We know that many business executives are incompetent scumbags. In this podcast we dive into how they managed to a get the job and even get paid serious money despite their obvious shortcomings. What can technology engineers learn from these fools so that they get the same results aka more money and less work. * Senior executives are often hired on their brand value as much as their actual skills. * Investors / owners want a good brand for their money → happy * Are there questions that we...

What are these roles and how do they fit into a strategy ? Who solves problems, designs solutions, and tests to make sure that’s workable ? How do we create/train people for these roles ? What about professional liability ?

The new geopolitical reality means that China is part of IT Strategy. The supply chain is changing, joint ventures are limited and more. We avoid the politics to discuss what might matter in terms of planning and choices for IT strategy. Not many answers but some good questions to get you thinking. Send your feedback using our Follow Up page at https://packetpushers.net/fu  

The role of AIOps has been a buzzword for a while now but recently the public availability of generative AI and LLMs means like ChatGPT means there is a lot more awareness of consumer AI. In todays sponsored show we are talking to Vitria about AI Ops and how you can add it to your strategy. VIA AIOps is a next generation AIOps solution which enables reliable automation across all layers of service delivery to improve the customer experience and optimize operations.  VIA AIOps provides...

Digital Transformation is fading away as marketing has corrupted its image and value. And yet, Johna and Greg think there is some truth remains. We consider three perspectives, asking questions that probably won’t get answered. Is it all bollocks ? You decide.

What is the difference between service, project, and product business ? Huge differences between project (disruption, replacement), service (smooth, continuous) and product (updates, changes) mean that process and people have very different skills and outcomes. The choice of IT leadership has outsized impact on the success of IT Function. We discuss this and the ideas behind it. We don’t have answers but its a useful discussion.

Short answer is yes. Long answer is long. CHatGPT is useful for demonstrating potential and getting more funding for AI. In terms of potential for real work, well, its not good enough. But Johna and Greg discuss how this demonstration could evolve and how it might be able to integrate into the corporate workplace. How can it partner with humans to increase productivity and improve technology experiences. We don’t have answers but we have unanswered questions. Sponsor BackBox is a...

We talk a lot about automation and orchestration and how they can change your network strategy and smooth network workflows. But not everybody wants to sit around writing code and building test labs to validate the code you’ve written. Sponsor BackBox has a range of tools to help you get beyond day-to-day administration with its low-code approach to automation. Greg and Johna talk with Josh Stephens and Chanoch Marmorstein from BackBox about its network automation software, how it fits into a...

It might be curmudgeon day. Johna and Greg ask what are mistakes that we have seen in technology strategies. Our experiences and advisory work have led us to believe that we can identify common mistakes when building Enterprise Architecture and Technolgy Strategy. Obviously, we say the word ‘strategy’ far too much.

After setting questions and perspectives on What is Enterprise Architecture, the natural sequence is How to Maintain and Operate an Architecture team. This dialog takes two different approaches, throws out idea Johna & Greg have experienced including where things went wrong. Unanswered questions are better than unquestioned answers.

Some companies use formal Enterprise Architecture (EA) to maintan a consistent IT strategy. Its not often succesful as EA concepts are hard to find, quickly lose direction and the function becomes irrelvant. Johna and Greg discuss the intent and possible ways to practically maintain the EA function.

Are there angles on future metaverse that make sensee ? Johna and Greg dive into their perspectives on what is a metaverse and converge on the face that its a form of collaboration. Potentially it could be immersive with VR googles but more likely it’s about engaging data from external domains into the collaboration experience. Sponsor: DPUs are Coming – Livestream with DELL  If you want to understand Data Processing Units (DPUs) and how they might impact your work as a network or...

You can’t make a profit from Cybersecurity, its a cost. How do we work with business to see IT risk management on the same level as accounting and human resources ? Johna and Greg discuss various options on market, process and methods that could help you work on your cyber situation. This is Heavy Strategy where the questions are more important than the answers.

Whats the deal with Quiet Quitting ? Johna & Greg get into a heated debate about the nature of work. Johna wants people to ‘do your job’, Greg wants ‘pay me more to do more’. How much can a companies expect from their employees as hustle culture is being rejected by more people.

Should LEO space networks be part of your network ? Are there common questions about using and designing for them ? What should be expecting from your telco ? Lots of questions and ideas to help you find you answers.

Graphiant Stateless Cloud WAN addresses the limitations of SDWAN – better scalability, more flexibility and service guarantees. Their stateless network core is multi-tenant, predictable and scalable. Customers get the benefit of SDWAN with less of the problems. We unpack the details in this episiode with Khalid Raza, Founder and CEO of Graphiant and ask questions to understand how it would fit your strategy.

Two topics in a short show – discussing leadership and mentoring.  What might we expect from leadership and what are the elements of being one in context of IT Technology ? Is there a role for career mentors and coaches in modern IT ? We discuss the topic and establish some points. IT Careers are high value and high effort but unlike other professions (such as law or medicine) there are no gatekeepers to working. This leads to  training and ‘life coaches’ that are unregulated and often...

In today’s sponsored podcast with Kolide we discuss how their tools engage the user to improve end-point security. Monitoring devices and then contacting the user to gather more information and provide contextual questions is a novel approach. There are often reasons to need short term privileges for day-to-day work and then to clean up afterwards. Consider this screenshot of a policy breach but asking the user if the data download is still required with suggested actions: We don’t often...

Both sides of the low code/no code debate. We outline two sides of the debate, discuss four topics in favour of low code and then cover four negatives. Avoidance of toil coding, avoid skill shortage and viable testing are good things. Lockin, shadow IT and ownership are problematic. Its a solid debate on the topic. Sponsor Thanks to Kolide for sponsoring. Kolide offers a user-centred approach to end point security by scanning and monitoring their devices. If something is outside policy...

The pro and con’s of having preferred supplier for IT technology ? You can save time and effort, simplify purchasing and move quicker but are you getting the best solution and support. We discuss different perspectives on going down the path and point out the subscription pricing moves towards vendor lockin. Also, we use Microsoft as an example of strategic vendor but with signficant negative issues and much higher costs. Thanks to our sponsors Kolide and 6Connect for supporting the show.

We discuss different aspects of selecting technology to buy. Topics include business case, planning, selection, evaluation and review – as you might expect – but we find that there isn’t one right answer. The processes used by organisations are divergent and its impractical to define one way. As usual both Johna and Greg disagree and agree in equal measure.

Cold takes on the Broadcom/VMware acquisition. We consider Broadcom’s stated goal to increase VMW profit margin from 35% to 65% and what this will mean to customer experience, price increases, changes in sales and speculate on which products will be sold off or ended. Its certain that big changes are coming to VMware customers and we discuss what we know and what might happen.

What are the right questions for developing and maintaining a technology strategy for your company ? Johna takes the lead to discuss her experiences of working with clients while Greg takes the practitioner view on consuming one. Our perspectives clash as we debate different sides regarding the practicality of ‘high faluting’ strategy documents but we find solid data points of agreement.  

Does planning for cybersecurity failure include the concept of ‘crime scene’ ? Can you provide evidence to an external investigation sufficient to get justice or simply prove to insurance investigator that you met the policy requirements ? Should you be lobbying governments ? How does this drive your cyber spending – defense, microsegmentation, detection or evidence collection ?

Shadow IT does not always lead to bad outcomes. Ownership of technology or solutions means no blame on IT team. A bad solution is better than no solution. IT may not understand the needs well enough or focus on their own problems. Its painful having diverse strategies but IT does not have a good track record on smart purchasing – look at the quality of MS Windows! Yes, shadow IT had good and bad features but which is which ?