Podcasts about systems integrator

In this episode of KP Unpacked, KP Reddy breaks down one of his most talked-about LinkedIn posts: the massive, untapped business opportunity in construction technology system integration.The construction industry is fragmented, innovation deployment is inconsistent, and startups struggle with scalability—so why hasn't anyone built a company to solve this? KP and Jeff discuss:

This week we chatted with ETCP certified Rigger, Consultant Partnership Manager, and Systems Integrator at Wenger Corporation, Eric Huss. Tune into the episode to get the details on Wenger's reimagined and vastly comprehensive Rigging Guide for Performance Spaces, how venues can go beyond the minimum standards of ADA compliance, and how you can connect with the Wenger team at USITT25 in just a few weeks!Visit Wenger in Booth 625 during USITT25!Access Wenger's Rigging Guide for Performance Spaces.TECHnically Speaking is a public service of USITT, which seeks to have a broad conversation on topics of interest to its members, but it is neither a legal interpretation nor a statement of Institute policy. The views expressed on this podcast by guests are their own and their appearance herein does not imply an endorsement of them or of any entity they may represent. Reference to any specific product or idea does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation. Views, opinions, recommendations or use cases expressed on this podcast do not necessarily reflect the views of USITT, its Board members or employees.

At Brivo and Eagle Eye's 2024 Cloud Security Summit, SDM sat down to talk with Justin Stearns of this year's Systems Integrator of the Year: Chimera Integrations

This is episode 707. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website here. Read more about the Institute for Excellence in Sales Premier Women in Sales Employer (PWISE) designation and program here. Purchase Fred Diamond's best-sellers Love, Hope, Lyme: What Family Members, Partners, and Friends Who Love a Chronic Lyme Survivor Need to Know and Insights for Sales Game Changers now! Today's show featured an AWS Public Sector Partner Sales Leaders Jillian Swenson and Mike Blake. Find Jillian on LinkedIn. Find Mike on LinkedIn. JILLIAN'S ‘ TIP:  “Differentiate yourselves from your peers by leveraging new GenAI tools to reduce repetitive time-consuming tasks and gain new insights into your customers. It's going to free you up and help you bring more unique value to your customers.” MIKE'S TIP: “Cultivate a positive mindset and resilience. Selling to large integrators can be very challenging. Develop techniques to maintain motivation, overcome rejections, because there will be rejections, and celebrate your successes. Prioritize building those relationships and really understanding these companies. Focus on the customer's needs, earning their trust, rather than just going for the hard sale.”  

Scaling Generative AIThe Big Themes:Prioritizing cost and impact: Businesses are focused on the dual priorities of cost efficiency and impactful results when implementing generative AI. With numerous potential applications for generative AI, organizations need to evaluate which projects will deliver the highest value. This approach involves collaborating with partners to identify the opportunities that offer the most substantial benefits.Open ecosystem advantage: Google Cloud's emphasis on openness and flexibility is a key differentiator in the AI landscape. Its commitment to open systems and platforms allows for various models and technologies, including first-party and open-source offerings. This open ecosystem approach enables businesses to leverage various AI models and infrastructure options, enhancing scalability and adaptability.End-to-end offerings: Google Cloud offers a comprehensive AI stack that supports a wide range of applications, from foundational models to advanced infrastructure. This end-to-end tool facilitates the development and scaling of sophisticated AI applications. The integration of various layers, including model capabilities, hardware options, and platform services, enables partners to deliver efficient and effective AI offerings.The Big Quote: “Having great models is one thing, but having differentiated infrastructure and a platform — all those three things come together, and I think we are unique in that sense."

This is episode 691. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. Register for the September 13 Women in Sales Leadership Elevation Conference here. Register for the IES Women in Sales Leadership Development programs here. Today's show featured an interview with Rebecca Wetherly, AWS Public Sector Systems Integrator Partner Director. Rebecca was the IES Partner of the Year for 2024. REBECCA'S ADVICE:  “Leverage your network from others who are doing the job. I have a close group of trusted advisors myself who I lean into for advice and counsel from a professional lens. Find mentors and advisors who will share, who will ask you questions and give you good perspectives on what you're strong at and what you do well and what you don't do well.”

TELUS will be the first operator to use Open RAN for not only new 5G deployment but also to replace the legacy 4G network. Although the Government mandate necessitated the replacement, it was still a bold decision. TELUS will also be a multi-vendor true Open RAN deployment, with radios, cloud platform, RAN software, servers, and processors, all coming from different vendors. It expects almost 50% of the network to be Open RAN by the end of 2025. In this episode, I talk to Nazim Benhadid, CTO of TELUS, on the factors that led to choosing Open RAN, their large-scale live network performance testing, the decision to use look-aside accelerator configuration, and being their own Systems Integrator, as well as his recommendations to the other brownfield operators looking to deploy Open RAN.

Maj. Ashley "Ash" Holzmann is a Psychological Operations Officer with operational experience in South / Central America, the Into-Pacific, and the Middle East. He serves in the 1st Special Warfare Training Group at the United States Army Special Warfare Center and School.  Sgt. Maj. Derek Riley is one of the most experienced Civil Affairs Noncommissioned Officers in the Army Special Operations Regiment. He has incredible deployment experience and serves the Proponency at the United States Army Special Warfare Center and School. The Official Podcast of the United States Army Special Warfare Center and School!USAJFKSWCS selects and trains all Army Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations soldiers.  ** If you want to learn more about RUSIC, the Special Warfare Magazine included an article on RUSIC in the latest issue: https://www.swcs.mil/Special-Warfare/Special-Warfare-Archive/ Please visit our website at: https://www.swcs.mil. Be sure to check us out and follow us at:* https://www.facebook.com/jfkcenterandschool* https://www.instagram.com/u.s.armyswcs/* https://www.youtube.com/c/USAJFKSWCS/videosPlease like, subscribe, and leave a review! And if you enjoyed this, become a member of the underground by sharing with at least one other person. Word-of-mouth is how movements like this spread. 

Art Eldred is a seasoned Supply Chain Executive with over 20 years of expertise, specializing in eCommerce fulfillment solutions. He adeptly leads cross-functional teams, including consultants, mechanical, controls, and software engineers. Art's early career with a startup electromechanical software company provided invaluable insights into highly successful software organizations. His management approach emphasizes creativity while delivering robust solutions. His extensive knowledge of material handling technologies, coupled with software integration, leads to innovative, replicable solutions. Art serves as a trusted advisor to numerous supply chain C-level executives, offering insights on best practices, new technologies, and software integration. His designs are constantly recognized for their impact, often featured in industry publications and conferences, delivering speed, efficiency, and simplicity to his clients.SHOW SUMMARYIn this episode of eCom Logistics Podcast, Art Eldred, Vice President and Growth Officer at Vargo, discusses warehouse execution systems (WES). He explains that a WES is a system that executes tasks and flows within a fulfillment operation, managing the workflow and synchronizing and sequencing work tasks. Art emphasizes the importance of decoupling processes and leveraging technology to optimize workflows. He also highlights the need for clear definitions and understanding of WES, as many companies market solutions that are simply dashboarding systems. Art, Dan, and Ninaad discuss the evolution of automation in the industry, including the accessibility of technology and the emergence of robotic solutions. They stress the importance of aligning different departments within an organization and the value of integrating various technologies to achieve efficiency and productivity.HIGHLIGHTS[00:01:17] Art's background and professional journey in e-commerce fulfillment[00:03:11] Art's passion for bringing together software and hardware in logistics[00:08:55] Definition of a warehouse execution system (WES)[00:15:16] Successful implementation of a WES project[00:20:25] The trade-off between expediency and efficiency[00:25:06] When to consider implementing a warehouse execution system[00:30:01] The evolving role of automation in warehousing[00:34:07] Importance of integrating different capabilities and not leaving them in silos[00:36:06] Excitement about the accessibility of automation technology[00:40:13] The difference between a warehouse execution system (WES) and a warehouse management system (WMS)QUOTES[00:03:12] "My passion isn't one or the other, it's bringing it all together." - Art Eldred[00:04:51] "The warehouse execution system sits below the warehouse management system and it's managing the workflow." - Art Eldred[00:14:10] "The warehouse execution system can really unleash the capabilities of both the software element and the hardware and technology world." - Art EldredFind out more about Art Eldred in the link below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arteldred/

Can't we all just get along? Specifiers, integrators, engineers, manufacturers, contractors, end-users… Bryan, with Webster and Ron, decries the lack of communication between entities. And it's not just people. Where's the cohesion between the different types of controllers, control platforms, fixtures, and connections? And then there's the lack of education and standards. How can anyone be expected to design a system? That's why you should have Bryan on your project, he'll work with you to find a solution, and he knows a lot! Bryan Lussier currently is a Systems Integrator for Barbizon of New England. For over 20 years Bryan has worked in the lighting industry as an entertainment and architectural lighting professional for distributors, manufacturers, and specifiers. Bryan began his career at the University of Massachusetts. After graduating he was hired as the Master Electrician at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art where he was responsible for both the theatrical and gallery lighting designs. He then earned his MFA in Lighting Design at the University of Florida. After which he was a member of IATSE Local 5 in Cincinnati and was Master Electrician on some national tours. Bryan is an award-winning lighting designer and has his LC, CLCP and is a member of the IES, IALD and is Vice-President for the Designers Lighting Forum of New England (DLFNE). Bryan also has a pending patent entitled Light Emitting Diode Sports Lighting Luminaire Assembly which describes how to best apply LED lighting sources in sports lighting applications. 

This week, Realcomm Live welcomes our 2023 Smart Building Integrator Summit (SBIS) co-chairs Scott Cochrane, President, Cochrane Supply & Donny Walker, Partner, Newcomb & Boyd. They discuss the important role of the systems integrator in the smart building conversation and the impact of new building standards and regulations. 

Last night I watched the 1994 film Maverick, starring Mel Gibson, with our youngest son, 8-month-old Andrew. It had been a long time since I'd seen it - long enough to forget precisely how Maverick is not moral in the sense that fine, upstanding Christian folk expect and demand. Yet he is moral in an Old Testament book of Judges sort of way. He admits to being a coward, and is sexually loose. But then he does the brave and upstanding thing anyways, and gives the money back to the women and children waylaid and robbed on their way to start a mission. Come to think of it, the only folks Maverick cheats are the ones without any boundaries – who either had just cheated or bullied someone, or were about to. And that is so downright chivalrous of him, it may remind me of what Jesus said about being wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Naturally, one can be too careful in seeing this as a good example to follow, but there is a slippery slope to studying snakes. My point is not to recommend that we all emulate the card shark, but to talk about Jacob and Esau, and the kinds of men God has loved and established covenants with, as well as those He has hated and rejected. Speaking of love and hate, yesterday was a slow enough day for an extended conversation with a friend of mine where I still work for just a little while longer. He describes himself as a kind of universalist, but I must apologize again to Rosie, who sits one office over from mine, as she was on a conference call in the afternoon, and had to come out and shush us for being too loud. But in my friend's view, Hell is a kind of refining fire. And like Miracle Max might say, the damned are only mostly damned. And look at you who knows so much. 'Such were some of you' will be said to all mankind, on the other side of varying cook times, after which all the sin and rebellion against King Jesus is burned away. Even if they didn't accept Jesus before the first death, these will get another chance, at some point, to pledge allegiance to Christ, and join the ranks of the heavenly host in Paradise. This is admittedly a perspective which I am very troubled by. But my perceptive friend doubtless knows this from the look I was giving him when we talked about it. Unlike Brett Maverick, I am not a particularly good bluffer. Only with great concentration and effort do I keep my opinions off my face when someone is telling or showing me their ideas and sentiments, or when a situation is unfolding or better or worse. I will borrow the book he is offering me, which promises to expand, I think, on how the early church prior to the domination of Rome by virtue of its wedding with imperial power held to all three views in various quarters. Origen, for instance, is said to have held to a kind of universalism in eternity. Yet Origen also, according to Eusebius, misread Matthew 19:12 and concluded he should make himself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven. And we should take any man who would do that with a grain of salt on everything else they hold to as well. Yesterday was also the last day of my second-to-last hitch of seven days as a contract Systems Integrator for Chevron, and it does not embarrass me to say that it was an emotional one. Several very great compliments, congratulations, and expressions of grief touched me deeply, and will make my final day of October 19th both sweeter and sadder for that fact, since all wished me well, and told me whatever company I join next is gaining a great asset, and is very fortunate. Speaking of last days, let's turn our attention to the back-and-forth between Elon Musk and Lindsey Graham over how best to bring peace in the Ukraine. Senator Graham made threats against electric vehicle tax credits, and that is bad form. But that is not to say Mr. Musk should go unanswered like Tony Bobulinski at the FBI. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ashley-mullet/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ashley-mullet/support

In the podcast, Bruce and Dennis discuss their partnership along with the top use cases and adoption drivers of LoRaWAN. They also provide advice on starting your IoT journey and the challenges they've witnessed in the industry.Dennis Henderson is CEO and Co-Founder of Ready Wireless, a leading IoT Managed Services Provider and Systems Integrator. In his 35-year career, Dennis has been exclusively involved in telecommunications. He has leveraged that industry experience in building the Ready Wireless team as the company leads in the IoT revolution.Bruce Chatterley is an experienced business leader and entrepreneur. He brings more than 25 years of experience building successful high-growth technology businesses. Before Senet, Bruce was an Independent Growth Consultant and acting CMO of a global fiber optic telecommunications provider in London, UK. He also served as CEO of Layered Technologies, a provider of secure cloud hosting services for Government, Financial Services, and Healthcare applications. Chatterley is an experienced telecom leader, serving as CEO of cloud-based VOIP firms Broadvox and Speakeasy. In addition, he is a former senior executive at Ameritech and US West. Chatterley has also been an early leader in developing the Software-as-a-Service industry, having served as CEO of ViAir and President of eServices for Concur Technologies. Earlier in his career, Chatterley held Senior Sales and Marketing positions at GE and IBM. He earned his BSBA from Central Michigan University and his MBA from the Kogod College of Business Administration at American University.

In this episode of Digital Stratosphere, we explore how to choose the best system integrator for your digital transformation. We discuss how businesses need to consider changes in their customer base, technology, and industry when undergoing a digital transformation. We also provide some tips on what to consider if you're looking to transform your business.   Be sure to download the newly released 2023 Digital Transformation Report to learn more about how to avoid common digital transformation failures. https://www.thirdstage-consulting.com/reports/2023-digital-transformation-report/

Are you a holistic healer who doesn't want to deal with the technological side of your business? Or maybe you are seeing clients 1-on-1 and are looking for ways to expand and grow financially through online courses, workshops and more, but don't know where to begin! In this episode I dialogue with Katie Hill, Systems Integrator, about the changing healthcare industry, the need for a streamlined online presence for holistic healers and more! *************************************************************** Katie Hill is a Systems Integrator Business Consultant that assists holistic healers with the technological side of growing their business. To learn more about Katie and her services visit www.yourdigitalhealer.com. Also, check out www.myfavoritehealer.com to learn more! *************************************************************** I am an intuitive empath specialized in Quantum Healing Hypnosis, EFT Tapping and the Emotion Code. To learn more about my healing journey or to schedule a session visit my website at https://thesoulcafe.org/index.html. The Existential Empath: https://linktr.ee/the_existential_empath #holistichealers #systemsintegration #technologyforhealers *************************************************************** Are you a podcast host looking for guests? Or maybe you have a service to share and are looking for a podcast to be featured on. PodMatch is like online dating but for hosts and guests to connect! To learn more click here! https://podmatch.com/signup/theexistentialempath --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theexistentialempath/support

What happens when two infection control thought leaders join forces? Tune into this episode of Clean Talk to find out!Learn more about what is to come in Health IT technologies with special guests Bradley Carlson, Global Project Manager at TouchPoint Medical, and Paul Landazuri, President at PRI. Gain knowledge on a range of topics including:• Bradley & Paul's background and what brought them to their current roles• The interesting story of how the two met• Touchpoint Medical's solutions and point of care segments• The benefits of their powered carts and new Pro Care Carts• How Touchpoint Medical's products utilize Microban's antimicrobial properties• The various antimicrobial additives they use including power coating and injectables• Bradley and Paul's partnership that led to the creation of the first fully sealed, antimicrobial, and disinfectant ready bar code scanner• All the features that make this scanner unique• The importance of products that offer a smart design that support cleanability • How their companies give back to the communityPaul Landazuri is the President of Peripheral Resources, National Distributor & Systems Integrator of Auto ID, POS and OEM equipment to various vertical markets.Brad Carlson is the Global Project Manager for TouchPoint Medical with 35+ years of entrepreneurial experience focused on product design, product management, web-based product configuration, marketing and sales.

I've been thinking about the lyrics to the song 'Simple Man,' and I have questions. Like, why didn't anyone give Lynyrd Skynyrd more to go on than this when he was young? And why was being a simple man the thing to shoot for? And where was his father? To be sure, we don't necessarily mean the same thing by "simple man" that the Bible does. But maybe that's the point. Do a word search of "simple" in the ESV at BibleGateway.com and see what you get. "Surely vexation kills the fool, and jealousy slays the simple." Job 5:2 "The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me." Psalm 116:6 "The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it." Proverbs 22:3, 27:12 This is to say, we clearly need more to go on, particularly if we want saved instead of suffering and being slain. And we should! But this also reminds me of what we think of as being the opposite of "simple." And I think the answer here is pretty obviously "complicated." Like the Relationship Status option on Facebook, "It's complicated" means we do not have a quick and tidy answer to the question. And this reminds of why I make a living doing what I do as a Systems Integrator. The word "systems" is simple enough. But just try explaining what all goes into making a system, and you'll appreciate that both knowledge and understanding are needed to do more help than harm. By the way, how do we know we're doing well? Whether we're talking about an individual person, household, church, corporation, or nation - what is the rubric? I may be simple in every sense, Biblical included, to only consider the material factors. But sooner or later the spiritual becomes more readily apparent in its physical ramifications. In other news, I have a tendency to use big and unfamiliar words. Whether in conversation or my writing, I at least really don't think I'm trying to dunk or flex on anyone. But the flip-side is that I often appreciate when I read or hear unfamiliar words and phrases I've never encountered before, so long as I have the time and ability to look them up or ask what they men, because that's where and how learning happens. On a related note, I think it is possible to be too nice. And how we should know the difference between being nice in a truly nice way and being "too nice" is in whether we are loving God and others well thereby. For instance, would we classify the 19 verses that come up when we search the ESV for "simple" as being "nice" or would we instead say that these are given to us for our holistic benefit? What I don't mean is that we should be mean. But what I am trying to convey is that loving God and one another well requires at a minimum that we not give our young boys advice like Lynyrd Skynyrd's mother gave him when he was young - to be simple. So also where others besides are asking for and getting input from us. If it wouldn't be good counsel to our young sons, it's not serving anyone else well either. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ashley-mullet/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ashley-mullet/support

In today's episode we are joined by Atif Saad, the CTO and Co-Founder of SaasGuru. Atif has been a client to Talent Hub in the past, and has a broad range of experience in the Salesforce ecosystem. He has worked for an end customer to deliver a Salesforce Program, joined a Consulting firm as their COO and helped them scale and realise a sale to a global Systems Integrator, where he then ran a large Salesforce practice and faced the challenges of team retention and attraction through the Covid period. Now at SaasGuru Atif and his team are looking to solve the cloud skills crisis by creating the bridge between learning and certifications.  Atif shares insight on his career and all of the things he has experienced during his time in the Salesforce ecosystem, plus what he is most excited about with SaasGuru.  Make sure you are following Atif on Linkedin  and you can find more about SaasGuru and the work they are doing here - https://www.saasguru.co/ We hope you enjoy the episode. 

This week, Realcomm Live welcomed our 2022 Smart Building Integrator Summit (SBIS) co-chairs Scott Cochrane, Cochrane Supply and Craig Stevenson, AUROS Group. They discuss the important role of the systems integrator in the smart building conversation, the growing need for converged networks in buildings, and the value of adding sustainability goals to the onboarding process.

On this episode of Banking on KC, Matthew Perry, co-founder, president and CEO of Genesys Systems Integrator, joins host Kelly Scanlon to discuss how their innovative solutions help clients create products that enhance the way we live on the planet. Tune in to discover how: Genesys is helping the automotive industry shift gears with assembly line innovations. Genesys solutions are driving new possibilities in the recycling industry. Matt hires for “innovation.” To encourage a culture of innovation. Country Club Bank – Member FDIC

“Those that adapt and recognize what's coming will continue to live on and those who want to keep their Blockbuster stores open with videos on the shelves, they're not going to be here in a few years' time."—Rob Huntington My HighlightsMike Brooman on defining the MSI and the types of stuff they do: it's about mastery of technology and people skills to be the glue that brings all the systems together (1:24)Brian Turner on what an MSI is and when they should get brought in (7:58)Rob Huntington on the MSI role, whether the BMS contractor should play it, when they should get involved, and whether the MSA is a different role (16:38)Mike Brooman on whether silos should continue to exist or whether there should be one person responsible for all tech (22:19)Mike Brooman on whether MSIs are consultants - they're not (26:52)Rob Huntington on the challenges and requirements for the design engineers (32:25)Ruairi Barnwell on defining roles in the construction process (36:23)Brian Turner on the ongoing service aspect of the MSI's role (43:21)Rob Huntington on the BOS software and whether that company should be separate from the MSI (50:25)Rob Huntington on the business case for the MSI role - it's just cheaper (54:51)Sabine Lam from Google on what progressive building owners need out of MSIs (57:53) You can find Mike, Brian, Rob, Ruairi, and Sabine on LinkedIn.Watch on YouTube or read on the web.Get full access to Nexus.

This week, Realcomm Live welcomes our 2021 Smart Building Integrator Summit (SBIS) co-chairs Scott Cochrane, Cochrane Supply; Craig Stevenson, AUROS Group; and Donny Walker, Newcomb & Boyd. They'll discuss the important role of the systems integrator in the smart building conversation, how building science is merging into data science, and the critical resource shortage the industry is facing.

Microsoft has a $1 trillion dollar ecosystem, and 96% of the revenue comes from partners. They're moving to the cloud. All of us are trying to figure it out, which is why in this episode of SaaS Connect, Sunir Shah of Cloud Software Association, interviews Chaitra Vedullapalli, Co-founder and CMO of Meylah, to extract answers on how their Systems Integrator business went from zero to thriving in the Microsoft ecosystem. Chaitra says that the key if you're trying to break into a big brand as a partner, is to understand that they look for solutions that are most advanced, yet approachable for customers. In this value-packed episode, Sunir and Chaitra discuss: Where Meylah drives most of their customer demand from, and how they got their first clients to go from zero to thriving. Who else they work with beyond Microsoft. How an ISV can engage with SIs like Meylah to partner and go to market. Whether they make service packages that are consistent from client to client, or whether every deployment is unique. What is structurally difficult about working in the Microsoft partner ecosystem. How they manage contracts and how the company builds businesses on top of contracts. What you have to do to become a gold partner. Which pipe to fit in a product suite. Resources Mentioned Microsoft Docusign Smartsheet Beautiful AI Formstack Mainstream Digital MailChimp Submittable Snapit Excel White Label Consulting Azure Speaker Engage AWS Unicorn Software This show is brought to you by our podcast sponsor Content Allies. Content Allies helps B2B companies launch revenue-generating podcasts. Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

Managed Services and Outsourcing is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry in Canada alone.  As such, it makes up a very large part of the IT industry as well.  How is working at a Systems Integrator or Consulting Company different from working for an Enterprise or Gov't organization directly? What does it take to become involved in this space? Joining Morley in this episode to share his thoughts on providing managed services is Raj Kapoor.  Raj is an Executive Partner at the Whitestone Group, a consulting company and IT service provider that specializes in technology governance, strategic vendor management, and outsourcing optimization. Skip Right to the Interview: 00:01:51 About Raj Kapoor Raj Kapoor is the co-founder of, and an Executive Partner at The Whitestone Group, a specialized firm focused on helping companies make change work through effective use of people, process, technology and communication. Raj has spent over 25 years implementing and advising clients on how to affect significant business change and optimization. A strong leader with a team-based mindset, Raj really does understand the symbiotic nature between the business, technology and the people supporting them. From large multi-billion dollar deals to the small and surgical, Raj and his team ensure the required changes are implemented and stick, long after they are finished. Connect with Raj Email: raj@whitestone.group LinkedIn

What do system integrators of the future look like? What better way than to hear directly from an integrator that is leading the way in this space. Bobby Cole is the president and founder of Think PLC and let's just say that Bobby is shaking up things in his industry. He focuses on helping OEM's see the future that could exist and then takes ownership of designing and supporting new solutions to give them a competitive advantage. Think PLC has been embracing remote monitoring technologies before the pandemic and gives real world examples of how that has impacted their ability to support clients in a fast, efficient manner. They are even tying IoT devices on the equipment they design back to reporting KPI's that help the end users make in the moment decisions. Talk about where the rubber meets the road!Finally Bobby discusses how he's embracing outside experts and digital marketing to help his company grow. He recognizes the importance of learning from others and shares tips on how utilizing digital marketing is a great way for SI's to evangelize for their industry and attract the next generation of talent that everyone is searching for. This is a packed conversation full of wisdom and inspiration on how system integrators are evolving to support the ever growing need for technology implementation and design in the future. Guest: Bobby Cole - President at Think PLCHost: Chris GraingerExecutive Producer: Adam SheetsVideo Editing: Andi ThrowerResources:Think PLC LinkedIn PageThink PLC Website

In this live stream, Walker Reynolds and Zack Scriven answer your questions on Industry 4.0, IIoT, and Digital Transformation. 0:00 Introduction 3:20 Highbyte and UNS Gateway 14:00 How to synchronize time-series data? 20:10 UNS Gateway Logo? 22:25 Community Member Shout Out! 23:33 Water Utility case study for UNS 24:55 Integrating GIS with SCADA / UNS (Oil & Gas Example) 34:20 Integrating different systems with UNS 38:22 What information should live on the edge? 41:35 ISA-95 Maintenance Model? 46:58 What is OEE used for? 56:55 Does lack of repair parts hurt availability? 1:00:20 Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation 1:04:40 The most important thing in Manufacturing 1:10:20 Can ThingworX be used as the Unified Namespace? 1:10:30 Can Kafka be used as the Unified Namespace? 1:12:10 Do I need a degree to be a Systems Integrator? 1:14:23 Do customers really need OEE? Or would production efficiency be enough at first? 1:15:48 Does EMQ create self-replicating nodes? 1:16:30 Tesla's Automation Problem in 2018 1:18:40 Firebrand Award-Winning Project Review

In this live stream, Walker Reynolds and Zack Scriven answer your questions on Industry 4.0, IIoT, and Digital Transformation. 0:00 Introduction 3:20 Highbyte and UNS Gateway 14:00 How to synchronize time-series data? 20:10 UNS Gateway Logo? 22:25 Community Member Shout Out! 23:33 Water Utility case study for UNS 24:55 Integrating GIS with SCADA / UNS (Oil & Gas Example) 34:20 Integrating different systems with UNS 38:22 What information should live on the edge? 41:35 ISA-95 Maintenance Model? 46:58 What is OEE used for? 56:55 Does lack of repair parts hurt availability? 1:00:20 Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation 1:04:40 The most important thing in Manufacturing 1:10:20 Can ThingworX be used as the Unified Namespace? 1:10:30 Can Kafka be used as the Unified Namespace? 1:12:10 Do I need a degree to be a Systems Integrator? 1:14:23 Do customers really need OEE? Or would production efficiency be enough at first? 1:15:48 Does EMQ create self-replicating nodes? 1:16:30 Tesla's Automation Problem in 2018 1:18:40 Firebrand Award-Winning Project Review

Today's Conversation is with Derek Gill.Derek graduated University with a major Management Information Systems with minors in Computer Science and Philosophy and worked for a major consulting firm as a Systems Integration Consultant.Years later, after a life changing wakeup call and several epiphanies, Derek was called into the medical, healing arts. Derek realized quickly that the skills learned as a Systems Integrator were very relevant to his career as a Structural Integrator.Derek went on to study at the Rolf Institute and is a Certified Advanced Rolfer™ and Rolf Movement® Practitioner. He is also a graduate of the Osteopathic College of Ontario and has been an assistant instructor to the school's founder, Dr. Steve Sanet.In his free time, he enjoys surfing, playing basketball, and self inquiry. Derek has an endless curiosity, a love of learning, and enjoys sharing his accumulated knowledge and life experience with his students.In today's talk we'll learn about Derek's history, how he got into bodywork and Rolfing, his tech background and breakdown which led him to where he is today, waking up, his Global SI project, the future of SI...You can find out more about Derek at https://www.advancedmanualtherapeutics.com/ and more about Global SI at https://www.globalsi.org/As always, we hope you enjoy the show. If you like what we are putting out, please share positive reviews at wherever you listen to us from. And feel free to share with friends. We’d greatly appreciate it as we are doing these podcasts for your enjoyment and education.You can find more about Andrew at andrewrosenstock.comAnd more about Nikki at nikkiolsen.comMany thanks to Explorers Society for use of their song " All In" from their majestic album 'Spheres' Please check them out here https://open.spotify.com/album/1plT1lAPWEQ1oTRbWOiXm3?si=eAL08OJdT5-sJ6FwwZD50g

Our guest this week is one of the worlds best smart buildings master systems integrators. Hear what Stephen Johnson from McKennys has to say about the current state of have and smart building controls.

They say that a goldfish grows to the size of its tank. But what if that small fish is ready to launch into a bigger pond? That is the situation Sea Bags has found itself in recently. With a rabid following and millions in revenue, the Portland, Maine-based retail store has outgrown its initial eCommerce setup and is ready to grow into a major totes and accessories brand thanks to growth fueled by personalization, storytelling and an incredible social media presence. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Laura Hnatow, the Vice President, Marketing & Ecommerce at Sea Bags, explains how she is helping to expand the eCommerce platform using a cross-platform social media strategy, and she digs into the re-platforming experience she is leading to help Sea Bags utilize tools like A.I. and M.L. to grow their business both online and as they expand to brick and mortar locations. Key Takeaways: Content, social media and UGC utilization are critical in building and maintaining an active and engaged customer base Re-platforming offers an opportunity to utilize new tools such as A.I. and machine learning to introduce new forms of personalization in product offerings as well as marketing strategies The power of storytelling is the most important tool in your toolkit to differentiate yourself from the competition For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible eCommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript: Stephanie: Welcome to the show. Laura: Hi, thanks for having me. Stephanie: I'm really excited about you joining me today. I just was browsing through your website, Sea Bags, and I wanted to buy like about five things. Laura: Oh, that's flattering. Stephanie: Yeah. It's awesome. An awesome product. I'd love to hear a little bit about what Sea Bags, in your own words, and why you joined it. Laura: Yeah. Sea Bags is a company based in Portland, Maine, that manufacturers bags, totes and accessories from recycled sails from sailboats. We gather those sails one at time from the boating community all around the country, and bring them back to Portland, where we cut them down one-by-one. Each sail is a little bit different, therefore each bag is a little bit different from the next. People come to visit us in Portland, where they can actually see the bags being made on the waterfront, at our building that actually overhangs the water, with the hum of lobster boats outside, along with the sewing machines and the seagulls. It's really a great experience in quintessential Maine. Laura: The reason why I joined Sea Bags... It was almost seven years ago at this point. The opportunity was presented to be by the current CEO. It was the story effectively. The whole story about the brand. It was so compelling. I've worked for a number of brand manufacturers before, L.L. Bean and Cuddledown. They all had great manufacturing stories to tell, but this story was so much more authentic and rich. It was that authenticity that made the story so easy to tell. They also had built the brand up on these three core tenets, that drive the business every day. It was this very defined mission behind the company, of being made in the U.S.A., sustainable in product and practice, and also committed to giving back to the community generously. Those three things guide all of our decision-making in everything that we do. With such a clear mission and mandate, in terms of how we were going to grow the business forward, to me it seemed like a no-brainer to join that team. Stephanie: Yeah. That's very cool. What is the story behind Sea Bags? I think it started with the Founder's dad. Right? Laura: Yeah. Many years ago, the original founder, Hannah, her dad, he was in the sail bag-making industry, for the actual bags that hold sails in between seasons. He made a recommendation to his daughter, "You should try to figure out what to do with these old sails. They're just going to landfills." She crafted the first ones. It's our current COO, Beth, who actually grew the business from there. She partnered with her and then grew the business to where we're at now, with the help of our current leadership and CEO. Yeah. It started as a hobby business, and now has really ground to be a lifestyle brand. Stephanie: That's amazing.The one thing I really liked, which I didn't know before, was I didn't realize that sailboat sails actually can't break down. So when you guys say you're focused on sustainability, you really mean it. Nothing would happen with those sails, if you didn't transform them and give them a second life. Is that correct? Laura: You're absolute right. Yeah. Predominantly sailboat sails are made out a material called Dacron. Dacron has an element of plastic fiber in it. It's that resilience that lets the sail hold up to the strength of the wind and actually propel a sailboat forward. But it is that strength in the fiber and how it's made that makes our bags so durable as well. Because of that inability to break down in the landfill, we knew that that material, itself, would be perfect for a bag. They wear like steel. People have gone into our store to show off, "Here's my bag. I brought it 15 years ago." They wash it regularly in the washing machine. They look great. Yeah. They do wear really well. Stephanie: That's so cool. How do you convey that uniqueness to your customers, especially through an online experience? I saw some really great videos that you all had on your website, which I thought were amazing. Is that part of the way that you convey that? Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Storytelling is one of the things that we do best. Like I said, that's why I joined the brand, is this rich story. We do a lot of content creation on our team. It's easy to do content creation when you have a lot to work with. Building really great video content... We have a new line of products all the time. We have new partners that we're collaborating with regularly. So being able to stitch together different videos, content pages on the website. We integrate a lot of user-generated content into the website and our marketing. Laura: So things like customer testimonials, but also customer images. We have a very rich user-generated content campaign, called our Sea Bag Citing campaign. It's a hashtag. And customers in that campaign will tag us and show us all the places they take their Sea Bag. It's really a great opportunity for us, because when we see a great picture, instead of us having to go out and stage a photo shoot, we've got a really authentic image of somebody vacationing using their bag in the environment that it was intended for. Stephanie: Yeah. I was very impressed when I saw your social media following and how engaged people were and the really great photos they were tagging you all in. I definitely see the world of online sales seems to be moving to social media and building a community. How do you think about building that up, and creating relevant content, and keeping those followers engaged? Laura: Yeah. I'd say it's one of the things we're really good at, but it's also probably one of the things that's the most challenging in what we do. Because people spend a lot of time on social media, but everybody's competing for their attention. I have a social media team with multiple partners on it. I've tasked them with making sure, across all the platforms, that, number one, we're showing different content, to keep different types of people engaged. And the other thing is that we're hitting the breadth of content that I'd like us to do. Laura: They have a filter that they put all of our content through, to make sure that we're showing the right variety of, and frequency of, things like behind the scenes images, testimonials, new product launches, PR news that we're doing. We're trying to make sure that we hit the breadth. And also, we're tailoring it to the specific types of platforms. Obviously Facebook and LinkedIn are not a synonymous platform so we make sure that some of the content goes on one location and we speak to those audiences a little bit differently. Laura: I think customers want to be invited to participate and we do a lot of that with either surprise and delight opportunities, where we ask people to come and bid on something for a chance a win to a wristlet. A wristlet is a small item. It's not like a vacation getaway. But that alone... people love the gesture. They love to participate. It's really interesting. When somebody does win a prize, it's funny how authentically and genuinely thrilled for the winner the other customers are. It does become very communal. They're like, "Oh, my God. I'm so happy for you. Great job. You're going to love it." Laura: Then we also find that customers... Getting back to this idea of engagement. This is delightful for us. Customers sometimes answer on our behalf. We'll get comments that say, "Do you have this bag in this color? Are you ever going to offer this again?" Before we can even comment, we'll have other customers saying, "Yes, they have it. You can go to this page." It's almost like we've got these brand ambassadors stalking us right within our social media. That is so flattering. It really does speak to a highly-engaged social media following. Stephanie: Yeah. That's amazing. Having people who are working for you and your brand without even asking. Laura: Yeah. Yeah. Stephanie: It's a key strategy, if you can figure it out. Laura: It is. It's great. Stephanie: Are there any new emerging digital channels that you are excited about or focused on right now? Laura: I think in terms of new channels, I don't think there is one. Social media really is where we're spending a lot of our time as a channel, in terms of trying to grow audience and engagement. We are playing around with some things like influencer marketing, which is important. I think some people might not call it new and emerging either. We're doing quite a bit in just dabbling in lots of different spaces. There is a lot of overlap. I think video is probably where we found the most success, in terms of developing content and distributing. Video specifically for Facebook has been fantastic for us. We're repurposing a lot of that video content again. We like to recycle. We put it in a lot of places. We're trying to incorporate it into the site. We use it for things like Instagram Stories. It's been really fruitful, so that's been really fun. Stephanie: Very cool. Any key strategy that you have when it comes to guiding a customer through that buying journey while utilizing social? Laura: It's interesting. We have a really defined and fine-tuned digital marketing strategy. We work with a great partner that helps us distribute all of our paid advertising. That would include paid social. One of the things about paid social that I think is challenging for people... I do chat with folks who say, "Facebook doesn't really work for us." I am always surprised to hear that. I think part of it is, it's the type of content that you're putting out in terms of advertising on Facebook advertising. Making sure you have the right mix of video, and static ads and then dynamic remarketing ads are really important. Laura: I think the other thing, too, is how you measure it. Of course, there's different attribution models. Last click attribution and first click attribution. Of course, Facebook measures the performance differently than some other folks might measure it. We base it on Facebook's measurement. When you base it that way, you'll see that the programs themselves actually perform much better than if you base it on the other attrition models out there using Google Analytics. Stephanie: That's interesting. I definitely see Facebook stepping their game up with the launch of I think it's Facebook Shops just yesterday or the day before. Laura: Yeah. It's so interesting. The landscape is changing quite a bit. I was actually talking about this recently with the CEO, because we see organic shifting quite a bit. We're doing a lot, in terms of SEO on the website and building organic content. We have a blog that we try to regularly publish. It's made a big impact on our SEO, but then all of a sudden when you have the search results pages changing to favor, again, more ad space? You do immediately see a falloff in your organic search results. Paid search all of a sudden is also doing much better, but you're also spending a lot more money perhaps than you had intended to. Stephanie: Are you guys doing any quick pivots to try and bring back the organic searches? How do you think about that when things change so quickly? Laura: Yeah. I don't think there is a quick pivot with organic. Organic is a long game, as always. The pivot that we're doing right now, and I wouldn't even call it that. We are looking at our digital strategy on a daily basis and really refining things. So if we see something taking off, we are chasing it. A great example is shopping at one point was doing very poorly. We didn't know why and watched it for about a week or two. It was right when things were headed down to a flat line period at the end of March. Everybody was in kind of a lull. Then all of sudden things turned around and a lot of e-commerce folks were seeing a spike. As soon as we saw that spike, we chased it. I think that's the thing. You really have to be on top of it and know when to chase it and keep increasing your budget. Laura: We've increased our budgets in area like shopping more than we've typically been comfortable. I would say the same goes for Facebook Prospecting. We found that Facebook Prospecting is performing incredibly well for us. We do a lot of prospecting with video ads for Facebook as well, and those are very productive too. Stephanie: Very cool. Did you have to adjust any messaging when it came to acting fast on that? With everything going on with the pandemic, did you kind of change how you target people and market to them? How do you think about that? Laura: We changed the messaging. Yeah. We definitely wanted to make sure we weren't being tone deaf to what was going on. We definitely pulled down any ads that had anything to do with travel-related products. We have a great travel collection. We pulled down all of those because nobody was going to be traveling. I think the thing that we did more so than the actual ad strategy was our product strategy changed a little bit. We wanted to look at our product from the viewpoint of how we could add more value to it, to help solve problems for people who were now stuck at home and still had life to conduct. Laura: The example I'll give is Easter came around and people were kind of caUght off guard by the idea that, "Oh, our Easter family celebration is not going to happen. The Easter egg hunt is not going to happen. I have a grandchild. How are we going to commemorate this holiday that is very important to a good portion of the population?" We quickly partnered with a local chocolate company that had just laid off most of its workforce. They were able to bring back five of their employees to help produce chocolate to put in our Easter buckets. Stephanie: That's great. Laura: Within a very short period of time... We thought, "We might sell 50 of these over the next three or four days." We sold over 700. It was one of those things that every day, we said, "How many more do we need?" It was really a matter of how much chocolate could the chocolate maker make in that short period of time? It was a real success story, in being able to reach out, help a fellow business in the community, but also solve some problems for customers. The comments we got from customers were unbelievable. Just saying how appreciative they were because they weren't going to be able to see their family and bring them something. This is how they were able to do that. Laura: So that was really rewarding. That afforded us a lot of opportunity in our digital advertising to reach new customers, to convert customers who were prospects and who were already looking into the brand. It was more about just being relevant with a message that solved a problem for customers. So then we took that same product strategy and same digital strategy and expanded it onto Mother's Day, and Father's Day, and Graduation. Even though a lot of the stay-at-home orders have been loosened a bit? I think a lot of people are still looking for some convenience to eliminate any unnecessary visits to stores that they don't want to make. Stephanie: Yeah. I completely agree. That's such a good strategy, to find partnerships like that. I could see that lasting into the future, where a lot of brands start thinking about who they can partner with. That seems like it would help future-proof both brands, if they figure out ways to work together and send business to each other. I think we'll see more of that over the coming years. Laura: Yeah. I hope so. I know for our brand, we're not going to stop doing it. It was a pilot that was a success. Now we've realized there is an opportunity here and the customers see the value in it. We've always been very collaborative as a brand. We typically do reach out and collaborate with a handful of companies that are like-minded in their business practices and approach. What we often bring to the table is that we're a sustainable product and they might not have that same messaging in their product that they can offer. Or the fact that we're a Made in the U.S.A. product, which again is really valuable to a lot of brands to partner with us. So we have similar mindsets and very much focused the Coastal lifestyles perhaps. Laura: A more recent relevant example, we're partnering right now with Life Is Good. If you're not familiar with that brand, they are an apparel and accessory company that basically delivers the message of optimism in all of their designs. Really quirky designs that we are now able to add to a Sea Bag, and then with these really important optimistic messages during this time that we're all going through. It resonates really broadly with customers. That's another example of ways that we reach out and collaborate. It's given Life Is Good an opportunity to have a Bag story that they sell to their audience, and it gives us a different story in terms of different designs and messaging for our audience as well. Stephanie: That's great. When it comes to messaging, does the consumer know the background of the flag, where it came from and the journeys that sailboat went on? Do they have any insights into that, so they can find of feel connected to their bag even more? Laura: Yeah. It's interesting. We would love to be able to pedigree every bag, but when you start talking about 700 tons of sails that we've saved from landfills, it's really, really challenging to figure out how we could actually catalog that many sails. On a one-to-one basis, no. But what we do is when we take a sail in, our customers are so great about wanting to share the stories. So we've had many cases where a Sail Trade, is what we call it. The customer will bring a sail into our store, for example. Just show up and unfold the sail right in the middle of the retail store and start talking about, "Oh, this is the sail that was on my grandfather's boat. As a kid, we sailed." They just go into this long elaborate story. What we try to do is get somebody from the marketing team downstairs to take notes, and talk to them about it and basically interview them a little bit about what the story behind the sail is. Because that stuff is so meaningful. Laura: We have a really great one on our website called The Santana Sail Trade Story. The gentlemen, Ben, tells the story about how this boat meant everything to him. He had this boat since he was 15. At this point, he was in his late 40s, maybe early 50s. He still has the boat but was retiring the sails. He talked about the different moments that that boat was present for his life and every smudge and stain on that sail means something. He hoped that everybody who buys a bag really understands how meaningful the heart of the sails are. Stephanie: That's great. Feeling like you're connected to a community like that, and another person, without even knowing them, I think it's super important. What people are going to want after all this. Now we're all getting in the state where we're connecting with people that we don't even know online. Laura: Right. Stephanie: We're getting used to that now. I think moving in that direction is really smart and also just fun. Knowing that you have something that has experienced things that you could never even think of. Laura: Yeah. Yeah. We like to say that carrying a Sea Bag is like carrying a story on your shoulder. Stephanie: Yeah. That's great. Have you ever had a sail come through where you're like, "This is from a pirate ship?" Laura: I don't know about that. There is a type of sail called tanbark. It's like a dyed tan-colored sail. The lure of tanbark, it's not often used in sail manufacturing today. It's definitely not as common. The lure is that the pirates, they used to use tanbark sails so that they wouldn't be seen on the horizon with the sunset. It was the way that they were able to sneak about in the ocean and not be spotted in the distance with a bright white sail. Stephanie: That's cool. So if you see one of those come through, you'll know. You'll know where it came from. Laura: Yeah, exactly. I do think we have some tanbark on the site right now. It is definitely a little bit more rare and we tend not to offer it all the time. But I think we have a handful of tanbark designs right now. They're just so cool because they are really uncommon and we don't always offer it. Stephanie: I'd also be giving the side eye to whoever brought that in, like, "What did you do to get this sail?" Laura: Exactly! I could be looking for their medallion. "Are you actually a pirate?" Stephanie: Yeah. I know. "Tell me." Obviously retail is on hold right now, but I saw you guys were expanding. Expanding actually one place that is close to my heart, Rehoboth Beach, in Delaware. Laura: Yeah. Yeah. Stephanie: We used to go there every single summer. I'm from Maryland. Such a cute beach town. How are you thinking about utilizing brick and mortar stores? How are they lifting each other up and accelerating your e-commerce as well? Laura: That's a great question. By the end of this year, we'll have 33 stores, spanning 12 states. That's really exciting for us because when I joined the company, we had two stores. That's a lot of growth. We open four to six stores a year. We're opening eight this year, alone, which is really, really exciting. I think that one of the important things with meshing the retail business and the online business is just a general omnichannel approach. Right? Laura: Our CEO likes to say that the e-commerce site is our biggest retail store. It carries all the products for the brand and you can see them all there at any time. And you go to our stores, and the stores may have most of those products but some different selections that might be regionally appropriate. For example, you mentioned Rehoboth Beach. There might be some coastal nautical chart bags down in the Rehoboth Beach store relevant to that regional area. So there's some things like that. But we try to do... Stephanie: Crabs all over the bags and whatnot? Laura: Right. Yeah. To customize and be relevant to that local region. If you were to go to a store and they didn't have a product, the great thing is that you can log onto the iPad at the store. They can get the bag for you that you were looking for and ship for free. We're using an endless aisle concept that leverages the flexibility that we have as a just-in-time manufacturer. We make our bags on demand for customers. It's great to have that flexibility, where we don't have lead times to worry about. We're sourcing everything locally here in the United States. Most everything we source is within New England. That's really criticaL, in terms of being able to take an order and turn it around in a matter of days. Stephanie: Yeah. That's huge. With all this expansion that you guys are experiencing, how have you had to adjust your technology, your platforms you're using. What does that process look like with such a large amount of change that you guys have been experiencing? Laura: Yeah. It's great. I'm actually really excited about this. It's very timely. We decided right in the beginning of this year to move forward with replatforming our website. It's a huge endeavor. We realize that over the last six years, we've been on this very exciting ride of growth and expansion. Quite simply, we've outgrown the website platform that we're using. I do find it really rewarding to think that we have squeezed every ounce that we could get out of the current platform we're on. There's nothing that we have left unturned. Laura: Embarking onto this new platform, we're working with Salesforce Commerce Cloud. There are so many new opportunities for us to improve the customer experience and to refine our practices, in terms of how we approach selling to customers. Using new technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning, personalization, I think we're going to be as a team much more efficient and much more sophisticated in how we are able to speak to our customers and give them what they want. It's going to take us a lot less time to manage that. I'm really excited about being able to grow the business utilizing those types of tools specifically for the e-commerce website. But the great thing is that it really does trickle into the other channels as well that we sell in retail, for example, too. Stephanie: Yeah. That's very cool. Tell me a little bit more details around how you plan on using AI. When you think of using that with Commerce Cloud, what are your ideas around how that's going to improve the consumer experience? What does that look like? Laura: Yeah. We have some personalization currently on the site that we do. Not too much. It's mostly personalized recommendations. I'm really looking forward to using that, in terms of... One of the most exciting things for me is the merchandising of the site and making sure that the predictive sort of the categories. When a customer lands on a page with 150 different wristlets, that the ones that are most relevant to them are actually rising to the top. It's not based on a static presentation of what we think is the most important things to put at the top. Laura: I think that's really important. One of the things on our roadmap after the site is launched, is to actually take a look at the marketing opportunities in terms of email marketing and how we can pull some of the artificial intelligence into the journey map of the customer and how we message to the customer in their lifecycle. I think a lot of those components as well will be really exciting to start to create not just a series. I think in the past, people have created a welcome series, or a trigger series after they buy X product. Laura: I think instead what I want this to be is a more dynamic opportunity to generate emails to customers that are, again, pulling in predictive content. So the customers have performed certain activities, and then the machine learning decides, "Okay, great. Because they did these five things, the most relevant thing to put here is this item and a message about this." That's what I'm excited about. And then being able to look at that data. I think the data is so exciting too, and knowing what works and what's not working. And being able to do site tweaks and adjustments to it will be really helpful. Stephanie: Yeah. I completely agree. I was just going to ask, were there any metrics that you paid attention to in the past that you think it will be way easier to get to? Or that you weren't able to access easily because it was too hard to maybe compile all the data and see it easily. What are some of those metrics if so, that are now going to be accessible to you that'll really help? Laura: I'm not sure if this definitely going to make it easier. But what I'm really more excited about is seeing... The measurements are customer lifetime value and customer acquisition costs. Starting to really understand the customer lifecycle better. So that once we see customers logging onto the website. Also, we just launched a Customer Loyalty program. Getting customers more engaged and in the habit of, "To get your reward points, logging in and making sure." We're keeping track of what customers are doing and delivering them relevant content, as opposed to just sending them too many emails. Laura: I think I was telling you, I'm in the process right now of cleaning out my email and unsubscribing from everything possible. I don't want people to have that experience with our brand. Saying, "You guys just email me too much." I want the contact that we're sending them to be interesting. The one thing I will tell you, and again this goes back to how we engaged our audience is. The open rates on our emails are really high. The click through rates are high. Our customers, like when we do these auctions periodically on the website. Laura: After the auction is complete, we usually take a look at who won the auction. We'll just see who the customer is. What's their lifecycle like? Almost every time when we do this, the customers email open rate is over 80%. They're highly-engaged people. Of course, they're participating in an auction. You would assume that. But it is so interesting to see somebody opening that emails from us. That to me, is a real testament to the strength of the brand and how engaged people are. Stephanie: That means you're definitely doing something right. For sure. How are you assembling the team for this digital transformation that you guys are about to undergo? How are you thinking about aligning your organization and your team members so everyone can help make this transition quick and easy? Laura: Yeah. That is critical. So what we did, it's probably not so different than what a lot of other folks might do. I assembled a core team. A Project Manager whose in charge of managing the project with our Systems Integrator. Then I have a Lead Developer in-house. His job is really to get into the technical details behind the development and transition. Because he has been primarily responsible for all of the development on our current website. I'm on the team, more from a strategic guidance standpoint and decision-making. Then our CEO has been really involved as well, which I really appreciate. Laura: This is the biggest project that our company has undertaken in the last six years, to do this type of major replatforming. It's a totally new platform. We've done some previous site launches and relaunches, but this one's pretty huge. I still have a number of other people on my marketing team who will participate and we'll start pulling them in one-by-one. We'll also embarking on a training curriculum, that we're developing in-house for our team. That's going to be going on while we're doing the developing, so that we're ready to go when the site's ready to launch. Laura: We're also looking at peripheral technology that is impacted by this transition. So an example I might give you is, our shipping platform and how we ship products. That was impacted. We needed to make a decision to shift to another provider. We assembled pilot team to get together and review the technology available and the vendor. We got all our decision-makers in one room and everybody agreed said, "Yes, let's do it." We've been making these decisions quickly. Kind of in that agile methodology of those sprints. Laura: Part of that is a function of how the Systems Integrator has outlined and structured the project. We have a very tight timeline, too. We're looking to have the website launched by October 1st. We started it in mid-March. We're definitely on an accelerated scheduled and we don't want to miss any milestones. Knock on wood, we are currently on target. So I'm excited about that. Stephanie: That's so fun. I can't wait to see the new site and try it out. Are there any digital commerce trends that you guys are preparing for, as you're launching this new platform and putting out a V2 of the brand? Are you preparing anything in the e-commerce space that you think is coming down the pike, that you're thinking, "We better get ready for this, or this trend?" Laura: No. I can't say that we're focused on anything like that right now. We're definitely mostly looking at the capabilities of the new platform. Like I said, the AI and machine learning component is so rich, that we see that as foundation to changing how we approach, how we do our marketing strategies and communicate with customers. So I think that's really the biggest opportunity for us. Stephanie: Very cool. One side question I had was, when you have your customers tagging all these photos and they're flowing into your website, are people able to buy from those photos right now? Laura: Yeah. On a limited basis right now. When we launch the new site, it'll much more prolific. You'll be able to buy from almost all of them. Stephanie: Yeah. That's great. Laura: I think that's really critical and it's important. Stephanie: Yeah. I know. When I was looking at all the different photos that you guys were getting tagged in, I'm like, "Oh, I want this Bag." There was this one alignment. It was like a tan orangeish bag but it had a duffle bag, and a bigger bag and there was like three of them together. I'm like, "If I could just click in and get this set, it would be so much easier than going into the website and trying to find out what this is called, or trying to figure out which one it was." Laura: Yeah. It's really interesting. The thing about user-generated content is that the customers put the product in context that we wouldn't necessarily be able to in our marketing because it wouldn't make sense. I'll give you an example. Just this week, we received a review from a customer, that was a picture of what they were calling a COVID Survival Pack that they were sending out their friends. It was a Sea Bag's beverage bucket bag. A beverage bucket is kind of a like a tall 14-inch high bucket that has handles, and the interior has six pockets for six beers. Then in the very middle is like a cavity that you can put ice and it has a grommet in the bottom, so that the ice can melt and escape out of the bottom of the bag. So it's a collapsible cooler. Laura: While they were filling the buckets with six Corona beers, and then put a roll of toilet paper in the center. They were mailing these out to their friends as COVID Survival Packs. It got such a laugh for us. It also is great, in terms of giving other customers ideas on ways to use our product in a way that is memorable and fun. Yeah. There's a lot of that. But like I said, that whole idea of content creation... While a lot of stuff can come from us and we can push it out, when it comes our audience, it's even more relevant. Stephanie: Yeah. That's such a fun idea. I want one of those Survival Packs right now. Person whoever made that, please send one my way. I want lime as well. Laura: Yeah. The lime would be great. Stephanie: Yeah. That's a necessity. That's a good point, too, for larger brands. We work with a lot of larger brands developing podcasts for them and whatnot. When you have your customers, where they can actually interact how they want. They don't have to go through the brand policy team and all these approvals and things like this, where maybe 80% of it would never get past the company's PR team. But when the customers are able to engage the way that they want to, it seems like it allows for more organic conversations to start and just things that maybe wouldn't normally get past the actual internal policies. It makes it more fun to have those customers who can do that stuff. Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. Stephanie: So to shift a little bit. Are you the founder of Women in Retail Leadership Circle? Laura: No, not the founder. Stephanie: Tell me about that. Laura: I'm very flattered. No. Women in Retail Leadership Circle is a national organization that basically connects senior women in leadership, C level and director level, in retail organizations. They were started about seven years ago. They're backed by NATCO Media. I was a founding advisory board member, on the team there. So I've been involved over the last almost seven years. They've grown significantly in size over that time. It's one of the most energized and engaged leadership groups I've ever participated in. They have an Annual Conference that I can say is nothing short of transformational. It has been rescheduled this year for October. I'm hoping that I'll be traveling, to be able to go to it. Laura: Even so, during COVID. The conference is usually in April. They were very quick to figure out how they could be of service to their audience. They set up peer groups that leaders could participate in on a biweekly basis with opportunities to share advice and experience with other senior female leadership. During more normal times, they do regular what they call On The Road Events, where you can connect in a major city, like Boston or New York, over an evening of cocktails or something like that with leaders like Rebecca Minkoff talking about her leadership struggles perhaps. It's a great way to collaborate with other companies. Laura: I've been able to uncover new tactics and strategies for growth. I also use it as a tool to refine my leadership style, because there's a lot of inspirational leadership that we share in those, like I said, events that they sponsor. They're doing a lot of stuff virtually right now. The thing I like the most about it, is it's noncompetitive. It's just great personal development at the senior leadership level, which I think there doesn't happen to be a lot of that typically. A lot of the personal development that happens in organizations usually is more at a junior level. Stephanie: That's really cool. Is there anyone in the industry that you look to for not only leadership, but maybe different tactics or strategies that they're trying out or doing? Do you keep an eye on anyone to incorporate at Sea Bags? Like incorporate what they're doing? Laura: Yeah. I look at a lot of brands, which is the reason why I need to pair down my emails so much. I do. I track a lot of folks. I also follow a lot of people on LinkedIn, because I feel like it's just a great opportunity to see what everyone's doing. As a brand, we try to spend time benchmarking and keeping our eye on brands, again, that are very, very correlated with our DNA. Coastal lifestyle brands, like Sperry Top-Sider, Life is Good, a very inspirational brand. We have a lot of partnerships like that. We also try to keep an eye towards some more local name brands too that we partner with, and just benchmarking what they're doing. Laura: And we also share a lot of information too. An example of that would be Stonewall Kitchen, which is a gourmet food brand. They also are on Sales Commerce Cloud. While we were going through this whole replatforming project, being able to reach out to people within our network and benchmark around what their experiences were on their websites platforms and technologies that they're using is really important. Stephanie: That's great. Having that little network that you can tap into and be like, "Hey, how did you guys do this?" Or, "Does this work better, or this strategy?" That's really fun. And all about, once again, tying it back to having that community that you can tap into to get answers from and learn from people who've already gone through that. Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Over the years, that's one thing that I learned very early in my career. Some of my leaders, actually one that I'm still working with today, who is on our Board at Sea Bags, taught me how important that skill of networking was and that networking is a two-way street. It's really important to make sure that you're not only asking things of people and keeping in touch with them, but you're also being a value to them as well, in terms of that networking relationship. Stephanie: Yeah. That's such a great point. Coming up next we have the Lightning Round, which I can tell you a little bit more about in a second. But do you have thoughts or ideas that you want to share before we move onto that? Laura: Geez, thoughts that I want to share. Stephanie: Anything that we missed? Laura: I'm sure there's something we missed. But I think we covered a lot, too. I'm excited to hear what the Lightning Round is all about. Stephanie: All right. Cool. So the Lightning Round, bought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. It's where I ask a question and you have one minute or less to answer. Are you ready? Laura: I guess so. Stephanie: All right. What's up next on your reading list? Laura: Oh, on my reading list. I am about to start... I'm like one chapter in. A book by the founder of IDEO. I think his name is Dave Kelly, if remember correctly. It's a book all about innovation and idea generation and how to approach innovation a little bit differently. I'm really excited about that. I'm definitely one of those people that reads multiple books at once, too. Stephanie: Yeah. Me, too. I think they did have a space here in Palo Alto, right down the street from us. Laura: Yeah. I think you're right. I think you're right. The name of the book is The Art of Innovation. Stephanie: Okay. Cool. Laura: It's Tom Kelly. I got his name wrong. Stephanie: Tom Kelly. Got it. For everyone, Tom Kelly. Yeah. That's really funny. We went and we were touring office spaces. We toured through their building. It was very forward-thinking and innovative. I mean, just like what you were talking about. It was all about R&D and trying new things. It was cool to see the inner workings of their space. Laura: Very cool. Stephanie: What's up next on your Netflix or Hulu Video? Laura: Oh, I am watching Ozark. I know I'm a little painfully behind. Yeah. I'm trying to make my way through into, I think, season three of Ozark. I am really enjoying that and it's a problem I will sometimes stay up way to late trying to fit in just one more episode. Stephanie: Yeah. Me, too. I love that show. What's the next conference you're excited about attending? Laura: I am really excited about the Women in Retail Leadership Conference. Like I said, I hope it's happening in October. This is, as I mentioned, it's a transformational opportunity for me to go talk with other senior female leaders about their challenges and opportunities and where they're seeing growth within their companies. I've walked away from this conference before getting lots of new ideas, new business opportunities and third-party partners to work with and collaboration opportunities. So that to me is what I'm most looking forward to and I hope that it still happens, especially because it's in Miami in October, which will be a really nice time of year to be there. Stephanie: That's very cool. I'll have to check that out. What are you doing for fun these days? Any passions that you have? Laura: I am actually, after this podcast, going to jump on my boat with my husband and two kids for the first time this season. That is actually our big passion. This is the kickoff to boating season in Maine, Memorial Day weekend. Usually while I'm on the boat, the things that I do is knit. I've been knitting a sweater for four years now, that I am committed to finishing this year. That's my goal. Stephanie: You have to post a picture when it's done, so we can all see it. Laura: I will. I hope it actually fits. I'm kind of laughing at it going, "I don't even know if this is going to fit." I end up probably giving it as a gift. Stephanie: Yeah. My mom got into sewing and knitting and all that. She was trying to make us outfits, just for fun. Sweaters and things like that. She ended making one that ended up having to go towards our Shih Tzu dog because it... She was like, "Oh, this went really wrong." Laura: Yeah. It can go wrong quickly. That's what I'm worried about. I've ripped out a few rows of this a few times and I'm not sure I recounted correctly. So we'll see. I post a picture regardless of what it looks like. Stephanie: Great. It's a journey. Laura: Yeah. Stephanie: The next hard question. You guys at Sea Bags are moving quick. You're having to transition platforms. It's your job to stay ahead on the expectations and your competition and all that. What do you think is up next for e-commerce pros? Laura: Up next for e-commerce pros. I think that we really are going to have to focus on is how to take omnichannel retailing to the next level. I think that that term, omnichannel, is really broadly thrown around. I think that people don't really understand what it is. I think that we need to be able to deliver a seamless customer experience regardless of where they're shopping and figure out, also, how to do it without inconveniencing customers with asking for their information repeatedly. Laura: I think that's one of the challenges in retail, is being able to know when somebody places an order in one of your retail stores, and being able to translate that into their customer profile so that you have, again, that really full 360-degree picture of that journey of that customer and really knowing what their full lifetime value is. Again, so that you can come back and customize and personalize their shopping experience and make it more rich. They feel valued because they know that you're speaking to them in a way that is informed and caring about what value they play for your brand. Stephanie: That's a great answer. Laura, it's been blast. Thank you for coming on the show. For all our listeners, go check out Sea Bags and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Let's help spread the word and spread stories like the one Laura shared today. Laura, thanks. I hope to have you back. Laura: Thank you so much for having me. It was an absolute joy. Stephanie: It really was. Yeah.  

YASH and C5MI business experts will discuss the opportunities and challenges in successfully managing the transition to the new normal. Today you'll hear from two companies that are making a positive impact in the world, as we deal with the Covid 19 pandemic. Kevin Rell of Greenheck will discuss how the cutting-edge Real Time Location System (RTLS) has already made a big impact to Greenheck's manufacturing process. RTLS is a key Greenheck initiative that was implemented DURING the pandemic disruption. Jon Hall of Integrated DNA Technology (IDT) will share how IDT utilized their pre-pandemic partnership with YASH Technologies to not only survive in the current business disruption, but ultimately thrive. IDT has successfully created brand new products while working remotely and keeping employee safety at the forefront. Join us for “Companies Winning In The New Normal” at our live Zoom webinar or listen live on the VoiceAmerica Business Channel.

Kastle Systems, SDM's 2015 Systems Integrator of the Year and No. 7 on the 2019 SDM Top Systems Integrators Report, recently launched a comprehensive, integrated Covid-19 safety program called KastleSafeSpaces for offices spaces and other clients looking to safeguard the health and safety of people returning to the workplace. Haniel Lynn, CEO of Kastle Systems, says that the company's approach on integrating technology with new processes is based on four major shifts he sees happening in the marketplace now amid the coronavirus pandemic, and into the future. Listen as Lynn sits down with SDM to discuss these four pillars of safety and security and how systems integrators and managed security services providers can meet these needs across the country.

CTN 308: ControlTalk NOW -- Smart Buildings VideoCast and PodCast for week ending Mar 24, 2019 features Young Gun Brent Burrows, a Systems Integrator with ENTEK, who explains Alarm Fatigue, and much more,  ENTEK provides HVAC, Building Automation and Energy Services  in the Atlanta, GA, area and throughout the continental United States, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii and Guam. Are You ready? Is Your AI Device Smarter than a six year old? Our transcription service, as you will see is not! I tried to correct as many errors as possible in the transcript of Episode 308, but could not get them all, so be kind as you read this: Episode 308 ControlTalk Now The HVAC and Smart Buildings Podcast Eric Stromquist: Do you suffer from alarm fatigue? Well four out of five facilities managers iand HVAC controls professionals do. So what exactly is this insidious disease and how can you cure it? Hi, I'm Eric Stromquist from controltrends.com and stromquist.com. And on this week's episode we're going to dive deep and into alarm fatigue and how you can solve it. Our guest this week is a young integrator out of Atlanta, Brent Burrows, he's a young gun. So Brent is going to be with us. The whole show is going to be fantastic. We get Brent's perspectives which are just absolutely stellar. So the other thing you need to know is that controlledtrends on our youtube channel, controlltrends smart buildings, youtube channel. We've started a new video series called HVAC tech school and it's designed specifically for the HVAC technician and we get into everything from how to size a valve to how to troubleshoot a gasregulator and topics specifically for the HVAC technician. So take a minute, subscribe to the Youtube Channel. All right, relax. Enjoy the show. Eric Stromquist: Alright here we go. One, two, three. Welcome to ControlTalk Now, the Smart Buildings podcast for the week ending March 24 2019 this is episode this is the show where we talk about all things smart controls, HVAC controls and pretty much anything else we want to. And I tell you what, I've got two legends today. One is the one, you know, Ken Smyers, the man, the myth, the legend, the control man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And joining us today is a legend in his own right is ControlTrends Young Gun Brent Burrows, from Atlanta, Georgia. Brent is with Entek.. He's one of the rising stars in the controls industry. And if you were at the 2018 CONTROLTRENDS AWARDSawards, you know that Brent was inducted into The Young Guns class of 2019. So fellas, welcome to the show. Eric Stromquist: Well thank you Eric. Yeah, you took away all my firepower I suppose to get some of that introduction on Brent Burrows. But uh, yeah, we got a real live young Gun here and uh, it, it, it's so good to see the right, it looks like the type of guy who's going to be taking our place one day. So he's, he's learning, he's got some great background. He's a true integrator, does everything from the programming side of it. And it was all about analytics, but he could do, you could do the terminations to make stuff work. So that's a welcome to the show Brent. Brent Burrows: It's good to have it. And that's what they're talking about on the show every once in a while. I really appreciate it guys. And uh, yeah, actually the only real thing I have in my office, the Home Office here, uh, you know, I may have to make up some more awards for myself or some certifications. Eric Stromquist: No, no young guns. Pretty much all you need man. And now you're 60 and a young gun or 65. I can send Claire and a young gun then you're doing really, really good. Okay. Brent man would move. You know, we're talking about young guns and may one of the wraps that the young guns, the millennials get his man, they just can't be on time. I know this year here, but tell us about our other guest where is he? Brent Burrows: who else was supposed to be on the show with us. Uh, I, that's going to be my new cohost, Aaron Gorka. Ah, I'm not exactly sure where Aaron is now. Maybe they don't do daylight savings time in Canada or different things. He didn't, he didn't change his clock around. Eric Stromquist: Right. Well, in fairness they are, and man, he has been traveled a lot here and Gorka from ANT technologies, one of the hardest young working guys in the industry. Uh, he is, uh, does the podcast, next generation innovation and brand. I guess the big news is you're going to be joined and Aaron as his cohost. Brent Burrows: Yeah. Um, so, um, I had been reading some stuff lately and you know, I listened to you guys on a control talk now on iTunes and I'd always wanted to get into pocket casting and uh, and it just so happened I was featured on a, on an episode, um, a few months back and just really enjoyed it. I've worked with Aaron, we actually use aunt technologies, um, to do a track or project side. And uh, so me and him get along and you know, we vibe well. So I reached out to reach out to you and was like, Hey, what do you think this idea? And uh, and you were all for it gave Aaron a call. He was excited to have a cohost. So that's what we're going to be doing. Eric Stromquist: Well, I can't wait for you guys to take to work together. Aarons just doing a fantastic job so far and it's kind of fun with the cohost, you know, so the, but if you're going to get good at this, you have to practice saying this right off the bat. The man, the myth, the legend, let me hear you say it because if something ever happens to me, you know, it's going to be between you and Aaron to step in. But Kenny is very picky about who gets to be his is to introduce them. So one time, Brent, you're on, here's your audition, Brent Burrows: here's the audition, alright, we're on control. Taught now, you know, and in memory of the late, great. Eric, strong quick. No, he's in a better place now. But I am your new cohost and I am going to introduce the man, the myth, the legend Ken Smyers: Ken Smyres take it over again. Right. That was awesome man. He passed it. He might, he might not even wait for me to die, man. He might just nice. Did you guys read the second brand? You just put no, he might. He might give me the boot right after the show did. That was a little too good bread, but well listen dude, before we get into more of the show, talks about what you do and, and in tech, I've known your dad for years and a, you guys have a fabulous company, but, but talk about about Entek and what you guys do. Brent Burrows: Uh, so in tech where our ar can about a local, regional, regional and a national company, uh, have handled, you know, many national accounts over the years. Uh, so we have that side of the business and then we have more of our, uh, what I'd call our local and core business here in Atlanta. Um, we specialize in commercial office space. Um, but you know, also do, you know, hospitals, industrial work, really anything you need, um, we can provide the service and the expertise to work in those areas. So we do anything ranging from, you know, mechanical service, installation retrofits and then, you know, hopping into the controls, the building automation, you know, H Vac, lighting, integration, all of that stuff. And we even do system access controls everywhere. So in tech really is a great one stop shop to fill all your building needs. Ken Smyers: Yeah. One of the things that I saw on the site and we'd talked offline, there is analytics and the impact we have one of our posts we'll be talking about here as we review the posts. So you're actually a delving into analytics now. Tell us about some of your experiences so far. What do you think? Is that, is that the next great a goldmine to dig into? Brent Burrows: Well analytics, no, it's, it's been around, um, in, in the HVAC industry for, for a little while now. And it's kind of, you know, it's interesting, you'll go to these conferences or you know, you'll read stuff and you've got, you know, you got kinda these bud buzzwords or one of the big ones that are, and you know, when I kind of look at buzzwords, there are a lot of terms that people throw around, but then they'll just kind of throw it around and they don't know the meaning of it and they're just like, oh yeah, Iot and analytics and, uh, and you'll just see them, they pop up a lot of conferences, but, uh, but you know, really, uh, been seeing analytics get hammered for the last couple of years now. And basically, you know, one of the great things that you can kind of, they're doing in the industry now, you know, what, you know, everything being more standardized, like, you know, backnet lawn, um, you know, different protocols come then normalizing the data. And then a, you know, a huge one that I know you guys have talked a lot about and they got the big accounts coming up is haystack. Um, you know, basically being able to take all the data in your building, you know, sensor information, uh, whether it's, you know, discharge temps, she knows zone temps, uh, you know, all those things and you're building lighting levels, all this stuff and take it in and get that data. So you kind of get to that point with an integration and it's like, okay, well let's just say, you know, I got a 10 story building, uh, so, you know, got 10 air handlers, chiller plant, and then, you know, depending on the level of integration, let's say I've got 20,000 data points in my building, you know, what are you really doing with that? They're there are, they're acting out there and they're just doing their thing. But you know, unless you can hire somebody 24, seven to watch those sites and be like, oh, this is doing this, this is doing this. Um, it's, it's, it's hard to keep track of it. You kind of get into this, uh, you know, very responsive state. Um, you know, trying to manage the building. It's not forward thinking. It's not really effective. So analytics comes in and does, is it basically, it's like, you know, it is, it's, it's a 24, it's 24, seven program that looks at your building, looks at your data and can alert you to the issues going on. And then also in some cases make responsive writes back to correct issues. Eric Stromquist: Well, that's well said. Well said. And then I think one of the things that Kenny has sort of picked up early on in, and you were talking about sky spark a little bit because that's what you're working with. But, uh, you know, for years back, even when your dad and I were doing this stuff, you know, those old guys, I mean you could always alarm, right? But it got to the point that he had so many alarms, just like my emails, you just become null and void to me just don't pay attention to anymore. So it seems like one of the things analytics allows you to do is to write rules, for example. So if something goes out of temperature for a while, you could give an expert at a time before it sends out an email or an alarm. You could also maybe we'd send a command to say, hey, try to reset it or whatever before you do that. And so are you finding that that's driving some of your customers interest into it or her? What sorts of things when, when they say analytics, like I said, it's a buzz word, but when they come to you or do they actually know what they want her, it's just, hey, I want an analytics package and you shouldn't have to talk him through it. Brent Burrows: Uh, so it, it's interesting you were talking about, uh, my dad, uh, uh, actually met with him this week and he brought up some of the alarming going on from the 90s, and he was, uh, so, uh, I won't name them, but you know, big retail client, um, and they, you know, obviously they have sites all around the country and, uh, they had like a fax machine that sat on the side of this room and this thing continually like it reports and the, I think they actually set up a system where it just like fed into like a dumpster or shredded all it did for 24 hours a day. And they were like, he was like, what is that? There was like, oh, that's the, uh, that's the alarm matrix. Yeah, I remember those things. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but you don't know the, to Eric's point, uh, I think, um, we've seen several, uh, programs now coming out like controls, condoms, coming up with Detroit with the Cochrane supply, Scott Cochran and his team put together this thing. Raven, where you could really, you could eliminate anything. You didn't want to hear all the chief, you know, and just, just get to the nuggets that you needed to know. And then they teamed that down so much that it would be in a proximity presentation. So top chef, chef get that right. We don't want people to think, okay, go ahead. I'm sorry, but God, we got that quick. I'm sorry I couldn't, I'm spit balling here too, but no, go ahead. Saving, saving, saving. Um, so the, the thing that Scott Cochran believed in is it Derek's point that we're so overwhelmed with this is data being pushed at us that we ignore it. Now again, we've always self defense mechanisms. We turn off our phones, we don't have to hear the pagan, you know, and then, but then you really could miss that one really important alarm because you're so, you know, unconditioned to respond to it. The uh, that stuff became packing. They had say, generate so much. I. Dot. Matrix printing stuff that no, he didn't shred but then that shredding to him went back, got recycled back in the, in the shipping department. But I'm so yeah, so a, the raven thing was a real clever a response. So that not only did you restrict the amount of alarms you got, but they were, they were sent specifically to who needed it and it reduced all that additional traffic. Eric Stromquist: So yeah, Brent is a cool app if you haven't seen it. It actually works like with you know, notifications on your iPhone and stuff like that. So you can just set up just the notifications you want to see. So, uh, Scott Cochran's one clever dude and controls con's going to be a great conference and uh, we get, we actually have a discount code for that, don't we county. So we should do, if you put any controlled trends when you registered and put it in a controlled trends, you get a 10% discount and that you'll get 15 but I know it's just a matter of time for you blonder and it's going to cost you an alternate code, a code word. You get 20% off if you mentioned chafing cause that's right. So you are going to be a great cohosts. He's good. He's picking right up on this. Uh, but uh, but so what else? So the analytics, are these primarily the facilities managers asking for this or should it go on up higher? Cause I know you, you know, Dana and the rest of year or down to the rest of your sales staff deals at the c level suite a lot. Is it mainly being pushed down from the c level suite or consulting engineers asking for it? Or how is this even coming into consciousness? Well, it's a, it's interesting. So I'm going to go back real quick to the original question that you asked and mentioned something that, uh, you know, it Kinda all goes along with, uh, with the APP. You're talking about the raven, the alarms, and you mentioned that, you know, just kind of getting, you know, hounded with all this data. And it really does, you know, whether it's, you know, cause I'll, I'll copy myself on the emails most of the time for the alarms. And you know, sometimes it'll just, I think I went through this morning, there was a point that went in and out of alarm, I didn't delete like 600 emails. Brent Burrows: You get into the point of getting alarm fatigue. So yeah. So in the process, let's just say that you have something that does, does alarm and you get, you know, over the course of three or four months, 600 emails, you're going to be like, oh no, just delete all those. Don't worry about that. And sandwiched in there and one or two of those. Yeah. What was important data. So that's why it's important, you know, when you're doing the integration is the freestyle. Yeah. Make sure you set up, you know, your alarms and your, so there are going to be alarms that happened, but you know, maybe just only send out, you know, prioritize with your alarm classes. Um, but, but then to get back to a, to what you're mentioning about what level do you kind of see the requests from analytics coming? Um, I think it really depends. Uh, so a lot of what we, uh, we deal with customers we deal with in the Atlanta market. Um, you know, we'll go into existing buildings and whether, you know, we're upgrading them from, you know, DDC from the 90s or just straight pneumatics and everything, uh, you just hit it. There are different levels of involvement from, you know, different companies and, you know, different positions. So, all right know, I've got to figure out what's going on and I cannot, I don't have the time to pour through this site and I don't want to, you know, pay a monitoring company, you know, just every, every month. Because you know what, that's great. You know, the, there were a few people that we followed around in Atlanta or would go to and there was like, oh yeah, we paid this company $2,000 a month. Just watch this. It's like, but it takes you six hours to get him on the phone. And then sometimes they do it, sometimes they don't. But they'll always let you know when that checks in the mail. The, um, the analytic thing, one of the big impulse or impacts was when Niagara JACE started coming with 25 free analytic points to get you a taste of it, you know, and then we started to see people dabble at it, but we really didn't have a whole lot of, uh, you know, takers. And then once they got into it, uh, so it all became, you know, a basically about templating it. But, uh, the Phil fearless fills Zito had a really nice, uh, extract on when he did a synopsis on end for about what he said that what they added to inform and to analytics too. Dot. Oh, was that make capabilities where the preexisting analytic data model it was in, it was inherent embedded a base algor algorithm library and then a realtime on premise analytic control. So one of the things that we saw now was that people, if they wanted to start to dabble, they got a good free tastes that, or a complimentary tastes of analytic points that they could take a couple of points and do exactly what you're saying. Pick out the top, maybe ones that you're getting those multiple alarms, you know, and then have it so that you could control the amount of alarms that you got from that point. So, uh, again it's, it's still, it's just touching the, uh, the, you know, the top of the iceberg because a sky founding of course was the, the industry leader. I mean they basically defined analytics to us. Well, no, it's cool. We can, I've got a question where I think we might have a new vocab word here and I wonder if you've heard of this before. No, no, no, no, no, no. Alarm fatigue has the first time I heard that if you heard the term alarm fatigue before, actually I have this, but I heard it said in that perspective, that context. But you're right, I mean, so I think Brent is coach and he's got his first new phrase, alarm fatigue. Okay. We're, we're going to give you a nickname or get you a tee shirt. It'd be Brent Burroughs alarm fatigue. So I did write that down though. So that's a great one brand. I like that a lot. So bread for our integrators out there who may be, have not gotten into analytics or you know, Skype specifically sky foundry, um, kind of walk them through. I mean, how difficult is it? Is it to get started with it because know there are a lot of integrators, outdated, heard of analytics and maybe you know, think they can do it or don't think they can do it, but what do they need to know? If you're just starting to scratch your ears, assistant center grader and you haven't worked with analytics, sort of walk them through it. Uh, so obviously, you know, um, like the sky spark, um, sky spark software, you know, like anything else, uh, to be able to sell it, you know, you have to get signed up with a distributor, all that. Um, so, you know, first need to find somebody that can not distribute it. And it's really important, you know, when you're kind of going into a new software, I believe this with anything, is to make sure that you've got a good support channel. Um, you know, like in between you and then, you know, and sky foundry, which I'll say for sky foundry, their online database of like help, documentation, everything. It's phenomenal. Um, I have used that a ton. It'll actually basically walk you through setting up site, uh, comes with a great demo site so you can look at how everything's set up and then, you know, reverse engineer. Cause you know, as a, as a systems integrator or you know, anything else, it's, it's similar. You know, it's, it's just like physically, you know, kinda like building an engine or something. How do you really figure out how an engine works? Well, take one apart and put it back together and you're going to have a good idea of what those components do, where they go and everything. Same thing applies to the software. So, uh, getting started there. Go ahead. Eric Stromquist: No, that's a good analogy. And you know, and I think that's where you're talking about the division of labor and, and the, and the support structure, you know, some of the, some of the great products. And so the great applications that have failed, uh, did so not because it wasn't a great application is because people didn't take to it well, they didn't have a support structure, he didn't have that engaging support that you're talking about. And some of these new people, new products and solutions we see coming in, especially in North America, you know, the, the contracting mentality as they wanted so they can understand it and they want to be able to do that physically create an analogy. So this is how you put it together and it's how you take apart and by the time you do that, you know, the steps are all procedural and the methodologies very consistent and then you get really good at it. I think the, the commitment, this guy foundry is significant, but once you get there, you've got it's money well spent and you just, it's a gold mine, right? Can, it will listen and Brent, this is a, that a, you're going to probably have to do with Aaron Gorka called stable datum, right? Because we, as we're assuming that our entire audience listening to the show right now understand what Skype boundary disguised park is. So Kenny, if you don't mind, would you just give our audience just a quick overview of what it is because I think people have heard of analytics, they've heard of data, but they may or may not have heard of skies park. Uh, if they don't listen on a regular basis. Kenny, let's give our audience a little stable datum on exactly what guys foundry isn't what sky's parks are. Ken Smyers: All right. Well, you know, I would recommend everybody to Google or not Google, but to come to our website control to trends. And then just to take a look at John Patsy or look at sky found in there because we have multiple videos of John explaining it, what it is through interviews or whatever. But essentially the synopsis, The Sky Spark is an open analytic platform from sky foundry that automatically analyzes building data from sensors, automation systems, meters and other smart devices to provide useful building insights, sky spark insights, help facility managers, building owners and business managers identify trends, issues, faults, correlations. And opportunities for cost reductions and building improvements. Uh, and then also the, the, the growth of it. You know, so we were asking about, you know, who wants it and how is it implemented? And it comes from all different dimensions. It doesn't come from consistently the COO or the CTO or you know, a smart building owner. It comes from people that have problems that need them fix. So just give me an idea. There's more than 10,000 facilities around the globe that are using sky spark right now. They analyze buildings, data over 650 million square feet of buildings. Imagine that. Then they went over a billion. And by the way, that's further on, but commercial buildings, apartment buildings, apartment complexes, hotels, resorts, data centers, industrial facilities, educational campuses, government buildings, large multi-use retail spaces and other large complex facilities. But if you remember the one crazy thing about it is we start small with one building using the sky, spark and sky foundry or analytics, you know, because there'll be other versions of analytics. But in order to get to the smart cities, you've got to start small. It's a modular thing. So you'd go from one building building. Exactly. But this whole thing crescendos into a smart city where you're, everybody is getting that data there knowing that usages and aren't in and we're occupancies are they knowing when they have about, you know? Right, right. And I think, you know, again, John Petze used to be president of tritium, one of the brightest guys on the planet. Great Drummer too. Buddy rich has nothing on John Petze. But uh, you know, we only all went sky spark first came out or sky founder first came out. It was kind of cost prohibitive almost just simply because to connect the data points together really required somebody to go in and link this to this, to this, to this, to this. But that's all changed now. It's gotten super formed. Super, Super Price Competitive Kenny because of drum roll. HAYSTACK CONNECT. I tried to download, try new vocab words. I need another cup of coffee. That's a good one buddy. I know you want to do that. And Yeah, because again, we're trying to promote project haystack to the best of her abilities and really get the community excited about it. But I think we're getting other people excited about it. I think there's people that are learning outside of the HVC, bas industry that understand that haystack tagging. For instance, we had Samsung, uh, from, uh, the smart car. Don't trick me again here. Most of name again, can we need first and last name for try again? Go, go, go, go, go, go to the Control Trent website, highlight her name and then have Google pronounced that JMC futurist, right when, anyhow, she took the, the haystack tagging to heart and talk. It was an, you know, it's, it's just absolutely vital to eliminate all the friction and bring down to two. We're belongs as quickly as possible. There should be cooperative. You ready for an analogy? Haystack tagging is to sky foundry every other analytics or control system as gasoline is to a car. What do you, what do you think about how, how bad is like, you know, uh, I mean, you know, and not another analogy. I think one of the great things about having haystack, it's, it's basically this organization that says, yes, you know, hey guys, instead of re reinventing the wheel, here you go, we're going to give you the tools or instead of making all your own custom stuff, here's the tools to do it. You know, it'd be kind of like every kind of like, you know, I guess it's, you know, not using haystack tagging. I feel like doing your analytics to standardize it. It's kind of like going back to the, you know, Dark Ages or the prehistoric times of, you know, where you just have different tribes and they have like all their own forms of communication. Like, you know, I don't, most marriages, well, you know what I do, I think that's going to, that's going to work there because if you hear John pets he talking about, he actually gets mad, he'll, he'll start out real calm and mellow and hills. He'll start saying, but, uh, his patients in the industry I think is waning because it's a choice. And you know, again, a lot of people have, you know, big legacy investments and they've got, you know, look at corporations are run and, and they, they really truly have to control the rate of adoption and, and, and is it his money comes it. I mean we had the guy from Sweden tell us, you know, all these things could have been fixed many, many, many years ago if there wasn't a, you know, an economic reason not to do it. So brand have an economic reason to get them right. Now where I am, Brent needs to know this, cause I know your listener brown button it Kenny. This is the part of the show where we come up with are conspiracy theories. Okay. Okay. No, no, no, no, no. And I want to do something right now too. It's certain, Huh? Jam Fee. So that's not sued. Sud h a JMT j a m t h e. Dot. The Jaffe. Right. This Suda Hey, you know what I practice, come on. Say it. And you know what? I'm going to sit on this one because I, I haven't had a chance to write it down and sanded it out. But I think this is like a good idea for like a new bit. Eric Stromquist: You should do Kenny Kenny's words a week and put a word down and then have them like phonetically sounded. I know Kenny. No, no, we got one of this when Kenny's word of the week. Shaef Chase, rub your face with a scarf or something and you scraped, I think he's in a different context today, which is like the data was shaved off of the sound. No, it was to do with the wheat and, and the other stuff. Boys in the shaft, not the shape. You're not going here. Let's get back to those two words are a little too close. Well, you know what I think so. I have a lot of those. So look at that. That's a good sign. That means that your brain's working. Okay, so let's get back to Brent. Meanwhile, back to Brent. So Brent, again speaking to integrators out there that maybe haven't taken the punch to do an analytics and his specific way sky founder, you sort of walk them through the steps, you know, they can call Ken or Eric, that should be your distributor., STROMQUIST.COM And after you get with your distributor, what happens next? So after you get with your distributor, uh, hopefully they can set you up on SKY FOUNDRY Um, so you can get into the resources you can access. Um, it's pretty cool once you get everything set up. Um, sky spark actually has a demo and all you have to do is just pretty much upload the demo and then you can go through all the steps, all the steps they give you online. Brent Burrows: They give you like a five part, um, kind of do it yourself. Um, you know, set up the data points and you know, add the equipment, add the points, add the tags, go, go view the data and do everything. So you get practice, like kind of like we talked about putting something together. So you get practice doing that and then you start going, all right, I can see this, I can see how this will work. Uh, and then after you do that, you're going to want to go to one of the sky's spark, uh, analytics, uh, classes. Typically I think it's like a two or a three day class. Um, they get you all set up on there. After that you are going to be able to, uh, to sell the product and uh, and really do it. Um, and one of the cool things is, is basically, you know, if I had to like look at it and you know, just look at, you know, your customer set and figure out 10 rules, figure out 10 things that you want to look for. You know, the last thing you want to do is be like, oh, I got to come out with, you know, 500 something rules or I've got to figure out how much, you know, k w port per square foot. You know, when people, uh, you know, have a Dell computer or laptop in there, it's like, okay, just, just kind of back it off. Keep it simple to start, like one of the biggest ones, uh, that, that I see and you know, I see it around Atlanta a lot. You've got these, um, these old [inaudible] use that still have to use pneumatic a pneumatic actuators. So, and you'll see that and you'll see, you know, you'll use a DDC controller, goes to a, uh, goes to a transducer and then that sends the air pressure pneumatic actuator and you know, it, they've, they have it that way because the cost to retrofit one of those, as you know, it's like four hours and you know, maybe like a $340 part, you guys posted something a long time ago and I think strong Quist offered a retrofit part. It's for those, uh, to basically take that internal damper and then change it over to, you know, have an external, yeah, it was, it was trying, I wasn't sure if we were mentioning manufacturers or anything. So I remember that then. And we'll, you know, we saw a lot of that too. Yeah, that was a, that was an excellent demo and I'm very successful to do, to kind of move things on. I don't know. Hang on real quick. I can't, if you don't mind. There's one other thing I wanted to sort of bring around because Brent, I think it was brilliant. You know all the rules come up with 10 you can, you can come up with, so for example, for our property management people out there, you got building a and it is using 50,000 kw per month. You've got building B, it's using 25,000 kw month and you've got building c, which is just in 150,000 kw a month. Which one is most energy efficient? One uses the most energy. Well and you do that, that's easy. But you know, basically it, you can Kinda, you can organize the data because you know, what if one is a single story building, how many square foot, how many people are occupied. So you, and part of the reason I brought that up was you used the term earlier, which for our owners out there who might not think this was, I didn't think this way, it was explained to me part of what Brent's companies able to normalize your data because oddly enough, the small, the one with the least amount you spend the amount of money on might be the most energy efficient, the one that you're spending the most on because this maybe 10 times bigger might be your most energy efficient. So unless you can normalize it. Eric Stromquist: And what I mean by normalizes taking random data points or data points, bringing them together and setting their criteria like square foot footage, occupancy times a number of people and that, so that's a big part of us gotta be one of the first ones that you guys would go for. I would take if you have multiple facilities. Right. So, um, so I'll go, I'll go back. It was just kind of that the brief example with the damper, and I know I was kind of explained some technical stuff on it, but it's, you know, like a real real simple rule is like, you know, and you can compare it, you know, how many VAVs PKI use, things like that. Kind of like you're talking about. But you know, the big ones that you can see, you know, a Vav is it open at 100% not satisfying the CFM. Brent Burrows: So either we've got mechanical problem, we've got a design problem, you know, somewhere in the chain. And also the biggest thing, one of the things I see the most money wasted on, like with that particular style of box is this thing has electric heat strips in it. So electric heat, huge energy user. I mean just unbelievable. So it's got the heat going, right? Trying to satisfy the space and you've got a bad damper bladder and there that's not in 600 800 cfm through. So I'm simultaneously heating and cooling space. I'm basically dehumidifying your space when you get to pay for it. As long as this thing has occupied and you know, put that over a 15 story building and let that happen, you know, uh, on a cup on each floor. And just remember that the first real calm I become, and you've met right? You know, Smith and he said that, uh, their biggest, um, why I got this one. Can I do this one? Okay. You just cause I don't, I normally don't know much about, I do know this. So Brandon, Darryl Smith, random Microsoft campus back when Kenny and I first met him, and this is the best example of alarm first as rules base did I ever heard. And what Daryl was saying was a, this huge campus, huge, huge energy bills. They never got an alarm because the Microsoft campus was the most comfortable campus. You could be anywhere. All those buildings were comfortable. They put in a program similar to sky's bar and they realize the reason their energy was so high and the reason nobody complained about the temperature was that their heating and cooling ran at the same time to maintain temperature. They had no idea that was happening until they put the analytics package. And so then what happened, consequently, after that was, uh, you know, they fixed that problem. They started getting a lot of alarms and Bill Gates got mad at Darryl Smith. So there you have it. You have anything you want to add to that, Kenny? I'm sorry. No, no, no. It was, it was the whole thing we said to you, you know, some of the things that they were saying is the valve of the heating valve was clogged, blocked, open, you know, it wasn't Seton properties. So then it was leaving too much heat into the space and an air conditioning or the, you know, Viv is letting, calling in. So the bottom line was that you could have no, uh, alarms are no complaints that nobody's complained about the temperature of being too hot, too cold, but that's not necessarily a good thing. So what they started to analyze, uh, was if the state changes doesn't change over a certain period of time, that there's reason for concern, something that should be going up and down based on different, uh, the different, uh, aspects of the building, different times of day, different whatever. But nothing should stay the same. No temperatures and stayed 72 for longer than maybe like 60 minutes. And if it does, that'd be one of the rules we'd say somebody needs to look at it probably got, you know, something's going on there that you said requires some investigation. But um, I am, I'm a little bit concerned that we're, we're going to get the time, uh, isn't slip away so we should throw in some of these posts so that they get more friends. Comments on your bread. Eric Stromquist: This is part of the audition here. Now we're going to go through some post of the week and you got to make it yet like really astute comments about them. Okay. I don't want to suppress them cause you know, you're, you're a systems integrator and you bring like a different perspective. Absolutely. Is this relevant to your world or not? You know, what's one posts you want to talk about? For now, we'll just go kind of lighthearted cause uh, you know, again, the two and you know, nuggets to take away into some of this has kind of superficial stuff with like the next post you want to talk about and get Brent's comments on is the, the new facility manager might be a robot. Uh, and how will artificial intelligence affect your building? We know from Ken Sinclair that artificial intelligence is common. It's a real thing, how quickly they adoption rate's going to be and whatever. Or is it happening with or without our knowledge? Uh, and he calls it automated, intelligent, not intelligence, artificial intelligence. So the question would ask you there is that you, do you think that artificial intelligence has a foothold already? Uh, w what's the adoption rate with your end of the world or your from your perspective? Um, Brent Burrows: so, uh, in, in terms of, of running buildings right now where we're at and you know, Atlanta, Georgia, um, I haven't seen a whole lot of artificial intelligence in a, and the particulars particular areas where at, um, obviously that's the way am, I mean every, everything's moving that way, you know, whether we still really haven't seen a whole ton of, you know, a voice stuff come in to, you know, the building automation world. So I feel like you're going to see that come in and then you're going to see AI. But that's kind of the analytics thing too, is, you know, and we were talking about earlier, you know, it used to be you'd pay somebody to monitor this and they would watch it and now you have a computer that's doing it, you know, a, a program that that just looks at. It looks at rules, it compares the data, and then it gives you an outcome. So go ahead. So based on how you define artificial intelligence, in many cases, some of it's already there, it's just not called artificial intelligence. God was charging two grand a month to technical data. I mean he's already been replaced by a robot. Right. Which is a shame. That'd be a sweet deal. So Eric, uh, so I got it said Jan, Jan. Okay. Now, so the next, the Kenny, he's like, it's not jam. J A M is Shanthi. It's a softer version. Okay. So if we're doing artificial intelligence, let's take this thing to the next level. And we had this very intelligent futurist and she is the real McCoy. She is internationally, globally recognized for her, her understanding and divisions that are coming. You know what our world is going to look like in five 10 15 years. But she did this thing on smart buildings and powering smart buildings, smart cars and the whole idea of sustainable building, sustainable energy cars that are driving and they're basically collect the energy, putting in a battery. The car gets to the building that it works, it's parked at and plugs in and instead of the building powering the car up again, cars powering the building up in an emergency situation that you could really exploit this cause it's just moving energy. You know, cars are literally collect the energy and then moving them to where they needed nick actually plug into a building. Um, not, not that we're going to see this anytime soon, but what do you think that, uh, the Atlanta metropolitan area is that, is that kind of technology receptive? You see that? I know that a, with Eric, with your smart car, you're a customer, your test, the, one of your biggest issues at first was the charging stations. They could be busy, it might not be available, but you know, it was, it was trying that new technology. Does it fit, do you see us moving a year end of the world there, uh, Brent taking, adopting that kind of technology or is it kind of an out there kind of like, I dunno, I'm sure had you asked the question, you know, 20 or 30 years I had like, had you asked when maybe Eric and my dad were working together a little bit, like, you know, hey, where are you thinking we're going to be in 30 years with us in buildings? It's like snack. I'd be met that it's not going to matter. All our cars going to be flying around anyway. It's kind of local conceptions out there. Oh, we'll get to your point. I mean, I look at this thing every day and I'm all, I marvel over the iPhone every day because I just, I can't get over it. Cause my wife's German, she talks to her sister's like we're talking, you know, across the street. And it doesn't cost a dime. They used to be my third biggest expense. You know, we had mortgage, car and then phone. Right. Well, you know, Kenny, I had been on my, I'm like, rephrase the question a little bit because you know, I think the car was just sort of an example of the fact that you could use a battery to power building and Nissan actually did with their corporate headquarter and a suit. The JMT talks a lot about, uh, about the fact that you can now contribute to the grid and said you're just drawing off the grid. And I think a more Germane sort of, uh, uh, question might be do see a day where maybe Ken Smyers: the batteries are powering the buildings. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, tech technology continues to evolve and to just things that you just never thought were possible. Kind of like, you know, like the analogy there of a, you know, thinking about a battery charging and building. I mean, you know, absolutely. It's possible. What, you know, what Ken just talked about, you know, with that right there, I'm sure you guys saw him back in the, uh, you know, maybe even the 80s, the early nineties. Like what are the first cell phones look like? Where did the first computers, they'll quite white mainframes hold clinic rooms and now this is more powerful than the first computer mainframe huge rooms that were created. I'm really glad you cleaned that up for me cause I'm not, hang on, hang on. I'm not done yet. I've got a Mike, my conspiracy theory and then you can come back to you Ken. So I have a conspiracy theory cat because Brent, you know, you guys hard Johnson controls is wanting the lines you handles was Honeywell on this tech Johnson controls is one of the largest car battery or manufacturers in the world. Okay. So you start thinking about that and then you put into the fact that Tesla developed something called the power wall, right in California. What that because you know, you could have the solar energy coming in but you pretty much had to use it or lose it. What the power wall, you were able to store it. Okay. So I think Johnson and Tesla are getting together right now. I think what's going to happen is you're going to have solar panels on the building. There's going to come down to some sort of a power wall that will hold the charge, that will charge the battery and then the battery will charge the building. Well Eric, to your point, I think, uh, I'm glad you did it cause I was thinking the same thing. We know that Johnson controls made a major investment and batteries. And one of the scenarios we saw Brent was really cool was that, you know, uh, with a DC AC wars mobile. Derek and I used to cover the Westinghouse versus Tesla and how, uh, it was a power station thing who could transmit the power of the further Stacy one but DC. Now it's coming back in. And many people were saying, why are we taking power, making it a scene and converting it back to DC inside of a building since every something inside of the buildings operating on DC. What about we put a big battery in the basement in, you know, some mechanical room or whatever and we power it up. And from there we power the entire building with 24 volts DC. Ken Smyers: And then you have power over ethernet and we have all these really incredible ideas. But so to your point, and I agree with you 100%, it's not, it's just a matter of when we get the opportunity to deploy these technologies are here. It's just, it's in the economic constriction. It says the economic, you know, friction, you gotta, you gotta make money and people have to transition from one technology to the other. But it doesn't mean it's not going to have, it's just the question of when. Right. So I, you know, it's really interesting to about, um, you know, buildings doing that. Obviously it'd be much easier, you know, as with anything, um, you know, if you're building a brand new building to be able to Spec that stuff and then absorb it into the cost of, you know, of doing the building as opposed to looking at a building that has everything that has ac powered, whether, you know, lighting, HPAC equipment, you know, literally everything and being like, all right, we're going to rip all this stuff out and then we're going to put all of this and, and it's going to cost you, you know, x and whoever owns the building or she come managers of the building, it's like, no, we're not. It's a great point, Brent and know that my father in law lives in New Mexico, right? And they used to subsidize solar panels, but then the electric company, conspiracy theory started, you know, not making as much money so they don't subsidize any more. So now it's cost prohibitive to do it. But I tell you what, I think, uh, I want to get back to Ed Tech and your dad a little bit because your dad is when I got to be kidding me, your dad is one of the brightest businessmen know. And when your dad would say is, if you want to have heard him say this over the years, you want to paint it blue, I'll paint it blue. You want to back you on a battery power building, not give you a battery painted battery power building. Right. So, uh, uh, and I, and I think at the end of the day, it's, this is, you know, a lot of conjecture on our part. It's fun to talk about, but at the end of the day, uh, what's going to make the most sense for the owners is what they're going to do. Yeah. My favorite ones are listen to the Paul Oswald and listen to, uh, George Thomas from contemporary controls. The, these guys are the more senior faculty in our, in our industry and they say, you know, we keep talking about this absolutely wowed off the wall technology when we still don't fix belts and we still don't do it. Most primordial maintenance you need, uh, you know, and keeping the motors running and stuff like that. So I think what you have to do is you have to keep one foot on its tectonics. It's moving and shifting when it applied. Yeah. Plate tectonics. There we go. Brent and we still have a vocabulary from you yet. What have we done? We got it. Tig. Hold on. Protect. Yes. Right. I'm sorry I got circled them when you said that. I will give you credit when I like something that somebody says something cool, I write it down and at the end of it when we have to write the show notes up or whatever, I can run through all these little circles, nuggets there and alarm fatigue is circled. We're going to, we're going to take this thing into a macro level again, and we're going to shift gears and just security, cybersecurity. We're going to go into your version of cybersecurity. How often you bump into it, what does it, what does it scare you to death or you got to, you got a handle on it. What's, what's going on from your perspective? Brent Burrows: Um, you know, cyber security, obviously you now have extremely important, I would say as important as, uh, eh, as anything you're, you're really doing in a building, you know, as long as you know you're not, when you're putting in controls, you're not just absolutely wrecking the equipment. What's the, the other thing, keeping, you know, unauthorized people from entering your site? Um, if you can isolate it. That, and that's the biggest thing was cybersecurity, uh, that I'm kind of saying, um, from our end is things need to be isolated. Um, so like you really do, you need to have like, you know, for your h Vac, building automation, security access, all that stuff. Um, like to isolate it if you can on, on separate networks. I mean, you know, you don't have to look far, uh, with different, you know, cybersecurity issues and large retailers, whether it's through, you know, the credit card scanners or you know, however these hackers get in to access, you know, a bunch of people's personal data at places. Like it's just kinda like, holy crap. I thought that was a very unimportant, this thing just turns the lights on, turns the lights off and now they've got access to, you know, social security numbers of all the data that we're keeping over here. So, um, there's some really cool products out there. I'm like, you know, one that y'all rep, uh, that, uh, yeah, that, that's it. I really liked that. Um, you want to talk about security like that is that, that is the deal. Um, the, the ease access is, you know, not as much like, you know, you can't just start grabbing a bunch of random devices and, and doing it. There's got to be a little bit more prep work, but you want to talk about secure and a and manage like dad is awesome. So it's not that expensive dye tee people. Cause I guess a part of the question would be are you running it up when you put a system or the it people now more concerned or they come, do you say you're going to try to what to my network or I know you guys work on a different sort of size building and stuff like that, but uh, yeah, uh, I actually had a meeting with a, with a 19 manager, um, just just recently within the last couple of weeks. And he was wanting to know like a, you know, what are you going to do or how does this need to be set up and everything like that. And uh, it's, it, it's a good conversation to be able to have with them in person. Like don't try and pass it off to someone else that isn't going to be working on the technical side because it's just that then things get misinterpreted and people get defensive. You're not putting this on my network and all this, you know, it turns into like a little peon contest when you don't need it. It's just, you know, a good conversation to have. And that's one of the things Tridium does a good job with is, you know, they have a, they've got it out there. I'm not sure what the most updated version is, but it's called the hardening guide, which, uh, um, basically goes through and it'll tell you how to most securely set up your system. And if you can go through that with an eye with, you know, manager or, or whoever, then everybody can be comfortable. All the data can all be out there. And then, you know, you make sure that you're putting in the most secure option. You know, so ironic you said that because I sent that to somebody this morning. Um, the issues were on the audit trails and about, you know, uh, who gets into the system and then when I have as the Niagara for hardening, it's from six 28, 2018. So I'm sure there's one, uh, more recent than that, but you're exactly right. It's, uh, I think it's a 48 page document. Let's see. Yeah. And it really goes deep dives into a 42 pages. So, um, but what we have, uh, for, for the controlled trans community is we have a responsibility to keep, keep cybersecurity as a concurrent trend is the top trend. We post the NIST released in ist and they give us, you know, the checklists and take people on an individual level and organizational level, uh, you know, a corporate level and then a city level. Ken Smyers: So we have two posts that I just want to bring them up real quick. One is the, a Schneider electric has a cybersecurity, a Webinar you can sign up for and it has a, a lot of great information. And then two, for the people that are really in the business dot have deep, we have a smart and secure city, the community challenge expo and Washington DC July 10th and 12th. And it's about security. Cybersecurity on a, on a macro level. So, and ist the US Department of Homeland Security and sciences, the technology, are they basically the sponsors of it? It's a free registration is free, but you have to preregister it's required for attendance. You can't just walk in there online and we have a hot button to it. But so cybersecurity is, you're right. So Brent, Brent, you just hit three correct answers in a row. So we're going to over and cybersecurity is one. It's as important as anything else. We're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're working with now if we have to have a responsibility, we have to own that responsibility and learn about it. We don't necessarily have the solution for it, but we can be part of the solution or part of the problem. Well said. Well said. Well, listen, dude, uh, let's, let's talk about a couple more things. A couple of other vets and then we're probably going to need to hop off here. But, uh, where Brent, you gotta talk to your dad about this cause you want to go to this conference? Edi. Oh, easy. Easy. I know they call it easy time. What are the dates on these? Okay, you want to go to Amsterdam with this bra? Yes. Sounds great. Yes we do. It's, it's May 17th through the 19th, and it's going to be in Amsterdam and it's going to be an extraordinary event. We're taking the lid off this thing now because, uh, there's, um, the importance of it is growing. Uh, what ECI is doing is they're going to really walk us through the roadmap and they'd been the innovators. It'd probably been the strongest leading innovator company of all the recent companies for just the, the ability to get things done quickly. Put an FSL server size to controller inside of a regular, you know, fit the build of a, of a know basically a controller that it's core for core processors, quad core processors and, and, and it just sort of new paradigm as shaking all the other vendors in there. You're doing something incredible now. They're kind of, they were going to reduce it. They're going to get fs 20. So it's going to use smaller compact is you had the same from inability. It's just cost less money. And so they do the wireless thing. So they've got the FTO for coming out and all those things. Clever and amazing thing. Lim who in charge came up with some very, very interesting things. Eric Stromquist: No, Kenny, you're, you're, you're so right about the technology. But listen, let's focus on the event itself because these guys know how to throw a party where up go to Europe. Okay. And write it off on your taxes. These guys, you'll learn stuff. But man, we've been to all the major soccer stadiums. I made these guys know how to throw a party. It is the best time you'll have. You'll learn a lot. You meet integrators from all around the world now Kenny, Brett and I are going to be there. Maybe Aaron Gorka even show up if he gets out of bed long enough to see what's going on here. But uh, but so that's going on. We've got that. We got real calm. Be Con coming up Kenny in Nashville, Tennessee and then we've got the Afore mentioned a HAYSTAK CONNECT. Hey look, get started. We got to start at the beginning here. We got national [inaudible] you got, what do you mean? We have to start at the beginning to see that much 26 this week we got a major event down in Baltimore. And anybody close to that, you go to it. It's one of the best, uh, you know, uh, in, in our, each department of the country and is great to network and get great training. Uh, it's start, just wait, we have controls con coming up May 2nd through the fourth up there in Detroit. And I'll tell you why that's another one. We have a discount code putting in control trends when you registered. Then we go to project haystack. Okay. May 17th and 18th. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. May I have, we just had the post up so, uh, that's on the side. You can go to the site and check it out, but I'm just with my, my, my emphasis is on bang, Bang, Bang. But the, uh, it's gonna be uh, uh, a resort area too. That's extraordinary. Anyhow, you're right, it's at the Paradise Island, Paradise Island. And uh, it's May 13th through the 15th. I ride right before we go to go to Holland. But it last but not least, June 11th through the 14th real calm. I be con that's going to be in Nashville, Tennessee. And we also have a controls trans code coming from Jim Young and the, excuse me, Howard Berger and Lisa, which too. So we're excited about it because we're starting as a pivot point for this, this incredible information. Obviously people can't make it to all of them, but that's where you need to do your homework. If you're an integrator and you're learning about this stuff, uh, you know, you might want to go to a haystack because you can start using that template. If you're, you're into the integration and you want to work with the latest and greatest set of tools, do you need to get the easy Ios Global World Conference? You get the additional benefit of some travel and they do have a spectacular today program. Uh, and then if you're in the real estate business and you're servicing people that make the need to know how they can make a smarter, more intelligent, more connected building, then you need to go to real calm. So hang on. There's one more county. Hmm. Very well done. That was nicely done. Okay. Very succinct to the point. I love it. Now, if you need an integrator to put all this great technology and we know a pretty good one in Atlanta on name Entech Brett, tell us how people get hold of Edtech and, and some of the things you guys do, Brent Burrows: uh, to get ahold of Entek.com. Uh, you know, go to our website, all the contact information, um, or call Eric and he'll get you over to us. Um, but, uh, but what we do is we try to offer, you know, an an all in one solution. You know, we'd like to thank you. Now we'll do a little bit of everything. What we'll do. Anything that you let us do, you know, Kinda like you said before, you want me to paint it green, I'll paint it green. Yeah. Um, so, uh, so, you know, we do a, the HPAC controls, uh, cardax card access, integrating those systems together. Uh, and then the mechanical HPAC, uh, you know, do all that systems analytics. Um, you know, we try and be, you know, either an all in one solution or if, you know, take one. No, extremely happy with your mechanical company. We'd love to do your controls, vice versa. Eric Stromquist: Well, the other thing too, Brent and I want to bring up your dad and your company has and more national account work. So if you're a big box or even a little box retailer that has multiple locations across the United States, your dad's been doing that for the last 40 years with major accounts. So, you know, a lot of times people that they like assist and they want something put in and uh, uh, I'm going to tell us about your dad before we go. You'll like this canning, uh, all across the country. So you guys do national accounts as well and do a great job with that. So here's the story. How many of you know who doctor Laura is? I don't. Oh Gosh. He had to talk to her. She was like a battle ax. It's like, you know, you've got to be tough. You've got to do this and you, you know kind of like a doctor Phil on steroids, although Dr Phils Kinda cuter and she is but uh anyway your dad is doing a borders bookstore and doctor Laura is, they're doing a book signing and your dad's up on a ladder working, not working on the Vav box and all of a sudden he hears this voice, hey come over here and move these books and he kind of looks down and goes, who's doctor Laura or she's asking me to go do some stuff. So I just waved at her and went right back up and just anyone you ever get a chance to talk to branch dad had worlds, one of the funniest guys and then she wanted the best story tellers rent. Man, thank you so much for being on the show this week. Very excited about what you and Erin, you're going to come up with a herons. Episode seven is up on control, a controlled product. I'm going to see control controlled fence.com was a great episode and I guess starting at episode eight will probably be you and him working together. So excited about that and they controlled trans community is lucky to have you on board, so thank you for doing this. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me looking forward. All right, so now, now I know you normally listen to the podcast so we got to practice this outro, Ken Smyers: two more things real quick. I'm sorry this is part of the show. Okay, go ahead. Well anyhow, uh, we do have a shout out. We want to shout out to Bill Schafer. He commented on the Scott Cochrane, um, article that we posted in Scott's comments and the, you know, just to give you an idea of the flavor and the interesting inputs we get controlled transits that I've read Scott Cochrane's article on automated buildings. I've been involved in a couple of projects with temporary networks were necessary. So I found Stanford solution. Interesting. Your article left me with a couple of questions and thoughts about using Ip controllers versus MSTP controllers and how vendors in it departments handle them. And so we have, uh, an opportunity for we forward that to Scott for a response, but we invite all our control trans community to please, these are the kinds of conversations and dialogues we'd love to have because everybody benefits from it. You might get your own little answer. Uh, you know, you might get your own private answer or young interest answer, uh, responded to, but we all benefit from it. And then last but not least, I want to compliment Eric Strom quest, who's the most hardest working creative, innovative social media guy out there? Eric, he put up four youtube videos. Tell us, tell us about each one real quick. One minute or less on each one of them. Eric Stromquist: Why? Can't really remember all. But as we said on the show last week, we get content up quicker on the youtube channel. So Brent, I don't know about you, but you know how long, a lot from youtube. So we get a lot of questions. Like, for example, we have one on, what's the difference between two way and three way valves, which a ghuy like you knows , but we created a video for that. Uh, and so we are going to be putting more and more HVAC TECH TRAING VIDEOS on our YOUTUBE CHANNEL. Youtube content up here. So please subscribe to the channel. New Speaker: stromquist.com dmsconytrols.com ent https://kit.com/ControlTrends/gear-we-use-to-shoot-the-show https://kit.com/ControlTrends/books-we-recommened

ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings VideoCast|PodCast for week ending Oct 23, 2016 starts with the release of the 2016 ControlTrends Awards Nomination Ballot! This is your opportunity to ensure your organization’s champions and the great people, products, and solutions in our industry are recognized. Two new categories have been added to the awards: ControlTrends Women of the Year and ControlTrends Most Impactful Video of the Year. Also this week: Video from the Geek Group; AHR EXPO Innovation Award Announcement; CANDI announces its PowerTools software has been integrated with the Intel® Building Management Platform (Intel® BMP); $6.5 Million DOE Funding Opportunity; Next Generation Innovation Episode 001 released; Contemporary Controls at Plugfest 2016; EasyIO’s Mike Marston Demos FW-14; and CBERD: U.S. and India PACE Update. ControlTalk Now The Smart Buildings Video Cast Episode 202 from Eric Stromquist on Vimeo. Electronics How-To: Relays the Basics a Contractor Needs to Know. Cool video from the Geek Group on relays! Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, The Geek Group provides access to science, technology, engineering and math by developing programming and facilities for individuals and institutions to learn, explore, innovate and play at an independent pace according to their needs. The Geek Group has many thousands of members scattered across the globe, in every state in the US and one hundred and forty-two countries. Come help us build Awesome! Thanks Chris, well done. ControlTrends Breaking News AHR Expo Innovation Awards Donates $22,500 to Opportunity Village. WESTPORT, Conn., October 18, 2016 – Each year as part of its submission process, the AHR Expo Innovation Awards Competition collects entry fees that are then donated in full to a charitable organization within regional proximity to the corresponding year’s show. For 2017, the AHR Expo announces Opportunity Village as the recipient of $22,500 in AHR Expo Innovation Awards proceeds, to be directly applied toward HVACR upgrades and new equipment purchases at three existing and one new campus location. CANDI Integrates with Intel Building Management Platform to Provide Edge-to-Cloud IoT Data Access. October 20, 2016 – CANDI today announced that its PowerTools software has been integrated with the Intel® Building Management Platform (Intel® BMP), which is now available. Intel® BMP is a manageable IoT platform with built-in security that enables cloud-based smart building applications and services with easy access to the data and things in small to mid- sized buildings. CANDI-enabled gateways simplify smart building deployments by making it quick and easy—and often automatic—to integrate smart products such as meters, switches, thermostats, lights, sensors, cameras, and building controls. Make Your 2016 ControlTrends Awards Nominations Today!ControlTrends is excited to announce that the 2016 ControlTrends Awards nomination period has begun. This is your opportunity to ensure your organization’s champions and the great people, products, and solutions in our industry are recognized. Two new categories have been added to the awards: ControlTrends Women of the Year and ControlTrends Most Impactful Video of the Year. Click here for the Nomination Ballot! ENERGY DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES $6.5 MILLION TO SCALE UP THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF US COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS. Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) Number: DE-FOA-0001518: The Building Technologies Office (BTO) has announced the availability of $6.5 million for DE-FOA-0001518, “Scaling Up the Next Generation of Building Efficiency Packages.” BTO seeks proposals driving innovation in real building technology demonstrations while also fostering the collaboration of dynamic demonstration teams. The General Services Administration (GSA) Green Proving Ground program is a key collaborator, will participate in the review committee, and offer demonstration host sites. Next Generation Innovation Episode 001. Next Generation Innovation is all about Smart Buildings and Smart People from The Young Guns Perspective. Rob Allen from Stromquist and Company along with his rotating co-hosts Josh Felperin, Jason Houck and Brad White invite guests to discuss HVAC, Lighting, Security and Smart Building Controls and their perspective of how it all fits and works together. Whether you’re a manufacturer, contractor, distributor or end user there will definitely be something you’ll enjoy on the Next Generation Innovation podcast. Contemporary Controls Plugging in from New Hampshire, at the 2016 BACnet International Plugfest. October 2016 – The BACnet International Plugfest 2016 at the InterOperability Lab at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire gave attendees the opportunity to live test new products and features. The conference, for manufacturers of BACnet products, allows attendees to test their BACnet products with BACnet devices from other attendees in a neutral and friendly environment. “One of the benefits of attending PlugFest is the chance to test new products,” said Mingshu Wang, an engineer at Contemporary Controls. “We attend PlugFest every year because it gives us a unique chance to see how our products interact with those from another company.” EasyIO’s Mike Marston Demos the FW-14 Live at Pittsburgh’s Carpenter’s KML Apprentice Training Facility. ControlTrends had the opportunity to join Mike Marston, VP Worldwide Sales at EasyIO Holdings, when visited with Pat Butler, Facility Manager at KML Carpenters, and Dave Simmers, a Systems Integrator with Renick Brothers Mechanical Contractors. Mike demos the awesome new FW-14 wireless controller technology that uses BACnet over IP and Mesh to Mesh integration between controllers using live wire sheets (no uploading/down loading). Great demo video! CBERD: The Eagle and the Tiger: U.S.-India Partnership Advancing Building Energy Efficiency Innovations. The United States and India have a long and successful strategic partnership in the energy sector. In November 2009, the United States and India launched the Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE), which is working to accelerate inclusive, low carbon growth by supporting research and deployment of clean energy technologies. Under PACE-R (research), the U.S. and India support research in solar energy, building energy efficiency, advanced biofuels, smart grid, and energy storage. The post ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings VideoCast|PodCast for Week Ending Oct 23, 2016 appeared first on ControlTrends.

Be Efficient Tv offers tips and tricks from leading experts to help you make your life and business more efficient through an in depth interviews with different thoughtful leaders, business experts, authors, founders and millionaires. You will discover strategies that you can implement easily into your everyday life to help you save time and make the most of the time that you have. Experts from a variety of backgrounds and industries are interviewed regularly to reveal their personal secrets for being more productive. Whether you are interested in learning more about what it takes to start your own business or you simply want to be more productive in your daily affairs, the experts interviewed on Be Efficient Tv can help you to be more effective, well-organized, and efficient to boost your daily life and business experience and achieve bigger outcome and results with less time, effort, and cost. Be Efficient Tv is a perfect fit for Entrepreneurs and Wantrepreneurs Be Efficient Tv is hosted by Ahmed Al Kiremli a Serial Entrepreneur, Business Advisor, Learning Junky and Efficiency Expert. He has founded many different Offline & Online Businesses, such as (IRAQI TOUCH) the first Iraqi food franchise in the world, (GAMES CORNER) an inventive gaming brand leveraging “dead space” within malls and subsequently franchised the concept, (CLIMB AND SLIDE) a kids playground franchise concept, (BEST MOVIE RATINGS) the world’s best movie ratings app, (AhmedAlKiremli.com) a consultancy business & blog, and (BeEfficient.Tv) What Are the Types and Level of Experts on Be Efficient Tv? • The world’s top visionaries, thoughtful leaders, mentors, thinkers, business experts, advisors, and consultants. • Billionaires and millionaires. • Founders and CEOs for different companies and startups. • Authors/book editors/agents / publishers. • Investors, angel investors, VCs, and private equity experts. • Marketing strategists, technology evangelists, bloggers, developers, and Internet marketing experts. • Efficiency and productivity experts. • Successful entrepreneurs, so we can learn from their success stories and failures. • High-level executives in big companies, so we can learn from their career paths and experiences in their sectors or departments. • Top athletes, Olympians, and Paralympians. • Health and fitness experts. • Mindset and wellbeing experts. For Whom Is Be Efficient Tv? Entrepreneurs and Wantrepreneurs • People who want to improve their life and business and make them more efficient through learning. • Entrepreneurs who want to be more efficient and excel in their journey. • People who want to be happy and fulfilled by finding their real purpose and acting on it to achieve their vision and add value to the world. • Entrepreneurs who want to automate their business. • People who want to use innovative hacks to automate their life and business and make them more efficient. • Different types of businesses and startups. • Employees who want to transition from the employment life to the entrepreneurial life. • Employees who want to be entrepreneurs without creating a job with a larger time commitment. • Employees who want to have a more efficient career path. • People who want to add value to the world and leave this world with a great legacy. Ahmed Al Kiremli: Hi everyone this is Ahmed Al Kiremli and welcome to Be Efficient Tv. The mission of this web TV show is to boost the efficiency of your business and life through tips and tricks from leading experts. Introduction Yousif Almutawa is the Chief Information Officer of DP World, Accelerator Program Director of TURN8, former VP of Du and also worked in the IT Management team for Dubai eGovernment Bio Yousif Almutawa is the Chief Information Officer of DP World, responsible for all Information Systems and Information Technology management. Prior to joining DP World, Mr Almutawa worked for du, a telecommunications service provider in the UAE, as Vice President for Fixed Access Network Implementation. He played a key role in the buildup and formation of Du’s telecom infrastructure. Mr Almutawa also spearheaded the Programme Management Office for the Telecom Department at Dubai Internet City, which later became part of du. As a telecoms professional, he was responsible for the rollout of next generation networks for new real estate developments across Dubai. His function included streamlining overall projects and programmes within the organisation at its early startup stage. He has also worked and successfully contributed his expertise as a member of the IT Management team for Dubai eGovernment during its startup phase. Mr Almutawa holds a BSc in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from California State University, Sacramento, USA. His past roles also include an eBusiness Consultant, a Systems Integrator and an Internet professional for various companies in California. About DP World DP World has a portfolio of more than 65 marine terminals across six continents(1), including new developments underway in India, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Container handling is the company’s core business and generates more than three quarters of its revenue. In 2013, DP World handled 55 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent container units). With its committed pipeline of developments and expansions, capacity is expected to rise to more than 100 million TEU by 2020, in line with market demand. DP World has a dedicated, experienced and professional team of around 30,000 people serving its customers around the world, and the company constantly invests in terminal infrastructure, facilities and people to provide quality services today and tomorrow, when and where customers need them. In taking this customer-centric approach, DP World is building on the established relationships and superior level of service demonstrated at its flagship Jebel Ali facility in Dubai, which has been voted “Best Seaport in the Middle East” for 20 consecutive years. About TURN8 TURN8 is a seed accelerator program organized by DP World and powered by Innovation 360. The program is designed to encourage innovative entrepreneurship worldwide, starting with Dubai. TURN8 seeks ingenious ideas that can be refined and brought to market through a 120-day seed accelerator. Visit http://turn8.co. Website & Social Media links: http://dpworld.com http://turn8.co https://angel.co/yousif-almutawa https://twitter.com/turn8hub http://i360accelerator.com https://twitter.com/i360accelerator https://www.facebook.com/i360accelerator http://thecribb.cohttps://twitter.com/yjalmutawa https://www.linkedin.com/pub/yousif-almutawa/3/a18/897 Questions   What’s your background, how did you start in the Technology and Telecommunication section? Where did you study? What was your main contribution in Dubai E Government and what’s Dubai E Government? Whats TECOM, its services and what was your main achievement their? What was your main role in forming Du? What’s Fixed Access Network Implementation? Why Du was struggling at the beginning of its forming in terms of quality of service and how do you think its doing now? Is your mobile is Du or Etisalat? Why you decided to join DP World? What are the main companies under the flag of DP World and why DP world get involve in many different companies that has nothing to do with its main sector? How DP world moved from Local port operator to Regional port operator then Global port operator, take us through the journey briefly? Why DP World decided to support the startups echo system? I360acccelerator Vs. Turn8 Vs. The Cribb? How the journey of Turn8 started? How Turn8 works? How much Turn8 initiative is costing the DP world per year? And when you think it will be profitable? Is DP world intention is to continue this program even if its not profitable? Tell us more about your other projects that you are currently working on or planning for the future? Share with us some of the tools or software that make you more efficient? What’s your daily life and work routine looks like? What are your other hobbies? Who are your top 3 mentors? The most important factors for success in 3 words? What’s the biggest failure moment in your life and what did you learn from it? What are the Top 3 apps that you use on your smart phone? What are the habits that you are trying to develop to stay efficient? What’s the best advice that you ever received? If you have the chance, what would you say to advice your younger self? What are your top 3 favorite books? What are the top 3 people that you are inspired by? What makes you really happy? How people can contact you?   Do you have any notes or suggestions to improve Be Efficient Tv?

ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings VideoCast and Podcast for week ending January 17, 2016, includes Drone Enthusiast and J2 Innovation’s VP of Marketing, Scott Muench; Systems Integrator of the Year nominees Brian Allen from ATS Automation, Seattle, WA and Fred Rotella and Brent Bernardi from Alpha Controls and Services, Rockford, IL. Additionally, we have a great interview with Marc Bergeron, President of ProLon, a leading manufacturer of HVAC control systems designed specifically for zoning systems in commercial applications. Please ensure to cast your 2015 ControlTrends Awards Vote by Tuesday, January 19th! ATS Automation is centered in Renton, Washington, and is partnered with Alerton Technologies, Phoenix Controls, Aircuity, and Convergint Technologies. ATS Automation is a distributor for Alerton, Phoenix, and Aircuity in our respective marketplaces. Convergint Technologies partners with ATS on key projects to provide a greater scope and depth to our building solutions. ATS Automation has a deep history with all four companies in delivering quality product installations and support. ATS also has strong business relationships with Tridium through Controlco and Honeywell, Belimo Valves and Actuators, S4 Integration, and SkySpark through SkyFoundry. Marc Bergeron, President of ProLon Inc, out of Montreal, Canada, and leading manufacturers of HVAC control systems designed specifically for zoning systems in commercial applications. ProLon provides efficient solutions to HVAC contactors in North America and around the world at a very competitive cost. ProLon offers its solutions through its network of North American distributors to commercial contractors. ProLon has a team consisting of the industry’s best professionals. ProLon aims to develop efficient systems and reliable products that meet the expectations of an increasingly demanding market. With over 2000 completed projects to date, ProLon’s team offers a zoning system that will suit you as well as your commercial projects. Alpha Controls & Services LLC specializes in temperature-control solutions, Building Management Systems, Energy Management Systems, and Access Control solutions for industrial, commercial, and institutional buildings. It installs new systems and retrofits existing ones through a full-service organization that helps clients maintain their facility systems and operations at optimal levels. With offices in Rockford, Springfield, and Champaign, Illinois, Alpha Controls & Services is a field office for Schneider Electric – one of the most extensive suppliers of integrated Building Management Systems and a leader in automated information technology for today’s and tomorrow’s intelligent buildings. Meet drone Captain Scott Muench, aka B.Scott Muench, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at J2 Innovations. In this video we get to see Scott as Drone Pilot Extraordinaire, and hear how he became a drone enthusiast while working as a systems integrator at Technical Building Services. in upstate New York. Scott also discusses the very serious parallels that exists between drones and PID and tuning used in building automation, and how the benefits of drones, soon to be realized, will become integrated with our day-to-day lives. Excitement continues to build as the 2015 ControlTrends Awards event grows near! As a reminder the 2015 ControlTrends Awards will be held January 24, 2016, from 6:30PM to 9:30PM, at Orlando’s Hard Rock Live, located at the door step to the amazing Universal Studios. Join us is celebrating the heroes and superstars of our HVAC and the Building Automation industries. VOTE NOW! The post ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings VideoCast and Podcast for Week Ending January 17, 2016 appeared first on ControlTrends.

ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings VideoCast and Podcast for week ending January 10, 2016 begins our direct focus on those people, products, and solutions — that you, our ControlTrends Community, have nominated for the 2015 ControlTrends Awards. We have three guest interview with Honeywell’s Larry Andriunas, Tridium Vykon’s Ed Merwin and Systems Integrator of the Year nominee McKenney’s. Next, we review the Executive of the Year category for both large and small manufacturers and the new Systems Integrator category, featuring seven of the top systems integrators. To ensure maximum dissemination and response, the 2015 ControlTrends Awards voting deadline has been extended till January 19th, 2016. ControlTalk NOW’s first interview guest is Director of Commercial Sales at Honeywell and PID Nominee Larry Andriunas. Larry’s extensive HVAC experience as contractor installing and servicing systems give him a second perspective and understanding into the multitude of challenges facing the distribution and contracting industries. Additionally, Larry shares Honeywell’s philosophy on customer service and technical support and highlighting a few of the major contribtors, as well reviewing Honeywell’s next generation product platform. ControlTalk NOW’s second interview guest is Director, Vykon Automation Energy Security at Tridium and PID Nominee Ed Merwin, one of the most venerated Building Automation and Smart Building Solutions experts in the industry (2013 ControlTrends PID Award Co-winner). Ed reviews the hardware platform and the built-in features of the JACE-8000 Vykon’s next generation controller, the Niagara 4 Platform, Tridium’s latest innovation — the Niagara Market Place, and the upcoming 2016 Niagara Summit to be held in New Orleans. ControlTalk NOW’s third interview guest is McKenney’s Inc, with offices in Atlanta, GA and Charlotte, NC. Featuring Single-Source Reliability, McKenney’s has developed a wide-range of services for every stage of a building’s lifecycle — from Design and Build to Manage and Maintain. For over six decades, we’ve combined superior mechanical construction expertise and proven processes with professional engineers and skilled tradesmen to provide high-quality solutions and exceptional performance. We’re uniquely positioned to deliver single-source, full-service accountability for every project, every time. About McKenney’s: Since 1948, we have been developing services and expertise to serve you at every stage of your building. Self-performance of all trades, in-house shops and over six decades of experience have made us the top choice in mechanical contractors, providing highly efficient mechanical systems and a full range of services that meet your unique needs. The post ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings VideoCast and Podcast for Week Ending January 10, 2016 appeared first on ControlTrends.

Welcome to ControlTalk NOW for the week ending May 31, 2015, that also includes some posts we delayed while away at Haystack Connect, which dominated the ControlTrends horizon with interviews with Brian Frank, Anno Scholten, Richard McElhinney, Marc Petock, Jason Briggs, Scott Meunch, Jason Houck, Ken Sinclair, Andy McGowan, and many more. Realcomm|IBcom is next week and there’s still time to register. The registration link for EasyIO’s Global Event in Paris is up as well. Awesome interviews with CGNA Vendors: Blue Ridge Technologies, Siemens, Honeywell Genesis, and Functional Devices. Featured updates from DGLogik, who teamed with QA Graphics, and Sierra Monitor’s EZ Gateway Webinar and Wastewater Application and much more! Realcomm & IBcon General Session Program Announced — Register NOW!General Session Program Announced! June 8-10 meeting in San Antonio, TX. Be sure to take advantage of the special ControlTrends Rate: $895.00 — valid till 6/1/15. Use Promo Code: IB15CTL1. The impact that technology, automation and innovation have had on the commercial and corporate real estate industry over the last 3-5 years is unprecedented. The 2014 ControlTrends Awards HighLight Reel. Watch this video to re-live the excitement of the 2014 ControlTrends Awards. Thanks again to all our sponsors for making this event possible. A special thanks to our emcee’s Marc Petock and Kimberly Brown. Plans for the 2015 ControlTrends Awards, in Orlando, FL, are already underway. Thanks, once again to all of our sponsors and the continued support and participation from our global ControlTrends Community. CGNA Vendor Showcase: Blue Ridge Technologies. Blue Ridge technologies is a great example of the quality vendors that are represented in the group. As you can see in this video, Bill and his team provide a very powerful and easy to use lighting solutions. Blue Ridge Technologies has developed an approach called Unified Lighting Control. Siemens has a winner with the RDY2000 Thermostat. ControlTrends caught up with Siemens at the 2015 CGNA Vendor Showcase. They introduced us to several cool new products. One of the ones we like a lot is the RDY2000 light commercial thermostat.The RDY2000 thermostat that has big time features for small business solutions. Contemporary Controls’ BASintegratorJ2: Niagara AX Integration via Haystack. May 2015 — The BASintegratorJ2 uses a subset of J2innovations’s FIN stack to create a powerful, yet flexible intelligent gateway that integrates Modbus and BACnet points up to Project Haystack clients. Built on Contemporary Controls’ open automation Linux platform, the BASintegratorJ2 can discover points and apply Haystack tags to serve up to building supervisors such as Niagara’s AX Supervisor. Sierra Monitor’s Webinar: Introduction to the EZ Gateway. Register today for an educational webinar introducing our new EZ Gateway! Integrating Modbus devices into BACnet networks is a common field application. Completing this integration in an efficient, reliable, and repeatable fashion is a requirement in today’s environment. Our expert instructor, Richard Theron, will discuss how simple it is to connect Modbus devices to BACnet systems with the EZ Gateway and how to lower commissioning time and costs with features such as EZ Profiles and DeviceProxy. CGNA 2015 Vendor Show Case: Honeywell Genesis Cable. All great control systems need the right cable and wire. ControlTrends caught up with Randy Lee, VP Sales, Electrical & HVAC Division and Honeywell Genesis Series Cable, at the 2015 CGNA Vendor Showcase and got the 411 on Honeywell’s new merchandising efforts, which include adding Contractor Pro Point rewards, new point of sale displays, and the new wire legend — marked on every reel, to know exactly how much more wire is left in the box. Haystack Connect 2015: Open Source Community Resumes Plenary Session, Colorado Springs, CO.The majestic snow covered Pikes Peak contrasted by the wondrous earthy red rock formations of the Garden of the Gods provided a suitably inspiring setting for Haystack Connect as it resumed its mission to adroitly usher in the world of self-defining data — in a collaborative way that no single-minded entity could possibly achieve. Marc Petock and three special guests, Brian Frank, Anno Scholten, and Richard McElhinney join ControlTrends for a pre-reception discussion of why some 240 of the top global automation and IoT professionals are attending the second Haystack Connect meeting. 2015 Haystack Connect Day One — General Session, Opening Comments, and Keynote Speakers. Marc Petock and John Petze hit the stage running and kicked off the 2015 Haystack Connect with a grateful thanks to the Project Haystack Sponsors and its 900 Haystack community members, 245 of which, were present at the General Session. Project Haystack grown by 45% over the last two years. Special recognition was given to Lynxspring, Contemporary Controls, KMC’s Conquest, J2 Innovations, BASSG, and Plant Pro/Air Masters for their efforts in developing Haystack applications. “Off to a Great Start!” Project Haystack’s Executive Director John Petze Reports. Executive Director, John Petze, regaled ControlTrends with the exciting news that 2015 Haystack Connect is off to a great start: New people, new vendors, more consultants, and the spirit of collaboration that includes the likes of Siemens, have all helped Project Haystack emerge as the leading initiative that helps people, at all levels, get more value from their systems. In order to use advanced analytic techniques, enhanced reporting, and comprehensive energy analysis, you must go through the process of tagging data. 2015 Haystack Connect — Day 2 Highlights — Interoperable Blues Band Rocks the House! Day Two of 2015 Haystack Connect began with a hoax-busting integration experience, as Jason Briggs and Scott Muench configured a Haystack project involving 10 participating vendors, employing a uniquely entertaining and unprecedented live demonstration of the potency and inevitability of Haystack tagging (Video to follow). Adoption of Haystack’s naming conventions and taxonomies — will make it more cost effective to analyze, visualize, and derive value from our operational data, period. New Product Review: Functional Devices BACnet Network Relay. ControlTrends had a chance to catch up with Kelly Holmes from Functional Devices at the 2015 CGNA Vendor Showcase. Kelly showed us a cool new product from Functional Devices, the RIBTW24B-BCAO enclosed BACnet® MS/TP Network Relay Device. Functional Devices designs products that make the contractors life easier. Competitively priced and easy to use the RIBTW24B-BCAD is no exception. Haystack Connect from a Systems Integrator’s Perspective. Project Haystack is an open source initiative to streamline working with data from the Internet of Things. We standardize semantic data models and web services with the goal of making it easier to unlock value from the vast quantity of data being generated by the smart devices that permeate our homes, buildings, factories, and cities. Applications include automation, control, energy, HVAC, lighting, and other environmental systems. To find out why it is so important to today’s master systems integrators we tracked down one of the smartest building automation controls systems integrators on the planet, Jason Houck, from Hepta Systems. See what Jason had to say. EasyIO Global Event — Sponsors and Speakers Welcome. Belimo Goes Gold! EasyIO’s first global partner event in Madrid, Spain was a gathering of EasyIO success stories from around the world. The deep networking between manufacturers and vendors, specifying engineers, 3rd party solution providers, systems integrators, and a rather new entity to the scene — solution entrepreneurs with accomplished technical skills and the dashboard/analytic/graphic tools to meet every application, large and small, was a unique integration meld. DGLogik Updates: May 27th-29th Training & DGLogik Partnership with QA Graphics.May 27th-29th in Oakland: DGLogik, Inc. will be hosting DGLux5 Application Development Training course at our headquarters in Oakland. The training course takes place from Wednesday, May 27th through Friday, May 29th. Take advantage of progressing your rapid development skills through our collaborative training exercises. 2015 Haystack Connect Highlight: Ken Sinclair Interviews Jack McGowan. ControlTrends’ good friend Ken Sinclair, of Automated Buildings, interviews Jack McGowan, of The McGowan Group, immediately after Jack’s Keynote presentation at Haystack Connect’s Day 2 General Session. This candid video captures the two long-time friends and industry titans, discussing Jack’s sixth book, published by Fairmont Press and available August 1, 2015. The book entitled “Energy & Analytics, Big Data, and Building Technology Integration.” Christopher Naismith Weighs in at 2015 Haystack Connect. What is the fastest way to teach your organization,and have your people stay smarter than your competition? To find out we turned to our friend,Ken Sinclair, from automated buildings.com. Ken introduces us to Christopher Naismith. Chris, is the training manager at SES Consulting. Ken and Chris discuss the concept of “self learning cultures.” Fascinating! Contemporary Controls’ George Thomas at 2015 Haystack Connect. ControlTrends caught up with Contemporary Control’s George Thomas at the 2015 Haystack Connect Vendor Show. George shares his insights into Haystack Connect — and, how several of the Contemporary Controls products integrate very nicely with Haystack. KMC Representatives Attend Dell Annual Analyst Conference. KMC Controls, a leader in building automation systems, today announced its participation in the Dell Annual Analyst Conference in Austin, Texas from May 27th through May 29th. The Dell team invited KMC’s Richard Newberry and Erich Kreuter as strategic envoys to the high-profile event. Dell and KMC are firmly committed to bringing the power of the Internet of Things to building automation by enabling secure, timely access and control of building systems and data to building owners and property managers. Jason Briggs on The Power of Haystack Tags. ControlTrends caught up with Jason Briggs from J2 Innovations at the 2015 Haystack Connect Conference. Jason talks about the power of Haystack and how it is changing the way we are able to get and use data in Smart Buildings. Jason founded J2 Innovations in 2009, and has passionately provided the vision and direction for the emerging software company. Jason is now focused on empowering J2’s customers to have similar success, by creating powerful engineering tools, visualization, and software technology. Sierra Monitor’s Featured Application: Wastewater Treatment. Sierra Monitor knows the Wastewater application inside and out. Consider using Sierra Monitor’s expertise and products for your next wastewater project — instrumenting the wastewater plant with one of the most comprehensive gas detection, alarming,and mitigation systems available. Although detecting hazardous gases within a wastewater treatment facility is important, integrating gas detection and alarm systems with SCADA’s, PLC’s, or BMS’s is equally as important. Brian Frank Explains How Haystack Works. Who better than Brian Frank to address the crowd and explain how Haystack works? Project Haystack seeks to make this a machine to machine effort using self-describing data that would eliminate significant costs. Project Haystack: It’s time to make the use of self-describing data — the specified norm. Well done Brian! The post ControlTalk NOW for the Week Ending May 31, 2015 appeared first on ControlTrends.

Elizabeth M. Christy lives in Northern Virginia with her husband James, son Jimmy (5), and daughter Lucy (newborn). She is the best-selling author of the children’s book "Why Does Mommy Hurt? Helping Children Cope with having a Caregiver with Chronic Pain, Fibromyalgia, or Autoimmune Disease," and blogs on parentswithpain.com and potomacfallsmama.blogspot.ca.  Additionally, she works as a Systems Integrator for TASC. In addition to basic survival, Elizabeth enjoys writing, sewing (especially in straight lines!), and reading good memoirs.“Why Does Mommy Hurt?” is a great resource to talk to children about chronic pain and illness. In this episode, we discuss the guilt and shame many parents suffering from chronic pain feel about their parenting. The fact is that parents with chronic pain or illness can be just as awesome as “normal” parents when it comes to raising kids, and if you love your kids, that’s all that matters.  We may not be able to walk a mile to the playground, cook a 7-course organic meal from scratch, or volunteer on a field trip to the amusement park, but that’s not what really matters. If you love your kids, you will find your own way, and your kids will know it. Also, many parents in this situation feel very alone, especially when first diagnosed. There are millions of families out there in the same situation, you are not alone, and you have support out there waiting for you!

Nikos Avaritsiotis, responsible for new business development at Hotech, talks on the potentials of NFC whether it be ticketing, loyalty schemes, event management, identity, control, data collection and more. They’ve already expanded in the Middle East and were eager to find more partners through MWC14. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

Un'implementazione di Windows 7 può fornire le opportunità per far crescere la tua azienda tramite le esigenze dei tuoi clienti medi e piccoli, fornendo installazioni di hardware redditizie, software di upsell e servizi che consentono di rafforzare le relazioni con i clienti. Per scoprire in che modo, ascolta questa presentazione di Winni Verhoef, Senior Product Manager del Team di client Windows di Microsoft. Si parlerà di quali sono le opportunità e di come vengono sfruttate dai channel partner di maggior successo.

Windows 7の導入により、小規模/中規模企業のニーズへの対応を通してビジネスを拡大していく機会が得られます。たとえば、より大きな利益をもたらすハードウェアの導入や、お客様との関係を強化するソフトウェアやサービスのアップセルなどが挙げられます。 このプレゼンテーションでは、MicrosoftのWindowsクライアントチームのシニアプロダクトマネージャであるWinni Verhoef氏が、その方法について説明しています。 どこにそのような機会があるのか、そして他のチャネルパートナーはいかのその機会を獲得して成功を収めているのか、といった内容についてお話しします。

La implementación de Windows 7 puede ofrecerle oportunidades para hacer crecer su negocio a través de las necesidades de sus clientes de pequeñas y medianas empresas, con implementaciones más grandes y rentables de hardware, software de ampliación de ventas y servicios que le permitirán reforzar las relaciones con sus clientes. Para descubrir cómo, escuche esta presentación de Winni Verhoef, experto gerente de productos de Windows Client Team en Microsoft. Hablará sobre dónde están las oportunidades y explicará qué hacen los partners de canal más exitosos para capturar esas oportunidades.

Una implementación de Windows 7 puede brindar oportunidades para el crecimiento de su empresa a través de las necesidades de sus pequeños y medianos clientes, al proporcionar implementaciones rentables de hardware, software de venta sugestiva y servicios que le permiten fortalecer las relaciones con sus clientes. Escuche esta presentación de Winni Verhoef, Gerente sénior de productos para el Windows Client Team de Microsoft, y descubra cómo. Hablará acerca de dónde están las oportunidades y qué hacen los socios de canal más exitosos para capturarlas.

Внедрение ОС Windows 7 может обеспечить дополнительный рост вашего бизнеса, поскольку учитывает требования клиентов — малых и средних предприятий. Предоставляет выгодные варианты развертывания аппаратного обеспечения и стимулирует покупку более дорогого ПО и услуг, которые укрепляют партнерские отношения. Чтобы получить дополнительную информацию, прослушайте эту презентацию, созданную Winni Verhoef, старшим менеджером по продукции в группе по работе с клиентами Windows корпорации Microsoft. Ознакомившись с этой презентацией, вы узнаете о коммерческих возможностях и о том, какие партнеры Dell по каналу сбыта смогут реализовать их.

Windows 7을 구현하면 중소기업 고객의 요구 사항을 충족하는 과정에서 고객과의 관계를 공고하게 구축하는 동시에 수익성 높은 하드웨어를 배포하고 소프트웨어와 서비스를 상향 판매함으로써 귀사의 비즈니스를 빠르게 성장시킬 수 있는 기회를 얻을 수 있습니다. Microsoft의 Windows 클라이언트 팀에서 선임 제품 관리자를 역임하고 있는 Winni Verhoef가 진행하는 이 프레젠테이션을 듣고 자세한 방법에 대해 알아보십시오. 이 프레젠테이션에서는 이러한 영업 기회가 잠재된 분야와 기회 포착에 성공한 채널 파트너들이 어떤 노력을 기울이고 있는지 자세히 알려드릴 것입니다.

Die Einführung von Windows 7 bietet Ihnen die Möglichkeit, Ihre Umsätze durch den Bedarf bei Ihren kleinen und mittelständischen Unternehmenskunden zu steigern. Sie bieten gewinnbringende Hardwarebereitstellungen an und verkaufen zusätzliche Software und Services, mit denen Sie Ihre Kundenbeziehungen stärken können. Verfolgen Sie diese Präsentation von Winni Verhoef, Senior Product Manager für das Windows Client Team bei Microsoft, um mehr darüber zu erfahren. Er erläutert, wo die Chancen liegen und wie die erfolgreichsten Channel-Partner sie ergreifen.

Une implémentation de Windows&7 peut vous offrir des opportunités de développer votre entreprise en fonction des besoins de vos clients des petites et moyennes entreprises grâce à la possibilité de déployer du matériel de façon rentable, ainsi qu'à des ventes incitatives de logiciels et de services qui vous aident à renforcer vos relations avec les clients. Pour découvrir comment, écoutez cette présentation de Winni Verhoef, responsable produit de l’équipe Windows Client de Microsoft. Il expliquera où se trouvent les opportunités et quelles sont les stratégies utilisées par les meilleurs partenaires de distribution pour les saisir.

Uma implementação do Windows 7 pode criar oportunidades para você ampliar seus negócios através das necessidades de seus clientes de pequenas e médias empresas, oferecendo implantações de hardware lucrativas, venda adicional de software e serviços que permitem fortalecer o relacionamento com seus clientes. Ouça esta apresentação por Winni Verhoef, Gerente de produto sênior da equipe de clientes Windows da Microsoft, para saber como. Na apresentação, ele falará sobre onde encontrar essas oportunidades e o que os parceiros de canal de mais sucesso estão fazendo para aproveitá-las.

An implementation of Windows 7 can provide opportunities for you to grow your business through the needs of your small and mid-sized customers – providing profitable deployments of hardware, up-sell software and services that allow you to strengthen your customer relationships. Listen to this presentation by Winni Verhoef, Senior Product Manager for the Windows Client Team at Microsoft, to find out how. He’ll talk about where the opportunities are and what the most successful channel partners are doing to capture them.

Escuche esta presentación de Jeffrey Shomper, gerente principal de marketing de Microsoft Windows Business Group. Hoy vamos a hablar sobre Microsoft Windows 7 y lo que eso significa para los socios del canal, dónde está el valor, y cómo lo pueden aprovechar para lograr grandes oportunidades de venta, tanto en ventas de hardware y software como en servicios.

Прослушайте эту презентацию, представленную Джеффри Шомпером (Jeffrey Shomper), главным менеджером по маркетингу Microsoft Windows Business Group. Сегодня мы поговорим об ОС Microsoft Windows 7 и о том, какие возможности она открывает для официальных партнеров; как извлечь выгоду и как воспользоваться особенностями этой ОС, чтобы создавать прекрасные возможности для продажи услуг, программного и аппаратного обеспечения.

Listen to this presentation by Jeffrey Shomper, Senior Marketing Manager for the Microsoft Windows Business Group. He’ll talk about Microsoft Windows 7 and what that means for channel partners, where the value is, and how you can leverage it to make great sales opportunities both on hardware and software sales, as well as on services.

Assista à apresentação de Jeffrey Shomper, gerente sênior de marketing para o Microsoft Windows Business Group. Ele falará sobre o Microsoft Windows 7 e o que isso significa para os parceiros de canal, qual o seu valor e como você pode aproveitar para fazer ótimas oportunidades de vendas de hardware e software, bem como de serviços.

欢迎收听本期节目，本期节目的主讲人为微软Windows业务部高级市场营销经理Jeffrey Shomper。 他将介绍微软Windows 7及其对渠道合作伙伴的意义和价值，以及如何帮助您创造硬件、软件以及服务销售良机。

Präsentation von Jeffrey Shomper, Senior Marketing Manager der Microsoft Windows Business Group. Gegenstand dieser Präsentation ist Microsoft Windows 7 und seine Bedeutung für Channel-Partner, wie Sie es nutzen und optimal zur Schaffung bedeutender Vertriebschancen für Hardware und Software sowie für Services einsetzen können.

Microsoft WindowsビジネスグループのシニアマーケティングマネージャであるJeffrey Shomper氏のプレゼンテーションをお聴きください。 このプレゼンテーションでは、Windows 7の紹介とともに、チャネルパートナーにとってのWindow 7の意義、Window 7の価値、そしてWindow 7を利用してハードウェアとソフトウェアの販売機会およびサービス提供機会を拡大する方法について説明されています。

Microsoft Windows 비즈니스 그룹의 마케팅 선임 관리자인 제프리 숌퍼(Jeffrey Shomper)의 프레젠테이션을 들어 보십시오. 이 프레젠테이션을 통해 여러분은 Microsoft Windows 7이 무엇이고, 이 제품이 채널 파트너에게 무엇을 의미하며, 어떠한 부분에서 가치가 발생하고, 하드웨어와 소프트웨어뿐만 아니라 서비스에 있어서도 엄청난 영업 기회를 활용하는 방법을 배울 수 있습니다.

استمع إلى هذا العرض التقديمي الذي يقدمه جيفري شومبر مدير قسم التسويق في مجموعة Microsoft Windows Business Group. سيتحدث عن نظام التشغيل Windows 7 من Microsoft وعن أهمية هذا النظام لشركاء قنوات التوزيع وأين تكمن قيمته، فضلاً عن كيفية زيادة فعاليته لتوفير فرص مبيعات هائلة فيما يتعلق بكل من مبيعات الأجهزة والبرامج ومبيعات الخدمات على حدٍ سواء.

뉴 Intel Core 프로세서를 장착한 Dell 기업용 노트북과 데스크탑은 단순히 빠르기만 한 것이 아니라,  지능적인 성능을 발휘합니다.  Intel의 시장 개발 담당 관리자인 Eric Townsend가 Dell 채널 파트너 여러분을 위해 비기술적인 용어로 진행하는 이 프레젠테이션을 들어 보십시오.  뉴 Core 프로세서가 귀사의 하드웨어, 소프트웨어 및 서비스 판매에 어떤 영향을 줄 수 있는지, Core 프로세서가 어떻게 Microsoft Windows 7과 작동하는지 그리고 Latitude 노트북, OptiPlex 데스크탑, Precision 워크스테이션 및 Vostro 중소기업용 PC와 같은 일부 Dell 기업용 노트북과 데스크탑에서 어떠한 성능 향상을 기대할 수 있는지 자세히 알려 드릴 것입니다.

新しいインテル Coreプロセッサーを搭載したデルのビジネス向けノートパソコンとデスクトップは、より高速になっただけでなく、 よりスマートになりました。 インテルのマーケット開発マネージャであるEric Townsend氏のプレゼンテーションをお聴きください。技術的な内容を含まないディスカッションで、デルのチャネルパートナーの皆様に特にお勧めです。 新しいCoreプロセッサーがハードウェア、ソフトウェア、およびサービスの販売にどう影響するか、 CoreプロセッサーとMicrosoft Windows 7の機能連携、そしてLatitudeノートパソコン、OptiPlexデスクトップ、Dell Precisionワークステーション、およびスモールビジネス向けVostroなどの一部のデル製ノートパソコンとデスクトップでどのようなパフォーマンス改善が見られるかを説明します。

لا تتسم أجهزة الكمبيوتر المحمولة وأجهزة الكمبيوتر المكتبية من Dell لفئة الشركات المزودة بمعالجات Intel Core بكونها أكثر سرعة فحسب، بل بكونها أكثر ذكاءً أيضًا. استمع إلى هذا العرض التقديمي الذي يقدمه إريك تاونسند، مدير تطوير السوق بشركة Intel في مناقشة غير فنية، لا سيما لشركاء قنوات التوزيع التابعين لشركة Dell. فهو سوف يتحدث عن تأثير معالجات Core الجديدة على مبيعاتك من الأجهزة والبرامج والخدمات وكيفية تعامل هذه المعالجات مع نظام التشغيل Microsoft Windows 7 وعن أنوع تحسينات الأداء التي يمكن أن تتوقعها على بعض أجهزة الكمبيوتر المحمولة وأجهزة الكمبيوتر المكتبية من Dell المثالية للشركات - أجهزة الكمبيوتر المحمولة طراز Latitude وأجهزة الكمبيوتر المكتبية طراز OptiPlex ومحطات العمل طراز Precision وأجهزة الكمبيوتر طراز Vostro المثالية للشركات الصغيرة.

Dells bärbara och stationära datorer för företag med de nya processorerna Intel Core är inte bara snabbare. De är smartare också. Lyssna på den här presentationen av Eric Townsend, Intels marknadsutvecklingschef, ett icke-tekniskt samtal särskilt avsett för Dells kanalpartners. Han pratar om vad de nya processorerna Core betyder för försäljningen av maskinvara, program och tjänster, hur processorerna Core fungerar med Microsoft Windows 7 och vilka slags prestandaförbättringar man kan vänta sig på utvalda bärbara och stationära datorer för företag från Dell – bärbara Latitude, stationära OptiPlex, arbetsstationen Precision och småföretagsdatorn Vostro.

I notebook e i desktop Dell con i nuovi processori Intel Core oltre a essere più veloci, sono più intelligenti. Questa presentazione di Eric Townsend, Market Development Manager di Intel, è una discussione non tecnica concepita appositamente per i Channel Partner Dell . Verranno affrontati argomenti quali l'importanza dei nuovi processori Core per la vendita di hardware, software e servizi, la compatibilità tra i nuovi processori Core e Microsoft Windows 7 e i vari miglioramenti delle prestazioni che si possono ottenere su determinati notebook e desktop aziendali Dell: notebook Latitude, desktop OptiPlex, workstation Dell Precision e PC Vostro per le piccole imprese.

Los portátiles y sobremesas Dell para empresas con los nuevos procesadores Intel Core no son simplemente más rápidos. También son más inteligentes. Escuche esta presentación de Eric Townsend, director de desarrollo de mercado de Intel, en un debate sin términos técnicos diseñado especialmente para los Partners de Canal de Dell. Hablará sobre lo que supondrán los nuevos procesadores Core para sus ventas de hardware, software y servicios, sobre el funcionamiento de los procesadores Core con Microsoft Windows 7 y las mejoras de rendimiento que puede esperar de determinados portátiles y sobremesas Dell para empresas (portátiles Latitude, sobremesas OptiPlex, estaciones de trabajo Precision y ordenadores para pequeñas empresas Vostro).

Las laptops y computadoras Dell para empresas con los nuevos procesadores Intel Core no sólo son más rápidas. Son más inteligentes. Escuche esta presentación de Eric Townsend, gerente de desarrollo de mercado de Intel en un análisis no técnico, preparado especialmente para los socios de canal de Dell. Hablará de lo que significan los nuevos procesadores Core para sus ventas de hardware, software y servicios, cómo los procesadores Core trabajan con Microsoft Windows 7 y los tipos de mejoras en el rendimiento que puede esperar de las laptops y computadoras Dell seleccionadas: laptops Latitude, computadoras OptiPlex, workstations Precision y computadoras Vostro para pequeñas empresas.

Ноутбуки и настольные компьютеры Dell для бизнеса с новыми процессорами Intel Core стали не просто быстрее. Они стали умнее. Прослушайте эту презентацию Эрика Таунсенда (Eric Townsend), менеджера по развитию бизнеса корпорации Intel, и примите участие в обсуждении нетехнических вопросов, предназначенном в первую очередь для торговых партнеров Dell. Речь пойдет о новых процессорах Core и их значении для продаж оборудования, программного обеспечения и предоставления услуг, о том, как процессоры Core взаимодействуют с операционной системой Microsoft Windows 7 и какие улучшения производительности ожидаются в отдельных ноутбуках и настольных компьютерах Dell, таких как ноутбуки Latitude, настольные компьютеры OptiPlex, рабочие станции Precision и ПК для малого бизнеса Vostro.

Business-Notebooks und -Desktops von Dell mit den neuen Intel Core Prozessoren sind nicht einfach nur schneller. Sie sind vor allem intelligenter. Diese Präsentation von Eric Townsend, Market Development Manager bei Intel, ist eine allgemeine, leicht verständliche Diskussion, die speziell für Dell Channel-Partner erstellt wurde. Er berichtet darüber, welche Vorteile die neuen Core Prozessoren für den Absatz von Hardware, Software und Serviceleistungen bieten, wie Core Prozessoren mit Microsoft Windows 7 genutzt werden und welche Leistungsverbesserungen Sie von ausgewählten Dell Business-Notebooks und -Desktops erwarten können – Latitude Notebooks, OptiPlex Desktops, Precision Workstations und Vostro PCs für kleine Unternehmen.

戴尔商用笔记本电脑和台式机采用全新英特尔®酷睿处理器，更快、 更智能。 欢迎收听本期专为戴尔渠道合作伙伴制作的非技术性谈话节目，谈话嘉宾为英特尔公司市场开发经理埃里克•汤森德。 他将就全新酷睿处理器对于硬件、软件和服务销售的意义、酷睿处理器如何与Microsoft Windows 7兼容运行问题进行说明，并介绍Latitude笔记本电脑、OptiPlex台式机、Precision工作站，以及Vostro成就小型企业PC等部分戴尔商用笔记本电脑和台式机上值得预期的性能改进。

Os notebooks e desktops empresariais da Dell com os novos processadores Intel Core não são apenas mais rápidos. Eles são mais inteligentes. Ouça a apresentação de Eric Townsend, Gerente de desenvolvimento de mercado da Intel, em uma conversa não técnica especialmente para parceiros de canal da Dell. Ele falará sobre o que os novos processadores Core significam para suas vendas de hardware, software e serviços, como os processadores Core funcionam com o Microsoft Windows 7 e o tipo de melhorias de desempenho que você pode esperar nos notebooks e desktops empresariais selecionados da Dell – notebooks Latitude, desktops OptiPlex, workstations Precision e PCs para pequenas empresas Vostro.

Dell business laptops and desktops with the new Intel® Core Processors aren’t just faster. They are smarter. Listen to this interview with Eric Townsend, Market Development Manager at Intel in a non-technical discussion especially for Dell Channel Partners. He’ll talk about what the new Core processors mean to your sales of hardware, software and services, how Core processors work with Microsoft Windows 7, and the kinds of performance improvements you can expect on Dell select business laptops and desktops – Latitude laptops, OptiPlex Desktops, Precision Workstations and Vostro small business PCs.

Everyone has heard of Microsoft Windows 7, and you might even know something about it. But as a channel partner, you might not know is how you can make money from it. After all, selling a few licenses of Windows 7 isn’t going to make any channel partner rich. An implementation of Windows 7 can, however provide openings into larger and more profitable deployments of enterprise hardware, software and services. So what are the opportunities and what are the most successful channel partners doing to get them? Listen to an interview with Winni Verhoef, Sr. Product Manager for Windows Client Products at Microsoft (15 minutes)

Services are where partners make their money. Remote management is worth talking about because that’s where the services engagements are. This webinar gives expert insights into how to turn a conversation that starts with “Do I need a new PC” to one that can yield valuable, long-term engagements with customers. It features Rebecca Grigas, Manager of Managed Services Consulting at Dell.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past year or been in a coma, you know something about the new Microsoft Windows 7. But as a channel partner, what you might not know is how you can make money from it. After all, selling a few licenses of Windows 7 isn’t going to make any channel partner rich. However, an implementation of Windows 7 can provide a window – to borrow a phrase – into larger and more profitable deployments of hardware, software and services. So what are the opportunities and what are the most successful channel partners doing to get them? Listent to a 15 minute podcast with Jeffrey Shomper, Sr. Marketing Manager from Microsoft’s Windows Business Group.

More than 50% of SMB PCs are more than three years old, which means they cost a lot more to manage, are slower, less secure and use more power. So this presents a huge opportunity for channel partners to sell hardware, software and most importantly -- their services. Listen to Eric Townsend, Market Development Manager at Intel as he talks about the fastest paths to managed services opportunities and how relatively new technologies like Intel vPro can help customers AND channel partners be more efficient.

The economy has always been a challenge, particularly in the last year. So many of your customers have delayed buying new business computers. But thanks to companies like Intel – and of course, Dell – the Laptops and desktops we have today are so much more powerful, efficient and cost effective; it is hard to NOT buy a new one. This is an interview with Eric Townsend, Market Development Manager at Intel, where we discuss how new PCs can actually lower costs for your customers, AND generate services opportunities. (16 minutes)

Managing sales conflict is a critical issue in the channel. This podcast is an interview with Aongus Hegarty, GM for Small & Medium business for Dell in Europe. One of the many ways Dell manages sales conflict with the channel is something called Dual compensation. The idea seems pretty simple…Dell sales people get compensated for deals made by channel partners. But exactly how does it work, and more importantly, what is the benefit to channel partners? Listen to a great interview with Aongus. (9 minutes)

A lot of channel partners want to morph their business, to provide sticker relationships with their customers. One way to do this is to offer managed services – that is, managing components of a customer’s IT environment. So you might be asking: what is the fastest path to adding this practice area to your portfolio of services? We talked recently with Rebecca Grigas, who is the Manager of Managed Services Consulting for Dell. Listen to the podcast here, as she talks about the business potential of becoming a MSP and how to become one. (11 minutes)

This is an excerpt from a webinar for Dell Channel Partners, given by Ed Cline, who leads Dell's mobility strategy. He shares best practices on how to engage in a sales conversation that sells the right model and features to each customer, and how channel partners can identify services opportunities.

Becoming a Managed Services Provider is often difficult for a channel partner to add as a services practice. Rebecca Drigas from Dell's MSP certification group outlines the steps, and proves it is easy with Dell.

How does Dell's Channel group manage sales conflict with direct sales? Listen to an interview with Jim Defoe from Dell’s channel group in US and Canada, as he talks about how conflict is resolved, the processes, and how everyone can win in the sales cycle. (8 minutes)

For more than a year, Dell has been talking about the need to simplify IT, and has released many solutions around this strategy. But many channel partners ask how simplified technology will help them stay profitable in challenging economic times. Dell Global Solutions Strategist John Dietrich talks about simplified IT and what it means in the channel.

America's Channel lead Greg Davis talks about How Dell's Channel strategy is better for partners in challenging economic times, and how this simplified strategy makes it easier to make money.

As credit markets tighten, channel partners might be scrambling to find new or different sources of financing. Michael Buck, European Marketing Director for Dell's PartnerDirect channel program, discusses the market, trends and financing options, as well as the impact different compensation strategies have on partner profitability.

Are Dell Certified channel partners more productive that non-certified? Listen to this podcast with Bob Skelley, Director of Global Enterprise Architecture for Dell’s Global channel group, as he discusses the types of certification, how it works, and more importantly, the benefits to your business.

In challenging economic times, channel partners are looking for every source of revenue, and at internal costs. This podcast features Paul Shaffer, a Director in Dell's Global Channel group. It focuses on ways channel partners can increase profitability -- even in a difficult economy -- by streamlining operations and simplifying their channel vendor relationships.

In every program there is bound to be channel conflict. So what is Dell doing about it? Listen to an interview with Dell’s Erik Dithmer, GM for SMB Americas, as he talks about how Dell manages potential sales conflict between channel partners and the rest of Dell’s business.

Challenging economic times are showing up in many channel programs. Most are stalled or shrinking – except Dell’s PartnerDirect. In fact, according to this interview with Greg Davis, head of Dell’s Global Channel Organization, Dell is actually investing in its channel program at a time when others are pulling back. That, plus simplified products and a program that was specifically built from the ground up to lower administrative costs, makes the value proposition of Dell’s PartnerDirect even more relevant in today’s market. In this podcast Greg has his own opinion, and invites your thoughts. (8 minutes)

Rich Felice, part of Dell’s global channel organization, talks to channel partners every day. So we had a chance to sit with him and talk about today’s market, and ways successful channel partners find sales opportunities. How can you turn a “no” to a “yes?” And more importantly, how can a channel partner engage in the right kinds of sales conversations that yield sales and services engagements? Rich provides his view (12 minutes)

At a time when some vendors are pulling back on their channel programs, Dell seems to be going the opposite way, or so says Steve Brown, partner at Rev2 Technologies and a part of Dell’s PartnerDirect program. Surprisingly, the benefits of the program and relationship with Dell are even more valuable than the technology. Find out where Steve sees opportunity and how you can turn this into opportunity for your company.

Michael Doane, founder and chief intelligence officer of Performance Monitor discusses his firms study of the top systems integrators.Listen here or download to your favorite mobile device.