00:00:10:20 - 00:00:40:08
Speaker 1
Go. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of ASCII Anything presented by Moser Consulting. I'm your host Angel Leon, Moser’s director of personnel. And today we have the very best of season four of ASCII Anything. With me to talk about this is producer Brian because we have compiled a set of clips that I think you will enjoy listening to and might even trigger you to go back and listen to the whole episode.

00:00:40:08 - 00:00:41:13
Speaker 1
So first of all, Brian, how are you?

00:00:41:21 - 00:00:57:11
Speaker 2
I'm great. This is the this is my favorite episode of every season because we get to go back and check out all the cool things people said. I always enjoy putting this episode together at the end of every season because it's a little retrospective and a little bit of those are really fun. Oh, that was that was a great point.

00:00:57:11 - 00:01:02:07
Speaker 2
Really. Oh, I didn't know that or I'd never thought about that before. And I love those moments.

00:01:02:21 - 00:01:17:13
Speaker 1
Well, not only that, but just as we were getting ready to record a brings up the annual, Brian has to come up with a great name for this episode and we just literally in a span of 15 seconds, this man basically came up with a title for this episode!

00:01:17:13 - 00:01:28:07
Speaker 2
So the improv background still comes in handy very regularly. So it's the end of the year, it's the end of the season. And with that, we wish you a merry CLIPS-Mas...

00:01:28:23 - 00:01:30:10
Speaker 1
There it is, right? US.

00:01:30:11 - 00:01:31:02
Speaker 2
That's right.

00:01:31:18 - 00:01:40:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. I saw this man basically go through improv mode in 15 seconds and it was amazing. Just he just said like, wait, hold on.

00:01:40:17 - 00:01:49:03
Speaker 2
I got it in the middle of explaining the pressure of having to name the end of season episode. I'm like, Hold on. Nope, I've got it. Okay, pressure's off.

00:01:49:03 - 00:02:13:20
Speaker 1
I got to say, our marketing team is very creative, and these people just come up with stuff out of thin air. And I witnessed it literally just 2 minutes ago before we started recording. It's magic. It's magic. We have, like I said, a very good episode for you. I say this every year, but it's honestly it was honestly one of my favorite seasons to do because we got into a lot of different people.

00:02:13:20 - 00:02:34:09
Speaker 1
We had a lot of different topics. And to start us off, I mean, we had Stefanie Krievins who talked to us a lot about Peter Principle. And I got to say it, it was one of my favorite episodes to record just because we get to talk about leadership, etc. But Stefanie just had such a great deal of knowledge in this topic.

00:02:34:09 - 00:02:52:15
Speaker 2
I was unfamiliar with the Peter Principle ahead of that episode and learned about it in  prep for it, and it was a really fun episode. She's an executive coach.

00:02:52:15 - 00:03:14:24
Speaker 1
She said something that really it stuck on me, not just because of our conversation, but it stuck on me always that promoting people and equipping them with the right tools to be, you know, promoted, I think that's key. And I think that is a guide that anybody in any organization can use because you don't just promote somebody for the sake of promoting.

00:03:14:24 - 00:03:27:09
Speaker 1
You have to promote them because you know that they're going to be good servant leaders, that they're going to be obviously good at their next position. The next level. So a lot of good information that we got from her in that episode.

00:03:27:18 - 00:03:46:19
Speaker 3
The Leader is the role model for how you show up in the organization. So if the leader is not willing to evolve, the team's not going to evolve. Every time we promote somebody, we've got to equip them with the new skills because it's a new role. Their technical skills that got them there are not the people skills that they need to manage up, down and across the organization and communicate.

00:03:46:19 - 00:04:02:08
Speaker 3
It's an entirely different skill set. So I'm all for promoting people and I'm all for promoting people and equipping them to do that new role adequately. Because management and leadership is totally learnable, you've got to create a plan to onboard them into that role.

00:04:02:17 - 00:04:30:03
Speaker 2
Yeah, the thought of, you know, we onboard new employees but not necessarily promoted employees. There's a whole separate onboarding process for a new hire, a more responsible position. And you don't just stick and be like, Hey, you're promoted, good luck. And that happens a lot of places. And it shouldn't, you know, when you give somebody more responsibility and a higher position, training should be part and parcel of that process.

00:04:30:07 - 00:04:40:03
Speaker 1
And then from Stefanie, we went on to our own VP of Application Services, Matt Bennett, who spoke to us about the process of progressive web apps.

00:04:40:03 - 00:04:55:04
Speaker 2
I have to pay attention when Matt is talking because otherwise he is so smart. He will lose me if I lose focus for a single second. I'm in the weeds and I'm shooting up a flare going I'm sorry, I don't know what's going on anymore.

00:04:55:12 - 00:05:18:05
Speaker 1
But we cover a lot. In that episode, he gave us a good overview of what progressive web app says. You know, user experience. How does that look like? The development process of a progressive web app? I didn't know any of those like you. I mean, when we were talking about him and just doing the research for this episode, it was so amazing that you get to learn about how web applications are made.

00:05:18:08 - 00:05:42:21
Speaker 1
Basically, it's a give and take process because it's not just them. As application developers coming up with this process, they have to have the involvement of the stakeholder. That's a very important piece of that, obviously, because they're the ones that are going to roll that out in the end and that is going to be their name. But they also want to make sure that the user experience, the owner of the stakeholder experience is also key.

00:05:43:03 - 00:05:45:17
Speaker 1
So very, very good conversation on that.

00:05:46:09 - 00:05:58:06
Speaker 4
It allows you to invest the time that you spend in capturing requirements and really going into detail about what needs to be built kind of in a I mean, just in times maybe not the totally right way to say it.

00:05:58:14 - 00:06:01:21
Speaker 1
But it keeps the bulk of the time you.

00:06:01:21 - 00:06:11:09
Speaker 4
Invest focused on the things that are closest to being implemented on your roadmap right? Because when you sit down to start off a project.

00:06:11:22 - 00:06:12:23
Speaker 1
A lot of times.

00:06:13:06 - 00:06:27:10
Speaker 4
What we find is when you're three, six, nine months into a two-year project, some of those things that you defined early on are going to shift. They're going to shift in priority. They're going to shift and need.

00:06:27:10 - 00:06:30:23
Speaker 1
A core component of UX.

00:06:30:23 - 00:06:50:08
Speaker 4
And making sure you're designing the right interactions right through those wireframes is you want something that's intuitive, you want something that someone can look at and infer from the interactive design how they're supposed to interact with it. How do you like it? How are you using it? How much time are they spending on a page trying to figure out this new feature?

00:06:50:10 - 00:06:56:04
Speaker 4
All that data that you can collect around behaviors and usage habits in addition.

00:06:56:04 - 00:06:56:19
Speaker 1
To.

00:06:57:09 - 00:07:04:21
Speaker 4
The direct feedback that you're receiving, we can then compile that and use that to inform the next sprint, the next two sprints.

00:07:05:10 - 00:07:28:22
Speaker 1
And then from Matt, we went to our very own, our director of marketing, Malinda Lowder, who came on the season to talk about living with intent and purpose. And this was another excellent topic that Malinda brought to us about basically developing in the workplace. You know, how do you live with intent and purpose? How can you put that into the perspective of your job, your position, what you do on a day to day basis?

00:07:28:22 - 00:07:31:14
Speaker 1
And again, Malinda basically knocked it out of the ballpark.

00:07:31:24 - 00:07:52:10
Speaker 2
I'm going to have to start giving people a dollar every time I mention an improv background. But mindfulness and being present and doing things deliberately like there is meaning and there is thought and there is a plan behind the things that I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. Allowing me to build to where I want to be can be true for anyone.

00:07:52:10 - 00:08:05:10
Speaker 2
And it's pretty simple principles that you can incorporate it into your day-to-day homelife, work, life, relationship, whatever. If you're acting with due purpose and intent, you can make changes to get where you want to be.

00:08:06:00 - 00:08:23:14
Speaker 3
At Moser, one of our goals is giving back to the community. And there's little things all over the company about this. Not only do we do a lot of events, we do a lot of charity, we do a lot of that, but it's small things. If you go into our offices, into our cafes, there's like a box of treats and snacks and things.

00:08:23:20 - 00:08:48:23
Speaker 3
So it's not just something that they bought at Costco and put in there. We order them from a company that takes part of the money, from the snacks and donates it to world charities. So when you go and pick a bag of candy out of that, there's a little ad on the bottom of where that came from. We order these every month for the offices and part of that money goes back to charity.

00:08:49:01 - 00:09:10:12
Speaker 3
So it's done with intent and purpose more than just going to a store and buying candy or snacks or chips. We do that too, to supplement. But, you know, there's one box we order every month is from the charity, and that's part of how we push that forward, that this is something we want to do every day, not just on Habitat for Humanity build day.

00:09:10:19 - 00:09:14:23
Speaker 3
It's part of our culture and we do it with intent at the company all the time.

00:09:15:03 - 00:09:38:06
Speaker 1
From Malinda, we jump to probably my most giddy that I've ever been to record a podcast, and that was when we had Matty Graham and Josh Ward. Matty Graham, of course, racecar driver, Porsche, and then Josh from Terminus Technologies. We had Matty twice, but the first time we spoke to Maddie, Matty was coming to Indianapolis to raise that IMS.

00:09:38:08 - 00:10:00:07
Speaker 2
The Porsche Carrera Cup Together Fest. You ran two races that weekend. He was looking forward to his first time racing in the U.S. since he was a teenager, where he came over and raced go karts in Las Vegas. That had been the last time. So he was he was excited and maybe a little nervous about that opportunity. We got to watch him prepare and then achieve success.

00:10:00:07 - 00:10:26:08
Speaker 2
I mean, he placed he was on the podium in both of the races. He came in third in both races. That's amazing. The difference between the European circuit and the American circuit, even in the cars like he had talked about, you know, we don't have anti-lock braking in the European circuit getting used to driving a car with ABS and how you can use that to your advantage versus, you know, how you use a car that might lock up and flat spot a tire against your competitors there.

00:10:26:08 - 00:10:51:12
Speaker 2
I mean, the strategy was different. The cars are different. You know, it's the first time he'd been in that particular car he was racing with a different helmet than he usually races. And there were so many factors that he had to adjust to and incorporate in such a short amount of time. It was really cool to see him get that success and as I understand it, he's coming back for the full season next year.

00:10:51:24 - 00:10:55:02
Speaker 2
I don't follow racing in general.

00:10:55:02 - 00:10:55:17
Speaker 1
Me neither.

00:10:55:18 - 00:10:57:08
Speaker 2
I will be following Matty.

00:10:57:17 - 00:11:17:14
Speaker 5
But I mean, the best way to prepare myself for a new track is to probably do some laps on the simulator. So simulators these days have come on like so much in the past few years. Now it's a bit quite limited to what you can even go see the feeling of the car through the simulator. But what they do give you is a very good layout of the track.

00:11:17:14 - 00:11:38:04
Speaker 5
The very well mapped things are very accurate now, so you can get a real good idea and a good feel for the track of the simulator before you come there. And then the other thing is to watch a lot of onboard footage from, you know, people that have visited there because, again, you can see how the car reacts, handles over certain curbs, things that the simulator may miss.

00:11:38:07 - 00:11:43:07
Speaker 5
Yeah, not not quite prepare you fully for the actual experience of getting on the track.

00:11:43:07 - 00:11:51:23
Speaker 1
It's very cool to see him. Of course, we're talking about this gentleman who raced this car, go online, find them, follow him on Instagram, etc..

00:11:52:01 - 00:12:03:03
Speaker 2
And before we get done with this full-blown compliment storm, I will say, Matty, if you're listening to this episode, I haven't gotten any popcorn yet either.

00:12:03:04 - 00:12:04:13
Speaker 1
Yes, we're still.

00:12:04:13 - 00:12:10:14
Speaker 2
I mean, you're great and we love you and we're super proud of your success. But I haven't seen any popcorn yet.

00:12:10:19 - 00:12:38:14
Speaker 1
Yes, we need we need popcorn. No, but seriously, for him in basically his first time driving in IMS, it's really amazing. This car was different. Everything like you mentioned, Brian, was different for him. But his demeanor, his I mean, we talk about living with intent and purpose, you know,  2 minutes ago he lives it. He was basically on it from the minute he arrived in the U.S. and he knew what he wanted to do, which was race.

00:12:38:24 - 00:12:57:19
Speaker 1
And he was going to do it well. And he did he beat people who have raced at IMS dozens of times. And he just came in and said, oh, I got this, I got this. You know, it doesn't matter that I'm in a foreign country and a foreign car, but foreign equipment, like you mentioned, the ABS thing is really big because they don't use that in Europe.

00:12:57:19 - 00:13:07:01
Speaker 1
So they have to basically slow down to basically stop when they're making these huge turns here. It's the abs is so much different. You know.

00:13:07:01 - 00:13:25:24
Speaker 2
The timing is completely different just based on the braking systems. And not only that, he's joining a completely new team. He's like, oh, hello, people I have never met before. Yes, I have 24 hours to basically learn what everybody does and your names Let's Do This. And he did. And he had success, not just on the track.

00:13:26:10 - 00:13:30:22
Speaker 2
It was like the entire time he was here, even in the promotion, he was a great guest.

00:13:30:22 - 00:13:31:07
Speaker 1
Mm hmm.

00:13:31:17 - 00:13:51:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, definitely. Check out check out the highlights, check out both of the episodes because we had the pre episode and we're talking to him via Zoom when he was still over in England and then skipping ahead a couple of things, but we might as well wrap Matty all in one. Yeah, we got to talk to him live at the track, which was super cool!

00:13:51:12 - 00:14:15:21
Speaker 1
Yes, it was super cool. He had just come off training and it was amazing. I mean, just to get his insights, like even small things that he mentioned, like the noise of the cars, like how they're different here versus straight pipes. Yeah. Here in America versus what he races over there in the UK. I mean, just a little bit, you know, tidbits like that that you don't get unless you talk to somebody who does it.

00:14:15:21 - 00:14:42:02
Speaker 1
And to put this into perspective, you know how hard it is, what he did. I mean, think about it when you switch jobs, right, that you know, you're nervous. You're going with that first day jitters. And this guy came in here and basically four days, Met everybody, did his onboarding basically with the new company that basically within three days, one the company, two races, you know, basically place third place for his new company in two days.

00:14:42:02 - 00:14:44:08
Speaker 1
So I would say that's a job well done.

00:14:44:15 - 00:14:53:10
Speaker 2
Yeah. Imagine the last job that you started, your first week at the office. Now imagine that week at 150 miles an hour.

00:14:54:20 - 00:15:16:05
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. It doesn't get any better than that. And in that first episode that we did with Matty, we also had Josh Ward, who is part of Terminus Technologies, who also talked to us about the technologies that they do in racing and just amazing how they can map the track, map where the car is, know where the car is, etc., within basically milliseconds of the car moving.

00:15:16:05 - 00:15:33:24
Speaker 2
And then feeding that into the simulators for the drivers. And then also on the other hand, being able to, you know, share that information with fans to draw them in, people that really care and love auto racing. That's the kind of information. If you make it available to them, they're just going to gobble it up.

00:15:33:24 - 00:15:39:01
Speaker 1
So I hate to use the term geek, but it's geek stuff for racing. Like.

00:15:39:13 - 00:16:00:04
Speaker 4
No doubt there's a whole range of information and we simulate all of this in our virtual environments that we have. You know, we have virtual car driving 24 seven, 365 days a year, literally turning lap after lap after lap with our sensors that believe they're real and capturing real cars. And actually it's all virtual. And we have these cars that make mistakes.

00:16:00:04 - 00:16:25:20
Speaker 4
They drive like normal drivers would. They put in false laps, slow laps, you know, everything in between. And then we have suddenly thousands of hours worth of data that we're combing through that we then put into our physical units when they go live. And actually suddenly you're prepared and you're ready and you love the idea as well of not just making this fantastic for teams and not just fantastic for drivers and everyone on that side of the fence, but actually also making it something that's engaged by fans.

00:16:26:03 - 00:16:41:04
Speaker 1
Again, you and I are not very familiar with racing or very in tune with that world, but when we were talking with him, we were both like, I was fascinated. Yeah, making all these questions that may sound stupid to them, but trust us. They weren't to us.

00:16:42:16 - 00:16:52:13
Speaker 2
Yeah. They were gracious enough to deal with my awe and and wonder at it all. I was like, yeah, that's, that's what we do. Like, it was amazing.

00:16:52:23 - 00:17:04:17
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's amazing. And we hope to have Matty back here in the States and hope to have him back on, ask anything he he was a great guest overall. I mean, just outstanding, great deal of information and just a great guy to talk to. Honestly.

00:17:05:07 - 00:17:23:09
Speaker 5
I've got mixed emotions, really, because I would love to go out and find I'm quick, really fast and like, yeah, this is going to be a mega weekend. That's hopefully like, you know, the goal. But I've never raced against any of these guys before. I've got nothing to compare it against, so I know how quick I am back home.

00:17:23:10 - 00:17:49:11
Speaker 5
But that means nothing over here. Like I say, none of them have raced over back home. And so it's going to be extremely interesting today to see where we end up and how quick we are, because that kind of set the tone for qualifying in race one tomorrow and Race two on Sunday. So today's really important, really crucial that, you know, I learn as much as I can take it in and like I said also, so for the weekend, I'm hoping it's going to be quite similar, but yeah, I'm pretty clueless.

00:17:49:11 - 00:18:10:21
Speaker 5
Just in how I drove the car. So we'll soon find out when we drove in, just seeing like the grandstands, seeing the track, especially when we're doing the track walk. As such it was just incredible. The straight when we went on the straight, it was just like, Whoa, this place is like it's special, really special. And yeah, like I said, I cannot wait to drive and I'm really excited.

00:18:10:21 - 00:18:18:03
Speaker 5
I'm very sort of chill about a lot of things don't really get you know, I'm quite chilled about everything. But for this I'm excited.

00:18:18:14 - 00:18:41:21
Speaker 1
So we're looking forward to seeing you again, Matty, in the New Year here on ASCII Anything. From the racetrack we go to reviving your career with Tim Mack, one of our directors here at Mosier is the director of Data within our Data and Analytics Division. And Tim talked to us about reviving his career, about how he started off as a USDA Forest Serviceman in Cascade, Idaho.

00:18:42:03 - 00:18:43:08
Speaker 1
That was an interesting story.

00:18:43:17 - 00:18:58:15
Speaker 2
Tim is just a good hang if you see him in the hallway at work. Super interesting guy, always up for a chat and I've never, ever had one where I didn't learn something or just flat out enjoy myself. Tim's just a good guy to talk to.

00:18:58:22 - 00:19:23:19
Speaker 1
Yeah, he has so many stories about so many different things and this was one of them. And quite frankly, he had a lot of good insight about moving over from government service, specifically Forest Service, into the technology world. And I was just amazed that, you know, how you make that connection. Obviously, he explained how he made that connection and what he did in order to move from the Forest Service to the tech world.

00:19:23:19 - 00:19:33:03
Speaker 1
And he's had a very successful career. I mean, over the years he's been Moser for a very long time, just like you said. He's just a very good hang. He's just such an interesting guy to talk to.

00:19:33:20 - 00:19:53:19
Speaker 4
I think hands on experience is more important than learning everything. So if you could get, you know, a small time job, we've had a couple customers that, hey, they're just running  five PCs in their local office. Can you help us with that? You could find that kind of work and get a little bit experience. I think that would help.

00:19:53:19 - 00:20:16:14
Speaker 4
And then for me on the network is everything both my jobs came through networking, it's, you can be good at your job. No one knows you or about you. You need a network to get in there. During our lifetimes, the explosion of social media, there's a lot more ways to reach out and talk to companies, take advantage of those postings and linkedin, join user groups around your community.

00:20:16:16 - 00:20:36:06
Speaker 4
If you want to learn and go to events and meet people, the sales people won't like it. The rest of the i.t. People won't like thiss, everybody's a salesman. You're either selling yourself a product or the work that you're doing and used to that idea. And you are your best advocate. So advocate for yourself. Tell your story, explain it. People are interested.

00:20:36:06 - 00:20:38:16
Speaker 4
You don't think they are. People are interested, so talk to them.

00:20:38:22 - 00:20:50:20
Speaker 2
It's a great lesson in recognizing potential, realizing possibility, taking lessons that you've learned in other areas of your life and applying them. That's learning and that's growing.

00:20:51:00 - 00:20:51:08
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:20:51:10 - 00:20:56:23
Speaker 2
And if you don't stop doing either of those things, opportunity abounds.

00:20:56:23 - 00:21:18:03
Speaker 1
Yeah, very interesting. Thank you, Tim. And Tim actually makes a second appearance later on. We'll talk about that here in a second. But before we get to that, we also had the folks from the Indy Corporate Challenge, the Indiana Sports Corporation. We had Craig Lippincott and our very own Khemary Carter, our director of office managers, talking to us about the Indy Corporate Challenge, which was an event that we again participated this year.

00:21:18:03 - 00:21:20:00
Speaker 1
This was her second year at it.

00:21:20:00 - 00:21:24:13
Speaker 2
It was nice of Craig to stop by and salute us for our dodgeball mastery. It really was.

00:21:24:13 - 00:21:32:01
Speaker 1
I was going to say that we were the dodgeball champions in the third division. Again, come by and try and take the trophy away from us and.

00:21:32:10 - 00:21:39:20
Speaker 2
We talk a lot of smack for people that aren't actually on the dodgeball court. We're going to get somebody concussed.

00:21:39:20 - 00:21:41:22
Speaker 1
But you'll find us at other events as well.

00:21:41:22 - 00:21:46:23
Speaker 2
So if somebody wants to try and challenge me at the Frisbee toss, which is way less contact.

00:21:47:16 - 00:22:15:02
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'll get the Wiffle ball challenge. Yeah, no, but we had a great time. And Craig talked to us about the benefits of the Indy Sports Challenge. We talked about the impact that the Indiana Sports Corporation has done over the years here in Indiana and how they've managed to help get Indiana and Indianapolis specifically, some great events like the Big Ten Championships in football, as well as basketball, the Super Bowl.

00:22:15:07 - 00:22:26:24
Speaker 2
And the billions, BILLIONS of dollars of economic impact for the area just through these events over the course of their existence, just the success that they've had is really impressive.

00:22:27:04 - 00:22:55:14
Speaker 4
Since our founding, the events that we've hosted have actually aggregated over $4 billion in economic impact for the city. So that's that's real impact for sure. And beyond that, it is, as you were saying, Angel,the impact that we're able to create for kids around the state through the programs. But then beyond that, I think an intangible piece, it's just as important is the civic pride that these events instill within our our residents here.

00:22:55:21 - 00:23:21:10
Speaker 4
Whenever we host an event, we really try to find opportunities to to leverage it to the to the biggest opportunity possible. And oftentimes that comes together by making an impact with kids in the community. So creating clinics and curriculum programs that tie into these big, major event moments, helping inspire kids to be either more active and fit or just these once in a lifetime opportunities and provide a special experience for kids around the state.

00:23:22:00 - 00:23:42:02
Speaker 3
A day out with your team will make them talk about it for days. I came to work on Monday and everybody was just raving about the competition and the cornhole competition and my throat is still sore from screaming on Sunday, like going strong for Team Moser. And so everybody just raved about how fun it was.

00:23:42:14 - 00:24:08:09
Speaker 1
And from there we went again to Tim Mack. And this time Tim Mack had a guest show up with him. That was Shaun Watts, one of our principal consultants. They were talking to us about data management and what was data management as a service. And I got to say it like I mostly do when I'm recording these episodes, these are things that I know nothing about and I research about it, and then I learn a lot from talking to these individuals.

00:24:08:09 - 00:24:17:07
Speaker 1
So Tim and Shaun, talked to us a great deal about the importance of data management as a service. And what can that do for you and your organization?

00:24:17:07 - 00:24:25:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. And the way that they were able to break it down with simple examples, metaphors that even I could follow. I appreciate that.

00:24:25:08 - 00:24:42:13
Speaker 4
I think that that's an area I ever heard for data management with way back in the beginning when I was revitalizing my career. As we'd like to talk about, imagine you had a phone book back when they printed phone book and you needed to find someone's name. What if it wasn't alphabetized? What if you just had a book of names?

00:24:42:13 - 00:25:02:17
Speaker 4
How would you find it? Think of data management of okay, how do I organize data in such a way that I can retrieve it and get it quickly, efficiently, and give business value back to the business? I'm looking at these companies want to utilize it, but they're having issues of trying to utilize it because they can't perform.

00:25:02:18 - 00:25:20:21
Speaker 4
You can't get to it. I mean, you can get to it, but it's slow and so what do we do from that aspect? And that's really where this comes about, right? And how we manage the data and what we utilize from it. That's our ultimate goal with data management, that you don't have to worry about your data anymore.

00:25:21:03 - 00:25:32:11
Speaker 4
You worry about growing your business and the Moser team will work with your staff and our professionals to make sure that your data is optimized, ready, protected, and always there for you when you need it.

00:25:33:06 - 00:25:57:23
Speaker 1
Tim and Shawn we went to our very own Caitlin Karvasky. She's one of our business development managers here at Mosier, and she brought on Brian Gray from Metro Group, who's vice president and chief information officer for that organization. And they came to talk to us about vendor client relationship and how that develops. Over the years. We obviously had to talk about how to develop those kinds of relationships during the pandemic.

00:25:57:23 - 00:26:25:23
Speaker 1
We touched a little bit on that subject, but they just talked to us about how to make sure that those relationships that you make in business continue to flourish and continue to develop through the years. They've been working together for a very long time and so they partner in many other businesses, you know, before she would join it, Major, but then when she joined it or Brian came along as well, I mean, that just speaks to how when you make these relationships, it's not just a one-off.

00:26:25:24 - 00:26:30:15
Speaker 1
You can basically build those and continue growing that relationship with other business.

00:26:31:02 - 00:26:51:07
Speaker 3
While we do have a fantastic relationship, I have zero expectations of him to choose to work with us just because of that relationship. I fully anticipate that while it might get us a seat at the table or an opportunity to bid on something, if there is a better partner there for that organization for Brian's team, he's going to choose that other partner.

00:26:51:11 - 00:26:59:16
Speaker 3
He's going to provide that feedback so that we can get better. But I would fully anticipate and expect him to choose the best solution for their organization.

00:27:00:03 - 00:27:15:17
Speaker 4
Having that communication that says, hey, this is this is why we want what the other team this is kind of where you guys can grow and learn. That helps both parties because then the trust just builds there. The answer is not always just just like when I call Caitlin and ask her if she does something, the answer sometime is no.

00:27:15:17 - 00:27:34:00
Speaker 4
And sometimes when you put your best foot forward, the answer is still no on a bid. And that's okay. We both learn and grow from it and maintain the relationship. We've also had examples with Caitlin and other trusted partners where we ask for something and they come back and say, That's what you asked for, but here's what you really need.

00:27:34:00 - 00:27:55:14
Speaker 4
And this is why, after a couple of weeks on the ground, you guys really don't need this role. You probably need a couple of these. And here's why. Things go wrong. Like there's no perfect relationship, there's no perfect project, there's no perfect product. So when things go wrong, we just have a real conversation and we own our pieces and we figure out how to make it right and how to best move forward.

00:27:56:07 - 00:28:20:01
Speaker 2
Yeah, and I like the point that they both made and agreed on that. A relationship that exists and is strong and healthy doesn't necessarily guarantee a 100% win rate. It can get you to the table, it can open a door, but you're not going to close every single deal just based on like we have this relationship. It'll get me to talk to you wherever you are, but it'll get you the opportunity, not necessarily the win.

00:28:20:02 - 00:28:29:07
Speaker 1
Even if it's a loss, right? Even if you don't get it, hey, you're still talk it out and you still get to probably get to know a little bit more about the person. And you can.

00:28:29:07 - 00:28:52:11
Speaker 2
Learn more from a loss than a win. Exactly. We didn't go with you. Here's why. Here's what you need to develop. If you want something like this, then A, B, C, etc., etc.. Here are some things that need to strengthen or some opportunities and avenues you should explore to strengthen this area to give you a better chance not only with us in the future, but with anybody in this realm that you would be pitching, that can be very valuable.

00:28:52:11 - 00:29:12:06
Speaker 1
And from Caitlin and Brian, we went to another one of our very own this time, Samantha Parrish. She had a topic that was really near and dear to, I think, both of our hearts cephalopods. Yes, yes. Well, oh, no, no, wait, wait. No, no, no. Bring it back. It was the best way to work with IT people when you're not an IT person.

00:29:12:06 - 00:29:29:18
Speaker 1
And you and I obviously have very different backgrounds in IT people. And so we really enjoyed having this conversation with Samantha. Samantha is one of our senior consultants. She works on multiple government projects as a project coordinator, so she has a lot in her plate.

00:29:29:24 - 00:29:47:22
Speaker 3
My first thing I did on the job is a list of acronyms, so I can say, What exactly does this mean? I had no idea. So that was my my first intro into tech was okay. I got to at least understand what we're talking about somewhat. There was a lot I was definitely a page and a half worth because you add Moser.

00:29:47:22 - 00:30:02:07
Speaker 3
So tech stuff plus government stuff, there's all these different things. And that's why it really was important for me to learn it, because it's not just the way we speak to each other, but it's the way the client speaks too. Right. Last thing I want to do is kind of give that deer in the headlights look when they say SLA.

00:30:02:07 - 00:30:06:14
Speaker 3
And I'm like, I don't know what an SLA is... Service Level Agreement for those at home.

00:30:06:14 - 00:30:08:07
Speaker 1
Thank you. And for those of us here.

00:30:09:02 - 00:30:23:20
Speaker 3
I do think you don't have to fake it till you make it. Don't pretend. Be honest. And then that way, when you do have the answer, it's a lot more credible. It's great to work in consulting because we build a team of experts to help. That's not me. I'm just a part of the team, so I rely on my team members.

00:30:23:20 - 00:30:41:02
Speaker 3
I let them know that I'm going to defer to them. They're going to be the ones to answer these types of questions. And then also if they don't know the answer. Don't say you do, let's go find it. Right. We may not have that member in this meeting on our team, but we can find the answers. And if anybody at home knows if octopuses are mammals, I appreciate that help, too.

00:30:41:07 - 00:30:45:00
Speaker 3
I got to get that back to my daughters here shortly. They're going to be asking me lots of questions.

00:30:45:00 - 00:30:45:15
Speaker 4
They're not.

00:30:45:20 - 00:30:46:10
Speaker 3
I didn't think.

00:30:46:17 - 00:30:47:09
Speaker 4
They're Cephalopods.

00:30:48:00 - 00:30:52:05
Speaker 3
Oh, gee. See? I don't know what that word means. Next topic.

00:30:53:13 - 00:31:19:07
Speaker 1
And from Samantha, we went to Julie Migliacci. She has over 17 years of experience in event planning. And we talked to Julie about virtual events and how they've basically changed over the years. She's done these events for almost 17 years and she talked to us about how everything was before, during the waning years. Yeah. Looking forward to what happened, Jen.

00:31:19:07 - 00:31:30:06
Speaker 1
A lot of great, interesting takes. She talked to us about their pitfalls, what best practices you could do at virtual events. She even gave us some names of software for event planning.

00:31:30:08 - 00:31:50:04
Speaker 2
If you are looking for an avenue or an outlet for an online event, you could go back to that episode. Just have a note taking software or just the old fashioned pencil and paper ready because she rattled off a ton of them and just take down the names and then start Googling to see because she had a ton of them in her pocket.

00:31:50:09 - 00:32:06:15
Speaker 1
And she described a couple of them in a little bit more in detail than others, just just how involved they are and maybe things that they're missing, maybe things that some of them have that others don't. So it was a very interesting episode. I mean, that whole world has taken off, obviously, thanks to the pandemic.

00:32:06:18 - 00:32:27:22
Speaker 3
That's a huge thing that's come out of virtual events is the ability to connect with people from all over the world. The number of conferences that we did that went full virtual, now we're taking them hybrid. They're like, Oh my God, we have people from Indonesia on our conference. This was a local, from Illinois little conference that would attract 200 people on a good year.

00:32:28:13 - 00:32:52:22
Speaker 3
Now they have a thousand people and they're coming in from all over the world, which is super cool. Pitfalls of virtual that people easily fall into is two long events, wrong technology and not catering their agenda to really think about what they're trying to do and that often falls into major issues that don't live to regret. Oh, and forgetting to press record!

00:32:53:17 - 00:33:20:01
Speaker 1
And finally, last but certainly not least, was somebody who again was internal to Moser. She is our director of strategic growth within our government services division and that is Wilma Killgo, who, for lack of a better term, killed it in her episode. And if you want to hear nugget after nugget of knowledge, you have to go back and listen to that episode, because Wilma is phenomenal.

00:33:20:01 - 00:33:34:01
Speaker 1
Her experience, her demeanor, her just way of describing things in a very simplistic and very non-businessy way is amazing. So you got to go back and listen to Wilma.

00:33:34:10 - 00:33:55:11
Speaker 2
And it's a question that a ton of places either are asking. And if they aren't, they definitely should be asking, how do we compete? How do you compete? And Wilma's in there every day, slugging it out, getting us in front of people, finding opportunities, fighting for them. It was a really interesting and inspirational episode. I'm like, All right, yeah, let's get in there.

00:33:55:11 - 00:33:56:04
Speaker 2
Let's do this.

00:33:56:04 - 00:34:19:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. And if you want to know a little bit more too about how government bits work, etc., this is the episode to go because she talks about how not at length. I think that would have been a very long episode. But she talks about how government bidding on contracts, etc., how that all plays out and just the development of that process and what you should expect.

00:34:19:05 - 00:34:37:11
Speaker 1
So if you're interested in that or if you're working for a place that's looking into getting into something like that, this would be the episode for you. I mean. Moser You know, we are a small to medium sized company here in Indianapolis and we are competing against bigger fish and we're doing pretty well.

00:34:37:11 - 00:34:47:15
Speaker 2
There are doors in the world. I have feet. How do I get my feet in those doors? And as you were saying Angel,  we could have talked a lot longer and frankly, I smell a season five episode.

00:34:47:18 - 00:34:51:05
Speaker 1
Yes. Yes, Wilma is coming back. So just bear with us.

00:34:51:12 - 00:35:43:21
Speaker 3
Companies have to be in good fiscal as well as having the technical abilities to do those types of things. So that's one of the ways that Mosher competes against the big guys, is because we have leadership that understands the minimum requirements but also is willing to make the investment to ensure that we have those certifications. And also that our number one resource, which is our people, have that type of backing so that if somebody wants to go and get an AWS certification in order to be able to service our customers better, that happens very easily at Moser, whereas at many other companies those types of things might have to be done on the employee's own

00:35:43:21 - 00:36:09:21
Speaker 3
ticket. The US federal government is the largest customer in the world and it's because of the US government that many companies are able to start and grow and become the technology leaders that they are. And the role that I play is to work with our partners and teammates because a lot of the business that we do in the government is with another company.

00:36:09:24 - 00:36:43:20
Speaker 3
And so sometimes you're competing against companies and sometimes they're your partners. And so the work of a strategic growth director is to manage that process and to pick the right partner for the right opportunity. We've come in behind some larger companies and have been able to give the customer real change, things that  have been able to positively impact the way that they're able to service their constituents.

00:36:43:24 - 00:37:20:19
Speaker 3
And those are the things that we strive for. And I think that we make them happen. And I think our past performance says that. The other piece, I think that helps us compete and I'm seeing this more and more on request for proposals from government is they're asking about your past performance in terms of have your software applications ever had a breach?

00:37:20:24 - 00:37:49:19
Speaker 3
You know, is your devsec ops really security oriented? Have you ever been sued by a customer for a project or program that you've worked on? Moser has zero, and I've worked for a number of companies, and I don't think any of them ever had a zero. So that is something that makes a big difference. Moser's never had a Cure Notice, so this means that we can compete because we perform.

00:37:50:06 - 00:38:09:24
Speaker 1
And with that, we'd like to thank you for listening in to this week's edition of ASCII Anything, presented by Moser Consulting. This was our end of the year episode. We will be taking a break for obviously the holiday season and to start off the new year. But we're going to be taking a little bit of a break, obviously, to spend time with our families or loved ones during the holiday season.

00:38:10:04 - 00:38:23:10
Speaker 1
And we wish you a happy holiday season. A merry CLIPS-mas. So from everybody at Moser Consulting: myself, producer Brian here, we like to wish you a merry Christmas and happy holidays to all of you.

00:38:23:19 - 00:38:32:13
Speaker 2
Yup. Happy as a recording this third night of Hanukkah, a joyous Kwanzaa and happy New Year. Take care of everybody. We'll see you in season five.

00:38:33:05 - 00:38:46:09
Speaker 1
Until then, so long, everybody!