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Denis O'Shea, Founder of Mobile Mentor, helps organizations pursue a clear goal to simplify your tech environment while strengthening security and empowering employees to remain productive. Driven by the joy of learning and intellectual adventure, Denis left a 15-year career at Nokia to build a company that learns about emerging technologies, translates them into business outcomes, and mentors customers through change. In this conversation, Denis introduces The Tech Stack Streamlining Framework: Understand Current Tech Stack, Assess Capacity for Change, Benchmark to Peers, Build the Roadmap, and Deliver Simplified Tech Stack. He explains how immersing his team in a customer's environment, asking thoughtful questions, and benchmarking the organization against its peers can reveal a clear path toward a simpler technology stack. Denis also discusses Mobile Mentor's fast-growing mentoring service, how its Microsoft partnership transformed the business, the challenge of finding technology professionals who are natural mentors, and why people must remain responsible for the quality and accuracy of everything they produce with AI. — Simplify Your Tech Environment with Denis O’Shea  Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here, Management Blueprint Podcast. And today my guest is Denis O’Shea, the Founder of Mobile Mentor, a technology service provider helping thousands of clients find and maintain the right balance, securing devices, protecting data, and empowering people to be productive. Mobile Mentor is also a five-time Microsoft award winner. So Denis, welcome back to the show.  Thank you, Steve. Thank you for having me back. And I have to say, you look fantastic. You’re aging gracefully, and I hope I’m doing the same.  Well, unfortunately, my barber is on vacation, so I couldn’t visit him last week. But it’s great to have you back on the show, and we couldn’t agree whether it was two or four years ago that you were here. Anyhow, it’s great to have you back, and I’ve got some questions for you that I’m curious about. And first and foremost, the question is, what is your personal Why, and how are you manifesting it in your Mobile Mentor business?  My personal Why is probably learning. And I think the reason I went into business in the first place was to learn and grow as an individual. It certainly wasn’t money. I expect money as an outcome from the process, but I didn’t go into it for money. It was really to learn, and the trigger for me was I did an executive education program in Switzerland. I was living there for a few years, and that blew my mind. That just exploded my mind when I started learning all about mergers, acquisitions, turnarounds, management buyouts, all these different ways of growing a business that were nonlinear.  And that motivated me to go on and do an MBA, and that then motivated me to leave my employer, who was a great company. I was working for Nokia for 15 years. They were amazing, but I decided to leave them and go out and embrace all this nonlinear stuff and found a company from scratch. And one day I thought maybe I’ll do a spin-out, or maybe I’ll do an acquisition, and I’ll do all these different things. And it was purely for the joy of learning and the intellectual adventure. So I think that’s my Why. It’s learning.  Yeah. Well, learning is great, and it’s a big driver of businesses when they are able to learn, especially in today’s age. So tell me a little bit about how Mobile Mentor is reflecting this way of learning. Is it a learning organization, and in what way is it?  Oh, that’s an interesting question, Steve. I would hope we are a learning organization. Something I’ve been saying to my kids and my staff for years is, “We’re a learning species. We can learn anything we put our minds to.” And so I would hope we are a learning organization. And the word “mentor” plays a huge part in not just our brand, but how we work. So we’re a technology service company. We’re always unpacking the latest technology and helping customers figure out what to do with it and how to extract value from it.  So I would hope that we’re good at learning what the technology can do and then translating that into outcomes for customers and helping people unlock the full potential of the technology they’ve just purchased. And when we started 22 years ago, we were focused on mobile devices. That’s why the company’s called Mobile Mentor. Nowadays, it’s mainly AI and security and all that. And by the way, we’re going through a rebrand. The company’s just going to be called Mentor going forward. Just Mentor. So that we can work with all technology, so we remove any association with that small device where we started 22 years ago. So I think we are very good at learning, internalizing the new technology, and then translating that into business outcomes for our customers.  Yeah.  That’s what I feel like our core skill is.  Yeah. And I love this concept of mentoring because essentially it’s not about teaching people, it’s about helping people discover how to be great. And if you can do that, that’s amazing. So that brings me to the next question, which is about frameworks. So this, as you know, this podcast is about frameworks, and what I’m curious about is, what’s a framework that has helped you grow this company, build this company, or help your clients or mentor your clients? Maybe it’s a mentoring framework. Maybe it’s a technology framework. So something that comes to mind that can be explained in three to five steps to our listeners.  Sure. We have a really strong framework at the front end of our sales process. It’s an assessment and roadmap we do for customers. And it’s something that’s on our website. It has a price point, so it’s got a value, but we choose to give it away for free when we get a strong, well-qualified opportunity, or when we have a channel partner bring us a strong lead. We will use this assessment and roadmap process to build a vision for the customer. And the way we do it, we’ve got a good framework for this.  We go through an assessment. So we tell the customer, “We’re going to have a look at your environment holistically and get a really good understanding of the technology stack you have today, all the different technologies you’re using, and also get a good understanding of your organization’s capability and capacity for change, and how you embrace change, how you make change happen. “And we’re going to show you how you compare to a whole bunch of other organizations.” I think we’ve done 174, 175 of these in the last maybe three years. And so we show the customer how they compare to others in their industry and also against others roughly their same size. And then, most importantly, we build out a roadmap, and we show them, “Here’s how you can potentially go from where you are today with today’s technology stack,” which is usually very busy, it’s usually a long list of technologies, “to a much simpler technology stack in the future if they’re willing to consolidate on one or two platforms and do all the possible integrations, automations, and simplifications so that they’re extracting much more value from one or two platforms, like Microsoft, than having a whole colorful mix of different technology vendors.”  So we’ll say, “Here’s a journey you could go on,” and then we describe it in vivid detail, showing all the different parts and how they would go passwordless, how they would automate setting up new employees and all the technology they need, how they would automate all their patching and security, how they would embrace AI into their operations, how they would use AI for productivity improvements, and kind of show this technology journey. That process, or that framework, of doing an assessment, and it covers 120 different topics. So we do the assessment, the comparison, the roadmap.  We find that to be extremely powerful because customers will look at that, and they’ll look at the destination and say, “Right. We want to be there. We want to get that outcome,” and then they’re buying off us. We’re not selling to them. They’re basically saying, “Okay. We want to get there. How do we do it? Help us. How can you come in and help us do it?” So the narrative flips from us being a sales organization to then being a mentor and helping the customer figure out how to get there.  And of course, we want to sell services, and we want to sell long-term contracts to say, “Yes, we can take you from here to there, and it’s a three-year engagement to do all those changes.” So that’s what we want. But the customer is buying it off us because they’ve bought into the destination.  Yeah. And that’s the modern buyer’s journey, right? They research you. Before even they come to you, they want to listen to you because you might have something for them. So I love this framework. So what I noted down was step number one, understand the technology stack that they have. Step number two, assess their ability to manage change or to handle change.  Yeah.  Then you benchmark them to others in their industry or in their peer group. Then you build the roadmap, and then you show them the simplified end state, the simplified tech stack.  Correct. Correct. And then we give them options around how we can help them to get there. Usually, there’s three options. And we say, “Well, what style of engagement works best for you? How would you like us to work with you?” And then it becomes a very comfortable, easy sales process from there, and it becomes easy because we’ve done all the listening.  So when we do the assessment and we cover 120 topics, we do 60 questions in 60 minutes. So it’s two one-hour sessions. And we call it our “friendly interrogation.” But what happens during that time is what I call a selfless immersion in the customer’s world. So we don’t talk about us. We never talk about us. Everything is about them, their technology stack, their environment, their processes, their technical dependencies, all the things about their organization.  So we get this really rich understanding of their environment. And at the end, guess what they say, Steve? Or guess what they say at the end of that interrogation or that assessment session?  I don’t know. Give it to us. What do they say?  They say thank you, which is extraordinary, and it surprised me when it started happening. But people love to be heard. We’re not selling. We’re not pitching anything. We are just seeking to understand their environment and asking a whole bunch of really good questions. So we don’t need to tell them who we are and what we’ve done, that we’ve won Microsoft Partner of the Year and blah, blah, blah. We don’t need to do any of that.  They know that we know our stuff because of the questions we’re asking, because those questions have been refined and refined and refined. So we’re able to get right into the heart of their issues, and they tell us all about their environment and their issues and concerns and frustrations. And at the end of the assessment, they say, “Thank you.” And I remind them, I say, “We haven’t delivered anything yet. All we’ve done is asked you a whole bunch of questions.” But they feel like it was almost a cathartic process of unloading and sharing all of it. And then we do the second session, and the rapport gets even better, and they bring in some different people.  So by the time we get to the end of the assessment, we’ve had a really good conversation about 120 different things. There’s now a high degree of trust. And so when we come back in the third session, we say, “Okay, we heard you. Here’s where you are. Here’s how you compare to others. Here’s where you could be, and here’s what the journey would look like to get you there, taking all the complexities into account, all the dependencies, all the legacy, all the technical debt you might have. “Here’s what it would take to get you to where you want to be.” They’re now listening and they’re trusting us because we’ve listened to them.  Yeah. I love that. That is very powerful. And asking good questions is actually not always easy. In the age of AI, answers are omnipresent, but good questions, good prompts, that’s a skill, right? To ask the right question.  It is. And it’s interesting you mention AI because we’re not using any AI in the way we do this. We could choose to send out a form to the customer and say, “Please fill out this form.” Actually, we tried that. We tried that 10 or 12 years ago in our New Zealand operation, and it was a complete disaster. Nobody wants to fill out a long form and answer all those questions. But if you have a conversation face-to-face, on Teams or Zoom, whatever, you can have the conversation. You’ll get all the information.  But now we’re establishing rapport between us while we do that, and that also gives them a flavor of what it’s like to work with us. How we interact and how we follow up the question, how we drill down, how we clarify and confirm, “Did I understand that correctly?” in a way that you don’t get from just filling out a web form. And we also don’t use AI to analyze the transcript and try and fill it out. We actually do it based on us understanding it, because we find we get way more detail and nuance than relying on a transcript.  That’s very interesting. Definitely, when there’s a human on the other end who is interested in what you’re saying and is listening deeply, it’s a highly motivating and even inspiring thing. That’s why it’s hard to make a talk without the audience, because you need the energy of the audience. So you provide the energy for them to come up with the goods and explain where they are, right?  Yeah, yeah. So let me switch gears and ask you this. What drives growth in your business?  What drives growth? Two things. One, that process sets us up to be able to sell something. The fastest-growing thing that we sell is a service called mentoring, which is very closely aligned to our brand and the way we work, and it’s something that’s very unique to us. So what we figured out is that there are some customers who just want to bring in a partner to build something for them let’s say to deploy some new technology, and then they want the vendor to go away and leave them with it. There are other organizations who don’t want to touch the technology. They want somebody to provide a managed service, so you get all the outcomes.  And those two technology service categories have been around forever, right? Microsoft has 400,000 partners doing this kind of work, doing project work, or providing managed services. We found a huge white space in the middle between those two. We found there’s a big white space in the mid-market, in particular mid-market organizations, where they have their own IT team. They don’t want to give the keys away to a managed service provider and let go. They want to learn all about the new technology.  They want to internalize the knowledge, and they want somebody to come in and help them deploy it with them, and be hands-on-keyboard, and do it together with them, and do lots of knowledge transfer, and help them build the documentation and the knowledge base, and get the experience and the skills so that their skills grow, their confidence grows. And we call that service mentoring, where we’re doing that for them. So we’re not just building it and walking away, we’re building it together with them. And it can be a one-year, two-year, five-year engagement where we’re building out this complex technology capability, but we’re doing it together, and they become the experts over time. That is our fastest-growing, top-selling service.  That’s fascinating. So it’s essentially coaching, mentoring, and still you turn it into an ongoing engagement because it’s not simple, right? There are a lot of layers to it. And what’s the timeline of such a relationship?  Typically three years. Typically. It can be as short as one, it can be as long as five. But for most of the technology transformation projects we’re doing, I would say they’re two, three, four years for the organization to change and embed all the changes and turn off all the legacy technology and fully embrace the new way of working. So our typical contract is three years. And then we set up all the cadences so that we’re working together every week through specific things, and there’s a weekly cadence, our engineers doing all that stuff, and then monthly coming up for air to see how we’re doing against the roadmap. Do we need to make any changes? What’s the focus for next month? And that’s a rolling process that keeps going on and on. And so the two teams end up working extremely closely.  Our engineering team, and we’re bringing in different architects, engineers, and there’s obviously a consistent project manager across it. And on the customer side, they’re bringing different engineers or architects depending on the piece of work we’re doing. But it’s generally all modernizing the way they work with Microsoft technology primarily, and changing from legacy stuff to very modern, invisible security, embedded AI, really trying to accelerate their maturity as an organization.  Yeah. Love it.  Does that make sense?  So it makes sense. I’m wondering, I mean, most businesses these days, they want to have recurring revenue, and even though you have a three-year engagement, it’s still not an evergreen engagement. So what do you do to turn these engagements into more of an enduring one, or you’re not trying to do it because it’s not the purpose?  That’s the $64 million question for our business, Steve, is how do we turn a two-year or three-year engagement into something longer? And it actually comes back to where you started with the learning thing. So what we need to be doing, and this is a constant battle for us, is learning about the latest and the newest technologies and staying ahead of the customer. Always staying ahead in terms of our knowledge so that we can keep adding new things to the backlog of work that needs to be done.  So that we might deploy technology A and get that done and do the migration and modernization, but then we need to move on to B and C and D and E. And there’s always new stuff, and actually the rate of change is accelerating now with AI. Everything is changing so fast, it’s unbelievable. But our job is to stay ahead so that we can always have something new and edgy that we can bring to the relationship. That we’re always able to give new knowledge, information, value.  So is it a managed technology business or is it more of a consulting business?  Ah, we are three different things. We do a lot of project work where people will come in and say, “Migrate us from platform A to platform B.” So we do that. We do this mentoring service where we’re doing the change and modernization together with the customer. We’re also a managed service provider. We have a lot of small and medium businesses that say, “We don’t have an IT team. We don’t want to have an IT team. Manage this stuff, make it invisible to us. Just give us great service and give us great reports and be transparent with us.” And that’s part of our business too.  So I would say we’re roughly one-third professional services, project work, one-third mentoring, and one-third managed services. So more than half the business is recurring revenue in any given year.  So what makes this kind of business hard to scale, or what makes it easy to scale?  What makes it hard to scale is finding great people who can learn and share that learning with customers, so people who are natural mentors. So what we do not want is to hire geeks who want to just put on noise-canceling headsets and sit in front of a screen coding all day. They would not work for us. We want people who are head up, good people skills, want to learn it, but want to share it. Naturally very good at sharing. So getting the right people, that’s one constraint to growth. The thing that makes growth easy for us is our relationship with Microsoft. That’s unbelievable.  We didn’t have a relationship with Microsoft 11 years ago, and they came to us and asked us to become a partner, and we did. And they asked us to work with them on a specific technology that was very immature at the time. And I set a goal for our team. I said, “What would it take us to become the best in the world at that one specific technology? To become the best in the world on that technology as it matures and grows?” And we set that as our North Star and really went after that and focused everything on that.  And that enabled us then to win Microsoft Global Partner of the Year based on our focus on that. And by winning that award, that got us noticed because they got 400,000 partners. So at the time, I was based in New Zealand, so basically the second-last rock before the end of the earth. And so we were nobody in a nowhere place and not noticed, and we’re just one of 400,000, completely lost in the noise. We got noticed when we won Global Partner of the Year and when we got recognized for being the best in the world at that one technology, and that changed everything, and I moved to America.  Then Microsoft introduced us to a whole bunch of customers, including the largest healthcare organization in the world, the largest education provider in the world, and largest government departments. And so now our business is totally different to what it looked like 11 years ago before Microsoft. And this goes on and on. So almost every day, they contact us to say, “Hey, we got this customer over here, and they got this problem, and we thought of you.” And then they introduce us, and we do our assessment, show them how they compare, build a roadmap, and say, “What would you like to do from here?”  Yeah. I’m just very curious about what is that technology, and what is the ideal customer for you for that technology? That technology is a platform called Intune. It’s a device management platform, so it’s for managing desktops, laptops, MacBooks, smartphones, tablets, and all that. And everything we do, of course, starts with a device. And so it’s the technology that secures and manages and configures our devices. Microsoft Intune is the name of the product, and that’s where we’ve got very, very deep expertise. But that leads us to all the other parts of the Microsoft 365 environment, and most organizations are using Microsoft 365 to some extent.  So in most cases, they’re coming to us and saying, “Hey, this customer has bought our licenses. They’ve got Microsoft 365 E5 or E3, whatever. They’re not using it all. They’ve got all these overlapping competitive products. They want to consolidate, reduce costs, or they want to improve security, or they want to simplify their environment. Can you help?” And we’re like, “Hell yeah, we can help. That’s right in our wheelhouse.” And so we have a discovery call with the customer. They tell us what they want to achieve, and if they’re a good fit for our assessment and roadmap, then we’ll propose that. So we’re not trying to sell anything at that stage, and we’ll do that.  It’s many, many hours of work. We’ll do that roadmap and assessment at our cost. Sorry, that’s our investment. That’s our investment in the relationship, so that we’re showing that we’re giving value back to the customer and to Microsoft because they brought us that lead, and we’re creating value from day one. And sometimes the customer will go, “Thank you. We understand the journey. We’re going to do it ourselves,” or, “We’ve got an existing partner,” or, “We don’t have budget,” whatever. And so we don’t land them all, but we’ve got a very high conversion rate. We land a lot of them.  And even if we don’t, I know that we deliver a huge amount of value through the process, and the customer goes, “Wow, that was great. That was a great process. We learned a lot. We can see where we need to go. We might be back in touch in the future when we do have budget or when the stars align.”  Or they refer someone else.  Yeah.  So if you had a magic wand and you could fix one thing in your business in the next 12 months, what would that be?  I would say it would be doing more with AI internally. Some days I feel like an imposter because we are selling a lot of AI services, and we do a lot of AI work for our customers. But I, as the leader, I don’t do enough. I’m not doing enough with AI. I’m not building enough capability. I’m leading the charge, but I’m not savvy enough myself. And I feel like our leadership team could be doing more. So I feel like doing more, embedding more AI into how we work, is something I want to change or fix in the next year. Not just doing it for customers.  Yeah. I mean, you can never do enough with AI, right? There’s so much out there and so much changing, and to stay ahead of it, one’s head is spinning all the time. It’s very inspiring, but can be also overwhelming.  That’s true. And one of the things I’m dealing with is managing what we call AI slop, where we see people internally and externally producing things that are not good-quality outcomes because it hasn’t been double-checked. So just because it could be produced quickly and easily by AI doesn’t mean it’s great or specific enough or detailed enough or accurate enough for the result, whether that’s an internal report or an external thing.  So the coaching I’m giving people is you’re still responsible for the thing, the quality of the thing. You have to read it, make sure it’s on point, it’s detailed enough, the customer’s going to be happy with it or your manager’s going to be happy with it. We are still responsible for the thing we produce. Let’s not get lazy.  Yeah. And the more content you generate and the more solutions you generate with AI, the more the mental load on the decision-makers to actually filter out what’s not real and what’s real.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah. I can see that happening. So if someone is listening to this and says, “Wow, I love this idea that you benchmark me, you figure out what our tech is, learn our tech, benchmark us, come up with a roadmap, and evaluate the organization, how fast we can manage change, and then come up with a roadmap and mentor us to get there and simplify our tech stack,” and would like to learn more and perhaps connect with you, where should they go? Where can they find out more information?  I’m on LinkedIn only. I’m not on other social platforms. I’m a bit of a Neanderthal in that regard. But Denis, with one N and O’Shea, O-S-H-E-A, on LinkedIn, and my company is Mobile Mentor. It will be Mentor soon, but we’ll keep the Mobile Mentor alive for quite a while. And so go to the company, mobile-mentor.com. And yeah, love to talk to any of your listeners and audience if this is a technology journey they want to go on or want a partner to work with them. That’s the role we play, being a mentor and helping people get the outcomes, but internalizing it and becoming experts while doing so.  Yeah. So if you want to filter out the AI slop and the AI noise, and you want real people who will look at your specific situations and help you and mentor you and help your staff get up to speed and simplify, then reach out to Denis. And if you enjoyed this conversation, stay tuned because every week I bring a couple of entrepreneurs who are sharing their frameworks of how they’re improving and growing their businesses, and you can implement some of these things yourself.  So thanks, Denis. Denis O’Shea, the founder and CEO of Mobile Mentor, soon to be called Mentor. Thanks for coming on the show, and thank you for listening. Thank you, Steve. Always a pleasure. Important Links: Denis's LinkedIn Denis's website

In this recap episode, Lesley Logan and Brad Crowell dig into their favorite takeaways from the conversation with Tara Connaghan, a traditional Irish fiddle player from Donegal whose award-winning podcast decodes the unspoken rules of Irish music sessions. They unpack why unfamiliar spaces feel so intimidating to newcomers, the etiquette of joining as a beginner, the three kinds of people every new learner needs.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co mailto:beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.In this episode you will learn about:The importance of supporting local Black-owned businesses.The etiquette of easing into a group as a beginner.Brad's jazz sessions and what his class taught him about listening.Why daily practice outperforms one long session each week.How filling your cup makes everything else feel easier.Episode References/Links:upLift - xxll.co/uwseLevate Live Q&A - lesleylogan.co/elevateOPC Summer Tour (Powered by Balanced Body) - OPC.me/eventsOPC Flashcards - opc.me/flashcardsPilates on Tour - xxll.co/potNevada SPCA - https://nevadaspca.orgBy Black Business Directory - https://www.byblack.usSession Etiquette Website - https://www.sessionetiquette.comSession Etiquette Retreat - sessionetiquette.com/retreatIn Tune with Tradition Podcast - https://beitpod.com/taraconnaghanpodTara Connaghan IG - https://www.instagram.com/tarafiddleTara Connaghan FB - https://www.facebook.com/tara.connaghanTara Connaghan LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/taraconnaghanTara Connaghan YT - https://beitpod.com/arayoutubeSubmit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSIDEALS! 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DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentCheck out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentBe in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlistBe It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-surveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gLesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQProfitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gFacebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilatesLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses Episode Transcript:Lesley Logan 0:00  When you are a beginner, there is an anxiety about how do I join? What's the etiquette? Do I have enough skills to be here? Am I allowed to sit here? Can I sit there? And she explained that you're scared because you just don't know how to enter the space. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that when we're a beginner at things, we're allowed to have some fear, you know?Lesley Logan 0:15  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. Lesley Logan 0:58  Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap, where my co-host in life, Brad and I are going to dig into the warm convo I have with Tara Connaghan in our last episode. If you haven't yet listened to the interview, you can pause this, go listen to that, and then come back to this. You can listen to this, then go back to that. She has an Irish accent.Brad Crowell 1:12  Yes, she does.Lesley Logan 1:13  So sometimes that's fun to listen to.Brad Crowell 1:15  It sure was. She's also a musician. Love that.Lesley Logan 1:18  Yes, yes. And she has a great podcast as well. It's winning awards, even though it's brand new, because it's so niche. It's a niche in a niche. It's kind of amazing, but we'll get into that in a minute. First, today is August 20, 2026, and it's World Mosquito Day because, you know what? Those little fuckers need their own day. Honestly, because you need to be reminded that they suck. But you need to know how bad it is because it's...Brad Crowell 1:39  Literally.Lesley Logan 1:40  Oh, that's so funny! Pun wasn't intended, but I slayed that. So World Mosquito Day unites global health efforts every August 20th commemorating Sir Ronald Ross's 1897 discovery that mosquitoes transmit malaria. Well, thanks, Sir Ronald Ross. Do you think his parents named him Sir Ronald Ross, or he was Ronald Ross, and then they got the "Sir"?Brad Crowell 2:01  He got the "Sir."Lesley Logan 2:01  Oh, okay.Brad Crowell 2:02  Yeah.Lesley Logan 2:02  Well, this crucial day raises awareness about the ongoing threat of mosquito-borne illnesses like dengue, dengue?Brad Crowell 2:09  DengueLesley Logan 2:09  Dengue, Zika. Brad Crowell 2:11  Yeah, it would be normally known as dengue fever.Lesley Logan 2:13  Yeah, dengue fever, Zika, and yeah. Brad Crowell 2:16  Good luck on that one.Lesley Logan 2:20  Chikungunya. I'm reminding.Brad Crowell 2:25  It could be Chikungunya. Chikungunya.Lesley Logan 2:28  I'm not sure. Yeah. Anyways, well, my speech therapy didn't help me with that one. Discover how you can protect yourself, support research, and contribute to eradication initiatives worldwide. You know what you can do? Keep your fucking still water from being still. You guys, stir your pools. Don't let, you know, I listened to an episode of The Daily years ago when it was good, and it talked about how there are these mosquitoes that can live in a capful, you know those plastic water bottles? That size capful of water in a tire across continents. So on a ship that takes months, and then they can just spread. They don't need a lot of water anymore. So you guys have got to move your water around. Do you remember when we lived in LA and there was a big deal about the virus, and we were like at the airport. Everybody was on guard for puddles and drying things up. It was a weird community. It was before COVID, but LA had a community because people were getting... I don't think it was Zika, but there was a virus being carried by the mosquitoes, and it was a reason why even the airport had to clean up their water. They were giving out fines.Brad Crowell 3:31  I can't remember what it was, because Zika is usually in Asia, but it obviously can spread.Lesley Logan 3:37  So obviously, I talk about standing water around your home, but applying an EPA-registered repellent and raising awareness about mosquito-borne diseases is a great way to support the public health initiatives. Isn't it funny if we just start going around. Everybody today, I want you to go around and go, "It's World Mosquito Day. Do you have any standing water? Do you know how to get rid of mosquitoes?" So Vegas was notoriously known for having no mosquitoes, and now we have lots of mosquitoes. We have a whole mosquito problem, and at UNLV, there's a woman who studies the whole thing. But now we have mosquitoes, and it's really annoying because I thought I only got bit by mosquitoes when I was in Cambodia. Now we get bit all the time.Brad Crowell 4:10  It's not even, I mean, honestly, LA was, I felt like I got more mosquitoes in LA than Cambodia, but it depends on the time of year in Cambodia. I think it depends on the season, of course. But there definitely are mosquitoes there. We had a lot more in Thailand than Cambodia.Lesley Logan 4:26  Thailand killed me. Cambodia, I've learned to figure it out. And when you come to our retreat in Cambodia, we tell you what to do so you don't get bit. All right, you guys, what do we got going on? We're on our way back from the tour, actually. So we're probably either in El Paso or on our way to Tucson right now. We're gonna wrap it up in a few days in Las Vegas. And something you need to know, I'm really, really proud of. I started a teacher-training program for new teachers. So if you heard the rumor, it is true, and it's called upLift, and it will start early next year at a studio, hopefully near you. So, in fact, in the next couple weeks, I'll be taking applications from the people who want to license and teach the program, and then this fall, I'll be training them how to do it. Then I'll be working alongside them to make sure that it is done the way I know it will work and change your life and change the lives of the people that you teach. So you should go to xxll.co/uws if you would like to be a student. This is for first-time teachers or partially trained teachers, or maybe people who want to bridge into classical and they want it to be more of an in-person experience. So xxll.co/uws. And then for those who are already comprehensively trained and you want more of a master's program, you can go watch the recent eLevate Live Q&A call I did at lesleylogan.co/elevate. That's L-E-S-L-E-Ylogan.co/elevate. I did a mini class. I answered a ton of questions. We have a bunch of grads on there. We are filling 2028 as we speak, and only people who graduate eLevate can actually teach upLift. So if you are like, "Oh my God, how do I get my application in?" You won't even find out until you have done eLevate. So there you go. All right, you guys, we got a lot going on. Balanced Body sponsored our tour, so we're so excited because we have to take Contrology equipment everywhere, and we're spending a lot of time with them the rest of this year. I'll tell you more about that in a second. But thank you to Balanced Body for sponsoring our summer tour, and they are also sponsoring our winter tour this year, which we will announce next month. So make sure that you're on our email list so you don't miss out because literally on the summer tour, several cities sold out in one day. Brad Crowell 6:27  In one day. Lesley Logan 6:28  In one day.Brad Crowell 6:29  Yeah. So how do you get on the waitlist? Go to OPC.me/events.Lesley Logan 6:33  There you go. Go do that. Okay. So if you're new here, one of the ways you can actually support us is by being an OPC member. But if that's more of a commitment than you want to make, when you buy our amazing flashcards at opc.me/flashcards, not only do you support us and this podcast, but you're also supporting the Nevada SPCA. Just so you know.Brad Crowell 6:49  Yeah, but I just wanted to say before we move on, becoming a member, you can start with a trial. So it's a 40-day trial for 40 bucks, and you pick the trial based on the equipment you have access to, and then you get to come hang in this awesome community we have. We just revamped our community page, the whole community platform. It's really cool and just awesome people. So not only that, you can do it anywhere you are.Lesley Logan 7:15  Yeah, anywhere you are, at any level, with whatever you got. It's pretty great. It is the workout that works for you. That's what we say. So you guys, we're going to be home for a bit, and then we're going to be in Cambodia. You cannot join us this year in Cambodia, but you can certainly join us next year by getting on our waitlist. We will open up our early-bird special in January. If you hear a dog snoring in the background, her name is Darla. We cannot stop this; it's just going to keep going. But before we head to Cambodia, we're actually driving to Sacramento. I'm teaching, and we'll have a booth at the Sacramento POT. It is the Balanced Body 50th-Year Celebration. The ultimate, the penult, the penultimate, the, what do you call it? I mean, they've been celebrating all year long at all the different POTs.Lesley Logan 7:53  No, but anyways, it's at the headquarter area, and it's gonna be so much fun. And then after that, I'll be at the POT India. So I am at all the 50th anniversary POTS. Basically, I'll be aBrad Crowell 8:03  A 50-year celebration is called a golden jubilee or a golden anniversary.Lesley Logan 8:08  The Jubilee. I don't think they know that. I don't think they do either because they could have done a Jubilee instead of a whatever party. Anyways, here we are. So, if you want information about the Sacramento POT or what I'm doing in Goa, India, which, by the way, it looks stunning. I really will just say yes. I said yes because it's going to be at this stunning resort at the beach in Goa, and there's a bunch of Americans who are also going because they're like, "I wanted to take a workshop from you, and I've always wanted to go to India." And I'm like, "Well, see you there." Me too. So xxll.co/pot will get you information on both Sacramento and Goa. I have no idea how to get you information, but I am going to teach in China this year.Brad Crowell 8:44  Woo!Lesley Logan 8:45  This is a big deal.Brad Crowell 8:46  Yeah, just outside of Shanghai.Lesley Logan 8:47  Yeah, I don't even know how I'm getting there yet at the time of this recording. But we're figuring it out, everyone. Basically, here's what's going on. I am doing a lot of traveling with and without Brad this year because next year I'm not, because next year we're focused only on upLift, eLevate, our tours, and so it's quite an exciting time. I haven't said yes to anything for next year, and we're recording this in the summer, which is kind of insane because usually I'm already booked out, but we're not because we're saying, "Not yet, not yet." Anyways, all right, we got to get into this episode, but before that, Brad, what is the awareness that we're bringing people's attention to today?Brad Crowell 9:25  Yeah. So as you know, we switched to charity of the week instead of questions. So today we are doing something slightly different. We encourage you to seek out local businesses in your community to celebrate National Black Business Month. Yeah. So this month, instead of highlighting just one charity, we're focused on the whole month to go out and support your local Black-owned businesses. Why? Back in 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it was home to one of the wealthiest Black communities in the country, the Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street. In the span of about 15 years, it had built up hundreds of Black-owned businesses: grocers, theaters, hotels, doctors' offices, over 1000 homes. And then, over a two-day period, white mobs, some of them literally deputized by the city, burned more than 35 city blocks. They burned them to the ground, and as many as 300 people died. Roughly 10,000 were left homeless, and not a single person was ever prosecuted. Yeah, for decades it barely appeared in the history books, and Greenwood residents rebuilt, but the community never got back to where it fully was. Survivors were never compensated. So when we talk about supporting Black-owned businesses today, it's not just a nice idea; it's part of rebuilding something that was deliberately destroyed.Lesley Logan 10:42  It's crazy because I didn't learn about this. I heard about this around 2020.Brad Crowell 10:46  Yeah, I started to hear about this. Actually, there were TV shows that were focused on this in the superhero world, and I started watching it, and I was like, "Whoa, this is crazy! How did I never hear about this?" And then I started to really learn more about it, and it's just tragic. It's just unbelievable. It's unbelievable.Lesley Logan 11:04  Here's the thing: if a hurricane does this, we're in an uproar if the government doesn't go in fast enough and fix things, right? But this was deliberately done. This is not, it's just hate racism. Yeah. And then no one went in and helped any of these people, and so yet again, a group of people were set back even further. So not only did we not do restitution after slavery, when they finally do get ahead, well, let's burn it to the ground and create even more problems. And so it's just really fucking frustrating.Brad Crowell 11:34  There is a, you know, if you're wondering how to go support local Black-owned businesses in your community, there's a great resource that you can use, that is ByBlack.us. It's a national directory built by the U.S. Black Chamber of Commerce. It's searchable by location and even has curated city guides. So wherever you're listening from, you can find Black-owned businesses near you. And if you're local to us in Las Vegas, check out the Greater Las Vegas Black Chamber of Commerce at glvbcc.org, and also the Henderson Black Chamber of Commerce or the local directory called Black Biz Connect Las Vegas.Lesley Logan 12:16  Yeah, and that came up just when we were doing this search, so you can also figure that out by putting your city in. It's just a great thing to do if you want to just be... Here's the deal: we vote with our dollars, and so every single day there are things that we have to do for these fucking billionaires because we can't get away from it. But also, you can do this, and you can make small changes. So it's really important. We recently, at the time of recording this, had donated $800 to the Nevada SPCA, right? And I was like, "Oh, I know it's only $800," and they're like, "It's a lot of money. Thank you so much." It's from your flashcards for quarter two. And I said, "Oh, can I find out what does that do?" And they were able to show me what $800 can do, right? It can feed 114 shelter animals for one week. So when you take your dollars and you put them locally into a locally owned business, you are making major impacts. The ripple effects are things you can't even understand or see. And then when you direct that to being a Black-owned business, you are actually helping. It's just something that's really, really amazing because that means family members and friends of that business owner are seeing that they can be successful as an entrepreneur. If you can't see things happen in your life, it's really hard to be it till you see it. So I just think it's important. I thought it was a great way to honor this month. And so just put your city in and put "Black-owned businesses," and you'll get a list, I'm sure.Brad Crowell 13:33  Yeah, awesome. So thanks for supporting your local Black-owned businesses. And if you have any Black-owned businesses, or actually any charities at all, that you suggest that we do some research on and then bring to the pod, text us at 310-905-5534. 310-905-5534. Stick around. We'll be right back. Brad Crowell 13:54  All right. Well, let's talk about Tara Connaghan. Tara is a traditional Irish fiddle player from Donegal with nearly 40 years of experience playing music. I think she said more than 40 years of experience. In fact, I think she said she's been teaching for 40 years.Lesley Logan 14:10  I mean, she doesn't look that old, so I don't think she could be. I don't think she's in her 60s.Brad Crowell 14:14  Regardless, she's very, very clearly an expert. She's the creator and host of the award-winning podcast, In Tune with Tradition: Perspectives on Session Etiquette and Irish Traditional Music. That is a very niche pod.Lesley Logan 14:29  It's a niche in a niche.Brad Crowell 14:30  It breaks down the unspoken cultural rules of Irish music sessions. She also teaches adults and leads private immersion experiences in Ireland for musicians wanting to dive deeper on session culture. Side note: She actually has a tour coming up in September 2026, so next month. So go to sessionetiquette.com/retreat for details. Pretty sure she said it's happening in Ireland. Lesley Logan 14:55  I think so. And also, by the way, if you don't even know what Irish music is and session etiquette, don't be like, "What is this podcast episode about?" I don't know, because actually everything that we discussed about that can be applied to being a beginner at anything. So I really, really like it.Brad Crowell 15:09  Yeah. Yeah. So.Lesley Logan 15:11  Well, I'll just go first. So I think we can all understand. When you're a beginner, there can be a performance anxiety of sorts. You're not sure if you're wanting to be a knitter. Okay, an example: Andrea Maida and her husband and Brad and I went to a knitting store because Andrea Maida, a dear friend of ours, Pilates instructor, is a knitter. So we go to a knitting store, and there's a whole table of all these knitters, and they're just hanging out. And Andrea's like, "We can just go talk to them." And I'm, "I don't... are we allowed to go talk to them?" And then the first thing someone says, "Are you knit worthy?" Remember that? "Are you knit worthy?" And I was, "I don't know." If I was an aspiring knitter, I can tell you right now that I didn't feel welcome. I felt anxiety. But the other people, "Oh, don't let her get to you. You can sit down here." But I didn't know the etiquette of walking into a knit place. And so, when you are a beginner, there is an anxiety about how do I join? What's the etiquette? Do I have enough skills to be here? Am I allowed to sit here? Can I sit there? And she explained that you're scared because you just don't know how to enter the space. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that when we're beginners at things, we're allowed to have some fear, you know. Brad Crowell 16:15  100%. I mean, it's just natural. It's part of it. It's like getting on stage the first time you're on stage. Your throat is parched. You're completely freaking out inside, but it just takes practice. The more you do it, the less you're in that headspace. Yeah. But also, too.Lesley Logan 16:32  You play jazz, right? You play jazz.Brad Crowell 16:35  I played jazz. It's been a long time.Lesley Logan 16:37  But there are sessions. There's times when people get together to just play, and then there are times people can join in, right?Brad Crowell 16:43  Yes. So I'm going to talk a little bit more about that when I share what I really loved about this conversation. But yes, in the jazz world, it's called a jam session, right? And you hear musicians, "Let's get together and jam." I generally hate a jam session when it's not jazz music, honestly. It was interesting to hear her talk about the different levels of learning and the different layers of how people interact in a jam session. Because when I was younger, when I was studying jazz and I was performing, I play the trombone, for all of you who don't know. I started playing in fourth grade, and I went all the way through college studying very intentionally on the trombone. And I was really good at the time, really, really good. I wasn't ever recording on the trombone because what I was really passionate about was playing the bass and singing. So even though I was really good on the trombone, that wasn't really where my heart was at the time. When I was playing it in college, you'd get together with people, and if they were not that good on their instrument or they hadn't had a lot of experience playing with other people in a space where you're listening to other people, then you don't know what to do. And this is a perfect parallel. Have you ever been in a conversation where someone only talks about themselves?Lesley Logan 18:06  Yeah.Brad Crowell 18:06  The whole fucking time.Lesley Logan 18:08  Yeah.Brad Crowell 18:08  And they never ask a reciprocating question.Lesley Logan 18:11  Yeah.Brad Crowell 18:12  It's not a back-and-forth.Lesley Logan 18:13  Yeah.Brad Crowell 18:14  Yeah. Musicians can do that too. They can just take over.Lesley Logan 18:17  Well, and I think to wrap up my point, what I love is just like she says, once you learn the rules and the etiquette, the anxiety can disappear because you know what the rules are. I think a lot of times some of us are afraid to be beginners, and then we don't ever get to figure out what the rules are, so we never feel like we can be a beginner. But if you know what the rules are, then you know where you can play, right? I think, in a non-musical example, I get people who want to be on this podcast all the time. They're like, "We should do a pod swap." They pitch me. I'm okay. I love the balls. I love that confidence. They have 10 episodes. I have 700. I appreciate the invite, but that's not a mutual thing. I'm bringing so much more expertise. They're not going to have the conversation I want to have with 700 episodes with their 10. Or maybe they have a whole other following. They could back that up. Maybe they're up-and-coming. But really, no offense to them, it's not like they are below, but they actually need to go get experience with other people with 10 episodes, coming over here is not really going to be helpful for them because they don't really, you have to have experience to play. Like in Pilates, I absolutely love taking sessions from people who've been teaching for decades, right? But I'm not going to be, "Oh, you want to do a trade, Jay? Sandy, should we trade?" No. Not that I can't teach them something, but really it's not an equal exchange of information.Brad Crowell 19:37  Yeah, I mean, this rolls straight into one of the things I loved about the conversation. She was talking about the etiquette of joining sessions as a newbie or a beginner. She said it's a very gentle process where you're kind of coming into it in a gentle way, and the anxiety of it and the, you have to be self-aware enough to know that you are easing your way in. For me, the easy parallel is growing up in a large family where I had lots of aunts and uncles and thinking about Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner or something where everyone came over and they had the kids' table and they had the adults, right? And the kids' table, their conversation was generally about kid stuff, but I always ended up gravitating toward the adult table. And when I would get there, I had nothing to contribute to the conversation because I was 12, right? What do I know? I don't know anything about anything. But I'm listening to the adults talk about adult things, which I didn't even know what they were talking about. Didn't matter. I didn't have anything to contribute, so I didn't say anything, right? So when I was mentioning earlier, sometimes people can be in conversations where they 100% dominate the conversation, and it's not a conversation; it's one-sided. Alternatively, the other side of that is never contributing to a conversation and not having the confidence to speak up. And a lot of people never get past that, right? Even imagine if I was 12, then 15, then 18, and I'm still sitting at the adult table, but I'm not talking. I'm not participating in the conversation. I'm still taking it all in, but why am I not contributing back, right? So there's these two sides of the fence there. Lesley Logan 21:19  There's two extremes, and there's allowing yourself to be an observer because you're new to that table, and then at some point, you got to shit or get off the pot.Brad Crowell 21:27  Yeah, that's right. At some point, you actually have to participate. Lesley Logan 21:30  And I think where it happens is there has to be someone at that table who also invites you in. Brad Crowell 21:33  Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Lesley Logan 21:34  Remember the knitting table we started with? That woman who was, "Are you knit worthy?" I was, "I don't think so." I don't think I even replied to her. But then there was, "Oh, come sit down! Don't let her scare you!" Right?Brad Crowell 21:45  That's right.Lesley Logan 21:45  There needs to be someone who is aware of all the dynamics, who can be the guide.Brad Crowell 21:51  Yeah.Lesley Logan 21:51  You know, and so then you attach yourself to the guide, and you allow the guide to show you what's going on, what's the appropriate behavior here. We're watching The Pitt again, you guys. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. There's so much nuance to The Pitt. I love it so much. Dynamics, everything, everything. I can apply science of learning to The Pitt. All these different things, right? And that Mel King, bless her soul, her character just speaks in my heart. But she's going to high-five people after they save a guy's life, and no one high-fives her because that's not the etiquette. It's not what you do. It's your first day, babe. You're in their third hour, right? And so she's, "Oh, okay." She sits down. So she's trying to observe what the behavior is and trying to learn how to fit in. And it takes time. You're going to get it wrong. And that's the thing. You are going to fuck up at some point. You are going to think that you're invited in and you're doing the right thing. But actually, they changed the rules last week, and they moved it half an hour. And that doesn't make you a bad person. You just got to have self-awareness, you know, and then also a little gumption.Brad Crowell 22:50  Yeah, and I think, you know, thinking back to etiquette of joining a session as a newbie or beginner, it is valuable to sit at the kids' table when you're a kid so that you can have conversations with your peers, and then you learn something from that so that when you do move to the adults' table, you have some understanding of just how conversation works. So in the same way, with music. Lesley Logan 23:11  I think it's good to outgrow the kids' table because, yes, then you can recognize that you were the guide at the kids' table, and now you're over at the adults' table, so you can spot who the guide is over there. You know, I think it's good to have the experiences.Brad Crowell 23:24  Yeah, and that's definitely how it works with jazz and jamming. It's important to work with people who are, well, I mean, you talked about this specifically with Tara, the people who are where you once were, people who are where you are at now, and the people who are where you want to be, you know, so that you can be a guide, you can have fun with your peers, you can learn from someone who is where you want to be. And so, for example, here in Las Vegas, once a week I go to a local bar. They host a jam night, and it's a jazz jam night, and they encourage people to sit in. Bring your instrument, come play. We'll always welcome you in. You can always play for a tune or whatever. And then generally, what they'll do is they'll let you name the tune so that you have the confidence. "Okay, I know this song."Lesley Logan 24:16  Oh, I love that.Brad Crowell 24:16  You know, and then basically they all know all the songs. These guys are pro musicians. They're absolutely incredibly well-versed, and if they don't know the song, they can figure out the song in the moment. They're amazing, right? And so it's actually really intimidating because, especially if you're a newbie playing with a crew like that, those guys are the pros, right? And so it's great experience, but it's also like you're not really in their circle. You know what I mean?Lesley Logan 24:44  No. I do love how they approach that. I love that because they're actually saying, "Okay, you've been sitting here long enough. We can see that you're jamming with us. You're tipping your head to the beat or your foot to the beat. You can do something. You pick the song." So they're allowing you to have confidence in what you're going to do. And then they get to invite you in, and then after that they never have to again, or you get to keep coming. You broke the seal. It makes me think of David Doss as well. Remember when David Doss played at the Horse Trailer Hideout, and he noticed you were whistling, and then he's like, "Do you know the song?" He invited you in.Brad Crowell 25:14  Yeah.Lesley Logan 25:15  Because you have done karaoke, and you've been in bands, and you've toured as a singer. The stage doesn't scare you, but he does that with people all the time, and often they are not performers. Brad Crowell 25:26  Right. Often they're not. Lesley Logan 25:27  But he is allowing them to pick a song that they can do well. And I think that's just something for those of us, I think we all can take the application of etiquette and things like that to everything. I have people I go to learn from because they challenge me, right? There are people I challenge, and then there are people that I challenge to challenge people below. We all have to be doing that. Otherwise, first of all, the people that I go to, they go to people. Why? Because if they are not learning from other people, they're not going to be a good teacher for me. So I think we can all recognize where we are as the person who is the expert in one room, but maybe we're a beginner in this room. And how can we make sure that we're moving along, but we're also moving other people along? We can't always be the guide. At some point, we have to pass the torch.Brad Crowell 26:11  Yeah, you're right. You're right on the money on that. It is important to set yourself up to be a guide for the next generation coming along. There's one other thing I wanted to mention about the conversation before I moved on, and that is about the skill of listening and responding to others in a musical context, but also in a conversation. For example, I just did it. I acknowledged what you said, and then I changed the topic. Right? When I was in college, I don't even know how I met this professor, but he said, "Hey, I want you to come audition for this class. You can't just join the class; you have to audition for the class." I was, "Okay." So I didn't even know what that meant. He didn't give me anything to prepare. I didn't know what was going on, so I just brought a bunch of music with me that I could play. And he was like, "All right, cool. I want you to play this thing," and I just played it. And he was, "Okay, cool. Now I'm going to play this on my guitar, and I want you to play along with me." And then we did. And then he's like, "I'm going to let you lead, and then I'm going to play along with you." And I was, "Okay." And we did this half-hour audition, right? And afterwards, he asked me a few questions, and he invited me to join this class. And literally this entire class was what he taught was the art of listening, right? And it wasn't what the class was even called. I can't remember what it was called. It was an unbelievable class. And this guy is one of the most astounding musicians I've ever met. He could hear an entire song and then write the song down afterwards in musical notation. He had.Lesley Logan 27:41  That's a crazy memory.Brad Crowell 27:42  It was perfect memory and perfect pitch. He could listen to a song and understand exactly what was happening. He could see it and write it out. Lesley Logan 27:48  What a savant!Brad Crowell 27:49  Yeah, savant, completely. But what he did in that class was so awkward because there was no music. There was no jam. You didn't have a rhythm that you were playing to. He took our class and he said, "All right, today in class we've got a French horn, two guitars, a bass. We got a guy playing the timbale, which is a weird drum that is amazing, and we got a trombone player, and then there's a guitar player. So go." We're, "What do you mean, go?" And he's, "Someone can start playing, and then if you feel inspired by what they're playing, I want you to play off of what they're playing. And then other people are going to jump in, and they're going to play, and then you're going to play, and together it will turn into something." And we were, "What the hell?"Lesley Logan 28:35  Every day for a whole semester?Brad Crowell 28:37  Not every day. It was once or twice a week. I can't remember. But it became one of my favorite classes to go to. And he told us, "You're never allowed to record this class. This class is not about turning this into a song. That's not what this is. What we're doing here is we're listening to each other, and we're responding based on what we're listening to." It was amazing. Unbelievable.Lesley Logan 28:56  That's cool. By the way, based on the science of learning, that's exactly what you're supposed to do. You just throw people in, and then they have to start swimming.Brad Crowell 29:03  Yeah.Lesley Logan 29:04  If you don't, you just start drowning. So somebody feels the pressure enough to go, "Fuck it, okay?" And then other people are like, "Well, I don't want them to be alone," so they jump in. And then what happens is you start taking the knowledge that you have, the skill sets, and you start applying it to your long-term memory. It comes out of short-term memory. It moves into long-term memory because you're forced to hit recall because you're not actually reading any music. When you read music, you can leave that stuff in short-term memory and let it go. It switches to long-term because you're forced to listen and apply something that you've learned that could fit. It's fucking brilliant.Brad Crowell 29:37  Yeah. People have told me over the years, "Brad, when we're in a conversation, I feel like you're really listening to me," and I genuinely attribute that to this class.Lesley Logan 29:46  I would say you definitely do that better than I do on every day.Brad Crowell 29:49  Yeah, because I had to. I learned how to do that in the class, and now it's just part of it, you know. So anyway, just the art of listening and how do you listen and how do you participate in a group like that? How do you encourage and respond? And sometimes you're taking the lead. Sometimes you're not taking the lead.Lesley Logan 30:07  I think this whole thing you can apply to anything you want to do. Brad Crowell 30:10  Yep.Lesley Logan 30:10  Because everything is with people. So anyways, we have to wrap it up. Brad Crowell 30:14  I love it. Sorry, I got really excited about this episode. All right, stick around. We'll be right back. We're going to talk about those Be It Action Items. Brad Crowell 30:21  All right. So finally, let's talk about those Be It Action Items. What bold, executable, intrinsic, or targeted action items can we take away from your conversation with Tara Connaghan? She emphasized that time and consistency are the only true replacements for convenience in the learning process. Okay. Time and consistency are the only true replacements for convenience in the learning process. What does that actually mean? What is she talking about when we say convenience in the learning process?Lesley Logan 30:48  I think you've got to make learning easier. You have to not only do it for some time, but also consistently. So, for example, I'm doing the upLift Beta program right now. There's one person who, at the time of 30 days, has had halfway to 100 hours already, right? So that is time and consistency. They're picking up different things versus some people who only have nine. Now, I'm not saying one's better than the other. Actually, they're observing different things. But if you are only picking up something one hour once a week, you are going to have a harder time as the learning continues because you're having to restart and remember everything once a week versus if you were to even do 15 minutes every single dayBrad Crowell 31:27  Yeah.Lesley Logan 31:27  It might even be the same amount of time from the one time a week to the seven times a week. But because you have the consistency of picking it up, you're actually having more convenience.Brad Crowell 31:36  Yeah. She specifically said you don't build it up in one go; you build it up every single day. And it's more valuable to have 10 to 15 minutes a day than it is to do an hour once a week.Lesley Logan 31:46  It's the same, by the way, guys. This applies to everything. I do not write one newsletter at a time. I write all of them. I do not do one podcast at a time. We do several because the setup, the getting ready, all that stuff. It allows you. It's just better. So just be more consistent. You put it all together. You'll get there.Brad Crowell 32:02  I mean, Pilates and music, it's so much muscle memory, you know. And you can't cram muscle memory. It doesn't work. Motor learning does not work. She was equating it to brushing your teeth. You do it twice a day, forever. You've been doing it forever. So it gets to the point where it's rote. You don't even think about it anymore because you've done it so many times. You know how to do it without actually processing it. You can think about something else while you're doing that. She said, "How do you do this? How do you make sure that you get your 10 to 15 minutes a day in?" She said, "Keep your instrument in easy reach. Make it visible."Lesley Logan 32:36  Yeah, whatever your instrument is.Brad Crowell 32:38  Yeah.Lesley Logan 32:38  I love that.Brad Crowell 32:38  What about you?Lesley Logan 32:39  She said, "Pick the thing that fills your cup and go for it."Brad Crowell 32:42  Yeah, just in life.Lesley Logan 32:43  Yeah, in life, pick the thing that fills your cup and go for it. Do the thing that really gives you so much joy and fills your cup. And I think this is really important. A lot of times, a lot of us are focused on the thing we don't do well, and they're like, "Why can't I get this?" And there are people who can get that for you. I was coaching someone today for Profitable Pilates, and she's not good at tech, but I don't have an online business, right? And so I'm listening to her whole thing she's working on, and she's doing all the right things according to all the right coaches. Then it comes out she needs nine clients, and I was like, "Girl, you don't need to be online for these nine clients for your online business. You could just tell 27 people what you do and then ask them to refer you, and I bet you'll get nine people. At worst, you get three. Yes, those three people refer you three people." But you do not need to pick the thing that you're not good at to make this business work. You need to pick the thing that you're good at and make this business work. So it applies to everything. Pick the thing that fills your cup, and then do that thing because when you fill your cup, everything is easier, including being in rooms that scare you. So yeah, I'm Lesley Logan.Brad Crowell 33:44  And I'm Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 33:45  Thanks so much for being here today. Make sure that you tell Tara what touched you, what made you think of something, what aha moments you had. Send in your wins to the beitpod.com/questions, and we'll see you later. Until next time, Be It Till You See It.Brad Crowell 33:57  Bye for now.Lesley Logan 33:58  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod. Brad Crowell 34:41  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 34:46  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 34:50  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 34:57  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.Brad Crowell 35:00  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Being a beginner as an adult is its own kind of awkward, and most of us just call it nerves. Irish traditional musician and award-winning podcast host Tara Connaghan says that is not it at all. The real problem is that nobody handed you the rules of the room. She takes Lesley through the four stages of learning, why the frustrating middle is where most people quit, and the rock bottom that gave her clarity. If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co mailto:beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.In this episode you will learn about:Why five to ten minutes of practice a day beats one long session.The trouble with joining sessions built for high level musicians.What makes correcting an adult learner harder than correcting a child.Why boundaries make newcomers feel safe and know if they fit.How to pick a group that matches your current skill level.Episode References/Links:Session Etiquette Website – https://www.sessionetiquette.comSession Etiquette Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576848312798In Tune with Tradition Podcast - https://beitpod.com/taraconnaghanpodTara Connaghan Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/tarafiddleTara Connaghan Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/tara.connaghanTara Connaghan LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/taraconnaghanTara Connaghan YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5tQCcQU81_mewa2uMRbq7AEp 153 ft Tanya Dalton - https://beitpod.com/ep153Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert - https://a.co/d/010vNZRZEat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert - https://a.co/d/00rGaxuPSubmit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questions If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSIDEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentCheck out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentBe in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlistBe It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-surveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gLesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQProfitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gFacebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilatesLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses Episode Transcript:Tara Connaghan 0:00  It's too intimate to be putting pressure on it because I did lose it. So I put my hands on my heart because I feel like it's here. The music, when I play it, it's here. I suppose maybe because it is a fiddle as well, or a violin, but it's something so close, and I have lost it. I did lose it for a while, and if I lost it again, I don't know if I could survive that second loss. Lesley Logan 0:22  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast, where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world, and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity, and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring bold, executable, intrinsic, and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and be it till you see it. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. Lesley Logan 1:03  Okay, Be It babe. Here's the deal: we have a unique topic on the podcast, but actually, we go extremely applicable to your life, if anything. We're going to talk about learning. We're going to talk about rock bottoms. We're going to talk about etiquette with the types of people that you're wanting to be around, and I think it's just quite fun. Tara's my new Irish friend that I didn't know I needed. Her name's Tara Connaghan, and she actually is an award-winning podcast host, and she teaches people how to play Irish music and also be in Irish sessions and the etiquette for that. And you're, what? But all of it is, I think, really the conversation is so helpful because if you want to be it till you see it, and I want to be in a pickleball league, or I want to be teaching X thing, or I want to learn this new skill, some of the things we have to understand is the process of learning, and then the etiquette of how do we join these groups? What are those things? So it's really quite fun. I can't wait for you to hear her, and then you'll have to check out her award-winning podcast because that's so great. Here is Tara Connaghan. Lesley Logan 1:59  All right, Be It babes. This is going to be fun. This is going to be totally interesting. It's a topic I've definitely never had a guest on before, and that means we get to learn something new, but also learn things that we can use along our way to something unique. So, Tara Connaghan is our guest today. Tara, can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at? Tara Connaghan 2:18  Hi, Lesley. I am an Irish traditional musician. I love playing Irish music. I love playing music in Irish music sessions, particularly. I'm from the northwest of Ireland, which is Donegal, which is kind of, it's not part of Northern Ireland, but it's more northerly than Northern Ireland. But it's geographically Northern Ireland, but not politically, if that makes sense. So we're in the Republic of Ireland. Very confusing. And I've lived all over Ireland. I've lived around the world a couple of bits, but mostly I'm always kind of living around Ireland. But I'm back in Donegal now for the last maybe 12 years, and I just love sessions. But I teach adults a lot, and they're always worried about joining into sessions because they're maybe newcomers to the sessions. So I always thought it was performance anxiety that was the problem, but actually, what's feeding the performance anxiety is that they don't know the etiquette to joining sessions. And so that was why I decided to start a podcast almost a year ago about etiquette, teaching people the etiquette of joining sessions, and I'm learning so much. Oh my God, it's amazing. Lesley Logan 3:21  Okay, there's so many things I want to talk about because, first of all, what are sessions, and then to know what the etiquette is, but also it just goes into a lot of us do label something performance anxiety or just blanket anxiety when really it's we don't know how to be a beginner, we don't know how to enter something new. We don't know how to... It's hard to join a group because when you're an adult, all the groups are already kind of filled, and you're, I've got to join in on something, and they already know everything, and I don't know, and we don't know how to be beginners. Is that kind of what's happening? Tara Connaghan 3:50  Totally, totally, yeah. Lesley Logan 3:52  Okay, so just so we have the definitions, what are sessions, and what is the etiquette? Tara Connaghan 3:56  A session can be lots of... There's lots of different types of sessions and different functions for sessions, but the main session is that it's a group of musicians who get together to play Irish music. Lesley Logan 4:09  Okay. Tara Connaghan 4:09  That's kind of the simplest term or the simplest way of explaining it. It's people who kind of know what Irish music is, and they want to play it with each other, and they want to kind of share their music together, and it's like a team. It's a team. Lesley Logan 4:22  Okay, like you're making a band, but you're not a band, like a group. Tara Connaghan 4:25  Yes, yeah. But there's no... Usually there's... Well, I say usually. A session is usually something without microphones, although sometimes it has microphones because it's maybe for tourists or maybe it's a noisy pub or something. So usually the ones that are in the corner with no microphones, they're just playing to each other. Lesley Logan 4:44  It's like jazz when they get together and they just play together. Okay, so there can be sessions of any kind, but sessions for this would be the Irish musicians getting together. And then is the etiquette different for the Irish music versus, I guess, any musician, or what does that look like? Tara Connaghan 5:00  I don't think it's particularly different. There may be slight differences. I think maybe one of the things is that you could be playing in a session with some of your heroes. They're quite accessible. Irish traditional musicians almost would be classed as... they're professionals but amateurs. Lesley Logan 5:17  Okay, okay. Tara Connaghan 5:18  Because they're not all making a living from it. Okay, so you could have some of the highest-quality Irish musicians playing in a session. You might have just come across, or maybe you've never heard Irish music before, and you walk in and you could be listening to some of the most amazing musicians. Lesley Logan 5:35  That's so cool. I love this. I love this. So this is... I am grateful for the definitions because you're an expert in this area, but this is the thing for a lot of things, right? You could be in a chess group or a mahjong or pickleball. I'm a Pilates instructor who travels to teach Pilates instructors, and I find that if I want to just be in the group, sometimes the nervousness from the other people who maybe watch my videos or things like that, they get nervous and they have this performance anxiety, and it's like we're just here to kind of hang out. So, I guess if we could take it in a broad sense, how did you get here? Because we don't wake up going, "I'm gonna teach this." You know what I mean? It's not like what you tell someone in kindergarten. "When I grow up, I'm gonna teach Irish music." So, can you go back to your journey? Tara Connaghan 6:23  I mentioned that I teach the adults mostly. I have a fortnightly fiddle class that I do, and I also teach at different summer schools or camps or things that we would teach music at throughout the year. And for the last... I've been playing music for nearly 40 years. Oh my god, I am playing music for 40 years. Oh god, that just dawned on me. Oh my god. Lesley Logan 6:45  That's amazing, though, but it's annoying because, wow, so much clout, and also, oh, I'm older than I thought. Tara Connaghan 6:53  Yes, yeah, yeah. So I've been teaching a long time. I do prefer to teach adults. I just have a natural sort of bond because an adult wants to be there. They're putting all their time and their energy, and they really want to be there. Whereas kids, the parents want them to be there. So I just want to be with people who want to do something, and then I can help them. If they don't want to be there, then I can't help them. So in every workshop, even though it's more about repertoire, when you're in the workshop we're like, we learn this tune and we learn this tune and we learn... So we might learn maybe three tunes a day or maybe one tune, depending on the levels of people. And always within one of those workshops or classes or camps, there will always be questions. Once one person asks, "Do I have enough tunes to start, to play in a session? Or can I sit there? Am I allowed to do this? Am I allowed to do that? Do you have to have this?" There's so many questions, and because there's so many unknowns, and they don't know the answers, they are terrified. And then when you're anxious and terrified, you probably do actions that you wouldn't normally do. Lesley Logan 8:02  You make mistakes because the nerves are taking away the ability to be present. Tara Connaghan 8:08  Yes, yeah, yeah. And then they start... Then things happen, and they're like, "Oh, and such-and-such gave out to me for doing something." And I think we've all been given out to. It's a natural sort of... If we go back to the animal kingdom, there's kind of a natural, "Look, you don't do that. You don't do that. Don't do this," and you're kind of almost like a cat would do to its kitten. Lesley Logan 8:31  Yeah. Tara Connaghan 8:33  It's not that you're trying to say you shouldn't be... There's no kind of "you shouldn't" or whatever. But it's just kind of a, "No, no, no. Wait this," or "Wait for your turn," or "Wait to this." So it's kind of the natural... You're teaching the natural language of your culture, whatever. But that's normally given to children. Lesley Logan 8:51  Right. Tara Connaghan 8:52  It's very hard to give that to an adult who is your peer in terms of age, but not your peer in terms of skill, and that's a really difficult thing to do. So Irish people are very, very bad at giving feedback. They don't want to offend anybody, so we just say nothing, and then things can blister away and fester. Lesley Logan 9:11  I wonder if anyone is good at giving feedback very often because we're not trained at that. You don't go to college and learn, "Okay, in your life, if you have to give feedback to someone, this is the way you give it." That's not anything anyone's trained in. So if your culture is more, "We're just not going to say anything at all," it's just going to fester and blister, and we'll just put you over there in the corner. Other people will just tell you what it is and honestly cramp someone's spirit. You could just step on a flower. So I think we all have to learn how to be better at feedback, but it's different when students are learning because when you're younger, yes, there are still personality types that are putting pressure on themselves to be perfect. No matter your age, there are different levels to learning. Correct? Because whether or not you are learning Irish music or anything, every learning has a level. Tara Connaghan 10:02  I mean, there's the four stages of learning. So there's when you're totally unconsciously aware. You're completely unaware. So when you were maybe two, your mother tied your shoelaces. You didn't tie your shoes. You didn't even know that shoelaces existed. They're just not in your conscious realm at all. And then maybe as you get... maybe four or five, you're like, "Oh, hold on a second. My mother's tying my shoes. I want to try that." You start getting, "I want to try it." Then there's that stage where you're conscious of it, but you realize how bad you are at it. So your competency level is pretty poor. You're incompetent, but you're consciously incompetent, so you know you're shit at it. Lesley Logan 10:45  That's so hard because it's so frustrating. Tara Connaghan 10:48  So frustrating. You're like, "I can't..." Sorry, I don't know if I can curse. Lesley Logan 10:52  You can curse on this show. Totally. Tara Connaghan 10:56  So you're so frustrated, as you say, and so many people give up at that stage because they're like, "I can't do this. No, I'm out." That sounds like me with surfing or certain things. I'm just like, "No, I can't do this. I'm out." Lesley Logan 11:10  I understand that. With ADHD, I can be okay being bad at something, but I have to get good at it quickly. Otherwise, I'm out. My attention span's not there. But it is interesting. We see that in people in all learning things, right? I teach people how to teach Pilates, and you can see even if they're already teaching Pilates, when they discover that there is stuff that they didn't know they didn't know, then there's a frustration that no one told them, "I didn't know this." But you can't be told, no one is expert at everything when they're new. You just start new. Okay, so then we're pissed off, we're frustrated, and if we don't quit, what happens next? Tara Connaghan 11:52  So if we don't quit and we keep going, then we start getting to a place where we're more competent. We've got a bit more competency. There's a big range within that. You're starting to get competent, and then you grow up to being much more competent, and you're consciously aware that you're competent. So it's maybe when you're six or seven and you're still tying the shoelaces. You can tie them, but it takes a bit of... You're still focusing on it. That takes a huge amount of energy, so it's a very exhausting stage where you're focusing on, "I have to tie the shoe. I have to do this loop and that loop." And your fingers are just faltering at it. The same with playing an instrument. You're kind of like, "I have to watch my left finger..." Lesley Logan 12:42  "...this thing, and then breathe, and then this one." You're still talking yourself through it. Yes.  Tara Connaghan 12:46  Or even driving. "I have to put my foot here, and I have to look at the clutch. I have to put on my seatbelt before all of that, and I have to look in the mirror." I have to do this. There's so many things. Your brain is still running through the process of how to do it. Then you get to the last stage, which is you're competent, but you're unconsciously competent. So it's totally, did you remember tying your shoelaces this morning? No. You just did it. It becomes ingrained so that you don't even know that you're doing it anymore, but you can do it. The same with playing the fiddle. I'm thinking of something else because it's unconscious. It's already in the muscle memory of my fingers. It's in the muscle memory of my brain, my elbows, my whole body. My body does it, and then I can focus on, not something else, but something like, the next level, which is, "How do I do it better? How do I do the intricacies?" You're listening and going, "Oh, such-and-such did that. I might do that." You're listening for something else. Lesley Logan 13:54  Yeah, you can take more in. My husband's a musician. That's not me, but I can attribute it to things in my world. I retook a workshop I've taken from this person before, and I thought I was just going to sit there and get reminded of a few quotes I liked from them. Then they said something, and I was like, "What? What is that?" And it was just like, "Oh, I didn't know the thing before that. It wasn't ingrained in me, so I couldn't even pick up on this if I wanted to." It was always there, but I didn't have the capacity to hear it or see it or understand it because I just had to get the muscle memory there so that nuance could even stand out. Tara Connaghan 14:35  And that takes years. We're in such a culture that everything is convenient. It's quick. Everything's fast. But I don't think there's anything that can replace just time of learning and putting the time in. Lesley Logan 14:52  Tara, how do you help people do that, though? Because obviously what you do is so unique. But however you help them, we all have to understand that it does take time, and it's hard for adults because there's so much unconscious competence happening because we're in our life. We can drive home without even realizing it. There's just things that we do. It scares the fuck out of me every time. I'm like, "How did I get here? Whoa." How do you remind adults to be patient to go through the different stages? Tara Connaghan 15:18  It's not easy. None of us like it for anything. I got a sewing machine. I am crap at sewing, because I never did it in school. I did woodwork instead. It just takes it. I just have to remind people it may only be five minutes per day, and then supplement it with a couple of maybe intense weekends or an intense week where you really focus on it, almost like 12-hour days. That really supplements it. But you need the five minutes per day, five to 10 minutes per day. I think, really helps people. Lesley Logan 15:53  Okay, let's dive into that because I think people think, "Oh, I'll just do this on my day off." But if you just do several hours on one day, it's almost... Do you think it's better if they were to do five to 10 minutes per day for six to seven days is better than one day for two hours? Tara Connaghan 16:10  Absolutely, 1,000%. Lesley Logan 16:12  And why? Do we know why? Tara Connaghan 16:15  There are actually studies that show that because you're building up the muscle memory. You don't build it up in one go. You build it up every day. You don't wash your teeth just once a week. Lesley Logan 16:27  Right. Right. Tara Connaghan 16:28  You wash them every day because ifLesley Logan 16:30  You washed your teeth for two hours once a week, it wouldn't even make up for it. Even though it's like three times the amount you should brush your teeth, it doesn't even make the difference. Tara Connaghan 16:38  No, it's not going to make the difference because the plaque is already there. It would be too hard to remove it. That's just what it is. And five to 10 minutes, that's nothing. Lesley Logan 16:47  Right. I think that's the hard part because people go, "That's nothing. So does it even matter?" Tara Connaghan 16:53  Yeah. So, tomorrow... I'm learning the concertina as well. I do play the fiddle. I've played the fiddle for almost 40 years, but I have a concertina, which is this little kind of hexagon-shaped instrument. I normally have it at my desk, but I'm not at my desk. I'm actually in New York. Lesley Logan 17:10  Cool. What's a concertina? I gotta look this up. I need a visual. Lesley Logan 17:14  Concertina. Lesley Logan 17:16  Concertina.  Tara Connaghan 17:17  Yeah, so, hexagon-shaped. Lesley Logan 17:21  This is... Oh, that's cool. For everyone who's not Googling this while they're driving, please don't. First of all, they're not cheap. It's like an accordion, but a hexagon has six or seven sides. Tara Connaghan 17:40  Your fingers are working from both sides. Lesley Logan 17:43  Yes. Tara Connaghan 17:44  Yes. So it's very petite and dainty. It's a real kind of woman's... Lesley Logan 17:50  It's so beautiful. An accordion is not sexy. Nothing's sexy about an accordion. This is quite cute. This looks like the Victorian era. Tara Connaghan 17:56  Yes. It's very ornate, and designs in it. So I'm learning that now. I had it right beside my computer because you're, especially if you're doing something, and then you need kind of like coffee beans to refresh your brain. So I used to have that, and I'd play for five or 10 minutes. I didn't have access to my concertina for about 15 years because I had lent it to somebody else, and they forgot to give it back to me. Eventually I got it back recently, and I started playing for about five minutes whenever I got bored, well, not bored, but my brain is overworked and overwhelmed and I needed to deep-dive into it for five minutes. The first day I was like, "Oh my god, I can't even remember where the notes are." I was like one-finger typing. Lesley Logan 18:45  I understand. Yeah. Tara Connaghan 18:47  Until, after a couple of weeks, he came down to the office and said, "That actually sounded quite good." Lesley Logan 18:55  Because it came back to you because you just had it. I love what you said, that you had it right next to you. For anything we're wanting to do, my listeners know I was studying the tarot, and unfortunately it got away from me because I had the app, which is great because when I was traveling I couldn't have the cards, but I'm a physical kind of person. So when I was at home, having the cards and the book at my desk, while I'm waiting for the Zoom call to start, I could just read a page. Having those little doses of information actually allows you to take it in. Whereas it's a lot, especially when you're in the incompetence, it's a lot in the brain to do it and you don't retain as much. I'm studying the science of learning right now, I'm really interested in this, and there's a whole lot we have to do self-reflection and self-quizzing. That's actually the best when you're learning anything. You're not waiting for the test to come where you cram, or in music, I guess, the concert to come where you perform. You have to kind of test your skills on your own and then learn from what you don't know. Tara Connaghan 0:00  Yeah, and I think for joining a session as well, you have to learn to play with other people, and that can be a big learning curve as well, because it might be that you've just started an instrument, so this is totally new. You've got a new instrument. Oh my god. I'm still trying to figure out where the notes are. I'm still trying to figure all this out. You're still kind of incompetent. And you need to learn also how to play with other people if you want to join a session. Lesley Logan 20:26  Yeah. Tara Connaghan 20:27  I think those kinds of camps are a great place to do that. They can be big sessions, so you can kind of hide behind people for a while until you get a bit more competency in playing with others because it's a really different skill, being able to listen to yourself while listening to others.Lesley Logan 20:45  How do you, how do you get the... Because that's a bit of courage and bravery, to go from playing by yourself in your home to, okay, I'm going to take this. What advice do you have for people who... There's embarrassment, there's nervousness. How do you get over yourself enough to go? Because I'm someone who'd be a fly on the wall until I'm shoved off the cliff. That's kind of me. But how do you get yourself ready?Tara Connaghan 21:06  I think it's a good idea, if you're learning from a class situation where you've got classmates, then maybe your teacher might have a once-a-year or once-a-month or once-a-week session where they encourage you to come, if you want to join a session. It's a very gentle process where you're coming into it in a very gentle way. What I would definitely not recommend you do is go into a session where there are high-level musicians who need something totally different. So if you're a beginner musician, you want to be feeling kind of a belonging. You want to sense this sense of community. A high-level musician who's been playing for 40 years, they already have that. What they want is challenge, and you're not going to challenge them if you're a newcomer. So don't be afraid, or don't be... not afraid, but don't be putting yourself in that position. Don't take it personally, I think is what I'm trying to say.Lesley Logan 22:01  Well, this makes a lot of sense to me because in life, if you have a skill or there's something you're doing, it's really good to have people who are your equals, so your classmates, like you mentioned. And then there's the people who are below you, in a different level. Playing with people below you builds your confidence because, whoa, I'm not like that anymore, right?Tara Connaghan 22:19  Yes.Lesley Logan 22:20  Playing with people who are at the same level as you makes you feel comfortable and, okay, I've got my people. But typically, if you're going to play with people who are above you, you'd be paying to play with them. You're in their workshop or you're in their thing because they need people above them to challenge them and people like them who understand what they need. And if they're going to have people below them, it's because they're teaching them.Tara Connaghan 22:43  Exactly. And I think it's funny that you should pick that up so quickly because that seems to be something that we've... I suppose we're so close to it, you can't see the wood from the trees when you're so in the middle of it. And so it's only recently that I figured, from conversations actually, that's more of a teaching environment when we're in a session with people that are below us. And that's a very different thing. That's quite draining because you're giving a lot of energy, and you're not.Lesley Logan 23:10  Getting yourself filled up. There have to be sessions for the person who's more of the expert to be filled up. I get that totally. I teach a lot of students, and I have no problems doing that. But when I am in the workshop to learn, if people bother me to understand, I'm like, "Oh, I'm not in that brain. I'm here." So I find I'm very particular about the places I go to learn in or be challenged in because I want to stay in that frame. And if you are wanting me to teach you in that space, I'm a little bit... Okay, I've got to get my cup filled.Tara Connaghan 23:45  I suppose I would love to be able to say that certain things in certain situations... I think we are quite welcoming.Lesley Logan 23:54  Yeah, and that's the hard part because I don't want to stamp on anyone's flowers or anyone's willingness to learn. And I also think they don't understand what they don't... You know what I mean? They don't know that they're just asking a question. And you are an expert, and you are someone who usually teaches. But there has to be a space where you can go be yourself and be challenged.Tara Connaghan 24:13  Yeah, yeah. I think so. I have found that some people like to shame skilled musicians for having that, and I'm trying to call that out and go, "No, I'm not happy that that is something that should be definitely there."Lesley Logan 24:26  I think that's interesting, right? What an awareness we can have because it's fine to have the need to have the space to be in your creative space or to not be in teaching mode, to be in play mode or creativity mode. And also, how do we remind people of the rules of the space without hurting their feelings or pissing them off or making them feel like they're stupid? I don't know if you have those in Ireland, but people have these signs in their house, like, "In this house, we believe in science," and things like that. There, we believe in these... When you walk into the space, if these-level musicians are playing, you're free to watch, but please write down all questions and save them for your... You know what I mean? It's okay to be in their presence, of course, and be inspired. But this is when you're allowed to ask the questions. I guess it goes back to the etiquette. It's like having rules for... If you're a house that has no shoes on or shoes off, it's kind of like that.Tara Connaghan 25:25  Yeah. I suppose it's always being one of those environments that is very spontaneous. So I think when you have a spontaneous environment, the thought of rules makes it really kind of...Lesley Logan 25:38  I understand. Yeah. Well, Tanya Dalton, we had her on the show, and she talked about when there are boundaries, everyone can be more creative and have more fun.Tara Connaghan 25:50  Yes.Lesley Logan 25:51  She explained it, and you guys, I'll put the link in the show notes because I actually don't remember which episode number she is. But she said if there's a school playground and there's no fence, and the teachers tell the kids, "Hey, stay close to the school building to play," you're going to have some kids who literally don't leave the wall. They just play next to the wall. You're going to have some kids who play in the middle, and then you're going to have some kids who are going all the way to the edge because they want to see how far they can go. But if you put the fence up and you say you just have to stay in the fence, then all of a sudden everyone can play. So I guess it's interesting because some people don't want to have rules on things to affect the creativity, but they'll have more creativity if they just have some set rules.Tara Connaghan 26:35  Yeah, and I think everybody feels safer as well then if there are some sort of boundaries. Especially newcomers can feel safe because they know, "Right, well, this is maybe not the session for me," or "This one is the session for me."Lesley Logan 26:47  Yeah, because I'm the girl who'd be next to the wall because I don't understand. I don't want to fuck it up, and I don't want to embarrass myself, and I don't want to make someone mad. So I would be the person who doesn't even join any session, even the ones at my level, because I wouldn't... So I think that's where it's important. No matter what the thing is that we're joining or learning, we have to understand the etiquette, but also the people above us have to define that so that we can.Tara Connaghan 27:11  Yeah, yeah, I guess. Lesley Logan 27:12  Or at least the host of the place. Tara Connaghan 27:15  Yeah, yeah, yeah.Lesley Logan 27:17  So Tara, your enthusiasm and joy for what you do is so contagious. I really do love it. How did you get to keep your passion for this? Because I have to imagine that in the 40 years of playing music, Irish music hasn't been famous for all 40 years. How did you keep it going? What did you do? Then you're in this new space where you have this podcast. I guess people listening to this have been doing things for 20 or 30 years, and sometimes they wonder if they should keep doing that. Is it worth doing? How do they know when to stop? What advice do you have for that?Tara Connaghan 27:55  I did have a time in my early 30s, which is almost 20 years ago. god, sorry.Lesley Logan 28:03  It's all right. I just looked at pictures of myself at 25, and I was like, "Whoa, that was a long time ago."Tara Connaghan 28:09  When I arrived in New York a couple of days ago, I had a suitcase, and I was trying to walk up the stairs, carry it up the stairs. And this young fella, I think he was probably about 25 or something, said, "Do you want me to help?" And I was like, "No, no, I've got a friend coming. She's going to help me as well." And he said, "Oh, if this was my mother, I would hope somebody would help me." And I was like, "Oh my god!"Lesley Logan 28:27  He was being so sweet, and also...Tara Connaghan 28:32  The realization. But of course I could be his mother. But I don't even have kids.Lesley Logan 28:36  Tara, I understand. I have friends my age who have kids who are in high school, so I was like, "I could have a high schooler." Tara Connaghan 28:44  Yeah, I could totally have somebody who's gone through college, finished college. Anyway, let's not go there. So in my 30s, I did have a bit of a, wow, I thought I would be somewhere different. I thought things would feel different. There was that kind of realization: Is this it? There was always this kind of, I thought it was going to be different, and I thought it was going to be amazing. I went through maybe not a spiral downwards, but I was just lost for a while. And then, it was kind of a spiral to a couple of things. I had somebody who was really, really close to me pass away, and that person held my future dreams. So that totally took the carpet from underneath me. I was like, "Well, what do I do now?" It was totally the end now. And I think when you get to rock bottom, you go, "What are the things that are actually really important?" That's what I had to do. I just had to go food, water... I mean, we're talking basic. I think I had probably experienced a bit of PTSD at the time, post-traumatic stress disorder, because I couldn't plan ahead. All I could think of was the next hour and what are the basic needs that I need. So food, water, shelter, friendship. And I thought, "You know what? Music is what fills my cup." And so I had to figure out what was the thing that fills my cup? I have loads of interests. What was the one thing that I really wanted? And I think when you get to rock bottom, things become so clear. I'm not advocating for getting to rock bottom, but if you want clarity, you will find it down there.Lesley Logan 30:37  I think years ago I heard someone say you can't take someone's rock bottom away. You can give advice, but also, sometimes we don't learn what we need to until we are there. Some of us just need to clear everything away. I have to say, I am so grateful for the rock bottom I had because it was, "Okay, I've got nothing. So if I'm going to add to this nothing, it better be something I want." I don't want to add. It was the first time I had a clean slate. I don't want to add stuff I don't want. So I agree with you.Tara Connaghan 31:11  Declutter.Lesley Logan 31:12  Yeah.Tara Connaghan 31:13  It really declutters the mind, and it really focuses on just the important things. Music was the thing that, it's almost like the light at the end of the tunnel, but it was just something that I had that was present, that was just filling my cup, as you said. So I kept doing that. Not that I was doing it all the time, but when I needed that sort of, because I went home to my parents' house, and I slept for about six months. I didn't go outside the door. I remember having relations saying, "Oh, you can't do that." And I was like, "Please don't ever tell anybody that they can't take the time that they need to recover because I needed that time." It took a good few years, but I needed the six months of complete and utter sleep. Then it took another couple of years before I was able to get back to being a normal person again. I'd say I'm a huge amount stronger because of it, and just more clear. So.Lesley Logan 32:12  Yeah.Tara Connaghan 32:12  Music is just... yeah. And I think every time I'm in a session, the other thing is if I'm playing for money, it's a job.Lesley Logan 32:20  Yeah.Tara Connaghan 32:22  So I kind of removed that. Even though I still get paid, I removed the, "Oh, this one is a gig." It's, "I'm going to go and I'm going to play music. Fantastic. If somebody gives me money at the end, great." Sometimes I want to make sure that it's good money at the end, but I looked at it differently. It wasn't for the money. It was for the music, and then somebody gives me money as well, and that's great.Lesley Logan 32:46  I appreciate you sharing that journey because I think we all look at other people and go, "Oh my goodness, they must have loved this their whole life," and not realize that there are parts of their lives where they loved it, but they didn't get up for six months. Everyone is on an up-and-down journey that hopefully always ends up, but it's going to have its own nuances. And if we don't take the time we need to find what fills our cup, then I don't know that we get to enjoy it. I feel like life is worth enjoying. Yes, sometimes we get paid for things we love, but also we should do things because we love them.Tara Connaghan 33:26  Yeah, totally. So I think that was how I got out of that sort of, "I'm doing it for the money." I don't know if you've ever read Big Magic.Lesley Logan 33:37  Obsessed. Great book.Tara Connaghan 33:39  Fantastic.Lesley Logan 33:39  I'm not sure I agree with her in the more recent years of life, but I love that book. So, everyone must, required reading. So good. Required reading.Tara Connaghan 33:51  Yeah. It just gives so much freedom to your creativity as well. It's like, "Oh yeah, that's so cool." It's like it's a muse. You're the host of a creative idea, and you entertain it, or eventually it'll just go, "Look, I'm an idea, and I need to be created. So if you're not going to create me, somebody else will have to do it." Such a great idea.Lesley Logan 34:14  You guys, if you're wondering what is she saying, you have to go read the book. It's, ideas want to be born, it's Elizabeth Guilbert, I believe that's her name. She wrote Eat, Pray, Love, and she even shares that she still worked as a professor even after she wrote that book, even after it was a bestseller, even after it became a movie. It was years before she thought, "Okay, I can just be a writer for a living." I think that's a really important lesson for all of us who are doing something we're passionate about because the pressure you put on it changes the joy you get out of it, and also what you create.Tara Connaghan 34:50  Yeah. It's too intimate to be putting pressure on it because I did lose it. So I put my hands on my heart because I feel like it's here. The music, when I play it, it's here. I suppose maybe because it is a fiddle as well, or a violin, but it's here anyway. It's something so close, and I have lost it. I did lose it for a while, and if I lost it again, I don't know if I could survive that second loss.Lesley Logan 35:17  Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I think that's really important. Tara, you're so fun. We're going to take a brief break and find out where people can find you, follow you, take sessions with you.Tara Connaghan 35:26  Yeah.Lesley Logan 35:28  All right, Tara. Where do you hang out? They can listen to your podcast. Can anyone play Irish music? Tell us everything.Tara Connaghan 35:36  They can listen to it on Spotify, Amazon, Apple, wherever. It's called In Tune with Tradition. There's also the subtitle, Perspectives on Session Etiquette and Irish Traditional Music. There is a website called Session Etiquette. I also have a tour kind of thing coming up, a private session experience in September 2026, at the end of September. We've got a couple of places left on it. It will be in Ireland. Brilliant. I can't wait.Lesley Logan 36:07  I feel like September in Ireland is probably good weather. Tara Connaghan 36:10  Sometimes. Actually, do you know when it's been really good weather? It's April. April for the last three or four years has been really good, really dry, sunny. Then the rest of summer's awful, and around September sometimes it can pick up again.Lesley Logan 36:23  Feels like Vegas weather, but probably different. April is so beautiful here. Don't take me away, but the summer? Get me out.Tara Connaghan 36:32  I'm in New York, and it was really, really hot for the last couple of days. Today is nice. It's just perfect.Lesley Logan 36:38  Yeah. That's an interesting place to be when it's too hot. Okay, we've talked a lot about learning and things like that. You've given us so much already, but what bold, executable, intrinsic, or targeted steps do you have for people to be it till they see it?Tara Connaghan 36:52  I think they should listen to my podcast, number one. The reason I'm in New York is because it's an award-winning podcast. It has just won some awards.Lesley Logan 37:01  Get out. Congratulations. That's amazing!Tara Connaghan 37:06  Yay! So, anyway, but more actionable steps: I think life is short. Just pick the thing that fills your cup and go for it.Lesley Logan 37:15  Yeah.Tara Connaghan 37:16  If that's Irish music, fantastic. If it's not, do the thing that makes you really, really just gives you so much joy and fills your cup because otherwise you'll always be trying to fill your cup with something that can't fill, can't do it.Lesley Logan 37:31  I agree. I think that's so true. Oh my gosh, congratulations on your podcast. That's incredible, you guys. That's not an easy thing to do, especially with a new podcast, so way to go, Tara. I agree. I was just watching a show, and it's clear there are people on the show who don't have anything else. They don't have something that fills their cup. My husband's listening to somebody, and they're... If you don't have something that's a hobby, something that's creative, friends and family, and work that gives you purpose, if you don't have those three things, f you take one of those away, you put too much pressure on the other things, and they're never going to give you the tripod. You're going to fall over. So I feel like that's really important for today. I think we all need that information. Lesley Logan 38:15  You guys, go listen to Tara's award-winning podcast. Go listen to it, and go figure out if it's... If you don't know what's filling your cup, maybe it's time to start trying new things and be consciously incompetent for a little bit. It'll get better. Share this with a friend who needs to hear it. And until next time, Be It Till You See It. Lesley Logan 38:33  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.Brad Crowell 39:16  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 39:21  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 39:25  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 39:32  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.Brad Crowell 39:36  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Wil Santiago, Wil Santiago, chief security and trust officer at Blackpoint Cyber Wil Santiago, chief security and trust officer at Blackpoint Cyber, joins In The Channel to discuss the findings of the company’s 2026 Annual Threat Report – research grounded in thousands of real incidents investigated by Blackpoint’s security operations centre, not surveys. The headline finding: attackers are no longer trying to break in. They’re logging in. Using stolen credentials and commodity remote management tools, threat actors are walking through the front door, hiding in plain sight, and operating with system-level privileges – sometimes for days before anyone notices. Santiago walks through the key trends the SOC identified across 2025: ClickFix and fake CAPTCHA campaigns accounted for more than half of all identifiable incidents, with attackers abusing trusted infrastructure including Azure Blob storage and Cloudflare to deliver payloads. RMM abuse showed up in roughly 30 per cent of triaged incidents – threat actors installing their own version of the same tools MSPs use legitimately, then living off the land with god-mode access. And Adversary-in-the-Middle attacks are now routinely hijacking authenticated sessions even when MFA is in place, by abusing OAuth token handling. The conversation also covers Blackpoint’s detection philosophy: behavioral context over malware signatures. Understanding what normal looks like in an environment – who uses what tool, at what time, from where – is what allows the SOC to catch attackers before they act. It’s a philosophy that is producing results: Blackpoint disrupted 56 per cent of incidents before a payload was ever deployed. Santiago’s closing recommendation for MSPs is straightforward: start with an RMM audit. Know every remote management tool deployed across every endpoint and server you manage. You cannot protect what you don’t know exists. The 2026 Annual Threat Report is available for download on the Blackpoint Cyber website. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca and your host for the show. Wil Santiago is Chief Security and Trust Officer at Blackpoint Cyber, an MDR provider whose SOC monitors and responds to threats in real time across a large base of MSPs and their clients. And unlike a lot of threat research that’s survey-based or derived from external reporting, what Blackpoint publishes comes from live incident data, thousands of actual threat responses they’ve worked through in the SOC. Their 2026 annual threat report has a thesis that cuts right through it. Attackers are no longer trying to break in, they’re logging in, using stolen credentials and legitimate IT tools, the same RMMs, the same cloud platforms that MSPs rely on every day, to walk through the front door, hide in plain sight, and work their way towards payday. It’s a theme we’ve been tracking at ChannelBuzz.ca. If you caught our conversation with Tony Anscombe from ESET, that one dug into the mechanics of how MSP tools are being weaponized against the very clients they’re supposed to protect. This conversation is the data layer behind that story, and the detection philosophy that Wil and the Blackpoint team have built to counter it. Their SOC is disrupting 56% of incidents before a payload even deploys. We talk about how. Let’s get right into it. My chat with Wil Santiago. Wil, thanks for taking the time, I appreciate it. Wil Santiago: Thank you, Robert. Robert Dutt: For people who know Blackpoint primarily as an MDR provider, but maybe haven’t dug into the research side, can you give us a quick sense of what your SOC is actually seeing day to day? When you say this report is based on thousands of real incidents, what does that mean in practical terms, in terms of how you gathered this data? Wil Santiago: That’s a great question, Robert. It really starts at the core of what we focus on at Blackpoint Cyber. In 2025, we focused a lot of our detection efforts in the cloud endpoints, but what we realized is that at the core, at that identity layer, that’s the most important thing. But what we’re protecting at Blackpoint is the identity. What we observed in 2025 is this interesting shift where, yes, there’s vulnerabilities, there will continue to be vulnerabilities. However, threat actors don’t necessarily need to weaponize those vulnerabilities to gain access into an environment. They’re not really targeting customers or companies with any specific new zero-day technology or exploits that are novel. They’re just logging in using stolen passwords. We’re still at that pivotal point, but we’re still talking about the same things we’ve been talking about, password reuse, making sure you’re protecting yourself from phishing emails, so on and so forth. But the reality is that threat actors are getting in. They’re stealing credentials and they’re using legitimate tools to just log in, walking through the front door. Robert Dutt: Yeah, the headline from the report was very catchy with the attackers are no longer trying to break in. They’re just logging in, as you say. And that framing echoes what we’ve seen in other reports elsewhere. People are calling 2025 the year of the abuse of trust in terms of security trends, but your numbers are operational and not survey-based. I’m curious what trusted compromise looks like from where you sit. Is there really a shift away from what you were seeing a couple of years ago or three years ago, or has this always been the playbook and we’re only now measuring it properly? Wil Santiago: Yeah, so if I compare back to, let’s say, 2022, I think we at Blackpoint would still see a trend, the threat actors gaining access into an environment, usually using some type of exploit at that time. You can point to a number of Microsoft Exchange exploits that happened during that time. The Hafnium group was doing a lot of Exchange exploits. The reality is there came a certain time where we were detecting Cobalt Strike, a malware commodity tool, every single day in Blackpoint Cyber’s SOC. And then eventually it became once a week, and then it became once a month. So then we started to think, well, what’s happening with the shift of tactics with the threat actors? And what we found is instead of installing Cobalt Strike, they started to install legitimate IT tools. And that’s the trust component. When they’re installing tools that you use internally, they now can abuse those tools the same way that you use those legitimately. And so we have these threat actors that not only are abusing legitimate tools, but like I said, they’re abusing legitimate identities. So when you have what I call the keys to the kingdom, the passwords, I am you. I am now Robert, for all intents and purposes for this sort of webinar. I think the interesting part that we’ve seen at Blackpoint is that threat actors have really, really focused on leave-behinds. And those leave-behinds are commodity remote management tools. Why do they do that? Because EDRs don’t know how to detect them as malicious, right? These are legitimate IT tools that are being used to service MSPs and their customers. And a threat actor just installs their version of the same exact tool that you’re using legitimately. Right? And so the trust component is you go to review your assets and you see ScreenConnect installed in your environments because you use ScreenConnect, right? But then when you start taking a closer look, you start to realize, wait a second, there’s four different ScreenConnect IDs on this one machine. Now we have a more of a problem, right? And so the attack is a little bit of an invisible signature detection because it’s an authorized tool, right? And so we really have to get to this layer of identifying threat actor activity with behavior context. If you’re an AnyDesk shop, then why do you have TeamViewer installed on your file server that’s publicly facing, right? Let’s start to ask those questions and dig into that a little bit. Robert Dutt: Your SOC found that fake CAPTCHA and ClickFix campaigns accounted for, I think it was 50-odd percent of identifiable incidents. That’s a majority of attacks being driven by a technique that essentially requires the victim to step on the link to execute it themselves. Why is that scaling so fast right now? And especially for an MSP who tends to think, you know, my technicians are too smart to do that. What’s kind of the honest answer for what they need to be looking for and protecting against? Wil Santiago: Yeah. And, you know, ClickFix is such an easy attack when you really get into the root of what it does. But it starts with social engineering. You’re enticing someone, again, just like with phishing, to visit something that you’re going to tell them to do an action. And most of the time, they’re going to do that action. Now, why this is so effective is we’re seeing techniques that really enable the threat actor to deliver the payload. And how do they do that? Search engine optimization, right? These SEO links at the top, when you go look for an OBS installer, because you need your camera to look well, or you get a Google sponsor result. Threat actors are just buying those sponsored results and delivering their payloads on there. You click on it thinking you’re going to download OBS, and then it tells you, hey, wait a second, you have to make sure that you are human. Verify that we’re used to verifying we’re humans to download something. So we go and we click it. But then it says, hey, open up your Windows Run command and maybe run this command on us, on your computer for us. And what happens? Threat actors go and they put the commands on a website. They have this watering hole spread out all throughout infrastructure that’s globally distributed. Google, Microsoft, all these sort of cloud infrastructure hosting providers that exist. Threat actors use those. So when you’re looking at your firewall logs and you’re seeing your internal team going to Microsoft.com, hey, it’s Microsoft, right? But the reality is, it’s likely an Azure Blob site that’s just being hosted on Microsoft, that is a threat actor that’s actually hosting it. And so they’re abusing that trust function to say, hey, you need this OBS installer. You Googled it. I didn’t tell you to go Google that. You were the one that did that. And then they found my link, which I posted a malicious payload there. And so again, that abuse factor is all the things we’ve taught our employees, our customers, our MSPs to do, right? Go to Google, make sure you identify the link. Make sure you look for Microsoft. Make sure you see the end of a URL or domain. Validate that. Well, the adversary goes, okay, they want to play that game. I’m just going to host this on Cloudflare. And now we’re back to this gate where now someone clicks on something. Well, what’s this Cloudflare? That’s a legitimate service. I know that to be true, right? It’s very true. The reality is the infrastructure is very, very easy to set up. And it doesn’t require a lot of action. It just requires someone to take a command and put it on their machine. And all the background work happens in the background, right? And so beyond that, we used to see a lot of threat actors use this sort of technique to download malware onto machines. But again, going back to what I mentioned about RMMs, now they’re just downloading an RMM. And that just looks like a legitimate process to an EDR. Robert Dutt: Right. So for an MSP, especially when training or making sure their technicians are aware, is it just as simple as making sure they’re aware of this threat landscape and this wrinkle in it? Or is there something more that’s sort of the advice there on how to protect yourself as best you can? Wil Santiago: That’s a great question. And really, you know, I would say any MSP watching this show, starting today or tomorrow, the first thing that I always tell people, audit your RMM inventory. Asset inventory is the number one thing that customers should be doing, right? You cannot protect what you don’t know exists. And so every single remote management tool that’s deployed across every endpoint you manage, every server you manage, you need to audit those, right? Like you’re giving direct access to a system. And most of the time, those RMMs run in the system context, which means they have the permissions and privileges of any admin, right? And now you have this adversary that has a foothold. They can deploy tools using admin privileges and permissions. So you have to audit your RMM inventory, right? Making sure that you understand what’s happening across those production servers. And forcing MFA, that’s a big one. We see a lot of incidents that source from RMM abuse because they log into the MSP’s RMM console, the cloud-based consoles. Some of those don’t have MFA involved. Again, keys to the kingdom, MFA everywhere, that needs to be a reality. Then we need to start moving into what I call more resilient engineering, right? Conditional access policies, preventing individuals from logging in from untrusted sources, locations, right? There’s ways that you can lock down access to an RMM and assume a threat actor is able to steal credentials because they maybe installed an info stealer on a user’s machine, stole their browser credentials. They reuse the same credentials for Gmail that they do for their corporate environment. Well, now a threat actor just perusing finds their credentials and says, “Oh, I’ve got IT Glue permissions now. I’m going to go log into this and restore all these configs in IT Glue or whatever tools out there.” Well, now the threat actor has access to that. And so that’s how they’re pivoting across these environments. They’re going from cloud to on-prem, on-prem to cloud. One of the things that we caught at Blackpoint recently, and this was a really cool response, but the threat actor compromised the cloud environment first. They then took that cloud access, deployed an RMM using Intune to the devices, and then they used that on-prem access to go to those machines and do their own work directly from that console. I called it overkill. They didn’t have to do that because they had the cloud environment. But because they did that, that sort of prompted this investigation for this MSP to approach us and say, “Hey, we believe something is happening. We investigated and quickly saw the Intune process was the responsible process for deploying some of this malware. So we told them, “Hey, deploy our cloud response suite. We want to understand what’s happening in your cloud.” And sure enough, seven global admins were compromised. So again, limiting scope is important here, right? Least privilege. Why do we have so many people with admin privileges and permissions? I think there’s 192 admin roles or something like that in Microsoft, but we default to just, you get global admin, you get all the permissions. And so now an adversary compromises a Microsoft 365 tenant. Well, now they have the permissions of a global admin. And unfortunately for us, when we shifted from the on-prem strategy to the cloud strategy, we just started pushing everything in the cloud and we say, “Oh, it’s fine. It’s in SharePoint.” We didn’t realize though that that’s only being protected by a password and an MFA token, both of which can be stolen, right? So the protection is not really there. That’s why we have to move to that resilient engineering. And so it’s moving from that reactive alerting to that posture alerting, right? Why is someone trying to log in from France? We have nobody in France. Robert Dutt: So your report showed almost a third of triaged incidents involved RMM abuse. And that’s something, that kind of trend line is something that we’ve seen in other reports. You know, one of your peers is talking about a 200 plus percent spike in abuse of RMM in attacks. I’m curious, especially since you’re sitting in the SOC there, what does RMM based intrusion actually look like in the SOC here? You know, I’m guessing curious, is there a moment where it’s genuinely hard to tell, you know, is this actually a tech doing a routine task or is this an attacker? And if so, what kind of breaks the tie and causes you to go, “No, no, that’s not right.” Wil Santiago: Yeah. Well, there’s kind of two ways to look at it, right? We have threat actors that are compromising MSP RMM tools. These are tools that are owned, managed by the MSP. They’re usually protected with some cloud login, whether they self-host it or they have the vendor host it for them. Threat actors can log into those systems with a password and a username, right? So we see a lot of brute forcing of those systems, especially if they’re self-hosted systems, they usually don’t have the protections of the vendors. They don’t put a WAF in front of them. And so they’ll try to brute force them and just log in, right? Those are few and far between, to be quite honest. We don’t see those as often, but what we do see often is, again, they gain access into an environment, usually by compromising a VPN. Now they’re on the network. Now they can move throughout that network as they’re on the VPN, and they’ll usually find a foothold. And if they have a credential like a local admin, they’ll take that one foothold and then they’ll distribute their RMM across that entire fleet of the network with one command from that foothold. So for us, when we’re looking at RMM deployments, MSPs deploy RMMs in a certain manner and format. They’re not deploying an RMM at two o’clock in the morning on a Saturday when they’re a US-based company. And oh, by the way, they just logged in from a Chinese-based IP, right? So again, there’s indicators that are very clear cut of like, okay, this deployment of RMM tools absolutely malicious. Most of those cases come to the case of, you know, we have application control within Blackpoint that allows us to alert when someone is installing a new application that’s unauthorized. And so what we tell our MSPs to do is, hey, set up your policies that if you’re a Ninja RMM shop, you cannot have any other installations of any other RMM. ScreenConnect is not going to be involved. And so that allows us and affords us the ability to do is, when we get that alert that says someone’s attempting to install a ScreenConnect, we can go back and sort of recreate the path of how do they get here. And what that allows us to really get into is, again, that response, right? And that response is preventing the installation of the RMM, eradicating the threat actor by isolating the machine, making sure you remove their footholds, getting those SSL VPNs off of the public facing internet, and having that exposure management reduced, right? And so when we look at RMM abuse in practice, once they get that RMM installed, again, they’re living off the land with system privileges. System privileges is something that most people tend to understand, but it’s just keys to the kingdom. You are God mode at that point. You can do whatever you feel to deploy and ultimately spread your access with that level of access, right? And so they’ll use it for backdoors. And oftentimes, they may compromise the environment and say, “You know what? I’m busy.” We’ve actually seen this over the holidays where they go take their breaks. Just like everyone else does. It’s Christmas. I’ve done a lot of hacking. So they leave their leave-behind tools and they come back. That’s their access factor. Again, it’s one of those things where they’re hiding in plain sight. Robert Dutt: You touched on MFA a little while ago and the report flagged the use of adversary-in-the-middle attacks. AiTM attacks that let threat actors hijack authenticated sessions, even when the MFA is there. So I guess what’s the message to MSPs who are thinking, “All right, if we just get MFA everywhere, we’re good, we’re covered.” Wil Santiago: Token protection, right? MFA is great. You have to have it. But understand that there’s flaws in the way that MFA communicates to servers. And so the whole way that an adversary-in-the-middle attack works is by abusing OAuth. And OAuth is a standard protocol of just making sure that we understand how systems should communicate for authentication. And what’s really nice about that is we can take that offensive research and then make defensive practices towards that. And so token protection is really huge there. There are a lot of built-in protections in Microsoft that allow you to invalidate session tokens after a certain period of time. Every hour you could refresh these tokens. You now, again, when you get to this resilient engineering, you start to push the adversary to be a little bit more aggressive. And that’s your detection mechanism. When you allow an adversary to move unfettered throughout a network, they’re going to move unfettered throughout a network. But the moment that you give them that sort of, “Eh, stop here. Let me see your ID.” Then they start to get a little uneasy. They’re like, “Wait a second. I don’t know how to move anymore.” And so specifically in MFA, when we talk about session hijacking and session tokens, the token protection aspect is really important because that’s a conditional access policy that you can implement. And most people do not implement those conditional access policies. Now, there’s a slew of them that work in conjunction with each other. But the idea here is your tokens will likely be compromised at some point. If you are duped into clicking one of these phishing links, it’s very easy to steal a session token. So we have to move past that. Now that we know that’s going to happen, how do we prevent the adversary from actually using those session tokens successfully? And that’s where invalidating the sessions comes in, having the session protection, conditional access policies, protected devices, things of that sort. That prevents them from being able to use those session tokens. Robert Dutt: A stat that I keep looking at in the report was that you guys managed to disrupt in the SOC 55, 56 percent of incidents before a payload was deployed. It’s a real number. That’s pretty significant. I guess what is disrupted before the payload hits mean operationally? And what does it tell us about where the detection opportunity actually lives? Because it sounds like the window isn’t did malware execute? It’s something a lot earlier. Wil Santiago: That’s exactly right. When we look at the cyber kill chain, we want to start pushing our adversaries as far left of boom as possible. Right. And so when you hear about this whole right of boom concept, basically, you’ve met your match. And now boom, you’ve now been impacted. Right. And so there’s a lot of indicators of compromise that we can start to hone in on. That will give us an understanding of whether this is legitimate or illegitimate. Right before an adversary even types the command. And again, that’s the context. And the context is what the SOC is really understanding of a customer. Where do they operate? What are their hours of operation? Where are they globally distributed? What’s the infrastructure they use? What are the tools they use? How did they use those tools? Did they deploy tools every Thursday at 2 p.m.? So there’s this constant checklist that they’re doing every single day to understand this. And so when we talk about living off the land, threat actors are trying to execute commands. Right. They’re just trying to sit there. We’re typing on a keyboard command line. Hey, I’m not going to introduce any new factors to my intrusion. I’m just going to live off the land. Ultimately, they want to deploy a payload at the end of all of that. But if they deploy a payload too early in their kill chain, they risk getting caught. Right. And so what they’ll do is they’ll stage everything. They’ll compromise an endpoint. They’ll add a persistent backdoor user. They’ll deploy some small scripts to enumerate the network. Just to get an understanding of what’s happening. But they’ll usually stage those in like a C:UsersMusic folder. And that’s their staging environment. So you can catch them. And we’ve caught at Blackpoint a number of threat actors where their toolkits are still on the machine because we caught them so early left of boom that legitimately all they did was log into a machine, try to mount a share, but it failed. And then that failed share mount is like, wait a second. They have never tried to mount a share on this file server ever. And then you call the MSP and they’re like, yeah, Monday through Friday, our hours are from eight to three and it’s seven p.m. at Thursday. Right. Well, now the context of the intrusion starts to become a little bit more apparent. And so we have to do this very quickly. The reality is for us, behavioral context, it matters more than ever. That is the true bread and butter for stopping threat adversaries is understanding the behaviors in the context of which they employ to compromise the network or compromise an endpoint. And so we focus a lot of our threat intelligence and our adversarial intrusion analysis based off of what hack or tradecraft is. We always say this internally, you cannot protect what you don’t know how to hack. So we spend a lot of our time recreating these attacks, understanding where do we catch them? And one of the things that we found is in those early development cycles of understanding the behaviors of an adversary, we found key indicators of like, wait, that is a very high fidelity indicator that before an adversary even gets on a keyboard, we’ve already caught them. They don’t know that yet. Right. And so that’s a little bit of our secret sauce there. But the reality is that secret sauce was created because we thought like threat actors and we sort of recreated what they did in controlled environments and testing environments to then to make sure the detection and the efficacy of what they’re doing is caught within our product. Robert Dutt: So this is a bit of a sidebar, but it was a new term, at least to me. You flagged Etherhiding in the report, attackers embedding malicious logic and blockchain smart contracts to manage compromised sites. Can you walk me through that real quick? And how real is this in terms of how widely it’s being deployed today? And why does it matter for detection purposes? Wil Santiago: It’s a newer term. You know, I would like to say that we have way too many terms in security and security, you know, sort of like we’re trying to be cool. The reality is this is a technique that leverages transactions on a public blockchain to basically retrieve malicious payloads. Right. And so this is another sort of trend that an adversary is using where they’re just retrieving a payload from something that is trusted. In this case, cryptocurrency. A lot of people trust cryptocurrency. A lot of people trust public blockchains. And so the idea here is that, you know, threat actors are usually going to utilize some type of social engineering and then that social engineering is going to get you to come to like a WordPress site through that WordPress site. They’re going to basically have scripts that you’re going to download and ultimately run. Innocuously. Now, when that happens, you download something that you think is OBS, like the example I gave earlier, it’s actually a JavaScript payload. Well, that JavaScript payload goes and reaches out and it pulls a malicious payload from the ether blockchain. Right. And so that’s that aspect of there’s function calls that we’ve identified within Blackpoint that are related to that remote management of pulling payloads from that blockchain. My personal opinion of this sort of technique is, you know, it gives a lot of advantage to the threat actors in terms of stealth and flexibility. But it is one of those techniques that is complicated for majority of what we see at Blackpoint. Most threat actors are not getting to that complicated level of compromising. They’re just hosting malware on a compromised WordPress site of a legitimate company that they’ve co-opted the passwords for. Right. And again, we see threat actors from different angles. 90 percent of what we see sort of today is cybercrime related. Right. So you have a lot of the fake CAPTCHA, the ClickFix lures, the Etherhiding stuff. The reality is at the end of that payload, we see everything from Etherhiding to Cobalt Strike to ransomware and compromise. The way that they get to that sort of compromise is kind of the same, though. Robert Dutt: Last one for me, if an MSP is listening to this and they’ve just absorbed that, you know, more than half of the attacks they’re going to see start with legitimate credentials, their own tools are showing up in about a third of incidents. MFA isn’t necessarily a guarantee. Where do you start? You know, what’s the one thing they probably aren’t doing today that would meaningfully move the needle for them in terms of making sure things are as locked down, as protected as is possible? Wil Santiago: That’s a great question. I like to say we should probably be spending most of our time right now really focusing on posture and posture management, reducing the attack surface. Right. How do you how do you start? Where do you start reducing the attack surface? This is where frameworks really come into play. And there’s some really great frameworks that are really prescriptive out there. One of them is the Center for Internet Security Controls, CIS version 8.1. It’s very prescriptive and it starts from the very top, right? External facing assets and applications. How do you lock those down? Cloud assets and applications, internal assets, user accounts, passwords, right? And it gives you a prescriptive way to deal with incidents. Beyond that, there’s kind of this like practical implementation groups that they have, right? And so you can start by implementing the CIS Controls with implementing one Implementation Group, right? You don’t have to implement them all. And so I think there’s a subset of Implementation Groups that can be used, but it’s about identifying, you know, what of these sort of subset groups will really resonate with your organization and your maturity level, right? And so I tell most people, look at IG1, start with the essentials. If you’ve already fit the bill on that, then move to IG2, right? But the reality is IG1 is going to give you that foundational security for organizations. And then IG2 and IG3 are going to be a little bit more advanced for more complex things. Most people are probably in that IG1, but they probably could benefit from some of the things in the IG2, the Implementation Groups there. That’s really going to help you really target your defenses against ransomware. That’s going to help you sort of approach a risk-based approach. That’s another thing that, you know, all risk is not the same, right? Risk is treated differently. And it’s important for anyone running a security team to help understand how should I prioritize my risk, right? Where is my risk going to really give me issues if a threat actor gets into it? And therefore, I always say, start there. We all know what keeps us up at night. So that’s the areas that we need to focus on. Robert Dutt: All right. Some sage advice and some sobering numbers as well. I appreciate your taking the time and walking us through some good stuff. Wil Santiago: Thank you, Robert. I really appreciate it. Robert Dutt: There you have it. Wil Santiago from Blackpoint Cyber. I’d like to thank Wil for his time today and for bringing some real energy to what can sometimes be pretty dense subject matter. And of course, I’d like to thank you for listening. The data in this conversation is worth thinking about. More than half of the attacks Blackpoint’s SOC starts with someone simply logging in, using credentials that were stolen sometimes long ago, and that users are still reusing across platforms. A third of triaged incidents involve RMM tools, the same tools your techs are using right now to manage endpoints. And MFA, as much as we’ve come to rely on it, is no longer the finish line it once appeared to be. The antidote Wil describes is behavioral context, understanding what normal looks like in an environment so you can spot when something legitimate is being done illegitimately. Not “Is this malware?” But “Is this person, using this tool at this hour from this location, doing something they’ve never done before?” That’s a fundamentally different way about thinking of detection, and it’s why the human element in the SOC still matters. And I’ll add one thing that Wil mentioned after we wrapped the recording. It’s a dimension of this fight that doesn’t get talked about often enough. Blackpoint’s work doesn’t stop at detection and response. They’re actively working to identify and disrupt adversary infrastructure, notifying law enforcement, including, he noted, Canadian authorities, with the specific goal of making cybercrime economically painful. The logic is straightforward. If your infrastructure gets taken down every time you try to run a campaign, the math of operating a criminal enterprise starts to change. That’s offense, and it sounds like they’re playing it. If you’re finding the show valuable, I’d encourage you to follow or subscribe to the podcast. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, all the major directories. A rating review always helps. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.

On this month's episode of the In Tune with Calhoun podcast, we're joined by Matt Headley, owner of Aisle Events, LLC and Plainspoken Blueprint, to discuss how your mental health journey can impact your small businesses and to never give up on your hero's journey to redemption.You can find Matt on LinkedIn if you'd like to connect, as well as on his Southern Legends blog.--Be sure to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever your listen to podcasts.Follow us on:FacebookInstagramYouTubeLinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the 5 Bytes Podcast, Anthropic claims its AI models also managed to break out of isolated test environments and launch real-world attacks, while Google says AI helped it fix more than 1,000 Chrome security flaws across just two releases. We also look at DeepSeek continuing to drive down AI costs, OpenAI responding with major price cuts, Microsoft introducing internal AI token budgets, and Nutanix announcing layoffs. Plus, Coca-Cola confirms a data breach, Microsoft promises improvements to Windows 11 performance and quality, a new Print Management app is on the way, and we look at new data on ConfigMgr and Intune adoption. Reference Links: https://www.rorymon.com/blog/ai-gets-smarter-cheaper-and-harder-to-contain/

Needlessly, there is a global Parkinson's disease pandemic on the rise. But it is unnatural and this incurable neurological disease can be prevented with environmental protections and prioritizing a toxin-free ecosystem if we clean up our air pollution and stop using certain degreasers and insecticide chemicals often used in dry cleaning, mechanics, golf courses, farming, and the military (especially TCE, PCE, and Paraquat). This is explained by the passionate medical doctor Dr. Ray Dorsey. In this lively dialogue with In Tune to Nature host Carrie Freeman, Dr. Dorsey shares key insights from his 2025 book “The Parkinson's Plan: A New Path to Prevention and Treatment” which he wrote with fellow neurologist Dr. Michael Okun. You can find out more at https://pdplan.org/ (where you can join the PD Avengers advocacy movement to prevent Parkinson's, as we are all at risk). https://www.pdavengers.com/ This show is in honor of Carrie's dad's birthday, as he has been living with Parkinson's disease the last 15 years (cutting short his beloved architecture career -- we worked on his website together), likely caused by exposure to the TCE dry cleaning chemical polluting the Marine Corps training base Camp LeJeune in North Carolina, where he served back in 1964. Dr. Dorsey explains how this water pollution and its devastating cover-up occurred between the 1950's to 1980's, poisoning and sickening hundreds of thousands of Marines and local civilians! Camp LeJeune victims can and should apply for reparations. Dr. Dorsey also shares how, sadly, other service members, like those in the Air Force, are also at higher risk of contracting Parkinson's (like Carrie's uncle Ray, on her mom's side, a retired Air Force Colonel and veteran of the Vietnam war). Our service members deserve to be protected from chemical harms! But all of us (humans and other animals) are at risk in our daily lives, often unknowingly, and humans can take actions (at home and work, in our towns, and with who we vote for) to reduce these toxins in our environment; for guidance, in the latter half of this 75-minute episode, Dr. Dorsey shares hopeful tips from the book's "Parkinson's 25" list of actions, such as: buying organic foods (avoiding animal-based foods as much as possible) and washing produce well and with veggie washes; filtering your drinking water and using an air purifier; testing indoor air and water quality, especially if your water comes from a well, specifically testing for TCE, PCE, and insecticide chemicals; avoiding living, working, and schooling near dry cleaners that use Perc/PCE; avoiding being near or on golf courses that use a lot of chemical insecticides, and not using insecticides in your own home or garden; finding out Superfund (toxic cleanup) sites in our neighborhoods and making sure they are labeled; and voting for political leaders who will make environmental wellbeing, toxin-free ecosystems, and public health a priority over unregulated industry and its devastating (lethal) chemical use (meaning, industry regulation for safety standards is required, and Dr. Dorsey shows how have we have successfully done this in the past, like with DDT...thank you, Rachel Carson). If American listeners hang in for the last 10 minutes of the show, Carrie shares EPA websites and a news report on the PCE and TCE ban that Pres. Biden's EPA put in place, and the extent to which the trump admin is currently stalling its implementation (with a chemical industry lobbyist that he put in charge, weakening the EPA's public health priorities). Who you vote for matters and we should expect our government leaders to prioritize life. Do they?  FYI: there are government/EPA emails for PCE and TCE: PCE.TSCA@EPA.gov and TCE.TSCA@epa.gov "In Tune to Nature" is an hour-long radio show airing Wednesdays at 6pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station) hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or friend Melody Paris. The show's website and my contact info can be found at https://wrfg.org/intunetonature/  While there, consider donating to Radio Free Georgia, a 50+ year old progressive, non-commercial, indie radio station, run largely by volunteers like me and Melody -- radically candid and compassionate. And remember to take care of yourself and others, as no Earthling deserves to live in a toxic world. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on In Tune to Nature do not necessarily reflect those of WRFG, its board, staff, or volunteers.

"In Tune with the Infinite" by Ralph Waldo Trine explores the profound connection between individuals and the Universe, emphasizing that by harmonizing with this cosmic force, we can attract love, health, peace, and success into our lives. As a pivotal work in the "New Thought" movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s, Trine's insights laid the groundwork for what would later evolve into the "New Age" movement. The themes of personal empowerment and the pursuit of a harmonious existence remain relevant today, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own connections with the Universe and the possibilities that arise from a positive mindset.

SummaryIn this episode of the Blue Security Podcast, hosts Andy Jaw and Adam Brewer discuss significant developments in cybersecurity, including Microsoft's new AI vulnerability scanner, the long-awaited fix for Intune's sync button, and the implications of the Hugging Face and OpenAI incident. They explore the operationalization of AI in vulnerability discovery, the technical nuances of Intune's functionality, and the autonomy of AI agents in cyber operations, emphasizing the need for a balanced understanding of AI capabilities and limitations. In this conversation, Adam Brewer and Andy Jaw discuss the limitations of AI, the importance of cybersecurity in innovation, and the implications of recent incidents involving AI models. They emphasize the need for better security practices, the geopolitical aspects of AI development, and the future of AI models in various applications. The discussion highlights the balance between innovation and security, as well as the evolving landscape of AI technologies.----------------------------------------------------YouTube Video Link: ⁠https://youtu.be/FrhlHhjHtAQ----------------------------------------------------Documentation: https://huggingface.co/blog/security-incident-july-2026https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/https://www.techrepublic.com/article/news-microsoft-july-2026-patch-tuesday/https://patchmypc.com/blog/inside-the-improved-on-demand-sync-for-windows-devices/----------------------------------------------------Contact Us:Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bluesecuritypod.comBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bluesecuritypod.comLinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/bluesecpodYouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/BlueSecurityPodcast-----------------------------------------------------------Andy JawBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ajawzero.comLinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyjaw/Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andy@bluesecuritypod.com⁠----------------------------------------------------Adam BrewerTwitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ajbrewerLinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjbrewer/Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠adam@bluesecuritypod.com

In MobileViews 618, recorded on July 12, 2026, guest co-host Don Sorcinelli joined me to cover a wide range of tech updates. I kicked off the show with a shoutout to my web host, DreamHost, who helped me manage an exponential spike in website traffic by filtering out various bots that were crashing my virtual private server. We then looked ahead to the upcoming Google Pixel event on August 12th, where we expect to see the Pixel 11 and potentially a new Pixel Watch. We also discussed the rollout of Android 17, noting its gradual improvements to desktop mode compared to the initial version rolled out in Android 16. I shared my frustrations with Microsoft Copilot, which is rapidly burning through my AI credits just for using basic OneNote features like syncing handwritten notes. This has pushed me to experiment with Obsidian and the Excalidraw plugin as a potential offline alternative for my e-ink tablet. We also touched on Windows, discussing the new Cloud Rebuild feature in the Windows 11 preview. Don shared his success in reviving an older 2019 Samsung Galaxy Book with a simple Windows 11 reset, a timely win given that skyrocketing RAM and SSD prices continue to make budget-friendly options like the MacBook Neo incredibly appealing. Finally, Don provided a deep dive into the complex world of Microsoft Enterprise Licensing. He explained how Microsoft is rolling features from its struggling Intune suite into its standard E3 and E5 licenses while simultaneously pushing price increases. Most notably, they have introduced a new E7 license—which Don jokingly called the "mother of all licenses"—that includes high-end Copilot agent features for a staggering $99 per user per month. We closed out with a look at how these price hikes, including those for non-profit organizations, are forcing IT departments to carefully rethink how they assign user licenses across their organizations.

The last time Dr. Marc Bekoff was on the show, he discussed his "Emotional Lives of Animals" 2nd edition; now he's co-authored a version for teens/young adults called "Love in Their Hearts: A Celebration of Animal Emotions and a Guide to Compassionate Action," with writer and friend Jeff Campbell, both of whom join host Carrie Freeman for a 52-minute conversation that is both fun and touching, as they share stories of nonhuman animal altruism, heroism, and grief -- from Marc's dog Jethro (bunny rescuer), to dairy cow mothers, to the famous grizzly bear 399 in Wyoming, to heroic humpback whales and dolphins. And we ponder why wild/free-living killer whales choose not to attack us humans? We also discuss how kids can learn from the lessons of Drs. Jane Goodall and Marc Bekoff in terms of their career trajectory innovating wild animal ethology (respectfully studying animal behavior as compassionate conservationists) and their childhood experiences connecting with other animals (and having supportive parents). Marc is very passionate about young people following their hearts in school and not letting teachers/professors force them to do anything violent to animals (dissection, experimentation, killing). His co-author Jeff ensured that the book contained Marc's and Jane's experiences as students, as an example of how you can be highly successful in science while still following your heart and doing what is best for our animal friends (recognizing them as someone not something). Marc and Jeff have created a free educator's guide so teachers can use the "Love in their Hearts" book in the classroom: https://marcbekoff.com/love-in-their-hearts.  You can also check out Jeff's other books for young adults at his website https://jeffcampbellbooks.com/  "In Tune to Nature" is an hour-long radio show airing Wednesdays at 6pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station) hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or friend Melody Paris. The show's website and my contact info can be found at https://wrfg.org/intunetonature/  While there, consider donating to Radio Free Georgia, a 50+ year old progressive, non-commercial, indie radio station, run largely by volunteers like me and Melody -- radically candid and compassionate. And remember to take care of yourself and others, including fellow animals with love in their hearts. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on In Tune to Nature do not necessarily reflect those of WRFG, its board, staff, or volunteers.

The dominant structural shift addressed is the increasing operational dependency on Microsoft Intune for endpoint management across organizations of all sizes, which is exposing gaps between Microsoft's native capabilities and the practical needs of managed environments. This shift is creating new pressure points for service margins, as IT service providers find themselves compensating for visibility limitations and inconsistencies in Intune's deployment mechanisms. Vendors such as Recast Software have positioned themselves as companions that address these shortfalls, acknowledging that Microsoft routinely incorporates previously “companion” features into its own ecosystem. The primary evidence cited is the identified lack of comprehensive fleet visibility and inconsistent application deployment within Microsoft Intune environments. According to Recast Software's Chief Product Officer, Jake Mosey, customer feedback repeatedly points to insufficient information about device states—especially during hybrid or co-managed transitions from Microsoft Configuration Manager to Intune—and challenges with application deployment timing, patching, and third-party app management. These operational gaps create environments in which service providers must employ supplemental tools to maintain efficiency and consistency across client environments. Supporting developments include lessons learned from similar dynamics in the Apple-Jamf ecosystem, where continual vendor evolution (“Sherlocking”) forced channel vendors to focus on speed, specialization, and building direct community relationships. Jake Mosey emphasized that effective community-driven product development relies on discerning the needs of the wider user base, not just the loudest voices, and maintaining a focused strategy. The discussion also highlighted persistent fragmentation in multi-platform environments, meaning MSPs must often manage diverse device fleets with varying visibility and control requirements—a complexity heightened during prolonged hybrid migration states. Operationally, MSPs and IT leaders face practical implications including increased vendor dependency, the need for multifaceted visibility tools, and a requirement to plan for ongoing hybrid environments rather than clean migration end-states. Service providers are urged to prioritize automation where possible but must also recognize that full migration to a single endpoint platform remains impractical for many. Failure to address these gaps increases risk to client productivity and end-user satisfaction, particularly when patching, application deployment, or security controls are inconsistently applied. The expectation is that meaningful improvements will depend more on inventory and visibility capabilities than solely on automation or AI.

Recorded on my mom, Cathy Packwood's, birthday, I'm covering a topic she has become passionate about – microplastics and how and why society should end the production and circulation of plastics, for the health of humans and other animals and our shared habitats – and how can we work individually in our homes (that's hard), and collectively as engaged citizens (that's hard too, especially in this administration), to create a healthier existence free from plastics; even recycling plastics causes toxins and can perpetuate reliance on plastics!  See Greenpeace's Forever Toxic recycling report (not recycling is a hard one for me since I have spent so many hours cleaning and recycling plastic for decades -- should we just throw plastic containers in the trash when we can't avoid getting them?!) It's time to replace this chemical-filled, unhealthy (albeit convenient) product with something sustainable, reusable, nontoxic, and non-polluting (especially around our food and drink items); we discuss how plastics are made of fossil fuels (petroleum) that adds to the climate crisis, so a plastic-free future goes hand in hand with a clean-energy future, where communities could be more resilient from the fluctuating oil market inflated prices, like now with the U.S. war with Iran, if we weren't so reliant on plastics. To tell us about this herculean personal and public effort is our guest Lindsey Jurca, Senior Plastics Campaigner at Greenpeace. Lindsey talks about their work with nations worldwide developing a "Global Plastics Treaty" with some teeth in it, to turn off the plastic cycle that is drowning us all in toxins. Join us to talk solutions in this 49-minute conversation in honor of my mom Cathy's birthday (I got her a lot of bamboo kitchen utensils and natural sponges and glass spray jars for a plastic-free kitchen).  A resource is https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-plastic-pollution/  "In Tune to Nature" is an hour-long radio show airing Wednesdays at 6pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station) hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or friend Melody Paris. The show's website and my contact info can be found at https://wrfg.org/intunetonature/  While there, consider donating to Radio Free Georgia, a 50+ year old progressive, non-commercial, indie radio station, run largely by volunteers like me and Melody. And remember to take care of yourself and others, including the other animals, who don't want to live with plastic pollution in and around us anymore. Enough already! Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on In Tune to Nature do not necessarily reflect those of WRFG, its board, staff, or volunteers. Photo Credit: courtesy of Greenpeace

Frank Lesniak joins Andrew Pla for a wide-ranging conversation that covers Frank's newly minted Microsoft MVP status, his journey through PowerShell, and what it looks like to build a real presence in the tech community. Frank talks through the pipeline struggles that tripped him up early on, how his VB Script and object-oriented background made the shift to PowerShell's object model feel disorienting, and how AI has quietly changed the way he approaches scripting today. The conversation takes a thoughtful turn as Andrew and Frank dig into impostor syndrome, the value of conference speaking, and how showing up consistently in the community compounds into a career. Frank also shares an update on DuPage Animal Friends, the nonprofit he serves, which supports one of the country's highest-performing open-admission animal shelters. Key Takeaways: The PowerShell pipeline is one of the most commonly cited stumbling blocks for newcomers, especially those coming from text-based scripting backgrounds. Learning to visualize what your objects look like at each stage of the pipeline, using tools like Get-Member, is a skill that pays dividends long term. Showing up at conferences and user groups, even when you feel underprepared, is how you build the reps that eventually make it feel natural. Frank's consulting background gave him a head start on presentation skills, and he's clear that no one is born polished. Community involvement and career growth are more connected than they might look from the outside. Engaging with people on GitHub, at events, and through open source creates a feedback loop that builds confidence and opens doors. Guest Bio: Frank Lesniak returns to The PowerShell Podcast, this time as a Microsoft MVP (Microsoft Azure, PowerShell). Frank is a Sr. Cybersecurity & Enterprise Technology Architect at West Monroe, where PowerShell runs through client work on corporate M&A: carve-outs, tenant-to-tenant migrations, identity consolidation, endpoint moves, and security posture improvement across Microsoft 365, Azure, Entra ID, Active Directory, Intune, Defender, and Windows. Beyond consulting, Frank speaks at technical conferences, mentors first-time speakers, and publishes open-source PowerShell standards and tooling, including PSStyleGuide, GloryRole, and PSConnMon. His public work threads least-privilege identity, cloud role mining, cross-platform observability, and high-quality AI-assisted development through standards, automated tests, and automated code quality reviews. Connect with Frank: https://linktr.ee/franklesniak Connect with Andrew: https://andrewpla.tech/links PSConnMon - PowerShell Network Monitoring - https://github.com/franklesniak/PSConnMon/ GloryRole - Automating Least-Privlege Azure and Entra ID Directory Roles - https://gloryrole.com PowerShell Style Guide - https://github.com/franklesniak/PSStyleGuide PowerShell Style Guide + Coding Agents Lightning Talk - https://github.com/devops-collective-inc/pshsummit26/tree/main/PowerShellStyleGuideForCodingAgentsAndHumans-Lesniak Coding Agent Accelerator Template Repo (Coming Soon!) - https://github.com/franklesniak/copilot-repo-template ProStateKit - the DSC v3-Intune Starter Kit - https://github.com/franklesniak/ProStateKit ProStateKit Promotional Commercial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA5vMH522F0 macOSLab - Automating Legit macOS VMs - https://github.com/franklesniak/macOSLab DuPage Animal Friends - https://www.dupageanimalfriends.org/ PDQ Discord: https://discord.gg/pdq The PowerShell Podcast: https://www.pdq.com/resources/the-powershell-podcast/ Previous episodes with Frank Lesniak: https://powershellpodcast.podbean.com/?s=Frank+Lesniak The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Eg-uEGaurmY  

I'm excited to talk about one of my favorite places, Cumberland Island National Seashore here in coastal Georgia. I got word from the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife that they are working to prevent some new proposed construction of large houses on Cumberland Island and increased recreational activity that will be disruptive to wildlife. We also talk about the wild horses who live there, as they were introduced to the island and they face some welfare issues and also cause some ecological issues for island habitat. As part of this discussion, we will consider the trump administration's budgetary and staffing cuts to the National Park Service, but end this 20-minute segment on a positive note by discussing the Wildlife Corridors Act proposed in Congress, to help wild animals migrate safely between habitats on public lands. In Tune to Nature host Carrie Freeman leads this 29-minute conversation with guest Kelly Cox, the Senior Policy & Planning Specialist at Defenders of Wildlife, where she works to protect imperiled species and their habitats on national public lands. The Defenders of Wildlife website is https://defenders.org/  Kelly recommends that people follow Wild Cumberland, a local group of advocates to stay informed on the public lands sale and visitor management plan.  "In Tune to Nature" is an hour-long radio show airing Wednesdays at 6pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station) hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or friend Melody Paris. The show's website and my contact info can be found at https://wrfg.org/intunetonature/  While there, consider donating to Radio Free Georgia, a 50+ year old progressive, non-commercial, indie radio station, run largely by volunteers like me and Melody. And remember to take care of yourself and others, including the free-living animals who call Cumberland Island home. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on In Tune to Nature do not necessarily reflect those of WRFG, its board, staff, or volunteers. Photo Credit: Host Carrie Freeman took this photo of a wild horse in 2018 that she saw on Cumberland Island (she mentioned him in the show).

Ensure your tenant configuration doesn't drift from defined security and compliance requirements with Microsoft Entra Tenant Governance. Capture configuration as code across 200+ resource types in Entra, Intune, Exchange, Teams, Defender, and Purview. Turn that snapshot into a Monitor. It scans for drift every six hours and flags every policy change. Extend control to the tenants you don't fully see today. Entra Tenant Governance surfaces them automatically through B2B, multi-tenant app, and billing signals. Request governance with role-based templates. Complete the secure approval handshake in the Entra admin center, then administer the governed tenant from a single browser using the roles forged in that handshake. Jeff Staiman, Microsoft Entra Principal Product Manager, shares how to bring every tenant under one governance model. ► QUICK LINKS:  00:00 - Prevent tenant configuration drift 00:57 - Create a configuration baseline 02:23 - Detect configuration drifts 03:08 - Identify related tenants to govern 04:05 - Governed tenants 05:01 - Incoming request 06:17 - Set up monitoring 07:40 - Wrap up ► Link References Get started at https://aka.ms/EntraTenantGovernance Restrict tenant's connections at https://aka.ms/TenantQuarantine ► Unfamiliar with Microsoft Mechanics? As Microsoft's official video series for IT, you can watch and share valuable content and demos of current and upcoming tech from the people who build it at Microsoft. • Subscribe to our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicrosoftMechanicsSeries • Talk with other IT Pros, join us on the Microsoft Tech Community: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-mechanics-blog/bg-p/MicrosoftMechanicsBlog • Watch or listen from anywhere, subscribe to our podcast: https://microsoftmechanics.libsyn.com/podcast ► Keep getting this insider knowledge, join us on social: • Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MSFTMechanics • Share knowledge on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft-mechanics/ • Enjoy us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msftmechanics/ • Loosen up with us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@msftmechanics 

Dave's been throwing parties. Three in four days. Confirmation sponsor for a friend's son, family and friends over the next night, and then — because the universe has a sense of humor — some local gentleman decided to remodel Dave's brick mailbox. With his truck. At speed. Bricks were found over a hundred feet away. The guy left his license plate behind, which Dave is now holding like a man who accidentally picked up evidence and doesn't know what to do with it. The driver's fine. Well — he's in jail. But he's alive. Dave wants him to know that God's mercy is always ready and present, even for the man who turned a brand-new brick mailbox into gravel.Meanwhile, Adam got a new plum tree. Planted a maple. He's getting oaks for the pig pen so they'll drop acorns someday. One of his chickens died in a water barrel trap that nobody designed on purpose — the lid flipped, the chicken couldn't get out. Farm life. And then the real news: baby Mary is doing better. Haylee got to hold her. Adam held her for over three hours — only his second time since she was born in February. Three months of NICU, and the man finally got to just sit with his daughter. Praise God. Keep those prayers coming.Also — Adam's turning 40 on June 2nd. And Lady Pamela is due with their next baby on June 4th. They floated the idea of recording an episode in the delivery room. Pamela has not been consulted.This week we're sipping 13th Colony Distilleries Southern Rye Whiskey, French Oak Finish, Small Batch — 47.5% ABV. Platinum award-winning. Silky texture with hints of rye, apricot, and brown sugar. The rye's there but it doesn't overpower — still has a lot of bourbon elements to it. About forty bucks. That's a great buy.Then the conversation turns to something Adam's son Jude sparked. Jude — Adam's second oldest — just finished reading the entire Bible, Genesis through Revelation, straight through. Now he's reading the Council of Trent Catechism. He's a kid. Nobody told him to do this. He just had good books lying around the house and picked them up. That's the whole point.The virtue of study — studiositas — isn't what school taught us it was. It's not cramming. It's not memorizing facts to dump after the test. Aquinas calls it a habit of the mind ordered towards truth. Classical education at its best doesn't fill your head — it forms the way you think. The more you read rightly, the more you can arrive at correct conclusions through a sound process, not just recall. Study leads to contemplation. Contemplation is rest in truth. And it's not about finishing the book. If you're reading to check the box, you've already lost the plot. Sit with it. Let yourself be carried. The intellectual life doesn't compete with the family — it serves the family.From there, Adam and Dave go back and forth on the books that actually formed them. Adam leads with Joseph Pieper's In Tune with the World — a short, devastating argument for why festivity dies when we strip the divine out of celebration. Dave counters with The Soul of the Apostolate — the book that reordered his understanding of what has to come first before any ministry means anything. Adam brings John Senior's The Restoration of Christian Culture — hard opinions, harder truths, and a quote worth sitting with: the virtue of study requires a canon, a body of great works proven across time. Without tradition to guide what's worth studying, you're just chasing novelty.Dave goes deep on Fr. Timothy Gallagher's The Discernment of Spirits — a practical walkthrough of St. Ignatius's rules that shed light on the stages of the spiritual life and how the enemy shifts tactics as you grow. Adam responds with Raymond Arroyo's biography of Mother Angelica — a story of suffering, faithfulness, and a woman who said yes without knowing where it would lead. Dave makes a case for the Psalms — Psalm 51, the De Profundis in Latin, and the realization that there's a psalm for every moment of a man's life, and he'd been skimming past them for years.Adam goes deep cut: Fr. Paul Murray's Aquinas at Prayer — a book that reoriented his understanding of St. Thomas from pure intellect to contemplative soul. Dave brings Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Faustina — hundreds of pages of our Lord's words on mercy that are sometimes scandalously generous. Adam throws in Simon Sinek's Start with Why as the non-Catholic book that changed how he thought about business, marriage, and fatherhood. Both men land on fiction that haunts them — Adam with Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter, Dave with Candice Millard's Hero of the Empire on young Churchill. They touch on Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Gone with the Wind, the bishop chapters of Les Misérables, Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, and close with John Senior's Thousand Good Books — the canon itself, the list that connects it all.They end where they always end: with Plato. They're halfway through the Republic in their great books group. David sits on the dumb couch. He knows he sits on the dumb couch. He's fine with it.Raise your glass.TOPICS COVEREDDave's brick mailbox obliterated by a truck — bricks found 100 feet away, driver in jail, license plate left behindThree parties in four days at Porter Prairie: confirmation, family gathering, and involuntary demolitionDave building a grain cradle for his scythe for the upcoming grain harvestAdam's new plum tree, maple tree, and oak trees planned for the pig penThe chicken that died in a water barrel trap nobody designed on purposeBaby Mary update — doing better, Adam held her for three hours, Haylee held her tooAdam turning 40 on June 2nd and Lady Pamela due June 4thBourbon of the week: 13th Colony Distilleries Southern Rye Whiskey, French Oak Finish, 47.5% ABVJude Minihan reading the entire Bible and now the Council of Trent Catechism — and nobody told him toWhy having good books lying around the house matters more than assigned readingThe virtue of studiositas — Aquinas on study as a habit of the mind ordered towards truthStudy isn't cramming — it's forming the way we think, not filling our headsWhy finishing the book isn't the point — sit with it, let yourself be carriedThe intellectual life doesn't compete with family — it serves the familyJoseph Pieper's In Tune with the World — why festivity dies without the divineThe Soul of the Apostolate — what has to come first before any ministry mattersJohn Senior's The Restoration of Christian Culture — hard opinions and the necessity of a canonFr. Timothy Gallagher's The Discernment of Spirits — St. Ignatius's rules made practicalRaymond Arroyo's biography of Mother Angelica — suffering, faithfulness, and saying yesThe Psalms as treasure — Psalm 51, the De Profundis in Latin, and why Dave had been skimming past themFr. Paul Murray's Aquinas at Prayer — reorienting Aquinas from intellect to contemplativeSt. Faustina's Divine Mercy in My Soul — mercy so generous it's almost scandalousSimon Sinek's Start with Why — a non-Catholic book that changed everythingSigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter — fiction that haunts you because it doesn't read like fictionCandice Millard's Hero of the Empire — young Churchill before the cigar and the brandyPatrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team — why hard conversations are acts of charityGone with the Wind — Rhett Butler as a man whose virtues take a lifetime to findThe bishop chapters of Les Misérables — Hugo's best character, written by a man who wasn't even a fan of the ChurchNeil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death — prophetic in 1985, terrifying nowJohn Senior's Thousand Good Books — the canon that connects all the great worksThe Count of Monte Cristo as a commentary on Dante's InfernoPlato's dialogues — the Republic, Euthyphro, the Symposium, and why you need a great books groupAdam sits on the dumb couch at great books night and he's fine with itREFERENCED IN THIS EPISODEBooks & Writings:In Tune with the World: A Theory on Festivity by Joseph PieperLeisure, the Basis of Culture by Joseph Pieper (mentioned)The Intellectual Life by A.G. SertillangesThe Soul of the Apostolate (Dave's pick)The Restoration of Christian Culture by John SeniorThe Death of Christian Culture by John Senior (mentioned)The Discernment of Spirits by Fr. Timothy Gallagher (based on St. Ignatius's rules)Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network by Raymond ArroyoAquinas at Prayer by Fr. Paul Murray, O.P.Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Maria FaustinaStart with Why by Simon SinekKristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid UndsetAnna Karenina by Leo TolstoyThe Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick LencioniGone with the Wind by Margaret MitchellHero of the Empire: The Boer War, a...

Welcome to Episode 428 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode, Ben and Scott unlock the secrets to modernizing your IT management by ditching pesky on-prem GPOs and embracing the future with Intune. They discuss how savvy IT pros are migrating thousands of GPOs into clean, manageable cloud policies. Dive into real-world workflows: from exporting and analyzing legacy GPOs with AI tools, to recreating policies in Entra ID, and finally decommissioning AD. You'll discover how to think through the migration, avoid common pitfalls like leftover legacy configs, and implement a phased migration that minimizes disruption. Your support makes this show possible! Please consider becoming a premium member for access to live shows and more. Check out our membership options. Show Notes DiskPrices.com These HDD prices are getting crazy. An increase of 96.4% in 1 month for the same 26TB drive. $279.99 a month ago to $549.99 today. Where are we buying hard drives now? Import and analyze your on-premises GPOs using Group Policy analytics in Microsoft Intune Microsoft Copilot in Intune Policy CSP Use the Intune settings catalog to configure settings Use the Intune properties catalog to get device hardware properties Create a Settings Catalog policy using your imported GPOs in Microsoft Intune Sponsors   ShareGate is your migration and governance solution for Microsoft 365. ShareGate helps your teams simplify tenant migrations, get Copilot-ready, and take control of Microsoft 365 governance. Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. TrustedTech Team is a leading Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) specializing in Microsoft Cloud services, Microsoft perpetual licensing, and Microsoft Support Services for medium and enterprise-sized businesses. Their robust team of in-house, U.S.-based Microsoft architects and engineers are certified in all 6/6 Microsoft Solutions Partner Designations in the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program. M365 Licensing Consultation M365 Tenant Assessment Copilot Readiness Assessment  Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!

The episode reveals a structural shift in the technology landscape: artificial intelligence is becoming a new layer of managed consumption, with measurable impact on infrastructure, contract terms, and operational accountability. This shift is illustrated by leading technology platforms explicitly metering AI usage through compute tokens, storage footprints, and local model deployments. Companies such as Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are integrating AI not only as features but as quantifiable workload layers, leading to economic and governance questions regarding who controls consumption and who assumes the risk of overage or misuse. The most consequential development discussed is the rapid, capital-intensive scaling of AI infrastructure by leading hyperscalers. Alphabet raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to a possible $190 billion; Amazon's AWS revenues rose 28% year-over-year to $37.6 billion, with quarterly capital expenditures reaching $44.2 billion— both moves directly tied to AI infrastructure investments. At the same time, endpoint and storage vendors, such as Apple and Backblaze, are experiencing elevated demand from AI workloads. On the software side, companies like Anthropic are explicitly raising API rate limits and deploying features to formalize the measurement and orchestration of AI-driven processes. Supporting developments include the migration of management and control functions into enterprise platforms and endpoint environments. Microsoft Agent 365 is now broadly available, offering admins centralized policy controls over AI agents across cloud and local machines, with integration into Intune for granular restriction and monitoring. Google's Chrome browser now automatically downloads 4GB Gemini Nano models to support local AI functions, raising new operational considerations around storage, policy management, and user approval. These developments anchor the thesis that AI is no longer a passive toolset but a consumption and policy domain that requires active oversight. Operationally, MSPs and IT service providers face heightened exposure to contract and governance risk. The presence of invisible AI consumption— in the form of storage expansion, token overages, unauthorized agent actions, or degraded endpoint performance— requires explicit clauses in client agreements and new monitoring capabilities. Providers unable to demonstrate control over AI usage, policy enforcement, and exception handling may inherit both support burdens and unresolved liability. The practical implication is clear: future margins and contract viability will increasingly depend on the ability to meter, document, and govern AI-related activities, rather than simply enabling client access. 00:00 AI Infrastructure Surge  04:17 Control Layer Wins 06:41 MSP Liability Shift 10:50 Why Do We Care?  Supported by:  ScalePad CometBackup Moovila 

Author and environmental advocate Miriam Horn brings the pioneering impact of wildlife conservationist George Schaller to life in her new book “Homesick for a World Unknown: The Life of George B. Schaller.”  Since the 1950's, George, often along with his wife Kay (an anthropologist), pioneered the fieldwork of living peacefully amongst large, wild/free-living animals like snow leopards, gorillas, lions, tigers, jaguars, giant pandas, Tibetan antelope, Marco Polo sheep, and Gobi bears in remote habitats, that helped pave the way for humane conservationists like Jane Goodall and Dianne Fossey, recognizing animal agency and their "theory of mind." Schaller also created parks and preserves all around the world to save vital wilderness habitat. Why have most of us never heard of him?! It's important that the Schallers' legacy is intimately detailed through Miriam's wonderful storytelling to fully appreciate how they went to wild places few scientists had ventured, persevered in tough and often politically fraught conditions, trained a cadre of young local scientists around so many nations to protect their local wildlife, published scientific books and articles proving wild animals' vast capabilities and needs, and campaigned politically to get habitats protected. You'll enjoy this 50-minute lively discussion between author Miriam Horn and Carrie Freeman, host of In Tune to Nature.   "In Tune to Nature" is an hour-long radio show airing Wednesdays at 6pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station) hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or friend Melody Paris. The show's website and my contact info can be found at https://wrfg.org/intunetonature/  While there, consider donating to Radio Free Georgia, a 50+ year old progressive, non-commercial, indie radio station, run largely by volunteers like me and Melody. And remember to take care of yourself and others, including the other animals with whom we share the planet. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on In Tune to Nature do not necessarily reflect those of WRFG, its board, staff, or volunteers.  

Lucas Allman joins the PowerShell Podcast for a conversation that starts with practical beginner wins and builds into bigger questions about AI, learning, community, and career growth in IT. The episode covers hands-on PowerShell use cases like event logs, scheduled tasks, and writing functions directly in the terminal, then shifts into Lucas's experience as a first-time PowerShell Summit speaker and his evolving perspective on AI as a tool for both productivity and learning. It lands on a strong human note, with Lucas reflecting on impostor syndrome, keeping up with change, and why curiosity and community still matter just as much as technical skill. Key Takeaways: · Event logs are a great early PowerShell win. Lucas walks through using Get-WinEvent to explore logs, filter for errors, search messages, and troubleshoot faster without waiting on the Event Viewer GUI. He also shares a practical tip for reusing XML or XPath filters from Event Viewer inside PowerShell scripts. · You can do more from the terminal than most people realize. Lucas explains how he writes full functions directly in the interactive shell, then saves them with a custom helper function so good code does not disappear when the session closes. It is a simple idea, but it opens the door to faster experimentation and building tools in the flow of work. · AI is changing how technical people work, but not eliminating the need for judgment. A big part of the Summit discussion centered on using AI as a collaborator, not a replacement. Lucas argues that the real opportunity is to offload repetitive work, learn faster, and free up more time for higher-value problem solving, while still applying technical knowledge and critical thinking to the results. Guest Bio: Lucas Allman is an IT automation specialist with a passion for building practical, scalable solutions using PowerShell. With deep experience in endpoint management, configuration as code, and Microsoft cloud services like Intune and Graph API, Lucas focuses on making complex workflows maintainable, secure, and efficient. He's an advocate for knowledge sharing and enjoys helping others level up their scripting and automation skills through real-world examples and interactive problem-solving. He had ChatGPT write this bio and says it's close enough. Resource Links: · Lucas Allman website: https://lucasallman.com · Connect with Andrew: https://andrewpla.tech/links · PDQ Discord: https://discord.gg/PDQ · PowerShell.org GitHub organization: https://github.com/powershellorg The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kcjkCS0QN64  

Your Microsoft 365 tenant may have a data backup strategy — but that does not mean you have a recovery strategy. In this episode, I explain why configuration resilience is the missing layer in most Microsoft 365 environments, and why a tenant takeover can become a business continuity crisis long before data loss becomes visible.In Episode 26 of Guardians of M365 Governance, Christian Buckley and I speak with Rob Edmonson from CoreView about one of the biggest blind spots in enterprise Microsoft 365 security: configuration tampering. We unpack why backing up emails, files, and SharePoint content is not enough when attackers can silently modify policies, mail flow, conditional access, Intune settings, and governance controls across your tenant.We also look at what “configuration as code” means in practice, how continuous drift detection and rollback can improve resilience, and why least-privilege administration still remains a major governance challenge in large Microsoft 365 estates. If you are responsible for Microsoft 365, security, compliance, or tenant governance, this conversation will likely hit close to home.Topics covered in this episode:- Why Microsoft 365 backup is not the same as tenant recovery- How configuration drift creates hidden governance risk- Why attackers target settings before they target data- What rollback and baseline comparison can look like in practice - How cross-tenant configuration migration can save weeks of effort- Why virtual tenant segmentation matters for least privilege- What Microsoft 365 admins should review right nowWatch the full episode and assess your own recovery readiness: what would happen if your tenant configuration changed overnight?Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ragnarheilMore on Microsoft 365 governance: https://ragnarheil.de

For earthday 2026, I'm replaying an interview of me describing the Human Animal Earthling identity as a strategy to creating alliances for social change by cultivating a more inclusive ingroup and broader moral sphere of concern -- a planetary team spirit, where humans embrace their animality and protect other sentient beings and our habitats.  Co-host Melody Paris interviewed me (Carrie Freeman) back in December 2020 (we were all distracted by the U.S. Presidential election back then, remember?) about my new book with UGA Press "The Human Animal Earthling Identity: Shared Values Unifying Human Rights, Animal Rights, and Environmental Movements"  https://www.humananimalearthlings.com/ (which subsequently went on to win several environmental book awards in independent book publishing categories, such as "Book Most Likely to Save the Planet"....although, in order to 'save the planet' people need to read it or listen in to apply its findings from me studying 18 social movement organizations and interviewing their leaders).  In this 50-minute podcast, we discuss why identity is core to social change, how to resolve tensions between human and nonhuman causes, shared values all progressive causes endorse, common opponents, root causes of problems to address, and shared projects all advocacy groups could work on in a way that would help all living beings (not just one subset). "In Tune to Nature" is an hour-long radio show airing Wednesdays at 6pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station) hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or friend Melody Paris. The show's website and my contact info can be found at https://wrfg.org/intunetonature/  While there, consider donating to Radio Free Georgia, a 50+ year old progressive, non-commercial, indie radio station, run largely by volunteers like me and Melody. As Human Animal Earthlings, we take care of ourselves and others, including other species. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on In Tune to Nature do not necessarily reflect those of WRFG, its board, staff, or volunteers.  

Cybersecurity Today Month-in-Review: RSAC AI Hype, Agentic Risks, Mythos Claims, and Real-World Resilience Jim Love hosts a delayed March month-in-review with panelists David Shipley and Laura Payne, starting with RSAC takeaways: agentic AI everywhere, heightened marketing spectacle, and industry tension as AI becomes the new "cool kid." They discuss the surge of autonomous agents, including OpenClaw-style experimentation leading to stolen tokens and the ease of social-engineering LLMs, plus legal and brand risks of chatbots after the Air Canada precedent. The panel debates Anthropic's source-code leak and "Mythos" messaging, while acknowledging AI tools are finding real zero-days amid massive technical debt and rising exploit speed, raising questions about liability and EU accountability. They highlight a positive case: Stryker Medical's rapid recovery after 80,000 devices were wiped via Intune settings, and note additional incidents targeting healthcare, critical infrastructure PLCs, supply-chain attacks, and longer-term impacts from major source-code thefts. Cybersecurity Today  would like to thank Meter for their support in bringing you this podcast. Meter delivers a complete networking stack, wired, wireless and cellular in one integrated solution that's built for performance and scale.  You can find them at Meter.com/cst   00:00 Show Intro Sponsor 00:22 Panel Welcome Setup 01:56 RSAC Vibes Agentic AI 03:19 Conference Hype Booths 06:32 AI Free Fridays Skills 08:12 Marketing Hype Filters 11:38 Agent Networks Gone Wild 16:00 Social Engineering LLMs 19:45 Chatbots Liability Law 23:13 Anthropic Leak Mythos 25:17 AI Code Quality Debate 29:28 Technical Debt Bug Mining 30:40 AI Hacking Era 32:09 Paying Down Tech Debt 32:54 Software Liability Shift 34:24 AI Pen Testing Scale 37:53 Token Costs and Proof 40:08 Canary Traps and Ethics 41:26 Blast Radius Resilience 44:17 Stryker Wipe Recovery 46:52 More Attacks Recap 50:07 Fast Cheap Code Debate 53:26 War Rules and Agents 56:32 Back to Basics Close 01:00:18 Final Thanks Sponsor

Andrew welcomes back Dual MVP and Intune aficionado Hailey Phillips for a wide-ranging conversation covering her project IntuneStack, the value of DevOps principles in endpoint management, and the mindset behind consistent skill-building. The two dig into conference culture, the importance of community, mentorship, and why showing up every day — even for just ten minutes — matters more than waiting for inspiration to strike. Key Takeaways: IntuneStack in action: Hailey's CI/CD-influenced PowerShell project manages Intune policy deployment across dev, test, and prod groups using promotion gates rather than expensive separate tenants — a more resilient, consistent, and auditable approach to endpoint management. Consistency over inspiration: Whether it's PowerShell, the gym, or mentoring, Hailey's philosophy is the same: stop waiting to feel motivated and just start small. Ten minutes a day compounds over time, and momentum is something you build, not something you wait for. Community is a career asset: Conferences like PowerShell Summit and PSConfEU aren't just about the sessions — they're about building a support system. Having people who can sanity-check your thinking is one of the most underrated advantages in a tech career. Guest Bio: Hailey Phillips is a Systems Engineer, Microsoft MVP, and Professional Pokémon Trainer. She specializes in automation, endpoint management, and modern workplace strategy, bridging the gap between traditional IT and DevOps. Hailey's work focuses on building pragmatic, scalable solutions using tools like PowerShell, Microsoft Graph, Intune, and Azure Arc. When she's not deep in tech, you'll probably find her skiing in the Cascades, lifting heavy things, or at a metalcore show with a strong cup of coffee in hand. Resource Links: Intune Stack on GitHub - https://github.com/AllwaysHyPe/IntuneStack Practical Automation with PowerShell by Matthew Dost - https://www.manning.com/books/practical-automation-with-powershell GliderUI Cross-platform GUIs - https://github.com/mdgrs-mei/GliderUI PDQ Discord - https://discord.gg/pdq Hailey Phillips Website - https://www.allwayshype.com/ Connect with Andrew - https://andrewpla.tech/links The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/L97ePN7UtGY

Award-winning travel writer Stephanie Pearson explains the top 10 federal public lands in the USA (out of the 640 million acres that we co-own with wild animals) that are most in need of our protection from a variety of elevating threats at this point in human history (we discuss industrial activity in Alaska and Minnesota, AI data centers all over, climate crisis-caused extinctions in Hawaii, wildlife fragmentation in the Western grasslands, introduced species killing off mammals in the Everglades, government censorship at parks nationwide, and proposed border walls messing up wild lands in Texas). This is based on Stephanie's special news report co-published by Outside magazine and RePublic. The article is titled “America's Most Endangered Public Lands 2026” and can be read at the website Republic(dot)land. Republic is a new nonprofit online journalism source dedicated to protecting America's public lands.  In this 50-minute "In Tune to Nature" radio show, aired March 25, 2026, host Carrie Freeman interviews outdoors writer Stephanie Pearson about her public lands article and ideas for getting politically engaged and enjoying public lands, and at the end we get a preview of her newest National Geographic book "100 Hikes of a Lifetime USA". Stephanie's travel and outdoor writing can be found at https://stephanieannpearson.com/  "In Tune to Nature" is an hour-long radio show airing Wednesdays at 6pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station) hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or friend Melody Paris. The show's website and my contact info can be found at https://wrfg.org/intunetonature/  While there, consider donating to Radio Free Georgia, a 50+ year old progressive, non-commercial, indie radio station, run largely by volunteers like me and Melody. Take care of yourself and others, including other species, like those who depend on our millions of acres of publicly-owned land for their survival.  Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on In Tune to Nature do not necessarily reflect those of WRFG, its board, staff, or volunteers. Photo Credit: Republic.land website image of Stephanie Pearson's "America's Most Endangered Public Lands" article

On this week's show, Patrick Gray, Adam Boileau and James WIlson discuss the week's cybersecurity news. They talk through: TeamPCP's supply chain attack on Github, and they threw in an anti-Iran wiper, because why not?! Anthropic hooks up its models to just… use your whole computer After Stryker's Very Bad Day, CISA says maybe add some more controls around your Intune? Another iOS exploit kit shows up in the cyber bargain-bin The FTC decides to ban… all new home routers?! U wot m8?! Supermicro founder was personally sanction-busting Nvidia GPUs into China?! This week's episode is sponsored by enterprise browser maker, Island. Chief Customer Officer Bradon Rogers joins Pat to explain how its customers are using Island to control the use of personal AI services in regulated industries. This episode is also available on Youtube. Show notes ‘CanisterWorm' Springs Wiper Attack Targeting Iran TeamPCP deploys CanisterWorm on NPM following Trivy compromise Andrej Karpathy on X: "Software horror: litellm PyPI supply chain" attack Checkmarx KICS GitHub Action Compromised: Malware Injected in All Git Tags Felix Rieseberg on X: "Today, we're releasing a feature that allows Claude to control your computer" A Top Google Search Result for Claude Plugins Was Planted by Hackers Lockheed Martin targeted in alleged breach by pro-Iran hacktivist CISA urges companies to secure Microsoft Intune systems after hackers mass-wipe Stryker devices FBI seems to seize website tied to Iranian cyberattack on Stryker Stryker confirms cyberattack is contained and restoration underway Hundreds of Millions of iPhones Can Be Hacked With a New Tool Found in the Wild Someone has publicly leaked an exploit kit that can hack millions of iPhones Russia-linked hackers use advanced iPhone exploit to target Ukrainians Apple rolls out first 'background security' update for iPhones, iPads, and Macs to fix Safari bug Post by @wartranslated.bsky.social — Bluesky Signal's Creator Is Helping Encrypt Meta AI Hacker says they compromised millions of confidential police tips held by US company Millions of 'anonymous' crime tips exposed in massive Crime Stoppers hack Feds Disrupt IoT Botnets Behind Huge DDoS Attacks FCC bans import of consumer-grade routers amid national security concerns White House pours cold water on cyber ‘letters of marque' speculation Google launches threat disruption unit, stops short of calling it ‘offensive' Supermicro's cofounder was just arrested for allegedly smuggling $2.5 billion in GPUs to China Cyberattack on vehicle breathalyzer company leaves drivers stranded across the US Man pleads guilty to $8 million AI-generated music scheme Two Israelis AI generated "intelligence" and sold it to Iran

Interesting Cowrie Strings https://isc.sans.edu/diary/Interesting+Message+Stored+in+Cowrie+Logs/32810 Microsoft Intune Hardening Advice https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/intunecustomersuccess/best-practices-for-securing-microsoft-intune/4502117 https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/03/18/cisa-urges-endpoint-management-system-hardening-after-cyberattack-against-us-organization Unifi Network Update https://community.ui.com/releases/Security-Advisory-Bulletin-062-062/c29719c0-405e-4d4a-8f26-e343e99f931b

FBI Seizes Iran-Linked Handala Leak Site After Stryker Intune Wipe Attack; Apple iPhone Exploit Patch; North Korean Fake IT Workers Grow Cybersecurity Today  would like to thank Meter for their support in bringing you this podcast. Meter delivers a complete networking stack, wired, wireless and cellular in one integrated solution that's built for performance and scale.  You can find them at Meter.com/cst The episode reports that the FBI has seized the data leak site used by the Iran-linked hacktivist group Handala, which has been widely linked to the Stryker attack where attackers compromised admin accounts, stole data, and used Microsoft Intune to remotely wipe and factory reset roughly 80,000 managed devices. CISA and Microsoft warn organizations to harden Intune and identity controls with least privilege, role-based access, MFA, conditional access, and requiring multi-admin approval for sensitive actions like device wipes. Apple urges iPhone users to update after fixing actively exploited flaws used in targeted, sophisticated campaigns, noting risks even for those who think Apple devices aren't targeted. The show also highlights new FLAIR research showing North Korean operatives continue infiltrating Western firms as remote IT workers using stolen or fabricated identities, exploiting weak hiring verification and broad access. LINKS https://flare.io/learn/resources/north-korean-infiltrator-threat 00:00 Sponsor Message Meter 00:19 Headlines And Intro 00:46 FBI Seizes Handala Leak Site 02:31 CISA And Microsoft Intune Guidance 04:37 Apple iPhone Update Warning 06:10 North Korean Fake IT Workers 07:56 Links Sharing And Wrap Up 08:29 Sponsor Thanks And Sign Off

Critical Microsoft SharePoint flaw now exploited in attacks 1stProtect reveals endpoint security platform intended to prevent cyberattacks in real time CISA urges U.S. organizations to secure Microsoft Intune systems following Stryker breach Get links to all our stories in the show notes: https://cisoseries.com/cybersecurity-news-critical-sharepoint-flaw-real-time-cyberattack-prevention-cisas-intune-warning/ Huge thanks to our episode sponsor, Adaptive Security This episode is brought to you by Adaptive Security, the first security awareness platform built to stop AI-powered social engineering. Picture a "new hire" who interviews well… except they're synthetic: AI video, AI voice, AI backstory. Once they're in, they go after payroll, internal docs, and access. That's the new reality: the attack surface is trust itself. Adaptive fights back with realistic deepfake simulations and training that actually sticks. Learn more at  adaptivesecurity.com.

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/iran-war-imperils-300-billion-gulf-ai-spending?utm_campaign=article_email&utm_content=article-16718&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sg The war: The USA has bombed three data centers owned by Amazon. This is the first time I've seen data centers be targets. It won't be the last.  The war: Middle eastern countries have promised $300 billion in AI infrastructure investment. Some in their countries and some in ours. That investment is in  jeopardy now as the bombs fall.   Memory Costs Squeeze Entry-Level Hardware as Suppliers Capture Margin Upstream   Apple's $599 MacBook Neo Signals a Split Hardware Strategy, Not a Budget Play   Big announcement from Microsoft. A long rumored and asked for E7 plan. Finally, Microsoft announced the Microsoft 365 E7 Frontier Worker Suite, also available from May 1, priced at $99 per user per month. The bundle combines Microsoft 365 E5—long the company's premium business productivity suite—with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Agent 365. It also includes the Microsoft Entra Suite and advanced Defender, Intune, and Purview security capabilities. It'll sell for $99 . The $99 price is below what customers would pay if they purchased these capabilities separately, according to Microsoft. The component pricing of the constituent parts—E5 at $60, Entra Suite at $12, Copilot at $30, and Agent 365 at $15—adds up to $117 per user.   https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/openai-hardware-chief-resigns-over-rushed-pentagon-pact-7064308/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3Bx3AKUbDJSbm6nGyejyaodg%3D%3D     UPCOMING CHANNEL EVENTS:     Mastermind LIVE Event – San Diego March 26-27th https://portal.kernanconsulting.com/mastermind-event Exclusive Small Biz Thoughts Community Members Live Workshop: How AI Helps MSP Radio Production…and Where It Doesn't Help.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On this week's show, Patrick Gray, Adam Boileau and James WIlson discuss the week's cybersecurity news. They discuss: Iran's Intune-based wiper attack on medical device maker Stryker Qihoo 360's AI publishes its own wildcard TLS cert private key Instagram is canning its end-to-end encrypted messaging What's going on with mobile internet access in Moscow? The Xbox One's bootloader gets voltage glitched into submission Oh Qualys! We love you! (At least, whoever is in the basement writing these beautiful .txt files…) This week's episode is sponsored by browser-based detection and response company, Push Security. Researcher Dan Green and Field CTO Mark Orlando join Pat to talk through the InstallFix variant of the *Fix attack technique. This episode is also available on Youtube. Show notes Iranian Hacktivists Strike Medical Device Maker Stryker in "Severe" Attack that Wiped Systems Stryker says it's restoring systems after pro-Iran hackers wiped thousands of employee devices | TechCrunch Stryker attack raises concerns about role of device management tool | Cybersecurity Dive Stryker tells SEC that timeline for recovery from cyberattack unknown | The Record from Recorded Future News How ‘Handala' Became the Face of Iran's Hacker Counterattacks | WIRED U.S Strikes Killed Iranian Cyber Chiefs, But The Hacks Continued Risky Business Features: Being a Wartime CISO Supply-chain attack using invisible code hits GitHub and other repositories - Ars Technica China's biggest cybersecurity company, Qihoo 360 just leaked their own wildcard SSL private key Emergent Cyber Behavior: When AI Agents Become Offensive Threat Actors - Irregular Risky Business Features: MCP is Dead Measuring AI Agents' Progress on Multi-Step Cyber Attack Scenarios Measuring AI Agents' Progress on Multi-Step Cyber Attack Scenarios What is end-to-end encryption on Instagram | Instagram Help Center US Lawmakers Move to Kill the FBI's Warrantless Wiretap Access | WIRED Website "whitelists" launched in Moscow | Forbes.ru Exclusive: Foreign hacker in 2023 compromised Epstein files held by FBI, source and documents show | Reuters Feds say another DigitalMint negotiator ran ransomware attacks and helped extort $75 million | CyberScoop Researchers disclose vulnerabilities in IP KVMs from four manufacturers - Ars Technica RE//verse 2026: Hacking the Xbox One by Markus 'doom' Gaasedelen - YouTube CrackArmor: Multiple vulnerabilities in AppArmor

Medical Device Breaches, Anti-Scam Pledge Scrutiny, AI Font Trick, and Iran-Linked Cyber Updates. Cybersecurity Today  would like to thank Meter for their support in bringing you this podcast. Meter delivers a complete networking stack, wired, wireless and cellular in one integrated solution that's built for performance and scale.  You can find them at Meter.com/cst The episode covers several cybersecurity stories: Intuitive Surgical disclosed a March 12 phishing-led intrusion where stolen credentials enabled access to its internal administrative network and data theft (customer/business contacts and employee records), while clinical platforms and Da Vinci/Ion systems remained unaffected. Eleven tech and retail firms including Google, Amazon, and OpenAI pledged to share threat intel on scams, amid skepticism and Verafin figures estimating $4.4T in global financial crime in 2025 and rising AI-driven fraud. LayerX demonstrated a font/CSS "glyph substitution" technique that shows humans a malicious command while AI assistants read benign text; Microsoft addressed it, while others deemed it out of scope. In Iran-war updates, senior Iranian cyber figures were reportedly killed; Iran-linked group Handala's Stryker attack allegedly wiped nearly 80,000 devices via compromised admin accounts and Intune, with further unverified leak claims. Denver crosswalk speakers were hacked due to default passwords.   00:00 Sponsor Message Meter 00:19 Medical Device Breach 01:52 Phishing Still Wins 02:32 Tech Pledge Against Scams 03:43 Fraud Numbers And AI 05:49 Font Trick AI Bypass 07:22 Vendor Responses Lessons 09:03 Iran Cyber War Updates 10:00 Stryker Intune Wipe Attack 11:07 More Iranian Claims 12:17 Denver Crosswalk Hack 13:10 Wrap Up And Signoff 13:33 Sponsor Outro Meter

On today’s news roundup we assess the White House’s new US cyber strategy (bellicose, bombastic, and boiler-plate), discuss a cyberattack attributed to Iran that used Windows to wipe thousands of devices, and dig into a Microsoft update on Entra passkeys. JJ isn’t impressed with new research that bypasses Wi-Fi client isolation, corporate spyware gets a... Read more »

On today’s news roundup we assess the White House’s new US cyber strategy (bellicose, bombastic, and boiler-plate), discuss a cyberattack attributed to Iran that used Windows to wipe thousands of devices, and dig into a Microsoft update on Entra passkeys. JJ isn’t impressed with new research that bypasses Wi-Fi client isolation, corporate spyware gets a... Read more »

The episode reveals a structural shift in the managed services market, where the value proposition for MSPs and IT service providers is moving away from “running the tools” to delivering governance, risk management, and outcome-driven services. This shift is catalyzed by the increasing commoditization of tool-centric operations, as platforms and vendors such as Microsoft (Autopatch), Atera (autonomous agents), Summit Holdings (MSP as a service), and Ruest (RoboRoosty AI Workflow Builder) push standardized automation, workflow tools, and backend service packaging into the market. Cisco's Global State of Security report underscores this trend, identifying tool maintenance and fragmentation as primary sources of inefficiency. Evidence from Cisco shows 59% of security leaders pointing to tool maintenance as the chief inefficiency, with 78% citing tool dispersion and lack of integration. For MSPs, this results in growing unbillable labor spent on connecting systems, onboarding, retraining, and managing exceptions. The report indicates that the cost to deliver services is escalating faster than the value captured in contracts, exposing a margin squeeze and highlighting the risk that unmanaged operational complexity poses to profitability. Secondary developments reinforce the structural shift. Atera's no-ticket operational model and Microsoft's implementation of security updates through Intune and Autopatch transfer control and cadence of IT operations upstream, leaving MSPs responsible for policy exceptions and business risk translation rather than day-to-day execution. Summit Holdings' “MSP as a service” and D&H's expansion into enablement and training further commoditize backend functions, reducing differentiation for providers who fail to retain independent client intelligence and risk management. Operationally, the implications for MSPs and IT leaders are clear: dependency on vendor platforms and wholesale backend solutions increases, making risk ownership and client-specific intelligence the remaining sources of defensible value. Providers unable to price or document governance and exception management risk seeing margins erode as they absorb unbillable labor and liability. Future operational strategy will require clear mapping of tools to billable outcomes, explicit governance layers, and careful evaluation of which client insights remain uniquely held versus replicated across standardized platforms. Three things to know today 00:00 Tools vs Outcomes 02:50 Delivery Gets Packaged 05:17 Defaults Have Costs 07:42 Why Do We Care?  Supported by:  TimeZest Small Biz Thoughts Community

Alleged Canadian 'The Comm' Hacker Arrested, Interpol's Operation Synergia Takedown, Stryker Cyberattack Update and more.. Cybersecurity Today  would like to thank Meter for their support in bringing you this podcast. Meter delivers a complete networking stack, wired, wireless and cellular in one integrated solution that's built for performance and scale.  You can find them at Meter.com/cst Host David Shipley covers new details on the alleged takedown of "Waifu," a Canadian hacker tied to the cybercrime group The Com, after a harassment campaign against investigator Allison Nixon helped lead to his identification and arrest; he now faces U.S. charges including extortion and unauthorized computer access. The episode also highlights Interpol's six-month Operation Synergia, a major international crackdown that disabled 45,000 malicious IPs and led to 94 arrests across 72 countries, targeting ransomware, phishing, and malware infrastructure. An update on Stryker describes an attack on its Microsoft corporate systems allegedly involving Intune to wipe over 200,000 devices, with Stryker saying connected medical devices and services remain safe while ordering and operations are disrupted. Finally, Poland reports it stopped an attempted hack on its National Center for Nuclear Research that may have Iranian links, though officials caution indicators could be misdirection. 00:00 Sponsor Meter Intro 00:19 Headlines And Welcome 00:50 Calm Hacker Takedown 02:49 Threats Against Researcher 04:21 Unmasking And Arrest 05:46 Interpol Operation Synergy 08:10 Stryker Intune Attack Fallout 12:56 Iran Cyber War Updates 13:43 Poland Nuclear Hack Attempt 16:14 Wrap Up And Thanks 16:52 Sponsor Meter Outro

From taking down barbed-wire fences for pronghorn and elk In Wyoming and elephants in Kenya, to letting wetland water flow naturally in South Florida for wading birds and fish, to creating 'agave highways' for migrating birds to refuel in New Mexico, to designing spaces with wildlife in mind everywhere, journalist Hillary Rosner shares her insights on how humans are helping stitch back together fragmented and degraded habitats for wild animals globally in her new book "ROAM: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World" (published with gorgeous photography in 2025 by Patagonia Press on 100% recycled non-bleached paper). See Hillary's website at https://hillaryr.net/  In this 50-minute interview, In Tune to Nature radio host Carrie Freeman especially enjoys talking with Hillary (who works at Univ of Colorado's Center for Environmental Journalism) about lessons from the places in the USA they both went to work on books on wildlife -- the rapidly developing/growing areas of the Yellowstone National Park region in Montana and Wyoming, and South Florida's Everglades National Park/Big Cypress region in Southwest Florida. Hillary describes how the Corkscrew Sanctuary in Florida is being hemmed in by housing developments, and how those human communities are wanting to divert wetland water to prevent flooded streets and yards, at the expense of Sanctuary residents like birds, fish, and alligators; she also shares her experiences with volunteers taking down several miles of barbed wire fences near Cody, Wyoming and how fences can be redesigned to let certain animals get over or under them safely instead of being a dangerous impediment for elk, pronghorn, bears, mountain lions and other mammals. You can see her list of organizations doing good work for wildlife in those regions and the global locations in her book (on the Patagonia Press Roam page). "In Tune to Nature" is a weekly hour-long radio show airing Wednesdays at 6pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station) hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or friend Melody Paris. The show's website and my contact info can be found at https://wrfg.org/intunetonature/  or https://www.facebook.com/InTunetoNature/ Consider donating to Radio Free Georgia, a 50+ year old progressive, non-commercial radio station, run largely by volunteers like me and Melody. Take care of yourself and others, including other species, like all the wildlife who need us to help them roam safely to survive. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on In Tune to Nature do not necessarily reflect those of WRFG, its board, staff, or volunteers. Photo Credit: ROAM book interior cover image of an endangered bear's fur in a barbed wire fence in Italy, taken by Bruno D'Amicis.

This episode is all about trust getting abused at scale. We start with Chinese-nexus operators pivoting fast onto Qatar using conflict lures and familiar tradecraft. Then we hit banking, because they deserve it: Lloyds, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland customers seeing other people's transactions in-app, a straight confidentiality failure, not “someone hacked my phone”. From there it's the Middle East conflict exposing what “cloud resilience” really means when the problem isn't cyber, it's physical disruption and dependency chains. Then Meta's takedown of 150,000 scam-linked accounts shows the fraud supply chain is still running hot, and the platforms are now part of the battleground whether they like it or not. The Microsoft story is the one to watch: a critical Excel bug that turns Copilot Agent into a zero-click data leak path. And the AI agent theme keeps going with Context7: attackers slipping instructions into “helpful” context and getting agents to do dumb, destructive things on their behalf. We finish with Stryker having the worst day with a major outage, disputed claims, and a reminder that if your management plane gets hit, you can lose the whole estate fast. Look at Intune. No hype. Just the stuff that actually breaks systems, me talking too fast, which to be honest 'slow' is why I turn most podcasts off. Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/swn for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/swn-563

This episode is all about trust getting abused at scale. We start with Chinese-nexus operators pivoting fast onto Qatar using conflict lures and familiar tradecraft. Then we hit banking, because they deserve it: Lloyds, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland customers seeing other people's transactions in-app, a straight confidentiality failure, not "someone hacked my phone". From there it's the Middle East conflict exposing what "cloud resilience" really means when the problem isn't cyber, it's physical disruption and dependency chains. Then Meta's takedown of 150,000 scam-linked accounts shows the fraud supply chain is still running hot, and the platforms are now part of the battleground whether they like it or not. The Microsoft story is the one to watch: a critical Excel bug that turns Copilot Agent into a zero-click data leak path. And the AI agent theme keeps going with Context7: attackers slipping instructions into "helpful" context and getting agents to do dumb, destructive things on their behalf. We finish with Stryker having the worst day with a major outage, disputed claims, and a reminder that if your management plane gets hit, you can lose the whole estate fast. Look at Intune. No hype. Just the stuff that actually breaks systems, me talking too fast, which to be honest 'slow' is why I turn most podcasts off. Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/swn-563

This episode is all about trust getting abused at scale. We start with Chinese-nexus operators pivoting fast onto Qatar using conflict lures and familiar tradecraft. Then we hit banking, because they deserve it: Lloyds, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland customers seeing other people's transactions in-app, a straight confidentiality failure, not "someone hacked my phone". From there it's the Middle East conflict exposing what "cloud resilience" really means when the problem isn't cyber, it's physical disruption and dependency chains. Then Meta's takedown of 150,000 scam-linked accounts shows the fraud supply chain is still running hot, and the platforms are now part of the battleground whether they like it or not. The Microsoft story is the one to watch: a critical Excel bug that turns Copilot Agent into a zero-click data leak path. And the AI agent theme keeps going with Context7: attackers slipping instructions into "helpful" context and getting agents to do dumb, destructive things on their behalf. We finish with Stryker having the worst day with a major outage, disputed claims, and a reminder that if your management plane gets hit, you can lose the whole estate fast. Look at Intune. No hype. Just the stuff that actually breaks systems, me talking too fast, which to be honest 'slow' is why I turn most podcasts off. Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/swn for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/swn-563

We explore an ethical worldview that may be new to a lot of people (but may capture how you really feel if you care for animals). It's called sentientism, described by our guest Jamie Woodhouse (creator of Sentientism.info and the Sentientism podcast) as “a simple, potentially unifying, philosophy or worldview. It commits to using evidence and applying reason, and grants moral consideration to all sentient beings." Basically, animals are sentient beings, as they (we) experience consciousness and feelings of pleasure or pain and suffering, which tends to be the actual basis of most moral concerns for others (rather than limiting it to species boundaries). In this 46-minute discussion in February 2026, host Carrie Freeman talks with Jamie Woodhouse (from his home in London) about what society would be like (and how our environmental policies and our political systems would be improved) if the focus of our concerns and laws were not just on human beings, but on all sentient beings, since we humans impact and often harm them so greatly -- we would be applying reason and scientific evidence (avoiding dogma, misinformation, and conspiracies) to help determine what all us animals need to flourish. "In Tune to Nature" is a weekly hour-long radio show airing Wednesdays at 6pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station) hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or friend Melody Paris. The show's website and my contact info can be found at https://wrfg.org/intunetonature/  or https://www.facebook.com/InTunetoNature/ Consider donating to Radio Free Georgia, a 50+ year old progressive, non-commercial radio station, run largely by volunteers like me and Melody. Take care of yourself and others, including other species, like all sentient beings. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on In Tune to Nature do not necessarily reflect those of WRFG, its board, staff, or volunteers. Photo Credit: I took the image of various animals' eyes as a screenshot off the Sentientism.info website.    

What does it take to get your SaaS offering on multiple cloud providers? Richard chats with Steve Buchanan about his new role at JAMF, which focuses on a mobile device management product for Apple devices. Originally built as a SaaS product on AWS, Steve is helping to build out the JAMF stack on Azure to support a broader range of customers. Steve talks about Kubernetes as the common ground among the major cloud players, but you need to dig into the rest of the tooling to minimize differences across implementations. That means cloud-agnostic tools for deployment, identity, instrumentation, and more! The good news is that there are plenty of tools out there to help you, but it does take time to work out your suite of tools to get consistent results, no matter where the backend resides.LinksJAMFOpenTofuElastic Kubernetes ServiceAzure Kubernetes ServiceGoogle Kubernetes EngineMicrosoft IntuneiOS and IntuneOktaPrometheusGrafanaSteve's Pluralsight ClassesKAgentSOC 2 Type 2Recorded January 8, 2026

Automate device and security policy management by turning written compliance requirements into Intune policies. Use natural language to draft, refine, and deploy configuration profiles, review AI-generated recommendations with confidence scores, and stay in full control before publishing to your environment. Reduce risk and manual effort by automatically evaluating admin change requests and blocking harmful scripts before deployment. Prioritize vulnerabilities from Defender, translate them into actionable Intune remediation steps, and schedule ongoing fixes. Jason Githens, Microsoft Intune Principal GPM, shares how to move from reactive security work to continuous, proactive protection. Note: At the time of publishing this video, the Change Review Agent and Policy Configuration Agent are in public preview and the Vulnerability Remediation Agent is in limited public preview. ► QUICK LINKS: 00:00 - Automate work with Intune Agents 01:08 - Policy Configuration Agent 01:36 - Policy drafts 02:27 - Create a new knowledge source 03:25 - Create a new policy 04:49 - Change Review Agent 06:19 - Vulnerability Remediation Agent 07:46 - Wrap up ► Link References To get started, go to https://aka.ms/IntuneAgents ► Unfamiliar with Microsoft Mechanics? As Microsoft's official video series for IT, you can watch and share valuable content and demos of current and upcoming tech from the people who build it at Microsoft. • Subscribe to our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicrosoftMechanicsSeries • Talk with other IT Pros, join us on the Microsoft Tech Community: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-mechanics-blog/bg-p/MicrosoftMechanicsBlog • Watch or listen from anywhere, subscribe to our podcast: https://microsoftmechanics.libsyn.com/podcast ► Keep getting this insider knowledge, join us on social: • Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MSFTMechanics • Share knowledge on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft-mechanics/ • Enjoy us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msftmechanics/ • Loosen up with us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@msftmechanics 

SummaryIn this episode of the Blue Security Podcast, hosts Andy and Adam discuss the evolving landscape of cybersecurity training, particularly in light of generative AI and the limitations of traditional phishing simulations. They argue that expecting employees to outsmart sophisticated cybercriminals is unrealistic and emphasize the need for a robust security architecture that assumes clicks will happen. The conversation then shifts to recent updates regarding Microsoft Intune Suite, including pricing changes and new features, highlighting the importance of adapting to the changing cybersecurity environment.----------------------------------------------------YouTube Video Link: ⁠https://youtu.be/KzT_wOyC4-w⁠----------------------------------------------------Documentation:https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-haynes_im-going-to-say-something-that-might-get-activity-7417944035304079360-s1D_/https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoftintuneblog/microsoft-365-adds-advanced-microsoft-intune-solutions-at-scale/4474272----------------------------------------------------Contact Us:Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bluesecuritypod.comBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bluesecuritypod.comLinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/bluesecpodYouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/BlueSecurityPodcast-----------------------------------------------------------Andy JawBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ajawzero.comLinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyjaw/Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andy@bluesecuritypod.com⁠----------------------------------------------------Adam BrewerTwitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ajbrewerLinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjbrewer/Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠adam@bluesecuritypod.com

SummaryIn this episode of the Blue Security Podcast, hosts Andy and Adam discuss the evolving landscape of cybersecurity training, particularly in light of generative AI and the limitations of traditional phishing simulations. They argue that expecting employees to outsmart sophisticated cybercriminals is unrealistic and emphasize the need for a robust security architecture that assumes clicks will happen. The conversation then shifts to recent updates regarding Microsoft Intune Suite, including pricing changes and new features, highlighting the importance of adapting to the changing cybersecurity environment.----------------------------------------------------YouTube Video Link: https://youtu.be/KzT_wOyC4-w----------------------------------------------------Documentation:https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-haynes_im-going-to-say-something-that-might-get-activity-7417944035304079360-s1D_/https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoftintuneblog/microsoft-365-adds-advanced-microsoft-intune-solutions-at-scale/4474272----------------------------------------------------Contact Us:Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bluesecuritypod.comBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bluesecuritypod.comLinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/bluesecpodYouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/BlueSecurityPodcast-----------------------------------------------------------Andy JawBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ajawzero.comLinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyjaw/Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠andy@bluesecuritypod.com⁠----------------------------------------------------Adam BrewerTwitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ajbrewerLinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjbrewer/Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠adam@bluesecuritypod.com

OpenAI is introducing advertisements into ChatGPT for free and ChatGPT Go users, aiming to fund artificial general intelligence development. These ads will be clearly labeled and separate from AI responses, with OpenAI stating user conversations will remain private and data will not be sold. Ads will be excluded from sensitive topics. Users can avoid ads by upgrading to a paid subscription, such as the new $8/month ChatGPT Go tier, which offers increased limits and access to the latest model but also features advertisements. This move signifies a monetization strategy, with OpenAI reporting significant revenue growth for ChatGPT.The broader impact of AI on jobs is also discussed, with data suggesting job losses attributed to AI may be overstated. While some roles are affected, particularly entry-level positions, the overall employment impact appears limited. Reports indicate that AI is often used as a justification for layoffs driven by economic factors or overhiring, rather than being the sole cause. The analysis highlights that AI's productivity gains are currently modest, requiring substantial increases to drive large-scale job replacement. However, the International Monetary Fund estimates nearly 40% of global jobs are at risk due to AI, with a growing demand for new skills that offer a wage premium.Automation and platform integrations are accelerating, with ConnectWise acquiring ZofIQ to automate service desk operations within its PSA workflow. D&H is expanding its logistics capabilities by acquiring fulfillment.com, enhancing its supply chain services. Microsoft MVPs are collaborating to showcase free Intune management tools to help organizations manage their Intune environments more effectively. These developments indicate a trend towards deeper platform integration and automation within IT service delivery and logistics.For MSPs and IT service providers, these developments highlight several critical considerations. The introduction of ads in AI tools like ChatGPT raises questions about trust and governance, particularly when these tools are integrated into client-facing workflows. The slowdown in hiring, especially for junior roles, underscores the need for strategic talent development to avoid future capacity gaps. Furthermore, the increasing automation within platforms and services, while offering efficiency, necessitates careful management of counterparty risk, clear contractual definitions of authority, and redefined pricing models to account for shifting liability and decision-making. Vendors retreating from emerging technologies like Meta's VR business also underscore the importance of diligent vendor selection and managing the credibility cost associated with adopted technologies. Four things to know today 00:00 Jobless Claims Fall as Small Businesses Pull Back on Hiring, Especially Entry-Level Roles05:45 OpenAI Adds Ads to ChatGPT as It Scales Revenue, Expands Go Tier, and Deepens Enterprise and SMB Adoption09:17 Automation Moves From Tools to Authority as ConnectWise, D&H, and Intune Ecosystems Shift Control—and Risk13:05 Meta's Retreat from Business VR Leaves MSPs Managing Cleanup, Data Deletion, and Client Expectations This is the Business of Tech.    Supported by:  https://scalepad.com/dave/

Sail the seas of tech and AI with experience and confidence.  Gavin Garbutt, Co-Founder and Chairman of Augmentt shares how MSPs must evolve to secure and manage Microsoft 365 and SaaS environments. Adopt a security-first mindset, and dramatically increase technician capacity through standardized Microsoft security best practices; through a unified Microsoft Security Management Platform designed for MSPs. Gavin outlines why “blocking and tackling” fundamentals—leveraging audits and maintaining a consistent security posture—remain critical as MSPs prepare for AI-driven growth.  Key Highlights:  How Augmentt represents the “next generation of RMM” for Microsoft 365, Intune, Defender and SaaA visibility.   Intune Autopilot enables MSPs to standardize, audit, and deploy policies across multiple tenants. 'Secret Sauce' for fostering successful partner and customer relationships. Series A funding, strategic partnerships and marketplace strategy (including Pax8) accelerate innovation and scale. Gavin's vision for unified security, AI enablement, and helping MSPs become more profitable. The charge to go from being reactive to becoming proactive; for 10,000 users per tech and 5x revenue per tech.   From sailing the open seas to navigating the channel's next wave, this conversation delivers practical insight for MSP leaders planning for 2026 and beyond.  Visit augmentt.com/ to learn more and to take advantage of a free security audit report & tool.   Timestamps:  Audit as a Best Practice 13:31  Quickfire Questions 32:45 What to Expect 36:26

I cover issues in Intune relating to Firewall configurations, the retirement of MDT, a reboot loop issue on Cisco switches, a software update from hell story plus much more! Reference Links: https://www.rorymon.com/blog/firewall-config-issues-mdt-retirement-software-update-from-hell/

Jorge Suarez joins The PowerShell Podcast to share his journey into PowerShell, automation, and community contribution. From attending his first MMS conference to building creative and practical PowerShell projects, Jorge talks about how PowerShell became the primary driver of his career growth. The conversation covers his popular Intune Hydration Kit, creative TUI projects inspired by shows like Severance, and how curiosity and experimentation led him to build tools he wished existed earlier in his career.   Beyond tooling, Jorge opens up about imposter syndrome, learning in public, and using PowerShell as a force multiplier to automate work, stand out professionally, and think differently about problem solving.   Key Takeaways: PowerShell accelerates careers – Automating repetitive work and forcing yourself to use PowerShell daily builds fluency and opens new opportunities. Build what you wish you had – Jorge's projects, including Intune Hydration Kit and multiple TUI tools, came from solving his own real-world problems. Imposter syndrome is fuel – When managed well, it can drive curiosity, learning, and long-term growth instead of holding you back. Guest Bio: Jorge Suarez is an Endpoint Platform Engineer and PowerShell enthusiast. Jorge is known for building creative PowerShell solutions—including terminal user interfaces and Intune automation projects. He's an active community contributor who blogs, shares code on GitHub, and advocates for learning in public.   Resource Links: Jorge Suarez on GitHub – https://github.com/jorgeasaurus Jorge's Blog – https://www.jorgeasaur.us/ Intune Hydration Kit – https://github.com/jorgeasaurus/IntuneHydrationKit Connect with Andrew - https://andrewpla.tech/links PDQ Discord – https://discord.gg/PDQ PowerShell Wednesdays – https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=PowerShell+Wednesdays The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NEDX_3kDhZQ