IT in the D

This week we had a great conversation with  Erik Wille , CISO at American Axle and one of the hosts of  The Great Security Debate . We started by mocking “what keeps you up at night”, but in all seriousness, we got into how he views security for a global company. We then got into the  giant vendor landscape , and how he made sense of this madness. Lastly, we talked about his po...

This week, we got to chat with  Steven Childs , founder of  Dorsay Creative , a digital marketing agency. Bob was excited to talk with him for a number of reasons, but mostly because we haven’t spoken with anyone on SEO in probably 5–6 years and we could use a refresh. And wow, did we get into it: we wondered what Google/Bing are doing to combat ChatGPT and fake indexed pages, and how they&#...

Publishing this one early so you still have time to grab tickets! Ming Chen  of  A Shared Universe PodcaStudio  and  “AMC’s Comic Book Men” will be appearing at Astronomicon 6 this weekend! We reminisce with him and he talks all about the con.

This week we met with Wolfgang Goerlich . Not only is he a well respected CISO, he was our guest on Episode 1 (and episode 112 ).  We had fun catching up, talking about security then vs. now, changes in philosophy, and mocked marketing jargon for commonly used tech.  We ended by talking about Securing Sexuality , his conference and podcast , prompted by his wife, who is a relationship an...

This week, we chatted with  Eddie Eadeh , CEO of  E&E Tech .  We started talking about making the jump into entrepreneurship, got into data security for small business, and the layoffs going on in big tech. We ended up talking about his podcast, the  Power On Podcast  and his favorite episode, “Why IT companies suck”.  Eddie is a natural conversational...

This week, we were super lucky to chat with  David Williams , CIO and CISO of  Gold Star Mortgage Financial .  Since it’s end of year, we started by joking about how many sales reps are currently calling him to make their end of year numbers. We then got into what it takes to be dual role CIO and CISO, how he chooses his vendors, methodologies, and best practices. We ended by talking about h...

This week, we were super lucky to talk to serial entrepreneur, branding expert, and all around great guy  Hajj Flemings , CEO of  Rebrand Cities  and founder of  Modern Athlete . Hajj was one of the first people I remember talking about your “personal brand”, so we dove into that, as well as what it means for smaller neighborhoods and businesses to have a digital vo...

This week, we got to chat with change and strategy consultant  Stefanie Krievins . We immediately got into change management, and not in a software/project way, but in a human way and how it is difficult for most people. We discussed  DISC methodology  and how it applies on how we work with others. This led to how to lead kick ass meetings (something I think we can all improve on!) 

This week, we chatted about all things cloud with AWS Ambassador and all around great guy  Troy Dieter .  Troy has an  impressive list of certifications  and just received the title of Cloudius Maximus for obtaining his 7th AWS cert. We got into the path on those looking to start and build their career in cloud.  We also talked in length about  AWS re:Invent  and what it looks...

This week, we talked with management consultant Zach Boguslawski about his journey from being in the military and transitioning it to working in technology in the private sector. We also got into what it means to be a “management consultant”, overused terms like ‘business outcomes’ and ‘digital transformation’, and how he translates that into meaningful conversa...

When you think of industries embracing technology, construction just isn’t one of them. Well, a long time construction worker and software developer (right?) thought that there has to be a better way. This week we talked with  Justin Turk , CEO of  Livegistics . We dove into the issues facing the construction industry, how Livegistics is helping automate it, and how legacy workers are embrac...

This week, we got to speak to the legend himself,  Mike Zapcic . With the recent release of  Clerks III , his appearance on AMC’s  Comic Book Men , or his countless other  podcasts , plus working at  Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash , Mike is literally a comics encyclopedia. We got into discussions about the days of past (see: going to Blockbuster on a Friday night) and then talked ab...

Yan Ness , CEO of Verge.io joins us to talk about managing the complexity of cloud infrastructure. Verge.io consolidates several tools into one platform that doesn’t require a team of people to manage. Before Verge.io, Yan built OnlineTech, so he has plenty of entrepreneurship experience. He talks about starting and running companies, and what led him to start Verge.io. The conversation also...

This week, we were joined by  Rashone Bryant  aka Afrikan Caesar from the  Sneaker Box Podcast . Most recently, Rashone was featured on the History Channel’s “Fast History Of, Swoosh Dreams” that  you can watch here .  We’ve never gotten into sneaker culture on IT in the D and it was genuinely fascinating the way Nike and others have built a mega su...

[podcast-buttons] Paul Blatt was back to talk about the combining of two local non-profit organizations JVS Human Services and Kadima. The organization also has a new name: Gesher Human Services . Gesher Human Services (“gesher” means “bridge” in Hebrew) offers career counseling and job placement for job seekers with obstacles to employment, supportive housing for individua...

[podcast-buttons] This week, we had a fun chat with  Brian “Schneebs” Schneble  of  Abnormal Security  and  The Great Security Debate  podcast fame. Immediately, we jumped into a couple of personal stories about email phishing that made us laugh, but then things got serious as we talked about companies that have been hit with spoofed emails which cost them...

No lies—we love when tech entrepreneurs get into the booze business.  Dennis Weiss  is the CEO of  IPQualityScore , owner of  Weiss Distilling , and owner of  Sabbath Coffee Roasters . Dennis’s story was very similar to the story of  Jeff Hussey, Founder of F5 Networks , where IPQS was founded out of necessity. When Dennis was working in the marketing industry and got tired of fraud, he buil...

Bob and Randy were joined this week by Ryan Angott of LapLok . LapLok is a new style of security device for laptop computers. It’s easier to use than a cable lock and works with any laptop—no security slot required. Ryan told some crazy statistics about laptop theft and security, how he got the idea for LapLok, and about crowdfunding the project on Indiegogo . Ryan has a compelling product in LapL...

This week, Alex Linebrink , CEO of Passage , joined Bob and Randy to talk about all things event ticketing. Alex told us how he got started in tech, and then how he came up with Passage (it involves one of our favorite holidays!), an online event tickets platform. Passage has grown to selling over six million tickets, and has also launched several niche ticket websites like HauntPay for haunted ho...

Bob and Randy were joined this week by Monica Wheat , Managing Director of Techstars Detroit Powered by JP Morgan . Before that, she most recently led Techstars Equitech in Baltimore. First, Bob and Monica talked about Techstars. Techstars is a global seed-stage accelerator in 40+ cities worldwide. Over 500 companies participate each year. There are over 15,000 investors, 7,000 mentors, and 3,000...

This week, we got to chat with  Steve Marney  and   Jake Waggoner  from  DMI . DMI is a mix of Compuware and many other acquisitions and Steve’s team is focused on Auto Industry disruption. We had a great chat surrounding the recent boom in EV cars, what a software-defined vehicle is, and how security impacts the entire experience. We finished the chat talking about the talent gap, competing...

This week, we were super lucky to chat with Kevin McCarty of The McCartys . Kevin is behind the YouTube channel  The McCartys   that had amassed close to 3M subscribers on YouTube just this year. They also have 5.2M followers on their  TikTok channel . This is a pretty amazing story considering Kevin was a high school teacher for 15 years, did some hype videos for the sports te...

Bob and Randy were joined this week by Matt Van Itallie , founder and CEO of Sema . Sema has two great tools: Code Review, a Chrome extension that makes code reviews more robust with structured feedback and easy access to best practices, and Codebase Solution that offers comprehensive reports that evaluate the quality of code, code security, and third party IP risk. Matt tells Bob and Randy the hi...

This week, we were joined by Andy Didorosi , owner of The Detroit Bus Company who has been up to quite a few things over the past few years. Early in the pandemic, Andy created Arsenal of Clean to get hand sanitizer to people and businesses who needed them. DBC tours and bus rentals are up and running again, and Farebox.io keeps everything organized. It was developed in-house, but now its availabl...

This was a great show as we chatted with  Chris Gordon  and  Amel Mudjzic , Cloud Security Architects with  Trace3 .  Salespeople take note: We started talking about how vendor websites, vendor webinars, and sales calls are 75% sales/25% technical, and that needs to be completely flipped around. We then got into the four pillars of cloud security, their methodology and how...