Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
We explore the risks arising from the use and misuse of digital devices and electronic communication tools. We interview experts in the fields of cybersafety, cybersecurity, privacy, parenting, and technology and share the wisdom of these experts with you!
Welcome to the Cyber Traps podcast.
I'm your host, Jethro Jones.
We're here at the Inch 360 Conference, and I've got Benjamin Ross here with me.
Ben, welcome.
Do you go by Benjamin or Ben?
Benjamin's fine.
Okay, great.
Benjamin so, you work for Torchlight.
Tell us about what is it you do and what brought you to the conference?
Yeah.
First of all, thank you for the opportunity to be here.
appreciate it.
Torchlight is a secured and managed it, so we're an MSP.
We're an MSSP, and then we also do proactive security around pen test audits, vulnerability assessments.
So we're really a one stop shop and what we really try to do is bring, enter enterprise type IT excellence to small, medium sized businesses here in Spokane, Los Angeles and New York City.
Oh, okay.
Interesting.
So why Spokane and LA and New York?
We seem to, we have a particular group of customers that seem to that seem to come to us.
We don't necessarily make it point to go for them, but they seem to kind of, Exist in those markets of of LA and New York City.
And we've had team members in those cities who've allowed us to expand and grow.
But we're headquartered here in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene.
And the growth here in this market over the last 15 years has been phenomenal.
So, we really aim to serve you know, regulated industries and in these three markets.
Very cool.
So, so what brought you to Inch 360 this year?
You know, I got out of the IT business for a few years
And just got back into it last year.
And she's just a part of of getting involved and being part of the community.
And then also near and dear to my heart Heather, who puts this together.
I have a young daughter.
I have a lot of talented ladies on my team, so I feel very strongly that ladies in it.
Need need voices to not necessarily speak on their behalf, but to just lift them up and know that, hey the have confidence in your voice.
Be able to find that confidence in your voice at a young age.
And so I it's really just, and it doesn't matter if you're male or female, it's everybody.
This world's harder than it's ever been in our lifetime.
And being able to just provide some support.
You know, I've got some life experiences.
I said at my talk, I've got scars.
The sun will never heal.
Yeah.
And hopefully if I could just pass on a little bit of knowledge, we'll, I'll save somebody from one painful scar.
Yeah.
Well, let's talk about humanity because it seems like the AI overlords are taking over.
And so tell me about why you think so important.
Yeah I think ultimately at the end of the day, if you have economy that's driven by bots and lack of human interaction and connectivity you lose, I think
what makes us unique.
You know, and if we, if we willingly turn that over into ones and zeros.
You know, great, it can make us more efficient.
We can get more done with with less resources and less waste.
But ultimately is the, are the motivations of the folks who are driving these changes in sync with the community writ large.
And I think that there's this term enshitification,
you see a lot of money flowing in towards really heavily concentrated.
You know, ownership type structures.
And that is I've seen it in my own life and in my job.
We 10 years ago when I was and working in an MSP, there was a very large and very healthy community of vendors
and today
they've been whittled down largely to three or four.
And, They create that that dynamic alone creates challenges for us to create value for our customers on a daily basis.
I'm not convinced on a daily basis that our vendors, the ones that you know, the tools that we're leveraging to provide excellent IT support and relationship support.
I'm not necessarily convinced that our vendors, their objectives are necessarily in alignment with ours.
Yeah.
And that disconnect.
You know, it's probably the origin of that is probably almost always the dollar bill,
But that I think that you can achieve some economic outcome.
While also maintaining some level of creation of value on a daily basis.
That's core to our culture is daily customers and creating value every single day, which maybe I'm projecting a little bit, but I think that when you have a concentrated amount of money, you get an opposite sort why are we doing this.
/
One of the things that I've been really thinking a lot about the past couple years is how do I make my interactions with people less transactional and.
How do I make it so it's not just come on the podcast or I'm gonna go deliver a service and you're gonna pay me, and then that's it.
And so what I've been doing is as I meet with people, then I start, I've started thinking to myself, and then I started saying it out loud that this is the start of a 10 year relationship and that we are gonna be connected for the next 10 years.
And when I do that, it forces me to not think about.
The bottom line because over 10 years it's probably not gonna matter all that much, you know?
And that's been something that has brought so much relief and freed so much stress from me about dealing with these, whatever situation I'm in, that it's not about the transaction today.
It's about us staying connected for the next 10 years and we have to treat each other a certain way for that to happen.
You know, if I'm going to be like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna push you to pay me the most amount of money for the service I'm providing you then that's a different relationship and that's not somebody I want to be with for the next 10 years.
But if on the other hand I'm like, well, why don't we walk into this relationship and let's do something that gives value to each other, even if it's not monetary monetarily.
Let's start there.
And see how that feels.
And taking that approach has made it so much better in every situation because I'm not feeling like it's an either or.
I'm feeling like it's a, let's see what this feels like and then move from there.
Any thoughts on that?
Yeah, I think to add on.
It's not just about that one relationship that could be transactional, but is a long-term relationship.
It's also, it's your spouse, it's
your children,
it's their spouse, it's their children.
There's just this network effect that you get when you focus on human first and have a humanity is the reason.
And I think that's the relationship's great, but it's all the other knock on effects that are positive.
If you, if I don't wanna sound cheesy here, but if, if the love can flow.
Right, it's not just one person, it's the whole community can get can receive the positive impact of that through.
just small actions, just small, small little things.
Helping somebody the grocery store, if they're you can I I can tell when I'm sitting be two or three people behind in a Cash Rogers.
I can just tell somebody's to have and I've been pretty lucky in my life of smart, educated, I've got opportunities and I just do my little part to help.
And that can have a ripple effect in pond that I'll never see.
But these relationships we're talking about are so critical to everything we're doing and I think my overarching concern is that the value of these relationships becomes it has become devalued.
Yeah.
I totally agree.
And I'm reminded of a book by former NFL Quarterback Steve Young.
He wrote called The Law of Love, and he's, he basically is echoing what you're saying is that if we live our life based on loving other people as much as
we possibly can, seeing their humanity, seeing them as human beings first and foremost then we can have a very successful life in a lot of different ways.
And so can they.
And so he was a NFL quarterback.
His job was to like defeat people, beat them, win the game.
And now he's in private equity and his job is to create value for himself and shareholders, but also to create businesses that provide value to other people also.
And so it's interesting because his professional experience is not about love, and yet this is like his culminating masterpiece of this is what really matters.
It's a really powerful thing.
Definitely recommend you reading it if you haven't because it's a great book to get you centered on.
What do we need to really be doing?
anytime I see a Steve Young interview I stop and listen.
He's on one of my favorite TV shows.
Pardon the interruption
Yeah.
I where I when I think about Steve Young and what we're talking about being for the benefit of all human beings, and as you know, it's so easy to so social media is just a reflection of your own personality, and it's so easy to get lost in n Mirror you lose.
What else is going on?
You know, instead of looking in a mirror, look through the glass and what's going on out in the world outside of just that little space you're occupying.
And I think Steve embodies that really well, that the platform and the and the microphone he's
Yeah, for sure.
This was very good.
You made me think some things that are not connected to cybersecurity specifically, but really valuable and I'm glad we had this conversation.
How can people get in touch with torchlight?
Yeah.
Also,
Torchlight.io is our webpage.
We're on Facebook, we're on LinkedIn.
We're doing some really exciting new things.
I think in terms of MSP and M-S-P-M-S-S-P, like to think that we're a little ahead of the curve.
We're very creative in terms of trying to find unique solutions that, that work for SMB and again, just bringing enterprise type solutions that, that SMB, that's, I think, what differentiates us.
And just, and you know, and in love this humanist, this connectedness is ultimately the why.
You know, keeping data secure is the what, but what's the why?
It's so that the business owners can employ folks who can employ pay for soccer for their kids.
I mean, it's just this domino effect, this residual waterfall effect of if the why matches up with the what
And everything's a good fit.
And then you have victories all over the place.
And that's what we're looking for.
You know, one outcome we look for in our business is just, we help companies win in terms of keeping the bad guys out 'cause they're everywhere.
And and keeping their folks efficient.
And we think of our service as a competitive advantage for our customers.
That's cool.
I like that.
Thank you Benjamin.
Appreciate you being here.
you for the time to be here, Jethro.
I really appreciate it.