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Join the conversation with John Rouda as he shares his thoughts on bringing AI and ChatGPT into the workplace and schools. We also cover the importance of learning the basics before using AI, how John approaches adopting other new technologies in his role managing an IT department, the impact of streaming services on content ownership and more.John is VP of IT at INSP, LLC. He comes with over 20 years' experience in IT leadership and is an expert in software engineering, networking, and cyber...
Join the conversation with John Rouda as he shares his thoughts on bringing AI and ChatGPT into the workplace and schools. We also cover the importance of learning the basics before using AI, how John approaches adopting other new technologies in his role managing an IT department, the impact of streaming services on content ownership and more.
John is VP of IT at INSP, LLC. He comes with over 20 years' experience in IT leadership and is an expert in software engineering, networking, and cyber security. He has honed his skills in all aspects of project life cycles, including agile methodologies. Aside from leadership positions at some of the most deemed IT companies, John has also served as an IT professor at York Technical College and an adjunct professor at Winthrop University. In his spare time, John hosts his own podcast - A Geek Leader.
Conversation Highlights:
[00:07] Intro
[02:41] A bit about our guest, John Rouda
[03:14] What it’s like adopting new technology in an old industry
[07:42] What computer science majors are learning today
[11:59] The importance of real-life experience in college education
[16:18] Current changes in the media industry
[21:08] The future of AI and how it will impact the media industry
[26:16] John’s experience with GPT and false narratives
[30:03] AI prompt engineering course on LinkedIn learning
[34:08] Blocking Twitter and putting a six month hold on it
[36:27] John’s message to the whole world
[37:56] Closing thoughts
Notable Quotes
Connect With John Rouda
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrouda/
The IT Matters Podcast is about IT matters and matters pertaining to IT.
Welcome to the Opkalla IT Matters Podcast, where we discuss the important matters within IT as well as the importance of IT across different industries and responsibilities.
About Opkalla:
Opkalla helps their clients navigate the confusion in the technology marketplace and choose the technology solutions that are right for their business. They work alongside IT teams to design, procure, implement and support the most complex IT solutions without an agenda or technology bias. Opkalla was founded around the belief that IT professionals deserve better, and is guided by their core values: trust, transparency and speed. For more information, visit https://opkalla.com/ or follow them on LinkedIn.
Narrator: Welcome to the IT
Matters podcast, where we
explore why IT matters and
matters pertaining to IT. Here's
your host, Aaron Bock.
Aaron Bock: Thank you everyone
for joining again. My name is
Aaron Bock, as the intro had
said. Welcome to the IT Matters
Podcast. We are excited that you
are here. It is a beautiful
spring day here in Charlotte,
North Carolina. I'm joined by my
co-host, Keith Hawkey. Keith,
welcome to the show.
Keith Hawkey: Hey, thanks for
having me on again, Aaron. Happy
to be here. Looking forward to
the conversation.
Aaron Bock: Yeah. So, what's new
with you, Keith, since the last
time we were on?
Keith Hawkey: Oh, lots is new
with me. There's a lot new with
our industry in particular. From
what I hear, AI is going to take
all of our jobs in about two or
three weeks. That's the
forecast. About two weeks from
now, we hear the same thing. I'm
just waiting for that day for me
to sit back at the house and
have some robot do my job and me
receive the paycheck.
Aaron Bock: I agree with you. I
don't think it's just us worried
about our jobs. I think Drake
and The Weekend are also worried
since you know there's this new
song out that, I don't know if
you've listened to it, but it
legitimately sounds like them.
AI-based music, and I think I
think we're going to see more of
it. It's going to be interesting
to see, but I don't think we're
the only ones worried about our
jobs.
AI, ChatGPT, Bard, all of them
are a crazy trend that we're
seeing, and I don't think we're
going to see it go away. I think
we're going to see a lot of
governance around it. It's an
interesting trend and I know
that it's coming up in every
client conversation that we
have. So definitely excited to
dig in more.
I think some of the guests on
our podcast over the next couple
episodes, we will probably dig
into it a little bit. Excited to
have you, Keith. Excited to get
this going. We've got a great
guest on today. I'll kick it
over to you and you can get this
started.
Keith Hawkey: Let's get started.
One more note on the AI part of
this, I could certainly use a
buff to my profile. I think I'm
going to get some AI platforms
to start building some mug shots
and some crazy arrest image
imagery about me being taken
down by a whole SWAT team. I
could use some street cred in my
professional life. I'll get
ChatGPT or some other product
working on that.
Aaron Bock: You do that.
Keith Hawkey: I'm excited today.
We have a wonderful guest, John
Rouda, on the podcast with us.
John, you're an extraordinarily
interesting person. Not only do
you manage an IT department in
charge of ensuring old Western
fans have their shows to keep
the nostalgia alive but you have
experience building the minds of
our semi-adult youth. On top of
that, you host one of the
coolest geek podcasts on Apple
Podcast. Aaron and I are big
fans.
Welcome to the IT Matters
podcast.
John Rouda: Thanks for having
me. I appreciate it.
Keith Hawkey: Awesome. This is
one of the first times that
we've had a fellow podcaster on
our podcast. So we're thrilled.
I have a quote here that I want
to toss out to the group to see
how it relates. We have a lot to
talk about today, but I thought
this was interesting. What do
you think about this? "Once a
new technology rolls over you,
if you're not a part of the
steamroller, you're a part of
the road."
Can you relate to any of that in
your day-to-day occupation?
John Rouda: Yeah, I can relate
to that a little bit. But also,
when you think about different
industries develop at different
times and adopt technologies at
different times. And sometimes,
things that are new and
everybody has to jump on them
right away can sometimes be the
downfall of your industry if you
get on that.
I used to work at INSP. We were
a cable network ISP and a
security company, telephone
company back in the day when
people had landlines. I'm still
in touch with those folks, even
though I left that company about
seven years ago. They're still
running things on and AS/400
older technology.
When I was there, they were
saying, "If you don't move to
you know microservices, if you
don't move to cloud-based
systems, you're going to be left
behind, you're going to be out
of business in three years.
You're going to be rolled over."
But they're still doing just
fine.
They had record increases of
internet over the last couple of
years since COVID. Their payment
is highest it's ever been. They
just rolled out 2G residential
internet to the homes. At my
house, they put me on 2G
internet from the service. So
they're doing a really good job
of moving forward even with old
technology that they could be
"steamrolled by."
Keith Hawkey: Thinking about
technology, AS/400s, with you
teaching Computer Science to our
collegian youth, and I have had
firsthand experience speaking to
the directors at some of these
sites, departments that have
companies approaching them,
requesting, "Hey, we have old
legacy back-end technology that
the talent to manage it is
running slim. We would like to
pay for the last two years of
your students' education for
them to learn this old
technology. And they don't have
to commit to our company. We
just need more talent in the
workforce." Is that something
that you're seeing? Where
companies are approaching,
asking to expand the knowledge
base, expand the talent for an
old legacy technology that might
not be around the next 5, 10
years but it sure seems to be
chugging along?
John Rouda: Well, that is a
concern that a lot of companies
are having. I haven't personally
seen people coming to whatever
university and saying that.
Maybe they do it above my level
to the chair of department or
something like that. But it's
definitely a concern.
I know from talking to some CEO
friends of mine that they're
still running COBOL software.
One of the guys I was talking
to, I went to lunch with them
about a month ago, and he said
that they have about three more
COBOL developers on staff. Five
years ago, they had eight, and
now they're down to three. Those
three are planning on retiring
in the next three years and they
can't find anybody.
They've had open wrecks for six,
eight months that nobody's
filling up because there's
nobody that knows COBOL. Then
the ones that do know COBOL,
quite frankly, are they the ones
you want to hire? Because
they're not learning new skills,
they're not trying to advance
their career. They're just
comfortable just doing their
current job.
Aaron Bock: This is as of a year
or two ago, but I remember
listening to a podcast about
bank technology. At the time,
like 98% of banks still had
COBOL in their ATMs. And the
same thing, like what you said,
the number of COBOL developers
and people who know it and
administer it, they don't know
any of it.
So it's this huge need and the
banks are trying to figure out
what to do but no one's
studying. So it's like the law
of diminishing returns. How do
you fix this? It's forcing
people to either get off or pay,
like Keith said, for programs
for people to learn what would
be older technology or old
languages.
John Rouda: But who's going to
teach them? ChatGPT maybe. I
don't know.
Aaron Bock: Yeah, everything's
going to just come back to
ChatGPT. While you guys are
talking, I'm going to ask
ChatGPT to teach me COBOL and
see if, by the end of the
episode, we've got something to
work with.
Keith Hawkey: There you go.
Speaking of which, John, you
have intimate knowledge about
what the next generation of
leaders looks like. What are
Computer Science majors learning
today in your college courses?
And what can we expect from the
next generation of leaders? Are
they different than our
generation?
John Rouda: A lot has changed in
the past 10 to 15 years when it
comes to Computer Science
education what you go through.
Back when I was in college, we
had to learn operating systems.
You had to learn compilers. You
picked a language or two that
you studied courses on and
that's what you went through.
Now there are different areas
that you can go to. There are a
lot of different options within
a Computer Science degree. Maybe
you want to get into
cybersecurity and you want to
focus on that. Things are so
varied that you have to pick a
concentration and focus on it,
whether it's a full-stack
development type concentration,
or you're going into
cybersecurity concentration, or
maybe IT operations and cloud
technologies.
They're very different and the
skill sets are so unique among
individuals. If you graduate
with just a generic Computer
Science degree, you might not be
able to even perform your job
because what are you going to
do? Maybe Helpdesk? I don't
know, maybe not.
Being able to specialize in a
certain area, whether it be
networking, cybersecurity, or
full-stack development, you're
going to pick a skill and go
through that path. The cool
thing that they're doing now
with a lot of Computer Science
departments is they're doing
real-world applications and
real-world applying of their
skills, and they're able to do
that much quicker.
For example, I have a friend of
mine who is going to a college
for cybersecurity. I don't teach
cybersecurity, so I can't really
speak a whole lot about that.
But one of the cool things that
they're doing is they're going
and doing pen tests for
nonprofits that can't afford
them, for free. As a sophomore
in college, you're able to go
out there and do pen tests for
these nonprofits and show them
vulnerabilities.
They're offering that from a
college standpoint, which is
really cool because they're
getting real-world experience
that they can put on the resumes
for being a pen tester. And
there are nonprofits getting a
lot of information that can
hopefully plug some holes that
they have.
Keith Hawkey: Is that applicable
to other segments of Computer
Science? Are full-stack
developers getting exposure like
this or the other disciplines?
Do they have opportunities to do
the same thing?
John Rouda: Yeah, absolutely.
Even at Winthrop, our students,
when they become juniors and
seniors, they'll pick different
nonprofits that partner with the
University, and they will build
applications or websites for
them that do certain things.
I remember we went through one
project for a homeless shelter
where they use churches. There
are 12 churches in the area that
volunteer to partner with. They
put beds for these people and
they're moving them around from
time to time. They have a lot of
criteria for the people that
stay. They can't be on drugs
while they're there. They have
to be clean. They have to be
looking for jobs.
The church has counselors that
come in and coach them about
opportunities and help them with
their resumes. The church gives
them new clothes so that they
are presentable for interviewing
and coaching them on how to
interview.
As a full-stack development, we
built the database that houses
that information for that person
so they can track their future
to see how successful the
program was. Did they get a job?
How long were they able to keep
their work? Do they have a house
now? Did they move into an
apartment? Track that person
over a period of time just for
metrics.
We were able to build the
website. We were able to build a
database behind it and do the
data analytics and reporting to
show that information.
Aaron Bock: John, you mentioned
as a junior at Winthrop, getting
to do real-life pen tests. What
do you think that does for a
student to be able to figure out
how to apply it in real life? I
think a lot of people have a
stereotype of college education
that it's all theoretical, no
real-life application. How does
that change a student's
trajectory?
John Rouda: I think it's very
important. A lot of colleges are
very theoretical, where you
don't get the opportunity to do
real-world experience. Right
now, I'm the vice president of
technology. If I'm hiring
someone out of college, I don't
want to see that they just took
classes. I want to see that they
were involved and that they have
a portfolio of some sort, or
some kind of history of work,
whether it's an internship,
whether it's being able to do
these projects.
If their university doesn't give
them the skills or the
experience to do something like
this, then I might not be
interested in hiring them. I
think that's a huge disservice
to the student, not allowing
them to have some kind of
opportunity, whether it be an
internship or doing something
like this where they can go and
get experience for a nonprofit.
Aaron Bock: We deal with a lot
of the folks in the accounting
industry across the southeast
and mid-Atlantic. I know they're
struggling with this. It's
really an interesting challenge
they've got. Here comes AI
again, ChatGPT, doing some of
the work. But then accounting
students in college who are
deciding majors are saying
accounting is too dry, boring,
not real-life applicable. So
you've got that mix of that and
it's being mixed with
technology.
I was talking to someone who
leads a practice across the
state of North Carolina, and
they said, "We're looking for
students who can come in and
have an innovative mind with
accounting and are willing to
blend technology and accounting
and know how to use it."
So while maybe not doing a pen
test and cybersecurity, how do
they use some of the tools and
technology out there in the
accounting industry to make it
cool or whatever? It's a real
challenge that they're facing. I
think the more real-life
application you can get as a
student, the more likely you are
to stand out from your peers
when it goes to trying to find a
job or an internship.
John Rouda: I think you're
absolutely right. And that leads
me to one of the biggest
problems with universities
today, and why the value of an
education is going down in my
opinion, and the return on
investment is really going down.
The price is going up, but there
are a lot of professors out
there that get tenured and they
just hang around for a long time
doing the same thing that
they've always done and not
innovating and not using the new
technologies.
I remember when I was in college
learning Computer Science,
learning how to code, I had a
professor that was tenured. He
retired shortly after I
graduated, thankfully, but we
had to handwrite all of our code
in little blue books. Like, we
have computer labs. We have
laptops. We have technology, but
we have to handwrite code? What
the heck? Where's this
applicable? All it's doing is
discouraging students from
actually learning.
Keith Hawkey: Well, Aaron, John,
I'm pleased to say that we have
arrived to the day where IT is
sexy. We're here. We get to see
it in our lifetimes. I'm glad to
be part of that generation to
bring IT into the cool kids
clique.
Aaron Bock: You never know,
though. What if you have to
start IT on Mars, John? That
book might come in handy that
you wrote down all that code in.
John Rouda: But we had to get to
Mars somehow, right? We need
those computers, though.
Aaron Bock: I guess you'd need
computers to get to Mars.
Keith Hawkey: Well, we'll leave
that one up to Elon Musk to
answer. John, you manage an IT
department for a TV broadcast
studio or station. What
technology is changing your
industry in your business
professional life? What's
changing? That segment of
business. Television
broadcasting has been around for
such a long time. I imagine that
you guys probably have some
legacy technology that is
difficult to replace. What's
exciting? What do you see? What
are people doing?
John Rouda: There's a lot that
is always changing when it comes
to industries like this. But
security is really important
right now. When it comes to
having live broadcasts or taped
broadcasts, either way, you want
to make sure that you're always
on the air. That's where your
revenue comes from. It's
important to not lose watchers
and your audience.
If you're off the air and the
audience isn't there, then
they're not going to come back.
They're going to find something
else to watch that's going to
entertain them and keep them
occupied. They're not going to
come back to your channel. You
just lost that audience member,
which is going to significantly
impact your revenue. So you stay
on the air and keep that
completely secure. That's really
important.
But also the delivery mechanism
is important. We've seen over
the last decade, people cutting
the cord, going to streaming
services. Although our channel
and our content is on streaming
services as well, it's one of
those things where there are new
avenues that come on. There's
something in our industry called
a fast channel, which is a free
ad-supported TV.
If you have a Samsung TV and you
plug it and connect it to
internet, there are some news
channels, there's stuff on
there. Those are fast channels.
They're free, you can just watch
them. But that content is
delivered in a different way
than broadcast. You're not using
a tower. You're not using
satellite. You're not using
anything like that, you're
streaming that to the internet.
Now you have to focus on, how
can I deliver this content at
scale? CDNs become extremely
important for content delivery,
and locations of where things
are coming from and delay. Cloud
services, as far as storing are
really important, and keeping
that data refreshed, and up
there in a redundant path.
Keith Hawkey: That's exciting.
It sounds like since the model
is changing, to scale up and
adopt new streaming technology,
are those significant
investments that your
organization has to make? Is it
cheaper to roll that out? Or is
it more expensive? How is it
financially?
John Rouda: From a financial
aspect, it's a little different
because if you're building a new
from-scratch environment to do a
broadcast, you're going about
buying satellites or towers, if
you're doing local news
broadcasts or something like
that. Either way, we're going to
have a significant seven-figure
investment to get that on air.
I can start a streaming channel
with a lot less because now I'm
doing more operational expenses.
I'm going to have higher
bandwidth, I'm going to have
cloud storage, I'm going to have
monthly fees that are much
higher but less CapEx investment
to get started. So it's a
different way of looking at it.
Whether the cost is higher or
lower, it's to be seen. The most
expensive part though day-to-day
would probably be the
acquisition of the content or
creating the content. If you're
going to be making a movie or
making your own series, that
gets very expensive because you
have actors, you have cameras,
you have editors, you have
producers, you have all that
stuff that goes into it. Or if
you're acquiring content from
somewhere else, and you're
paying that distribution fee and
licenses and stuff.
Aaron Bock: John, what do you
think of Netflix and Hulu? Five
years ago, we were saying
everyone is cutting the cord,
but I actually think it's kind
of coming back where people are
starting to go back to the cable
companies because there are too
many streaming services. What do
you think about that trend? Then
for you guys, how do you see
Netflix/Hulu? Are they
competitors? Are they potential
partners? Are they good? Are
they bad? How do you guys view
them?
John Rouda: It's a little bit of
both I would say. At our
company, we do have a division
that makes films and makes
original series, and some of
those are licensed out to
Netflix and Amazon and Hulu and
those other services, which is
great. It's a great partnership
to have with them.
I do agree that it is a cycle.
We've seen the same thing with
IT. If we go back to the old
school of technology, everything
was on a mainframe and you had
clients that would connect to
the mainframe to pull their
information. They were dumb
clients, as we called it and
back then. Then it moved to
distributing and computing where
everybody had a desktop and all
their applications were on that
desktop. Then we moved back into
a cloud environment where
everything is SaaS model now.
Well, that's almost the same
thing as what we had originally
with dumb clients. Everything is
SaaS model, using your browser
or your phone and connecting
that way. We're seeing the same
thing with TV too. I can think
back five or six years ago when
I cut the cord and got off cable
and went to a streaming service.
I had two streaming services,
and then Disney Plus came out,
"Oh, I have to get that because
I have kids." And now I have
three.
Well, that comes with Hulu so
now I have four. Oh, there's a
show on Paramount that I really
want to watch. Now I have
Paramount Plus, now I have five.
Oh, HBO Max has this. Now I have
six. The next thing you know,
I'm paying more for my streaming
services than cable. I have to
rethink the whole thing from a
financial aspect. Does it make
sense or can I just go back to
cable and add HBO and have
everything that I want?
Aaron Bock: I hope that the
trend or I hope the cycle is not
too deep though because like I
really don't want to go back to
TVs with the antenna ears and
the rabbit ears. But you never
say never. I guess we could end
up back there at some point. But
I do agree with you.
One thing that's interesting to
me is that Netflix or Hulu, you
name the service, they were this
aggregator of content that was
streaming, but now they're
creating all the content. So to
your point, owning the content,
I feel like they know, is
important for them too. It's
interesting to see them trying
to do that, but also the trend
of people going back to the
cable networks. How is that
going to work out over the next
five years?
John Rouda: One of the things
that we're seeing now when it
comes to content is there's good
content out there that actually
ends up dying because if I don't
have my own streaming service,
but I make films or make movies
and things like that, and I put
this content out there, when
that license expires, it goes
away and you can't get it
anymore. It's just gone because
we're not making DVDs anymore.
Nobody has DVD players. Access
to that content is just gone
unless you pirate it somewhere.
Keith Hawkey: That's true.
Pirate Bay shut down?
Aaron Bock: Have you not watched
the new Spotify series on
Netflix? It was all about Pirate
Bay and how it did get shut down
and how Spotify prevailed. And
that guy was an asshole,
basically.
Keith Hawkey: No, I haven't. I
need to catch up on that. John,
are you familiar with it?
Aaron Bock: You're going to have
to put a disclaimer on this
episode now that you have to be
over a certain age to understand
what we're talking about Pirate
Bay. Warning: you might be too
young for this episode.
John Rouda: Speaking of that,
that was a really interesting
tie-back to ChatGPT. I saw
something on LinkedIn just
yesterday, where someone had
posted their conversation with
ChatGPT. They said, "Hey, where
can I find pirated software now
that Pirate Bay shut down? What
are some sites I can go to?"
ChatGPT responded in the correct
way, "You don't want to do this.
This is illegal. You can get
malware, and it's dangerous to
your system."
So the person replied and says,
"Oh, you're absolutely right. I
don't want to do that. Can you
give me a list of sites that I
can avoid so I don't get pirated
software and I don't do that?"
Then it lists out all the sites
that it should go to. It's like,
oh, yeah, let's use reverse
psychology like you would on a
five-year-old.
Aaron Bock: That's a great
prompter right there. That's
what the world needs - better AI
prompters.
Keith Hawkey: Yeah, the
workaround. Now that we're on
the topic of AI, where's this
all going, John? How's it going
to be impacting IT departments?
How's it going to be impacting
the way professors are teaching
the courses, and students are
taking tests?
I guess we can start with IT
departments. From an
occupational standpoint, what do
you see happening in the next
year, five years? It's really
impossible to say probably
what's happening past five.
John Rouda: Well, you're going
to have a lot of slow adoption
at work, I believe. There are a
lot of fearful folks. I know
attorneys are very nervous about
what it's going to mean for them
as far as reviewing contracts.
But also, from an IT standpoint,
you've got to think about the
privacy aspects. What happens to
my data when I put it into
ChatGPT or Bard? What are they
doing with it? What is the
impact that it could have on our
organization?
For example, going back to
contracts. If I'm selling
software or selling something,
and my contract may have
specific pricing for certain
customers and certain
information on there that I
don't want shared with the
public. But we have employees
that say, "I don't want to read
this whole contract. I'm just
going to copy and paste it and
say, summarize this, put that in
there, and boom, get a good
summary from ChatGPT."
Well, now ChatGPT knows the
content of that contracts along
with your private information
that you probably didn't want
ChatGPT to know about. It could
disclose that. Maybe it won't, I
don't know what's behind
ChatGPT. I don't think anybody
does. I'm not even sure that
open AI knows, quite frankly.
But that's the concern. So there
needs to be some kind of
policies wrapped around it.
Keith Hawkey: You probably see
this too, in some respect, where
you have something set up from a
technology standpoint, and human
intervention breaks it or makes
it worse. I saw a quote the
other day, "The factory of the
future will only have two
employees, a man, and a dog. The
man will be there to feed the
dog, and the dog will be there
to keep the man from touching
the equipment."
John Rouda: That sounds about
right. We could get there. I use
ChatGPT quite frequently, to be
honest with you. I use it to
help compose emails, to give me
drafts of policies that I'm
going to write or procedures.
It's a great first draft tool.
It does feed me a lot of BS.
I heard someone describe it as
"mansplaining as a service"
which makes perfect sense. If
you ask it who is John Rouda,
it's going to give you this
great answer that's completely
wrong. It'll tell you I'm the
host of the Geek podcasts, but
it'll also tell you that I teach
at the University of Delaware
and I've written some books that
I never wrote. It confidently
tells you some false narratives.
Aaron Bock: I think that's
great. It just makes you feel
like you're so much more
accomplished. It's just making
up accomplishments and
credentials for you. Maybe we
all need that in our life.
John Rouda: Quite frankly, one
of the titles of the books that
it said that I wrote, I put it
in Amazon, and that book doesn't
exist. I'm like, "Well, maybe
it's telling me the future.
Maybe I should write this book."
I don't know.
Aaron Bock: It's just planning
out your future. Actually,
that's really good. My wife says
I don't plan anything. Maybe you
just need to start putting in
more stuff to ChatGPT.
John Rouda: You did get a lot of
false stuff that if companies
are using this, they may be
putting that information out in
the public as if it's their own
without fact-checking, and that
can be really detrimental.
For example, I went and asked
Bard, "The total solar eclipse
is coming in 2024. I live in
Charlotte, North Carolina. Where
is a great place that I can go
watch the Eclipse that's not too
far from here?" It said, "Go to
Greenville, South Carolina. They
have a great downtown. It's
perfect for watching the
eclipse."
I'm like, "You want me to see
the eclipse in Greenville?" I
wrote back, "You can't see the
eclipsing because it's not a
path of totality." It says, "Oh,
you're absolutely right. Go to
Asheville, North Carolina, it's
a great place." "But that's not
in the path of totality. I want
to go somewhere where I can see
the full eclipse." It says,
"Then you should research the
path of totality and go there."
Aaron Bock: It'd be funny if
it'd go backward, like "Go to
Google, Eric."
Keith Hawkey: You said you use
ChatGPT. It sounds like you have
some experience with Bard. Do
you notice any differences
between the two platforms?
John Rouda: Yeah. I've gotten to
the point now where I can look
at something written in ChatGPT
and recognize that it's got that
same pattern of intro paragraph,
a bulleted list of something, it
has some of the same phrasings
like "I'm grateful for this," or
"I'm delighted to." Whereas Bard
doesn't really have some of that
same characteristics. Although I
think, from my use, ChatGPT
gives me better sentence
structure. It gives me better
facts, and more accurate
information, although they're
both wrong more than I would
like.
Aaron Bock: John, I'm going to
ask a question a different way.
You mentioned you've played with
both. You can recognize the way
that they're using or
structuring sentences. Say
you're talking to a roomful of
people that are hearing about it
on the news, or they're hearing
about it from friends, but
they've never played around with
it. How do you recommend someone
start understanding it? You said
you write emails with it. I
don't think people know how to
start. How would you advise
people to start?
John Rouda: There are a lot of
different ways to do that.
First, just play with it. Get
out there and just play with it.
Ask it to do things for you. One
of the ways that I've used it
most is I will write something
myself, and I'll say, "Can you
make this sound better?" Paste
it in there, and it'll improve
upon it. Or I'll say, "Can you
write instructions?"
We went through an acquisition,
and we had a lot of users coming
from different devices. Someone
had asked, "Do you have
instructions on how to connect
my phone to your Microsoft 365
tenant with the authenticator
app?" No, I don't have
instructions for that. Let me go
ask ChatGPT to write me some
instructions. It writes the
instructions, I take it, I test
it out, and it works perfectly.
So I copy and pasted it into an
email. Boom, there you go.
That's how I've used it.
One of the cool courses that I
saw on LinkedIn Learning if
anybody is subscribed to
LinkedIn Learning, is they have
something like 45 minutes, it's
really short. It is an AI prompt
engineering course. It's about
ways to improve prompts and how
to think about things in a
different way.
Sometimes when you don't get
what you want, you have to use
reverse psychology, or you have
to use a different way of
approaching it. It gives you
some ideas about keywords to
use, like summarize this, or
improve the language for this or
write this in the tone of an
uplifting person or a coach, or
write this in a tone of a coach.
As a leader, sometimes when
you're typing emails, you have
to think about how is the person
going to read that email that
I'm sending them. A lot of
times, if it's a constructive
email or something that you want
to improve someone's way of
doing things, you're going to
write that in a certain tone.
And that may be perceived as a
very negative tone. It may seem
like you're scolding them,
whereas you really want to coach
them.
So take that email and put that
in ChatGPT and say, "Can you
write this in an uplifting
tone?" And it'll change that
tone, give me the same kind of
key points, but make it to where
when you send it, they're not
going to read it be like, "Oh,
my God, I'm going to get fired."
They're going to read and say,
"Oh, my leader really cares
about me just trying to improve
my ability."
Aaron Bock: That's a great
suggestion. I have a friend who
just launched a company this
week to help people in the
education space use AI better,
AI more, how to actually come up
with a strategy. So it's
interesting. I asked him, "Are
you guys building crazy
technology and apps and things
like that?" He's like, "No, most
of it's just user education."
Like, how do I even think about
AI? How do I think about
attempting to use it?
I think it's really interesting
where we're at right now with
technology because you've got
places and society and companies
and things like that that are so
far behind still. And then now
you've got AI, which is driving
people so far ahead. The gap is
just, I mean, my hands are going
off the screen if you're just
listening. It's such a wide gap
of where people are at.
John Rouda: Yeah, it really is.
One of the problems, we go back
to education a lot because I
like to teach and I've taught
for 15 years. It's something
important to me. When ChatGPT
was first hitting the thing back
in January and February, really
becoming popular in the news, I
had a professor friend of mine
say, "We really need to disband
this and block it from our
network. We don't want students
using this."
I said, "What are you talking
about? Isn't our job to produce
employees that are out there,
driving the economy and driving
our businesses in whatever area
we are? Don't you want people
that know how to use the tools
that are coming in the future?"
I mean, if I had to hire someone
today and they didn't know how
to use Google, then I wouldn't
hire them. If we're telling
people they can't use these
tools that are out there for
them, we should be teaching them
how to use these tools and
improving how they're using
tools because that's going to
make them better employee. I
want employees that can do their
work 10 times faster than they
are today. And if using AI is
what's going to get them there,
then that's what I'm going to be
looking for. That's what I need
to be teaching them as a
professor.
Keith Hawkey: Could have heard
the same argument when the
calculator came about. This is
going to ruin the kids writing
on paper. We can't do that.
Yeah, you're right. It seems
threatening. Everything seems
threatening in the beginning to
the fundamentals and the
traditions, but like everything,
there's always a new challenge.
You think, "Okay, well, this
tool solves this challenge. So
where's the challenge? How are
we going to differentiate the
students that are competent and
are studying more if they're all
using ChatGPT?" Maybe it's the
students that are figuring out
how to write better prompts.
There's always a new challenge
and it's difficult to understand
what that challenge is until you
have exposure. If you limit
exposure, then you don't grow.
But it's always scary. I can
understand both sides of it.
Aaron Bock: I think you're going
to see people block it like John
said initially, because they
don't know what to do with it,
and then probably come up with a
strategy. But the first reaction
is, well, let's not use it, or
let's block it. John, you said
school blocking. I think we're
seeing states talk about
blocking it. There's a big push
from the tech leaders to say,
put a six-month hold so we can
get governance around it. I
don't think that's going to be
something we hear the last of
the next year.
John Rouda: I don't think we can
really block it. I think it's to
the point now where the genie is
out of the bottle. If I get back
to folks like Elon Musk saying,
"We need to put a six-month hold
on this," I think that's just a
strategic plan to "Let me catch
up. Let me take all the Twitter
data dump it into my own
learning model and catch up."
Your analogy of a calculator, I
think, is perfect. It's a
calculator for words. What we
need to be able to do, if you
are teaching a kid math today,
they have to learn the basics of
math so that when they put
things in a calculator, it
doesn't give them the wrong
answer because they put it in
wrong. Or maybe they
accidentally hit an extra zero
or they hit the multiply instead
of the add. They can look at it
and say, "Well, this doesn't
look right."
You have to be able to do the
same thing when it comes to your
words. Fact-checkers are going
to be really important when it
comes to getting the information
back. Just like when I put in
"Who is John Rouda," and it
tells me all these things that I
didn't do, if I just copied and
pasted that and went on and
assumed that that's all
accurate, then I'm making a big
mistake, and I'm getting worse
off than if I didn't use the
tool at all.
So we have to learn these new
challenges, which you talked
about, which I think is
fact-checking and improving with
what's actually there. I asked
it to write a password policy
because I was updating our
policy documents. And it came
back with eight-character
passwords. I'm like, well, yeah,
three years ago, we used
eight-character passwords. Now
you want it to be longer than
that. You want passphrases.
That wasn't even mentioned by
ChatGPT. As I wrote back, I
said, "So, no using
passphrases?" Like, oh, yeah,
passphrases are great. Like, why
wasn't that included in the
policy? I don't know, let me
rewrite it and put that in
there. So just being able to
have that ability to fact check
and change your prompts a little
bit so that you get the right
information is important.
Keith Hawkey: That's a good
point. We're coming up on almost
the end of the podcast. What we
love to do before we depart is,
John, if you are in charge of
all the billboards in the entire
world, and all the television
screens, and you could produce a
message that would make its way
around the world and back that's
important to you, what would
that message be?
John Rouda: Oh, that's a great
question. I have two. One, check
out A Geek Leader Podcast. I'm
just kidding. Number two, which
is really number one, is to
leave every situation and every
person better after they've
encountered you. I think that's
an important thing to do.
I try to get my kids to always
do that. Even when we're at a
restaurant or something like
that where they come and clean
up. I say, "Try to clean up your
area a little bit even though we
know someone's going to come up
and clean the table, clean it
up, leave it better than you
were there.
Aaron Bock: That is very deep
and very good advice that's
simple that everyone should take
and start using in their daily
life. And you should check out
the Geek Leader Podcast. That is
a shameless plug that we support
here on the IT Matters Podcast.
John, thank you for joining us
today. This was a really great
conversation. We enjoyed it. I
think our listeners will enjoy
this or have already enjoyed
this if they've listened to it.
We really appreciate it and hope
to have you back sometime in the
future.
John Rouda: Thanks. I love the
conversation. I think it's
great. I liked the way we were
able to bounce around on
different things and definitely
want to come back sometime.
Aaron Bock: Keith, any closing
thoughts?
Keith Hawkey: Yes, clean up
after yourself.
Aaron Bock: All right and with
that we're out. So thanks, guys.
Have an awesome day.
Narrator: Thanks for listening.
The IT Matters Podcast is
produced by Opkalla, an IT
advisory firm that helps
businesses navigate the vast and
complex IT marketplace. Learn
more about Opkalla at
opkalla.com.