428- When IT Stops Being IT w/Luis Oliveira & Jose Antonio Ng

Here is the formatted transcript with the requested name change applied:

Episode 428: Jose Ng, Luis Oliveira

Host: Phil Howard

Guests: Jose Ng, Luis Oliveira, Thomas Ostapiej

Phil Howard: Jose, and Luis. So why don't we do it this way now, Jose, introduce yourself in your title, where you work and then Luis, you introduce yourself and your title and where you're at right now.

Jose Ng: Sure. Jose. CTO at Beyond Air and also founder of Bright Peak AI solutions as well.

Phil Howard: Cool. And okay.

Luis Oliveira: Luis Oliveira. I'm the director of guidance measurement. We manufacture measurement equipment for the oil and gas station here in Houston. Actually, I'm here, but the company is all over the world.

Phil Howard: All right. Beautiful. And so let's go back in time a little bit and, I'll go first to you. Luis. First computer. How'd you get started in this wild thing?

Luis Oliveira: Okay. First computer. Back in Brazil, I had, it's called CP four hundred from a. It was basically a TRS eighty clone. A lot of memory, like sixteen K. My, output device, everything. I had a cassette tape that was my input output device. No floppy disks yet. And connect to a little black and white TV. That was.

Phil Howard: Fun. And most likely you probably had to connect it with like a, like, what was that old thing like an RV switch or something? Like what was that an eight? Like a V something switch? I can't remember what that thing was called. What was that device called that we used?

Luis Oliveira: I don't even remember. This was a few years ago, probably before I was born.

Phil Howard: And then, we have a third person. This is getting even better. So we got Thomas in the room too. And Thomas, welcome to the chat if you got any questions or anything you want to fire away? Go ahead. How about you, Jose first computer. How did you get started in it? I guess for either of you guys at any time? What was the spark that kind of. Most people don't end up in IT leadership just due to the nature of how much technology has changed over time. Like it wasn't a job, really back in the day. I mean, it was kind of a job, but it's not like it is today. How did you get started and what was the first computer? How did you get where you are?

Jose Ng: First computer. To be honest, I don't remember the first computer in terms of what it was. I just remember it was floppy disk. To Luis's point, I never got into tapes. That was a little bit before me. Yeah. But I definitely wasn't in floppy and, like, I remember like windows, I think it was three point one. And just having like to put the multiple, floppy disks to actually load the operating system and installing it and going through that. And I mean, to be honest, I loved it, even though it took forever to do anything. But like, it was just like such an amazing time to be, in technology. I thought it was like you were like pioneering stuff. Right. And then to your point, what got me into technology was actually like that part of the time where I was like doing DOS prompt and programming and all those kind of things. And I was like, oh, even though it wasn't visual at all. Right. But it was cool. Like for me as a kid, it was exciting. It was exciting to kind of get things kind of seeing what the possibilities of it and stuff. So that's kind of what got me to your point of it, right? It was really the programming and getting to the nuts and bolts of things.

Phil Howard: I think we can definitely all relate to that. Luis, What's the fondest memory? And I do remember discs with like, a Sharpie that you wrote on it.

Luis Oliveira: I have a bad one for you because what happens? I was going to school for electrical engineering back in Brazil. And then I, came from my beach house to school to do a final exam in January. And so I had taken a class in Fortran that I really enjoyed, the semester before. And I told my friend, hey, if you see any other classes or courses, let me know. I would like to learn more about it. So when I came back, I said, hey Luis, let's see, I did a selection for this bank and to be a programmer and I was hired as operator. So now they're doing selection again to be programmed. Want to go in. So I went to the selection. It was a one month training on IBM in my hometown. And then I got an internship at the bank. And during the internship, we had to use punch cards to code PL one programs in the mainframe. And then I got the job. And then one of the big rewards of the job was that I forgot about punch cards. We can now use the terminals and store our data, our programs on network. So that's how I started. And I, just love programming from the get go. It was cool to see you doing something and seeing the results. Also it's pretty new, paid well time. So was a good thing. And then from there, I end up getting a job here in the states and moved a few years later and, was supposed to be a three year stint starting in nineteen ninety. I'm still here. So.

Phil Howard: One of the bullet points that we were going to talk about today was thirty years across different industries and what actually transfers and what does not across different industries. And because you guys are, ones, Hvac, one's oil and gas. Maybe we can find some dissimilarity. Or I guess What doesn't transfer? Or what's more important, I guess it's an IT leadership show. What is the same across all industries in it that translates well across all industries. And Jose, maybe you take that one first because this is Luis talking points. I'm sure he's going to have some points to add to it. Okay. Sure, sure.

Jose Ng: Certainly for me, I've been in the like tier. I certainly don't have thirty years of experience, but I have some experience, of course, in technology and the different, I guess life experiences that I've had in the different industries I've been involved in. What I can say is that, and this is part of when I moved from, the trades and those kind of distribution to medical devices. That was one of the reasons why I went. And I was thinking to myself, can my skills and the technology translate in those different. And it does, right? Technology is still technology, whether you're in Hvac, whether you're in oil and gas or, there's just fundamental parts of technology that you're going to need in a company, right? Like, everyone's talking about AI, blah, blah, blah, right? So it's just part of technology that we have to kind of continue to face and also continue to adapt. Right. So in terms of specifics. I mean, sure, there you can talk about like infrastructure applications and all these different things, but at the end of the day, I think overall technology is just that there's no matter what, there's just core principles like making sure that you're, aligning yourself with business objectives, right? Making sure that you're meeting the needs of your customer, whichever that be, whether that's internal customer or external customer. Right? I think those are the things I think for me really translate.

Luis Oliveira: No, it's a great point. I think it is true. I think there's a lot of commonality in terms of the technology infrastructure. But I think the key point is what we came out in the last is the business focus, the ability to build the networks. And I think also the willingness to learn more, like once you jump into a new company, a new industry, you have, especially when you're on a leadership position that you expect to, hopefully discuss business with the leaders, participate more in strategic sessions, and you have to learn the nuances of the industry and try to learn that fast. Sometimes it involves going back to school, like when I went into healthcare and not doing my second masters to learn more about biomedical informatics, learning about the basics of healthcare, and so on. But I think the other key is to find commonalities. There's always something common. And even when you least expect like, for example, I spent seventeen years in restaurants, then ten in healthcare. And then you look at a restaurant, look at a hospital could not be more different. However, they're both, customer centric. Like in the restaurants, we are helping the staff, making sure that the, guests have the best experience can be like a quick lunch all the way to a big family occasion. And where in the hospitals, you are also empowering your care providers to make sure that they care of the patients and, make sure they give a great patient care. So it is completely different stakes, food and life and death. But there's nothing common that some of the principles apply when you're moving from one place to another. And I like to joke because I've been here for like thirty years now, and I think I finally made it to oil and gas over thirty years.

Phil Howard: Well, a bunch of things are running through my head as you guys were talking. One was your IBM training in a small town and that is. Can you really go to school for it? And when we look at some of the biggest leaders in the industry nowadays, and Bill gates dropped out of Harvard and his counterpart Mark Zuckerberg, I think he dropped out of Harvard, too. But what does that say about where we get our education from and how we get it? I just stating an obvious point or what should we be teaching our kids nowadays?

Jose Ng: I think to your point, we definitely have to have some sort of gut check a little bit now, like, let's face it, like universities and this whole kind of experience may need to be changed and how they do, education as a whole, especially with the advent of like, I don't want to harp on it, but it's there, right? AI is there. And like, people are now kind of questioning what they've kind of spent their money on and all these things. And because of the fact that, there's all this kind of, here's the solution in front of me. Not to say that that solution is perfect or anything by any means, but at the same time, like there's some, kind of reality there that we have to adapt. And who knows what education is going to be like in a couple of years. But to that point, like, I'm in that kind of industry where like, thankfully it's not as, I guess vulnerable to that. Right. But at the same time, who knows, ten to twenty years from now, maybe it will. Right. So I think there's definitely something there in terms of education. I mean, I think you can't go wrong with kind of. Yes, there's a lot of, change in terms of layoffs and all these things, especially in technology. But at the same time, as I'm sure Luis can talk about it, it's like you don't kind of, run away from it. You kind of kind of face it and understand it and get to and make sure you're, for lack of a better term, I guess, ahead of it, right? I don't know, Luis. I don't know if there's anything else that.

Luis Oliveira: I think, I would kind of break it in? Two pays two pieces. One is there is your initial formal education, traditional college and so on. And I think it's very important because it gives you a lot of skills from a, life skills and how to manage your time, how to work, how to be critical thinking. So there's a lot of value on that. But I think nowadays you cannot count just on that. And I think it's more about, the having the mentality of being a constant learner because especially in technology, you're going to have to do that because you think you're good today. And then six months from now, you're trying something different. So it's learning about that. Or in the case of like changing industries, whenever you go, like now I'm in manufacturing for a year now. I have never been manufacturing before, never been in SAP before. Like last February, I started working with SAP in May. We went live in our own the system. And then in December I own the department. So it's like, we have to always be learning and training. So I think the good news is that nowadays we have so many different options of training. Be there online classes, even in AI to help you on that, on the job training. But you have to understand that you're going to be learning and training pretty much lifelong.

Phil Howard: That should be a bullet point on that's like a resume bullet point. If anyone understands, they understand, which is like, I took on SAP. I knew nothing about it in six months later, it was running great.

Thomas Ostapiej: I know the feeling. We're still trying to go live on our sap. So we've been there. Luis, to your point, yes, it is totally, you have to be learning every day. You can't rest on your skill set that you learned five years ago because it's changing that quickly. I have a systems administrator who's a real great guy, but when the first day I hired him, it was like, okay, I need you to put a cable together, a Cat six cable together. And it's like, huh? Don't you just take it out of the plastic bag? No. Here, here's the thing. Go do it. So you're constantly learning. Nobody taught me that in school. Yeah. I learned Fortran, like you did on Keypunch cards. And I couldn't wait for that semester in college to be over with. Because me and the IBM mainframe were not friends, so.

Luis Oliveira: We joked back then that our reader could not really read very well because it was frustrating because you're in school, so you have a program and you submit and it's five hours later, comes back, and then you look and you miss this line here is wrong. So you fix that card and then you resubmit it. Oh, now it would be good. And then six hours later it comes back. Actually, next day when you come back to school with another line that was good that they read poorly because it was, public school in Brazil. It was not, so I don't know, it was not a very good reader, but that that happens. And then you waste a day because of not your fault, because you fixed the issue.

Thomas Ostapiej: Mhm.

Luis Oliveira: So yeah, it was frustrating. But, you live through it and then you get excited when you get to a new step that you can just submit and be back in ten minutes.

Phil Howard: Thomas. I think people don't know how to do that anymore because radioshack's is not around anymore. Yeah, go to Radio Shack and you buy the crimper off the wall with, like, a bunch of pieces. I guess now you could go hang out in the electrical section of Home Depot, and there's going to be like the one guy in that aisle, like old Man Marley that has a Home Depot like apron on, that's like a retired electrician that just is there because he need he wants to do something, like that's where you probably learn that skill nowadays. Guys. Tell me, is there a moment in your career, where it was the hero where if your team hadn't been there or you and the team hadn't been there. Like pretty much the whole business would have come to a grinding halt. Can you think of a time and like a good story? And first person that thinks of one fire away.

Luis Oliveira: I think I have one here. We're in Houston, is known for weather and hurricanes and all that good stuff. So, after we divested from lands, I was running, Joe's Crab Shack, and we had one hundred and thirty some restaurants all over the country. And then, our data center here, we got hit by hurricane, so system went down completely. Okay. And all our credit card transactions, for example, came through here through my data center, which was down and so on. And also my other help desk calls came to us to keep the restaurants going. And so my team was literally working from their cars because they had no power in the house to have the cell phone plugged into the car, taking calls to that. So, as a team, that was our first reaction. But then we also had to rely on some of our partners and switch real quick. Like, we had a point of sale system vendor to auto switch to take our calls first time. And then my team was relay. So, we jumped to a lot of hoops to keep everything going. Because we're down by a hurricane. But if you have a restaurant in California or New York or Florida. They don't care. That's a hurricane in Dallas or in Houston. They they want they want to eat and they want to pay and they want to work. So it was a really, really critical situation there. We both wrote, but it was rough.

Phil Howard: Okay. So I'm just curious what data center was that they didn't have, and plus one diesel backups, battery generators where they flooded like, or it was your data center? It went down.

Luis Oliveira: Okay. Funny story. I used to report to CFO at that time. And for the past six months, I had a proposal in front of him to move my my data center was two racks. Okay. It's not big. Okay. Two racks and I want to move it to size one, which I call location here that has all this stuff that you just said we need.

Phil Howard: And plus one diesel routes. Yeah, it's not sitting in a closet.

Luis Oliveira: They didn't give me the budget. So we finally did it and we moved after the hurricane, but through hurricane and funny enough, okay, I was there the first day I could get out of the house with their the whole office was down. Those somewhat on the bottom floor, but computers are fine. And then about two or three days later, we rented a generator. So, we pulled this trailer on the top of the garage building, we put a cable through, across the parking lot, through a door on top and down the stairs into my computer room. And we're up and running for two hours until the door, the top of the stairs, got a gust of wind and closed and severed the cable again. So we're down for another six hours to recover. But stuff happens, right?

Phil Howard: That reminds me. Yeah. Hurricane Katrina is, I think, what it was. And I was working for air band at the time, which was out of Dallas, actually was out of Texas. We had Houston, Dallas. But I remember during that, we were doing a lot of fixed wireless point to point shots for everyone that didn't have internet. You would think wireless is not good for hurricanes, but it's actually one of the best, like, past diverse backups. That's a great story, man. Reminded me of like the ending of, running man, where they have to like do satellite relays and everything and like, I don't know, just that's what the thought that went through my mind. But yeah. Jose.

Jose Ng: Yeah, I've got a story. So I actually have two. One was when I first, got this new job around twenty nineteen or twenty twenty, and I literally had just started like maybe a week and a half right into the job. And kind of to Luis's point, like we didn't have like a colo or, any of that stuff. And I was literally like, not even two weeks in the job. And, their main database server, which housed their ERP just went shit the bed. Right. And then they were saying, we need to get another server. We need to, spin, order it, ship it overnight, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, guys, I mean, this is like twenty nineteen. We should be moving this virtualized into the cloud, right? As opposed to like trying to ship a box in here. And we did that overnight. And they I'm like, guys, we can do this. Right. And to your point, it was like a hero, right? Because in the beginning, we're like with the database, everybody can place orders like nothing. We were like totally shut down, right? Dependency on technology. And so, it just kind of take something so small you've gotten so dependent on like, you know what I mean? Because people are just so dependent on technology nowadays. So that's one. The other one I distinctly recall was during Covid, right? Like when you're like all of a sudden, like everything shut down and then now everybody has to work from home. And of course, it's like, you guys got to figure this out, right? Like, right. You gotta figure it out. So like, how are you going to route the phones? It's like, oh, right, we have cell phone. So we remotely installed the cell phone apps on these, the sales people so that they can take the calls because nobody could be in the office. Right. And all that stuff. And then like, we had to schedule people because nobody could be like in groups, right? So like we had to schedule like appointments for them to like, for some of them who didn't have laptops, like get laptops so that they can work from home and all those things. So I mean, to your point, like, I think there are so many times that you people like take it for granted, there's it that can, find the solution to kind of make it happen, whatever. Duct tape and glue, whatever it makes it work, makes it work. Right?

Luis Oliveira: So just to that point, I think since I mentioned Covid reminded me I was working for Houston Methodist during Covid. Okay. So we were being part of a huge hospital organization. It was like life changing. But I have two examples that I think really key to that. One is, right before Covid, we were experimenting, testing what we call the virtual ICU, which is basically, if we imagine instead of having doctors, all the ICUs is a. We had this war room with a few very good doctors and nurses monitoring patients from different ICUs. And we're testing that to say this is something that we can use to even help remote hospitals and so on. And then Covid hit, and, we ramped it up and used that technology to allow our care providers to provide care to Covid patients without necessarily being on ICU all the time. And was one of the things like one of those times that it was supposed to be still in pilot, where kind of Alpha training and we went to production really, it was all of a sudden you got to do it. And the other thing was interesting also is that, Methodist has a network of a couple thousand doctor's offices and so on, and we shut everything down in three days. So we had, virtual visit telemedicine. It was not this was rolled out by we had an average of twenty calls a day. Maybe if that system wide and went up to two thousand in three days.

Jose Ng: Trial by fire.

Luis Oliveira: Yeah. And being able to, handle that spike. And it was not just a spike. It was a up and keeping.

Jose Ng: Yeah.

Luis Oliveira: That two thousand for a while. So it was a very interesting. And I think, we just realized how important, technology can be in an environment that is literally life and death.

Phil Howard: That's a, an important business point too, because a lot of times we don't do things or we don't make the change happen without, I don't know, the catalyst or something making it happen. And then I think that that's why sometimes just career coaches are so important because someone will just ask one question to you that makes you go do the thing that you know you've needed to do for so long. Like, and I think one of those questions is, how would your life be different thirty days from now if you had this, whatever this is at that point. And I think that makes a big difference. Now I want to ask like maybe some of the harder questions, which is when everything is running perfectly, when everything is running like a well-oiled Tesla, as we like to say. And it becomes more of a cost center on the spreadsheet. And there's not things, big changes that need to be. You still see that the change that needs to happen, you know what needs to happen because you see every aspect of the business, you communicate with everyone in the business. And you know that you may need something. But executive management might not see it the same way because, maybe they communicate in a different language. And I think again, that translating technology for people who don't speak technology and translating it in a way that they can see that this is beneficial towards the business and it is not the department of it, the separate entity sitting in the back room somewhere that it's actually a this valuable, seat of the executive round table that doesn't just sit there, but actually is people that should be listened to and be heard. Do you have any examples of where you've been able to overcome and translate, for executives that may have thought something is not that important, but all of a sudden you were able to help them see the light, so to speak.

Luis Oliveira: Yeah. That happened to me a lot when I was in the restaurant business because, when I was at Joe's Crab Shack and we would go to discuss, budget for next year and capital investment and all that I have. Okay, maybe I won two hundred grand to replace our storage device. And the other guy say, I want two hundred grand to open a new patio on JavaScript Shack in Florida and increase my revenue by X percent. It's hard for you to win those battles sometimes. But then I think two things become important. One is having the business partnerships, having people understand, that you're not just asking for asking, but also, in terms of risk. Like, say, listen, this is okay, this is running, but, what happens if you don't have your data? So if you talk from a business perspective, what are the consequences of not making that investment? Then it is, you're more likely to have a discussion more in terms of ROI than just cost. You also have to keep in mind yourself that you're not making money, but you have to support people that are making money. So you have to translate what your message means like a hey, in order for you to support that like I will need to put computers there. I'll need to maybe increase my capacity for that. So I have to start talking their language and try to understand what you spend will be, reflecting on day to day business, basically.

Phil Howard: You got to get with the patio guy before he goes to the meeting and be like, hey, just so you know, if you want your patio, they need this also.

Luis Oliveira: Today I joke with some of my other business, peers is like, okay, we are owned by private equity group. So money is tight. So everything we have to go to the CEO and cost justify and say, okay, we have to do it together if you want it, because I'm good at the I part. I know how much the thing is going to cost. So you're going to come up with the our part and make kind of make a case for what kind of return we're going to get from the investment. So it has to be kind of working together because oftentimes we don't know the R, we don't know what the benefit is. If you're asking for a specific investment, like right now, we have SAP implemented, but we still have a lot of new modules to functionality to be added to that as we can. And each of those are being treated as a business case discussion. So for each of those, I have to partner to the person that wants that on their side. And so it becomes their question, not mine. I'm there to support from the cost perspective.

Phil Howard: Yeah. Oil and gas is tough. One of the tightest margin industries, It's oil and gas. When you have such a tight margin, you have something that makes such a small difference. How does it get money there? I mean, maybe we just brainstorm for a second. You guys give me your best ideas on how you translate technology into money for people or how you get what you want. I would love to know.

Jose Ng: Oh well, I guess for me, in terms of kind of what I was just trying to piggyback off of what Luis was saying, like, ultimately you really have to be connected to the stakeholders, right? Because at the end of the day, to his point, we're not just doing technology for the sake of technology. Right? We're doing technology to better the company, to better our customers. Right. And whether it's, again, internal or external, I think some technology people, I'm not saying it's us, right. But they may see it as, oh, let's do this because it's a requirement or it's a, compliance or whatnot. And that's great. That's part of the selling point. But part of it is also to your point, we still have to convince or get the business user to buy into it. Right. And part of that is having those conversations. Why is it important to them? What motivates them? What makes them think? Right. So I think that's very important to understand where their background is and why they need this technology and how it would help them and also even educate them to kind of how it could help them be more effective with what they're doing and whatnot.

Phil Howard: What else you got, Luis, anything to add to that or anything? If we had to come up with the top three to five steps or top ten, how to convince executive management to increase the IT budget. I would think one would be speak the language of business, not the language of it. And, what's in it for them and use some sort of ROI that would be like my input on that. And understanding, what's keeping them up at night? That would be my answer of some sort. But do you guys have specifics?

Luis Oliveira: Yeah. I think it's, making them present and fight for it in a way and make them their case, their idea in terms of, what you need, what do you need to improve your performance of your team or to increase your revenue as the board is being asking you to do? And then, the best case scenario for me is when they come to present and say, listen, I need this because that's what I need for my team and that's how I'm going to raise more revenue. So I think this is just how you position it. And you come in as a supporting partner as opposed to being the driver of the thing because people joke that, most IT projects fail. Right. And I think they fail because their IT projects, if they're not IT projects, they have a better chance.

Phil Howard: Yeah.

Thomas Ostapiej: I agree with you, Luis, on that. There's a project that we're currently doing now besides our SAP, going live. We're in the process of researching scheduling software and you think, oh, that's pretty easy. You can do that on Excel spreadsheet or anything else. The people I work for the stakeholders of the company, they want it so that they could measure how much personnel it's taken me to make this one product. How much time do they spend on this line? We have several production lines. So these people move from production line to production line depending on what's being made. Sometimes the production line goes down because it has to be cleaned and changed over to a different product. So we've been exploring that, and it's been easy to get the managers to do their part of like giving me, the staff, their skill sets and everything. So we can throw this into this database so that we can, do, assignments and stuff. And it's been easier with the leadership of the company to say, hey, we're doing this versus I go around just by myself and say, hey, they'd like us to do this. And here it is. And so leadership does have to when, especially when you're working with the other parts of the company, leadership has to be the one that that buys into it, as well as kind of be the cheerleader for it. And then we're here to facilitate it and make sure that it gets done.

Jose Ng: Yeah. So I'd like to add to your point there, Thomas. I think for me, like the three things really is like the first and foremost is what is the key stakeholders pain points? Like ultimately, what is the thing that, like you mentioned, Phil, like, what is keeping them up at night? What's bothering them? Why is it bothering them? Because to that point, if we can align the technology with resolving whatever pain point they have, then at that point, it just makes that case much, much stronger, right? And then of course, once you align that, then of course, there's obviously a cost factor, right? And then you kind of cost benefit analysis and saying, is it worth the investment to do this because of this pain point? Right. And ultimately, I think nine times out of ten people, I mean, if you give them the reason to solve their pain point, that creates a business reason for the company. Most of the times they'll go for it because like what Luis said, if it's coming from a business perspective and from a business user, it tends to be more successful because it's not just it who's involved, right? Like it's kind of like it's a we versus like an I, right. Kind of involvement. So I think those are the three things that, would help any project to kind of, whether it's a board or like a manager or the CEO or whatever it is. Yeah.

Phil Howard: Numbers definitely matter. I think, numbers don't lie. If you guys have anything on KPIs or anything like that, an important KPIs. So, and I'm trying to think of who it was. I think it was Marcus Merchant. I can't remember the software company that he used back in the day, but I interviewed him years ago. I mean, he was in one of the first fifty. And he worked for old Thompson Spice Company and they had a manufacturing line. Right. So, this is not typically its job, but I think he went down, he was just watching the manufacturing floor. Like, I think even setting up cameras, like different things like this, watching the manufacturing floor over time. And he paused to ask a question at one point like, hey guys, why did you stop all the manufacturing, shut the machines down, clean everything, sweep everything, and then restart over again. And they're like, well, we got an emergency order and we had to fulfill these, different group of spices. If you go to Costco, you'll see old Thompson Spice Company and the big spice things, you know what I mean? I think they got bought out by Olam. And so he was like, how much time does that take? And it takes so much time to shut down all the machines, clean everything. They had so much temp staff and everything. So he brought in some data analyst company. I think it began with red or something. I can't remember what it is. I'll look it up. It's in my book. Because it was a great example. They analyzed all the data and then they just started doing just batching better and using better data analytics on how they were, fulfilling product orders and everything. And by just doing that and being using software to be more organized. Go figure. I'm sure there's a, great AI solution for this now, right? I'm sure you can pump a lot of this stuff through. They just started planning the manufacturing better. And I think they were able to eliminate all of their temporary staffing, right. And then like, reduce labor by so much and increase production by like one hundred and seventy percent. Simply because the IT guy asked a question why are you shutting down the Danish machine and starting to make blueberry muffins at. In the middle of the afternoon, well, we ran out of cheese danishes and we need to fulfill all the blueberry orders. I don't know whatever it is, but again, that's one of those things. If we go back to the beginning where, industry matters, because in a manufacturing industry, that's obviously you've got machines and you've got, batching and different reports and stuff. And that's probably very, very, I think that would line up with health care because you've got scheduling and stuff there, but probably not oil and gas. It probably wouldn't come up in the oil and gas thing.

Luis Oliveira: But I mean, manufacturing actually, because we want you guys is our customers, but we measure, equipment. So I think some of the things that Thomas was resonating in terms of, machines and all that and scheduling people from different lines and great.

Phil Howard: But that's where it is not just a department. It's like, hey guys, why did you not call in Marcus earlier? Like, where have you been? Like, why is it not been at the table for? Oh, well, he's just the zero trust guy, you know what I mean? Like, he's just the guy that doesn't allow us to download or grok on everything that we want to have it on. Let's do a prediction in all of you can answer this one. What do you think everyone's going to be talking about eighteen months from now that they're not talking about right now? I think the obvious answer is probably going to be like, what actually is AI going to change from? You guys were talking about you can't, everything changes so quickly from year to year. But I mean, on AI, it's literally overnight. Like, you could be like, Claude could be working great one day and then the next day like, oh, that's so, twelve hours ago, and you're on to something different now. So what's everyone going to be talking about eighteen months from now?

Jose Ng: Yes, definitely AI is going to be part of that conversation. But I would say also like in terms of not just AI, but in line with automation, right? It's basically like a race, to the whoever gets there first. But it's just so many fast moving parts from whether, like you mentioned about AI and the learning and education and how it's changing, but it's changing even I'm sure all of our industries right now and how we can use AI, right? It's both, exciting and like super frightening too. Like we just don't know what the implications and you see it all the time where like people, let's just use AI and then it blows something up, right? Or like crashes something because they didn't put any guardrails or protocols because they were just excited to use it. So like, there's so many, both good and bad, but you've got to really be prudent about how to use technology, especially AI. And at the same time, because it's kind of like very easy to use but it doesn't mean it's easy to use. You can be very good at it really quickly also. Right? So it's like an illusion. Like you think that you're really good at it, but then it turns out you do something incorrectly and then it just blows something up. Right?

Phil Howard: I think it's widening the mediocrity gap. I think mediocrity is becoming larger.

Jose Ng: Sure, sure. And that's part of it too, right? To to your point, now you recognize what's actually good tech. I mean, sure, we already know as technology people like what's good technology and all that stuff. But in terms of AI, you mentioned, okay, now you've got Clyde one day. Now you've got ChatGPT another day. Now you've got like, all these different things and it's like, what's the next one? Right? I remember, I guess for my time, it was like the dot com era, right? Where it's like, you had, okay, is it going to be Microsoft or is it going to be Google or is it going to be right? Like, who's going to win this battle? Right. Or the Facebook's and the, I forgot what the other,

Phil Howard: It was the net suites and the like and internet Explorer. And it was like, which browser is going to win?

Jose Ng: Right, right. Exactly. Like it's safe to say Google.

Phil Howard: Won that one. I mean, I don't know, someone might get angry about that.

Luis Oliveira: Yeah.

Jose Ng: Right. But to your point, I mean, you're right. But at that point, you didn't know. You maybe had an idea, but you didn't know at the end of it, who's going to come out on top. And I feel like that we're just at the cusp of that, right?

Luis Oliveira: Yeah, I think eighteen months we might be kind of licking our wounds in a way, in terms of like, what did blow up? And, like I said, it's things have changed so much from A to B to C, I think that there's got to be some consolidation at some point. So that would be a little bit of consolidation on that side. That's also going to be like, nobody knows exactly what would be the impact on jobs. So but I think what's going to be happening in eighteen months is that there'll be a group of people that will be, feeling great because they learn how to use the AI tools and they got better at their job, and they probably got promoted and got ahead. And unfortunately, we're not a group of people that probably lost their jobs because of AI, because of the type of position, or because they are in a type of job that should be using AI as a tool. And they did not went into that constant learning attitude. And then they basically replaced by somebody that not by AI, but by somebody that knew AI better than they did, because it's going to be a tool just like we have today, so many tools. So I think that's things that we're probably going to be talking about. And, because yeah, it's crazy. I heard somebody say one time that, when we start rolling out all these models, like, putting a thousand interns in your environment at the same time, it's gonna be a lot of stuff done.

Jose Ng: Yeah.

Thomas Ostapiej: I mean, it's a thousand, phone calls that you get as an IT manager or director from consultants that say, hey, we know AI and we can save you thousands of money and replace people and functions. My concern is and goes back to my pre-computer days, but it's customer service. And I think we've all been through those phone, menus that have like, no, I need a live person. And I think with the AI, it's the same thing is that when you come in and you're trying to replace people and say, hey, the system's going to work smarter than a human. Sometimes that customer on the other end is just looking for that human voice. I'll give you a case in point. Two weeks ago, I get one of those nice little fraud alerts from my bank. So I called the bank to find out why do I have a fraud alert? The AI wanted to give me my balance. I said I need a live person. Well, what about your checking balance? I don't want to know. I know my checking account. Just get me to a live person. Took me fifteen minutes to get to a live person and my frustration level was up here. And that's my only concern about AI. I mean, we all use it. We use it to find answers. I find answers and read them and say, no, that's not the right answer. That's not what I'm looking for. So, but really, my fear in AI is that somebody will within management will grip on to it and say, hey, we can save money. And they lose perspective that, yeah, you're going to end up losing customers too, because there's a frustration point with any kind of automation. Yeah.

Jose Ng: And to your point, I think, Thomas, you have a good point there. Like ultimately you can't lose sight of just using AI just for the sake of dollars, right? Mhm. There's got to be a balance, right? Look, I can tell you right now, and I don't know if you heard us Thompson beginning. So like I'm a co-founder of an AI solutions company right now, and there's tons of different solutions out there. And my job is to kind of just provide the customer, hey, this solution might be good for you. Or this solution might totally suck. It sounds nice, but it's not the right solution for you, right? And that's part of the conversations I'm having right now. I can tell you there are so many different, solutions of AI out there, but doesn't mean they're all good, right? Yeah. And to your point too, is like, doesn't mean even if they're good, it's the right solution for you, right? So, and that's the part of what Luis has said too earlier where like, at some point there's going to be a full circle, it's going to come back and say, hey, the ones who are using it best or know how to use it and also are using it as an enhancement, like not being afraid of it, I think, are they gonna ones are going to be ahead of it, right? Because it is a tool to help us. It's not a tool to, at least from my perspective, I'm we're not trying to, hey, get rid of people. It's more like, how can we help you? Do you ten times better, ten times more like, and instead of just me, I've got a thousand interns. Hopefully some of them are decent interns. Right. If I do it, if I set them up correctly. Right. Something like that.

Phil Howard: Yeah. Yeah. Here's the truth. Has a new technology ever cost less? Every technology that has ever come out has always cost more money, right? How often does your IT budget go down? It's rare. Right. At the same time, it's like the average IT project. Right. I'm quoting my own website now. The average IT project cost overrun is twenty seven percent. One in six projects. We're not saying ERP here. We're just talking it in general, but one in six IT projects becomes a black swan with two hundred overruns. Mhm. Right. Eighty five percent of every company out there spends more money on it every year. So it's like I heard this crazy fact the other day too, that nine percent of all Americans have a net worth of at least a million dollars, which is pretty wild. So people have money to spend. That's just a complete, separate topic, but, and eighty five percent of eighty to eighty five percent of companies right now are missing the AI cost forecast by twenty five percent. So what does it mean? Why am I stating all this? The point is that AI is going to be an investment and it's going to be used hopefully to do things better, smarter, faster. That's the idea of it. It's just my prediction is that at the end of eighteen months from now, people are going to be kind of shaking their heads and, being frustrated with how much time they've wasted investing in the wrong, not thinking correctly about AI or investing in the wrong way, which would be like, yeah, the quick replacement of an employee or something like that. I can tell you, my most annoying thing that drives me the craziest right now is everything's becoming the same. There's a lot of sameness. I think it's like the death of sameness. I hate when I get and I it's we sent out an email for the roundtable today and I said to Greg, and I love Greg. I said, Greg, it just sounds like everything else. I just can read AI. I can read it a mile away. I was like, Greg, just say like, hey, this is Greg. Phil told me I had to send out an email for the round table, will you guys just pick a date and time and sign up. And this is what we're thinking about talking about what do you guys think? Just say that because that will come off as actually real. It doesn't need to be like, you could just see it a mile away now. And I think that to me, the people that are going to be genuine and original from a marketing and from a sales standpoint and from a solution standpoint. And what we see in front of everybody every day, I think that those people are going to stand out more.

Jose Ng: But to your point, though, I mean, whether it's the restaurant or all these things and technology, I think overall the premise is still the same. I think the cream still rises to the top, right? Like if you know how to use technology and you will still come out. And I think as technology people, we, are at the forefront of this, right? Whatever industry we're in, like we've got to understand and kind of learn it. And yes, there's going to be some, Mrs.. Right. You gotta break a few eggs or something like that. Right. But something's like that's gotta, because at the end, to your point of back then, like you did come out with a Google, right? There was some good outcomes.

Phil Howard: It was the genuine thing. It was like we were just saying like, just don't be AI. And it was like, how did I survive in a world where like, everyone was taught to say the same thing?

Jose Ng: Yes.

Phil Howard: Hi, I here to stop by to introduce myself to the president or owner. Who might that be? Could you grab him for me? And I was like, that's never going to work. Everyone's going to kick you in the teeth. So I was like, listening to like all the like, really going through education and listening to everything I could, which no one that just graduates from college do. Most people are lazy and they don't care. They don't have a reason. So one of one of the best excuses I ever heard was, hey, could you just help me out? Upper management forces me to do this.

Jose Ng: Oh, nice.

Phil Howard: Just like it was just, like, real genuine, you know what I mean? It was like, wow. Like, it's amazing how many people really want to help you when you're just another human being that needs to be helped. And I think that's really what we do as IT leaders, right? Is help other people do their job better, faster, whatever, so that they can go home at the end of the day to their families or whatever they want to do, that's really what we do at the end of the day. And the more that we can be genuine, the better. And that's where I think AI is really going to fail humans. We've got to use it as research and to increase our ability to be better humans, not decrease our level.

Jose Ng: Yes, I agree. And to your point, it just can't be a line item. It's because to reduce other line items, right? That can't be the be all end all of AI for sure.

Phil Howard: Okay. Last question for you guys. If we could go back in time and tell ourselves some piece of advice back then that we know now that we didn't know back then, and maybe we're speaking to a young guy in it right now, what would that piece of advice be?

Jose Ng: I think for me, it's like, just enjoy the ride. You're going to have crazy moments where like, you have a pandemic or you've got like emergencies and you've got different things, but enjoy it. There's, it's going to be stressful sometimes, but enjoy the ride because at the end of it, it's going to be exciting and just enjoy it. Enjoy the ride. That's what I would like to tell myself when I was young, because I didn't know because when I started, it was like the dot com had burst. Everybody was it's kind of similar now with all these layoffs, right? So it's like you're like, I just graduated and I can't find a job. Like what's going on, right? So.

Phil Howard: Yeah, I actually really like that.

Luis Oliveira: Yeah. I would say, it's about the business. Keep learning all the time and don't be the guy with a hammer looking for a nail.

Phil Howard: Give me an example. What does it mean to be the hammer?

Luis Oliveira: I mean, you have a technology like right now we have a, let's say like pick up code, CPT code, everything and then say, okay, what can I use these things? This is so cool. How can I use it? And then you got to go backwards, like, okay, what I'm trying to solve and then what is my best tool? Is I good to or not? Because I think that's where, you need to understand the feet as opposed to technology for technology's sake, we have to tell ourselves that we're not the center of the world, no matter how much we want to believe that we're not. So technology is a support, unless unless you work for a technology company that's producing software. And that technology is your product. That's fine. But for Thomas and I, technology is not a product. We are there to help people who make money because if they don't sell, if they don't make stuff, we're toast.

Thomas Ostapiej: Exactly, exactly. I mean, it's a learning experience. I mean, even when I came here, one of my previous jobs. It was on the end part of manufacturing. I was working for a ladies garment company, but, we're sort of like inventory and office infrastructure and stuff like that, not the actual manufacturing lines. And then to come here, it was, we're making stuff from scratch. And I think the biggest thing I would have told my younger self and some of those other positions I had is what I found out here is actually learning what you're making. And it's that observation of, like you said before, Luis going down and observing what they do and how they do it. And for it, it's important for us to know that I think it's just to come up here and sit here and maybe plug a cable into a switch or, make up somebody new, profile and active directory and stuff like that. That's part of, it. But the other part is knowing the business because in the end, we're trying to turn around and help the business grow. And the only way you're going to know how to help the business grow is how the business is made. On the production line.

Luis Oliveira: I send my team to the restaurants to spend a day there and see what things really happened. And to help you understand, like when they call you and say, oh, I cannot print on my kitchen printer. They don't realize that if they don't print the kitchen and the food is not going to come out, the guy's not going to know what to make. So they have to do that. And the stress of a full restaurant busy and taking orders. Like when I just opened here in Houston was like, right when I started working for Landry's and, we had some issues in the network and the thing would just crash, I had to go to one specific terminal to reboot the system, restart you connect back to the server and put everything back up. So I call them and say do concept. So that's when they get people to definitely. Because if they're dancing, they're not ordering anything. But that was like, gotta be creative, but gotta feel that stress because when you feel that you understand what you're working for, what's at stake when they call you with the problem is not just somebody that they cannot like in the count is the guy that's trying to put the phone on somebody's table and is not being able to. So being able to be there and feel the stress, it's priceless.

Phil Howard: So that's embracing the moment. Jose.

Luis Oliveira: Yeah.

Phil Howard: It's pretty mind blowing moment for me because, not being the hammer is important. And we've all had that moment where, the CEO comes back or read something in time magazine or comes back from some expo event and thinks that they've got some new vendor or some new product that's going to change everything. And that's where you can be just like, don't be the hammer. I've been the hammer for too long. And when you do that, It can take you off vision. But, it not being the hammer all the time is really, really important and understanding because It could easily derail the entire business and take them off track for a very long time.

Thomas Ostapiej: Mhm.

Phil Howard: And they could also say, no, if you don't understand the business and you understand the vision of the business and ultimately what it's trying to do, then, you cannot be the hammer and say no to a lot of things that need to be said no to. And I've been joking around for the last two to three months of the metaphorical CEO. I can imagine one of you guys getting a call on a Tuesday or a Monday and being like, hey, where's our AI rollout plan? I need that on my desk by Tuesday. And you're like, yeah, why? Because I do it's AI. Well, okay, what do we need AI for? I don't know, but we need it. It's like, what are we trying to accomplish? Well, I don't know, sell more crab legs or something. I don't know. I mean, it's like, how is AI going to solve that? Maybe from that standpoint. Yeah. But that's where the conversation needs to go. And I think that that's where we bridge the gap and it gets heard. Any final words of wisdom?

Luis Oliveira: I just want to say something because I think we talk about pivotal moments and getting a sense of what the business really is. And there's one story I think I wrote down, I think that I sent you yesterday, but, when I first came to the States, I was working on a project for nine one one system for the city of San Antonio here and system was live running. No problem. I had a friend come and visit and we went to see the call taking room and I was showing, even though it was my friend, we had a good interface. It was pretty cool. And I was showing him, hey, you click here. You get information from the caller, it goes to the goes to the other screen. And at some point he was not paying attention anymore. So I stopped talking and I hear the call taker saying, the guy on the phone, guy on the phone. So is the person shooting at you or just the general direction? And then I'm like, my bits and bytes are right now, at this very second, being used to maybe save somebody's life, because that's what we wrote. That's the code we wrote for six months to put that online. So that really ingrained in my brain that it is about the business. It's not about the technology. And that's what we need to focus on. That was, kind of early in my management side of my career. But, it stood with me for a lot forever because it's so true.

Phil Howard: It does make a difference in people's lives. I mean, technology and even from the negative side, like, I mean, I think a pacemaker has been hacked or like, from the, I remember when we were talking about the IoT of things for a long time, that's like, not even, it's not even a buzzword anymore. Remember when our ovens were getting hacked because they have Wi-Fi access. And I used to be able to turn my oven on. I remember one time I turned my oven on. I was driving from Portland, Maine to Kennebunkport, Maine. It's like a forty five minute drive. And I was like, we got the frozen pizzas, but the oven's not gonna be ready. I'm starving. And I remember I turned the oven on, like, via Wi-Fi. Mhm. Forty five minutes away. That just seems problematic to me. And then the 911 call happened. But we use technology for that because Phil's house is burning. It's like my dev, I have a very, very strong willed dev friend who runs a dev team in Morocco. And he's just like, look, I build the software for the medical industry. He's like, don't talk to me about AI. People's lives are endangered here. He's like, you can have fun with your AI and all your other stuff. He's like, I don't care. He's like, you guys still need real coders for when it comes to healthcare.

Jose Ng: My only last thought would be like, to your point, this is kind of look, we're in a technology forum, right? But there's four of us here connecting right now. And I think that's the beauty of technology is the ability of technology to allow us to connect. Like, I don't think I would have ever met any one of you in person at all in any chance in my life. Right? Technology, it helps us connect in that way. So I hope that this whatever technologies that we have, whether it's AI or not. Also, to your point, Phil, is like finds a way to actually make us more human, not less. Right. So I hope that's the case.

Luis Oliveira: Cool. Well said.

Phil Howard: Yes. It's true. This has been a pleasure. Thank you. And, you've all been heard.