title. The company IPOed and grew to over 5,000 people. Sam hired CEOs and stayed an entrepreneur. He's founded and acquired numerous companies including Bonanza Steakhouse (grew to 600 restaurants), Earth Resources Company, Sterling Software (sold for $3.3 billion), Sterling Commerce (sold for $4 billion), arts-and-crafts chain Michaels (sold for $6 billion), Maverick Capital (a hedge fund with over $10 billion under management) and clean-energy producer Green Mountain Energy. Despite being soft-spoken, Sam's fought and won several high profile proxy fights. Sam's been undeterred as several of his ventures have had visible failures over the years and he's lost audacious bids to take over Western Union and Computer Associates. On the whole, Sam's created a huge amount of value that's put him on the Forbes list of the 400 richest people. Hear how he does it. Show sponsor: FreshBooks - an easy online invoicing provider used by Venture Voice

The ecological goods and services provided by the southwest Alberta foothills are assets that contribute significantly to our economy and our quality of life. These headwaters of southern Alberta rivers comprise an exceptionally beautiful landscape and provide us clean water, clean air, biodiversity and carbon capture, as well as being the basis for a regenerative economy. If we protect the golden goose we can have its eggs forever. Increasingly, however, land use pressures including oil and gas development, mining, residential subdivision, timber harvest and off-road vehicle use threaten the watershed and sustainable livelihoods. So why are we so unsatisfied with the steady stream of golden eggs? Why are we so eager to trade assets for immediate cash flow? What does a sustainable society really mean? In their struggle to answer these questions, the people who live in our headwaters initiated the Southern Foothills Study. The study quantifies the slow and declining health of the goose. Do we really want to kill the golden goose? Speakers: Gordon Cartwright and Alan Gardner Gordon Cartwright is a successful third generation rancher in the Pekisko watershed living near where his grandfather settled in 1889. He has served on the Board of the Southern Alberta Land Trust Society (SALTS) and on the Citizens Advisory Committee for Public Lands. He is highly knowledgeable on energy flows within the biological systems of the native grassland. As a conservation easement donor he has made a significant personal contribution to sustaining the watershed. Alan Gardner is the executive director of SALTS. Alan has a long business background in Architecture and the Computer Industry. Most recently he was Consulting Director for Computer Associates, running their pre-sales, post-sales and web design organizations for Western Canada. Previous to entering the computer field he spent a dozen years as a practicing Architect in Calgary and Edmonton. His family has lived in the Pekisko country for over 100 years. Moderator: Cheryl Bradley Location: Sven Ericksen's Family Restaurant (lower level) 1715 Mayor Magrath Drive S., Lethbridge, Alberta Time: Noon to 1:30 p.m. / Cost: $8.00 includes lunch Visit the SACPA website: http://www.sacpa.ca

The ecological goods and services provided by the southwest Alberta foothills are assets that contribute significantly to our economy and our quality of life. These headwaters of southern Alberta rivers comprise an exceptionally beautiful landscape and provide us clean water, clean air, biodiversity and carbon capture, as well as being the basis for a regenerative economy. If we protect the golden goose we can have its eggs forever. Increasingly, however, land use pressures including oil and gas development, mining, residential subdivision, timber harvest and off-road vehicle use threaten the watershed and sustainable livelihoods. So why are we so unsatisfied with the steady stream of golden eggs? Why are we so eager to trade assets for immediate cash flow? What does a sustainable society really mean? In their struggle to answer these questions, the people who live in our headwaters initiated the Southern Foothills Study. The study quantifies the slow and declining health of the goose. Do we really want to kill the golden goose? Speakers: Gordon Cartwright and Alan Gardner Gordon Cartwright is a successful third generation rancher in the Pekisko watershed living near where his grandfather settled in 1889. He has served on the Board of the Southern Alberta Land Trust Society (SALTS) and on the Citizens Advisory Committee for Public Lands. He is highly knowledgeable on energy flows within the biological systems of the native grassland. As a conservation easement donor he has made a significant personal contribution to sustaining the watershed. Alan Gardner is the executive director of SALTS. Alan has a long business background in Architecture and the Computer Industry. Most recently he was Consulting Director for Computer Associates, running their pre-sales, post-sales and web design organizations for Western Canada. Previous to entering the computer field he spent a dozen years as a practicing Architect in Calgary and Edmonton. His family has lived in the Pekisko country for over 100 years. Moderator: Cheryl Bradley Location: Sven Ericksen's Family Restaurant (lower level) 1715 Mayor Magrath Drive S., Lethbridge, Alberta Time: Noon to 1:30 p.m. / Cost: $8.00 includes lunch Visit the SACPA website: http://www.sacpa.ca

This paper provides the first large scale study that examines the impact of both individual- and group-specific factors on the benefits users obtain from their user communities. By empirically analysing 924 survey responses from individuals in 161 Computer Associates' user groups, this paper aims to identify the determinants of successful user communities. To measure success, the amount of time individual members save through having access to their user networks is used. As firms can significantly profit from successful user communities, this study proposes four key implications of the empirical results for the management of user communities.

Don't get caught. Building off of Foster's log manipulation and bypassing forensics session at BlackHat Windows 2004, James C. Foster and Vincent T. Liu will share over eighteen months of continued private forensic research with the Black Hat audience including ground-breaking vulnerabilities and key weaknesses in some of the most popular tools used by forensic examiners including EnCase, CA eTrustAudit, and Microsoft ISA Server. Watch live demonstrations as Foster and Vinnie detail how to leverage these weaknesses to avoid being detected, and discover the theory and practice behind the most effective and cutting-edge anti-forensics techniques. Finally, learn how to turn a forensic analyst's training against himself by joining the speakers in a lively discussion of the "Top 10 Ways to Exploit a Forensic Examiner". This talk should be required viewing for all those on both sides of the fence, so come prepared to watch trusted forensics tools crumble. James C. Foster, Fellow, is the Deputy Director of Global Security Solution Development for Computer Sciences Corporation. Foster is responsible for directing and managing the vision, technology, and operational design for CSC's global security services. Prior to joining CSC, Foster was the Director of Research and Development for Foundstone Inc (acquired by McAfee). and was responsible for all aspects of product, consulting, and corporate Rresearch and developmentD initiatives. Prior to joining Foundstone, Foster was a Senior Advisor and Research Scientist with Guardent Inc (acquired by Verisign) and an editor at Information Security Magazine(acquired by TechTarget Media), subsequent to working as an Information Security and Research Specialist for the Department of Defense. Foster's core competencies include high-tech management, international software development and expansion, web-based application security, cryptography, protocol analysis, and search algorithm technology. Foster has conducted numerous code reviews for commercial OS components, Win32 application assessments, and reviews on commercial and government cryptography implementations. Foster is a seasoned speaker and has presented throughout North America at conferences, technology forums, security summits, and research symposiums with highlights at the Microsoft Security Summit, BlackHat, MIT Wireless Research Forum, SANS, MilCon, TechGov, InfoSec World 2001, and the Thomson Security Conference. He also is commonly asked to comment on pertinent security issues and has been cited in USAToday, Information Security Magazine, Baseline, Computer World, Secure Computing, and the MIT Technologist. Foster holds degrees in Business Administration, Software Engineering, and Management of Information Systems and has attended the Yale School of Business, Harvard University, the University of Maryland, and is currently a Fellow at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. Foster is also a well published author with multiple commercial and educational papers; and has authored, contributed, or edited for major publications to include "Snort 2.0", "Snort 2.1" 2nd Edition, "Hacking Exposed" 4th Ed and 5th Ed, "Special Ops Security", "Anti-Hacker Toolkit" 2nd Ed, "Advanced Intrusion Detection", "Hacking the Code", "Anti-Spam Toolkit", "Programmer's Ultimate Security DeskRef", "Google for Penetration Testers", "Buffer Overflow Attacks", and "Sockets, Shellcode, Porting, and Coding". Vincent Liu is an IT security specialist at a Fortune 100 company where he is responsible for assessing the security of the enterprise network infrastructure and participating as a member of the global incident response team.Before moving to his current position, Vincent worked as a consultant with the Ernst and Young Advanced Security Center and as an analyst at the National Security Agency. His specialties include penetration testing, web application assessments, incident response, binary reverse engineering, and exploit development. Vincent holds a degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. While at Penn, Vincent taught courses on operating system implementation and C programming, and was involved with DARPA-funded research into advanced intrusion detection techniques. He is currently a contributor to the Metasploit project, and is a contributing author for Sockets, Shellcode, Porting, and Coding. Vincent has also studied at the University of Maryland and the University of Kentucky.>

Don't get caught. Building off of Foster's log manipulation and bypassing forensics session at BlackHat Windows 2004, James C. Foster and Vincent T. Liu will share over eighteen months of continued private forensic research with the Black Hat audience including ground-breaking vulnerabilities and key weaknesses in some of the most popular tools used by forensic examiners including EnCase, CA eTrustAudit, and Microsoft ISA Server. Watch live demonstrations as Foster and Vinnie detail how to leverage these weaknesses to avoid being detected, and discover the theory and practice behind the most effective and cutting-edge anti-forensics techniques. Finally, learn how to turn a forensic analyst's training against himself by joining the speakers in a lively discussion of the "Top 10 Ways to Exploit a Forensic Examiner". This talk should be required viewing for all those on both sides of the fence, so come prepared to watch trusted forensics tools crumble. James C. Foster, Fellow, is the Deputy Director of Global Security Solution Development for Computer Sciences Corporation. Foster is responsible for directing and managing the vision, technology, and operational design for CSC's global security services. Prior to joining CSC, Foster was the Director of Research and Development for Foundstone Inc (acquired by McAfee). and was responsible for all aspects of product, consulting, and corporate Rresearch and developmentD initiatives. Prior to joining Foundstone, Foster was a Senior Advisor and Research Scientist with Guardent Inc (acquired by Verisign) and an editor at Information Security Magazine(acquired by TechTarget Media), subsequent to working as an Information Security and Research Specialist for the Department of Defense. Foster's core competencies include high-tech management, international software development and expansion, web-based application security, cryptography, protocol analysis, and search algorithm technology. Foster has conducted numerous code reviews for commercial OS components, Win32 application assessments, and reviews on commercial and government cryptography implementations. Foster is a seasoned speaker and has presented throughout North America at conferences, technology forums, security summits, and research symposiums with highlights at the Microsoft Security Summit, BlackHat, MIT Wireless Research Forum, SANS, MilCon, TechGov, InfoSec World 2001, and the Thomson Security Conference. He also is commonly asked to comment on pertinent security issues and has been cited in USAToday, Information Security Magazine, Baseline, Computer World, Secure Computing, and the MIT Technologist. Foster holds degrees in Business Administration, Software Engineering, and Management of Information Systems and has attended the Yale School of Business, Harvard University, the University of Maryland, and is currently a Fellow at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. Foster is also a well published author with multiple commercial and educational papers; and has authored, contributed, or edited for major publications to include "Snort 2.0", "Snort 2.1" 2nd Edition, "Hacking Exposed" 4th Ed and 5th Ed, "Special Ops Security", "Anti-Hacker Toolkit" 2nd Ed, "Advanced Intrusion Detection", "Hacking the Code", "Anti-Spam Toolkit", "Programmer's Ultimate Security DeskRef", "Google for Penetration Testers", "Buffer Overflow Attacks", and "Sockets, Shellcode, Porting, and Coding". Vincent Liu is an IT security specialist at a Fortune 100 company where he is responsible for assessing the security of the enterprise network infrastructure and participating as a member of the global incident response team.Before moving to his current position, Vincent worked as a consultant with the Ernst and Young Advanced Security Center and as an analyst at the National Security Agency. His specialties include penetration testing, web application assessments, incident response, binary reverse engineering, and exploit development. Vincent holds a degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. While at Penn, Vincent taught courses on operating system implementation and C programming, and was involved with DARPA-funded research into advanced intrusion detection techniques. He is currently a contributor to the Metasploit project, and is a contributing author for Sockets, Shellcode, Porting, and Coding. Vincent has also studied at the University of Maryland and the University of Kentucky.>

FoxShow #11: Show Opening: Racking my brain - Eric Eggleston Some links: LongHorn DotNot and is DotNet 2.0 ready for prime time yet? Eat Your Own Dog Food MS Goes to Hawaii When Do You Plan Your Next Build? Best Software: the next Computer Associates? Design Tip: Setting Your Environment How do YOU use the Foundation classes? Thanks for the note, Rick!