Petri Dish

Is your organization building real business value with AI or just putting on a show? In this episode of Petri Dish, Russell Smith speaks with TroyNorcross, Fractional COO, Founder of SER Team , and AI governance advisor, about why so many enterprise AI projects fail to deliver meaningful results. Instead of starting with a clear business problem, many organizations begin with the assumption that “...

Finance wants to become more strategic, but IT has to provide the governed, trustworthy data foundation first. In this episode of Petri dish, I'm talking to Brian Kobleur, who is Vice President of Ecosystems at Vena Solutions. We discusshow the humble Excel spreadsheet is still quite often the core tool used by financial planning and analysis teams, and how Vena Solutions is helping organizati...

AI agents are moving beyond simple productivity helpers and becoming autonomous workers across Windows, Microsoft 365, and enterprise systems. In this episode of Petri Dish, Russell Smith talks with Craig Birch, Principal Technologist at Cayosoft, about Microsoft’s AI agent announcements from Build, including Agent 365, Microsoft 365 E7, agent identity, permissions, governance, and the risk of age...

In this epsidoe of Petri Dish, we’re joined by Brian Alvey, CTO of WordPress VIP, the enterprise-grade CMS platform trusted by organisations like NASA, Salesforce, and major global publishers. Brian has been building on the web since the earliest days, bringing a rare mix of builder and operator experience to modern content platforms. In this conversation, we’ll explore how enterprise CMS platform...

Virtualized infrastructure across on-premises data centers and the cloud was supposed to make life easier for IT teams. Instead, it’s often become a tangle of complexity. Why is something as established as virtualisation turning into a headache and what are we missing? To find out, I’m joined by Brad Cline, Vice President of IT Operations at SolarWinds . With nearly 30 years in IT, Brad’s seen vir...

Most Entra ID reviews focus on roles and permissions. I.e., who’s a Global Admin, what’s been consented, what looks obviously dangerous. But what if the real risk isn’t a privileged user at all? What if a regular user, with no admin role, can still put themselves on a path toward Global Administrator, simply because of an application they own? That’s the question behind today’s episode. Today on P...

In this episode of Petri Dish, we’re looking at one of the most important shifts happening in enterprise work right now: the rise of AI-powered document creation. Joining me is Jean-Marc Chanoine, Chief Sales Officer at Templafy , a company that’s been at the forefront of integrating AI and automation into the everyday tools knowledge workers already use, like Microsoft 365 and Copilot. Templafy h...

Today we’re diving into the story behind Skillable, a platform that helps IT professionals build real-world skills. I’m joined by Danny Abdo, Chief Operations and Product Officer at Skillable, and Corey Hynes, Executive Chairman and founder of Skillable, to explore the problem the company set out to solve, how the product was built, and how it’s evolving to meet the demands of an AI-driven world....

Attackers aren’t breaking in—they’re logging in. In this episode, we unpack the Microsoft Digital Defense Report (MDDR) and what it reveals about today’s identity-first threat landscape: info-stealers, hybrid ransomware operations, and social engineering that blends into “normal” activity. Joining the conversation are Chloé Messdaghi (strategic advisor on AI governance and cybersecurity at Microso...

In this episode, I’m joined by Giovanni Carraro, SVP of Global Strategic Alliances at Kyndryl , to unpack why that gap exists and what it really takes to close it. We’ll talk about what changes when AI systems move from analysis to autonomy, why traditional governance starts to break down, and how enterprises can make agentic AI secure, observable, and trustworthy at scale. If you’re trying to mov...

In this episode of Petri Dish, Russell Smith sits down with Wendy Stusrud, Vice President of Worldwide Channel Sales at ‪ DDN‬ to talk about what it really takes to make enterprise copilots and chatbots succeed at scale. Wendy shares why she joined DDN as the company doubles down on AI, and how DDN positions itself not as a chatbot vendor but as the data backbone that keeps AI assistants fed with...

In this episode of Petri Dish, Russell sits down with Ramiro Calderon, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft, Jef Kazimer, Principal Product Manager on the Microsoft Security Entra Identity Platform, and Tee Earls, Product Area Lead for Entra ID Governance, to unpack why identity governance is no longer just about compliance but it’s foundational to Zero Trust and modern security. 🔗 Links: Road...

Learn what Kerberos RC4 deprecation means for Active Directory, the risks of Windows Server 2025 domain controllers, and best practices for OU design in this expert breakdown with Principal Technologist Cayosoft , Craig Birch.🔗 Links and related articles are in the description below. Craig's post on Kerberos RC4: Microsoft Retires RC4, Mandates AES Encryption for Kerberos Episode summary on P...

In this episode of Petri Dish, I talk to Devolutions CTO, Marc-André Moreau, and we dive into the latest in how AI is changing remote desktop management. Learn how Large Language Models (LLMs) and Model Context Protocol (MCP) are helping IT administrators automate tasks, boost efficiency, and unlock new opportunities. Whether you’re an early adopter or just starting to explore AI in your workflow,...

In this episode of Petri Dish, Petri’s Editorial Director, Russell Smith, talks to Cayosoft CEO and founder Bob Bobel about managing complexity in Identity and Access Management (IAM) and the future of the IAM space.🔗 Check out Cayosoft here: https://www.cayosoft.com/  @Cayosoft  started life as a license management solution for Microsoft 365 and it gradually evolved into a comprehensive backup,...

What if you could protect your organization from the latest AD and Entra ID threats without expensive tools or complicated setups? In this interview, I talk to Dmitry Sotnikov and Craig Birch about how  @Cayosoft  's free, agentless Guardian Protector tool is changing the game for organizations on a budget. Discover how Guardian Protector provides instant threat and change alerts, no matter yo...