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The BLC Connection Podcast is a fun and informative show from Ben Lomand Connect that answers your questions about the internet, Wi-Fi, home security and more, and brings you information on the stories and events in “Ben Lomand Country.” Bryan, Karen and Micah take you behind the scenes of Ben Lomand Connect, where the cooperative connects Middle Tennessee with the latest in communications technology and with businesses that are making a difference in our service territory. The BLC Connection Podcast also offers tips for business marketing and residential/workplace technology.
Bryan Kell:
Welcome to The BLC Connection Podcast.
I'm Bryan Kell.
Karen Wilson:
I'm Karen Wilson.
Micah Lawrence:
And I'm Micah Lawrence.
(All Hosts):
Let's get connected.
Bryan Kell:
Welcome into The BLC Connection Podcast.
And dare I say, this is Sparta.
We find ourselves at the Sparta office along with –
Micah Lawrence:
Micah Lawrence.
Karen Wilson:
Karen Wilson.
Bryan Kell:
Alright, so we're here to have fun over here in Sparta.
Karen, what can we expect on today's podcast?
Karen Wilson:
We have all kinds of great things coming up.
We're down here and talking to Ben Clark and Tammy Odom, who is
the Sparta district office manager and the customer relations
supervisor. They're going to tell us all the great things going
on in Sparta.
And then, of course, we've got wonderful technology, back to
school things.
We're going to talk about that.
And just, you know, we always have a good time.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah. In fact, I think, Micah, we're going to talk about
education or something like that.
Maybe?
Micah Lawrence:
Education?
Bryan Kell:
Technology maybe, and education.
You got some info for us on that?
Micah Lawrence:
Well, yeah, that I can do.
Bryan Kell:
Okay. And you also brought your bag of tricks with you.
Micah Lawrence:
Yeah. We're going to do something different today.
You're going to like it.
Bryan Kell:
Okay, well, I hope so.
All right. So up next, we've got Tammy and Ben.
We're in Sparta. Hang loose.
It is The BLC Connection Podcast.
BLC Connection Podcast.
Bryan Kell, also Micah Lawrence.
And we have with us two of Sparta's best, two of White County's
best, Tammy Odom and also Ben Clark.
Guys, welcome into the BLC Connection Podcast.
Ben Clark:
Thank you, sir.
Tammy Odom:
Thank you.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah, I know Tammy is real excited.
Tammy Odom:
I am. Super.
Bryan Kell:
We'll get to you in a minute. Okay.
Ben, It's been a couple of years now, I think, since you became
the district manager over here in Sparta.
Ben Clark:
Correct.
Bryan Kell:
Tell us about that and tell us about you.
Ben Clark:
Well, it's been an exciting venture for me.
You know, I've been a Ben Lomand employee for 24 years.
Since I started in construction in 1999, I always had a goal of
trying to find somewhere where I was
comfortable. I enjoyed construction work.
I was young, you know, everything was good.
But once I moved into the install repair, after a couple of
years, I started finding out where I really wanted to be.
So I started setting my goals, and it looked like that Mike
Prater was going to – he was the existing manager at that time.
And it looked like that maybe that might be where I would like to
be someday.
So I set my goal on it.
And here we are.
Yeah, I've had a great career here.
I will have to thank the board of directors and Greg Smartt.
Without them, I would not have this opportunity.
They put confidence in me.
Greg did. And here I am.
Bryan Kell:
Good bunch of guys.
Ben Clark:
Great bunch of guys.
They are.
Micah Lawrence:
Yeah. So, Ben, you know, we see that the Sparta office serves
around 8,000 customers currently in White County.
And some people may not know it.
About 2,000 more out of Van Buren County.
We're starting to see these numbers grow and new people coming
into these areas.
As a lifelong White Countian, talk about the growth being
experienced in these areas.
And you know what the the office here in Sparta is doing.
Ben Clark:
Yeah, well, it's a great time for us as a company.
I think things are really going well.
We're just wide open everywhere, every are.
Looks like Tennessee must be the place to come because that's
where everybody wants to move, it seems like.
But on the other hand, it is a double-edged sword.
We need, you know, a lot of things.
We still have some fiber areas in copper that need to be built
in fiber.
And we have a lot of fiber working in White County.
But as far as how things have changed, I think the demographic
as a whole has changed in White County.
You know, I grew up here.
I've been, I was born and raised in White County.
Things have changed.
I mean, it just has. And of course, change is something we have
to roll with.
We always have to find a way to make it through these changes.
And so that's as far as how it's changed what we do, we just got
a lot more people to
serve. I mean, a lot more areas that, and it's hard to future
proof our facilities.
You know we've just got a lot of adversity to overcome.
But from a company standpoint, we have really done well, I think
.
Bryan Kell:
Ben, you know, Micah brought this up as far as covering White
County, Van Buren County.
Let's let's talk about White County.
It's where the office sits right here in Sparta.
Over the last couple of years, there's been a lot of work.
You've talked about kind of blowing and going and really kind of
staying pretty busy with you and your crews.
Tell us about the areas that maybe have been built, and what is
currently being built and kind of what's on the horizon?
So kind of the past, present and future of white County builds.
Ben Clark:
Well, we've had a little bit of an advantage in White County
simply because when the CEO at the time, Levoy Knowles,
had a plan and the copper was kind of going away.
And they just decided this is probably been 17, 18 years ago to
anywhere the copper plant was going bad, we would go ahead and
implement fiber.
Well, it just happened to be White County where we kind of
started with that.
And, you know, the Old Zion area, the Bon DeCroft area, and now
Van Buren, you know, that's just where they went.
So we had a little bit of an edge over the rest of our service
territory simply because we were the first to get the fiber to
the home. The thing about that is, as time goes on, it takes a
while to get all this stuff
coordinated as far as getting the engineering done, the staking
done, the crews to get it built, the trying
to figure out, do we put this here, do we put that there?
But as far as a whole, White County has been on the edge of this
fiber for some time.
Now, we did have some areas like Doyle, for instance.
We have just gotten done with Doyle this past year and have
opened it up.
And I know those folks down there have been suffering for a
while, you know, But I mean, I kept telling them we were coming,
we were coming, and we did.
And we're there now.
So man, if you live in Doyle, we've got you covered.
And now we're trying to get some areas in White County that kind
of got skipped over a little bit.
Because in the beginning stages of this, we thought our copper
was going to be sufficient for somewhat.
The broadband needs weren't as much as they are now.
Now we're seeing that the fiber is the only thing that's going
to carry it.
And so now we're having to go back to these shorter distances,
some of these remotes that didn't have a lot of serving customers
in it now. And so that's going to be our plans in the future, is
to get White County completely built out.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah, outside of the work with crews and builds and kind of
planning out what's going on with that in your
position, we all know this, but folks out there may not know.
But, you know, in your position too, you've got to work, you
know, with local, city and county officials and kind of be a
liaison, you know, between Ben Lomand and them.
Kind of talk about that.
Ben Clark:
Well, we do.
We need to be a presence in all the local governments and the
city and county.
I try to attend at least one county meeting a month and at least
two city council meetings a month.
It's just important for us, I think, as a company to stay
plugged in and get that handshake good and tight because we
support the community as much as the community supports us.
And so any kind of relationship that you can have with these
local leaders, I think it improves, you know, their situation and
ours. As a company, it makes us stronger, gives them a better
service.
You know, they know that we're going to be there.
We're local. You know, they see us every day.
Any time that you can communicate with the local governments in
a positive way, that gives the public the view, "Hey, they're for
real. You know, they are here to stay." You know, we're I mean,
we're plugged in.
We do a lot in the community, not just with local governments,
with the school systems.
We're just everywhere that you look, Ben Lomand is present.
Bryan Kell:
Literally, we are here to serve.
Ben Clark:
Yes.
Bryan Kell:
Whatever that means.
Ben Clark:
Yes.
Micah Lawrence:
So let's shift gears here.
Tammy, tell us about you.
Tammy Odom:
Lived here most of my life.
It's a great place to grow up.
Lots of family, friends, small community.
Went to work right after graduation at Citizens Bank, worked
there for 12 years.
Joyce Dodson and Debbie Mills recruited and pretty much was
asking me if I would be interested to come to Ben
Lomand. Best decision I ever made.
Been here for about 23 years now, nearly.
And a lot of changes.
We at that time was basically doing just landline service, dial
up Internet
and just starting DSL.
And we've seen a lot of changes since then, a lot faster speed,
a lot more
demand.
Bryan Kell:
You're the district customer relations supervisor.
Tammy Odom:
Yes.
Bryan Kell:
Right. So I guess to put that in terms that both us and folks
listening can be able to – the front
office, ladies and men, that are up there serving folks as they
come in the drive through and also walking up.
You're kind of in charge of that bunch over there which that can
be like herding cats when Christie Judd's around, but that's just
on a side note there.
Tammy Odom:
Uh, yeah, all of them, really.
Bryan Kell:
For folks that haven't been to Sparta, the office here in a while
or maybe ever, talk about some of the just, first of all, I guess
the structural changes to the front and some of those new faces
that folks can see.
Tammy Odom:
When did we redo the building?
Do you think about five years ago?
Ben Clark:
Something like that, yeah.
Tammy Odom:
Yeah. We kind of made it more modern.
At the time, it was more '80s.
Back in the 80s, we had a little mauve.
And you know, that's how long it had been.
But we do have some new hires.
I think the last time that we had hired anyone was about 12
years ago, and we hired Dawson
Givens about three years ago.
He just graduated high school.
And recently we have a new hire, Molly Wittenberg, that about 3
or 4 months she's been
with us. They catch on so quick.
You know, they're used to the technology.
You know, that's what they grew up with.
Whereas, you know, we had to learn it as we kind of went along.
And it takes us older folks a little bit longer to get used to
it.
But hey, we catch on.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah. Tell us about the bond between you and the folks up front
and also the people that come into the office or through the
drive-throughs, because I know that I've seen that.
I mean, there are folks that love coming in.
I mean, they could pay their bill through the drive-through, or
they could pay it online and all that stuff.
But they just really love coming in.
And it's a there's a bond there, right?
Tammy Odom:
Well, yeah. I mean, we try to make people feel like, you know,
they've walked into a place where we're happy to see them, and we
truly are.
We want them to have a good experience.
And, you know, they might even go out of the office with a hug.
Or, you know, here, would you like a bottle of water with how hot
it is right now?
You know, so.
And the bond I have with all the girls and guys in the office,
they're perfect.
I mean, it's just like we're a family.
And if one's going through something, we all go through it.
You know, we encourage each other.
We try to pull, you know, our weight and everybody to do their
job, to do what's right for the customers.
Bryan Kell:
I like what you said there, it's like a family.
Because I was going to say, it's a very homey atmosphere when
the customers are in the building, when the customers aren't even
in the building. Between everybody here and really with the
customers as well, it's one big family.
Tammy Odom:
It is. And you'll catch us kidding around with each other and
acting silly.
And we even do it with some customers.
You know, some customers, you can get by with that.
But, you know, we just love to see new faces come through the
door.
And we love to see those older ones, too, because, you know, the
older ones is the ones that really make their appearance.
And we try to really make them feel good about coming in.
And they're the ones that usually get the hugs or picked on,
whichever, you know.
But they love it.
Micah Lawrence:
So Tammy, you know, we are talking about people coming in and
coming into the office and talking to you ladies and
men. So how long does it kind of take for someone to come sign
up for service.
And, you know, is there anything that they can do beforehand to
maybe speed it up, or is there an alternate way of signing up for
service?
Tammy Odom:
Well, I have noticed a lot of people are emailing us now about
services.
So a lot of times I will pass those on to the other girls, or I
do them myself.
We either email them or call out.
Most time I call out.
And I try to get all the information over the phone.
What we need from them is just, you know, like their address,
what service they're interested
in. We do need a copy of their driver's license.
Some of it can be done by email.
Some of them choose to come inside and sign the paperwork.
But most of the time I try to do it all right over the phone, so
I can hurry up and get them scheduled.
Because, you know, our schedule can be out two weeks and some
people don't want to wait that long, you
know? It takes maybe ten minutes on the phone at
most, and then they can zip right in, sign the paperwork, give
us their driver's license, we can make a copy.
Or they choose to do it email and send it back, which that's fine
too.
But if they come in the office 10-15 minutes.
Try to give them all the information they need and get it done,
get them in and out as quick, but still try to, you
know, make them feel comfortable.
Bryan Kell:
I haven't been involved in this side of the process in a while,
but I think folks well, yeah, they can still be able to go to our
website. If they're interested in a service or services name,
phone number, email, just some real
quick things on their interest level and probably safe to say
within 24 hours definitely, but sometimes it's 12 or even less
than that, you guys can get that from folks that are kind of
collating that information.
And if they're from White County, they're sending them to you
guys and be able to reach back out.
So even going to our website, if somebody goes to any of our
pages really and says, hey, I'm kind of interested in security,
or I'm kind of interested in secure everywhere, you guys are
getting that information and turning it around and reaching right
back out to them.
Tammy Odom:
Yeah, yeah, I had one yesterday.
I think they had sent it in like at 3:45, and I think I
responded probably within
five minutes. But that's not always the case, because we could
be with a customer or the weekend or whatever.
But we try to get with them as soon as possible, so they know
we're interested in getting, you know,
them taken care of so.
Bryan Kell:
Mr. Ben.
Ben Clark:
Yes.
Bryan Kell:
We are sitting inside an award winning building here today, award
winning office here in White County.
Talk about last year's Chamber award.
Ben Clark:
Well, it just goes to prove that Ben Lomand is definitely
represented well in White County.
All the business owners, all the residents, they realize how
important we are to the community.
And I think that was just evident of it.
You know, everyone voted on that within the organization, and
they just thought Ben Lomand brought the most as far as
influencing change in this community as any business.
And I thought that was – I received it well.
I think Ben Lomand was well represented there that night.
And it was just great, a great accomplishment for us as a
company.
Bryan Kell:
Well, and I will say this, over the years, you've seen it.
I've seen it. The White County Chamber is first class all the
way around.
And they've been a huge champion of Ben Lomand over the years
because they've seen those people that you guys were talking
about earlier that are moving into this area and what broadband
can mean to somebody who's working from home, education.
You've seen it, and you've talked about it.
That's been big for the Chamber to promote that.
Ben Clark:
Oh, it's huge. And, you know, Marvin Bullock, he's simply – he
just turned his time in.
I hate to see Marvin go.
Bryan Kell:
I hadn't heard that.
Oh, yeah. He's retiring and stepping down at the end of this
year, I think.
But man, he's been a great advocate for us as a company.
He knows, you know, he's a retired school teacher, and then took
this position as an industrial
recruiter / chamber president.
But man, he's done such a great job.
And he is a strong advocate for us.
Knowing the first question these businesses want to know is,
what kind of broadband service can I get?
And he knows right off the bat.
Ben Lomand is there to serve, and so that's great.
Well, salute – I'm hearing that for the first time.
So salute to Marvin Bullock because he has truly been a gold
standard of what it means to kind of bring together a chamber.
Ben Clark:
Yes.
Bryan Kell:
Kudos to him.
Micah Lawrence:
So Ben, I know, you know, as you're talking about how Ben Lomand
has helped the community and things of that nature, we know
there's this small thing that happened in 2020 with the
pandemic, right?
Ben Clark:
Yes.
Micah Lawrence:
I know that we have – and I worked with you and everybody else –
to put in some Wi-Fi hotspots for a lot of different reasons.
So tell, why did we put those hotspots in?
Where can they find them?
You know, tell us a little more about that.
Ben Clark:
Well, you know, a lot of our community just, you know, for
whatever reason, their broadband service just wasn't efficient
enough to do their school work.
And these children were having to be you know, they sent them
home to do schoolwork from home.
And a lot of them didn't have Internet access for whatever
reason.
You know, whether it was where they lived or whether they were
in between homes or whatever.
So we set up a couple of spots in the county within, you know,
one of them is out here at our main office.
You know, it's right out in our parking lot.
You can pull up any time still today and get this free Wi-Fi if
you so need it.
And like if you're in between jobs or whatever and things are,
you know, a little bit misfortune as far as finances, and you're
needing to search for a job, just pull right up in our parking
lot, jump on your phone and find it.
Also, down in the west end of the community at the White County
recreational complex, we set one up down there.
And so you can pull up in that gravel parking lot by the
baseball fields at any time still today, they're still in
operation for the folks to get on and do what they need to do.
Bryan Kell:
Our mobile – talking about Wi-Fi – our mobile Wi-Fi van has also
played a part in some important gatherings in White County over
the years. Talk about those kind of events, Ben.
I know that come to mind – Liberty Square, also the airport.
It's played a part in trying to bring people connectivity in
some places they wouldn't expect it right?
Ben Clark:
Oh, it really has. And, you know, the need for that type of thing
at some of these organizations set up for, like I know last
year, it seemed like each year we add something to it.
This last year, we set it up over at the courthouse pavilion for
the National Day of Prayer.
And so, man, that was a huge, you know, because they streamed
that service, and so they were looking for a way to get it, you
know, out to the folks that couldn't come.
And so that was huge.
We go to the White County Fair every year and set up with it.
For all the folks around the grandstand area to be able to get on
their mobile devices.
And even some of the vendors there, you know, get on it to use
it to scan credit cards or whatever for their payments.
And so we do that.
We do it at the Van Buren.
I think it's a Spencer homecoming they have.
Bryan Kell:
Absolutely.
Ben Clark:
We do it up there.
The White County Upper Cumberland Regional Airport has an air
show in the fall.
We always set up for that and the vendors set up, of course, and
they utilize that, you know, to create sales at their point of
sales has to have an Internet access, and it's up there.
They just set it up, and man, it just works great for them.
Same thing at Liberty Square.
You know, we set it up for that Liberty Square celebration each
year.
And so I know there's other things that it's been used for, but
that's mainly White County and Van Buren County.
Bryan Kell:
And special thanks to Micah Lawrence being involved in that.
Ben Clark:
Oh, yeah.
Bryan Kell:
The genesis of that.
That was a great project.
Micah Lawrence:
Yeah, it was fun, exciting to create that because it was
something new and different, you know.
And to see the benefit of it, of being able to go to, you know,
different places through our service territory.
It's been great. So switching back to Tammy, White County seems
to have, you know, been a
special place for Ben Lomand.
You know, it sounds like from both of you guys talking, it's been
great for us.
Tell me what it means to you to live and serve in White County.
Tammy Odom:
Well, White County has been a great place to raise my children.
I have three.
They all played sports, made tons of friends throughout the
sports, the families traveling
. And then working here at Ben Lomand, you get to really know the
people that live here.
It's a small town, but we serve quite a few people.
And I just love White County.
It's just a great place.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah, it really is.
As far as anything in closing from either one of y'all.
Tammy, anything that we might have missed or that folks out there
need to know about White County or the Sparta office here or
anything.
Tammy Odom:
If you have any questions about any of our services, we would be
glad to answer those.
And if we're unable to, we can get Ben Clark to help us out with
that.
We try to be knowledgeable in Sparta, but sometimes we have to
lean on Ben here, so.
And he knows everything.
Ben Clark:
Well, I don't know about everything.
Bryan Kell:
Good person to rely on.
Tammy Odom:
Yes.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah. Ben, anything in closing that we need to mention?
I will step right on top of what Tammy was saying about a good
place to raise your family.
Because my wife and I have been married 37 years.
My mother and daddy were both bi-vocation.
They farmed and worked public jobs.
My wife and I are farm oriented and bi-vocation, and her family
does full time farming.
So it's just a great little farming community.
We've been insulated from a lot of things of the world, you
know, simply by being in a small town.
But it is a great place to raise children.
I've got three myself, and two of them are school teachers and
the other one's a senior at Tech and auctioning and real estate
business with True North Realty.
And so he's really done a great job, too.
And so as far as raising children, you couldn't find – and
that's one reason people like to move here.
They come here. They visit.
They see the small town scenarios, and they just love it.
They just, they want to move here and here they come, you know.
And so I will say one other thing about what makes us great as
far as being in Sparta and White County and Van Buren County is
our employees.
Every service technician, every CSR up front from the assignment
group over here, Mark Benningfield and Dawson Gibbons,
we've just got a great group from beginning to end.
And without them they make Tammy and I look really good.
I just tell you; they just do.
Well, in closing a couple of words.
Very rarely ever say this, go warriors.
Tammy Odom:
Yeah.
Bryan Kell:
Right. And then yert!
Tammy Odom:
Yert.
Bryan Kell:
Whatever that means, right?
Tammy Odom:
Yert.
Bryan Kell:
So anyway.
Ben Clark:
Hi. How are you? Have a great day.
Yert.
Bryan Kell:
That's what that means.
It's all comboed together.
Ben Clark:
Yeah.
Bryan Kell:
Okay, well, you learn something new today here on the Ben Lomand
Connection Oodcast.
Ben Clark, Tammy Odom, thank you all for being on the podcast.
Tammy Odom:
Thank you.
Ben Clark:
Thank you.
Karen Wilson:
This is the BLC Connection Podcast, and it is time for our
Connected Home segment.
And we're going to branch that out a little bit further into
technology and going back to school.
I'm Karen Wilson, and Micah and Brian are back to talk to us
about the back to school time and all the
technology that could be utilized for students this year.
So let's start with something old school.
What, for each of you, was your favorite back to school purchase
when you were a kid?
Bryan Kell:
Do you want the – I almost said normal – the regular person?
Or do you want Bill Gates over here?
Karen Wilson:
Well, let's start with Bill Gates.
Bryan Kell:
Okay.
Karen Wilson:
And then we'll go to –
Bryan Kell:
Take it away, Bill.
Karen Wilson:
You.
Micah Lawrence:
I mean honestly, I didn't look forward to anything.
Like it was school.
I mean, I didn't care for school.
But as far as me, the thing I look forward to is the report card
at the end of the school year.
That's about it. So.
Bryan Kell:
Wow.
Micah Lawrence:
Yeah. I mean, as far as, you know, I didn't care about backpacks
or pencils or pens or anything like that.
It's just, you know, it's just find me a pencil so I can do my
work that's really [it].
Karen Wilson:
Just strictly utilitarian.
Micah Lawrence:
Well, I didn't say I wasn't weird, you know, I just.
You know.
Karen Wilson:
You never claimed to be normal.
Micah Lawrence:
I was going to say, I never claimed to be normal.
Karen Wilson:
What about you, Bryan?
Bryan Kell:
Well, that's superficial, people.
Karen, as you kind of said before we started this, man, it was
all about getting a new trapper keeper for me.
I mean, when you kind of threw this question out, I'm like, oh,
it's the trapper keeper.
It's little things like – and I still see it on social media –
the sports pencils where you could get like
NFL teams, you know, and stuff like that.
Karen Wilson:
You could buy those at our little school pencil shop.
Bryan Kell:
And I always started with the Atlanta Falcons, and then who was
my next favorite team.
And I didn't want to use the Miami Dolphins or, you know, all
those.
But yeah, just the specialness of all that kind of stuff going
on.
Karen Wilson:
I know, it was kind of fun to like have this whole new tool set,
you know.
Mine was, other than the trapper keeper, my box of crayons, the
big one with the sharpener in it and stuff.
Bryan Kell:
You didn't like that?
Micah Lawrence:
I didn't care.
Karen Wilson:
To have new crayons that were not dull and just all the new
colors and stuff.
That was.
Bryan Kell:
Wasn't it like a box of a hundred or something like that?
Karen Wilson:
Or something like that.
Bryan Kell:
Just big. It had all the power here.
Micah Lawrence:
What about the color changing pencils?
Did y'all have that?
Bryan Kell:
Yeah, where you could click down different sides of the pencil.
Micah Lawrence:
Oh, that's the pen.
But yes, that's definitely old school there.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah.
Micah Lawrence:
But, like, well, Ben Lomand gave out some of these pencils at one
point in time where you held it, and the heat from your hand
would make it change it to a different color.
Karen Wilson:
That's too technological for us.
I mean, yeah, I was already working by the time they developed
those.
Micah Lawrence:
So what you're saying is, you know, Moses wasn't handing those
out when you were going back to school?
Bryan Kell:
I'll say that. Sure.
What about the little eraser guys and stuff like Space Invader
kind of things?
To be able to collect those, I thought was so cool too, back in
the day.
Karen Wilson:
Yeah. Well, my how times have changed.
That is for sure, and technology has been a big part of that.
Micah, as many students are utilizing laptops now, let's start
with that.
What types of laptops or tablets are good for maybe each age
group because you're thinking about, you know,
elementary school is one category, and then you get into like
middle school and high school where they're more responsible, and
then college.
Micah Lawrence:
So I get asked this question a lot.
A lot of different people, they're wanting to know, what can I
get my kid?
Where I see this more on is on the college kids side.
Mainly because, you know, in elementary side, they're generally
given most of the time things like tablets or maybe
Chromebooks. We're even seeing this on the high school side.
Now as far as a, you know, computer to have it home for them to
do their work, you know, just any computer is going to probably
work. And the reason being is because most of the classrooms
have shifted to, you know, like a Google classroom where, you
know, the ability to have a word processor or an Excel
spreadsheet type thing, you know, it's all driven Web based.
So that's the reason why Chromebooks work really well.
I know I bought my daughter a Chromebook that, you know, would
be ours at home for her to do her homework in case, you know,
like let's say they left theirs at school or, you know, anything
can happen.
So I think for most of your elementary and high school type
groups, Chromebooks are going to work good.
You know, they're really inexpensive.
They're generally anywhere from $300 to $500.
It's not a bad deal.
Now college ends up being a different story because it does not
seem to have, as yet, you know, where colleges are
utilizing more of the Web based stuff.
So I always tell people, you know, you want kind of at least a
medium of the road processor.
Intel is kind of the most popular one.
They generally have an i3, i5 and an i7 processor.
And all that means is that's the order of quality and
performance.
So what I would say anything with an i5 or i7 is good.
Nowadays, as far as operating systems are concerned, because
everybody's buying Windows, mostly.
If you're buying Mac, honestly, just about any Mac or Apple
computer is going to be good.
But you know, with the memory, you want as much memory as you
can get.
Hard drive space.
You know, it's just everything that they're coming out with
nowadays is really good.
But one of the things, they've got this new technology called
solid state drives.
What it is is, there's no mechanical parts in this hard drive
and which is good for a couple different reasons.
One is, since there's no moving parts in the hard drive, if
anything gets dropped or slightly dropped, and
we know when it comes to college kids, you know, throw them in
your backpack or, you know, falling off your dorm room desk, you
know.
It can easily damage it because it's moving parts in there.
So with solid state drives, it's what's called flash memory.
It's very similar to what's in your cell phones and your
tablets, things like that.
There's no moving parts to that storage.
And then the second part about this is you get the performance.
They're super fast.
From the Managed IT perspective, when we go out to some
businesses, they have some computers that are not really too old,
but when you look at their system resources, they're basically
twiddling their thumbs.
They're sitting there waiting for the hard drive to catch up.
So we can go out there for these businesses, swap and clone their
drives to solid states, and it's almost like a brand new
computer. So in terms of performance, there's a big deal with
those.
So those are kind of the three big things I would look at is
one, the processor.
Number two, the memory.
You know, as much memory as you can get for the price.
And then lastly, I would do a solid state drive.
If you kind of hit those three, you're pretty much are going to
get a decent laptop or desktop.
And then also I'm looking at from the longevity perspective of,
you know, is it going to last them all the way through college?
And even outside of that, I'd say absolutely do that.
Bryan Kell:
Speaking of longevity, this just hit me.
How long can someone expect an average laptop starting off, used
at school, whether it's for high
school use or college use, to be good for them for X number of
years.
What's your thoughts when people ask you that?
Micah Lawrence:
Well, and that comes to your definition of good.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah.
Micah Lawrence:
You know, to me is the way technology is progressing.
I would say anywhere from 3 to 5 years.
You're looking at probably wanting to upgrade because, you know,
the latest version of Windows is out or the latest version of
Apple's out. And it's kind of like your cell phones.
You know, you're 3 to 5 years, you're starting to notice that
one, they're not really updating your software anymore, or it's
not really performing the way it did at one point in time.
You know, that's the other question I get asked too, you know,
about Internet.
They're like, well, it used to be on dial up.
It used to fly.
Well, when we were on dial up days, it was mostly your web pages
were text.
You know, when you go to things like Fox News or any of these
news websites now, it's just absolutely full of
pictures and videos.
And that takes it even a step further.
They're like, well, DSL used to be great at one point in time.
Well, now we're in the age of video, too, and very high graphic
video.
So, you know, DSL is no longer quite cutting it anymore, which
is why we're trying to move everybody to fiber.
So it's just things progress.
And so you have to kind of go with the technology.
Now, you can be on the cutting edge.
You can be on the bleeding edge.
There's lots of things you can do.
And I would always encourage, you know, everyone to say, okay,
you know, find you a good budget.
You know, look at replacing 3 to 5 years.
You know, if you buy a better laptop now, you're probably
looking closer to the five year edge.
As opposed to if you buy something that you buy at some of these,
you know, stores that are here local, that their intention is to
sell you something cheap, you're going to get what you pay for.
Karen Wilson:
Right.
Micah Lawrence:
Definitely with technology.
Karen Wilson:
And I'm sure keeping your updates on your laptops and things like
that are always good.
That way, it's got the latest software and virus protections and
things like that.
Micah Lawrence:
Yes.
Karen Wilson:
Because I know that's what tends to slow people down sometimes is
all the little bugs you get.
Micah Lawrence:
That's right.
Karen Wilson:
So, Bryan, after the student comes home with the device, how does
the speed of the Internet in the home make a difference?
And what speeds would you think students would need?
Bryan Kell:
So, you know, one thing that Ben Lomand is that we don't have the
plural.
We have the singular, here at Ben Lomand, especially when it
comes down to fiber.
And right now, as we speak, close to 88% of our entire territory
is fiber.
So that is being chipped away on every day.
So we offer a synchronous gig both in download speed and upload
speed.
So a few things that I'll talk about that I've heard from our
customers that they love about what we offer when it comes down
to education. Number one is reliability.
Micah could speak at this much better than I could, but, and I
think we've done some podcast topics on this before, but just the
number of outbound connections that we've got to the Internet, I
think that stands at eight today, I think.
And so should there be an issue with one of our connections,
we've still got multiple, multiple, multiple connections to be
able to provide Internet to our customers.
So the reliability factor has been very huge.
Should there be something that does happen at your home, and
you've got one of our GigaSpire routers.
If you're on a deadline to get something turned in and
something's going wrong, man, we've talked about this just about
every podcast. The fact that we've got folks that are sitting in
our McMinnville office waiting to take your phone call and help
troubleshoot an issue with you to be able to get you in a
situation where, okay, wow, now I'm good.
So that has always been very good feedback from our customers
when it comes down to folks that are studying or being able
to turn in reports online situations.
And another thing too, that a lot of other companies don't
highlight that we have, especially over the last couple to a few
years, and that is our upload speed.
And so more and more situations where your kids.
Karen, my kids, you know, Micah's child is moving into high
school and all that stuff.
And so the ability to be able to, you know, upload large files,
should that be the case with a particular
homework assignment or report or whatever that is.
And then also being able to communicate from a video chat
standpoint, too.
And so the need on the upload side, especially during the
pandemic, we saw it from people that were working from home,
people that were in education and having to school from home,
those have been some of the things that I've seen and I've heard
from our customers as what's important to them when it comes
down to education from home.
But I will throw it to you in case there is something I've
missed.
You being the techie, that you are.
Micah Lawrence:
Well, the only thing I'd like to bring out is, you know.
I know at Ben Lomand, we make a big attention to the whole upload
part of this.
I don't think a lot of customers understand why this is
important.
And the reason why it's important is, you know, most of your
daily use is going to be download, right?
You know, that's where you want your highest speed.
And this used to be an issue when it came to DSL because your
download was always higher than your upload was.
Well, we're moving into a different age of, you know,
communication across the Internet.
And one of the things is like, you know, I've heard of homework
assignments of, you know, make a YouTube video, and then post it
and then this is a part of your homework assignment.
Karen Wilson:
Yeah, your grade, right?
Micah Lawrence:
And, you know, what people don't realize, that is upload.
And when we talk about video, it's just like what we just talked
about with dial up and DSL.
You know, bandwidth requirements have changed.
And so when you start uploading, you know, video files, it's
going to take a while if you don't have fast enough speed.
So that's the reason why it's really important.
You know, I'd also encourage people to look at, you know, what
they're doing when they're recording videos on their iPhones, for
example. You know, they're getting to be better cameras, higher
megapixels, you know, higher resolutions, 4K, 60
frames per second. You know, you hear all these fancy words.
What it means is consumes a lot of bandwidth.
Karen Wilson:
That's right.
Micah Lawrence:
And so if you got things like iCloud on your Apple devices, and
I'm sure Android's got, you know, Google Drive and things like
that, this is all upload when it syncs and backs your stuff up
to the cloud, this is all upload.
And at one point in time you did not have enough upload to be
able to do some of these services.
So upload is a very important thing, especially when it comes to
homework assignments and, you know, things of that nature.
So it's really important. So I just wanted to kind of throw that
out there because sometimes that's not really talked about on the
upload side.
Karen Wilson:
Yeah. And like you said anymore, we're not just getting
information, but we're giving information to our teachers,
professors, work.
And we're having to send that and sending is the upload side of
it.
So Micah, you know part of the battle, I guess when the kids
come home from school is keeping the kids on task with their
homework, with all the technology distractions and things like
that.
I know we have Experience IQ.
How does that kind of help with the problem?
Micah Lawrence:
So obviously, your biggest issue is your kids are wanting to be
distracted by a text message.
By, you know, an app that's constantly giving them notifications
– hey, click me and finish this part of the video game.
Karen Wilson:
Somebody snapped you!
Micah Lawrence:
Or somebody sends you a Snapchat or, you know, all kinds of
different things.
And what Experience IQ allows you to do is it allows you to set
time limits where you can take their specific devices and say,
okay, I'm only going to give you an hour.
Or I'm going to say between this time period and this time
period, you cannot use the Wi-Fi and use your phone.
And so these are good things.
You know, used to, we would have to say, well, if you want, you
know, we'd have to go and change the Wi-Fi password and say, if
you want today's password, you know, do your homework, and then
show it to me.
And then I'll give you the password.
So this gives you a little bit more flexibility where it's kind
of more automatic, where I think it's very beneficial.
Because we do have to try to eliminate those distractions because
even as adults, we get distracted as well.
So, you know, sometimes we got to train these habits for them.
Karen Wilson:
Yeah, yeah. There are a lot more distractions.
It's not just Gilligan's Island and the Munsters on TV anymore.
Going old school again.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah, I love that. That's awesome.
Karen Wilson:
So let's go back to kind of what, you know, each of you, what you
think about what app do
you use that you wish were available when you were a student?
Or an app that is good for students, you think?
Bryan Kell:
Me go first?
Micah Lawrence:
Go for it.
Bryan Kell:
All right. One that one, and I think I've said this before, as
far as what what my favorite app is, and it continues to be
something I know that helps me and Karen both, and that's
Grammarly.
I just think it's so – being somebody when I was in high school
and college that was not the best writer at all, and
gradually tried to get better as I moved along.
But just what Grammarly can do for me, even in today's world, I
know for you too, just being able to look at at what you're
trying to say, how you're trying to say it.
And so whether that's for education purposes and writing a
report, or sometimes long answers that you really want to feel
like you've kind of put on steroids a little bit and really let
it be something that shines, Grammarly has helped me at
work and would have helped me tremendously in college being a
journalism major, broadcast journalism, or even in high school in
writing reports. I can't imagine in today's world writing a
report without at it and think, Man, I wish I would have
had that back then because it would have made it so much easier.
But maybe by plowing through it like we did, you know, it caused
us to have to be a little bit more creative on our own without
something supplying us with a little bit more of that
creativity.
Karen Wilson:
Yeah, I can remember in college having to buy a Harbrace because
you had to refer back and think, okay, is this a, you
know, is there a comma splice or whatever, so.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah,
Karen Wilson:
It just does make us better writers.
Bryan Kell:
And, also just to to wrap it up, too, I still have in my office
from the fall of 1990, my dictionary and thesaurus.
And the thesaurus was such a godsend for me to have, but now
everything's at our fingertips and especially Grammarly.
It says, "Don't you want to say it this way?
Or what about this word?" And all that.
So it's been great.
Karen Wilson:
And there's free versions of it that are still really good.
Micah Lawrence:
I'm going to tell you, I probably wouldn't have made it through
some of my English classes without a Harbrace.
So I know what you're talking about there.
Karen Wilson:
Right? Right. What do you use a lot of now that you wish, or you
know that you think is good for students?
Micah Lawrence:
So, this is a two-part answer here.
But part number one is I've recently found that there is an app
called I think it's Calculator 84.
And it is an emulator for your iPhone.
It's an app that emulates a TI 84 calculator from Texas
Instrument.
Bryan Kell:
I was going to say, TI, Texas Instrument.
Micah Lawrence:
So again, I'm a nerd.
I understand. But I love math.
I enjoy math a whole lot.
And, you know, to be able to have a full blown TI-84, or I had
an 83 when I was in school.
No telling what it was. I think it changes as years go along.
But being able to have that on my phone because I'm helping some
nieces and nephews with math, and then also help my daughter and
things like that, just to be able to have that, to do those
complex equations is really good.
But I want to take that a step further with saying also I found
and discovered a website that could be good for everybody else.
You know, I graduated in 2000, so my ability to retain and
remember how all those equations works is a little
difficult. There is a website called MathIsFun.com.
And it has all the equations that these kids go through and
gives examples and
English descriptions of how it works and, you know, all that
good stuff.
It has helped me refresh my memory to help them.
So that kind of two part is good.
But as far as to answer your original question of what I would
have loved to have had back then, this is really bad.
Okay.
Karen Wilson:
Okay.
Micah Lawrence:
Have you heard of ChatGPT?
Karen Wilson:
Yes, we have.
I mean, it's going to change things.
Micah Lawrence:
Okay. So, you know, I know that you can go on there and say
basically "I need a term paper on the subject of this, this or
that," and basically it'll write it for you.
So, you know, from a student's perspective, that would be great.
Bryan Kell:
How do you manage that as a teacher?
I mean, that's just wild.
Micah Lawrence:
That's the good part is, is from a teacher's perspective, is now
they're coming out with software that squash that or identify
that these have been written by the artificial intelligence that
are out there right now.
So teachers have to defend against that, obviously.
So, you know, but like I said, from a student's perspective, so
I didn't have to write half of those papers, I would have loved
to have that.
Karen Wilson:
So just to let the audience know, to take a peek into the brains
of Bryan, Micah and Karen.
Karen loved her crayons.
Brian liked his trapper keeper, and Micah liked the TI84.
So you see who the smart is in the room here.
Bryan Kell:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Karen Wilson:
So, but with all of us, we're a well-rounded panel, I will say.
Bryan Kell:
I think so.
Karen Wilson:
So thank you for giving all of your thoughts on that.
There's some great apps and technology devices out there for
kids.
Always as we like to remind people at Ben Lomand.
Keep an eye on your kids as they're on their devices and things
of that nature and just help them help themselves with
those things. But all great ideas for helping make students'
lives easier.
And thank you, Bryan and Micah.
Micah Lawrence:
We're back with Connect with BLC.
Karen, what can we expect for Channel Six or the YouTube Channel
or Connect magazine?
Karen Wilson:
Well, we're diligently uploading older content to YouTube.
So for those of you who have missed episodes of things in the
past, go to our YouTube channel.
So that's always a great resource.
Also, Channel Six is getting really busy with all the fair
pageants coming up and football season is coming up.
So August and September, just look for all that great content on
Channel Six.
Micah Lawrence:
All right, Bryan, what can we expect for some events in our
service area for September?
Bryan Kell:
Karen's already teased it.
Fair, fair, fair. So here's what we've got going on in September
.
September 5th, the Coffee County fair begins.
Or maybe it's the fourth, which is Labor Day, I guess they're
really starting it, I guess on Labor Day.
Karen Wilson:
The weekend before. Actually the Friday night before Labor Day, I
believe, is when it starts.
Bryan Kell:
Okay, so it's the first then?
Karen Wilson:
Yeah.
Bryan Kell:
I guess. Okay. And then White County Fair begins on.
Karen Wilson:
Same time.
Bryan Kell:
Same time. So that Friday as well.
Okay. Yeah. Which is why we're breaking up and doing all that.
Behind the scenes we're trying to get to all these different
places.
So we're going to have free Wi-Fi around the grandstand, is that
correct?
And also around our Gig Box or our Biz Box.
We had it over there last year.
So we'll have two areas where folks can be able to get free
Wi-Fi from Ben Lomand, which is kind of cool.
So you can find the Gig Box right beside the Kwanzaa huts as you
get ready to go into the midway there at the White County Fair
. September 8th, I think that's the right date, Warren County
Fair begins.
The Wi-Fi van will show up beginning September 11th, which I
think is on a Monday.
Karen Wilson:
Yes.
Bryan Kell:
And so we'll have free Wi-Fi at the grandstand area.
Drop by our booth at all of these places.
We've got one in Coffee County.
We've got one in White County, and also in Warren County as well,
to get all kinds of cool little freebies from us and more
information on all of the services we provide.
And one last fair, I think it's September 13th, Van Buren County
Fair begins.
You can take advantage of free Wi-Fi around the 4-H building
around the food booth there.
In fact, that's on all the time.
We talked about some of the pandemic stuff that we did back to
help people out.
That has been an area that continues to have free Wi-Fi provided
for it, I believe, year round.
So Van Buren, Warren County, White County, Coffee County, come
see us.
Get some free stuff and get some free Wi-Fi at just about every
one of those.
Hadn't got to Coffee County yet, but hopefully soon.
Karen Wilson:
We'd love to.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah.
Micah Lawrence:
Awesome. Thanks guys.
So I want to try something a little different today.
Karen Wilson:
Okay.
Micah Lawrence:
So I see these videos online of people that they'll take a swig
of water and hold it in their mouth, and then they tell a joke
and see if they can hold it.
Karen Wilson:
Oh, like a challenge.
Bryan Kell:
We're going to slap each other with like the –
Micah Lawrence:
With the tortillas.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah.
Micah Lawrence:
Yeah. So here's what I want to do.
I think some of the weirdest jokes are dad jokes because they're
on that fence of being super funny or just
absolutely terrible.
So I've got some here, and I want to share them with you.
And I want you to give me a scale from 1 to 5, whether that's
hilarious or that was terrible.
Bryan Kell:
So five is great.
One is horrible.
Micah Lawrence:
Yeah, that's right.
Bryan Kell:
Okay.
Micah Lawrence:
All right. Ready?
Bryan Kell:
Yeah.
Micah Lawrence:
Why are elevator jokes so classic and good?
Because they work on so many levels.
Karen Wilson:
I'll give that about a three.
Bryan Kell:
Yeah, I was going to say 3 or 4.
3 or 4. Yeah, that's pretty good.
Karen Wilson:
Because you have to kind of think about that.
Like my kids would probably go, huh?
Bryan Kell:
Yeah.
Micah Lawrence:
That's right.
Bryan Kell:
That's really good.
Micah Lawrence:
All right, so what do you call a pudgy psychic?
Karen Wilson:
I don't know.
Micah Lawrence:
A four-chin teller.
Karen Wilson:
I do like that one.
Bryan Kell:
That's pretty good.
That's pretty good. It might be a five, actually.
Four-chin teller.
Karen Wilson:
Yeah.
Micah Lawrence:
All right. So I used to hate facial hair, but then it kind of
grew on me.
Karen Wilson:
That one's a pretty basic.
Yeah.
Bryan Kell:
That's a one.
Micah Lawrence:
All right, how about this one?
Why did Waldo go to therapy?
Because he needed to find himself.
Karen Wilson:
I like that. Because everybody's into the.
Micah Lawrence:
Where's Waldo?
Karen Wilson:
Finding themselves right now.
Micah Lawrence:
All right. Last one here.
Actually, no two more.
What kind of car does a sheep like to drive?
A Lamb-borghini.
Bryan Kell:
That's bad. So bad.
Fact is, we've laughed at every one of these.
Even the ones that you're like, that's a one or a two.
It's still funny.
Karen Wilson:
You still get a chuckle, don't you?
Yeah.
Micah Lawrence:
All right. Last one here, and we'll see how you like this one.
Why do melons have weddings?
Because they cant-elope.
Bryan Kell:
That's good.
Karen Wilson:
I like that.
Bryan Kell:
You ended on a good note.
Karen Wilson:
You did.
Bryan Kell:
That's a five. That's a five.
You did really well on that one.
Micah Lawrence:
Glad you guys liked it.
Karen Wilson:
Good job.
Bryan Kell:
Well, we have wrapped up another podcast, this one being here in
White County.
And so, man, it's so good to have Ben and Tammy here with us
today.
But Micah, as we wrap things up, how can folks get stuff to us?
Micah Lawrence:
You can submit your questions.
You can message us on BLC Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter,
LinkedIn accounts, or you can email us at BLCPodcast@b
enlomand.net.
We've had a few people email us and ask us questions.
We've put it on a podcast, so we love those.
Feel free to do that. You can also listen to our podcast on
Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, iHeartRadio and a bunch of other
ones.
Bryan Kell:
And I will say this, being a Spotify user, we have a 5.0 rating
out of five on Spotify and quite a few reviews from
folks. So thanks so much for the feedback that we've gotten.
There's a lot of folks in our industry that have got podcasts
that don't even have reviews.
So to have a handful of reviews in there already and to be a
5.0, we want to thank folks for being able to reach out to us on
that. Karen mini podcaster out there.
Karen Wilson:
Yes, we love to focus on small businesses in our area and the
things that they do well.
So who knows where we'll end up.
We're always looking for businesses.
Reach out to us.
If you think you excel at something which we know so many people
do in our area, give me a shout, and we'll
interview you on a BLC Connection mini episode.
Bryan Kell:
Those ideas can come to us at BLCPodcast@benlomand.net.
It's a great way to be able to get to us.
All right. And as far as next next episode, we do, I have no
idea.
We got to get through fair.
We got to get through all this stuff that's going on.
So when we do get that for you, it'll be a little bit of a
surprise because it's not known to us at this time.
Karen Wilson:
We always say we're going to do one at the fair.
Maybe we should think about that.
Bryan Kell:
Maybe we could.
Maybe we could.
Karen Wilson:
It's a lot, if we could keep from being distracted.
Micah Lawrence:
Now, we might have an idea for September, though, right?
Bryan Kell:
Could have an idea for September.
Yeah, could be.
Could be. Well, well, you're saying this is coming out in
September to record one in September.
Micah Lawrence:
Yeah, but let's keep that secure.
Okay.
Karen Wilson:
Well, I want to record one and eat a candy apple at the same
time, so.
Bryan Kell:
All right, let's get ready for our fair.
Take the ride. Thanks so much for taking the ride with us here in
episode 12 here of The BLC Connection podcast.
For Micah Lawrence, for Karen Wilson, for Tammy and Ben joining
us today, we bid you adieu from Sparta and tell you, thank you so
much for listening. Stay safe and stay connected.