Podcasts about our it

On the show today... Our IT department rates how important our problems are!  The lengths you went to to put your baby to sleep! Did a listener of the show pash Bebe Rexha in Tokoroa? We call the pub... Catch us 3-7pm weekdays on More FM and on the ROVA app!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Happy Fourth of July! In this episode we talk about upcoming virtual events, workshops, and trainings we have scheduled for the months of July and August. Our IT manager, Matt Healy, updates everyone on the internal improvements made on the tech side coming out of COVID. We also sit down with our sales and marketing […]

Ready to share some spooky stories? Our IT guy, Ziro, certainly is. From thrown shot glasses and phantom giggles to floating fire extinguishers, he’s certainly experienced something from the beyond. Have you? Tell us all about it. Greetings Creatures! We're Kalie and Rachelle and we're Paranoia Percentage! This is a podcast about cryptids, machination theories, and everything weird. The Pdubs Team: Digital Artist - Kalie Hard Editor - Rachelle IT Support - Ziro https://www.twitch.tv/zlro Photographer - Bethaney Brown https://www.instagram.com/bethaneybrown/?hl=en Find us all around you. Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/paranoiapercentage Tumblr - https://pdubspodcast.tumblr.com/ Anchor - https://anchor.fm/paranoia-percentage Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/60tLquEjouwmCOLWfxIisV Breaker - https://www.breaker.audio/paranoia-percentage RadioPublic - https://radiopublic.com/paranoia-percentage-6vrZk9

In this episode, we talk about the different ways our "IT" tricks us into procrastination and self-sabotage. Our "IT" has a sneaky way of convincing us that things are different than they really are. When we fall into this trap, we stop making progress.

Les bugs informatiques sont monnaie courante. Le problème c'est quand ça touche au compte en banque. Ça arrive, mais ici pour Greenpeace, c'est plutôt de la mauvaise publicité. La série Avec J'Améliore mon Anglais, prenez quelques minutes pour écouter un article de WikiNews accompagné de quelques mots de vocabulaire. Je termine le podcast en vous posant une question en anglais qui fait suite à l'histoire. Pour accéder à tous les épisodes, c'est par ici. Écouter le podcast Prêtez attention au vocabulaire et essayez d'anticiper l'histoire grâce au titre et au vocabulaire, ça vous aidera à comprendre le texte. Pour écouter le podcast, plusieurs options selon vos préférences. Vous aurez reconnu tout au début de cet article le lecteur du podcast en mp3 (audio). Vous êtes libre de l'écouter directement sur cette page-ci. Cliquez sur le bouton Play à gauche de la barre noire. Le télécharger pour l'écouter plus tard, ou l'écouter plusieurs fois. Cliquez sur Download sous la barre noire. Le vocabulaire de cet article Pour progresser en anglais si votre niveau le permet, écoutez le podcast, écrivez les mots et expressions que j'explique, puis vérifiez leur orthographe. Voici la liste des mots et expressions dont je vous parle dans le podcast. Si vous avez une mémoire visuelle, vous voudrez peut-être les lire avant d'écouter le podcast (ou pendant). To hit: frapper, toucher The UK: The United Kingdom An amount: un montant A direct debit: un prélèvement automatique The bank charges incurred: les frais bancaires encourus A glitch: un pépin, une erreur A nought: un zéro To be out of pocket: perdre de l'argent To support: soutenir Our IT specialists are trying to work it out: Nos spécialistes essaient d'identifier et résoudre le problème. Question de grammaire: One supporter told The Herald that she‘d no longer let Greenpeace access her bank account. À quoi corresponde ce ‘d ? could? had? would? should? She would no longer let Greenpeace access her bank account: Elle ne laisserait plus Greenpeace accéder à son compte bancaire.   Je vous ai promis le lien pour en savoir plus sur ‘nought‘, c'est ici L'article WikiNews Bien sûr, rien de tel que de lire l'article en complément de l'écoute. Ainsi vous aurez la possibilité de vous pencher un peu plus sur la structure des phrases. Mais je vous recommande de pratiquer l'écoute un maximum, voire de rejouer le podcast plusieurs fois avant de lire l'article. Vous trouverez l'article ici. De quoi ça parle? (Spoiler alert!!) Selon votre niveau en anglais, vous aurez saisi plus ou moins de détails. Le plus important est de comprendre le sens de l'histoire. Et très souvent, après avoir compris le sens global, une deuxième écoute vous permettra de noter plus de détails. Résumé: au Royaume-Uni, un bug dans le système de prélèvement automatique des dons à Greenpeace a multiplié par 100 le montant donné à cette association. Les bugs informatiques ça arrive, certes, mais quand un don de £50 en devient £5000, c'est un bug qui coute cher! Ma question: What would you do if this error affected your bank account?   Avez-vous compris l'histoire sans vous aider du résumé? Avez-vous su répondre à ma question?     L'article J'Améliore Mon Anglais – Episode 127 est apparu en premier sur Langonaute.

2020 has been a challenge and a half – for individuals, families, businesses, and more. In this episode, we look at the impact of COVID-19 on Hydro Ottawa’s operations, employees and customers.  Bryce Conrad, President and CEO of Hydro Ottawa, shares the lessons that he learned while leading in these uncertain times as well as the importance of fostering resilience and flexibility in all areas of a business. He also sheds light on most pressing concerns facing utility companies upon entering the first winter of this pandemic. Related Content & Links: Website: https://hydroottawa.com/ Twitter: @hydroottawa --- Transcript: Dan Seguin  00:42 Hey, everyone, welcome back. This is the ThinkEnergy podcast. While the energy sector has weathered floods, ice storms and tornadoes. The COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis unlike anything a utility company has experienced before. It's safe to say that nearly every industry has had their business models, service offerings, and bottom line impacted by COVID-19. While no business or industry is immune, there's no denying that safe and reliable power for hospitals, businesses and homes is just as if not more important than ever. That in turn has shone a light on how essential local utility companies really are. While a lot of us are working remotely, the reality is that there are some jobs that can't be done from home. As an essential service. Utility field workers continue to work out in communities on critical projects to ensure grid stability, and respond to power outages to make sure the power is there when you need it. So how has the pandemic tested utility emergency response and business continuity plans and what new energy usage patterns are emerging? With energy demand, decreasing for industrial and commercial customers, and increasing for residential customers, overall, there has been a reduction of total electricity demand by approximately 10 to 30%. Across the industry. There's no denying that this shift is having an impact on our energy habits and our collective environmental footprint. So here's today's big question. What are the most pressing concerns facing utility companies as we enter our first winter of this pandemic. To shed some light on some of their offer one and one for all collaborative approach, I've invited Bryce Conrad, who has been serving as president and chief executive officer of Hydro Ottawa since 2011.  Bryce: first, what is something you've learned about yourself during COVID? And how is the team doing overall at Hydro Ottawa as we enter the first winter of the pandemic?   Bryce Conrad  03:35 That's great question. So what have I learned about myself? I guess the surprising part was just how much of a social butterfly I seem to be, you know, this pandemic, where you're sort of forced into your house, and you're forced into these small bubbles. You know, intuitively at the start, I thought, this is kind of great, no one to bug me, I can do my thing. But after about two weeks, I was going a little stir crazy. So you really, you really miss the social interaction you get, you know, whether it be in the office or, you know, with your colleagues across the country. So that part was a bit surprising. In terms of the team. Look, you know, I don't think people understand how good our team actually is. You know, we started tracking this pandemic, back in January, I remember having the initial conversation with Bruce and Lynn and, you know, they're saying this thing is, you know, we're hearing about this and we, you know, maybe we should send it back to in our business continuity plan, and I thought, Well, okay, I mean, at that point in time, it was still something off in a far off remote place and pretty far away from Ottawa. So we activated the pandemic plan, our business continuity plan, specifically the pandemic plan. Kind of mid-January. Whereas with kind of a kind of a watch and see kind of approach, and you know, followed it and tracked it and you know, as the situation worsened, then you saw it starting to come across, you know, we started to make some decisions with respect to travel and started to curtail expenditures and limiting this and that. And then when it became obvious in February, I remember having a conversation with the executive team saying, you know, we need to get ready to shut this place down. You know, the good news is we had the plan, the plan was good. And we executed on the plan so that when we made the final decision to sort of send people home, to work from home. You know, there was no, there was no panic by any stretch of the imagination, it was, it was pretty matter of fact, and, quite frankly, the team was set up and ready to go. So we can effectively throw the switch the next day, which is what we did so. So the short answer. The question is, is the team's done exceptionally well, given the circumstances. I think it's been a tough time for people, a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, a lot of uncertainty. But generally speaking, I think they've responded very well.   Dan Seguin  06:16 Hydro Ottawa has weathered ice storms, tornadoes, floods, these past years alone. What is something you've learned about the resiliency of utility companies? And how has the pandemic tested your emergency response and business continuity plan?   06:37 You know, what you what you've learned about utility companies is just that. It's just how resilient they actually are. Our ability to sort of keep on going. I feel like the US Postal Service's right, through snow and sleet and rain, you know, they keep doing their job. So yeah, that's it. I mean, the question is just how resilient the company has been how resilient company utility companies are. I mean, I have the privilege of sitting on these kind of, at the time, they were weekly calls across the country with all the CEOs of utilities through the Canadian Electricity Association. And, you know, it was comforting on the one hand to know that we were all dealing with this stuff together. Even more comforting to realize that we're probably further ahead of the game than most of our most of our peers. When we did our strategic direction back in, you know, four or five years ago now, one of the key elements was that we would, we should expect disruption in the business and disruption in the industry. And I won't pretend to be clairvoyant to say that I saw a pandemic coming at the time, but I certainly expected disruption. You know, the idea that we didn't want to be the taxicab industry when Uber arrived, we didn't want to be Blockbuster Video when Netflix arrived. So we wanted to be prepared. So you know, everything we've done over the past five years is been to sort of embrace that concept of disruption, prepare for it, whatever that took, whatever that meant. And as you saw when we moved to our new facilities, you know, we got rid of the big desktop computers we had, everyone has a laptop. So when we threw the switch and told people to work at home starting the next day, you know, Our IT people weren't out at BestBuy trying to buy, you know, 400 laptop computers, everyone was ready. And it was just a question of throwing the switch. So yeah, I think we're, I think we responded well, you know, in the course of my 10 years of the company, we've had tornadoes, we've had one in 100 year floods, we have more than 1000 year floods, we've now had a pandemic, I fully expect to look out the window and see the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse coming down. I mean, we're missing locusts. But that's about all we're missing at this point in time. So this has tested our plans, it has tested the strength of the company, and I think quite frankly, the company's done well through it. And, again, our plans, our plans, you put these plans in place, hoping you never have to implement them. But if need be, the plan is there and we executed to the plan and I think there's not a there's not a single thing that I would have done differently in hindsight. So I think I think the plan is stood the test of time. Good, good. Now,   Dan Seguin  09:41 Are you able to expand on how Hydro Ottawa is helping customers that are struggling? What do you think has been Hydro Ottawa's key role thus far in providing its customers with solutions for those who need that extra help?   Bryce Conrad  10:02 Yeah, you know, it's a great question, Dan. And obviously, living in Ottawa with the mix of customers that we have. And obviously a very large public sector footprint, whether it be the Government of Canada or the universities or the hospitals, I mean, we have a large public sector footprint and that public sector has been incredibly resilient during this time, you haven't seen layoffs or you haven't seen, you know, mass disruptions as a result, unlike some of my peers across the country who are dealing with, you know, 40 and 50% default rates and stuff like that. We haven't seen that in Ottawa, largely because of the mix that we have. But I do think that overshadows some of the real challenges. If you look at your local small businesses here in Ottawa, if you look the hair salons, the restaurants, the local bookstores, the local, retail establishments, those places, all have all just been hammered. And they've had to make really hard decisions. In some cases, we've seen people paying their hydro bill, so many small businesses paying their hydro bill on their credit card, because it didn't want to get cut off. I mean, just gut-wrenching stories like that, which, which, obviously, it's an obvious consequence of the downturn/the pandemic. So what, you know, what, what can we do, what have we done? I mean, the short answer is we're doing everything we can. We want to be supportive, the direction I've given is to bend over backwards to do whatever we can to help these people and these customers, and specifically small businesses. But at the end of the day, we also have to be responsible, and part of that responsibility is making sure that we're not socializing bad debts. So just because a restaurant or businesses going out of business, and not paying their bill, it's not fair to take that that their debt and put it onto the backs of people who are paying their bills. So it's achieving that balance, but specifically that we've allowed customers to enter into payment plans that are longer than we otherwise would have normally seen. We're allowing businesses up to 12 months to get their accounts back into good standing. You know, we've worked with the various provincial associations, and we've worked with the government. And I've spoken to the Minister a number of times since the pandemic took hold and we've been front and center and supporting a number of their initiatives, including, you know, extending the disconnection ban so that no one was getting cut off. You know, through to the end of July. We were actively promoting the idea of, you know, time of use pricing makes a lot of sense when businesses is businesses and businesses good. But when everybody is forced to start to work at home, you know, penalizing people, by making them pay higher rates during the day, didn't make a lot of sense. And so we're pleased to see the government move there and adopt these COVID rates. And more importantly, recently, they've come up with these COVID funds for both small businesses and residential customers. So we've been actively pushing and promoting those, getting them out to help people so that they don't have to, you know, use their credit card to pay their hydro bill. And our answer is always the same, it's been the same from day one and it is, "look, if you're struggling, we understand it," we mean, we're not we're not oblivious to the effects of the pandemic, we just need you to reach out and talk to us and see what we can do to help you and we have a number of tools that are in our toolbox that that we can bring to bear and help you out. So if anyone's listening to this and they're struggling, just please reach out by all means and we can see what we can do for you.   Dan Seguin  13:55 We all know that the world has definitely changed. From safeguarding, to stabilizing operations, liquidity people and supply chains, within Hydro Ottawa, did the pandemic accelerate momentum towards new ways of working automation or digitization?   Bryce Conrad  14:18 I think the answer is yes and no, you know. As you know, when we went, you know, as normal process in the company, it's a big company. And when we launch new digital tools, or software, we tend to sort of do soft launches, and then, you follow up with a lot of training, and then, you know, eventually we sort of take the training wheels off, and we let people use the technology. You know, we didn't have that opportunity in this case. And so, you know, we, when we went virtual, we went real virtual, so we implemented the Google suite of products and, you know, that's something that we normally would have done over a matter of three or four months and, you know, effectively in this case, we just threw the switch and said, you know, figure it out on your own, and here's some online tools to help you. So those tools were great, and they've been fantastic. And they've allowed us to work anywhere and everywhere, at any time and to work effectively. So I think that's, that's been great, you know, we did some things that we never thought we would have had to have done before, I think specifically of, you know, the Rate Application process, which is a huge undertaking, of company undertaking. And sort of, you know, you launch this thing as massive effort. And, you know, we were on the 20 yard line kind of thing and heading in and, you know, the pandemic hit, and, you know, by use of these tools and technologies, we were able to sort of get it across the goal line, and, you know, working with the Ontario Energy Board, who was incredibly responsive, I got to give him credit. You know, we did the first ever virtual rate hearings, you know, are these quasi-judicial processes were done over Zoom or using these technologies. So, you know, full credit to the team full credit to the OEB and the interveners, for, for working with us to sort of make that possible. So I mean, that's an example where I thought the tools are great. But if I'm being honest with you, it's also highlighted a pretty profound area of weakness. I see this day in and day out. I mean, these digital tools are great for transaction oriented decisions, you know, meetings become focused around a transaction or multiple transactions. But when you really want to do some sort of blue sky thinking, you want to think about strategy and sort of bring together and do the collaboration and the heart, the heart, outside the box, thinking around collaboration and trying to move things forward, at the highest level that is not easily done by these tools. It just, you know, three hour strategy session on a zoom call is akin to a day in Guantanamo Bay, it's just not something anybody ever wants. And it's just not conducive to a positive outcome. So I think that's an area where, notwithstanding how effective these tools have been, it's just nothing will replace that face to face kind of conversation that we've grown used to. And then the other thing is, is, and I'm a huge proponent of technology. On the scale of adoption, I'm going to be the early adopter, I'm going to make sure I've got the iPhone 12 before anybody else does, right. Technology doesn't change bad habits, it doesn't make up for bad decision making. And it certainly doesn't make bad managers, great leaders. And I think there's got to be some sense that these tools are or that they're tools, they're not replacing the judgment, they're not replacing the leadership. If anything, if we use them properly, they can help accentuate it. But I've seen instances where people just assume because we're doing it on zoom, that they can be different, different kinds of leaders kind of thing and it just doesn't work.   Dan Seguin  18:25 Hydro Ottawa has instilled a culture of safety among its field and operation workforce. frontline workers are juggling their professional obligations, alongside unusual family and childcare responsibilities on an extended basis without and end date on the horizon. How is your company supporting those employees and guarding against a distracted workforce to ensure safety on the job?   Bryce Conrad  19:00 I wish I had a better answer for this one, to be honest with you. I mean, the safety culture is it's part of the DNA of Hydro Ottawa. So that part I've never, you know, I think my crew, our outside crews, the technical staff, I think they're doing I think they're doing a great job. And I think they're managing. They're doing everything while respecting the public health guidelines. But the short answer is: It's a balance for us, right? You know, I tell staff all the time, you know, the ratepayers of Ottawa. They expect seven and a half hours a day at work of each and every employee and you get paid every two weeks for that work. If you have a toddler at home, or it's almost impossible to sort of find a way to do that. So, I mean, I have teenage kids at home and with my wife working remotely and them doing school online or whatever they're doing these days, I need to come back to work to the office just to get decent Wi Fi and bandwidth. I mean, I just don't think we're as productive at home as we otherwise like to think we are and or hope we are. But even now, with the prospect of vaccination in the future, I mean, we're still months away. And if you look at these numbers, if you look at the numbers attached to the second wave, this thing is going to still hit pretty hard. I mean, I saw this morning in the US that, you know, there's, there's a death every 30 seconds, unfortunately, we seem to be a whole lot more intelligent than or behaving a little bit more intelligently than they are. But look, we have safe, secure processes in place. My view is if you can go to a gym or a restaurant, and you can come to work. And I think Dr. Etches said it best in her last recent appearances before the city council that we just need to learn to live with this virus, and part of living is coming to work. So I think we've struck the right balance between safety and security and helping people. But I don't underestimate how difficult it's been for people. And you have to remember, this pandemic struck just on the tail end of the teacher strike. So a lot of families were dealing with that before this even started. So it's been a haul, I think we can all agree that 2020 sucks.   Dan Seguin  21:40 I agree, Bryce. These are unprecedented times peppered with operational challenges. This pandemic has delayed many operations and maintenance and capital projects. What are those challenges? And how are you adapting?   Bryce Conrad  22:02 Yeah, you know, there's oddly enough. My colleague, Toronto Hydro is the first to sort of point this out. And I didn't realize this is one of those things I didn't think about, but in some cases, the capital work has actually been able to accelerate. And if you think about it, in Toronto, that mean, there's dramatically less traffic on the roads are, they're able to sort of get from point A to point B, that much faster. Here in Ottawa, same concept, where our crews are able to move from one end of the city to the next relatively expeditiously. Moreover, they're able to get the necessary permits to do the work that they need to do probably a little easier and faster than they otherwise would, because there's so there's fewer cars on the road, less commuting. But sure, there are challenges, I mean, the crews need to work safely, so they have to adhere to the public safety guidelines, you know. So what does that mean? We put one person in a truck, whereas there used to be two or three. So you can appreciate that adds cost adds complexity, and that adds time to a project. But, you know, that's just the way we have to work. The other part of the challenge is, is quite frankly, and from the customer side of the equation is, you know, with everybody working from home. Well, even before people work from home, doing planned work, and taking an outage, to sort of fix a piece of equipment. There was never, there's never a good time to do that, you know, he would sort of plan for doing it between 2 and 4am in the morning. And you know, of course, there'll be complaints the next day, because you did something between 2 and 4am. So, you know, take that now and say, Okay, well, I now have with everyone now working at home, when is the right time to take a planned outage? So, you know, people are their livelihoods are depending on their ability to access their computers and Wi Fi. So it just it makes it that much more complicated, I guess. And so, our answers, we're only taking outages in those very, very few and infrequent instances where we absolutely have to, because we recognize that the adverse impact is going to have on our customers but so we're adapting I think that's probably the best the best sense of the word.   Dan Seguin  24:33 Would you say that operating models have or will change with more remote working and more flexible structure? What does the future workplace look like to you?   Bryce Conrad  24:48 Yeah, this one, man, damn this is this is a heavy question this there's a lot packed in here. So let me just state categorically. I do believe we will see way, we'll see a change in the way we work. But I think the changes in the transitional actually be more aggressive than what people are counting on, people are thinking, well, I'll just spend more time working from home. And my answer is, maybe, but I think this is going to accelerate some other tectonic plates in society that will likely have an even more profound impact on the way we work than just simply saying, we're going to work from home. I mean, look, this pandemic has shown that we can work remotely notwithstanding the fact that I would take issue with anyone, well, not anyone, but I would take issue with people that say they're more productive working from home than they're in the office, I just, I don't see the collaboration, I don't see the creativity that I would otherwise see in the office, I don't see that at home, when you're working at home or communicating by these tools, as I referenced earlier. But look, I think the tectonic plates that I'm talking about and going forward in the future, I think are big things like artificial intelligence and machine learning, and, you know, robotics and stuff like that. And I think those are probably, quite frankly, going to, we're going to come out of this pandemic, and those tectonic plates that were that are moving are going to move even faster because of the pandemic, because people will see that, okay, this has happened, I need to, I need to sort of strengthen my operations. And here's a quick way of doing it. And you just have to look at sort of robotics as an example, you know, robots don't take a day off. So they don't get they don't get affected by COVID. So you know, if you can robotize, your operations, if you can afford to do it, you're going to try to do it. And, and there's good and there's bad, and there's some really profoundly ugly aspects of that, right. And if you think about, you think about the good, right. So you think about sort of, you know, just healthcare in general, and sort of the idea that, you know, we've all been to doctors and hospitals, where you sort of stand there and they look at those charts. And you wonder, surely to God, there's more efficient way of tracking people's health and then by paper charts. So you can imagine sort of surgical interventions via robots, you can use sensors on your body telling you, you know, when you're going to have a heart attack, and you know, measuring your circadian rhythm and precluding that heart attack from happening, those are the good things in the world of electronic health and all that sort of stuff. Just it's fascinating to think about the upsides. The downsides is I mean, it's also quite obvious if you've been to a McDonald's recently, the first thing you see when you walk in, is a kiosk, a display where you can sort of order you know, order your own food and pay right there. Well, that's replaced the job. And that's replaced a 16 year old kid whose first job it was to take an order at McDonald's. So you think okay, well, those aren't great jobs anyway, right. But you look at a company like mindbridge AI, here in Canada, which is a company that effectively found a way to do machine learning around audits. You know, I've been here for 10 years and done audits, every year of all of our companies, every audit that we do largely is based on a sample, just the nature of you take a sample of those transactions, and you audit them to make sure that they're all done properly. Well, this machine, this mindbridge technology, they don't take samples, they audit each and every transaction, and they can do it like in a matter of minutes. And they're able to find errors that an auditor would never be able to find. So you think about that as what is the future hold for auditing if you're doing all this stuff via machine learning and automated AI. And then the truly terrifying aspect of it, and I tell my board this on a regular basis is when you start to think about what the impact of those technologies are, if you can weaponize them. And in cybersecurity is an obvious place like, you know, when we do our tests and penetration tests and all that good stuff to make sure our system is robust and reliable, which it is, you know, it's all done, kind of under the polite rules of society. But if you're able to sort of weaponize AI and machine learning, they're just going to it's, it just takes it to a new threat level, which, which is truly, truly terrifying. And I don't want to sound like you know, Terminator one here kind of thing, but you know, it's a scary future if you think about it that way.   Dan Seguin  30:00 Even in the midst of a pandemic, not everything can be done virtually at essential businesses. How do you create back to office plans that leverage best practices, minimize risk to your employees and maintain continuity of operations? And do all of that while focusing on what's mission critical?   Bryce Conrad  30:27 Yeah, well, I mean, the short answer is you start with the science and you follow the public health and you adhere to public health guidelines. So we're obviously an essential workforce, we do essential work in the city of Ottawa. And yeah, we we've, our plan has been constantly tailored in reflecting the best advice that we get from public health. So you know, we've had probably over 200 employees tested for covid now, and we've had one positive, and that one positive is directly related to a social interaction that happened on a weekend outside of the office. So, you know, we take a bit of solace in the fact that our protocols are working and they're keeping people safe. So, you know, that's the in itself is a short answer. But I mean, I'd prefer also these calls that we're having on a weekly basis with some of my peers across the country. You know, we're all struggling with the same concept of how to get people back to work in a responsible and safe way. You know, the blue team/orange team that we've come up with here is not it's not novel. Some of my peers OPG, they've been doing that as well, where they've brought back half their staff one week, they work from home the next week, I think they're bringing in shifts that's what we've effectively done here. And it's worked, as I said, some of our some of our more mission critical functions, if you think of the system office, you know, we've taken an even more deliberate and more protective stance around them, I mean, they have to come to work, you can't run the system from your from home. So you know, we've effectively created two system offices a backup one we always had two, but you know, we've staffing to now for the sake of ensuring that we can always if there's an outbreak in one, we can still run the system from the other. And quite frankly, we toyed with the idea of a third where, you know, if we were to have employees who were asymptomatic, but still positive for COVID. And they felt in, they could still come to work, we would create, quote, unquote, a dirty system office, where they could come to work and do their job. And as long as they're asymptomatic and weren't feeling the ill effects associated with it and still do the job, we would potentially look at creating a third one that we haven't had to go that far. But those are some of the practices that some of my peers have put in place across the country and some of the lessons that we've learned from them. But again, in some cases, we've carved our own a lot of cases, we've carved our own way forward. And I give full credit to the team, to the HR team for doing that in facilities, they done things that I never thought of, you know, they've thought of come up with plans. And, and again, you know, the fact that we've, you know, knock on wood, haven't had a COVID positive case in the office is a testament to them, and that, that work that they've done.   Dan Seguin  33:35 I'd love to hear your thoughts on how the lockdowns and social distancing measures have triggered a historic decline in emissions while increasing public appreciation for improved climate conditions. Where do you think we're headed as an industry?   Bryce Conrad  33:55 Yeah, it's truly fascinating. And I'm sure you've seen the photo of the canals in Venice before and after the pandemic, before it was looked like a kind of a brown cesspool of garbage. And afterwards, it looks like this crystal blue thing that you would only see in the, the Venetian in Las Vegas, you know, if you can see the bottom of the water kind of thing. So it's pretty amazing. So, you know, look, if I'm being honest, I think the pandemic is going to be nothing compared to the eventual impact of climate change, right? Climate change is the single existential threat that we need to deal with next, and here not well, we've seen the impacts of climate change on an annual basis. Again, I just, let's talk about the last three years. We had a one in 100 year flood, a one in 1000 year flood and we had six tornadoes, touchdown. I mean, you know, you can argue that, you know, these are just kind of normal cyclical weather patterns, but the evidence is not there. I mean, these things just don't. Stats don't lie that way. So where do I think we're headed as an industry? I think, look, I think we're going to be at the forefront of dealing with climate change as a as a threat, I think you see OPG, which obviously full credit to them, but they just came out the other day saying that they would be carbon neutral in their operations by 2040. Or maybe even sooner I have read that was 2040. But maybe an earlier. The city of Ottawa has committed to being carbon neutral by 2050. So I think, you know, as utility, we obviously play a pretty key role in supporting that agenda. And you know, if anything, this, this pandemic is, is kind of has truly heightened people's appreciation for the little things that can be done that have big impacts. So, you know, I expect when we do get back to work, whenever that looks like, I fully expect the federal government is going to adopt a kind of a more lenient approach to working from home, if nothing else, I can't imagine those office buildings in downtown Ottawa are going to be filled up the day after a vaccine is released, I think they're going to, quite frankly, will start to encourage people to work from home as a means of sort of controlling their carbon footprint. So I think you'll see public transit, continue to develop and grow. And I think we're seeing with the electrification of public transit here in Ottawa. That's a trend that's going to continue as well. So I think if nothing, if nothing good comes out of this pandemic, other than an appreciation for our collective impact on the environment. I think that that in itself is not a bad thing.   Dan Seguin  37:03 Okay, with people staying home and running home offices. Have we seen a shift in the distribution of where electricity is being used thinking of residential neighborhoods, and a leveling of peak hours? Is the curve expected to flatten as each household distributes the usage more evenly? How will this impact the grid as a whole?   Bryce Conrad  37:33 Well, the last I mean, the last part of the question is that it won't impact the grid, because the grid is built for peak. So you know, at least hopefully it won't impact the grid. But and I should also preface by saying I'm not an engineer. So you know, I just play one on TV from time to time. But look, the curve has flattened, obviously, as more and more people work from home. But I don't believe there's any real impact on the grid. Although you are seeing the load shift. I mean, you think about downtown Ottawa when those office buildings are full, you know, take a good hot day in July, when the air conditioning is running at a good pace. I mean, that those are those are those buildings are big loads, and they're full of people. You take that load away, and you distribute it back away from the downtown substations and out into the barrhavens and Kanata and Orleans and other parts. So I think you're seeing a dispersion of the load across the city. But the good news is that the grid is built to accommodate that, obviously, and we haven't seen any deleterious effects associated with that. So I think we'll be fine. The grid will be fine. I do expect, you know, at some point, we're going to have to figure out what to do with those downtown buildings, you know, you think of like a place de ville tower, which has got 29 floors? And what 12 elevators. You know, are you going to see a maximum occupancy in there, again, you're going to see another 2000 employees back there, you know, sort of lining up to go in the elevator every morning, and then what every afternoon, I just don't think that's going to happen. So I think this load transfer maybe, well, not permanent, I think it will be more. I don't think you'll see a return to normal, quote unquote, normal. When the when people go back, if they go back.   Dan Seguin  39:52 Okay, I think you've answered this next one. But some folks may not know that Hydro Ottawa generates about 128 megawatts. Renewable power? How are changing load patterns impacting / or will they impact the generation output?   Bryce Conrad  40:10 Yeah, no, the short answer is no, there's no real impact on the output. Our facilities, which we're incredibly proud of, both here in Ottawa, in Eastern Ontario, down through Kingston, and quite frankly, in upstate New York. So all the entire fleet of generating assets are working well. And they're contracted. So you know, the power is effectively sold back into the grid. Whether the power is being used in the grid is, you know, it's another story, but the, there's no real impact on our generating assets. Other than, you know, the employees that run those assets have had to take the same precautions as every other employee has.   Dan Seguin  40:59 Okay. Some of the key and unexpected outcomes of this pandemic are the various costs that are being incurred by utilities, including collection shortfalls, continuing service to customers unable to pay, and increased operational burdens from managing a distributed workforce. All the while providing uninterrupted service during the period of significant constraints. Looking at the post pandemic horizon, what are some of the business lessons you've learned?   Bryce Conrad  41:39 Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, the business lessons. I don't know that there's been a lot of business lessons as much as I've just learned some lessons from this. And the first one I've been saying from day one, which is, you know, this pandemic has been incredibly humbling. You know, as a CEO of a company, you kind of wake up every morning, knowing which way you're going and what you're trying to do. And this thing is just kind of taking you sideways. Like on any given day, you know, you're trying to respond to the public health concerns, you're trying to address your employees, you know, the issues your employees are bringing up and, and sometimes you just don't have a good answer. And that's kind of a, as a CEO, that's not a place you like to be very often because we like to think of ourselves as being all known and omnipresent, and all that other crap. So it has been a humbling experience. What I will say is, is it's taught me It taught us as a company to be flexible, and responsive. You know, we had an incredible pandemic plan that was built, I think, for the avian flu, which was, what 10 years ago, you know, eight years ago. So you have this plan, and then you have to sort of change it to reflect the new pandemic. And the good news is we had the plan to work through and we were able to adapt this plan to reflect the day to day and on the on the ground realities. We're able to execute to it so. But that flexibility was paramount, particularly earlier on as you're trying to figure this thing out. And you know, we all spent far too much time watching TV and listening to the doomsayers in the media who are predicting, you know, the end of civilization as we know it. Some of that's kind of terrifying, but at the same time, you'll learn to block some of that crap out. So that was, that was a lesson learned. Another lesson we learned was that leadership matters. Look, I've taken decisions as part of this whole pandemic, which have not won me a lot of friends. You know, I don't apologize for those decisions. I think there are the right decisions. But that's what I get paid to do. You know, I'm the CEO of the company, and they pay me to sort of make those decisions. Conversely, as I've seen, these decisions and other decisions that get made cascade through the organization, you know, you can you can see who the leaders of the organization are. And that's both rewarding and fulfilling, but also sometimes it's a bit disappointing when you see people that you expect to step up and do something and they don't, for whatever reason, and sometimes there are good reasons why they don't so I shouldn't it's not criticism as much as it's a statement or an observation. third, or fourth, where I am communication, I mean, the old adage that you can never over communicate is so very, very true -communication with staff stakeholders with your customers. As we've gone through this pandemic, we have tried our very best to sort of communicate with everybody, as often as possible. If I just take staff as an example, you know, when we made the decision to sort of bring staff back sort of end of July, on the in the blue team / orange team kind of rotational piece, you know, we write open and said, just send it if you've got questions or concerns, send them to us. And we'll answer your questions. And we post those questions. And we posted those answers. And after about 50 questions, you realize that they're asking the same question, they're just asking it in a different way. And that's not coming from a place of malice, it's actually coming from a place of anxiety, they're trying to understand why the decision has been made. And, and so you know, we just kept answering the question, and we kept you kept giving them the same answer. And I think that helped. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think there are still employees that were terrified, coming back to the office. And hopefully, they've since learned that the office is not a bad place to be, it's actually quite safe. But yeah, that level of communication and same with our customers. And, you know, the frustration for me is that is our customers who may or may not be struggling with COVID, with as a result of the pandemic to pay their bills. You know, all I really all you really want them to do is to reach out and call us and talk to us. And if they do, then we can put them into a plan or a process that allows him to sort of manage those bills. Because again, the worst thing in the world for me is to see somebody paying their credit card using the credit card as opposed to us putting them on a payment plan. So it's just that constant communication. And then the last one, which last lesson I've learned, and I think we will collectively learn is that as much as this pandemic has been about physical health and the physical well-being of people and employees and the citizens of Ottawa, it's the mental health aspect, that's going to be the lingering legacy of this thing. I just don't think we have a handle on what the mental health impacts will be. When we get back to if we get back to what the new normal looks like, you know, forcing kids to separate from their friends, forcing families apart during the holidays, those are sorts of things that are just really difficult to imagine from a mental health perspective. And I think, you know, full credit to the Royal in the team they have, but I think they're going to be busy going forward.   Dan Seguin  47:55 Yeah, it's going to leave a mark for sure. How is your utility working to tightly manage capital and operating expenses? In this new rate sensitive and revenue challenged world? And post pandemic, as the economy begins to revitalize, are you expecting a need to address a backlog of critical activities and capital investment projects?   Bryce Conrad  48:25 So let me answer the second part of the question first. So the short answer is I don't expect that there'll be much of a backlog when we get back to sort of the full spender the burn rate, I think we've credited the operations team, they've done an amazing job of, you know, they took a couple weeks to figure out how to do the business safely and efficiently when the pandemic struck. And but man, they've been burning, they've been going full steam since then. So I give them full credit. So I don't expect a backlog per se. You know, if you look, if you listen to the Government of Canada, and the most recent economic statement, there seems to be a fairly significant amount of stimulus funding on them coming forward, I think in the next couple years, so I actually expect will be probably busier than ever, because, you know, every time you resurface a road or do something to a road or a transit system, I mean, you're talking about there's an impact on us as the as utility, so we're involved. So I expect will be busier than ever. But going back to the first part, you know, the rate sensitive and revenue challenged, which I think is absolutely true. And again, I'm not you know, hindsight is 2020 and I'm not looking for anybody to sort of throw flowers our way but, you know, we kind of saw the rate sensitivity. We've been watching it for like 10 years, right people have been frustrated by the rates in Ontario. And, you know, the inability to control those rates and have to affect the hydro rates of electricity rates have been a bit of a black box, I mean, they just not something you have line of sight to or control over in any real meaningful way. So we always saw the threat of kind of this rates sensitivity and revenue challenging. And we decided early on, to diversify our revenues away from the rate, the rate regulated assets. So yes, Hydro Ottawa limited is still a very large company in a very good company, and one that generates significant revenues. But we also made decisions to sort of expand and, and double down on our generating fleet. So we've taken our generating assets, and we've grown them by over 500%, in the past six years. Now, we didn't do that simply because we want to be good corporate citizens and be the largest custodian of green energy. We just want to own green energy projects in Canada, we want we did that because there was these assets are also quite lucrative. So, you know, as we got away from, you know, if you look at our balance sheet today, our balance sheet today is probably, you know, 75% regulated and 25%, unregulated. And if I go back, you know, years ago, it was probably 95/5. So by diversifying our revenues away from the regulated assets, we were able to sort of help manage some of that rate sensitivity and still demonstrate to the citizens of Ottawa who owned the company that we are a solid investment in a well-run company. So I think that's your answer, Dan.   Dan Seguin  51:47 Okay, Bryce, are you ready to close us off with some rapid fire questions?   Bryce Conrad  51:54 Yeah.   Dan Seguin  51:55 Okay. What is your favorite word?   Bryce Conrad  51:58 Right now? Joe Biden.   Dan Seguin  52:02 Okay. What is the one thing you can't live without?   Bryce Conrad  52:08 My family   Dan Seguin  52:10 What habit or hobby? Have you picked up during the shelter in place?   Bryce Conrad  52:15 Always been a big reader, but I forced myself to read at least an hour a day. So I trying to read 100 books this year. So I'm close. If anyone's interested, I've got some suggestions for you.   Dan Seguin  52:29 If you could have one superpower, what would it be?   Bryce Conrad  52:35 Either time travel or invisibility. One or the other? Time travel, so I could sort of be a better day trader. Okay, make some more money, invisibility, for obvious reasons.   Dan Seguin  52:49 Okay. If you could turn back time and talk to your 18 year old self? What would you tell them?   Bryce Conrad  52:57 Put the beer down and study harder.   Dan Seguin  52:59 Okay. And lastly, what do you currently find most interesting in your sector?   Bryce Conrad  53:05 You know, the energy industry as a general rule, and the utility sector specifically is just a constant. It's constantly changing. And you cannot be bored running a utility in Ontario. It's just not possible. And if you are, you're just crazy. So I think as you look forward, and I talked about earlier, you know, climate change and the impacts of climate change will have I think, as with a lot of things in life in society, the solutions to that are going to come at the local level. And you know, Hydro Ottawa, we're absolutely going to be at the heart of those efforts going forward. And I think it's just a fascinating blank canvas at the moment that I can't wait to be part of.   Dan Seguin  54:01 So cool, Bryce. Listen, we've reached the end of another episode of think energy podcast. Again, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you had a lot of fun.   Bryce Conrad  54:10 Thanks, Dan. Appreciate it!   Dan Seguin  54:12 Thanks. Thank you for joining us today. I truly hope you enjoyed this episode of ThinkEnergy podcasts. For past episodes. Make sure you visit our website hydroottawa.com/podcast. Lastly, if you found value in this podcast, be sure to subscribe. Anyway, this podcast is a wrap. Cheers, everyone.

Ivy Tech collects a massive amount of data. Our IT team is working hard to make that data more useful to our employees through the new Tableau dashboard tool named IvyAnalytics. In addition to the technology system, the IT team is also putting together a team of data champions in both campus and functional areas. Thanks to our guests: Joshua Farrington, Professor and Campus Data Champion, Bloomington Marcus Kolb, Assistant Vice President for Academic Quality & Assessment Bradley Watts, Chief Data Officer Matt Etchison, Chief Information Officer Get In Touch! You can connect with Kara Monroe on twitter @KNMTweets Reach out with show ideas, comments, or questions via twitter or at our email address - ourcollegeyourvoices@ivytech.edu. Leave us a voice mail at 317-572-5049. Respond to the Call for Action, ask a question, give a shout out to a colleague, or an episode suggestion. Check out show notes, listen to past episodes, and get instructions on how to access the podcast on our website at http://www.ivytech.edu/podcast.

Paradyn, Ireland’s only end-to-end IT and communications service provider, has announced that it has implemented an advanced cybersecurity and network solution for Cork County Council in a €500,000 deal over the next three years. Having won a competitive tender process, Paradyn will provide security operation centre (SOC) as-a-service and network support to the council to help mitigate cyber risk for the local authority. Paradyn’s provides local and wide area networks (WAN) for Cork County Council, connecting its central office to its 100 regional office locations, as well as public libraries, fire stations and civic amenities throughout the county. The cybersecurity solution will help to protect users across one of the biggest wireless networks in Ireland. Paradyn’s dedicated cybersecurity team provides the council with 24/7 network monitoring from its recently launched TotalView Operations Centre based in Little Island, Cork. This proactive monitoring enables Cork County Council to quickly identify and resolve potential security risks or breaches before significant amounts of sensitive data can be compromised. The enhanced cyber defence mitigates security risks and reduces network downtime so council staff and citizens availing of public IT services, such as library or council office Wi-Fi hotspots, can enjoy a more reliable user experience. Paradyn’s security team leverages the latest Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) software to identify, monitor, record and analyse security events anywhere on the council’s network in real-time. Outsourcing the management and security of its network to Paradyn has reduced the time spent by the council’s IT team on network upkeep by more than one-quarter – enabling it to focus on value-adding IT projects that enhance public services. In designing the network and security infrastructure, both Paradyn and Cork County Council implemented Centre for Internet Security (CIS) Controls – a set of prioritised security actions based on global consensus of best practice. Ranging from malware, email and web defences to employee awareness training and penetration testing, the controls help to protect the council against the most widespread cyber-attacks while aiding regulatory compliance with measures such as GDPR. Eileen Kelly, Cyber and IT Security Programme Manager, Cork County Council, said: “The nature of cyber-attacks has evolved to a point where reactive security measures alone are not enough. The proactive network monitoring provided by Paradyn enables us to keep a close eye on incidents on our network so we can identify issues before they have time to cause potentially huge financial and reputation damage. “Cybercriminals often target their attacks in out-of-office periods and it wasn’t feasible for us to internally monitor our network around the clock. Paradyn’s SOC-as-a-service means we have a cost-effective, 24/7 cyber defence in place. Our IT team can instead focus their efforts into enhancing the quality of our online services and user-experience for staff and members of the public right across the county.” Paul Casey, Chief Operations Officer, Paradyn, said: “By implementing global best practice controls, Cork County Council has taken a responsible and holistic approach to their security set-up. We’ve helped the council to navigate this journey to a robust level of IT security that will benefit all those who avail of the council’s services, as well as every employee using the council network daily. Our advanced cybersecurity support is ideally suited for local authorities. We will seek to implement this solution and emulate the strong example laid out by Cork County Council with other councils throughout Ireland.” More about Irish Tech News and Business Showcase here. FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers o...

Our "IT" can propose many challenges throughout our lives, especially if we don't recognize it. We talk about some of these challenges and how to identify them and be proactive.

Our "IT" often overrides what we think we believe, and stops us from doing the things we really want. These Internal Thoughts will hold us back and sabotage our successes. Through the Discover "IT" Method and the 3 step process, we can stop being a victim of life, enable the power of choice, and get some actual results.

This weeks All Things BMX Show will be coming to you live from the RITM studios, in the busy metropolis of Hartland, Michigan. Justin and Chris will be behind the Heavy Pedals News desk with Melissa at her Gatenine producers perch. We are pumped for Episode 29 "The Tuff Girl" We will have Hall Of Fame Inductee Debbi Kalsow on the Holly Powersports video phone. Sound Tech Paul and Video Tech Jay will be in the studio also taking and answering questions, along with providing insight. Our IT guy Charlie will be joining us from the West Michigan BMX Headquarters. As always we will have our News, Rumors and Gossip Segment. Don’t forget to get in the chat with your questions and shout-outs for the Producer Melissa to read on air to our hosts and guests. Of course, we will have another “Jeremy Ames Voice Mail”, followed by review of the latest news, rumors, and gossip that make-up The All Things BMX Show.Join us on the following pages.YouTube Pagehttps://www.youtube.com/c/AllThingsBmxShowFacebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/AllthingsbmxshowPeriscope/Twitter@AllthingsbmxshwTwitchhttps://www.twitch.tv/allthingsbmxshow

Michael Fabozzi is a 22-year veteran of the NYPD. As a Detective he pioneered the use of investigative techniques in Cyber Fraud. He cracked the largest identity theft case ever garnering world-wide attention. He has testified on cyber crime in front of US Congress as an expert and has lectured across the country. After he retired from the NYPD he continued to work in cutting edge areas of law enforcement as Director, Law Enforcement Programs at a leading Rapid DNA sequencing technology company. He has started two companies related to Law Enforcement and has been an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He recently co-founded NetThunder, NetThunder provides an on-premise private cloud solution built by cybersecurity professionals. Our IT automation includes services that keep your company running efficiently and securely, even in a compute-heavy environment. Safe and secure networking. Detective Fabozzi and an expert on ID theft and financial investigations. He was one of the first seasoned members of the NYPD Computer Crimes Squad and worked with the Federal Electronic Crimes Task Force in NY. A former professor at John Jay College in NYC where he developed a graduate level course in Cyber-Criminology. A first responder on 9/11 where he helped with the identification protocol for trace DNA evidence at the Medical Examiner’s office. He is an entrepreneur and founder of a security and data base management company that he sold before moving to Palo Alto. He was a Director working at a DNA sequencing company for Human Identification that developed a rapid DNA instrument. Detective Fabozzi also worked as a Detective in CA and I am enjoying living in Palo Alto and plans on staying for many years.Michael Fabozzi is a 22 year veteran of the NYPD. As a detective he pioneered the use of investigative techniques in Cybed Fraud. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otcpod1/support

This weeks All Things BMX Show will be coming to you live from the RITM studios, in the busy metropolis of Hartland, Michigan. Justin and Chris will be behind the Heavy Pedals News desk with Melissa at her Gatenine producers perch. We are pumped for Episode 28 "Mr. Bill We will have Hall Of Fame Inductee Billy Griggs on the Holly Powersports video phone. Sound Tech Paul and Video Tech Jay will be in the studio also taking and answering questions, along with providing insight. Our IT guy Charlie will be joining us from the West Michigan BMX Headquarters. As always we will have our News, Rumors and Gossip Segment. Don’t forget to get in the chat with your questions and shout-outs for the Producer Melissa to read on air to our hosts and guests. Of course, we will have another “Jeremy Ames Voice Mail”, followed by review of the latest news, rumors, and gossip that make-up The All Things BMX Show.Join us on the following pages.YouTube Pagehttps://www.youtube.com/c/AllThingsBmxShowFacebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/AllthingsbmxshowPeriscope/Twitter@AllthingsbmxshwTwitchhttps://www.twitch.tv/allthingsbmxshow

This weeks All Things BMX Show will be coming to you live from the RITM studios, in the busy metropolis of Hartland, Michigan. Justin and Chris will be behind the Heavy Pedals News desk with Melissa at her Gatenine producers perch. We are pumped for Episode 27 "Big John" We will have John Sawyer from SSquared Bicycles on the Holly Powersports video phone. Sound Tech Paul and Video Tech Jay will be in the studio also taking and answering questions, along with providing insight. Our IT guy Charlie will be joining us from the West Michigan BMX Headquarters. As always we will have our News, Rumors and Gossip Segment. Don’t forget to get in the chat with your questions and shout-outs for the Producer Melissa to read on air to our hosts and guests. Of course, we will have another “Jeremy Ames Voice Mail”, followed by review of the latest news, rumors, and gossip that make-up The All Things BMX Show.Join us on the following pages.YouTube Pagehttps://www.youtube.com/c/AllThingsBmxShowFacebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/AllthingsbmxshowPeriscope/Twitter@AllthingsbmxshwTwitchhttps://www.twitch.tv/allthingsbmxshow

This weeks All Things BMX Show will be coming to you live from the RITM studios, in the busy metropolis of Hartland, Michigan. Justin and Chris will be behind the Heavy Pedals News desk with Melissa at her Gatenine producers perch. We are pumped for Episode 22 "The Wild Man" We will have Bill Heath from Michigan Wild on the Holly Powersports video phone. Sound Tech Paul and Video Tech Jay will be in the studio also taking and answering questions, along with providing insight. Our IT guy Charlie will be joining us from the West Michigan BMX Headquarters. As always we will have our News, Rumors and Gossip Segment. Don’t forget to get in the chat with your questions and shout-outs for the Producer Melissa to read on air to our hosts and guests. Of course, we will have another “Jeremy Ames Voice Mail”, followed by review of the latest news, rumors, and gossip that make-up The All Things BMX Show.Join us on the following pages.YouTube Pagehttps://www.youtube.com/c/AllThingsBmxShowFacebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/AllthingsbmxshowPeriscope/Twitter@AllthingsbmxshwTwitchhttps://www.twitch.tv/allthingsbmxshow

This weeks All Things BMX Show will be coming to you live from the RITM studios, in the busy metropolis of Hartland, Michigan. Justin and Chris will be behind the Heavy Pedals News desk with Melissa at her Gatenine producers perch. We are pumped for Episode 26 "The Don D" We will have Don Dibartolomeo on the Holly Powersports video phone. Sound Tech Paul and Video Tech Jay will be in the studio also taking and answering questions, along with providing insight. Our IT guy Charlie will be joining us from the West Michigan BMX Headquarters. As always we will have our News, Rumors and Gossip Segment. Don’t forget to get in the chat with your questions and shout-outs for the Producer Melissa to read on air to our hosts and guests. Of course, we will have another “Jeremy Ames Voice Mail”, followed by review of the latest news, rumors, and gossip that make-up The All Things BMX Show.Join us on the following pages.YouTube Pagehttps://www.youtube.com/c/AllThingsBmxShowFacebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/AllthingsbmxshowPeriscope/Twitter@AllthingsbmxshwTwitchhttps://www.twitch.tv/allthingsbmxshow

This weeks All Things BMX Show will be coming to you live from the RITM studios, in the busy metropolis of Hartland, Michigan. Justin and Chris will be behind the Heavy Pedals News desk with Melissa at her Gatenine producers perch. We are pumped for Episode 22 "The Real Iron Man" We will have Howard Cato from The 510 Bay Area BMXers on the Holly Powersports video phone. Sound Tech Paul and Video Tech Jay will be in the studio also taking and answering questions, along with providing insight. Our IT guy Charlie will be joining us from the West Michigan BMX Headquarters. As always we will have our News, Rumors and Gossip Segment. Don’t forget to get in the chat with your questions and shout-outs for the Producer Melissa to read on air to our hosts and guests. Of course, we will have another “Jeremy Ames Voice Mail”, followed by review of the latest news, rumors, and gossip that make-up The All Things BMX Show.Join us on the following pages.YouTube Pagehttps://www.youtube.com/c/AllThingsBmxShowFacebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/AllthingsbmxshowPeriscope/Twitter@AllthingsbmxshwTwitchhttps://www.twitch.tv/allthingsbmxshow

In this episode of Fireside Chat, we sit down with Barclay Berdan, CEO, Texas Health Resources to talk about the COVID-19 pandemic and how the health system is managing communication, working from home policies and PPE. Please note: The number of COVID-19 cases and the situation referenced in this episode were based on reported data at the time of the interview and are subject to change. Transcription Barclay Berdan 0:03 We had identified some time ago a relationship with a company that actually produced PPE locally. One of the… there aren’t a whole lot of them, but they produced it locally. We supported them, even though maybe their pricing was a little bit higher than we could get from overseas and bought a lot of products from them. And they proved to be a very loyal supporter of our organization through all this. Gary Bisbee 0:28 That was Barclay Berdan, CEO, Texas Health Resources, Barclay explained how THR’s is long-standing relationship with the local PPE supplier, allowed THR to avoid problems inherent in the global supply chain for PPE that has caused substantial disruption in the care of COVID patients throughout the country. I’m Gary Bisbee, and this is Fireside Chat. Barclay discuss the approach that the four counties of North Texas have taken with the coronavirus outbreak and the coordination between local county and state officials. He outlined the virtual dashboard that THR developed to monitor COVID growth use and the need for PPE and staffing and the analytics that are associated with it. Barclay reviewed the effect that postponing elective surgery has had on THR’s financials. And it’s currently strong balance sheet. He spoke about THR’s commitment to its physicians and employees, and that there have been no furloughs. I’m delighted to welcome Barclay Berdan to the microphone. Good afternoon, Barclay. Barclay Berdan 1:34 Good afternoon, Gary, how are you? Gary Bisbee 1:36 Well, thank you, sir. Welcome to the podcast. Barclay Berdan 1:39 Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. Gary Bisbee 1:40 We’re all facing the COVID-19 outbreak and we appreciate your joining us to discuss what is the status of the surge in North Texas and how Texas Health Resources is responding. So why don’t we start with the Coronavirus timeline? How are things faring there in North Texas? Barclay Berdan 1:57 Well, I would say in North Texas we’re maybe in the early phases of the surge. We actually started in Texas fell, officially standing up some of our management groups and probably about the end of the last week of February and have been tracking things and advancing things ever since. If I fast forward to today, we have had so far 23 deaths in the four-county area of Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant County, which are the main four counties of North Texas. And we’ve had 1409 cases, positive cases. Gary Bisbee 2:40 Have you had any indication from the CDC about when it’s likely to hit? Barclay Berdan 2:45 Gary when we first started looking at a number of the models that are out there, we thought that the peak would happen this week. The current models really have the peak happening really much later in April or early May. A big issue has been testing capability which has been a challenge here in North Texas. What we do know is that our growth rate right now is between 15 to 20% for the past several days, and probably a lot of people have seen models that have sort of best average and worst curves attached to them. And right now, our modeling would say we’re probably closest to our average curve. Gary Bisbee 3:27 Any sign that the testing supplies are going to become more available? Barclay Berdan 3:32 No, there been a number of new tests become available. But one of the challenges that we have had in North Texas is trying to get ahold of the test kits. FEMA has intercepted them and redirected them. So we have now got the ID now test kits that are available and we’ve distributed them to all of our hospitals. We’d like more but right now we’ve got the capability to do about 2000 a week, and that’ll go up. We expect to next week, bring an Abbott M 2000 online. Which will give us the capability of doing about 3000 a week if we get the test kits. You know, the other thing that’s occasionally off and on been a challenge has been the media and the swabs. The last week or so that doesn’t seem to have been a problem. We stood up some remote testing sites that were walk-in for our physician group that serves the patients of our physician group. Opened our fourth one this week, spread across North Texas, and so far, we’ve been able to keep those going. Each site can do about 50 tests a day. We’ve been monitoring PPE as well as test swab and media material and they’ve been able to keep up with it. So that’s a good sign. A couple weeks ago, I guess the federal government brought two testing stations to Dallas, that was located here that were capable of doing several hundred tests a day each. Unfortunately, I saw in the mayor of Dallas’s website that they’ve told him that on April 10, they’re going to pack up and go home. So that’ll put a dent in it. Clearly understandable that as they stood up their commercial capabilities, that they were flooded with tests, and we’ve seen them struggle with that at times. But right now we’re seeing the average time for a commercial test turnaround to be two to two and a half days. Maybe one day, but more likely two days. Maybe three days, more likely two days. We’re really thinking by the time we get to the end of April, internally, we’ll be able to do about 6500 tests a week. And that’ll really help us in the hospitals because right now, we have had a substantial number of PUI’s (persons under investigation), who are awaiting responses from the commercial testing that are occupying beds. And what we’ve generally found both in our outpatient testing and in our inpatient testing is that somewhere around 10% to 12% of those folks are going to test positive. But the ones in the beds may or may not have to stay in the hospital and we’d like to free up that capacity. So, you know, when we’re chewing up PPE it’s just not a great situation. The first thing is getting testing available in house so that we can get determinations on the PUIs and the people in the emergency rooms so that we can let the folks in labor and delivery and in the OR test those patients. So they can be more confident that the patients are taken care of or not infected. And then we’ll start moving out into the larger community with essential workers. Because we certainly know that a lot of employers in the area, whether it’s the city who operates the sanitation services, for instance, or the police and fire, or the EMTs, and the first responders are all interested. And while there is some testing through the counties that’s available for those folks, best practice has shown two things in general really have an impact on the shape and duration of the infection in our community. The first is your suppression activities. Basically, how effective you are at getting people to isolate themselves and prevent the infection from spreading. And a big piece of that, aside from stay at home type orders, is the ability to test people. We saw that in a couple of countries do widespread testing, and we do not have widespread testing available to us at this point. So we’re having to rely in North Texas mostly at this point on our ability to prevent the spread of infection by, say at home borders, which has its own challenges. Gary Bisbee 8:08 Right, what has been the population’s view of staying at home and self-distancing? Barclay Berdan 8:14 Mixed, as you might imagine. The Dallas Fort Worth area has about seven and a half million people. Most of that population is in the four main counties, but our service area is 16 counties. So all the surrounding counties are a part of that. People will travel across political lines to go to work, to shop to play to go to school. So it’s a very mobile society. And the real challenge for us has been that the political leaders have not acted in unison. So we’ve had a lot of variation. The first act was really the county judge in Dallas County who was followed relatively quickly by the mayor of Dallas. The governor has not done a stay at home order but has obviously declared a disaster as have ultimately all the county judges. And then what’s happened has been this progression really over the last three and a half weeks. Everybody sort of responding and tightening and pushing. Where we were at the beginning of this week was one of the four main counties, Collin County, which is north of Dallas County, a very high growth area. Lots of population had really resisted strong stay at home orders and had businesses pretty much still operating. The governor of texas this week finally defined essential businesses within his order. It left it vague up until that point, and that really forced the county judge in Collin County to rescind his order and direct the businesses to close. But I think in the end, what we have right now is reasonably good. What I’ll call suppression tactics going on. I can look out my window. There are still people driving around, but it’s nowhere near the number of people. We’ve had news reports of people going out to exercise and not necessarily paying much attention to social distancing. And we have different counties that respond differently. When the state home orders were first put in place in Dallas. We actually had employees that were coming to work in our facilities that were stopped by the police. But that hasn’t happened in any other county. And actually, the police have kind of backed off on that at this point. So the challenge is Texas has always seen itself as a very business-friendly state and one that respects people’s independence and that’s the balance that the politicians have tried to achieve. What the healthcare leaders, I myself, and the other health care leaders in North Texas, have really been pushing on is that time is of the essence. And in the absence of our ability to do widespread testing, the biggest tool that we have to limit the shape and scope and duration of the infection in North Texas, is what they like to call stay at home orders. But I think in general, people are adapting to the change trying to comply. I spend every Friday morning on a call with a number of the employers and several other healthcare systems a lot that’s moderated by Mercer and Oliver Wyman. And just listening to the challenges that they’re seeing with their employees. And make sure that we’re paying attention to the anxiety the challenges of such big changes and patterns. People working from home dealing with children and pets being around and we are seeing as I think everybody that gets in this situation starts to see in the community that there is a little bit of an increased level of abusive behavior, unfortunately. We’re really pushing out some of our behavioral health services, in terms of availability to folks and making sure employers know what they can access in that regard. Gary Bisbee 12:24 What’s been Texas Health Resources policy on your own employees, Barclay in terms of working remotely? Barclay Berdan 12:32 We have a substantial number of people that are working remotely. I mean, I’m sitting in the corporate office today. I come in two days or so a week. And normally that’s a pretty populated office. There are probably about 20 cars in the parking lot today. So you know, most people that can work remotely, we pushed out and are working at home. Our IT think people just really did a yeoman’s job. We had a certain store of equipment that we could give to people if they didn’t have the equipment. And we’ve made a number of adaptions along the way. And part of the challenge is making sure that we retain a secure environment with our IT infrastructure. And we have seen a bit of an increase in attempts to violate that security from the outside. But I think we got a great group of folks, they’re paying good attention, we’ve got the right rules in place. So a lot of people working from home, it is a bit different to have meetings via Skype or other zoom or, you know, different software that’s out there. Probably spend more time on the telephone than we did before because you’re not having any face to face meetings. There are some positives to it though. If you’re not doing a video meeting, you can get up in the morning and stay in your jammies. You don’t have to shave you know, you know, some things you don’t have to do and you know if you’re not going to be on video, there’s always a bright side. Gary Bisbee 13:57 Yep, bright side for sure. What about postponing elective or non-emergent surgery. Have you done that yet? Barclay Berdan 14:04 Oh, yeah, we did that several weeks ago. Some of the orders executive orders that have come from either at the county or the city or the state level, actually, were commanding that hospitals quit doing quote-unquote, elective cases. But, we had actually wound down about a week or so before they mandated it from a regulatory or executive order point of view. And that’s for all the systems in the area. Our wholly-owned hospitals, our joint venture hospitals, our joint venture AOCs…hospitals are still doing emergency surgeries. And we gave them some guidance in terms of, you know, what might be considered elective and not elective, because, you know, there are things that are posted on the schedule that you know, just because it’s posted in advance on the schedule doesn’t mean that it’s truly elective. So we’re still doing cases that, you know, you might expect are appropriate. Gary Bisbee 15:09 How about redeploying caregivers? Have you needed to do that yet? Barclay Berdan 15:15 We’ve done that to some degree. Our process here has been to really pivot the entire organization and look at how we’re organized to deal with a completely different flow of patients. We had teams that were working on emergency room access first and how we were going to standardize the process and all of our ERs of receiving patients and sorting patients and treating patients and completed that and ran all those pilots to make sure it was all working everywhere last week, this week, really concentrating on our inpatient surge plans, which has really kind of three parts to it. One is first the beds. And obviously, once we canceled all the schedules for elective care, we freed up quite a bit of capacity. So we have those beds as well as some other beds that we brought into service that was out of service. The second thing you have to do is to look at how you’re going to staff those, and clearly, the staff that was working in surgery and PAC us, and on those elective side and the nursing floors. We are retraining and we’ll deploy them into these redesign care flows and floors. And the third piece is really ventilator counts and anticipated ventilator demand, and how we’re going to manage that. We’ve really got our first round of all that planned and are testing it this weekend. And we’ve designed virtual dashboards for each facility, where they can also use some predictive analytics once were really in the thick of things to anticipate where volumes are going to pick up and where they’re going to need resources, people resources, ventilator resources, supplies, PPE, we’ve been doing quite a bit right now. I think if I looked in all of our facilities on top of the volume that was left after we cut all the elective cases, that’s sort of our baseline emergency volume, we have about another 850 beds that we had available right away. And we’ve figured that we can add about another 1100 beds to that with the staffing that we have. So we can bring a substantial number of beds online and staff it and are pretty comfortable with that. Gary Bisbee 17:43 Do you anticipate any furloughs anytime in the near future? Barclay Berdan 17:46 We’re not at this point. We have a reassignment pool and as we go through the process of finishing these designs, we’re offering folks the opportunity to get reassigned. But I think the prudent thing to do at the present time is to basically say we’re going to need all hands on deck. And you may not be working at the same job you were working at. We’ve reassigned some nurses to our call center as a great example. So instead of providing care at the bedside, you might be providing a triage on a phone. And until things settle down, we’re not going to make any change to that. Gary Bisbee 18:24 So turning to economics, discontinuing elective surgery, so what does it look like for this year for your financials? Barclay Berdan 18:34 Well, that’s a good question. We’re monitoring that with some regularity. We had a pretty good-sized pool of dollars in our investment pool, and there is we’ve clearly lost some value there. But the market improved from last week we gained back about 193 million from some that we lost the week before. We had a few variable rate bonds that we were concerned about being re-marketed and we’re prepared to repurchase any of those to prevent failed remarketing. Which we don’t think is likely anyway. We have some lines of credit that we’ve drawn down, but we’re very liquid, we’ve probably got close to three-quarters of a billion dollars of liquid assets, same-day availability at this point outside of our investment accounts. And that was one of the first things we did is we started looking at this was saying we got to make sure we got plenty of cash available. At the present time, we’re in reasonably good shape. Our revenues are obviously down 35% or so I would say. Overall, our expenses are up because we’re incurring a lot of expenses and everybody’s still fully employed. So our monthly operations are going to take a dip, but our overall financial position is strong. Gary Bisbee 19:50 Do you have any indication yet how much might be coming from the federal government with the fund? Barclay Berdan 19:56 No. The distribution of the supplies never made it to Dallas Fort Worth. We thought whatever there was got directed somewhere else. We’re standing up the ability to apply for some of the funding. One of the things we learned from past challenging periods is that the start keeping the records of what you’re spending money on upfront. So we’re doing all that. But at the present time, we’re not concerned about how quickly that flows. We just want to make sure we get our fair and appropriate share of it as time goes on. Gary Bisbee 20:34 If we could turn to governance for a second, what have you been communicating to your board and how often are you communicating with them. Barclay Berdan 20:42 Our board met five times a year and operated in a committee structure. We’ve only kept one committee active. We moved all of our meetings to virtual, we’ve only kept one committee active. That’s our Quality Committee auditing performance committee because they handle credentialing of positions in that group of functions. My board will next meet at the end of April. It’ll be a virtual meeting. What I’ve done in the meantime is send them a weekly midweek, written report that highlights things that have happened during the last week. And then on Friday, we do a call at 11 o’clock for the board members. The written report actually goes to the board and the committee members. The call is it’s not an official board meeting. It’s just a call. We answer questions about the written report, provide some updates, and have some dialogue answer questions. I would say my board at the early outset, we basically talked and they passed a resolution that gave myself and the CFO, pretty substantial powers to act without them because they did not want us to be hindered in any way shape or form in terms expense limits or anything. They’re very supportive board. We’re working to keep them informed provide counsel and guidance. And that’s where we stand right now. Great relationship. Very supportive. Gary Bisbee 22:13 This is been a terrific interview. Barclay, thanks so much. Appreciate your being with us. Let me if I could ask one final question, which is there’s been discussion among your colleagues, other CEOs about the global supply chain. And the question is, should we begin to manufacturer all these critical life-saving devices and equipment manufacturer it in the US and not count on the global system, which has been challenging during the last couple of months? Do you have any thoughts about that? Barclay Berdan 22:48 I definitely think that we will move in that direction as a country. If I jumped down to the local marketplace here. We had identified some time ago a relationship with a company that actually produces PPE locally. One of them there isn’t a whole lot of them, but they produced it locally. We supported them, even though maybe their pricing was a little bit higher than we could get from overseas and bought a lot of products from them. And they proved to be a very loyal supporter of our organizations through all this. Gary Bisbee 23:23 That’s a good example of that point and what we might be turning to. Barclay, thanks so much. This has been terrific. We do appreciate it. And our thoughts and prayers are with all of you at Texas Health Resources in North Texas. Barclay Berdan 23:36 Well, Gary, we hope that you and everybody at the Academy stay well stay safe and we look forward to a time when we can get together again and all the members of the Academy I send the same wishes. Stay well, stay safe. Gary Bisbee 23:50 This episode of fireside chat is produced by Strafire, please subscribe to Fireside chat on Apple podcasts or wherever you’re listening right now. Be sure to rate and review fireside chat so we can continue to explore key issues with innovative and dynamic healthcare leaders. In addition to subscribing and rating, we have found that podcasts are known through word of mouth. We appreciate your spreading the word to friends or those who might be interested in. Fireside Chat is brought to you from our nation’s capital in Washington DC, where we explore the intersection of healthcare politics, financing, and delivery. For additional perspectives on health policy and leadership. Read my weekly blog Bisby’s brief. For questions and suggestions about fireside chat contact me through our website, fireside chat podcast dot com or Gary at hm academy.com Thanks for listening. Transcribed by Otter

This week.. making CGM available to hospitals.. something new because of the healthcare crisis caused by COVID 19. We talk to Dexcom’s CEO about training and more. Kevin Sayer explains how the program came about, why it’s needed and how he hopes it will help people with all types of diabetes in hospitals. We also talk about other Dexcom news, financial issues and more. More about Abbot & Dexcom in hospitals from DiaTribe In TMSG – taking flight.. finally and a birthday, a diaversary and a family of healthcare heroes. This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Check out Stacey's new book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! Insulin assistance due to COVID19 crisis: NovoNordisk 90 day no cost  Lilly Diabetes $35 copay The first pilot with T1D gets FAA clearance for commercial flights Follow Pietro on Instagram Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! Sign up for our newsletter here ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android   Episode transcript:  Stacey Simms  0:01 Kevin, let me let me start by asking how are you doing everybody staying safe and staying home as much as possible?   Kevin Sayer  0:09 I am staying home and staying safe as much as possible I since the office is deserted quite frankly, it's safer than home is respect because there's no one in the neighborhood. So we're I've just been going in maybe once once a week for a little while to take a couple of calls and then working from home I have learned I have learned a lot of things about work at home tools that I that I need, like I needed a better camera on my computer and some better it's interesting as you go through this and realize just little things. Our company. So me personally, my kids are all great. So that's good. Our company Stacey  we have done absolutely everything we possibly can to to take care of our people and our employees. We you know, mid March when we Send everybody home. We were definitely the first in our area one of the first in our area. I think Illumina might have been a little bit ahead of us, but we were very quick there and we have work from home tools that we put in place. Our IT team has just been tireless and getting people the type of connectivity and voice services and stuff they need from home. That's been great. We've had to keep the manufacturing plants open, obviously, because patients need product. In light of that, and light the fact that we are taking a group and making them come to work. We've provided them with economic benefits to whereby we can compensate for the fact for example that they are leaving their kids are home from school home. Whereas you don't have the summer daycare plan or the camps you could put them in so we've compensated our people a bit more to make sure they can take care of their families. We've reorganized the place and manufacture train with respect to small pods of people working together. So if someone went might get exposed, they we don't wipe out a manufacturing floor of 800 people just a few. We're making take breaks in groups, we're making them take it literally, we've got thermal scanners, we've we we've got time between shifts, so we're not at full capacity, but we're close. So I think our company's been absolutely as responsible as we possibly can. Through this to our people. And we said that in the beginning that aren't you know, our first goal is our, our employees our second priorities can be making sure is our patients to make sure that they our product and our third goal for community and making sure we're good citizens in the community and do our part and I think our hospital efforts fall into both two and three diabetes patients but also this community in general because when we think of the risks our healthcare providers are going Through to find this. My, my second son is 36. Now so obviously this back many years, but when he was 10, he had bone cancer and he went to a camp called dream Street, a kid's camp, kind of like the diabetes camps, but it was really just a lot of fun. And one of his counselors there was a young man trying to be a stand up comic who abandoned comedy becoming an ER doc in New York City. And our family gets text messages from him on it on a daily basis, just he's giving us a diary. And when you read that, it's like, oh, my goodness. And that's what we need to do to help the community is is a burdens for guys like him.   Stacey Simms  3:42 Let's talk about the hospital program then. So tell me what Dexcom is doing the the release is shipping continuous glucose monitoring systems directly to hospitals, indeed, what is the thinking here?   Kevin Sayer  3:55 Well, let me take you back a little bit. When this all started More than a month ago when things started getting very big here in the US and even before that in Europe, it became very clear that people with diabetes are more at risk. If they get contract COVID than those without diabetes statistics, statistics are pretty, pretty staggering. I mean, it's, it's plain black and white here. And we had heard from hospitals in Europe and back east. This thing started to grow. They wanted to use our system in the hospital, where we are not approved for use yet. Our system has been used in a hospital and some IRB approved studies in the past because we were preparing for that day and trying to develop a body of evidence that would support this. But it you know, it early phases by us in early discussions with the FDA, because before we roll on full on commercial into the hospital, we need to understand all the things about how our Bluetooth interacts. With all the other communication protocols, in hospital rooms, what is going to talk to where it's going to be displayed. And also make sure that the actual sensor from a chemistry perspective functions the way it's labeled on people in a hospital who are on multiple compounds versus those of us who are home and other routines who are on the compounds we're used to. And so we've done some work on that, but once it started heating up, particularly in centers where an endocrinologist who knew of Dexcom got involved, it quickly became we want this and we want it now. We didn't have FDA approval there. So we started speaking with the FDA. We did get an emergency provision that All right, go ahead. ship to hospitals. And we we we've looked at this and and and we've taken a lot of time on this Stacey . We got 100 f he's worked on this hospital thing full time. We put that many of our people into this to make sure that works. We needed to build a pricing structure for how they could buy it. We're charging the hospitals less than the commercial patients as part of our, our contribution to the community. We know that the sensor, the transmitter has to talk to something either a Dexcom, receiver or a phone. The phones are better options. So we are giving the hospitals phones and or receivers for the beds to manage the patients. We've developed separate training materials for the hospital, devoted our entire Education team, pretty much to them full time right now as they're training the hospitals get upon the system. We have developed a surveillance team literally to take calls to if we are anything going on with sensors to investigate and make sure we understand so that there's not something that we would have missed. We devoted a lot of time and effort to this as a company. We want to make sure it works. We want to make sure we're getting Go there, we are going to help people. The most appealing thing about Dexcom in the hospital over anybody else in the space, there's a couple you know, the first one is the connectivity, like connecting to a phone. Theoretically if the phone can be outside the room where a patient is, or even if it just hangs from the bed, from the from the bullet the bed, but it's a phone and you can use Apollo on an iPad out in the hall, you're able to monitor patients remotely. You know, I've been an ICU use around the country as we studied this market. And I've seen ICU is where the protocol is a finger stick every 30 minutes 48 finger sticks a day. Don't think nurses are following that protocol right now they're too busy. So to the extent we can make that labor much more efficient, and if we can take and the problem in the hospital is not hypoglycemia as it is for the patients in the field so much it's hyperglycemia not only our They they're getting too high because they don't want to be too aggressive on on a direct insulin. If they're not going to be sticking the finger every half hour, they don't have a CGM. So they're monitoring less aggressively. On top of that the steroids treatment and some of the other treatments for the respiratory ailments can go Cause glucose to rise much faster than it would if you weren't in that environment. So what we're seeing is patients going DK and fighting DK at the same time they're fighting to breed. And that's what the physicians and the hospitals are saying. So we have developed a plan and a protocol as to shipping products to the hospital supporting the hospitals, educating hospitals, training hospitals, giving them a place to call, learning as we go, because the other thing remember, most of the doctors here are not people who are used to CGM every day right there, your docks.   Stacey Simms  8:57 That's the question I wanted to ask is Can you tell us a little bit more about the training? You said you had people who develop this? I, you know, I'm a huge fan of CGM. We've unfortunately we had to take Benny to the hospital - not diabetes related. But having the CGM was fantastic. It helped so much, but we brought it in, you know, they didn't provide it. But how is an ER doctor? How is a nurse in an ICU? going to take the time to be trained? Can you share any of kind of the process here?   Kevin Sayer  9:28 We started with 108 slides user guide and realized that was never going to work   Stacey Simms  9:33 108 slides like a PowerPoint?   Kevin Sayer  9:36 Yes, slides because that's what you do you become FDA compliant, and you do a follow on user guide and try and walk them through every page. And after one training session. We said yeah, that's not gonna work. And so we condensed it. We have a two page quick starter. And then we have, I don't know, just a several page, other user guide and then we have people available by the phones that they need to solve. For that, and then what we're providing is video training. And we find we can get those trainings done in just under an hour. And then what really is happening, I will tell you where the early phases of this hospitals are phasing it, they're putting it on a few patients and watching seeing what they learn seeing what the outcome is. And then after they do that, then the roll it out bigger are constraining items so far has been getting phones, we've had to go procure the phones ourselves. We've had to buy them from the usual sources and pay cash to get them so we're getting the phones, we're pre configuring the phones. We've got another entity involved who's literally pre programming the phones whereby the only app running on the phone is going to be the dexcom g six app. So again, we are learning what physicians aren't gonna want to do. You talk about training, we don't want to have to train them to program phones. It's easier if we have somebody else program the phones when we're funding that effort as well. But every day you come across a new barrier and a new hurdle to jump over to make this work everywhere. Some of the stories we've gotten so far, anecdotally have been extremely positive. The, but I can tell you the the hiccup today that I heard from one facility is we got we got phone shipped to this hospital, one of the first ones to get phones. And their ID department won't let him use them on the wireless network, because they haven't been tested to meet the hospital security. And so you think you know everything about the hospital environment. And Stacey, that's why we have been so deliberate and thoughtful, and methodical as we do this. We don't want to just drop sensors on a hospital and say use these because if we do what we're going to get as a bad outcome, we have an opportunity to make this work and to make this For patients going forward, so we are really heavily invested in making sure we do this the right way. And, and so yeah, we train them, we get calls back in the cases and several of the hotspot hospitals. We're dealing directly with an endocrinologist who's training patients because there's so much diabetes in the hospital that the endocrinologist literally got involved in the training. Yeah. And and, and so that's been good, but it has been. It's just been crazy. And we have, we very much appreciate the FDA willingness to let us go here. We're going to gather all this data. When we're done. We're going to gather every bit of data that we can gather, and use this as real world evidence and then go back to the agency and say, Look, here's what we've learned about use of the product in the hospital. What do we do next? Yeah, I think that is a great use for this product.   Stacey Simms  13:00 You had mentioned that the you're going to be giving the phones and possibly the receivers to the hospitals and selling the sensors. And I believe the transmitter correct me if I'm wrong, a discounted price. What happens to the patient? Because I would be very concerned, having you know, the most notorious - you get an aspirin in the hospital and it costs you $800. You know, if I come in with my own Dexcom sensor, it's one thing but if a hospital puts one on me, is there a guarantee here that the patients that are using this discounted system are not going to be charged full price or even more on the other side?   Kevin Sayer  13:44 These people are so sick, that's the least of my concerns.   Stacey Simms Interesting   Kevin Sayer  13:44 I think I guess I would hate that. This is not being used to keep somebody there to keep somebody safe at school. This has been useful. Thanks. somebody's life and and if our data can can make somebody healthier and better one of the initial stories I heard, for example, young woman comes into the hospital type one, she's in total renal failure. Things look bad. They're gonna put on our ventilator. They said, Wait a minute, she's DKA, let's put her on CGM first. Four hours later, her glucose levels are back down in the range. And not only did she feel well enough to be conscious, but they didn't even put her on a ventilator. And she got Well, what's that worth?   Stacey Simms  14:34 Well, Kevin, and let me ask you this, why not then give the sensors free and clear to the hospitals so that they won't I mean…   Kevin Sayer  14:42 I will tell you, I will go through that as well. First of all, they don't have devices to receive the data with. Second of all, we've been very thoughtful and plan this as much as we can. Because I don't want to be the person who tells all the parents of Children that you don't have sensors anymore. So when we started this process, we have three groups. We're considering our employees, our patients and our community. We are going to make sure our patients who have CGM in the field still have CGM. And we and we will do that we are charging the hospital some we're giving away the phones to the receivers. This is not a money making endeavor for us, given the amount of people we have working on it, or we're going to get enough to cover what we put into it at best when all of a sudden done. The reason we're charging and we're limiting demand is because the last thing we can afford would be for our patient community to have every patient in a hospital walking on maglev CGM slept on can't do that. We don't have the capacity for that. We have the capacity. We're very familiar with the number of we built models Stacey , based on the number of ICU beds, based on the projected number of cases based on peaks by state Based on everything you could think of the percentage of the patients that have diabetes, the percentage that don't we have a sensor forecast. We said in our initial news release, we've allocated up to 100,000 sensors. And that also means 50,000 transmitters to this, and if the need comes for more, we'll certainly evaluate it. But those allocations are based on what we could see being used in ICU beds. And the demand, we believe we'll have enough. And we'll make enough available demand from the hospitals and supply everything to all of our patients.   Stacey Simms  16:37 Kevin, my question was not about Dexcom making money. The question was about the hospitals charging patients and the unintended consequences.   Kevin Sayer  16:47 They won't. They won't. if they do, like I said, if they do, I can't control it. The hospital does but but if you look at a hospital and I've, I've had discussions here, Stacey  and it's, you know as we go through this crisis, And we look at this as a country and as an economy now I'm getting way off base, I apologize. But it's fascinating to me how the the, the ramifications are going to reverberate through the community. elective procedures in the hospitals are not being done. So because nobody's going in, if you can get that knee replaced in two months, you're probably not going in today. And so you have, you have an economy that's going to be affected long term by all this.   I have no idea what hospitals will charge for these sensors. They'll build what they'll bill we've made it as as affordable as possible. And if we can get all these logistics worked out, and the connectivity and all the other issues, we think it's just going to be a win for them all. Going forward. We're also relatively convinced based on the data that we have seen and again, you go to the University of Washington, john hopkins, we've mapped out the peaks in all the states, how many people they think will be in hospitals, and we're very comparable, we can serve that with what we have and then we'll go from there.   Stacey Simms  18:11 I'm jumping off the the point of how things are going to change. And as I know, you saw, obviously the whole diabetes community is following Lilly's move to cut insulin to $35. With restrictions. I got a lot of questions from listeners when I mentioned we were talking today about whether Dexcom had any plans for financial assistance programs for people who have lost their jobs and lost their insurance or and feel that the   Kevin Sayer  18:37 grant we're studying that right now. And putting together they're putting together several alternatives for me. We are studying that. I won't commit to anything but the time absolutely initiative that we are undertaking and looking at, because this does has become that important to our patients. So we're trying to figure out how that works. And I've had calls with Numerous other companies in the industry to discuss what they're planning and what they're doing. Just so I can get a grasp as to how that works. But we were working on something I don't have anything to announce. And it may be a while we'll see. But but we are considering it. Absolutely. As,   Stacey Simms  19:17 as the as you said, as the landscape changes, you know, we're not quite sure what insurance will look like I'm unemployable. Like, there's so many people who have been on the, you know, Dexcom customers for a while. Oh, yeah, I know. We're gonna run out of time.   Kevin Sayer  19:28 Go ahead. No, I I agree with you 100%. There are people now Stacey , who have no idea how to manage their glucose without a CGM, because they didn't even learn on finger sticks. These new patients have learned on dexcom from the beginning. If we have learned one thing through this process, in the diabetes community, and we do hold it very reverently, how important this technology is becoming people's lives. And it's not just the patients we're getting every day. testimonials from dogs saying the only patients I can care for my next commerce, because I have their data in clarity. And I've got this role monitoring capability of my account patients I don't have with the others. This is awesome. Thank you. And that's the clarity.   Stacey Simms  20:16 So making some changes this week.   Unknown Speaker  20:20 Could be   Stacey Simms  20:20 I got an email about that.   Unknown Speaker  20:22 Yep. Okay. Well,   Stacey Simms  20:24 I was just curious what why or if there's any you want to say about that, while we're talking?   Kevin Sayer  20:29 I don't think they're major are going to change the whole system. Okay. We continually try and improve that.   Stacey Simms  20:36 And then another question I'd like to ask is that this month Dexcom announced that in June, it will discontinue g4 Platinum and G five transmitters   Kevin Sayer  20:50 That's a plane I'm sorry. Are you still there?   Stacey Simms  20:53 That's okay. Can you talk about that? You had mentioned that at one point this would be happening. But can you talk about that? And then I'll also ask the same question this on the front end g7 where we stand with that,   Kevin Sayer  21:06 you know, I'll start with the easier one g7 we're working through, obviously, with what's going on clinical trials has slowed down significantly, our ability to purchase equipment on the outwit while we purchase a lot of manufacturing equipment, our ability, set it up and get it in, has been affected by all this will give more color on the earnings call about that. We're still extremely bullish on it, and we will do everything we can to accelerate those timeframes we, we really haven't taken a full inventory of where everything is. We'll talk about that more in a couple of weeks. But there certainly are are environmental factors that will have an effect on it right right now what my team is doing is looking at the mitigation possibilities for any of this stuff and I don't have anything in front of me but it is front and center. I thought it was back to G four and G five From a manufacturing and a cost perspective, it's costing us a tremendous amount of money keep those lines running. We need the space for G six and G seven. And in addition to that, by supporting g four and G five we're supporting. They gave me a list of how many dexcom software apps we were supporting the other day. And I went, yeah, it's time. We believe g six is the right product for our patients. We believe when they use it, they will find that it is I know why people don't want g five and G four shut that discontinued all always relate to extending the life of the center and I get it. I'm hopeful that over time we can make it easier for patients to get and and a better commercial structure to whereby it's not as important economically as it was before as we continue to drive. For more pharmacy coverage which typically results in lower CO pays for our patients. But operationally It just doesn't make sense for us to continue to, to build those things. And we shut the transmitters off first because we know people will still have sensors. If they have a transmitter that works, they will still want some sensors. But there's a day shut off day for sensors coming Not long after that. And we'll be P six driven and then be getting all our g7 lines up and running. And this is in the, you know, this is in, in conjunction with the plants we had at the beginning of the year. So this is not a data we've moved up from a back that's exactly what we were planning on.   Stacey Simms  23:32 Right. And you have mentioned that here before as well. Um, Kevin, before I let you go, I do have to ask I feel a responsibility as a person with access to you. And again, I appreciate how accessible you are you always come on and answer these questions. It's not always sunshine and roses and I do appreciate that. But I feel obligated to just ask you one more time, or at least put this out there. This is really an unprecedented time. I'm so appreciative of what Dexcom is doing, getting into the hospitals, you know, making things more affordable that way donating what you are donating, putting all these people to work to get this stuff done. But as you consider pricing and help for people who have lost jobs and lost insurance, please keep in mind the diabetes community that has helped Dexcom get to a point where you're about to join the NASDAQ 100. I know with a successful product. Yeah, I mean, it's exciting times. But it's also a time of worry for so many people, our   Kevin Sayer  24:37 hours, our culture from the beginning has been if you take care of the patients, things will eventually work out. We will absolutely consider this and do everything reasonably possible while maintaining obviously our position as a public company and taking care of our shareholders as well. There are a number of things going on internally that we really haven't talked about. As we increase capacity, as you know, as, as we phased out in G four and G five, quite frankly, can double that space to G six and G seven, that might give us more flexibility with respect to to our inventory because a lot of our calls last year Stacey  was me explain to you why we had 10 day weights before we could ship. And we don't want to. We don't want to go through that again. So we are absolutely looking at all these things, all the logistics involved, all involved, everything involved all over the world as well. And that's another thing. You know, one of the things used to be much more simple about XCOM. We were so us focus that we just did whatever we wanted to in the US and now our worldwide basis getting very large. So we were making worldwide decisions to which is really cool, but it's also complex. Everything has to be everything needs to be considered. We'll be more cognizant of that. We will think It, we will develop what we hope will be a good plan.   Stacey Simms  26:06 Because, you know, the fear is that if you can sell the hospitals, you don't really have to worry so much about individually. Yeah,   Unknown Speaker  26:12 that's that's very difficult to hear for people. Well,   Kevin Sayer  26:15 as I said in the beginning, that's why we've taken this hospital approach, very measured, and very thoughtful, and and made sure that we have enough capacity to take care of our next commerce, who depend on this each and every day we have to. And fortunately, as we've spoke with many of the hospitals when they get an endocrinologist involved, they very much know that we have to take care of the diabetes patients first and foremost. So that has been   that has been easy to explain so far.   Stacey Simms  26:50 Kevin, I forgot to ask you one. I have to ask you one technical question that I did not ask earlier. I'm sorry about the hustle. So much of the COVID reporting has been that it's devastating. For people with type two diabetes, obviously we were talking about people with all types of diabetes. But are you finding that are these decks coms going to the hospitals? Are all these people using insulin? Is this for all people with type two who use insulin? Is it just for type two? Are you just leaving it up to the hospitals? Because it just used to be that putting a dexcom on to type two doesn't use insulin? I don't understand why no endocrinologist, I'll   Kevin Sayer  27:24 be able to explain it to you. What is happening with type two patients when they go in as their glucose is spiraling out of control every bit as much as an insulin user. It appears that the effect of the virus and the treatments related to the virus are causing glucose challenges in these people far beyond what one would have anticipated. We're very early in our hospital phases, I believe. haven't talked to all of them, but I believe that they're starting with the insulin using patients. But in all candor, a lot of these type two patients are being put on insulin IV insulin as well, to get there Their glucose levels under control. So it's being used across everybody. I think I need to give the FDA kyudo akuto here because they gave us permission to treat anyone, not just people with diabetes, that's a huge step. For us, if somebody glucose compromised during this time in the hospital, if we can bring their glucose back under control, that that's a big win. And we are reading a lot about, about type twos who have glucose levels that are just going nuts Actually, I'm hearing about people who don't even know they have diabetes, who this glucose levels are behaving like that. So it's like this is it's unprecedented times on a number of fronts. And we're still here we are absolutely working on things and considering things for our patients first, but we see an opportunity. Whereas if this thing works, and we can can save some lives and make health care givers you Better, and make them able to treat this better. We're gonna we're gonna do this and we're gonna do it right. while balancing the two, we're never gonna, we're never gonna ignore patients, Stacey , that that's just not how we're wired.   Stacey Simms  29:16 Well, I really appreciate you spending time with me, Kevin to talk about it and explain the system and we will look forward to seeing how it works out, you know, we'll follow up. So thanks for being here today. Appreciate it.   Kevin Sayer  29:25 Well, thank you for taking the time to chat with me really inspired the airplanes zooming over my head I it's always fun to talk with you. And again, kudos to all those on the frontlines doing this. But kudos to our team, these people. I mean, it's been 24 seven for about a week and a half. They're, they're tired. So getting this this thing rolled out. It's just been it's what we're best at. We are really good at figuring things out   Transcribed by https://otter.ai

“Our IT-powered business processes are too slow.” Does this sound familiar? If so, that is usually the perfect starting point to dig in and start improving them. Unfortunately, specific data that could help with that effort are not available – normally. In this session we will show you how we at Arvato Supply Chain Solutions got the data we needed and used it to improve the collaboration between IT and business. You will learn how we connected different IT systems such as SAP and conveyor line to Splunk Cloud, and how this helped us to analyze business processes with IT Service Intelligence (ITSI). And, as the icing on the cake, we give you a sneak peak of the machine learning algorithm we implemented to continuously improve our business processes. Speaker(s) Ralf Walkenhorst, ITOA Specialist, Splunk Holger Diekhoff, Manager Operational Intelligence, Arvato Supply Chain Solutions Slides PDF link - https://conf.splunk.com/files/2019/slides/BA1512.pdf?podcast=1577146258 Product: Splunk Cloud, Splunk IT Service Intelligence, Splunk Machine Learning Toolkit Track: Business Analytics Level: Beginner

“Our IT-powered business processes are too slow.” Does this sound familiar? If so, that is usually the perfect starting point to dig in and start improving them. Unfortunately, specific data that could help with that effort are not available – normally. In this session we will show you how we at Arvato Supply Chain Solutions got the data we needed and used it to improve the collaboration between IT and business. You will learn how we connected different IT systems such as SAP and conveyor line to Splunk Cloud, and how this helped us to analyze business processes with IT Service Intelligence (ITSI). And, as the icing on the cake, we give you a sneak peak of the machine learning algorithm we implemented to continuously improve our business processes. Speaker(s) Ralf Walkenhorst, ITOA Specialist, Splunk Holger Diekhoff, Manager Operational Intelligence, Arvato Supply Chain Solutions Slides PDF link - https://conf.splunk.com/files/2019/slides/BA1512.pdf?podcast=1577146252 Product: Splunk Cloud, Splunk IT Service Intelligence, Splunk Machine Learning Toolkit Track: Business Analytics Level: Beginner

“Our IT-powered business processes are too slow.” Does this sound familiar? If so, that is usually the perfect starting point to dig in and start improving them. Unfortunately, specific data that could help with that effort are not available – normally. In this session we will show you how we at Arvato Supply Chain Solutions got the data we needed and used it to improve the collaboration between IT and business. You will learn how we connected different IT systems such as SAP and conveyor line to Splunk Cloud, and how this helped us to analyze business processes with IT Service Intelligence (ITSI). And, as the icing on the cake, we give you a sneak peak of the machine learning algorithm we implemented to continuously improve our business processes. Speaker(s) Ralf Walkenhorst, ITOA Specialist, Splunk Holger Diekhoff, Manager Operational Intelligence, Arvato Supply Chain Solutions Slides PDF link - https://conf.splunk.com/files/2019/slides/BA1512.pdf?podcast=1577146243 Product: Splunk Cloud, Splunk IT Service Intelligence, Splunk Machine Learning Toolkit Track: Business Analytics Level: Beginner

“Our IT-powered business processes are too slow.” Does this sound familiar? If so, that is usually the perfect starting point to dig in and start improving them. Unfortunately, specific data that could help with that effort are not available – normally. In this session we will show you how we at Arvato Supply Chain Solutions got the data we needed and used it to improve the collaboration between IT and business. You will learn how we connected different IT systems such as SAP and conveyor line to Splunk Cloud, and how this helped us to analyze business processes with IT Service Intelligence (ITSI). And, as the icing on the cake, we give you a sneak peak of the machine learning algorithm we implemented to continuously improve our business processes. Speaker(s) Ralf Walkenhorst, ITOA Specialist, Splunk Holger Diekhoff, Manager Operational Intelligence, Arvato Supply Chain Solutions Slides PDF link - https://conf.splunk.com/files/2019/slides/BA1512.pdf?podcast=1577146224 Product: Splunk Cloud, Splunk IT Service Intelligence, Splunk Machine Learning Toolkit Track: Business Analytics Level: Beginner

“Our IT-powered business processes are too slow.” Does this sound familiar? If so, that is usually the perfect starting point to dig in and start improving them. Unfortunately, specific data that could help with that effort are not available – normally. In this session we will show you how we at Arvato Supply Chain Solutions got the data we needed and used it to improve the collaboration between IT and business. You will learn how we connected different IT systems such as SAP and conveyor line to Splunk Cloud, and how this helped us to analyze business processes with IT Service Intelligence (ITSI). And, as the icing on the cake, we give you a sneak peak of the machine learning algorithm we implemented to continuously improve our business processes. Speaker(s) Ralf Walkenhorst, ITOA Specialist, Splunk Holger Diekhoff, Manager Operational Intelligence, Arvato Supply Chain Solutions Slides PDF link - https://conf.splunk.com/files/2019/slides/BA1512.pdf?podcast=1577146197 Product: Splunk Cloud, Splunk IT Service Intelligence, Splunk Machine Learning Toolkit Track: Business Analytics Level: Beginner

Our IT 2 review / Bad Boys For Life trailer / Apples latest keynote / Pierres new business plan / Kevin Hart gets slammed 

Ed still hasn't been to Hawaii, but that doesn't mean he's not looking to learn and share all the different ways you can get there! Leslie Harvey from Trips with Tykes one of our resident Hawaii experts shares her experience flying Southwest Airlines from Oakland to Honolulu! Our "It's a Big Deal" this week is a great airline transfer bonus. Jen Yellen from Deals We Like has all the info you need on a promotion offering bonus British Airways Avios when you transfer points from Chase Ultimate Rewards.LinksSouthwest to Hawaii Flight ReviewChase Ultimate Rewards First Transfer Bonus to British Airways AviosThanks to Our Sponsor!AutoSlashDon't forget to check out the NowBoarding Podcast - with a NEW show format! Tune in for a recap of the week's latest news, deals and top posts on BoardingArea!

We’re running the numbers in this episode. Our IT department shares their goals for improving communications by decreasing emails from 65,000 to 20,000. Plus, we feature Nussbaum CFO Bill Wettstein and unload ESOP, projections, and company growth.

Take a moment and think about all of the materials that go into an exhibition. It’s a lot, right? Objects, documents, essays, labels, not to mention the installation itself. And your museum can only fit so much of that into its physical space. What about all of the other stories that end up on the cutting room floor? The outtakes? What about the stories that get generated during and after the exhibition? With your museum’s website, the only limitations to the stories you can share are time and resources. And those are real. But with a little bit of planning, you can come up with a strategy for enhancing your collections and exhibitions online. And that’s exactly what the Hammer Museum has done. Today I’m talking with Philip Leers, Project Manager for Digital Initiatives at the Hammer Museum, about telling a museum’s stories online. **FULL TRANSCRIPT** NICK: Hi, and welcome to What’s On, the Cuberis podcast. I’m Nick Faber. Today I’m talking with Philip Leers, Project Manager for Digital Initiatives at the Hammer Museum, about telling a museum’s stories online. Now… Take a moment and think about all of the materials that go into an exhibition. It’s a lot, right? Objects, documents, essays, labels, not to mention the installation itself. And your museum can only fit so much of that into its physical space. What about all of the other stories that end up on the cutting room floor? The outtakes? What about the stories that get generated during and after the exhibition? With your museum’s website, the only limitations to the stories you can share are time and resources. And those are real. But with a little bit of planning, you can come up with a strategy for enhancing your collections and exhibitions online. And that’s exactly what the Hammer Museum has done. The Hammer’s digital archives are a fantastic example of using technology to illuminate a museum’s hidden treasures and augmenting those on view. If you haven’t seen what we’re talking about, I’d encourage you to head over to hammer.ucla.edu and click on “Exhibitions.” You’ll find the Expanded Digital Archives on the right-hand side. So, I spoke with the Hammer’s Philip Leers over Skype and asked him to talk about the work that goes into these projects. We talked about planning, collaborating, and the value of creating goals for individual projects. First, I wanted to know who exactly worked on the Digital Archives, and that’s where we’ll pick up the conversation. PHILIP: For some of the Digital Archives -- that's the term we use for the projects -- we've done two that were for exhibitions, so the websites are built around all of the materials that go around planning the exhibition and that came out of the exhibition. So, essays for the catalog, and label text, and images of the installation, and any material we could get our hands on. So the material is coming from curatorial, but, in terms of the building, this is part of our website, which falls under our communications team, so I work really closely with them. Our IT, our registrars, everybody comes into contact with the project at some point. NICK: Got it. And so, you said you're building it out of all of the materials that go into the exhibition, are there also things that don't make it into the exhibition that, because you're using a digital platform, that you're able to bring online? PHILIP: Yeah, absolutely, and that was one of the big things we talked about. We didn't want to just recreate the catalog, we didn't want to do a virtual exhibition. We wanted to include things from both the exhibition and the catalog, but we also figured we're making these after the fact, we're doing them on a platform that offers us all new capabilities. So some of the things that we included, we could only do because we're doing it kind of retrospectively. So we could include press reviews of the show, we can include images of the shows and other materials if it traveled to different venues...

Our IT review is finally here! A week of build up and we can't wait for you to download this awesome episode. Eric, Ed & Jordan review IT, could this be a new horror classic? Download now to find out. 

You may have seen the video we posted on our Facebook page regarding the couple who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars by wiring funds to a fraudulent title company. Unfortunately, these hackers are getting more sophisticated and are targeting the real estate industry. The hacker will get into a buyer’s, seller’s, or Realtor’s email, determine the closing date of the property, and find the parties in charge of handling the transaction. Then, the hackers go behind the scenes and mimic one of those email addresses. From there, they send an email to the buyer requesting a wire transfer for the purchase of the home. Instead of making a deposit to the title company, these buyers are sending their funds to a fraudulent account. Again, these hackers are seriously targeting the real estate industry. Our IT department sent us a screenshot the other day to show us the number of hits against the Edina Realty firewall. Every 12 seconds, there was another hit. As you can imagine, the list of attempts was very long, and these hackers are from all over the world. Although we’re not the only company these hackers are targeting, we are taking proactive steps to protect you, our clients and customers, from scams like these. “Real estate cyber security tips / Hackers target the real estate industry” In the meantime, there are a few steps you can take to protect yourself as well. Generally speaking, don’t click on any links in emails from people you don’t know. When you are in the middle of a real estate transaction, if you get an email from the title company or Edina Realty, don’t click on anything. Look for obvious grammatical errors and scroll over the email address to see what the domain is. If the domain is Gmail or Comcast, or if anything else looks suspicious, don’t click anything and call us, your agent, or your title company right away. We will verify if we sent that email or not. Edina Realty has also enacted a protective policy, effective immediately: We will never email wiring instructions to you for a real estate transaction. If you are one of our clients and you get an email with wiring instructions, report it to your agent or title company immediately.   Remember, although these hackers are targeting the real estate industry, there are ways you can protect yourself and your money during the real estate transaction. If you have any other questions for us, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We would be happy to help you!

Don R. Crawley, CSP, DTM. The Importance of the Business Mindset in IT Customer Service I frequently receive calls and emails from potential clients who say something like this, “Our IT staff is filled with highly intelligent, very talented individuals who are great at solving technical problems, but they don't understand that we're a business.” Then, they'll talk about how great the IT staff is with the technical aspects of … The Importance of the Business Mindset in IT Customer Service Read More » The Importance of the Business Mindset in IT Customer Service Don Crawley